on bad days i walk home, my mind a tail between my legs. i let myself dwell too long in a pink bedroom two years ago, tiptoeing in as you slept… i left my car keys on the floor outside your door so the jingling wouldn’t wake you. i crawled in beside you soundlessly, content to watch you breath. back then every inch of you seemed sacred- i was a lonely pilgrim stopping by to make an offering to you, the porcelain god of who i wished i could be.
i could be her, but the price was so high that you left my every piggy bank shattered. now there so many ceramic shards in the carpet of my life that i’m still scared to walk barefoot in love.
on bad days i walk home, my mind a tail between my legs. i let myself wonder, are you waiting for me? in a pink bedroom you are yelling at your father. over the broken intercom you are shouting your breakfast order: 3 buttermilk biscuits.
2 for you, 1 for me.
your hand on my waist
is manifest grace
i say thanks, it’s amazing, this love!
there’s a relevant psalm
that i can’t recall
i feel drunk, i am crazy in love!
(CHORUS)
i’m just singing along
to the song of songs
somehow i know the words by heart—
the birds and the bees
adam and eve
it is written, i’m smitten, this love!
now i have dreams
of left hand rings
they surprise me, i’m finally in love!
i’m just singing along
to the song of songs
somehow i know the words by heart—
it’s suddenly easy to sing
(ah, ah ah—)
it’s suddenly easy to sing
(la da da da da—)
i am 15 years old, and my flip flops are flopping as i sprint downhill along my neighbor’s driveway. my heart is pounding in stomach, and the echo is ringing in my ears. the darkness does not eclipse the raw guilt i feel. i am incredibly nervous. i run through wet grass anticipating the cigarette i will smoke when he gets here. i check my phone for the time. the lcd is blinding; my pupils shrink and the word “fuck” falls from my lips- seemingly natural, but it’s the first time i’ve sworn out of habit. the fear of being caught briefly gives way to a sense pride at my own edginess. i’m panting at the corner when he arrives. strangely detached, i can see my own body getting into his car, but i don’t feel his lips on my skin—
“it wasn’t me,” i will tell my mother, when a friend claims she saw me getting into a car on hillsboro road at 2am on a school night… it wasn’t me.
sunday, and i’m recharging my batteries.
god was in the basement of 414 today, collecting amanda’s tears. emotion is so beautiful, so contagious! will someone remind me to stop wearing mascara to church? sharaya scrambled for the tissues and i thought of psalm 56:8 “put my tears in your bottle.” i imagine a miniature blue glass vial with a tiny corkscrew, hanging around god’s neck on a silver chain… then i find myself laughing at the absurdity of it- god’s neck?
luke 6:21 says, “blessed are those who weep, because you will laugh!”
crying, laughing, living, loving… this is my small group, my electrical outlet, my cocoon. i love this hour. a visiting pastor is ministering on the other side of the sliding doors, and something wonderful is seeping through the crack. my inhalations are longer; everything is suddenly slower. einstein’s theory about the relativity of time must apply not only to one’s proximity to large gravitational fields, but also to the nearness of god… it’s funny but i’m closer to these girls than i am to people i’ve known my whole life. there is no pretending here. we giggle at the pettiness of the set study questions, but we are deadly honest when we answer them. i say things i didn’t know i knew, i didn’t know i felt.
and every sunday, i leave feeling distinctly different than when i arrived. they say god loves you right where you are; he just loves you too much to leave you there.
a year ago i started a journey.
propelled by some inner compass, i boarded a plane to wyoming and lived out a fantasy embedded deep in the american psyche. like thousands before me, i went west, the legendary land of opportunity. there i found the desert, a landscape as exposed as i felt. i found a cowboy vastness that sang to me of a larger truth, begging for discovery.
summer pulled the compass homeward, to the sweet south. sipping peach iced tea and receiving revelation through ipod shuffle, i basked in the heat and hospitality. the utter goodness of simplicity was shocking, but not quite satisfying…
in the fall, the needle of that compass spun frantically east. confused but convicted, i followed the magnet across oceans to india. shamelessly i dove deeper into meaning. ancient wisdom did not disappoint. my bare feet sank into the mud of the ganga. i met christ in the slums of banaras, where my own easy faith surprised me.
quite naturally the compass eventually settled toward the north. new york city, the center of the world - and the destination of the first one-way plane ticket i’ve ever purchased. it’s been almost 6 weeks. i now know what i’m doing here, but i can’t perfectly describe it to you.
i am playing a game of spiritual hide and seek. god in sagebrush, god on a picket fence, god under the bodhi tree, god in the subway graffiti. god hanging from my guitar strings, god mashed between the interlocking fingers of new friends, god dunked in a bathtub on 51st street…
i will never stop seeking.
for more than a week now i’ve been plagued by a fear that i’m not cool enough to blog. my feable attempts at finding things worthy of posting have failed. even my proximity to my sister rosie and the infamous allison weiss has not improved my relevance to pop culture - and if hanging out with them doesn’t make me cool enough to blog, i don’t know what will.
i’m not cool enough to blog, but i’m inspired enough to just write, and i’m confident enough to share it with you, as long as i’m vague enough not to be too vulnerable…
so for now i will forget about finding cool things and focus instead on creating cool things.
today: i’m tired as i type, my spirit slightly sore from the heaviness of authentic love. 10 days of such condition were at once too much and not enough. dropping him off at the train station today i was seized by this desire to just reach out and hold on for dear life - not to the boy, but to the hope i feel when i’m with him. every cell in my body was buzzing with profound gratitude this week, not just for romance but for the very breath of life. i sigh as i’m sitting on my bed, drawing contentment from a feeling of progression toward… well, toward something. and it’s gonna be good.
