home

i don’t know if i can be considered a risk taker or if my life, more accurately, has just always been filled with risk.

i’m about 8 years old and had gotten a new skateboard. and by new, i mean, my first. as in ever. in front of the greyish-blue ranch style house at the end of bolick drive in which we lived there was a steep hill that dead-ended into a cul de sac. i’d seen other skateboarders fearlessly careening down half-pipes, or whatever you call them, and it looked easy enough, so when you get a new skateboard you do “as the romans do” and you careene, too. i climbed the hill all the way to the top, until i could no longer see the cul de sac or the house and figured that was probably high enough. i put the board down on the pavement, set both my feet, and shifted my weight really hard toward the decline. i’m pretty sure it only took about 3 of the seconds that followed of gaining speed to induce the subsequent tumbling head over feet, then feet over head, the rest of the way down the hill, skateboard trailing more slowly behind me. when i came to and managed to stand up, a blood curdling scream emerged and i began to run. i began to run, blood dripping from every limb and bending joint i had, straight to safety toward the house. my mom was already making her way hurriedly out of it, probably having seen the entire acrobatic non-feat from just inside the door, to meet my road-rashed self halfway. she just knew, as if by instinct, what had happened and then knew exactly what to do to “right” it. my entire life my mother's voice alone has illicited many a reaction inside me, but almost always an “it’s all ok, i’ve got you now” calm. and let’s just say i’ve given her many an opportunity to perfect it.

i’m 28 years old and my best friend has just picked me up from the burn unit at UNC Hospital, though at that moment i wasn’t sure to where she’d be taking me exactly. the house i had been renting on byerly street, again at the dead-ended cul de sac of a tiny neighborhood street, had just hours before in the early evening burned down to the literal ground, almost all 4 tiny rooms of it. i’d decided it was a great idea to channel my inner bobby flay that night and deep fry some stuffed peppers for dinner with a friend, but had no idea that 7 terrifyingly fast minutes later i’d be without a home. the surreal scene of mile-high flames, plumes of thick chest-crushing black smoke, the nearing sirens wailing from this direction and that, neighbors pouring out of their also-tiny-houses to “rubberneck”, and the sounds of windows bursting and cabinets falling from their hardware all the sudden had turned into the realest reality ever. standing in my driveway staring out at the ball of flames that used to be four walls and a yard, i’d realized the answer to the question in my mind i’d been asking that entire 7 minutes, “is this really happening right now?” was indeed “yes, it just did.” the most ironic part of it all? at the time i didn’t eat fried food whatsoever. as kim and i had pulled away from the hospital she asked me where i wanted to go and i replied, “nowhere yet, not until i call my mom.” thankfully in my rush to exit the engulfed house i’d remembered to grab a few things, my cell phone being one of them. i dialed my mom's number in norfolk, va and she answered. and like all 28 years before it just the sheer sound of her voice on the other end of the phone induced an immediate reaction and i began to non-sensically bawl. somehow, though, i managed a “mommy?” through my shaky tears. to which that frantic “mommy?” then induced an actual frantic mommy on the other end and she immediately knew, just as she knew i’d careened down the hill on my skateboard that day, that something was very, very wrong. i’d just lost almost everything in my possession, had been mildly burned across my face from the explosion on the stovetop, and had nowhere to go, but in that single moment i somehow knew that it was all going to be ok. because she had me now.

fast forward to now and it’s not me who is the risk taker - it’s her. a year ago she and her husband Rick decided to leave behind the grueling, borderline abusive jobs and post-retirement stresses, sell almost everything they own and move to a beautiful village in Mexico. that takes “cajones”, as they say, to leave everything as you know it in favor of a world you’ve been previously pretty removed from and clueless to, step out on the ledge, and just...jump. people talk about jumping but rarely do they close their eyes, listen to the true song in their heart, and actually do it. and on this Mother’s Day i could not be any prouder of her that a small-town southern Magnolia moved thousands of miles away from the “home” and family she was accustomed to for so long in order to find an even more important home inside of herself.

while i don’t think i’ll be getting a call from the food network anytime soon, what i do know is that no matter where i am in the world, or what i don’t have or do, my truest home of all homes will always be where she is.

