sh*t you missed...

have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?

 have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

 have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

  stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;

 you shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left;)

 you shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books;

you shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me:

 you shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. 

--walt whitman

we shall not cease from exploration

and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time.

through the unknown, remembered gate

when the last of earth left to discover

is that which was the beginning;

at the source of the longest river

the voice of the hidden waterfall

and the children in the apple-tree

not known, because not looked for

but heard, half heard, in the stillness

between the two waves of the sea.

--t s eliot

the minute i heard my first love story, 

i started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

lovers don't finally meet somewhere,

they're in each other all along.  

--rumi

so, two weeks ago, the manfriend and i are sitting on the couch in the apartment in happy valley, watching wimbledon and trying to avoid confronting the fact that he is about to leave, and we aren't going to see each other for TWO WHOLE WEEKS (GAH).  i'm wearing my favorite green t-shirt and black knit skirt, pink pearl earrings, and my silver bracelet that i always wear.  he's wearing his favorite gray t-shirt with the rocket ship on it and  black cargo shorts.  jinx is crawling all over the place and being super vocal.  it's about nine fifteen, and it's that really nice time in the morning, when the light is kind of soft and just starting to get really bright.  

homefry looks right at me, and says (and i'm paraphrasing, because there was A LOT that he said and i said that you don't need to know about, but this is the important part), "hey, i want you to think about something with me.  let's think about getting married. i want to do this with you in front of G-d and the people we love. let's do this."  

and then my head exploded all over the couch cushions.  

but really i just sort of nodded and said something totally inane and classic Peg like, "i totally want to think about that, too.  we can definitely do this."  that's right...the girl who never shuts up, who knows more metaphors that should be legally allowed, who even talks in her sleep couldn't come up with anything better to say that a sentence that included both the words "totally" and "definitely"...i think i probably said "seriously" a couple of times, too.  this dude really, really, really loves me, you guys.  and i can't say enough about all the ways and whys i love him.  

i didn't cry until he actually left, and then OMG, sh*t=lost.  laughing, crying, pacing and skipping, and Jinx giving the big "what the douce" eyes, and finally just retreating under my bed for the duration of the fit. 

and that was the best day, ever.  until last week. 

...and this is the part where i tell you that on friday the 13th (... we had our first date on a friday the 13th...), we decided that we were done thinking about getting married, and that we're getting married on thanksgiving day, in front of G-d and our families.  

this is real.  this is happening.  and i am so excited, i haven't stopped smiling.  and i can still hardly breathe.  

there is nothing better than how this feels, not in this life.  it  feels like praying, like singing, feels like doing all my favorite things all at once, feels like hosanna and alleluia, and saying thank you to G-d with every single breath.  i feel like Moses must have, when he looked at the burning bush, and saw the flames, felt the heat--the bush was not consumed, and Something Amazing was happening... i am awestruck and at attention, and i don't want to miss a single second. it's holy ground, this.  and i have no intention of ever putting on shoes (metaphorically speaking, of course...) ever, ever again, even when i have to go to the grocery store.  

oh, internets...thanks for being here.  we can't wait to see you and show each other off.  thanks for your love, and your prayers...we love you, too. 

and killer, i love you. 

we're definitely, totally getting married.  seriously.  

mil besos,

rmg 

this one is about baseball, after a fashion...

we should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.  

--c.g. jung

some part of our being knows this is where we came from. we long to return. and we can. because the cosmos is also within us. we're made of star-stuff. we are a way for the cosmos to know itself. 

 --carl sagan

you do not have to be good. you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. 

---mary oliver

if what you want to do doesn't make you shake in your boots, your dream is not big enough. 

