Heart Box Studio

Girl. Friend.

It’s been almost 8 years since she moved away.

This friend, this landscape architect, this dreamer of garden and sunlight’s white stroll.  

She is a designer, a planter, a grower of things.

And this gardener, she grew, her arms spread through windows, towards summer's white light, her heart unfurled through wooden carved doors, the fullness of family spilling over lawn and purple tendril Lenten rose.  

My littlest was nearing two months old, the deep quiet sleep of windshield wiper eyelids. And we stood in her driveway, her hands cupping my cheeks, the stone quiet with words caught in forever. It was early June, the day was kind, holding back its deep humidity sink. The intrusion of a fallen acorn, one severed leaf barreling in sea saw formation to the ground. And her hand held every morning we ever shared, coffee cups curled around thumb, thick baby knees trolling warmed sunlit floors, the burnished smile of a mother’s knowing, the tipped forehead, the full crescent shaped tears that reclined in her bathtub eyes. 

And the echo of emptiness as I drove away, the isolation taking hold, the words tucked into letters and phone calls, the faceless crutch of distance. A hand clutched, lifting roots from the warmth of soft soil, the pull, the tug, the empty pot wait.

And there have been so many phone calls, the marathon sofa pile of calf and knee, the grocery line pivot, the meandering of food aisles just to talk a bit longer, the tears caught in the holes meant for voice.

Last weekend I boarded a plane and found her waiting, her face squeezed between chauffeur nametags and folded hands perched beneath eyes, a beating reunion heart.

And I sunk back into the thick black soil of her friendship and felt the nourishment of her eyes looking back at me.

And I nestled close to her girls, once cradled between elbow and folded thigh, now long stalk legs and berry lips. I watched them as mother billowed above them, spreading her words with cursive smile approval, hips leaning into sinks, the mascara wand tilted over open eyes. The soft brush of femininity across cheeks and squinted foreheads. 

We took walks between softball games, found paths to keep our secrets. 

And I felt all of the wandering, the turn and spin, the over the shoulder gaze back to the girls we once were, rubbing knees between naps and softening new foot stumbles. 

And there she was, beside me again.

So I stayed there, under little sister blanket, and let her long shadow pass over all of the places still too bright to peer into.

I once read about an orchid. An orchid wrapping its roots around the sturdy trunk of a tree, detached from the earthy ground soil. About the days and weeks and months a flower can survive without rain. Roots without soil. Blooms without rain.

And her presence, the sweet content fill of the glass. Her words, her flared southern accent, the tight gut roll of laughter release, a drink. A savored thirst quenched.  

Sometimes, a person can't see their own beauty. To hold a flower in your hand, the lifted chest breath of awe. Right there. Right in front of you. 

She hides from the lens. So I catch her in her daughter's reflections, let her mother stand inside her fainting blue eyes.

We find our way to the botanical garden, and it feels like an artist's brush finding her paint, the fine hairs of seed dipped in sun and shade.

A gentle apparition of witness, hovering inside her shadows, her back against the sunlight, she introduces me to each flower by name. 

And she was the first place I went to when I needed a picture of motherhood painted against the sky.

The harvesting hand around a ripe heart, gently pulling the fruit from the tree, the speckled sheath of seed on land, the empty pot container longing, the crinkled aluminum imprint of soil between wrinkles of worry.

The mustard seed faith and rosemary warmth,
the geranium scent of awakening. 

And sometimes all you need is someone to stab the ground with protection, place a marker over your emotion, the unidentified stamen of anxiety, left too long to wander alone through the tall wild grass.

She is the girl in the forest, made of leaf, stone, petal and thirst, frail roots growing beneath her, stretching out past the dark tunnels of growth. Her sunken hands, open palm sunrises from the ground.

And the miracle of rebirth,
these open bloom awakenings on winter's edge.

When the conditions are right,
when the sky has forgiven the sun for her blaze, the warmth without burning sting, the gentle sprinkle of a morning rain, rolling water footprints on soft ground, sheltered air, winds silenced by an afternoon rest.

A flower blooms. It grows without roots.

I hope you can see your beauty, sweet bloom.
The kind held in someone's hand just before the helium hold of a first kiss, before fondness gives way to admiration, damp stems wrapped in paper towel gifts.

And her friendship, her motherhood, pruned the parts of me that needed deep mending, a deep pull from the knees kind of tug. And she laid soil rich with understanding, grace, the watering can of forgiveness around this wobbly stem.

There is the fragrant scent of girlhood born from the deep roots of a gardener mother. Fingers through hair, exploring lost tangles, the heavy weight of heart on tilted shoulder kind of love. 

And there is something inside these potted wide eyes.

Roots without soil.
Blooms without rain. 
Girl. Friend. 
XO 

P.S. We leave for Sweden in two days! Have a wonderful rest of June and a lovely Fourth of July! XO

Linking up with Heather at Just Write:)

Boy Mama

When my hands were smaller, I tied a satin ribbon around the neck of my gray stained cat. There was the moment the knot was tied, when his silken coat slipped from my hands, the reach to pull him back, to loosen the tug. And his feet like whispers over cracked summer grass, his small head tilting, trying to relieve the tension from the ribbon still dangling. And the tight pull of a girl's need to love, wrapped recklessly around neck, the noose of a caretaker's will.

I watched his tail curl around the peeling bark of the river birch hung crooked above a spread of periwinkle and fern. And the swell of guilt and fear, the rise and run past gardens wide to release a ribbon pulled too tight.

I remember the way the sun found me between the trees, cheeks wet with worry. The shadow of a cat, tail still twirling, winding between path and thorn. And a girl left holding her heart, the deep knee bend on soft autumn leaves and the waking cry of one small cat calling for home. 

