Mine.

“This place where you are right now,

 God circled on a map for you.”
-Hafiz

 And I think about that park, way up on the hill.  About my little red truck with the leaky roof occupying its one lonely stall. How, it was there, on that rainy October day, pleading with me to stop and to notice that fantastic sky.  It wasn’t there to whisper vain promises but to assure me that if I’d just look up for a moment, I’d feel the light again.  And that little bit of light I found, at that little park, way up on the hill, was all it took, and I saw the love again.

And I think about walking down that empty hall today, with an arm wrapped so tightly around the sides of my two greatest friends.  And as we walk, I am reminded of that warm summer night, seven months ago.  The night we sat together on her roof, protecting each other from the cool breeze of the night.  Even then, I had them locked there beside me.  And that’s where they’ve been ever since.  And as we walk, together, I think to myself, How lucky is it that God made me to fit perfectly between the two of you? 

And I think about the library, and my front porch, and that stool I’ve claimed in his kitchen. I think about the ’tramp of secrets’ and her bedroom and that corner in Van Dijk’s class where we used to sit. I think about the sunflower field. 

And never once have I looked down to check for certain, but looking back on it now, I could have sworn there was a circle labeled, “for my Lindsey” lying there beneath my feet. 

-Linds

The Light.

The Words They Gave:

Even

After

All this time

The sun never says 

To the earth

“You owe me.”

Look

What happens 

With a love like that

It lights the 

Whole

Sky.

-Hafiz

“We are unusual,

and tragic, and alive.”

-Dave Eggers

If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live life a lot differently.

“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, ‘yes, I’ve got dreams, of course I’ve got dreams.’ Then they put the box away and bring it out once in a while to look in it, and yep, they’re still there.  These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box.  It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, ‘How good or how bad am I?’  That’s where courage comes in.”

-Erma Louise Bombeck

“When so many are lonely, as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.”

-Tennessee Williams

“There are several ways to react to being lost.  One is to panic.  Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you’ve misplaced yourself, to change the way you experience the world.”

-Her Fearful Symmetry

“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and the patience for the small ones.  and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.  God is still awake.”

-Victor Hugo

“I looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die. that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth or hoped for anywhere else.”

-Lolita

“Im going to make everything around me beautiful-- that will be my life.”

-Elsie De Wolfe.

I was reading through my little box of happy today, when I found this:

“ March 18, 2011

  Sometimes I wonder, after one billion years, if any of my thoughts are original. If anything I think is actually a new, one-of-a-kind, Lindsey original.  And I quickly conclude, nope, probably not. 

But, to be honest, I’ve always thought it was more brilliant coming from me."

  And I guess that’s why I write.  You take one adjective on a string and tie it to a noun and somewhere in-between you whisper, “I love you.” and that somehow makes it all ok again.
  
And I write because my world has crashed and it’s been beaten and bruised and left crying alone in the corner. 


And I write because somewhere in that empty, cold space, at some point in time in all that loneliness, I wanted to know that there was still hope somewhere.  And in that bleak abyss it seemed my only escape was to cry out and share that darkness with you.  


Not so you would embrace the fear but so your words could abolish it.  
So that you could say, “Hey now, come here.  Come here, into the light, come here.”  
So that you could say, “I know it’s dark and I know it’s hard, but if you’d just jump one star over you’d feel it, the sunshine I mean, and be happy again.”  


And it’s your words that lead me home again.  


And to me it doesn’t matter if I ever say one original word again.  To me, it doesn’t matter at all.  Because there has been more heart ache in this world then I could ever possibly comfort.  There has been more love than I could ever fully express.  There has been more happiness than I could ever possibly gratify.  And it’s funny because there are more words than I could ever possibly say, and even if I said them all, it still wouldn’t satisfy you.  

And when it all comes down at the end of my life, after all my words have been spent, you’ll all only have really needed to hear one thing:

You are not alone.  I’m here, I understand, and I love you.

Ah, you know that’s right.

-Linds