I used to believe . . .

. . . that everyone needed to be heard. Now I think that we get so caught up in pining for understanding that we stop paying attention to what it is that we have to say.

Sometimes I am guilty of sending flares up, crying out to be heard.

But no one can ever walk in our shoes. And I'm not so sure we even are well-acquainted with the actual person who does wear our shoes. 

It would be better if I listened, it would be better if I felt the pulse of the universe instead of always yearning to be listened to and understood.

The sky cries, too . . .

. . . and sometimes, like tonight, even the vegetation agrees with me: it is too much.

I wonder if my tears are like the stunts I pulled in adolescence. Am I simply pouting so that I can get my way? Well, it never was entirely about that, was it? It was about being mixed up and not knowing how to sort through everything. 

I think never having grown up--in this case--is not a good thing.

Once I dreamed . . .

. . . and I matched my dreaming with dedicated hours; I stretched and reached and kept the hope agile and alive.

Now, if I raise my eyes to glimpse the star of what could have been, my neck will snap, brittle from neglect and disuse. 

My grandmother passed . . .

. . . from this realm to the one beyond a year ago today.

On the way to dance class this morning my three-year-old niece asked me why Grandma died. We were remembering spending time with her this time last year, taking turns holding Grandma's hand. I don't know if it made Grandma feel any better or anymore loved, but she was always gracious, even when she was a whisper of herself. She always told us thank you and she always wanted to offer us a comfortable place to sit or some ice cream.

My answer wasn't convincing even to myself. "She died because she was very sick and in a lot of pain and old." 

"But why?" my niece asked.

"She's in heaven," I offered. "Someday we will all go to heaven. When we are very old."

"I don't want to go to heaven," she said.

"You want to stay in this world forever?"

"Yes."

This little girl has inherited my grandma's zest for life. My grandma didn't want to die either. She had a strong will to live and to live happy here with those she loved. (Of course life isn't like that.)

I don't remember all the turns of our conversation but my niece finally said, "I wanted her to come back." 

Truth:

I want her to come back, too. 

I miss her presence, her goodness, her interest in me so terribly sometimes that it feels like this unmendable rip in the fabric of my soul will only grow more empty with the passage of time.

Whoever would ever think . . .

. . . to place a lost and found box in front of a closet door in a basement-level vending machine room?

I found the box of sundry pencils and unmatched gloves quite by accident. What I was looking for was the drinking fountain, thirsty for life's most vital nutrient. The box delighted me. What are the odds of anyone finding a lost and found box that is itself lost, unmapped and uncharted except to those vending machine and water fountain frequenters? 

How long will the box sit in front of the door holding the miscellaneous of those who will likely never know where to find it?

?