I'm not one for Titles'.

It is plaid, emerald green and black.

My grandmothers.         Grandma Jo.

It comes just above my knees, and has a lovely neckline. A small amount of velvet lines the cuffs of the sleeve.

She has been saving it all of these years in the back of her closet.

The same green of my little dress lined the pale blue of the sky up the canyon today. Like God had taken a paintbrush and intricately drawn the jagged lines of the small trees above me, highlighting the last bit of what sky is left. The world is quiet there, my mind slips away from its frantic normality and ends up somewhere in the space above my head. I can hear myself breathe, hear the river make its way back to where it came from.

Like me.

I want to end up back here.

Where I came from.

But with Him, whoever Him will be. 

Hopefully Him, though.

I want a library, filled with literature. Filled with books of all shapes and sizes and categories. I want a tall ladder that swings around the entire room, and a window seat: please.

Thick blankets, warm lamps,warm undercooked chocolate chips, a fire that illuminates our shadows against the oak of the floor.

 I want a flower garden in the backyard. 

I want hidden doorways, and creaky stairs that wind in circles. I want to fall asleep in a fort, and wake up to wildflowers. I want to bring you breakfast: buttermilk pancakes and wheat toast with blood red homemade jam. I want to stay up all night with you listening to the rain angrily pound against the roof,our roof I mean. Want to watch it drip through the ceiling. I want to jump into the lake outback in a yellow sundress, and I want you to jump after me in your white shirt and tie.

I want you, mostly.

I want you from afar, as I watch you grow, and learn.

I want you in the midst of math problems and fan clubs.

I want you tomorrow as we eat raw chicken out of your refrigirator.

And I want you in your letters over the next few years.

And someday: i'd like a library,please.

Will you build me one?

I will kiss your toes, 

and you might kiss my eyelids like you used to in high school.

and who even cares? Because we will be grown ups. Twenty one maybe. 

You said we will dance in the kitchen.

"Oh, but you are lovely. Never, never change."

Merry Christmas. And Happy New Years, too.

Love,

Rachael Cherish.

(itwasnevermyintention)

The beauty of the Word.

 He asked me how to spell substantial. I spelled it underneath my breath. s-u-b-s-t-a-n-t-i-a-l.

Words are flexible, stretchy: exposed.

Words are not expensive. They do not require crafters clay, a needle and thread; they do not require heavy machinery. There is no cookbook for words.

Words create, simply by existing.

They are only as expensive as your nicest pen.

Words are what you want them to be.

They are the dirt beneath your fingernails, scattered stars across the morning sky. They are the smell of sunday roast, that moment in your head of  helplessness, right before the tears begin to fall.

Words are old. Dimmed memories, jotted down. Time eating awayat the taste, the color, the element.

Words are fresh. They hold the moment when yor lips meet his for the first time, the weight of a newborn in your arms, a leather journal at the bedside table awaiting an awakening dream.
Some words are spread like a disease, published by the thousands, stamped out in black ink to be distributed to the world, into the hands of the hungry.

Others, quietly forgotten in yellowing pages, their secrets kept..

Sometimes words are better that way.

Words Reveal, Testify. They testify of something, somebody felt, somewhere.

These words, are yours.

All I want for Christmas is a nice pair of socks.

It was never my intention. --R. Cherish

5 East 1400 North

American Fork 

I like to call this lovely little place home.

See that rocking chair in the corner? In the far right? That is where my mom used to sit, rocking, waiting for us to walk home from school in the afternoons. I would wave to her about a block away, she always waved back.

Isn't it wonderful?

 

I love the memories this house holds. The smell of fresh paint as Mom painted the walls of our home.  Monopoly in the upper left bedroom with my two older brothers for hours. Picnics on the lawn in the front yard, Mom's garden. Our house is filled with thick couches, one too many reading lamps, late library books, chocolate chip cookies, and warm blankets. It is far from perfect, and often a little messy. But it is mine. It is ours. It is theirs. 

It is home.

I suppose I always thought my parents  lived in a normal sized house.
you know?
you get married: and you have a beautiful house.
I told my Dad that on our daddy daughter date last night.

 

He laughed.

Not at me. He doesn't ever laugh at me when we talk, he just laughs quietly and then answers my questions.

he told me about the apartments.
the basement apartments they started out with.
lowering a swamp cooler in through the roof with a friend from work,
plugging up the vents trying to stop the smell of smoke from the crazy lady upstairs.
they built up to our house: slowly.
They didn't always have money, in fact, they were very poor.

"But I loved your Mom. and she loved me. So everything was okay." 

My mom stayed home and took care of us, watched us grow, and my dad spent long hours at R.C. Willey, and Franklin Covey.

He is a business man now.
He showed me where he works tonight.
We drove down that street in Salt Lake. You know? The one that if you squint hard enough it almost looks like you are in New York? That is where he works.

He goes there every single day.

I asked him:

"Dad, how can you do it?" "How can you go to the same job every single day?, "You don't even have a summer to look forward to."
he said:
"Rachael, my work isn't my life. You are my life. My family is my life. and I go to work every day so I can take care of what I love most."

We talked more. I told him everything. About the boy that broke my heart, school, about my dreams and plans for the future.

He is a good listener.

Afterward I said:
"I love you Dad. I really do."
and he said.
"I love you Rachael, I always have."
and he has.
He always, always has.
Until I find that boy someday who can take care of me like my Dad has taken care of me since I was a little girl:
eh.
Who needs boys?

Someday i will find him.

We will fall in love.

We will live in basement apartments.

That won't matter at all.

Because we will know. 

Until then,
I have two incredible brothers on opposite ends of the world teaching what they believe in.
And I have a Dad who takes me out for steak in Salt Lake City.

He understands everything about me
and loves me just the same.
Life is wonderful.
It really is.