Unfurl.

Changes are abroad.

I cut my hair. I'm finally learning to drive. I am making a conscious effort to revamp my diet to instill even better habits to carry me well into the fall when dietary choices will be more limited. I am taking purposeful steps to improve and ensure my own happiness.

B. left to work two states away for the next six weeks, which is sad and tiring, but it won't be so bad as I once feared it might be, and it won't be like last year. He has a care package I made him full of love; I have everything he's taught me stored up in my mind and heart, not to mention about 2000 pages worth of reading in books he loaned to me. And after all, six really is quite a small number, and our love is quite, quite big. As he told me last night, "Our love has all the might of one hundred Lovecraftian, building-sized creatures." And he's right. (Not to mention awesome for saying such a thing.)

Things are good. All will be well. My chin is up, and I have faith.

Slender.

I like the new arrangements in my bedroom very, very much.

Lately I have been unusually busy, considering that it's summer and I'm not officially employed. Aside from keeping quite occupied around the house doing all the cooking and cleaning (in exchange for which my parents have agreed to give me a small allowance until I find outside work), I've spent the night and many days with my married friend J. and, often, her sweet baby daughter; had a wonderful but all-too-short visit with B.; tromped through the woods (with J.), earning mosquito bites and small scratches all over my legs, as well as a deer skull that we found among the leaves; and made a trip with friends from high-school to visit another friend who has moved a little bit far away.

On Monday my family will go spend Memorial Day with B.'s family, and then I'll get to stay with him for several days. We're planning to watch movies, take walks, and go to the beach. Tonight I learned a new card game I want to teach to him. I'm so excited.

I love the new recipes I'm learning. I love hula-hooping in the late-morning and doing yoga in the early afternoon. I love wearing dresses. I love the scratches and bruises on my knees and legs, signs to me of activity and adventure. I love open windows and tall glasses of water and sighing into bed at night, soft and relaxed, falling asleep after hearing B.'s voice over the telephone. I love the prospects ahead of me.

I won't say it will because I don't want to jinx it, but I'll say that I am beginning to suspet it is at least somewhat possible that this summer will be far superior to the last two.

Here's to hoping.

Simplify.

These days my heart has been so tender I can scarcely stand it. Over and over I find myself standing in someone else's shoes, my eyes stinging with tears (and my nose going all snuffly) with sympathy for their experience. And I'm not talking about depressing experiences - I mean joyful ones. I've been reading the blogs of wives and mothers for hours a day, my heart swelling with contentment and bliss reading about the simplest of things that are the most important: being with the ones you love. Living simply, sustainably, joyfully. Celebrating love.

I've also been yearning for simplicity lately. Constantly I want to pare things down, clean things out, rearrange spaces for greater simplicity of appearance and functionality of design. All I want to wear are simple dresses in calm colors made of natural fibers. Like these from Toast:






Toast is really doing a number on me. Stainless steel picnic sets and woven cotton blankets, sigh sigh sigh.

Morning.

The more I open my heart to gentleness, the happier I become.

This is lovely. I hadn't realized how much I missed such open tenderness.

Smoke; shake; scatter.

The past few days have not been good in terms of balance and happy mediums.

Shake.

It may or may not surprise you to find that I need to learn to be more gentle, at times, learn to check my tongue and remember the absolute delicacy of all people and the concept that I am not, in fact, reading some book; rather, I am alive and living, and the people around me are people as delicate and whole and pure and trembling as I am, not characters in a book, and my thoughts and words and actions shape them as much as theirs shape me.

I am not an unkind girl, not an ignorant one, but I am at times a bit rash and bit too disconnected from reality. I am trying to remember that I am not the only one made of flesh and bone and feeling.

Morning; blueberries; breathing.

Today feels like spring. I have to stay in and do theatre laundry most of the day, but I'm sitting in the hallway in front of the windows, and I've opened them all. I can see the magnolia tree and the hillside; I can hear the wind. I'm wearing a dress for the first time in weeks, and I think I feel good.

Twirl; swirl; whirl.

Color Me Katie is my new greatest inspiration. I would like to tell her so but don't want to sound like a creeper.

Someday, when work doesn't forbid it, I want to cut off my hair. I will probably cry, but I hope I can realize that that's silly and love my short hair.

We'll see.

Scatter.

Life is busy and I am not entirely well, but I have dancing to "Under Pressure" on the cutting table with Sara, and I have friends who think of pitas-and-hummus nights and fun games, and my dear friend roommate and I cleaned up this room of ours, and I have B. with smiles and films and back-rubs every day (and golly do we both need them every day) and holding hands and shelter, shelter, understanding deeper than I ever knew before, love that isn't afraid anymore. The biggest problem I have with my (unofficial) anxiety and depression is that I fear they will be too much of a burden and will drive my loved ones away. But not so. Those who love me do love me truly, including B., finally, at last.

I don't have much to say these days because I don't know what to say. But things are all right, and they will get better.