only one snowflake(and we speak our names.

2008-04-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

At work I was no more than a puppet dangling on rubber strings. I was a parrot child, and it was embarrassing; when asked how long it would be, my boss would whisper behind my back "ten, fifteen minutes" and I had to answer "ten, fifteen minutes." even though I knew it would be thirty five at the least. If I said anything different the miniature Iranian would holler "I didn't hire you for thinking." And when I was right, after he had left, leaving me with angry an hungry customers how could I explain it was really me who lied to them, mislead them, made them late for their movie, but my boss? I was a tiny little number in a long line of numbers in a building that served dinner food and restaurant quality price, and thought they were four star. Kelly Corporate would come in and change the radio station back to Bluegrass and yell at someone for wearing white socks, as if these things would really positively effect the turn over in a restaurant where sales of $800 are deemed impressive.

So I quit. I'd rather be unemployed then feel ashamed to tell someone where I work.

I bought a red Volvo. You can expect pictures very soon, of her and her brother the Honda Salamander. It runs like a dream and I can almost ignore the ungodly amount of gass it burns. I feel safe in that car. I feel like myself. I only wish it had an air conditioner.

Inspite of all my rage, I'm still like a rat in a cage.
-A.H.

2008-04-17T12:01:00.001-07:00

I have moved all my xanga posts over to their new home now.

Now that I've told my past stories, we can start with the present ones. Welcome to my new home.

-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

The summer is here; driving home with windows down, labored breathing and hair stuck behind your ears nudges me further out of town, past the foot hills and the mountain walls and to benevolent waves of the relentless sea. Walking is like swimming here; the air hangs thick draped over my arms hiding the sirens and the crying babies and stars.

The nights bring a new kind of joy. The air smells of the honeysuckle and lilacs that stretch just outside my bedroom window, their seductive vines winding and writhing and wrapping without shame with the moon and the stars as winking witnesses. All is without shame on nights like this. We all stand before the sky and God with our arms outstretched and the wind like lovers fingers play in our hair and on our necks.

Tonight I felt small when I was with him. Like a tiny bird or a child lying next to something far more powerful then itself. His are the shoulders that shelter me at night and his are the eyes that see for miles around us, just so that my eyes can look at the flowers growing between the rocks on the highway.

Goodnight.
-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:56:00.002-07:00

The windows of the buss rattled in my ear with each dime left in the street. Across the aisle a little girl with a silver tooth sang her abc's while a black man handed out flyers for his new store. I'm not going to go to the grand opening. Sweatshirts with dollar signs aren't my style. In the front of the bus a religious debate wars on and every new passenger is subject to pinpoint questions they probably had succesfully avoided until today; you could see the wheels of their minds loosing traction in their eyes. I'm not sure I mind these adventures. Theres something oddly relaxing about watching your city go by, the people so small from a few feet higher, and your total lack of responsibility for everything that goes on. Its all taken care of. Just watch for your stop.

We bought a new car. The Mercedes has to go. I'm not as sad about it anymore; I just keep my eyes away from the sidewalk, where the baby benz is parked just on the other side of my summer lawn, its baby blue paint still shinning in the sun. It needs a new home, a family with children, perhaps, and a big yard.

The new car is a 1980 Honda Civic Wagon, green with blue front seats and original carmel back seat bench. It smells like my baby sitters car did, back when I was seven rolling in the back of her postal truck. It smells like gass and oil and sounds like tin cans blowing down the street. I love it.

-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:56:00.001-07:00

When the weather turns softer so do I. In my white skirts and loose hair I start to feel like a little girl again. Today I'm seven, playing in the mud pretending to be an Indian Princess, last night I was small, dodging june bugs. Perhaps this could be Marcos and his adventurous spirit reminding me of a time when mine was alive on its own, or maybe I, inspite of my love for p-coats and fireplaces ablaze and frost on the windshield in the morning, I do open up in the spring like a flower. Summer will make me shrivel, but for now I'm alive.

I don't want to talk about apartments, budgets, money, school. Don't warn me about not having kids till I'm thirty. Don't tell me to stay in school. No more PG&E, no more job fairs. Just for now, just for today. Lets leave it at the door and rest.

