Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday. The beginning of intentional time set aside to remember.

Remember what we believe.

Remember where we have came from.

Remember where we are going.

"Yet even now, says the Lord,
Return to me with all your heart,
With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
Rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing."

Give me 40 days to sift and sort. 40 days to bleed. 40 days to reconcile. 40 days to forgive. And 40 days to be heal.

meg

Valentines

I am loved...Loved to the ends of the earth and I'd be a fool not to recognize it.

Friends are fun to have around. They're fun to laugh and joke with, make up names for each other, and call when you're bored.

They give you a feeling of acceptance and security.

But what's even better is when the people you used to call to have lunch with so you wouldn't have to eat alone, are there for you in your darkest moments. Your moments of utter despair and anguish.

If Valentine's Day is about buying chocolates, balloons, and flowers for someone whom you love and loves you in return...then I am broke.

No one could really take the pain away, but they sat with me and shared it.

And for that I am eternally grateful.

Happy Valentine's Day. You've loved me even though it wasn't a holiday.

I Am An Emotional Creature

"I love being a girl.

I can feel what you're feeling
as you're feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.

I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won't call back.
It's a vibe I share.

I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it's unbearable when I lose.

I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don't you dare say that it's all negative
or it's only because I'm a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.

I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
I know when the coconut's about to fall.
I know that we've pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn't coming back.
That no one's prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.

This is not extreme.
It's a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don't tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It's how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don't tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.

I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.

I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl. "

I wish I could have written this myself, but its everything I feel put into words by someone else. I know if I have a daughter I will quote this poem to her as a bedtime story and hopefully she will be as in love with being herself as what I am right now.

meg

Deluxe Donut Dreams

4 years ago a group of friends sat around a curved counter at a place called Deluxe Donuts. We had walked there in the cold a good couple of blocks, but we didn't care. The walk there was half the fun. We all had just started college and beginning our second semester. We thought we knew everything. We were making friends and finding our niche. Our classes weren't hard and the biggest papers any of us had to write was the standard 3-5 pages. We ordered donuts, 3 for $1.00, and talked until the wee hours of the morning. It didn't even matter if we had early class the next day. The Donut Lady, as we called her, poured us water to sip on out of Styrofoam cups. We talked about our favorite bands, shows we had seen, cities we have visited or want to visit, funny memories from high school, old lovers and new lovers, and the things we were beginning to love/hate about our school of choice.

We had no idea what lie ahead of us. Again, we didn't care. We didn't know the groups or organizations we would eventually join and drop out of, the relationships we would start and then crumble, our favorite bands of the time that fade in and out, and how difficult our classes would actually get. We didn't know the nights we would spend lying awake asking ourselves life changing questions, the intimate conversations we would have with individuals at that very counter, or the years down the road when we would "grow up" and think back on those nights eating donuts and laughing until we thought we should head back.

We were babies. Small children with very, very big dreams. We could all go around the table and tell you our majors and maybe what we wanted to be when we grew up. But we had no idea the roads we would take and where we would end up. We all met because we happened to be at the same stage in life and now that our roads are branching out, we're in full bloom ready to burst at the seams.

We never knew our dreams could be so big! We were just starting to grow into our own. Fast forward the montage of journeys we've taken and never in our wildest dreams did we see ourselves doing the things we love...studying in far away countries, running restaurants, producing albums, starting half way homes, farms, and bicycle collectives, traveling across seas to see the world, and applying for jobs and moving to cities we never thought we would.

Here's to being young and ambitious. Believe in your young because someone believed in us and that's why we are where we are today.