born "this" way

Miss Gaga was only partially right, at least personally speaking. i'm not sure if it was as much being born "this" way as it was a complete discovery and full evolution of self, a homecoming of sorts, to the person and woman God intended me to be. but i'll tell you how i was NOT born. i was not born wrongly, or in error. you see, i was born in the God i was so strongly raised to believe in's image. so if he can do no wrong, then he did not make me in error either. from early on i had always chosen to be many things in life: the first female NBA player, an artist, perhaps even a surgeon. one day i thought maybe i'd even finally strip away all my shyness and find my inner stage diva. but i do know that i did not choose to be gay.

as a little girl, and still today, my mommy was my world. i saw the moon, the stars, and everything in between through her eyes. and it wasn't until college that we'd go through my coming out, and coming of age, story together. at the same time i was moving away to school for the first time, leaving my mother at home alone, missing her, yet spreading my big girl wings, i was realizing that what i felt for women felt exactly the way i'd always heard people describe love. instead of just drawing hearts around all the cute boys faces in our year book like my friends would force me to do, and going out on movie dates with them to prove to myself i was normal, i finally felt like i could maybe some day fall in love too. maybe some day someone would love me and i could love them back and mean it.

but the more crystal clear it became to me that i was a homosexual woman, and the more at home to myself i seemed to feel, the louder i also seemed to hear the outcries of hell, fire, and damnation preached around me. and for four years straight i have never known such pain caused by trying to live peacefully among that fire. and when that pain became too great inside that i could not hold it in one second longer, i also didn't choose to transfer that pain to my mother, or to the rest of my family. i dropped a bomb on them, i know, one that came completely out of left field and needed preparation and answers to some of their own deep-rooted questions that they were not lucky enough to get at the time. but i did not choose to splinter the love and bonds that had been created up until that point, i just chose to cry out loud for once. i needed help making sense of it too and though i didn't go about it the easiest way possible i was just simply yearning for someone...anyone...to tell me i was not as filthy and disgusting as i felt.

every day on the drive down I-40 from class to home, i would imagine how easily i could just turn the wheel ever so slightly to the left and careen myself into the cement median wall going 70 miles an hour. i even found myself sitting in front of a CVS pharmacy one afternoon, car running, trying to build up enough courage to walk in and buy enough aspirin to either stop my heart or aspirate from my own vomit and die. that would fix this, i'd tell myself. all to make the pain go away and to put my famliy out of the hardship of trying to find a way to love the real me. i obviously did not really want to die, i just wanted to be me and that be ok. to reconcile who i knew i was with what i'd always been taught.

the closer to myself i felt, the further away from God i became. i could count on one hand the number of times i'd felt comfortable in a Church, afraid that "they"...the Christians i'd grown up knowing first-hand...would be able to see right through to my gay little heart, and worse, that they'd immediately march me up to the altar and excorcise it from my soul like a demon. i was wrong to them, i was an error. i threatened anything their Bible had ever said about love and exemplified what it said about sin and disgrace. and yet the one place i'd always feared losing the love the most was there unfailingly every single moment, even through her own pain...my mother. over time, both our questions were answered more and more and we were able to begin finding some peace in those answers. peace in the fact that God was still present in those answers, that one did not have to be mutually exclusive from the other. and i think somewhere along the way we also found eachother again, this time in a more real way than ever before.

i did not choose to be gay, and my mother did not choose to have a gay daughter...but as long as i live, i will choose love over fear and disgrace every single moment of every single day. i will choose to be the me i was intended to be, to grow in His favor, and will live my life in love. hopelessly and endlessly in love with my friends and family, always striving to some day be able to pay them all back for choosing to love me without fail. no Amendment or twisted verses can ever make that pure, simple thing an error to me ever again. and i may or may not ever want to get married some day, but that in fact is my choice to make...not yours. the way i see it, the only choice you have to make at all in this issue is whether to open your eyes to the love you profess so loudly to be in God's name, or to stay blind to all the other shades and hues of it that are out there when they may not look identical to your own. so, i ask, who's the one with the choice now?

