Sunday Morning

Sunday morning
Slow beats seething
Through the screens in
The open windows
Eggs frying
Legs shaking
After we stayed lying
so long in bed
Sunday morning
Both of us reading
and looking up occasionally
Looking up occasionally

Sunday morning
You're doing your thing
and i am doing mine
Speaking words
More a formality
Cause we can feel we
are of one mind
Sunday morning
Sheets still warm
Kitties swarming
Around our feet
Life comes easy
Your sweet company
Making it so complete

Of all the Monday through Fridays
We joined the crusade
of all the saturday nights
In which we were made
of all the exorcisms
I've done with your ghosts
Still it's sunday morning
I miss you the most.

- Ani Difranco

A time and place for all things.

I wouldn't even know where to begin if I indeed had the time to spill forth all of the thoughts I'm warring with in my head and heart. I've stepped on some toes this week...some regretfully, others unknowingly. There are those things I wish that I was brave enough to exclaim loudly, awarding them the legacy of resounding echoes, and others I wish I had never uttered [or otherwise communicated]. at all. I've wanted to hang up in mid-sentence - Oh! the temptation of an effortless flip of wrist. I've wanted to [and may or may not have] shed tears of absolute frustration...or was it a mere imbalance of hormones? I've been tempted to shatter fragile things, and indulge in the gluttony of gentle affection, and not to honor obligations.

I'm not perfect and I hate that.

There's this passage in the opening paragraph of Hornby's, How to be Good that I've just recalled. It's both sobering and reflective of the human condition [and it's how I feel right this very second]. Sometimes terrible thoughts are thought and things are said or done, or not done or said, and you can't believe the moment has just transpired. Regardless of preference, it's done or lost, and you are the doer or the loser or the thinker or the "bad guy." Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't, but it's You for better or worse:

"Even though I am, apparently, and to my surprise, the kind of person who tells her husband that she doesn't want to be married to him anymore, I really didn't think I was the kind of person to say so in a car park, on a mobile phone. That particular self-assessment will now have to be revised, clearly. I can describe myself as the kind of person who doesn't forget names, for example, because I have remembered names thousands of times and forgotten them only once or twice. But for the majority of people, marriage-ending conversations happen only once, if at all. If you choose to conduct yours on a mobile phone, in a Leeds car park, then you cannot really claim that it is unrepresentative, in the same way that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't really claim that shooting presidents wasn't like him at all. Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs."

At a loss.

I believe I must have been eloquent once.

[and naively courageous]

It's just that...

...maybe it's nothing.

It seems to have become more difficult to word.

The City Mouse

It has just occurred to me how soon February is approaching. February signifies the theoretical completion of my tiny loft in the heart of downtown, my "New York on downers," as I have coined it. It seems like only last month that The Roommate moved in to the apartment where my pieces of furniture have long since begun to root into the hardwood floors and my life has saturated the space between most walls for the last three years. What a daunting task it will be to leave that place. Not only will it take a crew to restore it to it's original state, but it has housed so many chapters and changes of me that I will be sad to leave [on some level].

The move isn't for a while yet, I know, but it's been a work in progress for two years. The last five months seem like no time at all before I'll be once again required to pack life into liquor boxes and separate possessions into categories for keeping and purging...lots will have to go, not much fits within the confines of 670 square feet. It will be a lifestyle change, but by then I'll be seasoned in the maneuverability of culture shock. It's exciting to think that everything necessary for sustaining life will be contained within a 2 block radius...post office, grocery store, bank, deli's, bars, coffee shops, library, venues, art galleries.

It's just so...soon, like falling asleep in the car and suddenly waking at your destination [5 months later].

::sigh::

Outside it rains and I have sad eyes, or maybe tired. Perhaps it's just a rainy mood inspired by gray clouds. I'm heavy, my eyes are anyway, and the music wafts lazily over and through and below the murmur of the others. I know the voice of this singer but can't retrieve his name from the tip of my tongue. His identity doesn't much matter, and this song fits oddly with the melancholy nature of the late afternoon shower. Peppermint tea rolls steam from its surface before me and dribbles carelessly down one side - syphoned by the the steeping bag.

The aroma of coffee permeates the air. [and peppermint too, of course.]

I have no idea what has gotten beneath my skin, nonetheless this unnamed agitation is bothersome. Maybe it is the rain, and the sad slush of tires through puddles on the asphalt. Maybe it's the Hornby novel I read, likening marriage to the impulse to drink bleach. Maybe it's [this] or [that]...maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe it's the woeful plight of voices around me, those who might actually be planning to toast the Universe with a brimming pour of Clorox.

