watch this!!!

Ever heard of the show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?

Ever heard of MY BROTHER'S ARTWORK BEING FEATURED ON IT?!

You have now!

My brother got a fantastic opportunity through a former classmate of his, who (as I understand) works with the makers of EMHE. She recommended him to create an original, mural-sized illustration to go inside the home of a family that runs a daycare in their house. His illustrations will actually be the wallpaper in the main daycare room. The family will also get a visit from the Muppets!

The show airs this Sunday, 1/3, at 8/7c on ABC. (The website has a minimal synopsis up right now -- located just under the video player.)

Please watch and enjoy! I'm so proud of him!!

snowed in

One problem with being snowed in (meaning still uneasy about driving up and down my un-plowed street) and in possession of many crafting books and cookbooks is that my dreaming gets out of control while my doing remains (snow-induced-ly) minimal. As in, I watch movies and make lists of things I want to make when I've actually acquired the supplies.

So far the list includes: two bags, fabric coasters, three-ish pillows, a gingerbread linzertorte, raspberry shortbread, peanut butter-oatmeal-amazing cookies, and most recently, these absurdly out-of-my-league killers of free time.

I intended from the outset to use this week for some serious crafting, but honestly, I don't know if I'm up to that list. Why do I do this to myself?!

If you can tell me, please know I'll reward you with food...and maybe a little pinecone made with fabric squares.

brand new information

"However, the downside of marriage, the University of Otago study shows, is that ending it has a negative impact on both genders."

Similarly, the downside of eating is that when you stop eating, your body starves.

merry christmas

I've heard the story so many times. "And in the fields were shepherds..." Thank goodness, when I don't know what to make of my life, or myself, or anything up there or down here...there are some words that give me hope.

you've heard it told, you think it's odd

the whole thing fraught with complication

the play begins with a baby God

and all his blessed implications

but it's true

"it's true," sara groves

If it's true, it's no thanks to us. Merry Christmas, everyone.

magic

This is one of my favorite Christmas photos.

credit goes to: magda.indigo

catchy tune

"Fairy Tale of New York" - KT Tunstall feat. Ed Harcourt

Not the most warmhearted ditty, but still a swingin' ol' time.

you won't be lonely

I defy you not to beam.

they need

I haven't done a good job of living this out. But to continue with things that have been ringing in my head... A really wise friend of mine was talking through the concept of Simplicity out loud when our women's Bible study met a few weeks ago, and she summed up the concept so well, in so few words, that it has echoed in my mind ever since.

I've been convicted by the desire to live, and speak, simply. Just have to remember, now, that desiring isn't the same as doing.

--

Simplicity.

It's just changing your mindset from "I want, I want, I want"...

to "they need, they need, they need."

simplicity

These words from Celebration of Discipline have been ringing in my head lately. It's a commentary that's particularly valuable this time of year.

(It ends rather abruptly because it's one point in a list.)

--

Learn to enjoy things without owning them. Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it, and if we can control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion. Many things in life can be enjoyed without possessing or controlling them. Share things. Enjoy the beach without feeling you have to buy a piece of it. Enjoy public parks and libraries.

--

One gift I'd like to give myself this year is giving up more of that illusion.

i bin bizzy

There was Thanksgiving baking...

...and Dad-and-daughter light hanging...

...and brother-and-sister-and-dog football tossing...

...and a subsequent 13 hours of baking.

Resulting in hundreds of treats and one scalded oven mitt.

All were a joy. All were tiring. I am very happy it's rest-time right now.

now and then: songs

You know that quote "the more things change, the more they stay the same"? I don't necessarily believe that, but sometimes I have noticed my own history repeating itself in funny ways. I realized recently that certain musical stylings keep winning my heart, no matter how much "cooler" I think I'm getting in adulthood.

For instance...remember the Cranberries?

Yup. First concert. Cotton balls in my ears -- age 10. Dazzled by the wailing and the spectacle.

And late-teen angst?

Oh, Dashboard...you serenaded my tender heart on many a late-night drive.

And wondering if "bass" should be spelled like the fish or like in baseball?

My brother told me in utter seriousness that Ace of Base would be the next Beach Boys. I'm not sure exactly what that meant...

Well, here are a few songs I'd currently walk 500 miles* listening to. Is it just me? Or do they resemble the old stuff? (In a good way!) (Or is this a total stretch? I know, it probably is.)

Eisley, "Marvelous Things"

Stars, "Your Ex-Lover is Dead"

The Bird & The Bee, "Love Letter to Japan"

Well, call me out. Or put up some of your past/present favorites!

