What You Are

You are the question and you are the answer. You are the giver and you are the gift. You are the dream and the dreamer. You are the blossom and the seed.

You are possibility. You are potential. You are success and defeat. You are chances taken and opportunities missed. You are the gains and the losses. You are what you carry with you and what you leave behind. You are what’s remembered and forgotten.

You are the homes you have lived in. You are the people you have lived with. You are the body that houses the soul and you are the soul that dwells there. You are the guests you have invited in. You are the host forever making room. You are the door that opens and closes. You are the hearth that warms.

You are the poetry that slipped beneath your skin with and without your knowledge. You are every word you have ever read. You are the sentences you’ve lovingly underlined. You are the careful notes in the margin. You are the paragraphs and the chapters. You are the story, beginning to end.

You are the writer and you are the reader. You are the artist and the art. You are every color of the spectrum and then some. You are the canvas. You are the brush stokes. You are the masterpiece.

You are the lyrics and melodies to all of your favorite songs. You are the characters and scripts from all of your favorite movies. You are the star of your reality. You are the dialogues and soliloquies. You are the performance. You are the show. You are the creation and creator.

You are your inner monologues. You are your conversations. You are your parents and children and friends. You are the teacher and you are the student. You are all that you know and have yet to learn.

You are how the world sees you. You are how you see yourself. You are private and you are public. You are unique and you belong.

You are like everyone else and you are like no one else. You are independent and dependent. You are want and you are need. You are gratitude and you are desire. You are safety and you are adventure. You are laughter and you are tears.

You are the things that excite you and the things that scare you. You are the things that get you out of bed. You are the hours and the days and the ways you choose to fill them. You are the experiences. You are the thoughts. You are all of the many feelings.

You are the things that you love. And you are loved. And you are love.

You are the capacity to love. You are the product of love. Your life stems from love. Your heart reaches for love. You are the love that you breathe in.

You are the light and the darkness. You are the pains and the joys. You are the explorer and you are the journey. You are the person you were and the person you will become and the person you are right now in this very moment.

You are you.

And you are enough.

For Meghan and Sam, On Their Wedding Day

Many years ago, I learned how to fall in love. Over and over again, and in a multitude of ways. I learned what it means to care about others, what it means to live for them, to wish for their happiness more than anything you wish for yourself. I learned what it means to open yourself so fully to another that you laugh their joy, and cry their grief, and share your hearts so completely that no distinction can be made between their life and your own.

I learned this from loving Meghan, and from loving Sam, and from watching Meghan and Sam learn to love each other. And every day, I learn a little more.

It has been one of the great privileges of my life to learn love from the two of you – to give it, and receive it, and to watch it grow and strengthen between you, and to feel it grow and strengthen between us. I am so proud to say that I have been there from the very beginning, and I am so honored to be a part of all that is to come.

And I am so grateful. I am grateful for you, and your friendship, and all of the joy and comfort you’ve brought me. I am grateful to you, for always being there for me, for teaching me, for giving me faith in love.

If I know what love is, it is because of you. It is because many years ago I learned to fall in love with each of you, and then got to be there to see you fall in love with each other, and then got to experience another kind of love – the love I felt for you as a couple, as something new, something more.

It is not that you complete each other, but rather that you make two complete people stronger, and wiser, and happier through love. Your love for one another makes each of you better. And by sharing that love with us, you make each of us better. And we are all better for loving the two of you.

And I love you – as individuals, and as a couple, and as two of my truest and dearest friends. I love you for your creativity and talent and ambition. I love you for your kindness and generosity and compassion. I love you for your intellect and wit and understanding.

I love you for being silly and for being serious and for knowing when each is necessary. I love you for laughing with me and crying with me and sitting by my side in conversation and in silence. I love you for growing up with me, and for helping me to grow up, and for allowing me to be with you while you became the remarkable people you are.

I love you because it is impossible not to love you, because I can’t imagine my life without you, because there is no distinction between your lives and my own. You are my life. You are my friends. You are my family. You are my teachers. You are the answer to all of my questions about love.

I have learned so very much from you. And every day, I learn a little more. And what else is there to say? But over and over again, in a multitude of ways – thank you. And I love you. And I wish for you a lifetime of happiness and joy.

Like Something Beautiful

In the fourth grade, I wanted to be Lauren Martz. She had freckles and braces and large swooping handwriting that lay perfectly between the lines of a page. I used to go home and practice writing the way she did. I twisted paper clips over my teeth and pretended they were braces. I sat out in the sun hoping to freckle. I wanted to be Lauren because she was beautiful. I wanted to be Lauren because she was everything I wasn’t.