There was a circle of gray fur, small dots of black paw piled over ear and the gentle cut of a scissor's blade. And one satin ribbon coiled on sand, the electric twirl of relief around a small girl's calf.

Home. You're home.

She met me at the creek just as the sun became a soft shade of sherbet. His smile reaching for his ears, eyes dipped in pools of blue sky wonder.

And he let me hold his finger. The tender place where earth meets hand, where heart holds on, where fear finds safety in palm and vein. 

And she whispered, "Come." 
A cloud of safety met by open mouth run, boots too big stumble, sun gathered in deep neck caution and breath risen.

"Come."

Hello Boy Mama. I see you.
I see you with dirt under nail, knees pressed deep into the sponge of an afternoon rain soaked ground, the smudge of earth and sand painted just below one eye.

The hours with foot pressed on hardwood floor, the gentle tilt of rocking chair, his eyes open, tracing each curve of your face, staring into the eyes of girl turned woman turned mama. And the hold just before the sun softens the shade, just before the light clears your memory of sleep.

So you hold his hand softly, letting his heart wander between leaps and misstepped splash, over ledge and deep hole curiosities.

Your first boy entry into motherhood, this whistle back home from front porch wanderings, motherhood.

And to be a boy mama, a mama with hands that reach past rock and vine, hands that dig for buried treasure assurances, a hand, still holding satin ribbons tied too tightly. 

Sometimes I follow them into the woods, these boys made of fur and sand and dust and skin. Sometimes I follow them into the woods and wish for the ribbons to be cut, for the moments when my need to make them my own went wrong, when my hands felt too tight around the boys they will be.

Because I will never know what the world looks like from behind the brown iris of boyhood, a breath shaped by the winds of a man.

I see you, Boy Mama. 

You are a heart caught in the vine of enrapture.
And his eyes, the only place to hold on.

Don't cry, Boy Mama.

You are beauty. An anchor held tight by knuckles and mud, crocodile tears and silent mouth screams.

You are love.
Made whole by scuffed knees bleeding and rubbed band-aid laid scars. The blood stains through denim, the ointment, vomit and stretch, the burn and the coil, the filament sheet of fear. Hold on.

And the call down dark hallways, the lego foot crawl, and the wakes of eruptions, mountain size despair. This mother alone waking to arms nestled in chin and chest and eye. Hush now worry. Settle down there fatigue. 
Boy Mama. Girl. Mother.

You are boy mama waking in nests newly shaped. These wings will carry you both, feathers piled high under heavy arms, your love made light by his soft whisper secrets.

And there are no mistakes, Boy Mama, just the birth of eyes open wide, the crescent of light between iris and lash, the death of fear, ceremonious burials of growth, each pattern of hold decomposing between blade of grass and ball of seed blown.

And she moves, this sweet mamahood, towards open creek laughter, to dark cloud reach, each wave of worry a soft kiss on sand, each mouth wrapped around the "i's" and "love's" and "you's."

And she does what she knows, sliding finger over raised voice, silencing years of soft hushes. The speed up, slow down race of toddlerhood pressed gently against her chest. To run and let go. To slow and hold tight, hair between fingers, twirl and fall. Hum. 

Sometimes this mamahood feels like a chase, watching the back of his head run fast into the woods of adolescence, every once in while, turning back long enough to see the deep woods inside his eyes, the ribbon pulled too tight again.

And the hand that opens, letting ribbons fall to a ground already stepped. The wrecked heart turn of the corner. And him, somewhere out there, lost between branch, the forest smiling, each titled leaf waving back their sing song assurances. I have him. He's safe. 

Don't forget, Boy Mama.

Let the swing find the sky. Sit close. Let your eyes smile wide. Find the banks of your river, this sailboat held close and let the cool water carry you downstream.

Past the shoelace tied hold, to islands where your kisses are the leaves of a forest once dark, and this,

The stumbled feather walk of a Boy Mama.

Something so small.

Sometimes the moon rests on his eyes.

The tiny part where the black hole pupil meets the languid sea of green iris, where pinholes of hurt have leaked tears.

There is the scar under his right eye,
where the cracked plastic met his skin with fall and tumble. 

The dew and mist of tears held back, curled fingers and the smell of cotton ball antiseptic. 

There is the place where cut skin has been joined back together, where the finger runs wobbly over bump and scrape.

And the parked car stall alongside abandoned roads of failure. 

The open field of knees kissed in yellow petal, calves tucked in with sheets of green vein and web. 

The sun carving out the hollow places hidden under bent face and stem.

And the scar, 

disappearing like a seed on the back of the wind. 

Tidepool Eyes

The sky was a stretch of black ink as the plane lunged forward into her descent. He placed his small hand over the curved airplane window and pushed his face to the towering edge of sea and morning to be stones. He breathed a heavy sigh and spun circles into the steamed canvas. 

And there was the quiet space right before the plane touched its toe onto wet ground, like blank pages slightly torn from the spiral, the deep breath before anticipation's open gift.

He had a business meeting on Monday.

And four open book days to explore Seattle, the last cliff jump, hands over head into inspiration's deep hidden seas. 

And inspiration, she feels like a first kiss, full of anticipation and heart wing flutters. She opens her hands and pulls you over the fallen tree path. 

He said maybe this is what it feels like to live inside one of those electric train sets. The mossy floors beneath our feet and towering trees dangling over brick tunnels pulling us into its thick curiosity.

And it felt like a moving car, held by a child's hand, driving over the pages of someone else’s photo album, the memories laminated under dusty plastic jackets. A place in my heart that felt lived with out me there, the secret someone forgot to share.

There are places that feel like you have travelled somewhere midsentence, where the words have yet to catch up with the color, the smell , the ladders reaching into white planked clouds.

