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.