Boo,

By next year, it will be five years since I have celebrated Halloween in a way which feels "real" to me. I will wear a costume which I will consider classic and I will walk on the carpet of leaves on my sidewalk. I will hold my brothers hand and I will buy candy two weeks in advance so I can get the good stuff. I will split and divide my spoils that night with boys and girls alike not really noticing which gender we are, because that's how it is when we're home. It never really matters.

Its somewhat reminiscent of fourth grade, before things started mattering and life got complicated. I like that I have people this is preserved with.

In my neighborhood everyone trick or treats and we see two to three hundred kids each year. Adults stand on their lawns all day long and spook and scare and then light candles in their window and reunite with their families.

When I was in third grade I dressed up as a cow girl. Hannah was a power ranger and we each had our own rooms. I laid in bed that night and thought about how likely it would be that a werewolf would eat me. Those fears were easier than the ones I have now.

I love Halloween.
I miss Halloween.

I wish I was home this time.

I spent roughly three months in the third grade unable to sleep because I watched Jumanji (even though my mother told me not to). I used to set up an elaborate night light. I would take my Simba doll and put my desk lamp next to it and project a huge lion shadow on the wall. This lion was my form of protection but even then I couldn't shut my mind off.

Why? I don't know. Its the plight of the over imaginative child.

When I was fourteen, I stayed up for a week straight because I was convinced that the Al Qaeda was attacking RIGHT NOW and my family needed to move somewhere safe.

That was a particularly awful stage.

I've discovered something. There is always something to be afraid of at night. A lack of fear is probably the thing I covet most. When I inevitably fall asleep at night its because I lost focus for a minute and forgot to be scared. I'm always waiting for the one night when something will go wrong and I must be prepared.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, extra points if you can name that character.

Inspiration,

She wants to write about God.
but not the friendly God character
that appears in the gleam
of so many smiling book covers.
She wants to find the God that makes
her heart change its beat as the
organ shakes the cathedral.

She wants to write about the God
she sees in the sharpness
of the horizon,
or in the hot shame in her sister’s eyes
as her secret is found out.
Not the God she feels around her
like the scent of laundry detergent.

What's to Come,

As he continued on some

linear explanation of

fathers and courthouses

I couldn’t keep my mind

on his words.

Rather,

I travel farther

and farther

away like the

snowflakes falling outside

the window. I’ve lost the

desire, and I believe that if I

tear my eyes away

the flakes that

haven’t reached the ground

will be caught

eternally

in mid-air.

Lyrics of Tuesday evening

Or the lyrics I hope will one day apply to my life:

Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could
But somewhere in my youth and childhood
I must have done something good

The rain means something these days,

All these blank and tranquil years,
Seems they've dried up all my tears.
And while she runs free and fast
Seems my wild days are past

It rains a lot in Houghton, but it doesn't rain enough. It doesn't rain nearly as much as the place the rain makes me think of. It makes me think of the first time Joel leaned back on the rear legs of the chair in my pink bedroom and watched the unexpected rain drops fall down the glass. It was our first afternoon there, and the sun had been shining just a minute before.

"Well," he said, "that's London."

An Ode to Whatever

I think about days in funny ways
Like being alone, and not,
And reading books to fill the nooks
Too easily forgot.

To: He Who Does Not Know this is About Him

This will probably never change.