about those love letters...

i've been thinking a lot about love of late--of what a love story is,  what it means to love, to be loved, to love one's self.  and then this arrived in my email (from a lovely reader named meg) and i sent an email back immediately asking if i might share. so a huge thank you to meg for her lovely words and gift it was just to send them to me. 


Meg,


The love letters to your future husband are going to be helpful, later in your life when you might forget these times, or when everything is so long past it becomes a memory of a person you used to be and a place you used to live.
 
For many years I pined and longed for my one-true-love and I looked for him everywhere.  Every city, every coffee shop, every low-lit bar.  Looking back, I kept looking even when I was with a boy I thought was the one-true-love.  This should have been a red flag, but I ignored it, despite it's bright color.
 
One day, I stopped looking.  I forgot about it and thought of other things.  I planned to leave, move to New York and live an exciting life with the friends who were waiting in Manhattan and Brooklyn for me to finally leave the Midwest behind.
 
I found him:  I found my one-true-love.  I didn't quite know it on the first or even second introduction because we were surrounded with people, friends, and acquaintances in loud places.  Finally, we went out together, alone.  Our big, loud, funny personalities were quiet and careful with one another.  
 
We tried a few places for dinner and drinks, but they were loud and obnoxious and we were too delicate.  We found a dive bar, we ordered gin and tonics, we talked and laughed.  We walked back to his Jeep and he suddenly pulled me into a doorway where we kissed in the twilight on a May evening, almost five years ago.  We both just KNEW we had found each other, finally.  Finally.  Finally!
 
I will tell you that you cannot quite imagine how or when or who it will be.  Remember, you may not know immediately, but when you know, you know.  It will alter the course of your life forever and you will never look back, or, if you do, you will be grateful for the letters you wrote now.  
 
And yes, you will talk to him about the jeans, or lack thereof.  If you don't mention it, he might just guess because he will truly know you in a way you were never known or loved before.  And he will help you, even if you cannot help yourself.  he will try to understand, he will be there, he will love you unconditionally.  
 
I just wanted to let you know that it is possible to find him.  And even after becoming a wife and a mother, owning a home and a minivan and a swingset, I look across the room at him and I think:  Finally!  
 
Best wishes,
(Meg)

life slice #6.

i have to tell you,
there are days i feel so deeply flawed and imperfect,
the most so, really. and i wonder if
everyone can see that. just by
looking.

but then i hear myself laugh
in spite of it,
or because of it and i remember that
i'm quite happy. and it's been nearly a week
since i've felt loneliness. and that's not so bad.


i'm not so bad, you know.

inspiration.

i'm back in new york this morning, about to head out to my favorite corner coffee shop for a latte and some eggs (a late start today). one of my oldest friends is visiting new york this week and i plan on showing him the town. he was on his own the last day-and-a-half and when he told me that he had lunch in the basement of macy's yesterday, i told him: thank God, i'm here. 

 

greg is a really good photographer so he'll be photographing new york and i'll be cajoling him into letting me post the photos on the blog.

but for today i thought i'd share some words and images that have been fueling me of late:

"Be a child again. Flirt. Giggle. Dip your cookies in your milk. Take a nap. Say you're sorry if you hurt someone. Chase a butterfly. Be a child again."

Max Lucado

"The minute you start enjoying yourself and the person you've become, when you walk into a room with your head held high, the minute you wake up and are glad to be you, the possibilities and opportunities will come knocking at your door."

Author unknown (to me--if you know please tell)

"I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time--waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God--it changes me."

C.S. Lewis

"You're confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they're talking about product. That's not art, that's the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I'm not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and mind with the eyes and hands."

Jeff Melvoin

"We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing--an actor, a writer--I am a person who does things--I write, I act--and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun."

Stephen Fry

"To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'." 

