folded grocery list.

"Will you whisper softly into my ear, 
all of the words that I need to hear, 
and I will love you even in your darkest hour, 
my dear.
And when the music begins to fade, 
taper, drift away, 
will you still dance with me anyway?
For our time together will surely 
slip from our hands, 
quietly, strand by strand, 
but my memories will be as many as the sand.
Then I will sit by the old oak tree, 
just as I promised you I would be, 
and I won't cry for you, 
but for me, 
because it is you that is finally free."
© Katie Daughtry 2013

...written on a folded grocery list.
xx
kj

Floating

It had been over half her lifetime since, but she kept lists and handfuls of things she remembered.  It began with glass doorknobs, and continued like this:  the small black-and-white tiles that made up the bathroom floor(always chilly in the early mornings), golden yellow kitchen walls (many breakfasts), ugly green carpets that were thick with dirt (before they were removed and left by the lightpost where the trashcan sat on the street), the radiator with the white metal box covering it (sitting, winter mornings, warm feet, book in hand).  She could pluck the little scraps of information, as they lazily floated through the air.  The list would continue on: windows (painted shut), third story attic (filled with boxes), deck, hard wood floor, green walls.  But a gust of wind came through town, for a whole year, and all the little pieces flew out(business class).  She stumbled for three months then, before realizing that they were gone.  

lillian.

words for love

Margaret Atwood once wrote The Eskimos have 52 words for snow because it is so special to them; there ought to be as many for love. Whilst maybe there aren't that many synonyms for love, there are most definitely hundreds of different interpretations of what love is. There are stories about first love, lasting love, unrequited love, passionate love, platonic love, and so many more.
Below is a small selection of some of our favourite love-related literature  What poems, essays and stories would you add?

Springhill 
If I Had A Daughter

Barnheart by Jenna Woginrich | The History Of Love by Nicole Krauss | The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

Mad Love
The Thousands Of Quiet Ways
The Birthday Present by Polly Samson

poems by Andrea Gibson | Marvin Bell | writingsforwinter | Bob Hicok |

a semi-autobiography in eight parts.

I. You write him a postcard. "I don't know how to tell you but I'm finally letting go," it says. The postcard is from Paris and when you finish writing it, you slide it back into the drawer with all the other words you never said. You ask your empty hands if this means you are letting go. Everyone memorizes the backs of their hands, but you'll never know your own as well as you know the scar like a poem permanent on his thumb.

II. You like tea more than coffee but you drink coffee because on days when you relent to a cup of tea you become afraid that you're turning into your mother. You drink it anyways and remember the best moments of childhood.

III. At night you run your fingertips across your ribcage and wonder about all the words that don't live there yet. You're bad at commitments but sometimes when you read Mary Oliver you sigh in relief. These are words that could rest on your ribs forever.

IV. You grow playlists slowly on your computer, choosing the songs carefully. You're trying to bring that feeling back with the music. Maybe nostalgia is the closest you'll ever get.

V. You told her once that you were bad at goodbyes. All this time later, and it's still true.

VI. You type fast, "maybe someday," and hit send.

VII. You ask your hands again what it means to let go.

VIII. The tea water is boiling. Your hands still don't answer.

seasonal rituals

Rituals are a beautiful thing. Even though new things bring excitement, rituals ground us. They instill a familiar wonder in each heart by knowing--and anticipating--the rituals each season holds.
Spring is the time of freckles beginning to dot my face and doing school outside and simple meals outside under the shade of a tree glowing with pale new leaves.
 Every afternoon in the summer, when you can practically feel the sun burning your skin, I go to the pool and read. Afterwards, the long summer-night rituals begin: looking for fireflies and batting away mosquitoes and staying up a bit longer to catch the coolness of the darkness.
 Fall rituals consist of slipping into new routines and the first fires, small and smoky. The leaves change colors--or sometimes not, depending on the kind of year that's been had.
 Winter rituals are beautiful if you know where to look. Underneath pale skin lie deep thoughts and warm bowls of soup for what seems like every meal.
And before long, right when you think you can't take another one of those terribly short cold days, you start almost-spring rituals of lengthening days and looking for budding branches and opening windows a crack to let in the fresh breeze. Then the spring cleaning bug hits and when you look up from scrubbing, airing, and dusting, you notice that a new season has pushed through the grayness and arrived and whole cycle starts all over again.
cc

