Barcodes and Cymbals

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.