100 THINGS

I have lived
1. … in a house I always escaped from by walking by the mountains, growing up
2. … in deep hope, ever drawing out dream homes as a little girl
3. … in an apartment by the ocean later in "my first real place alone", watching ocean sunrises in the morning
4. … in another place by the ocean after college, this time walking on the beach at night with the moon
5. … in a village in Germany surrounded by medieval ruins, reminding me that fairy tales are very real
6. … when growing up... I have lived with parents so young I wonder how they ever did it, and
7. … with a little brother I loved with all my heart, and
8. … with a cat I dressed in dresses and a dog I rode as a horsey (poor dears)
9. … I have lived with the blessed peace of solitude whenever I could find it
10. … and with finally realizing now that I want to be with the one I love

I have witnessed
11. … puppies being born, and their mother looking at me with the deepesst trust as I held them as they came forth
12. … an ancient river during a summer not so long ago, a river that each day brought me a treasure and slowly restored my hope
13. … bear fur awaiting on the beach from a baby cub, soft and warm in my hand
14. … ospreys circling overhead as I lay on the sand looking up in stunned wonder
15. … storks and cranes that left me wondering if I'd wandered back in time somehow
16. … cats that were wild as the west whose fragile bodies slowly learned to trust and purr
17. … that animals do cry, I've seen them
18. … and saw the flight of a pink seagull one Shabbat, colored pink by the setting sun but looking like a fairy tale, and
19. … precious stones with stories to tell and trees with songs to sing, and
20. … grown men kneeling to honor our Blessed Mother, and grown women calling out to our Father God

I have heard
21. … the sound of water in an ancient well under a little round chapel
22. … the sound of sneezing from my "bless you baby tender love" doll as a little girl
23. … my neighbor reading her children fairy tales in German as I grew up
24. … my "adopted third grandmother" who spoke nothing but Hungarian and yet somehow we understood each other
25. … my mother telling me "no" (had also mistyped know here, hmmm) for the first time in memory when I asked for a dollhouse I'd seen one day when I was 3
26. … my name in many versions as I kept changing it, only to finally return to the perfect fit... the very name I was given at birth
27. … the sound of silence when I shut off the computer finally and find my shoulders relax
28. … the Little House On the Prarie theme at the show's end, so many times I've lost count
29. … the soft beat of my drum that was made by the Maori of New Zealand
30. … the sound of a beating heat, warming and calming and claiming me like nothing else can

I have lost
31. … my baby trust, when my leg was broken and I was scared so many nights in the cold hospital
32. … my innocence, through incest as a girl (and deeper underneath that through a lack of headship)
33. … my innocence and trust yet again when a chronic injury at 30 turned my life upside down
34. … my freedom when I now could no longer ride in a car without fear or even shake hands or hug without fear, the spine so unstable now
35. … my independence when I could no longer work and learned what serious poverty was
36. … my sense of adventure when I had to be so very careful now, as I was so ridiculously easily harmed
37. … most of my friends when I could no longer be used and drained now (pain sets boundaries for you when you cannot, a hidden gift really)
38. … my sleeplessness...the deep gift of rest is one I was given through all this, this precious gift after years of my body not being able to relax enough to really sleep...and dream
39. … my hardness, slowly...I am finally allowing myself to cry, after years of my body clamping down on tears
40. … my "well laid plans"...finally learning--slowly--that whatever God has planned for me is truly what holds the fairy tale

I have found
41. … stones I love so much that I sometimes sleep with them in my hand
42. … feathers that make my heart skip a beat when I see them
43. … that heros are real, and that I love them
44. … that I cannot be apart from nature for very long
45. … that everything is better by the ocean
46. … that miracles are actually real
47. … that I am so introverted I score every possible introversion point on the Myers Briggs test
48. … that both myself and my partner are descended from St Helena (through her amazing son), and that she is so precious to us both
49. … that dreams can truly guide if we listen to the story He tells us there
50. … that home truly is where the heart is

I love
51. … being in a circle of trees
52. … swimming in the warm ocean, or even a pool
53. … lying under a sunstreamed window in the winter
54. … walking for miles when surrounded by beauty
55. … the sound and smell of rain and snow
56. … a good book before I sleep
57. … snuggling back under the covers knowing I can sleep in
58. … the hopes of Christmas by a true hearth surrounded by those I love
59. … the hope of a long life together with my beloved, and seeing his face each morning
60. … that my very own Father, God, actually loves me... and that He actually made me to need Him

I can
61. … eat lemons whole just like an orange...or rather I used to as a girl
62. … stay up in a tree content there for hours...when I climbed them as a girl
63. … get waaaay too obsessed with researching things on the computer now
64. … make a yummy creme of carrot soup, and an Italian quiche folks always ask the recipe for
65. … make not much else yet... but that's changing God willing as I start cooking more
66. … get a very calm and happy feeling reading by candlelight
67. … get all warm inside planning my future house
68. … get even warmer inside thinking of God's love in that house, and being able to care for those I love there
69. … get depressed if I don't keep Shabbat or am around too much chaos
70. … find hope welling up unbidden after a dewy sunrise

I loath
71. … the "if you ever see a frown, do not let it stay" rhyme that I was surrounded with growing up, the flippant denial of pain
72. … small talk, and when folks must always fill the silence
73. … background noise from "normal" daily appliances going or cars zooming by and the like
74. … not being the "mistress of the home", feeling like a vulnerable rag doll instead expected to just conform to everyone elses rhythms and comfort and bury my own, battering my heart
75. … having to breathe through a scarf so much in public because of the chemical sensitivity
76. … when folks think my pain and injury and illness isnt real just because they cant see/understand it
77. … when people drink alchohol, it makes me nauteous and nervous, on guard
78. … when there isnt enough peace and privacy
79. … when I see our precious earth polluted each day with the "normal" (ha!) day to day things most of us use
80. … the bottomless pit in my stomach that aches when I've hurt someone, or even when they have hurt me

I hope
81. … I will be a good wife when the time is right
82. … I will be a good mother if that is meant to be, in whatever way that is meant to be
83... I will finally learn to cook and that I'll make the yummiest most nurturing meals whenever I can
84. … that those I love will feel nurtured and cared for by me
85. … that I will be comforting, and also comforted
86. … to see the ancient painted caves of southern France someday, and to walk upon the warm pulsing earth of Mt St Helen's in my own backyard
87. … to be able to swim everyday again somehow, in warm and nurturing waters
88. … to be able to sing everyday too
89. … to live the rest of my days with love, and be loved myself, both in life and beyond
90. … to always be held, so very close by My Father

I am trying
91. … to find a deeper rhythm to my days and nights, and to my life.
92. … to eat far better, and walk much more
93. … to forgive and be forgiven, and to be able to look back each day knowing I have loved and nurtured somehow
94. … to maybe write "for real" some day, or do whatever He wants me to do, and do it with all of me
95. … to spend less time on the computer and more in nature
96. … to let my heart open more and not turn away from what, or who, is standing gently before me
97. … to let my "tower" lose its thorns more and more when my prince climbs up to the window
98. … to learn to stop whenever my body says its quiet 'no', rather than ignore or abuse this
home God gave me with eating and living so apart from its nature.
99. … to learn to trust more and more, and to open more and more to the fairy tale and to wonder and to awe and to hope
100. … to know more and more the place beyond these --or any other-- words...
the place where only kindness matters, where love and comfort and care and warmth and touch and sun and rain heal, where everything has a heartbeat you can feel, warm and soft and real just like your own...