Where the last spoken word has already been said, where description is muted by pink streaked witness. And to sit there is to hear the words spoken from the mouth of beauty. Words spoken back to you in languages unwritten, spoken only in the gray mist hum and the desperate mountain hold, in beauty's soft foam kisses.

It is the book savored before the end, so each word gets spread out over the tongue, staying there like a round candy melting, holding on to its sweet taste. Each page lined with mountain valley views, the raw smell of newborn tides, pulled back like a heavy blanket.

The tips of his fingers were numb. But he kept searching, the deep knee bend and curled back collector. He moved each hand over mahogany mussel and the barnacles, falling off like loose teeth, leaving holes for his fingers to mend with eager curiosity.

And there, the homeless shell, the arms of crabs still reaching past the hungry gull’s mouth. The starfish with her small R bend, the crab hidden beneath the curve of the shell, safe in shadow and sand.

And he told me when I cried I made tidepools under my eyes.

The place where all of these moments collect and wait for the waters to pull them back out into the sea.

And maybe the sun could find its reflection there between the brown and green plaid of your iris.

Because I want this to be our home. And the walls will be made of your skin, soft from the rub of beauty against this shore, and your grace, sweet boy, the mortar between mistake and redemption.

I still find this pain in small pockets, buried beneath flattened string and warm pennies. The tears that come with marvel, when the beauty shakes my heart so hard, a memory of her gone, the enormity of this small second with burnt edges, already gone before I can hold it.

And somewhere in those tidepool eyes, there are all of the moments I have forgotten, tied together with the remaining string of daylight, this needle and thread pull of connection, embrace and the loose fingers, the fallen scarf let go. 

And the tidepools, her beauty’s city destroyed and built in a day, the impermanent measure of this hold, the permanent measure of renewal.

And for those who have stood here, under beauty's open face, feet sunk and lifted with windowpane outlines. You, who have felt unique for this one moment, made special only by the witness of this beauty, too impossible to scream, held tight for one moment, where lifelines meet warm palms. 

And this beauty wants for nothing in return except for the love that radiates from the tidepools in our eyes, in all the places where reflections get caught, the places that hold deep wonder, the underwater life unseen, caught in slow motion stillness, opening and closing the thin anemone feathers of a whispered breath. 

The moment's eternal goodbye, the forever patient hello. There will never be another. This mustard outline of the sun, this teardrop shaped cloud holding onto its gray belly.

Each moment a hold of the breath and the inescapable letting go. Another fine wrinkle of skin over bone, the kite’s last dance over blue denim skies.

And sometimes it hurts more than others. This fraility, this fragile make of fingernails and cracked shells and the stern ocean air cracking whips over the sand.

The rock between toe and shoe, the open mouth anemone with her petals new with each morning spring. The observant pine, standing tall, the army of soldiers guarding the entrance to stillness.

They already know. This. This moment. She is precious.

I cannot own her or shape her or stand on her back to see what is in front or behind her. I can only marvel at her eyes, the beauty of this one single breath filled with windswept tears running towards the light.

So I will notice it all and set my heart free to marvel, catch each last breath for just this moment and leave the doors open wide for the deep exhalation. 

And when the warm golden light of the tilted moon becomes our last breath, the deep inhalation of our recollections, we will line them up like our treasured collections, placed high on glass shelves, staring out from their shadows, remembering this time set aside. 

Find me here.

Beside Still Waters

Just as the clock bends past 7:30 and the last boot has met the car’s rubber mats, we drive past the secret creek, the one hidden beneath early morning pavement and the small feet of school children.  The sun’s light finding the small crack in my windshield, car slowing, necks craning, searching for the blue heron, the bird here too long, standing in the cold water rise of early morning.

And this great blue heron is not himself, long neck tucked between shoulders, cowering, feathers dim. 

And their hearts worried for a bird without the warmth of a southern border.

Is he ok? Is he hurt?

The air has grown colder, the chill deeper, the open creek losing its battle against the spread of freeze, there is wonder weaved between laces of worry for this bird, this blue heron wanderer, knee deep in northern freeze.

And there was her voice on the phone. Shaken with the Parkinson’s Disease.

There were more than I could count. 

A group of robins, landing just outside her window, spread like a hand across her yard, the snow dipped grass, in the 14 degree air.  Her voice, her breath, faint then strong as she spoke, her hand reaching for the rocking chair, fragile bends, as she turned the knob and soaked in the music coming from the television.

And one by one, these robins found their way to the slender branch of her favorite flowering tree, lining up, side by side, feathers tucked in soft triangles, chests puffed, as the music lifted like smoke through open windows.

And for a moment, quiet reverence.

And this group of robins, misplaced, sitting among the branches, as the choir lifted their song, the Parkinson’s disease shaking her hands, her arms, her limbs, her voice, but there,

for a moment,

her heart,

still.

I walked past the open field, the trumpet plants spilling snow from their open mouths. Winter morn. Hollow breath walking and the teeter totter fall of infant snowflakes, almost born. The fine mist cloud of whispered wind, written upon glossy cheeks.

There is this time to gather when the ground fails to move, when it is just the treasure around you, the quiver and bend of branch, the forgotten flowering petal caught in mid winter freeze, this permanent state of bloom.

And I searched for the blue heron. The one I thought was lost. The one I thought was broken. And I was careful with this silence, honoring each broken twig, each crack and leap. I wished to find him, but feared the disturbance, wondering how much he needed this place, this sacred ground, how far he  hadflown to find this corner of creek and root, this place of rest.

And I crawled beneath the bridge, beneath the protection of what is seen, to the place where dreams hide, where the voice is quieted to the hymn of open space observance. And I listened.

