"...but I see beauty there always"

I felt incredibly spoiled today.
I'm convinced that Washington knew I was coming,
and in a gesture of welcome
gave me the perfect late spring/early summer day.

I slept poorly last night.
I felt a bit like a small child on Christmas Eve...
far too excited for morning to come to get any sleep.
As soon as the sun came up, I was outside.

I started the day with a jog at the lake two blocks from my dad's house.
(Didn't really run...too caught up in snapping pictures.)

This was my morning view.
Beauty.

I'm pretty much in love with this neighborhood...

After dinner, Grandy took the boys fishing while I ran.
(Had to make up for the lack of running this morning.)

I ended the day on my dad's huge front porch,
listening to some Azure Ray and breathing in the cool night air.
Seriously...perfection.

My other home...

Washington!

It's been WAY too long since I've been here.

Camden and Dylan's first time in the sky...
They were very well-behaved.
Right as we were taking off, I asked Camden if he felt afraid.
He said "Well, no. For goodness sake."

"Grandy" (my dad) greeting us at the airport...

Mnemosyne

"We lay aside letters never to read them again,

and at last we destroy them out of discretion,
and so disappears the most beautiful,
the most immediate breath of life,
irrecoverable for ourselves and for others."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Destroying nostalgia
is something I never do
I'm far too sentimental
Probably excessively so.

Time is a panacea,
a charmer...a changer...
a re-writer of emotions and a healer of grief.
I'm stubborn, impatient, and prefer to be
the enchantress rather than the enchanted...
so I have to swollow more of the magical elixir of time.
The overly sweet flavor isn't generally something I enjoy
Alas, the necessity to breathe is compelling.
Oh, if only a spoonful is all it took.

Tell me what you use...
Maybe I'll buy it next time.
For most certainly there will be a next time.

And until then, I won't be the one to erase
"the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life..."
I'll just pack it away...
save it for my favorite rainy day...

Goodbye 37

Grey Street
by Dave Matthews Band

Oh look at how she listens
She says nothing of what she thinks
She just goes stumbling through her memories
Staring out on to Grey Street

She thinks, "Hey,
How did I come to this?
I dream myself a million times around the world,
But I can't get out of this place"

There's a loneliness inside her
And she'd do anything to fill it in
But all the colors mix together, to grey
And it breaks her heart

How she wishes it was different
She prays to God most every night
And though she knows well He doesn't listen
There's still a hope in her He might

She says, "I pray
But my prayers, they fall on deaf ears.
Am I supposed to take it on myself
To get out of this place?"

There's a loneliness inside her
And she'd do anything to fill it in
And though it's red blood bleeding from her now
It feels like cold blue ice in her heart
When all the colors mix together, to grey
And it breaks her heart

She hears the voices, they're outside her door
Saying take what you can from your dreams
Make them as real as anything
It'd take the work out of courage

But she says, "Please
There's a crazy man that's creeping outside my door,
I live on the corner of Grey Street
and the end of the world"

There's an emptiness inside her
And she'd do anything to fill it in
And though it's red blood bleeding from her now
It felt like cold blue ice in her heart
She feels like kicking out all the windows
And setting fire to this life
She could change everything about her
using colors bold and bright
But all the colors mix together, to grey
And it breaks her heart

It breaks her heart, to grey

"Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself."
Mark Twain

Airplanes.
Always fun for little kids.
We had an end of the year [End of the year! Yay! See me doing my dance??] field trip for our group at the church today. We took the little ones on a KC-135. Twenty 3 & 4 year olds...running wild on a tanker. Luckily, we had a few spare pilots hanging around to make sure they didn't fall out of the plane.
Kidding.
Kinda.
:)

The plane, with Dylan looking on. He was very excited.

This is Liam. He is one of Dylan's best friends.
Together, they're nothing but trouble.

Dylan and Liam, climbing the steps to board...


Dylan's very first stop was the pilot's seat.
Seriously.
He got in there before anyone else had a chance...haha.


Then he got his shot at boom operating...
without actually operating the boom, obviously...

...but not for lack of trying. He was, in this moment,
attempting to convince Clint to open the window.


After everyone got their chance at the pilot's seat and the boom, we took them to the life support division to check out the parachutes, night vision goggles, and life rafts. When we finished the tour of life support, we ordered the box lunches that the pilots eat and took the kids to the park for a picnic. (I didn't take pictures of that...I was busy feeding children. Craziness, there. They all wanted to skip the sandwiches and go straight for the kitkats.)

Clint scored wings and patches for all of the kiddos...
(how exciting is that for a 3/4 year old?!?)

Dylan was awfully proud.

Camden didn't get to go on this field trip, because he's in big boy school.
But he did get a pair of wings and a patch.
He was awarded "most curious student" of his class this year.
Is it at all obvious why??
Dylan's decided he's going to fly a plane one day...so that's nice :\
I'm glad he's only four,
and has several years before he will actually make that choice...haha.

But overall, fun day.
Definitely something out of our norm...
which is always welcome.

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

I had a dream a few nights ago that I went back in time...
Like, faaar back. Back to the '50s/'60s
(ish. Poodle skirts and bubble gum).
I was in a classroom of high school students.
Everyone was sans color, except for me and my ipod.
Yes...the only thing I had with me was my music.

And I was sharing it with all of the cool kids.


(This wasn't the music I was sharing with them. That was rap of some sort. This is what I'm wanting to share with you...a little Otis always makes me smile.)

Every feeling and emotion experienced
has been expressed in lyrics and spun into a beat.
It's true.
You'll always be able to find
the best company in songs.
I do.

My "music soul mate" (haha)
reminded me of a great song just yesterday.
It's been playing in my head ever since...
it's good company to my melancholy
(as Damien's songs often are)
and some of the words run alongside my thoughts
nearly perfectly.


Cannonball
by Damien Rice

There's still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
Still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
It's still a little hard to say what's going on

There's still a little bit of your ghost, your witness
Still a little bit of your face that I haven't kissed
You step a little closer to me,
so close that I can't see what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
And love, it taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
when you float like a cannonball

Still a little bit of your song in my ear
Still a little bit of your words that I long to hear
You step a little closer each day
so close that I can't say what's going on

'Cause stones taught me to fly
And love, it taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
when you float like a cannon...

Stones taught me to fly
And love, it just taught me to lie
So come on courage
Teach me to be shy
'cause it's not hard to fall
And I don't want to scare her
It's not hard to fall
And I don't wanna lose
It's not hard to grow
When you know that you just,
you don't know