Rare Fashion Post

I very rarely post fashion blogs.

This is for two reasons:

1) I don't have the funds to keep up with the latest trends so I convince myself that my closet holds the utmost in fashion, which in turn means that there is no need to educate myself on the current fads. Although I am beginning to wonder if frayed jeans are in or out style. You see, I refuse to spend money on getting my cheap TJ Maxx jeans hemmed (which ends up costing more than the jeans). And being five foot short it just makes more sense to cut the jeans up until they fit. It's kind of grunge-a-licious no?

2) I think its pretty futile. As if we need one more superficial facet of our culture to be magnified and glorified...but we all have to wear clothes, and if that's true they should at least be cute.

Things I am loving right now...










Fashion courtesy of Bleubird Vintage

Contentedness and the Lost Little Urbanite

Today I am content.

Let me say that again.

Today I am content.

This is a strange place for my mind to be. Sadly. And it is invigorating!

I have decided that I am lucky. I have a job. My husband has a job. (yippee, skippy!) I have a cat that I obsess over. I have great friends. I have love. I have a home I adore and love to nest. I have been provided for in so many ways. I am loved in spite of my imperfections. I live in a city that I have always dreamed of living in.

I just got back from a longer than planned trip outside, to deliver a package that my boss gave me. Heading in the direction I thought he had instructed me to, I was alone with my thoughts, just trying to get another thing done in my work day.

In moments like these, the ones where I am getting from here to there, I usually run an endless commentary about all the stuff in my life I want to change and how to go about that. Today as I was alone with my thoughts circling Church St and wondering how in the world I can get lost in a three block radius, I searched for that little black box of complaints that usually pops up in my mind so that I could sort through it.

It wasn't there.

Instead, there was a little empty space of nothing. A little quilt of happy blanketed my brain. It felt good.

The warm wind was whipping across my face, and I decided that it was great to be alive. My life isn't some amazing epic, but it's full of some great short stories.

Even thought I am content- I am still devastatingly directionally challenged. It took my 15 minutes to literally walk half a block.

But hey, you can't have it all.

I don't mind being lost as long as I get where I am going eventually, and that's why it's a-ok to be a little long on the getting there and a little short on the direct route.

By the way the package finally got delivered, and I burned some extra calories on my unexpected urban excursion.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Image Courtesy of LC Photography

Back from the Dead

Since I have become a "blogger", I have been very dedicated to my blogdom. I have been very good at tending to it, thinking of things to impart while driving, coming up with topics when I am on a jog, looking at things through the eye of my blog lens- but I haven't been so good lately. Because out of the blue I was knocked off the face of the earth, my blogness was shaken, my routine high jacked by mucinex and coma-like slumber.

And so now with shaky fingers, tight in the knuckles from lack of use, I will attempt to get back on the blog wagon. Giddyup!

My yucky sickness, which I am almost 100% recovered from, had me not short of bedridden. (which is a term I hate, it makes my bed sound like one of those raunchy mechanical bulls). But now that I am done with being in and out of my drug induced slumbers and am through blowing into a thousand unsuspecting tissues and am finished drinking my body weight in Nyquil, I am back.

Back to work, Back to reality, which leads me to wonder if I am really back from the dead at all.

Here is the deal: I can't help that my blogs hinge on spiritual pondering, not because I am such a deep person, but because I find true fulfillment in being close to God. And so here I go again, I am trying to figure out what it means to be a woman of God. I want to live above the fog of subconscious living, and stop drifting. I want a soul drenched pursuit of God- but I am stuck in the real world, in the office, where routine is king and detours are inconveniences not adventures. How do I become a successful woman in God's eyes?

I have to say that I haven't had very many good examples.

I can't help but picture "godly" women as shy, permed, flower jumper wearing, home-school moms who pickle their own beans and only watch black and white movies on Saturdays. I don't think being godly means being irrelevant and archaic. There's nothing wrong with those kinds of people, but I could never be one.

I was wondering this lately since I had the privilege to be in a music video recently for a band called Building 429. It was a very dramatic role in this video, I cry, I fall down in the rain, I am basically a mess. I worked on that video for 12 hours straight two days in a row...did I complain once? Look at my watch once? Wonder when I could go home and crawl in my PJ's and veg?

Nope.

Even when I got home for the shoot, I was alive, even though I was exhausted. My brain was all lit up and I couldn't stop thinking, thanking, and being happy. I was abuzz, and I knew just the reason why.

