restING, resolvING, and laughING with my mouth full

So, I could go into a big explanation as to why I haven't posted in so long, but I won't. Life has just been busy, now I'm on break and my laptop was the last thing I felt like looking at for awhile.

Anyway, I'm still on break, and its lovely. This has become one of my favorite times of the year. As much as I love all the hustle and bustle and glory and excitement of Christmas, I love this quiet, lovely, restful time afterwards. There's something about it. The slow putting away of an old year, and the bringing in of  new one.

For break I have simply been resting. Resting. In all its many forms. I would like to say I'm one of those people who do only  wholesome things with my break like, meditating, prayer, or even just reading (I've done a little of all of those things). But, I can also safely say I have watched every episode of 30 Rock (while eating McDonald's most of the time) and rewatched the episodes I found to be particularly hilarious. Laughing out loud...by myself, in my sweats, probably with my mouth full. It.was.glorious.

 I have been cleaning, here and there, little by little--putting away some Christmas decorations, reorganizing a cupboard here, and a drawer there. I think every stitch of clothing in our house besides what Dave and I are currently wearing, is clean.

I've been knitting. Working on that lovely kid mohair wrap. Its a creamy natural white, on wooden needles (I usually use metal) and something about that combination of the cream colored fuzzy yarn, and the grainy wooden needle is lovely to look at as I knit.

I've been sleeping. A lot. Whenever I want for however long I want, and staying up as late as I want.

It has all been wonderful. So very wonderful to just rest. Rest.

It has been this time of the year, that has slowly, year after year, developed into my own little sabbath. Kent recently shortened Christmas break in attempts to get us out earlier in the spring. While I know that once spring rolls around and I am done by the end of April, I will be elated, I sort of miss the extra time in the middle of winter.

I love this time to recharge, refresh, create, vegetate (hence the 30 Rock marathon), renew, and even prepare for the busyness ahead.

I love this time to reflect. I always say I'm not resolution person, but I think I secretly am.

I've been thinking about what I want from the next year. I know I want simplicity, I want rest (which I am still trying to figure out how that fits into the wild amount of work that comes a long with this final semester of classes and then student teaching in the fall...ugh...who wants to think about that right now!).

I want to be a resting place for others too.

I know one small goal I plan on moving towards in order to be that resting place, is listen more and talk less. Simple, maybe difficult. ??? Most people just want to be heard. I have ears. So I guess I'll try and  listen. Words are precious too, and that's just it. We use them like they aren't sometimes. I want my words to be valuable, to always leave people better if possible.

So, listen more, talk less.

So, that's it, break so far. Rest. Resolutions. Junk food. I have one more glorious week left.

Happy New Year everyone! I've really missed this online community and plan on being around more often if I can.

Image Credit: Somewhere on pinterest.com...

writING

For my teaching reading and writing class, we had to take sometihng we had written earlier in the class and make it into a four page piece. I've never tried this before, but I chose a poem. I chose The Dark Things. I don't know if this helps or kills the poem. It a four poem piece. Each poem is connected to the others, but hopefully distinct. I have no idea if this is good or not and I'm not just being modest. I'm just not sure. Its really long, so if  you don' tlike poetry, this isn't for you.  Well, here it is:





Four poems about you, for whenever you need them most:



Part 1: What you are not.

You are not too small.
You are not too unimportant.

You are stronger than you know.

You are not too tired,
You are not what they say.

You happen to have what it takes.

You are not alone.
You are not undone.

You are not as fearful as you think.

You are not unlovely,
You are not a coward.

You are not about to fall apart.

You are not too weak.
You are not too faint-hearted.

You have what it takes for one more step.

So take it, for then, you will find you have the strength for the next.

Because this is not your stop.



Part 2: What is in you.

Some days, the dark things win.
The days that are deep down and heavy hearted.

Those dark things are down inside our shaded souls, tremendous, and terrifying, and cold.
When try as we may, we cannot imagine life any other way.

We cannot pull ourselves from those dungeons, deep, and spiraled down.
We know what it is to want.

But, we know too, that that’s not all we are.

We know in us lies light and loveliness, beauty and bravery,
and the quiet, wild, courage to carry us through.

but, that all seems worlds away in some high castle tower.

For somedays,
some days,
the dark things win.



Part 3: What belongs to you.

This is your adventure.

It is not what you thought it’d be.

