5. Your Hand in Mine

I don’t know that I’ve ever sensed the subduing effect I felt as you ever so intentionally slipped your fingers in between each of mine, piecing me back together.

It wasn’t like the first time as we surveyed the sunset and watched the tide ebb and flow, your fingers accidentally brushing mine, then more and more daringly, no longer unintended. I was so painfully aware of each gentle graze that I swore I could feel each grain of sand fall between the cracks of my fingers back to the earth where they belonged; where we belong, your hand in mine. 

4. Memorial

I’ve wondered lately about the way we memorialize the things we lose, in light of the tenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centers and the opening of the massive memorial at ground zero.

It got me thinking about how I cope with the things I’ve lost. The mementos I’ve kept to remind me forever of all the things that have been ripped out of my life sooner than I was ready. Should they be laden in bronze for the world to see, or should I be resting in the knowledge that His mercies are new each morning?

#3 - 100 words (Restless)

I sat for what seemed like hours, swinging gently in the bright orange hammock on the front porch.  So many thoughts swam through my mind and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t focus on a single one.  I attempted, as I normally do to pick apart the source of all the noise, to no avail.

Oh well, I sighed, and let myself sink into the hammock as it started swinging a little faster than before and the crickets sang me a sweet melody. I’ll let my body rest but my heart, for all intensive purposes, we’ll call it restless. 

#2 - 100 words (Reasons)

He heard there are several reasons that people begin using drugs, loads of extraneous circumstances that cause people to spiral into the depths of substance abuse.

People make it apparent that there are far too many reasons for him to choose from; her and them and all the pressures to perform closing in on him, threatening to throw off his delicate balance.

Just as the reality of his motives begin to sink in so does the plunger of the syringe in his arm, sending him swiftly into his own personal oblivion.

And, he thinks, at this point who needs reasons. 

#1 - 100 words

Nicole has never been one for small talk, which suits her quite nicely as she sits in a small corner booth of the local coffee shop.

At first glance she appears to be working on her MacBook, occasionally sipping the brew of the day, sans cream or sugar.

However, if you looked a little closer you would notice tired eyes behind the bangs she sweeps carelessly to the side as she works to meet her deadlines.

You don’t have to be a genius to see what she’s feeling, the designs and doodles she conjures up tell her story well enough.

Initially inspired by http://www.1hundred-words.com/

On Vulnerability

Can I tell you how it feels to be vulnerable?

Utterly and completely.

To be split down the middle,

With all my love and fears,

Slipping simultaneously, uncontrollably out of my insides.

You

Do you see all of me,

Feel what I’m feeling, see where I’m coming from?

Do you notice the quickening pace,

Of my heartbeats cadence,

Underneath the rise and fall of my chest,

As my breaths become shorter, more shallow.

Will it ever feel safe,

Will I ever experience freedom in this state?

Or will this glass house crack and crumble under your persuasion?

Will we succumb to joy or pain,

Or are both inevitable outcomes?

To be sure, we will have to continue,

Sojourning through this life together.

I’ll try to fight the urges to reinforce my fortress, if you’ll be gentle.

I’ll sit with my skin as flushed as the flowers on the table,

Again and again, for you, my Achilles heel. 

Anniversaire Toi

I was learning French when we started this, three years ago, the summer before my senior year of college.  I was stringing together most likely incorrect phrases like “Tu et le garçon qui je (You are the man whom I)…. Want, love, value, desire, hoped for.

I ardently believed all those things as I walked up to the alter to recite the vows like so many have done.  I vowed to love, honor and cherish in sickness and health, plenty and want, the traditional, time-honored words that centuries before have spoken.  The things, which at the time seemed most important.

However if I got to re-write them with the sage-ness acquired in a short three years, I would be certain to add a few.

I Katie, take you Nathaniel, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, in plenty, and in want, in sickness or in health, in sin and shame, in hurt feelings and botched apologies, in trust and in doubt, in triumph and in utter and complete failure, in beauty and in tears, in moments of great passion and times of apathy, with grace instead of judgment, to love, to cherish and to respect, with the smiles, breath, tears of all my life, 'till death do us part and the clock itself wears thin its time.

Those are the things I’ve gleaned in three years of learning to fight well and love even better. I’m immeasurably thankful for the gift that is being your wife.  Happy Anniversary my husband, Mon amour.