#discovered someone took the tape I packed for future moves out of one of my boxes

[rabbitindisguise]

worked on my room some more and I feel better (did something productive, didn't doomscroll, etc)

[440mxs-wife]

It Was Always You

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Your phone dinged in your pocket with a text message notification. Your eyes widened as you read the message from Dean. It said they were on their way home, but that Sam got hurt, and to be waiting in the infirmary. He didn't elaborate on Sam's injuries, so you made sure to have suture kits and bandages readily available.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It's been about eight years since you started hunting with the Winchesters. When you met them, you and your hunting partner/boyfriend, Evan, were on a hunt for werewolves. Your intel on the number of werewolves turned out to be wrong, which caused you and Evan to quickly get overwhelmed. At one point, Evan thought that you had gotten them all but the pack leader ambushed him out of nowhere and killed him.

You scrambled to find a hiding place, but knew it was just a matter of time before you were discovered. Just as the pack leader found you, a gunshot rang out and it dropped to the ground. When you looked up, you saw two men standing before you in blood-stained clothes. One of them had spiky hair, glittering green eyes and introduced himself as Dean Winchester. The other man was taller than the first man, with kind, hazel eyes and chestnut brown hair. Sam Winchester.

You had heard of the Winchesters, but never thought you'd ever cross paths with them. They checked you for injuries and rendered first aid. They also helped you with Evan's body in giving him a hunter's funeral. With Evan gone, you had no one else, so Sam and Dean invited you to join forces with them.

Living in the bunker, you settled into a routine with the Winchesters. They did the field work, while you were in charge of the bunker. You mainly researched cases, only hunting when absolutely necessary. You kept the home fires burning and patched up injuries. You waited up for them to come back from a hunt, hoping they would both be in one piece when they got home.

As time went on, you realized that the younger of the two Winchesters had captured your heart. At first, you tried to deny what you were feeling for Sam. You buried your feelings deeper each time he smiled at you, or laughed at something you said. The sidelong glances and lingering touches between you were slowly driving you crazy.

You tried to keep it cool on the outside, but you didn't know how much longer that would last. You already knew that there was no chance that Sam was interested in you "that way". If Sam ever found out how you felt and didn't return your feelings, that could make things weird between the two of you. You just had to keep reminding yourself of these facts, which was proving to be more and more difficult each day.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The bunker door flew open, and in came Dean, with Sam's arm around his shoulder. You had just come back from the infirmary to see Dean trying to maneuver Sam down the stairs. You raced up the steps to sling Sam's other arm around your shoulder to make it easier on both of them. Once in the infirmary, you and Dean managed to get Sam into a sitting position on one of the beds.

"What happened?" you asked Dean as you started to assess Sam's injuries.

"Thought it was a simple salt-and-burn, but turns out, the ghost was working with a couple of demons. We took care of the ghost, then as we turned to leave, the demons showed up. One of them flung Sam at the wall, then started beating on him. I took out the one who came after me, then got the one fighting with Sam," Dean explained.

As Dean is telling you about the hunt, you could see Sam was wincing with each breath. You tried to carefully remove Sam's shirt to check for more injuries. You finally decided that you had no choice but to tear the shirt off of him. Straight out of your fantasies, to be sure, but you harshly reminded yourself to keep your hormones in check. This was for purely medical reasons.

Once his shirt was removed, you could see multiple bruises on his torso. You figured it was probably bruised or cracked ribs, so you taped and bandaged up his side. Sam seemed to be breathing a little easier now that some of the pressure was off.

You continued your examination of Sam for other injuries. You found that he had a cut on his forehead, which likely meant a possible concussion, and he had a sprained ankle. You patched up the head wound, carefully wrapped his ankle and gave him some pain medication.

"Guess you're going to be stuck here for the next few days, Sam. At least until some of the swelling in that ankle goes down," you explained as Dean went to get an ice pack.

"No way, I'll be bored in here. I'll recuperate in my own room," Sam muttered as he attempted to get to his feet.

You forcibly put your hands on Sam's shoulders and got in his face until you were nearly nose-to-nose with him. "Sit. Down. Now, let's recap: you were recently in a fight with a demon, during which you got flung around the room and beaten. At the very least, you have bruised or cracked ribs, a possible concussion and a sprained ankle. You won't be going on any hunts for the near future, either, so I suggest you get comfy, Sam," you quietly but firmly stated.

Sam thought about fighting you about staying put, but the look on your face stopped him. Dean had also brought Sam's pajamas and a clean pair of boxers. Dean helped Sam change clothes, but not before making a lewd comment about how Sam should ask you for help. Then Sam got back in bed, into a sitting position. You placed a pillow under his sprained ankle and pulled the blanket over his bottom half. Sam caught your hand in his as you smoothed out the covers. "Hey? Thank you," he said softly.

You turned around and gave him a worn out smile. "You're welcome, Sam. But you don't have to thank me. I apologize for being so rude about getting you to stay in here, I know it's not an ideal situation. I just don't want to see you get further injured, all because you were stubborn and wouldn't allow yourself a chance to heal," you explained. Then you pulled up a chair next to the bed, and you stayed to keep Sam company.

It wasn't long before Sam's adrenaline wore off and the pain meds started to kick in. He yawned and you could see his eyelids begin to drift closed. Before you left the infirmary, you made sure he was comfortable and gave a lingering kiss to his cheek. "Goodnight, Sam," you whispered as you swept his hair from his forehead.

You wandered through the library and found Dean nursing a glass of whiskey. "Everything okay, is Sam asleep?" he asked.

With a weary sigh, you dropped into a chair and confirmed that Sam was indeed asleep. "I gave him some meds for the pain, so hopefully he'll sleep through the night. He needs rest, and I'm going to make sure he gets it," you replied.

"Gotta say, sweetheart, seeing you take charge like that with Sam was kinda hot," Dean smirked.

"Oh, but Dean, you're not the Winchester who has my heart. That would be Sam," you remarked. Your eyes widened and you immediately clapped a hand over your mouth once you realized what you'd said. "I mean, uh, that, um, oh hell," you stammered, as you covered your face with your hands.

Dean chuckled and put down his drink. "Relax, it isn't like I didn't already suspect something had to be going on," he remarked. "If it makes you feel any better, I think Sam's pretty clueless about it. But you should tell him at some point," Dean advised.

"Yeah? Maybe so. Then what happens when Sam doesn't see me that way? I'll have ruined a good friendship and things around here will get weird. No thanks," you stated firmly and rose from your chair. "Goodnight, Dean," you called over your shoulder as you walked to your room.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

You checked on Sam first thing the next morning. He was looking much better than when Dean first brought him in, with a little more color in his cheeks. He seemed to be a bit restless at the moment, moving his head from side to side. From his mumbling, you could tell he was in the middle of a nightmare. You knelt on the chair next to Sam's bed and reached for the washcloth in the basin. After all of the water had been wrung out of the washcloth, you folded it and placed it on Sam's forehead.

As soon as the washcloth touched his forehead, he seemed to relax and start emerging from his nightmare. He stopped thrashing his head back and forth, and wasn't mumbling anymore. His breathing seemed to even out as you sandwiched his large hand in between your two smaller ones. Your thumb gently rubbed circles on the back of his hand while you whispered soothing words to calm him.

You watched as Sam's eyelids began to flutter and eventually fully opened. He seemed a little disoriented and immediately tried to pull his hand from your grasp, but you held fast. "Shh, shh it's okay, Sam. You're in the infirmary," you soothed.

"What happened? What am I doing here?" he asked nervously.

"You got hurt on that last hunt with Dean. You took care of the spirit, but you didn't know that it was working with a couple of demons. Dean killed one, but the other one went after you. Beat you up pretty bad, possible concussion, some rib damage and a sprained ankle," you explained.

"I remember now. I tried to go back to my room, but someone in a not-so-subtle way told me there's no way that was gonna happen," Sam gazed pointedly in your direction.

"Hey, I had to do something! You can't tell me that you would willingly follow my instructions of staying in bed with your foot propped up? Not to be lifting things to aggravate your ribs? Yeah, right," you retorted, dropping his hand. You got up from your chair and started to walk away, but Sam reached for your hand, and caught hold of it.

"Calm down," he chuckled. "I promise to stay here and behave myself. But, I'm going to need some distraction. Wanna play cards or watch a movie or something?" he asked.

Your attitude softened. "I can do that. Let me go shower and make some breakfast for all of us, then I'll be back. Deal?" you replied.

"Deal," he grinned.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sam watched with a smile on his face as you walked out of the infirmary. He thought back on the events of the last day or so. He remembered the worry in your eyes when he and Dean first came through the door. Then he noticed how quickly you had regained your composure to focus on the task of getting him to the infirmary.

When you tore open his shirt, Sam thought he saw a fleeting glimpse of something in your eyes. They looked full of softness, an adoration maybe? Like you appreciated what you saw, but felt guilty and decided that maybe you shouldn't have. Could she have feelings for me? he wondered. Then he searched his mind for evidence to support his observation.

He thought about how he always finds you in the kitchen just in time to greet him after his morning run. You know exactly how he likes his coffee, and how to make the perfect egg white-only omelet with all of his favorites. And just this morning when he was having a nightmare, you knew exactly how to bring him out of it.

Sam made up his mind that if you were going to confine him to the infirmary, he was going to use this time to his advantage. He decided to test his theory and try to find out how you really felt about him. Maybe he'd even discover his own feelings along the way.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Over the next week or so, you spent a lot of time in the infirmary with Sam. The two of you played gin rummy, with Sam winning most of the time. However, you got your revenge while playing Scrabble by being the all-time high scorer.

As the days progressed, Sam started to notice certain things about you. How you scrunched your lips when you were deep in thought about the next card to play. Or how your hazel eyes sparkled as you discovered the winning letter combination in Scrabble. Your thousand-watt smile and how it lit up your whole face.