It is not always as exciting as you’d once imagined,
at least not on the surface.

It is darker and scarier than you could have dreamed.

Some of the days seem long, and tiring, and you don’t always feel like
the hero you’d always thought of,


Strong, valiant, and brave.

Other days seem difficult and impossible, the kind they never told you about.

The kind filled with back breaking work, or even the slow strange tears of failure.

There is sweat, the kind that causes you to stop for just a moment and wipe your brow, before you just keep plodding on.


It’s not at all like they said.

It doesn’t feel like an adventure.



-

But it may be one still, an adventure that is,
and it’s yours.

-

There, beneath what seems so dim and cold.
Or, so ordinary and normal, not the stuff of some great story.


It’s there.

The quiet slow kind of adventure,
the kind that makes you who you’ve always wanted to be.

Someday it may come, quicker than you dreamed, or slower,
that is not for me to say,
nor you,

Someday, You will find yourself again on some marvelous mountain top.

Standing on two strong legs,
And that will be your adventure too.


You will have conquered, and fought, and rejoiced, and sang.


But this, this dark and ordinary day,
this one moment,


this, dear friend,


This is your adventure.


Live it well.



Part 4: Where you must be..

When you have made it through,
when you have crossed safely to the other side.
when you are feeling strong,
nd have walked with straight sure steps for awhile:

Remember this,


Somebody carried you,


Whether through words or deeds,
Whether an embrace or glance,

someone helped you up and walked that bravest mile

with you.

Whether aware or not, they were there.
They were there to speak hope and life,


or to be silent.

to listen, to search with you, to sit with you, to laugh with you.

They were there to make you feel normal for a moment,
they were there to tell you the tale of their own strange story,

a journey not unlike your own.

They were there with gentle hands, or the courageous caring of someone who has walked that road.
Back when their world was harsh, and unforgiving, and dark.

They were there to pass along sand bags, or buckets of water,
they stood in the night watches with you, in those long awful times.

Somebody carried you,

They were there.

They were guardian healers,
The makers of a safe place, a landing strip, lit up in the night,
when you needed a harbor from some storm.



What you must remember is this:


You must be there,


wherever there is.


You must be a quiet place
a strong place
a knowing place.


You must be ready with tears
or with smiles
or with silence.


Or with hands ready to work, and a brow ready to sweat.


You must tuck someone under your wing for just awhile,
You must make a place for them to breathe.


You must be there.


You must remember where you once walked,

And that now you have what it takes,



to be there.

makING it through

It has been a long time. A long long time since I have really posted or read anyone elses blog. Life has been busy and difficult for me lately.

There are many many factors contributing to life's difficulties and busyness, and I don't feel like this is the time or place to really go into it, but suffice to say, I've been going through a period of burn out. Burn out on school, and church. I'm burned out on people--some very critical and exhausting people.

However, I will say this, that even this time--this funk, I guess-there is still goodness. For one thing, I have learned that with all of my heart, I believe that encouragement will carry people much farther than criticism..."constructive" or not. I am thankful for this, and hopefully a better person because of it. I hope (hope hope hope) that the next time I am in the position to criticize, that I choose to encourage. I hope I choose to search for goodness.

Also I recently attended a literacy conference required, but still enjoyed, for my undergrad work. It was just what I needed to get me through I think. To keep me going and hoping and trying and dreaming. It reminded me of not just why I want to teach, but it even reminded me of the loveliness in the people I may have the honor to work around and with someday.

I met a lady who did a session on found poetry. Found poetry takes words straight from a text (we used an excerpt from The Tale of Despereaux). You use the authors own words, fragments, etc. and restring them to create a poem. Simple enough, but powerful.

More powerful than the strategy though was the woman who taught the session. She was quiet and passionate and giving. With everything in her, she wanted us to create a poem close to us. She wanted us to share and to learn, and to connect. She created a beautiful almost unexplainable sense of community with the people in that room. We shared and laughed and even cried together.Coming through this time of  being face to face with critical, negative people, this was a chance to regain some confidence in humans in general.

When I wrote my poem, in this rich, warm, environment--a resting place really. It was cathartic. Here it is:

The Dark Things

Somedays the dark things win,

the days that are deep down, and heavy hearted

The dark things are down in our shaded souls, tremendous, cold and vast,

When try as we may, we cannot imagine life any other way.

We cannot pull ourselves from those dungeons deep and spiraled down.

