Certainty of What We Do Not See

  In a small patch of woods, a little grove not a quarter mile from the highway, sits a bench. The wood has become weathered along the edges from the seasons, taking on a dark grey hue where there was once almost naturally white wood.
  Drawing closer, as the saplings and wildflowers tug at your sides, you see the last hour of sun begin to come out from behind the clouds and bring into light the the wood of this bench for what it once was. The middle of the seat begins to glow with an angelic like presence from the sunset, making you feel safe, while growing more curious of this place.
  Your hand can almost reach out and touch it, the strokes of grain smooth under your fingertips. This was once important to someone special. You can't say why, you simply know, by the spiritual presence coursing through the confines of the trees.
  While contemplating the presence around you, something catches your eye you didn't think was there a moment ago. A pile of stones stands neatly stacked feet away from the bench. You turn to get closer, when you feel your footing pulled out from under you. You catch yourself on your hands and knees before your face can hit the earth. And there it is. Brushing away the leaves you make out a name in the aged stone plaque, and words of wisdom to guide you on the rest of your journey. "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Dark Summer Nights

It was a cool late summer evening on the streets of Bland Missouri. The moon shining as bright as the street lights that lit the quiet lonely road. This narrow road seemed a mile wide tonight, standing in the middle of it between the many antique shops that dapple the sides. They lie empty and lifeless, while filled with mannequins dressed in 1950's dresses and tin buckets sat outside the doors, hoping to draw in customers who can still remember the smell of fresh warm milk that once filled their brim.
The orange lights shown a glow over the black pavement and still water from the early morning rain. The dark shadows of the trees stretched over the road, reaching out for an unsuspecting wanderer to step too close, so he could then be engulfed by the blackness.
 

Dear Kit

People hurt, they caress your body with a knife of the purest silver and when they depart they leave you with that knife still throbbing in your chest, and words of love and promises still ringing in your ear. You think you will never again fall into false hope. When will you give up on this hopeless idea? What will become of you when your heart is broken for the last time?

Dear kit, sad naive dreamer. You must one day realize that people are only here with you for the pelt you can offer. They will fill your head with ideas that seem grande and beautiful. They will offer you warmth and safety from the cold world outside. Only so that they may nurture your body and soul before they skin you for all the beauty that you are. You will be left broken and alone with nothing left, not even the fur on your back to keep you warm.

You will say to yourself with the heavens as your witness, "Never again will I fall into the hunter's trap and be skinned alive and left for dead!" Yet again and again you let yourself believe you have found someone who will nurture you for all that you are, all that you may offer, without desire to tear it away from your flesh.

You believe you can love and be loved in return. But each time you find that you have less to offer. Each time your pelt is ripped away it comes back with less vibrancy, it returns with mats and fleas. You begin to hide away in the bushes, so that no one may see the scars of where you have been cut.

Do not give yourself anymore to those who only mean you harm. Go back to your home, away from hunters and traps and learn from these experiences. Grow hard and steady and build yourself from what they have left you as. Become strong and clever, so that you may never again be caught in their steel traps.

Let them become entrapped by your beauty and fierceness. That which they can only see from the outskirts of the forest, as you disappear like a shadow of a spirit. Live in the safe confounds of your woods, where there is much to be discovered. There are miles to be traveled. Protect yourself from the evil in this world, when it is a battle you cannot fight alone. You have not yet found your ally in this war.

And remember what your scars are there to remind you of, not to hold you hostage to memory, to guide you on a further path.

