two things. one is happy, the other is hopeful.

 
today is friday. and there's a little sliver of sunshine dancing on the bushes outside my office window. it's a precious reminder that though there are storm clouds above the oaks, there is hope. i gave a presentation last night, in a big city two hours away. i got up to the podium and for all my practice, special ear device and big deep guttural  breaths, i completely bombed. i felt my face flush and my stomach sink to my ankles as about twenty eyes watched me stammer.

i cried all the way home as robert championed my ability to fight my fears. to stand defenseless in a room full of lions. i didn't do as i wished. as i planned or hoped. but i did it. i stuttered my way through an eighteen minute humiliation. i left to a room full of crickets.

i sank into the bathtub at one in the morning and hugged my knees to my chest. i read somewhere that when lady gaga gets lonely or sad, she rubs her feet together. one day, she said she rubbed all day. holding my knees to my chest in an old ceramic tub full of hot water is my similar defense mechanism. that and a good sob. i got  both.

but as robert reminded me on the ride home, i have a sweet life. i have a family and a little plot of land and a warm home. a pup whose heart bursts when i walk into the door.

and i have sweet, beautiful friends who lift me up to unimaginable heights. one such friend is diana. in talking to diana over the blogosphere, her heart for christ and for others is immediately transparent. not only do we share a favorite movie (the last kiss), her blog is so well written and she challenges me and her readers to love like Jesus. to be thoughtful and considerate and celebratory of the little moments.

diana has sweetly featured me on her blog today. go on over and check it out.

and do have a beautiful weekend, xoxoxo.

i need a weekend

there's something beautiful about a sky with scattered shades of gray. the way the dark melts into the white and swirls into the tree branches, naked above the telephone poles. there's also something about it that makes me want to turn on an old country song and sit in my car for a second.

this week has been a rough one. there's a nagging cold sitting dormant on my chest, and a myriad of other troubles that when spoken, or typed, look measly, but that sit on my spirit like a heavy brick.

the thing is, i am a sunny person. i invite happiness into my living room when the evening is setting in, and dance with it until morning time when the moonlight gives way to a new start and the sheets on the bed are soft and warm and all is okay. in that brief moment of waking, all is okay.

so it's been hard to admit that i've been down for the past five days. sorting and sifting through an entire week's worth of troubles and heartaches, stomping them down into tiny bricks and believing they are gone, then like those tiny washcloths that expand in water, i awake to find them larger than life.

but i have to remind myself that it is okay. okay to not be happy all the time. to be sad on occasion. to sit on the top of my unmade bed and look out at the field and watch a bird scurry across the yard and let that one moment crush me for a second.

to live the full breadth of my emotions. let each of them push its way into me. to live out my life unafraid of the hurt. because it will come, but the gladness will too. and a healthy mix of both is needed. everything in moderation. everything in stride.

the place of remembrance

my co-worker complimented me on my boots the other day.

i looked down at them, tucked into my jeans. remnants of storage dust on their heels from a summer spent in the basement. "i got these the day heath ledger died," i replied absentmindedly. all of a sudden, they weren't just shoes anymore. they were reminders. of that evening in college spent by myself at the mall. why i, the student with campus police on my speed dial, was out shopping alone is beyond me. but there i was. knee deep in the shoe department at belk's. the text came when i was trying them on.

i was little when princess diana died. i bumbled down the steps for a drink of water to find mama alone in the dark, crying in front of the television. years later, i sat on that same couch and watched the coverage of the JFK, jr. plane crash. i learned of aaliyah's death in a church corridor one sunday morning. these places and objects are forever changed to me.

i don't remember much. i joke with robert that my memories start around middle school. but these things--these moments that don't even directly involve me, are stamped inside. they are a part of me and i of them.

i am a collection. of memories and days and evenings spent watching the news. of remembering and forgetting until some off the cuff comment triggers something deep inside and i remember all over again. until a co-worker reminds me that my boots are more, so much more, than leather (well, pleather).