One evening, you took Sam out for a drive to get some fresh air. You drove to an open field that you knew would have the best view of the setting sun. As you leaned against the car, Sam turned to you and saw the wonder in your eyes at the simplicity of nature. He noticed how your hair caught the rays from the setting sun just right to make it look like it glowed. It was at that moment he realized he was falling for you.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A week later, Dean got a call about a case a couple of towns over. It was a simple vengeful spirit, so just the two of you went. Sam's injuries had healed pretty well, but he decided not to chance it and therefore stayed home. You promised that Castiel would be available if he needed anything, and would probably check in every now and then. Then you gave Sam a lingering kiss on the cheek and blushed a little as you shyly said goodbye.

Late that night, Sam was jolted awake by the sound of the bunker door flying open. You and Dean had succeeded in your mission and stopped at the bar on the way home. Dean's high alcohol tolerance enabled him to drive home without too much difficulty.

You, on the other hand, were a stumbling, weaving, giggling mess. Dean kept trying to shush you so as not to wake up Sam, which only made you giggle even more. He finally got you turned around in the direction of your room and guided you down the hallway.

Dean paused at your doorway and leaned you against the wall while he opened your door. "Hey, Dean?" you slurred. "You know what I wanna do right now? I wanna tell Sammy everything. You know, 'bout how I'm in love with him," you mumbled.

"Oh, really, Princess? Are you sure that's such a good idea in your current condition? 'Cause if you want, I can knock on his door right now and have him poke his head out here so you can tell him," Dean chuckled.

"NO!!" you shouted. "Don't do that. 'S probably not a good idea anyway, since he doesn't like me that way," you muttered.

Dean opened your door and pulled you towards him to guide you into your room. "How do you know that? Did you ask him? What would you do if he was standing in front of you right now?" he asked.

"Kiss him. Like this," you answered and gave Dean a kiss full on the lips. At that moment, Sam poked his head out just in time to see what looked like you kissing his brother. He dropped his gaze to the floor and quietly closed his door.

"But, that'll never happen. So I'll go in here, cuddle with my pillow and pretend that it's Sam," you replied softly, tears shimmering in your eyes.

Dean kissed you on the forehead. "Goodnight, Princess. Take a couple of Tylenol with a bottle of water before you conk out. Hey, you did good work today, you know," he remarked.

You nodded. "I know. Thanks, Dean," you mumbled, then closed your door.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The next morning, you didn't have nearly as bad of a hangover as you expected to have. It was enough, though, to remind you that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to drink so much. When you wandered into the kitchen, Sam was already at work, making breakfast. Something was off about him, however. He had yet to acknowledge your presence as you walked in, even with just a look.

"Good morning, Sam," you remarked. Sam said nothing, just kept preparing his breakfast. "Good morning, Sam," you said a little louder. Still no response. "Good--" he cut you off.

"Morning," he snapped then returned his focus to finishing his breakfast.

"I-is something wrong, Sam? Are you feeling pain again, maybe from your ribs or your ankle?" you asked timidly.

"No, no pain there," he answered in clipped tones.

"If-if you tell me where you're hurt, I'll see what I can do to help ease the pain," you tried.

Sam looked up with a rare flash of anger in his eyes. "Listen, I don't need your help and, more importantly, I don't want your help. Besides, I think you've done enough," he snapped. You nodded, and brushed past Dean out of the kitchen, then ran to your room.

"What the hell was that all about?" Dean asked.

"Oh, like you don't know? The next time the two of you decide to hit the bar after a hunt without me, do me a favor. Get a room somewhere, then you can take care of two birds with one stone," Sam retorted.

"Now, what is that supposed to mean?" Dean demanded.

"It means, I saw you, Dean! You two weren't exactly stealthy when you got home last night. I saw you outside her room and the two of you were kissing. Don't even try to tell me 'it's not what it looks like', because I know what I saw. She wants you, not me," Sam ground out as he left the kitchen.

"Some days, it's best just to stay in bed," Dean muttered to himself.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Over the next week, you and Sam did your best to avoid one another. If he was in the room first, you waited until he left before going in. When you did end up in the same room, neither one of you could look at the other, let alone say much of anything. Not unless it was absolutely necessary, like looking for a case.

Dean was stuck in the middle, forced to watch it all from the sidelines, which tore him up inside. The two people he cared about most were in pain because of a misunderstanding. He wanted to try and fix this, but he knew the two of you had to work it out on your own.

Garth called Dean with a case involving a vamp's nest that needed to be dealt with. It was fairly good-sized, so he was going to need all three of you to take it down. You didn't really want to be cooped up in the car with Sam for that long, given the tension between you. However, you were needed, so once more, you pushed your feelings down so you could focus on the job at hand.

After another successful hunt, the three of you ended up taking another trip to the bar. You decided to keep your drinking to a minimum, considering what happened last time. You, Sam and Dean settled into a booth, with the boys on one side, you by yourself on the other. Dean brought over the first round of beers, which you tried to drink slowly to pace yourself. The boys finished their beers well before you, so Sam left the table to get the next round.

"You have to talk to him sometime," Dean remarked.

"Dean, I appreciate your help, but this is one time you need to stay out. Sam's angry at me, and he must have a good reason, because he doesn't get angry often," you replied.

"Not this time he doesn't, have a good reason that is. Remember that night we finished that vengeful spirit hunt? We stopped here on the way home, and you drank too much?" Dean prompted. You nodded. "Do you remember what you said to me outside your bedroom door?" he asked.

You thought back to that conversation. "I told you that I should tell Sam how I feel, and you offered to knock on his door to get him," you responded. "Then you asked me what I would do if he was in front of me at that moment, and I....Oh Chuck," you whispered. "He saw, didn't he? He must have thought I chose you over him. That's why he snapped at me in the kitchen the next morning," you said as everything made sense.

Suddenly you had a strong urge to find Sam, to explain what happened that night. You slid out of the booth and scanned the bar area to see if Sam was still there. He was, only he wasn't alone. A gorgeous woman with long, dark hair was making serious eye and body contact with Sam. He had his arm around her and was smiling at her, then he was laughing at something she'd said. Overall, he looked extremely comfortable in her presence.

Your heart sank as you abandoned your decision to find Sam. You told Dean you were going to get some fresh air and that you'd be back. However, you had no intention of returning to the bar. Instead, you started walking back to the bunker.

About halfway home, a car pulled up next to you and the lady driver asked you if you needed a ride. You politely declined, then the stranger showed you her fangs. You turned to run back to the bar, but didn't make it. Two other vamps appeared, and when they got to you, they knocked you unconscious.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Having fun tonight, Sammy?" Dean asked, with an edge to his voice.

Sam ignored the tone. "Yeah, actually. For once I'm the one picking up the chicks. See that brunette over there--" Dean cut him off.

"Cut the crap, Sam. You know who you belong with and it's not that brunette chick," Dean retorted.

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean, then looked all around the bar for you but didn't see you. "So, where'd she go?" he asked.

"Like you care. Right after you left the table, she went to find you to talk to you, try and clear the air between you. Then she saw you and Ms. Right Now hanging all over each other and headed outside for some fresh air," Dean grumbled.

"Shouldn't she be back by now? I've been gone from the table for about half an hour, Dean," Sam said as concern started to creep into his voice.

As Dean caught on to what Sam was saying, his phone rang, with Caller ID saying it was you. He answered it, but on the line it was your captor instead. Dean demanded that they release you and promised that if you didn't make it out alive, he would personally slice off their heads.

"You don't scare me, Winchester. But I can smell the fear rolling off of her in waves, and it's so deeply satisfying. She's a feisty one, though, won't tell us where you are no matter how much pain we've put her in. Allow me to demonstrate," the vamp cackled with glee.

She came over to the middle of the room where you were tied to a chair. "Where are the Winchesters?" she demanded. "I'm not telling you squat," you snapped as you glared at your captors. The boys heard the sound of you being slapped across the face for your outburst.

"She's so uncooperative. Guess it's time to sample the merchandise," the vamp remarked. She could see you struggling against the ropes, so she slapped your face again. She tilted your head to the side and sank her fangs into your neck, causing you to cry out in pain. The boys could tell what was happening, and it was almost more than they could bear.

"Oh, boys, she tastes just as sweet as you'd expect. You have two hours before she becomes one of ours," the vampire retorted before disconnecting the call.

After the call ended, you heard her giving instructions to the other two on what to do when Sam and Dean showed up. Then she went back over to you. "Relax, sweetie, this is almost over. I promise that after the Winchester boys are dealt with, I'll put you out of your misery as well," she cackled as she walked away.

As soon as you were sure you were alone, small sobs shook your body, tears streaming unchecked down your face. You sent up a silent message to Castiel, hoping against hope that he was listening. If he was, then he could tell the boys where to find you, and you might have a prayer of seeing Sam again. All you wanted was one last opportunity to explain and maybe find the courage to tell him how you felt.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Back at the bunker, Sam was busy on his laptop, frantically trying to locate you. He thought back on the events of the past few weeks, and how tense it's been between the two of you. Regardless of what happened before, you were still an important part of his life, and he wanted that part back.

Dean brought in the bag of weapons and dropped it with a thud onto the map table. He leaned on the table with his palms flat on the surface and glared at his younger brother. "All right, Sam. I'm sick of this. There's something you need to know about that night," Dean started.

"Not now, Dean. I'm busy trying to find her through the GPS on her phone," Sam grumbled.

"Yes, now, Sam. That night outside her door, she wasn't talking about me. She was talking about you. That kiss you saw? She said--" Sam cut him off.

"Dean--" Sam started.

Dean slammed his hand on the table, causing Sam to jump in his chair. "She said that if you were standing in front of her at that very moment, she would kiss you," he finished. "It's YOU she loves, Sam. For her, it's always been you," Dean said softly.

Sam paused in his search efforts to consider what his brother was saying. Was it possible that he misinterpreted what he saw that night? If so, then all the tension and animosity was his fault, and he had to make it right with you. He only hoped time was on their side and he would have that opportunity.

