Winter Walk

Last night, after school, I went for a cold walk as the sun went down.

I walked up my hill to the very top, and climbed the stairs of a house that is halfway constructed. I walked through vertical 2x4s marking future walls and I walked past piles of plywood, and I leaned out of the open gaps that will be windows. I found the mountains across the lake, and I found Rainier: breathless, cold, and lavender in the fading light. I thought about climbing, and I thought about cold, and I thought about unfinished buildings. I thought about saws splitting wood that came from the same tree, and of those boards being nailed down in locations far from one another. I thought about leaping, and I thought about flying, and I thought about falling, and I thought about being safe. I thought about past conversations on unfinished walls, and I thought about future families talking, eating, laughing, fighting in these presently plywood rooms.

And then I walked down another road, and I thought about feet being cold, and I saw a mother taking pictures of her babies in a stroller with a fancy camera, and I thought of happy families.

And I tried to follow the sunset over the other side of the hill, because the sun was setting now behind the other set of mountains, and so I ran because it was setting quickly, and the sky was already deep purples and oranges. I found another unfinished house, and I ran up the stairs to get as high as I could. I met the owner of the house on the way up, and he told me to be careful of the 2x4s sticking out over the third floor stairwell, and then he left. I thought of strangers, and I thought of how I must look to people I don't know, and I wondered if he would mind me being in his house if I was something other than a small female in a red wool coat.

I climbed over boards and plywood on the top floor, and leaned out of the vast hole that will eventually be an elegant window, and I offered myself to the air. And the mountains were dark silhouettes, and the city glimmered in the distance, and it was cold, and it was bright. I thought of frost, and how it glitters, and how it is cold, and how it makes things brittle. I thought of Christmas lights and how they feel like bars keeping me out of something this year. I thought of the way that things used to be, and how they have irrevocably changed. I thought of being afraid, and of being too small, and of spinning out of control. I hugged the unfinished wall, and thought of how the sun had already set by the time I climbed to my viewpoint; I had missed it going down, and was only seeing the fading colors of what had been a beautiful day. I looked down at the street, and looked at the sidewalk, and saw that it ended on either side of this halfway built house, and saw a gap of dirt where the path didn't connect. I missed things. I shivered and felt cold.

I climbed down, and went out front, and stood on the hard cold dirt where the sidewalk should have been. I picked up a scrap of wood and tried to etch my name in the ground. I thought of cement being poured, and my mark being hidden underneath, and of people forgetting, and of life moving on, and of people passing through, and of archeology, and of people discovering pieces of lives that have ended.

I walked home in the dark, and I wrote lyrics for a song. And I wished for days that had not already ended, and I wished for a home that was more future than past, and I wished for wings that could carry me away to mountain tops in the distance.

Down Deep

A disclaimer: to those of you who have become accustomed to Lavied’unefille providing breezy, chipper tales of far off yonders… Beware the blog below. It is not that. Promise: a return to the humorous after this one, as there are more traveling tales to tell, and some quite entertaining. But not tonight.


Last year, when I was studying for the exam that would supposedly prove my mettle as a potential English teacher, I pillaged online Sparks Notes for summaries of classic novels that I had yet to read. The title of one such novel was, “Things Fall Apart.” I don’t remember anything else about the novel except that it had something to do with Africa. The title, however, has remained in my memory.

Things fall apart. The phrase came to mind aplenty while traveling: We’re lost; we don’t know where we’re staying; we don’t know how to get there; we can’t find gelato. Things fall apart.

The phrase has come to mind, in greater fist-clenching resonance, since being home.

I think of Einstein’s theory of thermodynamics—isn’t that the one? Where he claims that everything progresses toward chaos? Not toward greater order and harmony—but rather toward discord. Toward pieces. I think of the Garden wilting into Desert, our once pristine ozone becoming cluttered and choked. I think of glittering empty space filling with debris, I think of a Pangea being ripped and torn into seven lonely parts. I think of Native American chiefs becoming casino owners, I think of faith disappointed and questioned, I think of glaciers breaking, of stars dying, of leaves separating from their maternal branches and falling to frosted ground.

Things fall apart.

I think of this. I think of the crushing situation that Heidi and I’ve returned to which I’ve yet to specify on this public blog. Is that irksome? It must be; I apologize for the cryptic scenery. But: I don’t want to specify it yet on this public blog. It looks like a severed smoking tree, split down the middle, lightening still buzzing on the ground. That’s about what we’re dealing with. Except with people.

Is this growing up? The dealing with the falling apart of things, important things, is this maturity? Today I pictured myself as a well, being carved with great cuts deeper into the earth--- more room for depth of sorrows, and simultaneous heights of joy. As a child, maybe I just had room for trinkets. Now, I’m afraid there’s room for dying stars to find a grave in, and it seems so devastatingly adult to consider what souls must expand for. It makes me feel alone.

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There’s a Psalm that’s been going through my head as I’ve been wading through this; it’s one that Annie happened to offer up independently to me too, for comfort. The first time I ever read Psalm 46, I pictured some apocalyptic movie with a young preacher dude as a hero. I pictured him rising up above the rubble, gripping the hands of those less steady even as the winds roared around him and fiery wreckage fell from the sky. This is the battle cry he yells in the midst of it all:

God is our refuge—an ever-present help in times of trouble! Therefore we will NOT fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea—though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging…! Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall—He lifts His voice—the earth MELTS…! Be still—be still— and KNOW that He is God!

I love that the “Be still” command comes within chaos. As these things are crumbling, as my soul’s well must deepen to accommodate further grief and surprise, I am told to rest, to be still, to trust, and to wait. My foremost prayer through all of this has been, simply “Oomph.” The image in my head is just the lifting up of a BIG big weight, and asking that it be taken from me. Be still. As things fall apart, be still, and be rescued.

Deep calls to deep 

In the roar of your waterfalls; 

all your waves and breakers 

have swept over me.
By day the LORD directs his love, 

at night his song is with me— 

a prayer to the God of my life.
Why are you downcast, O my soul? 

Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God, 

for I will yet praise him, 

Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him.
My Savior and my God.

Things fall apart.

I hope to be rescued.