and i find myself wanting emmanuel to be to the most real word there is.

i finally wrote it down yesterday and that was enough evidence for me. words looking back at me confirming what i've been stirring up dust clouds to avoid: i am scared.

i know you. or rather, i knew you. and its strange to know someone, to have another name be such a pivot marker in my life, and thoughts, and plans and then, removed & uprooted. i wonder sometimes if moving to california was an experiment to see how many tent pegs i could remove from my tarp before the circus came. as it turns out, this was a fairly large peg.

with my corners wildly catching the wind, i wonder one question all the time, what comes next? the answers are clouded by all the same twenty-three year old doubts i've been taking shelter from all year.

i know you; you'd like an answer for all of this, don't like chaos caused for you, don't like the instability of it. i promise you a drink at the end of it, and we will silently toast to one another.

i'm the happiest mckinniss girl there ever was.

true love wins.

eeeeeeeeeeeee! love!

oh, i'm bursting with so much joy and relief and gratitude and desire fulfilled is the tree of life.

go team go!

A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. (isaiah 42)

The whole hope right now is that he will not snuff me out. i am a smoldering wick, an ember faintly glowing. i am not ablaze, nor do i feel much passion, nor can i muster up much energy to seek his face. life has been windy and hard and i'm tired and listless.

i imagine my life in metaphors and stories to better understand it. i paint a picture book to give my days meaning and my experiences validation. these days have pictures of ripping off dead grape vines from the main branch. or then i see big boulders being thrown out of the way. and sometimes i see myself getting lost in a very big forest.

and i feel all of these things, i feel both lost and relief and pruned. and, i feel like a smoldering wick.

its nice to remember that he will not snuff me out.

i have lived in california for over a year now.

when my brother was just getting serious about painting, he used the same two colors all the time. hot pink, and cobalt blue. i remember one painting specifically. i remember when he painted it, when it hung on his wall, when it moved to michael's house and when, just last year after the snow storm cancelled my birthday we delivered it to a buyer right before our dinner.

it was cobalt blue, and in a bottom corner there was a pair of his dark-rimmed glasses, and a faint reflection of them behind. somewhere else on the canvas was the caption, scribbled: "what did i think these would do?"

i never understood the painting. what did you think what was going to do? what expectations could he have had for glasses?

six years later i'm living across the country from my family, from the little ones, wondering, "what did i think it was going to do?"

and all god keeps saying is 'i see you i see you i see you, i saw you i saw you i saw you.' and peace, and peace and peace.

and all i keep doing is shaking and bawling and saying more even when i don't want more because i know i don't want anything else but more. (more jesus, more).

its good to finally come to a place in my heart where i can rest. it has been so long without rest. it has been too long without rest.

and maybe that's all a person needs in the midst of transition is peace, and joy, and the overwhelming hope that its going to be better than it was before. and that's enough right now for me not to waver.

he sees me, he sees me, he sees me.

i have a sense that it is important to write about difficult experiences in the midst of them in order to add clarity. and, likewise, it may be important to write about drudgery in the midst of it in order to add significance: my world keeps going, words are assigned to it; this day will not be forgotten.

life has shifted in the last month & i have no more plans. that is a really scary thing for me. and one of my plans involved the rest of my life and an important person and i'm still working out why i gave that up. i think that maybe some decisions take a little bit of time to understand.

like moving to california. i lived the story of why i came out here, i felt confident enough to abandon life and move west and yet i'm still working out why i did that.

i'm slightly embarrassed about life right now. the quietness of my heart, my reluctance, my lack, my anxiety. but, i keep shedding. i keep choosing to shed. plans and decisions and sensible moves are incomprehensible to me. but, in the midst of moulting there is deep peace, my heart bathed in fresh water, my soul refreshed, drawn in.

this is what i have right now, this is what i have to give. my hesitations and my half-heartedness and my questions. i am not who i am not.

this peace is good though, and i want more. and i, in the midst of my lukewarm soul, am someone who can love. this is something.

Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.

i am, of course, aware of the power of sex, the allure, the comfort of fingers finding each other, the draw of sweet pleasure.

i am equally aware of the fascination of bodies. my body can move like this, and yours like that. i am aware of why we stare, peer in deeper, want.

and rather than dismiss it, i desire beauty in all things. i desire hearts naked in front of one each other. i accept that there is power in it.

i like my skin, and i like yours. i like how our skin fits so snug around our organs, around our deepest insides, around our selves, in however you find a self, there is skin around it.

i build wallpaper boundaries around me to ensure the sense of alone is safe. to ensure that i can live in two places. to hope to have pure desire. to be found clean, present, ready.

phillipians

i feel that i must say that up until last year, i did not enjoy reading the bible. but, i read phillipians today and everything in my heart felt like dust. but, the good kind of dust. the kind that might nourish a flower.

it dawned on me that today is a day in june. and june marks the sixth month of the year, the half-way point of 2011. and in the beginning of 2011, i asked the Lord and the Lord told me that this would be a year of consecration. and for the very first months i tried very hard to isolate myself so that i might be consecrated. and then i tried very hard to be consecrated in the midst of life. neither of these strategies worked. first, because i hate isolation and it kills my soul, and second because just joining life has nothing to do with consecration. and, in my case, it did the very opposite.

and so, here i am in june. in general, i feel lost in the midst of it. not sure of what i'll do next in terms of jobs, careers, location. but even more, unsure of how my relationships will turn out, unsure of where the Lord will take me, unsure of my own capabilities and passion. i am finding that it is hard to be a missionary without passion, and it is hard to have passion. i am also finding that it is hard to love humans, because humans have real blood, real flaws.

and i got lost today in phillipians. remembering again that i am dependent and i am dust. and my consecration, my holiness, is not something that i can put on myself. and i am learning that in order to live, i must die.

this is not something that i think about very often, how to die. but i think that it is something i would like to do often. because, what a beautiful savior who suffered so that he might be the source of eternal salvation. or as peter says, 'since christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.' or, as paul puts it in phillipians, dying with christ that i might have his righteousness.

reading this and thinking that sometimes it is enough to say shit, finding my way toward heaven is a lot like finding my way toward the cross.

on being unemployed

the days have come and gone since i have sat to write. words disapear in the sunshine; words are for winter and for rain. it has almost been a full year since i moved to california. i did not expect to be staying. i just recently changed my driver's lisence. now i am here. now california recognizes me. i can even vote, though, i still probably will not do such a thing.

there have been few seasons in the weather, but my heart changed course a couple of times. i joined staff with IRIS Central Coast. i don't know what this means, except that i want to be more like these people, and so now i am responsible to them. i lost my job because the lovely people of San Luis Obispo thought my New England face did not shine enough. i was born in rocks; i keep digging.

i'm not sure who i am reduced to when i have nothing to do. my days are marked by simple responsibilities, little nothings to look forward to. i struggle. i am in the midst of struggle. i wonder where rent and food will come from, but those are only the beginning questions. my anxiety rises at 2:30's in the afternoon when i wonder, what do i amount to? what can my time account for? what, really, am i good for, and how will i possibily fill up any more days like this one? i do not like many questions, because somedays i am only hanging on.

isn't this the fear of all of humanity? i participate in it these days. all of us knowing we were made for purpose, all of us desperate to grasp the elusive answer. i go forward, scared.

words, children, teaching, Spirit, love, france: make room for me. oh please, make room.

ephesians 5:18

giving up drink in search of more of the holy spirit.

thirsty soul.

and then i thought,

more magic, more delight, more joy.

there are very few things i remember about the brief time i lived in morocco. washing my clothes by hand, snail soup, roses. roses on the dining table, lining the streets. everyday i saw a rose. someone would hand me one, a stranger, a friend.

i have been lonely, lately.

everyday i sit at my desk, answering emails for work and life, and look out at my lavender, almost in bloom. i do my best to surround my sense with lavender. the scent of choice for my soap, deodorant, perfume, ice cream. i want the calm, the serene of it. i want the maternity of lavender, the peace of it.

today, sporadically, i burst into tears. from exhaustion, from too many people, too many obligations, from not enough love. i have been lonely for love. too many friends live too far away. a heart cut in pieces and handed to corners of the earth. and here, in this new corner, feeling the newness again, the wonder again, the adjustment to a culture not-mine.

i like when paul says this: "now i know in part; then i shall know fully, even as i am fully known." and i cry out, know me!