Dear Younger Me

This is written with the idea that we could some how, some day, reach back to who we once were and give words of advice that may make the years we know now were hard, easier.
It gets worse before it gets easier.
This is a harsh saying but it is so true in ways we may not understand yet. Dear younger me, our heart gets broken more than once in our teens. The cute rat tail boy chooses someone else after three romantic teenage months. His sister does just as much damage. The first kiss is awkward, but there's much to learn from it. We learn that letting go is the best thing we could ever do for the rest of our life.
There is a college student that we find attractive, but it doesn't work out. Due to different aspirations in life. By this time dad is gone. We get through it with a strong heart.
At eighteen we met someone who seemed like the perfect end to a fairy tale, that forever that everyone is looking for. There's so much we don't know about him at first. At this point it feels safe to say he will do the most damage to our teenage years. Next time there is any doubt about someone, we run. If they are ever cruel, ever controlling, ever say something against the things we care most about, they are not safe to have in our life. And be sure to squeeze a ketchup bottle as often as possible. If there is anything I might change at all, I would say break his heart five months earlier. It's not worth keeping contact. Or maybe I'm wrong, perhaps all things have their purpose.
Never try to impress those around you, they are not important.
Don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't wear, even if it's just an opinion.
It's okay to scream, whether there are people around or not.
Drive with the windows down and music loud, even if there are other drivers and it's an embarrassing song.
When the strange woman tells you that you are beautiful, you will want to think she's crazy and just saying what any girl wants to hear, even though she says she hears from god. She might be actually be right. That statement is going to be very important one day, thanks to our last heart break before we hit twenty.
Leave the people who don't prove loyal, or honest, and keep the friends that were always there even in the hard times.
Continue with the things that matter, leave behind the things that do not.
No matter how hard things get, or how it feels like the sun will never rise again, it will. Given time.
When you are driving alone with your thoughts screaming louder than the music, and you start to doubt life and this bigger picture, you think your faith is a lie, that there really isn't a god in this torture called life, take a deep breath and see what he has put in front of you. Sometimes it's a sunset, sometimes it's a person, sometimes it's something terrifying, sometimes it's something wonderful. As his children we rebel, and he takes great measures to remind us he is always there even when we don't see him. And no one is ever going to have the knowledge to persuade you to see otherwise, even when you doubt, if someone argues you will argue that he is true and faithful, because you are faithful to him. To the end. Those people who try to turn you against him will become angry, they are stubborn but they know not how you could ever be so stubborn to believe in a higher power that doesn't exist. What they don't know yet is that he does exist, and that they simply don't have the sight to see him yet. If they grow angry, let them throw their tantrum as you remain calm and always logical. They are angry because they want what you have but they can't understand it right now.
And finally, make more wishes with dandelions.
-Aspiring Photography, Lily

Happy Easter!

Easter is always a special time in my family. We have our basic traditions. Coloring eggs, lots of chocolate, and hunting for eggs after breakfast.
Back when Daniel and I were little, my dad would always hide the eggs we had colored, every year, without fail. He would hide some easy ones, and some not so easy ones. He would follow us around and give us a hint if we were close.
We always found it funny though how quickly he would forget where he hid all the eggs! We almost never found all of them. Why just last summer I found a three or four year old Easter egg stowed away in the shop. It was past the point of rotting already, it was just dust.
My dad always had special places he would hide the eggs too, so we had a few ideas where to look. In the trees, by the trampoline, there was always one in the gutter. Now that he's gone, Daniel and I try to uphold his traditions for the younger kids, with a few of our own twists.

We still colored eggs. The kids made all kinds of pretty colors and stuck stickers all over them when they were dry. We took the special crayons that keep the egg white when you write designs and put it in the dye. Using the crayons we made what we call, Scribble Eggs. We wrote all over the eggs, scribbling over every inch, and then placed them in the die, coming out with interesting abstract patterns. It's also tradition to write the name of your crush on one of your eggs every year. You can imagine who's name I wrote down.

On Easter morning Daniel and I got up early while the kids were at sunrise service to hide all six dozen colored eggs. Daniel took the north half of the house, I took the south half. Daniel hid two eggs on the roof for a laugh. I hid one in the storage mailbox in the garden. I attempted to hide one on the edge of the tree house, but a sickening crack as I was climbing down ended that brilliant plan. Daniel hid one in the cat's litter box in the shop. He also hid two eggs in the chicken coop, where the chickens promptly sat on them.
The kids got home just as we were finishing up with three eggs. Once they had eaten we took them out and waited. There were quite a few easy ones we left in plain sight for Juliet to find, then there were more complicated, clever ones for the older girls. Juliet ran and screamed and giggled over every egg she found in the grass and in the flowers. Georgianna took finding eggs very seriously, as she does with most things. Annaliese saw it as a sport and wanted to find every egg.
Annaliese was not brave enough to stick her hand under either of the chickens to get the colored eggs that Daniel had hid in the nest boxes, but Georgianna had no fear in grabbing it from under them. I was proud.
At the end of the day, I feel sad that I can't share these memories and traditions with my dad now that he's passed, as well as wishing he could see how much we have grown in these few years. The kids have gotten so big and smart, Daniel looks more like him every day, and I know I am not the same girl I was. I like to think he would not be surprised at all. He would say he knew who we would become all along.

Georgia, Atlanta!

