My Small Friend has Put me to Shame

My dear friend, Ariel, has been blogging beautiful things all year.  I could say that she has time to write while I have not, since she graduated last year, but the fact of her teaching job flattens that argument.  Suffice it to say that I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, and mean to be a better blogger in the future.

My friend's blog can be found here, and I highly recommend it.  Her last post features a sonnet she wrote for me (which I strive to be worthy of), and so here I will post the sonnet I wrote for her (which she surpasses) last year.  Cheating, yes, but it is still new to the blog, if not to me!

Ariel

My friend is small but Lion is her name.

Bright Lion Child; a queen of feyish height,

Come light with cheer for souls lost at mountain’s

Foot: gives them joy for joy and sword for fight.

My friend is sweet but keeps a sword sound-safe

In her pocket.  If parchment were the soil,

Then all the world whole would her small sword make,

And fairies dance where today goblins spoil.

My friend is quiet, but she laughs so to

Ignite the sky with sunset--drown the dry,

Loveless desert with blesséd water. Through
Sad eve’ning her glad voice good still supplies.
Run to my friend if a kind ear you seek,
Or, more still, hush and hear the Lion speak.


I wrote another sonnet last year, at the same time Ariel wrote this wonderful poem, and since I have just left my college without the promise of return in the fall, it feels as apt now as it did at the time of writing.

To the Year

In verse their faces venture I to catch;

With oil and water struggles brush to note

Their voices vibrant.  Stills, though, cannot match

The real.  Solely to thought one must not devote.

Now snap the photograph, write quick the quote:

Be still, be still for memory may not

This moment keep still.  Future none makes hote

His voice, her eyes, your laugh permanent wrought;

No yarn to fastly stitch, nor ink to blot.

While days and eve’nings rapidly move on:

Those songs, these dances, mem’ries which cannot

Again be made.  How glad we are that dawn

These days brings promised joy: wine, bread,

And love and comforts known if never said.

Train Ride to Encinitas

I'm on a train back to school.  High fog veils the sun, making delicate the way it spreads out over the water.  When the fog is high like this it makes the sun a drop of white-gold watercolor, seeping outward and melding into the clouds so that you know about where it is but not where exactly.  I'd like to paint that sun.  I'd like to paint the ocean.  I sit here sipping on tea and wondering how I will manage to paint the ocean.  The ocean is grey but it is the type of grey which is composed of a thousand shades of blue and ivory.  It's the ocean which reminds one not of summer and sandwiches but of seagulls and long skirts in the wind and holding hands.  I'm enjoying the tea but want to get off this train and run down to the water.  I want to call my friends and tell them to go to the water, because the day is beautiful and I'd like to give them a beautiful day.  I fell asleep at the station and dreamt that one of them traveled with me.  I almost wish he did, because he loves the sky and the water as much as I do.

Christmas Cups at Starbucks

I'm at a Starbucks in Encinitas right now, and I can't write too long because I'm supposed to be writing a story.  Funny how that's so difficult when there's a deadline (even a loose one) attached.

It used to annoy me when Christmas stuff popped up too early.  I always felt like it diminished my the excitement over decorations in late December when they'd been up since mid-October.  But today is the fourth of November, and my coffee is in one of those little red and white Starbucks cups.  When I saw the barista pick it up I wondered if stifling tears would be necessary.

Always I'm excited about Christmas.  For any of you who have seen the movie Prancer, Jessie's character all but IS me as a child.  I'm not rushing Christmas along this year; I hope it takes its time so I can celebrate it longer.  I don't even want to skip Thanksgiving.  I adore Thanksgiving--for some reason beginning to sing carols in November doesn't feel like it will damage Thanksgiving, like I always felt it would before.

Perhaps I'm more excited because home is rather far away and I'll be there come Christmas.  I do miss home, but not in a longing and sad sort of way.  I miss home in a way that makes me confident.  Home is right there.

There's a joke with my friends at school (specifically those who are over most every night) that we're all a family.  That's hardly a joke; the joke bit lies in our family name: Sheenerstapenkolousmansson. Obviously that's a fusion of our last names.  The 'ner' is me.  The friends who don't spend every single night at our house are the cousins with their own name which I can't remember perfectly at the moment.  I only got the other name by copying it out of a facebook conversation.  Needless to say, I've made some wonderful friends here.  I've only known them about two months and wonder if I'm forcing attachment, but I truly don't think so.  They're the type of friends I simply cannot imagine losing.  I pray I'm a good enough friend to never lose any of them, even through distance.  For any of you who remember this post, I definitely made the right choice.  I can't imagine being anywhere else.

Maybe I'm so excited about Christmas because we've never had a Christmas together.  Most of them have, but I haven't with any of them!

(Sidenote: suddenly I'm the only customer in this Starbucks.  It's kinda creeping me out.)

Whatever it is, I'm excited.  More than excited.  Have you ever gotten that weird feeling in your chest?  It's excited and almost euphoric, somehow both heavy and weightless, and even though you're so happy you almost feel a little unwell.  It nearly feels like being afraid.  It's the feeling you get when for a moment someone loves you.  It's the feeling you get when walking with a friend through cold weather, but your friend isn't cold because he's wearing a scarf you made him.