Could the goal really be unachievable...?

A sudden disconnect.

I feel somewhat disconnected. I made the change, severed the thread. I canceled the internet. It's been...freeing, and I haven't really missed it, well...not really. It helps that the better part of my idle time is spent with The Staff Sergeant. It's hard to be anything but content in that case, but I feel like I'm lacking something with the sudden decrease in communication. I miss blogging daily. I miss the ponderous contemplation.

I love it when I'm right. I hate it when I'm right.

Sleep cannot be fitful when it is unachievable. Sleep is, in fact, impossible when the demon-possessed canine whines and cries and when left with no satisfactory response from the human, BARKS [and barks and barks, and it's 11:45pm, but she doesn't care, and she barks]. She is quarantined in her crate at the foot of the bed because of an unfortunate infestation [of fleas]. I will not share the sheets with little nasties and she's pissed. She is irate with her imprisonment, and I am so mind-numbingly tired.

shut-up. shut-up. SHUT UP!

And she barks.

Sunrise is a beautiful phenomenon - the birth of a new day, boundless opportunities, a bounty for the seizing announcing it's debut with jazz-hands and a burst of glowing glory. This said, we are not well acquainted until this week, and it's as though I've reconnected with a distant relative. You know, obligatory familial adoration and the like? Three days later [in a row], and the warmth of camaraderie has shifted a bit to that of friction. We have a shaky love/hate connection. By last night I was hopeful to give our interaction a break. Without veering forth into another pocket of circumstances all together, it became very clear that despite my preferences, the alarms would again sound in the pre-dawn darkness of another day.

Back to my silent seething anger as I lay still, praying to the Gods of Sleep that my thirty-pound, lurid spawn of evil will soon surrender to slumber herself, but she is stubborn. There is apparently no chance she will assume I don't care or can't hear her. She's a persistent little creature and she's testing my patience. I have to be up before the sun to manage a situation, and beyond myself in a bedroom teaming with the echoes of raging protests, I'm pretty sure my neighbors [and roommate] hate us both.

I love the way it feels to reach the noon mark and have mastered a day's worth of living. I love the peaceful beauty as the sorbet sky melts into blue. I hate the way my eyes burn by 3pm and afternoon errands behind the wheel become risky business and good business for the dealers of caffeine. I especially detest the passionate yearning that overtakes my heavy limbs around 10pm to crawl into bed and conclude the day. I'm too young to give up the midnight breach, but such is life. And she barks.

I'm nearing the brink of sanity. My mind is desperate for a solid recharging. She hates her cage. Solitary confinement is more than likely challenging her mental capacity. She's merely making audible the screaming cries of frustration that I contain inside, and I cannot reason with a dog. She doesn't care or understand that I want the wash of sleep to blanket me like asphyxiating lungs beg for air. I concede. She has no principles on which she has based this duel, she just wants free reign at any cost. This isn't a show-down of wit or smarts, so I bow out.

She sleeps in the living room, liberated. The barking ceases. I fall away from consciousness...until the alarms wail.

And they do, before daybreak.

The thought ends [where the heart is]

I'm slacking with my usual word quota.

My mind is stretched a little thin.

I struggle with something worthwhile to share.

My brain is tired.

I predict a fitful sleep.

...waking on the hour...inadequately paced dreams...falling short of...

[the thought trails]

Something to ponder

Is there anything hotter than a man in uniform? Let's be serious for a moment, is there?

No. There most definitely is not.

The Fear.

I don't read religious books. I don't find that I much enjoy them. I've walked away from that part of my past maybe to one day return, maybe to not. Regardless, I read this today as it was posted within one of the infinite numbers of personal blogs that hang somewhere in the balance of real and virtual existence. I know these questions well and wrestle with them daily. There have been times recently when the paralyzing fear of not being enough [again] is immense. While I am deliriously glad to be offering my heart, I am unable to always avoid the sinister whisper of Doubt...sometimes, it is terrifying. The more I allow myself to give, the more my senses become acutely aware of the possibility of an end, not because I will choose that road, but because the others have. This fear is not a fair precedent, I know, but I worry nonetheless...

What if it ends? What if I enjoy you more than you enjoy me? What if your delight in me is bogus? Or worse, what if it is mere manipulation to get from me what you want? What if I love you and then you die, divorce me, or turn against me? The risk is more than I can bear, and so I refuse to open my heart to another person who will arouse my desire and then might use me or dash me to the ground.

