Metaphors, the Rat Race, and Slow Showers

It was another morning on the beach. Another day of nearly 12 successive walks on the beach. Sand, shore, shells. Run, chase, walk, breathe. We stomped through shallow pools while the high tide pulled the ocean away from below our feet, and I considered every beautiful analogy the ocean offered.

Everything, great and small, points to Him, to beauty, to imagination. Stories are in every element of creation and nature, and if I'm tuning in, I feel like I see and hear them all.

And instead of feeling the usual overwhelming sense of gratitude toward the great analogy played out around us, I was irritated.

I was annoyed that the ocean was so big, and I was so small. I was annoyed that I looked at shells and saw my heart. I was angry that watching my daughter chase birds made me think more about a blog entry instead of her.

I am prone to always dig below the surface in my own life. Sometimes this is beauty. Sometimes it's distraction. I admit, there are times I end up extracting another meaning out of a situation simply because I am unable, unwilling or too bored to experience what is actually happening.

I wonder how different my words and relationships would be if I stopped viewing all things through the spin of my wild mind.

On that beach, while my daughter chased birds, I told myself to forget about the extra meanings and possible metaphors. I actually shook my head and closed my eyes and told myself to listen, and breathe, and then watch and experience.

Extracting is good. Mining for the deep things is a hard and necessary work. Sometimes I need to look at the world around me and realize that God is still speaking through the work of His hands. I want to notice how interwoven and connected everything is.

And sometimes I want to just get dirty feet, feel the heat of the sun and notice how my daughter's curls form perfectly on her shoulders on a humid April afternoon. I need days full of her crinkled nose and storytelling. I need to pay more attention to the words I say to her instead of the words I'm writing inside. It's all happening so fast, I think. While I'm mentally adding and erasing metaphors, I'm accidentally erasing myself from my own story. Those little things? The things that are happening in front of me? These are the joys I am tucking into my pocket and remembering these days.

-----

This morning, I woke up racing. For no good reason. I jumped out of bed, started the routine like an internal alarm was constantly ringing, constantly telling me I was behind schedule. Which I wasn't, but I felt it.

And in the shower, I furiously scrubbed my head and felt my heart pumping in my throat. A list began in my head, and prayers spilled out of my lips until I sensed one thing.

STOP.

I whispered it to myself and let the hot water run. I breathed. I slowed.

----

I'm exhausted from exhausting myself. Yesterday Emily Maynard tweeted this:

"If we want to live a wholehearted life, we have to cultivate sleep and play, and let go of exhaustion as a status symbol." - @brenebrown

— Emily Maynard (@emelina) April 30, 2013

I wanted to shout yes! And then wrote it down in about three places. And retweeted it. And then told myself to chill out.

Because internally, I'm a mess. I'm racing. Running. Writing. Noting. Observing. Calculating. Adding. Praying. Begging. Shouting. Crying. Dying. Listing. Working.

And I'm exhausted of it all. That is not the person I want to be. That's not how I want my daughter to remember me: a mother who was never at peace until she was laid to rest.

----

So today, I'm recalling the beach. I'm looking at a long list and just taking another breath. I'm doing the next thing, and then doodling in the margins. Internal conversations sound a whole lot more Gospel & Jesus-centered, and less me-centered. Not because I'm a good Christian, because that's hardly the truth. Rather because I need to center my life around something unmoveable, unshakeable and un-Andrea-metaphorical.  I need the center spoke of my life to be made of wood and grace, not my sweat and fears.

Yes, I need to pay the bills, continue writing, be a mother, finish work, wash the dishes, and so on. But the condition of my heart does not need to reflection the chaos of my hands. 

Let the checkered flags be wrapped up and stowed away. I was not tapped to run in this rat race.

It Is Finished

HI BLOG READERS.
I have been so unpredictable this year, haven't I?

Well, not to worry. I'm not disappearing. 

My silence is not any indication of some deep concern or void of though, opinion, experience or joy. My silence is merely that it's December 19th and the other day I went to date something as November.

My mind is stuck in some time warp and it's about time I lifted my chin for a bit to look around. This has been a. year.  As a writer, designer, mom, sister, daughter, girl... this year hit me at all joints and angles, and I while at times I found myself struggling to stand, other moments were filled with inexplicable joy.

My mom always sees poignancy in small things. Small things like numbers. For instance, "This year," she reminds me, "is the 7th year since everything happened."

And by everything, she means when my life took a 180 turn down a path none of us anticipated in 2005. One that I wrestle with to this day. 

But she says, "Seven. It's a number of completion, you know." She say this in no strange way. With no twinkle in her eye. But in her way to say, Let's not forget that it is finished.

And while we know that it is finished in the sense of, what has happened has happened. I also know that it is finished as in Christ breathed his last and announced it and secured my hope forever so that it is finished. That kind.

I have felt this gnawing thing in me that it's time to tell some stories. It's time to write about them, and bleed a little onto paper and screen in hopes that redemption will be complete. And I'm nodding that it's complete. I'm resting my elbows back on a firm Gospel that seems to be pushing me toward letting Grace weave my story even more. And I ask, where? Here? Do I come to you readers, who steadily visit, and comment, and email, and whisper… do I bring it to you first? As an honest writer, do I bring the unwritten things here? I don't know the answer, so I bury it in silence and wait.

And I'm ending this year burying lots of things. Which isn't such a bad thing. It's just the honest thing. And while I bury, and cover some things in dirt and dark, I'm also finding that my boundary lines have definitely fallen in pleasant places. 

Madeleine is busy in school, and I'm up to my neck in work with the business, and we are carting around to church and friends and school functions and occasionally I ask myself if the future will look any different than it does these days. But I am stepping my toes over a timeline that for me delineates between what was and what is. And I am thankful for a God who completes things. 

