Riverside Sitting.

Sometimes I wish I could float down a river, the way a fallen leaf glides through the ripples and follows the current down.

Effortless.

Bobbling.

No movement, no drowning, no struggle.

I think I would just lay flat on the surface.  Straight as a board, eyes turned up towards the heaven, watching clouds and branches and stars and birds pass in a continual motion; a never-ending forward movement.

I heard a question the other day:

"Would you rather loose all your old memories and only make new ones, or loose the ability to make new memories and live the rest of your life only with the old memories you've made so far?"

Right now, in this moment, I would like to make new memories and forget all the old ones.

I would like to just move forward.

I think we constantly underestimate the beauty of what it means to be a blank slate.

This life is sad, and I don't write anymore because I'm tired of regurgitating the feelings I've already felt.  Why make yourself relive the pain if the first time you felt it was bad enough?

Sure, there's flaws with this theory.  You could talk about catharsis, healing, training your mind to constantly be searching for inspiration which is a natural combatant for depression.  All of that is true.

For the past two years, I've felt like stopping my creativity has been a way to protect myself from a million and one tiny little hurts that have happened.  I don't regret that.  I laughed more, because I could put things behind me and leave them there.  I stressed less because I wasn't trying to turn my anxiety into art.  I focused on becoming logical and business-like and that grew me up in ways I can't begin to describe.

Today I come back to the written word with a heavy heart, which is ironic because I've been running away from writing every time I've had a heavy heart for the past two years.

But today, as I sit here, in my car by the river, 10 AM blaring from my dashboard clock, I come back to the written word.

There are lives caught in the balance today all over the world, the outcomes of which nobody knows for certain, but the resounding knowledge is that there isn't much time left. For cancer-wracked bodies, lives plagued by old age and terrible hunger. For you, for me.

When I watch the leaves float down the river, I am jealous because those leaves have all the time in the world.

For them, there is no cancer, there is no death.  There is no repression, there's no stopper in the flow of creative thought.  There's only the long outstretch of constant forward motion.

I know in the deepest center of my soul that God has designed everything for a reason, and I have had enough experience with the flat-out unknown and inexplicable in my life that I know full well trusting in Him is the only way to navigate through it all. "If you don't swim, you'll drown."

We're still intellectual beings, though.  He created us that way. And sometimes, even though in the deepest center of your soul you are trusting in Him, you find yourself sitting by the river watching Autumn unfold, repeatedly asking the question "why?"

Leaves never have to ask why.

Maybe that's the real reason I wish I could be one of them right now.

I can't promise that this is a return to writing for me, because I don't know that returning to writing will improve my life.

What I do know is that today I was moved to pick up my pen, and that movement was sparked by a very profound sorrow which has forecasted the remainder of today.

In which, instead of focusing on a million and one tiny little hurts, I will focus on sending up a million and one tiny little prayers for peace upon hurting people.

That is something only humans and angels can do, and that alone is reason enough to keep moving forward.

Crying to Ben Folds

Thursday morning. 8:49 am.  Stop and go traffic.

A song starts playing on your iPod, the intro unfamiliar, yet the voice so clearly penetrates layer after layer of your subconscious and strikes the center of your heart. Kill shot. You know exactly what this is.

This is a Ben Folds ballad. Doesn't matter which one, they're all good.

Briefly, your mind darts back to that one conversation around the dinner table you had with two of your closest friends when Ben Folds happened to come up in conversation.  "I'm not going to lie," you remember starting, "The man makes me bawl like a baby sometimes."

"Oh... I know," Your friend nods her head in agreement, then looks up sheepishly, "Sometimes, I just lie awake at night with my headphones.  And I don't even know why, I just start crying. I have nothing to cry about, but it always happens when I'm listening to Ben Folds."

Words cannot even describe the warmth that spread all over when you realized you were not the only one who experienced emotional trauma at the hands of a Ben Folds ballad.

As your mind turns over that memory, you find yourself thinking, "Don't start crying."

But it is too late.