Such ambivalence is the enemy of love, [because love] is the capacity to offer ourselves to others.
•••••••••••••••••••••••
Exerpt from The Healing Path by Dan Allender, pg 29

a three-day recap.

Today I bid a joyful farewell to The Cooler, I mean the office. Around 3:30pm, I will be a former employee of [corporate co.], and the newest staffing addition to [upscale retail establishment]. I couldn't be happier! To celebrate, I went shoe shopping before showing up for the afternoon of key-punching in my little cave. The new job will keep me on my feet, so I predict that my 3 inch stilettos probably won't make the appropriate-work-attire cut. I acknowledge my masochistic tendencies and still, I'd rather not curse my aching feet at the end of each day. I bought two pairs of flats and plan to dedicate a few hours next week to the alteration of dress pants. They are all, as of now, long enough to accommodate heels [i.e., too long]. The new gig begins Wednesday. Not only will the hours be reasonable, but the compensation will rival my current wage earnings [hooray!]. I'm really excited for the change.

Word on the new job came Friday afternoon.

Friday evening I struggled for the first time with Uncle Sam. I continue to read that relationships with soldiers are additionally relationships with the Army. It seems to be a self-evident truth, so I helped The Roommate paint her room a gorgeous turquoise shade of robins-egg-blue. My bond with a paint brush is unlike any other, once I connect with the first stroke, be it on a wall or on a canvas, my mind drifts off to a place without concept of time or worry. I offered aid in order to lose my thoughts while awaiting word of return from The Staff Sergeant. At 10:30pm [after one full coat of paint including the cut-in of ceiling and baseboards] he was back from the sticks. I packed my tote, peeled as much paint from my skin as possible, and headed for his place.

Saturday I flexed my culinary muscles with a homemade production of French toast and mixed berries before heading back to Nashville. A commitment to volunteer beckoned my return. V, Future Californian, and I were delightfully recruited to work Wine on the River...and who doesn't love to play with wine-all the wine you could imagine? We hurried, signed in, and began a brief education before the event began. I drank and served and drank some more. It was fabulous! And following a wine-laced afternoon, The Staff Sergeant picked me up for a delicious dinner at Trace.

Sunday was as Sunday should be...calm and lazy. If everyday could be a Sunday spent with The Staff Sergeant, Heaven would quite nearly exist in earthly form.

...that brings us back to Monday. I dutifully sit, fingers and toes numb from the overworked A/C, ambiance set by fluorescent lights overhead and the echo of murmured phone calls and clicking keyboards [and a distant tune of what I can only imagine to be a kind of cubical karaoke?].

I'm counting down the minutes until this ends.

Sunday is love.

Sundays are quickly becoming a beloved retreat, one in which I escape from my life as I know it. Instead of following the obligatory current of responsibility, the hours become lazy mornings in bed and afternoons dallying through leisurely moments. Sundays are pillow-talk, cheek-aching smiles, peaceful drives through rolling hills, movies on the couch and big, homemade breakfasts. I loathe their end as it means the week will reclaim me and torture my soul with a likely, lonely 5 nights of troublesome sleep. The enemy inevitably approaches [the mundane week, that is] to soon abduct its unwilling captive.

Heavy thoughts.

I had a few accomplishments to note...

The kettle screams.

I hijacked The Roommate for a few hours this evening to attend with me The Devil Came on Horseback. What can one do with images like that, haunting ones?

She habitually turns on CNN in the mornings and following the routine I gape at the news. I bitch about the sensationalism in the theme music and request a xanax to combat the anxiety it spawns. I ask, following each depressing story, "What's wrong with the world?!," until she turns the channel or shuts it off all together. It seems fitting then, that following Brian Steidle's account of the methodical execution of hundreds of thousands I'm back to the question of HOW THIS HAPPENS.

Genocide is an unfathomable phenomenon to me...ashy remnants of their bodies...shackled wrists of little girls, wrists alone in a heap of soot...heads without faces, faces without eyes, without ears...corpse after corpse with hidden faces in the dirt. The ones who live might as well be dead. Their eyes are lost and vacant. They have nothing. NOTHING. And I log in to punch the keys in order to share with you my B-paper, the distance I pushed myself to run, my disdain for numbers.

Both my gains and plight seem so very small.