I was acting again. I was being creative. I was in my element. I was worshiping.

That word, worship, always freaks people out, but I love it. It is a scary word if you think of it in the sense of strangely robed men dancing around a flame and chanting while they burn incense, but for me worship is just a humbling attitude, doing something you do well for the benefit of others.

And this leads me back to the basics.

I may be "back from the dead" physically, but I am still working on becoming a woman of God spiritually.

When this idea about becoming a woman of God came to me, To be honest, I was hoping to find some Bible verse that would command me to quit my job in the name of the Lord. I was hoping I would stumble across some verse that says..."thou shalt quit thy job and spend days sipping on wine, painting, singing songs in the quiet of my home, while watching old movies and napping everyday at 3pm."

I didn't find that. Quite the contrary.

I found instead, in Proverbs 31 that a godly woman is busy, she works with her hands, she creates merchandise, she even plants a vineyard (Go wine!) But she does it all with a heart full of worship.

And that's where I am at. Truly loving and cherishing the creative moments that I get, however brief. And then in the down time (which is most of the time), I will staple, hole punch, type and file with one eye open...so that when another chance comes along to feel truly alive, I won't be dead to the world.

Under the Weather

The saying, "under the weather", seems a little misleading. It insinuates that you can somehow rise above the weather? I guess when you fly, you are somewhat above the weather, but it is never a permanent state. You always come back down.

Nonetheless, while the adage doesn't make that much sense, I am finding myself a little below the cumulus line today. Well below. I feel like crap.

Time magazine recently published an article about how belief can fend off sickness, "A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that faith may indeed bring us good health."

So this morning I spent some time praying that I would feel better, not because of the TIME article, but because I know prayer works. But I have to say there is something strange about praying for healing in this day and age. While I believe that God can heal me, it feels a little retrogressive. It's the whole chicken before the egg thing-

If God created medicine does that mean that when my doctor prescribes an antibiotic that he is acting as the healing hand of God, making the advancement of medicine a modern day miracle? Or does it just mean that my body is scientifically under siege, and no amount of prayer changes the fact that the medicine I need is sitting in the pharmacy and all I have to do is get a hall pass from the doc?

It's a cyclical argument.

Does God have nothing to do with it? Does he have everything to do with it? And why is science and faith in such opposition to each other? I like to think that I am an intelligent person, I believe in the validity of science and I believe in God.

I am not one of those fanatics that thinks God only acts in fireballs or world wide floods, but I do think he has power. I believe he has power to even heal my little head cold.

I believe that God has a hand in everything. But what about chaos and sickness? I think for the most part, sickness is an inevitable repercussion of that negligent hand washer (if this is you, stop it, and wash up sicko!), or perhaps because I followed the sneezy kid who used the McDonald's bathroom stall before me. Sickness is prevalent in every single square foot of human existence, as is healing, recovery, hope, faith, belief, and progress.

Perhaps the more pertinent question is why would God allow sickness at all?

It's an interesting dichotomy. I am sure it is most interesting to those who don't believe that God has anything to do with anything- people just get sick, they get better or they die- that's it. There is nothing to ponder, sickness if just a part of life, right? Or is everything we deal with in life a test of our faith which pushes us on to maturity in our suffering? I have struggled with this idea of a personal God who cares about my head cold for a couple of different reasons.

1) I feel that as an American twenty-something, I am privy to a social network that has promoted susceptibility to the cultural programming provided by media. Such thinking is housed beneath the faulty construction of interpersonal kingdoms built upon the theology of me-ism. A culture that is soaked in celebrity exploitation feeds directly into an acceptable idea of a personal Jesus.
Why wouldn't God want to be involved in my life, I mean come on, isn't it all about me? (Case in point: I am writing this blog because I am sick, so I think it applies to everyone...can we say, egocentric, but alas I keep on typing.)

2) He doesn't have a body. He doesn't sit down and share a glass of wine with me. He speaks to me in ancient poems and meets me when I am most needy, but only ever in my mind- not physically. He sometimes disappears for long periods of time. I feel guilty when I do dumb things. We have a spiritual connection devoid of the scientific.

But call me naive, ignorant if you must, but I believe that prayer is the best medicine for a sickling- I also believe that our spirit is always in opposition to the "matter of facts" of life, because we are halfsies. We are equally imaginative and realistic. As humans we are the poster children for balance and opposition. Flesh and Feelings. Organs and Origami. Creativity and Chaos.