and so we pause

i'll never understand death. i know we can't expect to live forever, and maybe we wouldn't want to as our bodies become less able to keep up with the things we put it through, but to me death has always seemed like this unjust event which can never equate to the collection of humbling, awe-inspiring (for good and bad) moments you experienced throughout your time on this planet. i absolutely do fear death, despite believing in God and being "right" spiritually. and the reason i fear it, the reason it seems so unfair, is that in the exact miraculous moment a life expires his/her final burst of air and leaves this earthly place the world doesn't stop for even a tiny second. and i feel as though it should. why can't there just be a brief pause, a moment or two to nod recognition in that person's favor a "well done" of sorts. we'll give a moment of silence at a sporting event like it comes with the ticket price but never, not once, is there any silence in this world the exact moment someone leaves it. instead, as the breath leaves the body one last time activities continue all around; groceries are shopped for, clothes are shuffled through on department store racks, parking spaces hunted. time stands still for no one except the loved ones that hover in agony next to the deceased person's diminished frame and that will never be good enough for me. in life all we're trying to do is be seen, be a voice that's heard, and to make even the tiniest of impacts. so what's wrong with wanting to know that in the end our life meant something to someone other than us? that it wasn't all for nought afterall.

godspeed, margie. for as long as you could muster the strength to you lived each day with such beauty, grace, and love. your footprints will be missed...and so we pause.

Andrew Belle-In My Veins

feels like letting go

what does it mean to let go? to forgive, to forget, to make amends? sure, all of those things are included in the act. but i think it runs deeper than that and that if we miss this very crucial last part, we are missing the truest lesson of it all. to let go also means to give yourself permission to be happy again, severing in your heart the negativity and hurt of whatever "it" contained for you. the severing is not for the "it", it's for you. accepting the freedom into your soul that comes from saying, "ya know, it's ok. i'm ok." it's trusting yourself first, your journey second, and carrying with you those pieces of it that will forever have their impact. i once heard something that sticks to the back of my mind like a salve - love hard, then love deeper, for that is when you are at your most authentic.

words to live and then forgive by. so, it's ok...i'm ok. my love to you always...

safe deposit box

it was mid-afternoon on a tuesday. i answered my cell phone and very calmly my dad at the other end said, "i think you need to come now." i drove home to collect some things in a bag, and i remember how absurd it felt as i placed my black funeral dress and heels inside it just in case my brother didn't make it. 4 1/2 hours later i pulled into the parking deck of mission hospital in asheville. my dad called again as i was walking into the lobby and said where to find everyone, that they were all just sitting there in the waiting room on the 4th floor, but he gave no indication that anything was any different than when i spoke to him earlier. the doors of the elevator opened and over the hospital intercom a "code blue" was being called. doctors and nurses were running down the hallway and i almost collided into one as i stepped off. i could also hear the intense wailing and sobbing of someone off in the distance. i rounded the corner and at the end of the hallway i saw my dad trying to hold my stepmother up onto her feet as her weight was crumbling in agony against him towards the floor. i then made the connection that the wailing i'd just heard wasn't a poor stranger's...it was hers...and that the code blue was in my brother's room. his heart had stopped at the same second the bell of the elevator dinged. i froze and then took a step forward to enter a chaos that will never seem any less surreal as long as i live. the sounds accompanying that moment and my body shaking due to my heart pounding with such force will be forever burned in my memory. she was still wailing, "oh God, oh God, no!". my dad released her from his grip long enough so that he could crumble too, and then it was my arms she fell into. with both my bags still on my shoulders all i knew to do was just hold her while she wailed and say "it's OK, it's OK, its OK" over and over like i believed it was going to be. i yelled at my aunt to sit with my dad because his red face and sweat told me that he too may have a heart attack if we didn't calm him. and then just as fast as the chaos had begun, an icu nurse burst through the automatic doors and said they'd gotten josh's heart back to a rhythm. i think my stepmom had wailed out all the energy she had because all she could do was sit wide-eyed and motionless at the news that she hadn't just lost her only son afterall.

