casual car ride conversations

"So, how's your heart?"
"I don't know. I haven't stopped to listen to it lately," she says with a laughter-filled smile.
  
and i smile too. it's an honest answer for most of us on many days. 
  
so, I take a moment;
 and I stop to let my fingers feel my own pulse, 
feel my heart beating beneath the piles of clean laundry and post-its and half read applications.
  I feel it beating fast like i'm running late to class again, 
                       and slow like i'm dosing the afternoon sun with a friend.
I feel it pulsing anticipation and eager longing and fear,
                             uncertainty and desperation and deep desire.
here's my heart
beating with all the feelings of life. 

loose dirt

         growth, taking root right beneath the earth's surface
beauty isn't born of hard ground and firm soil
  and flowers make their bed in dirt that's been tossed and turned over
                                                  disrupted,
                                            disheveled,
                    where the foundation is being undone. 
seeds need loose dirt,
   dripped and drenched with water,
                              muddied,
                           unstable
what we really need is to be shaken.


here is where the growing begins.