Heart Box Studio

This Light

For Light

Words by John O'Donohue

Light cannot see inside things.

That is what the dark is for:

Minding the interior,

Nurturing the draw of growth

Through places where death

In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,

Let our eyes not be worn

By surfaces that shine

With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,

Finding their way into words

Which have the weight of shadow

To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust

In minds claimed by empty light,

Where one-sided certainties

Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,

May our eyes have the kindness

And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds

Be equal to the oblique

Crevices and corners where

The mystery continues to dwell,

glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside

The dark house of suffering

That moonlight might find a window.

When we become false and lost

That the severe noon-light

Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light

Would lighten our feet

Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight

Would illuminate treasure

In the fields of memory.

And when we come to search for God,

Let us first be robed in night,

Put on the mind of morning

To feel the rush of light

Spread slowly inside

The color and stillness

Of a found world.

XOXO

 

A Love Letter to A Girl In Bloom

When I was small, there was a swing that hung from the neighbor’s tree. A beech tree, with torn bark from where the wind pushed the swing too hard against its soft skin.

On summer days, I’d wander into the neighbor’s yard, cut through the tree’s long shadow. Let my feet drag against the worn dirt before pressing my toes into the sand and surrendering to whatever force lifts a girl from ground to sky.

I’d watch the fallen branches beneath me get smaller. The swaths of dandelions and the wobbly first steps of a violet, bloomed. The cracked lines where the ground thirsted for a rain’s refresh.

And the voice that whispered between each rise and fall.

Jump, sweet child.

I’ll catch you.

The tree is older now. Grown. Its tired bark gone, pulled away from where the wind and weather gathered. Bruised from where an insect burrowed so deep it left a mark wide enough to swallow my touch.

And sometimes I wonder about that tree. Think about it standing there without its hard bark to protect it. The sun warming its exposed trunk, made smooth with time.

A sheet of fog hung from the trees. Coffee warm inside my hands.

She turned toward the forest.

“There.”

A shimmer of knowing.

“Let’s go there.”

So we walked. The rustling of leaves, our guide. The faint outline of promise pulling us closer to a horizon still unclear.

Her eyes are the color of amber hardened over time.

The kind that holds fossils deep within each crack, preserving their beauty forever. Between each lash, a light that ties the stars together with each sweet smile.

You are a sunrise, sweet girl. 

The light that breaks through the dark night sky. A yawn of yellow turning the sky blue again.

These buds of womanhood newly seen,

Held up by roots still growing,

Embraced by the promise of spring.

A seed quenched,

Too soon to know.

Erupting from the ground.

There is shelter here.

Inside hands worn from the gentle wash of time.

This earthly dig, this excavation of heart and mind.

 

I remember.

Wake, beauty.

You are stirring.

Reaching beyond the hard stone walls of time,

Bricks crumbling at your feet.

Press your roots into the earth and grow.

Hold tight, sweet girl.

There’s a strength inside of you blooming.

A whisper in your heart growing louder now.

 

I am courage.

I am strength.

 

I am more than what you see.

I am the light, rooted to the sky.

Weaved inside a constellation too big for small eyes.

And there will be days when this light will seem hidden.

The gray moon taunt of night.

But it will never be gone.

The tides, they wait for your gaze.

These soft shore hands of time, a balm.

You are made of light, sweet girl.

Stand tall, beauty.

You are held inside a feminine ghost rising,

A heroine’s promise kept.

You are never alone.

There is a tribe of unshakable love,

Clear and bright,

Watching over your days.

You are safe.

Step forward.

 

The ground is solid.

And this youth, frozen in time, waits for the thaw of remembrance to give rise to the wave that lingers just below the surface. 

You are the fire that thaws the icy hold,

sets the most beautiful places inside of you free.

Walls down, sweet girl.

There is nothing to fear.

You are a warrior.

A fierceness with hands wielding the sword of her own truth.

And this body is yours.

A beauty all your own.

Legs built to run free.

Hands crafted to hold dreams.  

Fingers designed to let go.

Eyes, a lamp for the wayward heart, still searching the frozen ground.

And your skin. The tender bark that gives way over time becoming smooth with each new pull and tear.

 

Your body,

She whispers,

You are perfectly made.

I am yours.

And eyes will press hard against skin, still thin with adolescence.

