In Memory

Wilderness Friend,

This is goodbye. I will miss your brillance, the way you turned a phrase, the beauty of your mind upon the page. May every sunrise take your breath away and may your life be full of wonder.

The Way It Always Goes

This is the moment that you know
That you told her that you loved her but you don't
You touch her skin and then you think
She is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me.
Yeah, she is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me.

I spent two weeks in Silverlake
The California sun cascading down my face
There was a girl with light brown streaks
And she was beautiful but she didn't mean a thing to me.
Yeah she was beautiful but she didn't mean a thing to me.

I wanted to believe in all the words that I was speaking
As we moved together in the dark
And all the friends that I was telling
And all the playful misspellings
And every bite I gave you left a mark
And tiny vessels oozed into your neck
And formed the bruises
That you said you didn't want to fade
But they did and so did I that day

All I see are dark grey clouds
In the distance moving closer with every hour
So when you ask "was something wrong?"
I think "you're damn right there is but we can't talk about it now.
No, we can't talk about it now."

So one last touch and then you'll go
And we'll pretend that it meant something so much more
But it was vile, and it was cheap
And you are beautiful but you don't mean a thing to me
Yeah you are beautiful but you don't mean a thing to me

The Love Aquatic

Norman and I have loved each other since the day we met. He believes that he fell into my life entirely by chance, but I know it was a gift of fate. I had just moved into a new house in a new neighborhood and, although the apartment was everything I had hoped for, it was a lonely place in the summer. My new neighbors were an older couple who had three cats and no children; their names were Russell and Lillian. Russell liked to wear corduroy trousers and I could always hear him coming down the hall, swish-swish, swish-swish. The light in the hall shone off of his bald, shiny head as he held the door open for Lillian. Lillian in her voluminous, brightly-colored house dress and plastic shoes clumping into my foyer with a huge grin on her wrinkly face.

“Katharine, this is Norman.”

I felt my breath catch in my throat at the sight of him and my cheeks turned the same delicate shade as my pale sweater. I smiled, he stayed and here we are; happy and content. He is simple, so much less complicated than I. His big, gentle eyes melt my heart and we spend the evenings together, side by side; I read or write poetry and he contemplates the existence of a bigger reality. I have never felt so fulfilled.

Today though, Jackson brought to light certain behavior patterns in the life of my love that have me worried. Jackson lives in an apartment complex on the other side of town. I met him at work and we took turns making dinner once a week. Tonight was my night and we were chopping peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes for the salad. I refuse to believe that Norman cares as little for me as Jackson tells me he does. I tried to convince both Jackson and myself that Norman and I had something special, something that brought us together and would keep us together.

“He gets excited when I come home and I know he is happy to see me,” I informed Jackson while he diced the tomatoes. “I can tell by the look on his face that he loves me.” I tossed a handful of lettuce into the wooden bowl on the counter defiantly.

Jackson looked at me out of the corner of his eye, “Katharine, goldfish have, like, a three-second memory. Not only is he not happy to see you, he doesn’t even remember who you are. Maybe you should get a dog.”

Copyright 2005 - Katharine A. Newell

Thanksgiving

I now have a reason to be thankful - she is here!

Questions

Why is it that when you look for something, it can't be found but the moment that you give it up, it appears before you, just within your reach? I don't understand and I am finally okay with that.

Musings2

I knew that we didn't see eye-to-eye on the important subjects. I guess that I was hoping that it wouldn't cause a rift in this friendship that has lasted years and meant so much to me. The thing of it is, I have finally realized that I am living in a dream-world. Tonight has shown me that, once again, I am alone. I knew I was expecting too much but I hoped that he would not be so stubbornly stupid, harmful to himself and others. All in the name of fun, saying over and over "I don't want to grow up." It was then that I realized that I have crossed over and he doesn't want to come. The adventure of growing up together has been taken from me. I have to go alone. I hope I don't get lost.

I miss you, Peter Pan.

ABC Jungle

It has been a long time since I have stumbled upon these abandoned and destitute members of the English family. Their once regal heads have been hung in shame as their meaningfulness has been replaced with working-class words. The feeling of power that once was felt by all as their sounds rolled smoothly over the tongue have been replaced with "like", "dude", and "cool". Let us return to them their dignity and allow them to again have a moment in the spotlight.

Prospicient - having foresight.
Chapfallen (or chopfallen) - dejected or dispirited.
Recusant - refusing to submit to authority; dissenting.
Insouciant - happily unconcerned; carefree; nonchalant.
Inveterate - firmly established; habitual.

