anticipation

I am waiting with bated breath until we are together again. It is less than two weeks now. The time in between will stretch out and twist and snap up and be gone in an instant. But that's just the way time works. It flows in big, full pools and then speeds through narrow canyons. I navigate it as I can. Images flash across my mind: holding your hand. Holding you in my arms, and pulling your lips to mine, and everything melting into one. I have stored your scent in my brain and I call it to mind when I am thinking of you. It is attached to many emotions.

I see your face in my mind so often, and it gives me butterflies. I watch a romantic movie and I just want to hold you so tight. This waiting, this anticipation... it will make the actual reunion so full of love and emotion and desire. I know, because it happened last time. I will be giddy with the renewed newness of us. I won't be able to believe that I have something so precious, that is already mine, and I will cherish it. I cannot wait to hold you.

On the Things I Cannot Say

The weather outside is absolutely beautiful. The sun is shining, it's warm on my face, the birds are singing, the breeze is lovely and fragrant and tickling the trees. But today is the day you left, and though you haven't been gone long your absence is a presence in my life already. I read my book to make the time past, at home and at the dentist's, and it is profound but it is also sad. It has a red handprint on the cover. It's of a left hand, like the one I use to write. I place my hand upon the shadow of a hand, but the red hand is too big. My mind traces the curves and lengths of your hands, and my measurements say this hand on the cover is about the same size as yours. It makes me want to hold your hand again, to trace its soft lines. Last night we were holding each other close and in your arms I almost said the things I cannot say. It's not that I don't want to tell you, in fact I have the feeling you already know, but I have never told you in so many words. I want you to know every part of me, even this part, but for some reason it is very hard for me. Part of me says it's because I don't know how you feel about it, that it might scare you that I feel this way, that maybe it's best if you don't know. But really it's that I am afraid and a bit superstitious. The words are the shape of the ways I've been damaged before. My fears are related to the way you would answer; or worse, the way you might not answer. I know that it is likely you feel the same: maybe you too are scared of this type of thinking. If you didn't answer it might not reflect how you feel, it must just be the way you can't say it either, even after I had, or that you were happy about it and just wanted to savor the moment and not mar it with words. But the problem is I wouldn't know. I'd want you to answer and maybe there is nothing to say. If you don't feel that way, I wouldn't want you to say you did, but it would hurt just the same that you don't. I am hoping you too, and all evidence points to that. But the anxiety to say it, this one little category of things I hide from you, is growing. Every time I think about it, I think, I'm going to say it, something, anything, to let him know, next time we're together. But then when we are together I just want to be in the moment. Should I even be worrying about the future when the present is so wonderful? But I know, too, that we are eventually going to have to talk about it. Is it an unspoken rule that we can't? Or just a boundary in my mind? I mentioned it's where I've been damaged before, and now I'll tell you why. I've said it before, planned for the future in the past, and it has never worked out the way I hoped, the way I longed. I felt like the fact that we'd said it made it all the worse to leave behind. I'm beginning to doubt whether it makes much of a difference in the end if it doesn't happen: I'll still have thought it, and you'll have never known how I felt. So even now I'm convincing myself it will be better to make it clear to you, and that I should just say it. But that doesn't stop the freezing of the words, the times when I push myself to say it and end up going further into myself and holding tighter to the words, and staying silent and you probably are wondering what I am thinking of, but you don't ask so perhaps you are thinking just as feverishly. Or is that it is just not in your nature to ask? Maybe that's okay. Maybe one day I'll be ready to breathe you in while we're embracing, and lift my head and look you in the eye, and draw in a breath and open my mouth and let loose the words: "I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

my love affair with kayaking

Well, I decided to take the Kayaking class through the Kinesiology department this semester. It was a White Water Kayaking class. It met once a week for two hours and was worth 1 credit. It might have costed sixty extra bucks or so. We started off in the Adair pool learning how to do Eskimo rescue, some turning techniques, and braces. At first, I would panic as soon as I got underwater, and couldn't master the Eskimo rescue. I went in for extra help and still wasn't getting it. We started going out on Lake Matoaka in late February, and started to learn how to go straight. It's not as easy as you think in kayaks made for white water. They are incredibly responsive, which is great for rapids, but not so great for the lake. I felt good about being out on the water, I mean, I've had quite a bit of kayaking experience. In late March we had one class in the pool to do Eskimo rolls. I went through a lot of the Eskimo rolling progression but then asked Randy (my instructor) to help me with Eskimo rescues instead. I knew I needed to get them down. And it finally clicked for me that day, and I felt really good about it. Last Friday, April 11, was the white water trip I went on. I was really scared the day before, but on that day I was mostly excited and just a bit nervous. It was a beautiful day: sunny, warm, a bit of a breeze. The water was cold but it felt refreshing. We were running the Appomattox River in Petersburg, VA. It has a canal that follows it for awhile, and we paddled up the canal until just below the old mill (where it stops). We took our kayaks over to the river side, and did some scouting. Randy showed us the best way to get through the first Class I rapids, and then we were to stop in a big eddy. I was nervous but after running those rapids I was just feeling good about it. After stopping we practiced ferrying across the river, and eddy turns and peel outs. We then went onto the first Class II rapid, called Z. My back end hit the rocks but that was okay... no harm done. We kept going along until the next Class II, called Picnic. On Picnic Randy said 'head left towards that flat rock, then cut right and stay in the middle and there's a surprise at the end.' When I went down, I got in the right place and found the surprise! Huge standing waves at the end! And it was a fast rapid. Lots of fun! We stopped at the island and sat on the rocks that made up the rapid and ate lunch. Then we kept going. There was one other cool Class II rapid called Snake Drop. It was basically just a steep drop, and the island where you stop is often covered in sunning snakes. It wasn't that day. Both Picnic and Snake Drop drenched me in water. It was so much fun. We had to carry our boats a quarter mile across an island at the end, but it was all good. Today there was an extra, optional rolling session. I went, and successfully did several Eskimo rolls! Sweet! Several people have commented on how graceful and natural I seem in a kayak. I attribute it to my riding experience. And I love it.

