bravely into the next

It's been a beautiful day here in Portland. I mean really something. Clear skies for the first time in weeks, sunny, very brisk, but not so windy! In the crisp stillness my hands dried out to bleeding while walking around downtown in the afternoon. But I rarely have felt so alive, so it's a welcome tradeoff. (Besides, that's what L'Occitane is for...)

I remember a moment two and a half years ago, looking out Amy's window one evening into the downtown skyscrapers, full of fear and anxiety about everything imaginable... and as soon as I considered the cityscape, I was suddenly very aware of the Lord. I knew in that moment that everything was going to be fine. I cannot tell you how reassuring this was to me then.

Now just after sunset, looking out this window from my 18th floor apartment into the exact same skyscrapers just a few blocks away... life is very different for me. My heart is wide open. I am well aware that I am a very blessed man.

It's not that everything is perfect... it's just about the journey now. Why ever dwell on the imperfection when we have an opportunity to fix, to move?

The end of an era, and bravely into the next.
Everything is the same, but also completely different.
And with every new beginning comes the opportunity for a deeper understanding, a deeper surrender.
For everything that is good, may my life be a sacrifice to the heart of God.

push pull

Some mornings I wake up and your opinion is the only thing in the world that matters to me. Other mornings I really couldn't care less. I think it has to be this way; a balancing act to keep myself sane. Push, pull.

two thoughts on attracting a mate

1. Are you exactly who and what you want to be? No? Get there.
2. If he/she doesn't understand why they would want to be with you now, then what's going to change that? Either they change or you do. I wouldn't hold my breath—

The Great Wave off Kanagawa
Hokusai

This city in its unusual stillness, it gives me a space to breathe

I breathe in, I breathe out, unabated

I know how blessed I am

I can only hope for that you would feel the same

On Saturday I saw "The Last Samurai". It was a good reminder of certain important things. I want to live my life with honor.

And with that, night falls quickly, unapologetically, and the day ends without another word. A light snow turns into solid rain, pelting the ground with a discipline, as if to warn me against trying to venture outside to take another shot at turning a theory, a lead, into something warm; it would be fruitless. I'm returned instead to the gigantic, dark silhouette of this city, dotted by fragments of light, which have become so familiar that it takes many moments to be reminded that there is a reason for each and every one of them. So my mind is like the picture of this city outside my windows.

There are two questions remaining to be answered—or, that perhaps I know the answers to already but am too afraid to admit.
The first is wether or not my mind will escape the cycle of day or night.
The second is, if it does not, wether or not the daylight's passing will ever become easier to brave.

The first, who clung half-heartedly to something that had breath but was dead anyway, reminded me that companionship is a hard thing to consider being without.
The second, whose eyes welled up at a time not of her choosing, reminded me that some things about love are a lot simpler than they appear on the surface, and especially when a love had simply run its course.

These things which we are never to be able to fully understand, about which we behave so strangely for most of our days......