I think I can see now what it is You're doing. But I wont ask for it, and I wont hope for it. Rather I ask only that You continue to work Your will; whichever apartment, whether the car works or we take the bus. It doesn't matter to me anymore. Bring about in our lives whatever You want, because we know that is the only place we'll be blessed.

Amen.

Happy Anniversary, Happy Birthday Anna.

2008-04-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

It was like staring into the sea, trying to find the coral beneath the waves and the miles of water below. I crouched and ran my hand over the subfloor in the bathroom, stifling sobs as the panic grew up and began to slowly cover me. I'd dropped my contact. I've dropped my contact a million times before, but this time it wasn't here, as if the hand of God had snatched it in midair and taken it back to eternity with him. I later found it, stuck to the cabinet and I'm afraid too shriveled to do much good, so its by the grace of God there was one tucked away in a package, saved for a rainy day. I know I should feel silly for getting so emotional, but I ask you; what would you do if you dropped the only thing that made your world visible, and you had no other means to get a new set?

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Last night at midnight was the first time Marcos and I had ever prayed together. We held our folded hands together, foreheads touching and eyes closed, and standing on my porch under the stars we asked for Divine intervention and then we asked for peace in the meantime. We asked for a swift rescue and for strength to wait.

Happy Anniversary.
-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

I stayed behind when he left for work because his mother captured me. I watered her plants today, the ones that sit on the window sill behind the blinds. Even with their half green half crusty leaves she's proud of them, feels they compliment her abilities. She kept saying "I've been growing those since they were this big,". I think the surgery's going to kick start her forward.

"Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past; See, I am doing a new thing."

You asked me if I had any memories of our past together, any inkling of all the things you used to be for me. There is no kind way to tell you that the past makes no difference to me now. I cannot live in wisps of memories tied to strings and hung on wires down the halls of our dilapidated home. You were right when you charged me with living only in the present and the future while I stared with blank eyes, baffled that you didn't see the beauty of such a thing.

-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

I've learned to greet exhaustion like my shadow, bound to me, sewed to the hems of my skirts, I'll never be rid of it. I've learned to laugh with poverty like a roommate I learned to like, turns out she wasn't so grating after all. My day's are full with new where's to go and new lists to cross out. I'm gone from my house from five thirty am to midnight. I don't even notice anymore.

I climb into my bed like a foreigner who doesn't recognize the shadows of the city. The comforting glow of the computer only exemplifies the loneliness that lies next to me, whispering of a boy who sleeps an intersection away. The sounds of this night are as screeching brakes at a missed stop sign, I am the girl spun out on the shoulder.

Adventures in supermarkets.

Goodnight.

-A.H.

The newest addition;

2008-04-17T11:49:00.001-07:00

-A.H.

I hear the exclamation point.

2008-04-17T11:47:00.002-07:00

We drove on highways cutting through countryside, where wires hang from telephone poles like a noose, coiled firmly to dare you. The air gets cleaner while we drive down the palm line road and I tell him I love the name Blythe and we both agree that under the olive trees would be a great spot for a wedding reception.

We took silhouette shots against the sunlight as it set behind the pine trees. We laughed everytime we forgot to manually cock the new camera. We laughed everytime we said cock the camera. It was a wonderful post valentine celebration.

At the moment all I feel is exhaustion. It holds my arms heavy to the desk like paperweights and hangs my eye lids like canvas. Exhaustion has become my friend. It makes me sleep-except for tonight-it makes me rest. It gives me something to look forward to every day; sleep. Rest. Goodnight.

And I'd never felt power like that. In the middle of the movie, like a flash of lightening in the hot summer sky, like headlights in your country cottage window, like a wind that rips at the buttons in your coat it pinned me down and made my hairs stand on end. I can no more describe this moment to you, strangers, than I could to myself. It can only be wrapped up in sounds, exclamation points and firecrackers. This is oneness. Our souls are interlocked. This is a glimpse.
This is worth waiting for.

