god's thumbnail

tonight the moon was what my grandmother used to call "god's thumbnail"...i believe astronomists call it a crescent. but it just seemed exactly like god's thumbnail once my grandmother pointed it out, and it's been that ever since.

i like to look at the sky at night. i'm looking for operating instructions, to be honest. sometimes it's very bright...sometimes it's very clear. i can almost always see orion in the late fall and winter, it seems. although i will admit i am so spatially challenged that as we rotate at night, i have a hard time finding him and it makes me shake my head and roll my eyes and laugh because it seems like as he moves in the same direction each night, it shouldn't be so hard to find him...but i admit i often walk inside, shaking my head and laughing and having no idea where the hell he went.

there's a sky i see sometimes...it's dark blue...midnight blue i guess (haha, snort)...but there's enough moon that when the clouds make this cool pattern, it looks like a dark blue tie dye pattern. and it reminds me of my friend jeanni. i think she has a shirt like this, but maybe i just made that up. so either way, it is what i have termed in my mind a "jeanni sky." and three nights ago (hell, i think it was three...it's been a busy week), there was a jeanni sky. and it didn't surprise me. jeanni's had some stuff going on, and i've been thinking about her lots. and i hadn't heard from her that night, so i'd been thinking about her especially because it felt kind of foreboding that i hadn't heard from her..."no news is good news" be damned.

i have since heard from her and it wasn't good news. it wasn't necessarily bad news, although jeanni could probably argue that with me if she had a mind to. and she might have a mind to. but she might also not freaking feel like it. the news was that life will change...and it always does...damn it. but why is it that when life deals you those lessons about change, it's always more than you ever wanted? and it is never the way you would've chosen.

marriage comes to mind at this point. we obviously choose to get married. but even then, it rarely goes the way you would've chosen and it's often more than you ever wanted.

but there's been a lot of change in this new year.

my friend julie is here with her new daughter...she's a week old...in her life as julie's daughter. well, a week and a day. julie's daughter is actually four years old. and she's from india. and she is the most amazing thing to hit my house since my daughter. this little one, who i've been calling ruby-roo, is beautiful and mesmerizing and just a damned good sport all around. no, she doesn't speak english. and no, we don't know her language. but we teach her a few words and she teaches us a few words and we all smile a lot because we are just so darned happy to hang out together. i am very honored that julie brought her here to share with all of us and hope it's been worth her while. (what the hell does worth her while mean? i mean, i know what the phrase means, but is that really how it's written out?...) but i'm not going to share with julie my feelings right now about change being more than we ever wanted or rarely going the way we would've chosen. we'll let her get a little further down the way and see if she notices this on her own...

but for me, right now, as i sit in the middle of these changes this year has brought, to those i love (and god, do i love them), as well as the change it's brought to my own life, i can't help but reflect on the things that stay the same (you totally saw that coming, right?).

love. love stays the same. it changes in our relationships, strengthens, weakens, waxes and wanes...like the moon...but it's always there. sometimes in different people, in different relationships, in ourselves and out. but it's there. we may ache for it in the same relationships, ache for it in ourselves, ache for it in the same ways it used to be there. and the ways will change. but the love will always be there. will always find us.

the older i get (and while i realize i may not be THAT old, i don't think anyone would argue that i'm not THAT young anymore either), the more surprised i am by the places i find love that i never would've thought i'd find it. and i'm even more surprised by how much love i find in me. now maybe that's because i've given up the belief that i am the generator of my life and i've opened myself up to the Love that is the true generator of us all. but even that surprises me. it's an act of faith. and while i've always had an easier time believing in good things (i mean really, santa and the easter bunny have never been a huge stretch for me and i never saw the big deal in my parents being the ones to really do it all...it all still happened and was good in the end...), i've always also believed that if i was good enough, did the right thing, earned it somehow, love would come. but now i know love is always there. always has been. always will be.

it may be a perspective thing. one person's trash is another's treasure type of deal. and i have learned not to push my trash on someone who doesn't want it...and the same goes for my treasure. people like to make these evaluations for themselves. we have to. that's part of the whole deal. but i know that love will always, in the end, find us. just like god's thumbnail found me tonight.

peace