House of Books

In the fifth grade, I started to collect quotations. I had a notebook full of them. I carried it with me wherever I went, adding lines and phrases I came across in books and movies and real world conversations. It was, like all of my favorite activities, a little bit silly and strange.

I remember being teased about it, but in a loving way. My friends would laugh at me, and then ask to read through it, and then give me suggestions of quotes to add. They meant well. They wanted to be helpful and included in the project, but I preferred to only write down the lines I discovered on my own. It made the collection something I could call mine. It belonged to me.

Although I grew up in a house where almost every wall was made into a bookshelf and filled completely – a house that a friend of mine recently referred to as “the house made of books” (a line I adored, and immediately wrote down) – the first adult book I remember being solely my own was given to me the same year I began collecting quotes.

In the fifth grade, my father pressed Emily Dickinson into my hands. I fell in love. I read and reread, aloud and in silence, line after line. I wrote my name on the inside of the front cover. I drew stars on the pages of my favorite poems. That book belonged to me, and I belonged to it. And although I didn’t truly recognize it at the time, this was the beginning of my love for literature. This was the beginning of a life devoted to the written word.

In school, year after year, I learned how to annotate books. I was taught how to pick out what was important. I was shown how to make notes in the margins to refer back to later.

Like most of the things I learned in classrooms, I didn’t appreciate it at the time. It felt like an obligation. It seemed insignificant. We all rolled our eyes and sighed heavily and asked “when will I ever need to do this in the real world?”

But as it turns out, I do it every day. Every time I pick up a book, I have a pen ready to underline and circle and take notes to refer back to. It becomes a sort of game, a hunt for wonderful words and phrases, a search for beauty.

And when I find it, which fortunately happens often, I mark it down and later go back to transcribe it into a notebook full of quotes. It’s a little bit silly and strange, but it is the way I have learned to read and write. It is the way I have learned to love reading and writing. It is the way I have remained hungry for and inspired by literature for the past eighteen years.

When I find a beautiful line in a book, it is like uncovering a secret. And by revealing those secrets, by hunting them down and capturing them beneath the weight of my pen marks, I become a great discoverer of treasure.

I have a large collection of all of the gems I’ve found. I have bookshelves filled with notebooks filled with breathtaking quotes. They are not my words, but in a strange, silly way, they belong to me. They are part of me because I love them. Because they are the tangible result of a childhood spent in a house made of books. Because they ensure I’ll always live in a house made of books. Because they make me feel home. Because they represent a life devoted to the pursuit of beauty. Because they shine on my walls like gold.

So This Is Love

It was England I believe, but perhaps Ireland. After years of travel, my memory has become regrettably unreliable. I was young. I can’t remember the name of the museum, or the artist, or a single piece of work in the exhibit, but I remember the two of them. I’ll always remember them.

I couldn’t tell at first. They had their backs to us, looking at something on the opposite wall. Her wrinkled arm was intertwined with his. She leaned into his side, pressing her elderly lips against his ear, warmly whispering words I couldn’t make out. Secrets. Truths. Devotions. With her other hand she stroked his forearm gently.

In his other hand, he held a cane. I remember thinking how fragile he seemed, propped between a frail woman and a flimsy cane, as though a single unassuming gust of wind would send them tumbling. And yet they moved together with such ease, this serene creature on its five diminutive legs. It was impossible to feel anything but calm and sturdy in their presence. Together they glided through the silent room.

They turned toward us and I found myself facing a pair of listless eyes. It took me a moment to realize that he was blind. Blind in a museum. And then, both slowly and all at once, I understood. She hadn’t been whispering secrets. She had been describing the colors, the delicate brush strokes, the intricate shapes. She had been his sight. She was his missing piece.

I wondered if he had always been blind, if he had ever seen anything. I wondered if her descriptions of the blues and pinks and oranges held any meaning for him, or whether they were just words whose significance he had to imagine. I wondered why he had agreed to come to a museum at all.

And then I thought of something else, something new. Perhaps he hadn’t agreed. Perhaps he had suggested it, requested it, just to spend an afternoon with her arm wrapped around his, her mouth pressed so tenderly to his ear, her breath warm and sweet upon his cheek. Perhaps this, in some way, was everything.

