hope

Let her sleep for when she wakes, she will move mountains.

Today has been a day of rest. Deep and necessary rest. In the past 2 weeks I have traveled to Minneapolis twice, upheld approximately 20 social engagements, and gone to the studio more days than not (admittedly, painting is a slow process that refuses to be any other way these days). With the help of God, I survived Mother’s Day and, with the help of a(n incredible) friend, I hauled 7 months worth of garbage to the dump. I got organized (a Herculean task), met with my financial advisor, and came up with a pretty awesome plan. I attended a workshop on project funding, filling my brain and heart with ideas that I’m excited to let shimmy and shake into place. I’ve kept up with a spring load of housework (why does spring have to be such a messy season?!), hosted friends, and took care of a literal ton of animals (1 ton = approx 2 horses, 3 dogs, 1 cat). And the list goes on. In other words…

Life is full. Life is busy. Life is good. Life is challenging.
And?
I am exhausted beyond measure.

Every day contains a week, a month, a year. Or, at least, it often feels like it. On the outside it looks like not a whole lot is getting done. Or maybe that is just my own insanity speaking. Even so, I hold all of this in the palm of my hands with gratitude, the moments of nourishment as well as the accumulation of movement that has so easily worn me out.

This grief is such a strange, strange process. Emotionally, I’m beginning to feel so much better. That’s a serious step in the right direction. Despite this newfound strength, it seems my body is keeping me firmly planted in the present. I often feel so weary that I think my bones might break. Truly. Who is this shattered shell of a body? Lest I forget, I’m reminded in no uncertain terms that my current state of being still requires all of me. The wild blue yonder continues to place patience on the agenda and yet, even in this brief state of slow necessity, God’s quickening has already begun. There will be no rushing ahead and, in surrendering to this, I realize just how quickly a new path is being laid out in front of me. In truth, God is wasting no time.

In the next week, I am attempting a quieter kind of focus. My body simply cannot sustain this pace, at least not yet. May there be nothing but me and God and time in the studio. Nothing but brushing horses and eating a whole lot healthier and going to bed as early as nesessary. Hushing the pace, slowing the speed. Oh, sweet solitude. Daily naps and daydreaming allowed. My life: simplified.

But wait…all of this is just taking us the long way around the mountain. What I’m really wanting to tell you about is the way that things are beginning to lead me forward in the direction that my heart has been praying for all along. Where do I begin?!! The rain falls on the tin roof of my cabin as I write. It has rained so much in the past couple days that there are tiny rivers forming in the sand. A million minuscule rivers, all flowing the path of least resistance. With the persistence of rain, the easier those little rivers flow. The rain that was so very, very needed. Dear Abba, I feel you bringing me to a place that I’ve been praying for since the day Carl died. This prayer that I’ve been putting at your feet since the very beginning of so much loss. This intimate prayer, too powerful for words.

My hands are open, palms up…in willingness, in surrender. As though in answer, a month ago I met two women who are doing extraordinary work in Uganda. Since then, my despair has increasingly been replaced by peacefulness, hope, happiness. My life has not been the same since. I’m obsessed, really. I want to give myself over completely. There is more clarity in my next steps. God is putting the invitation directly into my hands. I can’t know where He’s taking me until I get there, yet I feel profound trust in the path ahead. I understand, even as I write this, that tomorrow might not look anything like I imagine it. I presume nothing, but there is one thing I know for sure and that is the way He’s been answering my prayers…all along.

“There is no patience as strong as that which endures because we see ‘him who is invisible’ (Heb. 11:27).” ~Streams in the Desert (Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing this).

My last journal is filled with so much pain. So much learning. So much faith. And now? There couldn’t be a better time to begin a new journal. To fill with even more learning, even more faith, even more healing. I experienced pure enjoyment in creating this journal cover today. As it becomes so very undeniable to me that Africa is holding a piece of my heart, I am letting God prepare me. If it is His will, I hope to travel to Uganda in August and, until then, I have offered my time and talents to do what I can to be of service to Hands of Action International from where I’m at. I’m also, with equal importance, praying for the energy to get thru the projects I committed to in my life before Carl’s death. I am grateful for the tasks at hand. This is sacred time. I would not be able to handle the weight of God’s gifts if I weren’t slowed down and protected by this timeline of events and even my own ability. I can be patient because I have faith that God is using this time in deep and gorgeous ways.