I went on my first flight, ever, to Georgia Atlanta last week to see my dear boy! He is working on an engineering degree at Georgia Tech.
The flight was amazing, except for being in the absolute back row with no window, but for my first time on a plane, it was great.
My plane landed Friday afternoon, the airport was huge, I had to walk for half an hour before finding him at baggage claim. It was like a movie scene when the crowd of people in front of me dispersed to reveal my boy waiting for me. I will admit I stopped and stared for a split second, thinking to myself, "He didn't have a beard last time I saw him.." It was most definitely him without a doubt though. It was difficult not to run the few yards towards him, but with my carry on bag clunking behind me and my bag jumping and bouncing against my hip, running would, in the least, not been very graceful.
It seemed to me it took forever to get near, I could not make my way across that stretch of tile floor fast enough. When I did, the first thing I did was say, "You grew your beard out!" He laughed and asked, "Is that a problem?" I wrapped him in my arms and simply said no before I kissed him quick.
We spent Friday at his aunts house, where I was spending the weekend. They were two wonderful women. Philip and I cooked dinner together that evening, we made pasta with Alfredo sauce and broccoli. The pasta kept boiling over, until he told me to 'micro manage' it, until it was done. It turned out great.
After dinner we dressed up, I wore a black lacy dress with a strong red lipstick, and he wore his white button shirt, the very same he wore the night we met. Being Halloween weekend, there were lots of costumes at the dance, my favorite being a girl dressed as Jayne Cobb. I enjoyed talking and dancing with the different people, I felt like a foreigner, in an exciting way. I did however, make an enemy of the teacher of the dance that night. He was very arrogant about his way of teaching. Every group has their own version of dancing, their own quirks, I am used to mine. He loudly announced to the three hundred people at the dance that he would not tolerate anyone doing a rock step, which is the most important step in dancing where I was taught, so it was insane in my mind to ban it. I ignored the teacher and followed the lead, some men were new and only wanted to follow the teacher, while others had been used to East Coast like I was, making a rock step. After a couple rotations, a tall guy who had been dancing for six months, was attempting to show off, little did he know I had a year and a half on him. While I am not particularly proud of being a competitive show off, I took him on that night. I made a fancy little step, and ended on a very dramatic rock step, making a good stomp on the ground. He laughed and said I was making him look bad and he was getting judging looks. The next thing I knew the teacher was looking right at me, yelling even with the microphone on him, to all three hundred people, about how awful rock step was, how there was a reason he didn't do rock step, and we should not question it, just do it. I laughed and rolled my eyes in his face, then turned to my partner and said he was a little full of himself, my partner agreed. Just a little.
After teaching was over, I was claimed by my boy and we danced through the night, among the very large crowd, feeling very tightly packed.
Saturday morning, I was kidnapped by Philip's aunts before he woke up, and taken to breakfast. I also got to see a silver shop. The most intriguing pieces I saw were a silver spoon with a intricate Koi fish pattern, and cuff links with real baseball and golf ball embedded in silver. When I got back, after his aunts had left and he heard me singing Stiff Upper Lip in the other room as I thought he was still asleep, we got dressed and went to Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

Piedmont Park, Atlanta, GA

It was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect. We walked for miles, catching the tail end of a farmer's market, where a coffee shop called The Blue Donkey gave us both the last of some interesting tasting coffee. We walked by a beautiful lake, played in the trees, bantering like children. We even raced each other across a stretch of field. I asked him what he would say to racing, he said let's go. Halfway across the field he asked how do we know when to stop, I said when we hit pedestrians. Fortunately we managed to avoid that, and stopped at a big tree and just talked further. We walked again until we came to a bench with a view of the lake, we stopped there for a time, before heading back to the car to get back to his aunt's house.
His aunts took us to a fancy Greek restaurant, where I tried octopus for the first time, which was quite good. I also took the time to give his aunts the gold filled bracelets I had made as a thank you for letting me stay with them.
When we got back that night we watched Jurassic World, around eleven at night Philip had to carry me up to bed.
Sunday we spent at the Lynox mall. Philip was well rested and feeling very silly, making fun of the strangely posed mannequins and trying on various hats that we found in shops. It was nice to be indoors, as it was pouring rain most of the day. We must have walked miles, up and down all over the mall just laughing and joking and having fun. We tried cherry ice cream from a little shop, which he thought was too heavy on bourbon.
At the mall we found a jacket and a hat for Philip, and he got me a neutral colored beanie hat he liked.We had fun looking at all the different shops, like the little room by the door selling entirely socks. My favorite were the sonic the hedgehog socks.
When we got back we walked to a pizza restaurant, through the pouring rain. The pizza was excellent! We were walking back through the streets of Atlanta, it was still pouring rain, each of us with an umbrella. Philip started singing various classic rock songs, and I eventually chimed in, until we were singing so dramatically it's a wonder we didn't have someone yelling at us.
The songs we sang in the rain were;
Problem Child
Somebody To Love
All Along The Watchtower
Who Are You
Rock and Roll Band
It's A Long Way To The Top
Let There Be Rock
At this point I tried to be romantic, knowing we would be back at his aunts soon and he would be going back to his dorm. So when he was looking to cross the street, I pulled his jacket sleeve to bring him into me and kiss him, but it scared him more than anything, thinking something was wrong.
And finally, just as we were getting back I started us off with,
Don't Stop Believing
"Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world, she took the midnight train going anywhere."
"Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit, he took the midnight train going anywhere."
We got back to his aunts, watched James Bond, and I walked Philip outside so he could get a ride back to his dorm.
Monday morning I went to the airport, got my seat assigned, and wandered around for a while, ending up with six shot glasses for my family and a friend. All of which had Atlanta or Georgia written on them, each one in a different design.
I had a great time for my first trip out of state, first plane flight, first time really being on my own before and after being with Philip. I will say though it feels good to be home, especially with the time change jerking me around, between jet lag and daylight savings time ending while I was in Georgia, it has taken over a week for me to get back to normal sleep schedule.
However, I hope to fly again soon.

