Hush and Such

Barcodes and Cymbals

2009-11-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

I had a good conversation with one of my close friends today, and I found something interesting in our exchange.

She is very different from me. She likes to bake, organize, and listen to Lady Antebellum. I like to paint, drink wine, and listen to sad chick music. She is a kind person, self-controlled in every sense of the word, gentle and yet so strong. I am giving, but can be very selfish and I am anything but made of steel- I break quite easy.

She puts her foot down and gets respect, and yet people tend to see her as mild or quiet. I never put my foot down, and so people tend to like me- but I am sure they secretly wonder what I really stand for.

When you invest in someone, they let you see themselves. When someone begins to invest in you, you begin to see who you are.

This friend of mine, is someone that I see myself missing down the road. It is so strange to be right next to someone sharing a meal and then to feel the back of your throat tense a little. And you know you will miss this ordinary moment. You will miss this person who shared this part of your life-

For me, having someone sharing this time in my life- one of brutal reality and oft times heartbreaking monotony - is more precious than the times when I was chasing down my dreams and my friends were clapping from their seats.

Friends that remain when the lights go down, and the show is over, well those are the ones you have to cherish. Those are the ones that remind you that there is more to life than the mountain top moments, and they remind you that its o.k. to be in the valley- they are there too.

I wonder if sometimes God just hits pause on the remote, pulls some characters from a different storyline and writes them into your script.

And the more I think about it, it hasn't just been one person he pulled into my life, it has been a city of people. It has been a small village of women that have helped me through these two years.

You know what the crazy thing is? I have never been friends with girls. I still have difficulty with the whole thing. I hate needless judging, whispering, and envy.

It seems that our culture breeds women with barcodes on their wrists. Each one comparing their meaningless dashes and spaces to each other. They stand in the middle of the street clanging cymbals in desperation for attention- and the sad thing is, they get it.

This doesn't just go for women. This goes for all titans of industry, line cooks, bar tenders, investment bankers, musicians, authors, artists, mothers, wives, children, and construction workers.

We are all yelling at the top of our lungs, hoping that someone notices us. Sees how special we are. Promotes our talents. Fast tracks us to the good life.

It nauseates me. It makes me sick, because I use to be that person. I used to think I would be famous.

I know its laughable. I wanted it for all the wrong reasons.

I thought I was different. Maybe I am. I thought I had talent. Maybe I do. I thought I had something special to offer, and maybe I will. But what I have learned, and what I am continuing to learn is that we all are. We all do. We all have slivers of celebrity in our skin.

You know how? God made us that way. We matter. We matter to the God of everything.

And now that I have found out how ordinary I really am I don't envy those who are rising. I don't want to be those who are sacrificing everything for their dreams, their desires, their lusts. I know it will leave them empty.

The people who have been written into my story have revealed to me an amazing lesson of love.

I will miss the people I have come to love here. I will miss those that loved me, encouraged me, and stood by me when I was becoming a humbled girl- steeped in the reality of life. And while the world may not define us as successful, enviable, or influential we are - simply because we have checked our vanity at the door, and have given up the ghost of comparison.

The brass tax of the truth is that I am contemplating moving home. I have been thinking about Seattle since the day I left it. When I am home enveloped in mist and evergreen scented dew, my heart beats- I feel like I can be moody and solemn. I can laugh with those who have known me since primary school. I can use big words, or order a tofu scramble without getting a sideways glance.

In Seattle I don't have to pretend that I like BBQ or fried catfish. I won't have to put deodorant on the back of my knees in the dead of summer.

I will miss the sun. I will miss the happy cloud that hangs over this city. I will miss the people that actually allowed me to build a life here- with them. Side by side. Day after day. Sigh after sigh. Tear after tear. Hollow hope after hollow hope.

I know now that there is so much more to living in the south than deep-fried menu items and weather patterns- I have been healed here through the power of acceptance.

While, it may not be tomorrow I can already feel the heaviness of goodbye in the wind. The decision isn't mine ultimately, only the Orchestrator knows when- but the season is changing.

I can smell the rain.

Concrete Walls and a Bramble of Roses

2009-11-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

And my heart goes dark.

It isn't an instant switch. There is no flash of light or circus of combustion, it is just a steady fade. A hand woven basket made of a thousand shades of gray is slowly coming unraveled by the hands of idleness.

My day to day has become a slow flicker to faint. I can't stomach it. I am like a bowling ball rolling down an alley with 10 foot bumpers.

Everything is so safe. Predictable. Silently screaming that I am missing it. I am missing the great call. I am missing the big idea, by way of apathy.

I was curled up in the bed the other day with L'Engle's Circle of Quiet Vol. I, and I have to say I couldn't read it. I couldn't finish the chapter. Her words were so vibrant, her accurate painting of a life lived outside of concrete walls was one that was full of life giving blood- the type that flows from pricking your finger on the brambles that surround the rose.

You risk. You find. You reach out. You hurt. You heal. You live. You feel alive.

These days it is hard for me to listen to really good music. My heart swells within me, and I feel like my imagination may burst out of my body floating alongside the major lifts reminding me that there is more to life than the clicking of keyboards and the smell of stale coffee.

The choice is mine. I do not have to remain in purgatory. I do for a dollar. So what does that make me? Easily sold, I suppose. Much like trading in a birthright for a bowl of soup.

I have prayed for change more than I have prayed for anything in my life, and what I am finding is that things are more the same now than they have ever been. Why does prayer seem to promote the very thing you don't want to go through?

The only conclusion I can come to is to prove that I am not in control.

Prayer isn't a Christmas list, it's a vendetta.

A feud that begins between what I want and what God gives me. Right now I want change. Maybe I should start praying for pain, solitude, surrender, suffocation, and for my soul to be emptied of all of the beauty it wants to create. Perhaps my heart will actually render itself useful.

Maybe I will stumble upon the answer to that echoing sonnet, "what am I doing on this earth"?

It sounds so ridiculous and over dramatic, but that's the ultimate question, isn't it? What did you have in mind for me? When you created me, what was the plan? Was I just a blank canvas to fill space, or was I meant to be a bucket full of paint?

My pastor said something interesting that I haven't been able to get off my mind. He said that in today's world we have all kinds of names for ancient problems. We call envy and coveting, marketing and publicity.

Ouch.

I am a part of the problem. I am promoting the Emperor's Clothes and I know it. I am selling naked emptiness. I am telling people to buy something they don't need. I love books, and the written word, but not everyone's ideas are worth reading.

Not even my own. This shoe doesn't fit. The stage that I find myself on, isn't the role I want. I am going to have to call the curtain. If I don't the thorns will get the best of me and bleed all of my integrity and imagination dry.

The silver lining, is that among the thorns there is hope. Where there is a thorn, there is life waiting to be disturbed. A beauty awaiting the conflict. A warrior waiting to fight. A heart awaiting the break.

Lord, please disturb my life.

If for no other reason than to break this heart into understanding your plan.

I Knew a Man Who was 99 Years Old...

2009-10-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with my dad. And we were talking about the waiting game that God seems to be very instrumental in using in my life. He told me about his old Bible study leader who at age 99, once said, "I have walked with God for my entire life, and if there is one qualm I have with Him, its that he is much too slow."

I know God operates outside of time, but I am stuck inside the clock. However, I found this ancient hymn to be very uplifting.

I am becoming a master in waiting, and I think that God may have many more classes in store for me....

Not so in haste, my heart!
Have faith in God, and wait;
Although he linger long,
He never comes too late.

He never comes too late;
He knoweth what is best;
Vex thyself in vain;
Until He cometh rest.

Until He cometh rest,
Nor grudge the hours that roll;
The feet that wait for God
Are soonest at the goal.

Are soonest at the goal
That is not gained with speed;
Then hold thee still, my heart,
For I shall wait His Lead!

Can't Stop This Feeling

2009-10-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since I wrote.

Its been a long time since I have thought about my thoughts.

Thinking gets me into trouble. I think thinking gets a lot of us into trouble. We begin to wonder why we are living our lives a certain way, and we begin to devise plans on how to alter our state.

An altered state is temporary, whether that's one glass of wine too many or a cross-country move. The issue is the the same. The problem is the starving heart.

That type of soul deprivation leads to a myriad of other devastation's. Losing hope. Making wrong turns. Looking in windows that don't belong to you. Sleep-walking through life.

Although, I do love my sleep.

I hate mornings. I hate getting up. Especially on rainy, moody mornings that envelop me like a rain cloud. And yet, I pull myself out of bed, stumble to the kitchen, down a cup of coffee, and proceed through the day in a haze of "have-to".

I have to be accountable. I have to help pay the bills. I have to make calls. I have to send emails. I have to work out. I have to lose weight. I have to make dinner. I have to stop telling myself I have to lose weight. I have to stop looking for other modes of employment that will be just as meaningless 6 months down the road. I have to stop coveting peoples lives and careers and art and freedom.

I have to create my own!

I am caught in the storm. The cyclone of conundrum in which where, how, and when wreck havoc on the edges of my threadbare dreams with the force of a defibrillator.

I mostly get bogged down in the middle earth of it all- the when.

I know I am not the only person who longs to get outside on nice days, who wants to see what they are really made of when all they are left to their own devices. Their own imaginations, their own God-given talents. To see what tools they really have when they get the chance to carve their own way out of that mountain in front of them.

And I do believe that God gives out talents. I believe that he created each of us to fulfill a spot.

But as I get older, that spot becomes more and more of a corner. More and more of a dead end. More and more of the one place in the world where I don't want to be...

And then that's when I realize (daily, mind you) this isn't the spot that I am supposed to be filling. I am in a man-made spot. I have made this spot. I have settled for this row of fluorescent lights. I have settled for an ashen version of the multicolored plan.

The good news is that there is a new year coming.

The good news is that God is working, ever so slowly on my behalf.

The good news is that change, whether forced, coerced, divine, or instant, is going to be mine in a matter of time.

And when that happens, this rut, this place, this corner, this learning experience, this painful pause, this momentary re-evaluation of what matters - it will be more than a spot, it will be the place where God wants me.

And maybe I will finally be able to hear His voice, in the hush of what has always been such...His plan.

Killing Time and Coffee Splatters

2009-09-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what it is, but I feel different.

Yesterday morning I was quickly rushing around trying to get to work on time and I abruptly ran into the counter and splashed coffee all over the kitchen floor. I rolled my eyes, ripped off a few paper towels and bent down to tend to the sticky mess that was splattered across my baseboards and running down my shins.

I couldn't help but hear my mom's voice, "Everything happens for a reason, you know."

Really?

So there was some cosmic purpose for me spilling hot liquid all over my bare flesh?

I am not sure if I am the only person who looks at the world this way, but I sometimes feel like watching the dust floating in my eye is more interesting that anything else going on. On long car rides I have actually watched a piece of dust in the line of my sight for 20 minutes.

Maybe that is why spilled coffee leads me to ponder things of deeper consequence. I am easily entertained apparently.

As I was bending down to wipe off the coffee splatters from the baseboards, I couldn't help but get sucked into an entirely different train of thought. What if there are some things that don't matter? What if some things are just flecks of dust in our eye?

What if there are some days that are simply created to exist as the space between the notes in the composition of your life?

I wiped up the coffee, wiped down my legs, and paused for a moment.

Before I began the rush out the door I wanted to take back the moment of time that chance and accident had high-jacked from me. It was then that I started to get a little angry, because there was no way on this planet to get those few moments back.

And it was then that I decided I wasn't mad at the coffee being spilled, I was mad at the time it killed.

I don't think there is a purpose for everything. I tend to think there is a purpose for the things that enforce change. Things that promote movement, like rapids in a river, planes that fly from here to there, and love that transcends reason.

I know that God is in there somewhere, and I do believe he has a plan for the small things I have dedicated my life to, but today I feel like I am just killing time.

And I don't even have time for one more cup of coffee.

If and When

2009-09-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

If I don't step
If I don't revolve
If I don't collapse
Will I have felt at all?

If I don't clamor
If I don't stammer
If I don't shut down
Will I have made a sound?

If I don't stand
If I don't yell
If I don't participate
Will I ever be awake?

And now I am left with the if of it all.

The if that is simply waiting to become when.

Like a Fist in a Bucket of Water

2009-08-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

There is this little voice that I ignore most days.

Today, I could not ignore it.

This voice tells me that I am replaceable. That I am nothing but a butt in a chair. I am nothing but a faceless being.

A forgettable happening.

I know where this voice comes from.

It comes from my biggest fear. My biggest fear is dressed in a black coat, her head hangs down shielded from visibility and her face is drawn- emaciated from missed opportunity.

My biggest fear sits on an empty park bench, convincing herself she wasn't meant for anything more.

I filmed an insurance commercial last week. I was cast as a bride who was waltzing with her father on her big day. The location was the Schermerhorn Nashville Symphony ballroom, complete with marble floors, stately pillars, and vintage chandeliers that drizzled down from various points of the cathedral ceiling.

It was beautiful.

The only problem was that my "dad" couldn't waltz.

Well, let me rephrase that.

He couldn't snap his fingers, clap his hands, tap his toes, or even nod in rhythm. He wouldn't know a beat from a basketball.

It was mortifying.

It took us a trillion takes to go in one succinct waltz circle.

The voice that I usually ignore was screaming inside my head, "This is your fault! If only you knew how to waltz you could lead this poor man, and you wouldn't be blacklisted from any and every Blue Cross Blue Shield job in the future. Why are you so unprepared?"

However, every single person in the room, the dance instructor, the directors, the PA's, and even the guy whose only job is to blot sweat off of people (yes that is a job)- told me over and over, LET HIM LEAD!

And so I did. The problem was that this guy had no idea how to lead. And yet I still had to wait for him to get it.

In application, I am not saying that God doesn't know how to lead me, but I certainly have a hard time letting Him.

After many failed attempts, we finally got the take- long after blisters had begun to appear and my temples were throbbing from frustration.

I gathered my things and left the shoot feeling deflated.

My biggest fear was staring me in the face. Who knows how much longer they would have gone without replacing me- or cutting me out of the commercial altogether. The truth is, they still may.

Awhile ago I had my boss tell me something that to this day still plays in my head. Usually I hear the playback in the moments when I doubt my life's direction, when my biggest fear is being most vocal.

I was standing at the edge of his desk, feeling hot and edgy from his undeniable gaze of his scrutiny. He doesn't judge you outwardly, you just feel this constant squashing- its an action that is hard to define but so definite.

"It is so amazing to me that people think they are irreplaceable."

I wasn't sure if he knew I was a person- a part of the "people", and that by default he was referring to me, but I swallowed hard and nodded my head in agreement.

To his credit, that day one of his employees had ran a backhoe into the city of Paducah's gas line and shut down an entire section of the city's gas.

I would prbably be in a bit of mood too.

"You know what I say? Go put your fist in a bucket of water. If you pull it out and there is still an imprint of your hand in the bucket, then you are irreplaceable. If not, well, you aren't."

The law of physics would say that he is right.

However, I disagree.

If only for a second, the fist made a difference, no matter how small or for how long. And while the fist didn't leave a permanent impression, it still made one in transition.

Granted, I wouldn't want my "fist time" in this hypothetical bucket of water to be marked by endangering a corner of a small Kentucky town, but you get the point.

We are all in transition. We are all fists in a bucket of water.

And if my God is the God I think He is, there is a purpose for it. However irrelevant it seems, however minute, however deprecating- he is leading us to something. He is leading us to our purpose. We just have to wait.

Nothing in this world is permanent, except for the irreplaceable call that God has given to each one of us.

The truth is I don't plan on having my fist in a bucket of water for the rest of my life. I don't want my worth to be determined by how long I can remain still in a motionless vat of time.

There is an ocean of opportunity out there, and while my biggest fear tells me just to settle for the stagnate water of some beat up container- my hand is shaped into a fist.

And I am ready to fight for the life God has planned for me.

Hopefully waltzing isn't a part of the program.

Incandescent Strategies and a Failure to Plan

2009-08-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

I am not wealthy.

Not by any means.

Despite that fact, I somehow got talked into going to a financial planner last night to, shall we say, asses our assets.

I felt so strange sitting cross-legged from two men in suits- both of which were suffering from a severe case of "facial fidget". One raised his eyebrows to make a point. The other twisted his face every three minutes, looking as if he had popcorn lodged in every single one of his molars. While the florescent lights gleamed off of their sweaty brows I could see myself in the overly polished banquet table, my fingers fidgeting- my mouth dry from boredom.

I wondered if I looked as young and frugally clueless as I was. I wondered what they were truly thinking about their jobs. Were they happy? Did they buy into the product they were selling, or did they get home at night and down a six-pack to get the stink of desperation off their clothes.

I am not bad with finances, I just have no idea how to invest. I associate the word investment with risk, and I am not a risky person.

After these two gentleman had spent enough time placating us about our interests- feigning attentiveness to my dwindling music career and offering unduly inquisitiveness to Stephen's small and antiquated portfolio- I heard him ask me, "So, where do you see yourself in 3-5 years? What's most important to you?"

This is where I have two answers. One I think. And one I say.

My mind reacts first and rushes to answer.

"Honestly, I see myself further immersed and ever-exhausted from the never ending march that is growing up. I am sure I will have some kind of job change- elation followed by disappointment. Which will be subsequent to a round of writings that I attempt- yet never finish. Reinventing myself by means of regression, I suppose. We will still be getting by, but we won't be getting anywhere."

But instead of being so dark, so brash, so frank- I bat my eyelashes, grab my husband's hand and say what I know they want to hear.

"Well I want to be a mother soon and work from home. So I am hoping to have a book published by then, or at least a steady freelance gig. I know that is never a reliable profession, especially with little ones pattering about. So I am most interested in security. Security and reliability."

Really?

And it all sounds so neutered. It all sounds so benign- what of adventure?

I remember a movie in the '80s called The Adventures in Babysitting. I believe Elizabeth Shue was in it. Anyway, somehow they get wrapped up in some kind of Mafia deal, since they venture out of the 'burbs and head to the Big City.

What I find most strange about these types of films, is their definition of adventure.

Let's see, any other examples?

The Adventures of Indiana Jones, hmm...drinking snake's blood? Yep. Dangerous.

How about, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? Time travel in a phone booth is very dangerous- there are no inflatable flotation devices or lights that lead to exits.

And of course Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Being a revolutionary vying for tolerance in the throes of a racist society at the age of thirteen? While I reckon you could get hanged for that, son.

Adventure is always associated with danger in Hollywood- it's the same in life. That's why so many of us don't take one.

I guess my point is this.

I don't have any fool-proof strategy for my finances, or for my life. All of those air tight approaches, like IRA's, 401K's and mutual funds, or job securities, insurances for your insurance, kids on leashes, and swallowing all of your wants in the bitter name of need- it isn't the way we were meant to live.

The idea of planning is flawed. Because we plan ourselves right into skepticism. We plan our lives around the hope that wealth will replace the natural appetite for invention and ingenuity. We are all given the tools to create our own adventure from birth, and yet we choose to set it aside for a time when the risk is lower- a time when the people who we don't want to disappoint won't be.

If we are planning for a plan- that is what we will get. The blueprint of a life- without building one.

This isn't entirely remediable, unfortunately.

We do not live in a two dimensional world.

We live in a world that is hinged upon any and every person we see, meet, love and avoid. Our summation of day-to-day viability is a complex math problem that is divided by an infinite amount of variables.

Turn left? You get the kids.

Turn right? You get the job.

Forge ahead? Who knows.

Maybe we shouldn't worry about sticking to the plan. Maybe we all need to stand on the edge of reason now and then- just to be reminded how far we would have to fall to fail.

The truth is- plans are what fail.

But adventure?

Now that is a strategy.

Going Home but Staying Gone

2009-08-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

I just returned from Seattle to Nashville.

To be honest, I am relieved to be home.

And not home in the sense, that this is where I belong forever- home as in the distinct, yet foggy feeling that something just isn't quite right with the person I am underneath the hood of the forever overcast.

I have some evolving still to do.

I have built a life here in Nashville.

Despite renouncing my musical dreams and trading them in for a dozen pairs of cat-hair covered slacks and the endless possibilities of excel spread sheet combinations, I love the person I have become and am becoming. It was my hope that I would go home, and people would take stock- that they would notice that I've changed.

I am no longer so insecure. No longer so headstrong and selfish, no longer the weak girl who would waver to please anyone who showed interest.

Nobody noticed a single shred of difference in me.

But I don't blame them.

Instead of being the new me, I quickly fell into patterns of the old me.

It was a strange observation, since I was mostly watching myself outside of myself, but I was feeling oppressed by the ghost of the former me.

It sounds spookier than it actually was.

The reason for the trip was to go to my husband's 10 year high school reunion. I was not much into high school myself and actually decided to graduate from a small sect of online-learners as opposed to the whole to-do of public education matriculation.

He, on the other hand, was very involved and was very much looking forward to the whole she-bang.

I was a nervous wreck. I spent hours getting ready, hated the way I looked, couldn't find my lucky earrings, downed a couple glasses of wine and tried to hold it together.

The reason is that more than anything in the world, I hate being judged. As the former homecoming king and class president's wife I felt this strange pressure to live up to expectation, and vainly I wanted to exceed them.

The truth is, that as someone who preaches that we should find our worth in God, this last weekend I was tested and failed.

I put my worth in how I looked.

I put my worth in the compliments I did or didn't get.

I put my worth in drinking wine, and later found myself howling at the moon.

The truth is, I was humbled.

I have a long way to go before I become who I want. I have a long way to travel before I make the final trek home.

Fake Cigarettes and Baby Blankets

2009-07-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

I never had a baby blanket as a kid. Or a blankey or a binky or whatever you call it.

I didn't like playing with dolls either.

That may have been because of my sneaking suspicion that being a mom would be hard work, rewarding but sacrificial. And as a selfish child I didn't want to have to take care of my pretend baby when it was pretend crying, and then change its full diaper of pretend poop.

Playing pretend isn't supposed to be work. So I just played dress up most of the time and pranced about.

I am afraid I have taken that mindset into adulthood.

I still like to prance and wish work wasn't a part of the whole growing up thing.

I was listening to the radio this morning, and the host was talking about how they sell these fake cigarettes that actually blow smoke and light up and everything.

Why anyone would want this, I don't know, but my wheels starting oscillating.

He made a comment about how he would probably convince himself that he got fake cancer from this fake cigarette in which there was no fake cure, and he in turn would die a slow, painful fake death.

I couldn't help but laugh. Not because it was funny, but because I believed him.

We all have committed the crime of telling ourself absurdities to the point of believing them.

We believe things about ourselves like, I am not pretty enough. So since I am not pretty enough, I will have to find some way to make people like me. I guess I will be a doormat. All people like a doormat.

Or I am not smart enough. So since I am not smart enough, I will just make other people feel dumb.

For me, I pretend all the time that I am not a gloriously flawed person. I pretend that I am a person that doesn't continually base her worth on performance, whether that be at work, in the gym or just when I am alone wondering if the life choices I have made are the right ones.

This is just another form of fake living. Living in the state of second guessing oneself.

I think things that I dare not say.

I dream things that I dare not chase.

I hope for things that I believe are hopeless.

Life is a constant prism of change. We lose things we love, and have to deal with things we hate. We get surprised with gifts of grace, and we get buried under mounds of shame.

No matter which way you slice it, we are all pretending for some reason. I can only equate it to the emptiness that this life can't ever fill. We are made to be eternal beings yet we live in a mortal world. Our fake lives are crying out to be paid attention to, and so we have convinced ourselves that the details in the design must be more important the the plan itself.

It isn't until we have lived the entire spectrum of life that we can ever truly have the appreciation for it; time has a way of percolating meaning beyond all the fodder and facade.

I imagine that is why older people always walk a little slower. They are tired of pretending they are important or have somewhere to be. All the "important" things they used to do have become antiquated; all of the places they used to be needed have now become obsolete.

What is important to them now, is to drink in the beauty of the day. Perhaps because they missed so many "in the moment" moments while they spent their youth chasing after fake cigarettes.