(And pray that I know where to take the stories from here, as things continue to evolve for The Organic Bird, I need to know how to evolve my vision along with it. So pray for me for wisdom? Please?)

When It Comes to Dogs, Wandering and Keeping a Home

It's 2:30 on a normal afternoon and I'm about to get started on my second pot of french pressed brew. Bon Iver's Holocene is serenading me, and I smell the chicken, carrots and apples slow-roasting in the pan. Tonight I expect a dinner guest, so I'm mindful of what still needs to be done. 

Roast the potatoes. 

Pick up the floors. 

Run to the store. 

Go to the Post Office. 

I'm pulling curtains back to allow for more of this late autumn breeze. The candle is crackling quietly — Balsam Fir filling this home and reminding me of the mountains. Recently, my sister and I talked about making a home. Creating a place where growth and learning, comfort and solace can happen. 

(hotel beds are for weary travelers)

aside :: I am from a generation of wanderers. We, the children born sometime in the 80s, have a certain knack for selling all we have, packing our lives into cars and other four-wheeled automobiles, and keeping an arms-length from anything that smells like "settling down."  I mean, what kind of person would that make us? Settle down? Get a steady job? Buy a house? Pssh. That's what our parents did, not what we do. 

We travel to exotic countries, shun any attachment to belongings, avoid commitment-related relationships and then talk about how independent and content we are...all while we search for what's next.

Or maybe we want to be forgotten, lost in the fray. We want to live invisible lives, solitary, seeing as how life is meaningless and our existence is wasted unless we're adventuring. Life so far has proven to be a disappointment, so we're looking for the next thing to lasso our purpose around and ride into the sunset. 

We want to discuss theologians and philosophers who have shaped our thinking and ideas. We want faith to be something outside of a church building. We want long conversations until 2 a.m., and be able to leave without having decided anything. It's ok to be vague and elusive. 

I am from this generation. I am of this generation. It's not all bad. Truth is a vein pulsing through alot of it. 

And as much as we'd like to think it, we are not that different from those before us, or those after us, for that matter. :: 

I am here, in a small urban apartment, working a job, to pay bills, and raising a child. I buy things like movies and furniture.  I peruse travel sites, and my passport has now gone 18 months without a new stamp, but it's ok. I'm not spending my afternoon thinking about what next big adventure I'll be on, or how this life is empty. 

No, I'm thinking about whether or not I should make dessert, pick up a bottle of wine, or vacuum. I'm checking my e-mail, responding to clients, folding blankets and washing dishes. I'm kissing two little rosy cheeks, and explaining why the oven gets hot. I'm looking under the couch for Lite Brite pegs and mopping up spilled root beer. 

It all is so splendidly ordinary. 

I wonder when my generation got the idea that having a home, 

making a life, 

being responsible, 

taking care, 

committing, 

when did these things become "less than worthy" ways to spend a life?  

aside :: I sit with a friend on my couch and she talks about how getting a dog was the hardest thing she's done in awhile. 

"It's a commitment....to someone else besides me," she says. We are up late, sipping coffee, discussing all this and laughing at our own hipster anti-hipster rant about hipster living. I say things like, "I don't want to be like that." When really, *that* is just another *that*. She and I, we wonder when did it become so awful to have a dog? Why are we so hesitant to call a place "home"?

I've cultivated a sense of home throughout the past few years for us,

for my friends who need a place to rest,

for my daughter who needs a place to grow and learn, fall and get up again,

for strangers who were hungry,

for broken hearts who needed tissues,

for beaten up hearts who need balm,

for tough conversations to have a soft landing,

for Christ to be glorified in the most

splendidly

ordinary

places.

I could sell all I have, 

but why?

So that I can say I've sold all I have? 

Dear same-generation friends, having a job, cultivating a home, building a family, putting down roots — these are rich things and you are not an adventuring failure for having these things in your life.

Shunning these things for the sake of being "young, wild and free" does not make us better people. That does not make me a better person.

It makes me a resounding gong,

a clanging cymbal.

Another clatter of self-denying noise 

in my world where someone just needs

me to keep my couch,

a hot pot of coffee

and a 

home.

When You're Waiting.

Sometimes the world does feel heavy and broken. If you don't know it by now, I'm sorry to say, at some point you will. Even for a moment. Like a glitch in the code, you'll see something that shouldn't be and know,

No, no, this is not how it should be.

I have stayed silent behind doors, both literal and proverbial, waiting for the earth to shift under my feet and lay me down to sleep.

I've stared at city lights on my ceiling, counted the squares of reflected glass, feeling the beat of my own heart. I have reached the end of my paper prayers and whispers. Jutting my chin toward heaven while thrusting my hands in my rock-heavy pockets, as if to say, "I don't know what else there is to say to you. It's not like you're listening anyway."

With coffee steaming and floors creaking, I have paced the floors from Texas to New York. Waiting. Longing. Knowing that the only thing that needed to change was me and my bleeding heart. 

(Sometimes you're not waiting for people. Or for something. Or for a word. Or a plan. Sometimes you're just waiting for the waiting to be over.)

Something needed to be stitched up, fixed and mended before I would be able to stop lying to people when they asked, "And how are you?" I ran miles for months, and then sat numbly for a few more, opened my heart, slammed it shut, and have tried to tell it to take a back seat for awhile.

I once laid my head upon a stone Texas concrete floor, nauseous, empty, violated. I packed my car more than once, and moved us finally here, to a home that we call home (for now).

And I can't all say it's been perfect. Or easy. Or great. Or what I wanted. Or what I hoped for. Or that I'm even done with all the pacing, waiting, and midnight heart thumping against yellow streetlights.

But then today, we drove slowly under trees. I dropped her off at school. I cradled a hot coffee, read a few pages from a book. I said to those who listen, 

"It's not all bad. Some of it's good. Some of it is really good." And those words swing like a lighthouse's beam through the waves of my heart to say:

"See? See, young, weary traveler? Even out here, where the waves knock and rattle, someone delivered lumber and light to perch here. Someone sailed and dropped anchor and called this place home. See, tiny whimpering sailor girl, who wonders why the Master is asleep? This ocean was conquered once and will be again. Sail on."