A whoosh of wings was heard and Castiel appeared in the bunker, a grim look on his face. He had heard your prayer and told the boys where to find you. Cas also gave them a description of the place so they could formulate a rescue plan on their way.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The female vamp returned to the room to see if she could get any more information out of you. If not, she said she was fine with inflicting more pain on you. She didn't get the chance to start anything, though. One of her lieutenants came rushing in to tell her that Sam and Dean had been spotted. They all knew that Castiel was likely not far behind, but he hadn't been seen yet.

At the mention of his name, you felt a light touch on your shoulder. "Cas? Is that you?" you whispered. You felt a quick squeeze of your shoulder and relaxed a bit, knowing that Sam and Dean were at least aware of your location. The female vamp leaned down next to your other ear and murmured, "Not quite done with you yet, dearie. I'll be back soon."

As soon as they were out of the room, Castiel made himself visible and started to untie your ropes. "Thank you, Cas. I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again," you mumbled as you drifted out of consciousness.

"Shh, just take it easy. I'll have you out of these ropes in no time," Cas replied. Off to his right, he heard heads hitting the floor and knew that there were no more threats.

Sam was the first one through the door and rushed to your side. He checked for your pulse and was relieved to find that you were only unconscious. His heart sank at the sight of the injuries inflicted on you by the vamps, and instantly blamed himself. As soon as you were free of your restraints, Sam scooped you up in his arms and carried you to the Impala.

In the backseat of the Impala, Dean helped secure you in Sam's waiting embrace. He held you to his chest and whispered soothing words in your ear as Dean raced back to the bunker. He was almost afraid to let go, as if you would disappear if he did. Sam silently promised you that once you woke up, he would tell you about his feelings for you.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

You awoke to find that you were in a bed in the infirmary, and were no longer wearing the clothes you had on at the bar. You were now wearing your sleep shorts and a T-shirt. One of Sam's T-shirts. You looked over to your left and saw Sam's lanky frame draped uncomfortably over a chair next to your bed.

When you tried to move your left hand, you saw it was perfectly entwined with Sam's larger hand. This small movement caused Sam to jolt awake and his eyes seemed to automatically lock on yours. "Hey," Sam said with a soft smile.

"Hey, Sam," you croaked. Sam handed you a glass of water to relieve your parched throat. "How long have I been out?" you asked.

"About a day and a half. I was so worried, I thought I'd lost you," Sam replied, his thumb tracing gentle circles on the back of your hand. "Cas healed what he could with his limited grace, so you'll still have some healing to do on your own," Sam explained.

"Thank you for rescuing me, but I'll be fine now. You don't have to worry anymore, I can take care of myself from here. Don't let me keep you from your girlfriend," you remarked.

A puzzled look crossed Sam's face. "I don't have a girlfriend," he replied.

"Yes, you do. That brunette from the bar. I saw how the two of you were looking at each other that night," you answered. You pulled your hand from Sam's hold and swung your legs over the side of the bed. At the doorway, you turned to face Sam, who was still sitting beside your bed. "I hope she makes you happy, Sam," you said softly.

Sam couldn't believe what just happened. You had let him go, more concerned for his happiness than your own. What you didn't know is what made him happy was being with you. "Wait!" he called after you, running to catch up.

He found you resting against a chair in the War Room, trying to catch your breath before continuing on to your room. "Listen, I owe you an apology about that night you and Dean came home from the bar. I got angry because I had finally found someone that I want. When I saw you kiss him I thought, as usual, she chose my brother over me. That's why I snapped at you that morning," he explained.

"I know, Sam, because Dean and I talked about it at the bar. I wanted to clear the air with you, so I got up from the booth and looked for you. That's when I saw you with her, your new girlfriend," you replied.

"For the record, she's not my girlfriend," he firmly stated. Sam reached up and caressed your cheek with his knuckles. He drew you closer to him with his free hand on the back of your neck. "How could she be, when I'm in love with someone else?" he asked softly. Sam inched forward until your lips meshed together in a sweet, tender kiss.

"Oh, Sam," you whispered.

"Baby....," Sam responded as he dove in to capture your lips for another, deeper kiss. You melted into the embrace of his strong arms and surrendered to the feel of his hands roaming up and down your back. Your hands slid up his well-defined chest and continued until your fingers were threading through Sam's hair.

When the kiss was broken, you and Sam touched your foreheads together and grinned at each other. "You're the one who makes me happy. I love you," Sam remarked softly.

"I love you, Sam. It's always been you," you replied.

Sam's thumb gently caressed your face as his hand cupped your cheek. He drew you into another lingering kiss that left you breathless. He carefully scooped you up into his arms and placed you on the bed in his room. The blankets were already pulled back and he arranged them up and around you. Then he slipped into bed beside you and drew you into his embrace.

"No more cuddling with a pillow anymore, pretending that it's me. You've got the real thing now," he remarked. "I love you, Baby."

"I love you too, Sam. Sweet dreams," you murmured.

[daggerzine]

Sohrab Habibion from SAVAK (and Obits, Edsel, etc.) fills in the gaps.

I first noticed the name Sohrab Habibion in the Sub Pop band Obits nearly a decade ago. He’d then gotten in touch with me a few years back when he sent me the last Savak record, Beg Your Pardon (the band’s 3rd). I did some backtracking and realized he was in the old DC post hardcore band Edsel, whose music I enjoyed. We got to talking and I realized this guy’s had a pretty interesting career and I needed to find out more. He was more than agreeable to an interview on the DAGGER site. Oh and dig this....he recently he began posting some videos that he took of shows in the DC area in the mid-80’s, which is discussed below. Let’s all thank our lucky stars that someone was there with a video camera at shows back then.

Back to SAVAK, they have recently released their fourth full-length, Rotting Teeth in the Horses Mouth (on the Ernest Jenning Record Co label, like the last few) and it’s a terrific record. The kind of post-punk that’s not afraid to pOp! and vice versa. So needless to say Sohrab had plenty to talk about. Let’s take a trip both down memory lane and back to the future as well.

Sohrab.... always pushin’ the hair products.

 Did you grow up in the DC area? If not how did you end up there?

I moved to the suburbs of DC in 1979. My mom and I drove through Hurricane David from my grandfather’s house in Leonia, New Jersey to Annandale, Virginia with all of our possessions in the back of a Chevy Chevette. We had just left Iran because of the Revolution and, after a short stay in Bergen County to gather ourselves and do some research, my parents decided that we would resettle in the DC area.

Do you remember what the first record you ever bought was? First concert?

First record: It was a cassette of Love for Sale by Boney M. Actually maybe that was a gift from a friend. Either way I think of it as my first-owned album. I quickly had the lyrics to “Ma Baker” memorized and never gave a second thought to just how weird the cassette cover art was. If you’re not familiar, perhaps imagine an S&M dungeon version of Ohio Players? As a 7-year-old I think it just didn’t register. More interesting is that the producer, Frank Farian, was also the guy behind Milli Vanilli. If you’re up for it, I recommend doing some Googling about Mr. Farian, who was born Franz Reuther just after the start of World War II in a German valley settlement once known as the “Town of Leather.” It’s good stuff, I promise.

First concert: A friend’s older sister drove us to the old 9:30 Club to see one of the club’s 3 Bands for 3 Bucks nights. I remember feeling pretty excited about being in a part of town I didn’t know and seeing all kinds of people I didn’t ordinarily see. This was probably 1983 or 1984 so it was heavy on the New Wave look. In the basement of 9:30, once you’d squeezed down the narrow flight of stairs, there were bathrooms as well as a small counter that sold records and tapes. I bought The Halloween Cassette—a WGNS comp with Gray Matter, United Mutation, Velvet Monkeys, Malefice, Bloody Mannequin Orchestra and others—and the Minor Threat record that compiles the first two 7”s. On our drive home the DJ on WHFS played the song “Minor Threat,” which we literally had in our hands, and the whole thing felt tremendously serendipitous.

During his tryout with the Washington Bullets (Elvin Hayes beat him out). 

At what age did you pick up the guitar?

One night my mom came home from a school fundraising auction with an acoustic guitar that she’d won in the raffle. I actually think it might be the only time anyone in my family has ever won a raffle. I was 13 or 14 and discovering that I was not as good of a baseball player as I’d hoped or wanted to be and the guitar felt more connected to my interests, so I started to teach myself chords and rudimentary scales. It wasn’t long before I was able to get an electric guitar and make a complete mess of sound in neighborhood basements with friends.

How old were you when the punk rock bug bit you?

Thirteen, I think. I’m pretty sure it was 7th grade. I didn’t know a lot about rock music. Having spent a chunk of my early life in Iran, I missed the boat on a lot of big, American rock’n’roll moments. I was 9 when I was first exposed to KISS by neighbors who were also in the Boy Scouts and so I kind of lumped all that costuming together and the whole thing seemed silly. Special badges and membership cards and various allegiances you were supposed to declare. I felt disengaged from a lot of things in the suburban culture around me, so punk made sense upon its arrival. It took some time to sort things out, like what made the Dead Kennedys good and The Exploited bad, but once that initial door opened, I never turned back. If anything it just opened additional doors to other subcultures and underground movements and marginalized artists and thinkers. Punk helped me recognize that my sympathies will always be with the disenfranchised, the unheralded, the amateur, the wandering tinkerer.

How and when did Edsel get together?

