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That moment?  The 56^th time you check your phone for texts on an ordinary Tuesday?  You know you are really only looking for one name…

I really like that moment.

That butterflies before a coffee date moment.  That c’mere, ‘cause right now I want to melt myself into your bones moment.  That you just turned toward the window and the light hit your face and for a second my heart actually, seriously stopped but I can’t tell you that yet moment.

No matter how many times you’ve had to walk away, a crush is all hello.  All drawn out contact and pleasepleaseplease.  It’s a longing for things that make you blush.  And want.  And tremor deep inside.  It’s slow slide anticipation.  Tender possibility wrapped in the most bliss-filled ache.

Maybe you don’t write your first name with his last name the way you did back then.  You don’t have a pink flowered journal where you daydream names for your one-day children.  You’re not so sure about the feminist ramifications of changing your name for love, and besides, your children already have their names.

But you’ve daydreamed the sound of his yes, and the feel of his arms and that tiny smirk of a smile.  You know just how it would feel to twist one of those curls around your finger as you leaned closer. Exactly how the rasp of his five o’clock shadow would brush against your cheek.  When he hugged you and your shirt held onto the remnant of his cologne – you knew that week there would be no rush to do laundry.

You’ve imagined what the way her lips would press against yours in that first electric moment.  Tried to conjure the sounds she might make as you as you lower her down onto cool white sheets.  Predicted what she would look like first thing in the morning, when the remnants of night visions still linger in her eyes.  You can remember with exacting detail what her pianist fingers look like wrapped around her coffee cup the day you met to talk about feminist theory, even if you don’t fully understand why this particular memory makes a shiver rise along your spine.

It’s the sweet angst of ‘if I asked would she say yes?’ and the second guessing of  ‘damn, I wonder what he meant by that?’ and ‘I think-I hope-he might-I mean maybe….’. And will she be there?  And what should I wear?  And oh, my…there he is.  There she is.

And here you are.

Oh.  My.  Yes.   I like that moment.

{enjoy the {crushable} soundtrack on spotify. as always, feel free to add your favorite falling in love-lust-longing songs to the mix}

The post A crush is all hello…. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

It’s scary. This love thing. The sweet vulnerability of extension. The naked of ‘here I am’. The tentative reaching of outstretched arms. The wide open of hope.

We all get a little lost here. Wish we knew how to do it better. Wish it were cleaner and more gentle and a little easier to understand.

We welcome the head long rush of it just as we try to run away.

Teach me how to be loved.

We all say this over and over again, in different words or with the shift and sway of our bodies or in the silent spaces where words are left behind.

Teach me how to be loved.

Let me show you how to love me well. School me in the workings of your heart, in the language of your bones. Let my open palm memorize the shape of your face. Tell me the stories of your scars so I can trace them with the honor of understanding.

Do you see this fault line? It is where I was broken, over and over again, by the ones who came before you. Are you willing to take that in? My wide open eyes? My truth lives there, if you look for it. I have been loved by those who didn’t care to discover all that I am. Will you be the one to see me whole?

It gets tangled sometimes. The purity of beginnings become a hazy twist of expectations, the intermingling of past hurts and future fears. We are the product of all that has already been, and of all that we hope will one day become. We carry with us the bone memory of the loves that we have held and all that has been lost. We don’t ever come into love without the echo of our past singing it’s siren song.

Can we do this? Can we find in this love a gossamer thread of redemption to coax into a late night tangle of limbs and lazy Sunday mornings? Will you follow me into the interplay of light and shadow? Will you dance with me here, where the light and dark within me can mingle with the good and bad of you?

Teach me how to be loved. It is a relentless forgiveness that allows us to return here, again and again.    Past the tears and the leaving and the broken spaces. Back into the hope of more, the possibility of again.

We are made for this. For the sweet vulnerability of now, for the outreach past fear and into unknown. For the extension and unwrapping. Even for the fault lines and the bittersweet of no longer ours.

We are an ancient sort of resilient.  Made for the falling and the rising.  Made for rose colored glasses and honeyed lips and finding new home in another. Made for the burning down and rebuilding from ashes.  Made for the holy wonder of beginning again.

Teach me how to be loved.

Show me how to love you well. Our hearts speak fluent optimist even when we try to cloak the hopeful whispers in layers of pessimism masquerading as protection.

We are here to love. To speak our mother tongue to lovers who may stay or may go. To learn the body rhythms of forever and of just for now. We are here to open to the bliss and the risk and the possibility inherent in every beginning.

Teach me how to be loved.

Let me learn how to love you. Start now. I’m paying attention. I was made for this.

So were you.

The post Teach Me How To Be Loved appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.