So, tonight, as I hang up her pink backpack, and feel that warm peace that seems to cover even the things I think don't deserve peace, I thank God for city lights, ocean lights, star lights, swinging through this dark night of a world. 

Someone has conquered it all once, and will again.

{My Humbly Offered} Eight Things to Keep Sane at Home

1. Eat breakfast you guys. Really. It's the best way to start a day. If you can, eat real food. Plan for it. Carve out time for it. Lunch, Dinner, yeah whatever. Breakfast is where it's at. Today we rocked the baked oatmeal. Vanilla, eggs, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, milk, steel cut oats. Yes and amen.
2. I have a bad habit of hitting the ground running. It's not healthy. It's good to have routine, but in that routine, build in time to take it slow. As soon as you start moving fast, it's really hard to slow down again. Listen to the dreams your kids had while they slept. Journal. Spend some time in the Bible and listen. Pray out loud. Sip coffee slowly.
3. Start the day with fun. Madeleine rode her bike around the living room before breakfast. My first reaction was to beg her to stop and DEAR LORD WHY NOW. But then I realized she was already laughing. Laughing before 9 a.m.? Dang you guys. Can't beat that.
4. I have a place. A mental time-out if you will. A place that, once I sit, I breathe. It might change every day. (But maybe, likely, not.) I think everyone should have a place.
5. I (try to) only keep things that I find to be beautiful. Dried flowers from my aunt's 50th wedding anniversary still sit in the sunlight on my window sill. I look at them and remember that weekend. The mountains. That some things preserve and stay and don't lose beauty even after the bloom.

6. Keep good memories around. In 2002, I traveled to some remote village in Northern Alaska north of the Arctic Circle. One of the locals took me out on a dogsled ride. One of the best memories of my life so far. In 1999 and 2003, my mom and I traveled to Ireland. I snapped this shot of the Cliffs of Moher, and it hangs on my fridge. I may not be traveling right now but it's still a part of me, my story, my future and I don't want to forget that part of me when life feels mundane and slow and feels like it's going nowhere.
7. I list, all the time. To-do items. Things I'm stressed about. Things I'm praying for. Items to buy when we have more money in the budget. Sometimes it's just to empty my brain. Clear it out for the important thoughts.
8. More and more, I'm seeing that the process of design, of life, of parenting, of growth, of faith... it's the real story part. The happy ending is not as beautiful without realizing that the mess in between and before is what makes the beauty and redemption worth recognizing. So, yes, it's hard. It's messy. It's exhausting. And it's part of it. And I need to learn to be content in that place. So..this last one? I'm still working on it.

What are some things you do to keep steady and sane when life seems to unravel on all its crazy edges?

"the way you keep the world at bay for me."

Sometimes all the words in the world can't say what needs to be said. Sometimes the easy silence is the best wonder of all. It's not always about the poetic wrapping of life. Life can be messy, unknown, scary, and still be beautiful in all its open wound, hearts hanging out, raw sort of way.

My great aunt, my grandfather's sister, stood a few inches shorter than me in the kitchen. She struggled to name faces as we looked at the black and white photos on her fridge. She leaned against me slightly as she started to cry, "Most of them are gone now."

These are faces from my legacy. Couples who fell in love, built homes, forged families, stayed at each other's side until death covered them in sleep. There are parts of my story that feel so largely unknown right now, and yet, I'm looking at photos of a life that came, wondered, dreamed, loved and is now collecting dust on an aging aunt's refrigerator.

"Christmas used to be so special," she says through her tears. "Now, we don't see anyone. Most of them are all gone." I am speechless. Completely, totally without words and it seems right. I have no wisdom to tell her. No smart responses. No prose. I am so inexperienced and without knowledge that I won't even pretend that I can understand the weight of her words. So I slip my arm around her fragile shoulders, lean my head against hers and point at another photo.

"Tell me about them," I say. And she starts.

The holidays bring faces I haven't seen in awhile. Stories emerge. Folgers coffee is served in mugs from 1935, pictures tumble yellowed and curled out of photo albums, and wool socks are pulled up to my knees in comfort.

i can't get past how handsome my grandfather is in this photo. "a jolly good man," my great aunt described him.

Winter is wooly bears and wood stoves. Twinkle lights, dark evenings, family movies. Late night shopping with a sister, coffee that seems to work by osmosis and fur-lined trapper hats. It's memories of all the years gone by, all the hopes we've held onto as each new year crests and washes. Winter is when we mourn what has passed behind us, and look to a future that is always new.

It's in all this easy silence, listening, stories, honesty, that I find the rich treasure. I don't know that I'll live to be 97 like my grandmother. Or if someday someone won't be able to remember my name. But all those things that I don't know? That I fear? They are no reason to not live anyway.

Into each other we lean, our tears fresh, our hearts raw, our lives real.

On This Sleepy Street

I am sitting in the coziest coffee shop. It helps that the sky is low and gray. The last remaining leaves dance loosely on the branches, some concede defeat and fall to the quiet sidewalk. This is a sleepy city, at least on my side of town it is. Boho-professionals and art professors linger long in these corner cafes.  I'm just one among many here, sipping my soy latte. Mornings like these are few and far between, as I'm usually explaining to Madeleine at this point why she can't watch another Blues Clues. With meetings on the schedule, I planned a morning away, strolled off silently down the quiet streets to this little haven.

Right now I feel a bit like Kathleen Kelly. Yes, in fact, this place fits the description. Except I have no rose, no Pride and Prejudice and I am not waiting for Mr. NY152 to walk through the door. Not this morning at least. I have other sorts of meetings that include words like "design" and stuff.