I met Nick Pelliocciotto and Geoff Sanoff (who wouldn’t be in Edsel for a few years) at a Government Issue show at the Hung Jury Pub. Nick and I briefly played in a band with Jim Spellman (Velocity Girl, High Back Chairs, Foxhall Stacks), but that fizzled out. So Nick and I were looking for a bass player when we saw Steve Ward play a cover of “White Rabbit” at a high school talent show. Nick and I agreed that Steve looked cool (he really did) and, when we ran into him in the parking lot, he passed our test by answering that his favorite DC band was Happy Go Licky. We started practicing in the basement of the house Nick, Jim Spellman and I lived in off Reno Road in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of DC. We didn’t know what we were doing. Nick played me a bunch of records I had never heard before and we would talk about various details in the music. He made me aware of the way certain things interacted, like the bass guitar and the kick drum. I’d never considered that. I was also unfamiliar with singing in a band, so was starting from scratch. A lot of it began as rhythmic sing-song-speak-howling that could be heard somewhat above the volume of the band. I’ll never forget recording our first demo at Inner Ear with Michael Hampton. When it came time for me to do the vocals we were all surprised by what they sounded like and Michael nicely said, “Why don’t we call it a day and you go home and work on some melodies that we can record tomorrow.” Ha! When Nick and I got back to the house we listened to a bunch of albums to get ideas for vocal melodies. The one that resonated with me was Midnight Oil’s 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and it helped me understand how you could take a simple line and move it around with chord changes. I didn’t figure out what phrasing was for some time to come, but that was the start. Thank you Michael, Nick and Peter Garrett.

How/when did you end up in NYC?

Well, it’s a circuitous story, but . . . Edsel toured a lot between 1993 and 1995. So much so that I moved back into my parents’ basement to avoid paying rent for a place I wasn’t going to be spending any time in. My folks are lovely and it was a fine arrangement, but I missed having an apartment of my own. On tour in Chicago I was presented with the opportunity of a cheap living situation in a city that I liked, so I moved there. I had this fantasy that the band could keep it together while being in 3 different cities—Geoff had moved to NYC and the two Steve’s were in DC. Not a chance. I had a good year in Chicago, working at the Empty Bottle and playing with different local musicians, but Edsel basically succumbed to inertia and I decided to move back to DC to make a solo record. My parents had a cabin in the Shenandoah Valley and I went there for a period of time with my 4-track and the hopes of discovering whatever my version of Leonard Cohen and Brian Eno might be. That didn’t happen, but I learned a lot about recording myself and making mistakes and stumbling on things I liked that I hadn’t intended. Around this point I got a call from Michael Hampton, who’d moved to New York City a few years earlier. He said his neighbor in the West Village had moved out and he wondered if I might want to take the apartment. I was feeling pretty untethered and the idea of giving Manhattan a shot was exciting, so in November 1997 I packed up my books and CDs and headed up here. I’ve since crossed the bridge over to Brooklyn, but have no plans of leaving. I love this city and all of its flaws.

How about Obits? I know Alexis was in Edsel….had you known Rick already?

Alexis played in Edsel for a few reunion shows we did in 2013, but he wasn’t in the original lineup of the group. I first met Alexis in 1985 when Lünch Meat, his band, played with Kids For Cash, my band, at my local community center. He and I also share a birthday and a similar sense of humor, so when he joined Obits after the departure of Scott Gursky, our original drummer, it was an effortless transition. I’d also played with Alexis in Girls Against Boys on a 2002 European tour that Eli couldn’t do. I was Fake Eli and got to play bass on some of my favorite GvsB tunes, which was a blast. Alexis has a humorous diary from that tour: http://www.gvsb.com/euro_diary/index.html

Here’s an excerpt just so you know it’s worth the clicks:

“scott has determined that we should get rid of all the equipment and excess drummers and bass players and just travel with a painted sheet (we in the biz call this a scrim). that way he could have a band painted on it and just cut out the head of the singer and stick his own head through. this would reduce overhead and be a whole lot less of a hassle than having squabbling bass players and drummers with no IQ whatsoever.”

Rick and I met at an art show of his in the summer of ‘99. In fact, in looking to clarify the year I came across this email I sent to a friend:

“Last night my friend Hiroshi took me to an opening of his friend Rick Froberg’s work in some unknown Lower East Side apartment/gallery. I was shocked at how incredible his stuff was. His etchings like Goya’s, his prints like a German expressionist and his paintings like a weird amalgam of Raymond Pettibon and Norman Rockwell. But everything was very original despite its familiarity. He gave me one of his prints and I actually ended up buying one of his paintings. I’m really excited about it.”

Funny thing is that on that European GvsB tour I was wearing a Hot Snakes shirt. Little could I have guessed that I’d be in a band with Alexis and Rick 10 years later. Or maybe I could’ve? Our behavior and patterns are probably more predictable than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, long and short of it is after meeting Rick we started hanging out and as Hot Snakes was winding down in the early aughts he proposed we get together and strum our guitars. We had a good time and kept at it until things started to take shape. Fast forward a bit and our friend Speck browbeat Rick into playing with her band, Orphan, at Cake Shop. That was early 2008 and the internet did us a favor by sharing a bootleg recording of our gig, which led us to signing with Sub Pop. Seems just as weird now as it did then, but so it goes! The band was a hoot to be in and we had a grand time, particularly touring. The trips we made to Europe, Australia, Japan and Brazil were fantastic. I never thought I’d be able to do that playing scrappy rock’n’roll music. All the people that we met, the local specialties that we ate and drank . . . and drank . . . and then ate some more. Unforgettable. Until I forget them. Then I’ll refer to the documentation.

Obits.....always ready to rumble (notice the switchblade comb in Froberg’s pocket). 

Tell me about the end of Obits and the beginning of Savak? Who came up with the name?

The end of Obits was a little unexpected. At least the timing of it. All bands end, so it wasn’t surprising in that regard, but we had a French tour planned and had been offered some East Coast dates with Mudhoney, so it was a bummer not to be able to do those. But it had been a cold and miserable winter and Rick had some family stuff to marshal, so it felt best to call it, which is what we did on April 1st, 2015. The April Fool’s part wasn’t intentional, but I liked that it happened that way, what with being in a band often feeling like a cosmic joke anyway. But we’re all still good friends and very much in touch with each other. Funny thing is we’d actually written a fourth record with two drummers, as Matt Schulz had started playing with us as well (we did one show with both Alexis and Matt, which was fun), so on my hard drive somewhere are the demos and jams for that, including covers of “The In-Crowd” (https://youtu.be/KYbwk26mYJA) and Beasts of Bourbon’s “I Don't Care About Nothing Anymore.” (https://youtu.be/IpWi4OxhJXY)

Towards the end of Obits I’d started getting together with other friends to make noise. I was playing with Greg Simpson and Matt Schulz, doing instrumental versions of Hooterville Trolley and Shadows tunes, and separately with Michael Jaworski and Benjamin Van Dyke, just bashing out riffs. I asked all involved if they would want to combine the two and everyone was into it. The nice thing was Michael and I got to write with two different drummers, which opened up new ideas, and for a band that was just getting the swing of our internal vocabulary, it helped jumpstart the mojo.

I can’t remember at what point we were talking about band names, but when Viet Cong couldn’t take the heat for their name and decided to change it I made a joke about calling our group SAVAK. Then the more I thought about it the more I liked it and the group was on board, so we ran with it. The Iranian side of my family was a bit perplexed and bemused, but they all understood that this was a rock’n’roll outfit and not some creepy tribute to the former secret police in Iran. I’ve come to appreciate how that type of band name is a good litmus test. With a moniker like SAVAK you can see who actually knows anything about global political history, but more importantly you immediately know that anyone who takes issue with it isn’t likely to be interested in or even be familiar with punk rock or underground culture. So that person’s opinion on the subject doesn’t hold weight for me and I’ll attempt to redirect to a different subject that could be entertaining to chat about, like food or wine or bicycle maintenance or John le Carré books or, I dunno, HTML/CSS?

Savak has been recording pretty consistently…how did the new record come together so quickly? Who came up with the title?

Michael Jaworski, the other guitarist, singer and co-songwriter, came up with the title of Rotting Teeth in the Horse’s Mouth. Apparently it appeared to him in a dream and, well, I just liked the way it sounded. Both in that it reminded me of the DK’s classic Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and as a play on the idiom “hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth,” since the current mouth we hear more often than is good for anyone’s mental health has enough proverbial rotting teeth to fill the mouth of a giant armadillo.

We worked on the album over a period of months. Sometimes we would get together with Matt Schulz, our drummer, and hammer stuff out. Other times either Michael or I would start something at home and build it from there. The main thing was to keep it feeling like a band had cut it together live, regardless of how accurate that may be on any given song. We started with 16 tunes, ditched 2 of them that weren’t as developed, and recorded the remaining 14. Then we picked the 10 that sounded the most cohesive for the album and the others will come out as singles later in the year. We spent many intensely focused hours editing, overdubbing and trying to really hone in on what each tune needed. I like discreet events in music and subtle details that may not make themselves evident for a few listens. A keyboard that only appears in the second verse or a backing vocal that’s buried deep in the right channel of the outro or a flanged cymbal crash at the top of the chorus. Stuff that doesn’t have to happen in the live version but makes the recording a little richer without being overbearing.

SAVAK, just before diving in. 

In Savak, re; the songwriting process, is it both you and Michael together or do you write independently?

There’s always a collaborative element. We each add or edit the other’s songs to some degree. That’s one of the things I really like about our partnership. We actively try to keep our egos out of the way. And while we may not share the exact same taste about every little thing, we trust each other’s sensibility. I think that willingness to let go of our own ideas makes them more interesting and strengthens the working relationship.

Tell us about working with Arto Lindsay?