Suddenly the words come crashing over you.

"I love you more than any man has loved before.
I love you more than all the stars up in the sky.
I think that we should settle down and live happily forever after
What do you think of that?" (One Down, Ben Folds.)

Boom. Water works.

Why?

Isolated, the lyrics aren't even that great.  Just reading them off the screen sounds a little lame, but gosh.  It's all in the set-up folks.  Preceding and following these lines is a song purely about meeting a lyric deadline, and complaining about whiny musicians in today's music industry.  Suddenly these lines hit you like a brick wall out of nowhere and it knocks you so far over that you have no choice but to burst into tears.

Or that's all that I was left with, anyway.

Needless to say, any morning started by a case of the cries while moments away from arriving at work is never really a good morning.  To top it off, a migraine has been a-brewin' all day long in this silly head of mine, so most of my workday was spent cradling my forehead in my left hand, feeling my temple throb in the most unholy of manners, while turning off all the lights in the office with my right hand because they are too damn bright and that is most annoying.

Brighter than the office track lighting, however, is the inevitable change that is coagulating on the horizon. Yes. Coagulating.

Suddenly, I'm being forced to actually plan my life farther than 6 months down the road and I'm learning some things about my decisions that have surprised me.  I don't want to give a lot away, right now, so forgive my vagueness- just know that it's a good sort of surprise.  It's kind of like finding something you didn't know you'd lost, but now that you've found it, you realized you've been missing it terribly all along, "Oh, there you are."

Still, the winds of change are starting to twist and turn and there's always that feeling of loosing your footing. I think, in a way, I'm looking forward to loosing my footing for a little while.

I can feel my identity starting to move forward into a new phase of life, and I'm running, breathless, to keep up with it.

There are still a few constants, however.  People that will always stand beside you, during every horizon of coagulation. I've been reflecting a lot over the past week about these people in my life and I can say right now that it's hard to find the words to express my gratitude for having them by my side.

They're the kind of people who know you better than you know yourself.  When you're tapping your foot idly, they know that you're frustrated about something because it's impossible for you to sit still when you're frustrated.  Then they confront you about it, and you vehemently deny it, and stop moving your foot- all the while not realizing your fingers have started tapping involuntarily in place of your foot.  With a gentle smile, they motion to your hands. Oof.  Point proven.

They're the kind of people who grab your hands on days when you are at your lowest level of self worth, and they force you to look into their eyes, while they proceed to tell you exactly why it is that you are special, and why you should love yourself better, the way they love you.

They're the kind of people who no matter how far away they are, you can feel immediately close to them by just spending an afternoon on the phone with them while researching international volunteer programs.  You don't even have to talk to each other. They're just there, at the other end of the phone, and you draw comfort from that.

They're the kind of people who love you enough to tell you the hard things, the gritty things, the things you don't want to hear, but you need to hear.  They're not afraid to kick your ass when it needs to be kicked.  Those are the people you need in your life.  Of course, if you're as lucky as I am, they'll kick your ass and offer you homemade cookies or lemon cake at the same time, because they love you and they don't want to see you hurting.

I've been blessed with a happy few individuals who have been there for me in immeasurable ways for the past four or five years. They have stood with me through the silt and the sludge of turbulent teenage years, and they have allowed me to walk beside them during their toughest moments, as well.

History is not something to be taken lightly, you know?  When you have years and years of memories compiled with people that you love, treasure that.  Take care of it.  Be good to it, because there's nothing worse than having to start over.  There's nothing worse than loosing those people because you've taken them for granted, or you've assumed that everything in your relationship is hunky-dory when it's really not, because they could be falling apart.  You could be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and their world could be moving on without you.

They're the kind of people you love so much, that a silly song on the radio or a commercial on TV can catapult you into an emotional roller coaster of soaring joy and overwhelming love-that-is-so-deep-it-hurts because it reminded you of them, and their impact and their presence in your life.  Hold onto those people.

I plan on holding on so tight to mine.