Last year I came back north around this time, nursing a restless, slightly broken heart. Thanksgiving was my relief in sight and I counted down the days to seeing mountains, feeling cold, playing football with the family.

I drove through Rochester then and I remember thinking, (no lie) "Why would I ever move here? Of all the places to go from Texas, this would probably be the last place I would go."

Flash forward 12 months.

Here I sit, looking over the sleepy city, paying my electric bill for the third month in a row.

The dearest Ashleigh Baker wrote recently and I agreed with her when she said, "I think “this is life” posts are just kinda the best. To read and to write."

So this is a "this is the life". Not 12 months ago. Not even 12 weeks ago. But just today.

:: Tonight I am hosting a small Thanksgiving gathering for our small group of friends. I'm guessing it won't look that much different from our normal routine. Dinner consumed, a few ill-timed conversations that leave us all laughing, the quiet of an evening indoors, dishes washed, puns tossed about, coffee brewed, irish cream poured, a guitar strummed, and the very subtle ease of being with some of my favorite people.

::  I feel like I stepped into a goldmine when I arrived here. No exaggeration, I have met some of the best people ever in this town. And they're not the best because of what they do, or say. I genuinely feel hemmed in and around by them, with them. I begged God when I left Texas, somewhere along the highway between Texarkana and Little Rock, to please not leave me alone. I can handle solitude. I can deal with loneliness. But just being alone...well that is what I feared would happen in this town. That I'd arrive and spend hours, days, weeks on end with no phone calls, faces, touch. I can survive it. However, I admit — I need faces. I crave hugs. I look for eye contact. I listen for the familiar. This quick little community took me in and a very small handful of people have become those I consider the nearest and dearest. That, my friends, is a gift that cannot be measured.

:: The Gospel is at work here in the City. I'm encouraged by it, challenged by it, and excited to see how Grace changes lives (including my own, daily.) It is daily, and God is consistently, diligently and relentlessly in pursuit of everything. He won't let up, and I'm ok with that.

:: My days are full. Beginning to end, full. Between parenting, working, keeping a home, connecting with church and seeing friends, I have little to no spare moments. The luxury of time I had last fall is a dream today. In 2010, when I fully put on the Vegan-cape and ran on streets and treadmills daily for those four months, I had no idea what I had. In that one way, I'm jealous of last year me. But I wouldn't go back. Strange thing, right?

:: Madeleine asks a lot of questions. She's entering the "why" phase and I pray that Grace is abundant. I used to think that when parents let out an exasperated, "Just because", that they were cheating their children. Now, I get it. I GET IT. After the (easily) 200th question of the day, I have run out of creative answers and steam. I cross my fingers and hope that when she asks,

"What do blue lights mean?"

and I answer,

"They mean, be silly."

that she'll be ok with that and not follow it up with,

"Why?"

:: Christmas. I want a fat, tall blue spruce where maybe I even have to saw off the bottom of the trunk just to make it fit. I want to need a ladder to put the star on the top (though, that's not so much a stretch.)

So that's life these days, for now.

Cheers. 

slow ramble in my heart, but not my feet

I want to move slow today. This always seems to happen when I can't. Under white down comforters and a yellow throw blanket, I stretch my legs in defiance against the early morning sun. It doesn't help that the sun is somewhere behind the gray, drizzling clouds. "It's too early," I know I mumbled, just as Madeleine's feet hit the floor and her requests started. Nothing gets me out of bed as fast as a toddler scrambling to the bathroom, her shouts of fear of not wanting to have an "accident".

I remember these days when I was in school and I'd have to take the long walk to the bus stop, my french horn banging against my shins the entire way. These were the mornings I would reach the turn on Murphy Road, where the sight of my small hometown came to view, and I would see the bus pulling into the stop. I would begin to run wildly, the french horn now swinging in the air along with my arms. My short gait never got me there, but I would always try.

Yesterday was inspiring, and hard, and a bit sad. Sometimes my work means creating beautiful pieces for happy brides, new mothers, passionate small businesses. I catch their fire it and makes the work all the more fun and exciting. 

But yesterday, two things came across my desk that made my heart ache. I needed some quiet moments of tears, and laid awake in bed last night counting my blessings.

1. As I mentioned in a previous blog, my hometown in Schoharie County, NY was recently devastated by flooding during Hurricane Irene. It's been heartbreaking to see photos come through of places I love completely destroyed. Homes that I spent my youth in soaked in muck and mud, covered in 8 feet of water. You hear of these things, but when it hits home, it rattles everything. I wanted to show my support for Schoharie County and all my friends and family who are taking on the task of clean up, rebuilding and salvaging what remains of the county. So, I created this graphic. The crazy thing is, it kinda went viral. I love seeing people rally together behind a common voice. It's moving. And yes, I cried. (And it just so happens, people liked it enough to wear it....so i opened a Cafepress shop. If you want to show your support and help provide relief $ toward the county, you can shop there.)

2. I have two dear friends living in Galveston TX. I can't really tell their story without choking up, and ever since I received the first quiet e-mail from Jo Anna that they were expecting, my heart has been wrapped up with them. Here is a quote straight from their blog (www.thefathersdelight.com):

"We are two ordinary parents who are having our first child in October. He name is Abigail Grace, and she is a gift from God. On May 20, 2011, Abigail was given the diagnosis of Alobar Holoprosencephaly. You can read more about this day in our post Friday, May 20, 2011. Our hearts were broken to learn that she may not live very long on this earth. That day we left the doctor choosing to live each day with purpose, cherishing every moment we have with her. Each day we lift her up to our God knowing that He has a plan, and in it, He loves our Abigail unconditionally. This blog is about our life’s journey through this heartache and joy. Although a blog about our Abigail, it is more about the love of our God and His presence in our lives."