the realization that i've become a shell of a person, and that it's no one's fault but my own, sinks like a brick of panic in my gut. i use the word fault loosely, realizing that life just happens, but regardless of that fact no one is responsible for who, or what, i become but me. i don't want to be 45 and wondering where the last twenty years of my life went simply because i was too scared to leap. because i was too afraid to be happy. happy like "my cup runneth over" kind of happy. life is shorter than short; it's sometimes unpredictable and not to be put in some safe deposit box for tomorrows. because what if? what if one day you're not so lucky to just be the one getting out of the elevator?

in the balance

you think you know yourself well enough to know how you'll feel about something...until you have to. my entire life up until this point has been purposed by the same recurring theme: find balance, and maintain it. but what do you do when even equilibrium becomes too much? when you'd give just about anything for the scale to tip slowly over in an actual direction..any direction? instead, it hangs there...bobbing in midair...teasing fate like a donut on a string to a fat kid.

my brother's fate lies in the 4th floor icu of mission hospital, a road map of lines and tubes, and one life supporting machine after another running out of it to an unknown point out in the future somewhere. a point we hold our breath to for fear of also possibly finding out. i've never hated balance so much until now, nor do i find it amusing that the one time it has been the most tangible is also when it's the ugliest and least wanted.

and until now, i have never been ashamed that i would be willing to let someone go just to be able to have my feet touching the ground again. i want to scream out in sally field-like furor an earth-shattering 'why', only i know that as long as questions hang there silently in the balance their answers will too.

thread

around the table at a restaurant in downtown London sit a small group consisting of several Brits, a Serbian woman, an Irish woman, 3 Italians, a German, and 3 Americans. as bottles of wine, various tapas dishes, and “walked into a bar” jokes are being passed around, I sit in astute observation, for it feels oddly reminiscent of a bag of Scrabble pieces. you reach in, pull out a handful of letters, each with different number values (which, for the sake of argument here, would be the different nationalities and geographical locations). in the end, though, each letter comes together to form the same word. this theme is on my mind a lot, actually, but never have I witnessed it in such a refreshing, outright manner: no matter where we come from in this life or where each of our fibers began, the one connecting thread is that we are all simply trying to live our best lives. essentially, to make the best of the mixed bag we’re given. so much of this world contains a conscious focus on the numerous ways one group is set apart from the rest. yet as the laughter and affection pass through this table from one end to the other like a current, what I also witness reaches much farther than any longitude or latitude could ever stretch. in this world we are all so much more similar than we ever are different. the Irish woman next to me throws back her head with a hearty chuckle at the most climactic part of her story, simultaneously patting my back and grabbing my arm. as she does so, a wide grin spreads on my face from one cheekbone to the next, but not from how charming her story happens to be – which it indeed is. rather, the smile is more or less the recognition of the moment itself, that here deep in the basement of a Spanish restaurant in a continent resting in far away coordinates, one kind soul feels the same value in another and it isn’t remotely dependent upon which brogue we happen to speak. she pours wine into my glass and we clink them in cheers to what would be another round of many that evening, both of us thankful to feel a sense of home far away from the one we typically know.

hearts and lungs

10:30 at night in the lobby of Duke University Medical Center, a security guard sat at a shiny, black piano and tickled the keys quietly to himself. hidden by the lit christmas tree beside him and the sterile odor of sickness, procedure, and loneliness, i believe i may have been the only one who even noticed his notes or the way he bowed his head to his chest slightly as he played. i stepped off the visitor's elevator on the 8th floor and headed to the wing where its' sickest patients lie fighting for their next seconds, some consciously but most of them not. she emerged from the heavy double doors with tired eyes, blue scrubs, and a mask draped loosely around her ears, for she is the one who fights with them and for them. she grinds through 12 blood and fluid-filled hours so that they may experience even just 12 more pain-free seconds in this world. and though i didnt know exactly how capable my heart was, in that moment it let go a tad bit more. if the sick can trust her with their weakened, diseased hearts, then i can open my slightly battered one.

back down in the lobby, the tired pianist gone, the silence gave way to the late night hours, the doors parted, and i greeted the cold air. i could see my own breath hanging in clouds against the chill and noted how very different the simple act of my own breathing was compared to the belabored, manufactured breaths of ventillators in the world i left her with upstairs. i knew that in a few hours she would be able to go home regardless of how many of the sick weren't saved, and we would would feel every bit of the weight that luck carries with it.