And there will be a shiver,

An internal shake,

Releasing their hold.

Because there are no words strong enough.

No eyes sharp enough to dim the current inside you, the piercing bravery and knowing that illuminates your heart from within.

Because you are magic, sweet girl.

The puff of smoke before the clearing, the daring spin of wand.

 

Believe.

Step over the rubble of judgment, a wall of hurt never yours to ascend.

Set each word aflame, let it smolder under foot.

 

I am more than what you see.

 

Rise,

Sweet child,

Shake the soil from your petals

And bloom.

Breathe life into the places where fear once choked the quiet seed of wonder.

Let the dew find your skin again.

Anew.

There, under the surface still thawing,

A golden hue of courage waiting for your hand.

The splinter of hope reaching for your heart.

It is here, sweet girl.

This place, where toe touches ice,

Fearless of the cracks each new step may bring.

It is here, in the underneath places, below the surface of our knowing where true beauty waits.

Take rest, my dear.

Enter into the far reaches of uncertainty.

It is already known.

Dive deep, sweet girl.

You are the wave building

In the flood of an open heart.

This is you, beauty.

A storm of waves, frothy strength lifting,

Building from underneath,

leaning against the shore.

Each hard stone turn, a gentle glide of soft held sand, slipping through each finger.

There is lightning inside of you.

A crack of light giving glimpse to the beauty underneath.

You are known.

A fire too strong to tame.

Each flicker of orange breath

warm against the cold grip of worry.

You are the opening between the clouds

The place where the stars align.

 

Girl. Woman.

 

You were made for this.

You were made to shake the world.

Rid each ill from fractured mind, hearts torn and made whole again.

This frozen reckoning thawed from within.

 

There is more.

Receive, sweet girl.

This feminine rising,

This ancient union,

This tribe of women stitched inside your heart.

Dance for rain.

Let the thunder swell.

Risk for the sake of your heart.

Leap for the sake of your soul.

Hold your head high.

This tree of life, wide and stable.

The delicate branches of history holding up the sky.

Stretch your limbs.

Find the gentle wash of wind between each leaf.

Sway.

Stand tall, beauty.

You are a new dawn against the dark night of fear.

The unruly fangs of critique that bite against skin, nip at our sense of self. You are a voice that burns to be spoken

Lit to be set free.

 

A flame too bright to extinguish.

An awareness stirs, bubbling up from within.

Toes stretch to the sky.

A swing and a reach for the stars.

A leap toward solid ground.

A voice whispers,

Jump, sweet girl.

I will catch you.

Soar, sweet girl.

The sky is yours.

Begin Again

For A New Beginning

Words by John O'Donohue

                    In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on,

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,

Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear,

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you. XO

Wishing you all of the beauty, trust and courage

to bring forth your truest heart this coming year.

XO

Chrissy

 

A Year of Listening

It’s been a year.

A year since we bought a house and began the process of remodeling it. A year since opening it up and letting the walls come down around us.

A year since I packed up my studio, my paper and scissor heart, inside walls of cardboard and said goodbye as we boxed up the life we once knew.

It's been a year.

And more.

Since I began writing words in the midst of sawdust and sand. Words that would turn into a story I never knew existed until I found the space to listen. Words that would write windows inside our walls.

And there, inside these days of want and worry, structure torn from the ground and brought back to life.

A year of listening.

 

It was July when we left the remainder of a life unpacked in boxes to find the clear waters of a summer unexplored. 

We found our quiet place. Our Minnesota place.

The sweet cabin nestled between pines, smeared with light. The hue of morning fog softening the hard outlines of change. 

There was the yawn of his open hand finding mine. The sun, dappled across his cheek like the memory of a paintbrush spun. The path we once walked together, narrower now. Filled with a new kind of growth, a swing of fern over sand.

The grass was taller. Stones, smoothed by lake’s touch. Steps made new by a season refreshed.

And his words, a lyric strummed inside string pulled too tight.

“I don’t remember this part, mama.”

His eyes, round with wonder.

“It feels new.”

And all of the places we allowed the dent of time to keep us from opening the doors of our hearts wider to this bend of light.

“It is new, sweet boy.”

“It’s all new.”

Sometimes we have to start over.

Take the roof off and feel the sky. Make the windows bigger to let more light in. Feel the spread of an early morning sunrise warm our naked feet.

