43 years ago today, my sister was born in Eugene, Oregon. That is all I know about her. At the beginning of 2011, I decided I was going to find my sister. I’m still looking, although I feel like I’m getting closer. Slowly. If you were adopted at birth in Eugene, Oregon in August of 1968, you might be my sister.
Happy birthday, big sister. I’d really really really really love to meet you someday.
A few months ago, I started writing and drawing with my right hand. I’m naturally left-handed, so the result has been both child-like and comical. And the look of my right-handed penmanship has definitely influenced the subject matter of most of these drawings.
However, on the plane flight home from Seattle, I was thinking about more serious things and decided a right-handed drawing might be the best way to express some heavier thoughts.
Normally I post these on Facebook. But I think this one is better suited here, where things are more quiet. This isn’t intended to start a religious debate. These are just my thoughts, poured out at 37,000 feet, through my right hand. Cheers.
I breathe and you feel my chest rise.
I lay still and you feel my pulse in your cheek.
I look you in the eye and you see the ocean where I swim.
I lift the veil on this previously fortified soul,
and you are granted entry for life.
I move my lips across your skin,
and you feel the warmth of my breath.
With words.
With words
I make castles
I break windows
I repair mistakes;
or not.
But with words, I try.
With words
I will remember
that I tried
and failed
or succeeded
or left matters
unimpeded.
With words
I move the mountains
sometimes only I can see.
With words
I stand beside you,
through all the time we have.
And even when
you cannot see me,
with words I will be there.
I was reminded, tonight, that we are comprised of the sum of passed moments.
Both the good and the bad.
The moments we cherish and those we wish to forget.
They are all there.
Where they have been all along.
Right behind us.
Dog-eared pages from earlier chapters already written.
Acting as reminders, motivators, mile-markers.
And while those moments are unchangeable,
they change us.
Leave indelible marks on our souls.
And once they have passed,
they can no longer be changed.
They can only be learned from.
Reflected upon.
And then gracefully left where they sit.
There’s a simplicity in that I’m appreciative of tonight.
