new {happy} year

last year this time, i sat in the bathtub and wrote a list of goals. they included: read one book a month. write a "thankful for" list at the end of each day. keep a day planner. take more walks.

but this year, all i want is one thing:

to wake up each morning and catch the sunrise.

to not let its beauty spray across the sky while i'm in the shower, or drying my hair. to not pull the yellow quilt over my eyes when the rays start peeking through the blinds in the bedroom. to bring my coffee outside with me and sit on the porch swing in the dark. just sit in the morning blackness. until the golden and pink and coral start crawling up from behind the trees.

i just want to catch it. and i think with that, i'll catch all those other wishes and resolutions. all those other desires of my heart just beyond my reach. i'll pull them in with the sunshine. and at night, send them back up into Heaven, to the great painter Himself, who will take them, mix them, and create with them another glorious morning.

to see my dreams in the dawn. and to chase them until nightfall. that is my wish for 2012.

to be kissed with a furrowed brow

xxx

when i was in 7th grade, i watched the movie music from another room. before jude law was scandalous, before gretchen mol was on boardwalk empire, they starred in this darling film. i remember sitting in my friend's little rec room. the lights were off and we were up way past midnight. there was a half empty popcorn bowl between us on the tiny couch, taking up elbow room and space.

and i watched as jude gave gretchen the most beautiful, heart-swelling kiss i'd ever seen. i would not be kissed until five years later. in robert's car after our third date. with the porch light on and mama waiting up inside.

thankfully, someone thought to put a little movie montage on youtube, which includes the kiss. the whole thing will give you a recap of the movie, but i suggest scrolling right to 1:44. the furrowed brow. the way he gathers her in his arms. her submission. it's the stuff dreams are made of, and hollywood rarely gets it right.

i couldn't embed it, but you can find it here.

it was the idea of that kiss that kept me waiting all through high school. it was the reason why, when i met that boy at the beach who followed me around and watched will and grace in our rented home, as he leaned in to kiss me outside the steps, i gave him a side hug. that wasn't going to be my first kiss. not like that. not with some boy named evan with terrible hair whose last name i didn't even know, who went solely by "ev dog."

every girl deserves to be kissed this way, and when it happens, it's worth the wait, as affairs of the heart usually are.

don't let your dreams be dreams

when daylight savings time hits and the nights get shorter--too short to go on walks in the country or swing on our front porch and watch the sun go down--robert and i are forced to find other means of evening entertainment. 


this usually results in following at least one, if not a half dozen or so, new television shows. in the past, 24, LOST and desperate housewives have been our vices of choice. but recently, we have been indulging in a little guilty pleasure known as gold rush alaska. this discovery channel program follows six men who gave up everything to trek out to alaska and mine for gold. 

source

when i first saw this, my immediate thought was "this sounds like the yukon trail computer game." please tell me someone else spent copious amounts of time in front of the screen as a tween playing this fabulous "oregon trail" spin-off.


i thought it ridiculous. and foolish. and, quite honestly, crazy. 


to leave home and risk everything--every single thing--for the mere chance that riches lie buried beneath the boulders. to spend a whole three weeks not mining, but building a machine to pan for gold, to sift through the silt and mud for tiny nuggets. 


however, upon further viewing, the show turned a corner, and my feelings toward it did too. 


the men brought their wives and children up to live with them in the wilderness. i watched one wife walk gingerly off the plane, taking in the snow-capped mountains and rivers around her. i watched as her husband led her to the cabin he had built for her, and i saw his daughter playing in the sand.

source

and it hit me.


his dream isn't crazy at all. because it's his. it's solely and beautifully his, and that alone makes it worthwhile. and he's chasing it, which is more than i can say about myself half the time.


seeing him with his family cemented that for me. i saw the love in his crinkled brow wash the worry away from his wife's eyes. they understood each other. they got it. and who cared if i didn't get it? it wasn't mine to get.


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there's a piece of paper that i've been carrying around in my pocketbook for a week now. a simple name, scribbled down on the back of a take-out menu. a bra size. jean size. t-shirt size. a local woman that my bible study is sponsoring for christmas. a real, live woman, with real children, narrowed down to measurements and figures.


i've been scurrying about all week getting ready for christmas. almost every evening, i've found some reason to go to target, wal-mart or the shopping center, scrambling about for gifts and clothes for my family and friends. all the while, leaving that piece of paper zipped up. forgetting that a dream was inside there. 


a dream of a christmas without apologies to little faces. without shrugs and sighs of disappointment. without excitement shot down. without "maybe next year."


and it doesn't matter that i can't relate. that i don't understand or can't fathom. because, like the miner, her dream is singular. and it's not my place to try and identify. all i can do is help.


so i went shopping tonight. not for myself or my family. but for her. to do my part, my teeny, itsy part, to make sure her dreams.

aren't dreams anymore.