Sometimes we have to take the walls down.

Let them rest awhile on the ground. Feel the earth after years of holding the roof up over our heads. The strain of muscles gripped too tight.

Sometimes we have to let go so we can make something new.

There are the ghostly reminders of a life once lived.

The bend of wire unwrapped from a bag of bread. Curled and abandoned under a door, unhinged. The lost cap from a broken jar. The milk jug’s pull of plastic unraveled over loose gravel. Remnants of a moving truck pressed deep inside the soiled ground.

And the battered shell of time worn by a sea of impatience, written and dissolved under the weight of moving tides.

“Step over the dead branches, sweet boy.”

Look up at the handsome sky.

Open your heart and your eyes will see.

There were places where the boards, the shingles and framework needed to be torn down. The rusty nails that no longer held things together, replaced with new words.

The dark places behind the drywall. Places where the storm never settled. Where the rain and charge of lightning left moisture to spread and mold. Places left too long without care.

Places that needed to be dug out and relearned.

And sometimes it feels easiest to write the hard parts. Like a loom spun over and over again, needled over time. The arguments, the torn hours of separation, the pulled crease of adolescence woken too soon.

And I used to make myself wrong for staying too long in these moments, hovering over the rough edges, touching the wound. But now, I wonder if it is these places touched by the storm that actually save us. Keep us from hanging onto the branch too long, allowing the current its power to move us along.

“Be careful here, mama. The path is slippery.”

And there’s the time in between, left homeless, when the walls are still going up. exposed to the wind and the dark night skies when worry caresses sleep with shaky fingers.

When the structure has yet to be born. When there are just words floating between the leaves waiting for a room of their own. Windows wide without the protective sheen of glass.

There were times when I wondered if the story was nothing more than the wind whistling between the rafters, taunting my wayward heart. Words rubbing up against each other, sheets of winds pushing each cloud farther across the sky.

But I showed up with hammer in hand and found new words inside the framework bubbling up from inside the new found light.

And I listened to the breaking limbs above us.

Keep going. Don’t stop. A home takes time.

A story is born to a listening heart.

And the art supplies hushed inside boxes whispered,

“You’ll find us again when you’re ready. When you new home desires color.”

And the story whispered,

“Color me something beautiful.”

"Color me something brave."

And sometimes finding our true selves can feel like pulling a coat over our shoulders only to find it no longer fits. The sleeves pulled up above the wrist. The buttons torn from a careless tug.

“I can’t remember the way it used to look, mama.”

I watched his feet find the mossy slips and rocky edge dangling into the red, fevered sky.

“It was beautiful, sweet boy.”

“It was always beautiful.”

And the hours of wait when nothing seemed to get done. When the leaves shook and danced over open walls and sinking floors. The soft whisper of dust settled. The filament of words lost and found between fold of insulation.

This house would stand taller. Stronger. Windows open, letting the rain fall over the panes of cracked glass, shattered.

Take me back to the story I remember.

To the path once walked with eyes closed shut.

And how many whispers felt the bend of an ear inside these walls. Inside these pages torn. The notebook pushed inside pockets. Pen wrapped inside gloved hands.

We are writing our way back home again. Carving our names inside the hard oak floor of goodbye.

Sanding away the fear.

There is a story being built inside of us. Outside of us, around us and through us.

I can hear it.

The sound the floor made when the hammer met the nail. A gentle quake of bend and release inside wood narrowly touched for years.

The splinters of growth and urgency. Pages born from the mourning. Born from the crush of words sawn and stacked in corners waiting to be made smooth, sanded and primed.

The arch rising and falling inside a pile of rusty nails, pulled from a crushed board.

A book can look lovely with its cover closed, all of the bones, the words, the story sealed and held between fearful hands.

And sometimes it takes courage to turn the page even when the story is crumbling, when your eyes burn with sorrow, when the characters choose against us.

But if you’re quiet enough, you can hear the story between the breaking glass. The pounding nails charting their course across wobbly boards.

“We found it, mama. The end. The end of the path.”

There’s another story. I can see it pressed against the soft evening horizon. Its silhouette spread out, reaching for my hand. The voice still soft. Its words still a gentle nudge. A nod. A smile. Damp eyes asking for me to follow.

“No, sweet boy.”

"This is just the beginning."