“God I trust you with all of my heart.
Wherever you want me to go, I will go.
Even if it’s not where I planned
lead me and I will follow.”

I look forward to filling these new pages with whatever is to come.
I love you, Carl. You are with me and in me and a part of all of this.
I love you, Abba. You turned my whole world upside down. And then you gave me everything.

Black and White and the Goodness Found In Between.

God keeps reminding me, over and over and over again, to look to Him and trust. And I do, over and over and over again. It makes all the difference in the world. Throughout every single day, through Him, there is never (not ever) the absence of hope.

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” ~Romans 8:28

Oh Abba, You are the steadiness of my heart.
Lead me on.
I know you will. You are. You have been all along.

Anna and Carl’s tree.

Last month, the plum tree in my front yard burst into a burning bush of white blossoms like I’ve never before seen. In the rawness of my heart it felt like Carl’s love and God’s presence. My wildly untended to, woodland yard was a mess in comparison…but here was this little tree, aflame in white flowers like an unexpected message of hope. My eyes often rested on the tree and it didn’t take long for me to notice that there was always a little white butterfly dancing around it. That little white butterfly made me think of Anna, Carl’s baby niece who died just two weeks before him.

And now? The blossoms are beginning their slow process towards fruit. The tree holds a new kind of beauty. I am not sad for the loss of blossoms, because I know they will turn into something more and then repeat their process all over again. Grief wrecks everything. But then there is this. I don’t feel good or hopeful or anything easy today. But I trust the beauty of this. I trust the beauty of two spirits that I am still grieving for. I trust the story that is unfolding. I don’t want a happy ending for this post (because it neglects the difficulty and exhaustion I’m actually feeling)…but it exists, even when I don’t want it to.

I love you baby Anna. I love you, Carl. May heaven hold our hearts here on earth as beautifully as it holds you.

plans to give you hope and a future

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~Jeremiah 29:11

It is a time of preparation. My heart feels full and expectant. I sit at my desk as I write this and, outside my window, the buds of poplar trees have finally leafed out enough to dance in the soft breeze. Sturdier oaks are only just beginning their process of unfurling. And yet…amidst all this northern spring, something in my soul feels dusty and deeply pregnant. I let myself settle into this sense that God has been creating a special life for me all along. I feel that He has already placed a part of me into tomorrow and yet, somehow, every moment of the present is equally important, preparing me for what is ahead.

God is being good to me. He allows me this time in the pasture with my horses and dogs. I sit in the dirt and experience long moments of complete peace. I brush burrs from the horses manes and tails for the millionth time. I go to the studio; I meet with friends; I read (a lot). For once in my life, God has given me the grace of patience. This patience does not come from a desire to wait or from a lack of curiosity, but is instead from a knowing that He is doing the deep work inside of me that needs doing so that I might survive the rest of my days with my health and well-being in tact. That dusty, deeply pregnant self within my spirit knows something that my mind cannot yet comprehend. I am grateful for the way I’m being led forward.

In the meantime, I do my best to show up for the work at hand. It is sometimes difficult. My prayers, at times, still feel like desperate pleas for help. There are moments when it feels nearly impossible to tend to today when I so very much want the fullness of tomorrow. But I’m being taught how to strip things down to their simplest forms. When I want to crawl out of my skin with boredom or anxiety or just general resistance, each time, I am gently reeled back in and reminded to use this time to learn and to bolster my soul with His words and presence. Over and over again I am reminded: I am being prepared. I relax back into the flow that has been waiting for me all along. I find easiness there. Or, at least…easier. I quit fighting with myself and relax back into the gifts of now. Grace takes the form of surrender.

to surrender to God is grace…
I’m a slow learner, but I like what is being taught.

In the past couple weeks I have had more good days than bad. This is nothing short of miraculous. Up until now, I was lucky if I had one good day. But recently I experienced 2 and then 3, 4 and then 5 good days in a row. Then a couple not-so-good days followed by more good days. Sitting in the dirt has been good for me.

God is letting me get to know Him and this causes me to feel hope. I’m given glimpses into what’s to come and it is making all the difference in this tendency towards more goodness. I don’t pretend to know anything other than my own willingness. This necklace? It is a reminder. In this one little sentence, I trust, completely.

