Love Lives On

I watched you struggle against a breathing tube,

a thin blanket covering your trembling legs,

hands seeking escape or comfort,

face pale, eyes closed, unaware 

and despite the heart wrenching sight of you—

my father—so vulnerable, so exposed,

I knew in a few hours you would be awake,

in a few days you’d walk out of the hospital,

and in a few weeks you’d once again walk the paths of your mountain home.

Now, I stare at a screen adorned with pictures and words

praising the life of another man, taken from us unexpectedly;

A man—my uncle, your brother— with a gentle, loving soul,

just like yours.

I stare, uncomprehending, and struggle to believe the truth.

One man’s remodeled heart beats a steady new rhythm,

while his brother’s heart stops.

A baby is born squirming, while another is born still.

Leaves fall, dry and crumbling, to cover the earth,

while beneath them plants and animals burrow deep,

waiting for the first warm breath of spring.

There is no life without death, no death without life.

It is both predictable, and unpredictable.

A puzzle impossible to solve, like trying to count the stars,

or quantify God’s love.

It’s a circle winding back on itself:

Death touches life touches life touches death.

I mourn the passing of one man’s life.

I rejoice in the extended life of the other.

As I listen to the beat of my father’s heart

(I can hear it, despite the distance,)

I let go

and try to remember—

Love lives on. 

This poem is dedicated to my Dad--your bravery in facing heart surgery is a reminder for me to let go of my own fears, and trust that all will be well, because I can't control most things anyway. And to my Uncle JD-- your soft voice, warm smile and big heart will be missed by many. 

Rest Easy, Sketch

On Friday, I said a final good-bye to my Australian Kelpie dog, Sketch. She was fifteen; they are never old enough to make letting go easy. Sketch would have stayed until she couldn’t stand, couldn’t walk beside me any longer, but I wanted better for her. I loved her enough to give her not only a good life, but also a good death. She loved me enough to show me what it means to live life well.

Sketch tackled life with tenacity and determination. She taught me that attitude really is everything. She showed me on a daily basis that the only thing that limits you is you. I often had to force her to slow down, to respect her body’s limits, because age is limiting to a certain extent. I acted out of love. Sketch taught me to consider whether the forces holding me back are coming from a place of love or fear, and how to react accordingly.

While she had her anxious moments, I sometimes called her my ‘go with the flow dog,’ because she was ready for anything as long I was with her. She tolerated photo shoots, new doggie members of the family, and wearing coats and snowsuits despite her objections because I asked her to. She adapted to changes around our home in recent months with relative ease, despite some of the changes making daily life more difficult for both of us. Her willingness to adjust to change instead of resisting is a lesson I still struggle to learn.

As she aged Sketch often needed rescuing from life’s chaos. Whether she needed an escape from my rambunctious nieces and nephews, or to end a walk early because the park was too scary that day, she showed me what she needed and trusted me to act on her behalf. She taught me that it’s okay to ask for what I need and to accept help when I need it. Sketch wanted to go everywhere with me, even if getting there meant being carried upstairs, or lifted into the car. She wasn’t too proud to accept my help. We all need to be ‘carried’ at some point in our lives. There is absolutely nothing wrong with needing a hand—or a paw—to hold.

Sketch taught me to be afraid, but not frozen. To be scared, but keep trying. Move forward until I can’t take another step, and then try again another day. Because next time the shadowy tunnel through the woods up ahead might look inviting, not terrifying. I’ll never know what I might be missing if I let fear hold me hostage.

Sketch also taught me this: when you are afraid, don’t go alone. Find your pack, the ones who make you feel safe, and hold on to them. Once you find them, it’s important to appreciate your pack. Even when you are annoyed or frustrated with them (as Sketch often was with the younger dogs) remember, one day you might need a hand to hold. Show your love. Greet them gleefully, share your favorite toys, make them leave the house and enter the real world, check in with them just to say ‘hey, I’m here.’

The most important lessons Sketch taught me are to trust and to love. Trust and love yourself. Trust and love your pack. Trust that the world is not out to get you, and when it feels like it is, trust the people who love you to have your back.

The things I will miss the most about Sketch are things I can’t photograph, can’t bottle up and save. Like, the intensity of her gaze when she was absolutely focused. The way her eyes gleamed and crackled with energy when she begged for chicken,  ice cream or pizza crust; the sound of her tail thumping against the floor when she had a particularly good dream. The elbow nudges she would give me in the midst of a writing fervor, more insistent with the passing of the hours. I’ll miss her getting up from her bed each evening to find me on the couch, as if I might have vanished while she was sleeping, and the ten tries it took me to toss a kernel of popcorn to her bed while I watched TV because we were both too lazy to get up from our comfortable places. I groaned about how heavy she felt each night, but I will miss carrying her upstairs, and down again in the morning. I’ll miss her nightly routine of peeking into the bathroom to make sure I hadn’t disappeared while I brushed my teeth.

I’ll miss the sound of her paws across the floor as she rushed to watch me run up the stairs, as if wishing her old joints could still make the trek. Her eyes were always on me, ready and waiting to follow me wherever I might be going.

I will even miss the annoying things. Like her habit of licking random things, like the wire dog crates, or the side of the stove and the way she drank water like she’d been deprived all day, in a rhythm that never changed. I’ll miss the way the hair on her paw pads

grew in crazy long shoots and how she would close her eyes, or hide her face when I got out my camera.

