Catch Up

Cotton hills roll as I lay on my pillow.
Tucked in tight, I feel peace against my skin.
The world lies at the tips of my fingers.
Time stops here.

Beneath these sheets I am rescued.
Here broken ships sail.
In a tangle of white I find Heaven.
Abandoned hopes find a prayer.

With eyes closed I see the past.
Memories bring quiet smiles.
The sun knocks on my window,
But dark lingers for awhile.
When dark’s curtain is opened,
I wake beneath my sheets.
Stars sit in my palms,
Kings kiss my cheek.
The Universe is my candle.
I hold it in my hand.
Here, everything is what it seems.

martha lee anne


It’s been a month and a half. It feels like a lifetime since school started, since I’ve written more than a few words. I read four books the first week and a half of school, and since then, I’ve read a few chapters of “Franny and Zooey” by J.D. Salinger, and some Jeremiah.

I heard this song called “Someone Like You” by Adele.

It makes me sad.

“I hate to turn out of the blue uninvited. But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it. I hope you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded…” me too, Adele. Me too.

“She is” by Ben Rector makes me happy.

“She is whatever she wants to be. She is a little of everything, mixed up so tough in a beautiful way. She’s got the world at her fingertips, she makes beauty look effortless. And I want everything she is. She is. She is. Well, I want everything she is.”

It makes me feel pretty. No reason other than it’s called “She is” and I’m a “she”, and I like to think that I’m all of those things. Whether I am or not doesn’t really matter, it’s the thought that I could be that makes me happy.

I’ve been looking at destinations for my dietetic internship in the fall. The one I hope to be accepted too. And it has quickly become apparent that I’m moving far away. That could be Georgia, or Florida, or Tennessee, or South Carolina, or Connecticut, or Maryland. I have to be honest, New Haven,Ct makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

I was thinking the other day, “I want to be a writer,” and then this internship with Eating Well magazine showed up in Charlotte, Vermont, and I thought,” I’m going to apply to intern with them and be a writer,” and then I thought, “If I got that internship I’d be a writer…”

And that felt really weird.

It’s like to hope to be a writer is the job. The hoping to be a writer is the only eventful outcome of wanting to be a writer. You don’t actually become a writer. So imagining getting an internship to write seems surreal, and unusual, like no person who wants to be a writer should ever actually be a writer, they should just be a wordy student, or a man with a brown hat who keeps notes tucked in his pockets, or a girl with long hair who doodles in her notebook, who one day hopes to be a writer. But the hope is the closest they ever get to actually being writers.

But what’s funny is that some people do become writers. And some people become nurses. And some people go flying in these things called space ships and they land on the moon and walk around. Someone does it. And if someone is going to be a writer, it might as well be me. Or at least, I should try to make that someone me, right?

I was thinking that when you’re little, life is just a little snow globe that fits in your hands. It’s small, pretty, shiny, and it seems nothing at all to carry it around, or to hold it between both hands. To say, “I’m going to be a writer,” seems nothing at all. To say, “I’ll go to Africa” seems nothing at all. And the day comes for you to write, or to practice medicine, or to travel to the other side of the world, but you don’t. You settle. Dreams are just silly thoughts you had, spontaneously, with no consideration of pros or cons. Childhood thoughts. Unrealistic thoughts. So that trip becomes unrealistic, and medicine or writing is too hard and impossible, and far away is too far away for you after all.

The time has come. The year will be coming to a close. And I have a choice to make, or really, I have a choice to find out.... I can settle, or I can shove my life back into that shiny snow globe, and carry it with me on the streets of New Haven or down the hallways of NYU, or into some village in Africa, or maybe, in that little cubby at Eating Well.

I’m five, and you ask me what I want to do when I grow up, and I tell you that I’m going to be an astronaut and ride a bike on the moon. You ask me again at nine, I tell you I’m going to be a famous actress. You ask me again at fourteen, I tell you I’m going to be a country singer. You ask me at sixteen, I tell you I’m going to be a children’s author. You ask again at seventeen, and eighteen and you get the same answer. And when you ask me at nineteen, I tell you, “I don’t know.” I tell you that the economy is bad, that getting an alternative masters would be safe considering I am only an English major, and all the while memories of Africa linger, and thoughts of short stories and novels and children’s poems, but I have forgotten those beautiful things I thought of at five, and nine, and fourteen, and seventeen, and eighteen.

But I’m twenty three. And I haven’t forgotten those beautiful things I once hoped for, and if I did, I remember them now. I don’t know why Africa seems to keep calling to me. I don’t know why writing keeps calling to me, but I’m very sure that neither are going to go away. And I have a choice to make, or better yet, to find out.

The most I hope for is to chase after the things I dreamed of when I was younger, and brave, and if it’s supposed to happen, it will. And if it doesn’t, I’ll chase hard after something else, but at some point, I’ll find just what God has already set before me. And knowing he knows my heart, gives me great comfort that I’ll find
it.