Rick Froberg was employed as an illustrator at a web-based, digital media shop in SoHo called Funny Garbage and he helped get me a gig making music for cartoons and video games they were producing for companies like Cartoon Network. I had access to a recording studio on a floor above our office which was run by an incredibly talented musician/producer named Andres Levin. One day ‘Dre asked if I could work on a session with a friend of his for a gallery installation. It seemed interesting, so I agreed. The guy showed up with two pillow cases that he wanted to put on his arms and flap wildly in front of a mic. His idea was to pitch the pillow case recording down a few octaves and add a lot of reverb so it would sound like a giant bird was flying. I don’t remember if he was pleased with the results, but we had a blast trying, and it turned out that fella was Arto Lindsay. He got in touch with me soon after about recording his next album. I was direct about the fact that while I was brisk with the ProTools and could run sessions efficiently, I was not a real engineer who knew about microphone placement and how to apply compression, etc. He said that was fine and arranged to rent a recording rig for his apartment and we got straight to work with Melvin Gibbs, who is Arto’s writing partner, co-producer, and bass player. We made Invoke in 2002 and two years later we made Salt, once again doing the whole thing in his Chelsea living room. Arto’s a wonderful guy, as is Melvin, and we had a terrific time together. I also learned a lot. He has such a deep knowledge of avante garde music and art and a whole world of Brazilian culture that he can tap into. And Melvin is an incredible musician, so getting to see how he approached assembling Arto’s ideas was fascinating. He was also forgiving with the fact that a punker like me was trying to edit Brazilian rhythms when I was having an impossible time even identifying the first beat of the groove. There was a lot of, “Please just tell me where the ONE is.” Arto knows a wide array of people and the process of making a record with him was very much about getting it done, but not at the expense of the vibe, so if someone dropped by you’d just have to roll with it. Sometimes that person would bring their instrument and overdub on a song or two, so I had to figure out how to be flexible about the recording process to make sure it was gonna be smooth for all involved, regardless of if it was a violin player or a guy doing a percussion track using a cardboard box. I ended up calling Geoff Sanoff for advice quite a bit—to the point where Arto would joke, “Is it time to call Geoff?” Ha! But he knew the deal going in, so all was fine. The experience of making those records was great and I got to meet some interesting folks. Also my appreciation of Brazilian music completely exploded. An unexpected and super cool project with Arto, Debbie Harry and Mikhail Baryshnikov also came from that. Another side note: when we were recording Invoke there was a song which Arto wanted to get Animal Collective involved in. This was 2001 and they were still more of a record store employee kind of band, but Arto had a couple of their CDs (Spirit They’re Gone Spirit They’ve Vanished and Danse Manatee, I think) and was really into them. We arranged to go into Stratosphere Sound, the studio that was owned by Adam Schlesinger, Andy Chase, and James Iha, where Geoff Sanoff worked, and do the session there. They had an interesting way of working—they would manipulate all of the instruments, including live drums, and have everything run through their PA and then have Geoff mic the PA speakers. So the final thing was this gauzy, mushy, blur that was like a sonic paste. They totally knew what they were doing and I was particularly impressed with Noah/Panda Bear as a musician.

Speaking of legends, how did you begin collaborating with Michael Hampton?

First we should be clear that we’re not discussing “Magic” Mike Hampton AKA Michael “Kidd Funkadelic” Hampton. According to Discogs, the Michael Hampton I know is “Michael Hampton (3)” of Brief Weeds fame. He’s a few years older than me so I missed his days in SOA and The Faith, but I was a fan and saw him in Embrace and One Last Wish. I attended American University in DC and ran into him on campus, told him I also played guitar and suggested that we “jam sometime.” Knowing him now this detail cracks me up because I’m positive I freaked him out and that he was horrified by the idea of “jamming” with an arbitrary, long-haired frosh. Some time after Edsel started we asked Michael to help produce our demo, as we were clueless about the studio. And when he was in Manifesto our bands played together and we got to be better friends. After he moved to New York, it was he and his wife, Monica, who encouraged me to move here. They also introduced me to my wife. And for the last 15 or so years we’ve worked together on soundtracks for indie films, documentaries and commercials. I can’t recall how that collaboration first started, but I love working with Michael. He’s got a quick wit, so there’s lots of yucks involved, but he also has a remarkable knack for music composition and knows how to layer ideas for perfect cinematic effect. As a guitar player he remains one of my favorites. Michael’s distilled Bob Andrews from Gen X and Captain Sensible and George Harrison and all these choice rock’n’roll and punk players into something distinctly his own.

Somewhere in Madrid, Spain (Spain Radio Nacional) 

Tell us your top 10 desert island discs?

That’s tough. I’d like to ensure a bunch of different moods are covered, so let’s see . . . how about:

Hamza El Din - Music Of Nubia

Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou - Éthiopiques 21: Piano Solo

Mark Hollis - s/t

Skip James - Today!

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Mission Of Burma - Vs.

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers

Television - Marquee Moon

The Velvet Underground - s/t

Wire - 154

Who are some of your favorite current bands?

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys, Cable Ties, Contractions, FACS, Gotobeds, Grey Hairs, Hammered Hulls, Hot Snakes, Light Beams, METZ, Mint Mile, Modern Nature, Patois Counselors, Pays P., Rattle, Skull Practitioners, Slum of Legs, Sunwatchers, Tanning Bats, TK Echo, The Unit Ama.

I know I’m forgetting stuff. There’s a ton of excellent music being made right now.

What’s next for Savak? Once the lockdown is over will you guys tour?

It’s hard to be certain about anything these days, but I do know we’re eager to play once the Javel water has cleared. My hope is that we reschedule our UK tour as well as the shows we had on deck with Archers of Loaf. We were also trying to coordinate a Japanese tour, which we’d love to do, so I’ll add that to the list.

In the meantime we have a couple of non-album singles coming out later in the year.

I love making music, so whatever form it needs to take to make it work given our circumstances I’m fine with. Wanna jam on our phones? Hit me up!

SAVAK’s new one- Rotting Teeth in The Horses Mouth

BONUS QUESTION:  Tell us about all of those shows you recorded in the 80’s and have been putting up on the Dischord page? Great stuff!

Thanks! My mom bought me a Sony Betacam in 1985. I honestly had no inclination towards videotaping anything prior to this, but I think she may have thought it was a positive thing for a teenager to get involved in instead of playing Atari or hanging out at the Orange Julius at the mall or whatever. So I had this camera and I started taping what I was doing, which was basically going to shows. I didn’t think much about it and I never watched the tapes afterwards, so just slowly built up a collection of recordings that sat in a box at my parents’ house for years. It wasn’t until James Schneider started working on what eventually became the Punk the Capital movie that the tapes were unearthed. Then Scott Crawford wanted to use them for Salad Days and had the genius idea of getting Dave Grohl’s production company to digitize them, as they wanted footage for that Sonic Highways show. So at Scott’s suggestion I sheepishly asked if it was something they could do and they immediately said yes. I was pretty stunned by their generosity. The tapes themselves are now part of the Punk Archive in the DC Public Library, which is both cool and hilarious. The idea of random stuff I videotaped when I was 15 being part of an institutional archive is pretty absurd. Now that I’ve got this extra pandemic time to spend in front of my computer, I’ve been editing down each set, adjusting the light balance so the footage is less murky and also remastering the audio so they sound better. The timing of the Dischord Records Fan Page on Facebook is fortuitous, as it provides a reasonably eager audience for what might have otherwise just been a few additional gigs of server space being cooled in a Google data center in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

“Who you callin’ a low life?” 

www.savakband.com

www.savak.bandcamp.com

[ericahitshawaii]

Mantas and dolphins and whales, oh my!

Today I start my adventure on the big island!  The Big Island is probably most known for its active volcanoes and the recent eruption of Mount Kiluaea in 2018.  Because of the tectonic plates on earth, the Hawaiian island are actually moving Northwest over over a “hot spot” of volcanic activity.  Over 5 million years ago this hot spot formed the oldest of the Hawaiian islands, Kauai (at the north of the chain).  As the islands shift north, the volcanic activity slows and eventually stops and the surface begins to erode, which is why Kauai is smaller than the southern most island.  The Big Island, which is the most “southernly” island, is the youngest (One million years old) and the most volcanically active, due to its proximity to the hot spot.  Currently, another Hawaiian island is formed under the Pacific called Loini and if any of us live to be 10,000, we might be able to visit it.

I flew into Kona on Wednesday evening.  I am in love with the Kona airport.  If I thought the Kahului airport was “open air” then this airport is basically outside.  It is completely open air, with some roofage.  So amazing.

Kona Airport (KOA)

I very excitingly went to pick up my rental car, so no more bus adventures for me.  I forgot how luxurioius and freeing it is have a car.  I never did it in Australia because I was scared t drive on the wrong side, but not a problem here.  It’s also such a life upgrade to have a car that DOES NOT have a tape player.  Modern technology is awesome.  Thanks Kia Rio!

Ok, anyway, I checked into my hostel, aptly names “My Hawaii Hostel.”  If I thought the last one was halfway decent, then I will need to severely downgrade it compared to this one.  This hostel had furniture other than a bed, decorations on the walls, a rug and multiple pillows and blankets.  I know that sounds like a given in a hotel room, but not in a hostel.  Absolutely dreamy!  The hostel itself is absolutely charming with a little garden and an open aiir living room and lots of outdoor seating, just a few minutes walk from the beach.  I am living my best Hawaiian life, for real this time!

My Hawaii Hostel, Ali’i Road, Kona

Patio area outside my room.

My room.

Thursday morning I headed off for the next phase of the ocean part of my trip.  I signed up for a morning “Ocean encounters” tour and a Night “Manta Ray Swim” trip.  

Note: You are going to be disappointed again by the lack of photos, because I bought an underwater disposable camera for the trip, but some of you may remember, that you have to get those photos developed.  (I actually am unsure of how I’m going to do that in this modern age, but that is a future me problem.  Anyway, the tour company promises to post some photos in the next few days, so there will be another update post once I have those.  But keep reading, it still is exciting and there is a sweet video I took that you should see!)

The morning snorkeling tour started out with swimming with spinner dolphins!! So, wild dolphins are the best.  They are nocturnal, so we were visitng them during their daytime nap time.  Hilariously, while they are sleeping they still swim on the bottom in a big pack.  I have no idea how they do this.  How fascinating.  Anyway a few of them woke up and swam up ot the surface to say hi.  When we got into the water they headed down towards the bottom again.  It was amazing to snorkel right above big pods of dolphins.  There must have been at least 20 in some of the bigger pods and there were several pods around us.  Just as a few more of them were waking up and coming to the surface, our captain said we had to go.  I’ll be honest, I was pissed.  I had dreams of high-fiving a dolphin and Captain Taylor was ruining my dream.  But I’m glad he did,because what happened next was SOOO worth it!