I carry my words in coffee mugs and paper cups.

if I could, I would sit down with you over coffee.

buy you your favorite. grande caramel frapp? it's on me. prefer a green tea? there's no trouble. missed breakfast and want a caramel roll? just ask. the line winds slowly around counters piled high with travel mugs at the peak of too-expensive to splurge on. scattered conversation floats around the room, interrupted by the hum of coffee and the taps that come from a generation glued to their phones. we wait until they call our names or yell our drinks. nod to the baristas. mumble a hurried thanks with grace as our hands hold the $3.49 cups.

settle down, let me tell you a story.

the tables are taken, so we sit by the window. the leather chairs are perfect to sink into, and I have a week's worth of worries to unload. our words spill easily and we stop only to sip cooling cups. outside the sky is grey, the world washed of color. but here, it's almost easy to forget that winter has us in its white folds. there are colors not colors and warmth not from the sun.

how is life?

you say.

and I smile.

good.


h

Five Stories from a drawer-ful of dreams

Story One: Grand-canyon stamped paper bag.

She wished that she could lean over the edge, lean until she just tipped off the edge, and flew into the canyon.  The sun was dipping lower, dripping its red glow into the deeps of the canyon.  A girl sat on the edge, making some nervous, as she sat, converse-clad feet brushing little pebbles off the edge.  She scribbled into a well-worn notebook, perhaps stories of her adventures far from home, or heart stories of the one she wished had come with her.  The sun made it’s final goodbye, and she pulled her sweater sleeves over her knuckles, and hopped up as the bus pulled up to the stop.  Tourists waiting at the stop got in, and she glanced once more at the canyon deep, then turned her back. 

Story Two:  Figurines from a tea-can

When they were little, grandma would pull out the little tin full of tea-figurines, the little creatures that came in the tea-tins.  They made a most delicious sound as they stumbled out of the tin.  They would line them up, two by two, telling stories of how they got to the Ark.  The elephant was her favorite, and the monkey, his.  And each time they left, they kept one, tightly clutched in little palms. 

Story Three:  Wrist Band from a late night

“Mini golf first” they shouted as they all hopped out of the various cars and made their way to the entrance.  Each was clad in jeans and sweatshirts, but hair was fancy, and makeup was extra-special.  Stars cluttered the sky, and a night chill made them pull their hoods on and sleeves down their arms.  Each received a wrist-band.  He wrapped hers around her wrist for her, and they hurried off together to get their golf clubs before the others did.  It was a night of dancing on the green, and singing loudly.  They laughed and raced go-carts ‘til the sun came up, and as the sun rose, she tucked the band into her drawer of dreams. 

Story Four:  Key Card from a long-lost Adventure

She couldn’t remember why she had slipped the card into her wallet, and it made her sad, to think that something once so dear had been forgotten.  She flipped it over in her palm, and tried to think.  Each key-card she kept seemed to be bittersweet, the distance tearing holes in happy times after they had happened.  It could have been a destination, or a midnight stop for rest, but she couldn’t remember, and she found herself tucking it back into her wallet, knowing that she couldn’t throw it out.

Story Five:  Postcards from a summer cabin

She was a lonely soul, tired out, and wishing for a rest.  The summer came as a relief, then, as the lake became closer.  There were nights of reading in a hammock, campfires on the beach, and tea in a soup bowl.  The creaky old rowboat served as her trusty craft, and she would sit in it, lazily rowing in circles in the center of the little lake.  The fish glittered by, under the surface.  She imagined herself stories for them each, and watched them carefully, leaning over the edge of the boat.  It was a summer of sandy socks, and swimsuits, and drying out on the wooden raft.  On the picnic table sat three postcards, and she tucked them into her book, to remember the summer days.  

