ash wednesday

thank you. it helped a lot. you have to be sitting here to know just how much. not over there; right here, in my chair, over here, right at the center of my chest.

where my heart beats.

rumblestrip has just left my house. i know i'm going to live through the night even thought that other, darker thing is here because i have been sitting, having a cup of tea. i had the black lichee; rumblestrip had the tea that Flyingfisher makes me for breakfast and you know? i miss breakfast with Flyingfisher.

so i cried all the way home from church. not the howling, mind you. not the bawling of a beast. not the beast. just crying. but the trick was to get me home and into an easier frame of mind.

the service was hard for me. i have been very much in mind of passage through darkness and into light, very much in mind of my failings and flailings and the broken places where i need to be made whole, the places where my soul needs to be picked up and dusted off and set off to fly again.

i am aware of the places where i need to mend and the places where worry and doubt work at cross purposes to healing. does concern for proper medical treatment go to show breakdown of faith? i want to be sure, i want for my heart to be pure.

this morning i managed to get Barbara and her family to the airport. i was happy to see them go (their story and not mine) but it's a little scary for me to know Barbara is out of reach for a while. she's smart, though and she's called in reinforcements, some assistance in the department of pastoral care.

and i feel different since that day, even though i remember very little of it. i think i remember seeing a note that said "i've gone to get the mail. move slowly." but then i put my head down again and when i lifted it up the note was gone and Barbara was there.

and i have no name for you either, yet, not one i have permission to use here, but i think i remember that you stood with me a long time and i don't know what happened but that it was exactly what needed to happen, the one thing i have wanted and known i needed but have not gotten.

so i want to thank you for that.

and i've been reading and re-reading ash-wednesday and it is an astounding poem. it begs to be read out loud. it begs to be read.

oh, my people.

i found it while i was sitting at my mother's desk, idly googling this and that.

i'm trying to figure out how to tell you about this feeling of being in love, trying to do it without sounding too goofy. i'm not sure i can. when i am alone i can almost articulate it, even though it's been months.

i am trying to find a way to tell you about it, working backward in the story until i get there, but by the time i get to the place where i realize what the feeling is, it is too powerful and there aren't yet words that serve its purpose.

but i should probably confess: DJC, you were right, only it isn't who you thought it was.