so, today i bought rose soap. because i need to bathe in his intimacy. i need to break from meeting so many days and remember that he loves me, because he loves me, because he loves me. which is another thing i learned in morocco.

liturature, humanity, goodness.

i am cal.

the beauty of literature, the profundity of recorded words, is humanity. finding myself wrapped in the words of another, the common experience.

and, when cal pleads in his bed, 'i want to be good', he is pleading for me too. echoing me. my thoughts. this is where genius lies, i think. not in something new, but something old. echoing our ancient thoughts. making them known to us, for us.

i do not believe i've ever made a sacrifice.

it is lent. fasts broken three days in. no stamina. no suffering.

i do not believe i've ever gone without.

i hate this freedom. the choice. the ability to walk away. i hate this freedom to cover myself in my own filth. this is not why he set us free. this is not it. couldn't be. not even sure he wants us to be able to see how bad we can be, the x-rays of our hearts. not sure he wants us to look upon our own decay until, like dorian, we cannot keep living.

do not leave me alone. i do not know how to be good without you next to me. no one has ever shown me. keep your leash on me, abandon my freedom, fetter me, bind me, wholely. do not let me out of your sight, your reach. trip me, punch me, ravish me, until i stop, i am yours, i choose no, i say yes to you, and mean it. beat my no's out. love my sin out of me.

have no goodness in me, except when you look at me.

want to love what you love, hate what you hate. return to innocence, erase memory, unlearn how to sin.

do not let me out of your sight.

yellow bicycle

The Yellow Bicycle

BY ROBERT HASS

The woman I love is greedy,
but she refuses greed.
She walks so straightly.
When I ask her what she wants,
she says, “A yellow bicycle.”

.

Sun, sunflower,
coltsfoot on the roadside,
a goldfinch, the sign
that says Yield, her hair,
cat’s eyes, his hunger
and a yellow bicycle.

.

Once, when they had made love in the middle of the night and
it was very sweet, they decided they were hungry, so they got up,
got dressed, and drove downtown to an all-night donut shop.
Chicano kids lounged outside, a few drunks, and one black man
selling dope. Just at the entrance there was an old woman in a
thin floral print dress. She was barefoot. Her face was covered
with sores and dry peeling skin. The sores looked like raisins and
her skin was the dry yellow of a parchment lampshade ravaged by
light and tossed away. They thought she must have been hungry
and, coming out again with a white paper bag full of hot rolls,
they stopped to offer her one. She looked at them out of her small
eyes, bewildered, and shook her head for a little while, and said,
very kindly, “No.”

.

Her song to the yellow bicycle:
The boats on the bay
have nothing on you,
my swan, my sleek one!

iris.

the two best decisions of my life were born out of desperation. they were also moves. at eighteen i moved to scotland, at twenty-two to california. both were out of the need for more love, more jesus.

two of the hardest decisions i've ever made involved staying. college was not my favorite place, and every semester we all questioned whether i would make it any longer. college was kind of like holding my breath, or writing only with my right hand (i'm a lefty), or other hard tasks that challenge any and all of my weaknesses.

and now i live in california, and i just chose to stay. this decision was not born out of any voice of the L-RD, but rather, much like college, my own reasoning. i take comfort in the verse in Acts, "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to them". it seems good to stay. and, i'm not just staying, i'm joining. i am now a missionary on the Central Coast of California with an organization called Iris Ministries. i did not feel any particular call from the L-RD, but rather, the very obvious lining up of me and all that i care about and all of my goals and all of my hopes, particularly for paris echoed in the dna of this little clan that is a planting from a much larger clan in Mozambique. and, probably i will go to mozambique next summer, and i can't say that i've ever wanted to go there before, or that i've ever particularly wanted to love orphans, but i have always wanted to love more. and so, this is what i'm going to do, because it seems good to me and to the Holy Spirit.

and furthermore, i am happy. how many days in a week to i announce to someone, "i'm just so happy!" more than one, and that is more than before. and i'm not just happy, i love. i love jesus with a giddyness that both surprises me and embarrasses me, and now i'm getting ready to position myself to let him give me his roar, because i can feel myself practicing.

i came to the conclusion years ago that my choice was just as valid as the L-RD's direct call, particularly when i'm choosing things that lead me closer to his face. and his face, or L-RD, i will seek. and so, here i go. this is the very unknown, and the very reflection of everything my ten year old heart who decided to be a missionary hoped for.