I listened to the water under the ice, the quiet current of hope, the anticipation, the movement past frozen wounds still jagged, made soft by the continual rub of grace.

And I sat beside this frozen creek, perched in perilous squat, knees pulled to chin, along this maybe, sometimes secure edge, and listened to the sweet choir of stream sung to me, my thirst quenched, my heart refreshed.

The quiet reverence.

This blue heron faith, assured in the coming of spring, his feet planted under frozen waters, the gentle tides and swirl of change, his feathers bent against the rush of wind, the forced wills pulling him down. 

And this heron we watch every day, in the creek on the side of the road. This heron, I thought lost or broken on his journey, alive in the knee deep hope of this life stirring beneath, where eyes have yet to witness. 

I can feel the seed planted here, the layers of dirt, the frozen ice uncertainties, never once doubting this place, still without bloom beneath these frozen waters, is the birth place of all that once breathed.

And this view from underneath, where rocks wait for the stretched toe, summer bullfrog escapes from muddy hands, where the heron stands with feet planted on earth still breathing with hope, alive.

This frozen ice skin that surrounds the tender heart. 

These everyday waters changing in the light, the oval egg island of ice with the fleeting imprint of tiny feet walked, perched, then flown again. This resting place, this interval in between. And perspectives shift, evaporation leaving imagination to wander, the open canvas plain of snow.

And the flying without ever landing, pursuing, obtaining, producing.

To hear, to be still. 

And maybe these places where we land, where we stand in the frozen water, maybe they are actually places of escape, places where the rush is ceased, where the stillness covers the coldest parts of the heart. 

These opening are taking us somewhere, these paths and trails born from the freeze. This grace, this revelation isn’t sudden, but the slow thaw of wonder, intention and acceptance unwound.

This stillness comes under bridges, in the quiet cover of time, where the heart can hear the gentle unfolding of love on its shore. And this frozen place is not frozen at all. It’s the skin of age and the tender heart of hope underneath, quenching the dying thirst.

And whatever it is I thought I had lost, I found it again, here, in this unlikely place, perched beneath a bridge. And there is a stillness again in the parts that felt cold. And the story that has been waiting, patiently, for me. I can hear it.  The words spoken from underneath, where water still moves under frozen skin, where the heart beats under redwood waves.

So I’ll stand in this blue heron water stillness and watch the waters around me freeze and thaw. Freeze and thaw. 

And the sun will shine again.

42

We slept until the light was new. 

We drove past steel mill cemeteries and dusty furnace stacks. And we smoothed the land with our eyes, making space for the outline of Chicago’s steel frame walls. He moved his hand over his head forcing the skyscrapers of sleep to crumble beneath his palm. 

There are places that feel like falling backwards into the soft open arms of rest.  And we found forgotten childhoods running through the halls of The Art Institute this day, secret notes left unopened in 200 year old eyes of canvas, oil and breath.

January. She asks me to remember.

There is my birthday and the white snow silence of winter. Chilled hikes into forests with muffled voices hidden beneath scarf and hood, his eyebrows lifted, small eyes speaking.

“I wish I was still little.”

His wonder connected to shovels of excavation, the dirt of memory that grows into hills and pastures of adulthood. And his sweet boy wish, the seed buried and grown, the flower bloomed at garden’s edge.

“You are still little.”

And there were words written under skin, set deep in wrinkles and caverns of time. Words I needed to speak to the girl of long ago, the girl still wandering the halls of my heart, searching for rooms with wings, doors of escape, the grass lined path home. You are 42.

And there is the room inside this heart where the door remains closed, leaking light from under its crack. So I stayed awake under blankets and hushed light and asked the small girl to remember. 

There was the band-aid stuck to your knee for nearly two years, the scab just barely healed then scraped away by blacktop collision. Saddle shoes on pavement, socks with lost elastic grip, the soft cotton rolled around your ankles. The backpack held on by thin strap and your eyes finding her, three rows back, her voice ignited by doors opened wide.

“Hello sweet girl.”

The cat’s tail, moving between question mark and exclamation point as you followed him into the woods to save him from the ribbon strung too tight around his neck. The hive of bees swarmed around you from the ground, rising into the gray air like helium rain. And the pair of mother arms lifting you into the sky, cupped under the bend of your knees, her face, her neck, her eyes, stung by the anger of protection.

And sometimes you found her in her robe, leaning over the floral ashtray with the chip on the edge. You followed the smoke from the tips of her fingers to the open mouth cloud of exhalation and sometimes the light would catch it, this smoke, and wrap its long arms around it carrying it into the Saturday morning air.

It was your soft hair wrapped around finger and thumb when the room felt too big, when the eyes caught your fear in nets. There was the loose part of her pants, just below her knee, where the view of the world seemed smaller.

There was the sound he made when nightmares filled the hallway. The shake of the doorknob handle with fast pulse eyes.

And the tree that waited for you deep in the tight knot of forest, the hole made home to squirrel and nest, the leaves catching each secret spoken in vein and stem.

And the explosion that shook the house from beneath the roots, walls turning each picture on its side.

I will find you.

I will find you again.

The Easter morning you cut your hair, the thin shelf bangs that fell just above your lashes. It was her hands, always her hands, the line just above her knuckle where the glass fell the night we drove to the emergency room, watching the snow fall from the frosted window.

And the drive home from North Judson, following the white stitched highway, the sea of stars born behind front seats, forehead pressed against smoky glass, the sky opening up with shaken bottle release.

You sat in his bluebird pick up truck with the rusty hole, Saturday morning coffee and meringue at the 212 Bargain Center. There was the shoulder roll cower when the waitress bent close to your face, the same cower your limbs would adopt as posture for the next 17 years, until something in your heart told you it was okay to stand tall. It was okay to lift your eyes to the sky.

