Mixed Moss

A long winter
silent, soft and deep
pens me in
outlasting its time
wearing out its welcome.
Numb, inert
I huddle beneath
a downy heap
shivering
loth to move
as early darkness
oppresses my afternoon.
Look within your chill cocoon
find the strength you lost
the hope you could not find
the embers of the hearth fire
you thought had died out.
Let it warm you
melt the snow
and turn your eyes to that bright light
that led three seeking kings
to joy and peace
so long ago.
A two thousand year old spark
will light and warm your way tonight.
Breathe
stir
and rise.

I have a lot of changes in my life right now. Sometimes it’s tough to handle them all. Sometimes I get depressed and do silly things. I did a very silly thing the other day. So now, to stop me doing any more silly things, I’ve moved back in with my parents for a month or so. Another big change. Well, I think it’ll be good in some ways. I mean, I was spending a lot of time at home anyways to help my Mom get the house ready to sell. This’ll give me a chance to really knock out a few tasks like painting the walls.

In the meantime, I’m coming to terms with myself.

Fallen
by Sarah McLachlan

Heaven Bend to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight
Truth be told I tried my best
But somewhere long the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
But the cost was so much more than I could bear

Though I’ve tried I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

We all begin with good intent
When love is raw and young
We believe that we can change ourselves
The past can be undone
But we carry on our back the burdens time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It’s the bitter taste of losing everything
I’ve held so dear

I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

Heaven bend to take my hand
I’ve nowhere left to turn
I’m lost to these I thought were friends
To everyone I know
Oh they turn their heads embarrassed
Pretend that they don’t see
That it’s one wrong step one slip before you know it
And there doesn’t seem away to be redeemed

Though I’ve tried I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

I grew up in the country. In my “neighborhood” was a beef farm, a pig farm, corn fields, soybean fields, horses…you get the idea. I was in 4-H for ten years. I learned to milk goats and shoot a gun. I won prizes at the county fair and even the state fair.

None of this stopped me from moving to the city as soon as I turned 18. I learned how to parallel park, wear black, carry a planner and cell phone, take public transportation whenever possible, attend the opera, eat curry, and shop at stores that smell strongly of patchouli. My only connection to farms became drinking soy lattes from Starbucks and knowing not to walk to close to the back end of the mounted police at street festivals.

But every once in a while, the country girl takes over. I saw my mother today and for some mysterious reason, this happened. So I dug out my Wranglers and put on a CD of country music. Tonight, I’m channeling the ghost of Melissa Past and hanging out with my inner farm girl.

Come on over. Reba and I are remembering the night the lights went out in Georgia.

A woman from Colorado once told me that she can always tell what direction she’s headed by the mountains. That they are not only a visual reference, but also have an almost magnetic presense, gifting people who live with them a sixth sense– a sense of direction. God is like that for me. Trouble is, that only gives me my bearings; it still doesn’t help me figure out which direction to go!

Coffee is more than comforting and intimate as it slips down your throat. It is bracing, strengthening, encouraging in the true sense of the term– giving courage with the comforting knowlege that energy is on its way.

I need a God as big as the mountains and as warm as a cup of coffee.

A lovely friend of mine is moving to another country on Thursday. I’ve known it was coming for months, but this evening I went over to see her (we had a going-away party) and she gave me her plants and her curling iron, as she won’t need it where she’s going. It made me cry later when I was alone in my room, because it finally sank in what it all means, that she’s really not coming back in the foreseeable future.

I don’t really know if I was crying because she’s going somewhere, or because I’m going nowhere.

The other day I shut my eyes and this is what I saw.

Imagine a polygon with equilateral sides. How many sides, you ask? X number of sides; we don’t know yet. Now imagine that you are going to hold the area inside the polygon constant. Now, you are going to change the number of sides (that is, X). Imagine it has three sides. It’s a triangle. Now imagine it has four sides and is a square. Now imagine five, and then six, and then seven. Go on sliding the number that’s filling in for X as high up the number line as you can imagine.

Each time the number gets bigger, the length of the sides gets shorter because we are holding the area inside the polygon constant. So as the number X approaches infinity, the length of each side approaches zero. What happens? Eventually, each side will turn into, not a line, but a point. And the shape will become a circle.

