on a warm summer's eve {the idea that might become a reality}

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I love Kenny Rogers and his music. In March, I wrote a post that detailed a history of how his music has impacted my life. Since that post (and the fact that for about four months his twenty greatest hits and the Indigo Girls were the only music on my iTunes on my computer – until Jon gave me my Nano for my birthday), I have listened to his music over and over while I am working and writing. A few weeks ago I downloaded another album (the one the Bee Gees produced, Eyes that See in the Dark) and have been singing it several times a week. My current favorite is “This Woman.”

Last month, we decided we were going to visit my family for Thanksgiving. Around here, I start playing Christmas music the weekend after Thanksgiving. Because, well, why would you not? I mean you only can really listen to it for a few weeks out of the year. One of my favorite CDs to listen to is Once Upon a Christmas with Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. They had a Christmas special on in the 80s that went with this album. Did you see it? So good.

There is a song on the album called “A Christmas to Remember.” It’s about how the two people singing planned on spending a Christmas alone in Tahoe but ended up having a love affair with one another. “You made this a Christmas to remember. Spring time feelings in the middle of December. Beneath the mistletoe, you kissed me warm and tender.” I remember that even as a fifth grader I was hopeful about finding such romance when I was older. There is also the ultra-serious song “Once Upon a Christmas,” that tells the story of Jesus’ birth and Kenny narrates part of the song. My family wasn’t very religious but the seriousness of the story of a young couple trying to find a place where they would be safe resonated with me. I don't think I have ever shared this next story with anyone. In fifth grade, my aunt and my cousin (actually the one who just got married in Durango) were both very ill. My memory tells me that we were worried one of them might die, but that might be more the active imagination of a serious young girl talking. What I do remember is praying every time I heard this song. Praying so hard I would almost cry that god wouldn’t take my mom’s sister from her or my cousin who, at the time, I thought of like a sister (she and my brother are the same age. I thought of her as like his twin in some way since they were born on the same day). I can remember being in the back of my parents' Lincoln Town Car praying and praying whenever that song would come on the CD player. Of course, it was always followed by the song “I Believe in Santa Claus” which can snap a person right out of such solemn thoughts, and it always did. They each recovered from their illnesses.

Last week, my dad mentioned that Kenny was going to be playing in my hometown the Friday after Thanksgiving. A Christmas show. He thought I might want to go with my mom and Jon to see the show. Yes. I. do. Bought the tickets right away!

Last Sunday, I was telling Jon about the show and how I haven’t seen Kenny in concert in almost twenty years. I was sharing that over the last few months I have realized that part of my connection to the music of Kenny Rogers is that it feels like it represents the best of my childhood. The memories associated with his music are all really good ones. And I said, “I wish I could tell him that.”

As I thought about this, I had this odd little thought that maybe I could ask my blogging community for advice on how to write to him and maybe even ideas for how I could meet him in person in November to tell him.

Then on Tuesday I had dinner with my fried Julia and I explained all of this to her. I said that I knew Kenny was going to be here on September 11th to play at the fair but that I wasn’t going but would be going to the concert in November. She said, “I know the woman who books the talent at the fair. Maybe I could ask her for an address where you could send a letter to him.” Aha!

On Wednesday, she called to say she was sending me an email but wanted to be on the phone with me when I received it. It said that her friend would be happy to hand my letter to Kenny’s manager if I mailed it in time for Monday’s show. Insert excitement and gratitude.

I spent part of the day Thursday writing a letter to Kenny Rogers. I printed out the blog post from March and enclosed it in the letter. I realized that it was more about letting him know that even though he doesn’t know me, he and his music have been part of my life, and I have realized that when someone has touched your life, you should tell that person. It isn’t just about being a fan and meeting someone but saying thank for being in my life.

And if all goes well, his manager will read it tomorrow and then hand it on to Kenny.

I am giggling with glee in my corner of the world and singing along with The Gambler.

We really can manifest magic in our lives.

checking in

I am still out here...and am not trying to take a break from blogging...but somehow I have for the last few days. Creating a prompt was about all I could do for Poetry Thursday this week.

Jon and I are up to something today, something I hope to share in pictures tomorrow or early next week. Something my attention has been turned toward in the few free moments away from working this week. I feel like my behind is glued to my little corner of the couch with all the work I have been doing.

I have also had something serendipitous happen this week with regards to something that was just a thought last weekend. I will explain more about this as well. Until then, I leave you with this gorgeous photo from the garden right outside the casista we stayed in when we were in Durango last month.

Blessings to you all!

me and my golden child {self-portrait challenge}

Working from home can be a bit lonely at times, but the Mill-dog is always here to keep me company. Her personality took some getting used to but now I can't imagine life without her sweet face.

She is my dear golden child Millie...and she is sick again. We rescued her a little over a year and a half ago, soon after we lost Traveler, and in this year and a half, she has been to the vet more times than Trav was in all the fours years I had him (not counting the last few months of his life when he had cancer).