My kind of people who will listen to Ben Folds with me on repeat and not only forgive, but accept my silent waves of tears caused by a silly adoration of a Southern pianist with a gift for sass and poetry.

Which, to bring this completely full circle, I just have to add that on my way home from work tonight I found myself crying, again, to Ben Folds, but to a different song this time.  Thus, for the second time today, I found myself crying to Ben Folds, and that, honestly, has to be a new record.

For those of you who have been there for me, rock-bottom and sky-high, thank you.  I love you.

Always.

June Gloom.

Hurts come in little waves.

Saturday mornings dawn earlier than desired, you're suddenly awake by 7:45am and you have a dauntingly wide open day ahead of you.

You've become so enveloped in work that you don't know how to weekend anymore.

People slip in and out of your life, like little clouds. They appear suddenly on the horizon, and then they lazily drift away once enough time has been invested into your relationship. You don't keep in touch with them anymore.  You don't let them know when you're sitting at the coffee shop minutes away from their house.  You don't text a "How have you been?" even though they're constantly on your mind.

You just stop trying, sometimes.

After two episodes of Freaks and Geeks re-runs and half a container of last night's Chinese food for breakfast, it's only 10am and you're already tired of today.  The weekend you were so looking forward to has become obsolete; now you're counting the hours until it's over and you can go back to work.

There's probably 300 books on your bookshelf, more than half of which are still unread, but you can't commit to any of them.  So you just keep buying new ones.

Kurt Vonnegut says "So it goes," and Salinger quips, "Very big deal."

There's a floor to mop and laundry to rotate, guitar strings to buy, and cash to withdraw from the ATM.

But what happens after you finish those errands?

Where do you go?

I miss the ocean today.

I wish I could see the swell.

I wish I could hear the thunder of surf instead of voices.

"You can't go to the ocean today," A voice whispers from the back of my mind, the same voice that whispered the same lie to me last weekend.  It's a voice that stems from fear.  Fear of being alone when I get there. "Your guitar needs new strings.  That card you've been meaning to send won't send itself."

In weakness, I surrender to this voice.

Maybe I'll get there next weekend.

My Yoga Mat

The smell my yoga mat carries is one of my favorite smells.

Though it spends most of its life rolled up and tucked away in the corner of my bedroom, next to my dresser, it carries with it a special thing called love.

I fling it out before me and it settles, unrolled, onto my carpet.

It is aqua blue with navy lotus flowers painted all over, and it sparkles with flecks of sand, still, even though the last time I did yoga on the beach was over two years ago.

During mat sequences, particularly during child's pose, I rest my forehead against the soft blue and breathe deeply in. Eyes closed, I distinctly smell every place my yoga mat has ever traveled to.  I smell the shampoo from the downstairs carpet in our living room, I smell a lingering, but faint, pine tree smell mixed with cigar smoke from when I used to visit Becca at her house in Washington.  I smell the clear, strong smell of sand, and I feel the granules stick to my arms. Easily, I smell the musty old house I lived in during the Summer of 2012.  I smell a tiny hint of pine-sol from the bedroom floor in the rental condo we stayed in when my family went to Disneyworld several years ago. I can smell various lotions and perfumes which have loosed themselves from my body and mixed with the fibers of the mat. Distinctly, my nose can pick out the slight burnt scent of sun damage from countless afternoons spent sunbathing in the backyard, using my mat as a cushion to soften the cement patio.

Bad things don't happen on yoga mats.  Did you know that?  I'm fairly certain it's science and can be proven indisputably.

Here's what does happen on yoga mats:

• Relaxation
• Strengthening
• Surrender
• Laughter
• Happy fingers and toes
• Sun Salutations
• Acceptance
• Renewal
• Yoga
• Stretching
• Learning to love yourself
• Becoming a Warrior
• Breathing
• Stress-Relief
• Steadfastness
• Prayer

Also, memories.  Memories are made on yoga mats, and they're the best sort of memories, because they're tied to nothing but good feelings which cannot be altered.