light up the sky with our fire

music videos, movies,
drilling the idea in my head:
I want to draw you into my arms
and kiss you like forever.
I don't need to draw a breath
if I can just breathe you.
In my mind,
let this never stop.
We will spread our love,
a blanket on the ground.
Laying on that blanket under the stars,
we will identify the constellations
and light up the sky with our fire.

sapling

fourteen months ago today...
an awkward kiss,
establishing contact,
my mind is running a thousand miles an hour -
what do I do now? can I touch him?
is he mine?
click online and ask.
are we? is this?

yes.
we planted a tree that day.

---

Happy 14 month anniversary!!!

love

Today I would like to share with you about a little thing I call love. I am in love. With Jeff Bergemann. He is a wonderful man. Here's something I told him on the subject:

Hey lovely. The first thing to say to you: Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!!!!!! It is a day to celebrate love - and I am in my own way celebrating our love (just by thinking about how wonderful it is). I went on a long walk with Tal (which is why I wasn't on when you were) and we talked a lot about relationships (mostly hers, she is having issues :( ) and the weather was absolutely miserable, the rain became freezing rain on the way back. Anyway, the point I am getting to is that I started saying things about our relationship and how happy it makes me and I thought I would share my thoughts with you. It's just that this relationship has moved at its own pace - and while, at least right before we were going out it was a bit slow, it has worked out excellently well. I feel like things happened as they needed to, as they were meant to if you want to put it that way, that it has felt incredibly natural. No, it's not perfect all the time - I am not always happy and that even means I am not always happy with you, but I have never been dissatisfied with our relationship, and it is almost always simply amazing. Tal mentioned that we just seem right together - and I agree. We are kindred spirits, I think, and the fact that we found each other never ceases to amaze me. I am always certain that your love for me is as strong as my love for you - and I know that sometimes you are not as eloquent about it as I am, but we can't all be poets. Neither of us are perfect - but I truly believe that none of our respective flaws is so great or annoying to the other that it makes our relationship any less strong. I can know this, because of the way we can spend whole days, weeks even, together all the time and not get annoyed with each other. We've been dating for nearly 14 months and we're not sick of each other. Perhaps it is not my place to speak for you in such a way - but I honestly believe I know you well enough to do so. Basically I'm just saying that this relationship is right. It's good, it's excellent, it's the best anyone could ever hope for - just look at the fact that many people do specifically hope for it. I couldn't ask for more than just to be with you - and yes, I am with you right now. Physical togetherness is not the important part at the moment. Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading my shouting of your praises and of our praises - I am sure you do, since I know that were I saying this to you in person you would be very quiet but you would have a big smile on your face. And you would exude your happiness and we would kiss and caress and all that beautiful excellence. So that's some Valentine-y stuff for you. I would love to celebrate it with you - but as it is we can be celebrating together in spirit, and celebrate together in not-too-terribly-long.

---

A poem which accompanied that message:

despite what I said

we are both poets.
but where I use words and fancy phrases,
you simply glance my way,
and your eyes write it out on my heart.
my commas are your kisses,
my periods your touch.
you hold me,
it is equal to a thousand stanzas.
I could write a book of verse
but it would never equal
the poetry in your body.

---

His response to said message and poem:

Wow, nothing brightens my day like getting an amazing message from an amazing person. I read the poem that goes hand in hand with and I must say, I'm going to have to do some pretty amazing things with my body since I can't express in words how wonderful it feels to have so much love and caring radiating great distances to reach me. Every time I read one of your poems I just block everything else out and it's just this intensely private wonderful moment. I love you, I love you so much if only I didn't need to rely on this inexact tool of words to express myself; oh the things you would feel.

---

There is much more to say about this subject. However, for now I will leave you with an image.

honey

you are sweet as the honey
that your home-stay mother loves.
I will bathe in the rich gold viscosity,
and perhaps you will be tempted to lick it off,
inch by inch,
until you have bathed my body fully
and tasted every part.
then maybe you'll hold my body,
soaking wet,
until you're just as moist.
then you will breathe me in
and I will be in your lungs,
like so much of the rest of me is in your heart.

something interesting to ponder

"I don't know if you're beautiful, because I love you too much." - The Magnetic Fields

Something about that strikes me as true. I guess you could never know if someone is objectively beautiful if you really loved them, because they would be beautiful no matter what in your eyes. Then again, if you look at it in another light, there is no objectivity to things such as beauty. You know the saying... and it's true. Often the people we are drawn to (especially romantically) are beautiful to our own standards right away. I know there are exceptions to that... some people fall in love first, then become attracted. Though that seems odd and backwards to me. Oh well.

Love is a funny thing. And oh, so powerful.