passenger seat

he's a pulpit preacher. he slaps bibles and reaches out to shake an entire congregation's hands every sunday morning and it is clear by that alone just how far apart our two worlds reside. most of our conversations could follow a checklist they are so surface level and predicted, for in our opposing worlds ignorance is more blissful than the collisions they could create. often when we visit one another he is so consumed with thoughts of his next sermon or church obligation that all other tangibles seem to whiz right by unnoticed.

sometimes though, on his way home alone in his car, he will call me because he says he was just thinking about me. he will ask me about my day and it is then that he isn't a preacher anymore, he's my daddy. in those moments he's the silly, affectionate man that i remember would play tricks on me while we were driving to the store, me his little co-pilot in the passenger seat. i would be looking out the window lost in my own thought and imagination and out of nowhere as an oncoming car began to pass by he would grab my hand, hold it up in the air, and shake it wildly as if i were waving to the car myself. i'd follow that up with a "daaaadddy!", crossing my arms in fake irriation, but i loved every second of it. even now at 29 years old, a slightly older co-pilot, i sit in anticipation waiting for him to grab my hand to wave it, and he will gladly oblige. we'll both chuckle emphatically as if i'm still six years old and falling for it for the first time, and as if it's still the best trick in the book.

this is how i know that regardless of the number of sermons he gives, or the number i don't attend, he'll always be my daddy and i'll always be the little girl in that passenger seat.

other side of the world

it's a tuesday night, not unlike any other. tonight, though, i delayed pressing the power button on the tv remote for a reason i wasn't quite sure of until i found myself sitting quietly on my front stoop in the dark. the lone street light in front of my house illuminated the two rows of neighboring lives, presiding over the routines and evening activities each house contained inside. tvs flickered inside shade-drawn windows, dogs barked in fenced-in backyards, and cars rushed by on their routes home from work. home to catch dinner before it got cold, or to embrace children and spouses at front doors. as i sat, i took note of how crisp and cool the air felt as faint chills crept slowly upon the skin on my arms and i warmed them back and forth with my palms. the electricity of a September evening such as this showed evidence of one season's quiet exiting and its' replacement having its own, different energy. at the train station several blocks away, the boxcars passing through sounded their whistle of hello, as if they also noticed the air's crispness and were calling out to it. i thought of places and far off lands and then remembered the times as a little girl when i would ride my bike all around what felt like the entire globe to such a tiny view-finder, yet was probably only 2 or 3 streets. after my explorations, i'd park my bike at the end of our cul-de-sac and sit on its' red rubber seat dreaming of the little girl on the other side of the world i was so sure was doing the exact same thing at that very moment. i would talk to her as if she were merely sitting across from me indian-style, not continents away. even then, i seemed to understand the idea that we are all so connected as humans that our individual moments could collectively collide at precisely the same time. at least i hoped they did from time to time. the truth in that thought less important, of course, than perhaps the necessary belief in connections outside ourselves. that is, afterall, what it means to believe in something, worldly or other-worldly, spiritual or non-spiritual. food for thought, as the night crickets chirped like the hands of a clock sounding down the day which was nearing closer to the next.

beauty in the equation

life is short. i hope i've just stated the obvious. a tad less obvious, however, is the divine chaos it all contains. chaos because alot of what life throws in our direction is uncontrollable by us, seeming random at best and largely frenetic at worst. divine, though, because there has to be some larger reason for it all that exists outside just what is visible. personally speaking, i'd much rather believe that busted moments and bruised spirits happen for a reason other than "just because." i'm able to wrap my mind around injustice and pain a little easier if it seems they are just tiny stops along a much more purposed journey. especially when unexplainable heartache finds its way to very good-hearted, beautiful people. otherwise, the only question that can ever be asked is "why?", with empty justifications to follow. and that, to me, is just not good enough.

life is indeed chaotic; it's unfair, confusing, and much of it is blind. but it is also the sum of all its parts and we live each day because of the simple, crucial hope that in the end there has been more beauty in the equation than anything else.

