joyeux anniversaire, cher

hello! (she says sweetly, quietly, not wishing to disturb what looks to be peaceful sleep and sweet, sweet dreams.)

what holds your mind's eye as one year ends and another one begins?

i am here, right where you left me ... stringing words together, like christmas lights, watching them shine brightly in the dark and listening to you breathe.

happy birthday to you ... the boy who says impossible things that i believe. what do you wish for? what can i give you that you don't already have? off-the-cuff compliments? adjectives? a conversation on paper? an impossible encounter that lives in the imagination and somehow becomes reality?

what will you give yourself?

the wisest of men know that real birthdays are not annual affairs ... they are the days when we experience a rebirth; so that while we may grow older in years, we are newer every day. this, i know, is not news to you. you already know this life is a constant, gradual process ... a subtle play of light and texture and shadows, measured in centuries and inches. it is about kindness and passion and potential and temperance ... extremes of temperature, folding, pounding, turning ourselves inside-out, and bringing out the gold hidden within.

my wish for you is that you'll fly free and happy ... beyond birthdays and across forever ... and that throughout our long lives, you and i will meet ... when we wish... in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.

happy birthday, darling boy. i hope you spend the day in the company of the people you love and who love you the most. and i hope the day gently breezes into your life carrying with it all the choicest of things and all that your heart holds dear.

i am ever so glad you were born.

a kiss ... and another ...

...la

year end inventory

he's putting on his coat. he's saying his goodbyes. he is preparing to leave the party. (is it my imagination, or has he had a little too much to drink? will someone please call him a cab?)

usually, i can't wait for him to go. i count the minutes, kiss him goodbye and shove him out the door. his exit now, though, is bittersweet. i hate to see him go. i do. no matter how far away he gets - this long, hard, joyful year - he'll linger long here ... in notes and pictures and smiles that take me by surprise and memories that erupt with little provocation.

and as this year gives way to another, it should be easy to spot the things that are missing ... the things i want ... the people far away ... that which i've been denied. but i just can't. not this time. nope.

there's stock to be taken, for sure, but this year, the year-end inventory is all about the things i have. good. bad. in between. they're mine. and they're (finally) all that i can see ...

what do i have that's all mine?

i have a cold. that's a lie. i don't have a cold. i have bronchitis. and if i keep coughing like this, i'll also have a concussion.

i have a job i love and can be quite good at. and i get to spend my days surrounded by lovely things and lovelier people.

i have finally voted in an election where my candidate won! and as a result, i finally have hope that the world might become a better place.

i have a jones for wii bowling. i love it! and i can be quite good. i am also a gold medalist in pool and in the shooting game. i am wicked fast. do not ask me to play anything that requires that nunchuck thing, though. it's the devil's tool.

i have a talent for inventing 'wii' wii-lated words. in fact, in the near future, i'll be publishing a 'dictionar-wii.' (for instance: where would you go to treat your injur-wii? the emergenc-wii room.) okay. perhaps it's not so much a 'talent' as an obsession. (i'm capt-wii-vated.)

i have a parking place for the night, just outside my door. a space where there is no street sweeping or hourly restrictions of any kind. a space that allows me to sleep in on my day off for as long as i can. which will be until 8 a.m., because ...

i also have an early morning pancake date with the two most adorable little girls you'd ever want to meet. their curiosity, their bottomless joy, they call up the same thing in me and i am powerless to resist. not a day off or a warm bed or great parking will keep me from those pancakes.

i have a handful of perfect days. i'd never had what i considered to be a 'perfect' day until this year. 11.1 was the first. it began and ended with a cup of coffee ... and in between, there were 'watermelon wonders' and the hollywood sign and jason mraz singing sweetly under an autumn sky. i've had a few more 'perfect' days since. and they surprise me every time. as much by my ability to recognize them as by their arrival. (who knew perfect days were like stars? ... once you discover one, you see the whole sky is filled with them. )

i have lost the ability to appreciate microwave popcorn. coffee made by an automatic drip. or pasta from a box.

i have a mother who is loopy as hell. she is also generous and silly and strong ... and completely unable to complete a conversation with only ONE phone call. (really, mom? was the call to talk about dwarfs on the learning channel completely necessary?)

i have a sister who is awesome. (no more explanation is necessary. laurie t. is awesome. period.)

i have a good understanding of the things i will never have, whether by choice or chance. i will never have small hips. or shoulders. or ideas. i will never have lots of money. or a boat. or fame. or a job i hate. i will never have fake fingernails. or breasts. or friends.

and i have really good friends. and it's not just that i have 'good friends;' i have genuinely good people in my life. good people. genuine people. they're smart and skilled and brave and funny. they teach me things. they let me be strong. and encourage me to be weak once and awhile and they hold me up when i can't stand on my own anymore. they celebrate the little things. and the big things. they warm my hands and bring me chocolate and lunch and tell me i'm beautiful. and when i get all twisted and twirly, they point me back toward the light. i have jenni and christopher and laurie t. and amy and meg and michael and corrine and lynda and tri and robert and maria and katharine and elizabeth and shannon and lindsey and brian and grace and isabella and ...