Next we headed out to a site where whales had recently been spotted.  When we arrived, we discovered there were several large whales around and a BABY WHALE.  This whale was only about a month old and still absolutely gigantic.  The baby whale was splashing around in the water very close to us.  Just like a human toddler, it seemed to be having a blast splashing aorund, trying to breach (jump out of the water) and stick its head up.  It was still really floppy and uncoordinated in the water, which was absolutely adorable.  It was so funny to see a whale just playing around.  I don’t know how it had so much energy to do all that.

Eventually we saw the mam whale  pop up around the whale, apparently keeping her eye on it and maybe helping from below with its practice breaches.  While we were distracted by the baby whale someone yelled out that there was another whale further off that was breaching.  (Whales often will breach several time in a row, because they are communicating with other whales and trying to get their attention.)  I looked over just in time to see a huge whale breach completely out of the water.  It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen.  It was like it was happening in slow motion. It’s entire body was up in the air and it seemed like it just hung there until it crashed back into the ocean with a huge splash.  Just like on Animal Planet!  I thought I had really seen it all until we looked back over at the playing baby whale and realized Mama had surfaced on our side.

All of s sudden I see her huge humpback surface like it is facing us.  It is coming right for our boat.  Right in fron of us, she lifts her tail and dives right under the boat.  I was both incredible and a little scary!  Seeing her SO CLOSE to us, it is astonishing how huge they are.  Just her back was probably as tall as the deck of the boat and she was easily twice as long.  It was shocking to see her giant tail come out of the water right in front of us.  Despite my fear that she miht capsize the boat, the crew said that they are insanely spatially aware and can get within inches of a boat and not hit it.  They have sonar like bats.  When I say this was a bucket list activity, I would almost say this was better than what I imagined being on my bucket list.  Even the crew was freaking out and taking video and photos.  They said that never happens. I will remember that moment for as long as I live.  I do have a video of the encounter.  Honestly, it doesn’t do it justice, but you can kind of see what I’m talking about.  Watch here: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QTA9JieqQdEWPfag6

Now as if that wasn’t enough, we went to a third spot to find Manta Rays.   We made a quick pit stop at an amazing place along the coast known as the Grotto.  It’s the outlet to the sea for a large series of lava tubes that run miles underneath the island.  The waters were the most incredible aqua color and crystal clear.

The Grotto

To add to the incredible day, we ran into two huge manta rays (In case you are worried they are not sting rays...who killed the crocodile hunter.  They are harmless plankton eaters.  One of our guides said we found his favorite manta named Amanda Ray.  She is the friendliest and has one bent fin.  Both mantas were about 10 feet long.  They can actually grow to have a to 15 foot wingspan.  They are beautiful to watch.  We hoppped in the water and snorkeled with them.  They looked like they were flying on the bottom of the ocean, completely gracefully.  This was preview for that evening.

After the snorkel adventure I decided to head to the beach.  I’m not really a beach person, but figured I should do it once.  I went to what they call a dark gray sand beach, which is half white sand and half black volcanic sand.  How do gray and black sand beaches form?  Well, when the hot lava hits the cool water it basically explodes and shatters like glass, spewing small particles of lava rock, which eventually breakdown into small pebbles and sand like particles.  The beach was very rough, but beautiful.  Its incredible to see the lava rock solidify in the form it was when it flowed into the ocean.  Very surreal.

Lava rocks at Kahalu’u Beach

After lunch and beach chill, I headed back to the marina for the night manta swim.  For this one, they take you out onto big boogie board looking things with lights.  Here’s a photo I did not take, that demonstrates this:

The lights on the bottom of the board attract plankton, which then attracts other fish and manta rays.  This was both an awesome and miserable experience.  The weather up to this point had been absolutely perfect.  *0m degrees and sunny everyday.  However, storms had come in that night and it was cold and raining.  The water was freezing, but the experience was still pretty great.  One of the coolest things that I didn't expect was that the lights also drew in tones of fish.  There were a bunch of fish that looked kind of like big sardines that swarmed around us in big schools, it was really interesting to be that close to so many fish.  The highlight of the trip was that a big manta swam right next to me and did a backflip to eat the plankton right under the board.  They have awesome white bellies and gills and huge gaping mouths.  Its really otherworldly.

After the manta show we headed back to the boat for the long and extremely rocky trip back to the marina.  I generally have a pretty good stomach for boat rides, but this was a rough one.  I had taken Dramamine earlier, just in case, and still feeling like I might lose my lunch.  It was close to a repeat of the Great Barrier Reef puke episode but disaster was avoided, thank goodness!

All in all, a dream of a day.  I am officially hooked on snorkeling and boating, in general.  Who knew I’d be such a water baby.  I spent most of my life avoiding getting my hair wet.  

Next stop:  Farm tour day in Southern Kona.

[the-rat-that-calls-the-moon]

“When did your love begin?” (YOI fanfic, about 1750 words)

A short story for “Yuri on Ice”! Takes place shortly after the main series ends, when Victor and Yuri are in Japan and preparing to go to Russia for the next season. It’s pretty unusual for Victor and Yuri to talk to each other in such a blunt manner, but hey, I guess that’s what fanfiction is for.

Thank you very much for reading!

Yuri was swimming in a sea of cardboard. The floor of his bedroom, as well as some of the hallway connecting to his room, were covered with boxes emblazoned with the CedEx logo. Some boxes were full and taped shut already, some were lying open while only half-packed, and others were still empty, waiting for Yuri to place the pieces of his life into them.

Moving to a new home tended to make people realize just how much stuff they really owned. Even more so, if the move was to a whole other country, and planned to last at least a year. These days, Yuri was always bursting with excitement, thinking of how he’d soon move to Russia in preparation for the next competitive season. There, he would live and train with Victor. But before that, he needed to pack his things, and this tedious process was much less exciting.

He sighed and sat on the floor, just outside his bedroom’s open doorway. Time to take a break.

A familiar voice came from down the hall. “Wow, this brings back memories.” Yuri watched as Victor approached him with a leisurely walk. “Seeing all these boxes reminds me of when I was packing my own things last year, ready to travel to Japan to coach you.”

“Hello, Victor,” Yuri said.

“Hello, Yuri! Good afternoon! And why are you sitting on the floor? If you're there, then surely I must join you.” Victor sat on the floor as well, next to Yuri. Now they were on the same level, their backs leaning against the wall.

Yuri commented, “I still can’t believe you did that. Just packed up and left Russia to coach a guy you barely even knew.”

“It’s true. I took a big risk. But it paid off, in the end.” He flashed a smile that sent a Cupid’s arrow zinging through Yuri’s heart. “By the way, Yuri, that reminds me. There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.”

“Yes?”

“When exactly did you fall in love with me?”

Yuri tried not to, but he couldn’t help gaping at Victor. It was unusual for the two of them to discuss their feelings for each other in such a blunt manner. And what kind of question was that, anyway? His mind scrambled to form a reply.

But before he could say anything, it turned out that Victor was apparently not done talking. “You see, I thought you were in love with me during the banquet last year, which was why you danced with me. But then, when I flew all the way to Japan and came to your family’s resort, just like you asked, you . . . well, you know how you reacted. Let me tell you, I still haven’t recovered from suddenly being treated like a stranger by the same man who had begged me to visit him!”

Yuri’s face burned. He longed to give a dignified reply, but Victor was still not done talking.

“By now, I’ve more or less accepted that you only acted the way you did because you were very drunk that night. But that raises more questions. If you didn’t love me during the banquet . . . when did you start to love me? What I mean is . . . how long was my love for you one-sided?”

Victor bore an expectant expression. It was a bit too much. Yuri turned away from Victor’s gaze by looking down at his own knees. They could talk through music, through skating, through merely being in each other’s company, but speaking with plain words was somehow more challenging than all of these. Nevertheless, within a few moments, Yuri could feel a set of words rising within him, as if Victor’s questioning had drawn out his voice.

“That’s . . . that’s really funny, Victor, to hear you talk about your one-sided love. I may have been drunk, but I didn’t hug you, dance with you, and plead with you to be my coach, all out of nowhere. Even if I don’t remember a second of the banquet, I’m sure of this: I acted that way because I was already in love with you at that point. Victor, I have loved you since before you even knew I was on this Earth. I loved you ever since I was a twelve-year-old boy, watching my skating idol on TV. I loved you from the very first day I saw you.”

He looked up again. He thought Victor might be touched. He waited to hear a warm voice, or see a softer expression.

But Victor still seemed skeptical.

“Ugh, fine,” Yuri groaned. “I didn’t want to resort to this, but I guess I have no choice. If I want you to believe me, then here we go.”

He leapt to his feet and went to one of the half-packed boxes. Victor quickly followed him, going to his side. One shirt after another flew out of the box, as Yuri dug through the layers, searching for what he’d buried underneath.

And then, there it was. The poster stash. A stack of glossy images that had once adorned Yuri’s bedroom walls. They showed Victor skating, Victor posing with Makkachin, a young Victor with long hair and an older Victor with short hair . . .

Yuri stood by as Victor carefully flipped through them, taking a few minutes to ooh and aah over the pictures, and reminisce about sitting in front of the cameras to take them. “These really bring back memories!”

“Yeah. For me too. I remember how I got a lot of these posters.” Yuri rubbed the back of his neck. “I . . . I hope you understand that it’s a big act of trust for me to show you this. A year ago, I never would’ve even considered it.”

“Oh, Yuri. I truly appreciate that.” Victor sounded sincere. But not like he was experiencing a revelatory moment. “But actually, I already knew about these.”

It felt as though a stone dropped into Yuri’s stomach. “What?”

"I knew long ago that you had a stash of merchandise of me,” Victor explained. “Your sister told me. In fact, one time when you were out shopping, she tried to show me, but you'd already hidden them by that point and she couldn't find them. This is my first time seeing them, but I knew you had them."

