drowning out gray

"To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance." — Jean Vanier

Your Beauty

The sway of the longest arms, under shirt sleeves rolled up, athletic, tall, yet turned in to everyone he meets, with blue, the friendliest eyes I know - all such a blessing. I love you for inside, but I'm the outside called to me (and calls to me) so loudly, like a magnet. I see you.

Your Worth

Your value is in being Ralph - a man who holds family and friends so heavy, but lifts them up, a man not afraid to just have fun, a man who lights up the people around him, who works at his work with pride and diligence. A man. To me the most valuable of God's creations, the most precious.

Your Importance

I see you, and you were the first to truly see me. Blessing bowls me over, and I am thankful you picked me, even noticed me, that you walk with me. Without you babe it's all gray.

Your Ev

day 2 at the cup

I am here again, this time ready with a cinnamon roll. May God bless the writing that comes today. Amen.

J.R.R. Tolkien

"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish."

Dear Dell,

I found out today that on June 6th we're breaking up. While this isn't the end of the world, somehow I'm miffed. How is it that we got to be so connected? Breakups are rough--I know from experience. This fall when I had to pry myself away from Mac--with all of our shortcuts and personalized settings--I didn't want to go, but knew I had to, and even though I didn't want you at first--after all you weren't him, we've really gotten along swimmingly even after our rocky start. I'm not crazy about you like I was Mac, and yet we seem to co-exist daily in such a way that I didn't realize how attached we've become.

I pray that this will somehow feel okay, that life will go on and that someone new will come to love the curve of my hands, but right now I'm topsy-turvy over it and wondering at writing a dissertation on keys that feel like a poorly tailored dress.

So, here's to us and our short-lived romance. My mantra makes it manageable. All will be well. All manner of things will be well.

begin it

"Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it.Action (boldness) has magic, grace and power in it." - Goethe

sunday afternoon

Yesterday I was laying on the couch reading. Small nudge. . . go outside.

"But. . . it's hot, and I'm so comfy. . .but. . . oh well."

Sat outside, wrote, read.

Found four birds nests under our deck and realized my lilacs have actually grown.

I need to train myself to listen to those nudges.

cold coffee

My grandpa used to drink cold coffee in the afternoon--at least that's what somebody told me. A warm pot in the morning, cold on ice after lunch.

He was a big man in my memory, and I'm not sure how much I'm piecing together from pictures, and how much is real. I was only nine when he died.

But I do remember Key overalls with Kodiak chew in the front pocket. . . and in his lip. His shock white comb-over would blow up like a gusting flag in the breeze and then settle back down all in one piece. When he would come in the house and take off his tall mesh-backed John-Deere hat, his hair would flop out crazy like Doc's on Back to the Future. Grandpa's one-handed quick smooth over assured him it somehow looked better. It didn't, not really.

I wish I could remember more.

One memory has clear colors. It was in the early morning, and stood the bottom of the stairs with a window at my right hand side. I bounced down the stairs that morning never thinking--

Mom said he died the night before. Next I'm sitting on the counter at my grandma's house in town. Dad comes in and hugs me, crying--only one of two times that I can remember. Maybe he has more, but I only know two for sure. I wonder how hard it is to lose your parent. I wonder how you go on when everything has to be so rough-edged. I wonder if Dad thinks he's like his dad. Does he miss him? What were they like together when Dad was little? I wonder. Were they friends, or was it more--I'm the parent, you're the kid. I wonder if Grandpa had the same scarred, thick hands.

I only see glimpses of this man who was my Grandpa. I can't really say I knew him enough to know him now. Once I met an old guy in Auburn who drove an old white pick-up with wood boards in truck bed. He put it together who my grandpa was, and he looked off a little and smiled. "Ole Elmer," he said, "Elmer was a good 'ole boy. He'd come in to town and play cards 'purt near every day. . . Elmer was a good 'ole boy."

I don't know a whole lot about this man, but I like cold coffee too. Ralph and I haven't played cards in awhile. Maybe we should.