There’s a beauty in the starkness of winter. The hard black lines against crystal white brilliance. The miracle of an infinite number of tiny individual flakes seemingly broken off from the white sky and falling to the earth.
But I lose my wonder sometimes in the grey sky and endless stretches of monotone. I might even lose myself on occasion. Trapped, buried, hiding where it feels safe. Inside by myself.
Unless you’ve been living in Antarctica, under a rock, 100 feet under the ocean, you know it’s January.
Most folks out there are blogging about their goals for 2017 or their review of 2016.
My mom has been having some health issues, I’m having some health issues, my good friend has had more loss than anyone should have in a handful of months, work has sent me a few difficult projects, and I’m pulled between two of my own book worlds: One that I semi-finished about a year ago, and now I’m knee deep in edits. And I started the other by writing 50,000 words during November.
In the last few weeks, every time I sit down to write, my brain freezes. It’s terrifying. I have no words. I’ve started a host of articles, blogs, letters, and left a ream of blank paper, hours of blank screens in my wake. Continue reading “Unstuck”
A little over a year ago, I was walking through one of my favorite places—a local craft store—and picked up a book on Zentangles for my daughter. My girl has a distinct artistic bent, and I thought she’d have fun with these doodles.
Well, it wasn’t long until she was begging me to sit with her and try them.
“Babe,” I said. “I canNOT do those.” Big emphasis on the not.
But she persisted, batting her little girl eyelashes. So I sat my “haven’t had an art class since I was 12” self down to spend time with my girl. It was a decision based on the knowledge that it wouldn’t be long before I was too uncool to hang with the girls.
And boy was I surprised. Continue reading “When Small Things Become Big—A Book Is Born”
Some of you probably know that I spent the 30 days of November writing 50,000 words on my next novel—that’s about 200 pages…basically an entire book. It was a challenge for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
Writing with that kind of speed is NOT how I normally write. I’ve always been a little like Ernest Hemingway—reading over what I’d written and editing that before moving forward bit by bit every day.
I thought going for speed might be a good exercise. Help me learn new skills. Stretch me. You know, make me better.
And it might do that yet. But at the moment, with everything that was going on in my family, I wonder if the story I started was worth it.
Did I push myself into a place I wasn’t called to go? And now I’m overwhelmed in the quicksand that is my book. I’ve too many elements, perhaps not enough research.
I feel as if I didn’t give myself the space to do it right. Sure, I can go back and fix it… maybe.
If this character hadn’t been haunting me for 5 years, I might give up. But the more I think on it, the more I think my fear of the character has everything to do with why I veered off in a direction I hadn’t intended on.
Isn’t that like life?
Tweet ThisSo today, I will again tackle the book. Reworking, rewriting, replotting.
I will look straight into fear and walk into it, if for no other reason than most fear runs when it encounters confidence.
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These days we are full-flung into the season of family and celebration. It’s all making me feel a little bit like Tevye from the famous musical, Fiddler on the Roof, stomping around the house crying, “Tradition!” I’m just missing the big bushy beard and belly to jiggle…OK a few other things too. But you know what I mean.
At my house, we’ve already hosted Thanksgiving, gone to the tree farm, and trimmed our tree. We’re edging into December and we’re living in Thanksmas at the moment—halfway between pumpkins and snowflakes…Tradition!
We’ve made gingerbread houses and peppermint bark, we’re prepping for Christmas cookies and eating leftover pecan pie. My waistline might be expanding if I didn’t hit the treadmill at 5 am…Tradition!
My kids try to sneak peaks at the packages I’ve hidden on the top shelf of the closet. I’ve been bit by the same generous bug as St. Nicholas and there are presents for nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, including a new game for us to all play together…Tradition!
Somewhere under a pile of school papers is the advent calendar. Every night, we clear space enough space on the table to avoid a fire hazard, when we light the Advent candles, and read a special Christmas book…Tradition!
We’ve smiled for pictures that are perfect. Stuffed messes away. We clean up real nice, but we’re starting to fray.