Tonight, I'm thanking God for my steadfast friend which has seen me through many phases of my life.  Still, after seeing me at my worst and best, it lies outstretched, always ready to help me re-group. 

"Not my circus.  Not my monkeys."
-Polish Proverb

Zelda Fitzgerald Was A Flying Fish.

I will not begin this post with an apology for my absence.

If you humor me for a moment, allow me to promise you that there are currently several drafts in my post columns which I tried on numerous occasions to squeeze out.

Both written weeks apart, both with a few truly honest sentences.  Mostly they're overtaken by excess verbiage and unnecessary tone.  I squeezed and I squeezed and I tried so very hard to make the words come, but I just didn't have any. I wanted to come back to this space, I wanted to experience the vulnerability and the gentle acceptance. But I had nothing.

Months and months have passed in silence.

No posts, no prose, no journal entries, no half-conscious notes scribbled on scraps of paper.  Just white noise.  The sound of my computer keys clacking away at work, the labored snores from my short-snouted puppy, the crinkling sound of unwrapping dozens of icy hot patches.

I was tapped. Today, however, I seem to have been given another chance.

A few days ago, I watched a deliciously vibrant episode of BBC's Blue Planet in which David Attenborough was movingly narrating the lifespan of flying fish.

This very unique specimen of the ocean is considered important, and rare, because it is constantly hunted by almost all of the ocean's greatest predators.  Marlins, sailfish, larger species of tuna, varieties of whales, most medium-sized sharks, all of them chase, track, prey upon these beautiful little creatures, who spend their entire life cycle fleeing from the murky threats behind them. Their constant vigilance, if you will, (forgive me) allows them the unique opportunity, however, to experience periodic moments of glorious rest in which they burst forth from the watery depths and soar over the surface of the sea. For those few seconds, they are able to forget their predatory followers which haunt every stroke of fin.

All of creation chases after those who are born with the ability to fly.

I am reminded by this of a book I am currently reading, which, in total transparency, I just bought today (but am already almost 100 pages into) which is a biographical study on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald.

A name which, I'm sure, is unknown and unrecognized by many- upon which I cannot pass any judgement or opinion.  I never paid her much mind in the past, either.

Zelda Fitzgerald was married for many years to a luminescent, naturally-gifted author prevalent in the 1920s:  Mr.  F.  Scott himself.

For the past four or five years of my life, I have had the deepest of emotional affairs in my mind with F. Scott Fitzgerald, a man who regrettably died almost 70 years ago.

I am of the opinion that F.S.F is one of the greatest literary voices of the 20th century.  Topped only by Ernest Hemingway, by most literary standards, but I prefer Fitz's writing miles above Hemingway's.  This can possibly be attributed solely to his expansive use of the word 'nebulous' in all his writings. I digress.

I first took attention to Zelda Fitzgerald after watching Midnight in Paris a few nights ago. It felt sort of immediate, suddenly I was extremely distracted from the rest of the movie because I realized I knew so much about the writing of Fitzgerald, but I have never once paid any second thoughts to his life story, or the woman he spent 20 tumultuous years married to. Forget Owen Wilson and his terrible acting, who on earth was the real Zelda Fitzgerald?

Instinctively, I knew she must be some heroine in order to capture the calculating psyche and the roving heart of this particular writer.  I had to know more.

From what I've read and researched over the past 48 hours, it seems to me that Zelda was a very similar creature to one of those incandescent, flying osteichthyes. She was free. A wanderer of dimensions and realms and outside social norms and class structures. Constantly sought after by predators.  Quite possibly ruined by the most extravagant predator of all, after spending twenty years of her tragically short life by his side.  (She died in an sanitarium fire, locked inside one of the rooms.)

Judging by the sound of it, they were terrible for each other.  They destroyed one another, from the ground up.  Yet the love they had for each other is described in the most incomparable manner as being so crazily passionate, utterly obsessive, and enigmatically competitive to the greatest fault. It completely swallowed them whole.