That was the first time I remember seeing love. I mean, reallyseeing it. Standing before me was a testament of patience, sacrifice, compromise, and kindness. Standing before me was a couple who didn’t need sight, or the ability to walk with ease, or the fervor of youth to make their hearts sing. Standing before me was a living, breathing monument of love. It was beautiful. It was art. So this is love, I thought.

Love. Long after your senses have left you and your skin has withered. Long after your days of running and dancing through the fields have gone. Long after the relationships you knew would last forever have faded into old pictures and letters tucked away in your memory chest, your heart still thrives for it, on it. Because it is love that keeps us going, and love that makes us want to stay. It is love that we wake up for each morning in the hopes of finding, and keeping, and cherishing. It is love that spurs us on.

And the blind man knew that, and so he placed it in a museum, so that the rest of us could come and look. And know. And see.

The Kindness of Strangers

 

He was saying something important. I was trying to stay focused. But the sun was gliding down through the trees behind him. The gnats were swarming the lights beside the bridge. An old man sat at the table next to us alone until a kind waitress came and asked if she could join him. I was writing all of this down in my head.

In general, I have to remind myself to keep eye contact. Too often I’ll drift away. There is just so much to see. There is so much to notice. There is so much to be considered. It’s not that I’m not listening or paying attention to what – or who – is in front of me. It’s just that there’s more. There’s so much more.

It has been said that I make things seem prettier than they are. I’m an optimist. I believe people are inherently good. I believe each of us has the capacity for love and kindness. Some people just lose sight of it. They drift away. They get damaged in ways that seem irreparable and unforgiveable.

But I can see within them the child they once were – so innocent, so hopeful, so full of life. I can see they’re hurt and I can see their hurt. I can see that we are fragile things and we need to be delicate with one another. I can see how far a simple act of compassion can stretch. I can see how deeply a little patience and understanding can be felt. I can see there’s still goodness there.

And maybe it can’t ever be retrieved, brought back to the surface, made right. Maybe there is a point where it becomes too far gone, but I’ve never stopped trying to find it. I know that there’s always more to people than what meets the eye. There’s always more than what’s right in front of me. There’s so much more.

I was eleven the first time I went into the city alone with my big sister, without the watchful gaze of our father and my mother, without the tension of their history between them and her, without the sadness of family between her and me. She is twenty-one years older than I am. We have never lived in the same house. And although I adored her, I had never felt as though I knew her as anything more than my big sister. In so many ways, she remained a stranger to me.

A man approached us and I could feel an anxious lump rise in my throat. I moved closer to my sister. He came right over, stuck out his hand and asked if we had any change to spare. In my bravest eleven year old voice I told him “no, sorry” and turned my head away. I thought that we would keep walking. That’s what I had been taught to do.

But instead my sister stayed where she was. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. “Oh, I do!” she exclaimed, as though one of our friends had asked us for change, as though giving was just that simple.

“I think it’s so funny that people are afraid of him,” she said, as he followed us down the street, serenading us with a song of appreciation. We laughed. I have remembered this all my life.

I don’t know what that man’s story was. I don’t know how he became homeless and alone and dependent on human kindness in a way the rest take for granted. But I know what my sister was showing me. It was a lesson in goodness – his, hers. He was a stranger, but he was also so much more. He was a member of our human family, someone who could feel love and kindness, someone who needed it. And giving it was just so simple.

I love someone who has been lost and alone and too far gone for me to help. He has slept on the street. He has undoubtedly asked for spare change. He belonged to me once, in the way love makes us belong to each other. Now all we can do is depend on the kindness of strangers. All I can do is hope that others see what my sister saw, that they can find in their voices the same inflection of kindness I discovered in hers that afternoon.

“Oh, I do” I say to anyone who asks me if I have something to give. I see his face in each of theirs. I know that they belonged to someone once.

It has been said that I make things seem prettier than they are. But that’s not it. It’s that I find beauty where others fail to recognize it. It’s that I see so much more than what’s right in front of me. It’s that my capacity for love and kindness is great, and in strangers I see family. It’s that I believe there’s goodness everywhere. Oh, I do. I have to.

