my account of the sweetest goodbye

thank you for making it your mission to Say goodbye to us. for that last moment we shared together.  

We took you to the vet on the 16th because you took a sharp turn for the worst. Mom and I waited for over 3 hours to get you back from there and you seemed to do a little better. we had fierce hope. we didn't realize at the time it was simply a bandaid that would hold you together for a couple more days.

that night you ate chicken, your favorite meal and we were all so excited! i clapped i was so happy. mom, joe and i drank wine while you had your chicken and we reminisced. joe went out to have a drink with a friend and mom fell asleep early because of her exhaustion from crying so much the night before. you and i on the other hand stayed up. we had some unfinished business didn't we? :)

i was putting towels away in the bathroom and you crawled out of your bed and trotted over to the doorway and just stood there. i said "hi little girls, little bear" which is what i always called you and thought you might have wanted more chicken. you didn't. thought you might have wanted more water. that wasn't it either. so i went to put some clothes away in my room and you trotted over to that doorway.

"little girls, what do you need? how can i help you?" i sat on my floor, uncrossed my legs, opened my arms and called to you: "silkwood, silky come here little bear". you looked at me with those deep hershey kiss eyes, the most wonderful eyes i'd ever seen. and then. you trotted over to me, right into my arms. this particular embrace was so very different as you usually make up your own mind to make me come and get you if i want a cuddle. but this time you came to me and i heard it as i hear the birds so clearly outside my window in the mornings: "goodbye Ashers. it's going to be okay. i love you very much". tears poured as if my eyes suddenly became rain clouds."i love you so so much Silky,thank you for everything, for 16 years of your loyal, spunky, sweet service to us. thank you for EVERY SINGLE THING. you've done so much for us. i love you baby girls. i love you..." you laid on the floor then and i laid down right next to you and just pet you until you were ready to go back to your bed next to momma.

you truly were our best dog yet. loyal to a fault. you practically helped rear joe and i when we were little and momma would work so late. you made us all so much better than who we were when we started out 16 years ago and you've shown us the purest form of God's love- how unconditional it was, how much of it you gave. you have the sweetest heart and most precious face. i will love you forever and ever and look forward to one day crossing the rainbow bridge to meet you and all our other pets from past seasons. one day, i'll come to that bridge and you'll look up at me with those eyes of yours and come running with that long tongue of yours lapping out. and one day, we'll sit once again on that stoop in the sun, you on my belly as i stretch out across the warm ground. one day, we shall never be separated again my little girls. see you soon. all my heart little Silkwood.

your Ashers.

stressful dream sequence...

It shouldn't be work when you're sleeping but last night was exhausting!

So...I went to a MALL, which I very much dislike malls so already we're in some rough terrain here. I was then forced to valet my car but I still had to park it myself-? and there were no stores selling mattress covers which is what I had gone in for. I felt so lost and scared like Jenifer Connelly in the labyrinth when the old bag lady tries to distract her with a lot of random junk. Just then a loud speaker comes on to tell me time on my car was up and it would be towed then I couldn't find my way out and no one would help guide me. Suddenly Elijah Wood (who was my fourth celebrity crush ever after Michael J Fox, Chuck Norris and Jonathan Taylor Thomas) sees me scream and then break down and cry, rolls his eyes and walks away! Finally I find my way out only to realize I left my entire bed in another store as I apparently brought it w/me to shop...? So I'm in my car and need to get all the way over to the right lane but no one will let me through and I end up almost in an accident because a huge telephone booth has been dropped into my lane by one of those massive cranes that's apparently being destroyed by the end of the world.

Needless to say, today I am tired.

hearts can be won with treehouses

My Grandpa built me a treehouse when I was little that I've posted on here before and it was my safe haven. The only place I've ever felt secure was either when my entire family was packed into a tiny car before Mom and Dad's divorce or up in that treehouse, my Grandmother using a rope and pulley to send me snacks in the summer.

There's something really special about the rain outside my window today.
And there's something about the natural, dim, "mood-lighting" the clouds have crafted that has wandered into my living room. Bon Iver taps against the poorly insulated walls, while a french press waits to be pressed-the smell dances to the bounce of the piano keys. It's days like this I feel an intense longing and yet I'm also so very happy- elated and sad- all at once. Because even though I cannot fulfill the longing to share this magic with someone it's like a secret no one else knows but me.
Like going to the movies by yourself.

i am not a hipster...or am i?

after looking through old friends photos i think i've come to the conclusion of what a hipster really is. seems to me that all the normal stuff we do back in Missouri, ie wearing plaid, riding motorcycles, hanging out at quarries, putting on whatever suits our mood for that day, growing mustaches and mullets sometimes at the same time, lighting dairy creamer on fire off J-road tower, throwing food off J-road tower, making out on J-road tower, wearing dresses over our jeans and big boots with our shorts- is the kinda stuff people are trying to pursue out here. so really, if you're a dun-dun-duuun "hipster", maybe it just means your a kid out of place. you'd prolly do real well in MO if you didn't have those dreams of becoming a rockstar. actually...even still.

 oh. AND.  listening to more records than our ipod after going thrift store shopping to assist those aforementioned eclectic moods of ours. yeah LA, we kinda branded that, us Missouri kids. just sayin.

falafel and my mind

sitting at the gypsy cafe my dear friend works at I ponder these things:

living out of my car could be worse and getting things stolen are just things, i can't take them with me when my body exhausts itself and my soul is left to leaving this place. i'm tempted to leave bags of things outside my car for ppl's taking...

my heart could burst from the people that have come alongside me to love on me in a simple question of whether or not i need anything or to give me a hug in this time.

i wish my stomach were a little smaller. or maybe i wish it were bigger so it could handle all the food i eat. !

