Hey.

Happy Sunday. ❤

The last blog post of summer. Thank god.

It’s always harder to write during time off because the days tend to blur together. You pour yourself into June like honey, aimlessly fall into the labyrinth that is July, and land somewhere in August, dizzy on the comedown. Clear inspiration falls right out of the sky when you’re listening to professors lecture about their passion all day though. Which is to say, stay tuned for that.

There’s currently a hurricane hurling towards to San Diego and everyone is freaking out like it’s the end of the world. Except my boss, who casually told me to still put the patio tables out tomorrow, unless the hurricane is really going crazy. Love that. But everyone else is in apocalyptic mode. My first day of classes even got put online.

So in honor of the hurricane, here are some personal truths and overshares to grace your Sunday morning with.

WATCHING PEOPLE FALL IN LOVE

My brother and his girlfriend just went back home after visiting and I’m thinking about how grateful I am that he fell in love with someone as brilliant as her. Growing up, you don’t really think about who your siblings are going to bring home because that all seems like a very long ways away. But then your big brother, the one who always said he never wanted to get married or have a family, is standing on your doorstep with this beautiful girl and he’s looking at her like she is the sun and he is the earth. And it blows your mind.

To watch someone fall in love, and to watch it change them so completely, is a strange thing. You keep waiting for the credits to roll or a song to come on or something, but this is real life. They really are sitting there, sharing one plate of food, shoulders touching, futures merging. It’s nauseatingly sweet.

SOMETHING ORDINARY

I’m staring at the sunflowers falling down on the table, thinking of one of my favorite humans. We used to press wildflowers into the palms of our hands and drive around all night and save those flowers in the pages our favorite books and then we grew up. Wildflowers from abandoned playgrounds turned into picture-perfect sunflowers to stick inside of beautiful vases for special occasions—not to let die on our sun-soaked dashboards during fifth period. Flowers we buy at farmer’s markets on our days off instead of stealing directly from the earth, exposed roots and all. Now I change the water. I trim the stems. I’m learning how to take better care.

SCARS

Inspired by Natalie Goldberg telling us to write about our scars:

My mother was always so afraid of me scarring as a kid. She was also terribly squeamish about blood. For these reasons, I frequently snuck in through the back gate to bandage my wounds from the day, before she could see them. I took it seriously too. I would spray alcohol right into the wound, slap on a bandage, and then sneak back out. It was only later that I would get whAt hAppened to your knee? Do we need to go to the hospital? Why didn’t you tell me? Does it hurt? Her love and concern was overflowing. And she wonders why, to this day, I never tell her if I have so much as a cold.

Plus, I like scars. They’re story tellers, like tattoos of fate. If you’ve lived enough, you can trace a map of your life through them, recalling moments and days that would have otherwise been severed in your memory.

& THEIR STORIES

Like the red slash on my inner-ankle bone from where a spike sliced through my skin one day at track practice in high school. Because track shoes, if you don’t know, come with sharp metal spikes on the bottom for grip that would regularly slice everyone up. But this was especially bad. It cut deep. I remember walking across the football field to the trainer with this bloody sock on my foot, getting a lot of concerning looks while feeling increasingly loopy from the adrenaline. I remember the cool spray of Bactine from the cute trainer that everyone was in love with and the sticky adhesive of the butterfly bandages I had to wear for weeks after.

It probably wouldn’t have scarred if I had gotten stitches, but I love that scar. When I look at it, I can almost smell the hot surface of the track, sizzling under a warm spring sky. I can hear my friends laughing as the whistles blow and we run. And sometimes, I can even still see him as I saw him then, staring at me across the field before we ever even spoke. That all feels so long ago now, but when I look at that scar, I know that it must have been real.

Take care.

Love, m.

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