XO

 

I Carry Your Heart.

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 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

May your holiday be filled with love and light and secrets shared. May wonder find your heart and joy brighten your days. XOXO Chrissy

Rewritten

The house is for sale.

There is a sign in the yard that swings when the wind blows. We stood on the front porch and watched the clouds gather over the bent trees. I remembered the night the tornado hit several miles over the train tracks.  He was close to eight months old, new teeth breaking through his tender gums. I rocked him back and forth inside my basket arms listening to the wind rise through the open window.

We ran down the stairs in the dark and he slept in my arms as we crouched on the basement floor, his eyes moving back and forth in tick tock dream. And I remember praying, writing words inside these walls, hoping that somehow they would hold us together.

The sky was achy and blue and he slid his hand inside mine.

“Are you sad, mama?”

He found a puddle and kissed it with the tip of his toe.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

His eyes lit from somewhere deep within, like a lighthouse making a turn towards the sea.

“Let’s go for an explore the way we used to.”

There is the path you used to run. All of the voices hidden between blades of grass, the laughter caught in each bend of leaf. A rustling beneath that shakes the seed from the tall grass still swaying.

And I thought of all the places we left footprints.

Where the grass got stuck between our toes and I thought about the house alone, quiet without the voices in hallways, wet mittens on floors.

The way leaves, loose from the hold of a tree can look like rain in the wind’s breath, a storm of hearts flying. A flower longing for hands to grasp its broken stem, to mend it with fingers laced.

You’ve grown on the shoulders of these days, lifted from yearbooks, dog eared diaries pressed between palms, hands made soft with time.

Something is being rewritten, still quiet and small, like sunshine before the rise just before it meets the horizon. This poem left out in the rain, words once pressed hard with imprint, now smeared by touch.

He is shy and his eyes are heavy. And I see the back of his head more, the sweeping curls of a boy who used to bring me frogs and toads and broken blue eggs pieced back together.

And I miss him already even though he’s still here.

High school doors will soon swallow him.

He walks with hands in pockets, protecting the contents from another day, the peripheral glance back to something forgotten, lingering somewhere behind his eyes.

Handles broken off in the places where I used to hold on.

His slippery heart moving in and out, like the sun’s woody pattern on a summer’s path. This intermittent hello lost, this blink between man and boy.

It was the way he carried himself, shoulders bent like a broken gate unhinged. His hair soaked in an elder fog.

And maybe I will always remember this day as that time, that last time he let me see inside his window eyes before the curtains were drawn.

Or maybe I will remember the way these same eyes grew forests with their light.

“Can I hold your hand?”

Can I feel all of the words still hanging in your heart like flowers left to dry.

Sometimes we need to talk even when there is nothing to say.

This thunder behind a cloud, brimming with strength and voice. Notes drawn on a page, the music never played, hummed over the cattails swaying.

And we’ll open a window, and listen for a far away train going somewhere, the soft horn of arrival and departure. Follow me. Anywhere. Somewhere. And the trail of smoke curling around cities, the places you’ll go.

This story has new pages where my words have been erased and rewritten in the quiet places between the lines. Where my words have grown smaller, pages still blank with life.

Open the skies.

These words feel like falling rain.

Skin raw under these first new drops. Soaking into the cracked walls of thinning grass and the pale remnants of summer.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

The way a story can be heard crying for release under a stack of heavy books.

The stone paper, soaking up each turned corner cursive stroke. To know it’s still there, the voice behind the eyes, the rumbling under the forest bark, the roots shaking with power and strength, waiting to be released.

I can hear the words spoken somewhere between flannel pajama bottoms and loose teeth under pillows, all the places where the roots have been pulled from the ground.

And the words follow us like a kite dragged over the dusty ground, waiting for the wind lift it again.

“Do you remember the bird?”

The one that found it’s way in through an open door. The way it flew around for hours, hovering above the couch, landing on tables and crashing into windows, trying to find its way out, until finally, he landed on the rough stone fireplace. His small chest moving up and down, his tiny heart beating so fast. And we tried to move him, tried to get him to crawl inside a small bucket so we could set him free. But he wouldn’t move. His tiny toes curled around the brown stone, holding on. It died, holding on. And the next morning, we buried him in the yard. You cried. You held his small wings in your hand and you cried.