We know what it is to want.

But we know to, that it's not all that we are,

We know in us lies light and loveliness, beauty and bravery,

and that quiet, wild, courage to carry us through

but that all seems worlds away, in some high castle tower.

For somedays, some days, the dark things win.

So thank you, Lisa Patrick, where ever you are. You got me through.

huntING, a wife's perspective

I get the call,

“I got one, a doe.” He says.

“I can’t find her.”



“I’ll be right there.” I answer.



By the time I find him, in golden timeworn wood,

the autumn air around us,

she’s there.



Eyes on the last thing she saw. Frozen in time.

Still warm to touch.

There it hits me.


She’s gone.

She was old. Long lean legs, white tail, aged face.

Who once bounded through woodland wonder,

crossing the creak in one swift leap.

Now silent.



And still.



I wish I knew, I wish I knew,

some ancient, primitive, song,

or native, age old dance.

Some prayer, or ceremony.

Something to mourn and to celebrate,

what she has given to us,

for us.



A life for a life.

It is the archaic way of things.

One must give, for another to have.

rememberING

Last week it was hot here. Really hot.  Hot seems like an understatement, and I really don't know what word to use to give you the full effect of this sweltering, oppressive,overwhelming, record-breaking humidity and heat.


Mostly I've stayed inside, eating popsicles and ice cream and sitting in the air conditioning, but last evening Dave and I first went for a drive and then a walk. We rolled the windows down in the truck and let the hot air swirl around us. When we walked we could feel the heat pressing down on us. Although it was hot and some would argue miserable, there was a sweetness to it for me. Heat like this reminds me of 10 days that seem so  long ago that I spent in India and Nepal. I went shortly after I graduated from high school and have never ever been the same since.


It reminded me of walking the muddy ridges in the rice patty fields to get to someones house who probably didn't want hear what we had to say (we were "missionaries...but I'm not sure how effective our tactic really was, but that's another post for another time), but all the same, they graciously took us in and offered us tea and conversation. This is where I learned to like hot drinks on a hot day.

It reminded me of asking a rice farmer what he thinks about out there in the soggy rice patty all day. He said "That there are too many mosquitoes." Reminding me that people, no matter where they are, are more like us than they are different.

It reminded me of seeing tiny, old, wrinkled women carrying heavy loads of wood or food or some other necessity, and wondering what other burdens they had carried all their lives long.

It reminded me of the relief or rain, or on the days it didn't rain and mid afternoon heat brought life to a screeching halt. We squatted in old store fronts that somehow had Coke and Fanta (it was the middle of nowhere....where do they get soda at?) drinking and cooling and talking and laughing.

It reminded me of the "untouchables" of Calcutta, and made me wonder who are my "untouchables"? Who can't I love?

It reminded me of people who had much less than me, but didn't seem to mind or even know. As long as there was food and shelter and a community, life was ok.

It reminded of me goats and chickens and children and bicycles and cars and rickshaws in the crowded chaotic (sometimes smelly) streets that make up India and wondering if they have more or less accidents then our organized streets here in the States.

It reminded me of  sandles salwars and sauries and color. So much color.


It just reminded me of seeing the world differently.

This isn't really a statement on which country, the U.S. or India is better, but it is a commentary on finding the good everywhere and in everything, even if its not what we want, or expect. When it gets hot like it did last week, I'm thankful for the sweat, and the slowing down, and the reminder of another time and another place.

So yes, I'm glad the sweltering heat is gone (for now), but I'm thankful for what it reminds me of. I think I'll go make something curried now. :)

Image from Google Image.



thINGs the dog has eaten:

Dave's crox,

this cardboard box,

laundry soap,

her own rope,

2 hot dogs,

What a hog!

Lots of grass,

to help it pass,

Cat turds,

she tried to eat birds,

the TV cord,

but wait, there's more,

ice cubes,

a little cat food,

doggie treats,

various meats,

carpet fibers,

bugs and spiders,

a piece of chair,

to rip and tear,

She ate it all,

the big and small.

decoratING inspiration

I've really been wanting to be at the beach lately, which is impossible. So, I think I want to make our back porch (current picture to come) into a very caribbeany feeling space. I'm thinking about doing the bathroom this way to..hmmm decisions (I feel another poll coming). This is my mood board so far. You can click it to enlarge it. Everything you see is from Etsy.