but being human means embracing these associations, these little fibers that connect us as a whole and unite us. in suffering, yes. and in sadness. but also, when the heavens align at just the right moment, in inexplicable joy. 

please be careful with me

i'm sensitive.

i still remember the name and the face and the powdery smell of my third grade teacher who called me down on the playmat. i remember every detail of that moment, chiefly because i'll never forget the way my stomach dropped and my face flushed and i got shaky all over right in the midst of it.

and i still remember the snarky look on the boy's face in high school who mimicked the way i talked over the cafeteria table. and the one who heckled me after my presentation in earth and environmental science in the ninth grade.

and i cry way too often over the smallest things. puppy mills on the news. a song on the radio. kittens on a bridge. a baby i don't know eating a cupcake in a highchair. the list goes on and on, i tell you.

and last night i sorted through a few of my grandpa things. he's still well, and sat a few feet away in his recliner as i looked through old textbooks, college directories, and christmas cards. the idea of my family was that i could use these things in my etsy shop. he didn't say a word as his belongings were gathered into boxes and picked through like an in-home yard sale.

but when i got home with them, i was washed with emotion. that's the best way to say it. just washed.

i can't do it. can't sell the metal detector he made himself, or the old typewriter, or the recipe box of my grandmother's. the sage green planter or the desk lamp. the cassette tape player or the eight-tracks my mama wore out.

sometimes i worry that i feel too deeply. live too much in the moment for my own good. but i suppose i'd rather feel too much than not at all. still, i long to find that off switch. when i can look at that metal detector and only see a thing. just an object. because that's all stuff really is anyway. it's the relationship behind the material that matters.

if ever you see a typewriter in my etsy shop, you'll know i've figured out how to do just that.

letting go

we did it. we found homes for all the kittens. the first two left last weekend. unexpectedly, as i was handing them off to the sweet older woman down the road, tears welled up and i couldn't even look at her. i turned away and placed the little bodies into her arms. the last two leave this weekend.

and i can't tell you why i cried. it's just that, for two weeks, these babies were mine. entrusted to me. and i couldn't keep them. but i never thought it would be so hard to watch them leave.

no more midnight runs to the shed, with the light glowing in the darkness, and rubbing furry bellies. no more tails between my toes and little finger licks.

my goodness. am i ever going to be a basket case when dropping my firstborn off at college. i'll probably handle it like my mama, and hold it together in the dorm room. in front of the potluck roommate stranger. in front of dusted laptops and pencil holders. new comforters and laughter down the long hall.

but as soon as i get in the car with robert, i will undoubtedly lose it. and that's okay. it means i felt it. that tangible sense of loss. and to not feel it would be so much worse.

'tis the cycle of life i suppose. 'tis the beautiful, hectic, heartbreaking, gorgeous cycle of life.

a heart that's too small

newspaper, newspaper. can't take no more. you're here, every morning, waiting at my door. and i'm just trying to kiss you and you stab my eyes. make me blue forever like an island sky.

-conor oberst, milk thistle

 xxx

my co-worker shares his rolling stone magazines with me. once a month, i come into the office to find an issue waiting on my desk, usually heralding the latest pop culture phenomenon, or new summer album release. two days ago, he shared something different. his newsweek.

and between a feature of rhianna and a never-before-seen interview from liz taylor, there was an article on the war. one single glance and i was done with for the day. because my heart can't take it.

i am ruled by conscience. and purity. when i was younger, and a bad thought would sneak its way into my mind, i would write it down on construction paper and slip it under my mama's bedroom door. sometimes i would be dramatic and circle the place where my tears hit the paper, with an arrow and the words "here is where i cried." because through the act of writing it down, of getting it out on paper, i was subsequently releasing it from my spirit. and until i told someone, i felt awful. guilty. maybe that's why i blog now. to share with you my happiness, yes, but also my demons. my struggles. 

