Boundaries. Latecomers are a b*tch.

"It is our choices that define us, far more than our abilities."
- J.K. Rowling

You're born to a family that puts the fun in dysfuntional. Let's face it: we all are.

You learn not to need. You learn to please. You succeed to please.

Fast forward decades and you learn at a professional workshop that your key conflict resolution methods are avoidance and accommodation. You are not surprised.

You spend years in a relationship with the kindest person you've ever met. You have needs, but are schooled to subvert them. He has needs, but is schooled to not voice them. You part.

You date. You meet compelling people. You learn. What you want. What you don't. What is compatible. What isn't. That it's a triple-punch of intellectual, physical, and emotional attraction (for you, in that order) that resonates with Clive Staples Lewis' idea: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one."

You get distracted. The intellectual attraction is the bite. The physical attraction is the hook. But the emotional attraction? Continues to elude.

You get lost in the first two at the expense of the last. But the cost of the loss of that kindest person is the reminder you need. That if the collapse of that emotional attraction boundary was worth it, for anyone, it would have been for that kindest person.

You have intellectual and emotional chemistry with your peeps. You just don't want to jump their bones. You hope. That finding the attraction trif*ckta is possible. Until then, solace. With the peeps. Whose bones may not be jumpable, but whose hearts are unyieldingly authentic.

"There is good. And there is evil. Right, and wrong. Heroes, and villains. And if we're blessed with wisdom, then there are glimpses between the cracks of each, where light streams through. We wait in silence for these times, when sense can be made; when meaningless existence comes into focus, and our purpose presents itself.

And if we have the strength to be honest, then what we find there, staring back at us, is our own reflection bearing witness to the duality of life. That each one of us is capable of both the dark and the light - good, and evil - of either; of all.

And destiny, while marching ever in our direction, can be re-routed by the choices we make; by the love we hold on to; and the promises we keep." - Heroes, 15-Dec-2008

I Will Remember You

Sheena's Remembrance post says it all.

Family members and loved ones who served, and who are serving; countrymen and countrywomen who have served, and are serving; I salute you.

North Shore Mosey

The fastest way from Kahuku on the North Shore to Waikiki is through the center of Oahu. Screw that. I may not be kamaaina, but I didn't want to miss drinking in all that coastline. As the speed limit on Kamehameha Highway is 35 MPH, there wasn't too much peril in ogling the gorgeousness that is the north and windward Oahu coast line, stopping for last snaps along the way.

Hello, love.

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

For you, sistah.

Mike Doughty's "Your Misfortune", from Haughty Melodic.

When your faith in life is gone
Come and speak to me
When you’re down and all messed up
Seek my sympathy

When everybody says no, no, no
Well it’s
Your misfortune and none of my own
Wrong, wrong, wrong
Well it’s your misfortune that sweetens my song

I can be the friend you want
I can be your confidante
I can be the right reminder at the right time
Throwing out the lifeline

Stand in the light. Stand in the light. Stand in the light.

When everybody says no, no, no
Well it’s
Your misfortune and none of my own
Wrong, wrong, wrong
Well it’s your misfortune that sweetens my song

When your face is caked with mud
Come and speak to me
When the chill creeps in your blood
Seek my sympathy

When everybody says no, no, no
Well it’s
Your misfortune and none of my own
Wrong, wrong, wrong
Well it’s your misfortune that sweetens my song

I can be the air you drink
Every single thought you think
I can be the right notion in the meantime
Warm you like the sunshine

Stand in the light. Stand in the light. Stand in the light.

Today's What Is Sexy bits (W.I.S.B.s):
Strong women who can be vulnerable. Who also happen to have great t*ts.

Grace

Gaping Void, by Hugh MacLeod

My love for you is unconditional. it's not something I'd previously measured. It's not something I'd thought of, ever, in terms of limits. They have yet to be reached. CarolinaMom gives me the word for my love for you: agape. And that's indeed what I feel for you, my sister in my family of choice. My person.

I'm wordless at present. They're developing, and will soon be yours. Only yours. I found these, for now, from college.

I love you. As ee cummings wrote, know that I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart.

Grace

squares of sunlight fell on her feet
light broken into quarters by shadows
lost in the squares until the sun fell
the aloneness a comfort after years of being heard
only by screaming the loudest

the sun slanted through the panes as she sat in the white room
full of silence and Catholic guilt
there to realize what she did wrong
she called in desperate need
and they brought her for "healing"
the world was caterwauling outside the window
and inside her head
she found safety in her solitary occupation

it reminded her of her grandmother's house
where "Momma" was laid out for hours in respect
she had wished only to close the lid
but her mother pushed her out to play
with her visiting cousins

she should have come here years ago
before her mother bundled her off to shrink after shrink
because of the drug after drug she was given
she might not have dropped out of school
two years and now settled comfortably
in the routine of the pill and the comfort
of a nice Jewish doctor's couch

she leaves the white room, a prescription for a diploma,
and moves to Seattle
where strangers don't ask instrusive questions
the joyce carol oates questions
instead admiring her tenacity

she paints again, her first showing near the university
she spies her work at night, walking home from
her job as a dinner chef
her art and herself reflected
through the front room window
its corner, the ghost of the annual church fair at home
the carnival's swings brightly lit
the chairs swirling at mad angles
the moon waning above, haloed in clouds
men, tilted from drinking, sobering up in the bingo hall
women catching up on parish news

she races the leaves home in the brisk evening
tripping across her childhood supersition
three circles of gusting leaves as bad luck
she stops. waiting. watching.
the fourth circle spirals from the ground
her leisurely pace resumes
calling "ollie ollie in come free"


James, by Mark Tonra

Walk Humbly Son

Eddie From Ohio's song Walk Humbly Son from their This Is Me CD scores a short memorial video tribute on the Virginia Tech web site.

Julie is an '88 Hokie grad, while Eddie, Mike & Robbie are Duke Dog grads from JMU.