For Sara

I spent last Monday at your memorial, Sara.

I cried. A lot. At first I thought I would be able to hold it together, because crying doesn't make anything better. It doesn't change anything. But my emotions were right there on the surface ... I couldn't stop them. And then I thought that I wanted to let you know, Sara. I wanted to let you know how I felt - that even when my brain couldn't find the words and my mouth couldn't form them, my body and my heart were saying it for me. They said no. No. No no no no.

I'm still having trouble finding words for you, Sara. I've drafted and re-drafted letters to you a dozen times in the last week. And then I start thinking about teaching my kids how to read, and think about how if you were here I'd tell you it was so they could read Faulkner and simultaneously hate it and love it as much as you do. Did. Shit.

But the words ... it was my first day of teaching when I went to your memorial. My group leader played the Superman song on her iPod that morning, and luckily, without even seeing the look on my face something told her to change the song. Because I was about to lose it, that last shred of control I had that day. She gave me this slip of paper, too ... she gave it to everyone really, but I like to think it was for you ... or for us, all the people left here without you. It said,

"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." - William James

All I could think was that those words were for you - about you. That when I had no words I had those words. Because your greatest legacy in life was how you made the people around you feel. You made them feel special, unique, gifted. I know you made me feel that way. When I was shy and feeling silly about taking pictures you made me feel like they were the best things you'd seen. When you found my blog you said you'd stayed up reading it. Honestly, Sara ... I held on to that compliment. I held it in my heart, reminding me that maybe if enough people felt that way I would feel like my pictures and my words were worth something too.

So when I cried at your funeral I cried selfishly, for all the times I'd need you to make me feel that way again and you wouldn't be there. I cried for all your friends and family who'd need you there, even more than I would. I cried for the people you'd met once and smiled at, making their day. I cried for the people you had yet to meet and the babies with fabulous hair that you'd never have, who needed you in their lives like we need you in ours.

Because we all need you Sara, and I'm impossibly angry and sad and million emotions all shoved into one person who sometime can't control what comes out and when. And these words aren't enough, but you showed me that when words aren't enough, sometimes pictures are. So at your memorial, when everything was too real, and seeing everyone was too real, and missing you was too real, I went and Ashley Beebe'd the CRAP out of those waterfalls, just for you, Sara. I tried ... my hands were shaking, but the pictures came out alright.

I took pictures for you, Sara, because in that moment it was all too real. Then I sat there and listened to the water and dreamed of you falling off the dock until it didn't feel so real anymore, until I convinced myself that you'd be there soon to laugh at the idea of someone accidentally falling off into the river, or losing their shoe in the river and saying, "Fuck! My sandals!"

And then when it didn't feel so real anymore, and my heart could hold more than the grief I was carrying, I took you, Sara, and I folded you into my heart (I held you in my heart).

For Sara, originally uploaded by ashley.b.

Ready, Set ...

AH!

I'm at Institute.


Whoa.


Our bus leaves in the wee hours of the morning. Leaves. As in: physically pulls away from the curb, full of young people who are hopefully fully dressed in business casual clothing, excited and nervous to find out what the heck they'll be doing for the next month. As in: not full of young people still in their warm beds. As in: not full of young people dreaming about the hours they'll laze by the pool. As in: not full of young people texting their friends to make plans to fill the many, many hours in the day. As in: I'll be on that bus. As in: I should go to bed.


I'm nervous.

And tired.

And happy.

And ... thinking in short phrases, which means it's time for ... *zzzzzzz*

Ahh.

I just got back to Jaw-juh from a fabulous week in the the Queen City, but before I recap and give you an update of the cast of characters sure to be making appearances on this blog in the next few months, a brief message brought to you by Athens:

• Friends
  
• Puppies
  
• Rock Band
• Mario Kart
• Darts
• Drinks
• Tofutti Cuties (mmmm ice-cream sandwiches)
  
• Water Pressure

As I looked in the mirror last night, the bathroom filling up with steam for my long-awaited flip-flop-less shower, and saw my exhausted, chocolate-covered face (ice cream sandwiches are messy!), I decided that these are the order of things that can make any 12-hour stop at home very much worth it.

Just Thinking ...

I like that when I open the dryer while it's still spinning there's always one item of clothing that gets tossed out onto the floor. I always narrate in my head - Quickly! Abandon ship!

when you come to the edge of all the light that you know,

when you come to the edge of all the light that you know,, originally uploaded by ashley.b.

and are about to step off into darkness of the unknown,
faith is knowing one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid to stand on,
or you will be taught how to fly.
- barbara j. winter

it shouldn't be easy

This is what I think: it shouldn't be easy.

It shouldn't be easy to leave. It should be hard, it should feel like your heart is in your throat, it should feel like the tears won't stop. You shouldn't be able to imagine your life without these people. Or at the very least you should feel that without them you'd be missing a big 'ole chunk of happiness, some vital part of your everyday life.

It should be hard because that means that when you're feeling like your whole heart is being pummeled, like it's swelling up bigger than your chest and surely, surely it'll explode -- when you're feeling that feeling it means your whole heart was in it.

Your whole heart was in it and along for the ride. You did what you could to form attachments that mean something, to connect with other people on a level deeper than just acknowledgment - you reached out and recognized each other, rejoicing in that recognition together. You dove into your life and didn't glide above it. You did it.

You lived life. Not the remote, detached living that leaves you feeling accomplished but not content. Not that kind; that's the worst kind. You lived the full life, the one that swings you up and down and around and shows you what life's like at the peak of happiness, feeling that feeling that makes your heart squeeze and says, "This can't be my life. But, oh ... I'm so glad that it is." And you smile a smile that shows your heart shining out through your eyes, right into the experience you're having, recognizing it for what it is.

When you feel like you could up and leave a place without minding too much, you know you're doing it wrong, I think. To do it right you have to hurt like this, you have to be scared of losing it. You have to, or you're not living.

And if you're not really living then what's the point?

true

“The word 'happiness' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” - Jung


These days those happy and sad moments happen simultaneously. Up and down, and begin again.