May 28th Was A Bad Day

May 28th was a bad day so I wrote this to make it less bad.

Things To Be Thankful For:

• A  kitchen to bake banana bread in
• Blue Whale tea towels
• Sunshine on humiliation days
• Second mothers
• Movie recommendations
• Hazelnut flavored blended coffees
• Cute old men named Keith
• Empathy-minded girlfriends
• Laughing hysterically behind the counter with your crazy amazing boss
• Mermaid fingernail polish
• French music
• Tokyo Milk perfume scent "French Kiss" with mandarin, tuberose, gardenia and vetiver
• Candles lit at work called "Score from the End Credits" and "Summer of 1982"
• 40% discounts
• Wearing dresses and wedges to one job and wellies and windbreakers to the other
• Red rooibos tea
• Love

One Way Road

I saw your heart sitting on a one-way road
Tragic veins flowed through tragic arteries
I stopped to sit beside that trembling life-
I wanted to grab your hand
Don't forget to smile, love
We'll find some way to fix this, I know we can
Icy ventricles frozen to lethargic dust
Weakened atriums breathe rattled love
the blood has all but dried
I will wipe the tears from your cheeks
Let me kiss the rest back into your eyes
Clear the cobwebs from your empty lungs
A hand to resonate warmth back
Into your dry, agitated skin
One foot in front of the other, dear
Learn with me how to love again.

Rabbit Trails

The hair has been pulled back into a bun.  The legs are crossed Indian style and the headphones are in.

A few tell-tale signs to those that know me well enough.

I should wear a sign for those that don't:  Caution: Writing. Prone To Fits Of Rage If Interrupted. Especially Fond Of Throwing Objects To Accentuate Fury.

Where to begin?

It's been almost a month since my last real update.  I'm currently sitting in a new coffee shop in town called Insomnia.  A Portland-based company with cheap, good coffee, a staff and atmosphere absolutely dripping with Downtown P-Town attitude, and music that makes you cry it's so good all of the time.

In short, being here makes me feel like I'm back in Portland.  And on rainy days when it's coming down soft and slow, I love to tuck up in here with a good book, my Bible or my laptop. I can look out any one of the huge windows at the rain falling on the street outside and imagine I'm looking out at a busy one-way street filled to the brim with clunky subarus and volvo wagons, blaring their Keep Portland Weird! bumper stickers.

I don't often think about where I used to live, because let's be honest, it's hard to want to be somewhere else when you live on the coast, but every now and then when I start to miss somewhere, I miss my fair home city most of all.

I don't miss my small, hometown community of Canby at all.  Nor do I miss the suburb my parents live in.  Don't get me wrong, home is wonderful and I miss my family of course, but I'm having a seriously hard time associating 1355 SE 16th Ave with home anymore. It feels like a house I lived in once.

I have a bedroom there, with more of my things, but the last time I visited home for the weekend I didn't even feel at home in my own room.  I felt like a guest.  My bookshelves felt pretty homey, but that's just because I have an unhealthy, weird relationship with my personal library.

I mean, I've been here in Cannon Beach for almost 7 months already.  I've gone to school here, I've worked two jobs in this community now for almost 2 months, I've attended a City Council meeting,  I've met the City Manager, I get a local discount at restaurants and coffee shops, I go to weekly Burger Night on Mondays at the VFW Legion Hall, I know my fellow community members by name, I go to the local farmers' market on my lunchbreaks. I live here, I go to church here, I breathe here, I sleep here, I shop here, I write here, I skate here, I tan here, I work here, I hang out with friends here, I eat here, I love here.  I don't want to leave here.

It's my home now.

I don't like to think about leaving Cannon Beach, because I can tell you right now when that time comes it'll be one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

2012 has indeed been a year of freedom.  And with that freedom has come such a strong sense of ownership and pride in the place that I now live.  It's beautiful to feel like I belong to a place, and like a place belongs to me.  I think innocence and youth, amongst other such contributing factors, barred me from ever feeling like this about anywhere else I've lived in the past.

I have always loved where I've lived, I have always taken great joy in the places my family has found residence in, I have so many priceless memories from each location and house, I'm thankful for them all and how they've shaped me and I treasure them all deeply, but I've never been so involved in a municipal community before, and such involvement and active participation makes me feel truly alive to this town.  Like it's helping me to become who I am and giving me an opportunity to experience the essence of locality.

I can't think of any other way to describe what it means to me other than to say I love it.  I love it.