When Lyle (Abigail's dad) e-mailed me and asked me if I'd be willing to create a logo for The Abby Grace Project, I couldn't say no. My heart was already tied with them in tears and prayer, so it would only make sense that I could give this way. Read more of their story here.

So maybe this is why I'm so slow to get started today. I know today will be no different. I feel a bit like the rest of the world is chugging away from their bus stops, and instead of chasing wildly after them, I have set my things down in protest. 

I'm not going to run wildly with you today. I'm going to spare my shins and not swing my panic in the air. 

I'm going to count my blessings, and remember those who are hurting and brokenhearted today. 

I know the city is alive out there. People are going to work, or at work. They're sitting at red lights, speeding through yellow lights, and somewhere coffee is sloshing and office phones have started ringing. Life goes on and stories are lived, elsewhere hopes come true and dreams alight. 

But my little apartment affords me the view of victorian house rooftops, an old church steeple, and one apartment building. Quiet side streets close me in, and from here it seems no one has stirred. I watch a bird dip down onto a roof, gather something in his beak and take off again. Today it is Madeleine and me, my thoughts of the Valley and my prayers for the Workmans.

the debrief.

The truck feels heavy. The trailer we carry has quite the drag. We three road wanderers packed ourselves in and made the best use of space on the way down to Texas. But it's the journey home, with my belongings, that has us knees to our chins and stuck in-between our backpacks and water bottles.

I have a lot of stuff. I know this just from the passenger seat. Each small uphill slope feels daunting, and he pats the dash and says, "You can do it," checking the mirrors for the traffic speeding up behind us. "I haven't named her yet," he says, referring to the blue Toyota that has now been a secondary home to us for the past five days.

"You haven't?" I pause, nodding in agreement. "You should. I like naming my cars." And the conversation sprouts another random rabbit trail, a normal thing at this point in our travels.

The road is long and the night is black. Trees turn into looming giants, fog sweeps under our tires with a ghostlike swirl and truck lights become faces and taunt us from behind. The hum of the road is a quiet reminder that we are in fact moving along the highway, headed somewhere. All this journeying is taking us from there to here, and wherever here is, we're not staying for long. Long enough for the driver to read a sign, one of us to laugh, and the pavement bumps to fall back into the pitch.

I'm reading a book out loud and it seems like the most perfect book to read. We hear about those who traveled roads, some roads we have even traveled already. There is some kind of sweet camaraderie in hearing their tales. As the second night rolls us along, one sleeps, one drives, and I'm here with my legs underneath me, my voice cracking and drying as the words fill the silent space. We have traded seats, traded chapters, traded thoughts and now we share the quiet and someone else's stories.

It seems the in-between is always packed with more than I can extract at the time. The in-between, the here to there, is always more poignant after the fact than in the middle.

I feel held in this space. In where God becomes both the comforter and instigator. Where I feel Him calling me out and placing me in. Cutting strings and binding old ones. I feel the drag of all my things in the trailer behind us, and a part of my independence longs to let it all go. Something in me wants to  detach, become some sort of altruistic vagrant, see all of the world and live in it. The other part of me knows that rich, Christ-like character is built and lessons are worked out when I don't cut, don't shut down, and stand shoulder to shoulder with friends in 100 degree garages, sweating and complaining, allowing people to get in the grit with me. Or rather, getting in the grit with them.

I tell him, "I kind of just want to sell everything I have and live life on the road, in an airstream or something." He lifts his eyes off the road to look at the trailer swinging behind us, my said belongings piled under a blue tarp, and then looks back at me and smirks. I know what he's thinking. The same thing I'm thinking. Then why all of this? I look at the yellow lampshade bouncing and say, "But then, I think, it's just not that season of life for me."

It's the moving forward kind of time.
It's a wheels to the ground, buckle-up, let the road pass beneath your feet time.
It's not when I skip town, blow it all off and do my own thing.
There are people to see, a city to discover, a place to call home.

I try to explain the way I view life, and sometimes I feel like I am going to make others roll their eyes with my ever-changing goals, hopes, and ideas. In fact, I know I've made others roll their eyes. I've seen it. I've felt it in words and silence. It's a good thing I'm enjoying this whole thing of discovering God's giant mystery, or else I might let the people-pleasing thing in me persuade me to do otherwise. Not go. Not chase. Not dream. Not be me.

(I wonder when this wrestle will stop. Will I one day be able to make decisions and say things outloud and not have the questions and eye-rolling bruise my heart? Does that ever change?)

Maybe, maybe I'm just always in the in-between. One day, I'll tell you I want a huge family and a house in the mountains. The next day, I'll say I'm content with just Madeleine and soon I'll take her to travel the world with me. One day I want to be a graphic designer. The next day I want to farm. The next I'm wondering if I could settle down and write something worth reading in more than 1,000 words. It all is about as random as each conversation that happens at 3 a.m. on state border lines. I feel about as steady in my life as I do about us on the highway.

It all looks the same, but something is always changing.

Like these road signs, like the stars sparkling outside, the semis speeding past, we are in the in-between and there is no life to live but the one that is in our hands.

Leaving Texas propelled me out of one place, Rochester waits for the next.

No where in this part of the story am I scheduled to do otherwise. Nothing other than the in-between where life is richly happening and stories are told of other in-betweens. Life is good, and a constant adventure. I am traveling along, with, inside of this great story and one day, I will sit on the other side and tell stories about "this one time I took a roadtrip" and the in-between becomes something.

go on and forget me

I am picking up old glasses, dusty books, cobweb-covered tool boxes and painter's ladders. She moves with me around card tables, wooden trunks, Spiderman memorabilia and wolf clocks. Our pace moves with our conversation,

slow,
easy,
deliberate.

We are looking at prices and life. Wondering why people have been forgotten, wondering where the years have gone between youth and age.

When did we become now? 