I’ve saturated myself so thoroughly in God. As I write, I wonder if I might lose a lot of my friends along the way. And yet…I cannot help it: There is no turning back. I wouldn’t want to. Something tells me that this path is leading me somewhere extraordinary…yes, even in this life.

I lost everything the day that Carl died. I gave myself to God. I vowed that it would not be for nothing.

And I do believe
God will make it so.

Dear Abba, I love you. Thank you for plucking me from my old life. Thank you for breaking me, however painful it has been. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you, through Carl, for showing me what love really is. I am beginning to realize that it was only the beginning…

Only the beginning of
so. much. Love.

JOY

I don’t yet know how to talk about this. I don’t yet know how to talk about much of anything that is going on inside of me these days. All I know is that something shifted in this 5th month of my new life. I could not have referred to my existence since Carl’s passing as a new life before now. My vision and my heart was too full of death and loss and pain. But, all along, I’ve been praying for guidance and, all along, that guidance has been undeniably constant. I have been praying for God to use me. At the center of those prayers was a desperate plea that He make the loss of Carl and my love for him worth something. But nothing has to be done to give it worth. The value is inherent and, all along, God has known exactly what He is doing. All along…there has been a plan…and I’m in it, Carl’s in it, you’re in it, this little girl, Joy, she is in it.

It’s no longer a question of IF God will use me. Instead, I now find myself asking when and where. It is requiring a little bit of patience on my part and, for once in my life, I think I’m ok with that. I sense the depth of where life is taking me and it is not for the fickle hearted. He is preparing me in ways that I cannot yet even fathom. I understand the dangers of rushing ahead and I know my heart will break irreparably if I don’t keep pace with God–whether that means moving forward or holding still.

In the coming weeks or months or years, I will probably be sharing a lot more with you about Joy. For now, I just want to introduce you to this little girl who is already changing my heart. That is her tiny little fingerprint on the clay necklace on the right. She is as real as you and me. I want you to know about her so that you might see the way God is working in our lives…mysteriously, beautifully, powerfully, painfully, JOY-fully.

I don’t know anything. And yet God gives us glimpses. A part of me feels incredibly vulnerable in sharing this, but I feel Him asking me to lay this journey out openly. And so…

Here’s what God has told me so far:

I’m going to bring you somewhere beautiful. It is going to be so beautiful that without Me you would feel incredible loneliness–but because of Me you will instead feel peace, you will feel grounded. You will feel connection.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

Let Me move you.

~

Simplify your life to its barest self.
You’ll find that you don’t need much.

Keep all aspects of life simple so that you will see My way.

Where you are meant to go, I will get you there.

Get radical.

~

You are going to find so much happiness that you’re not going to be able to contain it.

I will ALWAYS be with you.
Every. Single. Step of the way!

Live out loud, for others to see. Share it all. Share Me.

You will have everything you need, in all ways, to do everything I ask of you.
The things I ask of you are the things you’ll want.
Trust me. Even when it doesn’t make sense.

We are creating space for a certain kind of freedom…a freedom that you’ve never before known and that I promise you will love…you’ll love so far beyond yourself that, someday, when it comes time for you to die away from your physical body, you’ll merely turn into particles of light. You’re love will last long beyond you.

I’ll take care of your heart–through it all–just as I always have.
Bring it all to me. All of it–both the sadness and the gratitude.

You are covered in love.

There is an army of angels protecting you. You will be able to go absolutely anywhere without fear. You will go places where other people do not.

You will build a family and it will be brighter and more love filled than you can even imagine!

Your world will look much more different than the one now before you.

Dear Abba, yes…I am yours. I don’t know where you will take me in this life. But I trust you. With my whole heart. I’m in.

with prayers of grace,
Jessie
❤

Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd…

I was letting the words roll peacefully off my tongue, slowly pondering their meaning as I did so. I woke up feeling broken, sad, a little lost. But the grey morning had thinned its sky full of clouds until finally giving way to a perfect blue. I was driving country roads out to a sheep farm belonging to a friend, on my way to help feed the bottle lambs. Little did I know that God had been shepherding me in that direction all along. Not understanding the depth of my need until surrendering myself to the sunlit glow of Julie’s world, what did I know? A world of newly born lambs, attentive ewes, the flitting songs of barn sparrows. All that softness, golden light and energy. Oh, Abba…you knew. All along, you knew.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. ~Psalm 23:1-6

Leah, Carl, and Diana…with Jethro, Bambi and Bashful.

