You must never be frightened love, no never
The sun beams there at the corner of your mouth
Darkness rolls back in a wave where you point
It washes in
It washes in
But every time you send it back

You believed that only to see me was to know me
That in the crook of my neck, somewhere at the corner of my mouth
Was the doorknob, was the threshold
Was an easy answer
A smile worn so many times it was a second skin
I see what you think behind your tired eyes
That maybe I could have been a sweet salvation
That maybe I could be the reprieve that fell just before the gun rose
A hallelujah that tore from your throat in the final hour
But I am my own
No more a lifeboat, no more an innocence you lost
Than I am a make-believe
A pretend girl
Who speaks the gentlest word
Who bears all things with soft soft patience
I have razor blade corners
I have dark molten pools
And bent at the waist willow arms
I know you
And your empty easy jokes and your honeysuckle nothings
Your pleas for attention
I hear what you say behind what you're saying
And I answer back lilting and false naive
I can play the game you invented
Where I am only a ghost
Only a light in the dark
Only the little stranger you once told yourself you knew

Ah little stubborn-headed starsnatcher
Drinker from the deep
I see you
A bluebird in a glass house
A lark in a crystal cage
You might have been a watercolor painting
Bleeding colour
If I could get you to sit still for it
If I could get you to sit still for anything at all
But your legs are too long
You're always running
You're laughing over one shoulder
And crying into the other
Breathing hard the fern-swathed path
Pressing your hands into the sky

Rain on the River Valley

There is a downy silvered fog at the window early this morning
I find it wrapped around the meadow below
Here a raindrop, there a half-frozen toad on the slate steps
Only a few weeks ago I would lie still in the summer's ivy
With bumblebee's drawing too close and then humming away indignant at their mistake
I am not quite their wildflower
But if I were
I would lilt and unfurl in the heavy misted morning
Dripping the sky
Laughing all in color against the gray
Eyes wide open

Psalm 327

I thought that I wanted the forest
The leaves turning white-gold
The moss on the carpet
The trail that winds around the maples, soft
I thought that I wanted the winter
The first snowfall, December mornings
The cardinal in his jacket red
And I thought that I wanted the spring
I thought that I wanted a particular kiss
Plucked from old memories
Sweetened by time
I thought that I wanted the ocean
The plover, the sunbather
The couple picnicking near the surf
I thought that I wanted my youth
I thought that I wanted an instant pleasure
Taste of chocolate, the rasping singers voice
Long days dozing under the covers, playing at hide and seek with my life
I thought that I wanted so many things
But I was wrong
I thought that I wanted a holiday with family and friends
Tinsel and candles and starry, stark nights
I thought that I wanted my mothers voice on Christmas morning
Or a Valentine, a rose, a warmth
I thought that I wanted to change everything
Of myself, of my days, of my heart
To turn back time gently and wake from this disappointed dream
To relive all those silver moments again and again
And never advance from them
I thought that I wanted what I thought had been stolen
I thought I wanted to tear out these pages, burn the book
And try all over again, just once more
And this time I would get it right
I thought that I wanted so many things
But I was wrong
There was someone braver than me, and kinder too
Who waited patient while I tried to force my daydreams to materialize
Who understood that it wasn't the trees or the moss
It wasn't an irretrievable moment, or a laugh or a certain hand
Or light, or day, or me
That I wanted
It was
Him

Both Our Hearts are Light, Tonight

This is a potent cup
And it does not pass from us
But we cup it in our hands
We become drunk with pain, with love
But above all, with willpower
That all this shall not have been in vain
That though the tunnel has been dark
There has always been a light, at the end of it
We step into it, taller
Stronger than at the start
Battle-weary yet glad for it all
In spite of the wars we saw, the disease we fought
The emptiness which would not fill for anything,
Not with power, money, family or fame
But which we find in the end we found was a vast hole
That didn't need filling in
But for us to climb up out of it
Into the wholeness of the daylight
We see tenderly,
Our own attempts to bury ourselves alive
With warm, soft earth
With our ruinous desires
We think ourselves so brave
Brave enough even to murder our dearest friend
Us
Yes, it has all been disaster
When I go walking in the garden to whisper secrets to the flowers
There are thorns and snakes and the very little bees which
Grow the flowers
Find me offensive
And harm me
We reach out to do good wherever we can
And people we deeply adore
Tear our limbs from us
To give all that you have, is yet
Never enough
One is never safe
No decision ever spared one of us a life free of sadness
Even our beloved God's favorites
Grew old and died
With calloused feet and thirsty lips
Only hope and a gentle kiss to leave with
The best of us falter
And fail
We fight, and are petrified of the smallest things
We hide in the cities where the stars won't remind us how small we are
Each of us like a grain of sand
Which has never even seen the ocean yet
In spite of all this
I am as happy as ever
Though I suffer, oh yes
And all those I love more dearly than myself too
Every day I wake up, sleepy and tousled
To find life happening still
Flowers blooming, autumn bursting to life
Rain falling soft on the windowpane
Or sunlight calling me outdoors
Somedays I crumple and cry foul
The ways of the Maker and the Made
Oh, but I know better
In my soul of souls
Everything that burns in my sight
Is reborn more powerful, more lovely
From the healthy ash
Everyone to whom I have said goodbye
My irrepressible, beautiful God
Has said hello to, in the same moment
And both our hearts are light
Tonight

Wishes

Let's all be children today
And I'll be me
And you be you
I'll wear feathers
You bring your bracelet
We'll go wherever the warm wind
Takes us
And I'll be me
And you be you
Let's all be children today

