Author: Janyre

There’s Something About Bravery

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BraveryAwhile back, I spent the weekend with a good friend who had moved away and some other women who I didn’t know well, but I still consider friends.

We spent a lot of time telling the stories of our lives. I didn’t think about it at the time, but, as I look back, I’m struck with how brave each of these women were and are.

Several traveled with friends when they were young. One moved out when she was seventeen. One scuba dived with sharks.

If I had asked them to tell me about the bravest thing they’d ever done, they would have told those stories.

But what captured me wasn’t the exciting actions of their youth, but how they dealt with the junk life inevitably deals out: Continue reading “There’s Something About Bravery” →

In Its Place–A Short Story

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Old-Hardware-3I could feel the heat from the hardware store’s stove warming my feet as I sat on the couch in our second floor apartment. My toes nearly glowed with happiness. In such heat a body could nearly forget the cardboard covered holes in her shoes and the snow outside the window.

A body could nearly forget everything. I touched the corner of wool blankets next to me and brushed lint off the red box on top. Well, nearly.

Mama always said, “Lucille, honey, we’re lucky to have the store.”

She’d brush my wild curls into submission and tell me that other folks would love this here place even with the oily smell. Or some days, she’d say they’d like it even with the chipped walls or with all the men hanging around outside looking for work from any fortunate builder or handyman with a job big enough to hire extra hands.

I don’t know who she was trying to convince. Maybe herself or my older brother, George. I don’t think either of them liked their jobs in the family business.

But I certainly didn’t need telling. I loved Miles Hardware. Three stories of rising red brick between the white clapboard buildings.

Continue reading “In Its Place–A Short Story” →

There’s something about Brokenness

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BrokennessThroughout my life, I’ve traveled past myriad straight, even people—the perfect, solid fence posts. Each guarding a territory, surrounding, protecting, being useful.

But it’s those people that have been pushed over, beaten down, broken that mark the landscape, draw my eye, quietly call for additional investigation.

What is it about the people that have faced the worst life can throw at them and—slightly crooked, bent, perhaps chipped on all sides—still stand? What is it about them that makes them stand regardless of the compelling forces around them? What is it about their combination of grit and brokenness that makes them beautiful?

To be fully honest, my deepest desire is to avoid the things that might strain me. But I know full well the impossibility of that hope.

And so knowing, I study the standing broken, hoping beyond hope that when life comes, stomping, beating, blistering, that I too will stand. Beautiful if broken.

There’s Something About Accountability

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AccountabilityI didn’t want to write today. The last two posts were a little hard for me to write. I was walking lines, trying to step carefully, not sure if I had crossed over or not. That feeling of insecurity, combined with the busyness of the holidays and starting the first round of edits for my novel, has left me a little done in.

But I made a promise to you and myself that I would purposefully look for, see, and celebrate the good things. And that promise forced me to look today.

To see the gorgeous sunrise and watch in wonder as the sun’s spark slowly spread from a tiny spot to flames spreading from horizon to horizon.

To hear the laughter in my sister’s voice despite the hard things she endures.

To feel the heat in my home and good food filling my stomach.

So today, I thank you. Whether you know it or not, you are my accountability, my outside-myself-reason to keep finding beauty, to keep writing, and frankly, to not play it safe.

Today you helped me find the beauty in the world so filled with amazing things, I often miss the overflowing and take it for granted.

So if you took my challenge earlier this week and decided to not play it safe, what are you doing to be sure you will actually take that step? If you’re willing, I would love to know what your dreams and hopes are for the coming year. Maybe we can help keep each other accountable.

When Playing It Safe Isn’t Safe

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Sometimes Risk is worth it
Sometimes Risk is worth it

My daughter is fearless. She’s climbed trees two stories high hanging over a three story drop (that’s five stories if you’re counting). She dove off a swim block in a competitive swim meet at the ripe old age of five. And she has climbed circus silks far above my head twisting herself in and flipped over in an elegant inversion before righting her self and sliding to the ground with a flourish and grin.

My girl’s a study in bravery. Except when she’s not.

Girl in TreeWatching her struggle with insecurity around other people and with some things that really matter, hurts my heart. I see the potential in her. I see what she could be, what she could achieve, but she’s too afraid to try.