Hello, I'm Lillian.  I'm seeking to live fully this life-adventure I have before me.  I love rain, and winds in my face.  I am a child of the oak and maple forests of the east, of rich trees and secret rivers, rushing, cold.  I love writing words: the true and make-believe, I love capturing stories of all kinds.  I love photography, food, and napping on the kitchen floor.  

lillian rachel

december poems

It's been a long time since I've written poetry, but something about this season makes me want to write every story in some kind of poetry.

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

"make a wish,"
you told me, imagining
that the lights meant something more.

"they're just lights,"
i told you, wondering
why you were such a foolish dreamer.

"wish anyway,"
you told me, looking
up into the dark night sky.

"wish on everything,"
you told me, listing
candles and feathers and falling tinsel.

"it doesn't work though,"
i told you, sighing
and thinking you crazy and confused.

"who says it doesn't?"
you told me, saying
that at christmas anything was possible.

RED & GREEN

someone once told me
that coco cola changed christmas,
forever.
i didn't want to believe that
and i couldn't believe that.
how could one company have all the power?

i put on red lipstick to meet you,
and told you it wasn't for christmas,
not really
and you said christmas wasn't just red and green.
because you had golden decorations, and
how could you define a season by a colour anyway?

this was something i remembered
when i was decorating my house
red and green,
and in the place of a green wreaths and red baubles,
i told stories of family and shared hot chocolate.
isn't this a better way to celebrate?

DRAGON SMOKE BREATH

i have dragon smoke breath,
red woollen mittens,
and a christmas carol stuck in my head.

you have dragon smoke breath too,
but you forgot your gloves,
and you prefer the nutcracker.

our dragon smoke breath
blurred the winter landscape
as we walked home.


xx
L

writing about writing | part one

Every week this month, we're going to talk to you about writing. We're going to tell you how crazy and how tired we are, how much black coffee we drank last night, how we've completely (literally) lost the plot. We're going to talk about trying to write 50,000 words in a month and we're going to talk about trying to finish a terrible terrible chapter and we're (hopefully) going to talk about finishing it too.

Libby says...
I managed to write about 4000 words today, furious typing sessions tied around my dinner. I was behind, and I'm just about up to date now. I'm clinging on with all my might, and if I slow down my writing pace I'm going to lose, but for now I'm right where I need to be.
I thought I would be further by now. Yes, I have found that once you start writing, you can't stop. But I want to write other things; I want to write about stupid crushes and the way the fog settles in the morning and my plans for the future. I don't want to write about some stupid cafe, the epicentre of my project. I get tired of focusing solely on this one grand story, this complex document of interlocking stories and characters that are supposed to stand alone and yet meld together perfectly. It is hard, and all that writing gets me ready to write other stuff, but it's not always conducive to meeting my daily targets. I am already fretting about how I'll get to 50000 words and having to replot and restructure my loose concepts that I began with.
But I've wrote this one piece today, about four pages, which just flew off my fingers. It flowed and I cried as I wrote it. It's not a perfect piece of writing, but I was writing something that felt shockingly honest and sort of beautiful (almost). It was productive towards my project and it was a good set of pages.
These moments are few and far between, but when they come I am reminded of why I am doing this. It's cathartic and freeing and horribly emotional.
It's important.

Katie says...
This is so, so much harder than I thought it would be. I'm collaborating with my friend Jillian, so I'm only writing half as many words as everyone else, but still...this is hard, people.
It's hard because I don't want to write about the things I'm supposed to be writing. Just like Libby said, the sheer volume of the words are hard, but it's not just the writing. I write best when I feel like it. The past few days? I haven't been feeling it. Jillian and I are way over our word goal, so we're not worried about that. And honestly, the one of the only two reasons I've written at all these past few days is because of 750words.com. I don't want to end my streak, and it's helped me with that.
And the other reason? The writing is always worth it.