A Few Little Thoughts a la Lulu

Well now,
I don't know always know about holidays
It doesn't always feel right
That some children get brunch in bed and kisses with Mama
And some of us wander around the springtime, alone
And that some children get cards with hearts and roses
And some of us wander around the snow fields, alone
It doesn't always feel right
That fireworks fall like stars in the air over people who aren't free, like me
I get to celebrate how independent I am, red, white and blue
But all the people my country bent to it's will don't ask God to bless America
But the thing of it is, is that good things can sometimes take a wrong turn
My beautiful continent tries hard, I know it
And it's brimming with good men and women
Mama's don't always brush hair and look forward to cuddles
But Heaven knows, they try too
It doesn't matter really, what exact date it was when the sky turned to angels
With all the shepherds leaving their sheep
Because something bigger than maintaining order was unfolding in Bethlehem
It really only matters that we're here together, celebrating
Giving roses all the darn time
To everyone we can think of
It matters that those darling Mama's get breakfast and tulips today
They should have them every morning of their whole lives
We should all of us, take care of each other
Write letters, eat ice cream in some shady spot together
We should all of us roar as a crowd on January First
"We've done it again!"
They say no man is an island and it's true
All of us are Archipelago
We need a little ocean room, for sailing and whale watching
And we need each other on the horizon
Soul waves lapping at each other
Messages in bottles traveling only a few yards and on into memory
We need to hold each other closer
God knows, it's easy to forget
That everything lasts for only a breath
Before a new one is drawn
Mama's, beloveds, countries
Shift and shape before our eyes
Sometimes they vanish
We stand blinking for a long time
Saying
"Where did they go? They were there just a minute ago, I swear"
And they were
And we didn't always notice
There's too many of us to lavish each other properly
As we'd like to
Too many minutes in a day to remember to say grace over all of them
But don't miss being here now, if you can
People won't understand what you're doing
Tackling your poor Mama
Kissing her hands off
But do it sometimes!
Whenever you can remember
Oh, every day is Holy
Whether or not we mark it
So let's!
Send presents and make pancakes and write mushy love notes
We still have paradise
Let's switch that survival instinct off, even for just an afternoon
And do something wild, even if the whole world watches
And shakes their heads a bit
Envy does things like that, because it burns with longing for freedom
Be free, because you are!
Give love, because you have it
Go looking for God in the foothills
Because you'll find Him
Treasure the flowers
Because they fade, they die
But come back next year
Bigger, brighter than ever

Battle Hymn

How is it that sometimes things can fall apart so easily?
All of the beautiful and pure intentions are right there, so close
And everyone is reaching out, everyone is trying
There's hungry children spread out across the globe
I can't think of one person who doesn't want to help
We all long for happiness for each other
Want to see love bloom
Freedom relished
We all want the playful exuberance of youth
To hold hands and sing songs without feeling shy
We're tired of murder and theft and broken hearts
Every person you lay eyes on secretly just wants to be comforted
For someone to cook them dinner and bring them flowers
Or even just to sit side by side with someone
On a balmy evening
And watch nothing and everything happening before their eyes
No one wants to hurt another person
Deep inside everyone in their truest, most innocent places
We all just want to take care of
And be cared for
We want gardens and time for ourselves to steal away and think
We want to create things
Like art, or truck engines or laughter
Everybody loves music, one kind or another
We all have our secrets, dark wounded places that still ache on rainy evenings
But each of us is so much more, so much more than those
How is it that the life we love can seem to thwart our best efforts?
Why does change have to take us so powerfully by surprise
And leave us gasping for air, hurt and startled?
Somedays I look around
And watch people yell at each other in traffic
People fighting in stores
Children screaming for attention and no one answers with affection
With patience
The whole world wants more and more and more
And each of us has less and less that we are able to give
Until the demand breaks us
Twists those vulnerable places inside of us that were trying so hard
And all that's left is an apathy, an emptiness
When we've learned so quickly that what you love can be lost
What you trust can be shattered
You can give yourself away and make no one happy,
Not even yourself
So people say they live for their children, so they can go to college
And try for a happiness that their parents couldn't find
And I just wish that they would live for life
I wish that we'd all stop asking each other
"Save me!"
I wish I could turn a little key
To the door holding your heart inside your chest
I could open it up for you
Smile into your eyes and say
"There! There it is. Everything you've been looking for, you had it all along."
I wish I could do the same for myself
Most days I'm like an infant
Overwhelmed, consumed in tears, crying
Because the tower of blocks I so painstakingly built
Fell at my feet, ruined
And part of me wants to blame the blocks
And part of me wants to blame me for even trying
But most of me
Wants to make a castle
Out of everything that seemed destroyed
So I will

Clocks

It's late at night often, when it strikes me

Just a little tap on the shoulder

To say that I won't always be twenty two

One day I will have crows feet

The longboard I go sailing through the streets on

Will belong to my children

I'll look at it and smile

As one does with things of the past gracefully surrendered

This morning I'm just beginning all of life

Without career, mostly without direction

One day I will age

It seems impossible now, that I won't always look just like this

I won't be able to move this fast

Run this wild

My spirit will go places further than my body ever has

Books will become much more gravely important

Long afternoons in the hammock

Inside the gardens

Lulu

Little lover of life

Will not be so little

Anymore

I dreamt last night that I had long, long sheathes of hair again

I had grown up

In some ways

I wonder sometimes, if we are looking at time the wrong way round

Maybe the Universe moves backwards

Until all that's left is soul and stardust

All of us children in a nursery held by the sky

I don't fear change now

Strange, to feel so old

When you've really only just arrived

Every day becoming freer

Sorting through this enormous technicolor puzzle

Learning over and over right from wrong

Light from light

Me from you

I won't always be twenty two

Someday the whole planet will be able to take one look and see

How long and hard I've laughed

And cried

Age is a number, as they say

A way of keeping track of the sun

And you

Dancing around each other

Smiling full into each other's faces

There was a time only a certain number of days ago

When I didn't yet know how to speak

Couldn't have written this here for you for all the gold in California

But I still can't tie my shoes properly

Certain people never lose that sparkle

God, I pray I'm one of them

Those eyes enormous, full with wonder at it all

Now those last forever

We are all great friends with time

If we could only understand him

No anxiety would flicker through us

We'd never ask why again

But just swim this current

All together now and always

Each in his different wave

But held by the same arms

Everybody waving to each other

Everybody shining

Peligro

Oh my sweet little journal, highest greetings upon you! I know usually I go rambling off into outer space in poetry format, but today my thoughts are a little more toggled up than poetry could sort out.