We’re still friends, all these many years later, and although her braces have long since been gone and most of her freckles have faded, I am constantly amazed anew by her beauty, and by how greatly I admire her.

And I like that there are some things that never change, even while they’re changing. I like that when I look at Lauren, I can see the young girl I idolized, and the beautiful woman she has become, and glimpses of who she has yet to be. I like that I can love them all, equally and fully. I like that it is possible to love in such a certain and unwavering way.

And I like that a few years ago when I told Lauren about the braces and freckles and handwriting, she laughed and said she had always hated all three. I like that this too became a lesson in beauty for me – that sometimes the things we find most embarrassing in ourselves can be a source of inspiration for someone else. I like that we can be beautiful without even knowing it.

All of my friends are beautiful – in ways they can and cannot see, in ways I have and have not told them. From each of them I have adapted something. I have learned to write like them, and speak like them, and gesture like them, and dress like them, and create like them, and make jokes like them, and be kind and giving and thoughtful like them. I have collected all of my favorite pieces of them, and in this way, I can be beautiful, like them. Because I am them. Because they are all pieces of me.

And the sound of my laughter is the result of thousands of other laughs. And the voice inside my head is a collection of every word said to me. And the love within my heart belongs to everyone I have ever known. And anything that is beautiful about me exists because of you.

And I like that wherever I go, I take all of you with me. And I like that whoever I am, and continue to become, I owe to you and the gifts of goodness and beauty you’ve given me. And I like that every moment of my life is devoted to proving my gratitude. I like that you can never say ‘thank you’ enough.

I like that there will always be a part of me that wants to be Lauren Martz. And I like that the way I feel about Lauren Martz will always be a part of me. I like that you can spend an entire lifetime loving, and admiring, and cherishing all that is beautiful in those around you. And I like the way those simple acts can transform you into something beautiful, too.

30 Things I Know For Certain

1. There is never a wrong time to say “I love you.” Say it when you feel it, in whatever way you can. Mean it when you say it. Say it often.

2. The list of food that does not pair well with wine is exceptionally small.

3. Asking questions is the best way to learn something new. Never be afraid of looking foolish. It is foolishness that helps us grow.

4. Be patient with people. They’re still learning. So are you.

5. Pick your battles. Stand up and fight for what’s important to you. Be flexible and forgiving about everything else.

6. Shoes that hurt your feet are never worth it.

7. No one is exempt from heartbreak. We are all tender and delicate beings. Remember this above all else. Be gentle with others and with yourself.

8. A handwritten letter is always more meaningful than an email. Always.

9. It’s good to make plans, but not to rely on them too much. Things are forever changing. No life is a straight line.

10. Letting go is really difficult.

11. Holding on is really difficult.

12. Every life is difficult in ways you can and cannot understand. Don’t stop trying to understand. Empathy is a powerful tool.

13. When you cannot feel empathy, try to feel sympathy. It feels far greater than frustration or anger.

14. Always have something to write with.

15. Sadness and happiness will come and go often and in many forms. Embrace these feelings fully. They have so much to offer you.

16. Everyone has something to offer. Figure out what those things are in yourself and in those around you. Be grateful for such gifts.

17. Dreaming big is a great way to live a life.

18. Not everyone gets what they want. But there is always room for happiness. Constantly redefine what enough means to you.

19. Kindness will get you everywhere.

20. When in doubt, ask a child. They have all the answers.

21. Sharing is important. The best things to share are love, laughter, friendship, and dessert.

22. Good manners and good grammar make you look good. But more than that, they show you care.

23. Care deeply about people, animals, nature, art, literature, politics, and ideas. Care less about the things you can buy. Remember what’s replaceable.

24. Gratitude can change everything. Make lists of what you’re grateful for daily. Acknowledge all you have.

25. The world can feel both big and small all at once. Notice every detail, but don’t forget the big picture. Keep discovering all the different ways you fit in.

26. There is no such thing as normal. We are all strange and different. Love the things about you that stick out. Love the things about others that stick out. Delight in every idiosyncrasy.

27. There is only one you.

 28. It is easy to feel alone sometimes, but don’t. You’d be amazed by how many people truly care. If no one comes to mind, know that I do. I care deeply. I’m always here.

