"No matter where you are, I can still hear you when you drown."

Sometimes when we meet people, we know within the first moments that someday they are going to break our hearts.

When you find yourself in this moment, the choice is yours to make of it what you will.

I've been writing a lot of really great pieces this month, and I owe pretty much all of it to these weekly writing sessions with Nat and Rae.

I've written pieces about sisterly betrayal, humorous post-death "second-world problems", books that changed my life, a woman who worshiped her own self-hatred, a man caught in the middle of practicing a cult sacrifice, a woman who is uncontrollably drawn to desiring a man whom she initially finds overwhelmingly repulsive, and poems built from uncomfortable and awkward phrase exercises.

I find myself building ludicrous and inescapable plot elements.

I want to write monologues about a doctor convicted of homicidal malpractice.

About how it really feels to be stuck in the frightening crime syndicate that is the Russian Mafia, as a hopeless  and helpless mobwife.

I want to write a drama scene about a man with early onset multiple personality disorder- where one actor portrays the man, and the other portrays his alter- and they must play two different sides of the same brain.

I want to write about Heathcliff and Catherine.  I want to be able to capture how I feel when I hear words quoted from Peter Pan.  I want to write step by step directions on how to make me fall in love with you the way I've fallen in love with Holden Caulfield.

I want to explain what it means to me to listen to Drown-Smashing Pumpkins on repeat.

Mostly I just want you to read the words I have written.  That's all I really want.

I want to know what you think.  What my writing brings out in your mind, in your soul.

Oh, but I am afraid.

The distance is long and the years are longer, still.

I want to give up, and run on to the next one, flighty whippoorwill, without looking back, but I am not allowed.  I am uninvited there.

Here is where I must stay.  Here is where I'm told things are waiting for me.

The back and forth is beginning to grow tiresome- but the writing, oh, the writing.  I have never been this liberated by my words.

Creatively, I have blossomed.  I have felt the depth of inspiration this month, and to tell the honest
truth about it, I think I like who I'm becoming as a writer.  Finally.

I don't feel confused, or guilty, or ashamed of my writing anymore.  I don't feel conflicted about it the way I used to.  I don't tell myself that my words try too hard, or that my words are a mindless imitation and shadow of the styles used by the great writers I have studied.  I feel  that they are real, and that they are my own.

Honestly, I don't question why tragedy moves me so heavily anymore.

I've always been  drawn to sad and dark things and for the first time in my life I'm not questioning why.

It's like this past month, through the words that I have crafted together, I've realized that tragedy, and the way I view it, is a gift.   A gift uniquely and passionately crafted for me, to me.

I found this quote the other day:

"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.  It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

I thought about myself.  I thought about how I write.  I thought about what I dream of writing about.

And then the clouds parted a little bit, and something shifted within me.

And not to mention, I realized exactly why it is that I should never be allowed to write children's books.

Sarcasm aside.

In those moments where you know your heart is about to be broken by this perfect stranger, you have the same choice that you have when you are confronted with the realization that what you are about to write has the potential to break you or break someone else.

The possibility is humbling enough.

The choice is yours.

You can go, or you can stay.

You can do, or you can do not.

There is no try. There is no escape clause.

No matter what happens, I promise myself to write it down.

Whether it is for the purposes of being read by others, or only by myself, does not matter.  What matters is that those words, the ones floating like souls in the river Styx outside the realm of my conscious thought, are picked up by me- and that I breathe life into them once again.

This is what I have been given, this is who I am.

Slide.

Tonight was my weekly writing sesh with Nat and Rae.

We sit at Starbucks and we flail our hands wildly for hours, we talk and motion and laugh and dream and we practice writing with the arduous and exciting exercises found in the book The 3AM Epiphany.

Tonight, during one particularly involving exercise, which I'm not going to explain for my own reasons,  this came out.

 Not sure from where, not sure how, but I know that it's perfect to me and for me.

Moments like these, as a writer, mean the world to me.

And in a weak moment of pride, I will admit it's probably my favorite thing I've written.  Ever.

