Strings, scattered daily,

thread verbs, nouns, thoughts betwixt and

between lines of self.

So much people. Not enough time.

So much air. Not enough lung.

So much beautiful. Not enough memory.

How do we live in this world? How does one small person, with brain smaller still, bear the weight and awesomeness of reality? The sun melts our snowdrifts into mud, squashed grass, gravel curb-sides. Down at Flat Rock Point my friend and I hunch in a rock nook, ducking the worst of the wind, and watch the ocean heave and curl and froth. So much blue. So much depth. So much beautiful.

There are many unexpecteds. Always, and I wouldn't have it the other way. I joy in the connections, the glinting sunlight, the laughs, the dripped chocolate, the simple music. Thirteen people! - a new attendance record for an event I planned - and all, so far as I could tell, enjoyed themselves. Can we fit another car in the driveway? We'll try, because that extra friend is important to me. And how late we stay up talking!

I'm overwhelmed by so many people! And yet some, I see so rarely that we can spend so long simply catching up to the edge of now. My introverted self cannot keep up with my extroverted living. Yet even my introverted self longs for more interactions! How does one balance the desire for meaningful and fun conversations with the need to be still and by oneself? Yet I have learned more than I knew before.

So much we can bear of reality - and always we can bear more. Perhaps that is the most beautiful part - that we can be stretched, strengthened, shifted, straightened, to be able to bear more, hold more, contain more; give more, pour out more, hear more, see more, be more. Amazement watches over my shoulder, and is itself amazed.

I have so much. I want so much more. It turns out Belle is one of my favourite Disney ladies - perhaps because this part I denied so long is insisting on being heard: I want more than this provincial life... Just for once it might be grand to have someone understand I want so much more than they've got planned. So it's not just the books after all! I want to dream wild beautiful dreams. I want to explore, to create, to laugh, to play. When was the last time I sat down with my brother and a puzzle and spent a couple hours racing to see who could do the most? Will you be a brother? Maybe I'm a Calvin in need of a Hobbes... or a Hobbes waiting for a Calvin to find him.

In this life, all we can afford to be is seriously silly. The world is just too spectacular to just be serious. Maybe my reaction to the ending of Jane Eyre is partly a reaction out of my own frustration - if I can't have that ending right now, why can she? Maybe, though, I don't want an easy ending. I want something more complex, more full, more continuously life-changing than that.

Am I making much sense? Not if you read me linearly. There are reasons why I like string theory so much. And paradox often en-giddies me. (Yes, I just wrote en-giddies. It means 'to make giddy.') Processing comes most when a) I am alone, or b) I am having a good, deep conversation with one other person. Quality time? You betcha. But since lately there has been so much clamouring to be heard, processing has become peripheral and behind the scenes. I know something's happening; I just don't know what.

But that's ok. The full moon rising over tree tops watched me watching it. The great blue sea fumed and fussed and gurgled like a baby against and under the rocks. The sunshine warmed my living room. My off-the-cuff cinnamon almond apple dessert tasted scrumptious. I have wonderful friends with good taste in movies and food and laughter and art and story and music. And my life is beautiful.

Life is beautiful.

(Mei mei, I hope you read this. I don't know why, I just hope you do. I love you, by the way. I don't tell you often enough - I don't tell anyone often enough, because the words are just so hard to say - but my lack of verbalizing it doesn't make it less true.)

Italian Reflection

The following was presented at Lynn: City Unplugged Coffeehouse & Open Mic on 11 February 2011.

I expected to find beauty in Italy, and I did.

I did not expect to find love.

If I ever scoff at love at first sight, ask me this:

do you remember Monday, the 10th of January, 2011?

A strange thing happened to me that day.

Somewhere between Roma Termini and the Church of St. Ignatius, my heart got caught in the tangled streets of Roma.

Its shadow is still there.

I, like Peter Pan with his soap, cannot get that shadow to stick with me, and its absence catches me unexpectedly when I turn in the sunlight.

Me feet, surprised, slip on the ice, and I catch myself, barely, holding my breath while my heart adjusts.

In the early morning,

Italy's folded arms

embraced thick wet blankets.

Before the light stretched down,

her blankets were dark.

She kept secrets in those dim valleys.

In Roma, the facades slipped, and I glimpsed Italy's heart.

An old woman, balancing a big basket on her head, called inside for someone to let her in.

Two businessmen, clad in black coats and striped scarves, spoke quickly but walked slowly.

A line of chattering school-children held hands as their teachers let them to the Pantheon for a field-trip.

Two grey-garbed Dominicans, one tall, one short, strode through traffic to Santa Maria Maggiore.

A white gull perched in the light touching the roof-edge.

Potted geraniums brightened a windowsill.

Laundry dried strung above an alley.

A cat slunk over a railing.

Sunlight caught fountains, obelisks, stone church-fronts.

Dim interiors revealed paintings by men now legendary; statues of angels, saints, prophets, and popes; floor mosaics with classical themes; and clouds of incense floating before crucifixes.

By the River Tiber I sat down and... listened.

I only stood again because the white egret flew over to Trastevera.

Following, I felt my heart pound.

Those narrow cobbled streets, those red, orange, yellow, brown, vine-decorated walls were made by my love.

They echoed his voice to me.

A string symphony soared from an open upstairs window, and for a moment, I could not move.

The city sang to me, played for me, but did no more.

We found an old, old church, my friend and I. No sign announced its name. Its wooden doors were locked. The yard, unmown and unweeded, was strewn by pieces of glass from its broken windows. Its brick front crumbled, worn by weather, vines, and time. Tucked away in Trastevera, this church showed me more of Roma's heart than Santa Maria Sopra Minerva did.

My love deepened.

From Piazzale Guiseppe Garibaldi, all Roma lay before me, from St. Peter's to the Coliseum, and a part of me never left that wall, is still sitting there, forming traceries from ruin to river to basilica to palace...

I weave a tapestry of thought and prayer over my city.

I stood before a fountain,

dipped my fingers in the Trevi, clenched them, and whispered my promise.

In the rush of the water, I caught no reply.

Roma's sound is, underneath, only a waiting silence.

What reply can be given to a promise? - It is only words.

I fell in love, I spoke my love, but my love came not to me.

But I know where he is, and he knows I say I love him.

When I return,

for return I shall,

when I dwell in Roma's seven hills, learn Roma's heart rhythm, get to know Roma's faults, longings, wounds, joys - I will still be in love - more in love - and then, having seen my love is true, my lover will finally show his face.