This time...well...I don't want to embarrass her and have her give me a look like this:

So I will just share that she has an irritation. And when dog's have irritations they tend to lick them, and our vet decided that licking was not the way to go with this irritation. So when we are not around, she gets to wear this special head gear. I keep trying to tell her that it is fashionable, but I think it is safe to say she is pretty annoyed by the whole thing. I would be too.

Millie...my golden child...my friend...my daily companion...

To see other portraits of people with their loved ones visit self-portrait challenge.

a fortune cookie's fortune {sunday scribblings}

When I first thought about the prompt of fortune cookie, I was thinking about the idea of finding a fortune from a fortune cookie tucked into a book. A fortune that would one day make sense. A fortune that would come true. And the fortune that came to my mind was, “one day the living room of your heart will be full.”

This led me to think about how I spent so much time with my nose in a book when I was in college. So many evenings in Barnes and Noble. I lived on campus, and how much money I would have saved if I would have just gone to the library instead of buying new books. But to go to campus in the evening, alone, meant admitting I didn’t have friends with whom to do something a bit less nerdy. My friends were from my boarding school and they were all at other schools around the country. I loved my classes in college though. Everything began to seem connected. The books I read for school connected to a book I would pick up at Barnes and Noble connected to a conversation I would have with my therapist connected to a passage from a book that my theology professor would hand us to read and so on. Even though I often felt very alone, I began to believe that the authors of the books I was reading understood the path I was walking on. They understood feeling like you might be the only person to see the world in a certain way. But because the connections of the writing sometimes washed over me in such a joyous way, I was certain I was not the only person who saw things the way that I did.

(disclaimer alert) At that time in my life, I did have people who I know loved me (and still do), but this is more about the loneliness that is simply inherently part of who I am.

During the last year and half of reading blogs and the last (almost) year of blogging, I am sometimes overwhelmed in the best of ways because it feels as though this loneliness is lifting. One aspect of being “friends” with the authors on your bookshelf is that there is not interaction. They can share things with you and you can learn, but you can’t really talk about it. With the blogging community I feel a part of, there is a connection, an interaction, between the reader and the writer. You can let people know when their writing resonates deep within you. This is pure magic at times.

Even though it sometimes feels like the people who get me have simply appeared inside a laptop instead of sitting on a bookshelf, I am starting to feel as though the fortune is coming true.

********

I love that this year I have been introduced to the joys of writing prompts.

As I was driving home after spending a wondrous afternoon with acumamakiki, I was thinking about how amazing it is to feel such a deep connection with someone when you meet them in person for the first time. Then I was reflecting on waking up to three delightful emails from Meg. And even though I felt a tinge of sadness that these women do not live down the street from me, I still was smiling from ear to ear at the realization that I am not quite as alone as I think I am. And some where in the midst of all of those thoughts, the fortune “one day the living room of your heart will be full” came to me. Another layer to this prompt is that in thinking about all of this an idea for a piece of fiction came to me as well. I am still working on that but will share soon.

To read what others felt prompted to share about fortune cookies click over to sunday scribblings.

if you were a fly on the wall tonight

you would hear things like:

"go! go! go!"

"catch it!"

"don't you touch him..."

"get him. get him. get. him!"

and one thing i know for certain is that somewhere across this country, right there in one of those "middle states," is a man who looks a bit like me, who has a similar nose and hair and eyes, and if you were a fly on his wall you would be hearing something similar because i learned these phrases from him.

it's notre dame football season folks. and those boys are winning.

when i was a student at nd, i became a bit negative about "domers" and some of the ego that sits on that campus. but as a kid, i loved that place and the football and basketball teams as though those boys were members of my family. my dad went there; i couldn't wait to get there. (sidenote: the education i got there was incredible and i would do it all again, but i never fit in there. ever.)

but last year, i caught that football fever and enjoyed watching when i could. and this year, i plan to do the same. i found my inner domer. and darn it if that ain't some kind of fun.

"go! go! go! go! go!"

and they did.

(and the away games are on often on abc, like tonight, and that means a commercial for grey's anatomy. that patrick dempsey is some kind of cute.)

the canyon of my heart

On the outside, you might see me sitting on the couch working on my laptop. Sometimes I wear my headphones and will suddenly start singing and dancing while I work. Other times I am hunched over the Chicago Manual of Style trying to figure out how to reference something. You might see me reading a book or a magazine while I am curled up in bed. I might be making macaroni and cheese or a cup of tea. I might be on the floor in bridge pose stretching out my back. This is what you might see on the outside if you peeked in on me in the middle of the day.

This is what you would see on the surface. But what would it be like to look beyond this outer me?

As I looked through the pictures we took in Durango last weekend, I had a thought when looking at this photo of the cliff dwellings carved into the side of a mountain at Mesa Verde—looking at this photo is almost like peeking into my heart. All the emotions and memories and dreams that live in my heart live in a place like this.