Small Victory

It has recently occurred to me that the few extra pounds I gained after returning in January will sadly not be willed away. It turns out that I'm actually going to have to work to be able to again fit into my jeans and dress pants. This frustrates me greatly as dieting and exercise are neither activities that I enjoy [in the slightest]. Whenever I claim to be buckling down and committing to a healthy regiment, I immediately grab for a handful [or box-full] of food...like Monday's Puffins fiasco that I'm ashamed to report. I think it's fair to say that small, delicious, bite-size carbs belong only on the grocery store shelves and NOT in my pantry.

In coordination with these findings, I have been trying to institute some pro-active habits. Take Monday, for example [pre-box o'Puffin consumption], I strapped my little Nano to my left arm, spun the touch dial until it highlighted the pulsing beats of Black Holes and Revolutions and dreadfully stared down the neighborhood sidewalk. I thought to myself calorie-burning thoughts and stretched the horribly out of shape muscles of my legs. I know that from the short row of pink-brick town homes to the stop-sign at the park it is a distance close to one-half mile. A half mile is my measly goal.

I started a slow jog, and nearing the end of the first block any attempt at controlled breathing was lost. I continued with frantic, shallow pants that I know do not promote stamina of any kind, but it was all my lungs could offer. Muse set a pace that I tried desperately to focus on rather than the distance that stretched ahead. I wanted the stop-sign to appear, but it seemed that someone up ahead was dragging out the concrete trail in a way that would never allow me to reach its end. Surprisingly, they must have given up the taunting prank because more quickly than expected its cherry-red face was an attainable distance ahead. I only sort of wanted to keel over and die once I reached its base, and I was so proud. Goal achieved!

To celebrate, I ate the box of Puffins...tempting little penguins.

::sigh::

Yesterday, when my legs were only moaning, I talked myself into a second attempt and ran a bit farther. It seemed to be only slightly less taxing on my lazy body and I found that looking downward helped to keep me thinking about the timing of music and not the expanse before me. Today my muscles scream. Future Californian says to take a break and resume running tomorrow, and stretch [his prior profession was Personal Trainer]. I'm actually just considering buying new jeans...

We'll see what kind of motivation befalls me tomorrow. Maybe I'll try the damn run again.

A call to U.S. military wives and girlfriends...

...quality blogs. Please?

Thanks,

S. Princess

[If they do exist, links are welcome! Leave them as comments.]

6:09am: Have a good day, soldier :)

Ground Zero 9/2004

-----From-----
[###-###-####]
----Message----
You just made my day :)
Have a good day yourself
----End----
Sep 11, 07 (Tue)
6:11am

This is the first realization that today is in fact an anniversary of something harboring so much momentum that six years later it finally touches me. The ripple moves outward from disaster and six layers later I feel the first personal pangs of what followed. Six ringlets after the rock pierced water's surface it dumbly occurs to me to look around and ask what happened. Vested interest does that, I guess, heightens your concern.

I won't attempt to point fingers toward reason or connection of events. The temperment of the world is chaos no matter why, no matter who paid for flight school or who funded training or oil fields or notoriously coined phrases regarding weaponry. These things are not my motive today, as I take one more reckoning step in the direction of acceptance and the knowledge of what lies ahead if this particular course holds steady.

Over the last month I've all but beaten my head against the wall for not knowing more about this War, for shutting myself off, allowing numbness to set in, for choosing to be blissfully ignorant. And today I recall trembling as my 3rd period graphic design class was disturbed by news reports in a teacher's lounge of planes wrecking buildings and trying to understand...a draft?...gas prices?...God?...war, on my figurative doorsteps? The rest of the day was spent swapping glances of confusion with fellow youngsters, finding refuge in a place that no longer makes sense, seeing the cyclical replay of something so foreign that it couldn't possibly be swallowed in its visionary capacity. As a kid, it moved me, it shook me, it molded me like the rest of my generation to value family and friends and time. It was the end of peace and the institution of chronic discourse.

Eventually the news coverage waned. The buzz hushed. I saw the rubble pit almost exactly a year to date - still ashes and tarps and remembrance. As time passed, we forgot, those of us untouched, we moved on in this wide world of violence and we were able to coexist with it, without thought. I became apathetic. The void was cleared and my last visit to Ground Zero yielded surprise as the subways had already been reopened, building band-aids removed, and Burger King was back in working order.

This is how we move away from a wound and toward the eruption of battle, this is also how we forgot [and by we, I only speak for myself]. And so life is ironic and it would seem fitting that a text message reply would remind me. That it would remind me to value relationships, to value the moments of connection, the moments full of heart, to log the laughter and freeze pieces of invaluable living into still shots, to make the most of the hours we have, and to never take for granted a man who walks in the shadows of aftermath - it is all so much to comprehend, but this is the world as we know it.