Lately I've felt very grandly like I don't have much control, or even much knowledge about the way my life is turning and changing. So many different areas growing and shifting! The girl that I used to be is still there, but she's becoming more and more every day, moving through time and space so quickly and discovering so very much indeed. I've become more aware of the vastness of life, even of simply the Earth. Everything is much larger, much fuller and richer than I could ever have imagined. The other day dearest Celly showed me a map of the Milky Way from way, way out in deep space and I was blown away by the sheer magnitude of it all. Countless, endless swaths of stars and in only our one tiny galaxy, which harbors our one tiny, planet.

Everything seems suddenly so fragile! I'm at a rather tenuous and trembling sort of age, the kind where I could feasibly be doing practically anything I would like. Ah, but what would I like best to do? That's where always I get impossibly stumped! School sounds magnificent, but so does traveling, and so does staying in my beloved Putney and carving out my own little niche here from the ground up. All things sound marvelous and terrifying. All of a sudden things that were vastly important have become minor details, and the things that I've been ignoring or hiding from for lots of time are suddenly out clear on the table and asking for my attention.

What to do, what to do? Who to be? All things are possible, every path holding goodness and challenge alike. There are so many things I could try, so many places I could go. All that life requires of me is that I go out into it. Maybe it isn't necessary to understand or even to anticipate the future, but to just go forward with a grin and a will to be transformed and to appreciate every passing moment.

Some things are certain. I love my beautiful, large family which is made of the most wonderful people a person could imagine. It's all very complex and complicated, and it doesn't follow tradition or even a sense of order, but it's a family all the same. No matter what I do, I have them all, and they have me. Some things change. All that pining that I felt very keenly for people I felt I had lost, has dissipated.
The other night I realized gently, that I didn't want to go back to who I was three or four years ago. As little as I think of myself, I'm so deeply happy to be where I am. To be this girl who feels sort of messy and at times awkward, but who is truly me.

I like being this Lulu, this girl I knew I was harboring and was nervous to let out. I don't know if I'll ever be successful in financial terms, or if I'll do all of the things I'd like very much to, but I know that I will be very happy no matter what I choose. I know that I'll grow very much more no matter where I go to do it. I'll always be too fond of chocolates and cameras and I'll love sunshine, trees, fields and art. I'll always write, always take photographs, always longboard and bicycle and play games. The big green and blue world will always be here for me and I'll always love it more and more. No matter what comes up next, I know many things for certain, but especially I just know that everything is going to be great.

I have no doubts that I'll be challenged even more thoroughly than I have been before. But then there's that delicious dream of mine, where the fire burns as I go through it but it leaves me strong and whole and unharmed. I think that I can rise to this occasion, this lovely life occasion. I never follow rules very goodly, and I tend to do all sorts of odd, unpredictable, quirky things. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing. But I have such a good time! Such a good time dancing, running, playing, exploring, relaxing, thinking, just being here.

It's such an incomprehensible gift... just to be here. To have been not only thought of, but then crafted and brought to life. I feel deeply honored. To be here, to be Lulu. I feel certain that no matter what happens next, I'm never in any real danger. The worst thing that a human feels can happen, is to be removed from the action. But I've never been nervous of death because I don't believe in it. I believe in changes and growing, of finding yourself in a place you never imagined. Of going home after a long day playing in the countryside.

It doesn't matter what I play at while I'm here. I could become a vast number of things, all of them exciting. I could stay at my beloved Co-Op and have a great time! I could be a photographer, a journalist, a farmer, a poet or children's book author. I could work in a great environment like a library or Co-Op or even just a lovely store!

All that matters is that I greet whatever comes my way with courage and an open heart. I used to be profoundly afraid of life, and I wanted to hide out from it and remain secure. But I like this new dangerous way, where in the blink of an eye the world just blooms and blooms right before my eyes and I'm a part of it. I have all of my amazing, affectionate, endlessly beloved friends and my unconventional but indispensable family. I have Heaven trailing around after me, wherever my feet head off to next. Nothing is ever lost, nothing. It all just adds, and adds, and adds, forever. Life is star nurseries and springtime and big, open ocean. In the end of it all, school, work, home isn't quite as important as the little things that happened along the way, seemingly in the shadow of the big.

It's greatly comforting to understand that there will always be daffodils, peanut butter, carousels and days at the beach. I'll always have everyones hand to hold, always have my endlessly beloved Ellie there just waiting at the gate for me at the end of a long and beautiful Day. Life maybe isn't about how you earn silly bits of paper. It's maybe just about all of these glorious, small things that I love so very much. It's just really about joining the story, taking breaths and reaching out. And there's a bazillion ways to do incredible things. Sometimes a degree helps, sometimes just smiling at someone who's having a rough day helps even more. Sometimes money helps you do cool things and sometimes it's coolest just to lay in the grass and watch the clouds and talk to someone about ships and sails and sealing wax, cabbages and kings.

Just being here is good enough for me. Everything else is details, and they're important, good ones. They need careful consideration and attention. But they also need a flexible, happy, gentle mind. Worrying about the future like I do just clouds everything so that I feel lost and helpless. I'd like to just go out and greet everything that comes my way. So I shall!