Not just in the way you love one paint swatch more than another, or the way you love one candy bar above all others, but I love it in a way that lives and breathes and moves and grows with each passing day.

I can't thank God enough for bringing me home this year and allowing me to blossom so fully under His grace and love in a place more precious than the finest gold in all of the world.

So on days like today, when I do start to miss my parents or that golden smell of Downtown Portland on a rainy afternoon, I think about where I've been blessed to live this year, and I smile.  I wish for everyone back home in Canby, and Oregon City, and Portland to know that I'm happy here- truly, madly, deeply happy, and to not be hurt that I have discovered a new home for myself or to wish too hastily upon my return.  I wouldn't be as happy there, and that would be ugly and unfair to everyone.

This is where God wants me right now, and I'm more than happy to serve Him here by the ocean.  Even if he requires me here the rest of my days.

I love you all deeply, and I want to thank you all for your prayers and avid support of my endeavors the past seven months.

Especially thank you to my mom and my dad.  I know for a fact sometimes it's hard on them to know how much I long to be here instead of there, even though they would never admit it. :) They are strong and beautiful and full of love to let me follow my desires and dreams and I can't thank them enough for this opportunity either, or for the trust they give to me so readily.

And even though I started this entry with no intention whatsoever to get emotional, I find myself here in the middle of this Portlandia coffee house, crying.

What a silly little mess I can be sometimes.

And a silly little mess is how I shall leave you, wishing you all the love and contentment and rainy-cafe-au-lait afternoons in the world.

Love,

Hannah

Pen and Ink.

Lovers,

I have not stopped writing in my month's absence from this blog, I promise. My notebooks are all beginning to swell happily with musings, like small, fat pregnant women, glowing with the presence of new life growing within them.

I have, however, returned from my blogger neglect and am determined to continue forward into summer with a stronger resolution not to fall out of touch with this platform of expression.

I have with me at this internet cafe a few notebook ramblings I meant to post as blogs but never followed through until now.  I have more back at the house, alas I forgot to bring them with me.

Here are a few to make up for lost time.

MAY 2012

Edith Piaf is possibly the most overwhelming, all-encompassing, emotionally baring experience one can put themselves through, audibly.

I am tempted to burst into tears. I'm not sad.  I don't even know what she's saying, but I don't have to.

Sometimes beauty is the only thing to be trusted.

When the world is topsy-turvy and you don't know where to turn, you can always trust in the beauty of a French lovesong. It will always envelop you, and soothe you, and amaze you with it's awe-inspiring beauty.

This music transports me somewhere otherworldly- a place bound in security.  A place full of wonder and twinklelights, late summer air, and the peace that comes with the knowledge that I'll never have to be alone again.

Someday that distant planet will be my own home of starry-eyed whimsy.

Until then I wander this town after dark, playing roulette with the night sky and my daring game of evading waves in the pitch black.

Until then I sit in the courtyard under the dogwood trees, sparkling with lights, and cry my loneliness out to God.

So is the plight of all women.

Until then, we waste our time falling in love with so many of the wrong boys-  we let them change us and shape us and woo us and every heartbreaking time we let them leave us, and we say nothing.

This is the business that we're in- it is solitary and heart and soul and misery and discontent and extreme curiosity all at once.

Which is why Edith is wonderful- because she captures the essence of women in a way that transcends the barrier of language.  She sings with the language of the heart, with a depth of emotion that inflects the very words all our female hearts carry.

One sister to another.  Beauty.

5.22.12


There's a moth throwing himself repeatedly against my window, trying desperately to reach the lights in my kitchen.

The storm will probably kill him.

So would the lights.

Go figure.

Well write about it!  She said.

No need I said.  Just an observation on life.

I am aware of my solitude.  An orange skittle in a bowl of green MnMs.

I always get into the most dangerous moods when I write.

I want to light the world on fire.


6.6.12.


Piping hot cup of orange spice tea and I feel happier than a clam singing at the bottom of the sea inside it's shell.

Skinny love on shuffle and a batch of oatcakes in the oven.

Stormclouds crying and wheezing rain and wind periodically outside my window.  I am more comfortable than ever in my harem pants and mismatched wool socks.

Bible opened to Psalm 45 and I think about the words in front of me.

"Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves have gone over me."

Strong, pertinent words when the Pacific Ocean is your backyard playground.

I have fallen in love with this psalm and the clarity of the hope and assurance of trust in the words.