Like The Spiders

I don’t kill spiders. At least, not intentionally. That’s something you should know about me.

When they are discovered indoors, people shriek at the very sight of them, raising the weapon of their feet in self-defense. But I hear the shrieks and come running. If I make it in time, I can save a life. I understand that they are only little creatures who have lost their way. To fear them is to misinterpret their purpose. They are not here for us.

I put them in cups and take them back outside. “Go on, little buddy” I’ll sometimes say. I watch them go home.

Surely it is compassion that inspires this, a certain empathy for all living things, who wish for no more and no less than longevity. To continue is the universal ambition. To help others achieve this is kindness.

But what keeps me from harming these little spiders is more than the recognition that they are living things. It is admiration for the lives they are living. It is the way their intricate webs of lace are nothing more than a means of survival. They do not strive to create beauty, and yet, their soft weavings adorn the world.

I’ve never had to work as hard as a spider for any meal. They are patient. They are planners. They devise elegant traps. So perhaps it is only the balance of the world that they should so often be trapped themselves – within buildings, under shoes, inside their own tiny bodies, unable to be anything else.

Yet, it is empathy that keeps me from accepting that balance. It is experience that gives my heart to both the trappers and the trapped. It is wisdom that reminds me they are often one in the same. I have been both. I have spun webs of words to snare a thought. I have felt trapped inside my own life. I have gone about the busy work of surviving only to later discover its beauty. I have been, all my life, like the spiders.

Once, in India, I found myself among a group of trees adorned with prayer flags. There was no order to them, no logical design. They criss-crossed and overlapped and twisted over each other. Some had lost the vibrancy of their color in the elements. Others shined in their freshness. They blew gently in the breeze.

I thought of this web, of this weaving of prayers, of the people who created it. I thought of the way these beautiful offerings adorn the world. And although I’ve never really understood what prayer is, I thought, maybe it is this.

Maybe it is simply going about the busy, important work of surviving. Maybe it is compassion, and empathy, and kindness. Maybe it is about trapping and feeling trapped. Maybe it is patience and planning. Maybe it is understanding balance and learning how to accept it. Maybe it is about saving what we can save.

Maybe it is as easy as following the example of the spiders, their beauty a by-product of their purpose. When their webs get torn down, they build new ones. They never stop creating. Their very lives depend on it. This is something close to prayer.

Tonight I found a spider in my kitchen. I scooped him up in a cup and walked him out into the yard. “Go on, little buddy” I told him, shaking him out onto the grass. Above me the sky was spun with elegant cobwebs of constellations. The intricate webs of this world are enough to catch my heart.

Inside the Box

It’s been a long day. I don’t necessarily have the time or energy to create something here. So instead I’d like to share the creativity and genius of my dear, dear friend, Simon Rogers.

He continually fills the world with music, photography, videos, art, and incomparable beauty. He borrowed some of my words, and with the help of his phenomenal fiancee, Meghan Curry, who also fills the world with beauty and is also my dear, dear friend, he made this.

For that, for him, for her, for this, I am grateful.

Be sure to check out more of his wonderful work here: SLR Creative Group.

Illumination

A friend of mine once told me that there are times she has wished she could hug people in the street and tell them “You are a luminous being!” There’s a reason why we’re friends. This is a desire I know well.

A group of us sat at a table outside of the bar. It was summer, years ago now, although I remember the night quite clearly. We sat for hours, just drinking and talking and laughing and watching the world go by.

At some point I mentioned how funny it was to see so many faces pass by us without recognizing a single one. I think he thought that I was saying I hoped to see someone we knew, but what I was really saying was “Look! Look at all of this burning possibility. Look at all of these strangers that we have yet to befriend. Look at all of these exciting, astonishing people, so different and yet so similar. Look at the way each one shines, as brightly as the stars above us, as deeply as the summer night. Look at the way we are all so connected.”

What I was really saying was “Look! Look at all of this potential for love.”