And the words and pictures that made beds in empty drawers, the box still smelling like her Wind Song and the poems no one would see.

Mrs. Kenny’s voice, the first beat of assurance in a heart with lost rhythm. Her wiry hand wrapped around the first of many words written from that place, the staircase climb through trapdoors of uncertainty.

“You will make things.”

A sentence existing without period, your comma in waiting, the deep pause of development. And the way those words held together a heart of doubt, the filament string of grace when the voices tore at loose ends.

And I lost you, small artist girl, to the wind of comparison, critique and fear. And the circular eye search for the soft hue of confidence, the bright color of voice, the black and white pinhole view widened.

And the first time you felt a broken heart bedroom collapse. His words on the phone, feet on basement concrete, the curtain rod falling in front of the sliding glass door. You. Not. Enough.  And the way the words followed you like tape stuck to the bottom of a shoe, the ink stain of insecurity.

Someone spoke it. Said it out loud, the magnetic pull of secrets buried, the secrets you thought would withstand the pulled skin stretch between girl and woman.

And the day you tore your jeans and dyed your hair, pushing the last strands over your dark eyes, the notes you folded, the cigarettes lit in dark rooms.

The red lipstick stained napkin, the slow walk home under a pulse of city blood, the last hotel’s light blinking. And the way the sky wept, clouds undulating. The smell of alcohol and memory washed in permanent dyes of regret.

And the four years you buried beneath skin and scar, the one you couldn’t forgive for making you unforgivable. And the curl around the bend of his ear you stared at when your heart collapsed.

And the wide eyes narrowed over time to hold memory and dark roads with chandelier endings. The spills, the flat hand falls and the boy you dreamed of, not be a prince, but rather a man with the faint lines of a crown misplaced, laid down for the girl who lost her gown, torn on the road to find him.

And the first time I held his head in my hands and smelled his hospital soap scalp, heart rising in fear for the pulse that beat in his parched, sunken eyes.

And his sweet mouth with the broken tongue that fumbled to latch on to your breast and the watery, ravenous eyes you wondered would forever see your failures. He saw through you, this new mother terror, the fumbling hot plate of learning.

And the bend of God’s hand, cradling the shards of your heart, picked up along the way, in alleys, locked drawers, the smoky rooms of approval.

I wish you knew, small girl. It was there all along. You were seen before your eyes could even blink. And the years I spent searching for you, your words, your pictures, for the box that smelled of Wind Song and woods. 

Let’s make a kite and stitch it to the wind. Let’s watch its serpent tail turn the corner. We’ll enter the boat bandaged and hear the hum of the sail sing hymns of freedom. We’ll step onto island shores, turning our heads to look back, just once, to watch this boat sink under the horizon of forgiveness. 

For all you have wandered.

42.

Bird Girl

The light moved fast, painting shadows over the faded green field. There was the last cold kiss of a regular Tuesday and my hands cupped his fingers as his feet swept the frosted field. There was the crack of branch and swing of arms and the quick break of fingers falling apart from the nest of palm and thumb. And there was the race to the pond, the sound of nylon scratching with each stride and his small chirp of discovery.

The air was still and we made small waves with our hum and breath. The abandoned cities of cattails and tall bent grasses opened doors and windows to mark our return. And the quiet light sent secret messages only our hearts could hear.

And there was a yawn in the bend of his hand, a hollowed out center that yearned to be thread with the quiet presence of love and her melodic song.

And it was his small fingers inside my hand, the pulse under his nails, the criss cross veins running alongside my worn wrinkles that told me to listen.

The red winged blackbirds were gone. The ones that dove under deep blue skies and sang in urgency as we moved around the nests once filled with egg and chick.

And her voice, the one hidden behind thunder, the warning that rumbles behind the protective mama heart, telling the rain just where to land. She was there, in the shadow of fall, under winter's restless light. She whispered. This is home.

She said she needed words. Something that could line the inside of her coat on winter days, when the light felt broken and dim. And there was some kind of respite in her wings, a hiding place from all of the feeling and hurting. And her feathers were lined with dust, the kind that came from uncovering secrets.

Sometimes the light can bend in a certain direction, turning all of the leaves into wings, the branches into bare, naked limbs reaching for the nearest cloud. And there, when the light is just right, I can see the outline of her nest, still warm with memory.

These fingers entwined, these moments engrained, are the intricate weaving of her smile, her eyes bright with hello, a dangling paintbrush between two loose fingers. It is the faint breath between twig and leaf, the protection and warmth seated in the depth of her hold.

He held the nest close and lifted a leaf from its center.

"It's made from all that remains, the stuff left behind. A shoelace or wrapper from some old gum. A broken piece of grass or ribbon left in the rain. Bits of paper and mud. It's all here. Inside this little nest. Nothing is forgotten."

And her love feels like the wind blowing even when the windows are closed.

And there are the times I feel most alone in the forest, when I can no longer identify specie or skin, when the smell of grass is dull and the bark no longer a pattern to follow. When my eyes are closed and the caves covered with doors of boulder and stone.

"Will you hold my hand?"

And her words of love, the ones she wrote on the insides of her fingers, so when our hands met, I could feel her story told between my thumb and the curve of her nail. These words are my ladder to this place you call home.

"Will you hold my hand?"

"I already am."

And I can hear her quiet song on the flutter of a bird's wing, carrying away the worry, the fear, the small voices caught in nets. And the place she wrote her story still remains on these hands, each vein a path past grown wrinkles and tree lined fingertips, each holding a nest from their wiry bends.

And her heart, the one that shines each time a leaf lifts in a breeze. Her heart, entwined in the deepest part of this nest, rests with each rise and fall of breath.

