The deepest secret nobody knows

when the world was kaleidoscope under shining tears, she was always there in focus. when laughter cried down freckled cheeks, mouths wide and heads swung back for the joy of it, our arms were linked. when the night sky broke in a million raindrops, and we saw only mirror shards of each other's love, we stood still in the knowing. we can't be without each other. we've only ever known the other's presence, like sun and moon aligned (never eclipsing, we know that now).

we've shared seasons apart--a frozen rhode island i will never know, and georgia peaches that are mine alone. sons have been born without the other to kiss welcome hellos. but still we always breathe one.

we followed her out here to this vast skyland of texas. i missed my poplars and friends and that feel of home. but she became home to me, here. we shared our sons, five of them all stair-stepped and enough crazy to gray us infinitely. we've learned a new knowing as mothers-together. we thought sisters had it best of all, but our womb-sharing with each other only ever taught us to be the women who opened wombs to children of our own, and there is magic in the revelry.

and we leave again. go back "home," and i'm happy and broken in the tearing. love that city with its blues and elvis-stamp, its barbeque and smoky grace, the friends eagerly waiting to love on me (all expanded with my boy group in tow), the city of a thousand churches if i could find one to embrace me.

the world runs together like watercolor and finger paint, all smudge and swirl for tears that know no matter what we'll survive distance, but also know magnetic pull to be one, here, always. my boys need their bebe as much as they need their mama, and she knows it. we both do.

so much new to come: new job for rickey, new hours for me to learn to be wife and mama and teacher, new city/old city (moving always brings new, doesn't it?), new balance of friend-church-rest. and new without her.

(me on the left, her on the right)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
~ e.e. cummings

Oyster

"no white, please. i'm far too pale."

she unwraps cello jackets, revealing gems below: champagne, ivory, two-toned, pink.
i evn find a white one i love in a classic misty move. i rebel even against myself sometimes.
one last glance at the crammed rack, and i see a glimpse of an impossible color peeking out. "oh," i breathe. yes. oyster. this would suit you rather well, i think.

i bought my dress 7 months before he asked.
the answer was always yes.

i never considerd being a january bride--we all probably assumed i'd be a barefoot bohemian, and inside i definitely am.

he says i didn't even kiss him with you may now--lips barely brushed his, he insists. i wish i could smother him in a million kisses and start again tomorrow.
i'm terrified of dancing, but we danced anyway, and these hips have since swayed in endless labor and the rocking of babes to sleep. the dancing of a mother is just the fuller dance of newbride.
tears clouded vision with that first Mr&Mrs; now i wear Mrs unblushingly and well. it suits me, too.

my oyster gown hangs on his side of the closet. it's not even protected. i leave it as it is. that indescribable pearly color whispers to me when i hang up clothes, reminding the housewife of the bride she'll always be.

happy anniversary, beloved.

(this is a day early-we celebrate union tomorrow, but i'll be away from my computer for large parts these next few days, so linking with emily and others for imperfect prose)

Buried in the dust

22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.

28 Let him sit alone in silence,
for the LORD has laid it on him.
29 Let him bury his face in the dust—
there may yet be hope.
30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
and let him be filled with disgrace.

31 For no one is cast off
by the Lord forever.
32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
33 For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to anyone.

this passage in lamentations 3 used to be my "life verse," as it gave me hope i needed to continue reaching out to God when i was hurt and distraught. i thought i'd moved on, found other verses to sustain me, but as i read through an old journal entry and re-read these verses, i realized they are still "mine." i was so full of despair then, and again recently, but i don't think i understood til now the glory in the dust.
yes, i'd lie prone in the dark, tear-stained and heart-heavy.
yes, i'd reach for the heavens and feel nothing but ceiling.
yes, i'd run over and over in my mind what could have been.

but i never knew there would yet be hope. i hoped there would be. but hoping felt empty in a silent bedchamber. little did i know that from dust i was breathed, and from dust would i return some day, and dust, if i could just find Him and bury my face in his dirt, would redeem the hope inside.

i think i am like poor eustace crying as aslan tears his dragon-flesh, replacing gold with grace. i am mud, all washed with Tears and unraveled into pure linen, for there has always been Hope, so great is His unfailing love.

rejoice with me, my beautiful, broken friends. i stand today with fresh eyes and so grateful to be able to look back and see His hand, to see that He stirred in me through dark hours and that indeed, compassion is renewed every single day.