People-watching is my favorite pastime. I have spent more hours than I can count sitting quietly in parks and cafes and airports, just watching and listening and writing. I like to sit back and observe. I like to be quiet enough to recognize goodness and beauty when I see it. And I see it, all the time, everywhere.

Yes, there are horrible things that happen in this world, things that can never be justified or understood – disease, war, bigotry, hate, violence, loss. It’s unwise to shut ourselves off from it, to pretend it isn’t happening, as much as we wish that were true. It’s unwise to stop fighting for what’s right and good and important.

But it’s also unwise to stop believing that there is goodness already here. It’s all around us. It’s within us. It’s the potential for love that burns through us like stars. It’s luminous. It’s beautiful. It’s everywhere.

And you can call me foolishly optimistic. I don’t mind. I’m too in love with the world to worry about appearing foolish. That’s what love does, after all. That’s what love is, and hopefully will be, all my life.

I love people-watching because I love people, and not just the ones I’ve met. I love people as a species, as creatures who create and feel and inspire.

I love life, and not just my own. I love the earth for being alive, and for being the keeper of so many living things, and so many non-living things, and so many things lingering in between.

I love my existence, and more than that, I love all of existence. I love getting to be a part of it.

I love love, and not just the love I already feel, but the possibilities for love that exist everywhere, for all of us.

How can I even begin to describe such foolish optimism?

It feels like a light, burning at the very center of me, pulsing and expanding and pouring through every inch of my being like some unstoppable force. And when I smile, that’s the light pushing through. And when I cry, my tears act as tiny prisms, dripping with light, casting rainbows across my cheeks. And when I laugh, that’s the light spontaneously bursting within me, erupting into the universe to resonate in the abyss.

That’s what it feels like to be me, or at least, that’s the best I can explain it. I am a light, a fire, an explosion of joy. I burn with love and life and the enchanting potential for more. I wonder and wander through the world, smiling and laughing and loving. I am a luminous being. And so are you, dear strangers and friends.

Trust me. I know. I have quietly sat back and observed. I have watched you flash by in flames.

It Is Spring

In general, I consider myself to be a fairly good driver. I don’t speed. I’m aware of others on the road. I never block intersections. I switch lanes when I’m in the way. I always let people in. I never honk unless it’s to say hello.

But on days like today, the first day of spring, I have to constantly move my eyes away from distractions. The trees seem to have burst into pink overnight. They make me think of playing cards painting the roses red. They are that perfect and magical. Over and over they try to pull me into their trap of attention as I drive by. Over and over I have to tear myself away from their soft, tangled beauty.

All spring – and all your life, if you are willing – the earth will call to you in colors and music and words. It will be full of wonder and it will be wonderful. It will pull you away from your daily routines, your struggles and your worries, and remind you that there is time again for change. It will offer you a gift that is nameless, but is something close to understanding. It will show you that there is no such thing as ordinary. There is only this. There is only the way the seasons come and go, over and over, forever.

The first day of spring means free water ice at Rita’s, and who am I turn down such sweetness? So I went and stood in line.

I watched as two geese flew overhead, mirror images of one another, proof that no one should have to go through this life alone. I was the only one to look up, to follow them across the sky until they drifted out of sight, into the unknown. No one else noticed them. No one else watched the depths of understanding that rose and fell in the perfect unison of their four flapping wings. No one else felt this love but me.

I thought of the many different ways there are to approach this world, how we can be in the same place at the same time and have completely different experiences. I thought of the way our minds are made of the same matter, but can somehow work so dissimilarly. I thought of flowers, and the way they grow from the same soil, but somehow become so singular, each with its own unique scents and secrets pooled within the core of its blossom. I thought of the way we are all both ordinary and extraordinary, all at once, all the time.

And as I drove away with my mango water ice, already melting in the warmth of spring, I had to remind myself to focus on the road, the task at hand, because all around me grew ideas that called to me. All around me the world opened to golden, shining light. All around me the pink trees sang of love.

Tonight, the scent of barbeque wafts through my open windows. I rub my naked toes against each other. Spring is unfolding. I accept her gifts as they come.

