DOCK DAYS

My brother.

My cousin.

My sister.

{Photos taken by Johnathan, Katie, and myself. Summer lake in Wisconsin.}

HE WILL RESTORE

Humble yourselves, therefore, 

under the mighty hand of God 

so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 

casting all your anxieties on him, 

because he cares for you. 

Be sober-minded; be watchful. 

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, 

seeking someone to devour. 

Resist him, firm in your faith, 

knowing that the same kinds of suffering are 

being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.  

And after you have suffered a little while, 

the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, 

will himself restore, 

confirm, 

strengthen, 

and establish you. 

To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 5. 

{Photos from February 3rd, 2013: An afternoon walk in France.}

LIVE A STORY

Last night, I picked up some favorite people from the airport. With overjoyed souls, windows down, the folksongs warm and loud, and the golden sunlight peeking from deep hues of blue, we absorbed the Minnesota that we love. I almost didn't see the 'No Trespassing' sign that read 'Danger: Mining Site.' Thank God I did, almost parked there. 
We made our way passed Three Silos to the Mississippi River. The water was numbing, but that didn't stop us from swimming across. My cell phone is now in a zip-loc filled with brown rice; somebody forgot to take it out of her back pocket first.
Goosebump riddled, we sat on the rocks, watching the clouds imitate cream, picking at crumbling limestone and telling stories. Time was soft.
We followed the train, and stopped by Culvers on the way home. My older brother is a manager there and gave me a complimentary mini mixer. A new flavor of the day apparently; pickles. But actually, after you worked through the gagging reflexes, it wasn't half so bad. It was definitely thoughtful of me to leave it on his pillow in case he wanted a snack after his late shift. 
Woke up early after falling asleep laughing (a welcome change) to have breakfast picnicking on a dewy hilltop. We read from Isaiah... that book, my goodness!
This rainy afternoon, after making $32 from things I dislike in our garage sale, I listened to six bagpipers play in an echoing cavern of a fire department. When they played 'Amazing Grace', I almost painted my face blue and ran off with Scottish patriots. My younger brother was among the bagpipers. I'm a proud sister. 

Now to start a new week.

PINK VAN ON THE DECK

Scene 1. Wife and husband sit around an oval table, swirling spoons in bowls of vanilla ice cream, catching up over a busy weekend.

Wife: ...the man walks everyday in our park with his husky and his little white dog.

Husband: That's not a nice thing to say about his wife.

Scene 2. Along a curving, shaded road, Moriah is running, Holly roller-blades beside her. 

Holly: I need a haircut.

Moriah: I could cut your hair! 

Holly gives a long skeptical look. Moriah breaks the melodramatic silence with her laugh. 

Holly: yeahhh, I don't trust you.

Moriah: Or my sister could! Actually, she's been thinking of going into cosmetology. 

Holly: Really? 

Moriah: And she cuts our dog's hair.

Holly: Well, that's comforting. 

Scene 3. Husband walks onto deck, pauses for a moment, walks back into house, calling to wife through the doorway.

Husband: Honey, did we buy this pink van on the deck? 

Wife: What? 

Husband: This pink van on the deck, did we buy it?

Wife: What van? 

Husband: This van, on the deck? 

Wife: It's a car.

Husband: It's a van.

Wife: It's a car. 

EVERETT RUESS

"I have been thinking more and more that I shall always be a wanderer of the wilderness. God, how the trail lures me. You cannot comprehend its resistless fascination for me. After all the lone trail is the best...I'll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I'll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.

The beauty of the this country is becoming part of me. I feel more detached from life and somehow gentler. ...I have some good friends here, but no one who really understands why I am here or what I do. I don't know of anyone, though, who would have more than a partial understanding; I have gone too far alone. 
I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly.

In my wanderings this year I have taken more chances and had more wild adventures than ever before. And what magnificent country I have seen--wild, tremendous wasteland stretches, lost mesas, blue mountains rearing upward from the vermilion sands of the desert, canyons five feet wide at the bottom and hundreds of feet deep, cloudbursts roaring down unnamed canyons, and hundred of houses of the cliff dwellers, abandoned a thousand years ago."

Ruess was twenty when he died in 1934. 

AND THEN

We were strangers. 

I WILL NAME YOUR BABIES

After much forethought, I have come to the decision to start up my own private practice. 

An entrepreneurial practice to lift the burden of naming the next generation from the backs of hormonal women in the midst of their pregnancies. With baby name books crowding us at every shelf with their 50,001+ lists in search of the perfect name, let me rid your pregnant self from this time-consuming, indecisive-decision-making that will affect the rest of your baby's future and success and spouse and career and confidence and personality and life and most importantly, destiny.