Kendall says...
If you want to know the truth, I wrote exactly 0 words yesterday. I got home around 7:30, ate dinner, showered, and scrolled through Tumblr several times before deciding that I just didn't have it in me. So, yeah, this isn't going to be very inspiring or full of tips to help you succeed. I could do that, because theoretically I know what I should be doing, but it'd just be hypocritical when I'm this far behind. I started out the month writing about something I thought would be easy to write about. I thought it would be easy because it was basically my story, wrapped in the guise of fiction. But I didn't like that too much. I discovered pretty quickly that I like writing about my life and I like writing fiction but I don't like it when the lines blur. It should've been easy, but it wasn't, so three days in, I started over. I left the words I'd written, because it's November and if I've written words, I want them to count, dangit, but I've made them white so I can't see them. I started over and I'm excited for this new story. My problem isn't so much inspiration anymore, but factoring in time to work. Giving up has never been an option. So right now, I'm off to write.

coffee shop monologue.

“This is my favorite song by my favorite band,” I said, as we stepped into the coffee shop and the telltale whistling that began Noah & the Whale’s song 5 Year’s Time started playing overhead. Visiting a brand new, not-Starbucks coffee shop is always an exciting experience. There’s the chance they won’t have any drinks you’re familiar with, or maybe their menus are all in French, or maybe there are only two tiny tables already taken up by regulars who glare at you over their full mugs. 

Solar Roast Coffee is on the corner of 3rd and Main, and it’s just a little too far away to bike or walk and I wished I lived in one of the apartments directly across the street. Like you’d expect from the name, sunshine floods the roomy space inside. Outside, it smelled like coffee and fall. I dropped my bag into one of two booths and smacked my psych textbook on the attached table. The barista handed me my drip brew, room for cream, and I navigated the puzzle of tables to the cream station then back to my booth. 

A familiar song started playing. I tilted my head to the side and threw my eyes up to the ceiling and mumbled under my breath, as if that would help me remember what song this was. Then came the typical aha moment, as I realized it was The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance. Vampire Weekend is always good, particularly on a fall day that felt more special than anything else. 

Psychology homework is hard to focus on at the best of times, but in a new place with so many details to notice while I had the chance, it was hard to keep my eyes on the page long enough to absorb the information. 

Starbucks is good in its consistency. It’s nice to know that whether I’m in Amman or Denver, I can find a Starbucks with the same drinks. That's comforting. 

Solar Roast was different though in a refreshing way that made me want to come back again and again. The windowsill that was the length of two booths was full of potted plants, the leaves and flowers growing out past the windowsill itself and touching gently onto our table. The far wall was painted with a sunrise, or a sunset maybe, like what a little kid would draw with a crayon gripped tight in her fist, the rays of sun stretching out from the bottom center and gradually expanding. A black leather couch was pushed up against that same wall, next to the fireplace that was empty then, but I imagine in the winter they light it. There was a potted cactus resting against a pillar -"Every Valentine's she sends me a potted cactus. It's like, thanks a heap, coyote ugly, this cactus gram stings even worse than your abandonment."- and it was a good reminder that Pueblo is almost the desert. 

The menu was hanging from the ceiling, illustrated with pictures and it was clearly separated by the different types of drinks. "Hey," I gestured to the sign, "next time I come here I want to try the Pueblo Mocha. It has hot chili peppers in it." My dad laughed. 

The light was warm. When I say warm, it's hard to describe what I really mean. What I mean is this: the walls were all painted yellow, and there were trees in the courtyard area outside that had bright gold leaves falling and blowing up against the windows, and it was just past noon so the sun was still bright but not as harsh as in the very middle of the day, and all these things blended together until it was like the entire coffee shop was painted with an acrylic color called "light" and this light smudged across the golden walls until the light itself made everything feel warm and welcoming.

The baristas knew every other customer by name, their faces lighting up with a cheery "hello!" whenever the door opened and someone new walked in. This is what I want. I want to be a regular in a place where someone knows my name. I want to have a drink that I order every time, and I want to surprise them when I deviate from my normal. I want to claim the black couch as my own on winter evenings, and spread my homework and my laptop across the table and smile at the new kid when she walks in, her eyes shifting from side to side as she takes in this indie coffee shop that's far different from the Starbucks she's used to. 

the greenhouse

Today, we have a guest post from the lovely Lillian. You can read her blog here, with more of her great photography and writing.

a letter to stephen.