New Day, New Beginning

One year and four months ago, July 19th 2014, I went with a group of friends to the Casa Loma Ballroom in St. Louis. We usually did this on a Friday night, but tonight was special as we were going on a Saturday to see the great Miss Jubilee. This was my first time seeing her perform, as it was for the other girl in our group, but our guy friend raved about how amazing she was ever since we agreed to go.
We danced the night away. I had started the evening wearing my high heeled boots, but by the end of the night changed into my more suitable red converse.
Nearing the last few hours of the night, I retreated to our table in a dark corner of the room. The girl in our group however was still going strong asking every guy in the big ballroom who looked like he knew what he was doing to dance. She continued trying to convince me to ask someone to dance, and would point out guys for me to ask. But I was content in my dark corner watching the other dancers and contemplating how I could improve.
I was thinking so hard I almost didn't notice her come up to me once again, or the boy standing next to her in a white button up shirt and cargo pants. I looked up smiled in politeness, assuming this was a friend of hers. Because why would anyone drag a complete stranger over to meet me sitting here in the dark corner of the room? Only to find out she was that kind of person.
She smiled rather slyly as she looked at me and looked at him. Finally to break the silence the boy looked at me and asked if I would like to dance. My heart fell hard like a rock into utter embarrassment, and ached for what my friend was doing to this boy. She was always very outgoing, too much so in my opinion.
I stood up and took his outstretched hand and let him walk me to the dance floor. As soon as we were out of ear shot of my friend I apologized for her. "Is that her name?" He asked, seeming to simply laugh it off.
I planned for the end of the song to say it was nice meeting him, and to walk away before he had a chance to awkwardly run away and never speak to me again in this life time. To my surprise, it didn't quite go the way I thought it would that night..
When the song ended, I looked at him smiling, I said it was nice meeting him, but before I could walk away, he asked, "I don't suppose you would be interested in dancing to this next slower song?"
My heart stopped and leapt simultaneously. Without saying a word I nodded and took his hand. I barely left his side again that entire night. He was entering his senior year in high school, he wanted to be a doctor. The unfortunate drawback was the music was so loud we couldn't always hear what the other said.
One of the greatest memories made that night however, was during the band's break they played Moves Like Jagger. And we had more fun than ever embarrassing ourselves in front of each other, without care that we would make a bad impression.
 I was wearing my hair tied back in a pony tail that night, but my bangs still swept in front of my face and tickled my nose, once I went to push it back behind my ear again that night but he reached out and brushed the lock of hair out of my face himself. I had never been so head over heels before, and such a simple gesture could make my heart soar. I still remember clearly the feeling.
I had begun thinking, that if we parted without way of communication tonight, we would likely never see or hear from each other again. I was beginning to work up the courage to ask him for his phone number, so that we could keep in touch and maybe see each other again. Before I did, nearing the time of the night he had to leave, he took both my hands in his and I took a deep breath as he did, he looked at me with his dark eyes and said there was one thing left to do, he wanted my phone number. With great excitement I gave it to him and watched him leave.
Before the night was over, he texted me. The exact first text we shared with each other;

Hey this is philip, your dance partner, if this is lily and i actually got your number right please tell me so i can know, thank you

 Why yes, this is Lily. Your dance partner. ;)

 We haven't gone a day without talking to each other since that night. And we have been seeing each other every chance we get. About four months ago, June 19th, we officially started dating, after I finally wkrked up the courage to ask him, in none other than that same Casa Loma ballroom.
I've been told by many people, over and over again, that he's good for me, that I am happy around him, I am a different person when he's around. I don't really need to be told though, I always knew this was true. All I can hope is that I do as much for him as he has done for me.

Taken October 31 2015, Atlanta, GA