I sift through the news these days against better advice, and I read the blogs of women who love men living lives in The Sandbox. I bite off morsels so as not to choke while chewing, and I slowly digest the actuality. I realize that I am the most unexpected candidate for such a position, but also that I'm here and willing and I'm all heart [even when it scares me].

[and it does]

...All this rambling of nothing to say that in the sixth year, the eleventh of September means something different. I am six years older, and six years altered, and six years numb no longer.

The Devil Came on Horseback

Go See it.

The grinding limbo of a 5 day interim...

Hello, Monday, my first day foe.

Left palm is tattooed with today's agenda:
1) email marketing group
2) check syllabus deadlines
3) set apt with [non-profit contact]
4) GET A JOB!

I did rise early today, in relation to usual and to bedtime, but early is all together relative, right? [I reference my morning's 8am debut.] I made it to Marketing on time, a commendable feat, and in my break between class and work, I stopped by an establishment I have been meaning to peruse for a job. They're hiring - interview Wednesday.

Between a promising job opportunity and the planned banishment of in-house internet, the belated conversation with Mom should be more smoothly received. I promised to call following my afternoon spent in the cooler, er, the office...the office that will hopefully no longer rob me of body heat after Wednesday. No one can live on 9 hours a week and the immanent threat of frost bite.

After a good 5 days of willful silence, and ignored phone calls/emails, I feel that I am rested enough in the motherly situation to again speak cordially. She isn't guilty of heinous atrocities, but now and again the mounting anxiety of her role in my life peaks and I have to stop for a sanity break. So I've been breathing, and thinking, and I've made a few changes that she'll smile upon, and I've reckoned [momentarily] with the live-in-boat-man with which she has taken up companionship [although without formal introductions as such, or mention of the fact], and her friendly relations with fermented grapes [somewhat].

A low, throaty growl threatens audibility, but instead I chew anxiously on an inner wall of mouth...

And I will sing you morning lullabies.

Midnight skies turn misty gray and rain, on fragile panes, whispers declarations of breaking day. An upward glance again acquaints delicate eyes estranged by dreamless sleep, and fingers trace shadow creases of wrinkled sheets in search of Heart.

Good morning, sweet Sunday.

The rest is all omelets, and lethargy, and the happiest girl that ever lived.

Cinnamon, spice, and everything nice.

Noon o'clock on this dreary Saturday finds V, The Roommate, and myself at a table for four in the Nashville renowned Pancake Pantry. It doesn't seem all that disorienting to be ordering breakfast as the rest of the city pores over lunch menus, we've all had long nights and are in need of satiating that lazy-day delight of stacked flap-jacks. Around the table we each echo half orders of cinnamon-spice cakes and coffee or OJ.

Heaven.

The conversation quickly shifts to the question of my academic productivity, and my response prompts disappointing looks from them both. I think it's a combination of several catalysts...

It is suggested that I be single until May. Respectfully, no. It is suggested that I map out a study plan in my planner, but I've already done that. I have perfected the ability to ignore the schedule so helpfully printed between the lines of each day. We reduce the largest distraction down to my internet addiction. No, it's not Facebook. I hate Facebook. No, it isn't Myspace (anymore).

The culprit: BLOGGER.

The verdict: CANCEL DOMESTIC INTERNET SERVICE.

::gasp::

Life without internet:Me::Kryptonite:Superman.

The Roommate offers to hold me down when the withdrawal induced shakes set in. It isn't that I'm giving it up all together, but we're looking into a T-Mobile subscription that would take the internet out of the house and open up such establishments as Starbucks and Borders for service - more places to go outside + less distractions on the home front = fewer nights spent playing and more hours sleeping AND fewer idle hours wasting away on my iBook, affording more hours dedicated to worthwhile tasks.

I rue the day that I can't lay in bed and introspectively blog about life, but I value a timely graduation more. Goodbye Bellsouth DSL, and hours and hours wastefully sacrificed to the Internet Gods. It seems that I'll be seein' you only in coffee shops and bookstores.

A passage penned on a coffee-stained napkin...

I haven't written anything in a day or two and I'm baffled...it certainly hasn't been the result of a lack of material, for anyone who knows this compulsive blogger can attest that there is never a dull moment. I scratched this out last night while trying desperately to study - and then gave it life via text and sent it out in the world. It's the closest thing to creative thought that I've given time (it's been slightly edited):

Somewhere in Nashville a lonesome girl sits in sight of a table for two, in a coffeehouse fully equipped with outlets and bagels. Its nestled up to a wall with two empty chairs turned carelessly askew, but she isn't thinking of their position in the room rather, her thoughts linger in their meaning and what began in those forgotten wooden seats. She grins and regretfully turns back to her studies, yet the crooked chairs and table tempt her thoughts mercilessly with the echo of nervous laughter and introductions.