“He wouldn’t let go, mama. He wouldn’t let go.”

Sometimes you have to let things go in order to be free.

And this is what it will feel like.

Like the wind under a broken leaf, set free.

Like a door rising from the dirt ground, loosened.

You are my words. Each deep breath pulled close to my ear. Your cry caught in the gentle twirl of a black cat’s tail and her quiet meow with eyes asking.

“Can we play?”

The house is empty. 

I thought we’d have more time.

All of the words, still silent, waiting behind walls crumbling.

There is a passage, an underground tunnel of time, unseen, like a man quietly holding his suitcase walking towards the tunnel’s open end, a halo's light welcome. 

There is the surface in hand, the belongings of a life collected and put down, only to be watched from a distance, this sail being lifted and pray for calm seas.

Sometimes all we can do is try.  And I have to be reminded of how this thing works. This salty tear, feet bathed in dirt, thing.

“Just try.”

Because, you can’t hold on.

Grace comes in the early morning hours before the light has a chance to grow hard. These whispers between leaves, caught between steps, forgiveness rising on the wings of feathers stretched, the mourning dove’s last cry.

This fragile tree place where the slightest shift in wind can tear at a newly forming leaf, where I pray the roots were made strong enough for these winds of change, this heartache grown from stretch, the vine wrapped and pulled, stretching towards the light where a small seed blooms.

And the deep breath of the thirsty paper quenched by a liquid brush. Take me somewhere. Anywhere.

These words spoken for the first time, the shell cracked, pieces falling to the floor in puddle of ink and spoken watercolor words. Stroke upon stroke, until something luminous and holy shines through.

And the fallen seed caught in the open hands of goodbye.

"We are explorers." 

“I love you.”

Fly.

Open Hands

His shirt had a long stream of mud down his back, the perforated line of a fast moving bike through after school puddles. We found his lost glove in the yard, wet all the way through, bird seed collected inside the thumb.

And the sound of a bike thrown to the ground, small feet on soaked pavement, the squeak and slide of wet rubber on ceramic tile. The tender place between winter and spring, too warm for gloves, hands red from handlebar hold.

The dog stood panting at the screen door, front legs shifting, the tap dance clap of feet against floor. 

We drove to his favorite spot.

The air was warm and his boots slid just below the cuff of his jeans. 

He placed his hand in mine. First, for balance, the teeter totter rock between left foot, then right. His fingers soft, gently cupped around his deep constellation palms, a universe tucked quietly inside his grip. 

And the sky pulled from a forgotten palette, the soft milky orange of melting sherbet across an open mouth. He pulled at my wrist as he climbed up and over. Up and over. The melting mounds of a winter etched deep in our skin.

The water pooled in the carved out places, sand pulled in like a hurricane’s eye, resting. And the sky breathed a heavy relief, the lake swallowing mouthfuls of winter’s end.

Waves caught in frozen memories of the time the water swirled and the sky broke open, when the snow fell like tossed confetti and we huddled beneath blankets, toes wrapped in socks warm from the dryer.

He ran ahead. My hand still open from the place where our world's once met.

And the sky lowered her silky veil, the blink of sunlight, of summer’s open sail. The hard places softened. An icy sheen kissed by the golden end of winter’s tight hold.

His small hands explored the thinning ice as he watched the memory of winter gently float away. He dug deep beneath the snow, pulling forgotten days between the ice. Dark rubbed stones, flooded driftwood, a pinecone shed of its protective layers. The sound the ice made when it cracked, letting the water underneath escape its history. 

Joy lives in the open hands, in the light caught between fingers spread.

These are the cavernous days.  The waterlogged days. 
And sometimes it’s enough to just move towards the light.

And he climbed, arms swinging in pendulum ticks.

The treeline ache for stretch and reach, this expansion, these hollow spaces inside filled up again.

So we quietly walked over the end, letting the beginning break open under our feet. The day wide from a winter’s long exhale.

Leave these hands empty, ravished winter sky.

His hand slipped in and out of mine.

Where are your treasures, sweet boy?

The sky hushed and widened, turning her shoulders toward the sun, casting shadows over his upturned eyes.

And his small hands rolled rocks between his fingers, a broken pinecone spun inside his muddy palm, then dropped to the thawed ground beneath us.

Sometimes I am having so much fun, I forget to hold on.