Ayn Rand (my pinterest page). image 1 via. image 2 via. image 3 via. image 4 via.  image 5 via. image 5 via.

showing my heart

a few weeks ago, the lovely blogger micaela of dolce vita, wrote to ask me if i might consider participating in a series in which ladies show their heart through a picture, a poem, a song, a quote, a piece of clothing, and a place. i'm often not a fan of the typical "blog series"--i find them to be tedious and a little boring. but not this one. i so loved looking at what the others before me had done. so little said and so much revealed.

in fact, i liked it so much that i thought i'd share it here.

the other heart posts are so wonderful i must suggest you hop over to micaela's blog and scroll down--you'll be introduced to a whole new group of wonderful bloggers.




a picture: 





this picture was taken this last summer by one of my oldest friends and good lord was he making me laugh!
i've struggled a lot over the years with having my photo taken, but this has to be one of my favorites. because it's so not about vanity. i look at that photo and think, yeah, i'm happy there. and because i look at it and see that i'm happy, i then look and fall in love with my veiny forehead, my mole-peppered arms, and the way my nose crinkles when i snort.


a poem:

a song:

(so hard to choose, but this go round, let's go with this one)

a quote:

I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once. 

John Green

an item of clothing:

i got this rain coat when i was fifteen and about to head out on a two week tour of munich, salzburg, and then lucerne. over the years it has weathered quite a bit with me. i almost threw it out just a few years ago-- it was looking a little worn, but i couldn't bring myself to do it. there's too much history there. and thing is, end of the day, when it's raining, it still does the job.

a place: 

i don't have a picture for this one, so bear with me. a place? well, i'm in park city, utah right now. slowly, over time this place has begun to feel like home. it is a respite. a haven. the place i came as a child with my family and fell in love with the mountains. where i learned to ski and learned the power of the sport. now as my parents toy with idea of one day settling here, i find myself rooting for this, because it already feels like home. there are roots to this place. but really, the end of the day, home--a place--is with people. and family, well, that's all there is.

but when all else fails and i'm feeling a little blue...i'll take a bathtub any day of the week!

tub image

a different kind of link list (food and health)

it's been a while since i've written about food and my relationship to it. for any long-time readers of this blog you know i struggled with a severe eating disorder for years (about six to be exact). while i consider myself almost completely healed, i would be remiss if i didn't say there are days in which i struggle greatly and moments in which the disease reenters my life in a startling fashion. though, i now wonder if this isn't so much a product of my history as the culture in which we live.


i was having a very difficult time this past fall. i went home to texas for few days and i remember my mother asking me why i had taken down the side-link on the blog that detailed my history with the eating disorder.

i don't want it to define me, i said. i'm just not sure i want or need everyone to know now. 


but for better or worse it is a part of your story, she replied.

(boy how things have changed since i was just out of college and my parents were so opposed to the whole blog thing).


i've begun no less than seven or eight posts about my relationship with food now, because my mother's right. for better or worse it is a part of my story, and believe it or not it is something i am deeply grateful for. but in trying to write about it, there just seems to be so much to say, and i get overwhelmed and those posts fall to the graveyard of half-written pieces that litter my blogger dashboard.


so i'm working on it. on writing about where i am with food now. and i can see where others will look at this and think, what does an eating disorder have to do with me?

well, God willing, not much.


but food is an issue in this country. health is an issue. and it is not the purview of the wealthy and elite to worry about it. the way in which eat has changed drastically over the last fifty, sixty years. and our poor bodies just can't keep up, nor can they made heads or tales of it--we have gotten so far away from natural, biological inclinations.

so i'm gonna keep talking about it. because it is vital and nothing is more of the moment.

but until i get my act together, i implore you to take a look at these.

you see, we need to take what we think we know about food and health and turn it on its head:



the real cause of heart disease, according to a heart surgeon.

exercise changes DNA.

hello giggles does it again: a brilliant article, by a brilliant woman. this one about body image.

the reasons for obesity in this country are many, but this audio article is worth a listen. (i mean, seriously, please give it a listen).

occupying or rather, de-occupying big foods. now this is a movement that i could get behind.


and should you want to know more about my story... (it goes backwards, so the most recent posts are the ones that will come up first).