Words.

Sometimes, words come so easily to me. And others, as anyone who was present at Allison Curbow's bachelorette party toast fiasco already knows, sometimes-they don't. But either way when I am happy I can type up page long dissertations in seconds no matter whether the subject is good, bad, or even particularly interesting. But when I am discontent its as if my fingers don't understand the language and I will stare at a blinking, vertical cursor forever and nothing comes. Eventually I give up and move on to some sort of monotony that might comfort my thoughts.

It is a weird sort of shut down mechanism; whenever the world is too much for me I can't put anything into words. I can't write about sadness. Like I am some sort of literary sociopath. I can feel it. So deeply. But to lose someone you thought you knew. I don't know how to write about that. To want someone in your life so much and not be able to have them like you want. I don't know how to write about that. Feeling lost and stuck and hurting...I can't write about that.

But what I can write about, constantly, is that when I come out of my bouts of frustration, sadness, infuriation, etc that I come out knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that life is nothing you expect and everything that's beautiful.

Someone told me recently that it is hard to be friends with me because I don't believe in myself. That I am demanding. That I think everything is about me. And after a lot of thought, I am glad this person said this. Not because I had a sudden epiphany about what a bad friend and shoddy person I had become but because I know in my heart that I would give everything to someone who needed it more than me and have, even though it has sometimes meant that I went without. I make deliberate choices. I think about things (sometimes too much). I make responsible choices. I always try not to say things I don't mean. I am willing to do the right thing even if it isn't easy. I tell people the truth even when my ideas are unwelcome.

And like me, hate me, or have no feelings one way or the other...just know that if you ask, I will open my heart; and that's what I write about. Because underneath even the bad days, love is all I know.

Sara

The Legacy of Kitchens.

They say that the average person will spend 25 years of their lives sleeping. If that's the case, and it seems legit, I will spend at least 12 in a kitchen. Maybe not all of those years in my own but in someone's. Some of my most favorite memories take place in kitchens.

My mom cooking up dinner and turning to Brandy and me at the table where we were drinking too much soda and saying, "so girls, what's the drama?" with her hand on her hip. Never knowing at the time that we would cherish those moments (and the delicious hamburger helper that she was whipping up).

Cleaning up after a huge Thanksgiving meal with my aunt and my cousins while the men watch the TV. Baritone voices talking from the living room while I laugh with my grandma that we are just alike when it comes to the order of our houses and we tease her for the 10 thousandth time about what we can or cannot put in the trash compactor.

Doing dishes at the cabin with Aunt Diane when all the other kids had left to play. I don't remember what we talked about but she always made what I said important just by listening.

My friend Erika who can create a dish out of thin air and make it look like a breeze-commiserating and talking with her while she took over my kitchen.

Baking bread, making food, humming, singing, crying, cleaning, talking, laughing....all because of an oven.

Kitchens speak a feminine language that a man could never understand. And it is a legacy that you rob your daughters of if you don't let them sit and open cans and cut onions while you cook. They won't know how it feels to knead bread or lick the chocolate chip cookie bowl. They won't see the value of sitting in the oven warmed room and just simply being. They won't remember you as someone who turned around with a wooden spoon in her hand, shirt covered in flour. They won't have a memory of you elbows deep in boiling water washing greasy dishes and teaching them about life without saying a word.

They might not become the kind of women that know to set the table-or see the importance of eating at it. And they might not become the kind of young ladies that instead of watching MTV all afternoon will sit for hours on bar stools talking about everything and nothing and baking cup cakes.

Let the girls in your life laugh. Do the dishes with them. Sing too loud with them. Listen to them. Show them that no matter where they end up in life that where there is a kitchen there can be family, warmth, friendship and love.

I know that in my life, it has always made all the difference.