the silence after the song

there's that near-invisible moment when a song ends that i am absolutely convinced is time standing still, knee deep in the silence. not everyone can hear it, and not everyone who can does. if you have music flowing through your blood that moment is similar to that of a heartbeat, a delicate pulse between exiting and entering. it's where the translation occurs.

it's where i will look to find the recognition that you heard in it everything i wanted to say and didn't quite know how.

primary colors

in sixth grade, i lost my best friend. not to mortality, a new address, or anything else that comes to mind. i lost her to race. it hung frozen in the balance between fragile seconds and centuries worth of ideals, the moment batanya told me her parents no longer would allow her to be friends with me because i was white and she was black. apparently, despite it being the 20th century, little black girls weren't supposed to have sleepovers and form "secret" clubs with little white girls. and those little white girls weren't supposed to want them to. i felt as if someone had kicked me swiftly in the gut while i was standing blinded in a dark tunnel, her voice sounding distant and muffled to my confused ears as it tripped through some weak explanation she most certainly didn't even understand herself. carlotta poston would be her new best friend, she said. "oh, and by the way, i think she wants to beat you up." as if it were not enough to have lost in one single statement the blissful ignorance that i wasn't just like everyone else, i also had the threat of having my ass beaten for no other reason than because of it. the moment unveiled an ugly truth this world fights and ebbs against every waking minute it spins round on its' axis. love is love and, sure, it's both universal and free to behold - but why doesn't everyone see it? why does it have to wear different covers and faces? with batanya, i saw my first glimpse of what it would mean to walk the fine line of too many "not enough's" and not enough "too's" (as in too white, not black enough, too gay, not feminine enough, or not enough money at the end of the month). we can all see love when it's before our faces, and feel it from time to time, but aren't we missing some of the landscape of life if we don't ever wear the same pair of glasses long enough to get used to them? to have an open heart means more than just dolling out kindness and warmth when it's convenient or when we remember to. it means more than just a shift in consciousness or perspective; it means action. it means living consciously every moment what we believe in our hearts to be true and choosing that every single time without fail or option. it's not about potential, it's about what is. love isn't perfect, nor is it associated with such judgemental terms as right or wrong. but, as my 12 year old heart found out, love has to be the canvas or all the beautiful hues of grey will be lost among such a primary sea of black and white. i'm of the belief that since we discovered the world isn't flat, our vision of it shouldn't be either.

closer

emerson hart is trying to tell me something. "there's more to love than we'll ever know. sometimes you're closer when you're letting go," he croons to my hope-hungry ears. clearly, though, he does not know me well. if he did, he would know that i hold on to things as if i were grasping them with the strength of an iron claw. and while i get better with age at forgiveness, i never forget. you see, to me the act of letting go feels less like a release and more like i failed at keeping something precious in tact. there is no peace in letting something fall by the wayside where it may, regardless of the need to move in a forward direction. i get it, i do. letting go is less for the thing you are releasing than it is merely a way to cut the tie to what specifically keeps you in one place. the link to the past. the hope that it, whatever "it" may be, could ever be any different. (thank you, oprah.)

i know emerson is right, and that everyone else who continue to reinforce his idea to me are as well. but i dont want to let this go, god dammit. i am terrified that if i allow this to slip from my white-knuckled fingers the picture of what the rest of my life will look like may get blurry, shifting to appear more out of focus than it is in. like the withering and wearing of time, i can't let the picture fade. i'm sorry, but there is nothing "closer" in that.

i do sometimes

remember when you asked me if i ever get lonely? i do. sometimes. only i wear it around my shoulders like a familiar, worn-in sweater so often i didn't know it had a name.

fragment

awoken by glass breaking
fumbling in the dark finding
shards of uneven fragments.
even without light with which to see
fingers tripped upon her reflection in each piece

should recall
can't remember
strangely unfamiliar
everything but the pricking sting of distance
memory left behind in mirrors.

time's attention

the warmth from the engine pressed against our backs as we lay,
stars slipping their cover across our skin.
it was only you and me in the field of hay and dandelion mile markers
but we whispered like we would hurt mother nature's feelings
if we spoke too loud.

