my sister. the model.

she's going places. she's funny as hell. she's beautiful all the way through. and i miss her something awful.

beyond my better judgement

sitting out on the deck after work tonight, the smooth sounds of joe cocker drifted through the trees from the neighbors' house. listening in took me back to a time several years ago...

i was eighteen and my family was vacationing at the beach with my father's side of the family for another one of our ever-memorable reunions. my parents had been on the outs for a couple years by then. the ordeal had started two summers before, during one of these reunions, when i'd haphazardly discovered my father's affair. tony, my boyfriend of a year or so, was with us this time and i was enjoying his company at an age when any excuse to be your own person will do. my parents had made it somewhat apparent, to me anyway, that this was a last ditch effort to see if they could work things out while saving face with the extended family. one evening during those tumultuous two weeks, i sat outside on one of the house's many decks, hiding as best i could from everyone inside. the house next door was alive with romantic old time music, the clinking of wine glasses, and the sound of a couple's unburdened laughter. i can remember the way i felt that night, alone on my perch. hoping beyond my better judgement that my parents could reconcile and that the relationship i was in at the time would last forever, without heartbreak or infidelity.

at the end of that twisted two week vacation, my brothers, sister, and boyfriend all loaded into two cars. my mother and father were flying back while we made the fourteen odd hour drive. as i kissed my mother, with the others out of earshot, she whispered that it just wasn't going to happen. i looked at her, both of our eyes beginning to fill with tears, and wondered when i had become an adult, a third party, to my parents' relationship. whether it was right or not, they had forgotten that i was a child in this situation. their first born to be exact. i nodded. even though i wanted to scream and quickly turned on my heals. i think in that moment i was counting on dropping the pain with each mile that passed. it didn't exactly turn out that way, because when i got home they were there to remind me.

the convoluted tale that was 'caitlin and tony' did end in heartbreak. and infidelity. he is happily married now. i, after another failed relationship and a few question mark endings in between, am single. i am either stupid or pure of heart, but i still believe in love that lasts, whatever it is, i am hopeless about it. i don't know if it will come for me, but no matter how antsy i get for a movie soundtrack-wine glass clinking-defenseless laughter romance, something tells me there is still time.

more than anything i hope that tonight, in the house through the trees, the neighbors were dancing.

hymn #101

some dearheart must have given up my name and address to a lovely man by the name of joe pug in chicago, illinois, and today, made me the proud recipient of two discs, with two songs each, and you better believe i'm going to pay it forward.


a taste:
"i've come to get high. to do more than just get by. i've come to test the timber of my heart. oh i've come to test the timber of my heart. and i've come to be untroubled in my seeking. and i've come to see that nothing is for naught. i've come to reach out blind. to reach forward and behind. for the more i seek the more i'm sought. yea, the more i seek the more i'm sought."

in summation

...of yesterday's wordy effort to express how i'm feeling at present.

"why am i afraid to dance, i who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? why am i afraid to live, i who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colours of the earth and sky and sea? why am i afraid to love, i who love love?"

-from eugene o'neill's "the great god brown" by way of the ragamuffin gospel.

this is how you remember yourself

it is so odd to look back at what your life has been made up of up until the point you are now. it is strange to remember how you saw things when you were in them and how you see them now. how when you think you've severed your past to the point where you can regail yourself or others with the tale without it affecting you the way it once did, it hurts in a completely different way. i'm so achey lately. i'm busy, and therefore not depressed, which is good and terrible all at the same time, because it means i am simutaneously feeling better and doing a damn good job ignoring what God wants to teach me about my self-worth. and how it isn't conditional. a point i have a hard time registering for whatever reason. i perform. and measure my successes and failures against a backdrop of expectations i am not meant to meet. a good friend told me recently that i, specifically, was not designed to lead a conventional life, so i might as well stop beating myself up for not doing so. it sounds good. my thick skull, however, is making absorption of these truths quite difficult.