i have found friends from long ago, or rather, they found me. they're crushes and lovers and boys i loved who didn't love me back. they're castmates and teammates and soulmates. they're friends, turned rivals, turned friends again. they are people who meant the world to me, before my world got in the way. people who liked me long before i liked me and with whom i am excited to share this older, wiser version. for better or worse.

i have discovered that all it took to save myself was to 'ruin' my life. has that ever happened to you? do you know what i mean? this year, i battered down the walls of my life and let in the sun, and the wind, and the ice and snow. and i believe it was worth every drop of pain it's brought me. every time.

i have a desire to get another tattoo ... some little symbol to remind me of the light inside me; the light i shouldn't let go out ... a reminder of life and a reminder of how i was brought to life, not just once, but many times this year ... a reminder that the rough parts are a part of being alive and must be felt fully in order to experience joy.

and i have love. and not just the really, really big try seafood because he asked me to; let him eat the last piece of cheesecake; hold a radio over my head outside his window kind. no. it's also the sit quietly in the same room and read while he works; let him win at scrabble - 'cause when he wins, we both win; drink manhattans, watch 'mad men' and stay up all night kind. and the go ahead and say the things that need to be said no matter how afraid we might be of the outcome; believe him when he tells me i'm sweet and beautiful and not like anyone he's ever met; snuggle under the covers and read bedtime stories with the girls' kind. but mostly, it's the never saw it coming; wouldn't trade it for the world no matter what; i'm the best version of myself in his presence kind.

i have a sneaking suspicion he loves me, too.

and i finally have a pretty good view of 'forever' up ahead. if i start running now, i think i can make it.

see you there.

yes, virginia. there is a santa claus.

was there ever something you knew for sure would someday be yours ... to have ... to experience ... to be?

was there ever a day you admitted to yourself that it wouldn't materialize? and were you lucky enough to find peace in that admission?

and were you luckier, still, to find one day that it might finally come to pass?

today was such a day for me and i am impossibly grateful for even the possibility of it.

and so i go to sleep tonight, knowing morning will come far too soon ... work will be hard and long ... but with this 'hello kitty' stamp on my hand and these braids knotted by tiny five.year.old hands ... i couldn't be happier if i tried.

... until then ...

hello, dear friends. happy ten days before christmas.

i trust that you're rushing about, enjoying home and friends and the warm texas sun.

it's cold and rainy where i am today. i love the rain here. the clouds, like everyone else in southern california, are polite, bringing themselves as close to the ground as they can so that the drops, plump and newborn, won't have far to fall. everything gets all shimmery and fresh-smelling and i get lost in the green and beauty of it all.

it's strange, still, to think of you, half a day and what feels like half a world and another season away. but still, from opposite ends of the earth, we get to meet here.

there is much to say ... tales of retail anthropology, my injur-wiis and my blinking reindeer nose ... of parking woes and new favorite things and giant leaps of faith.

but, the new day has already arrived and i should stock up on sleep before the real rush begins. (aside from holiday madness, i am in sale prep again, flipping our floor and racing headlong into 'spring.' and in the midst, days off will be few and far between. still, it will help me appreciate the rest when it finally comes down, no?)

but do tell ... where are you headed today?

i imagine you're immersed somewhere in sunshine and shopping and (hopefully) the relaxation of home and the holiday there. and i wish i could be nearer somehow.

and yes. i know i owe you a letter.

until then ...

a kiss. and another. i miss you.

... la

right, right away

over and over there has been this question for me ... what does it mean when you meet someone and you feel something - this shininess coming from them, some kind of glimmer of recognition about them you can feel all the way down to your stomach? is it desperately important? a missed opportunity if you don't catch it?

i've missed many. they came at me when i wasn't looking; when i wasn't remotely ready; when i just wanted to be left alone. and they never looked the way they were supposed to look or the way i thought they would.

and so i stood there, immovable in my fear and my embarrassment ... blinded by supposition and intimidation ... made mute by uncertainty or history ... and always by my own decision.

i let them go by. one after another. until i couldn't feel them anymore ...

