I'll have warmth to give you

I'll have warmth to give you
In a short time I'll
Press my face to the Glass
not just fog with breath
rest with me
share this space for one
Two is half too many
it must be One
for the spark of formerly lonely nights.

October 4th, 2009

Every 3rd Day - an Intro to Fire Life

I am the babbiest of babies in the "Fire Life".  So I know if some awesome senior fire department wife finds this blog and reads it, she'll probably laugh and roll her eyes.  If she's Southern, she might say "Bless her heart".  And that's okay.  I hope to do that too, someday.

Today I'm feeling it keenly - the one day on, two days off schedule.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great system.  It works.  I'm really grateful for it.  It is a tremendous blessing to me right now.  I don't think I could date someone who had a regular 9-5 job.  I am working 3 jobs, which is the equivalent of a full time job.  It's a juggling act!  My whole life I've battled laziness and irresponsibility.  I was a blanket burrito throughout most of college, depressed during my 20s, etc.  I did a lot of things well, but I'd give up sometimes.  Take on less than I could.  Build in escapes.  Undersell myself.  I've always been content with someone taking care of me.

Not that I don't want to be taken care of!  But in my 30s, I figured I'd messed around enough and that it was time to get serious about my life.  I've always been intensely serious inwardly, with ideas and beliefs and desires.  But I couldn't quite make that translate to the bravery required to work really hard for a really long time.  Well, here I am, world.  I am teaching 54 voice students a week, teaching a class at the gym, and singing professionally at a church.  I'm about to take on opera rehearsals.  Put on top of all that my conversion to the Roman Catholic faith.  It's a busy and beautiful life!

Enter Mr. Wonderful.  The Mister of my life.  A hunk of a man who came out of nowhere and swept me off my feet.  He is gentle, kind, strong, talented, smart as the dickens, musical, verbal, sciency, and loves Jesus.  I don't want to live my life without him.  I love him.

And he's a firefighter.

Which means 33% of his life is lived at the fire station.  The other 2/3rds is very free.  Like anything, it has pros and cons.  On the pro side, I am free to be an introvert and have my precious alone time.  This is a need for me.  I get snippy, anxious, and tired when I am around people too much.  I have time to scheme and plan and be independent a bit.  Also, on his two days off, he can come see me at odd hours (lunch break) or all day if he wants.  Super cool.

The con side I am feeling right now.  Christopher is at the fire station, and I am home in bed.  I feel ill, like I might be coming down with something.  I'm not advocating that he should drop everything and come sit with me, at all.  But it's hard to converse with him even on the phone between calls.  It's spotty, and good.  I'm so grateful for it.  Absence DOES make the heart grow fonder.  I'm spending time with Jesus in prayer, relying on Him.  It's good.  But I miss Christopher.

Actually...bottom line, I WANT to become an expert on this way of scheduling my life.  I'm excited about my life.  I'm excited about growing closer to my boyfriend and becoming great at communicating through these unique challenges.  Weird to talk so assuredly with 'just dating'?  Maybe.  I don't care.  I'm done with my 20's style underselling myself and building in escapes.  I'm gonna do this.  Even when I feel like poop, like right now.  Because he's out there, through the night watches, fighting for me.  And for you.

That's what love does.  We aren't alone.  Not even on station days.

Betweenpie

My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather — as skies
Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

There is a stretch of jaw

leading down to the crease of your neck

Where my nose can nuzzle into my future

All the thoughts that pile up and day over day spill

into your waiting arms, into that exquisite patch of rough, manly stubble.

and planting a kiss

I unplant my fears

toss them into the grey sky

So an October wind blows them far away, into the Advent

of the coming of the Bridegroom

And salty, dewy, delicious skin

I am allowed for a moment or two

Where I might safely giggle, or dream, or want, or long

But always be loved.

Press me there, may I tell my whimsy to your throat

Kiss me at least a hundred more times

Let my lips flit upon yours 

Let me be Home, just a moment more!

Let my hairs stay snagged on you somehow

Let me live on long after I've gone

Let me find you tomorrow 

Hungrier than today, but satisfied

Knowing each day I will come to you with myself

With an offering of the best of me, as the Lord wills it

He made my nose cold

And your skin rough

..and mine soft...

We shall know Him in our lacking, 

in our longing

And in our loving.

Come, holy friend.

You on the nightwatch

Me in my bed, asleep.

You pay me compliment just by being. 

Let me love you, scratchy as you are.