and i think very seriously that it will lead me to paris or africa, or i will stay put and be a mom and have babies in california who love jesus. all options are okay by me.

transitions

when on the verge of transition, i always stall a child. ideas pump through my mind's veins and i cry yes! yes! but here i am again when ideas want to take form in bones and thoughts and walked out places. and this transition, too, is worse - moving from visitor, respite, patient, to resident, member, here. it comes out of places of passion and asks me to stay for what's hard. i do not much like what's hard, nor do i much like staying.

and, i'm asking, is this where i thought i'd be? does this line up with who i am, with life's vision. when i'm praying in the corner, weeping for the people i have not met yet, will this take me there? i have deep george baily fears that i'll be always packing my suitcase and never on getting on the train. i want to die in paris. i want to have births pangs in paris.

but, YHWH is moving here, and i'm saying yes, yes to whatever he puts before me before he puts it there. i am standing on concrete truths that whatever he has is good, where ever he goes is good. i am crying like moses, i'll go if you go, (i'll stay if you stay). prayers look like more hunger, more passion, more love, more jesus. more abandonment. heart cries creep and i shout no! death to self, only jesus. only more jesus. talking heads are easier than faithful hearts. talking heads shout at my harlot heart. get back to your faithful lover!

and i'm afraid of what that might look like. i'm afraid of abandoning my libraries or how hard it will be to love a real live breathing dirty person. people are dirty and its best, really, for me to keep them at my independent distance. and now here i go and become a missionary even before i'm in paris and the prayer is lower still. which means things like uglier still, less of me still, dirtier still, harder still. the low road that leads to jesus is hard.

and, people are asking for my commitment. do not give up on us for two years, can you promise that? abandon independence and love with us for two years. well, i am afraid to promise that.

Father's Love - The Inheritance - Graham Cooke

last night this ruined me. weeping on the floor and we played it over and over and every time i blubbered and my heart opened and opened and opened. and its truth and i don't get it, but its the kind of truth that washes over me when i am tired and feels like pure tennessee mountain water.

because he loves me. and that's what that is. oh its so good to learn freedom.

and days later i get embarrassed because sometimes i get giddy over jesus. what a good G-D. how much more i want to learn. how his easy yoke feels like something. like something good.


(this is for you, too.)

i wondered this today (just now):

is my sense of time hindered by my climate? are my lack of seasons negatively affecting my motivation? time seems to never be changing, because january felt a lot like october felt a lot like july. time goes so slowly. we are a city, sitting in a sailboat, rocking back and forth, unsure of where we placed our compass.

spirit move, spirit move. we broke our fast and we feasted. wedding feasts with our bridegroom on the beach and in our homes and wine and champagne and chocolate and meats and cheese flowing. good things. ddc & i celebrated yesterday and then Breakthrough! the spirit moves through confession and honesty and he forgives and i want to learn how to too. It was good. There is life here. and today, sabbath rest on the beach with lizzy dear. the spirit moves & the spirit loves.

-----

the last time i was in california i was begging. i begged jesus to change the man i loved. change is heart so we can love each other. make it okay. graft your will around mine.

lately, there has been a deep shift. a deep submission. in this year of consecration i am learning to say, my emotions are below your thoughts. my emotions are not as important as your will. who i love or why or what i want does not matter. his said this is a year alone, so i am engaging in alone. and in the obedience, there is freedom. no need to worry about the future or my wants or conflict. there is simply a yes.

and in that, in the bending of my will to his. in the forgetting my wants for his. i am learning this, i want, above all, what he wants.

and that's becoming a fun prayer. Jesus, i don't care how i feel about this. just give me what you have.

the most tangible feeling of trust is growing in me. i know that he is good. i know that it will be good. i can give these heart feelings up for my year of alone because he is good and it will be good.

what joy in submission, in obedience, in the cross.

and this i keep coming back to - more than all of the comforts and the settled downness, more than all of my routine and all of my busy, more than all of the charms and the affections, i want him. i want my beloved.

it hits me as the evening closes down. jesus, make it so.

wanderlust

want to go

postman

hahahahahaha!

thinking out my job.

today was one of those days in which i knew that everything was perfect, even when almost nothing was perfect. romans woke me up with tears flowing from my heart. i am lovesick for him, for my beloved. and then there was so much sunshine and so much work.