Fake paychecks.

Fake perfection.

Fake happiness.

Anthony De Mello,an amazing author, wrote in his book, The Way to Love,

"Just take a look around you: Everywhere around you people have actually built their lives on the unquestioned belief that without certain things- money, power, success, approval, a good reputation, love, friendship, spirituality, God- they cannot be happy. Once you swallowed your belief you naturally developed an attachment to this person or thing you were convinced you could not be happy without."

My husband still has an attachment to his baby blanket. Which I am sure he would hate me sharing.

While he doesn't sleep with it, he does hide it under the bed on his side where he doesn't think that I see it.

I have tried to throw it out, or just ask him if we could get rid of this tattered rag. In his eyes he can't imagine detaching himself from something that was at one time so attaching. Something that gave him comfort, that helped him sleep, that reminds him of his mom.

Perhaps I am a little insensitive, but to me its just an ugly old blanket.

To him, it is so much more.

This is where we all compartmentalize what is important to us, whether its a baby blanket or our prized accolades or visceral pats on the back.

Whether you are smoking fake cigarettes to look cool or clinging to securities of the past, there has to come a time when we look at life through the lens of detachment. We have to de-program our computers, as De Mello calls it, and reinvent the meaning of purpose.

I need to rename the building blocks that I have used to build my life, I need to quit sectioning off hollow sections of my soul's asylum in accordance with societal pressure.

Maybe when I was a young girl, shunning dolls and blankies, I had more wisdom than I realized.

If we are all going to play pretend we might as well spend more time prancing and less time blowing smoke.

Paint Dates and and How to Dodge the Design

2009-07-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

The other day I had a hankering for some mimosas and a painting session.

I called up one of my newish girlfriends K, and asked her if she would be interested in a paint date, she agreed. So I went to work setting up the paint stations, getting the brushes cleaned, and unwrapping the glowingly virginal canvases.

I had a little skip in my heart.

By the time she arrived I was burgeoning with ideas for color palettes, theme, and direction so I quickly began squeezing the tubes of paint and working up some good artistic roux.

I had already begun my wash, which was an eggshell blue and was slowly lulling myself into an expression coma, one that I have been craving for awhile. Tongue out, and licking my lips- the hair on the back of my neck began to prick. It suddenly occurred to me that someone was watching me. Intently.

I reluctantly pulled the brush off, and slowly looked up. K had the most panic stricken expression, I would say it was borderline phobic.

Her canvas was empty, her brushes still dry, and her face twisted in confusion.

"I am the least creative person in the world." Her words hung in the air. "I have no idea what to do."

The strange thing is that it had never occurred to me that someone wouldn't have a single creative leaning when given the tools to do so. This girl is a tiger in a sales meeting. I have heard her sell almost anything to anyone who has ears, and to be honest I am a little scared of her. I have never once ever heard her say that she wasn't capable of something.

Let alone something that was so incarnate to my life.

I smiled, helped her picked out a few colors, gave her a few little pointers and tried to convince her to just go with it.

She slowly but surely began, and every now and then would look over at me in search of confirmation. I must have heard her mumble over 10 times how she was not creative, and that this was not something she was good at.

Hours after she left, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just realized something deeper about my what my life design is supposed to look like.

K is meant to be in the office, she flourishes under the watchful eye of managers and deadlines. I wither.

But when I thought about it a little more, it was more than just environmental or ethical conditioning. It isn't just the fact that I like to paint and she likes to make cold calls, there was a rudimentary separation of soul, we were created differently.

Living in a city like Nashville, you tend to tell yourself that everyone is creative, everyone is a musician, everyone thinks that they are the next big thing. And so you live under this overhang of per assumed restrictions in which you become a part of the melting pot of anonymous chick singers that wear thin scarves and graphic tees while using words like sick and chill.

I have knowingly separated myself from the race, I only have one thin scarf and feel like a poser when I even attempt to scoot the word sick into conversation.

K reminded me that I am not ordinary.

I am reading a book called, Better than My Dreams, and I came across this, "The irony is that whatever our gifts are, they feel ordinary inside our own skin."

I was subtly reminded that my creativity is a gift, and while there are a lot of us that are artsy, no one ever creates the same. Everyone has their own muse, their own method and their own madness that keeps them from both.

This is the lie I have been telling myself lately, my most recent miles of madness.

My husband is practical, I am not. He likes linear lines, I like spider webs. He places his bets on the safe side of the fence and I like to hop fences just to create rips in my jeans.

I tell myself that he respects me only when I am practical.

But he fell in love with me because I leave the fridge open, and love to dance around the house listening to Tift Merritt.

Yes, there are reasons that I can not just chase after the wind right now, but sometimes you have to have faith not just plans.

I came across another enlightening morsel in this book, Frederick Buechner says that there is a hidden intersection in life- the converging of two separate forces- and the spot where they meet has your name on it.

He explains it this way, "The place God has for you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

And then I deeply sigh.

I don't care about security. I don't care about all the things that it looks like I might from the outside. I have dedicated my life these past two years to predictable tomorrows even though that isn't the way I was designed.

I was designed to splatter paint, to find beauty in the fray of the day.

I know that life is just a chapter of seasons that serve a purpose for that place and time. I remember telling my soul-sister and friend A the other night that I am at that point in my life where all of my "what if's" are slowly becoming "what is".

And then I realized something, until I become desperate nothing will ever change.

Its a scary thing to ask God for a true sense of desperation for the life design he has for you, because I can already tell that pain will be a passenger for the ride, but I can feel it welling up inside of me.

Desperation will be my ticket out of Dodge.

James Bond and the Peach Lady

2009-07-14T13:42:00.001-07:00

If there is one thing that I have noticed about myself as a married woman, I no longer get to enjoy watching the movies I used to.

I have traded in Anne of Green Gables for Weeds. I just chalk it up to me wanting to spend time with my husband, no matter what we watch.

Yes I am a sad, married sucker.

So the other night, we were watching Quantam of Solace, the newest James Bond movie.

So to stay traditional in my relationship with Bond, I got bored and fell asleep. It may have been the lack of a plot or maybe the relaxing crash-boom-bang of it all.

Either way, before I nodded off, I became fascinated with one of the opening scenes. Bond is chasing some guy across building tops, through precarious construction sites, and falling through windows- and out of nowhere in the middle of all of this, there is a small scene with a old woman holding a box of peaches.

What struck me strange about the Peach Lady was that she was oblivious, or rather unimpressed with the man-chase taking place on the floor of her building. Instead she is just looking over her peaches, and taking inventory of which ones are good, and which ones are bad.

I feel like the Peach Lady in a James Bond movie.

I know there is an adventure out there to be had, but I am too busy sorting rotten fruit to notice.

As I watched her in the film, I was amazed, first of all that I was more interested in the old peach woman than in the fight scene, but also that it was so normal- the essence of what we all must feel like at certain points in our everyday existence.

We have become accustomed to ignoring the pulsating vein of life that is all around us. Convincing our weak hearts that a box full of anything, is better than the risk of not having it at all.

But what of the mountain views we are not experiencing, and the scents of desert sage that we are not smelling?

The people that are traveling the world, playing music, sculpting art, making movies, and trying to rise above the accepted way to make a life are considered Gypsy's, irrepressible, and weird. Nobody can live that free, right?

This leads to me to a segue about the art of observation.

But I wonder, am I rare that I live my life in a constant state of self-mirrored reality?

I check myself. I ask myself. I get mad at myself. I let myself off the hook. I put myself back on. I want to quit. I want to stay. I pray. And then I wait some more.

I do all this in search of what it is that I am doing here. I do this in search of something bigger than the peach box that I have become obsessed with looking into.

I have had a few conversations with people over the last few days that seem to be so hinged upon getting ahead, making a name for yourself, being the center of attention, being the action hero, being the loudest at the table, being the best at something nobody will ever remember you did when you stop doing it...

And then I think, am I different in the fact that I look for opportunities, or more so, crave moments when I won't be the best at something someone else can do better? When I finally fit into that mold that was made just for me and my little old purpose?

I don't care if I am successful. Not at this point in my life.

I care about living my story. And living it well.

There is a story that we are all living, unfortunately some of us are living a reference manual instead of a collection of beautiful, vibrant poetry and prose.

I am living a reference manual at the moment, but at least I am not pretending that I am living out a masterpiece.

There is one thing the Peach Lady and I do not have in common. I am well aware of the race that is happening around me.

And I can't wait until the old woman I have become gets in on the action and finally decides that life is too precious to not leap across building tops now and then.

2009-06-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

I read over the last of my blogs and have decided they are irrevocably depressing. And for that I apologize.

I haven't been looking at the sunny side of anything lately, and there are a couple of reasons for that. I am homesick. I haven't been praying or reading the Bible, out of boredom with my life ~ when instead I should be pouring myself into something other than apathy.

So, alas, I am still in a funk but want to try my hand at creating something that doesn't dig a deeper rut for me to tread.

Quiet things.
Like the space between telephone rings.

Perfect things.
Like the cool rush of a creek.

Audacious things.
Like taking a stand in the middle of self-paralysis.

Redeemable things.
Like taking back the day from dawn to dusk.

Simple things.
Like the waving wind in tall grass.

Hopeful things.
Like knowing things always change...

One day at a time.

Labels and Fables Kind of Life

2009-06-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

We have pretty severe thunder and lightning storms in the south. So much so, that I have grown somewhat accustomed to them, and no longer call my mom in fear or force my cat to cuddle with me.

However, in all of the times that it has stormed, I have never had the power go out.

Last night it did.

The funny thing is that when the lights flickered and went out, I didn't do anything. I didn't move, and instead I just sat in the dark for what seemed like ten minutes.

Humans have such an odd response system when met with unexpected change. I have never been in a severe car accident but I have had friends that have. They always say that everything goes in slow motion, and yet while everything seems to be standing still they can't even find the time to scream. The have no reaction, they just surrender to the inevitable.

So they do nothing.

It's that whole going into shock thing.

While the power going out isn't something that tossed me into a state of shock I didn't respond. I didn't immediately get up and grope around for a lighter or try to find my cell phone to use as a nightlight.

I just sat. Still and stunned.

Beware: this is going to get dramatic, so I should to apologize in advance. In these past few months I have neglected myself. I have turned myself off. I am living in a blackout.

I have drained out my own creativity in fear of it drying up on its own and am just reveling in the rinds of that forgotten fruit.

The strange thing is that I am not the only one.

As I was leaving the gym today I studied all the people passing me by. The ones who were alone walked with their heads down; kept up with their swift stride keeping themselves company with their own thoughts. The ones that were with other people, were more animated, laughing, and making small talk.

Both were pretending.

How many of us, if nobody was watching would scream out in frustration on the street corners?Or would talk to ourselves frenzied and crazed like the addicts and the homeless, because we are so tired of nobody truly hearing us?

I know I would. Sometimes I am afraid I actually will at really inopportune times, like when I am at my desk or in the middle of a nice dinner with people that buy into the whole labels and fables type of life.

I am easily sad. I think I tend to look at the darker side of joy more often than not, but I find that only happens when I turn myself over to faking it. When I forget that there is more to life. When I forget that God made me for a purpose.

I have been forgetting that too often lately.

I know that God's reason will find me. Or more accurately I will finally allow myself to see it, but until then I will settle for silent screams and perhaps a conversation or two with myself in the car.

If you get the chance this week to be real, to answer someone honestly about how you are and how you are doing I encourage you to take it.

White lies are just white noise, and I think there are some of us who just need to speak up in order to be heard.

Sediment and Split Ends

2009-06-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

It's eerily quiet.

So quiet that I can hear the ends of my hair splitting. It's one of those days where I am so self-conscious that I can't be bothered to be fully aware of anything else going on around me.

I don't mean self-conscious in the way, that I think my butt looks big, I mean self-conscious in the way where I am contemplating, sighing, misguided, and bored. It is one of those places in time where you look around and can't help but ponder all of the irregularities that make up your poignantly regular existence.

The water ring on my desk. The broken button on my pants, (that I can't be bothered to mend). The constant ringing in my ears that screams of blocked expectations and the resounding slamming of doors.

And it is in these "eye of the storm" moments, where the sky is bit a pale green, and I don't understand why everything looks a little off, everything feels a little less than real.

The truth is that I can't be bothered with anything outside of my little world, and that's a shame. If I ponied up and began to explore the real tenure of my creative self, and the world in which the beauty of God is showcased I think I would be too awe-inspired by what I would find. I am already overwhelmed just when I catch a sunset, or the scent of Jasmine on my back porch.

I would feel made of tin, if I began searching for more than rational meaning. The type of meaning that makes more than just sense on paper.

I miss riding a horse. I miss riding a horse bare-back. I miss being barefoot on gravel. I miss dirty fingernails.

I hate keyboards. I hate fluorescent lighting. I hate feeling like I am a spreadsheet and a paycheck.

That is where the roads converge. I am where I have to be. I have a lot to learn. I just don't like being the new kid on the block.

And this sums it up,

"I want to be what I was when I wanted to be what I am now."
-- Graffiti

And so unhappiness settles down as sediment and I will just wait until it gathers up high enough until I can just walk out.

Dreams and Diatribe

2009-06-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, my husband woke up unrested.

I was trying to decipher what he was saying over the jackhammer hum of my Sonicare, but my lip-reading is a little rusty. I gave up, hit the pause button mid-brush and sloppily spit out, "Whash?"

He slumped his shoulders and just waited.

Wiping the toothpaste foam from my lip, I repeated with perfect diction, "What was that?"

"I am going to go into work this morning and tie up a few loose ends."

"Really? But it's Saturday."

He nudged his toe against the bathroom sink, "I know but I spent all night dreaming about work and I won't be able to enjoy my weekend until I get some stuff done."

I was kind of falsifying my grumpiness about him having to work on a weekend, since I was doing some self-promotion stuff downtown Nashville until 4 p.m., but working on a weekend just seems wrong.

As I was wiping down my face with a washcloth, and my husband was rummaging around in the closet for a hat to cover his bed head. How awful to have to dream about work on your day off?

And then I tried to remember my dreams from the night before.

Ah yes!

Jason Mraz and I were at the airport waiting for a flight to Hawaii and he fell in love with me in under an hour and was torn when we had to part ways in paradise.

Hmm...someone may be a little more steeped in reality than I am. But what are the purpose of dreams if not for departure? Sleeping is supposed to be sketches of some kind of Tim Burton movie, one in which we experience these dashes-upon-dashes of grossly unrelated musing. In no way are dreams supposed to mimic that of real life.

Then dreams just become anxiety.

This was all bumbling around in my brain as I was thickly putting on lipstick, dark eyeliner while styling my hair in a fog of hairspray amidst a concubine of bobbing pins.

I was pulling of the tags from the new clothes that I collected for the appearances that I had scheduled for that day at Fanfair, and I wondered when do the dreams that we have for ourselves cross the line from undying hope into the birth of unabashed angst?

When you are a "struggling" anything, people always ask questions like, "Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?", "What is your ultimate goal for your life?", "Did you always want to be this "struggling" fill-in-the-blank?" "When do you feel like you will finally arrive, what will that moment look like?"

What absurd questions.

What absurd ideas, that there are even such moments. Moments where we actually have the ability to see beyond our messy everyday diatribe into a neatly stitched future. Like we have any clue about what may be waiting around the bend. Its all just acting. Answering questions like these are impossible.

But it isn't impossible to imagine what life could be like in our ideal world. in fact it can be these imaginings that send people of into spirals of self-induced want and can incur unfocused foolishness.

A girl who was a friend of mine at one time was looking for any reason and every reason to get out of her marriage. If it wasn't one thing it was another. There was no grounds for her feelings other than she had imagined for herself a life in which there was no limit on her credit card, no vacation she couldn't take, and no amount of designer clothing she couldn't' have.

She built her life tightly wrapped around a thin string of saccharine. A fake sweetness that would never satisfy her and only leave her wanting something that was never real in the first place.

I have been open and honest about my struggle for finding fulfillment in my life. I share a similar affinity for surface desires as that girl did. I dangle "what if's" from every corner of my heart and find myself personally wounded when one gets blown away by some reality like age, lack, or laziness.

For me a dream isn't a dream if it creates a chasm between where you spend your everyday and where you ultimately want to be.

I know that there is room for improvement in every one's life- that is the beauty of the evolutionary process, we get older we get better jobs, we get better at what we do, we learn to grow up and let go of certain addictions and soul afflictions.

But as trite as it sounds, happiness is found in the small things. In watching someone you love sleep. In getting good news. In listening to your heart beat after something it was meant to create.

While, I am still somewhere between living my dreams and living my anxiety, I think I am beginning to see myself and my goals more clearly.

My husband worked a half of a day on Saturday and closed a really big deal that he had been working on. That is a little part of his dream coming true.

One person's anxiety is another person's empyrean.

And I am at peace again, which for me is the whole point of dreaming in the first place.

Ramblings of a Portal Seeker

2009-06-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

I can see it in the distance.

A watery mirage, staggered with rainbow-patterned fragments of light. Its presence is wafting through an open desert space, embodied as an assault of raging steam.

It isn't a destination, its a portal. Glowing like ice on fire, I know that if I can only reach that time in space I may arrive at another side of the mirror. One in which I am looking out, instead of looking in.

I feel like I am caught in one of those dreams, where my legs are taffy, and I never can run the speed I want in order to reach the edge of the horizon.

And so I sit. Legs crossed, hair pulled back and soul aching. I read in the Bible yesterday that we are not to be slaves of men. Well, I have to say I think I am failing at that. With so many people out of work, I am ashamed at my selfishness. I am ashamed of my envy.

I am ashamed of my desire to run from responsibility.

I was gabbing with two of my girlfriends last night about this topic. One is not working right now and the other is working a temp job. The one who is unemployed just launched her own Esty jewelry line, which has been a dream of hers for years.

Adorn by Tiffany

And the other one is struggling with the maniacal demands of the mundane, as am I, at a temp job that is soon going to run out and throw her back into the pool of pause.

The truth is that each one of us, despite our occupational differences, has holes in our day where we allow ourselves to be abducted by want. These holes can become home. If we allow ourselves to get it twisted, its easy to forget that we don't belong in the in-between; we weren't designed to flourish in the space between sentences.

I have been circling over my inner desires for years now, afraid to land, afraid to sacrifice, afraid to make a mistake.

If I can be candid, I feel far away from God today. I feel far away from him whenever I feel bankrupt in my ability to create. I always feel exhausted and apathetic when all I have to look forward to is security.

Again, ashamed of myself. People are losing their homes, their jobs, and their entire sense of being right now. I am not. I am cozy. I am taken care of.

And I am not who I want to be.

This reminds me of that Switchfoot song that always stirs me awake when I hear it:

yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
yesterday is a promise that you've broken
don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes
this is your life and today is all you've got now
yeah, and today is all you'll ever have
don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes

this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, are you who you want to be
this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
when the world was younger and you had everything to lose

I am technically considered, "younger", so doesn't that mean that I can still make mistakes, that I can still recover if I lose everything?

A few nights ago, I was sitting on my couch in a very foul mood. My husband blurted out, "I know it is hard for you to be where you are. I know you are an adventurer and someone who thirsts for change. But baby, right now, we can't stand to change anything."

And then he said something that shocked me, "You know I am open to going back to Seattle in the next year or two, if you want to."

Silence. Blink. Tears. Blink.

And then I thought something that shocked myself as well.

"Maybe we should talk about that sometime. Maybe we should."

But that would be too easy wouldn't it? To high tail it to the comfort of my own neck of the woods, start popping out babies, and forgetting about my gypsy soul.

That would be a way out. But would it lead me to that portal?

The mirage that haunts me?

The place that keeps eluding me?

Maybe I will never get there.

Maybe I have already been there.

Maybe I missed it by a couple miles, and a few years. I don't know.

But I can feel that I am departing. Maybe not physically for now, but there is a soul shifting going on.

Seattle might not be the adventure that I am seeking. Home is two parts comfort and one part guilt. Guilt for not becoming who you're new address promised you you would be.

I am not moving, but I am going someplace. And I will be damned if I don't allow God's purpose for my life to be realized.

So until I see clearly where I am supposed to be heading I will have to settle for standing still.

The Words Came

2009-06-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up with puffy eyes, swollen feet and swollen hands.

I have been traveling, not eating right and working all through the weekend in New York City, and just got back last night.

I was lucky enough to have the energy to rinse myself off in the shower, but during breakfast I spilled honey all over my pants and didn't have the energy to change them.

I then proceeded to suck down some coffee.

But then I stopped, mid slurp, and just shut my eyes.

I ran into the den, cleaned off the dusty piano plugged in the speakers on my Korg, and wrote a song called, "Wait".

It came out of me so quickly, like a raging rush of cool water from a broken dam. I began crying on the final chorus, well more like weeping.

And I eeked out, "So I will wait, wait, wait on You."

I need reprieve.

I need deliverance.

My constant prayer is that God will continue pushing on my heart to move me in the direction of the purpose He has planned.

I am going to write. I am not going to give up. I am going to pursue my heart and follow that lead. I may have to wait, sacrifice and humble myself in the now, but I know where I am heading.

I just need to stop being afraid and make the jump in faith.

More to come when I can keep my eyes open for longer than 10 minutes.

Pray for me.

Dirt Perfume and Glowing Girls

2009-05-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to cheer my husband on at his Ultimate Frisbee Tournament.

Yes, sports fans you heard me right, Frisbee.

Somewhere between the long hair, the unshaven legs, the sweat bands and the tube socks I discovered a sub-culture of people that I would have otherwise never witnessed. And one in which I found surprising.

The cool thing about Frisbee people is that they are generally happy people, and I am using the term "generally" too general. I don't think I saw one person that wasn't happy, except for myself on the sidelines. (I tend to furrow my brow when watching something even if I am not confused or upset in anyway. I even pout in my sleep, and you can be assured that those are some of the happiest moments of my life.)

I am pretty sure Botox is in my future for the line between my eyebrows.

Anyway, the "disc-ers", are like hippies but without the patchouli, although I swear I caught a whiff of it across the field, but it was not permeation by any means.

Nevertheless, I have to confess I judged these poor people prematurely. I kind of thought they were a bunch of bores, to be honest.

Granted, this is an outsiders view of something I don't understand, and still don't quite get.

Did you know that Ultimate Frisbee isn't like Frisbee you see in the park? It is a bonafide sport with leagues and team shirts and even cheers.

Who knew?

I have to say, these Ultimate players are the most uplifting, nice, and encouraging clan I have ever come across. As a semi-smart ass with a pension for spiritual and emotional realism, I found them to be very refreshing. So cynics beware- Frisbee is not the sport for you.

Every time someone would attempt to complete a play, the team members on the sidelines would yell out encouraging tidbits like, "Great pull!" "Way to hustle", "Nice try!" "Good effort!"

And that was just when the play didn't go well. Those were the types of things they would yell when things were botched and points were lost.

For some reason I can only equate sportsmanlike conduct to that of my high school basketball team. The Eagles, the team in which I played a total of 2 minutes and 45 seconds...the entire season.

And scored 2 points.

The entire season.

While I obviously was not a threat to the other team, all I can remember about my b-balling days was the snide comments, the elbows thrown, and the snarly snooty girls. Especially the ones who wore their hair in too tight of braids and always looked like they were in pain.

The girls on the Frisbee field were glowing I swear.

And they were nice to boot.

Granted, I don't think I would ever play Frisbee. I have tried once and realized I don't even know what it means to guard someone. I would just stand there staring at them. One time I was guarding from behind, which isn't guarding at all, it's just plain creepy.

My husband never asked me to play again.

How was I to know what to do? I only had 2 minutes and 45 seconds of guarding experience in my entire sporting career.

The same people on the Frisbee field are the same type of people that get a charge out of hiking, camping, running marathons, and eating granola drizzled with flaxseed oil.

I consider myself to be a healthy person. I love nature, and travel.

However, I am NOT even close to the type that loves the smell of dirt so much I don't shower so that it can become some kind of earth sodden perfume.