Occasional "remembers" slip out, but more "when was that?" float up because time has left gaping holes in our stories. As we consider old metal trunks, we talk of travel, of dreams forgotten, of what we fight against now. Beaten metal. Broken hearts. Restored furniture. Redeemed stories.

I knew her then, I am starting to know her now. The girl in between is a mystery to me, and I'm sure regarding myself, she could say the same.

Moving to a new town means running into old faces occasionally. More cases when I wonder where the line is for bulldozing your way into new friendships. Plenty, even abundant, opportunities for me to be awkward, say things I don't think about out loud, bite my tongue and learn all over again how community works. I'm still new at this, and I feel like that's how we all feel. 

you
me
them.

We're all figuring out how to be what we know we need, while fearfully snapping our hearts shut to the possibility of actually being known.

She pulls out a photo from a box of three old women, sitting in rocking chairs, talking of things long forgotten. No names. No dates. Just faces from a yesteryear, and no one to claim them.

Because of this, I feel the urge to be present. To listen. Ask.

If we will be forgotten in 150 years,
I would rather just be in the here now.
I would rather hear your story amidst these old cheese graters and depression glass.

Life is the living, and not the planning. We are living our lives as we talk about what we wish we were. But in 150 years, when someone could pull a photo of us from the box,

they will see the life we lived,
not the one we wished we did.

So I'm grateful, for all the things that are, that we are gaining, experiencing, learning.

Life is short. And there are gaps. There are things we will never know about this world, about eachother.

But the adventure is the part we get to live together.
Grace is active, love is rich, and the Gospel is for you and me. Let's find the redemption of the cross, the gift of grace as we walk, bump shoulders and collapse into honesty around eachother.

Let them forget me, my name, what I did.
Let a photo fall weathered from a box of me in a rocking chair,
knowing and loving the person who reaches a hand in the air across from me.
Let Grace be the song I sing,
my reputation dissolving into the forgotten,
my story be one that sparked a light in those I love.
Forget my name, go on,
so long as I fully live.

{182-197} counting on and on and on...
:: shakespeare in the park
:: izze pop
:: cheese and fresh bread
:: still lakes
:: generations of family
:: museums of child's play, life-size lite brites and kid cameras
:: sleep and rest
:: fairy tale books and strawberry juice glasses
:: provision
:: new friends and inspiring sisters of creativity
:: creamy peanut butter on fresh wheat bread
:: little girl dates with uncles
:: yellow sweaters and thrift store finds
:: white bedspreads
:: fresh chicken eggs
:: gifts to make my new apartment a home
-----
linking up with Ann @ A Holy Experience

hello.

i spend a possibly wasteful amount of time staring at the trees and sky. wondering about everything.

(wonder was my word for this year, but i didn't see it working in this capacity.)

except for grace.
love. joy.
redemption. contentedness.
salvation. hope.
i'm not wondering about these things.

I guess I should say...
I'm not making decisions about the next few weeks of change, but rather I'm trying to just focus on today.

Two weeks. Nearly two weeks now of coughing and sneezing, sniveling and hacking, heads aching and bodies restless.

But now, now we're on the up. News flash: antibiotics work.

We started today with dancing and laughing, onto chocolate milk and coffee. I hear a rumor that the temps will rise to the 70s today. After the rain. After the earth gets muddy and thundered, the sun will rise and shine.

And I know I haven't written on this here blog in almost two weeks.

Maybe it's that we've been sick.
Or the arrival of spring.
The dirt roads and starry skies that are calling.
The wild rush of the creek and the birds who awaken us with song.

but I feel drawn to silence.

Something about this quote from Thoreau's "Walden" keeps jumping out at me:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

And then this morning, my sister sent me this blog from a Study in Brown  (a good read) and she included a poem from Wendell Berry. These few lines jumped out at me:

selections from How to Be a Poet

(to remind myself)

i.

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

.....

ii.

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

There are only sacred places

And desecrated places.

iii.

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

.....

There's incredible beauty in breathing
unconditional grace
unmerited favor
with unconditional breath.

The stars at night are so bright, and they feel really close.
The second thing I want to do is sit and write about them. The first thing I want to do is stare at them.

Crane my neck as far back as it will go and let my eyes wander until I'm dizzy. If the world ends by meteor shower, I'd like to climb one of these pines and sit at the top to watch the show.

And the truth is...
honestly, I really want to write. But I want to write things that I'm not ready to write here. Like open-heart surgery stuff. Things that I'm not sure I really believe or understand, which therefore, I'm not ready to put out here in the space where I cannot remove it and cannot defend it and cannot bear with being wishy-washy.

I am trying desperately to be here.

To not turn every experience into a life lesson or a blog, but instead to be grateful for the
million 

little 

breaks of light in my day.

I am battling my own desire to escape this season through the internet, through Facebook, Twitter; through the affirmation of others instead of the affirming secure love of my Father. 

So since there are mountains and dirt roads and stars, I'm letting myself be quiet.

Since I have a toddler and a to-do list and sanity to keep, I'm letting things be.

And in light of spring, hope and new life to come, I'm allowing stories to be written so that I have stories to share here. 

Intentionally listen. Deliberately sit.
And hopefully, shine bright.

in which i ramble about nothing and make no great point.

It's not quite so early on this Tuesday morning. I imagine if you were sitting in these empty chairs at my table, the rambling wouldn't change. I'm not looking to tie up loose ends into a lovely, lesson-learned bow. The little things are the big things in life. The waiting is the journey right now.

So. That being said.

The little is already dressed and the bread is rising on the stove. A few more sips of coffee and I can refill.

cup no. 2

Yesterday, I noticed our glass-top coffee table needed a pick-me-up. So in an effort to save money, I tore out pages from Anthropologie's latest catalog and put them under the glass. Now I get to see what I want but can't afford...every single day.

tease.

In a few hours, my sister is bringing over her smallest five for a "royals" party — where we dress up, eat sweets and read stories.

family is fun.