Goodnight. Sweet goodnight.
-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:47:00.001-07:00

There are things I wish I could tell you all, confessions of gestures, glances and sighs, soap and candy hearts, all leading to that secret place where then there is only silence.
-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a laptop or an ink ribbon for my type writer so I could hide neath the covers of my still covered in plastic matress, why unwrap it when its not rested? I wish I could find foods that I in all my health struggles could stomach. I wish I could sit on the couch next to my brother all day, even if all we watched were his math videos and all we did was draw skulls with sharpies. I know these words sound repetitive and mundane to you but they feel feverish to me. I wish I smoked. I wish I was moved out already, waking up next to my boy safely tucked away in his arms and sweetly rested and healthy. I wish I was moved out already, spared from this limbo of waiting and paychecks and saving. I'm going to steal her soaps and two of her mugs because this morning she nearly sent me packing, I could feel the words hesitating just behind her teeth and I clutched my coffee cup.

-A.H.

2008-04-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

We don't have spelt tortillas in the fridge anymore. Portions for only two. I don't eat dinner here anymore. I only sleep here anymore. I don't live here anymore.

I miss my mother. I wish we could find eachother again, stay calm again long enough to find that laughing space used to dwell in. I can't even find it on a map now.

I miss my family. Those I haven't lost I'll loose soon. They were never mine, this is true. I was the thief in their kitchen, stealing moments of cheeks rosy with wine and rich stories, stealing moments of tradition, asking to see the Russian Babushka dolls again to count the babies and put them back, taking their gifts as if the trinkets and old hot pads were the very physicalization of love and I always knew this day would come. String the thief up! She must pay for her crimes. The law is only fair.

But what I don't miss is that feeling of want. That gnawing ache from the pit of my stomach that drove me to steal, made me crawl on bitter knees begging for those nights out, lapping up every minute with them before they die happy and healthy and old. I sat at those kitchen tables as a foreigner, observing with eyes that betrayed me. It was always as if the spoke a nother language, and I just sat there smiling and laughed when everyone else laughed. I was too afraid to raise my camera to remember the way the shadows fell across my grandfathers face while he sat at the head of the table. I don't miss that fear. But I do miss the face.

I don't miss the staleness or the stagnant waters that poisoned my moat. I don't miss the moat. I filled the moat with sand bags and ran across on dry ground to solid ground. I'm safe here. I'm more here. I'm home here.

This is the physicalization of love; to laugh when your naked, to cry and not worry about make-up.

-A.H.

Vicious World.

2008-03-19T02:05:00.000-07:00

I'm weak and dizzy with love. Today we let ourselves slow down and breathe, take eachother in and laugh. It was a beautiful night. He follows me home every night in his mothers car, even though I now have a car, just to say goodnight to me at my doorstep. Soon we'll be living together, spending our nights as close as close can be, ending and beginning each day in eachothers arms. What a beautiful, beautiful world that will be. But these days we have now are precious memories. I treasure them more than I know how to explain.

Yesterday he sprayed his couches, pillows and every corner of the blanket with lysol so that I wouldn't be nervous about catching his families most recent flu. I haven't felt so taken care of and protected in a long, long time.

I've decided that lists are powerful, the project into your near future what you want to happen. They allow you to visualize and thus more accurately execute tasks or goals. So I've decided to make a list of all my visions for the future, and here it is;

1. There will be peace.
2. I will go to church more Sunday's then I don't.
3. I will recycle.
4. My home will be clean. Not frighteningly so; I don't have it in my blood to keep my clothes off the floor. But clean. And organized. With plenty of tea in the kitchen.
5. I will shop at chain supermarkets only when I'm forced; My main source of food will be purchased at Farmers Markets.
6. There will be Marcos and Me time every day, at least, and/or as often as we can sneak it.
7. The windows will be open. The sunlight (or rainy day's) will shine through.
8. I realize now that our car was an undeserved gift from on High, and as long as the Lord lets us drive it around I swear it will be the most spoild car in town.
9. My yard will be ...beautiful. With flowers and a vegetable garden.
10. I will make my art, music, and writing a severe priority. If I love all these, if these are to be my profession someday, its time I began treating it as such.
11. I will own my own life and live proudly in this world while I still have breath in me.

Goodnight moon.
-A.H.

Today we drove by a car on fire. We called 911

2008-03-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

and then watched as the ambulence drove down the wrong street.

My thoughts were cutting through my hair and splitting my head in two as I tried to hold my tears from falling in my lap. But he saw them. Of course he saw them. I pulled over to the curb and cried and cried. I was ashamed of my tears and my faulty emotions, ashamed of my quivering chin so I kept my words to myself, still in the futile attempt to save face. I finally confessed through choking that I was afraid. He held me, and reassured me. "We're soul mates" he said "How can you live without your soul mate once you've found them?" I said I had no idea. "You'll never loose me." He said. I choose to believe him, because the alternative is unthinkable.