The truth is that I do envy their ability to enjoy the game. Every single person is absolutely in love with playing. They are passionate, motivated and borderline obsessed.

If you ever get the change to witness a Frisbee tournament I say you should go, the emotions are contagious.

They are dorky as all get out, but if you are anything like me, you swiftly embrace it. We are all just dorks, but some of us dress it down in designer jeans.

The tournament reminded me that no matter what people may think or perceive you to be on the outside, you are the only one who can control your own happiness.

Now I understand why my husband is a Frisbee dork.

Now all I have to do is figure out what sort of tube socks go with my eyes.

Backwards Buttoning and Why Seeing Isn't Believing

2009-05-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

As I was getting ready this morning, I was feeling quite professional.

Until I tried to get the hook eye button at the back of my high-waisted pencil skirt clasped.

Thumbing awkwardly with the tiny hook, I kept on sliding the hook right under or over the eye. This happened so many times, I wondered if the hook was broken. After further examination (unzipping my dress turning it around backwards, and checking for the fault in the dress and not in myself) I found that it was in prefect working condition.

This struggle went on for five more minutes until I decided I needed to get a better look at what I was doing by using a full length mirror.

But instead of the reflection helping find the resolution to the gaping back of the skirt, everything was now backwards which exacerbated the problem.

After grunting and groaning long enough for my steaming mug of coffee to turn cold, I decided to give up. At this point I just threw on a suit jacket and called it good.

That was until I bent over to pull on my shoes and my zipper plummeted to the point of no return.

Back to the drawing board.

In the middle of my frustration I thought about changing outfits, I mean is any dress worth the hassle? But at this point it was a matter of principle, and I had hooked enough bra's behind my back to not let this one get the better of me.

Eventually the hook fell into place and I did a little dance in my bedroom. No zipper nose-dive this time.

It was then that I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair was disheveled, I was red in the face from effort, and I looked like a little kid who had just tied his shoes for the first time.

Talk about easily pleased. But why not?

In a world where opportunities are shrinking and more people are looking for them, you have to take what you can just to get through the day-to-day.

So I will take my banner button day!

I have always been a big picture thinker. I have always pooh-poohed the little achievements and pushed on towards the bigger goal.

I am the type of person that will wear myself down by taking on too much. I will peel myself off of the sidewalk, the treadmill, or the computer and shake my own lifeless body, "You can't let a single opportunity pass you by! This, this one right here, might be the one that changes your life!"

And so I sign up for a free lance writing package on The Benefits of Vacation Rental Income in The Florida Keys. Somehow I don't think that's going to be the job that catapults me into the same circles as Hemingway.

It's okay to say no.

I was just offered a radio interview opportunity in New York while I am going to be there for a Book Exposition for work this weekend.

I turned it down.

I don't do things like that. Ever.

From a marketing standpoint it simply looks dumb.

From a soul standpoint it was simply liberating.

The scary thing is that I am finally paving my own road, but the problem is that when you set out on your own path you inadvertently put up road blocks to the ones you've become addicted to traveling. I am starting to see opportunities fade into my peripheral, and the loss of such potential is frightening.

I wonder if I am the only person whose goal for her late twenties is to undo all her doing's. I am hoping to untangle myself from thousands of expectations that I have put upon myself for a thousand different things, and just focus on one, simple, unglamourous opportunity.

The one in which I don't live a divided life.

The one in which I am committed to being still. To waiting on God, even though I am risking being completely forgotten.

My old pastor in Seattle was preaching on Jesus' Resurrection during Easter Sunday. And since I have grown up in the shadow of the steeple, I already knew the story well, so in my arrogance I was kind of half listening while I was doodling little flowers on my notepad. But He said something that stuck with me to this day.

Since I tend to have a hard time imagining Jesus as a real person and not some shimmering, glowing angel in a dress, my pastor painted a very real Jesus on the day of his Resurrection.

He said, "Do you know what the biggest risk Jesus had in ascending into heaven? It wasn't that people wouldn't believe he existed, it was that his life on earth might be forgotten."

Jesus came to save the world, and even He risked being forgotten.

I am not Jesus.

I know.

I don't risk the chance or being forgotten when I die, it's an inevitability.

But that's fine, my identify isn't found in this paper thin existence. It never will be. My identity is found in that Man who risked being forgotten when He left his mark of love on the world.

But while I am here stumbling through button hooks and brokenness, I am realizing its OK to fade out a little, while you are tuning up for your dance.

We all know that people say seeing is believing, but in a fallen world where our perception of life is the only sight we have, we can't trust the way we view the world. We can't try and create our lives according to some image we see backwards in a mirror, one that is only a version of the truth.

I actually had to walk away from the mirror to button up my little old dress, because the reflection wasn't accurate, it was affected to the point of making it harder to get the job done.

From my dress to my desk, I have been looking at everything backwards for so long.

That defective mirror is what other people tell me I should be, should look like, should want, should work for, should get excited about.

The truth is seeing isn't believing.

Believing when you can't clearly see, that is belief.

So my dress hasn't fallen down today and I consider that a small accomplishment.

I wonder if the radio station in New York would like to interview me about that.

The Big Girl Pants With Nobody in Them

2009-05-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

I have heard that Europeans vacation for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

I just got back from Cancun for a wedding and was gone only 4 days, and it felt like a lifetime.

My in-box at work is still burgeoning and everyone keeps commenting on my tan as if it is some kind of skin disease that's screaming out, "irresponsible employee!"

I am exhausted in the good way. The way that you feel after being sun-drenched for hours on end while sipping fruity concoctions to Mariachi music.

It was a much needed escape. And one in which I learned a little more about my ever evolving self. At the rehearsal dinner the mother of the bride asked if I would be giving a toast at the wedding, I shrugged and choked on some water.

"I wasn't really planning on it."

Her eyes widened and she stammered, "But you are a writer, so your speech should be really good."

I blinked twice. Maybe three times.

"Um...if there is an opportunity then I will give one, I guess."

Talk about pressure.

And then I started imagining I would give a speech like Rachel McAdams in The Wedding Crashers where I say all the wrong things, and people would be shoving salmon around on their plates, trying not to make eye contact with me.

The next morning I took off to the gym to do some brainstorming. I do my best thinking, and now I guess "speech writing", when the blood is flowing. I climbed onto the treadmill, did a few lackadaisical stretches, plugged in my iPod, and began sprinting towards my award winning wedding toast.

I was mouthing the words to myself, coming up with cute anecdotes which included phrases like, "fairy tale", "happy ever after", and "meant to be".

And as I was formulating these stale, stereotypical thoughts that sounded pretty but held no water, I couldn't help but be silenced by the beauty around me.

The treadmill was set up against an entire wall of windows. Perched on the edge of a cliff, all you could see was vastness of Caribbean Sea. It was a blue so blue, that I caught myself thinking it wasn't real at certain times, and that I was on some kind of virtual workout machine.

The waves would crash against jetty's in succinct rhythm with the music I was listening to. And I got goosebumps a handful of times just witnessing the beauty of God, and the way His spirit played tag with the foaming waves.

I felt clumsy with my little thoughts, when I was witnessing such perfection in creation.

At the end of my run I had come up with a pretty good speech, I thought.

I would start out by saying, "As I was preparing what I was going to say to my best friend on her wedding day I couldn't help but want to talk about Fairy Tales and happily ever after's. Although the more I thought about it the more I realized there is no happy ever after."

I would pause for dramatic effect as someone would yell from the back, "Get that kill-joy off the mic!"

I would smile and raise a hand so that they know I was going somewhere with this.

"The truth is there will not be one day where you wake up and get your happy ever after in the mail. Love isn't that definitive. There aren't perfect beginnings and endings, there are just chapters. So as you begin this new chapter of your life together I want to wish you not one, but a hundred happy ever after's, through each chapter of your life as you grow, change, hurt each other, forgive each other, and discover each other every day of your life.

I know that the love you two have, will not create some perfect ending, but that it will sustain and make a beautiful life together."

I would raise my glass, all would join in and I would tearfully choke out,

"Here's to a beautiful beginning, and to loving each other one chapter at a time!"

Applause would compete with the thunderous ocean, and I would take a bow.

Well, that didn't happen. My speech never happened.

There was no opportunity for it.

And to be honest I am truly glad. It's funny because I felt that I was obligated to give some memorable toast, but the truth was that my contribution came a day before, and it was one that no one heard or could pat me on the back for.

It was a quiet honesty.

The bride had a stressful moment in which she became too burnt, and her shoulders peeled to reveal pink and painful skin.

She was tearing up because she was told you are supposed to feel the most beautiful on your wedding day, and that she was feeling ugly.

I told her that was bull! That she did look beautiful, like every bride does, but that she needed to understand that whole "most beautiful" thing was just something that the 70 billion dollar wedding industry wanted her to believe, and encouraged her to be willing to pony up the dough for.

On my wedding day I broke out around my eyes, never did shed those 15 pounds that everyone said I would, and my up-do fell out half way through the reception. I didn't feel as beautiful as everyone said I would.

Instead I have had odd moments of beauty, and these are moments that happened long after "I Do". Ones in which my husband can't stop staring at me when I have no make up on and am humming mindlessly or dancing when I don't think he can see me. Ones in which I am flushed from a day in the garden, or one in which I see God doing something through me that I know I am not capable of on my own. Like forgiveness, or creativity.

The wedding was beautiful, and the setting was so romantic.

As I am on this journey to discovering that I don't have to be the writer, the actor, the singer, or the center of attention all the time because of what I have been predisposed to, I am discovering that sometimes being a whisper to someone who needs to hear it is a thousands times better than being a spokesperson to a room full of anxious listeners.

I was content to quietly listen to other toasts, all of which were more beautiful and heartfelt than mine anyway. Not to mention I didn't perform in order to please anybody else.

So while I didn't put on my big girl pants and give a speech that I was afraid of giving, the act of not acting was just as scary.

And even more meaningful.

Skeletons of Roses

2009-05-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

I have been hunting.

And it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally caught a glimpse of my target.

I have been actively searching for meaning, purpose and direction, well..., every day of my life after I realized that playing Barbie's was not a job, and would never be more than exercise for my imagination.

It was at that point that I met reality, and her and I have been at odds ever since.

This last week has been one of the most stressful in my life, and one in which I created not with a paint brush but one that was inked out of fake smiles, sweaty handshakes, and stumbling first steps.

And I am not complaining. I am compelled. Compelled to lower my gun. Determined to give myself some time to get out of the line of my own fire.

These last few weeks I have been in a strange head space. That same place I visit when I find myself praying to get sick just so that I can get a day off to lie in bed.

When you hope to get sick, you can safely bet that you are already diseased in some capacity.

And it was in the morning mirror as I was splashing water across my face that I saw my target, it was me.

I still can't understand why I am out for myself. It's almost as if I am tracking my own footprints, in hopes that when I finally stumble upon myself sitting in my office chair pouring over emails and spreadsheets, that I will pull the proverbial trigger. I will let myself off the hook, I will hand myself a hall pass to the next stage of my life.

I want to fast forward the crappy parts of the movie and get to the good parts.

Friday morning, as I was reading my devotional I had an epiphany.

I think that epiphany's are just discovering something that everyone else has already figured out but you have always refused to see.

So here's to late bloomers!

I read an entry called Surrendering Your Dreams.

Every word resonated so deeply with me, that the words still echo in my head. I have these dreams for myself. I have these plans. I have these self actualized goals.

The key phrase is "I have"...

No matter what your beliefs are, whether you think God is upstairs or not, the truth is that we have little or no control over our dreams coming true. We can be the authors of them, but the final chapters, well those are beyond our control. We just can't make life look like we want it to. We are powerless in the now.

Sure, we can pursue our dreams, we can move to new cities, make connections with people who can catapult us, and we can create better art, finish starts, practice, devote, and emerge a new and improved version of our former selves.

But without opportunity, which we have to just wait to find us, we can not make anything happen in our lives.

They just happen. Like some stroke of random chance?

Some choose to think everything is chance, and some people choose to believe that everything is planned, coordinated, designed from the beginning of time- we just aren't the Planner.

I am somewhere in between.

I believe in divine chance.

Right now it is spring in Nashville. The roses are budding, the air smells like lilac's and the air isn't heavy, but juicy, with evening rain. Just months ago all of the flowers were sticks, stubby and awkward. No one would walk down 12 South and "ooh" and "aah" over a rose garden in the late winter, who wants to admire skeletons of roses?

But hidden inside those lethargic twigs are shoots of life that will bloom in their season.

And that will be the season for admiration.

In my devotional this caught my eye,

"We don't want to be just wishful thinkers, always living in a dreamworld and never seeing anything of significance materialize. We don't want to be continually chasing after something that God is not blessing.We want to live with confidence that our hopes, dreams, and expectations are based on God-given certainty that He is behind them. If they are only our dreams and visions and not his we will experience a lifetime of unfulfillment and strife trying to make them happen."

This is profound to me, because this has been my life.

Over a glass or two of wine on date night this past week, my husband and I were calibrating and discussing how my mood and spirit had been affected by my job. He was telling me it was OK to quit. He said, "If it is going to make you this unhappy, which makes me unhappy, then I would rather you just quit."

Do you have any idea how long I have waited for him to endorse my secret thought?

I have tried to prove to him in so many ways that I am not lazy, irresponsible, and that I can be a working and productive part of our life and bank account. All of which he has never accused me of, and probably never even entertained the thought of me being. These are little insecurities that I have designed, and postmarked across my own forehead.

So you can see why my own response surprised me.

I didn't want to quit. Not now.

I said that I felt like I was supposed to be in this stage of discomfort. It sounded so weird saying. And for once I was at a loss for words. How do you explain that you think you should stay in a cell, just for your own character's sake. Talk about masochist maturity.

But it was more than that. I felt like I needed to surrender my dreams and wait on God. I need to wait. Daily.

My husband's next comment stung. He shook his head, looked at the floor and smiled- a smile where his eyes redden a little around the edges which tells me this smile isn't a happy smirk it is an ironic one, "My biggest fear, is that you will never be happy. No matter what you do. That is honestly my biggest fear."

Talk about a gut punch. I know that I am an extremely internal person, I know I am always looking for little pieces of the bigger picture so that I can try to fit together the irregular puzzle of my life to produce some sort of meaning.

But I am not generally unhappy. I am just frustrated. I have been fighting with my dreams for a long time now. And they remain dormant shoots of life inside of me. All that has ever been visible is the shoddy limbs. The vacant tree branches. The thorns. My bitterness against the system. Life's order of checks and balances.

And then I realized that I have never surrendered my dreams. I have always let myself entertain the idea of an alternate life that I will someday live.

And because of that I am spending most of my life as a skeleton of a shrub. I require more pruning than the average person. I am stubborn in trying to force myself to bloom.

Jesus is the master of perfect timing, and he knows when I will be ready to flourish.

If I surrender my dreams, and turn the gun away from myself and just seek peace with where I am at in life, then I give God a chance to breathe back life into dreams that I have been trying to resuscitate for years.

Stormie, the author of the devotional ties it up this way, "Our life may look barren during a time, but God is actually freeing us from anything that does not bring forth life. This process of surrendering to the Lord, especially our dreams, is called pruning. A dying of our dreams. which is painful, especially if our identity is wrapped up in them."

Ok. That right there. That is the epiphany. That is the answer.

To quote one of my favorite shows Six Feet Under, someone asks the funeral director, "Why do people have to die?", and I love his answer, "To make life important."

So why do dreams have to die?

I think you know.

Fender Benders and The Disappearing Man

2009-05-12T06:39:00.001-07:00

So as I was driving into work today, I tuned in some Lori McKenna and was humming along to Witness to your Life (my favorite) as I was heading towards the downtown skyline on yet another work day.

She was singing about how all you need is someone who won't let you disappear, all you need is a witness to your life to make you feel important and purposeful. That line sticks with me, and will pop up in the strangest of times. When I burn a pancake, when I get lost, when I am being lazy, when I feel my dreams dying.

I listened to the song twice, and couldn't miss the beauty of the day. The morning was cool and thin, not thick and humid. I watched in envy as the barista at my coffee shop, whipped up a cappuccino with her eyebrow piercing, dyed black hair, and free spirit- I deduced she was either in school or was an artist. And then I took inventory of my own self. I felt so strange in my work clothes with my hair pulled back checking the clock every two minutes to be sure I wouldn't be late.

All I wanted to do was lay canvases all over my living room floor and paint for hours while listening to Sara Groves and Sonya Kitchell. I envisioned myself sitting on my deck, scribbling in my journal that I haven't touched in weeks, and just praising God in the glory of the day.

As I climbed back into my car and puttered into town, I came to a stop at the light. I stared down at my odometer, it read over 50,000 miles. I asked myself where have I been? In those miles what roads have I traveled? Which ones should I have avoided, and more importantly which miles have I avoided in order to stay on the safe and predictable?

All of a sudden I looked up and my bumper was kissing the bumper in front of me. I jerked my head back and threw the car in reverse. I could see the inquisitive blonde staring at me from her rear view window. Her eyebrows furrowed and her lip slightly curled up.

Crap.

The good news was that it wasn't a fender bender it was just a bumper kiss. We laughed it off, thankfully, and I got back into my car.

I was humbled.

Here I go thinking all about myself again, and how I hate feeling imprisoned by a building and computers and deadlines. It never fails, when I get so focused on myself I end up making stupid mistakes, or worse just not paying attention and bumping into other people while feeling sorry for myself.

I am not going to lie, this blog has little hints of pity me, but I am just mourning the slumber of my creative self. I miss my words, ideas, and songs that used to come to me- or more accurately the time that I used to have in order to wait for them to emerge. I miss the feeling of freedom and wonder, and how I used to witness the unfolding of a day. A slow reveal, that could be equal parts quiet and chaos.

Every day is a gift, but some days feel like an unopened present that just sits on the counter for days on end, ignored and unappreciated. In my house I have stacks of invisible gifts, days that were never truly opened, days that were never, nor ever will be, truly lived.

In the meantime I will have to settle for slowly disappearing. I do feel a quiet suffocation, one that is enforced by mortgages, exhaustion, disconnection, false excitement, empty emails, and paychecks.

My heart hurts, and I miss who I used to be.

I guess that's what happens as you grow up. You change.

Well, I need a little Benjamin Button action. I am not ready to let my old self disappear! I am not ready to turn myself over yet, I don't want to lose the childish imagination inside of me, the voice that whispers that dreams do come true.

Because lately, the grown up woman inside of me has been telling me they don't.

Shame on her.

Just Because I'm Losing Doesn't Mean I'm Lost

2009-05-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

I stole that line from Coldplay.

But it such a flipping sweet line, I felt compelled to jot down a few thoughts on the subject of losing.

As you may or may not have noticed, I have been as quiet as a nun on my blog this week. Not by choice mind you, but I have been silenced by the busyness of my life's little blip on the occupational radar. I have been taken hostage by deadlines, incredulous amounts of work, and my own fear of failure at a job that shouldn't define me, but has somehow become my standard of personal success.

Whenever I get apprehended by the importance of the non-important, I find myself constantly losing the battle towards forward progress.

Forward progress looks different for everyone. Some people want to improve their relationships, some people want a promotion, some people want a demotion, and some people just want some direction for direction's sake.

That's me. Just give me a reason Man, a purpose!

I would love to find a map in my mailbox that has a thickly drawn, red X over where I am supposed to be heading. Instead I open the mailbox and find Shape, Oxygen and Victoria's Secret magazines- all of which remind me of another battle I am losing, the race for a better butt.

For me forward progress looks like a balance between responsibility and rapture. I know my life can not be me sipping on tea all day long writing books, poems, songs and articles- not yet anyway. And so instead of trying to do both, I turn myself over to my "real job" so as to not have to face the fact that I am losing my creative pulse. It is fading in my ears, when it used to pump so loudly I could not make it stop.

I was listening to some talk radio show, and some guy called in to say that he was addicted to lying, but that it didn't start becoming a problem until he kicked his habitual drinking problem. The radio host called it "swapping addictions".

I am not addicted to my job. But I think I may addicted to false purpose. I think I have an "all or nothing" personality. I am the type of person who does things all the way or no way, and so as a result I have swapped out my addiction for prose and filled it in with paperwork and pin pushers.

Whatever makes me feel like I am doing something is my muse lately, even if its the wrong thing.

And that is the crux of my quest, just because I am doing something that doesn't utilize my creative bicep on a daily basis, is it wrong?

I don't think living our lives based upon what opportunities present themselves is wrong or right, I think it just is. Simply waiting around for the perfect thing isn't progression, that's in some respects, procrastination. I know this because I refused to get a job for a long time, just in case the call came in and I was to be whisked away to a lifetime of stardom, or at least to a life that would consist of constant monetary return on my art.

The truth was that I wanted to be different than everyone else. I didn't want to work full time as a bold testament to every one else and to myself that I wasn't ordinary. I wanted to believe that I wasn't sitting in rush hour traffic, dealing with office politics, and managerial hierarchy because I had THAT much faith in my talent.

Well that facade has been torn down. I didn't have that much "faith", it was just stubborn conceit. I now understand the joy of hard work and responsibility. It isn't glamorous but it is character building and it has opened my eyes to what is truly important to me.

It isn't my art.

My art is an extension of my happiness, and I am most happy when I productive with my time, whether that time serves me personally or not. As long as the progress is positive all gains are good.

But, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be some pursuing of our dreams while under the thumb of our responsibilities...it just gets to hard to determine what to do and what that looks like practically, especially when at the end of the day all I want to do is uncork a bottle of wine and watch I Love Lucy.

People say life is all about balance.

Well, at the time I am imbalanced. I guess I should work on that.

I never thought I would be working full time, while I watch my guitar on the wall gather dust and my running shoes remain too white.

Right now I am still pursuing what I should define in my life as hobby, therapy, and necessary.

As I am trying to stitch together which is what, I can only hope that tomorrow I will be a little closer to understanding my purpose than I am today.

Pottery Barn and Jesus' Champagne

2009-05-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am always trying to pawn my guest room off on anyone and everyone who wants to stay. I have what I like to call an entire "guest wing", which is really just another bedroom and bathroom that is on the other side of our one story home.

Over the last few months I have had all kinds of people come and stay in my guest wing. A brokenhearted man who was in the middle of a divorce. A Yosemite National Park high camp counselor who was used to sleeping under the stars, and consequently slept on top of the linens and sheets I washed for him. As well as a couple of my giggly best friends, and of course my family has stayed on occasion.

Today I spent the majority of the afternoon getting the guest room ready for another visitor. But this time I wanted to make sure the room was an inviting place. I wanted it to feel like a home away from home. I wanted it to be perfect for one of the people that I love the most in my life, my mother.

This meant the special details must be attended to. And not because I need to impress her, quite the opposite. If I didn't clean the sheets, gave her one flat pillow, and made her sleep on a mattress in the middle of a bare-walled room, she wouldn't even whisper a complaint. Instead, if I know my mom as well as I think I do, she would paint the walls, buy me a bed frame, hang up some art, and fleece the room with yummy smelling candles, as a "thank you" for having her stay. She is just that way, extremely giving and not at all pretentious.

Lucky for her, I do care about the guest quarters very much and so in preparation for her visit I vacuumed, washed the linens with an expensive lavender laundry detergent, and I lit candles in preparation. I even went to TJ Maxx, and bought a new shelf with a beautiful silver tree, as hanging wall art.

I made the bed with hot sheets right out of the dryer and folded them down like in a Pottery Barn magazine so that the pattern was visible and smooth. I filled a gift bag with a book I bought her and placed it on the center of the bed.

I opened up the blinds which ushered in the mute blanket of purple-tinged, rainy day light- which had a calming effect on the space. The rain was dripping in between the branches of our backyard tree. Its color is now a bright pop of Kelly green since its spring. It's vibrancy stretches out right in front of the guest room window, making the room seem more alive. Refreshing.