A few weeks ago, I sent this to Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Along with it, a note explaining that I didn't write it for him, but I wanted him to read it. And a letter. Tonight I got an email from a woman who works for him saying he was so impressed by my talent as a writer that he wants to call my parents & I. So here is something for you to read, that I didn't write for you or Stephen or anyone but myself.

"So I looked up, and we were in this giant dome like a glass snowball, and Mark said that the amazing white stars were really only holes in the black glass of the dome, and when you went to heaven, the glass broke away, and there was nothing but a whole sheet of star white, which is brighter than anything else but doesn't hurt your eyes. It was vast and open and thinly quiet, and I felt so small." (from Perks.)

I haven't been out on my roof since the night in early summer where he and I stayed up until the sunrise and I almost fell asleep out there, blinking my heavy eyes quickly just to stay awake. Since it's one of my last nights here until I leave forever, I grabbed a blanket and a flashlight and Perks. Crawled out onto the roof. And read until I couldn't feel my fingers.

It's hard to see the stars tonight. The moon is too bright and washes them out. It's better than it has been though, where the fog and clouds smudge up the sky until there aren't any visible stars at all. It's a trade-off, I guess, because I love the rain and I love the stars and it's hard to choose which I love more.

I moved into this house five and a half years ago, and countless times, I've stood outside in the middle of the road with a cat, just staring at the sky. Once in the middle of winter I went to the middle of the field across the street, camera in tow, and took a few hundred pictures. I think the book that night was L'Engle, A Ring of Endless Light, maybe. It was cold then too and I didn't come back inside until I couldn't feel my fingers.

One of the hardest part about living in the city is the absence of visible stars. I know that soon I'll move up to the mountains and if I want I can drive up and down the Greenhorn Park in the middle of the night until I get tired of the stars. For now though, I feel cheated out of another fall spent staring at the sky.

...It's weird to read Perks again. I was 15-almost-16 the first time I opened it, on an airplane seated next to a woman who smiled at me without saying anything. Now I'm 6-months-past-17 and it's dizzying to think about how much has changed since the first time I met Charlie. And it's dizzying to think about what hasn't changed and should have. Like on page 93 I underlined these words, "maybe I'm being sentimental, but I like to think that when I'm old, I will be able to look at all these tapes and remember those drives." In the margins of the page I wrote in my handwriting that loops in the same direction even after thousands of words written on journal pages, "music gets tangled up in memories." I don't remember writing those words. I do remember opening up a document on my computer later that night after my plane landed in Indianapolis and writing this, "sometimes I wake up and my iPod is tangled in my hair. I like to think that the music tangles through my hair and into my mind while I sleep, dictating my dreams."

And it's funny to think of how the person who wrote both those words inside the book and those words on a computer screen isn't the same person who's writing these words now. That other girl is still there, and she's still a part of me, but I've had a year and a half of tears&laughter&loss that 15-almost-16 me didn't have and that's changed me in good and bad ways.

I can laugh now at what I said about the music dictating my dreams because, while it's a nice thought, frankly it's ridiculous and not to mention badly written. The other one though- what was I thinking when I wrote that?  And what pencil did I use? And was it one I pulled from the jar on my desk? And I can't remember, did I even have that jar then? And if it was from the jar, did it have chew marks on the eraser or was it one of the really tiny ones I have a bad habit of stealing from libraries? Or was it the purple pencil Dylan-nicknamed-Katie's-Dylan-because-we-were-best-friends gave to me for Christmas in 8th grade? And after I wrote it, did I stop and sigh because of the heavy truthfulness of it all? Or did I cry because there wasn't any music to mark that moment?

And I wonder what Charlie would think of all this.

katie

flashback.

I love to go back and reread old things I've written. I was going through my old documents today during class and I found some writings from over a year ago. I've been busy lately & I haven't had a lot of time for writing and such, so I thought I'd share something old. It's quick flashback to last summer.

“I should have been born in the 1920s,” she said, her hands deftly weaving the daisies together in a chain.

She often said things like this, out of the blue. It was like she had a whole closet of unusual statements and each day she picked one to wear. Before, she had proclaimed, innocently, in her way, that she should have been an astronaut, or that she should have been the daughter of gypsies.