Ah, to live dangerously! To sing badly and loudly, to do handstands and eat too many sweets! To live here just this once, and to live it very well, until the next adventure welcomes us in. That's all I want. And now that I know, I'll just go for it! Look sharp my lovely world, here I come! :D

Resurrection

Yes, today is a roll away your stone day
Flex all your muscles, push away that seal
Come on out where the morning's waiting patient
We were made for lilies
Shimmering seas of candles
We were made to live
Now
And I know, know like you know
How those shadows grow long
You forget the meadows
Your fingers ache for hands that don't appear
Orbiting each other like we do
We forget to look long
To touch softly
Lean in closer and closer
Words like love and forever seem hollow now and then
When it doesn't appear that they come true after all
Fairytales become a mockingbird
And all those empty places grow deep and hopeless
A canyon that just keeps plummeting into the core
But today is a roll away your stone day
When it seems like everything that could go wrong, did
Guess again!
Surprise!
Life is back
Strolling through Damascus
Playing jokes on all of it's friends
That place that seemed to hold only an ending
Is cleared out
Death's robes folded up neatly and put away
And those who guarded it are stunned in the sunlight
He's back
Scarred in a way He wasn't before
Like we have known so well
All of us have been, falling into that bottomless veil
Clutching at air
Too scared to pray
Fall turns to flight
He's back
And all of us have been there
Hit the wall so hard it knocked the breath from us
But then...
Dusted it off
Climbed over
Looks like the grass is green on the other side after all
Still holding all that new rain
Heather and sparrows
You and me picnicking on the lawn
Today is a roll away your stone day
Tears can last for the night, as they say
But this is the morning now
Everything you thought was lost
Has always been, will always be
Yours
Someday when we go down to the water
Me and Him, skipping stones
Fingers entwined
No footprints for the ocean to steal away
I might ask Him why He did it, just to hear Him tell the story
I already know the answer
Love, as small of a word as it is
Is big enough
To go to Hell and back inside of
And come out laughing
A thousand times more powerful than you were before
More truly alive than you ever would have been,
Had not you descended so far and so fast
Love bears all things, believes all things
Sends whatever dark there is left
Evaporating like mist when the daybreak reaches it
And if you have love
If you are love
You can travel anywhere
Safe as a song
You can go and come back
And every time you come back
Lighter and lighter and lighter
Becomes the stone
You roll away

Come Away Little Lamb

I was born on a morning
Too early for the sunshine
All the candles trembled
For their little tearful light
God, how it almost extinguished!
What a violent, scorching flame of a girl
Turned to ash by her own blaze
I couldn't have arrived in the daylight
Burning, burning
For the touch, for the breath, for the torch to hold me
A man named Matthew
Used to call me Lamb
So meek as to lay myself on the altar
All of the temple on fire
And yet, I have lion enough to lie close to my newborn heart
Neither of us quarreling
Fangs withdrawn
Skittish soul sleepy with peace
I was afraid my dearest
When you spoke of a taper immolating from both ends
I was worried for the center
And what happens when it's reached
So I would rather flick the match, careless
Step in as all the trees burn
So as to make way for the phoenix
And the green shoots
New forest
I was born on a morning
Too early for sunshine
And I learned quickly to ignite the star
From deep within
Or be lost to the deep, blue night
To be both the fox and the rose
Or hide in the immortal shadows,
For which I have never cared
I was born in the morning
Never felt whole in the evening
Let the sun come up, and up and up
Let me be the dawn
Little daughter of the daybreak
Forever

Cuidado

I don't know what it is to be a child
Tucked into the soft covers, tired mind kissed quiet
Favorite books piled high into my favorite arms
Wrapped safe in love hands, lifted high up into the air
Pulled close blissful with laughter
I don't know what it is to be made my favorite foods
Or held
Don't know what it is to look in eyes filled with pride and joy
Don't know what it is to be Daddy's girl
Or Mommy's little angel
I know what it is to run, and run, and run
Breath burning in my throat
Tree branches scraping salted cheekbones
Screams branded deep into my memory
I know what it is to hide under the covers at night
Suffocating but safe
To wake up already afraid
Plotting the getaway
Which door would get me free the fastest?
I don't know what it is to hold hands while we cross the street
Don't remember ever being picked up
Or falling asleep between two peaceful beloveds
For whom I am a prayer answered
I don't know what it is to be honest
The truth is only punished, so I will be a liar
Hiding has a chance of not being found out
I don't know what it is to stand close
Without smoldering, without tears
Without broken windows underfoot
I don't know what it means to be friends
Except for that I fill you until you're happy and I'm empty
And it takes forever
Don't know what it means to be beloved
Except for that I keep your mouth smiling
Or get sent away
I don't know how to do this
All of this
All of these fragile connections
Plagued with doubts
Too much, too close, pressing on sore wounds
All I know is to run, and run, and run
Avoid the eyes
Tell the untruths white
Bury myself in headphones, and Earth and sorrow
And when you find me, smile and nod, smile and nod
So teach me something different
Be father and brother, husband and playmate
Unlock all the gates
Start me over again
Read me bedtime stories
Brush my hair
Hold my hand, but gently
Don't pull
Pile me into the sheets and the covers
Love me, but don't hold on tight with purple knuckles
I swear that somewhere in me
I know how to stay
I'll sit in your lap
I'll look in your eyes
I'll know

Into Mazey

We were finger-painting contours
Speaking in our oldest language
The one that bears no words- too rude
The one that whispers and asks
Receiving only the answer it discovers on it's own
So my voice was lost
There was no way to reveal it
The marks ugly, interfering
Your caress traced over scars left deep in hidden flesh
Paleontologist
How do I tell you
I want to lie in the Earth forever, and never be brought to light
You are the last grand adventurer
Searching for the cause of death in the bareness of my being
Don't look at what the wounds left for you
You can't find my soul on my skin
In the crook of my neck
The waxing full of my mouth
Don't do what others have done
Destroy me with what looks like love
I'm too easily tempted by that lure
Every fisherman on the Adriatic
Had only to loop their heart on a line and dangle it over the sea
To watch the last, weeping siren come to have a look
And take the bait
Though I remember the burn of the hook
The tug that dragged me from the depths
I don't breathe air
Don't give yours to me
It was only gentility that ever ignited my veins
The innocence of your eyes, sea green like home
I have never blamed any man
I know what I do
To reject an affection...
I would rather die starving for oxygen
Immolating in the salt from hands and naiveté
Than empty
And alone
But I've waited long on the rocks for the one
Who would simply come swimming with me
Who would ask for nothing
But one sun-drenched kiss
And a dawn in the blue where the sun rises from within the waves
With me
I can give you nothing
If I'm a possession
But my heart is too mangled and needy
To beg you not to gather me to you
I've only prayed that somehow you would guess
Not to hold with the fingers and the arms
But with the electricity
Streaming between us in music waves
Touch me with the hand
And there are only broken pathways
That as you run their course
Bring more saltwater
I remember when they've been run once before
And the pain that flooded every sense even as I surrendered without a fight
So touch me with the softness of your soul
Come into the deep water
Forget yourself in the ocean
Drown in my love

