friendly ghosts

Work is just that, isn't it, and taking more out of me than I ever knew it could. My words are scarce, even inside my own head, all echoes and whispers and fragments of things that almost are and then are not. What words I do have are saved for them, for my dearest, my friendly ghosts.

bits and pieces

There is nothing left, nothing
but a box and
another, smaller box
which
contain

bits and pieces
ribbons, lace
cards and letters

the teeniest, tiniest
things:

brown monkey shoes
stripey shirts
a hat
a blanket
a book
a dress

all that is left
of the two of you, and
who I hoped
you'd be.

the very last day

I am sitting in a living room. I am living. I am loved. And tomorrow we will have Christmas. (Christmas!) It doesn't matter the day. It will be Christmas here, tomorrow. It will be twinkly lights and yummy dinner and nutella and chocolate and torn paper and peppermints and squeals and pajamas and blankets and gingerbread and smiles. It will be presents made and bought and wrapped in secret and taped up tight with names all scrawled across the front in black sharpie. It will be hugs and squeezes and not letting go not even for a second because this is the last day, the very last day. The last day together. Our Christmas.

concise

My posts are often short. I cannot go on at length, for what is left to say? I cannot tell you of their darlingness, their splendidness. Their precious, precious hearts. I cannot tell you.

I cannot tell.

exist, cease, persist

This short article by Brian Greene was really interesting to me.

I think about death and dying a lot. That sounds morbid I guess, but I don't think I'm morbid. I have encountered something that changed me profoundly; I consider it often because I need to understand it as best I can, or risk running mad, shattered by my lack of... well. Shattered by my lack.

People rarely seem to want to talk about it, which makes me appreciate candid opinions and theories like this one all the more. It's only a way of thinking, of course; but what else do we have?

the playlist game

I can't remember where I got this from, but it seemed like a fun thing to do today. If you like, you can create your own post and join in below using Mr. Linky, or just share your playlist in the comments. Then in a week or so I'll choose someone at random to win a little present from me, including a mix CD of my most loved Christmas/Winter songs. :)


01 | Your Favorite
Volcano - Damien Rice

02 | Makes You Happy
Kill Your Heroes - AWOLNATION

03 | Makes You Sad
The Chain - Ingrid Michaelson

04 | Reminds You of Someone
Safe & Sound - Matthew Mayfield

05 | Reminds You of Somewhere
Airplanes - B.o.B.

06 | Reminds You of a Certain Event
Running Up That Hill - Placebo

07 | You Can Dance To
Sing, Sing, Sing - Benny Goodman

08 | You Can Fall Asleep To
Song for Viola - Peter Bradley Adams

09 | From Your Favorite Band
Secrets - One Republic

10 | From Your Favorite Album
Poison & Wine - The Civil Wars

11 | Recently Discovered
Cameras - Matt & Kim

12 | An Unexpected Fave
How I Roll - Britney Spears

13 | Describes You
Everything's Just Wonderful - Lily Allen

14 | For When You’re Angry
Not Afraid - Eminem

15 | For When You’re Excited
Queen of the World - Ida Maria

16 | For When You’re Sad
Bring on the Wonder - Susan Enan

17 | To Be Played at Your Wedding
Lullaby - Dixie Chicks

18 | To Be Played at Your Funeral
How the Day Sounds - Greg Laswell

19 | Makes You Laugh
Hallows - Mandy Maynard

20 | Your Favorite at This Time Last Year
Maybe Next Year - Meiko


I hope you'll play! I have a wicked sore throat that kept me up into the night, and a muchness of things to get ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I could use some good new songs to get me through it!

my favorite part

Thanksgiving was always
nine miserable hours in the car
through the day and long into
the deep night
but then
waking up
alone
in a bed piled high
with clean quilts
behind a narrow door that locked
in a little room at the end
of the hall
where the air was warm
and never smelled of damp or rot

it smelled of turkey
which had been in the oven for hours already
and it smelled of forethought, which smells like love
and the sound of coffee percolating
marched purposefully down that hall
soft but persistent
a call to wake up, wake up
it's today
it's morning
and no one is drunk yet
and you are safe for now
and warm

wake up, enjoy it
while you can.

lullaby

I miss my baby.

I cried today. I haven't cried in awhile.
I miss him so much.

fierce medicine

This is the only book I read all month. It took me that long to get through it... and it was worth every minute. This woman is amazing; her writing is powerful and challenging and inspiring and I highly recommend this book to survivors of every age and shape and kind.

sin city

We went to Vegas for my cousin's 21st birthday. It was awesome ♥




1. en route 2. birthday shots 3. new york new york
4. hard rock hotel 5. mgm lion 6. at breakfast
7. view from stratosphere 8. bellagio fountains 9. birthday girl

just for fun

spotted on Creature Comforts

instagram love

1.new haircut 2.tree root heart 3.quilt project 4.caramel apple cider

I'm on Twitter now [vera_kate], and also Instagram [verakate]. So, you can totally check it out... You know, if you're into that sort of thing...

xoxo -- v

bring on the wonder

a hole in the world

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

raw

My consciousness streams like comets, like meteors. Streams like rivers running madly, racing to the sea. It could be like this all the time; this free flow of thoughts. This sea of ideas. But I am surrounded by sluices and dams, all meticulously handmade... I'm terrified of drowning, you see.

A seamless transition.

That's what we all hope for, isn't it. But does it ever really happen? Is it even possible? I don't know. I think it might be a thing we made up.

I feel like every change I've ever made has been wrenching, like ripping off a band aid--only not done and over then, quickly, like they say it will be, but awful and messy and the sting doesn't fade, it just gets overwritten eventually, maybe, by a new kind of sting that isn't any better, just different.