Lots to think about tonight.  Probably won't sleep a wink.







"Slide"

A glum chiasm-

All hail common lies-

Humming.  Slumming.

Sags his skin- sad his soul.

Hugs like a god.

Holds like a child.

Slug back gin.

Lack all sense.

Come, big dog.

Come, black cub.

Lay your head on me.

Sing, soul.

Sing, nickels.

Sing, dimes.

Sail on.

I'll come soon.

Dreams

I had a dream last night that my dad wanted to buy Rod Stewart's new Christmas album so badly, he went to stand in line waiting for its' midnight release.

My dad doesn't even like Rod Stewart.

I logged onto Facebook a few minutes ago to find out that there is now available a sneaky leak of one of the songs on the album.

Listening to it now.

Sometimes my dreams interact too closely with my everyday life.

Last night I also dreamed I got lost in a sudden snowstorm, on foot.  Last night I fell asleep reading Wuthering Heights.

Today I'm dreaming, too.

Not of Rod Stewart, though.  Instead, dreaming of memories, and favorite people, refurbished, restored barns at the end of quiet country lanes, snowflakes, rainfalls, pitfalls, and the liquidy, sticky, dreamy sequences brought on by the combination of homemade pancakes and Avett Brothers songs.

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered Am I.

Also, suddenly extremely tempted to cut my hair in this fashion, though I know that's a terrible, terrible idea.

Mostly I think I need to write.  Really write.  I need to walk and to write and to lock myself in that dangerous world of raw inspiration, and not come out for a very, very long time.  It is late October, and the familiar insomniac insanity is starting to settle in.

Po. Em.

I love the way we push and pull.

Did you hear me?

I love the way we push and pull.

We've pushed and pulled and poked and prodded and at the end of the day, the world owes us no favors.

And so we part.

And we disperse.

And suddenly we have fledged.

You go your way, and I invariably go mine.

There is no planet of regret on my shoulders- nothing I wish I could take back, no sight I wish I could forsake.

I carry nothing in my being but for the promise which has been given to me.

A promise to just keep treading the water.

And so, I promised back, I will.

This is how the world has been built, and this is how our people ignite.  How we burn.

I love the way we push and pull.

Did you hear me?

My Boys

Over the course of my life, I have been a collector of many things.

Hat pins, decorator spoons, buttons, converse shoes, concert tickets, picture albums, quote magnets.

And then around the time I turned fifteen, I started collecting them.  My most priceless.

My boys.

I grew up in a raging household of women.  It was glorious, and  dramatic, and louder than you would think. There were tears, so many tears, and so many batches of baked goods, and so many hours of long, whispered conversations about everything and nothing.

There was screaming.  And squealing.  And shouting. And fighting.  Over the bathroom.  Over the TV remote.  Over who's turn it was to do the dishes. Over who was the hottest boy at church.

It was perfect.

But when I got to my first year of outside school, in sixth grade, I was set free in an open world of male.

I was shy at first, nervous.  I of course, had practically grown up at my friend's house, with her brothers, but I wasn't shy around them because I'd known them as far back as I could remember.

These boys were new.  And loud.  And hopeless, as boys are wont to be in 6th grade.

I tried to ignore them.  It worked, from an outsider's perspective, I was always around my girlfriends giggling and whispering and performing as a class A professional at being a 6th grade girl. But what nobody knew was that secretly, fearfully, in the very deepest part of me, I loved the boys.  I loved them all.  I loved them because they made me laugh, and they were brazenly opposite to me. They were messy and deliberate and curious and funny and I was completely at a loss for how much they fascinated me.

I pondered this over the next few years.

Until I hit fifteen, and the shyness wore off.  I made new friends.  I engaged them in conversation.  I put myself out there.  I laughed at their stupid jokes.  And suddenly, they were mine.

They started adding up and I realized I had almost as many guy friends as I did girl friends.  Secretly I prided myself on this.

There is nothing that girls love more in this world than to be close with boys.  I don't mean that in a romantic sense, either.  Some of these boys I have fallen for.  Hopelessly and tragically.  Most of  them have become a deeper part of me than I realize, and we've made it through our friendships for years without either of us falling for the other. It is possible.  I've proven that.

