Dear Buffy at 13, You are deeply okay under all the layers of shame and searing worry that you feel. It seems big right now, your ache for belonging and boys and your place in the world.

Historically, I have disliked purple, and I think I know why. I love red for its life force and flush of power. I love blue mostly because of the sky. But purple is in between and uncertain, somewhere between two things that know what they are.

Our minds are meant to be places of infinite creativity, but we are so often thwarted by the walls of templates and rules that have been cemented into our culture. There are more ways to do things than what you have already been spoon fed.

It was the first place of all the places you and I had. And it was the last place I took you, in a cloth bag. You told me I could always find you there, and so I’ll go there tonight, after supper.

Sometimes the real heartbreak is understanding the person you love is not even there at all anymore. The disease takes over and the person inside becomes powerless to drive the decisions.

When I smell it, I can see PawPaw, boiling shrimp in a big pot on the white metal stove. He has a can of beer in his hand that is hidden by a paper towel neatly fitted around the label. That was back before Southern Baptists drank openly, even though we all knew what was under there.

I am in a season of letting the dishes pile up so I can have more time to write. There is suddenly more art around me, and color I had missed. I have more material because of what has fallen away and I am left with brain space and wonder.

This has come to be one of my favorite photographs, partly because of the vintage outfits but mostly because of the women’s faces. I have made up lives for them, and even looked for myself among the posed bodies.

We have lost our wild. The way we used to put our ears close to the ground, feeling the pulse of what was next. We have forgotten how to howl.

Who invented pointe shoes anyway?
A man, I think.
To elongate the leg and create places of pleasure
for eyes to trace uninterrupted.

I remember sitting on PawPaw’s lap when I was little, tracing his thumbs with my small fingers. His hands were huge, blue collar, and beautifully weathered.

the thud of reckoning
seems to be coming
from deep underground.
but I have been looking atop the parchment paper.

Billy Collins talked to us about the whales propelling themselves through the oceans as we sit and have coffee, and I have wondered about everything that happens in the same day.  =

This morning I took a slow exhalation that spilled down into the bones of my feet. I am leaning towards something I cannot yet hold in my body, But it is right there next to my stable waist.

did you decide to leave your job, your person, or your post have you finally fallen in love with your thighs or your too-muchness?what is different for you now?

the bird and the bear had always been together,
but they would have found each other anyway, probably near water. I think that is where we all could find one another, at the shoreline.

Older women who are mentors and wise counsel. Sometimes I need them to be sharp and clear with me, and coax me back into the game. And sometimes it is so sweet just to hear them tell a story from the other side.

dear darlings, meaning the things I have loved the most. faulkner said to kill you, but I couldn’t do it. the metaphors, the panic, and the old, unstylish lamp - all of you.

I cannot think of a better day to begin your birthday than a small rain and coffee. In my Freddie Mercury cup, which is even more perfect still.

In the fenced in area of 436 days, things were disrupted. None of us are ever to be the same again.