It may say spring on the calendar, and it may be almost be April, but the March winds are fierce. Cold. Biting. Slamming the doors on our backs as we dejectedly run back inside.

So instead of being sad that we can't go outside to play, we're making our own fun. My Mads keeps referring to outside as "the park." I realize this may be in part to the fact that we've been living in concrete apartment buildings for the past two years. Now we're out in the open. Pine trees scratching our roof. Mountains casting shadows and creeks swollen with thaw. This all looks like a park, and I guess in a way, it is.

I don't correct her. I figure, what a great way to look at this gift of creation. A giant park.

Today is one of my brother's birthdays. I like him. He's a good man.  (And I love him so much, that I'm willing to post a not-so-great photo of me...just to show that he's a good-looking, man-who-runs-up-mountains, Jesus man. I guess you can't see the Jesus part, but trust me, it's there.)

he's a good brother.

The to-do list is somewhere, on the yellow dresser I think. I know what's on it, so I don't even have to look. But I will, because I like lists. I hug lists.

But I know my taxes are done.
And that one project is finished.
And that phone call is made.

I told myself I'd get out for a run today, but the icy winds feel like blades against my cheeks and they steal away my breath from my bones. So a bundled up walk may be a better choice.

I baked cookies yesterday. Mads tried one and threw it in the garbage.

I liked them.
My mom liked them.

And I'm in the middle of reading Romans. Sometimes I forget what a beat-up chapters 1-7 are. Thank God for chapter 8.

My little is capturing the concept of prayer.
So she thanks God for me.
For cookies.

And then she lifts her eyes and asks why Daddy doesn't live here. I don't know that I'll ever be expecting these sorts of questions, or that I'll ever have the prepared answer.

This is my Tuesday morning. Filled with half-prayers, spilled chocolate milk, a potty accident, rising bread, cups of coffee, cold winds and gratitude for a Chapter 8 kind of God.

p.s. (Every Tuesday, I link-up with these lovelies.)

You're Going to Die

We all snicker as she proclaims:

"You're all going to die
And it's all going to burn."

My dear friend Katy said this as we discussed motivational speaking, and determined that I would make an awful motivational speaker, simply because my first slogan choice would be,

"We're all going to die."

The small Italian restaurant at the end of the block filled on Friday night as we gathered to celebrate living, friendship, and quite frankly, just a free Friday night. An intentional night of valuing one another; valuing life.

We talked about road trips, moving, babies, marriage, dreams, spa days, the great outdoors, the haven of home. But really we talked about WHY.

Why live? Why adventure? Why dream? Why create and nurture? Why dare to hope in the face of adversity?

Why am I getting in a car in a week with my two-year-old daughter and driving to New York? And just how is it that I'm ok with not knowing the end of this story?

Because this... this is life.

This is the fragile gift intended forever, but stolen through sin. Restored by grace, but now a pilgrimage to our final home. This general refusal; the choice to live outside of a predictable, boring life... it's what we are called and created to do.

I can't imagine when God handed Adam the authority over all creation, He meant for him to not go and see it.

After we enjoyed some fresh basil and olives on pizza, another one of us says, "I almost didn't come tonight. I could've called and just cancelled, stayed inside, not done anything." This topic spins and swirls as we wonder why some lock away their dreams and doors until death passes, while others take the challenge to keep living.

Even if things fail. Even if they don't work out. Even if.

Perhaps this is some form of sanctified nihilism. God-exalting in the feckless measure of our quick, passing existence.

All that I know is, as long as I have breath in my lungs, there is purpose for my existence here. Until my story ends, I have a story to live, and write, and experience. 

"You're all going to die, and it's all going to burn."

Until then, all of life is an act of surrender, worship, prayer and praise.

p.s. aren't they beautiful? these girls i get to do life with? i think they're beautiful. not just stunning friends, but they're beautifully broken, which is my favorite thing about each of them.

No Requirements Here

I want to blog. I need to write. I've even returned to ink and paper with my journal lately. I forgot how wonderful that is. (When is the last time you sat down to write without the possibility of any public acclaim? It's worth it. Good for the heart.)

My evenings are spent with my nose in a book, lately this one.

My soul feels a bit bare, but not in the scary deathly way. More in the wintry, waiting for new life kind-of-way. My brittle branches are reaching toward the light, absorbing the warmth, anticipating the inevitable burst of green.

Around here, afternoons are spent in music, writing and scratching out lyrics that will probably be later replaced with seemingly better and more poetic ones.

Somewhere in there, I'm working.

And parenting.

And thrift shopping (to find lovelies like this $12 coffee table.)

Somewhere in there, I'm squeezing in social gatherings, some of which I should probably just leave out, but I don't want to, so I won't.

I'm waking up as the sun rises to move, to walk, to run. I'm letting my eyes droop shut over above said books. From dawn to long after dusk, life moves and chases, loves and breathes.

And, I really, really just want to blog.

I'm determined to not blog just because another day has come and I'm putting pressure on my mind to be witty and charming.

I won't blog out of requirement.

But I will blog because I like you. You friends. This community. It's a whole other world that is beautifully broken, and I like you all for it.

(Though between you and me, I'm feeling another rant blog coming on soon. How fun will that be?)

Back to my books, music, coffee and lists. Happy Tuesday!

I'm Such an Amateur.

There comes a moment in every single day that I find myself wide-eyed, heart-racing and I can't do anything about it.

Right around 3:42 p.m., just as I'm brewing my afternoon pot of coffee.

While M is away at her morning romp-and-roo (I don't know what that means but it sounds fun), I try to tackle the big things. Go for a run walk jog. Make a to-do list. Make those phone calls I keep putting off. Start three or four different projects. Finish (maybe) one.

Then she comes home. We have the same conversation every day regarding this 15-minute intermission.

