Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Loving the King

I have no idea how to be in love with Jesus.

I am rendered useless when it comes to loving nearly anything at all, much less the King of all heaven who ransomed my heart and my soul, my life and my mind—but how could one so perfect, so holy and whole, ever desire my affection or need my heart’s embrace? When I think about Jesus—my imperfect, distant, flawed, speculative knowledge of his person and character—all I can think of is how dimly I grasp his goodness. And how utterly ill-equipped I am to respond even to that.

From what I know about Jesus—from what I understand about things I’ve heard other people say, things I’ve experienced and read—what echoes in my soul, the deep calling out to deep, is his utter goodness. He is good. He is rich and holy and wise and smart and playful and sweet and persistent. He is respected and feared but tender and kind. He wants to hear everything I have to say and is never frustrated by or disappointed in me. He gives the best advice and tells the funniest jokes and is the safest company I’ll ever keep. He knows me better than anyone will ever know me, and loves me better than anyone will ever love me.

He is good. He is good. And yet with all this, with all he has saved me from and given me, I have no idea how to love him.

How feeble my attempts seem, and how frequently I fail as I blunder in my affections and selfish, short-sighted grace. All I can do is hold out my hands in the darkness.

Find me. Please find me. You who ransomed my heart and mind, make known to me the path of life. Let me love you. Help me love you.

There is nothing I am less good at than love. I am far better in competition than in love. I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than I am at figuring out how to love another. I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way. And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily— open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride. (Eugene Peterson)

Help me. Help me be in love with you.

Brooklyn

I went to Brooklyn tonight. Stood on a rooftop with the gentle late-summer breeze ruffling my hair, taking in what was quite possibly the most stunning view I’ve seen since moving to New York. The lights stretched from La Guardia’s air traffic control tower in Queens, all the way past the Chrysler and Empire State, down through the Battery and across the Brooklyn Bridge. I left the party as my eyes grew heavy, and went and stood in the sticky hot subway station waiting for the train to come.

Brooklyn is wonderful, I thought. More and more people flooded the platform, and everyone was creative and interesting and glowing with youth and excitement and late-summer heat. The man with the guitar had a tambourine around one ankle and a ring of homemade wooden bells on the other, and he strummed and stomped along to “Hotel California” and “Brown-Eyed Girl” as the crowd grew denser. 45 minutes later my feet were hurting, still no train, and the station was closing. We all rose to the sidewalk, spreading in clusters to street corners to fight for taxis, or to line up for the shuttle. I walked blocks and blocks and blocks and finally flagged down an off-duty cab.

“Are you available?” I asked. He nodded. “You going into the city?” He nodded again. I got in, feet weary, ready for sleep. “You’re my hero,” I sighed.

“And you are my heroine,” he replied.

New York is wonderful.

Rock Me Like a Hurricane, Day 2/2

So that was it. After tossing fitfully for hours last night I finally drifted off to sleep right as Irene rolled into town. I heard a few whistling whines, a howling wind or two, and when I woke at noon she was all but gone.

Spent the day inside watching footage of news anchors up to their ankles in water somewhere in Long Island, baked cookies, and did not watch the Friday Night Lights I promised yesterday because sometimes your heart just isn't ready. Don't push it.

After the worst of the winds died down, I pulled on my jeans (WHICH-- sidebar: either I am wasting away or said jeans have gotten significantly larger, because... well, I literally had to hold them up to keep them on. Like, two steps hands-free and they were threatening to hit the concrete) and grabbed my camera before darting outside to get some pictures of the last of this hurricane sky. The light was fading, so I had to move quickly, but I managed to take over a hundred photos in about half an hour. It was liberating to be outside with the wind still blowing ferociously, scattered little rain drops sprinkling my face tilted toward the pink and purple sky beneath my camera. Pretty wonderful.

This doesn't have anything to do with Irene, but I discovered it while I was out and thought it was pretty cool.

Hello Hurricane, Day 1/2

Well. Today couldn't have gone any better unless I'd spent it making out. ...Oops.

(Goal for day 2...)

My activities for the day included, but were not limited to, the following:

**Packaging up and mailing back a gold sequined evening gown (!) that was perfect, but for the 2-3" gap between the bottom of said dress and the floor. Le sigh. #tallgirlproblems

**Hand washing all my sheets and pillowcases in the bathtub. This is not for the faint of heart. I felt like a pioneer woman, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my wrist as I churned that king-size fitted sheet and the pillowcases for my unnamed number of pillows in the sudsy, near-scalding water. Then I let them soak for a few hours before running downstairs to plop them in the rickety old washing machine for a final spin. (This was where my visions of wooden washboards and damp tendrils ended, in case you were wondering.) BUT! I cannot begin to describe to you how gloriously sparkling clean my sheets are, rendering my big bed on par with an oversized, plush hospital gurney. With a satin and feather throw pillow. Natch.

**Coming up with witty/ vaguely inappropriate tweets and status updates, of which I used one on Facebook and more than I'd like to admit on Twitter. (There's a reason the latter is protected.)

...Aaaaaaand, that's it! Some cleaning, some cooking, some puttering around on Pinterest and the like... On deck for tomorrow is cookie baking and probably more Friday Night Lights than one person should watch in one sitting. But, you know, SOMEBODY'S got to make sure Riggins gets into college...

See you tomorrow.

Psalm 45

Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear:
Forget your people and your father’s house;
Then the King will desire your beauty.
Because He is your Lord, bow down to Him.
The daughter of Tyre will come with a gift;
The rich among the people will seek your favor.

The King’s daughter is all glorious within;
Her clothing is interwoven with gold.
She will be led to the King in embroidered work;
The virgins, her companions who follow her,
Will be brought to You.
They will be led forth with gladness and rejoicing;
They will enter into the King’s palace.

In place of your fathers will be your sons;
You shall make them princes in all the earth.

I will cause Your name to be remembered in all generations;
Therefore the peoples will give You thanks forever and ever.

The Hearth

"Resettled farm child. From Taos Junction to Bosque Farms project, New Mexico."

Dorothea Lange, December 1935

I saw this photo of a little girl in the Depression today. Delicate slouched socks, hunched back, crumbling fireplace facade all bathed in shafts of sunshine glow. And my quiet heart said, "How nice it would be to have your outsides match your insides."

Jealous. Something in me was softly, sweetly jealous of this little girl.

In no way do I mean to negate the pain of her circumstance, or somehow elevate my own agony above her own, but in an odd way I thought it must be nice to have everything around you, all physical representations, in line with how your heart is feeling. Instead I sleep in a big bed, put on mascara and fill in my eyebrows and touch up my lip gloss, pull on my jeans, walk to work and sit at a desk in a well-lit office with a nice view, chat with friends, banter, laugh, eat ice cream, go back to my big bed... And all the while I feel like that lost, forlorn little girl. I have no ragged bench to huddle on, no cold coals to stare into with impunity. Instead I stare into the soft glow of my computer screen and feel my heart still slowly breaking, broken, broke.

"How nice it would be to have your outsides match your insides." Have some obvious, out-in-front, red flag-raising reason for feeling the way you do. Something that sends people with soft hands and kind words and warm hearts rushing to your aide. But my lip gloss/banter/ice cream combo brings no aide.

So I sit, in my heart, by the crumbled hearth and dream of what life was and how awful that it isn't here any more. And think that maybe someday, whether here or somewhere else, this hearth will have new life.