The sound of autumn.

A long stretch of asphalt and too much time to complete the journey home, each western mile like a sigh passing between lovers, a silent communication more potent than language. The world this morning was blanketed in fog and cloud, making the highway the set of a play, where you see just enough of the scene to get the general idea of the world that waits beyond the curtains. The sun broke through the haze as I neared the expansive concrete that bridges highway to highway over the metro parks, America's only real art, as the surrealist's would say. It was early still and the angle cast every shadow forward, westward, and I chased the shade of my car until home. There is something undeniably lonely about a sunny day when all you want is rain, clouds, and for the weather to collapse the world to its lowest common denominator.

Worlds began and ended while we lay still, hanging on tightly, trying desperately to not let the future be a distraction from the present. His scent lingered on the sheets both mornings and I remained longer than I had intended, not wanting to miss a moment of it while I had it. We few, we happy few. I remind the child inside that she must hang on tightly to let go lightly.

The other day JD told me that he offers up prayers for me, in hopes that I will find the right one. He looks at me with eyes so much like my own and a part of me moved as if waking from a deep sleep. So much of this life is complicated beyond my ability to understand. What else can we do but offer up our faith and be assured that God's plan makes sense in a way that is beyond our ephemeral knowing.

I was sent a prayer that is so beautiful it makes my heart convulse.
I offer you all of me, all that I am and all that I am not. I offer you every good decision and every regrettable mistake, every great accomplishment and every missed opportunity, every divinely inspired gift and every unapplied talent, every success and every miserable failure. I offer you all joy and all heartache, every kindness and every bitterness to be forgotten, every twinkle in my eye and every tear flowing down my cheek, every great love and each lost or irrecoverable act of charity. I offer you every quiet reflective moment and all of the unneeded chaos around me, all things holy and good in me and all things in need of greater purification. I give you every joyful memory and every bitter foul pain, each future moment and every missed opportunity to love, every kind act and each regrettable harsh word, all meekness and humility within me and every misplaced prideful thought, every virtue and every weak vice, every laugh and all misery mixed with weeping. I give you every healthy breath and every weakness of mind and body, every attempt at chastity and every unworthy lustful thought, every restful repose and every anxious sleepless night. You can have all of me, the beauty that you've deposited deep within me and the emptiness of my faults. I love you and am yours completely. Amen.