M: "Barney?
Me: "Nope, naptime."
M: "Dora? Barney?"
Me: "Naptime."
M: *hangs head and starts dragging her bag toward her room* "Ooohkay..."

These are three glorious hours of her being safe and sound at home, sleeping away to some piano sonatas in her room. In my imagination this is when I would be most productive.

However, that seems to be the time my creativity takes a kamakazi dive for Comic Sans World and any attempt at designing/writing/brainstorming is fruitless. I make circles around my laptop and eventually end up wiping counters in the kitchen or watching some sappy Hallmark movie (during which I will cry and take chocolates out of the Advent Calendar to console myself. Don't worry. I took from the 25th. I have time to replace those.)

Then she awakes.

Back to that pot of coffee I've just brewed. She stirs and asks for snacks. I sip on my coffee and inevitably, right then, inspiration strikes like a wild, beautiful fairy. I'm mystified and enamored and must. create. now.

(In saying this, I'm admitting my complete and total lack of discipline as a creative professional. If I were disciplined, I wouldn't blame my lack of creativity on inspiration. I'd own up and say "Only amateurs sit around waiting for inspiration." So yeah, whatever, I'm an amateur creative professional. Now stop judging me.)

3:42

I'm overwhelmed with ideas. With the drive to do it all right now.

And no lie, my two year old stands at my side saying,

"What's that mama? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? That? That."

(I am not kidding. This just happened.)

This then turns into her saying, "Yook Mama. Memesephin. Memesephin. Memesephin."

To which I reply, "Oh...yeah." (I have no idea what she's saying and no amount of her motioning, pointing or excitement helps me understand.) This response seems to satisfy her for the moment.

I need to make 12:42 my 3:42. 

I need to grow up and not be an amateur. That little fairy needs to send some muses my way when I'm wondering how many gradients/drop shadows/"cool effects" I can use on papyrus... (graphic designer joke... and to salvage some reputation, it's not really true.... *side eye*)

Ever feel like you're waiting on a muse? Or maybe the muse came and left her dirty dishes for you to clean up?

Me too.

You have learned something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something. ~ H.G. Wells

About 90% of the time, I am either thinking or actually saying outloud, "I have no idea what I'm doing."

The other 10%, I am misguided in my confidence, because even then, I probably don't know what I'm doing.

Take raising a little human. No one gives you books on how to do this. Actually, I take that back. They do. And trust me, the moment you decide to do some "research", you will inevitably be swallowed in the black hole of parenting theories, discipline tactics and "how to raise a genius child" books. Most of these are still being tried and tested, and we'll probably hear in 20 years how wrong they all are.

So what to do when my two-year-old is already weighing the consequences of her decisions, and sometimes chooses "not the greatest" option and then walks herself to timeout? I laugh, and think "Next time, I'll should try something else."

This I have no idea what I'm doing thing seems to be popping up everywhere...

I feel it most when I sit down to work on a contract. Or a budget (ick). I feel it when a new client contacts me and I fudge my way through half the details. I feel it when I see other people my age doing things that seem stable, settled, "normal" and I begin to wonder when I missed the boat to adulthood.

I think it when I write e-mails and try to sound more sensible than I actually am. Or when someone asks me a question about "How do you..." and I answer it with that misguided confidence, wondering deep down if I really know what the heck I'm talking about.

Because it seems the more I'm learning, the less I know.

my small stack of work today including a book about things i need to learn,
annual reports to write articles about and a book of to-do lists.

Just wondering if this ever goes away.

(Ima gonna go bake some bread. At least I know I know how to do that.)

Knocking Them Down

One of my brothers sent me a text the other day and asked, "How's my little sis doing?"

My response? "Just doing my thing. The conveyor belt is moving. I'm on it. Just life."

I love that he responded with "good."

Because he, of all people, knows that sometimes sticking to the basic plan is as much of a success as clothing kids in Africa. Sometimes, as Sara Groves says, "setting up the pins and knocking them down" is a win.

To be grateful for living should be good enough. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you are facing adversity, pain, heavy heart moments, closet tears, rejection, sorrow, distant joy... remember that "He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. Finally he will cause justice to be victorious. (Matt 12:20)" 


There is joy to be found in the living. There is nourishment there. In the moving along. In the small chipping away at mountains that feel too big.

So here's what I'm thankful for in the moving. On the belt. With the basic plan.

• The Goodwill Purge — Toys are sorted and stuffed in boxes and bags. Decluttered kitchen drawers and shelves. Closets are purged. Weeks later these bundles eventually make their way out to my car. And still another week passes before the Goodwill dropoff. It doesn't feel like much. But suddenly I've gone from too much stuff, too much clutter to now empty backseats and closet space.
• Last spring, I started the food transition. The thing I kept saying I was going to do and finally did. First to go was any and everything that contained gluten. Then beef. Then chicken. Then fish. Now, cheese is an almost distant memory. Almond milk sits cool on the counter. We still eat eggs, but the slow year-long process from omnivore to vegetarian and (as Alicia Silverstone said) now "flirting with veganism", this kitchen is well on it's way. I like the slow transition. It's working.
• The traveling time — I sometimes feel like I was born with wings on my feet, or wheels in my heels. (I'll layoff the cheesy euphemisms now.) Since I first left the US at 15, the travel bug bit me and I've never quite recovered. I'm ok with that. That's why the booking of at least four out-of-home-area trips scheduled in the next four months make my wings go flap, fwhip, fwhap.
• Brushes and Color — Last year, I painted alot. And then when it was time to start writing songs again, I realized I couldn't do both well. So for the past few months, I picked songwriting. Lately, the brushes have returned. For a bit. For some happy moments of color.

  

This week we celebrate a two-year-old's birthday, remember the life of the woman we lost two years ago, embrace the somber mood of seasons to come and seasons gone, and probably eat lots of cake.

Setting up the pins and knocking them down. {enjoy this link}