Post Dog Park

For those of you wondering about our snow.

Anybody want some? We'd be more than happy to move it along and get rid of it.

In my head, there's a greyhound station . . . .

I'm smitten. Straight up, IN LOVE with Death Cab for Cutie's song Soul Meets Body. Songwriting rarely gets better than this . . .truly. Lyrics, music, overall message and vibe of the song . . .it resonates with every inch of my present being.

"I want to live where soul meets body." Amen. Where and when someone is not afraid of the influence of one over the other . . .where life is lived in complete fullness, body and soul allowing one to be human--no gnosticism or Plato's body/soul distinction to cloud feelings and judgments. Instead, people hating themselves a little less, acknowledging their humanity (needs included) a little more, with grace and humor . . .finding themselves at less war within themselves. Life embraced as is.

"I send my thoughts to far off destinations so that they may have a chance of finding a place where they are far more suited than here." WI is a bit of a curse for me . . .I love it deeply. My family and some of my closest friends are here. 4 beautiful seasons, a plethora of lakes, friendly people. You would think one would feel quite at home. And yet . . .to love something and still feel so misunderstood. Do you stay and conform? Stay and not conform? Leave and go to a more Kristy-friendly place like Seattle, Bozeman, the Cities, or the great wide world of Europe? One wonders if the point is to feel as though you belong or not. It's just the loneliness that comes with people not quite getting you . . .it wears on you despite your denial tendencies. Maybe Madison will love me; love my loves . . . .

"And I cannot guess what we'll discover when we turn the dirt with our palms, cupped like shovels. But I know our filthy hands can wash one another's . . .and not a speck will remain." Hello, gospel. Hello, birth. Hello, "what it's like to feel new."

Another Poem

Lately I've had a lot of thoughts in need of pen and paper and time . . . . At some point I'll force them into words, but until then, here are the words of another; words true to me in this given moment.

Stone work

I know the one I want when I find it.
Turning them over, like tortoises,
rubbing their ridged underbellies, their curves,
their pocked histories of love and grief,

I palm the one that speaks my other name,
the one whom I become this still moment,
lead-light, soft as chalk, right as spring
after weeks of needling sleet, the dumb tomb.

I run my tongue along its edges, taste
the sharp consonants, the gush of vowel,
the salt that grits the honest surface,
telling its years in the still pool of tears.

A stone in a heart made of sorrow,
a node in a kidney (gorgeous agony),
a missile thrown to break the martyr's skull,
a stranger at the gates of the body's love.

I press it down hard in the good dirt
next to the one I loved best yesterday,
assembling the poem, stone by sudden stone,
faithful as flesh to its house of bone.

-Angela O'Donnell

The Netherlands' Den Haag and Amsterdam

Finally: a new post.

And pictures, too!