"little singer".
what did THAT mean...?

my old friend that has moved on in this season...thankful to have been able to love him well and hope i have the energy to continue to. wish i could talk to that girl he adores and let her know how stupid she's being, that she should give him a chance as i just want him to be happy.

janet.
healing. seeking. may she find God as i feel that i have.

where might my brother and i end up inhabiting and will we in fact make the music i've longed to make together? will ppl come see us and clap?

"broad clearing", and whether or not i made a mistake...

laughter...i hope it comes again and hard.

friendship...how complicated it is but worth each complication (i hope and need to be vulnerable to discover).

my grandma and how i wish i could call her right now, explain life and feel that soothing scratchy tone she had with me every time i was upset.

whether or not to order more falafel.

twenty6

i had to calculate my age the other day because i forgot how old i was going to be. i started with 1985 and worked my way up. just as i suspected, i am twenty six.

it always looked a lot more magical and somewhat figured out in my mind, the one that i saw. maybe it was someone else's twenty six i was seeing and waiting for. as if i psychically envisioned it. whoever saw mine must be pretty relieved...it looks like the sxity dollars i get for the four year-old's bed i sleep in while looking after a rescued boxer for two days, a car with a rack of clothing keeping the back seat company until it finds a more permanent residence and pockets that keep opening up and betraying the coins they allowed occupancy to. quiet. silent. distilled. twenty six.

but the one that i saw still had her in it. Ruth. my grandmother. and their house. 214 East North street. and he still lived there with her, my grandfather Robert. the one that i saw still had the partnership between Robert and a particular tree in order to build a small house for our summers there. this twenty-six had me coming home for the holidays hand in hand with him, the one who fights me for me and wins. we walk up those four front steps i befriended for a whole summer in 1993, our mouths like tiny fog machines in the winter air.

laughing we enter the room Ruth stenciled all her own on a ladder who took up residency in that front foyer for what i think was over a year. first, the aroma of a marriage greets us: ham becoming one with coca cola, pineapple, cherries and brown sugar. my grandmother's recipe. then, my grandmother: large glasses from 1981 framing her eyes that by now would be seemingly smaller. maybe more rectangular. a half a moon at a one hundred eighty degree angle worn on her face with just a speck of silver peeking out-lines surrounding the outter limit. wrinkles. like a stone tossed into a pond- proof of joyful moments. rings on a tree. she grabs me first holding me the way that by now my heart has ached 13 years to be held. then she pulls him into the both of us, the laughter catches and we don't pull away because we realize how special it is. she makes one of those comments about how handsome he is as if i've told her a hundred times (because i have) and i blush while he takes his thumb and rubs one of my cherry-colored cheeks. a couple of uncles and an aunt stand beyond the foyer to the right of us on orange carpet that now is no longer there. we wave and then meet the rest of everyone in the kitchen.

he holds his own as i move towards the estrogen in the room, catching up with my sisters and my mother who in this version are content and satisfied with their lives. glasses of wine in hand symbolic of celebratory means only. the four of us stand and watch him talk to my grandpa, my dad, my disapproving brother who appears to be approving and the estranged uncle who isn't so estranged in this particular twenty-six. we throw and catch smiles in between our separate conversations, the smiles act as rainbows to our words. then i decide it's time to "save him" and as i approach i take his hand saying something clever to the testosterone in my family. something like "sorry to interrupt but we really should finish that important conversation we were discussing in the car ride here". i barely get it out through laughter. we smile at the men of my family and exit out the back door just off the kitchen towards the small house resting in the tree.

we stand on the deck my grandfather built for my grandmother in 1995, just a few years before she left us.

i'm looking up at the stars, silently uttering the most grateful prayer for this day, this moment, this feeling, the peace and harmony that has introduced itself. he's looking at me looking at the stars. i look at him. "i want to get closer to them" i whisper. so i lead him to a small ladder that takes us up the tree. we stand in this summer home of mine smiling, happy. resting my head on his chest he whispers "hi". as i look at him he leans in and kisses my forehead, his hand holding the back of my head.

it always looked magical in my mind. as it is, i'll let the dog out, brush my teeth and curl up under the spongebob blanket hoping that somewhere it was or will be somebody's twenty-six.

they say when it rains

it pours...





i'm scared that while i feel twirled up into a monsoon the pouring hasn't even begun yet.
i pray i'm wrong.