so grateful to share
it with you—
this loneliness
Posts Tagged ‘friendship’
One Strange Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, loneliness on July 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Forgive Me For Wanting to Soothe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being with, fixing, friendship, wound on June 24, 2026| 3 Comments »
Sometimes a wound must stay a wound.
—James Crews, “Wound”
Sometimes I remember a wound
must stay a wound. Why then,
this impulse to bring you a vase of blue
larkspur, white lilies and a blessing
instead of sitting with you in the dark
and letting what is dark be dark.
When I am brave enough to see
beyond my longing to soothe,
all I want is to be with you in the dark.
To steep together in the uncomfortable ache.
To quietly meet you in the wounded place
so you know you are not alone.
Perhaps I will always send you lilies,
but let me also trust how necessary it is,
the open ear, this tenderness,
this willingness to be with,
more gift than any flower.
All at Once
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, honesuckle, james crews, scent, tick on June 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Delighted, I plunged my face deep into the bush,
laden as it was with slender trumpeted white flowers
and I pulled the generous scent into my being.
“Honeysuckle,” James confirmed, stepping
closer to inhale and for a moment we lingered,
infused with the lavish perfume of June,
and when we pulled away, he said, “You know,
the ticks love hanging out in the honeysuckle.”
We stared at each other then in emerging realization
and began to brush our hands across our bare arms,
our bare cheeks, our bare necks. Is it true
every joy has, lurking inside it, an insidious fear?
I know how beauty calls across the spectrum to its opposite,
how they chime together like meditation bells
inviting us into the all that is. What surprised me
was the laughter that spilled forward then,
the way I flopped over at the waist like a rag doll,
giggling, disgust and mirth mingling, conspiring
to open me. Long after we walked away, I could still
smell it, the glory of the flowers, how it hung in the air.
Could still feel it, the fear, how it crawled on my skin
with its eight quick legs. Could still taste it, the laughter
of friends, how it lingered sweet on my lips, like sugared
maple, like the juice of ripe berries, like honey.
It Sounds So Improbable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, gentleness, kindness, Kyra Kopestonksky on June 9, 2026| 11 Comments »
for Kyra
She faced, for an hour, a mountain lion.
She made noise. She spoke to it.
Eventually she sang to it.
Today, I return to the place where
my friend learned that just because
something can kill you doesn’t mean it will.
Eventually, the cancer did take her.
It’s true. But first she lived with it.
For years. First she played cello,
belly danced, snuggled with cats
and climbed with goats. First she sat
with me on the couch and giggled
and snuggled and read. First she knit
me a deep red shawl because I’m afraid of red.
First we sat by the river and made daisy chains
for each other’s long dark hair.
It sounds so improbable, but she met
the great cat and the cancer and her life
and her friends in the same great way—
with gentleness. She carried
a big stick not to swing but to pull
through the brush to make music.
She was a listener, a walker, a maker,
a lover of life. It sounds so improbable,
but she valued kindness above all else.
In the end, the mountain lion, after letting
my friend know full well she’d been seen,
it folded its ears and walked away.
In the end, the cancer traveled to her bones.
In the end, my friend will be known
for her gentleness, for how the tenderest touch,
the smallest note of love, the one most honest word
is the best way to make the whole world lean in.
The Phone Call
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, conversation, friendship, phone call, refuge, respite, rest, river on March 25, 2026| 4 Comments »
While all around us the world rushes by,
our conversation becomes a wide flat rock
in the midst of the river where we can rest
long enough to see not everything
is snarl and torrent, rapid and rush.
See how the heron lands in the eddy,
how soft moss grows on rocks in the shade.
Holding up all the tumult, the peaceful.
At the edges of chaos, the beautiful.
This is why, when I call you in the middle
of the day and you answer, I almost cry.
Because the timbre of your voice is enough
to land me. I lie on the solid rock of our talk.
I rest there long enough for my own pulse
to slow, long enough dangle my ankle
into the current and think, yes,
I can swim again.
For What Ails Us
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, connection, friendship, healing, heartache, medicine, trust on March 25, 2026| 4 Comments »
Wini weeps as she tells me “everyone is so broken,”
and a small shrine appears in the tear on her cheek.
I kneel inside it as it slips to her chin.
My throat clenches, my own heart widens,
enlivened by how deeply Wini cares,
and somehow her heartache begins to mend
my own grief for this cruel and callous world.
More than any beauty. More than the uplifting song
of the red wing black bird trilling through the open window.
More than the scent of basil and lemon.
More than the dark silhouette of two herons winging
through the nectarine sunset. Wini’s tears heal me.
Shared ache becomes its own medicine.
No. Not the ache. The medicine is in the love that fuels
the ache. It feels so right, I forget to wish it didn’t hurt.
In that Tender Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cancer, friendship, honesty, tenderness, trust on February 22, 2026| 6 Comments »
for Paula
With one fingertip
I drew gentle spirals
on the smooth, bare
skin where only weeks
ago her hair had been
and her eyes fell closed
and her breathing slowed
and I felt her whole body
soften, felt how strong,
how brave she has had
to be for so long, so long.
How I loved her then
in that moment when
she let me see beneath
the smile, beneath
the shine, beneath
the laugh. How I loved
her then when she let
me in, how honest
her exhaustion,
how precious,
how rare,
her trust.
Through Her Discipline of Kindness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged discipline, friendship, kindness, Kyra Kopestonksky, learning, legacy, teacher on January 13, 2026| 12 Comments »
for Kyra
She brought her cello to the desert,
playing long, slow notes to cactus,
canyons, the night, knowing
it matters to bring music
wherever you go. She taught me
to sing in the face of fear,
even when the mountain lion
held her with his amber eyes.
She taught me to plant
a weed in a pot and wait
with great patience to see
what kind of flower might bloom.
To bring something chocolaty and sweet
to share with others wherever you go.
She taught me to share scars,
even when they make others wince.
To use more garlic,
to read poems to strangers,
to dance barefoot in the grass.
I did not want to learn how quickly
a life can go from vibrant to silent
to gone. Did not want to learn
how great a hole one human can leave
in so many lives. But I am grateful
for all that she teaches me still—
the beauty in the ache, how to hear
the missing laughter in the silence,
how to read the letters that
don’t come anymore, how love
is so much bigger than a poem,
how she is no less herself now
than she was when she was here,
how even in her absence
she still teaches me discipline.
How It Comes Out
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged feeling, flame, friendship, grief, love, sorrow on January 4, 2026| 10 Comments »
I don’t know why sometimes
the same story can feel like ash
in the mouth and another time
like flame. Each time the story
is the same, but sometimes,
it scorches to share it.
I am thinking of today, how I read
a poem about your death
as if there were no more fuel to burn,
reciting a fact, as if saying,
There is no snow in the yard.
Five minutes later, I read the same
poem and had to restart four times
just to get past the first two lines.
I prefer the flame. Prefer to be moved
by how much you’ve changed me.
Not to dwell in the loss, but not
to shy from being torched by love.