swedish furniture and a '59 Bel Air

something i picked up along the way...
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow.
If you have been opened by life's betrayals or if you have become
shriveled and closed from the fear of future pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain; mine or your own,
without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own.
If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful,
realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the "story" you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bare the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithful and, therefore, be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not present everyday.
And, if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure; yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes"!
It doesn't interest me to know where you live
or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get
up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and
not shrink back.


im feeling lonely today. its so hot out and everythings melting and sweaty and sticky and i love that summer has settled on the back of my neck and the places between fabric and skin, like a bond. i come home from my grandma's house in oakland, my bag full of notes and photos of her and my grandfather who i never met, smiling in black and white. my dad and i sit in the backyard and i used to love to sit with him in the garden in calistoga while he watered on hot nights, whats this flower, whats that tree and in those quiet ways my dad and i learned each other and that smell of dirt on his skin is something i will never forget.
i collect things, im a collector. drawers and boxes and scraps of paper written on in some bar in some city in some drawling scrawl litter my floor, my jeans pockets, my heart. there is room enough for all of it, these momentos that we hold onto for whatever reason, or for whatever reason they hold us.