alexandjackie-blog - Tumblr blog

[alexandjackie-blog]

Sundaes are the best. Really, our Sundays jump start our week. And thank you to Pastor Chris and close friends, the big question we’ll be exploring this week in our personal lives (until God knows when) is, “what am I made for?” Alex already has big plans for this week’s silent people group, so please join us if you can on Tuesdays @ 7:15 pm.

[alexandjackie-blog]

"Sit cross-legged at a bus stop, put your feet up on a train, carry your things in a rucksack over your shoulder. Stay close to me, describe to me the things that you see. I see them too, but not exactly the way that you do. How many times have we left some place? And how many times have we returned? Have we reached the point when adventure becomes the safest place we know? With you, with me, wherever we are, it is my favorite place…”

Savanah Jordan || We Are Embarking

[alexandjackie-blog]

to Jackie, you will be lost and unlost. over and over again. relax. you were meant to be this glorious epic story.

nayyirah waheed

[alexandjackie-blog]

Zaneta, I am still blown away by you and the love in your heart. Thank you a million times again for this gift we can cherish over and over again. praise God for working play buttons (;  

(otherwise we couldn't hear it again and again... yeah half of those plays will be from me. guaranteed. i'm sitting here wishing i could hit the like button some more. C'MON YOUTUBE. I REALLY LIKE IT. nope. it still won't let me like it again.)

Zaneta. I'm still falling in love!

[alexandjackie-blog]

“They were born on a whiteboard-- purple ink, smudged and hasty. Their names were not even beside each other. It took three months for them to sit, elbows probably loose and swinging wide on the off chance they might touch, on a train with night windows churning onward to San Francisco. Those dark windows sharpening their frame of light. We all four took our pens, indulged our empty pages. We found out later they had robbed the whiteboard-- hidden the loot in their notebooks, tucked each other into the creases of their words, bent their spines around the other's name. It is impossible to know which moment tipped them loose-- broke them from their individual moorings, gave them to a rising tide. That single tipping moment is a myth anyway. Love is a train in the night-- seemingly still, with the entire world pounding past. We move so quickly into each other, yet feel frozen on contact. If you ask Jackie which of Alex's flaws she falls in love with, she'll say he shows her how to love herself. More each day. And Alex knows she processes the world differently, takes philosophy from nature better than from lecture so when he teaches her about herself it is indirect. He will approach her as a conductor moving through a sleeping car, his forward motion lost in the chatter of the wheels, indiscernible against the movement of the train. Jackie likely won't be sleeping. She'll be listening to the chuff of the train's engine over the squeal of the wheels. She'll be composing lyrics to a melody she doesn't recognize but wants to swallow, making her rib cage a carriage for everyone she cares for. Alex will leave her notes on the inside of her bones because he knows lyrics are her favorite parts of songs, and the white of her bones is nothing like the white of a board, but he draws on her anyways, leaps from bone to bone. Follows her veins and teases them into blossoms so she is more tree than train-- in constant bloom. He will coax her into herself, show her the best view from her own branches, build a tree house that never reaches the highest leaves because they will always be growing. When they fall, they will break pieces from themselves-- litter the ground with small hurts and accidental slights, and some large pains that come from growing so tightly together. But litter is nothing more than compost, and the richest forests are grown from litter piled many feet deep. They are not tending one tree, they are sowing fistfuls of seeds which will take decades to mature. And they will one day know their ages best by the rings on their bodies, keep the time in their forest by the trains passing through. It is this, this seedling love that should move us each day. The knowledge that it can start on a train in the dark, root in the person beside you-- in the sound of their pen scratching its way across a page that curves like a horizon, start in the name not too near yours on a classroom whiteboard.”

Erica Reed || For Jackie and Alex, who even then looked good side by side

[alexandjackie-blog]

Because you've known this all along.

You have been captivated by one too many spines

and I

have been waiting for a brand new pair of eyes

to wake me from this unrealistic state of fear.

  I drove myself to only park on the street outside our house,

ever since then there’s been a spot

with enough space to park my car.

I can see the front door.

I can see faith.

  You have been a writer since the day you were conceived,

the conception was pure poetry

and now you’ve been chosen to speak with your ears.

  Remembering you heard the sounds of church bells

long before someone ever told you no.

  Now your laughter is a child

on a playground full of swings.

Youve been crying “take me higher”

since before you could sing your ABC’s.

The earth has gone silent

and is waiting for you to move the wind.

  Move out of the empty town inside your heart

to see how your art is the same as his art and her art and their arts—

all pulled from the very air you’re breathing—

the very air you have become…

on these swings while church bells ring.

  With all that love in your soul, there is nothing you cannot do.

[alexandjackie-blog]

Simply this.

You and me are like spots and polka dots. We make a cute outfit, and a comfy pair of socks. I can’t tell the difference between your eye brow raise and mine, at least we rhyme. And oh, the catchy musicality ringing in our laughs. Don’t stop smiling, even when our pitches don’t match, and we’re not speaking, keep on smiling. Because you are made of love and I am made of dreams. Together we’ll walk awake until the weight of sleep decreases.

[alexandjackie-blog]

This watermelon dish is also a recipe out of the Forest Feast! With basil leaves, mint leaves, mozzarella cheese and almonds, Alex and I have made this a new family staple! Like we have stapled our love to this salad that no staple remover can conquer!

[alexandjackie-blog]

A poem about Alex (in regards to whole foods):

You are pancake mix, in the same aisle as the cleaning supplies.

You are a shelf full of cookbooks that are way overpriced.

But I'd still buy you even if my savings were dry. I'd stand on Kedzie Avenue with the biggest cardboard sign that read, "Need help, my husband's a cookbook. Cash only."

You are a sample; there's always more where you came from. Every word you say has at least five stories behind it, and they're all homemade with love.

You are a Kombucha head rush, in the passenger seat of my car. Sometimes I'm caught off-guard by how bold you are. None the less, you are a view off the rooftop of Whole Foods that I wouldn't miss for the world.

[alexandjackie-blog]

A Table and A Pretty Potato

We built a table with our hearts that moved out of our hands, and now these mobile homes we call our bodies have somewhere to rest when they're enjoying each other's company. 

Dinner is now a tail gating party. And we've invited the rainbow! 

We sat in a Barnes and Noble. It was 8pm with two hours left until closing; we read and we wrote. We read books about God, and books about love. He wrote stories about childhood and I... well I worked on steamymarriage. And the combination of childhood and marriage, God and relationships, led us to this. The Forest Feast!

We bought our potatoes at Mariano's, (and I don't know what grocery store that is equivalent to in Washington). But after scoping out the grocery stores, we're probably going to stick with whole foods and farmers markets.

Dear purple sweet potatoes,

You are a wonder and a treasure. And now that we've met, I think it's appropriate we marry, move to another city and create a blog about our lives. We'll call it purple potatoes and Alex and Jackie. Perfect!

[alexandjackie-blog]

Our first week in our new apartment was all about exploring alleys and sidewalks, watching squirrels and figuring out rats were the general cause of the rattling bushes.