there's this strange thing that's happening at work. i walk in and i begin to giggle a little bit. i smile. today i was so nervous shakey stressed and bossman hugged me. we laugh. we really like each other. i love my job.

after work there was more work - a concert, a scouting.

life in san luis is sometimes a little bit of an anthropological experiment. i'm under no delusion that it's a city, or that it has any sort of high culture, or even that its really that cool. we are not L.A., San Fran, nor New York. we are small. we are mostly wealthy and white and skinny. we are a very large clique. and it is an interesting little challenge - trying to find the scene and understand it. i've landed in an odd position, being the event manager for the best cafe in town.

how strange. how ill-fitting it sometimes feels. i don't hardly even know what goes on downtown. this friday, walking home, was the first time i'd seen bars lit up in lights, who knew they became night clubs.

and yet, tonight. watching regulars that i know by name throw themselves against other regulars in a frenzy when the music beats get going. greeting all the band members and scoping out who will play next.

at the same time that i am shmoozing and loving music and dancing with my newest pair of dancing shoes, i am watching. people becomes characters as they walk on stage. and i watch him sing and his force pour out and affect the crowds. now you will dance, now you will stomp. now you will feel happy and now you will feel anger. and i think, we are all pretending. i am watching a very well choreographed show. is this real life and if it is (which i very much doubt), how do we all seem to be the same? i cannot participate in such scenes of performance without the constant thought in the back of my mind, this is not us, really. this is just who we present ourselves to be. and i wonder, how can i, a person who craves authenticity with the deepest heart strings, be throwing myself deep into the music world, (small as it is)?

and i wonder more. how does one create some culture? how does one create space for people to be honest, true, and good (while still, of course, have more fun than normal?) the beginnings of the answer lie in my heart, waiting for me. be honest, true and good. and, start with line dancing.

no one can take themselves too seriously when the coolest cafe in town hosts line dancing.

this is what we must do.

when i ask her what she wants,

she says, ' a yellow bicycle'.

-robert hass

the second good song of the night.

so many good songs lately

stirrings & meditations

"the reason my father loves me is that i lay down my life - only to take it up again."

the selflessness of jesus, pouring in and taking out. the commands of jesus. the command of jesus. jesus is a command. the selflessness and the authority and the grace and the love. the power in a man who does not fear the cost of death at the price of love. love. the love of jesus serving. the love of dying daily only to die again only to live. the compulsion to die daily only to die only to live. the beauty of dying for another. the beauty of a love so compelling i think not of my self. do not pray for yourself, pray for others and see what happens to yourself. a game, a test with the father to experiment what his commands might mean. the desire, the deepest desire to spend more time away, more time hidden, more time with him. the feeling, the stirring, that this is all or nothing. that my life has to look differently than before. the deepest desire to be among the poor. to house the widows. to fast for the hungry. to die only to live again.

the stirrings of jesus. the beginnings of seeing a man, and why he died, and why he mattered. a man so familiar he's easy to miss. the addiction to his presence, the conviction of his name.

these things stir. john 10.10. life abundant might not mean anything about what i think it means. only to die in order to live. and, here i pray, like paul, to only know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

yes, i pray to know even that. even so i might greater know his joy.

surprises from the postman!

i have every love for the postman, my momma, and team mckinniss. now i can wear our jersey proud. i'm on this team for the long haul, it seems, so i might as well dress like the rest of them.

(in my frenzy to take a picture, i forgot that my scarf didn't match. my floor is littered in scarves. movementphotos.)

songs of the week.

and this one - etta james, i want to be loved. which i could only find on some russian youtube.

nesting

there are a good many things that make it worth coming home at night.

pretty hooks to hang up pretty things.

other hooks. and the most perfect coming home sweater.

chanel no. 5 & i finally found my fish's pair.

postcards from abroad and a rose on top of my school's coaster.

i found old things to make me feel at home.

christina's world, lavender, and jo march's chronicles.

my favorite team is now bi-coastal.

my mother once told me that i have no problem pleasing my soul. she was not condemning me, but rather affirming me. this room is full of all the of the good things that i love and love to look at. it makes me want to take my coat off and stay awhile. what a good thing, nesting is.

it comes in waves and heat waves.