And I recently realized how often I do the same. I’m afraid to try. To risk.

Continue reading “When Playing It Safe Isn’t Safe” →

Why I Hate Christmas

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IMG_4217I’ll be honest, most of the time I love Christmas. It is, after all, the most wonderful time of the year.

But the Christmases of my distant memory are often haunted with darkness and loneliness—a desperate longing unmet.

Perhaps that’s why I work so hard to make Christmas full and bright, as much for my kids as for my husband and me. A celebration of all the good, happy, pretty things.

Red and green. Gold and silver.
Polished up kids, on the best behavior.
Shiny packages, bright with promise.

For the most part, and for most December 25ths, the magic glitter of Christmas works. But any one day can’t live up to the burden consistently and it frays at the edges, threatening to rip open from the pressure of little sleep, excess sugar, and packing in too much in too little time with too many people.

It’s a wonder we ever make it through without falling through a chasm—a la Griswold Christmas.

Continue reading “Why I Hate Christmas” →

There’s Something About . . . Light

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Tree StarTomorrow is Christmas and it doesn’t quite feel that way.
Outside it’s grey and brown rather than white and blue.

I’m sitting at my table, and it feels strange to have frantically wrapped presents until 1 am, and baked until my kitchen was coated in a fine dust of flour and sugar. I’m ready, but not

I spent the last few months getting ready for Christmas, but I lost that place I’ve been learning to protect. That tiny little light inside that reminds me to breathe, to be still. It feels a little dark.

So I choose to sit for a moment contemplating my Christmas tree, following the trail of tiny lights through the green boughs as it winds through handmade ornaments, pictures, imitation birds, and angels, behind red ribbon and bows until the lights taper with the tree to the top where a star is perched, glowing white.

And I think I found Christmas again. It’s there in the light where it battles the darkness, the franticness of life.

I’m amazed at what happens when a group of tiny lights all get together. They conquer the dark.

Wishing you all a light-filled Merry Christmas.

3 Lessons About Friend-Type People

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Friend-Type PeopleI’ve always had a hard time making “real-life” friends. It is, I think, partly why I like books so much.

Like a friend, a book can leave you frustrated, annoyed, or disappointed. It can change your life for the better or for the worse. But you can always walk away from a book without leaving a piece of yourself behind.

People, on the other hand, friend-type people especially, get under your skin, into your life, tangled up in who you are. You can’t walk away from people without a little tearing in your soul.

So when, as a kid, I realized my little soul was in tatters, I just stopped letting those unreliable people in–those soul-tearing, friend-type people. I closed the door, hunched in the corner, and worked to patch myself back up.

But I realized I didn’t have the tools for a patch job, there in the dark corner by myself.

Then a few friends crept in and showed me that I’m missing something there in the dark with my light starved soul. They brought in the light of laughter, encouragement, and accountability.

And I discovered that anything worthwhile is worth the risk. There’s beauty in there somewhere. Continue reading “3 Lessons About Friend-Type People” →

There’s Something About . . . Clouds

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There's Something About CloudsToday is cloudy, some might say dreary . . . okay, most days I would say it was dreary.

But I’ve been trying to look deeper into those things that look ugly, and I realized something–

There’s beauty inside that grey.

The sky is blanketed, in wisps of deep purple, whispering over blue and grey. Somber, cool, quiet.

I struggle to see that beauty sometimes, but I realized the other day that without the clouds, the beauty of sunrise and sunsets are just missing a little something. It takes some darkness, some flaws to paint a really amazing sky… Continue reading “There’s Something About . . . Clouds” →

When Fine Isn’t Fine

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IMG_4106I sat in church the other day and listened to folks talk to the brand new mom behind me.

“How is it going?” “Fine.” “She looks like such a good baby.” No response, but a small smile from the mom.

And when they left she breathed to her husband, “What else am I supposed to say?”

Tears filled my eyes. I hate the word fine.
Fine says nothing.
It’s neither here . . .
Nor there.

Fine makes it easy to hide.

How are you doing? Fine. When life is slipping through your fingers. Fine. When you’re barely keeping panic from exploding your chest. Fine. I look fine. Feel fine. The day is fine, thank you very much.
Continue reading “When Fine Isn’t Fine” →