Yuri tried to adjust to the idea that a secret he’d held close all this time was actually not one. “Well . . . w-well . . . okay. So you knew about them. And now that you’re actually seeing them, it proves my point, right? This shows that my feelings for you go way back. Far before we even met.”

Victor gave him an apologetic smile. He spoke gently: “I don’t think this proves you were in love. It only shows that you were a fan. And I already knew that. During your first GPF, I observed your moves on the ice and noticed my own influence there. I saw your skating and thought, ‘ah, he’s a fan of mine’. Very flattering, of course! But a fan’s admiration is not the same as true love.”

“Come on! By the time we met, I’d spent years following your every move on TV and magazines and –”

“I don't believe you can be in love with someone you never met or spent much time with, no matter how strongly you feel about their image in their social media posts.”

Yuri sighed heavily. “Fine. Then I guess it started sometime after you began coaching me.”

“So it’s true? You really did not love me when we danced together at the banquet?”

There was a pause. A long, long pause, during which Yuri’s brain connected several dots. And his frustration swiftly rose to a breaking point, seeming to freeze and burn him at the same time. He felt like going for a run while shouting into the sky, but instead – in a move that he thought was very commendable of himself – he managed to reply in a calm voice.

“Victor,” Yuri said. “You're not actually interested in the answer to your question, are you? You're just mad at me because I forgot the banquet.”

That man’s blank blue eyes looked so innocent. “What do you mean?”

“You asked me when I fell in love with you, but you’ve made it impossible for me to give a satisfactory answer. You say it’s impossible for it to have happened before the banquet, but if I say it happened after, you’re not happy with that either.”

Victor sighed.

Silence hung in the air.

And then he confessed, “Yes, I think you’re right. But can you blame me for being a little upset about it? That was a life-changing moment for me, and you don’t even remember it.”

“Sorry. But I can’t help it; I didn’t forget it on purpose.” Even after Victor had showed Yuri the slew of embarrassing photos on his phone, it hadn’t jogged Yuri’s memory.

Just like Victor, Yuri had a part of him that mourned his lost memory, of a night that had been life-changing for him, too. But he’d had plenty of time to reflect on it. And he’d made his peace with what he’d forgotten.

He said to Victor, “When I think back, I can’t remember any specific point in time when my feelings sprang into existence. I can only remember them growing. When I was a kid who watched you on TV, those feelings grew. When . . . when you coached me and helped me discover myself, the feelings grew. They were always growing, never beginning, because they were always already there.” Courage flashed through him. Quickly, before it could disappear, he leaned in and gave Victor a kiss on the cheek. “S-So there. It doesn’t actually matter when my love started. We don’t need to answer this question. It only matters that I love you now, and I always will.”

Victor stared at him intently.

“Are you convinced?” Yuri asked.

“Hmm . . . I think I need more convincing.”

“H-Hey! Don’t say that just because you want another kiss!”

Victor broke into laughter, his whole face seeming to light up as he did. Oh, Yuri was never going to get tired of that laugh. “All right, all right. I promise you, I am convinced. I’m not going to worry about the past anymore. Instead let’s look forward to our future together.”

END

[trendingnewsb]

Michelle Wolf Is the Future of Stand-Up Comedy

The stand-up comedy world is in the throes of a sea change, as three of its marquee namesAziz Ansari, Louis C.K. and T.J. Millerstand accused of various degrees of sexual misconduct. Muddling matters further is the largesse of streaming giant Netflix, whose lofty $20 million-per-hour paydays for male comics Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Dave Chappelle have caused much consternation among lesser-compensated women (and understandably so).

As the so-called Bad Men dissolve from the pop-culture consciousness faster than the McFly family photo in Back to the Future, and as women across all industries reclaim their time, a confident new comedy voice has emerged from the maelstrom.

Her name is Michelle Wolf. And she is fucking hilarious.

If you havent seen the 32-year-olds HBO comedy special, Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady, well, you should get on that immediately. It was, in this writers estimation, the funniest stand-up special of 2017, packed with sidesplittingand blessedly Trump-freejokes on topics ranging from the fragile male ego (A soft penis looks like the sound of sad) and the feminism of naked selfies to pay equity and Caitlyn Jenners brave transition (I still fucking hate your personality). Throughout the hour-long ride, she is both cutting and ebullient, her piercing voice, bobbing red mane, and chortle accentuating each clever punch line.

The through-line is the outmoded concept of the nice lady, and how, in the immortal words of The Real World, its time for women to stop being polite and start getting real. Though the special was recorded in August, two months prior to the disturbing Harvey Weinstein revelations, its a sentiment that aligns perfectly with the current #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

I dont want to say serendipitous, because so many terrible things are happening to so many people, but its kind of serendipitous, I guess, offers Wolf. Its just a good time in comedy right now for women, because its a perspective that people are now more open to.

Unlike her male contemporaries whove struggled with addressing the epidemic of sexual-harassment allegations, Wolf has proven to be more than up to the task. In late October, just after the Weinstein stories dropped, her Daily Show boss Trevor Noah tasked her with creating a humorous bit on the truly horrifying casein just a few hours, no less.

Its a hard thing to make jokes aboutespecially that soon, she recalls. I struggled to find a take on it. Its good to have emotion behind something, but sometimes your feelings can blind you comedically. You have to remain fairly neutral, stand back from a situation, and think of the way it will actually work, not the way it will make your heart feel better.

The result was both funny and spot-on: My solution? Every time a guy gets caught sexually harassing someone, you dont just fire him. You have to replace him with a woman. Its a policy that I call, Pull out your dick, get replaced by a chick.

Wolf is also fearless. In addition to skewing Caitlyn Jenner in Nice Lady, she takes a few clean shots at Hillary Clinton, or rather the patriarchal system that made Hillary Hillary, from one so-called shrill voice to another.

I do have a theory on why Hillary lost: I think its cause no one likes her, says Wolf in the special. You shouldnt like Hillary. Shes a bitch. You have to be a bitch to be that powerful. Were never going to have a nice lady run for president. Nice ladies arent in charge of things, and if youre in charge of something and you think youre a nice lady, no one else does.

Thats the balance you have to create, she says, explaining the bit. I come from the train of thought that you can joke about anything as long as its funny enough. You have to anticipate what peoples arguments against you will be so that you can make a joke-rationale for it. That Hillary bit goes pretty aggressively at her but then it turns into a compliment. Im not a lawyer but I think its similar to writing a good argument where you have to cover all your bases.

Wolf wasnt always the self-assured comic you see on HBO and The Daily Show. At the College of William & Marythe same school Jon Stewart went to, strangely enoughshe was a real big nerd who majored in kinesiology, working in a cardiovascular molecular physiology lab, and ran track and field.

I used to watch those old Gatorade commercials from the 90s where the athletes are hooked up to wires on the treadmill and I wanted to be the doctor working on those guys, because I knew I wasnt a good enough athlete, she says.

After graduating from college in 2007, she took a job at Bear Stearns working in mutual funds and separately managed accounts. Then came the financial collapse.

I was the low person on the totem pole but I felt terrible for the people there whod been there for their entire careers and invested in the company. That was heartbreaking, says Wolf. It would almost have been better if everyone got fired on one day, but it dragged on for years. Youd just hear about people getting pushed to other departments and would think, yeah, theyre getting pushed out. It was pretty soul-crushing.

In March 2008, right around the time Bear Stearns was falling apart, a few high-school friends came to New York City to visit, and they all went to a taping of Saturday Night Live. Afterward, she thought, How did they get to do this? So she Googled the cast members and discovered that each and every one of them had done improv.

She immediately signed up for a beginners improv classlevel 1 at The PIT, or Peoples Improv Theaterand found it exhilarating. She had, after all, grown up idolizing Carol Burnett. Wolf would go directly from Bear Stearns (and later JPMorgan) to The PIT.

I used to go to improv classes in my skirt-suit from work, wearing heels, she remembers with a laugh. I finally started bringing pants and sneakers to wear and thought, Oh yeah, you can move!

At one of her improv classes, she befriended someone who worked in a computational biochemistry research lab as a recruiter. And so, after three-and-a-half years in finance she took a job there, because it provided her with more flexibility to explore comedy. She soon got into stand-up, and worked on it all day, day after day, writing jokes, performing sets, and tweeting.

It gave me a ton of time to sit at my computer and tweet all day, which really helped with my joke-writing, shares Wolf. I would just read the news and tweet jokes about the news. It teaches you an economy of words.

Wolf eventually began doing less and less work at the lab, devoting more and more time to comedy, and got fired. But shed saved up enough money, along with her severance, to last a year: I tripled down with so much fear inside of me because I was like: This is it. I have a year to make it.

She was fired in January 2013. In January 2014, she got hired on the new show Late Night With Seth Meyers, where she worked in the writers room and participated in the occasional sketch. Then, feeling the itch to perform more on-camera, she joined The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in April 2016.

Nice Lady is no accident. Its a late December evening and Wolf has, with the aid of an entire French press, worked from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. writing jokes (a process they call gangs) all day at The Daily Show before meeting me for more coffee. After our chat, shell head downtown to perform three stand-up sets, including at the famed Comedy Cellar.

I did 21 shows last week, she says, and thats on top of her Daily Show job. I have a new hour Im working on. I wanted to go on tour after the special came out, and I didnt want to do the same stuff. So Im workin on it. Its great and terrifying to work on new jokes.

She pauses, reflecting on her regimen. Its a lifestyle thats not necessarily conducive to women most of the time, because touring and doing stand-up a lot is not easy when you have a baby. Its easy for a guy because the baby can stay home, but Ali [Wong] brings her baby with her all the time, which is a very tough thing to do, and she has a great support system around her. But thats not the norm.

Wolfs well-received Comedy Cellar sets soon caught the eye of high-profile stand-up comedians, including Hannibal Buress. When host Chris Rock was recruiting joke writers for the 2016 Academy Awards, Buress recommended Wolf. She vividly remembers running into Seth Meyers office and frantically yelling, I just got a voicemail from Chris Rock telling me to call him back. What should I do?! You should call him back, said Meyers.