I started to realize that not only did they fascinate me, but I felt like I understood them more than I could ever have understood my girlfriends.

You see, around the tender age of fifteen, girls turn into monsters.

I could never understand why.  So I hung out with the boys because life made more sense around them.  We laughed and called each other names and laughed some more and whenever I was upset, they just accepted it.  They never tried to change how I felt.

This is a priceless treasure that God has gifted the male race with.  I have seen this trait along the winding trail of boys  that have tumbled in and out of my life as I've grown up.

I've never once heard any of my boys say to me, "Don't be that way.  Don't feel like that."

It is a blessing to not be made guilty for your emotions.  Let this be a lesson.

Ever since fifteen, I have befriended and tended to and collected and kept and treasured the most beautiful, heartbreakingly precious group of boys whom I am intensely proud to call mine.  They make me feel full of worth, and they make me feel validated, and when I cook for them, they worship the ground I walk on.

They lift me up and they spur me forward.  They dare me to greatness.  They inspire me to courage.

They drive me to try new things, and they deliver me time and again to my Lord and Savior.

They have nurtured me.  They have held me. They have taken such beautiful care of me.

And I am so grateful for each one of them, because they are all so indescribably different.  And the relationship I have with each one is unique.  I communicate with one on a dramatically different level than I communicate with another.  And that's probably my favorite part.  I have things I need to say to all of them: "I miss you, I miss your hugs, I hope life is treating you well, etc."  and I can say all of those things in ten completely different ways, special to each individual person.

God has blessed me through these friends, these brothers, these boys.

And I am excited to grow my collection, everywhere I go with my life.  Because with everyday that passes, and in every new place I find myself in, I meet more and more incredible individuals worthy of possessing.

I'm a possessive person when it comes to relationships.

Protective is something I've never been able to pull off- I tend to think people can and will find ways to handle themselves and handle their lives and they don't need me trying to protect them.

However, I am intensely possessive with relationships.  If I love you, and you mean a lot to me, you are mine.  You belong to me.  If you love me, and I mean a lot to you, then I am yours.  I belong to you. This is how I feel about everyone in my life. Family, girl friends, guy friends, etc.

All of my girls, and each one of my boys, are mine because they have proven themselves worthy to me to own.  They have proven themselves worthy to me to give a piece of myself away to that I won't give to just anybody.  Possession is deeply personal.  And I'm happy to have a new, large collection of people in my life that I can be personal with.

A lot of that is new because it happened this summer.

So this post is for my boys, whom I am missing intensely this week.

I miss your hugs, and your spontaneity, and your music tastes and your adventuring, your wisdom, your insights and the way you all make me laugh, and laugh hard.

Thanks for loving me the way Christ loves me.

And thanks for letting me call you mine.

"Love you to pieces, distraction, etc."


-Hannah

Wishes

"These days we go to waste like wine that's turned to turpentine.
It's 6 am and I'm all messed up.
I didn't mean to waste your time, so I'll fall back in line,
but I'm warning you, we're growing up."

I woke up this morning on the couch, weak October sunlight filtering in through the clouded windows.

My bedroom gives me nightmares these days.  It's sort of a terrible way to live.

I wake up every night, three or four times, riddled with the sensation that something's watching me.

Mostly I just try not to think about it.  I always am able to turn over and fall back asleep after a few half-conscious prayers.

Still, I couldn't even fall asleep last night I had such an overwhelming sense of apprehension.  So I tumbled out of my warm, comfy bed and headed downstairs to a 2 am rerun of Fresh Prince of Bel Air.  Needless to say, I'm a little groggy today.

I was so groggy I almost missed the mass service at which my 'nephew' (I.e, best friend's baby) was being baptised.  Now that would have looked just great on my Favorite Auntie record.

Fortunately, God was on my side and I made it with about three minutes to spare before the Priest himself came walking down the aisle.  Always the epitome of class, am I.  Did I mention I was meeting my party at the very front of the church?

