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Everything I Need

I took my children into the wilderness, and we left knowing that we are campers for life. I’d never tent camped before, but this trip was the only sure thing about the last ten months. I needed to show them, and myself, how capable we are. How we could tackle hurdles together, and still see the beauty that surrounds us. This trip was exactly what I needed it to be, and I know my kids needed it too. I lay awake for hours our first night, huddled together against the eight degree cold. There are still moments where I can’t… View Post

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Let Me Go

Guess who is about to embark on four days of tent camping in Algonquin Park, with the company of her amazing children? I’m ending this insane summer on the perfect note, because I am most myself under a canopy of trees. Here’s a little something I banged out this afternoon in Starbucks, when I was supposed to be finishing up my work.   Let Me Go Let me go into the forest, and let the lake-fed rain wash clean these sins. Let the fresh, rich scent of the pines clear my soul, and the light of a million stars restore… View Post

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You Don’t Need Me

You don’t need me to tell you what loneliness feels like, How the yawning silent void can sound like the loudest roar, Or how the vast expanse of solitude can be crushing. You don’t need me to show you how it hurts to watch yourself grow irrelevant to the one who matters most, to reach for the family you’ve built as they slip away. You don’t need me to hold you, and run my fingers slowly along the map of your body, the constellations across your shoulders, the granite slopes of your thighs… You don’t need me to make hotel-crisp… View Post

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The Things I Do Instead

Instead of spending lazy Sunday mornings with a Paul Simon soundtrack while he fries up eggs and I watch from the kitchen island thumbing through magazines, I run. I tear through the streets of my childhood stomping grounds listening to driving beats, willing myself to run towards that place in the future where there’s more pleasure than pain. Sometimes I think I’ve arrived. Sometimes I realize there’s a long way to go. Instead of stolen moments covered by iTunes playlists before a sweaty little boy clambers into bed between us, I now live a half-life with hours and hours to… View Post

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Sliding Backwards

I’m listening to Patrick Watson and you are everywhere. In every space I try to fill. In every breath I try to draw. Here’s another thing that was uniquely mine that I must reclaim. This music belongs to me. But then there’s a warm summer night full of rare city stars, the smell of you so close, your hand sturdy in mine and the haunting melodies that only you know how to love like I do. How can you be gone? No amount of running, or drinking, or kissing can change the fact that we have ended. I believed us… View Post