29. Having fun makes you look confident and beautiful. Have a lot of it.

30. Act and speak and create and dance and sing and jump and love and laugh and dream as if what you do matters.
Because it does.

For You

For thousands of years, people fought for you. They stood up for you. They worked hard for a future they would never see. They helped build your present. They were kind for you and they were tough for you. They survived for you and they died for you. They had children for you. And then their children had children for you. And on and on and on, until there was a you. You – the living, breathing result of thousands of years of love.

You can’t imagine what it took to create you. It was so much more than a mother and father. It was more, even, than all of your ancestors combined. It was millions of moments and choices and circumstances. You exist because of all that came before you.

There is a light inside of you that is ancient and nameless. It is the shining story of the world. It is labor and suffering and intimacy and joy. It is sacrifice and loss and longing. It is the purest form of love – the one that fills your heart and breaks your heart and transforms your heart into something more than just a muscle. It is reason enough to feel gratitude.

So be grateful. Be grateful for your heart and its insatiable hunger. Be grateful for your mind and its boundless potential. Be grateful for your body and the way that it moves, and grows, and changes. Be grateful for your life because it waited for you for so long.

And now that you are here, there is so much work to be done. There is so much to build, and to stand up and fight for. There is so much to remember and forget. There are thousands of years of flowers to be planted, to bloom again and again in future fields that you will never see.

You are not the end and you are not the beginning. You are part of the middle where all of us meet, and embrace, and stop missing each other. You are an integral piece, because every future you depends upon the present, and the present you was made possible by the past.

And what does any of this mean except that you matter. You exist to be no more and no less than alive. You are here as the result of thousands of years of love. Your purpose is to keep building – brick upon benevolent brick – a story that lasts for thousands of years more.

People fought for your right to do this. Be grateful you have such a chance. Then go out into the world and write yourself into it. Tattoo your name on the stars. Be kind and tough and joyful. Don’t waste your light.

Callings

I know that it’s been a few days. I know, because when I was young someone taught me how to read a calendar, how to count suns and moons, how to divide the grand scope of time into more manageable sizes. I know how to fill an hour and I know how to waste a moment. I know the nagging feeling that there is more I could have done.

But mostly I know that I haven’t been writing because I can feel it in my bones. Or perhaps my heart, or gut, or – if you’re feeling brave – what one might call the soul. I know it’s what woke me up at 2am this morning, tired of waiting for me to recognize gentle reminders, demanding my attention. “Open the page and write,” it cried.

I have been sad enough, and lucky enough, to hear this voice before. I have been wise enough, on occasion, to listen.

I remember a time, years ago – which I know from marking off the days – when I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of something calling. No one else could hear it. Or if they could, it didn’t stir loudly enough inside of them to force them from their beds and join me outside, where I sat and stared at the moon. If it wasn’t full, it was close to it, which is another feeling I have known.

I was in the Himalayas at the time. I had never been, and have never been since, closer to the sky. Or myself. Or a particular kind of unlonely solitude. Or – if you’re feeling brave – inner peace.

It was the middle of the night, or the beginning of the morning, depending on where you were taught to draw those lines. The air was thick, heavy with scent and sentiment. “Open your lungs and breathe” a voice cried. I listened. I divided the world down into a more manageable size.

Inhale the life that is just now beginning. Exhale the disappointments of the life now gone. Each breath its own preface and epilogue. Each cycle its own birth and death. Each moment its own moon, coming and going, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing. The air lay bittersweet upon my tongue.

And when I had emptied all of my thoughts onto the vast page of the sky, and made room for something new, I went back inside and put on my shoes. “Now, open the door and go.”

So I did. I walked and then ran, down the winding roads of the mountains, into the early morning light. People emerged from their houses. They smiled and waved hello. I could feel their sweetness in my bones. There was no better way to fill those hours. There was nothing more we could have done.

All my life I have been lucky enough to have a voice. It speaks endlessly of gratitude and love. It arrives in every moment in the grand scope of time, demanding my attention. It wakes me when I haven’t even noticed I’m asleep.

“Open your eyes and see,” it cries. “Open your heart and live.” I know that you can hear it too. And – if you’re feeling brave – you can listen.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Thank you for the band-aids. Thank you for the breakfasts and lunches and dinners. Thank you for all of the years of tucking me in, and turning out the light. Thank you for always making sure I got to school on time, and forgiving me for making you late. Thank you for remembering the things I would have otherwise forgotten.