I realize now that all of the words used in all of his books to describe these powerhouse female characters of unrivaled beauty, charm, otherworldly graces and tragic idiosyncrasies were born from the very heart and soul of his own wife whom he hated and adored all at once. He is renowned for writing his conversations with Zelda down word-for-word and recycling her verbatim phrases into his stories.

Then again, perhaps she wasn't so free after all.

I continued to ponder this woman's life as I ran an errand to Fred Meyers tonight to pick up gold fish crackers and lactose free milk.  (Such is the life of the unmarried, college-student aunt.)

The sun had just set and the world was awash between lingering daylight and forthcoming night.  It's supposed to be hot here tomorrow, upwards of 70 degrees, and you could smell the not-too-distant forecasted sunshine all over the fields, trees and neighborhoods of suburbia.

The opening notes of Hey Jude began to play from my car stereo; around and around the thoughts whizzed through my brain.  Flying fish, Zelda Fitzgerald, deep sea exploration, an often-imagined precious little boy named Jude, twilight in Spring and Summer, bioluminescence, new books, na na na na-na-na-na, travels to South Africa, feelings of writing, and memories of childhood all rotating together on a lazily circling carousel inside my mind.

"Let it out and let it in..."

These words washed over me and I sort of just smiled to myself.

I'm happy that I'm not the same type of woman that Zelda Fitzgerald was, even though sometimes I try to convince myself that navigating a man like F. Scott would be a fine accomplishment to have under my belt.

I'm happy that I am not one of those flying-fish-women, caught between two separate realities, morphed into one giant juxtaposition of constantly fleeing a looming something in the background.

I'm simply me, and I'm simply here, and there is a surplus of time ahead to accomplish all of my dreams.

I don't have anything to run away from.  I can simply let it out and let it in, continue to let it be, and walk confidently forward into whatever lies ahead in the nebulous expanse of blue and green and glittering creation.

And that is exactly what I plan to do.

Goodnight, lovers.

The Jason Mraz Manifesto

If you're friends with me, be it in person or on Facebook, you know something about me.

If you work with me, you also know this fact about me, because you hear it what must seem like daily on my office Pandora station.

I love the music of Jason Mraz.  I love it with my whole heart.

I can't pinpoint the exact reason for why his music speaks to me on such a mind blowing scale, it just does. His music has a spirit of joy, adventure, contentment and, well, sunshine that is absolutely contagious to me.  I think if I could live in the songwriting style of any performing artist, I would live in the crux of Jason Mraz's inspiration. There's laughter, wordplay, sarcasm, wisdom, God, stars, rainstorms, sweet lovin's, beautiful ocean waves, a lack of hesitation, an abundance of happiness, co-dependence on real people, and a thirst for living in the moment.

I want all of these things in the everyday routine of my life. 

I want to live my life like it's a Jason Mraz melody.  What does that look like?

How do I make that happen? Where do I start?

Well lovers, allow me to expand.

It looks like a manifesto;  a manifesto that I started working on tonight, amidst piles of forgotten memories and favorite books as I took a little trip down memory lane, through my library, and compiled a list of near-and-dears to my heart; a collection of contented sighs and quiet wishes that I can actively participate in every single day. 

Yes, for the past two hours, I've been sitting on my bed, after a thorough gutting of my most hallowed literary library.  I pulled out every book that has monumentally altered my personhood, and threw them all over my bed, pages falling open and underlinings popcorning out at me from between chapters.  I picked each one up, felt it in my hands, opened up to a random page and let time take its natural course through a reliving of the relationship I once had with the exact book between my fingers. 

All the while, I listened to "Love Is A Four Letter Word" and realized the album in question seems to have been written precisely for this exact role, to become my bold, red-letter undertaking.

Particularly, this song.

In fact, "Living in the Moment" has become the title track to this little project, nestled lovingly in my black moleskine notebook.  I even took the liberty of putting into practice one of life's newest old lessons that I'm learning this year:  I wrote the entire thing in pencil, in place of ink.

