How do you spend your work breaks?

At work, I get a ten minute break. Sometimes I like to sit and take little notes about people around me while I sip on my cappuccino. I feel like Harriet the Spy when I do that. Other times, I journal. Or read. Lately, I’ve taken to memorizing my favourite poems. This is the one I started on today. It is beautiful, and speaks to me in about a thousand ways.

To Hold by Li-Young Lee

So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
measuring by eye as it falls into allignment
between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.

One day, we’ll lie down and not get up.
One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn’t for our having.
So often, fear has led me
to abandon what I know I must relinquish
in time. But for the moment,
I’ll listen to her dream,
and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
more and more detail into the light
of a joint and fragile keeping.

Last week, the air smelt like flowers all over. Now, when I open the windows, I get a whiff of sun on big, young leaves. I think this is very nice.

Yesterday, I went out for a drink with some friends from work. We guessed what people’s secrets were.

“Do you have a secret?” they asked me.

I didn’t know. Do you have a secret?

A lazy day after a very busy weekend, that was today. Lazy and glorious, with the cat nibbling on and sleeping at my feet. Summer is coming and I love it. I am also loving reading Huckleberry Finn. And memorizing my favourite poems. And falling for Adam over and over.

Rest. Let’s rest. And if you can, make a little rhubarb crisp and eat it straight from the oven with a bit of cream.

I was looking through my photographs the other day, searching for portraits I like to put in an online gallery.

Yesterday, before a smoothie meeting at work (there are worse things than working someplace where the meetings are about coffee smoothies), I walked to State Street and treated myself to the perfume I’ve been dreaming after for about a year. It’s linden blossom perfume, sweet and old-fashioned. I’m sure the scent is out of style, and I’m not sure if anyone will like it but myself, but as I was doing dishes, I caught a whiff of it now and again. And I wondered where it came from. If a breeze was carrying in a bouquet of fragrant trees. And then I remembered that it was me. It was such a pleasure. Do you have any small luxuries that make you glad like that?

I took a few minutes away from Friday cleaning to sit in the garden and drink coffee. I wrote a real, raw list there that went something like this:

God, here is a list of the ugly, stupid lies I believe about myself:

It might sound lame, but it was honest. And by the time I got to lie number three, I felt so free, I couldn’t even remember any more of that bullshit. It all was so small. Sometimes I turn my head away from the ugly stuff I should face head on. Like that will make it disappear. But the freedom is in carrying it out into the light.

If you feel so inclined, give it a shot.

May is such a beautiful time of year. It’s nice to just be able to enjoy it, again, without stressing over finals or pining for summer break. This suits me.

(note: more on my latest writings to come.)

Eight Things I’ve Learned so far in 2008:

1. How to spot Pinus Resinosa- Red/Norwegian Pines.

2. The basic concepts of how to make briar pipes.

3. Sometimes, I like 2% milk.

4. Making excuses for other people doesn’t deepen grace, it cheapens it. True fogiveness is in recognizing the broken bits, and knowing that all of that is totally pardoned. It’s saying, “Who cares? That isn’t who they are. That isn’t who I am.” Pretending there’s nothing to forgive just keeps me from so much sweeter things.

5. Once can make lovely, frothed milk in a french press.

6. Roald Dahl’s house was called Gipsy House.

7. The best lemon bars have a wheat flour crust..

8. How much we need each other.

How about you?

Four jobs I’ve had:
1) receptioninst
2) nanny
3) kitchen staff
4) barrista

Four movies I’ve watched more than once:
1)Little Women
2) Fiddler on the Roof
3) The Big Lebowski
4) You’ve Got Mail…

and just about every other movie I really liked. I enjoy repetition.

Four places I’ve lived:
1) Genesee, WI
2) Alvdal, Norway (5 months)
3) Constanta, Romania (3 months)
4) Madison, WI (2 years and counting)

Four TV shows I watch:
1) No Reservations
2) Gilmore Girls
3) Good Eats
4) Sponge Bob Square Pants. Usually with Adam on Saturday mornings. Because that’s the way we roll.

Four places I’ve been:
1) the grocery store
2) Sognefjord
3) the Black Sea
4) the world’s highest bungee jump site

Four people who email me regularly (doesn’t include blogging comments):
1) Garrett and the Homegirls (high school buddies)
2) Bri
3) Laurel
4) Mom

Four of my favorite foods:
1) apples
2) good cheese
3) olive oil
4) berries

Four places I would like to visit:
1) Morocco
2) Somalia (if it’s safe in my lifetime)
3) India
4) England

Four things I’m looking forward to in the coming year:
1) writing
2) summertime
3) making home of a new apartment
4) learning

tag to anyone! Thanks, Keely!

Yesterday, I was a punk. And a grump. And to repay me for my punk-en grump-enness, Adam brought me a bouquet of cotton candy at work. That’s love, there.

I am bellybutton-deep in reading and writing and reading about writing. And a good bottle of wine. And warm days. And thinking about delicious dinner. And delightful friends.

What are you bellybutton-deep in?