Thank you for the handmade, witty Halloween costumes. Thank you for the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and thank you for still refusing to admit they weren’t real. Thank you for the gifts. Thank you for always reading me stories, and telling me stories, and helping me believe in magic.

Thank you for allowing me to tell stories – mine, yours, ours. Thank you for listening. Thank you for understanding that they are about more than just us. Thank you for the pens, and books, and journals. Thank you for supporting and encouraging me to write. Thank you for the volumes of poetry. Thank you for the inspiration.

Thank you for being patient with me when I was learning how to walk, how to ride a bike, and how to drive. Thank you for instilling in me the desire to always be exploring. Thank you for taking me on adventures around the world. Thank you for allowing me to go on some of my own.

Thank you for trusting me, even when you couldn’t fully understand my choices. Thank you for being wise enough to be uncertain. Thank you for telling me when I made you mad. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for confiding in me and letting me confide in you. Thank you for being the first person I call when things go right or wrong.

Thank you for being selfless enough to teach me to be independent. Thank you for still being there whenever I need you. Thank you for sometimes needing me. Thank you for never giving up on me, even at my worst.

Thank you for potty-training. Thank you for years of cleaning up snot and throw-up and blood. Thank you for no less than 6 million loads of laundry. Thank you for soothing each cry.

Thank you for hugs, and kisses, and cuddles. Thank you for making sure I always felt loved and wanted. Thank you for allowing me to love and to want. Thank you for my good manners. Thank you for teaching me to treat others with respect and kindness. Thank you for kindness – for yours and mine.

Thank you for trying not to embarrass me too much, but sometimes still embarrassing me. Thank you for teaching me to be humble. Thank you for turning moments of humiliation into opportunities for humor and courage. Thank you for showing me the importance of perspective.

Thank you for teaching me how to embrace all of the layers, even the ugly ones. Thank you for cherishing our imperfections. Thank you for helping me recognize beauty. Thank you for filling my life with it.

Thank you for being strong, but also vulnerable. Thank you for being serious, but also silly. Thank you for being tough, but also tender. Thank you for being my mother, but also my best friend.

Thank you for hours of conversation and laughter. Thank you for decades of love.

Thank you for being a superhero, and thank you for making mistakes. Thank you for bringing me into the world and teaching me how to love it.

You’ve given me so much to write about.

Your adoring daughter,
Frankie

The Other Side

Photo by Joel Leoj, fellow adventurer

Once, on the other side of the world, I sat in an internet café and stared at a screen filled with bad news. I was surrounded by the unfamiliar. I had never felt so alone.

I wanted to cry, but couldn’t. I wanted to speak, but no words came. There wasn’t anyone around to hear them, anyway. So I just sat there, frozen, reading the words over and over as though they would change. I wanted to be somewhere else, or someone else, anyone who was anywhere else. But, as always, I could only be me.

I walked home, or at least, the place I was currently calling home, shaking. I walked in the door. Something was wrong. My new friends could tell. Still, I couldn’t form the words.

So I searched for them with my journal and pen. I sat on the living room floor and wrote and wrote and wrote.

Then the power went out.

And so my friends found a candle and matches, and placed the small light beside me. And when my pen ran out of ink, they found me a pencil. And when the point of the pencil broke, they found a knife to sharpen it. And so I continued to write with my jagged pencil in the dimness of the room, and in that darkness, I found love.

Because as sad and lost as I felt that day, as much as each broken item left me feeling as though nothing would ever be easy again, friendships were formed, easily. They offered me light.

I don’t need much in this world. A pen, a journal, a light to write by, people who care – sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes that’s everything.

Once, on the other side of the world, I lived with a group of strangers. We went on adventures together. Sometimes we laughed. Sometimes we cried. Sometimes we got lost. Sometimes we made discoveries. Some of us took photographs. Some of us wrote, constantly, everywhere. Quickly, easily, we fell in love.

The day I returned home sad, wanting to be someone else, they understood I could only be me. They understood I needed to write. They understood that a candle and a pencil were the best they could offer me. So they offered me everything.

I remember that day clearly, the day I received some bad news. It makes me smile. It fills me with familiar gratitude. It reminds me that I’m never alone in the world, no matter which side of it I’m on. The world is big, but in terms of friendship, it’s really quite small. There is no distance between me and love.

