my careless contagion

Everything has Changed (a song with a rather passive title) by Taylor Swift (and some English guy named Ed) is a good metaphor for spring. When before everything was coiled in sleep, colored in grays and browns, and dead, now everything is new again. (And, one could argue, spring is also a good metaphor for a woman, as both can be unpredictable.) We all go through seasons. What season am I living through now? Could it be a season of rebirth? Renewal? Life springing out of the once-dead ground? This song even has an organic sound, all guitars and voices and brushes, much like what goes on during springtime. The melding of male and female voices could also point toward spring. And, well, love is an incredibly organic yet spiritual thing that often defies explanation. It grows under sometimes the harshest of conditions, poking out of dry earth or miry snow, undaunted. Love and spring are both miracles. All I know is my heart is as adamant and undeterred as spring. Am I taking this too far...

September is changes. Small at first, then bigger. By the end of the month, we hardly recognize you, September.  She begins when it is still summer. When she leaves, it is autumn. This year, when she began, I was in one place. When she ends, I'll be in another. To some, this may seem like a small change, but for me, it is big. It's bigger than the change in the air or displays in the shops.  September means the beginning of autumn. This autumn will be different from the last several. I'll get lost in it. Swallowed up in it. The leaves will change later. The snow will fly later, too. Last September, we had snow the first week of the month. Here, I don't know when it will fall.  September is my birth month. In grade school, I was one of the earliest to celebrate my birthday. I recall the school principal would come and give me a birthday card and how that felt. Surely, this man was the busiest man in the world, yet he came to wish me a happy birthday. What a wonderful mom...

It’s August The sun shines brightly The wind blows soft and warm And reeks of summer’s fecundity What I know and what I knew Are strangers in the night I’m enraptured by make believe And outraged by reality Such is summer Some say August Is summer’s last gasp I say it feels like nothing I’m supposed to have thoughts Ideas and feelings But they left me Long before August I was supposed to be something Destined to be someone But all I wanted was love I would have run To the edge of the world for it It was never there No matter the season Now it’s late Far too late She’s gone and I am too As the song says Some things you can never get back Like the happiness in her voice Before whatever happened happened Long before August Long before now Writers write because They want to capture something Or someone Something they’re missing Or never even had But they want it back all the same I write because it is August All this time I felt I lost her But the truth is sadder She lost me Long before Au...

She doesn't exist beside me but she will  someday she will hold my hand through thick and thin through sickness and health through poverty and wealth Even if I have to create her breathe her to life somehow she will be there Even if I don't know how I will find a way and form her out of clay and quivering breath I ache for her Hope for her and wait for her to join me someday What she looks like I don't even care what she feels like in my arms doesn't even matter she is made for me and I will treat her as the best part of me Created by desire and thousands of prayers made out of love and hope and years of plaintive tears What a woman If I hold her hand will I feel flesh or her naked soul? If I embrace her will I feel warm skin or my soul touching hers It doesn't matter what the world tells me I know she's out there It doesn't matter what my thoughts tell me my heart knows I tell my heart to wait be patient, be still sit quietly before God But I feel my heart ...

She found me lost and alone wavering like a metronome born into a hateful world she swallowed me in her arms and I was never the same One woman can change a man  one love, one touch, and one forever if you don't believe me just look at me now She loves me at my worst lifts me up when I feel done grants me access to a new world where I don't have to be perfect She's knows I'm just a man but treats me like I'm better, made of something swift and strong and forever young She also sees the scars etched deeply in my flesh I stand naked before her but she never judges What I am is changed her love changed me rearranged me put me back together better even made me look at myself and not hate what I saw Now I see why God gave woman to man what a blessing, what peace what a stunning realization so different from what I've always known And so I love her, too,  the same as she loves me with everything I have until my last breath what a beautiful woman to make such an ugly m...

Consider the body of love letters I've written. Consider the songs, the poems, the promises, still soaked in hope. It feels like I wrote my wedding vows a thousand times, inscribing them on my heart with a diamond pen. What could I add to those words? What have I not already said? How could I say it better? In For You , written in 1986 (I was 9 years old) and released in 1988, John Denver said it better. There comes a point when words can't say it; they simply cannot express the feelings you have for someone. Music helps, but it is still only part-way there. This song comes pretty close to saying it, though, doesn't it? Surely this song saw many a man and woman married, just as many of John's songs did (and probably still do). The song is longing, plaintive, waiting, steadfast, but burning. I thought every single one of its lines. I felt them far more. I do offer a prayer for her each day (and more than one). And if anyone wonders, I would give my life for her. In a hea...

Ah, summer. I used to know a girl named Summer, but this isn't about her. This is about the season (though if summer had a gender, it would be female). Where I live, summer does not last long. My joke is that it ended July 4, and then begins the slide toward fall, my favorite season. Basically, it lasts about six weeks, but no calendar will tell you that. Still, summer has such lovely qualities, and this summer has been especially long and summery. Here in the Black Hills, summer is tourist season, but even those who live here can celebrate its specialness. People come here to recreate in a place that isn't so scorchingly hot. It's true. Many homes here don't even have air conditioning because it cools off enough at night they can simply open their windows for cool sleeping and then close them again in the morning to keep their homes cool during the day. (Naturally, I am the exception to the rule because I have a small air conditioner for my tiny apartment, mainly be...

Today, Feb. 8, marks two years since I divorced the woman with whom I spent more than 20 years of my life. That's hard to fathom. I once read that most people who divorce remarry within two years. That's even harder to fathom, though I admit it probably would have been a healthier path for me. Two years ago, I got to find out what it was like to destroy the person who meant the most to me in my pitiful life. It was about as much fun as it sounds.  Clearly, I misjudged myself going into my divorce. Someone with my particular psychology and background should not move ahead with a divorce without more support than what I had. My baseline state is so much lower than most people, I simply could not bounce back from my divorce. I don't have the same chemicals in my brain that most people have. It's like I started 6 feet underground and then went further down, all the while trying to get back to the same level that most inhabit aboveground. My divorce was extraordinarily...