I've already lost so much of my life, and been blamed for it. Sometimes I wonder what'll keep me from screwing this up too.

Its taken me a while to put this into words, but I now not only have I seen right through them but I can describe the sight; they're just jealous. Where was my father's father? Where was their father? They are just jealous because here is a boy less than half their age who has been given the exact same set of tools to work with that they themselves were given, but rather than let them sit in the closet collecting dust Marcos is actually doing something with them. And building something beautiful, too.

Just as those before us roamed the land searching for better grazing lands, better crop lands, so we as spiritual beings were meant to travel this life searching for that warm place in the sun, that safe place to hang our hat, that better-than-before place. Some give up before they even know where they're going. And who can blame them?

But those who give up ought not scoff or throw poorly aimed stones when the tireless ones find the Promised Land.
-A.H.

2008-03-19T01:46:00.000-07:00

Today was no better.

Please pray for us.

When a tornado is near the birds stop chirping and all glimpses of animal life vanish till the danger passes. This resembles that.

-A.H.

2008-03-19T01:38:00.000-07:00

Today was rough.

-A.H.

If someone takes your cell, don't forget there's a pay phone in front of Factory to U. Do you know where that is? If you need me just call me, no matt

2008-03-19T01:37:00.001-07:00

er what time, and I'll come get you.

"If you weren't so pissy," she said, "you'd be alot easier for me to deal with." I walked in from the kitched to stand by the fire, my heart already splitting in two and asked her to please repeat herself. "If you weren't so pissy" her voice yelling, "you'd be alot easier for me to deal with."

My head began to spin.

"The only reason why I've been pissy is because for the last couple of nights you've been sleeping where I normally sleep. And where am I supposed to go?" And I turned away to face the mantle, the flames warming my legs and hips and before I knew what was happening I caught myself thinking "I hate it here. I want to go home."

...and tears flooded my eyes.
-A.H.

2008-03-19T01:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to say. I haven't written for quite some time now and its because I seem to have run out of new thoughts. My life has grown into one long string of predictable occurrences, one following right after the other. But at least now there is a change in sight. There's a break in the wall, and I'm running for it till my thighs burn and my lungs turn to iron. I hope my heart will hold out.

Long ago I read somewhere that right now, in this very hour, we've all been given everything we need to survive this present moment and all its trials. No matter how thin you're worn, no matter how big the world and its problems seem, you've been given enough. I took this to heart the moment I read it, but I never translated it to material goods as well as etherworldly ones. Last night I made a list of all the things we need, beginning with all the things we already have. And we have enough.

This morning I awoke to my Uncles knock on the kitchen window, and I purposefully fell soundly asleep as my mother disappear out the front door to talk with him in whispers on the front steps. An intervention is coming. I feel it. And its safe to say I resent it more than just a little. I feel my family falling away from me.

I told Marcos that if this is what they need to do to ease their consciences and acquire that elusive self righteous fix they need so desperately then its the least we can do. They can talk, yell, and confront all they want. Even Jesus never defended himself, regardless of what he was accused of. He was satisfied with the knowledge He possessed of himself. He knew he had his heavenly Father's approval and seal of goodwill, and that was enough for him. And its enough for me now.

I've been granted an overwhelming sense of peace. Peace persists. Peace that passes all understanding. I never knew exactly what that verse meant till these most recent days.

I folded my hands like a child in prayer, And I didn't know what to ask for. I didn't know what to pray not because You and I have grown so far apart, but because I no longer have words to name my life by. Perhaps prayer isn't in the asking, but the listening.

Someone's thrown the dice into the air, and I'm waiting for them to fall on the carpet. You call the number. I can't look.

-A.H.
ps. I have my licence! I'm such a big girl now.

Daddy this ones for you.

2008-03-19T01:33:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with my dad. All he kept saying was "I believe in you. I know without a doubt you can do this. If anyone can do this you can. I'm so proud of you."

I was floored. On the phone I had to fight back tears because the soft beauty of the moment was more than I expected. Indeed this was unprecidented; He was kind and I was receptive to it.