It is so abrupt, this wide world. Blatant. Blatantly kind; blatantly cruel. Lacking in subtleties.

Oh, subtlety.

How I long for quiet details, rather than this vast, raw experience I've had. Raw like meat. Raw like bones exposed. Raw like animals in the winter in the wild, cold, ravening, merciless. Harsh.

Weeks, months, years. My baby is dead, dead! And it guts me still, in the same beautiful, haunting way it always has and always will, except that my breaths get bigger, now, instead of smaller, and I am so excruciatingly alive I can hardly stand it. I want to cry and sing. Laugh and scream. Shake my fist at the falling sky. Dance. Dance. Dance.

I am alive.

Last night I dreamed I was pregnant, heavily so, and happy. Near the end of the dream, I thought my water broke, but I wasn't sure, because I'd never felt it before. It made me sad, in the dream. I didn't know what to do next, and I was so sad. I felt like less than the other mothers, the ones who had done this before. I felt that I should know.

I was still sad, when I woke up, still unsure.

There is indescribable pain radiating outward from behind my right shoulder blade, as if there were a massive hook through and through my flesh. (It's happened before, right there, though I couldn't tell you why.) I've been almost totally incapacitated for two whole days. Disheartening. I try to breathe into it, but it's deep deep down and it's boiling lava hot and it hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts-hurts, and I'd rather just lie as still as I can, and pretend it's not there.

Story of my life.

Oh god, it hurts. All of it hurts.

But I am fierce, and clever, and strong, and no one has completely gotten the best of me yet.

the sun will still rise

the law of bad things

I hate that good things are so foreign to me it sends my system into shock. Crushing, crushing. Can't breathe. Dangerous scenarios feel natural, feel expected, feel like where I'm supposed to be. This whole year, nothing bad has happened to me, and I feel like I'm running from the law. The Law of Bad Things. Fugitive of horrors, hidden away for now -- but it's only a matter of time.

disquiet

On the cusp of great things, and my first flawed instinct is to throw myself backward, toward known miseries, rather than risk flinging myself forward, into I-know-not-what.

fml

The problem with feeling indifferent about "God" is that I have no one to rail at when I'm upset.

something that's like you

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

better run, better run

reckless

Did I ever tell you how, a couple of months ago, I realized that I'd never broken a single bone in my body? Not only that, but did I tell you how shockingly ANGRY that realization made me feel? (Furious! Livid! Absolutely seething!) Not because I had any desire to actually break my bones, but because I was missing out on the kind of life experiences that cause broken bones -- and I was missing out on them for all the wrong reasons.

It made me want to jump from a high place, crash my bike, try skiing for the first time. It made me want to drive to Mexico in a borrowed car without any money. Go to a party with a hundred people I don't know. Drink too much, dance on tabletops. Get my lip pierced on a dare. It made me want to do things I've never done before.

It made me want to be reckless.


My current mantra, via weheartit.com

because

I've been really stressed out lately because everyone is having babies except for me and because I finally got a new job which is amazing but also scary and because [the boy] is being noncommittal and it's driving me insane and because I don't have enough people to talk to about things and because I miss my friends so much and because I keep realizing all over again how much I hate my parents and what they did and how much it effected me and because there is so much revelation going on up in here it's making me dizzy... and because I know I'm the one who has to pick my own self up and make what I can out of this hard, hard life, every day, until it's done.

at sixes and sevens

I'm so out of sorts this week I hardly know how to begin to describe it.

many words, no courage

via weheartit.com

brash & brazen

Sometimes I just want to walk in there and kiss him, right in front of everybody. No nervous small talk, no half-promises, no guessing games. Just to see what it would be like; a hello and a goodbye at the same time.

Sometimes I wish I didn't worry so much about what happens afterward. After the bold gesture; after the dramatic moment.

It holds me back from trying so very many exciting things.

self-consolation

Someday, every piece of clothing I own will be chic, and then it won't matter what I put on, I will always look like I have it together.

(I just went to the video store in yoga pants and a cami. All I can say is that I was really, really tired... And maybe I've been living in NorCal for too long. Nobody else thought it was weird, but I sure did.)

a center tightly wound

They always called it "poise" but
if they'd asked, I'd have told them:

No.

Paralysis.
Inability to move.

---

Even now, I do not make
unnecessary movements. After
a run I push my muscles
to stretch as best they can but
though I am
leaner day by day it is often all I can do to

brush the very
tips
of my
toes, always
just out of reach, because
I am so inflexible,
unbending, rigid inside
and out. Every day

I operate from
a center so tightly wound I
do not know
what
might
happen
if it were to loosen
and so I do not

yield. For if this
twisted
mass of knot on
knot on
knot were ever picked free, what then

would be left to fill
out this treacherous
skin that is
the shape of
who I am?

little tiger

I miss you, my baby, my darling son. I miss you.
Sweet dreams, my love.

....................

1. un-birthday balloons 2. dessert

...................

1. elephant 2. giraffe (Oakland Zoo)

..................

1. & 2. jumping off the waterfall

musical interlude III

.................

1. movie date

................

1. - 4. riding the cablecar in SF

...............

1. on the pier 2. sea lions

..............

1. summer girl

.............

1. flippy-floppies (Sophia and Vera)

day of hope

Learn more about the Day of Hope.

............

1. pom garland in the window

...........

1. & 2. white paper poms

..........

1. lacing up

musical interlude II

.........

1. lunch break

........

1. waiting

.......

1. story mapping

......

1. ceiling fan 2. dress and door

.....

1. feather 2. breakfast

musical interlude

....

1. self portrait, bw