So purpose and meaning we seek, packing shoeboxes full of toys for kids who’ve nothing, put together scarves for the homeless, given presents to the local foster group home. And, while good and necessary and right, it still lacks a bit of something.
Perhaps it’s a leftover melancholy from my childhood, where traditions were few and far between. But as I sit here in the quiet, with my coffee, I wonder if meaning comes less from tradition, and more from the consistent presence of a loving friend or parent.
So yes, tradition has purpose and contributes to meaning. But it’s my presence inside those traditions that make the difference. And somehow that’s a little freeing.
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A few years back, on a whim, I read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. While it might sound drastic, the book changed my life, and set me on a path that led to me starting this blog—finding beauty even when it isn’t pretty.
I’ve spent the last year studying beauty, looking for it in the most unlikely places—a friend’s horrific divorce, a sink full of dirty dishes, the death of a friend’s dad, arguments with my daughter—and mostly finding it hiding underneath life’s debris.
I found that our differences (political, ethnic, religious, etc.) are critical to creating a beautiful tapestry.
I found beauty in nature, in my own failings, when I wallow, and even in coffee.
Tweet ThisAnd that thankfulness truly has led to a better life, even science confirms it.
In the last year, I’ve watched the world shake under the strain of terror attacks, political disagreements, and war. I’ve seen people polarized against each other, and watched as darkness seemed to win. In those times and places, I’ve become more desperate for thankfulness.
So this Thanksgiving season, I’m hoping you’ll join me in searching out beauty. It may not be easy—my sink is currently overflowing with dishes, I have to run to the grocery store (again), and my friend’s cancer is still there—but perhaps together we can add just a touch of beautiful Thanksgiving to the world.
We live near one of the most beautiful places I know, Frederick Meijer Garden. It’s a world-renown sculpture park and botanical garden.
Every March and April this organization bring in hundreds of butterfly chrysalis and moth cocoons and allow them to hatch within the confines of the tropical garden. The visitors walk inside a dreamland of fluttering color.
Awhile back, I took my daughter early specifically to watch a different display than the flying butterflies. We came to watch the butterflies emerge from their chrysalis.
It’d been a rough not the night before. Emotion overflowed my senses and my girl and I needed the retreat. Continue reading “Emerging Butterfly—Beauty of Struggle”
I suppose if we’re going to discuss beauty, it’d be important to be sure we’re all talking about the same thing. Definitions are slippery things…especially when you’re arguing that the thing you’re defining is of life and death importance, which we’ll get to next week.
Let’s start easy. I think most of us can agree on the first aspect. Continue reading “Beauty Defined”
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” ~ Confucius Tweet ThisA few weeks ago, my girl and I were laying side-by-side, resting from an intense game. The sun was shining on our faces, but the air was cool. A perfect late summer day, until…
Until the moment my 11-year-old rolled over squinted her eyes at me and said, “Mom, you have a lot of grey hair.” And then as her youthful eyes slid to my face, “And you look old.”
I forced out a laugh because I know she’s seeing things that have been there for a long, long, long time. But it still made me cringe.
Then my girl smiled a genuine grin, “You’re so pretty.” Wait, what?! Old is pretty?
From the moment my daughter was born, she was most content when not inside. As a baby, the best way to calm her colicky crying was to snuggle her in a bouncy seat under the maple tree or, when it got cold, take her for a ride in a sled.
During her early years, I spent hours in the woods trailing a toddler looking for critters under overturned logs, disguised behind leaves, and lurking in the water. We amazed at how they were created to adapt to their environment and needs.
I started photographing the animals we found and put them into a book for my girl…and those little books became board books published a few years back. (Check out the All About God’s Animal series over here.)
My girl is a tween now and doesn’t need me by her side as she builds tree forts and digs for fishing worms. And so it’s been a long, long time since I hunted the woods, beaches, and waterways for critters and nature to capture on film.
Until now. A few days ago, my girl asked me to go take pictures with her. The little dude was at soccer practice and the field is hemmed in with fields and trees—full of natural beauty, decay, and life all mixed together for us to explore. Continue reading “Worth a Thousand Words”