So I move things around, make a space for the cutting and grafting, the weaving and stitching, the building of nest and home. So these moments, woven in love, the curl of her hair, the way her eyes filled with tears just before she laughed, the way her voice paused before exclamation, the way the light would soak up her motherhood just so it could shine. I will place you here. Forever.

And I remember the hands that cradled this wreck of a girl with one, curled lash wink, the way love can sometimes feel like a leap, a dance over hot stone ash. 

And the fragile walk through dark forests, searching, while your hands lift me over thorn and brush. And there you are, making friends with the moon, smiling over a bent sunset, pushing its warm blanket over our skin. And your song, the fingers tucking in each loose corner.

And to find love perched, held between breaths, enough time for my eyes to fill with tears. Sometimes all I can see are the lashes under her eyes, all of the wishes set loose on the wind, and the sunset when the waves were so loud we had to yell over their roars. 

I will place you here. Between the dew of this one morning and the crest of this fallen night. Your love thread between wrapper and twig, damp clay and fallen hair. Between the bend of my finger and the joint of his hand. In the motherhood I forgot to own and the friendship I carry in the smallest pocket of my heart, this nest,

made from all that remains.

*And a film made during the creation of this shadowbox, filmed by the lovely,  Lara Vagenius. Thank you, beautiful girl.

The Gentle Fall

The parking lot carried rivers of sand over pavement, weaving in and out of yellow parking lines and forgotten shovels. I held my hand over my eyes to keep the sand from finding them. And he yelled something over the arch of the blustery wind, placing each word on its tail.  And his two brothers followed him, hooking their small fingers inside his belt loop to guide them.

Their feet touched the concrete in rhythmic bends, the heaving breath of one, sandy boyhood search, the arm pumping race to corner the moon. And they pushed their way against the wind's resistance, finding small openings in the deep breath intervals between gusts. And they made a run for it, escaping the boundaries and invisible gates of childhood.

There was a leap. The moment between reverence and discovery, where small hands meet the earth, the grounded soil of lost afternoons. And her leaves twisted in the light, the nostalgic twinkle found only in the eyes of someone who loves without reason.

And she appeared to reach down with her limbs and carry them away. And I could almost hear her breathe again with each step and reach over root and scratched bark peeling. 

She had been waiting for them, waiting for their open hands pressed against her trunk, their fingers cupped around each branch. The cold winter's grip tickling her leaves to descend. And their open hands waiting to catch her golden light foliage. 

And her roots gave way to the birth of the climb, the veins on the floor, the fall. And each toe, notched between spiral root, told a story. Each curve and twist, a whisper of where to hold on and where to let go. And the deep knee balance between limb kept them up, holding them high enough to see the faraway lines of where they had been.

These legs that climb over root and foot, this wind that strips and exposes what's left. The carriage divine offering each leaf a pulse. And there was the hush and break of hands wide open, eyes softened at the brow, cheeks warmed by end of the day sunlight. 

And I wondered what this tree might whisper to us if her knots could speak.

How many hands have rubbed away the sheen on her bark, how many days and hours she stood alone, untouched, waiting for the hands of children to find her again. How many falls, how many broken twigs of failure these branches have cradled, never once offended. 

The climb over tangled history, burnt tongues, silencing fingers held close to the lips.

"Careful."

"Don't fall."

And the words still mute, broken before I could speak them. It's okay to fall. 

The fallen, the gentle journey to the ground, is bigger than us. To hold it in our hands, the connecting stitch of steps misplaced, of color not yet changed, hues hushed in the dimming light, is to cradle the spring of what is yet to be born. 

And he asked if he could count them.

His small voice leaning.

"I wonder how many there are."

"I wonder how many have fallen."

The life that pulsed from their veins. The summer days, the laughter caught between branches, the warmth of the sun seen through transparent skin. The late evening firefly gathered on point's end, the caterpillar's meal of renewal. And the day's that held the quiet song of soft breeze sonnets, leaves marching hand in hand, spinning on connected vine, the confirmation of life.

Maybe it's like counting the stars, knowing that somehow they will all add up to light the darkest sky.

This autumnal fall, the piles of wrong turns, the mistakes laid to rest.

And the hand still open to catch it all. The chill. The shake. The torn, beaten wind of broken worry and regret.

This mercy feels whole again. These hands that collect the veins once filled with coursing blood, connect my closed eyes to my heart.

This tree trunk faith, the holy roots of love, hope for the open hand to find them. 

"Where do they go?"

"All of these fallen leaves."

Back to the ground. To make the roots strong.

Stretch out your branches and let them fall.

He reached for my hand.

And maybe it was the way he moved, but I could see his limbs let go. I could see his tree heart beating. I could see the wind grab at his leaves and playfully tug at the places he left tears to grow wild. I could feel the fall coming and my skin, this thin covering over bent twigs and cracked limbs, felt warm again.

It was a new path and my heart opened new doors and I could feel the shy, hesitant girl of duty, creep out from inside the deep holes of slumber. And he took her hand too.

The sun fell behind the gray storm shelf, taking it's place beside forgotten notes and loose buttons and I felt it's final brush of warmth before it descended. The salmon jumped over creek's log and I could feel the small girl's hand inside me, reach from behind my eyes. And discovery soothed and opened the fists still clenched in powerlessness.

We are caught with these hands open wide, in mercy's deep palm, fingers curled around insecurity and failings, nails brittle with neglect. And the beauty in the creases, the age and shedding skin, the rusted corners, the pearl inside.

"Can we stay here forever?"

"Yes."

"Forever and ever."

The light was almost gone. The shadows led over rock and root. The blue turned to gray. The red had fallen. And the words still there, on the tips of our tongues, the hyphenated pause between forgiveness and trust.