A Girl and Her Camera

For a young Lulu like me, the time whips past me nowadays. The days are just so short, only 24 hours to play, have snacks, visit exciting places, go to work, pray, struggle and succeed. I can never find enough time, and the moment I feel that I have a hold on all of the things I treasure, they slip out of my fingers and vanish for a spell.
That's why, my wonderful friends, I am absolutely in love with the magical invention called a camera.
Everything about it stirs my chubby heart. I love the little click it makes, the massive lenses that I change to capture the birds from 200 meters away or to sneak into the tiny world of a flower or bumblebee. I wish I could explain how much joy and inspiration and change this one simple tool has brought into my humble world. There are many splendid ways of capturing the imagination, and every one of us is an incredible artist each in our own ways as we explore the meaning of our lives and the mystery of the spirit surrounding us.
I love paints, I love sketching pencils. I go crazy with writing, pouring myself out in words comes so naturally and just feels so right. Always with a pen or typing, I can speak myself clearly without the stumbling and shyness that sometimes sneaks up on me when I engage with the people I care about day to day.
But there is nothing, nothing like a camera for me. Nothing like pressing that blessed little button and stopping all of time forever, to revisit whenever I want to.
It drives me crazy. Do you know that silly feeling when you absolutely itch in your soul to do what your heart loves best? It's very bad of me, cause I used to tease a wonderful friend for his inclination to carry his movie camera with him everywhere, no matter what we were doing; oh but now I understand so deeply. When you find the thing that expresses so profoundly everything that you feel and love and savor, it comes to your mind whenever another beautiful moment arises. I feel a deep need to capture.
I also have a very poor memory, and if I don't have something written down or photographed that I can return to, sometimes my memories lie sleeping in my mind for ages and I forget them completely.
But I want to be a time-traveler, able to return to when I was fourteen and twenty and what I did a few weeks ago. I hope so much that my great Love has something like a camera in His Kingdom, some way to freeze the moments of eternity and return to them whenever I wish.
Photographs have broken and freed my heart. In a glance, I can return to people I miss dearly and feel that somehow, I'm still with them. I have a very beautiful photo of my grandmother and my sweet Cilla hugging on a flowery porch at my aunt's house in the country, and every time I see it, it makes me feel as if we aren't separated for now. Somehow from within the depths of the photograph, they visit with me.
Photos can even be dangerous for me. I get lost in nostalgia sometimes, and have had to hide photos from myself (but I always keep them) so that I wouldn't stumble across them and get hit with a wave of reverie that would take me away from the happiness in my present moments.
Photos became my diary a few years ago; a journal for myself when I found my hands empty and I was unsure of how to see myself anymore. I didn't know who I was or what I was meant for; I felt like life's biggo-est failure and I was greatly unhappy with who I was. I had a very small camera, a simple little purple one that didn't work very well and washed everything out colorwise, but I loved it and every now and then when I felt lost, I'd hold it out at arms length and try to catch a glimpse of the lovable, vibrant and enthusiastic girl I hoped was resting somewhere inside of me.
And it worked!
With every photo, somehow I felt that I knew myself better. I hadn't been very happy whenever someone wanted to take my peekture before. There's lots of photos of me when I was a little Lulu either scowling or making a very goofy face cause cameras made me uncomfortable. But I always loved when the photos arrived, in shiny square prints. I'd look through them again and again and again. I was crazy about pictures of us.
When I joined the community called Flickr, I didn't use it as a portfolio, I just got lost in the massive sea of other peoples lives. The photos were so exquisite and glorious, of people I would never meet and places I might never see. I could travel the world and see millions of stories without moving an inch. That's when I started to get excited about sharing my stories too. My wonderful Poppies friend Bethie traded me her DSLR for my easier to use point and shoot, and unwittingly began me on the funnest journey I've ever been on.
It took me ages to figure out how to use the big, scary camera with so many different functions, and even more ages to understand things like lighting, lenses, aperture, ISO and all of those very confusing things. But I couldn't stay away from my little camera so I just kept playing with it and eventually over a long time, became familiar with the things that had once seemed way over my head.
I learned how to edit my photos naturally too, using natural lighting and accentuating details so that the photo was always true to what I had shot, but was more pronounced.
The whole world inspires me. The snow, the flowers, the people. It's all so detailed and loved. Photography has been the song of myself I've been looking for, for so long. This life is so important, and I want to treasure it forever. That little shutter has shown me who I am, and that was all I needed to go out into the world without being afraid or ashamed.
Oh sweet little camera, thank you so much! Thank you for being my journal, for teaching me to try new things, to explore, to hike, to roam, to let loose my emotions and dreams and share them, thank you for letting me see myself in a new light and for giving me a means to hold on tightly to this life that I cherish, and the lives of all the beautiful people around me. This is such a special blessing...I'm overwhelmingly thrilled to be trotting off to school soon to learn more and more and more! I'm going to just freak out in those labs, I just know it hehe :D
Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Well my loves, I would write something much better and super cool, but there's a little Rebellious Canon blinking at me from nearby and about 3 or 4 inches at least of newfallen snow, so I will have to tell you mas things later! I love youuuuuuu <3