My closest friends are bee fighters.

hotandspicy600 - m4w - 24 (anchorage)

hy are you lonely and what some compony or other sexual desire then i'm your man here's alittle about me i have been in anchorage for a little over 2 years and loveing it what i love is art,music,photography,hanging out with friends so if you what to contack me text me at seven-six-four-five-nine-five-zero i'm free enytime in the evens and i do not care if your chuby and i do not care about hair typ or other stuff like that and i well go for a ltr to or just

friends with befites well hear form you later and i can host if you can not

______________________________________________________

 

Dearest Hotandspicy600,

   I am writing you this letter to tell you that you are in luck! I am currently in the market for a friend with befites! (Just so you know though I think it is spelled 'bee fights'.) The only problem I am having with this arrangement is that I am allergic to bees so if one stings me I will go into anaphylactic shock (sp? nevermind you don't care about spelling) and could die. So could you please give me more information on what bee fights entail? Are there a lot of bees? Are they in a cage? Do I get to wear a trendy honey getter suit?

Also, I would like to contact you but I don't know which days are even. Do you start your week on a Monday or a Sunday because that clearly affects which days are even and which ones are odd?

Um, okay, that is all then! Let me know about the bee thing.

Thanks,

Sara

Come, let us have tea and talk about things.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law-Galation 5:22

Fall in Alaska begins in August. This will be my 25th Alaskan summer and as any girl from the Last Frontier knows that after a leafy, beautiful fire show the trees will stand naked against nights that grow colder. Frosts steal the color from the yards, the flower beds, and the mountainside. The air is crisp and still. There is a sharp, well known smell outside. Like everything just waits for the blanket of snow. And within the month it will cover our world in white.

And I get a new beginning. Just like the snow makes everything new. Every year. 

But still the leaves cling to the last bits of summer and dreary days will find me consuming more and more chai tea. And that is how today began and how it is ending. Me, a clean house, Michael Buble, and my tea. Reflecting on the summer and the year so far, what I have learned. And here is what I know for sure....

The spice of life is steeped in joy, peace, and love. The spice can only be found by appreciating the moments in each day where you can't help but be thankful. It is found in your best friend who can make any terrible day better because she understands you deeply. The laughter of a loved child. The morning murmurs of teenage girls just waking up from their sleepover. A day of shopping with your mom who no matter how many years pass never seems any older but who continues to give  the best advice even though so many times it has not been taken. Your oldest friend taking vows that promise lifelong devotion to her husband. A visit from someone you love deeply even after the water under the bridge has gotten so deep that the shoreline has been swallowed.
Spice is one part pain of regret, two parts the fear of rejection, and three parts an aching, hurting heart; knowing that all the wishing in the world cannot change someone else; and stirring it passed anger and into hope.

It is remembering that whether you are a daughter, mother, wife, sister, or friend that you are both capable and deserving of forgiveness. Of love. Of moving on. It is acceptable to feel vulnerable. To feel sadness. To feel. But in the end to find happiness you have to know that happiness is not a destination. It is most often a choice that you make not in spite of the things around you but BECAUSE of them. Everyone has bad in their lives. But there is goodness in life too...and sometimes it hurts too much to see but that is when our eyes need to be open or we will miss the way the sun shines in beams through the clouds. The way someone looks at us. The way nothing is better for the soul than helping someone else. We will dwell on what didn't happen instead of what is right in front of us today. What is waiting in tomorrow.

Because it is all beautiful. To not see it, to miss out because we don't feel like it...I don't want to live like that. Do you?

Sara



 

Can you be alone with yourself and like the company you keep in empty moments?

My house is usually a beacon of light in the darkness resulting from either someone having fallen asleep on the couch or a general lack of energy savings awareness on the part of one certain teenager. But tonight she has gone to bed and flipped all the switches. The house is silent, not even my dogs bark, but it is alive with sweet, warm energy.

I drop my gym bag and over sized black leather purse onto the chaise and I go about my nightly routine. Checking locks, closing shades, turning on nightlights, feeding the dogs. The routine is comforting. Especially after today. It feels good to do something that I do every night. It brings be clarity even as I feel emotionally crippled. My head hurts from sobbing. My contacts are fuzzy from tears. And the actual pain from a breaking heart is fresh in my chest. 

Don't you know, silly girl, that you can't call it a year without doing something you knew better than to do?