Me too.

Little Bird

He said the snow was gentle.

His eyes lifted into the milky glow of the frosted window as he pulled on the broken strap hanging from his backpack.

It has nowhere to go.

The stoplight sank and weaved against the gentle wind, its red eye winking between bends. And the car filled with the kind of quiet that happens only after a morning rush.

It just follows the wind.

His small voice left cracks in the glass.

Sometimes it moves straight down, and sometimes it stays awhile, just floating, wandering a bit.

The green light pulled us forward.

There is this quiet space without words, just wind. 
Where there is no hanging on, just flight. 
Without outcome, just grace.

Do you remember the bird?

The one caught in the garage between the beach chairs and the cans of paint? Its small chest pulling for breath, the deep reach of want, the carnal thunder of a race still running.

And I thought about the pull, the tug to be right, to be made well, to be made known.

And I thought about the wings that flap so hard, trying. Trying.

Trying to make the wind.

The snowflakes kept falling, straight, then bent, coming to the ground shaken and soft. And the gentle landing, blessed by the wind, by the snowflakes already arrived, blanketing the hard ground below.

What happened to that bird?

I think she’s flying.

I think she is soaring.

Mama?

Yes, little bird.

Let's follow the snow.

Dear Mom,

You brought the photographs over and spread them on the table.

The ones I remembered. The ones that used to hang in the hallway just outside my bedroom door, somewhere between my name carved in the dense, cabin wood and the collage you made from torn magazine pages. And there, between the hardened glue, yellowing with time, a movement of women caught on film, dusty gray words still smoldering. 1976. Women. Liberation. Awaken. And one girl, in the corner of the page, chrome soaked hair, bare muscles flexed, open mouth scream, silenced behind the glass.

And some days, I would sit under your collage and read each word, search inside its heavy frame. I wondered if those pictures were what freedom looked like. If bravery was an arm lifted into the sky, like a wing searching for its wind. Or if bravery was a tear tracing the journey of a young girl over cheek rouged with fight. And I could almost hear your voice trying to get out from behind the glass.

And I think I fell in love with you, right then, right there, under your heart cut out before my eyes.

And the girl in the pictures, spread out on my table, with her hand, forty-two years held, was scared. I remember the day I sat with you and took these pictures. The studio was cold, shoulders bent to protect the bare skin above my tank top, raw with exposure, small hands pulling a tiny string from the unraveling elastic. There was the white light piercing my eyes, long shadows asleep on the floor. You had trimmed my bangs the night before as I sat at your knees and felt your finger hold the hair between skin and blade.

And I realized I never take pictures of you.

It was your birthday and the clouds moved fast, pushing a storm through the trees. And all I wanted was to take your picture, give you proof of your beauty. Not beauty seen from the surface, hair caught in iron pressed, skin pulled beauty. But the deep, hiding place in your eyes, beauty.

Because when you photograph someone, you are holding their most gentle place inside your eyes. And it takes trust and vulnerability to allow this wild forest place to be seen.

And sometimes you just need to remember someone without all of the years attached.

Sometimes bravery is an unraveling string, held inside the smallest hands.

And I found you on this day, camera in my hand, the sun just beginning to give in to winter’s persuasive winds, the way the air felt thinner and your skin went translucent in the watered down blue sky. 

A whisper. Let this be sacred.

And I thought about all of the days, the minutes tied in knots, with your hand over mine, guiding the fabric through the sewing machine’s open mouth, needle plunging up and down, sinking into the pattern’s inky guides.

Your hand holding mine, as it held a mixer for the first time, peanut butter thick against the bowl’s milky sides. Your fingers weaved between mine, pressing crisscross, fork patterns into the rolled dough balls.

And I could hear you raking through the open window, the scrape of rusty metal fingers on the concrete ground. He was working an extra shift at the steel mill and the water on the stove had boiled over.

I could see you through my mirror, the reflection of you in the backyard, knee deep in periwinkle hold as you pulled and placed, reviving each sunken plant, reborn.

And I watched you grow a company on the basement’s concrete floor. Homemade silk screens exposed, letting the light open each place where the paint would sneak through, creating fabric soaked in courage. And the quiet drag of feet on hardwood stairs after the light sank past midnight’s last wave.

