99.

[To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.]

-arundhati roy

one of my best girl's daddy used to say to her, "honey, where are your feet at?" this is something I had a tough time understanding for a long while. i find, though, as i grow into and out of this self of mine, i always come back to this old adage of his just like i always come back to that first john prine album he gave me one rainy georgia evening. wisdom from a good man who gifted the world with a woman of serious compassion.

i've lived long enough to know that when you get big and run off to a far away place where your family isn't in hollering distance and your closest ones are more than a car ride away things can start to feel too big. we feel small, and not in that good way that arundhati roy reminds us about when she reminds us to never forget our own insignificance. more in that way that when our noses are running and we're trying to go at it alone we can start to sorta feel sorry for ourselves. lonesome gets ahold of us when we feel far away, i guess.

there are some gifts, though, ones that are far too great to let us settle down with lonesome by our side for too long. today gave me more than my little heart could ignore.

they took all sorts of shapes and ranged from south to Midwest to far west to a patchwork panoramic masterpiece of photographs from a sweaty summer filled with the spirit of love and possibility waiting for me on my stoop, a letter with cutout hearts that flitted to floor as i opened it, a phone call that reminded me of myself before schooling got ahold of my head and thoughts jarred my heart, memories of me stumbling, getting lost, and getting found again and again. a tea shared with another good old soul after a long journey home. plans to ring in the new year with some of the best kinds of sweet people i've ever hoped to shape a life with. and one last call reminding me that we all carry within us the tools to push through pretty much anything we gotta push through.

tonight i'm pretty convinced that there is something out there that love knows how to pick up on. i am endlessly amazed and inspired by the goodness in the hearts of the folks in my life. i am so pleasantly reminded today of how close we are, all of us. states away, months apart, love doesn't mind those same manners that we think we oughta, and inspiration does it's is own little dance; a dance that seduces us away from that old lonesome and right back where we oughta be...finding our feet again.

to you.