More then anything, I will miss the way she liked being hugged, and how she would lick my nose, so soft and gentle.

Most of all, I will miss the love.

Rest easy, Sketch. You are forever in my heart. 

 June 9, 2001 - September 23, 2016

A Midnight Book Review: The Raven King (The Raven Cycle)

“All of his footsteps had led him to this moment, surely.”

I’m the kind of book-loving person who doesn’t like ‘normal,’ book reviews. Unless reviewing books is your job, I don’t need a summation of plot—I can get that on the cover. What I want to know is how the book made you feel. How the characters made you feel. Was it the kind of story that makes you glow or the kind that makes you want to rip out the pages and watch them burn? Those are the things I care about. So here is my review of The Raven King (really, the entire Raven Cycle) and how it made me feel…everything.

I have never struggled so mightily to read the last book in a series. I cared too much. I didn’t want it to end. I wasn’t prepared to say farewell. Some of that has to do with what’s going on in my own life right now, much of it has to do with the magnificent writing and the beloved characters, but most of it is this: I read books because they give me a way to experience the things I long for in my own life.

The Raven Cycle is the epitome of all those longings.

I don’t long for family—I’ve got all the love and support I need in that regard. I’m ‘wealthy in love,’ no doubt. What I have always longed for are friends who become family. I long for the unshakable, unbreakable kind of friendship depicted so lovingly in The Raven King, and all the books leading up to this one.

I long for an ordinary life full of extraordinary magic.

I long for a home that mirrors my soul, a place that feeds my soul. Not long ago my family sold our farm, the farm I grew up on—the place I assumed for a long time would always be my home. It was an entirely new experience—aching, painful, wonderful—to go with Ronan to The Barns, his beloved home; to wander with Gansey around his beloved Henrietta, and to walk the halls of 300 Fox Way with Blue. I identify heavily with Adam—floundering to figure out exactly where we belong.

Really, I’m all of the characters in The Raven King.

I’m Noah, invisible to all but those who fiercely love him; clinging to a life left behind while trying to sort out the one you’ve got now.

I’m Blue, sensible, longing for something more.

I’m Gansey, longing to be known; to be something more.

I’m Adam, known to everyone but himself; walking slowly away from a past that wants to define him.

I’m Ronan, the broken dreamer with a ferocious heart.

I’m Henry. I’m the women of 300 Fox Way. I’m the Gray Man. I’m even a little bit Kavinsky, and Greenmantle and Piper and Neeve.

I feel their story in my bones, in my gut. I hurt when they hurt. Their story makes me smile, and grieve and laugh. It inspires and amazes and perturbs.

I’m in awe—as a reader, as a writer.

Maggie Stiefvater has often said she likes to “get inside your head and move around the furniture.”

Well, the furniture has been moved, Stiefvater. It’s been smashed and rebuilt, refurbished, repainted and repurposed.

My journey with the Raven Boys & Blue is ending. It’s over. But somehow, somehow…it’s starting, too.

That is the magic of The Raven King.

“The head is too wise. The heart is all fire.”

 "If you can't be unafraid, be afraid and happy."

You can find my reviews of the first three books in the Raven Cycle on Goodreads.

Sizzling Color

Meara hits a button on the stereo.

She sits on the floor, crossed legged, head bowed, and waits.
            The music starts soft, and begins to build, an ocean wave in reverse. Meara breathes in time with the whisper of strings, the careful staccato of drums, the slow waltz of piano keys. Her head tilts upward so slowly it’s like it’s not happening at all, like a flower making the unhurried trek toward the sun. Her chest expands upward too, following the arch of her neck, the line of her throat, the point of her chin. She is a flower opening, a bird extending her feathered wings, a flag unfurling in a gentle breeze. Movement eases into movement, fluid and unbroken. The music seems to twine around her, lifting her gently.

The music abruptly shifts to a faster pace, or perhaps it is just the graceful unfurling of Meara’s limbs in one dramatic burst, shattering the achingly beautiful illusion of stillness, that makes it seems abrupt. Now she is on her feet, with her toes mapping a course on the polished hardwood floor. Where her toes lead, the rest of her follows. Limbs twist, legs extend, a back bends in a way that seems inhuman.

            Meara is climbing an invisible set of stairs, each movement of her body, each movement of the music, drawing her up, closer and closer to her idea of heaven. The strings soar, and she leaps like she has wings. The percussion is the rhythm she finds in her veins, in her feet, in her chest as she floats across the floor. She pirouettes as the piano pounds out a dizzying concerto.

   

         The instruments stack upon each other in a fevered frenzy—building, building—musical brick after musical brick constructing a tower leading higher and higher, to a midnight sky waiting for fireworks to paint it with sparkling and sizzling colors. And Meara explodes—she is the firework, the sparkling paint. They are one, she and the music. They are swirling and spinning and bursting apart in one final movement. She sheds herself in pieces on the hardwood floor, losing everything but the essential. The very heart of her, and the soul, is all she has left. All she needs. She is a glowing fire, a roaring inferno. She is ALIVE.

When the music softens once more, so does Meara. As it tapers away to silence she ends where she began—on the floor, her body curled, her head pillowed on her arm. She looks peaceful, at rest. But she only waits.

She waits for the next movement, the next swell of sweet sound.

She waits for another chance to feel alive.