The Window Washer

Lengthen your life like a shadow
A blue one that creeps into a
quiet Greek cafe on Sunday afternoon

Lengthen your life and shorten
how time goes by
Make poems last longer
and the bittersweet transform quicker into beauty

A slow afternoon
Watching worlds pass by

A window washer
taking the February afternoon
one gust of wind at a time
He’s washing windows
like his own cloudless eyes
Up and down, back and forth
Fingers numb
He hopes with each movement of his arm
He’s wiping the dirt off his heart.

I’m it?

I got tagged!

My friend Melissa tagged me. I now need to post a link back to who first tagged me, a list of seven random or odd things about me, and list of who I want to tag next.

Here goes.

1. If cilantro is being cut for meals when I’m in the room it gives me a migrane. It doesn’t bother me once it’s in the food, and I’m not allergic to the herb at all. I just cannot be in the room while it’s being cut.

2. I’m double-jointed.

3. I don’t like hearing about what dress so-and-so is wearing at the the major award ceremonies, but I love watching runways and fashion shows.

4. I am a terrible person to watch tv with. I mock almost everything.

5. I have seriously considered Marketing simply so I can improve the advertising industry. Commercials, specifically.

6. If I could pick two photography subjects to fill my house with, it would be marina photography and pictures of old manufacturing plants.

7. If I ever met Chris Thile in person, I think I would die. In the best fan-girl-way possible.

I tag M, Kate, Nathanael, Lex, Em, Tim C., and Steveo.

A morning for the exploding!

(Know that I’m talking to several people at once. Almost every “you” in here is different from the one before it.)

Something about last night reminded me of December a few years back. Your hands kept mine warm as we walked through the hidden, slumbering, snowy neighborhoods. We talked about pain and the few situations we found ourselves tied up in. Occasionally, we didn’t say anything at all. The other eight or nine people that were walking with us kept up the white noise with their laughing. In our quiet moments we listened to their conversations that seemed to generate out of cold air. We stayed out for hours. When we came back to the house, our noses were red, the bottom of our pant legs were wet from the inches of snow, and I had mascara on my face from the snowflakes that kept melting on my eyelashes. You remember it as well as I do.

I remember you leaving dress rehearsal early because it was your birthday. I didn’t know you very well at the time, but who knew that all would change in four years? You still had a deck of cards on you at all times, you sang the “men” song better/worse than anyone I know, and you almost refused to stop talking backstage. And that was only the beginning!

Yesterday morning was bright and clear. As I sang, steam from my mouth cascaded out into the car while I waited for it to warm up. I was not hungry, had no headaches, and the world was mine to solve. The morning was born for the unlocking of doors and the opening of windows and the explosion of sunlight on our faces. I felt like if I could just connect the right set of two and two that I could unlock something about the human race. I felt very close to it. I knew that the idea and the answer was sitting in the seat next to me and yet for some reason I couldn’t quite see its face.

And maybe that’s just it. The morning was bright and clear . . . But everyone was feeling a little bit blurry.

Goodnight Hollow, Goodbye Spineless

There’s something about the first snow, and something about waking to a silent house that looks out on a chilly downtown that is still softly lit with the grey light of early morning.

Somehow it represents something different to me this year. A new chapter is opening, a new story is being written. It differs from the blank slate feeling seeing as my existence feels less like an empty canvas and more like I am walking into the first few pages of a new novel.

There is something intensly beautiful about this point in my life. Before I talk too long you’ll find that I get twisted up into my own paradox because it is simultaneously one of the weirdest points in my life. But I’m okay with that. I mean, whoever said life was going to be normal?

I was driving home from church on a rainy night sometime last week. “Gentlemen (Go to Sleep)” by Far-Less was playing softly through my glowing dashboard. The rain was pleasantly monotonous and the yellow lines lead my car through the night with ease. Out of the middle of nowhere my sister said something that incredibly significant. I listened to my younger sister unfold her thoughts in the darkness in the seat next to me and all I could do was smile. What she said to me not only confirmed that I had learned my lesson but also that I am indeed going the right direction.

I feel whole and I am anything but hollow.

I was mostly just wanting to wish you a happy Tuesday, a happy first snow, and happy singularity.