two hundred. seventeen.

I was up earlier than usual this morning (for a Saturday morning, that is).
Inspiration strikes when Kim Janssen is singing and I typed the morning away, sipping on iced coffee and kept company by the dogs.

This lack of rain means no mowing, and the spiders have declared the uncut, dry grass their own - webs are covering much of our lawn. They look like tiny layers of fog lying over tiny kingdoms hidden in the grass.

A candle labeled "Joy" burns at my desk and it's that which I feel this morning.
I've pulled aside the curtain and light floods this room.
We're almost ready.
We always use the word "nearly" to describe where we are in terms of getting there.
Nearly there.
It's the "nearly" that fills our steps with longing and this forward motion, the promise and the hope that sits neatly in that word.

for the beauty of the earth 


I'm learning as I'm writing, which is the best way to write.
It's nearly time for that chat.
We'll keep pushing forward -
let's find our feet sandy from the beach.

this our hymn of grateful praise

If you were here with me we'd sit in this room and be able to say nearly everything on our minds.
One day we'll get there.

two hundred. sixteen.

This morning I wanted to finish both the books I've been reading and I've done just that.
One was Toxic Charity [giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people.]
and the other was a novel called To The Wedding ["It is strange how the place, where music comes from, changes. Sometimes it enters the body. It no longer comes in through the ears. It takes up residence there. When two bodies dance, this can happen swiftly. What is being played is then heard by the dancers as if it were a recording, a millionth of a second late, of the music already beating in their bodies. With music, hope too enters the body."].
Some good reading.

This week has been so busy. Decorating fever - I am redoing a room in our house and it's become quite involved. On the plus side, the window seat has officially become a window seat, and I've been delighted to find that I am a perfect fit encased within the wooden frame.
It is my new favorite place [nearly in the whole world, but not quite], and I'm so ready to watch the first snowfall from this massive, glorious window.
More perfect fits: a new white dress, a picture in a frame, the smile on her face and the way the sunset held us.

I told Tai yesterday that I keep thinking of being swallowed, and I do. There is a restrained frenzy in certain moments and all I can wildly hope for is to be swallowed whole - by waves, or the sky or the earth.
It's strange.
But it was the first image and the only recurring one that's come to my mind.
[to clarify:: i don't mean swallowed necessarily with a sense of grimness, as if i visualized my death. there's a safety to it - a stillness. like jonah.]

There is change.
Here at the beginning of the summer when we settle into the sweltering heat, ready only for the same for the next several months,
there is change.

There are evenings where all we can hope for is a place to dip our toes in the water.
So Tai and I drove to the nearest body of water, sat on the pier and did just that.

two hundred. fifteen.

I'm still disoriented by the light in the early mornings. My brain is so used to the quiet, darkness of winter dawn. I know just when I've gotten used to this brightness it'll switch back, and I'll be groggy and confused. For now, I wake in a panic. It must be so late! But no, that early morning glow is the sweetest assurance that I have 7 minutes left to lay in a peaceful doze.
The downside to this is that the sun is right in my eyeballs as soon as I open up shop. I force customers to stand in such a way to block the blinding light. They are usually obliging enough, but there are those early morning folks who haven't had their coffee and truly can't comprehend anything quite yet. So I blink furiously and hope that I give them the right change back.

[Such a great thing to remember where I stashed a bar of dark chocolate.]

I have been reading more & writing less.
Working more too - at the coffee shop and here at home. We're moving a few rooms around and packing up millions of books to put them in different places. I could Hulk out at any moment with the strength I've gotten from toting around boxes of books. If you're looking to pick a fight, look elsewhere.

Perfect weather today. I read a bit under a tree. Looked back at my journal and found this from 4.24, just after Arkansas:

I crave the light
so I turn myself out of doors.
I need some space to stretch my arms.
"You look so refreshed," said Joe today.
"I am."
Something about camping and climbing leaves me feeling full
& longing
which is always the best place to be.