The last open hand reaching for something we once knew. I will wait for the mercy to come, to fall gently from her limbs. And this open hand still keeps the day from night, the life lived in shadows.

And I am left with the outline, the memory of hearts fallen, the texture and lines, the veins that once gave us life, now distant and hard to see. This art remains, the pattern, the map over rivers and streams, the damns we tried to block, the rushing water leaks, the holes we filled with mud and stone.

All of these wishes and wants and far away dreams, waiting to be let go, dropped from high places. And sometimes the letting go moves fast, gets swept up by the deep current of wind and sand and spin, and other times, it is the gentle fall, the fingers released, the slow motion hang under a forest's soft eyes. 

She

She has been holding my hand since she was six years old.

It was this small hand I held on my wedding day as she wore his suit jacket that slid over her small frame, giving her an army general silhouette against the setting sun.

She stared up at me, catching the flecks of beginnings and hope that fell from my full eyes looking down on her. And she covered her mouth to keep the giggles from escaping behind her smooth Lara girl fingerprints, the same fingerprints she leaves on my face, my hands, my eyes, my heart.

I’ve studied her hands over the years, the way the wind studies the sky, memorizing each point of light and chalkboard hue of constellation’s rising.

She’s been away. Then back. Life and memory, pages left strewn between train tracks and airplane seats, broken down cars and thumb raised hitchhikes. She wanders. Her heart is thick with wildlife and the soft strokes of nature. She is my niece. A heart bound sister, daughter, angel, and friend. And she is here to visit and my heart is giddy with reunion.

I missed her beach combed hair and baby doll bangs falling over the hollows of her eyes.

She is a ray. The solar eclipse between girl and woman overlaid with wisdom and past, the thin strand of light that falls between praying hands. She is the eyelash found under wet eyes, flushed cheek, the one wish I place on a single breath’s push into the wind. She is the last remaining petal after an autumnal rain, scarlet love against gray regret.

She laid her heart in a mire of silence and streams, our feet leaving unspoken thoughts with each crack of dried leaf and cry of broken twig. The fallen limbs and amber leaves died to ignite her eyes, giving the leafy forest permission to stand and fall.

And her voice, the feminine, this ray that slips past closed curtains and exposes all of the risen dust between the fear, came home, back to an open hand waiting deep in the forest. 

She gave me half of her face. The other she hid in the shadow of quilt and grass. And the time stood tied in ribbons and bows, somewhere between her pinky toe ring and her acorn brown eyes. And to untie this bow is to let the gift of this girl become a woman, envelope turned and opened, letter burned from the bottom edge rising. The smoke and ash, the past set sail, exhaled in rings of obedience and birth.

And time bends backwards in the blades of grass between her toes and her staccato giggle. Sometimes if you look at someone very closely, you can see the corners of shedding skin on foreheads, arms, and hearts.

And to see her, to really see her, is the delicate process of letting those films, the transparencies of personality, damage, time, peel away to reveal the antiquity. The age refined, the porcelain vase that holds the garden flower. The cracks on the lip, the faded gold etching, scratched and made real by time spent in the hands of love.

And it feels better to know that I have her. That this world is still electric, plugged in with her twisted cowlick, and sideways smiles. And this spirit, God’s hand the cup holding our hearts afloat in soft foam waves, sails crossing, blink and failure.

The trees bloom hearts in her pause, her patient following of each nearby cloud. And the mushrooms grow a little taller, stand erect to get her attention and her three cousins follow her with airplane wings rising, dragons slain in her honor.

And the moon feels like it’s passed a thousand suns inside her eyes, collecting enough stars to shine just when her mouth turns from smile to laugh. Sometimes it's these eyes that feel like tiny fingers moving over my melancholy, flipping them over, the seaside sailors and reluctant paratroopers.

And all of this love that she carries around, stuffed in wrinkled pockets, slid behind the bend of her ear, tucked between fiber and fold. 

And that song came on, the one that made me cry after I couldn’t get her back. And your posture kept the light from finding my eyes and her shadow felt like the hand that moved up and down my back in strokes of comfort.

And she will go back to New Zealand and her smile will be the wisp that whispers on the quiet rides home, when the boys sit stacked in school chairs, when the kitchen is blank and the night wets it’s lips before the hunger of sleep.

Her small voice will find hidden corners, creeks in stairs; moonlit floors and she will be a dream again.

She’s been holding my hand since she was six years old, climbing into my bed, toes curled around bad dreams, tucked neatly under piles of blankets and quilts with pattern and fringe, and one set of wide eyes curved from the pull of her smile slowly peaking from behind the blanket tucked under her chin. And her sweet voice reciting Winnie The Pooh. TTFN. Ta Ta For Now.

“Hold my hand.”

Grand leaps. High school eyes opening.

“Hold my hand.”

Young woman. Sometimes visiting. Secrets divulging.

“Hold my hand.”

Niece to sister to zipper seam closeness.

“Hold my hand.”

New Zealand cast shadow. Computer monitor humming.

Her pinky hooks my thumb.

“Stay here with me.”

“I can’t.”

I rise.

She spins.

I wave.

Airplane wings. Departure gates.

Her toe meets the water.

Ta Ta For Now.

One Year Wings

I moved the computer to the laundry room. Along with all of it’s tangled cords and lonely plugs-in’s waiting to meet their perfect fit connections. And it feels like I have placed an entire city into the sea. The skyscrapers of electric lights, neon advertisements, pulls on wants and where’s and it’s wreckage of static now silenced by the rhythmic hum of the tranquil waves of fall.