I watched a single pearl of rain as it fell haphazardly through the branches. It plunked out natural notes with each fall, much like a chromatic scale, creating an inaudible yet visible scale of sound on each leaf it splashed against. The high notes at the top of the tree were followed by the mid range and then finished out with the baritone pitch of the fat plonks on the bottom bough.

I turned around to look at the room. I was very proud of it. It looked like it could be in an issue of it's own, like a perfectly staged bed and breakfast. The accent lights were gooey and comforting, the smells were a mix of spice and spring, and the carpet was soft and clean.

I felt an excitement rise in my heart, and a swelling of my soul. I always get this way when my mom gets to come down from Seattle and spend time with me. I blew out the candles and stole one more glance at the room before leaving it.

I have gone back into the room a few more times since I spruced it up. Each time I notice how eager the room is for someone to be in it. The clean floor is just begging for a messy suitcase, the perfect bedspread is crying out for a wrinkle, or a stray sock. The bed side table is requesting a half drank glass of water, and the closet is clamoring for some clothes to fill the empty hangers.

And then it dawned on me. This must be what our rooms in heaven look like. Prepared and waiting, even the walls wait with bated breath in anticipation for our arrival. The tree outside of the window is just a shrub, but grows with each year of our life that is lived. So by the time we open the shades, we will see a full grown version of our family tree. In the blossom of spring.

And I can just imagine God pacing back and forth across the room. Sitting on the bed, running his hands across the pattern in the fabrics. Fixing an off kilter picture on the wall, painting the weather outside to match the cadence of calmness so that after our long journey we can finally feel what it means to truly rest. He nervously taps his boot against the floor, watching the second hand on the clock creep its way closer to our meeting. He has gifts on the bed, the finest linens on the bed and a bottle of champagne chilling on ice.

God gets a bad rap as the one who wrecks havoc on the world, kills people in violent storms, and leaves millions to their own starvation and sickness, but imagine a world where all the imperfections of humanity were eradicated, and all that was left was simply love. A tree that was nothing but leaves of love sewn together from lifetimes of hard journeys and joyous victories.

To be honest, I don't get the guest room this spiffed up for just anyone. I do of course clean the sheets and put a candle or two in there, but I don't spend as much energy as I did for other guests as I do for my mom. This is only because I know my mom so very well, and I really want to make this place nice for her.

We share DNA, we share a lifetime of memories, and we have shared a million pee-in-your-pants laughs, we are best friends.

That is what it is like to be a believer.

To have that kind of love and affection and connection with Jesus, and vice versa.

Sound freakish? Intangible as it is, the entire dynamic of the relational exchange is the same. If you allow yourself to step outside of the boundary of reality, which is made up of man made institutions, theory and relativity it is possible to imagine such a place. And if we can leave behind our broken perceptions of family which are unfortunately drawn by fathers who abused us, and one that is marred by the addictions that stole our mothers, and by the jealousy which has robbed us of true friendship- we can imagine a home that we actually want to go to. If we can peer into the paradigm of what is actual truth and not just what is perceived to be true- we can begin to see the outline of a bedroom door in the distance. One that holds no fear, nothing but acceptance.

God says he loves us like nobody can ever love us. He loves deeper than we are capable of. This isn't the type of Hallmark love, that is commercialized and watered down to empty words and palsy poetry. It is a love that bleeds, that is hard to watch, that is insane, and yet gentle.

My little guest room is nothing fancy, but it is a little slice of heaven in the sense that my human desire to serve, prepare, and provide for is demonstrated in the tender care that I put into that 10x10 room. That desire is from the original composer of comfort.

Until then, remember there is someone who desperately misses you and is waiting for you, even when you feel like a stranger in your own home. Or like most of us, utterly alone.

More Like a Measuring Cup and a Watering Can

2009-04-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

I don't pray as much as I should.

Prayer is a loaded word, because it sounds so spiritual, but really it is just talking to God and truly believing He hears. Well that's what I consider prayer to be. So I guess it is a little "spiritual" in the sense that it calls for a measure of faith- well actually it calls for more than a measure, more like a measuring cup of faith.

If I am honest about it, prayer kind of eludes me. I don't know how powerful it is, because I can truly say I have never been one of those prayer warriors, who sets aside hours of their day to be on their hands and knees in prayer.

The title "prayer warrior" is such Christianese too. It's a term that seems to be reserved for those elite members that have direct lines into heaven. I used to know someone who would stand on the street outside of our house and pray while cars would whiz by. That kind of stuff makes my skin crawl.

Maybe I shouldn't feel that way , but it's never felt natural to me. The thing that is most strange about prayer is that you are basically talking to someone you have never seen, shaken hands with or audibly heard- and yet you divulge your deepest needs, biggest dreams, and largest shortcomings in a way that gives you freedom from yourself.

I used to journal my prayers, and sometimes still do, but have found that speaking out loud, or thinking a prayer to myself has been more of the route I have taken lately.

This morning as I was half mumbling and half out-louding my prayer, it occurred to me that we all have half parts darkness and half parts lightness in us. I find that the ratio of darkness to light is dependent upon what you do with the light and the dark. This morning, I was praying that my darkness would be overshadowed by the light, since I was feeling a heaviness, my dark was winning a little.

That is a prayer I should never stop praying, because my darkness- my self-interest, my hurtful behavior, my stupidity, my addictiveness, my fears- always seems to infringe upon my light if left alone too long.

The longer I go believing that I am full of light, the quicker I can be overtaken by the dark.

I was reading 1 Corinthians this morning and I read something in a new way. Paul is talking to the crazy Corinthians and he says "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God that gives the growth." And then he wraps up this by saying, "You are God's field."

I like this because it gives me a little bit of direction. This gives me a purpose, and a small glimpse of what my role is in the big plan. I know I am not a planter, and I sure as hell know I am not God, so that leaves me one option: I am a waterer in the panoramic scope of God's field.

I am not a torrential downpour, I am more like a watering can, but I am a waterer none the less. We are all good at different things, I imagine that planters are better at standing on the street corners and praying for the world to see, and waterers, like myself, are the ones who watch from inside while working out their own measure of faith- one cup at a time.

It's a different journey for everyone. But we are all a part of the same field. We are all blades of grass that dance in the wind, get beat down by the storms, or bask in the sun. Some have deeper roots, some are newly planted, and some are on their way to dying.

Prayer is water for my soul. It keeps those dark times from taking me underground.

Like God says, "Let light shine out of darkness".

We are capable of great things, and not because we are talented, or beautiful, or smart, but because we have been given all the tools we need to grow.

I know I am growing. I know this because it is painful to shed the old shadows and take on the new sun scape- and I feel the pinch. Not changed, just changing.

I know this blog is a little heavy on the preach, but I needed to be reminded that I am a part of something. I am a single plant that makes up the field, and so are you. What I do does matter, even if all I do is exist to grow.

So all this talk is just to remind myself to pray more, and to cheer each other on- Go Field!

Emotional Rollercoaster

2009-04-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Today I got to work and had a strange twist in my stomach.

It wasn't sickness, it wasn't nervousness. It wasn't fear, and it wasn't excitement.

My senses felt oddly alert, almost neon, radiating outside of myself. It was almost as if something was happening around me in the shell of my everyday that I was missing. Something was different, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I could hear a low buzz (one like those blue fly traps that emit a lullaby to lure unsuspecting insects to their death) humming in my brain.

Was I a fly on the way to my death?

Probably not.

However, last night I was apprehended by the strangest dreams.

I am not a stranger to disturbing dreams, I swear I had a solid year where I never had a good dream- just car wrecks, pregnancy scares, and a few anxiety-mares about showing up late or getting lost for some important date.

Last night was one stressful dream after another. For instance, I had one dream that was like a flashing image over and over of a couple using my blender to make smoothies, but they didn't put the lid on and so everything spilled out in a spray of pink and yellow. Whoever was manning the blender was in hysterics. I was not.

And then I had a dream about a file folder. One that was so full, and so time sensitive that I didn't know where it went or what I was supposed to do with it, but I knew it was important. I remember feeling my fingers clutching it like my last dollar bill. And so I just held onto this overstuffed file folder, looking at people in suits passing me by wondering if I should ask someone if they could identify why this file folder was so important, and why it was causing me so much stress, and most of all why in the world I had it!

So I tossed and turned with these snapshots of annoying cul-de-sac dreams, waking up unrefreshed and worried.

I know that dreams may mean nothing, but sometimes I wonder if they are more powerful than we give them credit for.

Today, something changed. I am not sure what that will look like for me in the future, and at this time I am not at liberty to give details, but the truth is that I am tackling some big issues about what in the world I was created to do. What is my point? There is one right?

Jesus came to serve. That was his biggest message. He didn't come to get, he didn't come to be the next American idol, and he didn't die so that he could be in a movie about his life thousands of years later that would make him millions.

He came to give. To sacrifice. To humble himself.

And this is where I get completely confused.

I know what I am good at in this life, but if I don't have opportunities to do those things, then what am I supposed to do?

Quit my job, and run into the hills to make music and write books and screenplays for an audience of one?

No.

That's not giving, that's selfish.

But if you want to add another very politically incorrect layer to the cake, what am I supposed to do with those people who think that women shouldn't want to be successful in the work world, especially if I greatly respect those people, and honestly love them?

Could I perhaps find a purpose in a job- one that is to put myself aside and serve others? To show up to a place everyday where I don't get the glory, where it is never nor will ever be about me and what I bring to the table?

I was told once that any employee is just as important as putting your fist in a bucket of water. If you put your fist in and find that when you pull it out there is still an imprint of your fist than you are irreplaceable. If not, don't ever think you can't be replaced.

Not so comforting.

I don't want my emotions to make important business decisions for me. I don't want my lack of excitement in my life to be the determining factor of if I am where I should be in this world or not.

I don't want to hide out, or more accurately, hide behind a desk if there is something else that God is calling me to do.

But the phone lines on this matter have been silent, and so I am just going to keep on keeping on until that changes.

In the meantime, I think my dreams last night were prophetic, since I may be taking a detour on this crazy ride called self-discovery, and I am holding a file I am afraid to open, or more accurately afraid to close.

Confessions of a Closet Attention-holic

2009-04-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

This is a hard blog for me to write.

Nobody likes revealing ugly truths about themselves. But if the truth hurts that means that there will be a period of healing, so I guess I should tell it.

First of all, I am not the type of person that wants to be the center of attention all the time. In fact, being center stage makes me break out in uncomfortable nervous sweats, and yet I find myself in the spotlight more often than not. Sometimes of my own accord, and sometimes I am forced.

I like attention, and yet I hate it at the same time.

It's a strange dichotomy.

The truth is that I am a shy person by nature, and because of that I can come across as aloof or inattentive, but really I am so self-conscious about things I say and do that I just try to stay out of my own way.

Except for when I drink wine.

I do not think that having a drink is bad, quite the contrary, I am hoping to open a vineyard. Which I have named Six Stone Winery (and I already have a label idea), on my dad's farm. This is where I plan to retire, sipping wine and watching the sun go down.

The problem is when I drink wine in social environments where I feel uncomfortable. This is usually when my husband has business events, or when we hang out with a large group of people we don't know very well. And then, well I don't sip wine, I drink it. When I drink too much wine, I want all eyes on me. I all of a sudden become a one-liner generator, I laugh too loud, talk too much, and generally make a scene.

It's the strangest thing. And I hate it.

I hate it because that's not me. Its me pretending to be the girl that is comfortable in her own skin, but instead I am just comfortable drowning in the skin of a dozen grapes. This is escapism at its worst.

For instance the other night, I was escaping into a comfortable quieting of my inner insecurities, and someone called out that I should play the guitar and entertain them. Of course, this is a bad idea. First of all, I am a horrible guitar player, and secondly this type of on-the-spotness will require more imbibing. Suffice to say, it was a horrible rendition of some song I made up on the spot, and everyone kind of sat there blinking at me. To which I replied, "Can I have another glass of wine please?"

This is what I am sure in psychiatry is called a coping mechanism. In my world, I think it is a sin. Christ is the cope I need. First of all, there is nothing wrong with being the quiet girl that keeps to herself. But for some reason with my background in acting, pageants and music I feel like I have to deliver stellar answers like a good little pageant queen all the time. Blech!

I feel inadequate because I never graduated college. I feel inept because I am not as funny as I try to be. I still struggle with old, bad body issues. Ones that Hollywood gave me and that used to show themselves in very disturbing behavior.

But God truly saved me from myself. He truly took all the pressure off of me, so that I could finally say, "I am not that funny, and who cares! I am not perfect, perfection is boring!"

Somewhere along the line I forgot that He did this for me. And as a result have been taking the mic on too many occasions to try my hand at "look-at-me" karaoke.

This is not a self-bashing blog, I just needed to work out this issue in writing, since that is true therapy for me. People-pleasers is what I am told defines my problem. Why do I care so much about what strangers think?

I think everything somehow stems back to childhood, and I still remember being embarrassed by my home life. My dad sold Amway, we drove nice cars and my mom always had on red high heels. Growing up in a town that didn't even have a stoplight, we were the talk of the town, and I am sure the butt of more than a few jokes. Ever since I started noticing people treating us differently, I wanted desperately to blend into the background.

I still remember when my dad picked me up from school one day in a shiny new corvette, I was so embarrassed that I hid down by the floorboards and cried. Cried! Because my dad was successful, when I should have been proud of the kind of life he was giving to our family, and had worked so hard for.

I am not sure if that relates to what I struggle with today, but I feel like it might. I want to hang up the phone on this desperation that I have to please people. My coping mechanism is not helping me cope at all, its just revealing how truly flawed I am. The joke's on me.

At the root of it all, I need to get back to the real me. I need to cultivate the soul shyness, and dial back the white lies. I embellish things when I get nervous which always results in my husband having to reel me back in. What a catch he is. I am sure I have embarrassed him on more than one occasion with my blurting out-and-about, but he is patient and is willing to help me mold my integrity as a woman and as wife. It's not easy.

I need to pray when I get in situations where I am trying to look as normal as I am not.

All of us have this fear of being found out. Whether we are hiding the good or the bad in ourselves, we all wear masks somehow. But I am tired of mine.

I realize that I claim that I hate attention, but if alcohol truly is the elixir of truth, then in times of utter honesty I have this basement need for pats on the back's or affirmation from others. So I am recommitting myself to stop trying so hard. I am giving myself free reign to be quiet if I need to. Even to the point of awkward.

Self discovery is such a buzz word. Like we are all on this maiden voyage mapping out places of our souls with black X's and pin pushers. But since I have been in Nashville, I feel like I have been growing as a person. I am being tested, stretched and shaped. Growing pains are just that, painful. But lately I have been making discoveries of my own on my life-map. And in doing so those bits of me that I want to eradicate are getting weeded out and those I want to prune and protect I am beginning to treasure.

Addiction is such an ugly word, and yet it applies to everyone. We all have something we keep going back to, whether its weed, a bad relationship, a memory, a favorite song, a place...we all have good and bad places of escape.

I am just reminding myself that I need to escape into the arms of Jesus. Sounds trite? It might be, but you are not the one I am trying to please.

Not anymore.

Black and white and where the heck am I?

2009-04-23T14:37:00.000-07:00

Tired, Tired and my Cat's on Fire

2009-04-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

Last night was one of those nights where my entire body and mind were absolutely exhausted by the time I got home from work.

The previous night of restless sleep did not help much. It was one of those convoluted slumbers in which I could feel the slow, creeping dawn of yet another Monday awaiting me on the other side of awake.

However, after I had faced the day, done my duties, and slurped coffee like, well...a Slurpee, I still felt a heaviness on my shoulders. Tiredness tugged at my eyelids. My skin was a fresh shade of fluorescent-beaten ash, and my eyelashes had left fuzzy imprints of themselves in staggered, flakes of day old mascara.

But even as my car puttered home, I still could not shake this sense of ever doing, never done. I am in the midst of a strange time at my job (lots of work and not lots of hands to do it), it didn't energize me- it depleted me in every sense of the word.

Stumbling into my house, all I could dream about was drawing a hot bath. Letting the water work its way into my weariness while thumbing through a few of the new books that I was reading, sounded not too short of heaven.

I knew I had a few little chores to do around the house first so I took the clean sheets out of the dryer and made the bed. With every pull of the fabric, I felt my muscles knotting and cramping, and the bathtub whispering sweet nothing's from the adjacent room.

I loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, falling asleep once in the middle of a coffee-mug put away.

I poured my ravenous self some salsa and dipped turkey and tortilla chips into it. Not quite comfort food, but fatigue punched me in the gut every time I even imagined chopping, dicing, or cooking- let alone doing the dishes (again) after the feeble feast was prepared.

After it was all done and the emails were checked, and the blackberry docked- I finally made a bee-line for the bathroom. I lit candles, collected my books, grabbed a fluffy towel that was still warm from the dryer, and watched with anticipation as the level of the bath tub water began to rise.

And when the time came, I slipped in.

A soothing, "Ahhhh..." muttered from between my lips and an exhale soared through the room. Tension melted from my shoulders, and slipped out from between my toes. I drank in the scent of my Gardenia Lavender candle that was quickly spreading throughout the bathroom.

I reached up for my book, and slowly read the pages. Drinking in the words, getting lost in the story, analyzing the writing style, identifying the themes. I was taking my time. (Which is a departure from my usual speed reading which I do when I am trying to jam brain-food in on my lunch break, or when I am on the couch trying to read with the roaring boil of TV commercials or Friends re-runs competing for my attention.)

Speaking of, if I hear another Free Credit Report.com commercial I swear I might throw my precious book right through the plasma! Seriously, how many angles about some guy with bad credit can there possibly be? The guy has now worked at a seafood restaurant, and played at a Renaissance fair? I guess you have to give them kudos for absolute absurdity, but the commercials aggravate me to the point of muting, or yes, literary violence.

Anyway, my cat, Mojo, is absolutely obsessed with water, so after I had filled up the bath, he bounded over. Carefully stepping around the edges of the bath, he would dip a paw into the water in awe. Petting him absentmindedly, I was feeling quite cozy. Mojo likes to butt heads with me, much like in The Lion King when Nala and Simba roll around in the jungle- I imagine it is their way of giving kitty kisses.

So he leans in for a little loving, and I turn my head to "kiss" him back. His eyes were closed, and his purr reverberated through his little chest. I smiled at him, and watched him gingerly round the tub again. But this time, as he waltzed by, I noticed a billow of black smoke curling into the air from behind him. And then I sniffed...my cat was on fire!

I instinctively threw water all over my cat, and stuck his tail into my bath. Which caused a thousand little balls of black cat hair to accumulate across the surface of the water. The stench of burning human hair has nothing on burning feline hair, it is combination of kitty litter and finger nail polish remover. Gac!

Mojo of course freaked out and ran into the bedroom, dragging black tufts of wet, singed cat hair all along the bathroom floor and onto my carpet.

And then there I was. Stunned.

The candle was snuffed out by tails-end, the bath water was now thick with a layer of black, crusty cat hair, my book was drenched like a prune. The whole unexpectedness of the scene was permeated by a smell that couldn't possibly be choked out by my gardenia lavender candle, it just hung in the air like something from Pepe Le Pew.

I had two choices:

1) Stay in the tub, re-light the candle, spray some Oust and try to ignore the floating pieces of smoldering kitty tail, and just enjoy the night like I had planned, and had needed in so many ways.

Or

2) Pull the plug. Pack it in and just call it like it is- death by Felis Catus sacrifice.

And just like that, I laughed. A good old fashioned, "life is so ridiculously annoying, it has to be funny" laugh. It was then that I noticed that I had been taking life way too seriously.

So with that, I bid adieu to my evening of relaxation, and just chalked it up to another life lesson learned.

Cats are sadistic.

Bad Moods- Reflections on the Detrimental Effects of Twilight

2009-04-16T06:52:00.000-07:00

I am in a bad mood.

Not that I should be.

Not that I have any good reason to be.

Not that I need to advertise an emotion that will pass as briefly as my terse obsession with Sugar in the Raw. (I tried to substitute it for Splenda for about 2 days and, um, not gonna happen- it does NOT sweeten, which is the entire reason for its existence, and it becomes a gelatinous layer of brown goo on the bottom of my mug without fail).

So why blog about my bad mood?

So why admit, that amidst my quest for becoming a woman of God, I am struggling with some of the most basic twists of human defectiveness in the shape of envy, coveting, and discontentment?

Because as I was spending way too much time thinking about myself in this last 24 hour period, I have been trying to pinpoint my gray cloud. Where did it come from?

Last night I watched Twilight for the second time. I watched one my favorite stories of all time unfold before my eyes in the comfort of my own home with LC. I watched an explosion of a love story and I felt myself get sucked in through the breathless whispers of forever love, forever protection, and forever pursuit. I watched an ordinary girl get swept up by the most extraordinary man.

And I was jealous.

I still am.

Jealous over a fictitious character? Over a fable? Over a vampire love story? Give me a break!

My humanity drives me crazy sometimes.

But the root of the matter is grounded in our culture's obsession with creating our own personal Hollywood's within the walls of our ordinary lives. The truth is that we are all chained to an average, battered, disappointing, endless dirty counter topped, overflowing laundry piled, weight gained and coming of aged, broken world.

I know I can not be the only Twilight obsessed girl, that fell head over heels into a delicious stew of star crossed love. So I wonder if I am the only girl who compares Edward to her man? My Lord, this is so shallow, but it is striking a very dissonant chord in my heart, because I am wired for romance and for pursuit, but I think I have the characters in the story wrong.

I want to have someone head over heels in love with me, no matter how clumsy, forgetful, ridiculous, moody, and fantastical I am. I want unconditional attention and adoration. I want someone to worship me. Me, Me, I , I , want, want, NOW! I am like the little blueberry girl in Willy Wonka.

And aside from sounding preachy, because I will no matter what, that is a sin. I am in sin, I want to be a little god to someone.

This makes me feel so vacant. First of all, because this type of thinking just produces dissension between my adorable husabnd and I. And secondly, that kind of love will never exist for me in this lifetime. Two humans can't create supernatural love. It is impossible.

Last night, my unsuspecting husband came home from playing Frisbee. With the Twilight drug still swimming in my veins, I had images of him throwing the door open, walking across the room with a sense of urgency, pulling me out from my chair and kissing me with such tender need. He would stare into my face and say, "You are my life now."

Instead this is the way the evening unfolded: He walked into our house sweaty, red-faced, distracted and starving. Pulling a pizza out of the freezer, he slammed himself down on the couch, turned on ESPN, and began scrolling though his Blackberry. I sat at the table watching him. He munched away on the pizza, mouth open.

Does he not notice that his bride is sitting by herself at the kitchen table? Doesn't he see my ordinary sweat pants and disheveled hair through a love lens in which I am transformed into the most beautiful creature that ever walked the planet? Can't he see through the surface to the heart of me?"

And then he speaks, "This pizza is really good."

And then I stomp off into the bedroom. As I am dissecting all the things that are wrong with me, wrong with my simple life, and even shamefully wrong with the way I feel so comfortable with my husband. (best friends we are, obsessive-lust soaked lovers...we are not, well not everyday anyway), I wonder...what happened to us? What happened to when he was nervous to even call me, and would stumble over his words?

I will tell you what happened. Our love deepened. Our love became cemented in the real and not in the ethereal. We started a life together, and along with that came the destruction of those walls that keep the ordinary out.

When you date you can hide unshaven armpits, bathroom behavior, smelly breath, your forgetfulness, mask your temper, tame your tongue. When you marry, those are the things that you see and hear most of the time.

I am still a Twilight fan. Probably always will be. And Edward is an excellent character, but he is just an extension of the author's imaginary perfect man. And I often wonder if she created him to fill that vacancy in every woman's heart, as well as her own, in which we long for this prince charming to love us with all of our scars. Much like the final scene in Slumdog Millionaire, when he kissed the scar along her face with the sensitivity of a saint and with the passion of a man bound to endless pursuit.

So, my bad mood.

I think I have worked this one out. I can already feel it melting away from the edges of my tense jaw.