* My friend's 2-year-old daughter apparently loves the Proclaimers. She sang "I'm on mah wehh!" ("I'm on my way") out of the blue in the bathtub the other day.

max

Just went and saw this movie...and loved it. Thanks, Mr. Jonze.

fine pluming

leaves will swirl in my tea

and the pluming rise up

of fine steam and memories

through each nostril

at the sharp forefront of my brain.

eyes will percolate with images

as the film out front

shows hands and faces steeped

in something bright

and human.

fine and slow,

fog's fire will roll in low,

burn the dry leaves,

chide a feather smoldering

inside feeling's hollow hold.

embers, dash away

and share with me some swallows 

who'll sing afresh.

stop-motion: the PEN story

There's so much stop-motion creativity out in the world right now. I especially like this little movie because of the way the makers played with the setting behind the photos, along with what's going on in them. (Don't you kind of wish it wasn't an ad, though?)

versus

Some things on my mind...perhaps to be visually interpreted at a later date.

Inspired (a bit) by this awesome blog.

--

"to comfort the afflicted,

and to afflict the comfortable" -- H.L. Mencken

curiosity vs complacency

trying to seem vs being

thinking vs doing

now vs later

trusting + feeling

comfort + inspiration

attitude toward change --> likelihood of future change

go, gadget, go!

I think Inspector Gadget may have been my favorite childhood TV show. The hijinks, the gadgetry, the way Penny never got credit for solving all the mysteries -- genius! My 6-year-old self just couldn't get enough of it. And no other TV show jingle has stuck in my memory like this one (bum-ba-dum-ba-dum! In-spec-tor-Gad-get!).

I gave up hope a while ago that I'd ever see any Inspector Gadget episodes again. "Maybe it's better this way," I told myself. "It would probably just end up sad like when you re-watched Fern Gully in high school."

But oh, was I wrong. Gadget's '80s, matchbox-car-styled van...his nasally, investigator-y voice...the way he always forgets that his messages are going to self-destruct! It's all there and it's all still brilliant!!

Here you go...your ticket back to childhood.

binding

I would like to fall asleep

with the weight of a book on my chest,

and the words of a poem

fresh on my tongue.

I would like the two covers to lay there

like my blankets,

phrases tumbling against my heart,

soft-shaped syllables cascading into my dreams.

Tuck me into the binding

and let me sleep among the folds.

I don't want to go seeking

among your pages again.

at our disposal

Last night I went to an event at the Plaza Library -- the author of the book-turned-movie The Soloist, Steve Lopez, was being interviewed by Angela Elam, who hosts the literary radio show New Letters on the Air. The show airs once a week, at 6am on Sunday mornings (aah...), and it features conversations with, and recordings of, famous, contemporary, and emerging authors and their writing.

Mr. Lopez was fantastic. He read from the book and shared about his history in journalism and the relationship he formed with Mr. Ayers, the musical prodigy, homeless man, and sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia depicted in the book and the movie. He shared information about mental illness and how common it is among homeless people, how it still has a harsher social stigma than other diseases, how Skid Row in LA is a place relatively undisturbed by charity but regularly disturbed by police arrests, where thousands of homeless people live in conditions that shock even the well-seasoned. And he talked about passion and potential and joy. It's hard to watch this video and not be transported and challenged by Nathaniel Ayers' love for music.

The two-hour interview was fantastic. And free.

I can't believe these kinds of experiences are at my fingertips pretty much all the time. I can't wait to go to more.

what would julia do?

For Halloween, I was this fine lady. Much like this fine lady, she was known for being gutsy and gregarious and joyful about life. I had no strategy whatsoever about how to spend the evening as Julia except that I'd do her voice and maybe dance around with spatulas (check and check). But I realized partway through that Julia was an awesome person to be portraying. She was gutsy. And oddly, thinking about how she'd behave helped me to be gutsy too -- at least in the instance of the cream cheese and jalapeño jam appetizer that I dipped into early in the evening. (It looked appropriately, but not appetizing-ly, slimy and globby.)

So, lesson learned: an apron and pearls can do the same for an adult as a Superman cape for a kid. I have a new respect for playing dress-up.

together

People choose to share grief willingly,

to bear witness to heartbreak

and love.

People do carry one another's burdens.

"life dancing itself"

Every now and then, I check out the website of a program called Speaking of Faith, a weekly show on NPR that discusses "religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas."  It's so rich and interesting that I can never really carry all the treasures it offers, but I always leave with my arms full of new thoughts, understanding, and the kinds of questions that enrich me even in the wondering.  Immediately below is a little excerpt from one of the articles I read in their series on "Play, Spirit, + Character." It's about random, expressive movement.  I couldn't help but write a little about it.  (Trying to summarize, at the very least, or put into my own words what people have already written better in theirs. :))  It's followed by a video and an excerpt from Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. 

