Poetry and Other Bad Habits

Carolee,

How did you know I give my sins
beautiful names? I agonize over
each one for months, like a mother
considering the name of her unborn
baby. They are pale, scarred
velvet, sometimes crippled,
but always known and named.
They are delicate and flawed.

I know my sins and they know me.
I measure my life with them: lies
told, secrets stolen, all the unforgiven
thoughts stacked and layered
just so to fit a personal history.
These things flutter against
the edges of my gut sometimes:
unseen but very real.

Would it simply add one more
sin to my account if I admit
that sometimes I hope
they will pass away, cease their
tortured labors, break through
this body and into the next?
But what would they be without
me, and I without them?

Beth

. . .

I’m too tired tonight to do all the links, but will add them tomorrow. I can’t believe it took me almost a month! And this is not a month’s worth of a poem. I obviously have a problem with sloth. ;)

The Oxford Dictionary people have put together a great site to help people rediscover words in danger of falling out of usage.  I’ve just adopted sparsile as my endangered word to carry around and use with love.  I left retirant, lambition, prandicle, and many, many other adorable words for you to choose from.

(about yours truly)

I swear that despite my long-standing blog habit, penchant for quoting nice things people say about me, and predilection for therapy, I’m not a complete narcissist.  I don’t think I am — or, at least, no therapist has ever diagnosed me as such. ;)

But I’m sorting through old boxes and found one of my absolute favorite notes of all time.  It’s from sophomore year of college, from my oldest (er, she’s not *the* oldest friend I have by a long shot, but we’ve been friends for forever) and one of my dearest friends, Bubba.  We had some misunderstanding wherein I felt like I was being a bad friend and was upset with myself, and I was also having a spectacularly bad week.  Bubba passed me this note when we met between morning classes one day:

Reasons I LOVE Beth:

1. She’s tall.
2. She’s got a cute haircut.
3. She was brave enough to cut it all up off.
4. She’s blunt.
5. She introduced me to Waterdeep.
6. She introduced me to Jesus.
7. She sings to me when I’m sad.
8. She prays for me.
9. She prays for my loser “friends” too.
10. She stands up to people.
11. She slow dances with me.
12. She protects me.
13. She’s willing to do goofy things.
14. She forgives me — often.
15. She gently confronts me with the truth and makes sure I can deal with it.
16. She has high standards.
17. She’s a wonderful photographer.
18. She smokes.
19. She swims across lakes and dares me to go with her.
20. She gets upset when she thinks she’s a bad friend.
21. She’s a wonderful friend.
22. She’s strong enough to deal with things on her own.
23. She’s strong enough to trust God to take care of her.
24. She’s smart.
25. She’ll yell Shakira with me.

Isn’t that a great list?  Some of the details have changed (it’s been a long time since I had a cigarette or a conversation about Waterdeep), but while life has changed a lot over the last ten years, I am still that same person, essentially, and I really like that person.

I also really like Bubba — love her, in fact, for reasons innumerable.  One of those reasons though is that she gets me, and writes me nice lists about how great I am.  Hard for this narcissist regular ole’ gal to pass up.