I also got nudged by the altar boy come communion time.  I was standing there, in my pew, observing and letting my mind wander absently, when I felt this arm nudge my own. I looked up and there he was.  Staring at me. Pointing at me to get in line.  I tried, and failed miserably, to communicate with my eyes that I wasn't actually Catholic, and then he just kind of turned around and walked away.

So I sat down.

I learned after the service from my dear friend Benjamin that everyone regardless of denominational affiliation is supposed to get in line, and if you're not Catholic, you simply cross your arms over your chest and instead of giving you communion they just bless you and wave you aside.  Pertinent information, that.

The baptism really was beautiful, though.  I got all teary eyed and emotional.  I'm excited to see what God has in store for this little blessing, Keller Benjamin October Trust.  It made me remember just how much I love the idea of infant baptisms, and how thankful I am to have grown up in a community where this thread of theology was prevalent.

After the service was over, I walked out into the cold, grey air and decided a vanilla soy latte was crucial in order to survive the rest of today.

So I went to Singer, and I got my handmade drink.  I drove home to haunting melodies, warmed by the drink in my hand and moved by the colors of the river and the rocks and the trees.

And so here I sit, in a big empty house, listening to Brandi Carlile and wishing tonight could be spent making tapioca pudding and watching Say Anything.  I wish I could nap on and off all day and read one thousand pages.  I wish I could spend some quality time with Sylvia Plath and drink 12 cups of earl gray tea.

I wish I could make the hour long river drive to my sister's house, and hold my baby niece for hours.

I wish I could go with Raelyn to the recording studio tonight and lay down a track that we wrote a long time ago.

I wish I could  do all of these things.

Instead I'm headed back towards Portland to make more lattes and to stumble through the drive-through training at Starbucks until late.

Wish me some strength, lovers.

I am tired today.

October

I'm so glad to live in a place where there are Octobers.

Morning walks underneath grey skies, dotted with fiery trees and wet sidewalks... It's like everywhere I go, I'm unwrapping God.

I see His face in the countless cups of green tea, the migrating swallows, the promise of an upcoming nephew baptism during my first mass service ever.

I see His face in the beautiful face of my 1 day old niece.

I see His face in the caramel drizzles of my first caramel macchiato as a bona fide Starbucks employee.

October is comforting, it's silencing, it's humbling and it's enveloping.

I find solace in the raindrops on my roof.

I feel safe in the arms of my October playlist:  Nat King Cole, Sarah McLachlan, Blue October and Bon Iver.

October is for morning walks, afternoon naps, movies on the couch, homemade batches of Tapioca pudding, skype dates, pumpkins, quietude, reflection, cinnamon, and praying.

I'm so glad to live in a place where there are Octobers.

One Day At A Time

I walked for three miles this morning.

If I could help it, I'd still be walking.  I wouldn't stop.  I can still feel the rhythm of the sidewalk underneath the soles of my shoes.

I had a lot to think about this morning.  I still have a lot to think about.  My brain uses the perpetual movement of walking in one direction as a backdrop in which to let go, and to roam freely.

I walk and I think and I don't get freaked out by my thoughts, because I am walking, and walking is a rhythm and rhythms are calming.

I listened to this playlist I made when I was 14 called Things I'll Never Say, about the first boy I ever loved.  A boy who has long since forgotten me, and except for passing moments of curiosity and nostalgia, I must admit I have forgotten too.

But the playlist remains as the single, solitary best combination of songs I have ever put together.

I walked and I crunched the leaves underneath my feet and I tried to avoid stepping on cracks because ever since I was a child I have been afraid of the responsibility of breaking my mother's back.

Summer is officially over.  Redundant, I know, because it's October 9th and you're all thinking, "Hello, Hannah, summer ended almost two months ago."

I didn't want it to end, though.  And so I held on to it.  But it ended this past weekend.  I went back to CB for 24 hours.  It was for Bek's birthday, and it had been on the calendar since we left the beach in September, so in that respect, I hadn't let go of everything because I knew I was going to be back in a few weeks.

