Sarah and I talked for an hour on the computer, me in the library, panicking, wiping snot on my sweatshirt, she in a coffee shop in Seattle trying to make me feel a little better. I have never been more terrified of what is coming next, but at the same time, I have never had so many wonderful people to talk to about it. Today my friends and I talked about how it seems like everyone is in crisis. But we are old enough to talk about it without it being strange and I think that there is something incredibly hopeful and beautiful about that.

Sarah tells me my heart is different and when we say this we don't mean better or worst, we just mean different. I think she is right. I am trying so hard to root myself before I leave, so hard to root myself all the time. Most everyone else is ready to get out of here, and afraid of being tied down and getting stuck, but I am afraid that if I'm not I might just float away altogether. Everyone keeps talking about leaving. I am scared that I will come back and no one will be here and I will feel like a ghost. Sarah says to look at everything as different eras. I place too much importance on everything, it is exhausting. I always expect people to love the same way I love, and they don't and they shouldn't and I am learning that they don't'/won't and that it's O.K. I keep having the most honest conversations with everyone and it keeps surprising me.

I am a follower. What is most important to me is to be around people I love and in my head following them is equivalent to following my happiness. And I know that is not the same for other people. And I don't think it should be. I know that I could be happy anywhere, and have been happy everywhere I've been so far (which is not so many places). I know the more places I go the worst the nostalgia will get but I will learn to reconcile or at least learn to reconcile with the fact that I can't reconcile. I trust that it will all work out and I trust that there are a million ways to be happy and that I will be, always.

There are too many great people in the world. I want to fit all of them in my pocket. And I want to fit in all of their pockets.

Today I found sympathy for Heather and it changed things. I am starting to worry that Heather is becoming too much of a real person while simultaneously enjoying it.

the nature of things, and things of that nature

It is winter and winter is supposed to feel slow and honey like, but it feels fast. Too fast for my liking. There are too many lovely people here, and they keep seeming to get lovelier, but I have to leave. This makes me sad, but also relieved, because I've gotten myself entangled in some messes and I need to get out of here. And there are too many bypasses and too much too clean water and too much of everything here. I need to be somewhere with a little more heart.

It is winter and I am going to love things too much and it is going to sting but it is well worth it. Redbird week is almost here and when I remember, it doesn't even matter that things are messy because I will be home in the warmth of folk-music love. Time to shake these blues baby, winter won't wait for you.

I am editing poems for my final portfolio for creative writing, thought I'd post 'em.
Pantoum, yo

Family Heirlooms

My most prominent feature is desperation
and I've been told I wear it beautifully.
It was passed down to me from my grandmother
along with her wedding dress

which I've been told I wear beautifully.
This morning I woke with such lush longings
they were passed down to me from my grandmother
when we passed each other sleep-walking.

This morning I woke with such lush longings,
your sullen fingers grazed my prayer-less palms
when we passed each other sleep-walking
but you wouldn't meet my eye.

Your sullen fingers grazed my prayer-less palms
which were passed down to me from my grandmother,
you wouldn't meet my eye
too distracted by my most prominent feature, desperation.

Winter arrived just in time to greet the newest Welch. And this weekend has brought a lovely amount of snow. There is a winter feeling I get, that I can not explain, but it is the most lovely, warm sort of feeling there is. But this winter it is mixed with another sort of heart-exhaustion feeling and my body can't seem to be able to find a way for these two to fit together so I just feel constantly over-whelmed, but in a strangely calm way. I want to do the right thing and I don't know what that is. I am running out of time.

It is winter and all I want to do is love things,but it just isn't that simple. Or maybe, it is.

ithurtsithurtsithurts. i spit. it still hurts.

Heather and I
are not ladies,
sitting with our
legs spread wide
as a turkey being stuffed.
Heather tells me
I love like a dog,
eager and desperate,
even lick my wounds
the same sad way a dog does.

Learning to be patient and trusting of the cosmos and mostly of the goodness of people. Keeping my chin up and remembering all of the gems I have found and all of the gems I have yet to find.