Several of Wolfs jokes made it into the Oscars telecastincluding a great sorority racist bitand Wolf eventually opened for Rock on several European dates.

Hes become a friend and a mentor, which is crazy. Theres no past me that would ever have thought this would happen, she says.

Another of her mentors is Louis C.K., whos been accused ofand confessed toserial sexual misconduct. Wolfs guest-starred on Louis web series Horace and Pete, opened for him on tour, and spent many nights shooting the shit with him at the Comedy Cellar.

When I mention the Louis scandal, she says matter-of-factly: Hes always been very supportive and generous, and my experience with him is very different than others, I suppose. But, in this kind of big moment in my career, I dont really want to talk about stuff that a man did.

Fair enough. After all, it wasnt Louis C.K. who performed thousands of stand-up sets or spent years in a pair of late-night writers rooms meticulously honing her craft, transforming from a nerdy scientist into the stage-commanding badass in Nike His you see before you today. It was Michelle Wolf.

To do stand-up, you have to have a strong point of view, and doing stand-up gave me that strong point of view, she says, cracking a smile. It made me a person.

Michelle Wolfs The Not Nice Comedy Tour kicks off Feb. 1 in Philadelphia. Shell be performing March 8-10 at Carolines in Manhattan.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/michelle-wolf-is-the-future-of-stand-up-comedy

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2IIElYJ via Viral News HQ

[gracewithducks]

Homemaking (Genesis 1:1-10)

For pastors – for United Methodist pastors, at least – June is moving season. Because we are appointed to serve our churches one year at a time, beginning on July 1, the month of June means, for many of us, saying farewells, packing boxes, loading trucks, and settling into a whole new place.

 This year, thankfully, my family is not moving – although I’ve lost track this week already of how many of my colleagues are posting photos on social media of empty rooms and movie trucks – and June isn’t even over yet.

 It hasn’t been so very long since we were one of those moving families. I remember sorting through closets, digging into junk drawers and the dark corners where we’d tend to push so many things until “later,” when we could put them away properly – but of course, “later” never came. We took carload after carload of donations to the local thrift shop, and we tossed mountains of garbage, and we tried to make sense of what was left. It was a feeling of frantic energy, trying to put our whole lives into some semblance of order – trying to put it all in next boxes, with helpful labels like “coffee maker” and “kitchen tools” and “kids’ toys” and “twin sheets”… and then I remember just giving up and tossing everything that was left into boxes with slightly less helpful labels like “miscellaneous” and “back hall stuff,” taping the lids shut even as the movers came knocking on our door.

 And then we arrived at our new home: we walked through it once, the rooms vast and echoing and empty, before the same movers piled boxes upon boxes upon boxes into each of those rooms; we stood at the door, pointing upstairs, downstairs, that box in the master bedroom, this one in the kitchen – trying to get everything close to where it belonged – and those echoing rooms got smaller, overflowing with boxes, until we could barely squeeze through the tunnels in between. And then we dove into those boxes, promising ourselves, really and truly believing, that this time around, in this new home, things would be different – this time, there would be a place for everything, and everything would be in its place. We would streamline our lives, keeping only the things we really used and needed, and we would make it easy on ourselves, easy to find what we were looking for, easy to care for all our tools, easy to put them all away.

 It's okay to laugh. We all have our impossible dreams!

 In my basement there are still boxes from that move – boxes labelled “back hall stuff” and “miscellaneous”- boxes that were shoved in a corner, to wait (more than likely, to wait for the day when we hear it’s time to move again).

 And we will try to bring order from our chaos once more.

 This, though, this experience – it’s what echoes in my head, as I hear the story of creation:

 God stands at the entryway and says, “Light? Let’s put it over here. Dark? Over there. Sky? Put it up top. Sweep the land together, and pour the water into the seas.”

 This is the work of God in creation: bringing order from chaos; finding a place for everything, and putting everything in its place.

 And God brings order, not just for order’s sake – but because, like us, God is making a home. And a home is meant to be lived in; a home is made to be filled with life and noise; a home is made to be filled with love.

 So God fills the heavens with the sun, and the moon, and the stars. And God fills the skies with eagles and owls and humming birds. And God fills the waters with fish and whales and amoebas and squids and those funny fish with the dangly lights on their heads and all the other bizarre and wondrous creatures we haven’t even discovered yet. And God fills the land with plants, with sunflowers and pine trees and olive orchards and rice fields, with wheat and raspberries and giant redwoods… and God fills the land with animals, with field mice and tigers, with elephants and dogs, with cats and kangaroos and hippopotamuses – hippopotami? – and God created the otters and the duck-billed platypus, and you can’t tell me that the God who made otters and the duck-billed platypus didn’t have some fun along the way.

 God made a home, God ordered a home, and God filled that home with life. And God made that home, not just for the plants and the critters – but God was making a home for us, too; for people, for beloved partners, for the ones who could keep making this creation a home, so we could keep filling this home with life and with love and with noise – so we could help keep the home, and so we could enjoy it.

 In fact, I’d wager that a house only becomes a home when someone loves it, when someone moves in and fills the rooms with laughter and with memories and with love. That’s what a home is for.

 But the thing is, when you let people move into your house, to fill it with their laughter and their memories and their love… you have to realize that people are awfully messy. And our lives are messy, and our homes get messy, too.

 I still have a dream of a tidy and organized house, with a place for everything and everything in its place – but that dream never lasts for long. Because we – my family – have to live there, too. And right now, that means piles of shoes inside the front door – half of which are worn out and outgrown, but they keep showing up just the same; it means constantly turning on lights and turning off lights and separating darks from lights for yet another load of laundry; it means sweeping the dust together and trying to contain the waters that overflow every bath time and every time the kids decide to “help” wash the dishes…

 And every so often we try to recreate order from our chaos, to get rid of the things we don’t need any more, and to make a place for all the things we do… but as long as we still live there, that order never lasts long.

 Bringing order from chaos isn’t a one-and-done kind of thing; it’s a life-long process, a work we keep undertaking every single day.

 And perhaps that’s part of what I love about this story, this glimpse into the heart of God – I love it for so many reasons, but what I love today is that it reminds me that my yearning to tidy and order my life, while it may be an impossible dream, is also a glimpse of the divine image within me: I am made in the image of a God who separates and orders chaos, who fills emptiness and shines light into darkness – and that’s a beautiful thing.

 And I am also reminded that, even in the ordinary, everyday stuff that wears us down, in the never-ending battles against clutter and chaos, in all the things we do that nobody seems to notice, and we wonder sometimes why we even bother – even there, in sweeping up Cheerios, and sorting laundry, and washing windows and changing lightbulbs and making beds and mopping floors – God is there, too. When we work to make our homes more welcoming, more hospitable, more lovely – and on a much larger scale, when we work to care for our home on earth, to keep the water clean, to regulate what can be pumped into our air, when we work for cleaner energy and more just ecosystems – when we love and care for our home, and when we make room for others to share it – God is glorified in all that we do.

 God, whose first act is to bring order from chaos, whose first impulse is to shine light into darkness, and who blesses the darkness, too; God, who works to fill emptiness with life, with color and noise and chaos once more – God the homemaker is with us when we are working to make a home. 

 Over the summer ahead, we will be spending a lot of time with the family we meet in Genesis: and it’s a family whose relationships and whose stories get really, really messy. But the story starts here – their story, and ours: and at its heart, this is a love story, the story of a God who is moved by love to make a home and to invite us in.

 This week, I was reading the book Broken and Blessed by Jessica LaGrone, and LaGrone reflected on this story of creation as a story of homemaking on a cosmic scale. She writes, “God is literally making a home for every being that will ever live throughout the successive eras of history.”

 LaGrone invites us to hear this familiar story anew through the lens of ancient marriage customs, as she reflects,

“In first-century Judaism, it was the husbands who were the homemakers… One of the major differences between their culture and ours is that our engagements are often spent preparing for the wedding – hard work that, let’s face it, falls most often on the bride. For the first-century Jewish couple, however, the hard work during the engagement was for the groom. With [a] binding betrothal in place, the only things that stood between the couple and marriage were a ceremony and a house.

“Immediately after the proposal, the groom would begin building a home for his future wife… Only when it was completed could he return to his bride to tell her that their home was ready and the wedding ceremony could begin...

“First a home. Then a family…

“I can imagine that first-century groom working with such care on the house he was building for his bride. With every nail, every board that he put into that home, he must have thought of her. He thought of her living there, enjoying the home he had made. He thought of the life they would have there, the children they would raise together there. The day he completed the house would have been the day he had been looking forward to all along because it meant he finally got to be with her…

“When God builds the house… the goal is to prepare a place for a relationship to happen, for bridegroom and bride to live alongside each other, for God and [God’s] people to grow closer in intimacy and affection…

“Relationship. That’s the point. The real purpose we’re created for.”[1]

So often, so many people have gotten hung up on debating the details and the historical accuracy of this piece of poetry that begins the biblical story – that we’ve missed the point: the point is that, in creation, God is setting the stage for God’s family to live and to love and to grow. God creates a home, looking forward to filling it with love. And we are welcomed and ushered in; this wondrous place – it’s for us; it’s a gift of love for us. And we are invited to keep filling it with love, as we glory in the knowledge that we are beloved, and as we learn to love as we have been loved.

  God who speaks light into darkness, God who fills the emptiness and brings order to chaos, God who knows what it is to make a home and who knows what it takes to keep it – we thank you for your love today. Help us to know that you welcome us, messes and all; receive us with our baggage and our best intentions; bring peace into our cluttered minds; and help us to join in your labor of love, in creating a home full of love and grace, not just for ourselves, but for all your beloved ones. In Christ’s name we pray; amen.

[1] Jessica LaGrone, Broken & Blessed: God changes the world one person and one family at a time (Abingdon, 2014).