So how do we coalesce the desire we find stitched into our hearts for the endless pursuit with the reality of the roadblocks we find in life? The little things, like dirt under our fingernails, that will never be completely ridden. The open-mouth pizza chewing, and dirty socks behind the dryer?

Perhaps, let me get behind my pulpit, we will never find that kind of love in this life. I think there is a reason for that. Maybe God is saving such a culmination of unadulterated belonging for our first face to face. I imagine He is. Otherworldly love can only be found in some kind of heaven, perhaps the real one.

Yes I believe in heaven. Yes I believe in God's unconditional love for all of us. Some may call it blind ignorance, the type of which bliss is associated, but I just call it truth.

So instead of love being a glittered, golden, faultlessly proportionate corner of perfection driving a fancy car in designer clothes- I think that love is more like your favorite pair of jeans, the ones with a rip in the knee, soft and cottony, warm and familiar. The pair you would put on when riding a two-seater bike down a dirt road with a breeze in your face.

And for my final point, let's not forget that Edward is undead, which means that the heaven I believe in, he will never pass through this life into it. Aside from him being completely fictional, which means that he is caught in a story which is neither real nor fake, even his character is not alive.

I still believe that my ordinary life is going to lead me to an extraordinary love.

And that is not fiction, that is a matter of fact.

No Time to Call My Own

2009-04-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

Work has been über busy, so I have neglected my blog. But I have a lot of reflections gathering in my head so I apologize in advance for the long-winded blog that will soon be penned. In the meantime as a follow up to my last blog, this pretty much encapsulates number 7 on The Things I Like List.

Blessings,
M

First Image Courtesy of: LeLe Green

Tally Time- Things I Like, Things I Don't

2009-04-09T11:26:00.001-07:00

Don't:

1) People riding my butt in 35 mph zones. I mean seriously, the turtle pace is due to the little children or pups that may wander out into the road unexpectedly, and I have extremely slow reflexes.
2) Guys who wear foundation, straighten their hair, or use words like, "hang" and "bro".
3) Skinny jeans. Period.
4) Legalists.
5) The noise that buses make when they pass you on the street and make you momentarily deaf.
6) The never ending gathering of cat hair in the far corners of every room in my house.
7) Toby Keith
8) People thinking that since I like country music I must like Toby Keith
9) Shortcuts that are long cuts
10) Humidity

Like:
1) The smell after the rain
2) People who are experts in trivial pursuit, personal heroes.
3) The way my husband smells, that delicious boy scent- its a mix of laundry detergent and faded cologne.
4) Red wine on a date night, white wine at a BBQ
5) Sleeping in
6) Girls with guitars
7) Little girls who wear princess outfits to the supermarket
8) Old men in newsboys caps
9) The Seattle Skyline when you can see it
10) Jesus

Photo Courtesy of: Laura McConnell

The Greenhouse Effect

2009-04-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

A few months back I wrote a long blog about how I thought that online communication through Myspace, Facebook, texting, blogging, twittering (which I still refuse to engage in), and even emailing is cutting off the circulation of human-to human connection. I also touched on the fact that we are becoming reliant upon these nomenclatures of correspondence in lieu of the written word, a phone call, or a face to face coffee chat.

One of my friends, let's just call him Bolt, approached me months ago after reading my blog and said he strongly disagreed with me. I couldn't understand why. What is wrong with trying to reach out to those we can, physically, wholly, and in real time? What's wrong with refusing to become robots of response in a world that encourages us to keep a rapid fire digital diary?

Well, I think a retraction is in order. I think Bolt may have a point.

I do still believe that humans need interaction. People need to hug, to cuddle, to talk things out, to get mail, to hold hands, to whisper, to laugh- in person, BUT for those of us that are chained to our desks, (me...) we spend the majority of our lives disconnected from reality. We don't feel the wind, we don't hear the rain, we don't feel the sun from Monday through Friday, 9-5pm, It's sad, but temporary. Truthfully, I don't even know what the weather is like outside most days, unless I can accurately judge the way the shadows glow on the building outside of my office.

This harsh reality makes it difficult to feel anything beyond the blue cast of our computer screens, let alone the warmth of someones hand or the reassurance of someones voice when we are at our respective places of employment. A lot of times it is in those moments that we most need a kind word. So where else can we get that much needed encouragement besides what my Great Uncle calls the "interweb".

This is where my fellow bloggers, my Facebook and my Myspace friends have fused the digital with the real- I am convinced that even though there are trillions of data exchanges and keyboard combinations talking place in the course of one day- I can still feel the thump of a human heart beating, I can see the tilt of a concerned head, I can feel the effects of a heartfelt prayer, a whisper of understanding, a smile of joy.

Lately, I have been candid with emotions, struggles, failures, and fears. I blog because I really feel that those who read and respond care...most of these people I have never met and may never meet, and the others are those who may be miles away from me, or even down the hall in which they feel compelled to stop by my desk and make sure everything is ok.

This is exactly how we off set the unsubstantial effects that can be developed through flat, thin, one-dimensional robotic responses, by using words that do not simply "advertise" but empathize.

Miss Green sent me this link: Walk On, and really inspired me to, well plainly, shut up. We all have obstacles, some much greater than others. Some obstacles are mentally disabling, some are physically disabling. Some of these obstacles are imagined road blocks. I know sometimes I create "I can't-isms", to give myself an endorsed reason to shy away from my full potential.

After watching this video, (and sending it to my mom), she sent me an email asking what my "final day on the PGA" would look like. What are those moments that I am waiting for? She said that she wants to celebrate these milestones with me when I overcome the fears that hold me back.

So here is what my "final day on the PGA tour" would look like:

-Have my book on the New York Times bestseller list
-Watch my daughter finger paint her first piece of art and frame it
-Be in a period film by a renown producer
-Celebrate the day I begin "working from home"
-Hear a song of mine in a film that is playing in theaters nationally

Big goals? Yes. Crazy? Maybe. Perhaps impossible? No. Anything is possible.

I encourage you to allow your online relationships to be real. I know I am lucky enough to feel like mine are. I get encouragement in the most important of times, when I am in the middle of a mundane Monday or caught in a long spans of the same. We can all grow by being honest, open, and willing to invest in the "mist" of online companionship.

Besides, if you work full time and spend the majority of your life in the same place, it is the mental traveling that gets us where we need to be.

Who knows maybe our offices are acting like greenhouses incubating our potential. You can't fully appreciate anything in life, unless you know what it's like to be without it. In order for us to fully enjoy and drink in what the earth has to offer us there is a season for us to be controlled, pruned, and locked inside. When we finally get the opportunity to be planted where we belong, we will appreciate the open spaces, the blue sky and the soft dance of the rain.

Continually believing that you have something to offer, a story to tell, and one that is worth reading, listening, or even, yes...twittering about- means that you are still alive, and keeping your eyes up, searching for the patches of blue in the sky.

Thank you to all of my bloggers, Facebookers, Myspacers, and my family and friends that encourage me to keep my head up, I promise I will always do the same for you.

Fragile Heart- Fraying Around the Edges

2009-04-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

For lack of an original thought, I will quote the ever world-wise words of the sunny pop-princess, Colbie Caillat and agree that "It's kind of tough getting older".

As time continues to march across my face and across the calendar, I can't ignore this knotting in my chest. This still small voice that seems to taunt me, nagging at the edges of my life, pulling at the unfinished threads that are being twisted in the wind, and asking me, "Is this it? What are you missing? Are you not looking hard enough? Not trying hard enough?"

I don't think the voice nagging me can necessarily be answered or hushed with a solid, tangible answer. I don't think it is as simple as solving equations to discover what this "something" is that I find subtracted from my life. It's an overwhelming sense of heaviness- a heaviness that I have deduced to call depravity.

But before I get all emo, and depress the rest of this blog into a thin line of "pity me, please", the depravity of my humanity isn't depression or sadness. It's a realistic understanding that life isn't heaven. It's just life.

And my life's continual sense of lacking will never be completely filled. That makes my heart a little heavy. Can I become momentarily satiated? Surely. Completely assuaged? Never.

My frailty, my tendency to fail, to slip, to trip and to fall is just as normal as breathing, laughing, loving- this hole that sometimes seems blacker than other days will always be. It is called imperfection.

The world is flooded with images of so-called perfection which enhances and increases the cavernous divide between myself and my intangible discontentment. It's a spiritual matter. I need God. He fills in the hole that I have crammed full of putty. A quick fix that didn't fix anything is now marred with flecks of dirt and grime, from foot traffic and clumsy behavior. He caps off my nervousness, he pops the pithiness of my bubbling white lies. He silences the nerves that cause me to jerk away, and to be a jerk.

The hard part about dealing with emotions in a practical way, is that emotions, feelings, premonitions, and wonderment can not be spit out of a gumball machine in round, shiny balls of matter of fact. There is no machine. Being a human that is both parts science and spirit, is a constant conflicting rendering. When I try to compose the exaction of what my feelings compute, what they mean in real time and space, it just comes out sounding like a humming bird. Too fast to understand, and too monotone to translate.

This weekend was a strange one. The weather was nice, I felt relaxed and I had a normal time. Hanging out with friends, being with my husband- drinking coffee and eating salsa and chips-, it was great. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could have prepared me for my emotional crash.

But some times the movie set of all it all, just falls down, and I see the stage for what it is. A facade. Dust covered, and dark. My fantasies and selfish ambition, is just putty in the hole.

The real problem lies deeper. Inside.

This is a little more personal than I like to share, especially on a blog- but I think it is necessary for me to just be honest. For me. I slept on the couch this weekend for the first time in my marriage.

There was no huge fight, there was no devastating problem, there was just a trillion little paper cuts that added up to a huge gaping wound.

We talked it out, but not until the morning after. We spent three hours discussing some things we would like to change about how we interact, who we interact with, and how we spend our time. It was very necessary but arduous.

When you move thousands of miles away from your friends and family and are trying to decipher who you are as individuals and who you are as a couple, it can result in some wear and tear. And without the buffer of friends and family, you are kind of standing naked in the wind, trying to figure it all out. Trial and Eros, troubleshooting a clay pigeon.

Which is good. That kind of figuring produces growth not just facts.

But I still have a little splinter in my heart, and not because I don't think my husband and I came to an understanding, and worked some stuff out, but because I know that this is just the beginning of a life time of stumbling through the dark, trying to define spiritual pain in a physical world.

I am grateful for grace. I am grateful for slits of sunlight in a boarded up room. I am looking forward to the ever after, days on end with sparkling lemonade and uncovered truth that carries no sting.

Until then, I will keep marching on. Love conquers all, however I am beginning to understand it's not an instantaneous defeat. Its a continuous time line of plotted victories and defeat, a wearing down of your defensive lines and a blurring of battle and peace.

I am blessed to have a husband like I do. I am saved and kept.

But we all have to guard our hearts, since they are so fragile. We all have to hem ourselves in, since just a single fray can make it all come undone.

"And I feel you here
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like
Character" ~ Sara Groves

Listless Laundry

2009-03-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

Its a blink
a passing through
A whisper of a smile
fading to blue

A flicker of memories,
A fade out of sound
It's a slow rise to fall,
A short flight to ground

Capture each moment
a fictitious firefly
Glow like the dawn
Until the dew dries

Its a world of not
Not of this world
It's a paper plane
A ribbon to curl

Stay in my hand
so as to feel the flutter
a heartbeat of a dream
a word from a stutter

I can't keep it up
the race to the page
where the words drop off
and I am replaced

By a quiet hum
a drilling of a drum
a nothing in place
of an average of sums

A bright spot I find
and rub it to gold
knowing that work
is a life that I sold

Keep in mind
Its not all the same
Some days are good
this one's a game

Back and forth
on a checkered board
Two steps behind
a ring of a chord

Twist me up
in a bundle of okay
Since that is the goal
from day to day

It's not about hills
It's not about depth
it's not about losing
or keeping my breath

It's all for the song
the one chorus I create
a symphony of small hums
a rhythmic, swift gait

Breaking out
Some day I will
Freely be sweeping
the lands that I fill

Exhausting the path
dusting the shelf
It's all just a matter
of making oneself

Laundry is Listless
But chores make change
Consistently resistant
God take me away

To a place of ever sunset
to a home of never alone
to a place of rest
And of peace for my soul

Loss and the Power of a Chocolate Chip

2009-03-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

Last night my husband's grandmother died.

What is even more sad is that this is the third grandparent in the last five months that has passed away. Which means that my mother-in-law has no parents left. Stephen, my husband, said that he heard that death in older generations happens in 3's. I am not sure where that statistic comes from, but it seems to be true.

I made chocolate chip cookies last night before I heard the news, and somehow burnt every single one of them by the time the news had gotten to me. So much for trying to feed my husband's soul with some comfort sweets.

There is nothing comforting about carcinogens.

Loss and death is such an unfortunate part of life. Even last week, a receptionist that works next door lost her dad. She came over to my office to ask if I would get any mail that may be delivered since she would be heading to the funeral. I said of course, and just tried to say whatever words of encouragement that I could. She teared up.

The pain was so fresh.

This morning as I got into work to fill out bereavement paperwork so that I could attend the funeral in St. Louis, the woman from the next office over, came by with an entire box of unburnt, gooey looking, delectable chocolate chip cookies.

She just nodded her head, letting me know with her eyes that this was about her dad. And she thickly whispered "thank you so much". It was one of the most sincere thank you's I had heard in a long time. It choked me up.

I am not sure what I had said to her that would motivate her to give me the cookies, I just remember telling her I was sorry and asked if it was unexpected, and she said that he had been sick for a long time. She even mentioned that is was almost a relief now that he was no longer in pain, but the absence of him was just as hard to deal with. Perhaps I was just a stranger to talk to when she really needed an ear. Maybe I said something that really helped her, or most likely, I just cared enough to listen.

I am not tooting my own, "I am so hospitable that every time I perform an act of kindness it warrants baked goods from people I don't know" horn, but this is more of a sincere "thank you" to the woman who has a broken heart for giving me the cookies. It was so kind, and it was so ironic in the light of our recent loss. Ironic isn't the right word, providential is better.

Also, this is a cultural "thank you" to the South. I know it seems a little strange to say.

But I was raised in Seattle. Seattle tends to be a closed-off culture to transplants. I had learned to avoid eye contact with people in the elevators, not to smile at people on the street, and to always bring a book anytime that I fly somewhere so that I wouldn't have to talk to the person next to me. This is of course a generalization of Sea-town culture, but for me it was true. This last year I have noticed a softening around my edges.

I allow men to open my door, since they always do. I even say good morning to people in elevators now, and don't break out in a sweat if a stranger asks me for directions (although I am the last person in the world to ask for directions, ever!). And today I found out that I now take time to listen to people when they are hurting, I think I used to be too busy with my own life to even notice.

So this weekend as I head to a funeral, the third one in a string of loss, I will remember that while death is a part of life, sometimes grief is an emotional bridge that connects people who may otherwise be closed off. Grief allows for the divine to take place, and for each of us to try and be the hands and feet of God- nothing grandiose, just something sincere.

I will never underestimate the power of a chocolate chip cookie again, or the innate power of giving just a second of your time to someone who needs it.

Image Courtesy of LC Photography

Bedspreads and Cold Coffee

2009-03-19T11:26:00.001-07:00

This morning I woke up late, stumbled around the house trying to clean the kitchen, pay all the bills and get ready for work while drinking cold coffee and willing myself to have a good day. Throwing back the last of the lukewarm caffeine, I gritted my teeth clenching my moral determination, "I will get through this Thursday with a happy heart." To be honest, this week I have had the mirror of self analysis held up to me more than I would like- the refining process of marriage...so necessary and yet so aggravating.

My husband and I had one of our "talks". These usually revolve around my unhappiness in my artistic ambitions and his imploring that I try to find the good in the small things, the life we have now. I even get headaches now when we revisit this conversation because we have pounded this stretch of mental pavement into gravel.

Why is it that those who love us the most have the highest potential to make us the most mad and the most motivated? In a very kind way, he basically told me that I have been wearing my emotions on my sleeve this week- which I am always blithely unaware of. I imagine my emotions look something like a straggly patch of flimsy denim, worn down and faded- a dream soaked, reality marred square.

In this particular conversation, part 312 of a running series, he reminded me to zoom out a little. Of course I rolled my eyes, and rolled over. Thinking to myself, "Why don't you just zoom out!" After I let the rub of his comments subside, I tuned back in. He went on to explain that life is not dictated by our own scale, or own perception of our life's importance. The legacy and goals that we want to achieve does not affect the work God does but rather he is the One who gives us what we are supposed to do. So I was thinking, even now? Even at my day job? Even when I live such a small existence?

He said, I want you to be happy living our simple life. Which made me very sad to hear, since I truly do enjoy our life together. Very much so. Our love is the best thing in my life. I am just afraid I am not living up to my potential. Which is such a weird thing to say, as if someone has etched one of those height charts on the wall and I am just shy of where this hypothetical "living up to" stretches. He summed up the conversation with this, "He hasn't forgotten about you."

And that's when I lost it. Because some days, that's exactly what it feels like. Forgotten.

I was thinking this conversation over as I was scurrying around this morning. I headed into the bedroom to make the bed. Everyday that I don't make the bed I feel like I am a little less prepared for the day.

Messing with the sheets and pulling them this way and that, our cat Mojo sprung into action. He thinks that I am making the bed just so that he can dash back and forth on the bedspread, pulling strands of it loose with his nails as he maniacally tries to catch the wind that comes when I lift the comforter.

I talk to my cat, quite a bit. Ahem. I know...

So I say, " Mojo, it's not all about you!"

I shoo him off the bed, finger a few of the loose strands in frustration and pull the edges of the bedspread down, put the pillows in place, smooth out the wrinkles, and let my own words sink in.

If Mojo wouldn't run back and forth across the bed while I am trying to make it, it would take a lot less time to get the task done, and there would be a lot less loose strings. All because he wants to chase something he can never catch, my bedspread is on a steady path to it's rapid decline (when it becomes nothing but a big wad of silk strands and cat hair). Also his nonsensical darting makes the task of getting the bed made efficiently near impossible.

I am sure you are getting the parallelism.

Maybe if I just stood still, hung out around the sidelines of the "life bed" that is being made all around me, I wouldn't get so caught up in the loose ends and make so many mistakes. Maybe I wouldn't continually chase after something that isn't ever going to get caught.

And so, this is what I have to say about this: Life isn't perfect, but I love the bed I've made.

Hyperbole and Bologna

2009-03-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

I exaggerate.

Sometimes.

We all do.

However, I tend to exaggerate things in my life that are only microscopic flutterings in comparison to true tragedy. Since I don't have the ideal this-or-that, I don't have such-and-such, or look like so-and-so-, I bemoan, "my life is such a disappointment!" Is it? And then I wail with my head in my hands, "I thought I would be somewhere by now, and I'm not! I am a failure!" Am I?

Vanity is such a visceral entity within my heart. A sickness that feeds into the empty side of my soul- one that I am trying to fill with humility, contentedness, and in short- God.

Every morning when I drive to work, I hit the light that intersects between 12th South and 8th Ave. And every morning there is a gentlemen that I see walking to the bus stop. He is usually dressed in a flimsy gray t-shirt and jeans, unless it is bitterly rainy or cold, then he will have his black rain jacket on. He always wears thick glasses, ones that look as if they are going to slip right off his face and bulky white shoes. He walks with a severe limp, which is met by his twisted face and limp right arm. He literally drags himself across 8th Ave in a choppy meter of topple and twist.

He is extremely punctual. I can actually time myself by where he is at on the sidewalk. On days that I am running late, I see him flushed and fatigued, waiting on the bus stop bench. When I am running early I can see him two blocks away from the 12th and 8th light.

I have no idea how long he walks to get to the bus. I don't know if he just travels the stretch of street that I can see , or if he comes from a much further place. I don't know if something happened to him or if he was born with such physical disabilities. I don't know what is so imperative that he drags himself to that bus stop every day, but he is determined, strong, and an unlikely hero.

I imagine that he has a job that he takes pride in, one that others take for granted or consider undesirable. I imagine that people stare at him, make fun of him, or even worse look the other way. Yet he decides to walk the miles. I imagine that he has had to overcome a lot more in his life than a deflated dream, a waning bottom line or a broken heart. He lives his life in brokenness. He lives his life in a state of distortion. Yet, he may be more whole than I am.

There are days that I drag myself out of bed, hungover by life's letdowns and my own slip-ups, but there is no reason I should ever exaggerate my problems. That's just hyperbole bologna, a crock pot of crap that says nothing of the true gifts I have in my life.

Watching this man, for just a few seconds every day, calls me to conviction. I don't pity this man, I am inspired by him. I smile at him when I think he may see me, but I don't think he does. I don't know if he has a family that tells him how special he is. I don't know if he knows how his morning walk is a testament to all of the 9-5ers, one of which (me), is compelled to applaud his arduous journey.

I have an easy road. My morning commute is just a microcosm in the gridlock of my journey but if I can't find the simple pleasure in being on the path that I am, I will be forever paralyzed.

I can not imagine who I would be if I was faced with some real challenges. I know I would be ugly. I know I would just give up and stay in bed. There is no way my pride would allow me to step one foot out the door, let alone travel a long road in pain and ridicule.

If there is a place for exaggeration, it should be how blessed I am. I am not saying that if we aren't physically marred, or mentally disabled that we can't hurt. Of course we all hurt, life is sometimes unjust, sick, and evil.

But if its just the simple grate of monotony that skins our hope raw, maybe we should try a different approach. Maybe we should embrace another "one of those days". Some people, like my 8th avenue angel, would give anything to have one normal moment. Take just one step that wasn't riddled with stinging pain or burdened by a humiliating hobble. Live just one day not perceived as different. Feel just one second of acceptance instead of the daily ostracism.

Here I am trying to stand out, when some people's only wish may be to fit in.

While I am fully able physically, there are days (more than I would like to admit) where I am crippled by laziness, envy, anger, self-interest and pride.

And in all honesty, my 8th avenue angel and I are more the same than different.

We are just a couple of cripples.

Art Courtesy of David Band

Premonitions

2009-03-13T06:56:00.000-07:00

So after my "missing home and mailer envy" blog yesterday, I got home to find a little brown envelope from my dad. It was a CD full of photos of the farm during this winter. It was as if he knew what I must have been feeling...and no he doesn't read my blog.

It was a little answered prayer, and even though I couldn't physically feel the snow crunch under my feet, or smell the damp air, or feel the bite of the chill against my skin, it was as close to the real thing as I am going to get for awhile.

Sigh.

Blue Skies and Barns

2009-03-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

So something very sad happened to me today.

At my day job, I have many important tasks. Perhaps the most esteemed of my daily duties is to get the mail from the 6th floor. And while getting the mail may seem like a post-modernistic chore for a female in the new millennium, not unlike transcribing in a tight sweater for a chauvinistic boss, I enjoy gathering the letters.

I have always been a fan of the written word, and even recall as a young girl writing letters to my next-door neighbor (yes, next door) with a calligraphy pen by candlelight. I would even seal the envelope with a wax seal...I was convinced for quite a while I was born in the wrong era, hence the obsession with riding horses bareback and dressing up in hoop skirts while watching Anne of Green Gables. Aside from that embarrassing reveal, I have always loved correspondence.

I love the romanticism that a letter carries. The way a thought flows from the bleeding point of a pen to the awaiting canvas of a blank page. It's spontaneous and provides proof of human existence. In a robotic age, less and less handwriting is to be found, making it more and more priceless. There is no back space or spell check with a note. It's genuine, unpolished, just what this culture needs- a little less perfection and a little more intention.

And how can we forget the importance of mail delivery and retrieval in United States history? The unofficial slogan goes, "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds."

And on this sleet soaked, rain pelted, snow flurried Thursday- it is a testament to the wherewithal of the United States Postal workers. The mail was there for me to fetch. So what was so sad about that?

Well, I also have the task of sorting the mail, and throwing out the garbage, because we always get advertising mailers. We got one in particular from Whitehall Printing Company today, that had a picture of the mountains and a barn on it. And I felt a tensing in my throat. A prick of tears in the corner of my eyes.

