write me a door

i said i'd write my way though, and i haven't written a word. so i've been bumbling through the mire and need to get out. here i am, fashioning a door of words. a window of hope.

in my prayers the other day i came across the ever powerful scripture,

i shall not die, but live.

how many times that word alone has saved me alive i do not know. i hear my spirit uttering,

choose life. choose life.

i could languish on the vine, but i choose not to. i choose life. so even though i don't feel an ounce "better" as they say, i am choosing life.

my best friend from seattle called yesterday. i had called her late friday night. i was in dire need of help that night. i asked her,

did i sound happy? i was trying to sound happy.

because i was trying to leave a message but not a scary message.

she said,

i know you. i know your voice. i can hear it in your voice when you are sad.

she went on to say,

i think anyone in true relationship who really knows a person can tell when that person is sad.

i hope that is true. i hope that there are many other people out there who have those rallying around them as i, who hear beneath the words. who see though their eyes have not laid hold of me in the flesh in many years, sometimes at all. i hope and pray that there are more friends like that out there to be-friended. if that is even a word. i don't think it is.

today's prayers have this line from luke 1:68:

to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.

that i am a christian and need this light as much as the unsaved, is what it is. i'm not sure that i will ever not be in need of that particularl light.

i sat at the audobon society of new jersey on monday, outside the cage of a wounded captive hawk named killi. she was wounded in texas as a juvenile and while she has wings and can fly, she cannot live in the wild. she cannot fend for herself.

killi makes only juvenile hawk sounds. a kind of gutteral cry i've never heard before. none of the screeching calls so familiar to those who know hawks.

when i first saw her, the striking similarities beckoned me as we regarded one another and i said,

i'm sorry killi. i won't identify with you. i'm blooming.

(a blue jay calls outside my window just now.)

you see, i was once wounded. i once knew only juvenile sounds, but no more. i am restored. i am whole. sure, i fall into shadown now and again, but as my best friend says,

you use your creativity a lot. it is to be expected that your shadow would exact a toll.

she is a pianist, songwriter, you see. and understands these things.

so i sat with killi monday. and we had a good chat. a silent communing of spirits. her piercing brown eyes fixed upon me at times and i smiled and said,

hello lovely.

wounded or not, she is majestic. grounded and caged or not, she demands respect.

many tiger swallowtails frequent the grounds, black swallowtails and an unidentified rather large checkerspot with irridescent spots below the wings reminiscent of a gulf frittilary. but the wings are not the elongated wings of the fritillary, rather akin to a monarch.

i basked in the sun like a butterfly beating her wings upon the bright red campchair flower on which i like a stamen posed. bees investigated me. wasps too (a giant red one unnerved me). the warmth of sunshine, the visual freedom of that place (more on that another day), was healing to me.

beauty is healing. so while i've not penned me a door, i've found me a door of hope and beauty. friendship and love. and i am grateful.