WORDS

I love words. I love the way they look on pages and on people's lips. I love the way they sound spoken and sung and whispered and silenced. I love the way words can be combined to form phrases that shake me senseless or calm my spirit. I love poems and songs and stories and the authors that write them because they must love words too, and that makes us kindred spirits. And I love kindred spirits. I like old words better than new ones, words like celestial and comely, efflorescence and ethereal. Murmurous. Redolent. Dazzling. Summery. Snow. 

Look at this beautiful poem by Langston Hughes and tell me it doesn't ignite warm, good things in you?

The earth-meaning
Like the sky-meaning
Was fulfilled.

We got up 
And went to the river,
Touched the silver water,
Laughed and bathed 
In the sunshine

Day 
Became a bright ball of light 
For us to play with,
Sunset
A yellow curtain,
Night
A velvet screen.

The moon,
Like an old grandmother,
Blessed us with a kiss
And sleep
Took us both in
Laughing. 

- "Fulfillment" by Langston Hughes

We read this on our wedding day nearly five years ago. At an old Italian-villa-turned-art-museum on Lake Austin in Texas. The poem fit those six wedding hours like a glove; day was bright, lake water sparkled, my grandmother blessed us with many kisses, the night was velvet and slow motion surrounded by our friends, family and an Erica Beahm who danced like a fairy with bright, white sparklers at sundown. All my loves were there, all my people that I carry in my smile and hold in my heart. My dad, my mom, my brother, my grandmother, my grandfather, my uncle and Jeff were all there especially. I look back at wedding photos and my pretty white dress and my dad in his suit and wonder if all of Heaven was prompting me to bask in the moment, to fiercely memorise it, perhaps why it all felt so gloriously slow motion, because I've needed to return to those good memories on many occasions. Because it's when my family was all together, hard hadn't really descended in full force, and our collective skin and hearts showed no huge signs of life-war scars.

Since the wedding, I've filled many black, unlined and undecorated Moleskine journals with raging and hungry prayers, hopes and fears, pleading with God and hoping that my dad's cancer diagnosis wasn't real, praying for healing throughout his two year battle, and praying for peace and strength in his death this last January, just three months ago. I've filled pages with prayers that he'd come to know Jesus before his passing, and then filled more pages with complete joy that he did say those two beautiful words, "I believe," starting Heaven's party-planning-ball rolling. Smiling to think God would surely do a Wild West themed soiree, ponies and all. 

I've filled pages with prayers for my grandmother, whose mind is slowly losing the war with psychosis. Her precious mind, filled with memories of summers in Monahans, Texas and camping and fishing with her grandchildren and telling them ghost stories and rubbing their backs before falling asleep. Memories of charming her children's and grandchildren's lives, though her own childhood was rough. And I've filled pages with prayers for my grandfather, who is losing this wonderful woman slowly, perhaps not in body, but certainly in spirit. And I've filled pages for my brother and mother, my uncle, my Jeff, all these people I hold dear. For myself too, battling personal health issues for years. 

I've filled these pages while living on the other side of the earth, in Hong Kong, two long, international flights away from El Paso, Texas. But not just with the hard. The hard mixed with the delight. I've filled pages with ideas and dreams, song scraps and bullet lists. Drawings and even the occasional fallen leaf, something I imagine old writers still do without cell phones and mobile apps. I've filled my journals with stories of trips to Paris and Luxembourg and Boracay and Phuket. I've filled my journals with beauty and praise, with worship in the midst of the hard and also because of the wonderful, and also just because He's worthy. I've written fulfilling the dream of starting The Weathering, a musical dream pop duo with Jeff and releasing our first album. I've written worship songs and spoken word poems, and got to see these songs top the iTunes charts in Hong Kong. We've danced around our flat barefoot, painted the walls delicious colours and bought art from locals. We've seen God answer prayers over and over and over again. And these this good fills my journals too. 

But on Thursday of last week, it's Saturday, so that makes it about two days, I learned that my mother had received surprising news after a preventative ultrasound that showed a large mass in her pelvis with suspicious features. No symptoms, no history, no reason to get the scan in the first place besides a protective daughter in Hong Kong. I can't tell if the sun circles the earth circles the moon circles Mars. Not my mom, not again, not so soon, too raw, too much.

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while. It was going to be called The Wildery, and still is, and still will be. It's all about re-wilding our lives, from ocean swimming, to camping, to de-electronifying, to silence and space, to healthy eating, to healthy thinking, to healthy dreaming, to hoping. I've even got the tagline, "Well being for your whole being," and many articles and ideas written. Have you heard about earthing? Planting your feet on sand or grass or under ocean to benefit from the earth's charges? Healthy lifestyles are a passion of mine, and I know a lot, I research a lot and annoy doctors with too many questions. But The Wildery isn't live yet, it just hasn't felt like the right time. 

What does feel like the right time is this small online journal, Black Leather Blank Page. Because I know that there's power in our stories, but there's even more power when we tell our stories. We overcome through the telling of our lives and moments, putting our precious and tender words out there in the universe, letting the people around us collect and carry them too. And Jesus. Especially and entirely Jesus. The strongest Carrier of our precious and tender words.