And you held my hand.

It is one of those weeks in which a thousand thoughts have sprung to mind, and yet time will not cooperate and sit with me to write it all down.

Forgive the frayed edges and scattered pattern and unfinished work—some days, this seems the most I can give.

———————

In certain moments, the love in me, for you, wants to leap out through my skin and dive through yours, and swim in your veins, and feed your soul, so that you are satiated, soothed.

It is an odd, jarring sensation, this sort of affection.  We don’t speak of it often.  We tell our stories, laugh at one another’s jokes, squeeze one another’s arms, order another glass of wine.

But, it is there.  That love.  A devotion strong enough to pull the breath out of me.

I place my heart into the hands of very few.  We are the same, in this way.

Your heart, I promise, is safe, blanketed, warm, and well-fed in my keeping.  Thank you for doting, so graciously, on mine.

———————

Honestly?  I am so wary of you.  I don’t trust you for an instant.

It’s like a door that I keep trying to slam and that keeps getting stuck.  I tug and yank—then pause for breath, then forget all about closure and sealing off cracks, and we creep open again, and then I feel the splinters in the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands.  And I remember.

———————

This 30-day challenge has eluded me.  It’s been a sly little beast.  I realize now that I gave it no purpose, no framework, no clear end-goal other than FINISH.  Which, in truth, was a paltry benchmark.

Because I’ve already finished.  I’ve done this twice before.

Still, whether I rise in the pre-dawn darkness or plow through the post-work hours, I stand upon my mat.  I pay heed to my practice, my self.  Even when my body hurts in all the wrong places—hips cracking open like walnuts, shoulders creaking back and forth like a rusty old gate, a spine that feels like a steel rod.

Some days, I forget to find my eyes in the mirror.  I wander.  Other days, nothing else in that room exists but me and the far-off voice of my teacher.

The point is this:  It is good to return, no matter how you left things.

You do not go back to pick up where you left off.  You go back to begin again.

———————

I freaking love that my nephew’s newest favorite expression is “guys.”

“Hey, guys!  It’s time for dinner!”   “Guys! Okay, okay, we…we…we need to DO this!”   “Guys? …. Guys??”

Even when it was just him and me, crouched around a pine cone fire, squatting in a bed of browned pine needles, our cheeks reddened, the afternoon waning, he whispered, “Guys.  Okay.  Let’s pretend…”

———————

The November 2nd New Yorker absolutely delighted me.  I love when this happens, when each turn of the page greets me with good stuff.

Careful poetry, the kind that seems simple, until you read it again, and again, and suddenly, you break open. Interesting, in-depth, and not overly verbose articles on Ayn Rand and Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book, Eating Animals, which sounds fantastic.  A review on that new movie Precious, which I can’t wait to see.  And a back-page comic that made me giggle.

———————

I missed Taylor Swift on Saturday Night Live, and people won’t shut up about how awesome she was. Someone please send me the damn link to it.

I prefer my musicians to keep their asses out of acting—Queen Latifah, you get a pass, because you rocked in Chicago—but seeing how well Justin Timberlake has done on SNL…  Well, I just may give Taylor a pass.

Aren’t I nice?

Seriously—someone get me that video.

Please?

Thanks.  Love ya!  Mean it!

———————

I keep thinking about this Thoreau quote lately:

“Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.”

———————

The end.