I watched you walk into trucking companies, alone, sales pitch neatly scribed on your chalkboard heart, smeared and rewritten over and over again.

And I remember the moment you let go of my hand and pushed the lock down on the car door. The soft wisp of curled hair over your eyes, as you took your last breath before turning and walking away.

“I’ll be right back.”

You were brave, mom.

And it was your voice on the phone the first time I really missed home. I was living in Japan and the streetlight was out as I stood in the shadow of the closed grocery store. And you told me I would be ok. You told me you loved me.

And the neon light flickered long enough to find more coins.

And your voice was a tunnel home, the silence between your words, an open door.

And maybe you don’t know, but I have an entire part of my heart dedicated completely to the memories of each and every time you ever held my hand or stroked my hair, hugged me or told me, “It’s going to be ok.”

You were brave, mom. 

And I could feel my heart wanting to run back to you, to the hand on my hand, guiding me.

And your eyes tell me you tried.

And isn’t that all I can ask for, for someone to try, to stumble around me long enough to find an open door in the murky stream of growth.

Those are the brave ones, courage strung over shoulder marching into the depths of wet eyes wandering.  And there is no place to hide inside these wet eyes, hope and dream awash in the cold, raw light, exposed.

Because even the most tightly woven masks require holes to see, a place where light can get in, the place inside that can never be covered, where the paint can get through, coloring over the darkest lines.

And when I look at those pictures, I can see all the places where you were scared just like me, where maybe you worried a worn path around your heart.

I used to write poems for you and hide them in my drawers. Sometimes I would drawer flowers around the words.  I waited for your soft whisper inside those petals, still closed.

“I’m scared too.”

Because somewhere I lost my voice, there in the dark forest walk, caught between snare and thorn, like a toy misplaced, under a swing, drown inside the storm’s wet stream. And I needed your hands to help me search, to tear apart the leaves, the deep tree roots holding it all together.

And I was so scared. I hid it all, every sound and small whisper, until it was choked from my heart, the torn vessels that pumped blood to my most tender places.

And I couldn’t find your eyes back home.

I travelled far from this swing set, from your hand lifting me into the sky, where it felt like wings set free. And all the places I went seeking your eyes on my heart.

I just wanted someone to make it all better, to fill in all of the cracks and put all of the broken pieces back together, the parts of myself left strewn under the tallest trees. 

Sometimes, something lives in us so long we can’t remember when we ever agreed to its inhabitance under its rusty nail hold.

And I prayed. I prayed your skin and bone and bent finger hands knew how to put it back together.

This love looks like resurrection, like skin torn from the bone. And the holy voice that speaks.

“This is not over.”

This grace is the face of love.

And being a mama aches as much as it opens.

And I can see the girl woman who gave up so much of herself just so I would know what mama hands felt like wrapped around my heart.

I am 42, and you, you are some years past, and I have travelled paths away from you, around you and back to these hands I remember. Still open. Waiting at the door. And some days, now, I can look into your eyes and recognize your maps. Each street and valley low, some flooded with tears, some torn, never to be travelled again. And I can find myself there. Your paths, your streets, your milky stars connected.

And some days, I want to invite you into mine. Let you walk a bit through the dark forests I hid from you.

Let you hold the seed on the back of the wind, this small girl voice held tightly in your hand.

And this prodigal daughter, returning home, born from a heart drawn in bravery.

I found you here, mom.

I found your beauty. Not from being understood, but from the delicate place of understanding. Not from seeing, but from allowing my heart to be seen.

And I don’t want to wait.

Because there are all of the things telling us life is sacred. The health scares, the pause just before the doctor leans in and speaks, the rush of heat on skin as he darts out of my hand, as the car's brakes cry a little louder, the red light turned green, then yellow. The instant caught. Then gone from our hands, escaping into the open sky.

And this voice feels like blood just beneath the skin, rising to the cut. I want to tell you now because when you finally realize that beauty is the tender, the ordinary, the day after day, the hands held, the warmth of the sun that lifts a weary heart, you want nothing more than to shine a light on it.

And I can hear you, your voice behind the glass flying out beyond the stars.

I’d never taken a picture of you.

And all I really wanted was to give you a birthday gift. But it was you that ended up giving me the gift. And what I got was your eyes.

A whisper. Your eyes tell me it’s all true.

Sometimes, a daughter needs to know she can be scared.