Over some barn and a little blue sky...on a mailer!

I realized in that moment how desperately my soul is seeking wide open spaces. A little room to breathe. A mountain to make me feel small. Clean, rain-scented air tickling my nose. How badly my heart misses home.

I went on a hike the weekend before last at Radnor Lake and it was the first time in a long time I was surrounded by nature. I couldn't stop commenting on how beautiful it was. I couldn't stop smiling. I didn't want to leave (granted the hike was two hours long, so I got my fill), but the point is that my artistic drive gets so easily stuck in the gridlock of common day drab. Traffic noise, ringing phones, beeping texts, news alerts, stop lights, green lights, it's such a matrix of distraction. It's tiring.

I just need one weekend in the Cascade's wearing some frayed jeans driving down Highway 2, smoking a vanilla cigarette listening to the best of Patty Griffin, Kathleen Edwards, and Dido. But my open-space adventure will have to wait, because there is a reason I am here in Nashville. Everyday, I can see little stitches being sewn across the quilt of my life's common theme. God is recreating me. This era is a patch of necessity. I know that Nashville will also be a place I miss at some point. So I am going to truly enjoy everyday that I have here.

In the meantime, I will just stare at this mailer and hope that someday I get the chance to get back to the basics- blue sky and barns.

Someday.

Skip a Beat

2009-03-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Life is so short. (so much so, that I am not going to take the time to figure out how to remove that annoying little box!)

This is something I have always known, but try not to spend too much time thinking about. Why focus on the end when I am barely over my quarter-life crisis? Well...I think in order to truly enjoy today you have to realize how small our lives are in scope.

This is not a blog dedicated to morbidity, but more so a rambling about the simple truth of supply and demand. There is a HUGE demand for full life, but the supply of days well, it doesn't equate.

I consider myself a content person, despite how I was raised- basically tattooed with Dale Carnegie slogans, "Dream Big!" "Never Settle!" "Go the Extra Mile!" "Do Something Everyday You Don't Want to Do!"

But if I look at my life through that lens, there are things I am "settling" for out of responsibility. Does that make me a failure? I sure hope not.

I know those types of motivational slurs are intentioned to inspire, but the truth is they tire me. I have done so many things in my life that I didn't want to do that I got to the point that if I was relaxing or enjoying myself I was worried I must be missing out on some big opportunity. Since being in Nashville, I have learned to slow my roll. I have learned to sip ice tea...not sweet tea, but I am getting the sipping part down.

My Seattle self was always in a hurry, impatient as all get out, and somewhat of a perfectionist. I needed to enjoy life more.

Because it's not about the doing, the pushing, the getting ahead- it is more so about taking a deep breath and enjoying the view while you can.

Truth be told, I was raised in a family where I thought I was special. Different. Going places. And, while I have "gone" places, there is a suffocating danger in that mentality. In retrospect, I spent the majority of my early twenties always peering over the horizon to see what tomorrow might bring, and today just became a stepping stone to that next rung, that next accomplishment, that next quantum leap. The next city.

Let me tell you what I have learned by exhausting myself in that way...it's meaningless.

Sharing wine with friends, watching shows, playing shows, writing thoughts, creating art, napping, talking, singing, laughing, playing games, meeting new people, reaching out to old friends...not for cash, not for pats on the back, but for the sheer joy and fulfillment that comes along with finishing and the complete renewal that comes from beginning.

For the first time in my life, I am enjoying every day. Not because everyday is wonderful- last night I ripped my favorite sweater, my expensive laptop crashed, and I am working more than full time- but I am truly enjoying the little gifts that life has for me.

I do think about the unlived lives that I still have in my veins, the dreams that still are hanging on that star I wished upon like 10 years ago, but that doesn't depress or discourage me, it makes me think that even though today may not be the best that there will always be moments of beauty to look forward to. Life hasn't let me down yet, it drops me on my head every now and then, but there is always something redemptive about the crash. Always.

I am now going to go for a run in this beautiful Nashville weather and then off to drink beer and hang out with my husband. And that my friends makes my heart skip a beat every time.

Blanket Statements

2009-03-09T07:09:00.000-07:00

I just read one of my favorite blogs, Hootenannie, and was struck by something she wrote. Aside from the enjoyable list of why Pinocchio is the worst movie ever (agreed) it was her "plan or lack thereof" entry that gave me pause.

Recently she was let go from her job, I think all of us on some level have been singed by the boiling ball of America's economic blunders. The constant questioning is exhausting. How will I make ends meet? When will I get another job? What do I do while I wait for another job to come around? My husband and I just rode this merry-go-round for two months before we got some relief, and a new job came through.

I went to a neighbor's house last night for some red wine and steak (which I actually ate, since there was no other option....I haven't had red meat in like.... well wait does beef jerky count?) anyway, we were by far the youngest people there, with the average age being 50 but, we got in where we fit in and had a great time.

I got in a conversation with a gentleman who had some thoughts on our present state as a nation, particularly the job market. He was convinced that it would get worse, especially for the older generation, since there is a smaller margin of jobs and more people trying to get them. He said that small business owners are the ones who are getting hit the hardest since there is no bail out plan for the less than corporate. True.

In the middle of that conversation, another one of his friends came over and said that the nation is going under and that he was glad he had just bought an AK-47 for when the war breaks out in the streets. For some reason he thought that Detroit would be the first place that the interpersonal dis-United States brawl would bust out. I just chewed my steak.

And then another voice chimed in from across the table, one of the chaps that I was most fond of, and he said "You know maybe I am an eternal optimist, to the point of foolishness, but you have to get up and go on. If you don't fight for a good life, what is there to live for? It will get better in time, and while we are waiting for that we should just enjoy nice nights like these and be thankful that we will make it through."

I swallowed my steak and murmured my agreement.

The thing is that this isn't an economic issue. It's a point of view issue. Each one of those men are dealing with the same problem but are approaching it from varying points of view. The reason that I was inspired to write this after reading Hootenannie was because of this line:
After being let go she said, "I have felt a burden lifted – a heavy weight that I didn’t recognize was there, since I was too busy convincing myself to be grateful for a job at all. But once I walked out of those heavy glass doors, box of possessions in hand, I felt it: I could breathe."

Talk about a refreshing point of view.

No matter if you have a job, no job or want to get out of your job, its your point of view that is going to say how successful or unsuccessful you really are. Our jobs don't define us, however our frame of mind sure does change how we view the world.

PS- The title of this blog has nothing to do with the content, I just love the phrase "blanket statements"

CRS and the Queen of the Name Droppers

2009-03-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

For those who are not country music fans, this blog will mean nothing more to you than it should.

In the last three days I have seen the following people within a 3 foot proximity to myself:

Jamie O'Neal
Julianne Hough
Darryl Worley
Trent Tomlinson
Jason Michael Carrol
Jack Ingram

This week is CRS, which is a huge country radio shindig (my interpretation of the abbreviation), where everyone gathers to get or give interviews, be seen by anyone and everyone, look like they should be seen by anyone and everyone, and make big deals out of the deals they don't have. Hey, I'm not knocking it, I am one of those "big deals with no deal" , and let me just say it is exhausting, pretending to be way cooler than I really am.

Do not get me wrong, I like interviews and talking to people in the music industry and seeing Julianne Hough in a pair of white jeans...I hope they are making a comeback because I still have a pair of bedazzled ones in the back of the closet. However, something tells me I couldn't make them look as good as she did.

But perhaps the most exciting thing for me is seeing how much these "names" that we all like to drop, are just like us, except with better clothes, better make up and better jeweled jeans- and don't get me started on the women!

They had dreams just like mine, but theirs are coming true. They probably worked really, really hard and now are making the rounds and working the rooms, much better than I ever could.

For CRS I have been running down to the convention center on my lunch breaks and even after work to smuggle in a radio or TV interview. While I am waiting in the star-studded lobby I spend my time reading a book with a highlighter in the corner instead of jumping in the Kool-aid and swapping business cards and head shots with the so-and-so's. I am a very bad self-promoter, always have been.

Perhaps I should be getting in on the action, right? Only the squeaky mouse gets the cheese.

I assume that anyone smart and driven, would try and take advantage of such a rich, ripe room full of industry folks, radio DJ's, journalists and rising stars....but truth be told I am content to observe. I am content to do my interviews, make my appointments on time, and then walk back up 4th street in my heels and sit at my desk in my office with this little smile on my face, because I feel so Clark Kent-ish with my double life.

Maybe someday I will be one of those names that people drop, but to be honest what would that change about me?

To become a name worthy of being dropped there are quite a few sacrifices you have to make, it takes a lot of time and effort. People need your face time to remember you. The bittersweet thing for me is I have to say, I am questioning the worth of the exchange rate. I am fully aware that I made only a pithy fraction of the sacrifices that the "names" have had to made this week and in their lives- but here they are:

My pithy sacrifices:

I skipped on some morning devotions while preparing for online scripts, liners, and "shout outs". When I did finally get home after working full time and inserting interviews and tapings, I had to run straight to the computer to work on my free-lance writing gig (20 pages in two days), ignoring my husband to the point where I think he made himself Top Ramen for dinner every night, so sad. I have not been able to go on one run this week...not one! Do you know what that means for me....gosh, I can't even really believe it. I haven't been able to read one word of the two books that I have been dying to start, let alone write one lyric.

And so I wonder...for me, is it a healthy exchange?

There are those people here in Nashville who are trying to break into the business that would say, "You are such spoiled brat, you are complaining that you are getting traction with your record and you aren't even taking advantage of the media coverage and the opportunity? Don't you know there are people in this town that would give anything to gain a single inch in the direction of their dreams???"

Yes, I do know that. And I am very grateful for all of the great things that have happened for me in 2009 so far, that is why I moved my entire life 2000 miles away from home. But the truth is, if it came down to it I wouldn't give anything to be successful in music. There are things in my life that are far superior to becoming a "name". Maybe that makes me a fake, a media-attention tease, maybe that makes me less committed to my craft.

In Ecclesiastes it says that life is but a vapor so drink, eat and be merry for the days are few. you know what? There is always work to be done, clients to clinch, songs to sing, charts to climb, people to leverage, lies to tell, sugar to coat, smiles to fake...but there is also real life to live.

No, my life isn't glamorous, but when I find myself truly content it happens to be those moments of simplicity that ground me. I feel rooted in peace, when I have time to create a culinary masterpiece and drink wine with my husband (ok, maybe not masterpiece), curl up with a good book and learn more about God. Clean my house, while sipping on coffee and hearing the rumble of the dryer hypnotize me into a "I love my home" coma.

I am not going to lie, I get a buzz from doing the press stuff. I like putting the tool that I have honed for the last 10 years to use, it makes it feel like less of a waste. But like any buzz, if you are always looking for the next one you will find yourself unhappy, listless and hungover for life.

I am still learning it all, but I have been to the circus (not big tent circus, but you know small peanuts circus, BUT circus nonetheless) enough times to know that when the make up comes off, and the lights go down, and the crowds go home...there has to be a sober moment when the "names" ask themselves, "What am I doing this for?", and those that don't ask that are doing it for only one reason, themselves.

I am not saying that I am Mother Theresa, the selfless wanna be country singer who de-worms orphans in Somalia, I would never pontificate such humbleness, but I do know that my biggest reservations attached to pursuing music are directly bound to the motivation that progresses me forward.

I am called to create. Art is my gift, and unless it is used to bring into focus the beauty of other people's art and encourage them to continuing responding to the call of that type of worship, I am nothing but noise.

A German journalist asked me during this CRS week, "Why should people listen to you what makes you different than everybody else?"

I didn't have a good enough answer for him, and he basically told me that I was not that worth listening to if I didn't have one sentence in which I could sum that answer up. The thing is that I am not one of those people that can promote those kinds of "me-istic" answers like, "My music is so uber-amazing, that if throngs of people all over the globe don't go out and buy it they will be missing a cultural timestamp in the passport of their lives."

Not a chance, I am not that important.

Does anyone else find the question, "what makes you unique?" a little off-putting?

Maybe it makes me feel that way, because I don't think I am as unique as I am the same. Since I have started blogging I have noticed that I am not unique in my struggles or my joys. Which is a good thing! There are a lot of people who feel the same way I do, have the same dreams, have the same excitements and breakthroughs.

Community is developed through our similarities.

Having different backgrounds, interests, passions, cultures, and families does make us interesting, but not unique. We all have different lives, but we all feel the same emotions. Which is the bulk of what I write my music for, to promote community with strangers. Stories bring people together.

Let me sum it up by saying this, I love making music and I love being a little whisper in the shouting game of self-promotion and publicity.

But I am still searching for what God has for me to do, and the more I learn about him the less and less I realize it is never, nor ever will be, about me.

I am grateful to:
Steve Martin- Lex Broadcast
Dan Steber- Navy PSA Director
Lee Richey- WCJW Radio
Cyndi Bock- Give a Living Rose
Barry Shaheen- AFB Radio
Brett Dennen- KLMJ Radio

All of you made my CRS week fun, and I have to say I am still a little buzzed. : )

Crazy Little Thang

2009-03-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

It's constant.

The surge of suspicion that perhaps where I am going isn't where I am supposed to end up.

It's never ending.

The second guessing of a first love.

It's looming.

The time when I will choose right or left.

It's daunting.

Knowing that the answers lie outside of myself, but the worldly noise is drowning out the whisper of wisdom.

It's rusty.

The confidence in my well oiled transportation is waning.

It's a crazy little thang.

My passions unevenly distributed with my ability.

It's stressful.

A bound ball of uneven cords, that twist and strangle divine opportunity by a brazen pay off.

It's a subtle art.

Trying to find what it is that will glorify the cause.

It's a burden.

Trying to make all ends meets, let alone have enough to tie a bow.

It's my life.

And I keep on running on the wheel, wondering when I can stop the momentum or at least match the cadence.

Peace.

I pray.

Give I take.

Rare Fashion Post

2009-02-27T11:46:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-25T13:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

Just had to share....

Courtesy of David Molnar

Breakers and Builders

2009-02-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

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.

Silly Slaps and Pants: Friday Fun

2009-01-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

One of my best friends growing up, had a very strict family. The youngest of eight children, I remember that we would get in trouble for being "silly". I know, young girls are suppossed to be giggly, bad joke makers and crazy balls of pent up energy...not in this house!

It was almost regarded as a sin to be silly in this home.

I remember when our "fun" level would rise above hushed laughter and break into a giggle fest, we would get the bark from downstairs, "Girls, stop being silly! I mean it!"

This always struck me as strange. It was as if being "silly" was synonymous with swearing or smoking cigarettes behind the garage. We were just being dumb, all out, ridiculous- I considered it a rite of passage- being silly is a mild, normal, funny, snot-flinging, snort inducing, tear-jerking fun fest- and is something to be honored.

So in the spirit of embracing our inner silly, I wanted to post this.

I think that there is something about ridiculous words and phrases that can light up any day. A couple of words that I know when glued to any other, create a stream of nonsensical mouth candy. These two "stand outs" are the word Silly and the word Pants.

Those two words used before, after or in between create a smorgasbord of hilarity. Here are a few of my favorites, feel free to use them at the most inappropriate or appropriate times (note: not every single morsel of amuse contains the word silly or pants, that would just be overkill, and not every single morsel of amuse....amuses.) :

Silly Slaps
Crazylegs
Hoop it up (not to be confused with whoop it up)
Plumpy Pants
Sack of Silly
Pants Party
Felling pantsy?
Silly Rabbit, Pants are for Pigs
Ball of Fun
Slippery Slip
Plastic Pants
Old Candiddy
Pardon my pants
Silly Septum
Plink
Silly-istic
Pants-a-licious
Slap it to me
Slap the Pants off that
Poptastic
Sandusky
Silly McSillerson
Pack of Pants

and of course :
Sillypants

image courtesy of :sillygirldesign.com

Addendum...

2009-01-29T14:55:00.001-08:00

It is the cure all...

Until the wheels come off...

2009-01-29T14:17:00.001-08:00

I think I am hitting that point.

How can so many things be going right in my life and so many things be killing me at the same time?

I am blessed in so many ways. I know there are people way worse off than I. I know that nobody likes a whiner...

But I have to make a list of things that are chipping away at my sanity so that I can maintain some level of benevolence and peace in a tumultuous time:

1. Having my songs torn apart, limb from limb, leaves me feeling like an abandoned shoe on the side of the road.
2. Feeling the heavy anxiety of an upside down checkbook is filling my mind with sorrow that I dare not show.
3. Wondering if the person you thought you knew best, is actually making decisions you respect, has me feeling like a traitor.
4. Feeling close to God is my main goal, so when He seems far away it's brutal- like an alternate universe- one in which I don't belong, and don't resemble the person I want to be.
5. The "economy"....I am so sick of that word. From now on that word has no place in my mind. I will replace it will hula hoop.
6. In one week I will no longer be in my early twenties.
7. I need a good cry.
8. If my "ship" is in the harbor just circling before it comes in, I wonder why my life vest is still strapped on like a straight jacket.

And now a list of things to keep me waking up in the morning:

1. I have a place of peace, which I call home.
2. My bills are being paid.
3. I am facing fears everyday and people are finally starting to hear what I have to say.
4. God is blessing me, and he is humbling me- which feels a lot like preparation to meet opportunity.
5. I have someone I love unconditionally.
6. I have a j-o-b.
7. Busy is better than bored.
8. This too shall pass.

Ok. Deep breath.

I am going to keep rolling until the wheels come off.

Mountain Top Experience in the Valley of Mundane

2009-01-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

Vinegar and Oil- A Recipe for Romance from a Relationship Novice

2009-01-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

I make my own salad dressing.

As a retired personal trainer, yes, it was a long lived career- I used to watch every single condiment, protein, carb, calorie etc. Run 20 miles a week and lift at least 2-3 times.

Since I have hung up my ACE certified badge and threw out my S.O.A.R business cards (go ahead and laugh, but it was either that or Miss Fit Training...), I still am pretty good about the diet thing, but I give myself more freedom than I used to, and surprisingly all those fears surrounding "real food" and a day away from the gym have dissipated and I am a better, more well rounded, less obsessive, less critical version of myself.

But this blog is not about that. This blog is about this:

My salad dressing recipe:

2 TBSP of Olive Oil/Flax seed oil
4 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 TSP Chopped Garlic
1 shake of Chili Pepper Flakes
Dash of Sea Salt
1 packet of Splenda

And while this recipe won't win any awards, (Although if I am honest I hi-jacked it from Piatti Ristorante in Seattle and plugged in my healthy substitutes) I am using it as a segue into writing about realtionships. Here we go, watch closely, here comes the curve. I have to warn you it's a stretch.

Whenever I make this salad dressing, it's the separation of the two main ingredients, the vinegar and the oil, that always makes me wonder why these two seemingly incompatible ingredients somehow go together so well.

They don't mix and become one with the other, they keep their own identity, but they co-exist. They are a perfect match to each other, and yet, by definition, opposites.

When the vinegar and the oil get shaken up, for a few moments they become one.

You see where I am going with this, right?

For the single gal, it is a guideline for looking for the right guy. He shouldn't demand that you change who you are to be the same as him. He should see your differences as unique unto you. You can be together, but separate in identity. I can not tell you how many times I have turned from oil into vinegar for guys that demanded it. You take oil away from vinegar or vice versa and you get an ingredient that can't stand on it's own.

For the girl in a relationship, this gives us hope. Sometimes it seems like we just don't get along, or that we come from two different worlds. Which in fact we do. The good news is that one's weakness is the others strength. And when things get shaken up, you rely on the other- and when the dressing is freshly shaken that's when the true flavors emerge. That's the good stuff.

The bottom line?

This recipe is a great lo-cal option for salad dressing.

And a thin atempt at giving a deeper meaning to my only psuedo-original recipe by trying to tie it to relationship advice.

It's Friday people....my brain is done.

The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language Part 4

2009-01-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

nebulous Foggy.
nevermore
niveous Snowy, snow-like.
nobility
obsequious Fawning, subservience.
odalisque A concubine in a harem.
oeuvre A work.
offing That part of the sea between the horizon and the offshore.
oi
oleander
onomatopoeia The creation of words by imitating sound.
oriole
paean A formal expression of praise.
palimpsest A manuscript written over one or more earlier ones.
panacea A complete solution for all problems.
panoply A complete set.
paradox
passion
pastiche A mixture of art work (art or music) from various sources.
pavement
peace
peccadillo A peculiarity.
peek-a-boo
pelagic Related to the sea or ocean.
penumbra A half-shadow, the edge of a shadow.
peregrination Wandering, travels.
petrichor The smell of earth after a rain.
plethora A great quantity.
porcelain A fine white clay pottery.
potamophilous Loving rivers.
propinquity An inclination or preference.
pumpkin
pyrrhic Victorious despite heavy losses.
quintessential The ultimate, the essence of the essence.
rainbow
redolent Sweet-smelling.
renaissance
rhapsody A beautiful musical piece.
riparian Having to do with the bank of a river or other body of water.
ripple A small, circular wave emanating from a central point.
rosemary
scintillate To sparkle with brilliant light.
sempiternal Forever and ever.
sentiment
seraglio Housing for a harem.
serendipity Finding something while looking for something else.
shenandoah
shipshape
smashing
smile
smithereens
soliloquy Dramatic speech intended to give the illusion of unspoken reflections.
sophisticated
summer afternoon
sunflower
sunshine
surreptitious Sneaky
susurrus Producing a hushing sound, like flowing water.
sweetheart
sycamore
symbiosis Interdependence of two different species.
syzygy The direct opposition of two heavenly bodies.

Comments:
niveous- snow-like? I love how there are words in the English language that are "like" something else that would be more obvious to use. This word in a sentence would look something like, "Hey, Mandy it's snowy out here!" "Tiffany, (insert eye roll here) you mean niveous...my goodness Mandy. Get literate."
odalisque- do we really need another word for concumbine? I think one word pretty much covers it.
oi- sweet.
oleander- A poisonous Eurasian evergreen shrub (Nerium oleander) having fragrant white, rose, or purple flowers, whorled leaves, and long...charm is deceitful and beauty is vain.
panopoly- A complete set, I need a panopoly of socks. Mismatching is only funny when you don't have to wear mismathcing work socks to the gym. Dork alert.
potamophilous- "loving rivers"....this is funny to me- I wonder what the word is for those who hate rivers, antipotamophilous? Sounds like a Greek surname.
pyrrhic- "victorious despite heavy losses"...I wish I knew how to pronounce this word, because when you have no idea what to say to someone who is dealing with deep loss, this would be perfect.
scintillate- in other words...a sun-soaked Edward Cullen...(To sparkle with brilliant light)
seraglio- "Housing for a harem"? What is up with this list, concubine, harem... what's the dealio?
smithereens- like confetti, yippee!
susurrus- "Producing a hushing sound, like flowing water." Just saying this word sounds like shhhhhhhhh...this cracks me up. This word is a yoga video in and of itself.
syzygy- The direct opposition of two heavenly bodies- hmm...like Jolie and Pitt? *dumb pun intended

Cash Money- Bread from Heaven

2009-01-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to say.

Thanks.

I mean.

Thank you so much!

Really?

Thank God!

Sometimes you just can't put gratefulness into words. Money is tight. I know it is for a lot of us. I know my story is not unique.

New Mortgage.

My Husband lost his job.

I had to turn down a great opportunity to be responsible.

My husband is still looking for work.

We are 3,000 miles from home.

The time line is running out.

The bills are still coming.

So, to say that I have been praying, learning a lot about patience, and feeling like a nervous wreck most days- is the truth. I keep on being told that I am being tested. We are being tested. Our faith is being put through the blender. I have to admit, I am not a good test taker.

In my household, this weeks pay period is the first one where we will feel the absence of our normal income. This is the time that I was hoping we would be out of the woods, and that there would a new job title for my man and he would have brand spanking new business cards in his wallet. But.....nope.

Isn't prayer supposed to work like a vending machine? You ask for something and God gives it to you right? Not exactly. Not at all.