I watch the night descend on the pink petals of the trees, these wild and wise ornaments of the earth. I listen to the life outside my house, the people running and jumping and yelling through the streets, leading lives both so similar and so different from my own. I hear the earth call to me its simple, silly joy. It is ordinary and extraordinary. It is spring, over and over, forever.

Artistry

He said that he could probably give me any line to begin with and I could turn it into something wonderful. It was a sweet compliment, full of a certain faith and trust in my writing that I have yet to fully feel for myself. I wouldn’t mind being handed those first lines. That’s always the most difficult part, finding that inkling of an idea. What do I want to write about today?

I try to post something here daily, not because I have much to say or many ways to say it, but because this is what it means to be a writer. It is work. It is the daily practice of chipping away at the surface of things. It is continuing, despite the fact that what I am creating is not exactly what I want it to be. If I waited around for perfect moments or perfect ideas, nothing would ever get done.

The important thing, for me anyway, is to get something done. Some days I get lucky and write something I can almost love. Other days aren’t so fruitful. Still, I am nothing if not prolific.

All of us are artists. Some of us claim the label, those who paint or sculpt or write or sing, those who devote their lives to such important work. But it is in all of us, whether we claim it or not, to create. There is art as we all know it, but there is also the art of parenting, the art of loving, the art of surviving. There is the art of waking up each morning and contributing beauty to the world. All of us are capable of this important work, whether we are conscious of it or not.

Not everything we create is going to be a masterpiece. This is one of the most significant things I have learned, and continue to learn, and will probably always be learning. Some days will suck. They will suck the happiness and beauty right out of you. You will feel as though nothing of value can be created from such bleak emptiness. But you will be wrong.

Because the most important thing any of us can do on those days, on any day, is to pick up the metaphorical (or literal) pen. It is to write one word and then another. It is to keep chugging along. It is to get something done. It is to nudge open the flower of creativity growing within you. It is to watch it bloom upon the page.

And yes, maybe what comes from it will be awful. That’s okay. Really, it is. Awful work has more value than no work at all. It is, if nothing else, a reminder of what we don’t want. It fuels us to do better. It makes us want to try again.

This is what I tell myself when the blinking cursor taunts me, when the day has already felt long enough and my eyes begin to droop with the heaviness of sleep. Just get something done. Write something. Create something. Add something to the world.

Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that what art is? Just a series of first lines that are transformed into something more. Just the way we rise each morning and continually contribute beauty to the world – in words, in song, in colors, in kindness, in love. Just the way I sit here, delighting in the early spring breeze pouring through my open window, telling you about it.

We are all artists. Claim the label. Understand that it is your job to create. Take that work seriously. Go get something done. Stop waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect idea. Be prolific. Contribute to the masterpiece that is our one and only world. Pick up the pen. Write one word. Then another. Fill the pages of your life.

Treasure

I pulled into the driveway and he darted across the yard, his sleek and narrow body bounding through patches of missing grass as though they were stepping stones. I’ll never know how he managed to hold onto it with only his tiny squirrel mouth, but there it was, this one perfect tomato just at the peak of ripeness. It was the color of fiery sunsets, bright reds and oranges and yellows. And the squirrel clung to it as though it were the sun itself, as though it were precious and powerful and at the very center of everything. He ran toward me like a dog playing fetch, a look of discovery and pride on his tiny face, but at the last moment he turned and scurried up the tree. I was glad of this. It was his treasure, not mine.

Sometimes we find beauty in unexpected places. It is my favorite kind of discovery. Sometimes grey days give depth to the colorful details. Sometimes we find a song or an image or a piece of poetry that moves us to our very core. Sometimes we find love and kindness in people we hadn’t even noticed. Sometimes we are wise enough to accept these unlikely gifts.

And sometimes we are wise enough to realize that they are less unlikely than we think, if we’re wiling to pay attention. The thing about treasure is that you have to search for it. You don’t necessarily need to know where it’s located, but you need to know how to find it, how to recognize it when it arrives. You need to be carrying the right tools.

