Um

I saw a sidebar ad for a new movie this morning:

Vacation is over for a group of travelers when a bus accident leaves them stranded in a Brazilian jungle that holds an ominous secret. Come to foxatomic.com to find out how you can win your own tropical getaway!

Wow, I'm not sure that's a tropical getaway I want to pursue, actually.

NaBloPoMo

Um...yeah.

So the first day of NaBloPoMo, at 7:15 a.m., Mom called from Oregon to tell me Dad had had a series of "mini-strokes" during the night. (And let me tell you, her use of the diminutive "mini" did nothing to allay my immediate panic.)

Dad was in the hospital for almost a week, I took a train down for a long weekend--and things turned out okay. Dad suffered no permanent effects from the "mini-strokes" (TIA's, apparently), and after starting on blood thinners had no more of them.

But needless to say, my NaBloPoMo participation was shot. (There is no internet in Reston.) (Okay, there is, but it's dialup, yo. And you usually have to start it up two or three times in order to get a halfway decent connection speed. I just didn't deal with it. I was mostly at the hospital anyway.)

More bad news followed hard upon the heels of Dad's stroke, and then some more stressful news on top of that, and I spent a week scrambling to find a place to move into at the end of the month. Now that's settled, and we "just" have to pack everything and put most of it in storage.

So here's the thing, Internet: I'm bucking the establishment and doing MY NaBloPoMo month in DECEMBER. Ha! Take that, establishment! I defy you! I refuse to conform!

Yeah, that's the ticket--this is all about cool, youthful rebellion, and not a series of unfortunate events that forced me to postpone my participation against my will.

Anyway. Watch this space in December as I, lonely, straggle in with a month of consecutive daily posts.

Sigh

So I just got an email newsletter from the Sojourners that contained the following line:

In this election, both the Religious Right and the secular Left were defeated, and the voice of the moral center was heard."

And I just had to go remove myself from the email list. Really? So there's no morality in secular folks, I guess. Hush my mouth! Thanks, Jim Wallis.

Home

At the train station in Eugene two people stood just out of the boarding line, huddled against the wall out of the rain. Their faces close together, they smiled into each other's eyes and murmured endearments too personal to watch--I looked away until they parted, one of them slowly boarding the train with many glances back at the other.

Their bond had been palpable as they stood together, and I started thinking about the way two people's love becomes almost a thing of its own, a thing with heft and solidity and presence. It's like they were building a structure, the two of them, something bigger than either of them that could enclose them both inside it.

And if that's the way of it, then we've built ourselves a house together by now. It looks awfully crooked sometimes from the outside, I know, but the envelope is sealed, I assure you. Inside there are solid floors and straight walls. There are small rooms in you that I can hide myself in, and rooms with tall windows that we can look out from together. There is a room with a fireplace where a big black dog likes to snooze, and a small music studio lined with instruments. You can always find hot schnitzel ready in the kitchen, and the little garden beside the back door is always in season.

Wherever we go, you and I, whatever we do, this house stands. It's become a place of its own in the past few years, and it will stand on its own regardless of what happens to us. And more than a house, it's become my home, and your home, and such a home cannot be razed or burnt, cannot be pulled down by other hands that mean us harm. This one place they cannot touch. Neither moth nor rust can consume it, and no thief knows the way to break through and steal the treasure we've laid up there.

No matter what, I will always dwell with you in this house we have built. Know that. The fire will always be lit when you arrive, the dog wagging eagerly down the walkway, and my own self standing in the doorway to welcome you home, now and forever.