Fender Benders and The Disappearing Man

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Tired, Tired and my Cat's on Fire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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