I never knew how to respond to these. Once I tried to say that it was good she wasn’t, because then she wouldn’t be my friend. She had glared at me. Her glares weren’t something you ever wanted to see; she would flip her hair and lock her jaw and stare at you like you were the stupidest person on the planet.

Today, I just murmured in agreement and laid my head back down in the grass. I looked up at the sky, a light, airy blue, and at the clouds that dotted it. It was a warm day in June, the start of summer. We weren’t doing much of anything, just laying in the shade and waiting for something to happen, I suppose. She threaded flowers into crowns to keep her hands busy, occasionally offering a few words to break the drowsy silence. And I, I just lay there watching the clouds, looking for shapes and letting my mind wander.

kendall

making my own sun.

Around here, we like a cup of something good in the morning. We also like apple season. On Thanksgiving weekend, Patti (my sweet aunt) sent me home with two big jars of her homemade apple juice. It's nice to start these whirlwinds we call weekdays with something sweet. Not the processed, saccharine kind of sweet. The just enough flavour to wake you up kind of sweet. 

It's not uncommon for us prairie kids to go a day or so without a single glimpse of the sun. It rises during first period, and sets during last. On these days, I make my own sun. Today it was Patti's apple juice and I'm quite okay with that.

--

abbey

other people's bookshelves

There are numerous ways to get to know people--be seated next to them in class, admire their shoes, through a friend of a friend... But the best ways to get to know them--to really know them? It's books.

It's books in all their shapes and forms. It's talking about your favourite books, and asking if they've ever written one, and fixing a time to watch the movie version of one. It's lending each other dog-eared paperbacks and fighting over a beautiful copy of a classic and wrapping up different novels for birthdays and Christmases. It is searching for one thing in a bookshop and bumping into someone you never expected to be there. 

And it's book cases too. Seeing what people keep close by on their bedside tables and what they re-read so often that it never makes it's way back to the shelves. What has a creased spine and what has been kept perfectly intact. 

This Saturday was one of books for me. Pulling out my hefty tome in a little cafe, and accidentally finding books I wasn't really looking for in the library. Perusing in the bookshop with no intent of buying, and coming out with a bag. The lady at work who put aside a 99p copy of a book I need to read for school, and taking a book from my brother's room, with no intention of returning it this time.

And if someone scanned the titles of those books, I think they would know me pretty well. They would know me even better by the stacks of books in my room though.

on favorite places

The other day, the question was posed: What is your favorite place in the world? And while other people seem to have no problem replying with things like "Chicago" or "my grandmother's cottage" or "a certain bookstore", I was left wondering, scraping all my memories and thoughts for an answer.

I've been to a fair amount of places and I've found something to like about them all. But ask me to pick my favorite? Whoa, boy. Should my favorite place be somewhere beautiful (like Hawai'i) or somewhere exciting and full of things to do (Washington D.C.) or somewhere comfortable I've been going all my life (relatives' houses, my house)? Some people say your favorite place is where you feel most "you" and if that's the case, well, I'm still trying to figure that out.

Or maybe I haven't been to my favorite place yet. Maybe I never will -- maybe my favorite place is somewhere imaginary I can only escape into through my thoughts.

For now, I think I'll just say my favorite place is everywhere -- it's scattered all across the globe in every city I've been to and some I haven't yet. My favorite place is a childhood of summers in California, it's a weekend in Boston, it's all the hours spent in the library a bike ride away from home. It's the tiny streets of Barcelona, it's my friend's neighborhood, it's eating an ice cream cone on the beach in Mexico. And it's in the future: at the top of the Eiffel Tower, hiding from the rain in Portland, gazing at the Grand Canyon. I think Planet Earth is my favorite place.

So, now, I ask you: What is your favorite place in the world?