--brother ishmael tetteh

my fairy godmother/boss says that if you find yourself in tears or belly laughing or having vivid dreams or being so emotionally moved you actually vomit, you'd better pay attention, because it's quite likely G-d trying to tell you something pretty damn important. 

i may not know much, but i know that much is true.  

i can tell you for true and  for certain that i've spent a huge portion of the last...i dunno...thirteen weeks laughing until i cried, crying because i'm happy, and dreaming these crazy colorful  dreams and talking in my sleep like a four-year old.  G-d's not so much trying to tell me something so much as i feel like G-d is giving us a standing ovation and keeps filling up our glasses, and i'm pretty sure the toasts will last well into the wee morning hours.  and i don't care how much sleep i lose, because to be alive and awake at this very second, which ever one it is, is worth everything.  and it's worth ripping out a hem, tearing up a perfectly good pair of shoes, making deodorant work overtime, getting slightly more buzzed than is entirely appropriate in public, irritating the dj into just handing you his ipod because you've requested an ENTIRE ALBUM, and not just one song...you get the idea. this is worth it.  every. single. second.  

here's why i don't even mind the missed sleep (...and you guys know how much i just LOVE sleep...it's like my third favorite thing to do in the whole world.) and why people with good sense never mind missing sleep over good things:  good things are like no-hitters or winning streaks in baseball--they don't come around that often.  there's some flavor of luck that lingers when you taste the incredible, but those same sensible people will tell you that luck and timing taste an awful lot alike, but timing is ever so much sweeter, because we have less to do with timing than we can imagine. timing, on our part, is knowing just when to jump, and when to stand still.  remember when you were little, and you tried to jump on the merry-go-round while it was spinning super fast?  sometimes, you got it just right, and everyone thought you were awesome for like two whole minutes.  sometimes your timing was off (and whether by a little or a lot, it was still OFF) and you ended up half under the merry-go-round, with your shorts and  shoes in a muddy mess, and your mom running over to yank you out from underneath the metal death wheel, and asking you in her mostly-scared but slightly exasperated and very relieved voice just what in the sam hill you thought you were doing and telling you it's going to take a miracle to get these shorts clean...timing...it hasn't changed that much from that merry-go-round bit. 

to be engaged in time, to actively participate in the timing of the universe...you gotta pay REAL close attention to what's going on, and you've got to be ready to get in the game and play your nuts off EVERY SINGLE SECOND, even if you suspect you'll be riding the pine pony all night.  because...we're on a streak.  this is one of those crazy games where the team you love best is going to break every single record you can think of that could be shattered in a single game.  the pitcher is pitching a no hitter...the catcher just batted for the cycle TWICE, and then there was a grandslam on a freaking bunt, right before we all got up and sang "take me out to the ballgame", backed by the entire jam session line-up from the "last waltz" AND elvis.  it's so epic and so ridiculously beyond what you ever expected that ballgame to be, you'll probably have to go to the locker room and sob hysterically into a towel for a couple of minutes during the seventh inning stretch before and after you throw up all your popcorn and big pickle, because you know it's real (those pinch marks on the underside of your arm prove YOU ARE AWAKE), and it's just so intense, you don't even have any words left.  and what you want most in the world is to just keep playing well, to not think about the streak or the no hitter.  because you can't think about that too hard.  if you do, you stop playing well, and start trying to play perfect.  and that's when bad things happen.  so you gotta hold this like and egg, rook.  and never take your eyes off the ball.  ever. and have you ever, ever, ever had more fun in your whole life?  see...told you. 

i honestly believe that there's an incredible trinity made up of grace, mercy, and timing that is running this show.    and unlike things we make ourselves--talismans or mantras or rituals; grace, mercy, and timing never run out, never lose their magic.  they are always running head of us, sweeping up behind us, hanging up fresh curtains and changing our linens out, holding us in these incredibly gentle and unseen hands, so that even on days when we stumble, days that are hard, days when we are not our best and brightest selves, there are soft words and tender feelings to make it not so bad, not so very bad, at all.  

we talk about baseball and miracles--water into wine, the respendent universe inside a little butter-thief's mouth, loaves and fishes, and sunrises.  we know this.  we think about this.  we have a whole pile of things we think about with each other, together and apart.  and that's worth losing sleep over...this streak, this no-hitter, this miracle season for the books, and knowing we win.  

we win.  no curses, no rain delays, and even when the winter comes and kills the grass and ivy, we'll take our business inside, and work on fundamentals until spring rolls around, again.  and all things shall be well. 

mil besos,

rmg