If you forget them, it is not the end. Simply keep an open mind and make a comfy room for them to come and rest in for a while. They will reward you handsomely for that.

Theories on Life

Risk-taking, trust, and serendipity are key ingredients of joy. Without risk, nothing new ever happens. Without trust, fear creeps in. Without serendipity, there are no surprises.

-Rita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad

Change

I looked in the mirror today and much to my surprise I realized that I have become exactly who I have always wanted to be.

Confidence

Many people lack it. It affects your decisions and can change the course of your life. It inspires those around you. It marks you as different, you stand out in a crowd. It boosts your self-esteem. Can it ever be over the top?

My family has given each other nicknames that inspire confidence. Today, my baby sister asked me to call her Joanna, Girl of Destiny.

What do you think?

Courage

I have lost something, something that meant more than the world to me. It was the thing I cherised most and now I will never again feel the joy of being a part of it, of having it near me - just doing what it did best. It was taken from me and now I have nothing but the taste of ash in my mouth and the bitter tears of an alien - thrust into strange newness and yearning for home. I have become one without, an outsider to my joy.

I want nothing more than to clutch the pain close, to rock and moan, to shed tears for my lack. I want to wallow in the pain - to feel it forever as a reminder that I have been scarred. But there is a deeper lesson, just below the pain - there is a glimmer of a future lived in wholeness. I can see it sparkle, just an arm's reach away.

Give me the strength to take it in hand.

After three days without reading, talk becomes flavorless.Chinese Proverb

Luck of the Irish

Do you ever have those moments? You know the ones: your mouth hangs open a little and all you can do is slowly shake your head in disbelief at your good luck? My life this week has been made up of those moments.

I know I don't deserve it, but I may have been born with it.

Home

My whole life, I have been looking for it. I have so badly wanted to feel that I belonged somewhere, anywhere. I talked to people who had lived their entire lives in the same town, they knew everyone and everyone knew them. Their houses were comfortable, old, and homey. They had friends, knew all the out-of-the-way places, they took each others sisters to the prom, were in their friend's weddings, raised kids next door to each other, and lived in community.

By the time I was sixteen, I had decided there was no point in ever even unpacking; another move was sure to be just around the corner so why bother? I was so envious of the other kids that lived on our street my heart would ache. They had been there for the past five years and in another five they would most likely still be there. They had solidarity.

And then I learned the truth. Home is a place where our soul is free to breathe. I talked to the kids that I envied and I realized that while I had a new bedroom every few years, they were jealous of something that I had - a stable family who loved me. No matter where we lived, no matter how many times we moved, my family was always there for me. We laughed and cried together (about everything), we planned and dreamed and hoped together. We made a space for each other to grow and change; we set each other free. They are my home and I take them with me wherever I go. I love them for that.

I am going home for Christmas.

Loss

The capricious nature of the human race often puzzles me. More often than not, I look back at the decisions I have made and wonder what exactly I was thinking when those pivotal moments faced me. And nothing confuses me more than love.

It is something elusive, something beautiful, or so the poets would have us believe. We wait for it to find us, sweep us off our feet, carry us away to a land where we live happily ever after. Have we not been told this story since we were young? Who has so blinded us to the reality of love?

My experience has been that it is costly and messy, much like the rest of life. There is agony and blood, tears and sweat - is this not the way anything worth having is won? We know how much love will cost us, that is why we only play at it. We have created a game, a game that allows us to taste but never to own, allows us to feel but not enough to hurt. True love is bittersweet but we want only the sweet. We have become afraid to love for to love is to feel another's heart beating within our own; their pain, despair, their happiness becomes as our own. Is it too much for us to bear?

We yearn for it and then reject it when it comes to us. Why? How can we understand the true essence of love when all we have been allowed to understand is a facade of its true beauty?

Love is...........

Envy

I have to admit, the green-eyed monster has been making a pest of himself lately. I thought that I had dealt with him a few months ago; I told him not to bother coming back and he moved all of his stuff out of my apartment. It seemed like a clean break-up and I was surprised that it had gone so well.

But today, I found his socks stuffed under the left side of the bed. I think I'd asked him about a million times not to leave them there, and that was when he was still living here. And on Saturday, the peanut butter was sitting on the stove and there were dirty dishes in the sink. I tried to convince myself that I had simply forgotten the midnight snacking that I did, but the socks were the clincher. That could not be me.

I guess I don't really know what to do. I don't really want to get back into this relationship, it did not work out that well the first time around. There were things that were great but the truth of the matter is, the bad far outweighed the good. He was so demanding and thinking about him or taking care of him absorbed all my time.

He was so comfortable.

I am better off without him.