I can feel the quiet settling in, the open window studio days. I’m battening down the hatches and melting into the studio light.  I’ve been holding things closer to my heart. The buzz of summer now dulling with color wheel shades of orange and sandy bottom beach bags hung to rest.  I haven’t cut paper in almost three months. And my hands feel atrophied. I try to stay very intentional in the summer months about not working while the boys are home.  I gather and sketch, collect verse and composition and wait for the opening to come when this collection of notes can be cut into symphonies.  

It’s been a year, a year since I’ve put those words and cut pieces of paper into the world. A year without the protection of my island shyness, my insular armor and rusty shields.  It’s been a year since Heart Box Studio opened the doors of my heart.  And there are boats on my shores, sails opened wide, anchors lifted, adrift in the current and wind of trust.

So I cut again. I open the book and spread my fingers over the words and tear the page from the binding and cut. I start again and feel the beginning give it’s approving tip of the hat.  And the words may fail and the paper may wrinkle and the adhesive may not hold. And a year ago, I hesitated at risk. I leaned into my heels and waited for assurances. I waited for the hand of absolutes and for sure’s to give me permission. A year ago I cowered at foolishness revealed. But one year, 365 days later, I am leaping and hurdling off cliffs I once kneeled below. I have been saying yes to the things that pile rocks inside the pit of my stomach. I no longer worship at the altar of outcome. Today I worship the holy, the divine intersection where creativity meets my hands, the sweet kiss of mornings lost in paint and paper and strobe light flickering sunshine through wind bent trees. And I wait for the Spirit to fill this empty cavern once again. 

We went back to the dunes, the place where we made this movie last year, the little piece of film that inaugurated my first post. And the boys were one year smaller and the button was still broken on his pants and he still loved to wear his Frank Sinatra shirt. 

    "I lay down my fever dreams for you.
I believe them all, 
even if they never came true."

We watched the birds become black silhouette cut outs against the afternoon sun. We watched as they hung on watercolor clouds, the miniature mobiles spinning in circles of migration. And the gray moon seagull with it’s wings dipped in charcoal opened his wing, revealing all that was hidden underneath, the tender space between heart and wing.

These wings, these fallen sails, drifting over open seas, wait for the spirit of trust to lift them into the clouds. And there was a call, a sweet reminder that the boat has made it to shore, reminding us the sail and the wing are the same.

And these wings have the distinct scent of sea and sand, travel and hand holding, the way a small child can smell of hard wind, seen only through the witness of tangles and knots in his hair.

“It's not as windy as before.”

Sometimes the wings take us places, places that live far outside the tiny island heart, well past memory and pain, over the moon and through the night.

Sometimes the wind picks up speed and it feels like the sky is too big, too wide to secure the ropes, the strings of the sail. And the trust is the eyes closed, dip and plunge past cloud and harbor. It is the bent wing giving in to the whispers of both breeze and squall. It is the hard blown gust that has me holding onto tree trunks and telephone poles, chasing after loose paper bewilderment.

And there is the kind of tornado wind, the wind that tears at your very walls, tearing your home apart, leaving parts of you in fields, hanging from tree limbs, thrown past median strips and county lines. The kind of wind that changes things forever, that comes without warning, in the middle of the night, ringing like the weight of steel on thin tracks. The kind of wind that leaves you collecting these parts of yourself for years, finding a lost smile under wood planks and deep gut, laughter in shallow, muddy creeks. 

There are these people in my life, people who have whispered over me beautiful harmonies, sonnets of wisdom and encouragement. Voices that have plucked away all of the broken and torn feathers of my once upon a time wings.

I told myself I wouldn’t do it if it was just to keep things shiny, to hold up all of the right words, to paint a picture of false happiness, to maintain the facade of wings opened wide. I told myself I wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t be brave, if I couldn’t bring my guts to the page, if I couldn’t watch fingers grow around nerves and worry. 

Because the art is made to remove the layers, to allow God into a space of opening, where love sits in holy silence rearranging this forest inside my heart, making paths where there are thorns, holding the raw and igniting the beat.

Your words, your encouragement and strong arms, each a feather in the wings I carefully stretch wide over these dark forests.

And these are the new wings beginning again, a new shadowbox, that will connect together with many more to become a new story, a new girl with a new heart.

So, I will slip back into the quiet, find a seat in the unknown, faithfully close my eyes and let my heart be led. I will pin these new wings onto an open heart and take another leap into love’s open hands.

What is it for you? The thing that opens your sails, that lifts your wings over fear and wonder? What is the thing that calls your name in the early morning hours and taps on your shoulder from the bend of your knees? What is the thing you are sure you can’t do, the thing that has been written and folded into four corner square love letters and sealed for another life, another day, when the winds are calm and the sea has settled, when safety is just a dip of your toe into the full aquatic beauty of the underwater unknown.  What is it that stirs your heart into wide open skies, that leaves feathers on the shores for you to discover?

Fly. Leap. Run off cliffs and feel the hands of grace catch you in the wide net of mistakes that don’t matter and fears that can’t fly. Because this creation is worth it. These new beginnings have God’s hands all over them, rooted deeply in the excavation of fear and the gentle cultivation of love.

And a giveaway for these one year old wings, because this art only has life if it is held in someone’s hands or reflected in someone’s eyes. This art only has life because of you, because of the space you give for splintered moments of fear, for the balanced hands that hold the sail, the feathers you have placed in wings that hover between the flight and the landing. 

"Spread Your Beautiful Wings and Fly" is a 16" x 20" signed and framed giclee print of the original drawing. Simply leave your name in the comments and I will add you to the list. Let's meet back here on Tuesday, September 25th, and I will let you know who won:)

And when you finally spread your wings, when the wind has gathered and the sails have been lifted, be ready. Because you just never know where this wind may take you.

Thank you for a beautiful year.....

*I'm sorry, no international shipping for this giveaway.