______________

Expressive movement “…is required to be immediately superfluous. It…is life's need…to be nourished by randomness, to experiment again with a different and possibly more perfect union.”

______________

I often wonder at seemingly mundane things, one of which is the way our hearts and spirits connect to our bodies.  Some movements we create intentionally, like reaching for a glass of water.  But other movements seem to pour or flow or burst or cry out of us, unmediated by our minds at all.  These movements expose the bare and unedited reality within us, and simultaneously, when we witness or enact them, stitch up the wounds of falsity we inflict upon ourselves daily.  

Play, imagination, reaction, responding to what we know not yet, acting instinctively upon what's near and now, fluidly building that bridge between what's now and next.  That's the beauty of free movement, free and joyful expression.  Who can ever get enough of it?

______________

______________

The air show announcer hushed.  He had been squawking all day, and now he quit.  The crowd stilled.  Even the children watched dumbstruck as the slow, black biplane buzzed its way around the air.  Rahm [the pilot] made beauty with his whole body; it was pure pattern, and you could watch it happen.  The plane moved every way a line can move, and it controlled three dimensions, so the line carved massive and subtle slits in the air like sculptures. ...The other pilots could do these stunts, too, skillfully, one at a time.  But Rahm used the plane inexhaustibly, like a brush marking thin air.  

His was pure energy and naked spirit.  ...Like music, it split the bulging rim of the future along its seam.  It pried out the present.  We watchers waited for the split-second curve of beauty in the present to reveal itself.  The human pilot, Dave Rahm, worked in the cockpit right at the plane's nose; his very body tore into the future for us and reeled it down upon us like a curling peel.

Like any fine artist, he controlled the tension of the audience's longing.  You desired, unwittingly, a certain kind of roll or climb, or a return to a certain portion of the air, and he fulfilled your hope slantingly, like a poet, or evaded it until you thought you would burst, and then fulfilled it surprisingly, so you gasped and cried out.

The oddest, most exhilarating and exhausting thing was this:  he never quit.  The music had no periods, no rests or endings; the poetry's beautiful sentence never ended; the line had no finish; the sculptured forms piled overhead, one into another without surcease.  Who could breathe, in a world where rhythm itself had no periods?

feet of courage

A great song with a beautiful video.

Nancy Elizabeth - Feet Of Courage from Leaf Label on Vimeo.

moon viewing

While in NYC a few weekends ago, I visited the Museum of Arts and Design, of which only a few levels were open.  One of the standard exhibits held a piece by Clifton Monteith, called "Moon Viewing Chair."

I was immediately transported upon reading the title.  It sounds so romantic and wondrous, to have a chair exclusively made for looking at the moon. A few Saturdays ago, I spent some time on our back deck wrapped in a blanket doing just that, and I can't help but think it would have been even more beautiful with a special chair built just for the purpose. 

Here's what the chair looks like (it would look so much prettier on a black background, but what can you do):  

The front is cool enough-- pretty bent reeds, looks a bit like a rocking chair-- but it's the back that really gets me!  In person especially, it looks like a boat!  It just makes me imagine gliding through the stars in the hull of a small, perfect boat, quietly dipping oars into the atmosphere, while breathlessly beholding the beauty of a story-high shimmering disc of silver. And I'm being serious.

I looked up more info about the piece and found that Moon Viewing is actually a Japanese ritual (passed to them by the Chinese) for admiring the beauty of the harvest moon. People gathered and had picnics and told children the story of "the moon fairy living in a crystal palace, who comes out to dance on the moon's shadowed surface."  Ancient legend that may be, but it's also the stuff of my most beloved childhood fantasies (just pair Swan Lake with any given cartoon about princess fairies and you're there).   

Anyway, I guess I'll have to stick with deck chairs for the time being, but don't you think I won't be hosting my own moon viewings when it's out there shining bright.  

surprise

I went to New York a few weekends ago to see my brother and his class's gallery show.  He's in grad school for illustration and had been working on this children's book since last year, so it was a big accomplishment for him, and so well done.  And he had a little surprise for me, too.

An emoticon of me smiling just doesn't do it justice.

sun setting

Bare ankles damp with evening dew

shiver. Chills spread like moss

across summer skin.