Other old journal bits - some of the words aren't mine, just things I wanted to remember:

//Ebbing, I've been swept
down the wrong way.
The water is descending so I'll have to
beat myself bloody
to get back to you.
I should.
But I'm weak & lazy.
And I find myself instead wanting to crawl back
to when we didn't have to be holy.
Just happy.
We just had to make each other laugh.

//And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Do not be afraid.


"Too long we have been waiting for one another to begin!... Should such men as we fear? Before the whole world, aye, before the sleepy, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God, we will venture our all for Him, we will live and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts."  -C.T. Studd.

Wondering lately about why all I do with some truths is defend them staunchly when attacked, but then the rest of the time act like they aren't even there. 

Sometimes I read the back of books, and while sitting there, begin to read because it is a book for stillness.
Other times I read the back and the first few lines and tuck it away. It's a train and traveling book. It must read moving and in new places.

[We taught each other to see beauty long ago. Now we find ourselves overwhelmed by it, missing it. Always, I see the hunger in your eyes.]

& what if we stopped asking what would fulfill us?

two hundred. fourteen.

There was no sun this morning as I skipped across the wet sidewalk to my car.
Always five minutes late these days.
Such silence and calm in the mornings - even in my hurried state.

[it's the simplicity & i'm held by it.]

I feel it settled just under my skin. That's the way of things. I've tried to write a bit all day today but I'm mostly staring.
I get frightened to touch things in case I ruin it. It'll crumble quick, I know. Later, when I go back and read it and edit it, it's a bit more fearless. There's some aggressive hacking to be done.
But for now I am shy and hesitant.
I wait until the wind catches my back and brings me to the end.
That way I'm barely treading on it.

Just finished a book called "Real Food."
I love reading about food. Seriously, it's so much of what I've been reading recently. If I'm not reading about it, I like watching documentaries about food, or talking about food. All sorts of food. Don't get me started. The book was good, though. Great insight. There is much to be done and I'm even more excited for tomatoes in the middle of summer. I've been thinking about smelling one all day.

Catching up with friends reminds us of all the things that are changing and all the things that aren't. Bittersweet reminders.

If you'd like to know what I can't stop listening to, my answer would be: "Ancient Crimes" by Kim Janssen, Of Monsters and Men, and The Lumineers.
What would your answer be?

two hundred. thirteen.

& I heard
"You aren't called to fully understand God. You are called to worship Him."
which made me think
perhaps I've been worrying about and mulling over the wrong bits.

then I wonder where the line is between being steadfast in your faith and being stubborn in your beliefs.
and who is too fearful to be one or the other
but sits in neutrality?

What is in front of you?
Do that.
& freedom must begin in obedience.
[at which I balk, I know.]

Here are some words that aren't mine
since mine aren't very concise:

"Reason tells me about the truth, but I really cannot grasp what it means; I can’t understand it without art. Edwards said that unless you use imagination, unless you take a truth and you image it – which of course is art – you don’t know what it means. If you cannot visualize it, you don’t have a sense of it on your heart."
[Tim Keller]

What do you think?

Grateful for the crescent moon hanging in the sky this morning as I drove off to work and the loud greetings of the birds who were far more awake than I.

Yesterday, we were inspired by the various food/farm documentaries we've been watching and books we've been reading, so we all went out and hunted down some farms in the area. Some were out of our price range but some we could afford. In a year or two, perhaps, we'll get one.
For now, it turns out the study downstairs will be *mostly* mine and I'll hole up in there to write & sew. Or we'll all gather there. Things are going so well I think it's about time to ask for a kitten again. Yes?

two hundred. twelve.

I'm bad at keeping a blog, lately.
I've been doing a bunch of outside of blog writing, which is good. Long overdue. Unfortunately it hasn't been much in the way of a finished piece, more just like a bunch of bits that might one day be unified. We'll see.

I recently read Annie Dillards book about writing, "The Writing Life." It was exquisite. I nodded along a lot. Two people have made me want to smoke cigarettes: Annie Dillard and Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf.
No, I won't be picking up the habit.
It seems such a writerly thing to do though, cooped up, malnourished and smoking cigarettes. Oh, the glamour.
Anyhow, it was a good book.