So below, my dears, I'm going to share with you my goals for the upcoming future. 

Keep in mind that there are many things I want out of life which I have chosen to exclude from this list, because this little beauty is not all-inclusive.  It's rather exclusive, actually.  Mostly because it's themed to a particular man's particular style of musical creativity. 

Themes are good, though, every now and then- particularly when they're strong enough to stand alone.

So here you go:  The Jason Mraz Manifesto, inspired by the album: Love Is A Four Letter Word.

• Before reading further, I must place the direct lyrics which started this project here.  Taken from the song, "Living in the Moment." 
  
  And if I fall asleep, I know you'll be the one
  Who'll always remind me to live in the moment.
  To live my life easy and breezy with peace in my mind
  Peace in my heart, peace in my soul
  Wherever I'm going, I'm already home. 

• I will eat more lettuces, french beans, and radishes, but I will not steal them as little Peter Rabbit did, stealing his vegetables from the fearsome Mr. McGregor's garden.
  
•  I will remember the lesson Dr. Seuss taught me when I was very young: every day is a great day for Up.
  
• I will spend more time admiring the stars and learning the names of the constellations, like I did as a little girl.
  
• Peter Pan's last words to Wendy were, "Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing."  -  I will practice Wendy's patience, and I will always be waiting to hear the sound of your rooster crow one last time.
  
• "Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways who was driven
  far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
  Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
  Many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea." - Opening of Homer's Odyssey.  I will strive to remember these words as often as I can, so that I, too, may be a person of "many ways."
  
• I will try to help people often. And in these acts of service to other human beings, I will remember Annie Dillard's words as a beacon to always practice kindness and gentleness, "Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain." (from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.)
  
• I will find my Walden.  I will live deliberately.  (I must take this moment to bless Henry David Thoreau for writing one of the most important books I have ever read.)
  
• I will continue my love affair with Holden Caulfield.
  
• I will capture my own castle. ( I will also share this Dodie Smith masterpiece with another living soul, so they, too, can capture their own castle.)
  
• I'll work really friggin' hard for a shot at a Silver Lining. (Excelsior!)
  
• To rekindle in my heart the aggressive, compassionate drive that Annie Sullivan possessed, to channel the deep love that she felt for Helen Keller, "To know with one word, and I can put the world in your hand!" - This will be my future, to work a miracle in someone else's life.
  
• To pray every single night that I will grow a heart as big as Mamma T's.
  "God has created us so we do small things with great love.  I believe in that great love, that comes, or should come, from our heart, should start at home with my family, my neighbors across the street, these right next door.  And this love should then reach everyone." -Mother Theresa.
  
• I will continually re-read my battleworn copy of Passion and Purity, and take sweet Elisabeth Elliott's word to heart about falling in love with a man who's future belongs solely to the work of God.  "The things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God."
  
• I'll actually read that cheesy marriage book I got at a white elephant Christmas party two years ago, instead of gripe about its very existence.  (Funny memory, at that same white elephant party, I also won a kneeboard.)
  
• Every damn day: "Smile, Liz, from your liver" will be my mantra.  Thanks, Ketut.  (From Eat, Pray, Love.)
  
• "As I once became part of them, all these creatures of the sea are now a part of me, in my mind, in my soul, in my dreams." -Chris Newbert. I feel this speaks for itself.
  
• Researching ancient shark folklore will be a "happy soul" past-time.
  
• I'm going to spend some of my tax return on supporting my favorite photographer, because his work captures all of the joy in my heart. (Shout out to Chris Burkard and his California Surf Project, which has been lovingly tucked under my arm and close to my heart for almost three years now. Below is just a fleeting example of his soul-wrenching gift.)

• I will study long and hard how to attain a spirit as elegant as the spirit which belongs to the lovely Audrey Hepburn.
  
• I will love my puppy.
  
• I will pray for the soul of the little boy my family is now sponsoring in Ethiopia, and I will write him letters and send him cards with candy inside of them.
  