Break out the caffeine.

...and who doesn't relish a night spent pounding away on a topic you don't particularly endorse, support, or honor? If only I wasn't such a fine procrastinator!

(Note the uneven space bar...a remedy to my crippled keyboard is much in order, but the mere thought of parting with the internet for any length of time leaves me reaching for the nearest coping mechanism.)

Paper Wings

I sometimes feel very 2 dimensional. flat. plain. average. I dream of a life so large that it exceeds every possible perimeter that the world can throw around me and said explosive existence. Sometimes in the midst of that dream I realize that I am in fact more stuck than expansive energy and my heart sinks...until my romantic mind begins whirring again with those too-big thoughts. I've adopted that phrase, by the way, from Kerouac (read him).

So here I am - feeling stuck. Feeling small and flat and wanting. Wanting to move and shake and save the world and save myself...from whatever it is that makes me feel pinned. Today, perhaps it is my mother and that latest bought of guiltful puppeteering of purse strings and toxic parenting. Perhaps it's that I let her. Perhaps it's the apathy that still taints my ambition to do (anything). Maybe it's the monotony of life, and I'm tired. I'd like to leave for a bit...for a bit...I'd like to get in my car and drive to Anywhere But Here.

Welcome to Anywhere But Here! the sign would read.

I saw a film and that made me want to move, to sell it all, everything, and live on simplicity and good deeds. I'd like to save the world. I read a book, some blogs, I've listened to the moving plans, for downsizing the stuff. The stuff is so weighty, isn't it? And the grass is always greener. I lay beneath the stars as they fell across the midnight plane. I made a wish, but I can't repeat it. I heard a song and wanted to love like that again. It made me feel inspired to give my heart away...to someone true and good who also loves without regard. I want to love and be loved in capacities larger than reason would rightfully allow, and never ever hurt (again). And I'm homesick, for something I've never seen. I'm so sick for home...rotten sick for a state of being that I've known only in daydreams.

So here I am - feeling stuck. Feeling 2D and paper thin. Feeling weighed down with the crap of life and tethered to dead weight. But it isn't all so desperate. No, there's plenty of potential, don't get me wrong. There's plenty that I'm thankful for and makes me smile. It's just...it's just that I'm restless, and plagued a little by the burn of wanderlust. And the search for Home is a little more than I can mentally entertain right now. And I want to not be scared of love, or moved to silence maternal phone calls.

Getting back on track...

Labor Day weekend:

The stowaway

Tuesday:

Good morning, Nashville.

3 Chevrons and a Rocker

I feared seeing him in fatigues as reality would be afforded penetration - right to my bones. I imagined my body responding with the tightening of throat that precedes welling tears or something of the like. It isn't that I'm expecting a breaking point, I hope that isn't the picture that I paint. It's that my heart speeds several steps in front of the rest of myself, and my head often lags behind. There are a hundred ideas that one can consciously ponder, but wrapping oneself around a thing, especially something that shakes you, is another concept all together. Until this morning, my Staff Sergeant was really more a man with "a job". Today, he is a soldier.

I don't know that I can convey this simple epiphany accurately...

In the unfamiliarity of such early morning hours, I watched with hesitation as he emerged from the steam-filled bathroom then moved to his closet. I remained in bed while he, in camouflaged pants, packed the day's gear and tied boots on his feet the color of sand. I observed this routine from beneath soft sheets that smell of his skin, in a dark room still masked by the quiet hush of a slothful awakening. His warm sheets, the slumberous peace of his room, I imagine these details as stark opposites to the brutality of war. In a half-state of consciousness, I began to piece him together - my throat never tightening, my eyes blinking away only remnants of sleep, and I lay there very calmly learning him, breathing in reality.

There is and probably always will be some thread of denial, some half truths I'll tell myself to avoid maddening worry, but I feel that I'm embracing the mountains of new discoveries quite well. It's something different, this other lifestyle, but my interest is piqued and the subject, worthwhile. Though he marches toward a purpose I cannot comprehend, he is still more just a man than anything, and my heart becomes a little more his with every conquered step.

Long Weekend

Off to the lake with Mom and The Future Californian...

...be back Monday (if I survive).