So what's a girl to do?

Still pray.

Pray more.

And once again, I believe that God is provisional. I believe he hears.

The funny thing about answered prayer is that it hardly ever looks exactly like you want it to- it just gives you exactly what need. Cliche? Yup. Do I love that most cliche's are true? Yup.

This very morning, my husband got a large sum of money unexpectedly from an old employer. And when I say large sum...two mortgages worth of funds. The exact amount of money that we need to keep us afloat and keep our house in this unsteady and unpredictable time.

Naysayers, may say, well the money was there all along....yes it was.

They may also say, well good things happen sometimes...that's true, but the timing was so God-like. Down to the wire.

God provided. Prayer worked. And I am yet again in a place of awe.

We are not where I want us to be yet, we are still facing giants- my husband didn't get the job that I was hoping he would. I am still not fully secure, like I love being.

But this trail of bread crumbs that we are following, while laced with lessons, blessings, and bickering- is leading us to a place of trust. And for that I am thankful.

Oh and the money doesn't hurt either.

Jingle Jingle and The Absent Minded Professor

2009-01-20T11:07:00.000-08:00

I love that line in the LIVE song, Lightning Crashes when he says, "her intentions fall to the floor". If you didn't listen to music during the grunge era, while wearing your brother's frayed jeans and Stüssy shirts you may not know what I am talking about. However, that line is a perfect description of how intentions can get gummed up, and sometimes we just have to let life be life, and let it teach us those lessons we need to learn.

For instance, this morning I was excited to wake up, have breakfast/coffee with my husband, pray for Obama, and feel generally happy and content with my life. I have been trying to be more spiritually plugged in lately- by saturating myself in great books that pump positivity into my veins and reading the Bible more as well as praying about life when it gets tough instead of pouring another glass of wine and saying, here's to coping!

So I was feeling a little invincible with my spiritual force field protecting me, my new way of looking at life firmly fastened to my retinas, and Jesus in my back pocket. And then the boom dropped....

I couldn't find my car keys this morning.

No big deal right? Minor problem. Nobody was bleeding, nobody was in pain, nobody was in real danger.

And yet I was running around like an insania (yes, made up), looking in the obvious places- the counter, my pockets (five different times), closet, my purse (five different times) and then the less obvious of places- the front door, in the freezer, in the trash, under the bed, in the garbage disposal, in the cat box...don't ask- but alas, no jingle.

In frustration and anger at myself, I ordered my husband "You are going to have to take me to work, I can't be late!"

And then this of course launched us into the conversation about me ALWAYS losing everything. In which we then dealt ourselves into the dreaded 'shame game' of him asking me when am I going to stop being so absentminded and me reminding him that I didn't do it on purpose.

And then he retorts saying I should have "asked" instead of "ordering" him. I imagine this looks something like me batting my eyelashes and hitting my knees in apology while I helplessly eek out, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience but can you please take me to work kind sir?" In which I respond to his request with a roll of my eyes and a curt, "Fine. I'm sorry." That never works by the way...bad idea.

We huff and puff our way into the freezing cold- pile into his ice encased Altima and have to pull some major car maneuvers to get around my car that was blocking him in. We sit in silence all the way to my job- my chest burning, my eyes gathering tears from frustration- why can't he just say, "Honey anything you need, I will drop it all for whatever you desire may be. I would drive you to the ends of the earth if it would make things easier for you." I mean is that really that hard?

As we were rounding the block and pulling up to my work, I was so upset. I tried praying the annoyance away but it wouldn't budge, I had tried sitting in silence as not to rock the boat anymore, but it was just making me feel worse. And I realized...I am human, and while I am trying to be better at managing my feelings and being a good wife, friend, employee, and Christian- I was not being a good example of anything- I was being S-T-U-B-B-O-R-N.

I was being a whiny little baby- as was he. Two imperfect humans acting human-riffic again.

I bit my tongue swallowed my pride, and said, "I'm sorry. Thanks for taking me to work." His face softened and he said, "Of course. I love you. "I love you too."

Door shuts. Crisis overted. Bridge mended. Argument over.

My perfect intentions fell to the floor with a crash, and humility and a renewed appreciation for grace rose from the ashes.

Boarding the elevator for another day of the same thing, I shoved my cold hands into my pockets.

Jingle. Jingle.

Eyes widen. Jaw drops. How in the.....?

Maybe God was playing hide and go seek with my keys trying to teach two bratty kids a lesson about meeting in the middle- or maybe, life is just life, and we lose things every now and then. Either way, I have never felt so happy to hear the jingle of my keys and to know that the key to unlocking our intentions is somehow always tied back to love.

This is what life is made of

2009-01-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

Drudgery.

Pushing through.

Remaining faithful.

Boredom.

Ordinary.

Falling.

Getting back up.

Pulling on my coat.

Bearing the elements.

Saying sorry.

Gaining confidence.

Losing faith.

Reestablishing reason.

Smiling.

Making eggs.

Making dumb jokes.

Crying.

Clothes on the floor.

Cat hair everywhere.

Cussing.

Praying.

Making the bed.

Believing.

Hugging my husband.

Sleeping.

Rising.

Brushing my teeth.

Creating.

Listening.

Drumming my fingers on the table.

Waiting.

One of the things that makes life, well, life is the thick stew of circumstances that swirl around each one of us, daily.

Sometimes we can be at our boiling points, sometimes we are simply "simmerin' down now". How we handle heat says a lot about our character. I have to say my character is frayed and flawed under heat. I get irritable, impatient, selfish. I am aggravated by silly things that don't matter, while there is so much more need in the world than my own.

Even though life can be so mundane it can be magical.

Even though life can seem dismal, all it takes is one fragmented shot of light to turn the night into day.

While this is a little heavy for a morning blog, some days feel like work. For me, my tires seem worn down today. Sometimes our schedules become dictators of our happiness, and I refuse to put my worth in something other than Providence.

We are all made for something bigger. Here's to wading through the puddle in the path to get to the ocean of possibility.

Happy Day!

Tug* Tug* "But why?"

2009-01-15T07:24:00.000-08:00

I have had this image in my mind for a few days now.

A little girl in a plaid jumper with braided pigtails is pulling on her mommy's apron. Her face is thoughtfully twisted in an expression of puzzlement over an equation way beyond her ability to solve. And the mother looks down with understanding eyes. The child with wide blue eyes can not resist innocently, curiously and poignantly stuttering, "B-b-but, WHY?"

I feel like this little girl. When we were young it was expected and encouraged that we ask why of everything and anything. When we get older, I am not sure if we ask why enough. Sometimes we get caught up in the flow of life and we just go where the wind leads. How much does intent color the spectrum of our existences? If we are disconnected from our intentions, do our actions lose cause and just become chasing after wind?

I think all of us have a unique shaped key hole in our hearts that can only be unlocked by using the gifts and talents that God has given us to give to others, with the motivation being to bring life and inspiration to those who need encouragement.

It sounds so easy written out in words, right? Just go out there and give of your life to others, unselfishly...well, life makes it difficult for us to live so harmoniously- so selfless. Life makes it difficult to stay true to our intentions and firmly aware of our motivations. Especially for so many of us that have aspirations in the field of arts. Our celebrity obsessed culture tells us we are unsuccessful if we do not have Grammy's, Pulitzer Prizes, Academy Awards and countless other accolades lined up on our mantle displaying our greatness.

Whether that be music, writing, photography, art, or even more vocational callings- nursing, motherhood, receptionists. There is so much of us in what we do, that sometimes we forget that to give is to gain. I am pointing the finger at myself right now and vigorously shaking it.

So much of my daily life is spent in the quiet of everyday responsibility. These dreams and goals that I have for myself are far removed, hanging in the abstract of my normalcy.

I find I am most fulfilled when I am giving of my time, investing in others, stepping outside of selfish ambition. Which I never do enough of. Chasing after my wants because I think I deserve something more than the blessed life I am living right now always leaves me deflated and discouraged.

If we were all made to do something, then shouldn't we ask ourselves periodically, "But why?"

Even though you may know without a shadow of doubt what you were made to do, and what you should be doing with your life, it can only help if we humble ourselves, quiet ourselves, and stare our hearts down and ask the why question honestly...

Finding out WHY I desire a certain path for my life, makes getting there more destiny and less simply, me.

Photo Courtesy of LeLe Green Photagraphy

The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language Part. 3

2009-01-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

if
imbricate To overlap to form a regular pattern.
imbroglio An altercation or complicated situation.
imbue To infuse, instill.
incipient Beginning, in an early stage.
ingénue A naïve young woman.
inspissate To thicken.
inure To jade.
jejune Dull; childish.
jonquil
kangaroo
lagniappe A gift given to a customer for their patronage.
lagoon A small gulf or inlet in the sea.
languor Listlessness, inactivity.
lassitude Weariness, listlessness.
laughter The response to something funny.
liberty
lilt To move musically or lively, to have a lively sound.
lithe Slender and flexible.
lollipop
loquacious Talkative.
love
lovely
lullaby
luminous
luxuriant Thick, lavish.
marigold
meandering
mellifluous Sweet-sounding.
melody
mignonette
missive A message or letter.
mist
moiety One of two equal parts, a half.
moment
mondegreen A misanalyzed phrase.
mother
murmuring
myrrh

Comments:
if- I absolutely agree that this is one of the most amazing words in the English Language. It creates endless possibilities for anyone who chooses to believe that anything can happen if you believe.
ingenue- This drums up an image of innocence. Which, "innocent" by the way, didn't make the "I" list! Hmmm...not happy about that.
kangaroo- another discrepancy with this list....there is no other K words listed?? What about kryptonite, kabob, kaleidoscope, kamikaze, karma, Kauai, kazoo.....? You get the point. K words are just too much fun to not include.
lagoon- this word is a languid retreat into the depths of cool water- ahhhhhhhhh. While, in the dead of winter this may not seem so refreshing, it is a great mental escape for those of us in cement prisons, shackled by our Macs and to-do lists.
lilt- rock on.
love- over-used and misunderstood? Yes. But, this word is our soul's most powerful component. It captures a snapshot of heaven in this fallen world when we actually get it right. Awe-inspiring.
lollipop- yummy.
mignonette- Anything that makes me feel like I can speak french is beautiful in my book. Vinegar and shallots anyone?
moment- If anything can change in one of these, bring it on!
mother- we all have one...and some of the lucky ones can make this word synonymous with best friend.

Bible readers, check it!

2009-01-12T18:06:00.000-08:00

If you happen to be a Bible reader, check out Jeremiah 17.

My soul has been a little torn lately, this passage is beginning to stitch me together.

Here's to giving up, and starting anew. : )

Have a great evening.

The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language Part 2

2009-01-11T17:22:00.000-08:00

damask
dawn
delicacy
destiny
desuetude Disuse.
diaphanous Filmy.
diffuse Spread out, not focused or concentrated.
dulcet Sweet, sugary.
ebullient Bubbling with enthusiasm.
effervescent Bubbly.
efflorescence Flowering, the opening of buds or a bloom.
elixir A good potion.
elysium Any place or state of perfect happiness; paradise.
emollient A softener.
encomium A spoken or written work in praise of someone.
inglenook The place beside the fireplace.
enthusiasm
ephemeral Short-lived.
epicure A person who enjoys fine living, especially food and drink.
epiphany A sudden revelation.
erstwhile At one time, for a time.
eschew To reject or avoid.
esculent Edible.
esoteric Understood only by a small group of specialists.
eternity
ethereal Gaseous, invisible but detectable.
etiolate White from no contact with light.
evanescent Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.
explosion
extravaganza
exuberant Enthusiastic, excited.
fantastic
fawn
felicitous Pleasing.
fescue A variety of grass favored for pastures.
flabbergasted
flip-flop
foudroyant Dazzling.
fragile Very, very delicate.
freedom
fugacious Running, escaping.
fuselage
galaxy
gambol To skip or leap about joyfully.
gazebo
giggle
glamour Beauty.
golden
gorgeous
gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider's silk.
gothic
grace
gracious
gum
halcyon Happy, sunny, care-free.
harbors of memory
hen-night
hiccup
hilarious
hippopotamus
hodgepodge
home
hope
hush
hymeneal Having to do with a wedding.

Comments:
damask- isn't that synonymous with Old Spice? And if so...I'm sorry. Not beautiful.
ebullient and effervescent - both point back to bubbly- I can't help but love the happiness that both of these words provide. Celebrate!
efflorescence- Hands down...one of my favorite words of all time. To bloom is to grow in the most beautiful of ways.
elysium- Absolute happiness...I have to say the letter E is rocking my world.
inglenook- Besides this word being awesome as it describes "the place next to the fireplace" which I would call the floor, or the wall- I am pretty sure that it doesn't start with E.
esoteric- so this word is reserved for only a small group of specialists, but is that the definition or is this special force of "esoteric" gurus the only people that hold the key to understanding it?
fugacious- Spell check doesn't like this one, but to escape...ahhh, lovely!
halcyon- A bright spot in my day.
hymeneal- What in the world? This is something having to do with a wedding...I'm concerned. This seems a little graphic for the wedding party. Yikes!

Noisemakers

2009-01-11T07:19:00.000-08:00

Clamor to Clang
Everyone look at Me
No other reasoning
For fame

Envy, greed and Cash
befriending backlash
Every duplicate stays
The same

Motive to move
laced by the proof
that we all have lost
our way

Complicated still
I wonder how to feel
'neath this shift
In sand

Jade and Apple red
A palette of underfed
shrinking violets none
Can't fade

I bloom underfoot
a daisy to a stem
Happy to be kept
a lone blade

Holding hands
with heavenly hosts
ushering in ghosts
Unnamed

Hold me close
as I break it open
the shallow inside
This day

God is my idol
Addicted to the call
bending the rules
I pray

Being Bulletproof
is still unsafe
It's the bend to break
I betray

Clamor to Clang
It's all the same
I zip it up
and walk away

I am uncool, and I can prove it!

2009-01-09T13:53:00.001-08:00

I am so tired of trying to pretend that I am, indeed cool. I am a dork, through and through, and I think for 2009 I am going to embrace that fact and celebrate it.

I am always so impressed by those people who know obscure bands. Those that can wear skinny black jeans and pierce their noses. I look ridiculous in skinny jeans, (and who decided to call them that anyway?) they make me look like a bow-legged shrimp and I swear they employ the opposite of skinny to my thighs. Oh and I had my nose pierced once but because I am a weenie, took it out before my dad saw it- so hardcore.

So, the veil comes down and here it is:

I am a farm girl at heart. I like country music. I grew up watching musicals. I sometimes watch old Disney cartoons on Friday nights, and I watch the entire Shrek Trilogy religiously.

I know, dorky.

I just discovered Kings of Leon which I thought was a metal band originally. Can we say, late bloomer? And I get scared if any music sounds "garage band-ish", I prefer girls singing about the sky and their feelings.

Although I do own all of Nirvana's albums I can only accredit that to my Seattle upbringing, which in turn, may be the coolest thing about me.

While I like hip shows like Weeds and Six Feet Under, I would take a marathon of Property Virgins over either any day.

I don't own designer clothes and if I did they wouldn't look right on me. I have tried those Seven jeans on and I don't know if its my hips or my soul's aversion to cool, but they don't work on me. Muffin top central.

I like ruffles.

I like going to sleep early, being in bed at 9:30pm with a good book, is not short of bliss.

I think that the Shopaholic series is a good read, and I can't get through a classic for the life of me. I blame the farm.

I like to dress up- even at casual occasions.

I wear Converse only because they were on sale at TJ Maxx.

I don't have any tattoos, although I have been in the chair a few times and chickened out. One tattoo artist in Venice Beach told me that if I had a tattoo as small as I was asking for it would turn into a mole in a few years and turned me away.

My first kiss was behind the snack shack at Bible Camp to a chubby kid named Jesse.

I am slow at getting jokes.

I laugh at my own.

The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language Part 1

2009-01-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across this lovely list on Listology. This is just Part 1 A-C

adroit Dexterous, agile.
adumbrate To very gently suggest.
aestivate To summer, to spend the summer.
ailurophile A cat-lover.
amaryllis Bulbous plants which have large red or pink flowers.
anemone Any of various plants of the buttercup family, having petal-like sepals.
aqua A light greenish-blue color.
asphodel Plants having white, pink, or yellow flowers in elongated clusters.
banana Herbs having a crown of large, entire leaves and a hanging cluster of fruits.
beatific Befitting an angel or saint.
beleaguer To exhaust with attacks.
blandiloquent Beautiful and flattering.
bliss
blossom
blue
bobolink
bubble
bumblebee
butterfly
caliginous Dark and misty.
camellia
cerulean
chalice
champagne An effervescent wine.
chatoyant Like a cat's eye.
chattanooga
cherish
chiaroscuro The arrangement of dark and light elements in a picture.
chimes
choas The exponential divergence of two arbitrarily close points in phase space.
cockle A heart-shaped bivalve or a garden flower.
coconut
colporteur A book peddler.
conflate To blend together, to combine different things.
cosmopolitan
cozy
cuspidor
cute
cynosure A focal point of admiration.

Comments:
amaryllis- while I do love this word, it's description may hold one of the uglier words in the English Language: bulbous. Yuck-o.
ailurophile- It means cat lover, and I am sure it rolls of the tongue like smooth butter...but the suffix "phile" makes me shiver just a little.
bobolink- Love it!
chatoyant- This is "like a cat's eye", unless you are describing a jewel I wonder when you would use this word. Makes me laugh.
cockle- Not so sure it's beautiful, but fun? Um..yes.
colporteur- I would like to think I am one of these, book peddler's, what a great trade.
cozy- One of my absolutely favorite words, and proof that good things come in small packages

Image Courtesy of Oh Joy! Blogs

Reality Check- the people have voted.

2009-01-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

Do you ever get the feeling that despite the pseudo-personal connection that the internet provides through the virtual chloroplast of Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, that we are in some ways fanning the flame of fabricated interconnection?

It's like the witness protection program, we can all hide behind cute profile names and witty banter, while not really having to invest in people personally. Don't misunderstand- I love hiding behind different persona's and snooping around these online yearbooks, it's like spying with a backstage pass. Besides how else would I have known that the paste-eater in my third grade class would turn out to be my mom's veterinarian- let's hope that glue wasn't a gateway drug to start sniffing Lassie's formaldehyde.

I guess my point is, while we can assuage our conscious by saying that we commented on so-and-so's profile- does it actually qualify as a substitute for a flesh and blood phone call or a face-to-face over coffee?

I can't help but notice that my generation is privacy obsessed. For instance, if I were to pick up the phone and call someone, is that crossing some kind of boundary? To me, sometimes it seems invasive. How "friendly" do you have to be with someone to graduate from online to real life? Has virtual reality made the art of conversation nothing more than a "lazy man's letter"- a series of back and forth, tête-à-tête where we no longer stand on our own two feet but we rely on the font-friendly social crutch of texts and one liners?

For me, it's becoming a wheelchair! I love words, I am much better at commenting and writing letters than talking on the phone. Phone's make me nervous, and I am somewhat of a fast talker- I am constantly getting caught in that "talking-over-you-talking-over-me" thing- it's exhausting.

Which leads me to this: If I add up all of my "friends" online I have a total of 1,773. Whaaaaaa?? And yet when I look through my phone I have a total of 40 contacts. Granted, I don't want to have over 1700 numbers in my phone, but the fact of the matter is this: internet friends are somewhat like high school friends. You all hang out at the same place but when it comes to showing up for an event that you post, or reading your blog, or commenting your status, it's just too big of a school for everyone to care.

Egocentricity is king these days, so I decided to run a little experiment with my online clout. Aside from my fellow bloggers, who are all so diligent at reading each others blogs and encouraging each other to keep on being creative I wanted to recruit all of my "friends" online to see what kind of turn out I could get for my marriage blog/survey.

The jury is in... a total of 11 people voted. And that's just about right. If you can get 11 people to take a minute out of their day to read your sporadic, typo-ridden, "look at me, look at me!" ramblings, I'd say that's pretty good.

Here's the people's vote: Marrying your Best Friend is the way to go by 64%. My advice is this: If you are going to marry your best "friend" make sure you get a real proposal, and not via text or an online "gift" digital ring in your inbox- which may be the next wave of humanistic abandonment, God forbid.

I hate to say this, but "virtual" friendship is just what the dictionary says it is: "noting an image formed by the apparent convergence of rays geometrically, but not actually, prolonged, as the image formed by a mirror (opposed to real)." Not real. Hmmm...

So call someone today, hug someone, or write a good old fashioned letter. Technology is great, but investing in those REAL friendships, much better.

Sex, Marriage, and Surveys...Welcome to Wednesday's Scandalous Blog

2009-01-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't call my self a relationship guru, however I may say that I am a fairly experienced dater. Even with this prowess I possess, thanks to multiple beaus in high school, long term relationships in college and yes, a few flings with the resident "bad boy", have led me to question what type is the best type?

First of all, as a married woman you may be thinking how scandalous it is to even pose such a question? But as a married woman I feel like I am the best person to ask such a question, since I am "on the other side of that relationship finish line". And besides I've already made my choice, so my pithy observations become somewhat benign. I've got some perspective, however narrow in scope.

Here's the deal, a friend of mine said something to me that struck a resounding chord, and I felt compelled to jot down a few thoughts on the topic just to get the reverberation out of my head.

My friend is a happily married mid-twenties professional with an attractive young wife, and he said, "You know, I think my wife and I may be too good of friends to have good sex."

Hold the phone!

Don't people say that you should marry your best friend? And don't people seem to think that just marrying for sex is a recipe for disaster? And if marrying your best friend makes sex something like hugging a teddy bear while eating ice cream from the carton, then maybe that isn't the quickest way to heat up the sheets. So what's a girl or guy to do, and who are we really supposed to be looking for? The real question may be how compatible is compatibility in marriage?

I've composed a few different scenarios for pure entertainment value. My own I guess. Please vote!

Who would you rather marry?

Scenario 1) Your Best Friend.

So I know I already touched on this a little bit, but just because some jack-o said that marrying his best friend has made sex a little too friendly, doesn't mean that looking for the qualities of a BFF in your future husband is such a bad thing. If you do the math, the time spent in the bedroom in comparison to the time spent watching movies, talking, cooking, laughing, running, sleeping, working, eating, and hanging is fractional at best. So you get all the benefits of living with your best friend, but you sometimes wonder if farting and peeing in front of each other may be just a tad too close for comfort.

Scenario 2) Your Physical Fantasy

So we all know what this type entails. He is the steamy, ultra-sexy guy of your dreams- physically. There is only one problem, you are the doormat and he is the studded football cleats. This is not to say that you can not be attracted to the right type for you. But if we are honest, our utmost physical fantasy doesn't seem to include the nice, humble guy who is willing to take out the trash and rub your feet while he shoots spreads for Gucci in Milan on weekends. This physical fantasy is the guy that takes more time getting ready than you do, and likes to pepper you will comments such as, "Are you really going to wear that?" and "Did you go to the gym today?" But some of us dig the distant moody type and besides, how's the sex? Fughet about it!

Scenario 3) The Safe Bet

This guy is kind, gentle and well educated, so who cares if he wears a few sweater vests every now and then? He makes a great living, adores you, and is always appropriate in social situations. No guesswork with this guy- he has his whole life planned out and is as secure as The Pentagon. He likes the symphony, culture, museums and The History Channel, and even plays Celine Dion over dinner without you having to ask. What more could a girl ask for? Who cares if you aren't attracted to him in the least? Who cares if his gentility has got you screaming for one fight? Just one! Country clubbing and expensive cars and wine, perfect. Good thing he doesn't know about your girls weekend in Vegas? Tequila shots are so not blue blood.

Scenario 4) Marriage? What is That?