When I was taking this picture, I heard someone from across the canyon call out to another person. I was amazed at the thought of how I could hear the person as though she was right next to me. I started to imagine how it would have been to call out to one another hundreds of years ago. How the seemingly quiet world of living on the side of a cliff was probably not all that quiet with thousands of people living throughout this canyon. The surface of something is never quite what it seems. I wondered about the loneliness people felt hundreds of years ago. When did these people decide to leave this place? Did somebody run back to pick up a lost belonging and turn around to find her family had left her? Only to then hear someone from across the canyon yell, “hurry up, we are just over here.”

Someone told me that the second year after you lose someone is the hardest. I remember nodding my head but thinking, “you have no idea what last year was like for me.” Today I am beginning to understand the truth of this statement. The first year you are simply trying to wrap your brain around the pain. And as humans, I think we are used to the idea that pain goes away. You break your arm, and then it heals. You fail, and then you get bounce back. So part of you is waiting for the pain to go away. But at some point, you begin to realize that this pain isn’t leaving. The person doesn’t come back. Ever. Sometimes I will just look at Jon and say, “my grandmother is totally dead.” This isn’t my sarcastic self talking. No, this is me reminding myself of the truth. I appreciate that time has a way of dulling things a bit and that she is with me and on and on and on. But I also know that my heart feels broken. And sometimes I am paralyzed for seconds at a time at the thought that this is how it will feel when I lose the next person. And then again with the next. My breath is cut off by this thought.

No one ever explained all this to me. Though I realize that maybe you can’t really understand it until you experience the loss of someone you love. Still, I wish I had even understood a tiny piece of it. Every day I am still a bit shocked about the depth of feeling I have now. How my understanding of life changed in one moment. And this isn’t melodramatic; it is just truth. My truth. Me.

At times, my heart does feel as empty and lonely as this cliff dwelling appears from across the canyon at first glance. However, I know that even through this emptiness a spirit is strong within these walls. These dwellings have been here for hundreds of years and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. And even when they do crumble, the energy of the people who lived in these walls is everywhere. This is also true of my heart. Even in moments of grief I am not alone. Even when it seems as though no one knows my experience, I am not alone. The spirit of all those who came before me lives in me. The spirit of all those who are with me now lives in me. The energy that creates the future lives in me. I try to remind myself that even in the deep, wide feelings of grief, I am not alone.

And if there are moments when you don’t know what to do, you don’t know what to say, or you don’t know how to respond, remember: To really see me, is to move the outer stuff aside to take a peek across the canyon to look inside my heart. To really love me, is to call across the canyon to let me know you are there.

And I will remember that this is true with you too.

a bookmarked poem and a gift {poetry thursday}

This week's idea at Poetry Thursday spoke to me for many reasons. I love the idea of bringing poetry into the every day moments of our lives. To allow ourselves to stop being afraid of poetry (if that is the case) or to let others in on our love of poetry. Carrying poetry with you and sharing it is a beautiful thing. Even if you share only with yourself. To know that you have these special words along for the ride of whatever is before you. I also loved this idea because it was perfect for the hecticness of my life. Meaning, I haven't had time to write much lately, but I appreciated the invitation to stop and take a breath and read a poem that I love (thanks Lynn).

Because I am spending most of my time with my laptop attached to me, I decided to electronically bookmark my poem and click to it every now and then as I worked. And I have done this over the last few days. (I have to admit that I like the idea of actually writing out the poem and putting it in your pocket. I want to do that soon too.) Because I have felt a bit melancholy, I wanted to turn to someone who would fill me up a bit. And this person continues to be William Stafford. The words of his poem "Sending These Messages" have been like balm for my aching heart this week. They have been a reminder of why I write, why I read, of all that poetry is for me. You can read it here.

I haven't mentioned the exciting news that earlier this month one of the women I work for hired me full time! So I am still editing from home and taking on some freelance projects, but I will have steady work from now on. This is a fantastic development for me (and I won't go into how excited I am to be working for her because she is a woman with integrity and is so honest...I don't want kiss up or anything but really I am lucky).

However, my time has been a bit stretched with summer and weddings and other things going on, so I am feeling a bit disconnected from things other than editing. I found out Monday that the yoga studio I teach at is closing. Now. So last night was my last class there (I will still have my community center class) and I already miss my regular students. It has been a very odd few weeks. And spending the weekend with family, coming back to a project that has been a bit crazier than expected, and the closing of the studio has just added to it all. As I mentioned in a previous post, this family gathering was the first one since my grandmother's death. And this weighed heavily on me. No one talked about her. It was so odd. I miss her deeply. I wanted to talk about her. But it was a wedding weekend and not about this. I get that. Still, my heart feels a bit depleted with it all.

And my husband knows this.

So last night, when I came to bed in the middle of the night because I was working late, I found a book of poetry on my pillow with a love note.

Tonight, I opened the book and read these words:

And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.

Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.

From the first section of the poem "From the Book of Time" in Mary Oliver's book The Leaf and the Cloud.

This is the year I have been given the gift of poetry.

Thank you.

enclosed in music {self-portrait challenge}

I sit and look in the mirror, listening to Deb Talan sing in my ear. Then I join in and harmonize with her.

Serenading myself has become a new experience for me. I always sing, but actually singing to myself on purpose is something new. In certain moments, it seems to be holding me together.