It's funny how often I neglect to lead the life I most want to. I fall short and take cheap shortcuts which bring me back even further. I'll feel fulfilled in the tasks I'm set to do and then the next day I'll be lazy and constantly find myself falling underneath my goals. It's quite frustrating. I find myself shifting blame to the cloudy sky, to my  job, cold breezes. I blame my blankets for their warmth, my eyelids for their heaviness, my lungs for their inability to keep up.
Truly, I know it's a lack of discipline. I find myself looking inwards with a snarl of loathing at the indecision that makes me paralyzed.
It's Monday, a better day, starting off this week fresh. The sun is shining and I can't blame the sky for anything.

In regards to what is urgent to write, I'm not sure this would be seen as urgent, but there is something that needs to be said on nose-picking.
This won't be the first time I've said something on the subject.
It may well be the third.
It's that important.
There is a man, we'll call him John, who sits at the coffee shop nearly every week day before he goes down and teaches in the city. He's on his laptop writing papers, grading papers, etc. He always gets a latte in an in-house cup. He is very direct in his gaze and always intentionally says thank you.
[It's a bit disarming, to be honest.]
Anyhow, John always looks as if he's about ready to dart out of his chair: elbows half perched on the table, one leg under the table and the other shifted outwards, his body at a diagonal. It's very humorous.
One interesting thing about John is his unashamed habit of picking his nose. It could be said that 80% of the time that I look over at John, he's got his finger halfway up his nostril. Now, I've always been one to say that I wish nose-picking was socially acceptable so that I could have the same casual approach of picking my nose as John does. The sad truth, however, is that it is not, and so there is a sort of horror about a man picking his nose constantly and with such a breezy attitude. It's done with the same habitual air as those who drum their fingers on the table, jiggle their knees or bite their nails (guilty).
It's one thing to pick your nose in the privacy of your car. We've all passed and smiled at those old men who absentmindedly poke around their noses at the stop light. Funny old men.
But here John is in the middle of the cafe picking his nose like a 4 year old.

two hundred. eleven.

I think of what to write and how to write it.
Where did I read to: Write what is urgent?

So I wonder what that means. 

What is urgent?

There are things that are pressing. There is a story I'm trying to finish and wishing it would just finish itself. Not all of it is urgent though. You know? Time is pressing, rather. I know you've got to just do it, just shove at the bits that aren't urgent, wrestle them around until they stay put. There's writing to be done that doesn't always feel important, but if you set feelings aside for long enough you might find there's an importance to it after all. 

Some things seem urgent in moments, but only to me.
Those moments when I say to myself
This must be written. 
Of course it's not always gold, it's often rubbish. But I have to write it out nonetheless.  

It seemed urgent to remember my dogs and their snowy faces when they came in from outside this morning, the way they shook and snuffled it all over the floor in our basement. I saw their faces and wonder how I would write it. I wondered why I would.
Stories & thoughts seem urgent at times. As soon as it happens I rush to jot it down, on napkins, on receipt paper, on coffee filters, in a notebook. The random scraps I have hanging about everywhere is appalling. My purse is always full of these bits: from work, from driving, from conversations.

Why?

The lady who came in to the coffeeshop this week, she'd had a stroke a while back and now has trouble with some words. She is the tiniest lady you'll ever see, light blue eyes that almost look blind, they look past you at times with that strange glow.
She equates size with age when ordering. That day, she ordered a caramel latte, the oldest size.
So we gave her the biggest.

There was an urgency to this moment. Her adorable giggle as she held her hand over her mouth and corrected her mistake, embarrassed at the way her brain works now.
But why?
It did seem important, in any case, and here it is, I've told you.
I wonder at journaling, at updates and the details of a life lived, and I wonder if there is/should be an urgency to that.
[Anyhow, I've been awful at journaling recently.]

What else seems urgent?
What do we neglect when it does?
I think it's telling.