My room is a wreck but I dive into my unmade bed and ignore the total chaos. I have three books on my nightstand. My bible, A water wrinkled, page stained copy of The Invitation, and a book of prayers.When I feel this way I usually reach for my bible but I know there is a line in The Invitation that my mind is so trying to grasp right now. 

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive...I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow; if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

My breathing is calm and even now. I'm not afraid to love. Deeply, faithfully, and with everything I have. I should remember more often that not everyone has the same character as me. But I know that I will love them anyway. I don't know any other way to be. I am not still so young that I believe love conquers everything but I do believe that you will never know what it can do unless you feel it and live it and let it show in all that you do.

I forgot my water bottle in the car. As I step into the night air the porch light clicks on. Sometime today 3 new roses and a whole line of wildflowers have bloomed in the small garden along the sidewalk. So much delicate beauty. And in all its fragile states, life goes on. As I stood in front of the rose bush like a modern version of Snow White with less birds, less evil step mothers, and better clothes I was absolutely sure of one thing:

Someday my prince will come. 

Goodnight beautiful world,

Sara.

"Ten years of this, I'm not sure if anybody understands"

Only a blind man could not be inspired by a moment like this. Right now I am sitting on the shore of Gold Cord Lake. The water is in front of me and the mountains surround me. I made it to the top a while ago and have since been mostly alone, just me and the dogs. When an hour passed and there were no people I swam in the freezing, clear water...an endeavor that which, if ever repeated will be followed by post swim bug dope bath.

I am feeling with every sense. The silence echoes the sound of cars on the long road in the valley but since I have spent the last two hours chasing the sunshine around the lake there are almost none. I close my eyes against the sky and listen. The spirit of the earth speaks in rushing streams, breathing dogs, and rock chuck chirps. Every so often I even here the eerie siren of an eagle.  I am trying to take it all in and I smile at nothing in particular. I run my bare feet across the moss covered rock where I sit. I breathe the mountain air every few minutes I catch the scent of wet dogs as they dart back and forth, so happy to be in a state of total freedom.

My mind feels free.

There is no one needing me right now. No phone ringing. No email to answer. Just me. By myself in a place where no one is asking. Where I don't have to tell. And most of all there is no one judging me on my choices or my hair or my weight. I am exactly who I am. I know it has to end. I can't stay here all night and Bailey seems to think it is time to go. She is bouncing back and forth between the trail and the rocks. There is now no sun touching the lake and the shade is beginning to shroud the shore as well. I decide she is probably right. Balto has grown bored and is sticking his head in a marmot hole.

The trip down is quiet. There is a park ranger in the visitors lot but that is all. I am in no hurry to get back to civilization so I walk slowly thinking about my life. Feeling the peace that comes from within. Feeling moved. By the time I reached my house I was feeling sad that I had no one to share the evening with. That it was just me and suddenly I felt reassured that it would not always be so. I need to appreciate this season because it won't always be that I have an evening where the only responsibility I have is one to myself.

It is good to enjoy the company you keep when you are alone. But it is also okay to feel lonely. Because if I wasn't lonely right now I would never have known that I wasn't supposed to share this moment with anyone because God was sharing it with me.

A letter to my sisters

I have always wished I'd had a sister. Someone who understood me better than anyone because we had the same parents and the same experiences. Of course, this never happened and I grew up happy and healthy despite the chromosomal differential of my only sibling (who I love!) :o).

And on my 25th birthday I realized how rich I am with sisterhood. I am 25 and I still have best friends. Unabashed, middle school style bffs. And while I probably won't be buying them friends forever heart necklaces from Claire's for Christmas my adult life has proven that these girls are so much more than just people I pass the time with. They are my kindred spirits, my encouragement, and (as my oldest friend called me) the sisters of my soul.

I am so thankful for the love of people who take me for everything I am and accept me for everything I am not. To have the opportunity to love them and be there for them. They are always a place of understanding, honesty, and a constant source for laughter. What a beautiful thing to know and a priceless thing to have.

Ruth 1:16
And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
Proverbs 27:17
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Thank you for being part of my life. For helping me become a better person and a stronger woman. No matter the distance between us, real or imagined, I love you. Seriously!