Make sure you can see it. Always keep your eyes and ears and heart open to such possibility. Make sure you can feel it. Always stop, for at least a moment, to breathe and reflect and save it somewhere within. Make sure you have a way to dig for it. Always have a paintbrush or a pen or a camera or a pair of good running shoes, or whatever it is that helps you uncover things inside of you. Make sure you appreciate its value. Always add it to your evolving wealth of happiness. Make sure you share it. Always.

Life, at times, can feel uncertain. Surely storybook pirates sometimes had doubts about finding buried treasure. The X may be illusive. The map isn’t a guarantee. Our maps, our plans, aren’t either. It’s too easy to get lost. It’s too easy to become so fixated on arriving at that X, whatever it may mean to us, that we forget about the journey, about the possibility of all of the other Xs awaiting discovery. There is treasure everywhere.

Consider, for instance, the sleek and narrow squirrel bounding through my yard. Consider the strength of his tiny jaw clinging to his found treasure. Consider his happiness, and the way I mistook it as being singularly his. Consider how it was actually ours. Consider how both of us walked away richer.

Consider the way I am forever bounding through patches of doubt and uncertainty as though they were stepping stones. Consider the way I am forever clinging to the fiery treasure of knowing how to love my life. Consider the way I am forever trying to share that gift.

Then use your tools to find it. Make sure you never stop searching. Always carry with you such eager, wild love.

A Small Offering

A couple of weeks ago, the parents of the children I was babysitting returned home from their party with some news. “We wanted to tell you,” they said, “the hosts of the party asked about the kids and we told them they were with their babysitter, Frankie. ‘Oh, we know Frankie!’ The hosts replied. ‘Friends of ours read her blog!’” Could anything in life be happier?

I am thrilled that people are reading this, and sometimes enjoying it, and sometimes commenting, both publically and privately. It means everything. It means that I have a way of expressing myself, sharing myself, in the best way I know how. It means that I have a place to say all of the things that may otherwise go unsaid. It means that you have a place to hear those things, read those things, know those things. But it also means something else. It teaches me something. It reminds me, daily, that I have something to offer the world.

And really, could anything in life be happier than that reminder? The offering is small, of course. It’s only words. But perhaps, if we’re lucky, you have come here and read a word or a line or maybe an entire entry that has sparked something within you. Perhaps, if we’re lucky, I have inspired you in some way. Perhaps, if we’re lucky, you have seen a little of yourself here, reflecting back on you, reminding you that you are not alone. That’s the purpose of reading and writing. It’s only words, but words are powerful. They connect us. They inspire us. They express all of our many stories and thoughts and feelings. They are an offering of gratitude and love.

I have never left the house without a pen. I consider it an essential tool. I once spent three days alone in the woods with nothing more than a sleeping bag, a water bottle, a journal, and a pen. They were three of the happiest days of my life. When we play “deserted island,” pen and paper are always at the top of my list. It isn’t the practical choice, but also, it is.

Living and writing are one in the same for me. Yes, I could survive without it, but it would be a bleak existence. I never feel more alive than when I write. I am never more myself than when I write. I have never been the same since the day I picked up my first book of poetry and understood what it meant to love words. Yes, I could survive without it, but I wouldn’t want to.

I write because it is in me to write, which sounds like hippie nonsense, but is the only way to explain it. I write because it is my first thought in the morning, because this blog has renewed in me a sense of purpose, because it makes me come alive. I write because it is something valuable. It’s what I have to offer. It’s how I search and discover and connect.

I write because we live in a world throbbing with beauty, because I want to put that beauty into words, and because I want to give some of it back. I do not always create art, but sometimes the inspiration and desire to create is art itself. Sometimes this is enough. Sometimes I am enough. Sometimes, in this small way, if we’re lucky, I can add a little beauty to the world.

Sometimes – most of the time – there is nothing in this world that could be happier than me, sitting here, pouring myself onto the page. And if you have ever sat with nothing more than a journal and a pen while the world blazes and hums around you, you know what I mean. You too, understand that sweet secret. You too, are a reader and writer of the world. You too, have something to offer.

Whatever it is that makes you come alive, do it. Offer it. Be happy. We are all lucky enough to have the chance to add a little beauty to this world.