The Lord is my Shepherd…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I am not alone; I am comforted; I am guided and kept safe. My cup overflows. I love you, Carl. I miss you in a way that can’t be undone. But truly? It is well with my soul. And, oh, dear Abba, I am thankful.

5 months.

Super-saturating the sky above my studio is always an option, especially when my heart feels saturated too.

It’s been 5 months.

I never imagined myself being the sort of person that kept track of these sorts of things. Then again, I never imagined I would be riding shotgun with such significant loss.

Not too long after Carl’s passing, a woman named Stacy reached out to me. She was about my age and also recently widowed. She was 5 months into her grief and, at the time, I remember pondering what a great mystery that distance felt like to me.

I assumed that Stacy was a friend of Carl’s since, after his death, I was getting a lot of messages from his friends. They shared condolences and stories and, quite honestly, those connections helped (and continue to help) in about a million ways. However, in a sea of new names and faces, my connection with Stacy stood out for some reason. Not only because she was in the middle of a brutal loss all too similar to mine, but…I don’t know. We simply found it easy to lean on each other.

It wasn’t until finally meeting Stacy in person that I realized she didn’t even know Carl. With stupefied wonder, we thanked Facebook’s strange algorithms for our chance meeting. The men we had planned to marry had died just 3 months apart and were now buried in the same tiny cemetery tucked far-far-away in the woods, a peaceful place that only locals seem to know how to find. How unlikely. How strange. This new friendship, how perfectly God-sent.

My friendship with Stacy has taken on a life and goodness of its own. I am still in awe of the way the right people have come into my life at just the right time. Stacy…and others, too. Along the way, five months turned into some sort of mental bench-marker. Without rhyme or reason, it lodged itself into my head and there it stuck. I wasn’t consciously waiting for it, but I did know that one day it would just happen. And that’s exactly what happened. I woke up (late)…and half way into my first cup of coffee, I realized it was here.

I started writing the post above on April 8th. I wish I could have written more, but God said: “go to bed.” And, from there, it seems He is doing the rest of the work in my heart, at least until it comes time to write again. Five months didn’t come with ease and very little grace. And yet…there was grace. And a renewed wave of grief, complete with snot and tears and deep gratitude and more tears. There is so much depth and intricacy to all of this, and yet there are times when the human mind simply cannot construct the complexities in any manageable version of expression.

And so here I am. Showing up with undeveloped thoughts and a life that’s still sifting through.

What I will say is this: God is good. Even in the worst of it all, He has given me everything I need, every step of the way. I publish this here, now, only to remind myself that I am merely a work in progress. I am willing, dear God. To do this work, I am willing.

this easter is different.

Carl’s bible.

This Easter is different than any before. I haven’t been able to stop crying all week. It is Saturday. The day before. And the closer it is to tomorrow, the harder I cry. I wasn’t expecting this. The depth, the richness, the waiting this week has taken on.

Easter has become so very real to me. Carl was about the same age as Jesus when he died. I think of Carl. The memory of him takes shape in the sunshine before me. I can still see his smile and that goofy walk he’d do to get the dogs excited and make me laugh. Carl. So capable, so happy. I rest my hands on his arms and they are still so strong. I look up, way up (because he was so tall), and I smile. But I am just remembering. It is Saturday. The day before Easter, the hours of in-between. I begin to understand how Jesus, like Carl, was once a real man. How do I even begin to describe the way this changes things? I’ve never truly understood what this (all of it) was all about…until now. I wish I could have understood sooner…but here I am.

Just beginning. In the face of so much loss. Here I am: just beginning.

We stand in the Light of what we’ve seen, even when it is dark all around. We stand in great Hope, even when it feels like all Hope is lost.

We stand at the grave, longing, grieving and yet, holding out hope that the One who said he is Messiah will somehow make a miracle out of the mess.

And so, like the women, we come to the grave, broken.
We come to the grave, prepared.
We come to the grave, longing for the King and a Kingdom that is not of this world.