The jungle book

i have monkeys who swing hard on furniture and make-believe, and on strong Daddy's shoulders.

i hear a stampede of elephants and wonder how my house can hold them all,
only to find 6 impish eyes staring back at me.

we even have a panther, all bagheera disdain and flicking tail, and his ears get pulled a little too often.

i was once baloo (my nonvirtual friends understand), but now i'm mama bear, less silly (though i have my moments) and more fierce love.

best of all, we have a King here,
not man, not fire, not water, He lives here, reigns here
even in the messy jungle of our hearts and home.

Seeing

i had a professor in college chide me once, "misty, what are you waiting on? inspiration?" i was. a senior year english major taking 4 upper level lit/writing classes and a "directed inquiry" in the same field left me void of things to say. it was my job, but i constantly felt i had nothing.
sometimes blogging is the same way, which is why it's so important this time to stay true to myself and not set post requirements or feel always obligated to visit my favorite haunts (and i love visiting, it just eats time!). and yet, tonight i sat, wondering if i had anything to say. i mused that when things were so dark i often shared plenty, even if it was just a whispered "pray for me," and in just the looking, inspiration is everywhere.
it is the grace to be warm on this too-cold-for-texas night, the full belly and wonderingly normal blood-sugar readings. it is avery, all tucked in and quiet, and the tip-toes in to check on him before i go to sleep, or the breathing of shea or connor in my room when they finally succumb to their days' adventures turned into dreams. it is my beloved away for work, but the bond that stretches all that long way. the hollow in my bed, waiting for his return, the phone calls late into the night just to hear the other without kid-noises all around. it is last little one unknown yet Known fully, growing hair by hair, making presence known with secret kicks. grace is in the anticipation and hope for tomorrow, whether we have frozen waffles or the last of the Cheerios for breakfast.
there is tenderness in Creation, in the miracle of friend's 28-week delivery of twins, and the miracles being seen day in, night out for these two sweet girls. it is the announcement of a friend's engagement, and all the glowing love. it is the timing of a friend's phone call or the music that makes me close my eyes, the worship in car rides, and the breathy miracle of art. it is modern medicine and my long-waited for bravery to ask for help in tiny yellow pills, and the grace in four bodies holding me up all that time before, holding hands in thankfullness now.
to be uninspired is an extravagant snobbery, i think. there is today, and it is preciously full.


so i'm here, linking with emily, at first afraid i had nothing, and realizing i have everything.

In wonder

breath has been baited in expectation
we wait for you
we wait to know,
we wonder and ask each other
and name a million names
knowing you'll wear all of them, and none of them.
my heart flutters in pink expectations
and i wish to grab his hand late at night
feel
but he can't - not yet, you're still all mine.
we've been waiting to know
who to expect
and dreams and hopes and promises lifted high
and today we
find
i wish i can grab his hand as i see you
but he's not here,
home with those other three
and i learn you're fourth.
inhale
really?

then happiness bursts blue all over
i can't imagine this home
our hearts all intertwined
without these four boys to hold and love.

~~~~~~

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
~ e.e. cummings

Like oranges in winter

the impossibilities of citrine juices running sticky and sweet catch me off guard. i tear orange skin with my fingernails and zest fills my nostrils. biting into acid brightness, i feel as if i'm eating the sun from inside out. these tiny things, every day things, seem a personal miracle to me. it's a given for our mega marts and box stores to carry these warm weather fruits in rows and bags all full, made possible by modern shipment and genetic engineering perhaps. but every year i wait for the perfect orange, heavy in hand and as sweet as it is tart. like grace. heavy, impossible, divinely sweet, contradiction to this human mind. like oranges in winter.

(photo found here)