Kendall

summer's last hurrah

"Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. For those few months, you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don’t have the rest of the year. You can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. summer just opens the door and lets you out." 
Deb Caletti

Summer is slipping through our fingertips like fine grains of sand--soon autumn will unfurl in her glory, leaving dewdrops on jeweled leaves like gentle kisses. But for now, let us enjoy summer and all she still has to offer. Make the biggest splash cannonballing into the pool; have one last carefree picnic under the shadiest tree you can find; spend the day soaking up the sun; treat yourself to something extra special; live in sunbleached hair and shorts while you can. These days aren't going to last forever.

cc

i want...

A lovely Fernweh reader Bethany (currently blog-less but leave her lots of kind comments anyway!) emailed this piece to us. It really resonated with me, and I think you'll like it too.

I want to turn cartwheels in the rain and stand on the roof and shout my favorite quote to the world. 

I want to get shivers from looking at the sky.

I want to inspire people to laugh because it's fun, and write even if they think they have nothing to say. 

I want midnight strolls to clear my head, and nights where heart-to-hearts seem the thing to do. 

I want sudden revelations and rainy days spent at antique shops and coffee houses.

I want the second to blend into minutes while I sit doing nothing and everything.

I want to see something that makes me cry with wonder and makes me think about life and my existence on this spinning globe flying through infinity. 

But mostly I just want you. 

that one night in summer.

That one night we spent at the pool until our fingers pruned. It threatened to storm on the drive home, but we kept the sunroof open anyway. We stopped for ice cream and the clouds loomed menacingly low, but they were pink and that made you excited, because you love pink. When we got home, we quickly snuck you inside (giggling the whole time) so you wouldn't have to go home. Chloe popped in an episode of our favourite show, and we heard your mother call both your first and middle names in a 'come here right now' kind of tone. I'm not sure how it happened, but the stormy evening somehow ended with all of us snuggled up on the couch while laughing at witty gilmore girls jokes, us and our mothers. 

--

That one night we went golfing, but didn't actually golf at all. We despise golf, really. We just cruised around in the cart and sang sound of music and drew pictures in the sand traps and did barefoot cartwheels on the green and acted all civil when people walked by. I think not golfing is my new favourite sport.

--

That one night I was emptying out my knapsack and I found a wrapper from a caramel apple pop that I must have bought at the lake. We are not candy people, but we have the odd guilty pleasure. Caramel apple pops are one of them. We biked to the convenience store with loonies in the pockets of our cutoffs, and on the way back (with suckers in our mouths), we decided that summer was a really good thing.

Salinger, I'm Sorry.

This was supposed to be about Kerouac. I was going to talk about reading On The Road while I was driving through Utah and Arizona, how the dust of the desert fit in perfectly with the book. I was going to talk about my favorite line in Book of Sketches, "the flesh gets numb, but the soul doesn't."

Instead, it's Thursday morning, and I'm pounding out these words as quickly as I can, taking a break every few lines to put on mascara or foundation. All I can think of is a poem I read once, and the first two lines are echoing over and over in my head: "Salinger, I'm sorry, but don't ever tell anyone anything..." and that's all I can remember, so I repeat it until finally I open up a new tab and google the rest of the poem.

It goes like this:

"Salinger, I'm sorry, but "don't ever tell
anyone anything" is a string of words
that I would like to wrap up in canvas and sink
to the bottom of the Hudson, or extract
by laser from the ribcage of all of us
who ever believed it, who felt afraid
to miss someone, to be the last one
standing. "Tell everyone everything" is
not exactly right, but I do believe that if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover's eyelashes,
you should say so. We are islands all of us,
but we are also boats, our secrets flares,
pyrotechnic devices by which we signal
there's someone in here we're still alive!
So maybe it's, "don't be afraid." Oliver Bendorf, Catch a Body

That poem contradicts one of my favorite quotes from Salinger. See, when I read the Catcher in the Rye, it had been exactly a year since I left for Jordan. All those memories were flooding back, and I started telling my family the stories that they had already heard millions of times. And I read that quote, right at the end of the book, where Holden Caulfield says, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody," and I thought, that is so true. Holden gets it.

But then. I read this poem, and maybe Holden doesn't get it. Holden does understand that sharing the stories, telling people things, can make you miss them more. Holden doesn't understand, though, that sometimes it's worth it, that sometimes the best thing you can do is: "don't be afraid."