We stand, even when we feel lost.
We stand when all we see are broken bodies.
We stand. We stay. We hope.

Today is Saturday. The day of the long walk.
The day of the long believing.
Today is the day of faith.

~Excerpted from “Today is the Day of the In-Between” by Idelette McVicker

I wait to see where tomorrow will take me. And all the tomorrows after that, too. I give in to not knowing. Over and over I pray: God, I am yours. I look over my life and realize that I’ve been catching glimpses. All along. These glimpses. And so here I am, standing in faith. Available to whatever is to come. Dear God, use me. I am yours.

I Believe

There are so many things about you I don’t understand
But I believe
I keep moving forward when I’m holding your hand
I believe

The truest things I know
Are those I cannot see
From my birth to my dying day
I believe

When I’m old I’ll talk about the things that you have done
I believe
Brokenness made beautiful
The wars that you have won
And the storms you calmed in me

The truest things I know
Are those I cannot see
From my birth to my dying day
I believe

I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands
I’d rather be led by his nail pierced hands
I’d rather have Jesus than anything…

The truest things I know
Are those I cannot see
From my birth to my dying day
I believe ~JJ Heller

I love you, Carl. Without you I would have spent a life and everything after…so lost. When you went Home you showed me the way. And I love you, forever and ever, I love you.

love notes.

ONE DAY YOU REALIZED

…so that one day you realized that what you wanted
had already happened, and long ago and in the dwelling place
in which you lived before you began,
and that every step along the way, you had carried
the heart and the mind and the promise,
that first set you off and then drew you on, and that:
you were more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way
than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach.

~excerpt of poem from ‘Santiago’ by David Whyte

I’d like to tell you where I am, where you might find me these days, but it seems I am somewhere very far away. I would like to find the words to describe to you this place, but there is no language made for it. It is a place of deep wooded paths, dark watery oceans, cold moon-glow and softly falling snow. And yet…it’s not even that. It is a parallel place. Precarious in both its comforts and its pain. It’s a place of lost maps, the journey I must make. But then…there are those brief and beautiful moments when I feel truly, gently held in the hands of God. Sometimes, I have to crawl out of my skin to get there. This hopeful transformation? It still requires all of me. Perhaps from here on out it always will.

Carl. I love this photo of him. He texted it to me along with a love note from the woods outside my cabin one morning when he went out to feed the horses. I could have just as easily looked outside the window and saw him standing there, but it seems that it is in these sweet moments and tender gestures that love is built of. He already had my whole heart, but a little later, when I finally did look out the window and saw him walking back towards the cabin, I saw the gift of a man whose heart I wanted to live out my whole life with. Louie, my big goofy Chesapeake, was beside himself with his own happiness over having this newfound companionship, too. There was a lot of happiness in these woods that day and all the time surrounding it, too.

And now? All this unknowing. Where do I begin? I struggle with how to proceed. My map keeps getting blown away in the cold wind. But always, always…there is this sense of Carl’s love keeping me company, even here, now, from this short-sighted vantage point. I lean in towards this quiet space of listening and learning. Here I am. Mapless. Guided only by some great mystery.

But wait…let me ask this more clearly: “How do I proceed?” This is the question I ask God. It turns out that, as well-intentioned as I may have always been, before Carl’s death, I had it all wrong. As authentic, spiritual and honest as I was trying to be…I had it all wrong. For two months now I have been asking this question and feeling my way in the dark towards a better understanding of the answer. You see, I can feel the answer, even if I can’t yet see it or hear it or put it to words. Silly for me to think that I can have it all neatly spelled out before its time. I want clarity, knowing, a guarantee. Instead I am offered Faith and Trust. It’s like holding water in my hands. Even so, I know that water has the ability to carry me far. All that matters is whether I can look into the eyes of this Great Something and not let fear or doubt draw me away from its invitation. The most horrible thing has happened. Carl is gone, carried out of this world in a grinding collision. Is it possible for me to draw strength from even this?

Yes, I think this is what is being asked of me. I am being asked to draw strength, even from this. We planted a seed. Now it is time to let it grow.

I love you, Carl Bratlien. With you, I want to keep this song alive.

{originally published Jan 8, 2015}

Returning home after.

