blind spots

it's time for sleep. my perishable groceries are at the foot of the stairs. my sheets are in the dryer; my bed is unmade.

i'm trying this new thing where i set head aside for heart. it's not my strength, but so i find myself, blogging instead of bedding.

something today got me thinking about blind spots. it was possibly a near miss in that dangerous engine thing i strap myself into every day. it was probably the underlying feeling of vulnerability that stems from knowing i don't know it all, can't see it all, can't feel it all, can't see what i feel, and yet decide decide decide choose choose choose.

strange, isn't it; spaces we just don't see? reminds me of that experiment chuch loves where you draw several dots on an envelope and if you close one eye you can't see one of the dots, even though the whole envelope seems to be there. where does the dot go? where do the ducks go in the winter?

when my head is the driver, my heart is the blind spot. like it was never there.

afterword

the funeral finishes but not the sadness. as the benediction ascends on the wind of a collective sigh, two thousand mourners pull each other to solemn standing.  i grip my father’s arm. then-waiting. no moving, no sighing, no breathing. we linger in our refuge of stillness before they take the body away: one second for every grief, but only one, too soon to end. any disturbance and she will somehow be more gone than before. the cellist places bow on strings; church door opens. how dark was before! the melody paces our lungs expanding, the music translates the sun radiance into air, and we know what to do (we're breathing.)

if my prayers held hands i hope they'd circle the earth

i was thinking about the people i wanted to remember by prayer tonight, and i felt a little overwhelmed by the number of people in my heart. then, paradoxically, i felt a surge of desire to pray for everyone i know, which led to wanting to pray for everyone i don't know, and not generically but by name. how do i draw the line? how do i ever stop pleading for grace?

a short thought on home

tonight, the fog was so cut-it-with-a-knife thick that when i pulled onto the off ramp, i thought i was driving to heaven. my off ramp slants up, you see, and is under a series of lights bright enough to barely illuminate the fog. this wasn't a metaphor in the moment, no--in one of those awesome tricks my brain likes to play at the end of a very very long day, i actually thought for a breath that i was driving to heaven. it was a happy breath.

then i turned the corner, went down the same distance i upped, and remembered where on earth i was, though i couldn't see an earthly thing. i determined that home is the place that you still know how to find, even in the fog, and i was happy then too.

a dead poets society moment

note to the future me:

when i get tired with the world, or feel bored by life, or forget i can do new and good things that actually help people, stop. right then and there. read a book. have a conversation about something that matters with someone who’s passionate. go outside and marvel. sit quietly for 2 minutes and think about memory, vastness, how it feels to have a heart. the world is too real to waste it.

remember that on a not so cold day in january, i made new meaning of why i choose self-improvement as my forever quest: not because i want to be better than anyone else or even my past self, but because nothing else makes sense on this repeat-cycle earth than to go beyond where i am right now, to do something more gracefully and graciously the next time, to be differenter every moment than the last.

i must strive. i must push. i will make mistakes and muddy my face when i fall, and it will feel uncomfortable, even more so when the new me rubs tensely against the old. there will always be conflict between the way things were and the way things will be, the way i was and the way i will be. the best parts of life will spark from that rub.

this is my today truth.

anew

oh hey humans. you know why i love the word "anew" so much? because it balances both the newness and the againness of  the new year. that's an important balance, don't you think? we don't just peer into a brand new start, totally oblivious to what waits down the road; we stand at the top of a habit, on the back of a tradition, in the rut of our ways. i'm okay with that, some new and some again. if we didn't bring the past with us, there'd be no such thing as change.

so without further ado, my version of "resolutions."

1. be bold in relationships. i'm not totally sure what this means yet, but i think the year will tell me. i'm not just talking dating, so watch out humans--i'm a comin. 
2. buy a road bike that actually fits me. then ride it a lot, probs even hundred miles a lot in a century race. 
3. eat lunch and dinner more in than out. i'm 1 for 6 so far, but i can turn this ship around.
4. convince myself through habit that 10:30 pm is a wayyyy better bedtime than 1:30 am. 
5. surprise myself. this means thinking, 'i'm not really the type of person that would do xyz,' then snapping out of it and doing xyz. 
6. go at least one near and far place i've never been before. on purpose. 
7. love the ones i'm with. explore my hometown like i'm on vacation. put the phone away when i'm with humans. stop holding back at work. you know what i mean?
8. face the dream that feels so lofty i'm embarrassed to even mention it, then take one big step towards going for it. 
9. express gratitude to God and man every single day.

let me start with you. thank you, formless faceless idea of friends, for making me feel enough like someone is listening that i write stuff occasionally. i guess all i need to write is the idea, the possibility, of readers. i need real friends though.

i've also got another round of resolutions cookin, and you can participate if you feel so inclined and if i ever get it on this blogo. don't stay on the edge of your seats forever though.

go, live your new lives again.

resolved, 2013 edition

i get serious about my resolutions, you know, so more is coming. but here's the short list.

1. love more. both breadth and depth.