a little craft

i can't sew all that well, it's no secret.

but i made this little number the other night, after a particularly inspired afternoon.

it's fluffy. it's thick. it's warm and reminds me a bit of a woodland creature. sometimes it sheds and leaves little white puffs on my bedroom floor.

but i made it. my fingers threaded the needle and cut the fabric. i did it late at night while robert watched a football game and pablo entertained himself with a new bone. i sat at our old round kitchen table with a little light in the corner, humming to myself.

and there's something organic about that. and rewarding. and like most things worth doing in life, it took time and patience. two things i've found myself short of lately. the process was cathartic.

these hands of mine are nimble. they type fast and hard on a keyboard and their knuckles crack when i'm stressed. they are burdened with hangnails.

but they are also capable. and mine.

and for that, i fold them in a prayer of thanks.

a search for a scent

 xxx

love,

my sister has found her scent. it's rare pearls by avon. and it is lovely and fresh, like clean sheets on a spring evening. her children will come to associate her with it and will keep a special bottle in their medicine cabinets when they get older, unscrewing the lid just to smell her.

but i'm still searching for mine. between the too spicys and too sweets. between the victoria's secret and bath and body works concoctions and the cosmetics counter vials. i haven't found it yet, and i fear time is running out. to create that lifelong relationship with a perfume takes time. wearing it to church and also to ballgames. to work and to weddings. and not growing tired or bored of it, as i tend to do.

maybe i'll never find it. maybe my children will always remember me by the clothesline, smelling of detergent and grass. maybe you'll remember the way the fire smelled that time i burnt the caramels in the kitchen. maybe my scent will be a marriage of many, many times. of cinnamon rolls and apple orchards. of sea salt and potting soil. night air and summer rain.

that's not to say i won't continue the search, because i think it a lovely notion. but while i'm looking, breathe me in deep no matter the circumstance. maybe one day we will find a way to bottle life.

to face unafraid

it has started.

the slow process of packing up the ornaments and folding up the tree. of storing the stockings and dusting off tabletops. leaving that one strand of lights by the windowsill because they are whimsical. the few days after christmas are sort of a haze. a slow crawl out of lethargy and coziness. i stretched in bed this morning, only to crumple back under the covers as my body sighed against the dark.

and it's black outside my window. a slow drizzle is blanketing the parking lot. my raincoat is still on and the coffee has cooled against my hands. december 27. not quite new year's. not quite christmas. not quite anything at all really. just a chilly tuesday.

but i've got plans to take robert out for a frosty tonight. to read in my car during my lunch break and maybe take a mini nap. to hold hands with my mama across the old round table and spend an hour on the kitchen floor playing with pablo's new squirrel toy. it's exciting. in its own, little ordinary way, it's riveting..

every day can't be christmas. because that would diminish the splendor of it. but every day can be joyous, and merry. it can be full of cheer and of heavenly love. there's a sweet, sweet world waiting to be decorated. to be garlanded and strung with lights. to be adored and feasted upon. oh come, all ye faithful, and devour it.

a christmas card and a prayer

on the way to work this morning, i thought about baby Jesus. about little chubby fingers. about flushed cheeks. the way babies smell. about a tired mama and a proud papa. about hay bales and donkeys and night stars and the cold. then i thought about the cross on the hill and i couldn't bring myself to think about it anymore and had to turn on a pop song.

my heart aches for what mary didn't fully know. my spirit crumbles to pieces when i think about swaddling a savior. because it's all so tortuously beautiful. and sad and sweet and precious and wild. i pray that this realization never leaves me. that i feel just as impacted on a pretty thursday evening in the spring, under the shade trees in the front of the house with my arm under robert, as i do this morning, two days before christmas. that the knowledge of the blessing sticks to my ribs, sustaining me on nights spent kneeling and mornings spent over the coffee pot.

it's a comfortable life, typically. there are sunrises and twilights. there are hands held across wooden tables and  pillows that smell of summer. there are children laughing on hilltops and dogs with wet noses to greet us at the close of the day.

but to have this? to achieve this unspeakable beauty? it took one incredible sacrifice. but before all that. before the nails and the beating. before the crown of thorns and the bleeding.

there was one incredible birth.

sometimes

 

it's okay to dress up in your favorite vintage frock

to swirl your hair up in a fanciful updo

to wear your special gold necklace and diamond earrings

...even though  you work behind a desk all day and the only people you see are your co-workers.

christmas as an adult

 via

it's rainy and warm in north carolina. it is muggy and humid, and this weather is a fickle mistress to the corporate air conditioner. even the coffee mug under my hands is sweating.

and i've got the radio set on chistmas music. i've adorned our mantle with holly from the bush beside the porch and a nativity scene is resting on our coffee table, delicately perched upon the wood, baby Jesus shaking every time pablo knocks into it.

but it doesn't feel like christmas of old. when schoolwork ceased for a few days and we breathed a sigh of december relief in the form of cheery word searches and crossword puzzles, busywork of the best sort. when the skies were gray and cold and snow lurked around every sunrise. where the christmas tree was real, in that small corner of the living room. when i was tucked into bed beside my sister and for one second that somehow spanned into an entire month, all was well with the world. now, there are tests and papers and office work and appointments. there are days i feel like all i do is drive.

so what to do? we make our own traditions, our new little ways of celebrating. we decorate the office windowsill in lights and stay up late to watch lifetime movies under the artificial fraser fir. we put a too-heavy santa hat on pablo's head and take pictures as he paws it off. we replace the late night coffee run with eggnog and the ice cream with reindeer sugar cookies. we address christmas cards to our bosses and bring in fudge for the company kitchen.

it's not going to be the same. it never will and it was never supposed to. but to equate the magic of christmas with the magic of childhood is an unfair comparison. but that's not to say it's not a spectacular time to shed a little of our adult selves and sink into the glory of the holiday. to bring in a little of the old and mix it ever so gently with the new. to forge new paths and bridges over new rivers, one eye looking behind us at home in the distance, the other focused on the shore just ahead.

twenty-four years later

...i have stuttering relief. it comes in the form of a little hearing aid-esque device that slips sweetly and neatly into my left ear. it is removable, which is a plus because it amplifies every.single.sound. and is hard to wear 24/7. but it is beautiful. and the joy and freedom it grants me is beyond belief. it's slow, methodical process, this healing and reforming. but i didn't get here overnight and it won't disappear overnight either. it is no sprint. rather, it's a walk, a saunter through the meadow at times and a trudge through snowy grounds at others. but i'm glad God chose me to take this path, however difficult and embarrassing and downright hard it can be. because finally, blissfully, there is a glimmer of light appearing from the shadows, a distant end to this tunnel. and it's like i just got new walking shoes.