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

The floor boards of this little cabin are cold. The door latch is frozen, requiring me to use the dead bolt to keep it closed. The whole world has shifted into a creak, popping into sharp rearrangement. It is Monday. As though that means something, I enter the day like a new stage of grief. I’ll call this stage “Returning Home After.” It is another day of navigating life without Carl. It is after Christmas. After my grandpa’s funeral. After spending the better part of a week with my grandma, not just as her granddaughter, but also as two women who have lost the men we’ve given our hearts and lives to. There are not enough tears in the entire universe for this. I’m still dogged by the edges of this migraine that seems to have become my constant companion. A toothache has angled its way in, too. I’m chilled all the way to my center, not from sickness, but from the lack of warmth that crawls from my slippered feet and into my bones. My eyeballs feel like they’ve shrunk, become smaller from too many weeks of crying and trying to see what I’m supposed to do next. My grief habit of rubbing my brow has shifted to rubbing my eyes. The structure of mortality has taken on a physicality that I’m not entirely comfortable with. I am made up of tendons, skin and two eyeballs. Somewhere inside, yet beyond my precarious placement of bones and breathing is my spirit. My spirit gets curious, feels hope, gets out of bed to let out the dogs and feed the horses. I am acutely aware of the way my body is put together and, even in all its weakness, I feel like I will live to be a very, very old woman. This thought does not bring me comfort. However, in suspended moments, I see a glimpse of my future self. The woman I see is much older than me now. She is a bit timeless, grey-haired, her body and face have taken on new contours. Mostly, what I notice is her smile–a sense of contentment and satisfaction–that illuminates from the inside out. It’s a smile held in her eyes and her whole body. Anchoring her being is a vast aquifer–her life experiences–the depth and breadth of an entire ocean. It is as though she could hold out her arms and embrace a whole life of love, care, and meaning. There are a lot of young people in this image…as though her strong arms might gather in a whole world of children whom I love.

This image comes to me at random times. It’s always brief. Just a glimpse. Last night she visited me as I read a book in the bathtub. Another time when I was driving. Once, while in the tea aisle at the grocery store. She has been weaving herself into me all along, but I notice her more lately. She’s cute and I like her. She knows I need her. She makes me smile even when I don’t think I want to. She pokes my ribs and is equally willing to wrap her arms around me. I know I’ll meet her someday, because I’ll be her. I already am her, partially. I just don’t recognize myself yet.

I am rubbed raw from missing Carl. Saying I miss him doesn’t convey the actual experience. He hasn’t truly left me. Like today. Today I feel him near. Even so, it is not always easy wearing one’s spirit so close to the skin.

I looked out the window this morning, watching the horses walk through the woods. Colorado comes to the fence first. I am mesmerized by how much I’ve loved that horse all along. I told Carl that I’d always want Colorado to be a little bit more “my” horse, even if he is the bigger, more skittish, less trained of the two. I wanted Carl to ride Dakota, despite him being twice my size and her being the smaller of the two horses. With more brazenness than I actually possessed, I announced that I would ride Colorado even tho the truth is that I was too scared to (and still am). Carl said he’d be happy no matter which horse he rode. I loved that about him because he meant it. He just loved the horses. And he loved me. My silly ideas were nonsense all along. It’s taken me a long time to truly bond with Dakota, but shortly before Carl died, I realized that it was happening. The deepening began to occur. It is still occurring. She has soft, worrisome eyes. And, lately, I find myself worrying about her, too. My heart is drawn to her. My heart is drawn to both of them. We are all like snowflakes. Even the horses.

Today, this cold makes me feel cleaved open. Smooth, like frozen stone, old parts of who I was have completely worn away. There’s somehow room in this for something new. I move the milk house heater closer to my feet. I wrap Carl’s raggedy old quilt around me. I cry. I write myself back to life.

I feed the horses at sunrise, their eyelashes and muzzles covered in frost. Dakota lifts her front hoof up high in gratitude (her daily habit of thanks). Colorado eats up his sweet feed, tosses some hay around and then attempts to stick his big nose into my cup of coffee. I laugh at him and let him smell the warm brew, telling him “yeah…you’re my horse.” Colorado in front of me, Dakota behind me, Carl all around me. Slowly, I warm to the possibility of things I do not yet know.

I love you, Carl. I love you for showing me the woman I want to grow to be.

{originally published Dec 29, 2014}