Because, looking back, some of the things I did poorly are as nice as the things I did well. I really ought to be more diligent about staying in touch, though.

Seven things I did well in 2008:

1. cut my bangs well
2. baked Adam’s birthday cake well
3. stood by my friends through a rough time well
4. wrote the first part of a novel well
5. fried green tomatoes well
6. ate well
7. worked well
8. wore out my shoes walking well

Seven things I did rather poorly in 2008:

1. did the dishes poorly
2. kept in touch poorly
3. wrote the second part of the novel poorly
4. wrote wonderful little poems poorly
5. baked lots of loaves of bread poorly
6. grew tomatoes poorly
7. kept up with the laundry poorly
8. made a good deal of curry poorly

Tag! You’re it! What are your eight for 2008?

November crept in.  I don’t mind.  Today was warm and I opened all the windows.  The sidewalks were blanketed in yellow leaves.  I let my legs loose, no socks, no tights, my toes free and wiggling one last day before the colder days of autumn arrive.  Just last week, it was snowing.

I tidied quietly most of the morning.  On a far corner of my desk, I found a scrap of paper with a copy of my driver’s license, a tree drawn in red, and a small poem on it.  I don’t know when I wrote it.  It might have been a year ago.  It goes something like this:

When I think of autumn
I remember growing
older and dying
with you and the trees.
You are kind and life
is short but wide.
Laughter is sweet
and so are apples and grapes
and quiet hands.

apples, socks, squash, writing by candlelight, bundling up, wind, big pots of food warming the stove, warm bread, boquets of dried flowers, halloween costumes, learning, fat egg noodles, reading in bed, chilly fingers shoved in pockets, rethinking, heavy blankets, heavy meals, spicy cake

I already posted this poem, but I wanted to post it again.  Hearing about the economy, the state of agriculture, the forests, the planet, the human heart, something is happening these days.  Something is shifting.  This is the heart of the matter, this is my heart about the matter: hope is unfailing.

Thanks by W.S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

-taking pictures of all the wonderful September foods that find their way from the farm to my cutting board.

-buying Sunday morning pastries from Sophias.

-finishing this book

-reading this interview

-waking with the sun

-doing morning chores

-sharing an evening beer on the porch with Adam

-working with my hands

-thinking about taking a carpentry class

-writing by candle light

It wasn’t the best apartment, but it was home, our first home together.

Most of the time it was messy and it got so hot in the summer and “three chord” was always playing his three chords on his guitar. He got much better by the end of the year. So did we.

Now, a new year, a new apartment, a new book to write.

Photos from our new place tomorrow when we move in and begin making another new place home.

Contents of closets are spilled out on the floor with box after empty box.  It’s chaos this time of year in apartments around the city, but Adam wrote my name on the wall in white paint.  That makes it heaps better.  So do the tomatoes from the porch.  And just the anticipation of being in a new place soon, sleeping in a different room, cooking on a different stove, taking showers in a different bathroom, and calling it all home.

What I don’t remember:

-What I ate for breakfast that day
-How I got to my parents’ house
-If it was hot out
-What music was played at the reception (with a few exceptions)
-What food was served
- How the cake tasted
-What booze we drank
-What was said in the toasts
-Who won the bubble blowing competition.

I do remember:

-Who caught the bouquet

(it was Cassie)

-Who judged the bubble blowing competition.

(it was Hannah)

-That kiss

-Laughing with my dad
-My mother’s face
-Adam
-The dancing
-How I didn’t feel nervous. Not one bit.
-Feeling really at home with all those people around I love so much.

One year. It’s been such a year.  I loved it.  I loved it all, Adam.

There’s so much more to say.  But for now, I’m just going to enjoy it.

I feel like Adam and I are taking these great little steps. My writing is inching along in quite beautiful ways*, and Adam is moving in the direction of Industrial/Product Design school. Yup! I am proud and excited. Financing all this will be an adventure, so send your prayers our way, friends. It’s an adventure I’m looking forward to.

Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn’t for our having.
-Li-Young Lee

Amen.

*Let me know if you’d like to help me edit the first 37 pages of my next book. I need all the help I can get.

Hi, friends. The tomatoes are growing, the fireflies are glowing, at the internet has vanished from the Whitlock apartment. It makes my posts here much shorter and less frequent, but I don’t mind. It gives me a reason to sit at coffee shops, and lets me find new ways to waste away my time. The other day I spent a half hour laying on the bed blowing bubbles at the ceiling. I’ll take that over blogging any day.

The most delightful things I’ve spent my internetless days on are reading The Idiot, running into Jonah, writing, eating juneberries, doing yoga and drinking fresh, delicious milk in wine glasses on the porch with Tiffany. And before the elderblossems all wilt away, I want to put some on a sandwich and eat it. I hear you can do that.

Oh, good days. So much happening, so much growing and being discovered. Summer is sweet, I tell you. Do yourself a favor. Find a juneberry tree. Buy good milk. And share it.