And sometimes,  
A mother does too.

Let's be brave together.

Because this is who we were.
But this is who we are.

And this is glass broken,
Where a voice is set free.

Once Upon A Dream

I’ve been working on a big project.

The kind of project that haunts carpool lines and backs of grocery store lists. Words planted somewhere just beginning to bloom.  And sometimes it can feel hard, like I am holding the words too tight, trying to shape them before they come out.

And these hands, busy building dreams, setting stone against stone.

The cutting, the gluing, the write and rewrite.  It seems like forever.

Sometimes I just want to get it right. These words, the story, the truth being born somewhere in the invisible night sky. 

And sometimes I just need the forest, the place where right and wrong fall gently to the ground, like fallen leaves. The place where soft laughter reminds me what a dream really looks like.

Because some dreams feel like they were born with us, stitched to our skin, somewhere underneath, where our hearts beat the loudest.

There are the people you meet in the waiting rooms, in the checkout line between ravaged four year old tantrums and ice cream melting in wiry carts.

And then, there are the people who fall from the sky, the shooting star people, no less magical than the radiant death of a star millions of miles away, painting a soft stroke of light across the night sky.

We met over breakfast in a small restaurant. My little family pressed up against the window, our first night spent in a new home without groceries or dishes unpacked. And her family, three booths south, two sweet girls, legs dangling from high chair and sticky, vinyl booth.

Her name is Emily.

And she is my, lost in a forest, friend. 

And she said somewhere it is written, that for every stroke of decision we ever make, there is a bed of sand underwater, gently touched by the moving stream of your thoughts, making waves for every wish, every hurt, every sorrow and dream stretching.

And I think about that underneath, the place where this sand gets pressed from the hard feet running above. The place where the tender heart beats softly, pushing the grace up through the ground.

We met in the forest, her two girl plus one. And we wandered. Over the broken trails, under the forest's soft hold. We wandered over our dreams.

And the dream is here, in these arms, these eyes, in the cheek gently kissed by the wayward bend of afternoon light. There is no chasing, no finding, no searching to become here.

Just the dream, quietly growing underfoot. Already alive.

Sometimes we just need to dig a hole and rest there, let the vines climb up and around us, feel the bud just before it is about to bloom, all green and protected. 

Because these dreams can feel like a forest, like the tender heart yearn for shelter.

And these chance people, theses where-did-you-come-from people, they wake us from our slumber.

Do you remember your dreams?

The fairy tale finger curl of happiness. The day we spent under the trees, listening to the deep heart beating from somewhere underneath.

And these little girl hearts searching the forest.

The dreams, the ones left buried somewhere beneath the weight of dark soil and heavy stone doorways.

Wake, small girl. Wake.

Wake to your dream, already alive, beating inside your chest.

And there’s the voice that says, “Let go.”

The long shadow darkness of hesitation and fear. And the twinkle light dust of forever. This is your dream. Forever.

Your mama heart song. Forever.

And when you feel like you can’t walk through the darkness another day, when the ground grows silent, take my hand. 

Take my hand and run.

Because there will always be places in the forest that hurt, that cry when the light doesn’t find it’s way through the leaves, when the dream is lost, forgotten, buried somewhere beneath our hope.

But these hands, these hands, will always be here to hold you, as we search together for lost hearts, found. 

Good night, sweet girl. Don't forget.

And we wake to our dreams to find ourselves. To come alive.

And there’s the story that grew like wild lavender, spreading seed and scent, quiet longing between fingertips. Words spread between foot and the open ground run back home. Into the quiet shade of curved blanket tucked under chin hold. 

This forest hold, sunlight embrace and the search, the treasure underground. Chest opened. Heart found.

It’s right here, in your rocking mama arms. Your, once upon a dream, heart. This love at the end of happily ever after paths.

And for every mother unsure, there is the dream mother, growing underground.

Found in the search between leaves for the golden light of childhood wonder, where play catches our hearts in the gentle swing of deep breath letting go, hands open.

Somewhere underneath, where kindness doesn’t seek, but is sought in gentle hold. Where we sit under a forest roof, with rooms of soft light, doorways into forgotten bark wanderings.

And these eyes under a star filled sky, this one last shooting star.

There is a forest, where dreams are found. 

This, once upon a time, dream. 

Do you remember?