Now imagine that X was swinging through a cycle on the number line. It was sliding back and forth on the line, from three sides to infinity sides and back again, over and over again. That is what I saw when I shut my eyes: a circle sliding into a triangle and back again, through all the other different polygon shapes.

And that is really the only interesting thing I have to say today. Go read Erica’s vox, it’s  more interesting and original than mine!

Ok. So I was happy about the OSU game, and I didn’t even attend school there. That was just state-wide joy bubbling over the OSU pot and sweeping over me.

So imagine how I feel about my Alma Mater, the University of Cincinnati, at the moment.

We just upset number 6 ranked and undefeated Rutgers, 30-11! Talk about hysteria; you don’t want to be trying to get anything to eat or drink anywhere in Clifton tonight. They tore down both the goal posts and my guess is that won’t be the only thing they overturn or tear down tonight. This is the biggest thing to happen to UC football since they joined the Big East conference a year or so ago. Tonight, for the first time in at least five years, somebody besides the cheerleaders cares what happened to the UC football team! And we’re even making National headlines.

What a night for the state of Ohio!

Cheer Cincinnati, Cincy will win
Fight to the finish, never give in!
You do your best, boys, we’ll do the rest, boys
Onward to victory!

Go Red! Go Black!
Go Bearcats! Fight! Fight! Fight!
B-E-A-R-C-A-T-S go UC!

This is it. The biggest game of the year. More important than the Superbowl. More significant than the Rose Bowl. Today is the day when Ohio State plays Michigan. And not only that, but this year both teams are undefeated. OSU is ranked #1. Michigan is ranked #2. Both teams have played terrible games this season, and faultless games this season. It’s going to come down to who wants it more.

When OSU plays each Saturday, the world as we know it grinds to a halt in this household and the game is turned on the TV. Today is even bigger. All morning, Connie answered the phone by saying, “Go Bucks!” Our living room is full of people. The house is decked out in Scarlet and Gray. The dining room table is covered in food. Connie turns 50 on Monday, so they’ve turned the game into one big cheer-on-Ohio-State-and-celebrate-Connie’s-birthday-by-watching-her-team party. If they win, she’ll be over the moon. If they lose, it’ll be the crappiest birthday party she’s ever had.

Why is this game so big? It just is. OSU and Michigan may be the best-known rivalry in college football. All I know is that no Ohioan likes Michigan– and if you regard them with anything less the animosity, you’re considered suspect. As the shirt Connie is wearing says, it’s not whether you win or lose, or how you play the game; it’s whether you beat Michigan.

So hear’s to OSU beating Michigan. Hang on, Sloopy!

Tonight I ruined dinner.

The dairy in my chowder separated– no idea why, because there wasn’t anything acidic and it didn’t start to boil– and then to top matters off, I burned the grilled cheese! The irony is that I’mso proud of my soups. I love creating new recipes.
Woe is me, Lol! Maybe I’ll go order a pizza.

Today, after running errands and submitting resumes, I went to the coffee shop ostensibly to write while waiting for a kid I tutor to show up. I allowed myself plenty of time. I brought my favorite ball-point. I had a n otebook, as well as a large supply of napkins (since everybody knows that the best, most inspired writing is done on the backs of napkins, take-out menus, and paper placemats). Instead, I wound up sitting and staring moodily out the window for an hour and a half while my coffee got cold. Eventually I when I scribbled a few words on a napkin, it was about how when I think of what I am, I always seem to come up with past-tense verbs. I can list with great comprehensiveness what I was. But what am I?

The tutoring appointment never showed.

When I got home, my mother called to ask when I could come home to help her with something, and I inexplicably burst into tears. Then, somebody called to ask me to go out somewhere (I know because of who it was– thank-you, caller id!) and I just ignored the phone, because, really, if it’s for later then I can call back and if it’s for tonight, I really, really don’t feel like going anywhere.

Why? I don’t know!!! My whole afternoon has been one of existential despair, for no apparent reason.

Geesh. Women. I don’t get me. I feel bad for men. I mean, really. I’ll ask a guy to understand me when I understand myself.

Right. I’m just going to go put in a movie and knit for a while.