i think i've finally realized what a choke hold my pride has me in. i have so much love inside of me. this boiling, painful, pure love that i rarely express. atleast not in the way i want to. and definately not to all the people my heart catapults towards when they come to mind, or if i'm lucky, present themselves before me. why do i spend so much time longing and so much time being afraid of the very things i long for? there are moments, fleeting moments, usually when i am driving in a car alone, that i really do believe that God has good things planned for me, but the one thought that drowns that security is the thought that He did and still does, but i have done, and will continue to do, too many things to screw it up. that i've given away too much of my heart, so it will never be "right" enough to make love last. that i've given away too much of my body, so that it will never be "good enough" to offer to anyone again. that i've been too foolish. flaky. dishonest. and selfish. that i will get old and tired of waiting. i do not trust myself. i don't trust myself to know the difference between lasting love and the kind that turns it's fangs on you. i spend a lot of time lying in my bed at night. alone. listening to sad songs hoping to cry. but the knot in my throat won't budge. it can't be good to go this long without some sort of waterworks. even if i don't like to cry, i know that tearing up at one episode of 'extreme makeover home edition' in the last two months is not exactly healthy. i have a love/hate relationship with the connection my heart has to words. it seems a song can come on the radio and i'm helpless to stop the direction my brain goes with whatever memories the lyrics have conjured up. i can simutaneously daydream and talk myself down from whatever fairy tale life i've imagined. i get so scared of losing things i don't even have. i think fall is just a hard time for me. too many anniversaries. anniversaries of endings. but i hope they are also anniversaries of beginnings. beginnings that have not come to be...yet.

tell 'em God just dropped by to...?

i am not trying to get in on the whole political coversation by shamelessly promoting a conservative agenda. or shamelessly promoting a liberal agenda. or by projecting my fear of where the world is going by insulting people's character, background, age, experience, heritage, or the people they associate with. if i judged Jesus by the people He associated with... i've recently seen a lot of public statements from friends, aquaintances, and strangers concerning this race, the canidates, their agendas etc. etc. many of them profess to love Jesus and i am sure they do, but the more i have examined His teachings as well as the groanings of my own heart, i have to wonder what we're on about? i for one cannot understand how we could be so caught up in the politics of this world that it would cause us to bicker and insult, when we are called to love and bring along the peace that passes all understanding. when we are called to serve a kingdom wholly(holy) other. i cannot understand how so many believers are so terrified of losing money that it would dictate their decisions about politics or anything else. can man serve both God and Mammon? how is it that one of God's children can live in abject poverty while the other drowns in wealth? moreover, i cannot understand how any believer wouldn't question the motives and means of war or whether legislating morality actually works, is in the best interest of humanity, or aligns with Father's heart for His children. is faith in God and the decision to follow His principles no longer a choice? should the choices we make concerning the way we live our lives be mandated by law? does that not reek of legalism? does that not seem opposite of the church Jesus (and Paul) spoke of? i sense that putrid spirit of religion creeping back in. i suppose in most circles it never left, just cleaverly masked itself and armed people with a sense of duty to forcibly and unlovingly insist that people see things "our" way and wallow in guilt when they do not. and in some circles it doesn't bother masking itself, because people don't mind it romping around. i will not say whether i plan to vote or not, or who i would vote for if i do. doing so would most assuredly negate my opening statements. i do know that the governing of this country is inescapable, that the election is going to happen whether believers vote or not. whether they vote for McCain, Obama, or Jesus Christ himself, i know that this whole mess will get worse before it gets better, and i know that we won't really know the whole truth (and nothing but the truth) until the end of it all. but there are a few things i believe with my whole heart. i believe we are called to rise above the system, i believe that faith is a choice and our walk with God is a relationship, a relationship that brings all the beautiful and terrible things realtionship can bring, i believe that we should sit down with our enemies, and when we sit, we should talk, and when we talk, we should treat them like they're God's creation too, because they are, i believe that loving people where they're at is what we are called to do, and that the majority of the time we're bad at it, i believe i see bits of the kingdom come to fruition every day, and that the life of a believer should include a high concentration of seeking those bits and building upon them, i believe we are called to be light in the dark places, not light in the light places, i believe (and have seen!) that americans aren't the only people in the world and i'm tired of us acting like it, i believe that i can't do a lot, but i can do a little, a lot, i believe that people, especially children, learn more from what they see us do that what we tell them to, i believe we should be aware of the way we speak, the things we say when we don't use words, the food we eat, the transportation we use, the clothes we wear, and how often we smile, i believe my grandmother would tell me that "idealism doesn't get a girl too far," but i also believe that i feel alright about where i'm going and that i will never stop questioning how i'm getting there, until i do.

baby tomatoes

sunlit and raindrop ripened afternoons
lonely for the first time in months
and wondering...what comes next?