Pocahontas

Savage!
The woods whispered it
All the elms alight
I called down the water
Sent my breath into the goldenrod
So that when your hand brushed it
Once upon the evening field
You'd put fingers to my lips
If I speak a word now
It will vanish
So I'll leave pieces of soul
For you to find
On the riverbank
Swathed in the trail of starlight
I found you when all the world was dust and empty
The last oasis to bless your Pisces
I would drown in you, if I could
Great swells of ocean, you and me
The same
I would never cry for shore or for aid
Only lay in the depths of your arms forever
Don't hoist the sails when you float past
Look up for a glimpse of me in the hemlock
Swaying, your weeping ghost
Drunk from your love and your leaving
How can you fill a thing and then empty it?
Swell my soul with the North Wind and the Indian Summer of your eyes
Only to take my very life
Lungs heaving for you and finding nothing
Only the absence of my every longing
Come back, come back
I and the trees have been waiting so long for you
Praying your name
Falling to the earth again and again
Thunderclouds bursting free overhead
Does the rain go to you like I ask it to?
Does it land on your eyelids and shoulders
With the memory of me?
Savage!
I whispered it, broken and breaking
Come back, come back
To the meadow where I've been waiting
So long, so long
Asking the clouds if they've seen you
My beautiful saint
Come back

Good Morning

Oh this, must be a good morning
All the last cotton wisps of fog visiting with the ivy
Politely finding whatever spaces Nature hasn't yet filled herself
This must be a good morning
Though I slept too late in the down and white
Danced too early into the morning
And collapsed here, a fledgling in a big soft nest
Sleepy from shaking off all the old
And coating the new in smiles and hand-holds and balloons
Then there was that fog, too delicious to ignore
Even as the sun began to think about rising
And my knees threatened to begin falling
So out I went!
The world is too powerful a thing to miss
Going out into it is the dearest prayer I know
So I investigated the seated clouds
And then satisfied, could rest my head
Now it's here, this good morning
Sweater snuggled into the day
All that's been so far is happy peeks outside of the window
Fingers clicking over the sunny keys
Telling you the story of my grand morning
In which I did nothing
But had everything, jolly and well in my lap
I like to snooze and wonder about things
How this shall be and what a fairy tale could mean
If it breathed and stirred and walked the Earth with me
I like even better to wake and wander
Crunch over the frosted lawn in small boots
A sparkling lens jaunty on my shoulder blade
All of this makes a good, good morning
The first one of a year that's never been before
The moments sneaking enchanted into the room
Playing with all the contents of my old life
Leaving me different when I woke up
But content like a lamb
I am pastured in the good mornings
When I rise with the sun or wake when the bluebirds are having lunch
All this quiet greeting
My fondest hours
Soon it'll be afternoon and I'll go here and there
There'll be opinions to consider
Time to manage
But for now, I think I shall simply be here with the morning
Grin big to just myself in the sea of quilts and Noah's Ark
Wish all the world a brave new morning!