I love how in times of misery, David remembers his moments of worship in praise to lift his thoughts upwards again.

I miss  my Ocean.   I work down by the shore so many hours during the week, but I never spend enough downtime out there anymore.

I think this calls for a nice, long walk to North Beach.  To sit.  To marvel.  To pray.  To restore.

*also on 6.6.12*


There is an unrivalled beauty along the coastline on a stormy late spring day.

One half of the beach, to the south, is shrouded in a black cloud threatening rain and mist, and it mirrors its angry depth on the surface of a slate grey ocean.

And yet, tot he north, the sun beams through broken cumulous clouds of hope and color.

Far out at sea, its rays gleam shining and bright over the water, turning everything in view into a cream-colored white light of purity.

Mildly grey and green waves pound against shoreline and shrouded monoliths rise up like jagged dinosaurs out of the swells.

The rainclouds sit heavy and low.  The wind dies down and I feel a humid warmth creep over me.

I am very close to being caught in an impending heavy rainstorm, but I cannot pull myself away.

The colors, the sound, the sight, the smell, I want to stay here forever.

I feel so much peace and restoration.

I'm closest to the love I love the most when I come to the water's edge.

I can feel that heartbeat surging at the same rate as mine, in step with the swinging rhythm of the waves.

Nobody else shares my symmetry with it.

At times I feel so connected that I could just jump in and grow fins and gills and swim down, down, deep, far away from surface and sky and sound.

It is from the ocean I am sure that I have come, and it is the ocean where I desire to return.

Home.

My heart is here.

In the soft sand building up between rocks.

In the ebb and flow of the moon-guided tides.

In the song of the barnacles.

In the depth of the green-grey ocean.

Home.

Word. Play. WordPlay.

(Found this lying in my notebook. Wrote it quite awhile ago. Love every word of it.)


Sassy conservationalist nerdy girl writer with secret aspirations of a well-traveled history.

Looking for intertidal protection and creative excellence.

Fervently wishing upon stars and sand dollars for a life full not of love, but of romance.  Ready for loneliness, ready for heartbreak, full of passion and clarity, beauty and transcendence.

Stubborn and unmoving, unwilling to be broken, accepting of cracks and chips.

Constantly found with rings on her fingers and a pencil stuck inside a whispy, messy bun- she traverses these lands with fluidity and grace- a rhythmic sway to her undulating hips.  Toes always naked when playing in the sunshine.  Words tattooed beautifully all over her hands and feet.

In love with the ocean-  moved beyond words by the beating of drums, and the perseverance of the human heart, transfixed by the beauty of all free-thinking men, inspired by the gentle sound of butter sizzling in a pan.

Awestruck at the lifespan of caterpillars-  excited by the profundity of the entire insect world.

Spurred onward by the needs of nations, the scent of hydrangea blossoms and the woven rainbows of color and love in friendship bracelets.

Transformed through divinity, chasing after God like the parched man chases after a raincloud, informed through the medium of authorship, riveted by vintage bicycles and Goodwill coffee mug collections.

Shaped, but not controlled, by the social media generation.  Emotional at the sound of banjos and steel strings. Lifted up by discernment, ripped jeans and Italian espresso.

Avid supporter of:
 Banned books,
 Midnight beach walks
 Romantic poetry
 Naps taken lying in the grass
 Pepperoncinis on her pizza
Bearded dragons as pets
 Flags of other nationalities
Cultural melting pots
Kindness to strangers
Counting the licks to the inside of a Tootsie Pop
Movie nights
Head rubs
"Everything" kisses
Monkey bars
Closing your eyes while swinging
Flirty text messages
Giving your heart away to someone new all the time
Wooden picnic tables
Thankfulness
Feta cheese
Giggle fests
Childlike innocence
Spontaneous fits of shouting
Throwing things when angry
Cobbled streets
A cold, wet beer.

Romanced by Ocean Eyes, homecooked meals and Beatles songs.

Searching for sexy-cute Surfer boy with an affinity for cheesy movies and a thirst for adventure. Also: must love goldfish, long walks, going out to eat, and live music.

Inclined to live by the beach forever, blessed by God, through God, and incandescently happy just to be alive.

Just Call Me The Shrimp Girl

Hi, lovers.

Oy.

It's been a week.

You would not believe the force with which I almost shouted this morning in overwhelming dismay, "It's only WEDNESDAY?!"

Yes, self, it is only Wednesday.

