Wednesday, November 27, 2013

on seeds and journeys.


What we don't realize is that you can have a life-changing encounter, travel to a place that causes a shift in your heart, can meet someone who changes you, you can go, do, read, see, watch, something, anything, that makes it just a little harder to breathe. And you think, yes! Here I go, from now on, life will be different. But the thing is, that experience isn't full-grown, it's just the seed. It's the beginning, not the road itself. That's the map that you use as a roadmark, not the trail you'll walk. And it's up to you to decide to continue or retreat into routine and wonder why things didn't change. Too often we go through something revolutionary, good or bad, and then slip back into the normalcy of our day to day lives instead of choosing to do the hard work and tend to that seed. Then we finally take a step back and start asking ourselves why our life doesn't line up with our vision. How could that moment — the experience that mattered so intensely — seem not to have changed anything at all? That's the thing. You can have as many seeds but until you plant them, until you continually water them, until you die to self, choose to go through the process of growing...it's going to be a seed. What matters is what you do with it.

Monday, November 18, 2013


coffee wood mornings where the air smelled like smoke.
when you woke up, if you looked out the windows and stared past the trees, you could see the lake.
cold like swallows of ice water. metal cups in your hand.
late when we arrived, late when we left.
dancing fast in a filled music hall with strangers we'd never see again. my feet were tangled trying to hoedown.
an hour in the woods does a soul good.
small places like home nearer than before.
let's go back.

photo of me by kiley
canon eos 3, kodak portra 800

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

the tree that is not there.


I just need space to be sad,
lonely whispers into the gray rimmed room.
she turns her face to the window
that is not there and closes her eyes
to the tree that is not there and
touches the ground that is not there
and weeps. in her mind, it is summer.
in her mind, it only rains when
tight-lipped white-lipped women
sleep. water keeps company with moon,
dulling the pounding of rain on roof.
she breathes synonymous with the tide to the
ocean that is not there. and sleeps.
in her mind, there are seagulls.
when she wakes, there is a door.