This is a super heavy entry for a Monday morning, but maybe since I haven't felt this sick since I had pneumonia as a young girl, I am a little light headed.

I guess my point is this, science is good. God is good. I like both, and I hope that my doctor on Wednesday gives me medicine that makes me as good as new. And in that I will be thankful to God for giving people brains to come up with the antidotes to the illness.

Take home tip? I have decided that hand sanitizer is godly. Do your part and sanitize, Purell is a way to worship- even if you don't worship God, I think we can all agree that keeping things copacetic is neat. Slather away baby!

Image Courtesy of Christian Northeast

Breathtaking...

Just had to share....

Courtesy of David Molnar

Breakers and Builders

Today is the "official" domestic release of my record, One More Broken String. Which is funny to me, because today is just like any other day. No paparazzi, no champagne toasts, just ringing telephones and clicking keyboards. Not that I expected anything else.

In one word this is how I feel today: weathered.

A little threadbare around the edges.

Which has led me to redefining what art is to me- and in turn- who is and isn't allowed to define who I am.

Do you know what I think is the most abstract thing about art of any medium? It has nothing to do with the art itself, but what people think about art- their drawn conclusions about other people's perspective.

If I blow my nose in a rag and then paint it blue and hang it on a canvas....I would imagine that to some, that is considered art.

If I write a mush of nonsensical words and post it on my blog and call it a poem, then I have exposed my 7 followers...(yup, I am kind of a big deal) to nothing but syllable soup.

My opinion on art is this: True art is when the motivation to create is purely rooted in the achievement of an audible/visual stance on a specific belief.

So why I write music, blogs, books, paint, sing, run, laugh, kiss...all of it should be hedged in by my beliefs. The constant tension within me, between living and pretending, defines if I am genuine in my art or just creating cheap knock-offs.

People can smell genuine from a thousand miles away.

For some reason, unfortunately, there are those types of people who will use any and every opportunity to employ egocentric pontification in response to your art, even if you are genuine.

This is something that I have never understood, but have since accepted as a necessary flip side to the coin of creation. I have even found that criticism in most cases has truth in it, but not edifying truth.

For anyone who has ever opened themselves up to public opinion regarding their creations, which I have done on a consistent basis since I was 17 (to the point of wondering if I am crazy to put myself out there anymore)- you have to know that there is some good that can come out of any critique.

If you are humble enough to accept it...which has been a constant struggle for me.

I think my favorite criticism was during a competition when I was introduced like this: "This is Megan, and nobody likes her." Hmm...okay so that wasn't even a real critique but more so a public scorning.

The good that came out of it? I learned a valuable lesson: there are people who's opinions are not meant to build but to break.

There are two kinds of people: Breakers and Builders

People's opinions of our art matters, we can't get around that, but since art is just an extension of who we are and should not define us entirely, an opinion is just that- theory.

I was just telling LC the other day that sometimes I feel like my current album is a finger painting that I decided to bring home to my parents. And while my mom (who will symbolize the nice critics) is "oohing" and "aahing" over my efforts like any good mama will do, there is a handful of folks (naughty critics) that have to point out where my color palette is lacking, where the sense of movement is lost among the clumsy, chubby- fingered finger strokes and why I should just toss it out instead of displaying it on the fridge.

Yes, I am likening my music to finger painting, because that's what it is. A novice record. A first timers attempt at making songs. It's clumsy, but it's me...to a point.

I am clumsy, I am unskilled, I am imperfect. But I am willing. I am heartfelt. I am honest with myself. And I learning to be obedient to God, when I want to run and hide.

Putting your art out there feels a little like high school.

Personally when it comes to my "high school" -I've heard it all whispered in these metaphorical halls of outside opinion- "She is the Next Best Thing", some have said, "Don't ever sing or write a song again", and others?, "You should try out for American Idol!" (These people have great intentions (C), but to be honest the people who try out for American Idol are ten times more gutsy than I will ever be.)

The truth is this, I am a pebble in the rock quarry of talent. Of this, I am acutely aware. I do not think that my music is the best music in the world. My ultimate goal is not to be the "next biggest thing" to get chewed up and spit back out on music row, my motivation for writing has never been to please but more so to pursue. I want to build.

So what is my motivation?

To not give up on myself. To not treat myself like common trash on the side of the road (first person to comment where that quote is from gets a gold star). My songs are a personal memoir of musical progression. It is creative exercise. It is worship to God.