So I'm throwing this dinner party tomorrow night at The Mansion.  (AKA: the place where I live).

It's turning into a weekly thing, where a few girls who live in another house on the other side of town, and myself trade off and on hosting the dinner.  Last week we had it at their house.  This week it's my turn.

Now, I'm not going to go into all the details of how this happened, but somehow this dinner got to be planned on a day which I work.

I meant it for my day off- somehow- I got confused.  Calendars have never been my strong suit.

So tomorrow I'm working from 11-4, and then coming home to cook the dinner for this party of people.  Which, I might add, I don't know the number of.

So all of last night (because I worked yesterday all day) I spent deep cleaning the house.  We're talking dusting window ledges, wiping down cabinets, and toasters, and scrubbing Comet all over the oven and microwave, mopping, etc. To get the house in order for this party.

Sidenote: I probably didn't have to actually do any of this in order to entertain these lovely friends, because, they are all young people and generally young people could care less if your oven is slightly sticky or your toaster is covered in finger prints.  However, these young people were not raised in my house, and I live with a constant hologram-like hallucination of my mother peering over my shoulder whenever I am away from home and in charge of some sort of get-together. Therefore, I cleaned.  Like a madwoman.

I collapsed into bed around 12am, exhausted and full of sore feet after a full day of working, cleaning, shopping (we were in dire need of toilet paper and paper towel) AND making dinner.

This morning, before I work, I've taken it upon myself to get all the final groceries so that I can spend my evening tonight after I work prepping the food so as to ease my transition from work to hostessing tomorrow as smoothly as possible.

This brings us to right now: where I am currently sitting, in the Coach house, furiously typing away on my keyboard, ignoring the groceries sitting on the backseat of my car and thinking about shrimp.

Shrimp.

I've prepared a great menu for tomorrow night: grilled lemon chicken, with a side of garlic bread, salad, and a delicious linguini with shrimp scampi that was going to be the star of the meal.

So after consulting with my boss, who used to be a private, live-in Beverly Hills 90210 chef, (... I know, right???) I decided to visit the local seafood market, because she said it's the best seafood market around and I'd be sure to find what I was looking for there.

So there I was, after checking and re-checking my recipe and having decided to double the size just to be safe, awaiting my opportunity to buy 4, yes, 4 lbs of cocktail shrimp.

I scanned the display case.  My eyes caught the sign of "FRESH SHRIMP. 7.99 per LB."

Okay. I thought. That's a wee bit more than I wanted to spend on four lbs of shrimp, but,  what the heck.  Good food costs good money.  Entertaining should always be an area in which you splurge.  Serve your guests only the best! Yadda yadda yadda.

That was when I realized that the sign was proclaiming bay shrimp for 7 bucks a lb. (Now THAT I wouldn't stand for.)

Bay shrimp. Okay. That's ridiculous.  Where is the normal shrimp?

I took a closer look. "JUMBO PRAWNS 13.99 per LB."

Jumbo prawns are gigantic.  Huge.  Monstrous.  I was fairly certain if I served those on the linguini, somebody would faint for fear of the prawn coming to life and eating them.

Finally it was my turn to be serviced.

I asked the lady for shrimp to be used in a pasta- she asked me if I wanted the bay shrimp meat.

"Er... No... "

"Oh so you want the prawns, then?"

"Well, no, actually, isn't there a size inbetween? You know... scampi sized, cocktail sized, bite sized sauteed shrimp sort of shrimp?"

"Nope.  All we got is the bay shrimp and the jumbo prawns.  The jumbo prawns come in raw or precooked."

"....... Okay. Well, thank you, but that's not what I'm looking for...."

So I left.  Defeated.  Best seafood market around?  Really?

Back to square one.  Now, I live in a very small beachtown, and this was, unfortunately, the only fish market in town. Either I go back to the tiny market where I had purchased my other ingredients, or get back in my car and travel ten miles down the road to Seaside to hunt around some other fish markets.

So I decided I'd try the market again, because I don't have time to go to Seaside and back before work.

In the market, they only had tiger prawns (like jumbo prawns, only slightly smaller, striped and more leggy).

They had frozen pre-cooked shrimp that were the perfect size, quantity, not to mention they were de-veined.

But I, tragically, needed raw shrimp.  Pre-cooked was not going to cut it.

Well, shoot.