you stretched your second finger up to the sky and when you did
the scent from your t-shirt willingly followed.
see that star right there? you said. the one that flickers with wild abandon?
i want that one to be mine. i love how she dances all night and never sleeps.

i waited then asked, so which one am i?
and as the words escaped my lips i wanted so badly the hope i felt
to pull your answer along into as wide a forever as the night sky.
aw that's easy, love. that one wayyy over there.
you pointed to one faint star way off in the distance above our heads
that hung sweetly beside the moon's halo.

but that one's the dimmest star in the sky, i said softly.
i felt the warmth from your hand cradle my chest and you whispered,
see, that one there it gives its' light to all the other stars without even knowing.
the way i see it, the night wouldn't have one single guide without the light from your eyes.

the chirp of cricket messengers and grass blades blowing in the breeze
faded suddenly against the quiet ticking inside my chest,
as if bringing the moment to time's attention.
your hand never left its' spot, and it was then that i knew never would i.

nooks and crannies

sitting on the front stoop of the man who was to be my modern-day savior of sorts, i gazed out at all the different buildings canvasing my surroundings, all which served as concrete or brick-laiden reminders of what it means to survive in the often cruel reality of this world. social services. housing authorities. health departments. law enforcement offices. court houses. bus stops, train stations, and inner-city transit systems. yet nestled quite humbly in the midst of these was also a church. it was less irony and more just the juxtaposition of necessity. the wax to so much wane. all around me lay symbolic evidence of varying kinds of choices, those we can be forced into by sheer ill luck or those we seek out in favor of. whether by grand design or simple circumstance, we are presented with tiny little moments, and thus an opportunity of choice that accompanies each one. split second decisions that define what truly lies inside us all and often can define what lies just around the bend as well. not only that, we carry with us a great deal of responsibility to seize, and give back to, those moments for that is what it means to live our best, authentic lives. it's in the nooks, crannies, corners, bends, breaks, alleyways and halls of our lives that the heart of active living lies. one tiny or momentous decision at a time. so if life is the school teacher and we the humbled pupil, the first step in paying attention is to show up. that may be, in fact, the most crucial test there is.

vacant

it had been two years since i last saw him. my father had been telling me, but without laying eyes on him myself i pushed it all away as unfamiliar impossibilities. when i walked in, he sat at the dining room table in his blue pajama set, which my dad says he now lives in. the buttons of his shirt were done halfway, exposing the same huge, alabaster belly i used to pretend was a punching bag when i was a little girl and he'd prop me up on his lap. what little gray, wiry hair he has left atop his head was visibly disheveled and unbrushed and you could see straight through to his freckled scalp. breadcrumbs peeked from the corners of his mouth and traces of stained dirt showed from underneath his fingernails. i leaned over to hug him and immediately smelled the odor of someone who has resisted bathing for a few days. a task my dad also said he neglects lately. this is my grandfather. but he is not the same man i remember, that the small town of upper north carolina remembers, who owned the town's one and only car dealership. back then, he was always extremely polished right down to his wingtip shoes and blue blazers. always a blue blazer. and always an extended hand ready for any handshake as he talked up the men and women of the town, both old and young. he was mr. personality, mr. class. mr. davidson. he was not this unbathed, frail-minded man before me. so there he sat, serving as the reality check i've been missing that..god, oh god...life does go on. we grow, and we grow up. even more, we grow old. we start life as dependent entities and we end it in much the same way. and it's the reality that nothing in life stops in it's tracks for us to catch up to it. instead, it pulls us forth with speeds relative to a locomotive...only on this train there are no loud horns signaling each stop, just the scenery whizzing by in a blur.

looking down at his vacant eyes, the vacancy which flickered in and out of the story that day and i imagine does every day now, he smiled up at me the smile that told me i'm still his babygirl. still the first born grandchild he used to be so proud of, though his smile now was also more childlike itself than i'd ever seen it. for in that smile i saw more than just a man, more than a childhood, i saw everything i hope my life to be and the fragility it can all contain. but, god knows, i also saw plenty of love.