When I see something beautiful, I want to share it with you

I have no patience for camera settings

Or talent for brush strokes

I fail to describe it in words

But love often begs us to try

and so I do

When I see something beautiful, its often the ordinary

but I don’t have to tell you that

Your life’s work is revealing its rarity

So I can skip the explanation

and describe it to you with my eyes

See they are like yours

Predisposed to what’s golden.

When I see something beautiful, its often complicated

Not just what exists in this moment

but what has been

The heartache in possibility

Thoughts that sit between eyebrows

Yet you are weaved into all of my memories

So my furrow prompts your knowing.

When I see something beautiful, I see you

Without you, it can only Be

For you are what makes beauty possible.

Like a tree in the woods, 
I am home to so much. 

I am home to giddy exhaustion from a long train ride and a plastic flute of champagne.
To the lights of the Eiffel tower through drooping eyelashes and grass stains on back pockets. 

I am home to unruly honeysuckle bushes and pink neon lights through roll up blinds.
To the comings and goings of colorful berets, expensive art and muffled salon gossip.

I am home to secret spots beneath the bridge and unexpected friendships. 
To fresh tomatoes with a pinch of salt and heels lost to cobblestone streets. 

I am home to three layers of clothing and six Natty Lights on a school night.
To the fierce understanding shared through genes and moments after midnight. 

I am home to uncomfortable bike seats and healing conversations over 98 rock. 
To a shot of fireball from the gas station and TV light in a dark hotel room.

I am home to the taste of salty tears in Terminal 2 and perfectly long layovers at LAX.
To the woman who grew me in her belly and to the woman who grew her. 

I am home to blue-stained wooden bar stools and a broken retractable range hood. 
To scrambled eggs with Nature’s Seasoning and a steady growing Sunday porch crowd.

I am home to mosquito bites on dangling legs and sharing red wine from the bottle. 
To unwavering blue eyes and the certainty of meeting a long-lost friend. 

I am home to red pleather booths and the last sip of a peanut butter milkshake.
To one vanilla beer for downhill walks home and the late-night frenzy of cockroaches. 

I am home to a northern facing screened in porch and coffee stains on a wobbly bistro table. 
To blue robin eggs tucked deep in a rose bush and a muddy bay breeze. 

I am home to an onerous wooden door and fresh baked waffle cones through a loft window.  
To a spiral journal with the pages ripped out and a camo gas station sweatshirt. 

I am home to the wrong string on the ukulele and red dust on my only sneakers. 
To a rock of ancestral secrets and the morning sun turning two sets of green eyes yellow. 

I am home to dandelions in grass that should've been cut and duck tape on a window screen. 
To a thrift store wind chime and a cold Corona in a dog-chewed koozie. 

I am home to my reflection with freckles on a floor mattress and matching pinkie toes. 
To rehearsed basement choreography and best kept secrets. 

I am home to moments and memories lost forever and new ones yet to come. 
To the deeply connected roots of time and a single budding fruit. 

Like the trees in the woods, 
I am home to so much. 
 
I yearn to share my vessel,
In life and in death. 
/

Seeing the world through rose-colored glasses isn’t a gift;

It’s a skill.

Well-rehearsed and mastered.

“You are sunshine” they say,

And I want to believe them.

But I know the further we dig, the deeper the hole.

So I burry her in it.

The hollowness I create,

Amplifies.

So I drown her out with crowded airports,

And invented anxieties,

Only to find her in my luggage.

So I throw it away and blame it on the airline.

“A new beginning!” I say.

Because I’d rather be missed than be seen.

So I smash the newly planted clover on the kitchen tile and blame it on the dog,

Because I’d rather clean up dirt and plant new flowers,

Than witness their wilting petals.

Or wait for them to bloom.

When I am alone,

I brew a pot of “Positivitea” and put on my lucky socks.

I blow the steam into tiny tornadoes and think about who I used to be but am no longer.

I smile and call it reflection,

Feeling finally at ease,

Putting on my rose-colored glasses,

And looking into the mirror.

I am a writer.

But I don’t write.

Instead, I sip a lukewarm coffee,

and think about what it means to be a writer.

I hear whispers while staring out the car window, littered with nose-shaped smudges.

“Mmhmm” I say to my husband, lost in the blurry woods.

You see, I’m a writer but I don’t write.

Instead, I hug my father-in-law as we bury his mother,

and I think about all he might have left to say to her.

A browning fern and expired chocolates wrapped tightly in fine china on an old wooden table.

The cowardly fingerprint of my right middle digit, pausing the symphony of my hands.

The incessant ache in my jaw as I naw on the inside of my left cheek.

The transient guilt in demolishing an anthill at my sisters soccer game.

A blank slate with the vastness of the Grand Canyon.

I am a writer.

But I don’t write.

Instead, my mouth tastes of dirty fingernails and bloody cuticles.

“Just one” I tell my dog, popping the top of a back-shelf Arizona IPA,

Imagining the roots in the forest if we lived below rather than above.

With the drool of a grown man drying on my jeans and the lingering desperation of his mother.

I shred the soggy label from the warming, brown bottle.

Smiling, I wave to my neighbor and think tomorrow will be better.

Okay, so I write.

But I am no writer at all.

Terviseks is cheers in Estonian because I’m cultural and married to a European… but TERVISEKS to the birth of this beautiful, confusing blogging adventure! Technologically speaking I was meant to be born in the 1800’s because I can’t even use Microsoft Word properly but then again I think I also would’ve died at an early age back then. Either way, I’m navigating this thing slowly but surely. I’m trying to embrace the fact that I am unemployed currently and something about this feels right so come along for the ride if you dare!

“This wave started and if I question the wave or try to stop the wave or look back at the wave I often have the experience of whip lash or the potential of my neck breaking but if i go with the wave and I trust the wave and I move with the wave, I go to the next place and it happens logically and organically and truthfully.” -Eve Ensler