and i internalize things. like the news. like magazine features with awful images unfit to print. and they stay with me and embed themselves so deep into me that i can't distinguish myself from the muddle.

and i'm not naive. i'm not so blissfully happy or innocent that i don't know the terror that's going on overseas. or here in our home country. or one city away from me. some people have big hearts. they give and give and are so beautiful. but sometimes mine feels too small. it's not that i don't care, i just care so fervently that i render myself immobile. and thus ineffective.

so i tucked the newsweek in my office drawer. chiefly because rhianna is splattered on the cover wearing something between underwear and shorts, and i did not think that proper workplace fodder. but also because i know what's inside those pages. and if i ever, ever doubt my ability to feel (as i sometimes do. when the world gets mundane and slow and routine, i become a bit numb), those images will snap me back.

back to a world that is scary. overwhelmingly so. but also fluid. and for every terror there is a beauty. and it's easy to hide away. to squirrel myself in my room. my car. my office. but there's a God pouring sunlight  through my windows right now, glaring up my screen and reflecting off my arms. and He instructs me to push forward through the murk. because He has a handle on situations that i can't touch. and that's good news.

there is a reason strong moves slow

i want a tire swing in the backyard.

i want to wash off dirty feet in the laundry room sink. i want to pack lunches before the sun comes up. i want to make up lullabies with moonlight streaming in through plastic blinds. with my hands folded under a floral pillowcase and a warm baby's breath melting against my cheek. to wear aprons and tie my hair in loose buns. i want to look good in the kitchen. confident.

i want all these things. one day.

but for right now:

there's a clothesline in the backyard. i fold blankets over it during summer days and let my dresses dry in the sunshine. we don't have a sink in our laundry room. but we do have homemade curtains and a warm rug. i pack my own lunches, usually racing against the clock to make it to work. but every morning, there's a bowl of warm oatmeal at my desk, with blueberries and sugar swirled in.

robert's exhales tickle my cheek. when we finally make it to bed around midnight, a sleepy pablo quick on our heels. we talk for hours into the darkness, our words echoing in the black room. our room right outside the work shed, with the flood light spilling in.

and i'm learning in the kitchen. with every splatter and total mess, with every victory and cake that rises properly, i learn more about myself and feel more like my mama.

so maybe my one-day wishes are a little different. maybe i'm still muddling my way through my twenties and figuring it out hour by hour, looking for the glimmers of hope that come when the smoke clears.

but these are blessed days too. and i'm glad they're moving along slowly. to savor. the desires of my heart take time, as most desire do. and when these days are gone, and replaced by new times, new houses, new faces and new expectations, i will mourn for them. mourn for the days when it was just me and robert. miss the flood light outside and the shrubs that bloom in april.

but i'll also smile.

and swing, in my backyard, with  my head thrown back laughing.

losing my way with words

xxx

i love words.

i love the way they play, dance, move across a page. their rhythm. ebb and flow. up and down.

and i love writing. primarily because i'm so lousy at speaking. i love being able to attach a noun, adjective, verb, to an idea. 

but some things aren't that neat. some emotions, like the ones you feel in your gut, have no equivalent words. like when i wake up in the middle of the night and just get sad. and think about the brevity of life, and how precious and fleeting it is. and whisper a second round of prayers up to Heaven from under my blankets.

some things are just too heavy. i don't know how to write about the look in robert's eyes when he asked me to marry him. the bittersweet melancholy when we left my sister at college. the punch in the stomach when i found out a friend died in a car wreck. because to even try is to cheapen it. happy and sad just don't come close.

that's why this is my favorite bible verse. i was reminded of it driving home last night and it's been playing like an old familiar movie in my head ever since.

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

-John 21:25

  

even an eternal library couldn't use up enough words to capture the soul of the Creator. the power and beauty of it all. it transcends everything. even my meager attempt here to write about it.

but those emotions. those deep, heart-wrenching feelings. those are beautiful. and special. and worthy of washing over you. even if words aren't worthy for them.