French Christmas

From the Palms

One year ago, my palms were filled with hope, regrets, denial, anger, sadness. I wrapped these unshakable human things in the stiff green fronds they gave us. We bent them into elaborate bows and braids and crucifixes before they were taken away to be burned, to be broken down into something simpler, something basic, something from source.

Today I wear them on my forehead to remember what I walked out of, to remember where I am going.

 

PS Even prayer cards have Four Square badges these days!

Happy Mardi Gras!

It's like an alarm clock went off in my mouth.

I like that today my tastebuds instinctively crave Pazcki, that taste of home that I recall (that we all recall in one form or another) from childhood, and that I also imagine being slowly etched into my DNA by generation after generation after generation.

I like it when my body knows things before my mind does. That my cravings know what time of year it is. That like those bulbs and buds just beginning to stir under the surface of this frozen ground, my body is preparing me, waking me up from a startled sleep, calling out that it's almost time.

The Writer’s Riddle

In that iconic act of catching fireflies and placing them softly in Mason jars, every once in awhile your chubby, little-kid fingers slip. I know it has happened to me. I grasped too hard at one of those miniature lightning bolts and simultaneously crushed its fragile body and my own heart.

Whatever that ephemeral glow was made of smeared on my fingers and beamed out, translucent, for a few seconds before it quickly faded like an ember in the fireplace.

So it is for writers, or at least it is for me, in this endless struggle to snatch at those quicksilver sparks of geniuses that flit about in the corners of the mind. I can see them amidst the trees, I chase, I leap, I trip and land on my knees, I fumble or worst of all, I kill the messenger.

It is frustrating and often futile. Sometimes what you catch isn’t what you expected at all— it’s a horsefly, a wasp, a black widow.

But in rare moments, when everything works and you don’t have to chase it, when the lightning bugs chose to land in your palm or crawl agreeably into that glass jar, you can place it next to your bed and it will light your way all through the night.

A Virtual Valentine’s Day Party

Happy Valentine’s Day, dear ones. Happy scent-of-lilies-and-roses-in-the-hallway. Happy-surprise-hot-pink-envelope-waiting-in-the-mailbox. Happy-dark-chocolate-melting-on-your-tongue-and-sending-your-tastebuds-into-a-riot-or-a-swoon.

Remember that feeling in grade school, when you got to pick out your very own Spiderman (or Strawberry Shortcake) Valentine cards? And you and your classmates decorated little mailboxes that hung on the front of your desk, waiting to be filled up with cards? I wish you that feeling today. Today is all about love. And one of my biggest loves, my great light and obsession, is being here and writing and hearing what you all have to say. So thank you for visiting, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment and a note and your thoughts. Each and every one is like a letter in that mailbox I made so many years ago.  So here’s my valentine for you, a little list of my favorite love links hanging out there on the interwebs:

The World’s Most Romantic Public Art (via @kimsamsin)

I don’t know why, but Victorian Valentine’s Day cards are my favorite.

The 10 Greatest Kisses in Literature (For the record, I strongly disagree with “Lolita” being mentioned here).

Why I Can’t Listen to Enya (via @janedevin)

I think I posted this once before, but I'll post it again. If this isn't a Valentine's Day story, I don't know what is.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Astrology

On the day I was born, two fish passed overhead in a river of stars. Although they were going in opposite directions, they stopped and looked back, and now they are forever swimming in opposite directions even as they reach for each other’s tails.

I say this now because I am feeling the shift of the rivers in me, I am feeling the currents push against one another, the way you feel them tug at the rudder of a ship in sticky seas. The resistance is the thickest just before the tide turns.