Holly Jolly Christmastime

My sweet dears, as this beautiful Sunday dawned very frostily blue and the palest yellow, I smiled biggo in my squishy bed as I remembered almost instantly with a start that today marks only 7 until Christmas day. In the rush of my world arranging and rearranging all over again (as I've marked with a grin, it's often wont to do), I have almost neglected Christmas this year, which for me has been a strange feeling, as if if I've woken up every day and forgotten to be myself.
Christmas has been the sparkling ruby in my every year for some time now. When I was a child, I was impatient for it to get here, I wanted to demand the days to rush faster and faster and for it to be that sparkling, overabundant morning as quickly as possible. Now, I wish the days would drag themselves before me. I have only one week before Christmas falls like the softest of snow over the night when the stars blaze like they forget to the rest of the year. One more week until the whole world is hushed in the full moon, except for my pounding heart.
I've felt sheepish about Christmas this year. I can acknowledge without shame, that I feel an enthusiasm for the holidays and celebrations, that my adorable comrades my fellow age no longer feel. In fact, it's awful hard for me to find anyone that shares the way the spirit of Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays and even Independence Day fills me with complete glee.
But Christmas... is the best of them all. The summer has ferns and flags, Easter the pastels and new baby chicks at Agway to hold, but Christmas has the most splendor of any season. The red and gold, the tinsel and baubles in every corner, my beloved evergreens dressed up in every finery imaginable, the whisper of a magic so pure, so strong that you have to fight a furious battle in order not to join it.
Mostly, the only place that I can find Christmas in the new and more grown-up world I'm swiftly entering is in the relentless advertisement of stores and companies, which makes my heart sadder than there are words to tell. I know a lot of my very warm-hearted and wondrous friends and family who just really don't get into Christmas, because the only place they've seen it expressed too, is in the ridiculous ads on their T.V's and in that strange sanitorium of Wally World.
Oh but that's not my Christmas!
My Christmas is that little chill that you get when you find yourself deliciously alone in the heart of the woods, and you can feel the trees watching you with unseen affection. Christmas isn't about what you buy at all, though of course we all know that deep in our souls. Christmas is something entirely different, and I've clung to it as stubbornly as I cling to almost everything else that has slipped through my fingers in pursuit of fame and fortune in the modern world.
Christmas is much different than money or influence, and I know that people remember the trueness of it, it's just that like my beautiful God, it takes a conscious decision to pursue and it unveils itself slowly but in time, generously with things unfamiliar. Christmas wraps us all up every year in a mystery too pure and glorious for words, that there was once upon a time as all the best stories begin, in a country of green hills and the cosmos like a great wash of ocean overhead, a new child who would teach us all what it means to be a child like Him too. Every year on the 25th, I remember, for all the times throughout the year I've forgotten in my haste to be a part of my swirling and beautiful circle of peers who have forgotten as well.
Anyone can be a child like the child that was born that night, at whatever true month of the year it really was. It doesn't matter if you're a 103 or only 22 like me, everyone can learn to be a child like that; one who would give His life for the people He loved and give to them every gift in His possession, and especially of Himself.
He teaches me how to be a child like that. One who takes the time to give foot rubs and have scrumptious dinners with everyone I love, a child who walks without fear on water that holds me up and who can still see the holy exuberance of all this gorgeous life swelling up around me.
Now, some people get upset at this time, saying adorable things like "Jesus is the reason for the season" and other little things because they're hurt and saddened that the world doesn't recognize Him now like it did that. For me, a goofy little kiddo awash in her plethora of lights and ornaments, Jesus is the reason for everything, not just Christmas, and it's because He is everything. He's lilac in the spring, cool rivers in the summer, a suspicious and overwhelming star in the night sky that says "I'm here for you my loves"
He's the reason because if I know how to love at all, it's because He taught me. That love isn't about what I can buy for you (although I must admit I'm a presents fiend and I suspect He is too), it's about the offer to share my life, like He offered so many nights ago in that little town of Bethlehem, sweetly lying like the eye of a hurricane that would sweep over all of us.
Christmas is the offer of life. And I pray to God that I always feel the call that all of Nature sings, to take that offer and treasure it at every second. The world bursts into bloom in the spring, but the heart opens up like summer at Christmastime if you listen to all that's going on around you, away from the bustle of the shopping malls and the angry people in long lines everywhere you go. We're all being invited to the most beautiful party we could imagine. A party where the saints are our friends and come to check in on us, asleep with our sugar plums late at night. A party about promises kept, which is the very best kind. Of course, Christmas is a human created sort of thing, but humans make beautiful things. I think that someone who truly keeps Christmas makes our God smile with a biggo smile, even if it's all just His children playing dress up and pretend again, trying to understand something too miraculous for the smallness of their minds.
I'm sure my beautiful Jesus most likely wasn't born once upon a December, there were most likely no reindeer or jolly old elves presiding, but I think that every aspect of this Universal celebration is precious. The giving, the snow or lack thereof that calls us into nature, the feasts we have to remind our family how much we love each other, the waiting and then the answering of the wait when love's vow is kept.
Life is so remarkable and exquisitely beautiful, so filled with impeccable detail and craftsmanship and sometimes I remember, most often around Christmas, that there is no requirement that says it had to be this way. We turned our backs on trust and love, and no one had to come running after to tap us on the shoulder. No one ever had to guarantee that humans could continue, could fall from grace and return to sit in it's lap, loved even more than before the journey. But it is like this. We are loved. And this much!
At Christmas it falls in warm showers of joy. Joy that this world, at it's essence is love-designed and each of us will continue in this eternity of creation and affection.
Every year when I wrestle with an adorable conifer, slip out into the new snow with a sled and eyes wide, munch cookies under the covers while the Grinch steals Christmas over and over again, I remember who I am and where I am going. I remember that I am God-loved and created. I remember the invite to the party I don't technically deserve to attend, but that I'm an honored guest at every December. The grand ball that all of space, time, heaven and earth take place in, is waiting for me to arrive to the celebration too. The celebration of God's infinite loving kindness, that He renews in us every year and urges us to replicate among each other.
So Christmas for me is very little about whatever waits for me under that plump and bedazzling pine, and very much about what waits for me at every moment of my life, a great and mysterious gift that I can tear the ribbons from and dive into anytime I'd like.
Christmas for me is an immersion in true life, God life, where beautiful surprises take place in misted hills like the ones outside my house, where if reindeer do fly maybe this year I'll catch them at it, where this is endlessly, endlessly more than what I see and register every day. There's a whole world of spirit, love and fairytale that's mine to enter if I would just choose to do it.
If I'd been there that trembling, miraculous night, hamming it up with my sheepy pals, I'd have gone tearing over those hills when angels plummeted like comets to where I stood and sang me the first carols. My heart would've broken to see Him, mortal like me, but pulsing with a patience and mercy that I can only dream of extending like He knows how. I would have been sore afraid too, but not because I could finally see, but for that I had lived life so blindly and it had taken a little boy to snap me back to consciousness and to take my place in His circle that begs us all to step in.
So Merry Christmas my sweetest of friends and fambly! I bet I'll write a little more as I go on, and the days zoom up faster and faster. We don't even have a tree yet this year and I haven't bought a darn present except for something very silly for my sister that involves narwhals and finger puppets. But Merry, Merry Christmas! May your hearts be light as the snow that better get here before the 24th if it doesn't want to deal with my outrage. May your hug and cuddle with all the ones you love, basking in the glow of all these lights, all this love. And I know that Christmas has gone commercial and garish and awful, but don't take the invitation the stores offer you. Keep the money in your checking account, and instead give kisses and candy canes and warm wishes and thoughtful prayers. Be in attendance with this weird kiddo, who will be bright eyed and bushy tailed all Christmas Eve, keeping a weather eye on the world outside the window and enjoying copious amounts of cocoa and cookies (hope Santa isn't too hungry this year!)
Have a holly jolly Christmas, a merry, laughing, warm Christmas and answer the call any way your heart hears it, to life ringing like bells for all of us, the whole Universe caroling to us at every home to go out and be one with the celebration of it all.
<3