there is something in christianity that demands my presence. i must be here. i am sitting on a real chair and typing at a real desk and just finished writing a real letter. ink on paper and flowing words to form an expression of a real friendship that i have. presence is real.

there are times in california that i must fight to engage in the dirt earth world around me. times that i must fight to not pick up another book and must not stare off into thoughts as i am driving down the same road. the road that i take home when i am tired of the highway. california is a real place and then occasionally i remember that i live here. people actually live here. places are no longer distant thoughts but ground that i walk on.

i am learning to be present in my job. to smile when i am thinking of something else. when i get choke caught up in anxious worries. when i am heart sick. i am learning to think about other real hearts that are beating on the other side of a counter who long for something. i am asking to know their longings too. to be so present that i might know their presence too.

and there is something to G-D who demands my presence. who walks into my shame heart hung low posture that i have been carrying and unloading and carrying for sometime and demands me to look up and demands me not to strive and demands me not to try, but also demands me to try. be. there is a real being in the person of Jesus and there is a real being in his holy spirit companion and he wants my being. and he sat on chairs and i am sitting on one.

in some ways this is hopeful. Jesus perhaps had a sore back and pinched nerve that woke him up in tears and so perhaps he might know how to run his fingers down my spine in such a way that the pain that is taking over the left side might not do that anymore. in other ways this is terrifying. he is not a thing that maybe i created one day -- the safe corner in my imagination where i run to so that i can breathe on the days that i am particularly sad, or anxious, or over feeling. he is not a voice that will echo back to me all of the niceties and pleasantries that make me feel as though i am not at fault.

he is not those things. he is something that i don't quite understand.

a man.

a god.

i do not understand either of those creatures. i am a woman, not even close to a demi-god much less the incarnate living-being from whom all other living beings have their source. i may have three or at most ten living beings that draw their source from me at one point in time but even then, i am not a god. i am just a woman who is at times afraid of men and G-D and at other times loves men but not G-D and in other days loves G-D and cannot see men or can see them and is afraid of them or maybe sometimes hates them a little. these are the things that i am, some of them.

but his presence, like my shame in one sense but not in many others, comes in waves and heat waves. and i want it to be real. present. and i too, want to be real. present.

and this is why we eat body and blood and this is why we pray ABBA and this is why we shake and cry and sometimes we laugh, and i would like to laugh more. and this is sometimes why its better to eat body and blood over meat and dairy and all good foods because we are starving for his presence. i am starving for his presence.

so hungry for his love that is real and matters because it walked on water over waves and heat waves of shame and other such destructive things.

consecration

january started on a monday evening in december. buried in a basement i cried wearing the weight of guilt. oh YWHW make it better.

make me clean, make me clean.

Late Ripeness, Czeslaw Milosz

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

this is the winter

i am accustomed to the coldest winters. i am familiar with winds that sting and steal my breath. i am accustomed to steal winds. i only know winter to be a struggle.

winter on the east was a struggle. there were demons and dragons to fight off. i have found something rather remarkable about the L-RD. He very rarely marks me by my failures. I have found that in my most recent heartaches for holiness there are fights. there are fights within myself, cutting off heart-limbs that have lived so long for comfort. and i have found that in my failures, he whispers something of pride, encouragement, a keep going. there is company here, i think. (woman, you have had too many lovers. go and sin no more. let me give you drink never ending. woman you have met the messiah.)

and then i flew westward with his promises written on my heart. (woman, i will make you mine. i will make you look like me.) new years eve i woke up in my favorite room in california and for the first time in a long time, felt light. my heart secured only by balloon strings. and then the drive back -- i realized it again. i am so happy here. there is so much hope living in these hills.

it has been raining here. we are flooded and it is still pouring. but, on my drive home on the stretch of highway that runs along the pacific and looks down on the cliffs to my left and the hills to the right, i realize that california has never been more beautiful. the grey clouds brooding over the ocean and the breakers crashing on the cliffs and the coves and ragged coast line and the light that only sometimes breaks through, its all to my left. and the hills and valleys undulating, sprouting green and bursting life and looking like hidden mysteries waiting to be discovered, to my right. and it seems as though california has turned into ireland or new zealand. it seems as though california is magic.

and it seems strange to be aware of so much life in the winter. this is the winter where it rained and we came to life.