There you have it.

Breakers knock you down and Builders give you a hand up.

It's that journey from dusty knees to standing your ground that make the process, painful at times yes, but oh so worth it.

Surround yourself with Builders if you can- and those Breakers in your life? Let them go for good! They will have no trouble finding another pebble to crush.

Keep on creating, because we all have something genuine to give- blue snot rags and all.

Yesterday morning when I was coming into work, I was upbeat, borderline chipper actually.

Listening to my inspirational music while pulling into the parking garage (Kathleen Edwards, "Another Song Radio Won't Like" is a favorite), I was humming, reflecting, dreaming...all of those things that occupy my mind when I should be focusing on using my blinker and coming to a complete stop at a 4-way.

Grabbing my backpack, my purse, my lunch, my water bottle, my cup of coffee, my hat, my books, my Bible, my scarf, my phone and my mittens (with a hole in the right thumb) I was loaded down and clumsily toppled my way over to the elevators- feeling very much like an overdecorated Christmas tree.

Waiting in the cold for the slow elevator, I found myself staring at the trash can in utter absentmindedness. Amidst the pile of cups, discarded fast food bags, and other debris- I couldn't help but notice a cardboard box sticking out around the edge. On the box there was a particular word displayed.

While I am sure that there were words printed on the box other than the only one I could read- I couldn't see any others. The only word that was visible was "husband".

At first I looked around and wondered if I was the only one that was in on this cosmic joke. Here is an overflowing trash can and the only piece of garbage that is visible is a box that is labeled "husband"? It was like a Seinfeld episode.

At first, I began rummaging through my purse trying to get out my phone so that I could take a picture of the poetic garbage pile. As I finally got it out and had it poised to snap, I noticed that there were four other people surrounding me and I didn't want to be the weirdo taking pictures of trash.

After I became more aware of myself, I put the phone away and instead held the image in my mind and began thinking about why it affected me. And realized maybe it wasn't really that funny after all.

A friend of mine recently left her husband.

He hasn't heard from her in a week.

She has thrown him away.

I spent an evening with him the other night- and I wonder if one of the most sad things in the entire world to witness is a heart in the middle of breaking?

While this husband in the garbage thing doesn't apply to us all, I do wonder how many times have I just thrown away an opportunity, a friend, a job, a song, a painting, my self-esteem...

While it was just a glimpse- that husband box in the garbage, it was so thought provoking that I wanted to pose a thought:

What are you on the verge of throwing away that might just be worth more than you think?

When More is Less

Do you ever get the feeling that you are meant for more?

Do you ever wonder when "more" will show up?

Do you ever wonder if and when "more" shows up if you will be in the position to grab it will all your might and never let "more" go?

I know I am meant for more...but I have no idea how much more, or where this more is going to come from, or what it will be exactly.

What I am doing in my life right now is completely unbalanced. I am 95% responsible, accountable, safe, predictable and well...boring. And then there are those delicious, rare days when my inner artist breaks free from her dormancy and I become rambunctious, excited, creative, wiley and I feel like myself again..but that's only 5% of the time.

Today, I have done absolutely nothing to use the gifts I have been given. Not to mention I have been in a rotten mood, so I haven't been very sunny in my little corner of the world today.

I keep on telling myself I have SOOOO much to be thankful for. Which I do.

But do you ever feel like the closer you get to "more"- the quicker and more urgent the escape from the "less" you have become, screams out? This last month I have had quite a few, surprising, lovely, God given "more" moments, but I am just holding my breath afraid that all of it will just fade away. That I may not get any more "more"...why am I so afraid?

Because without those little nuggets of hope and inspiration in my life...I wither. I have been withering away for some time now, all of last year if I am honest, but I am finally opening myself back up again. I gotta say- it's scary.

I don't like my place in this world. I need to grow. Progress. Change.

I need a panoramic scenery change. I wish my life was like one of those red view finders that I used to have as a kid. My favorite picture wheel was of Disneyland. I would yank down on the side hammer and with a single "click" I was no longer in Frontier Land but BAM!- Adventureland.

Look...I know that life is going to be a lot of valleys and only a few mountain top views...but today I feel like I am in a canyon.

I need God to provide a way out.

It is in His hands, and I completely trust Him.

Today is just one of those days, where "more" is missing and "less" is standing right in front of me.

This is just a little prayer from the real me, meekly asking the Big Man for some more "more". Whatever that may be.

Amen.