I will nuzzle you on the morrow.

And a million times onward. 

Stella Maris

And shall I whisper to the sea?
It tells me a never-ending story of you.

How you bore all my hopes and fears together
Saying "this mulberry tree shall be cast into the sea".
And flung far away, like a message in a bottle
Upon waves which reached exotic lands.
Moonlight began her vigil
The travails of this night set themselves upon us.

Undulating --
Dying in the throes upon craggy rocks
And quiet resignation upon sandy shores
Washed pale and helpless, choking in unfamiliar air.
How the demons of night were matchless
For a matched set of two mustard seeds.

And starting again with each new breath
Hoping with each beat of your heart
And the stars are my witness
Your true heart finds North
And the sea bears us far away
Under a Mantle of sky
Where night is our bounty
Starlight bathing us in crisp memory
Of our first night in the Sea.

Take my hand, and we shall sail onward.
To that land where promise meets us
You, my captain and my confidant.
I, thy dear handmaid.  Thy bidding is sweet.
On this Barque we have started.
And Mother sings us home,
A string of roses binds our hands and hearts
to an Unbound home in a new free land.

One cell in the sea

Love is changing me.

The feeling of doing good - immeasurable good - is creeping around on my pillow at night, like a faint whisper of a far forgotten story.  When we pray, we do good.  When we eat a broccoli, we do good.  When we smile at a stranger, we do good.

We know these things are good.  We've been told, and we know.
But how?  Why?  Someone knows.  Someone knows about what happens in my cells when I drink water instead of whiskey.  Or when I exercise instead of sit and eat tacos.  Good things happen.  I can't see them, but they happen.  They are happening all the time, everywhere around me.

I have choices to make.  Who will I be?  Who will I become?

And all this love has been dropped on me like a pointless YouTube challenge video where one dumps ice water over one's head.  Yet, this isn't pointless.  I'm not sure where these forces are pulling from, but things are changing in my little world.

Love will change the world.
By the very simple act of love, you are changing the world.
You are SAVING the world
You won't see it, but it is happening.

When you smile at a stranger, you are imparting love.  Love that we so desperately need.  Love that we crave.  That will save us.  Jesus' love is so free and so available...please go hand it out to people?

And love works internally, like a medicine.  It's so slow.
It's like love can slowly, surely...like honey and molasses moving, change every atom of your being.  Love transforms souls.  You think you are loving someone else, loving a handsome firefighter, perhaps, who swaggered into your life, wrecking holy havoc on all the stupid pre-conceived lies you'd told yourself.
You *think* that you will go about loving this person, making him happy and hoping he'll smile once in a while because you wore nice shoes or your hair was pretty.

But nay, lassie.  All that love, Jesus (sneaky as ever) has held up as a mirror.  Give it away and it still hits you like radiation.  If you give one inch to that kind of sanctifying love, it will come back and slap you silly into a holy tizzy.  Next thing you know, you are marveling at things in your own heart you thought long-dead.  Gifts you didn't even ask for.  Things beyond your wildest dreams.  And all because of love.  All because of Jesus.  And all because you trusted Him enough to let go of the armfuls of dead, dried-up flowers and trust Him to give you something else.

I recommend trusting Jesus with your life.  And your love.  You won't see it, but it's so worth it.  I promise.  And I'm not into waiting and empty, far-off promises.  I cannot wait to see what Jesus has up his sleeves.

The world has turned

This is the day that the world changed.

It happens every year, and I look forward to it with anticipation.  But it's not something that the weatherman can announce (or more accurately, the weather app I use to check the weather).  It has to be felt.  There is a golden day, a subtle thing where sunlight turns to shadow and Autumn is upon us.  It is felt by stepping outside.  Not just a cool in the air, but a change in the earth: a turn of sorts.  The world has turned.

It always has and always will.

Today was delicious.  I've been wrapped up: first in my duvet cover this morning as I awoke 30 minutes before my alarm, then in my work, then in morning prayer...and the best of all, in my Beloved's arms as he held me close in the blanket he brought to keep me warm on our picnic.  How could he know the world would be chilly for me?  How could he know the world would change, today?


There are many mysteries in the world.  Some I'm okay with just experiencing.  Fall brings those beautiful golden red mysteries forth and displays them with pride.  The world is changing.  I'm changing.  Jesus has me wrapped up, safely in His arms.  He's displaying me with pride close to His heart.  Let the world change: it is delicious and good and I am at peace.