The Contents of My Purse Include

- a barbie water bottle that occasionally leaks all over the other contents of my bag
- Spongebob Squarepants band-aids
- gummy bears
- band-aid wrappers (why are they so packaged all up before use?!)
- my iPod because Natlie loves "Yellow Submarine" and "1234"
- my wallet which is rarely brought out
- my cellphone (my connection to the outer world)
- Natlie's sweater for cool California evenings
- chapstick
- the keys to our gated pool
- the key to our condo
- sun screen (Kid version and adult version)
- my sunglasses
- Natlie's sunglasses
- seven of Natlie's hairties
- old, wet pictures Natlie and I colored together
- a coloring book
- bag of crayons (broken and brand new - the brand new ones having just been picked up after a kid's meal at a restaurant)
- my camera

Waiting

With school close at hand, it's a surreal feeling to not be busy. But I know that right now my duty is not to be the craziest, hardest-working person I know. Oh, to be at peace with peace. Good ol' Sandburg gives me a little glimmer of hope for myself. I'm re-learning to take in each moment without becoming a puddle of goopy boringness. Take in each experience. Loaf, linger, let the days and moments kiss your brow. Friends and family are just around the corner in my life, but I've got some time to rest. I'm in no rush.

Waiting - Carl Sandburg

Today I will let the old boat stand
Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in
To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway.
And I will rest and dream and sit on the deck
Watching the world go by
And take my pay for many hard days gone I remember.

I will choose what clouds I like
In the great white fleets that wander the blue
As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail.
And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me
And put on my brow the touch of the world's great will.

Daybreak will hear the heart of the boat beat,
Engine throb and piston play
In the quiver and leap at call of life.
To-morrow we move in the gaps and heights
On changing floors of unlevel seas
And no man shall stop us and no man follow
For ours is the quest of an unknown shore
And we are husky and lusty and shouting-gay.

Change is around the corner. Engines will throb again. Life will re-gain a schedule. Adventure will return.

hey kid

I thought the world revolved around me. Wait, I didn't actually think the world revolved around me. But I did think that everything had to do with me - I was the connecting point for everything. It wasn't just when I was little. Even now I think that everything going on is because of me. I think that my friends were there for me. I think my family had me because they wanted everything about me. I think pictures with me in them were taken because I was in them. But I am SO NOT the center of the world.

Taking care of a seven-year-old day-in and day-out shows me things. I don't get a few minutes to talk to my friend or Mom on the phone? Okay. I don't get to go for a short walk by myself? I am taking a kid with me this time and she's going to slow everything down? Okay. I don't get to talk to my boyfriend every day? I don't get lots of free time for my own reading, self-betterment, etc? Or what about this more long term realization - I am not going to be college forever? I won't be with people my age forever, and I won't always get to be Miss Independent? My studying and courses will have to be put into practice? I will have to get along with people and live with people that may not even be my age and liking? Oh my goodness. I phrase all these realizations with a question mark because I am still in shock.

But there's nothing better than listening to an old man chat about baseball and trains and how things used to be, nothing better than scrubbing a little girl's scalp during bath time - her black head with white suds - with wet arms and splashed water on my jeans, and nothing more satisfying than holding that same little girl close to me and smelling that same dark little head of hair with a quick, approving kiss.

I can't think of anything better than helping my friend who struggles with what Christianity is. Or peeling a peach for a child's enjoyment. Or playing clapping games with kids I met this morning. There's nothing better than being in a place where I am not the center of attention. The world moves too fast and beautifully to be confused about what's revolving around what.

do you know how big my Lord is?

my Lord is so big that he listens to a seven-year-old Taiwanese girl sweetly sing even though she doesn't always act nicely.
my Lord is so big he let some people have lots of ability to make 3D movies just for human fun.
my Lord is so big he made blueberries small and perfect so I can eat them each morning.
he made water for swimming and bathing in - and we can drink it too.
he made writers who write books and minds that can grow from reading them.
he made cows that give milk to make frozen yogurt on a hot California day.
he made toenails for toe nail polish to go with nice sandels on summer days.
he made leafy oak trees and pokey palm trees.
he made California, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Vermont. my, have you seen all of those places? drive around with some music coming from people made in God's image. watch the different mountains, hills, trees, sunshine.
my Lord is so big he can be in all of those places at the same time, and he can listen to your prayer and mine.
my Lord is so big he can love unconditionally and always.
he made the bright sun that nestles itself behind the Santa Cruz mountains.
he made mathematicians and lawyers and singers and teachers who go to Ivy League schools.
he made every person I see every day. he made them all. not one of them goes unnoticed.
my Lord is so big he gave people have bits of his love so he could shine through them.
he listens to me when I need consolation. he reminds me that he is not simple, but that his love is unconditional.
my Lord is so big.
my Lord is so big he saved me from my sin, and still gives me himself every day despite my small estate.
my Lord is so big he didn't have to do any of it. but he did.

quiet days

A week and a half ago I was becoming an expert on catching the N train to Queens and navigating my way around the streets of New York.

Now I pull yucca weeds for my grandma nearly every afternoon as she watches from the perch of her golf cart.

I eat strawberries from our garden for lunch and watch the sun set, reflecting in undisturbed pools of water on the soggy cornfield after days of rain.

There are no fast-way bakeries or American Eagle outfitters here. Now I look to the west and to the east, and nothing changes for miles.

I talk to my grandma at the dinner table. She comments on the food - how it tastes so fresh.

Tomorrow morning I'll wake up early and eat some cereal and drink some coffee. I'll wear what I want, and my day will pass slowly and flavorfully. I'll work, but I'll enjoy my meals. I'll get nearly eight hours of sleep. And all of it will be peaceful.

But a sliver of me wants that razzle dazzle of New York back. Bring back the jazz, please.

empire guard

a nervous new guard in full maroon garb of a uniform
finds the elevator and steps on -
glancing
around at the Starbucks cups and sharp eyes of America's
elite work force.

the elevator stops, the guards moves his eyes back and forth,
smooths out his uniform front, looks up,
and jaunts off into the mirroring marble lobby -

golden hearted as the gilded edges of the lights around him.

dresses and high heels flutter in the light
and reflect on the marble floors.

state of mind

When I was younger I thought of New York as the coldest place in the world. Cold in the sense that I felt alone. I thought that girls with fluffy bangs and shiny and loud polish on fake nails wearing short skirts filled the streets of New York. I thought of it as stale - like everything smelled like burnt coffee and appeared a tinge more orange than the rest of the world. I imagined New York to be a place I would want to see maybe once or twice, and then I thought I'd never really want to see it again.

Coming here was invigorating. Walking outside of my apartment building there are people of every race filling 34th Street - some business men, some hipsters, some poor, some rich, some working, some unemployed, some tourists, some who know nothing besides the city, some fat, some skinny.

There's no way I would ever want to give up the chance I have here, but when I walked back to the Empire State building today from the train, I realized that New York is as cold as I had originally thought.

If I were to live here I would have to have a true safety net of friends. I would still only talk to eight or nine people on a regular basis, and I would have to look at my phone, iPod, or newspaper on the subway (today I read The Thorn on the train). I smiled at a business woman today, and she didn't even notice.

New Yorkers aren't mean, but they are terse. They get where they need to go and make no time for laggers. I want to savor life a little more.

If I don't savor moments, life becomes an orange blur filled with exhausted days running on possibly burnt coffee.