... until the day a half-smile and a lopsided-gait threw me to the ground and knocked the wind out of me.

and in these days that follow, i've made the choice not to let the things i don't do define me. i've stopped being embarrassed of myself, hiding bits of me away, being 'hard to know,' playing 'hard to get.' and i've never been so happy.

though, it's harder than i thought it would be. and what makes it hard is that it comes so easily. and everyone knows (and are only too happy to remind me) that it isn't supposed to be this easy. or this soon. or this right. at least not right away.

and, sometimes, against my better judgement, i listen to 'everyone.' i measure my experience against the 'should be's' and the 'supposed to's.' and knowing my luck the way i do, i wonder if there will come a day when the other shoe will drop ... if fate will step in and tell me it was only kidding. i wonder if the next time will be the last time and if, in the surrender, i'll be the thing that has to give.

but i wonder, more, if i haven't finally lived long enough, hard enough, sweetly enough, that this is my reward. i wonder if this is what i've been waiting for. or rather, if this has been waiting for me ... to catch up, to figure it out, to finally deserve my happiness ... and not just deserve it, but finally reach out and take it.

maybe that's what everyone's supposed to do. maybe it's just that easy after all.

molten marrow and the face of joy

there was an unusual man who wandered into my store on occasion. to use the restroom, to sit in a comfortable chair and listen to the conversations going on around him, to drain the last drops from the abandoned starbucks cups customers leave on tables and counters. he was always polite and friendly. his smile - warm and porous. and when he laughed, which was often, his tongue stuck out and between his teeth. in those moments, i think he defined 'joy.'

he made people nervous. but he almost never spoke to anyone and he never stayed long. and he always cleaned up the bathroom a little and pushed in his chair when he was finished. and he always took his empty paper cup with him. (which was more than i can say for anyone else who ventured in.)

despite protests from staff and customers, i never asked him to leave. in fact, i was likely to hover nearby and help him keep his peace. (sometimes, i'd slip him a bottle of water or sneak him a doughnut from the kitchen. it was the least i could do, he was quite generous with a smile.) we never spoke, until one day last year, just before i moved away.

as i passed by him, he reached out to me. his touch tender, despite the roughness of his hand. and when i turned to him, he looked directly into my eyes, like he was looking for something in me ... i'm not sure what, but i could hear my heart slow as he did. and when he'd found whatever that was, his hand squeezed my hand and he said, 'you used to be ... and people still mistake you for ... a comet. but really, you are a volcano. and your eruption will be powerful. and beautiful. and true.'

and then he was gone.

and i couldn't quite move. i felt suddenly undone. i couldn't, in that moment, completely grasp what it meant, but i knew that it was important, for a million different reasons, not the least of which was that he took the time to look at me ... look inside me and through me and to connect. to give me this little gift of his insight. unexpected and curious.

it's been with me for awhile now. i turn it over and around in my head as i move into my new life, wondering what he meant and when i'll feel what he felt in me. i've been waiting. and a whisper in my mouth, in the deepest, darkest part of the night finally convinced me he was right. i was a comet ...

a small body, something out of ice and stars (cold and painful), orbiting the sun. my layers melting and evaporating; my tail of dust illuminated by someone else's light. i would appear out of nowhere in the sky and gradually vanish out of sight.

and now, maybe i am a volcano ...

an opening in the surface of the earth where the plates, like thoughts, have shifted. coming together, pulling apart in an erratic dance of history and mystery and magic. a head in gold tipped clouds. steamy pillars rising into blue skies. smoking green lakes. the wild play of colours on the walls inside, once dormant, now showing signs of unrest. heat rising, steam seeping, turning, rolling, spitting, grinding, laying bare my insides. the molten marrow, undiscovered deep below, breaking free into the boundless sky and landing softly on new ground bourne of fire.

unimagined, unspoiled beauty. unbound power. perchance, and weather permitting, the sole true power you want to surrender to.

and i'll never let anyone tell me differently.

just like riding a bike

it's been a long time since i've ridden a bike. a very, very, very long time.

even as i love everything about it ... the sweat, the heavy breathing; the way it messes up my perfect hair and makes my thighs ache; the adrenaline rush, the fatigue, the speed at which i feel i might come apart ... still, i haven't been able to bring myself to climb aboard.

why? fear, mostly. and i don't know the neighborhood. there's a lot of traffic. and i don't have a helmet. or a little bell to signal i'm coming. and i don't know the hand signals or the etiquette and i'm afraid of falling ... of crashing ... again, actually ... and of acquiring new scars. (for a girl of such hardy stock, i am a remarkably fragile little egg. reparation would take at least all the king's horses and all of his men.)

but in this last week, i found myself having trouble walking where walking was once easy and so, when a bike was offered, i climbed on board. and now, it's something i can't get enough of ... like sugar. or music. the sheer joy of it, stealing away my oxygen ... taking me to a place where there are no words and no need to use them ... where hours pass like minutes and i feel the old instincts take over.

and everything aches. my muscles simultaneously rebelling and rejoicing ... from the motion, from the effort, from the absolute excitement of it ... and from the uncertainty of never knowing how far i'll go or how long i'll be gone or exactly where i'm headed.

there is no map to get me from here to there ... there is only instinct. and overwhelming desire. and hope. faint, but powerful.

i'm riding my bike again.

god. i hope i don't fall.



(and if i should, wish for me a spectacular crash - the kind that leaves me shattered, wonderfully, and with only the most interesting of scars.)