If you would have told me a year ago that my life would look like this, I would have laughed at you. Its a good thing you kept it to yourself; if you hadn't I might have run the other way. Because a year ago I didn't realize I was this strong.

Pray that I get hired somewhere. Anywhere. And right away. Thank you.
-A.H.

2008-03-19T01:30:00.000-07:00

She accused me of not having goals outside of Marcos. This is false. Case in point;

College. Its never been an if. Never an option in my mind. I hate not being in school right now. I feel stupid and worthless. I miss the classrooms of my below budget community college, I miss the teachers, the smells the noises and lack of nutrition. I will go back because my spirit could not allow me otherwise. Marcos has only magnified this gut feeling, because now I'm succeeding for two.

Music. Now more than ever I'm motivated to go back. I need a job first, and I will work two if it means I can go back to voice lessons and make my dreams come true. There is no option for failure here either. Part of my heart and mind goes missing when music and creativity leave my air space. I breathe better when I'm singing.

Moving Out. Independence has always been a far off dream of mine. I longed for it but could never wrap it around my neck. But now its right around the corner, and as I approach it my feet they quicken when before they turned round about beneath my heart before I could argue otherwise. But now I feel capable. Now I feel brave. And even if I didn't, now there is no option. And not because of Marcos, but because the Lord told me it was time.

I just had to get that out of my head and into your ears.
-A.H.

Kite.

2008-01-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

The note said "Try to have a good time in Pismo"
and oh those words they broke my heart.
I want to throw up.
I want to die.

Somehow I still don't believe this is my life. I watched him dance wildly to Marc Anthony and air guitar to Jason Mraz and I held my breath, still waiting to wake up from this dream. I then came home to flying bullets and tears. I told the truth and the cold war intensified.

I wanted to cry in your lap for the way you wouldn't look at me. I have to leave you because you don't hold me anymore. You don't smooth my hair anymore and you don't kiss me goodnight. I play with you but you wont laugh back.

No I'm not living the life we thought I would. Yes, we all thought it'd be different. But I'd never go back, I'd not change a thing. Except for that time when I held two heads up penny's and I threw them off the pier I said a wish for you. I wished that'd we could change. I can safely tell you that because you don't read this anymore. In all our fights I've lost your support; no longer a fan of mine, booed off stage for a change of rhythm. I wish I could write a song to make you feel better, to ease the pain and draw you in. But I can only speak my truth. Just like you taught me to.

I folded my hands like a child in prayer, flat and flush with my nose, And I didn't know what to ask for.
-A.H.

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well.

I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will.

Pick up your mat and walk.

2008-01-07T02:26:00.000-08:00

I made it home alive. Barely breathing. For a holiday at the sea, it certainly lost its magic.

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

Those were the words I thought as I stood there staring her in the eyes, my heart pounding and tears threatening. There, and for the first time, I saw the chasm that had grown between us. I think that's what shook me to the core the most; it wasn't that I was labeled a liar because of a myspace bulletin. It wasn't that we were caught -and caught over nothing for there's nothing to catch. All those things contributed to my break down on the curb, but it was the voice of the Lord that startled me the most. It was as though he stepped down and stood between my mother and I and as she was spitting those cutting and final words his booming directions drowned out her fearful remarks and he said, immistakably and irrevocably; "Pick up your mat and walk."

To tell the truth I felt instantly liberated. (For those who don't know, and who care to, my boyfriend and I are waiting until we're married to sleep together.) We're both very honest and open about it with those around us. We choose it, we care for the commitment; it was our decision. And he's been so proactive in making my mother and my brother feel at ease on the subject, taking them each aside and telling them what we were doing -what we weren't doing.

Even so, from the first moment she asumed our failure before we even stepped out of the gate. At first Marcos was deeply burdened by her lack of trust. In my eyes the word "trust" doesn't even belong in this sentence and I was angry at her pompus attitude; this has nothing to do with her. I didn't make this commitment to her; I made it to myself and my Lord first and then to my boyfriend; Those are the only people who matter in regards to my sex life. Those are the only people who know the truth. And fighting off the feeling of insult, and of childishness for feeling insulted, I find myself standing a great deal taller, because she's right. Its none of her business anyhow.

-A.H.

Apples and Oranges

2007-12-21T01:44:00.000-08:00

A new start.