• "One day you'll find that I have gone, for tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun", will be the new song of my heart.  Thanks, John, Paul, George and Ringo.
  
• I will follow more writing prompts.  (Now accepting applications!)
  
• In closing, I'll try to remember daily a few of Albus Dumbledore's precious words on love: 
  "To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.  It is in your very skin."  I will remember this on days when I need to recall that Christ's self-sacrificial heart, and the beloved books of my youth, are all of the same genre.  For which, I am eternally thankful.

So there you have it, friends, lovers, dears.  This is my Jason Mraz Manifesto. 

Cheers to pursuing peace, and finding it in the most beloved corners of your daily life.

May the absolute sweetest dreams find their way to you, tonight!

All my love,

Hannah

This Is Not A New Year's Post

I've been struggling for the past 24 days with whether or not to write a New Year's post.

If anything, I've really decided against doing it.  The newness of this year is something I don't really feel like discussing.

If I'm going to be honest, the past 24 days of 2014 have really just firmed up the tidy little ending to a chaotic year, and the only thoughts the New Year has brought me are of its predecessor and all the many things that happened during 2013.

And so, in place of heralding in the current Ano Nuevo, I'd like to give a little salute'n'boot to 2013, and to tip my hat in honor of some things I learned along the way.

This isn't a re-cap, it's not a summation of events, it's not even going to be all that descriptive.  If you're looking to know exactly what's going on in my life, you're not going to find it here.  Nor are you going to discover what I've been up to since the last time I posted, which was the day before Thanksgiving.  If you want to know those things, call me.  It may be the age of technology and all, but hey, I'll tell you one thing: if you really want to make an impression on someone, call them.   Ask them how their life is going.  Be present.

(I digress.)

If, however, you enjoy my vaguely perilous dogmatic excerpts, and are no stranger to indistinct commentaries on the nuances of average, please, be my guest to continue reading.

THINGS I LEARNED IN 2013:

• I learned how to parallel park an all-wheel-drive wagon. (No small feat, I assure you.)
• I learned more about piano servicing than the average non-musical, non-technical person should ever know.
• I learned the difficult truth that when someone tells you they want to accompany you "always and forever" no matter where you go, the proper response is not to blurt out, "Well, that's just not realistic."
• I learned about the precious gift which is the type of smile you can hear in someone's voice. 
• I learned that the internet is capable of changing people in unexpected ways.
• I learned my identity in Christ.
• I learned that whenever a cute guy driving a huge RV towing a dune buggy and full to the brim of laughing twenty-somethings leans out of his window to yell, "Hiiii!  You're really pretty!!!!" In the middle of Sunday evening traffic in Santa Barbara, CA, you should accept the fact that you're beautiful, whether or not you agree. 
• I learned that some people have mermaid blood.
• I learned the difference between "I love you," and "I miss you."
• I learned that sharks have very similarly structured eyes to humans, and unlike most in the animal kingdom, they can see vividly in color.
• I learned that loneliness is not a curse, although it is a struggle to navigate.
• I learned that saying goodbye is the hardest possible thing to do.
• I learned that you are never too old to ride the teacups at Disneyland.
• I learned that I am surprisingly good at office administration.
• I learned that loved ones can hurt you.  Deeply.
• I learned that people cannot be navigated.
• I learned the fondness I have for the diversity of a certain four-lettered word.
• I learned that tragedy strikes in the most raw, intimate, and devastating manners possible.
• I learned the power of a good voicemail.
• I learned that sometimes, the only proper response is to scream out, "ONE MORE TIME WITH FEELING!" at the top of your lungs.
• I learned how lost you feel when you compromise one of the most beautiful, priceless relationships in your life.
• I learned that Michigan is known as the "mitten state."
• I learned that it is one-hundred percent possible to miss someone you've only met once, and are likely to never meet again.
• I learned that God walks on the Ocean floor.
• Finally, I learned that no matter how old you keep getting, you never stop learning new things.

2013 was a riotous stampede of rust and wreckage.

Thanks for the memories.

XoXo,

Hannah