Now I don't get off work until between 6:30 and 7.  Which means I have to go home, change my clothes, get back in my car, drive all the way to Seaside, hope that the fish markets aren't closed and try desperately to find some average sized dinner shrimp for hopefully less than 8 bucks per lb, come home, prep the dinner, clean my bathroom and collapse, again, exhausted into my bed before work tomorrow morning.

Luckily, Friday is my day off to recuperate.  In which I plan to do absolutely nothing but laze around like an opalescent nudibranch.  Or, sea slug.

If this shrimp thing doesn't work out- we're having chicken linguini.  Thank God for back-up plans.

Now I have to pull myself away from this comfy couch, change my clothes, and head on into work to tell small children all about intertidal life.

During which, I severely hope I won't get sidetracked by a sand shrimp, and turn my educational spiel into an economical, dinner-shrimp- fueled rant.

With love,

A very frustrated Shrimp Hunter.

Memories

"Winter didn't die, she was murdered and you are the culprit."


"Thirty days alone with the Savior, and an angel, and the devil, rapture and smoke- and I'm careful just not to say that I miss you, 'cause sometimes I guess I still miss myself."

This song, Pretty Girl From Locust, reminds me of the camping trip Beks and I went on last summer.

Something about the tinkering piano notes and the lulting guitar riffs cement the memories I have of those sleepy, early campground mornings.  It captures the quiet nature of the mountains, and glass-top lakes.

The lyrics are just haunting and mournful enough to tinge the memories with a pretty sort of sadness.  Which is what that trip truly meant to us- a pretty sort of sorrow.

So much happened that week-  I think there was a loss of life that greatly impacted us on that trip.

There was a loss of time- and a loss of connection to the outside world- that, when one is so unaccustomed to it, can bring insanity ever that much closer, making you feel even more vulnerable than you already are.

For me, there was a loss of denial about my mom's cancer- those walls I had spent seven years building were vigorously torn down within seven short days and I was left to pick up the ugly pieces and start over.  There was also a loss of distance for me- like the story of the prodigal son, I returned to my roots after a lifetime of being away and I had to face the god-awful person I had become, so far away from the beauty and love of the place that I had grown up in.

I had grown calloused, bitter, resentful and hardened to life at its' basest nature- like cement walls dividing a field, I had become a cold, hard exterior dividing my soul from my memories.

For both of us, I think, there was a loss of delusion, imagination and pretend.  As coping mechanisms for the normal drudgeries and complications of life, Becca and I had come up with this comforting, beautiful, but tragically made-up alternate version of reality.

It was a place we both loved beyond life, but as we braved the wilderness of the mountain, we had to realize it was stunting the growth, progression and natural beauty of our real lives.  That was scary and overwhelmingly hard to process when living in a tent in the middle of a forest hundreds of miles away from home with no, and I mean no connection to the outside world.

There was also a loss, almost, of determination as we realized we were in no way in control of our futures.

I felt like giving up entirely.  I think it's safe to say she did, too.

All of these losses were only solidified when the week was over and on the drive home we witnessed a sad scene- a terrible accident had occured between a motorcyclist and an SUV, and there was the motorcyclist, before any ambulance had arrived to cover him with a blanket and whisk him away, dead on the side of the road.

Neither of us have talked about that since.

It was a cold reminder after an insanely emotional week that life is incredibly short, and you never know when yours will end.

Now that almost a full year has gone by, and the wounds have mostly healed, and the processing has finally started to cease, I can confidently say that all of these little deaths add up to only make life more meaningful.

And even though, in some ways, it was the toughest week of my life, it was also the greatest.  Because of all that we overcame, all the new experiences we had, all of the tragedy that forced us to communicate and bond and rely on each other for survival, we became so much stronger as individuals and as friends, sisters.

Not to mention we did have some crazy good fun on that trip.

I'll never forget the yoga by the lake, the early morning fishing, the endless singing of "Just Around The Riverbend" whenever in the canoe, the splashing fights, the hiking, the endless eating, the day we spent driving all over the surrounding fields and towns and mountains, listening to the Beatles nonstop for six hours, exploring ghost towns and laughing.

The jokes, the notes, the pictures, the campfires, the dreaming.

Secret ceremonies by the lake at midnight- praying and holding hands and giving everything to God, together.

And so you see, now, what I mean by a pretty sort of sorrow.

Sometimes sorrow is God's most potent way of reading into our worlds, crushing everything with His hands, and then sending His Holy Spirit into the rubble to glue everything back together into something more beautiful than you could ever imagine.

And that, my lovers, is the most meaningful part of it all.