It's no secret that less and less people are getting married, and more and more people are waiting longer to do so. Perhaps the staggering divorce rates that have plagued over half of the population are making us a little gun shy. Completely understandable. Or perhaps we are waiting for the perfect blend of fantasy and friendship to walk into our lives- idealism, gotta love it! Having our own space and our own identities apart from a wedding ring is absolutely desirable, even as a married woman I envy the freedom that single women have, but we all want to share our lives with someone- perhaps your cat Mabel is the companion you are looking for.

Of course this blog is in jest, but the lifelong search for our counterpoints or the lifelong commitment to stick with the one we chose, is the ultimate line in the sand. Our relationships can very much so dictate our worth, our sense of identity, and determine the paths in which we take in finding our place in this world. Who you choose to spend your life with is the most important decision you will make outside of choosing a career, a religion, or if you have kids or not.

Weigh in your thoughts on the survey, and remember that compatibility may just be a coping mechanism. Perhaps we are all odd-shaped jigsaw pieces that don't have any perfect matching piece. That's what makes love all the more interesting.

The Comfort of Complacency

2009-01-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

The New Year has begun, but if I am honest, it feels overwhelming. The truth is that every New Year feels that way to me. It's easy to figure out why, I blame my blind ambition. I make a goal list every year full of inexhaustible, uncompilable, over-achieving lofty aspirations, which one could never complete in one year let alone a decade.

All of those goals I didn't reach; those triathlons I didn't run, the number one song I didn't pitch, the writing contests I didn't enter, the novel that is still stuck in neutral- it's all these little missteps that cause me to once again reevaluate my life and wonder what goals should I make this year? Instead of making goals like, starting my own magazine by traveling around the world recruiting investors and learning two new languages it will be something like...read more books that aren't written by American authors or drink less diet soda.

You see, this time- and this year I want to be able to wake up on January 1st of next year and feel accomplished and progressive in my own behavior and thoughts. So this goal list for 2009 will be things I can and will actually do. So when the first decade of the New Millennium rounds itself out I can say , "Look, I did everything I wanted to in 2009", even if that means that getting nominated for a Pulitzer falls from the list with a thud.

There is something to be said for stretching yourself, and pushing yourself to do more than you thought you could, but there is also a joy in realism. When you come to a place that is in juxtaposition between the two, it is then that you can enjoy little victories which over time compound into larger ones.

So for my simple little self here are a few things that I would like to accomplish this year:

1. Be content with my life on a daily basis. This will look something like: don't curse the gods when those lopsided burners inside my oven burn up every pizza we make- instead, just eat the unburnt side and be happy that we even have a working oven.
2. Be thankful more and think about my self less, and stop wondering "What am I doing with my life?" (Since I don't want this to end up on the things I didn't accomplish in 2009, because how impossible is it for a melancholy artist to not ask such a question, I will change it to " What can I do today that will add value to the quality of my life?".
3. Enjoy coffee, but have at least one cup of tea a week coupled with a good book in my favorite chair.
4. Write a whole lot of awful songs to completion. I am notorious for stopping mid-way through a song when my I realize how ridiculous and awkward the progression is- Oh and I need to stop worrying that someone has bugged my house and will post the whole lot of melodious crap on You Tube.
5. Call my husband by his nicknames even when I am angry. They are so silly, that I am pretty sure I would crack up right in the middle of an argument if used. Relational tension diffuser? Create stupid nick names. (ie: Beanser)
6. Give myself a break. If I don't make it to the gym, or if I have a chocolate craving that I cave in to or drink too much wine- I refuse to berate myself. Guilt is sooo 2008 and I am leaving that one behind.
7. Stop hiding out in the comfort of complacency. I may work forty hours a week but I am tired of using that as an excuse to not be creative, play gigs, write stories, paint canvases. I have the rest of my life to get good sleep (giving up sleep is a huge sacrifice for me), so I need to do other things outside of my comfort zone this year that don't involve coming home, hitting the couch, watching TV and zoning out.
8. Stop thinking about going home. I am in Nashville for a reason and with a new home, there is no point in fantasizing about a place that isn't the way I remember it as being. Home will always be there for you, but adventure? Well, that is a destination that few ever find.
9. Money comes and money goes. Bottom line. Don't waste any thoughts on worrying about money.
10. Take better care of my skin. Drink more water. Floss every night (hmm...at least four times a week).
11. Dance.
12. Learn to cook.
13. Don't expect anything, just enjoy surprises as they come.
14. Throw out all of those clothes that I am hanging on to because they used to fit...like um, seven years ago. Just toss them and embrace the new me.
15. Laugh at myself more.
16. Stop relying on other people to make me feel important.
17. Cry when I feel like it.
18. Use real butter.
19. Get nervous more often. This usually means that I am doing something unfamiliar, and that's always a good thing.
20. Pray constantly.

My Own Personal 2008 Recap

2008-12-31T09:40:00.000-08:00

Hush and Such's 2008 Recap: (not in order of importance, or in any order of any kind)

1. The "bob" made a comeback and I had two hairdressers tell me it wouldn't work on me. Turned down for a haircut? Talk about rejection.

2. Pam and Jim got engaged on The Office. I know they are fictitious characters and in real life they probably can not stand each other- but they shine a light into my heart every time their mundane lives get oh so romantical.

3. Barack Obama claims the presidency, and we all felt hope for the first time in a long time. Pray that the change he brings is the change this nation so desperately needs.

4. Twilight, my favorite series was made into a movie- where I sat sandwiched between teen mothers with crying babies and hysterical tweens. It was awesome. And despite the whole immaturity of the scene, I found myself totally swooning over Edward. Who doesn't like romance between humans and vampires? Sticks in the mud that's who.

5. My favorite Australian actor, Heath Ledger passed away. While death is inevitable when someone goes that young it makes death seem so random, so jarring- and sometimes so unfair.

6. The recession. My Lord, what can I say...banks going out of business, foreclosures at an all time high, lay-offs, crime rates increasing, businesses failing left and right. The stock market crashing, and yet we are all still here- fighting to make it through, and hoping that 2009 is that first step to governmental reconciliation.

7. Britney's back. Ok....I know, how pathetic. Who cares about some coked up mom who got her kids taken away and handed over to their tatted, oily, "womanizer" dad, while proceeding to flash the public her womanhood, shave her head, and astonish us with her bad taste? Well...I do. I like her music, and I think deep down she's a good southern girl who made some bad choices. Welcome back to the land of the living honey!

8. I moved to Nashville, TN and put down some roots. There is something to be said for taking a chance in life and actually following through. The rest is just details-

but showing up, that's the main event.

Lighten Up!

2008-12-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Carry me away and I will follow
Keep me at bay and I will stay
I am the road meeting rubber
A single thread in life's fray

Flying high is not everyday
Feeling alive, that is the point
I feel my blood pulsating
I am unafraid to disappoint

I am a glass menagerie
But steel keeps me intact
Throw your stones forcefully
I refuse to crumble and crack

Maybe falsified courageous
But fearless nonetheless
So keep me in your pocket
Until your lint confess

That I belong in the traffic
I belong in the underground
One simple little getaway
Where few to none are found

Perhaps I am just a bank teller
Handing out dollars I don't own
But at least I've got my foot down
Underneath a broken sole

So, let's just recap a life train
Perplexing and uncharted
A back and forth upside ride
Leaving together or departed

Perhaps I only puffed to smoke
But at least I started fire
Lighten up this darken room
I'm just sparking to inspire

~M.M

Drowning on Dry Land

2008-12-29T13:43:00.000-08:00

So I survived the holiday season.

Deep breath.

And now here comes the new year. There are so many things I am looking forward to and yet so may things I am afraid of in the next few months. Uncertainty (financially and vocationally) has made me somewhat of a basket case, but instead of me using that electric nervousness to be some kind of creative outlet, I am just trying to shush it away and just revel in the normalcy that is my everyday.

I can't help but wonder, not only what happened to all of those big dreams that I used to have, but even more so the firm belief that I was without a doubt going to achieve them. I truly believed that my abilities would take me somewhere...somewhere further than my routine, and now I am not sure what I believe.

One of the joyous things about family Christmas (sarcasm intended) is the incessant asking about babies. Yes, I know I have been married for going on two years and maybe a family someday would be nice...but kids? Now? That isn't my plan...although I guess getting married fairly young wasn't either.

Moving to Nashville just to work forty hours a week and not pursue music? Well...that is more of an obligation than a decision. Should responsibility override passion, and if not how come it is so easy for me to let it fade? Laziness, fear? Probably equal parts of both.

While all of this may sound like whining, because well it kind of is, it's more so a reflection of my self slipping out of my mid-twenties into my late twenties and thinking I should be more "me" now than I have ever been, but sometimes I just feel like a stranger to myself.

I guess the good news is this: the fat lady hasn't sung and who knows maybe my ship will still come in...I think getting my butt off the shore should be the first step.

Deep breath.

New Year's Resolution Number 1: Make 2009 the year I finally jump in head first.

New Year's Resolution Number 2: Don't fall victim to Al Green's lyrical genius as I refuse to be peer pressured into becoming one of those "babies having babies", I have a lot of dreams to chase down, so I am going to put me first for quite a while.

Where Are You Christmas?

2008-12-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

Tradition is something that I think is lost on us "kids", as my Gramps would say, but that doesn't mean that fruit cakes (how gross), caroling and midnight mass are the only ways to properly employ the tradition of Christmas.

For instance, I have a few holiday traditions of my own.

1. Watch Jim Carey as the Grinch, much to the chagrin of my husband, and appropriately laugh at all of the overly acted parts that force comedic timing down my throat (better obvious than smart I always say).
2. Wear Christmas sweaters and drink too much rum and eggnog while decorating the tree somehow not realizing until the last ornament has been hung, that I hate eggnog and that spiced rum reminds me of rubbing alcohol and cinnamon.
3. Consistently, without fail, buying my husband Christmas presents that are ill-fitting. Shirts that are too big, shoes that are too small, boxers that have extra large waistbands and hats that pinch his temples. (He has the biggest noggin, I swear they don't even make hats that big- not my fault.)
4. Wrapping presents in a flurry and then forgetting to tag them, which forces me to unwrap and re-wrap them time and time again- I know...it's so un-green.
5. Bringing the gift that I want to end up with to Christmas exchanges, and then pretending that I didn't bring it- thickly pouring on the excitement when I do, in fact, clench my own gift. (Not leaving with the gift I brought? That is a risk I am willing to take.)
6. Crying at least once on Christmas day- due to the appalling, "I can't believe she just said that" familial stresses OR overarching, unbridled, I am so brimming with happy tears- (this is dependent upon geographical happenstance, welcome to marriage and split Christmases.)
7. Fielding calls from drunk exes who like to stir up drama around the holidays. Hint: If you're ex-girlfriend is married DON'T call to wish her Merry Christmas, she is probably having a very merry time without you.
8. Praying a real, "I am going to take time out for you God" prayer. And reveling in the blessing that is life.
9. Stealing away in the middle of the day to take a luxurious, fully clothed 2pm Christmas nap. There is nothing more enjoyable than a quiet snooze in the middle of all of the hubbub.
10. Getting worked out like a maniac by my husband's body-builder dad and his personal trainer wife- hence hobbling around for days afterwords having to agree with their constant commentary, "Yes, that was a GREAT workout! 6 am spinning tomorrow? Wouldn't miss it!" Crap.
11. Kissing and hugging my husband until he has to remind me that we are in the company of others, who cares? PDA is the new PM Dawn.
12. Lastly, getting forced to sing Christmas carols in the company of strangers, since I am the girl who lives in Nashville and has a CD- so naturally, of course, I want to lead everyone in "Little Drummer Boy". Meh.

Merry Christmas to all, and have a very happy, safe holiday!

xoxo,
M

Hankerings and a Hummer

2008-12-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

My newly found tight-wad budget is screaming at me from the bottom line of my bank account. So why am I suddenly accosted by an insatiable itching in my fingers to twirl al dente pasta around my fork while listening to a quartet of strings over a bottle of expensive wine in a low cut Prada gown at a five star restaurant?

And just so you know, I am much more of the...how do I put this? Cautious spender of my household. Besides my cat Mojo, who has no pockets and therefore no pocketbook, I am the penny pinching, don't buy name brand nothing type of girl.

The adage that says you only want what you can't have seems cuttingly apropos.

Do I really want to spend money I don't have? No. Do I want to spend money that I wish I had? Absolutely!

You can't order a cup of Joe or go to the bathroom without hearing about the economic downturn. Well, I want to fly in the face of the media. I desperately want to go out and boost our economy. I want to spend money- kick back with a vodka martini laughing and petting my Great Dane in front of the fireplace, while tasting Abondance cheese from the Rhone-Alps region in France...the problem?

First of all, I am lactose intolerant and secondly...even though I detest how the media brutally punches all of us repeatedly in the head- just in case we somehow forgot that we are experiencing financial hardships peppered with exaggerations, falsities and scare tactics- I gotta say right now I feel the pinch.

Its aggravating.

And I am also becoming a smidgen bitter. One my way to work this morning, I saw an uber thin blonde, dressed to the nines climbing into a Hummer with rims, her blonde hair waving in the wind, and her Gucci Luggage being handled with kitten gloves by the pubescent bell boy.

I couldn't help but wonder, doesn't she know that I can't even afford to get a latte? Doesn't she know that I am skipping Christmas this year? Doesn't she know that the layoff rates are staggering? Doesn't she know that Hummers are the ugliest cars...not to mention the Army's choice for transportation, which may as well serve as a pro-war bumper sticker, without even needing the sticker?

Now understand- My husband spent a year in Iraq. This is not a protest blog. But would I be protesting and screaming and picketing the White House if he had not returned to me safely? Yes. So I understand and have empathy for those that have suffered such loss. I can't look at a Hummer these days without thinking about the boys that are still over there.

Obviously, Blondie hasn't made the connection. And then she drove away.

And I realized, of course she doesn't know. Why should she know, nevertheless care?

And then I was thankful. Thankful I had a job. Thankful that I have tact. Thankful that I have a husband who is strong and able. Thankful that I live in a city that I love, with people that I care for, and have a roof over my head and a car that works and a fridge that has food.

And now I just realized, I feel somewhat ashamed. Becuase even though lately I have fantasized about spending thousands in one stop, and drinking champagne and not having to worry about the bottom line, and feeling free from the tension of tight budgets...I am happy.

I am happy, and I don't drive a ridiculous murdering tank.

The Dangers of Fairy Tale Childhoods, and The True Reflection that A Diamond Ring Brings

2008-12-17T08:37:00.000-08:00

Last night, my best friend, whom I have known since I was nine years old got engaged.

As we both giggled over the phone and I ran around the room asking about what the ring looked like and how it happened, it dawned on me that I felt like I was back to the tender, naive age of nine. And it was a welcomed altruism. One that took me by surprise.

But honestly, how could I avoid reverting back to the land of fairy tales and Prince Charmings? As a child, I had been conditioned, or more accurately "targeted" by toy campaigns from heartless corporate big-wigs, to view love as such?...hence this absolutely heinous commercial about this year's hot toy, which is called (finger in throat) Diamond Castle Glimmer Horse, which I linked to this blog for your entertainment.

This pink, cupcake-eating, heart-string pulling, genderless horse is a perfect example of the kind of things I fell prey to when I was a little girl. Aside from it's creepy misalignment with reality in general, (it was a harsh blow when I discovered unicorns were a farse, it hit me harder than the Santa hoax), it also plays a fiendish role in distorting what marriage is in the minds of pliable little "daddy's princesses".

And let me tell you from experience, there ain't no pink horse that flies you to a diamond castle every night after you clock out of your nine-to-five job, tired and disenchanted, having to face a fridge full of groceries that you don't want to make and a load of unfolded laundry wrinkling it's way to ninety years old in the dryer.

Granted, I am not a sage. I am a little nub on the tree of long lasting marriages. I will be celebrating my 5th Christmas with my husband but only our second married one. I know I have loads to learn. Perhaps one of the biggest things I had to learn is this: while I was force fed diamond encrusted dreams through an IV loaded with saccharine cartoons and plastic play-things, it came into focus that normalcy is so much more comforting than the fallacy of fairy tales.

I am happy for my best friend and her husband-to-be. Not because I think her beach wedding will be spectacular, or because she deserves the perfect ending to her singledom buttoned off by the sparkle of a diamond ring. Its because she will now be joining the ranks of women who believed in love, and now get to find out what the whole thing is really about.

Marriage for me, has enlightened, tested, refined, matured, and held me in so many ways. Watching TV with my best friend (that's my boy) in pajamas eating salsa and chips for dinner for the third night in a row. It's a far cry from suppers in the dining hall, with roasted boar and candied pecans but man, is it so much better!

I do not live in a castle, I do not ride a flying horse to work. I did not marry prince charming, I do not sing to animals, and even if I did they wouldn't understand me (Snow White is a damn liar). So when I look down at my ring I see a testament of promise, that no matter what happens...a true reflection of human frailty and acceptance will be found.

So my dearest friend, welcome to "for better or for worse"- the stuff that real life is made of.

Hit by a Mack Truck, Rain on My Parade, my Balloon Got Stuck in a Tree..

2008-12-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

Pity Parties are Not Allowed...Allowing a Party Pity? Well That's Just Human Kindness.

2008-12-16T09:49:00.001-08:00

In my little corner of the world it has been somewhat of a black Tuesday. My husband's entire office got let go and we just acquired a new mortgage. Sweet. Also one of our authors, that we dearly cared for, passed away today from complications with cancer. And Christmas is looking more bleak than it ever has.

As I was researching unemployment rates, I stumbled across this absolutely horrific book on CNN about how the world is coming to an end, and how the United States has been prophesied to fall and then we will find ourselves in the final world war, and we will all die.

Not exactly the book I want to be reading right now, thanks.

I don't buy into fear breeding. I may be financially fearful at the moment, but I am also a believer in hope and grace and success, and even the American Dream. Which has lost it's glow over the last year for most of us- but things will get better I know it.

The most beautiful thing about loss is the people that clamor around you wanting to help. Every single person that I have trusted with this news (because let's face it, it's not the most glamorous or easy thing to tell people) have rallied around me, offered me contact numbers, or even financial help and said they would keep their eyes and ears open. It's so moving, and I feel so grateful for those people so willing to help me...no strings attached.

I know my husband will find something else to do, and I know we will be just fine. He is one of those people who has sunshine shining out of his...well you know.

He was prom king and the class president, while I was the girl cleaning out bagel from my braces and reading Pride and Prejudice. He graduated at the top of his class, while I've dropped out of community college twice. Even his own sister calls him the golden boy, so I am not worried about him at all. Besides his pride being a little bruised, he will survive.

Getting hit by a Mack Truck would be much worse than what I am going through right now, even though the expression fits the condition of my heart, I am still alive and well.

So in remembrance of Frank Durham, our author of Cain's Version, embrace life.

You only get just the one. So make it count- even if you've got a lot of things counting against you, put on your seat belt, grab an umbrella and let the balloons go- besides you can pick up an entire pack at the grocery store for a buck.

Stormy Weather

2008-12-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

Some days I feel so bankrupt emotionally. Today I am so spent.

We had some stormy weather in the Northwest, it snowed pretty heavily. Even though it was beautiful to see Seattle covered in a blanket of snow it also delayed my flight back here.

Going home is a great feeling, but I don't feel as homesick as I thought I would. I actually am relieved to be back.

And when I started to think about that, I realized that it may be because I am so happy for the person I have become now that I am no longer back there. When I go home, while I get to be encircled by those I love, I am also surrounded by old ghosts. Ones that I almost forgot used to haunt me. Ghosts of insecurity. Loneliness. Fear. Inadequacy.

All of the things that you face when you are immature, young and a little directionless.

I am so happy to be home. I never thought anywhere else could feel like the place I grew up. There are great things about your history, but there is something even better about your future. Your dreams and the possibilities that a new city can offer you.

Besides, "love is where your story begins"... and Mr. Johnson and I? Well our love began right here, so Nashville thanks for welcoming me home.

Preemptive Emotion

2008-12-13T11:09:00.001-08:00

This is how I will be feeling tomorrow at noon, and I haven't even left Seattle yet.

Prancer, Dancer and Nervous?

2008-12-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

This makes me laugh.

Just what the world needs....

2008-12-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

One more Megan Johnson.

And this leads me to a very controversial topic.

Changing your name after you get married.

I am not a feminist. But am I a female who didn't change her name after she got married? Yes.

Am I proud of my accomplishments pre-marriage, and happy with the identity I had carved out for myself these last twenty-or so years previous to my "I do's"? Yes.

Do I have t-shirts, records, elementary report cards, camp t-shirts, softball uniforms, journals, poems, and finger-paintings that all belong to and are in some way monogrammed with my pre-married self? Yes.

And would my marriage mean anything more to me or my husband if on top of pledging my life to him for better or worse, in sickness and in health, in football season and in baseball season, and basketball season, and tennis season, and what other seasons are there??? Hmmm...Christmas season?

Absolutely NOT!

Don't get me wrong I think it is an incredibly romantic gesture to change your name. If I am truly honest, if it wasn't for the hassle of me living in Tennessee and my marriage license being filed in Seattle, I may make more of an effort to assimilate my identity to my husband's.

But alas laziness, mixed with my own sense of extreme personal pride in having alliterated initials, have led me to the other side of this topic where I firmly stand (for now) at keeping my own name.

I may be flying in the face of traditionalism and gathering grimaces from willing name shifters across the globe, but I am sticking to my guns.

And with that... let me explain the image above.

I get to have my unmarried name 365 days a year, so on the Christmas cards you better believe that I will appease the in-laws and oblige, that's one conversation over turkey and giblets that I don't want to have to have. Again.

Welcome to the holiday season. Let me introduce myself, "I am Megan Johnson."

Right about now....

2008-12-09T14:11:00.001-08:00

Sliding Doors

2008-12-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

So I have never actually seen the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. It came out in '98, but I find myself thinking about that movie all the time. As I understand it, it's a movie about missing a train and how two completely different lives stem from such a seemingly innate detail.

I found this synopsis on IMDB:

"A London woman's love life and career both hinge, unknown to her, on whether or not she catches a train. We see it both ways, in parallel."

Here's the deal. I don't want to see this film. I am sure that it isn't as absolutely enlightening as the concept is behind the drama, and I know I would be let down. But it does make for absolutely delicious commentary.

For instance, moments ago on an unusually dreary and wet day here in Nashville I made a routine pit stop at the local HG Hill market for some jerky and swung by Dunn Brothers Coffee for some tea and a few minutes to myself. Chatting away with my mom about nothing, (our conversations are extremely consistent but rarely do I say anything she doesn't already know), my boot suddenly gave way and slipped out from under me.

In that moment, my phone flew out of my hand and I knew I was going down. Wearing a white coat and knowing that this may end in a broken tailbone, I could do nothing but just let gravity play it's evil tricks.

Before I knew it an angel appeared, in a red hoodie and skater shoes, reaching out to save me from a bitter fall. He didn't know me. It probably would've been a funny story to tell his buddies later, about how this dressed up professional chick bit asphalt right in front of him. But he didn't let me fall. A stranger reached out and saved me.

I don't know what parallel existence me falling on my arse would have created, but an awful afternoon would have been the first sliding door followed by a hefty dry cleaning bill and a broken butt to round it all out.

Life has so many possibilities, and I often wonder how many times a traffic jam has saved me from an fatal accident, a lost cell phone has kept me from making a stupid call, or a bitter loss has helped me find what I was really looking for- or, in this case, a broken fall has kept me from uttering one more cuss word followed by a renewed appreciation for my fellow man.

But most of all I wonder, if that guy hadn't of caught me what consequences would be plaguing me right now? And introspectively, how many times have I let someone fall down right in front of me and never reached out a helping hand?

To the dude in the red, thank you for teaching me a lesson, and thank you for setting the example for how we can all save each other one broken fall at a time.

Quote of the Day

2008-12-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

Thanks to "It's a Heart Rock Life" I found this quote by C.S. Lewis which is sparklingly acute.

You don't have a soul.
You are a soul.
You have a body.
--CS Lewis

Warm Fuzzies

2008-12-09T09:44:00.000-08:00

This image makes me want to run away...