Which was acceptable and I don't regret that.

But I'm home now, again, and I've grown a little bit sad because I've realized this time it really is goodbye.  It's not just goodbye because I don't have a set date to return and see everyone again, it goes beyond that.  It's goodbye because I have to let it all go, now.

It's goodbye because now it's time to move on.  I can't carry the life I had this summer over into the rest of this year.  The life I had this summer doesn't fit the life in front of me, here.  That's....  A little bit painful.

There are lessons I learned that I can use in my life now, undoubtedly.  There are people who will never leave me alone for long.  There are memories that I will never lose.

But the days and the moments are gone. The mindset has changed.  The worldview is shockingly different here, and so are the people.

Home is exhausting, but God has made me strong.

I must not let the will to experience wither.  The past nine months have been all about experiencing new things, conquering fears, feeling alive, breathing in and breathing out, staying active and achieving happiness.

Discontentment did not  exist when I lived there.

Here, that old frightful Devil whispers constantly in my ear about what I don't have, and how many things are happening that I don't want to happen.  His companionship seems omnipresent.

But what he always seems to forget, or just refuses to acknowledge, is that I have God.  And he can whisper all he wants, but that's all it ever is: whispering.  And even though I am tempted to fall into his trap of discontentment every now and then, I remember that I am  exactly where God wants me to be, and that He will not leave me here alone.

And He has proven that.  Yesterday I spent some time researching Ballymaloe again, with a concentrated tone of seriousness this time, and my eyes were opened.

I had forgotten my love of Ireland.  My love of food.  My love of gardens.  My love of sunny, yellow kitchens.

Lovers, I finally sucked it up and contacted them.

They called me back this morning, bright and early.  I didn't answer, because I was still asleep, but they assured me they would call back and if I had specific questions in the meantime to email them.

This was another reason I walked for such a long time this morning.  I needed to process.

I'm committing, lovers.  Next September, the 16th, in fact, is my first day of culinary school.

I'm not at the stage in my life where I can plan out the next 5-6 years.  Some people are. I don't know how to possibly understand where in life I will be when I'm 24, or who I will have in my life. I know who I want to be there, desperately, but how do I know for sure? Some people are lucky in the way they can do that, some people seem to have it all figured it out...

But I can only foresee about a year into my future right now, and even that seems like forever and a day away.

I remembered that I committed to Bible School a year in advance, though, while I was walking, and that put a lot of things into perspective, because I remembered that year going by insanely fast and this one is bound to go by even faster.  When I start to get overwhelmed just thinking about that, I remember that living at home again is simply about taking one day at a time.

But God is full of blessings, because I realized yesterday as I was falling back in love, He is answering my dreams.  2 years ago, I dreamed of living somewhere on the coast of Ireland, writing and cooking and basking.

So where does He send me, three years down the road from then?

He sends me to a place called Ballymaloe Cookery School, located in the county of Cork, minutes away from the eastern coastline of Ireland.  A place where I will cook with fresh ingredients grown, fed, and harvested there on the grounds.  A place where I can learn how to milk a Jersey cow, and churn my own butter.  (Which if you have learned nothing else about me from following this blog for the past few years, you should have picked up on at least one aspect of my character: this sort of thing appeals to me. Wildly.)

A place where I can roam, and explore and be touched by a race and a culture of people that I have always admired and longed for passionately.

A gentle, safe, encouraging place where I can learn and soar and expand my knowledge tenfold.

A place with roaring waves, towering cliffsides, thunderous caverns, rolling hills, green and purple and hazel and golden fields, quaint cottages, ancient history and country lanes- all of which inspire my writing to no end.

A place where I can wear wool sweaters and rainboots and scarves every single day and never get tired of them.

A place full of moments where life as I have always known it, ends, and something new begins.

So this morning I walked, and I walked, and I walked, and I thought, and I thought, and I thought.

In some ways, I'm still thinking and my spirit is still outside, walking on endlessly.

The leaves on the trees are red, and yellow, and so many shades of autumn that mirror the reflection of my golden soul.