Overwhelming Goodness

Lately, my sweet little blargh, I've been feeling over my head in life.
These beautiful days... I can feel the wonder and mystery of being able to be here on Earth, now, at such a fascinating time of life for people, but most of the time, I feel just plain scared. There's too much here, too much that needs to be done and taken care of, especially for an absentminded girl like me. There's too many forms I haven't filled out and sent in, too much money I'm sposed to have and don't cause I had to pay for a big lofty apartment, and pickles and lettuce and apples for the fridge, and then all that gasoline to get from the big lofty apartment to the Co-Op where I work to pay for it all.
There's just too much here. Too many parking tickets, restrictions, guidelines, things I'm sposed to be keeping track of. My license is expired, the high school still hasn't sent my (hopefully!) future college my transcripts, I haven't paid the electricity bill yet or sent a cheque to the nice lady who let us use her security deposit when she turned over the apartment to us. I forgot to clean up last night after peace pasta and giggling with Celly, the compost is full again and I spilled a ginger soda all over the hardwood floor last night.
Christmas, beautiful, graceful Christmas is hovering near and cozy on the horizon... and I haven't even barely had the time to steep in it's presence. I have to go to the adorable Co-Op, have to get prints ordered for all the wonderful people I took peektures for, have to somehow figure out how to manage a checking account and then set up PayPal online so I can get paid for peektures, the list of tasks is endless... have to lie down on the floor and cry because this is all just too much! How do people survive nowadays? I barely understand it...
How is it that once you're an adult, the world stops being it's magical self? I think that maybe it's only because when you're "grown up" you're far too busy to quietly watch all of the joy of it unfold. When you do have some free time, you're not sure what to do with yourself because your heart is sick with worry, so whole starry evenings get lost in front of the TV with alcoholic beverages.
I just remember my sweet blargh... I remember there being so much more, before everyone decided to be cool and become strangled by their careers and obligations.
The days used to be so full... but full of overwhelming goodness. I tore out of bed at 7 in the morning when I was little cause I had play to make happen, dinosaur instant oatmeal to eat, and big important matters to attend to outside. If it was Christmastime... well... then there were snowmen to build, icicles to steal from the overhang of the garage, giant hills to be conquered in my big green sled, Christmas specials to watch, and cookies to pilfer from the kitchen. I remember long winter days full of nothing but Bing Crosby singing to me about wonderland, Barbie dolls in my lap in outrageous outfits and hot chocolate in a mug at my side.
When did it become uncool to enjoy life?!?
Why is it no longer socially acceptable to mess around like I did when I was little. Now if I'm an adult and outside, I have to be doing some sort of activity that's considered normal and productive like cross-country skiing or tracking partridges. I love chasing partridges but I just don't understand why I'm not supposed to be playing around anymore! Why can't people my age go swimming, sledding or fort-building without toting a chest of beers along with them? Why does everything I want to do in life have a price-tag of shame stapled to it?
I'm just not sure I understand... I know that having a fun place to stay with people you love is important and I'm more than willing to pay for one, more than willing to zoom up to the Co-Op and spend my days unwrapping boxes of yogurt and making people veggie wraps, more than willing even to pay for the fun of the Christmas lights strung around my bed that turn on when I plug them in (magic!). I'm happy to pay for what it takes to keep the lofty apartment warmer inside than it is outside, willing to vacuum and mop up all the sodas I'm inevitably going to bless the floor with, but I'm not willing to sacrifice the great happiness that God is showering each of us with every single second, that we just shrug off because we have so much stuff on our shoulders already that we can't even handle the extra weight that a little fairy dust requires.
My heart and Lulu being was made of adventure and breaking out of all these dumbo boxes people keep around themselves. People have been quite disappointed with me because I don't like to play by certain rules, but that's because rules are sometimes estupido! Freedom is important and it's precious and sacred and everyone should relish it with all their hearts. Here in A Merry Ca where we're so unbelievably fortunate to practically do whatever we want whenever we want to do it, we should be freaking out!
I can go stand on the sidewalk right now and sing wassails to every person who walks by me, but of course I won't because I'd get punched in the nose, because having fun and being weird isn't acceptable. People have got to be safe and normal and conform at all times or else they're "nerds" and this and that and God help us all if we don't all wear the latest fashions, drive a Mercedes and be miserable like everyone else.
Had it, I have! Life is about joy and all of that corny loving, caring, sharing goodness. Life isn't normal! This is all the most surreal thing that will ever happen to us, and I want to just go crazy in it. I want to take risks, possibly even dumb ones. Why shouldn't I? I didn't ask to be here, I didn't create myself out of moonlight and  a little clay, my sweet God thought of me and thought I was nice enough to make!
Sweet cheez-whiz! I get to be here because I was an idea that God loved, so He made me happen. I'll be darned like a sock if I lay around with a cold one in my hand because I can't think of anything better to do, and life sucks because I don't live it and I expect to be entertained before I die, unfulfilled.
Here is what I, a very weird Lulu think; I think it's crazy what people have set up! This whole system is completely nuts and all these guidelines for who I'm supposed to be as a person, as a woman, are nuts, and I don't think I can bear to listen to them anymore.
I think I'm pretty decent the way I am, and I don't need to be 90 pounds with a disproportionate amount of voluptuousness, wearing whatever name people have slapped onto silly clothes and insisted that are awesome and need to be worn by everyone. I don't need to wear bikinis (they're practically impossible to have water fights in), I don't need to drink alcohol or smoke anything, I don't need to go to this school and get certain pieces of paper. I need to be alive, and to be Lulu, and above all, to be profoundly grateful for each and every moment that rushes by me, never to be seen again.
I'm tired of taking this all for granted, I'm tired of trying to be normal and safe. God has set the beautiful boundaries that protect my heart. Everything else is open pasture. If I get lost somewhere, He'll come and find me like He promises. I just don't want myself, or anyone else to be mad or sad at themselves anymore. I want for it to be okay to mess up, even big time, and to simply learn from it. No one needs to drag around their past and mourn every detail of the choices they made. For each situation there is the right thing to do and the wrong thing, and if you somehow managed to pick the right one every single time in your life, you would be Jesus.
But since you're not, everything is forgivable and forgettable. I don't care about what the standards are, I'm not going to carry a grudge or be bitter towards anyone. There are people who have made me sad in my lifetime, just as there are in everyones life ( I AM one of those people to someone else) but I'm not going to carry that sadness. In the end, it was mostly me who made me sad and I'm not even going to be mad at myself either. Love is the answer to each of my worries, to each situation that I've been put in where I said either the right or wrong thing, and I know that love will come pouring out of my story in the end.
I decided a long time ago when I was little, that I wouldn't hate anyone, especially for making me sad, but instead I would try to see things from where they stood and like them anyways and people have thought badly of me for it, but I'm tired of being expected to be angry and bitter like so many of my dear friends here.
I want to be happy. I want to run around and hoot and holler. I want to reject the things that society has asked me to embrace because "everyone's doing it". Just the fact that almost everyone I know struggles with alcohol at least occasionally makes me resolved to never really touch the stuff. If everyone's doing it then I want to find my own thing to do. I'll develop a grapefruit juice problem.
At the end my dear little blargh, after all this ranting and raving, what I mean by it is that the return to innocence that everyone's deepest heart is craving is found by simply returning to it instead of moping that it's lost (which is what I've been doing hehe).
Bring on the sunshine and guacamole and silly adventures!
Bring on all this overwhelming goodness, I want to greet it every single day with all the happiness I have!