The grass under my feet
is as thick and fragrant
as Your hair. I press
my nose against it, grab
handfuls and hold
it to my body. I love
that our skin soaks
the sun.

4 Things I Have been Doing Lately:

1. Writing about Lloyd, Mr. Eliot, and a No-Good Grizzling Sminks

2. Working on my postcards

3. Cleaning

4. Kissing on bridges

What four things have you been doing lately?

Dear Adam,

Thank you for eating rømmegrøtt with me last weekend in Stoughton. It was nice to sit on the grass and nibble at that little cup of sweet buttery milk goo. I’ve never seen you not finish something so small and so delicious before. Did I ever tell you that Norwegian for butter is “smør”? It’s one of my favorite Norwegian words; it sounds just like butter should. Thanks for the flowers you bought me and the krumkake. And thanks for last night at Maduro. Thanks for buying me that gin and letting me try your cigar. It was so nice to sit across from each other on separate leather sofas listening to Nico and letting smoke curl up. And I loved when we drove out to the West Side to buy cookie dough to eat on the ride home.

Thanks, Adam.

-Lindsey

*Note to everyone: There’s a new wedding page update. Check it out, if you want.

Tonight and tomorrow morning I sit for hours and scribble and read, but tomorrow I will finish my last exam and it will be summer. After my exam, I will sit outside and eat fruit and bike and buy some books for the summer.

I want to read wonderful books this summer. I don’t want to read any books because they are trendy. I don’t want to read any books because they make me sound intelligent. I want to read books that I will carry in my purse for months just to have them nearby. I want to read books that will be worn with deep wrinkles of reading. I want to read books that inspire and engross me.

The Cinnamon Peeler is on my list. So is another one. I don’t remember. I lost that list.

Recommend me some books, the books you want to hold in your hand and eat and carry close to your chest every day. I want to read books like that.

O my request and hope,
My home, my very breath,
My faith,
My worldly fate,

Say to me, ‘I have rescued you.’
O my hearing and my sight,
Why do you keep me still
at such a distance?

Though You are hidden
To my eyes,
My heart percieves You
in the distance.

-al-Hallaj

Today I studied in a little room at Escape. It was warm and sticky and I was watching two men play chess out the corner of my eye. They were practicing plays from chess books and having good conversation that I ate up every morsel of. The one facing me was rather handsom. A sweet old song (I don’t remember which) came on the radio and he began to bop his head and sing and hum along. It was entirely charming.

And then he looked at me with a smile from over his glasses and I remembered that I get to marry this guy in a few months. And I remembered that he’s just the sort of fellow I’ve always wanted to marry: a charming lanky chess player that hums sweet songs and smiles at me.

Yesterday was my last day of Creative Writing class. I ate half a grapefuit before I left and walked to class with Adam’s iPod and one ear bud (the other bud broke and had been snipped off). Despite having only one earful of music, it was delicious. So delicious, I can’t begin to tell you about the colour of the low sun or dark clouds or the intimacy of the music or the faces of the people I passed by or how I wanted to link arms with them or give them kisses on their cheeks. All I can tell you is that it was very, very beautiful.

Katrina and Georgia were at the Terrace studying physics and sharing a pitcher of cool beer. We sat together by the boats in the sunshine and read from our stories. Later we read our stories to the class and they read theirs and it was wonderful. Katrina and I walked together to the bus, talking about class and the people in it. Amazing people, all of them. I regret not getting to know them better.

Today, I ate the other half of the grapefruit. It squirted me in the eye. I baked bread, Adam bought me new ear buds, and I bought a gooey drippy ice cream cone.

It’s been a very successful couple of days. Here are the last four sentences of my story (as it stands now):

The smile started in a pit in our stomach and it rumbled and grew and spread to our knees and toes and elbows and the tips of our fingers and the ends of our hair and we threw up our hats and cheered. The cheer echoed off the Town Hall, bounced off the pavement, and rose through the trees that lined the street, flying past thick clouds into the sunshine. Our cheer went up and up, echoing through the atmosphere and passing into outer space. And it bounced off the moon, and it bounced off some stars, and it echoed and echoed and echoed.

1. the smell of lilacs

2. wishing I hadn’t worn my jacket

3. dandelion wishes

4. school coming to an end

5. open windows

your turn. Go for it.

In Need of the Breath -Hafiz

My heart

Is an unset jewel

Upon the tender night

Yearning for its dear old friend

The Moon.

When the Nameless One debts again

Ten thousand facets of my being unfurl wings

And reveal such a radiance inside

I enter a realm divine-

I too begin to so sweetly cast light,

Like a lamp,

Through the streets of this

World

My heart is an unset jewel

Upon existance

Waiting for the Friend’s touch.

Tonight

My heart is an unset ruby

Offered bowed and weeping to the Sky.

I am dying in these cold hours

For the resplendent glance of God.

I am dying

Because of a divine rememberance

Of who- I really am.

hafiz, tonight,

Your soul

Is a brilliant reed instrument

In need of the breath of the

Christ.

Happy May, everyone.

This afternoon, I spent hours and hours and then a couple more hours plugging away at my short story for creative writing. Eliot helped by sleeping on my storyboard/bed. It’s definately still a work in progress, but I’m having so much fun, I just had to share a bit of it with you and let you know what I’ve been up to. Here are the first two paragraphs as they stand now:

One day, something spectacular happened in a place no one found spectacular at all. Our town is a town like millions of others. It has 4,820 trees, 12 restaurants, 400 dogs, 202 raspberry bushes, a countless number of dandelions, and 12,482 people. 50% of us are male, 50% are female. We are 10% depressed, 22% optimistic, and 1% insane. Most of us like breakfast cereal; only a handful of us like black licorice jelly beans. The majority likes our normal little town. We like the tree lined streets. We like the quaint shops. We like the safety. But no one, not the optimists, not the dandelions, not even the licorice-lovers, ever found it spectacular.

One night, a cool wind began to spin in this quaint, yet not quite spectacular town. It did things that most winds do: rattled tree branches and mussied the hair of girls coming home from bars. It twirled the curtains of open windows and tossed old leaves and flyers. But that wind, seemingly innocent like so many before, grabbed the light post in front of the bakery on Main Street and threw it into the lawn of the Town Hall one block down, knocking over a statue on its way. The noise of this incident startled remarkably few: only Bill, the Vietnam vet who slept on a bench in front of the Town Hall, and Jim, who was chain smoking and taking a long walk after a late-night fight with his girlfriend. But by morning, the Town Hall’s front lawn was strewn with dozens of buzzing people snapping photos. The light post stood high above them on its head, the exposed wires at the top flailing awkwardly like little legs. It didn’t take long for the news crews to get there or suited men telling us the end is nigh. Little kids were playing tag.