Friendship is a constant offering. It is a sharing of stories and feelings and affection. It is patience and forgiveness. It is seeing others as who they are, and accepting that is all they can be. It is loving them because of this. It is understanding. It is adventure. It is not noticing the room is dim until someone turns on an extra light. “Oh,” you think to yourself, “why was I sitting in the dark?”

Once, on the other side of the world, I was in the dark, so my friends offered me a candle. All my life I’ll remember that light. I carry it with me now.

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.

The Stone (For My Mother)

I know this place. Through the back door, over the small wooden bump in the ground of the doorway, onto the cool, smooth surface of our kitchen floor. I can feel the gloss of our table beneath my soft, warm hands and the sharp corners where I so often bumped my head as a child. I sit in my favorite of our five white chairs. The back leg wiggles a little as I sit, just as it has always done.

Flowers adorn the table, a myriad of colors and sizes, a reflection of our family, bold and bright. I glance at the coal stove piled with breads and ripening fruits in the colorful bowls my mother has collected over the years. I think of my mother, standing beside the sink, eating a ripe nectarine. The juices slowly pour over her slender, boney fingers. Another bite, and the sweet, cold liquid moves further down her hand, covering her ring–a bright gold band with a large black stone in the center.

I remember looking at the ring as a child, wondering why all the other mothers had diamonds on their fingers, while my mother chose to settle for this plain, black stone. It didn’t sparkle in the light. It wasn’t worth any money. It didn’t make rainbows when the sun moved through it in just the right way. It was so ordinary.

I knew she deserved more. My mother, who had kept the monsters away in the middle of the night, who had made every birthday special, and every wound heal. My mother, who I knew understood everything about the world and who I loved more than anything in it. My mother, who was my hero and my confidant and my best friend, had only this black, commonplace ring. It made me so sad for her.

As a young girl sitting in her lap, I wrapped my fingers around the stone. It felt so round and smooth beneath my small fingertips, like hardened silk. It was cold in the warmth of my hand, but inviting, like the relief of soft rain on hot summer days. I wanted to dance in her ring the way I danced in the rain, fearless and free. I looked up into her eyes, into her infinitely dark pupils. My face reflected back at me in their darkness. I smiled, and returned my gaze to the stone.

Years later, I found myself on a pebble beach in England, in the small town of Budleigh Salterton. I wandered down over the pebbles, making my way to the quietly breaking waves. I picked up a dark stone from beneath my naked, aching feet. Passing it from hand to hand, I rubbed it against my soft skin, feeling the weight of it move between my fingers like the tide; back and forth, back and forth. It held secrets I would never know and answers I could never find. I stared at it for a while, delighting in the depths of its wisdom, and then I smiled, and threw it back into the waters that had made it shine.

As a teenager, on a cliff overlooking the lake, I unfolded my sleeping bag to prepare for a much needed rest. I stared up at the night sky in silence, admiring its beauty and intensity. It was so dark, so deep, so endless. I wondered if it felt as round and smooth as the stone in my mother’s ring. I looked at my friends beside me, wondering if they felt the comfort that I did in that moment. I wondered if their mothers had rings that shined like the ebony sky. I wondered if they too, felt home. I sat there staring upward, breathing deeply, wondering, as I drifted off to sleep beneath a blanket of burning stars.

When my mother came to visit me for the first time at college, I looked down at her ring as we ate lunch together. It was different than I had remembered. It didn’t seem so plain, so ordinary. I looked up into her eyes. I thought about how beautiful she looked at that moment, how beautiful she had always looked.

I looked back at the stone. It was beautiful, like my mother. It was as dark and vast as the pupils of her eyes, as the night sky in the wilderness, as the depths of the endless ocean, as the pit of the nectarine she devoured with such tenderness between her sticky fingers. The black stone was simple and graceful and dignified. The black stone shined.

My mother isn’t like a diamond. She isn’t sharply cut with limitations and borders. She isn’t transparent, relying on light to fill her. My mother is full. She is round and smooth, solid and endless, whole and complex. She is filled with wisdom and love. She is strong. She is a stone.

Sometimes I wander barefoot outside, feeling the soft ground beneath my feet, the give and take of the soil as I make imprints of my toes. I pick up stones as I go, passing them back and forth between my hands, matching their smooth curves to the slant of my fingers. I look at them in the palm of my hand. I see my mother’s ring. I see the depths of her eyes. I smell her scent in the soft wind. I feel the comfort of her love as we embrace.

I know this place, I think to myself, and I smile, knowing that I can always find my way back home.