(Please take a prolonged peek at the below presentation of my professional portfolio displaying my work.)

Baby before being named. 

Baby after being named Marisol Juju.

This is another baby. 

This is the same baby after being named Creeley Kitkat.

Here is another baby.

Here is that same little character after being named Hambro IV.

Unnamed baby.

Puffer face after being named Grama Moses.

Baby before.

Baby after.

Please contact me to set up a trial-free consultation for $50 (not including the $25 minimum entry fee) at bestbabynamer@gmail.com

(Disclaimer: I do not promise that you or your baby will be happy with the name I will choose, and I do not in any situation, accept being sued. Donations are acceptable. Also, I am offering a limited time offer for twins, a buy-one, get-one free deal, including middle names! Offer expires as soon as I say so. )

TIRED THOUGHTS IN THE LAMPLIGHT

It is almost past midnight. I should really go to bed: wake up early, taste the dewy morning air and read with rested eyes, in one hand, an earthy mug of green tea, my Bible in the other, her pages wrinkled and tearing. But I cannot fall asleep, not now, not when my heart is beating like this; this story burning in me. 

Do you know, that when I write, I follow my thoughts outloud in my deepest voice, think; the weedy patches of grass between the edges of a gravel road. Perhaps too low for a woman who is not in her 50s nor a chain smoker, honestly, that's probably why I don't talk in it often, but I find it silly, when it is so comfortable and natural. Though I do sing in it. Good grief. 

Today, I met a friend to discuss a film project, which I am very passionate about and am awed at how details and people are pulling together Divinely. As we walked around the MOA, we watched people--thousands of faces, stories buried inside. I sat and read the faces best I could; just bits and pieces really, wishing somehow that my intuition and imagination would catch snag of a thread and tear one open, (not the person open of course, but the story, just so we're clear). I wish that I could sit and listen to those hearts speak and spill, those hearts, so many broken, diseased, calloused, wary, lonely, bitter, distant, lost, betrayed, doubtful, soft, searching, protective, ready, fearful, crippled, hopeful, stone... I wish I could sit and listen. For hours, my eyes on theirs, and absorb what they have to say, whatever it may be, even if the words are cruel, but just sit there, listening, not speaking, yet perhaps. 

I really should go to bed... these tired thoughts.

But I will sit here, at this lopsided desk, with its oddly carved designs that I had thought masterfully done, drink the silken night air spilling in from the cracked window, and write, and talk in my low voice to no one in particular, release this burning in fragile words that together creates something much more powerful.

TILL THE SUN TURNS BLACK

This ocean of whispering strands, the green collecting into waves, pooling around feet. Wind to rattle leaves and brush burnt skin into shivers. Their vows at the foot of the cross. Orange sunset at the dock with Esther, the stories we've been telling. Dandelion smoke to purple ash. Earthy dark roast with an aftertaste of skunk. Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer. Housewarming party in a cramped IKEA kitchen with Swedish wine. Mirrors in the gravel, the cross, the Ozone layers peeled away. 20 seconds of unforgotten courage. Cutting rocks, dams to build, falls to climb. That pigskin scent. Bonfire chants, laughs between the wet smoke. Our jumbled accents spilling into each other. Micah carried by the current, slipping in until soaked, head back in contagious laugh. Northern Lights across the river while we slept. Sardines, huddled in the van, fogging the windows. New recipes I could never duplicate. Their new apartment, sprawled out to laugh and joke between the couches. Quilt of dandelions. Mary Poppins, a new profession. The Lost Boys of Minnehaha Falls. His unfailing. Summer Shandy to share around the fire. Brainstorm sessions for film project. Discovering long-lost Air Jordans in a box. Hide n go seek in 15 seconds. Pharaoh, Delilah & Jezebel, the new smoky lounge Billie Holiday. The sun against the forest's edge. Love and war, and the sea in between. Waking up to rain on my face. Amish Swag & Co. Early morning giggle sessions. Lacing shoes to chase the black storm, colliding with a rainbow on the otherside. The golden hour over the lake, lantern lit and sent till ashen. Not caring about the rain being cold and soaking through clothes. Creaking doors of abandoned home, locks unlatched, hand to hold in the dark. Thunder for music. Armful of lilacs. Volleyball bruises. Taylor's Falls, following the river, bouldering the rockfaces. Phone call from Kentucky. Claddagh ring on her right thumb.

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough." -Melody Beattie