Stirring in the blue-orange night,

a hint of pale-scented morning light...

stillness comes alive

in the midst of change.

mind over marshmallow

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

We wish to inform you...

I’ve been reading a book called We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. Quite a title, huh? It’s about the Rwandan genocide and the factors and national history that precipitated it.

I think the book is showing me how naïve I am, and how much I take for granted. Every time I read the dates of critical events leading to the genocide– 1963, 1973, 1992, 1994 – I’m stunned that they’re so recent. Didn’t crazy things like this happen a long time ago (meaning—how could they have happened so close to now)? Outspoken dissidents dying mysteriously? Leaders’ families filling the highest echelons of government? Propaganda baldly stating that an entire ethnic group should be exterminated? Illegitimate governments boasting 99% approval ratings and pretending to support multi-party systems? Didn’t that kind of thing happen when people weren’t so educated and culturally aware and tuned in and stuff?

Then yesterday morning I listened to a report on NPR about a settlement the Securities and Exchange Commission negotiated with Bank of America, which had misled its shareholders by neglecting to disclose the $5.8 billion in bonuses it approved to Merrill Lynch execs (after said company merged with BoA).

Usually federal judges who are called to review such cases end up approving the settlements. But this time, the judge who read the settlement rejected it. Further, he issued a statement calling the settlement “a contrivance, designed to provide the SEC with the façade of enforcement and the management of the bank with a quick resolution of an embarrassing inquiry, all at the expense of shareholders.”

So one man was able not only to reject but also to issue a stinging rebuke of a document issued by a government agency on behalf of one of the most prominent banks in the nation.
The only thing going through my head as I heard this story was, Wow. In Rwanda, and probably in maaaany other countries, the covert legal and economic power-holding networks of would have “silenced” a dissident voice like that with no regard to justice, either for the judge himself or for the misled shareholders. Things like that happen still...probably more often than we know. But we live in a country where one person is allowed to poll only himself, a network of one, and stand firmly for the ethical responses of his own heart and mind. With no fear of covert or fatal retribution.

How fortunate are we?

25 short stories

I've kept putting undue pressure on myself to write a post for my 25th birthday, which was a little while ago...so here it is. Twenty-five short "stories" (I use the term loosely) about time, this time in life, and these past few days and years. I know it's long...don't be intimidated.

--

25. My dad celebrated his 25th birthday in Vietnam.

He and a friend were "celebrating" outside their hootch ("getting lit," as he tells it) when they suddenly heard tracer rounds firing outside their camp. My dad told his friend to get down, grabbed his machine gun and leapt toward a pile of sandbags, which, being more like clay than sand, threw his body sideways into a barbed wire fence. He extracted himself and his gun from the fence while spitting swear words, and ran to the mess hall to protect his unarmed friends. He cleared them out of the hall, then stood at the mouth to the camp, ready to shoot whomever walked through the gates. A tall silhouette ran toward him through the dust and the dark...and he hesitated.

The hesitation alone could have cost him his life. But as his commander's face appeared atop the stranger's body, he was pretty glad he had trusted his instincts.

24. From the brutal to the beautiful...life never shows what's coming. I'm so grateful for people who've run, walked, and stayed with me so far along the way.

23.

Cicadas' buzz in summertime hums

a fine-tuned frenzy under

voices of family and friends, shouting funny

stories to each other above the humid

din, and murmuring within

me, silent marvel

at these normal nights

turned magical.

22. Friend #1, at dinner on the deck: "If you listen to the cicadas really closely, you can hear them singing Happy Birthday."

Friend #2: "In Spanish. [long pause] Feliz cumpleaños..."

21. In Brazil, people pull on your earlobe the number of years you're turning. In certain places, like my house, people throw coins.

20. On the evening of my birthday, I arrive home to a friendly "Happy Birthday!"greeting from my roommate and her boyfriend in the kitchen. I say thanks and smile and walk to where I can see them both.
"He wanted to throw quarters at you," my roommate says.

19. Thank you, my friends who feel like family.

18. Standing in line at the Sheridan's in the new Kauffman stadium, I notice an employee scooping 1/2-cup hemispheres of cookie dough into baseball-sized mounds. My mind starts to race. "What is he making those for?? Are they going to dip those in chocolate? Do they sell chocolate-dipped balls of cookie dough?! Maybe it's for portion control, so they put a whole ball of dough into the concretes they make. Is that possible?"

I decide to halt my internal debate and just ask the guy. "What is that dough for?" He looks mildly confused. "For those?" he says, pointing toward the register and the tray of cookies I can't see. "Oh, like to put in concretes?" I ask. "Nooo...they turn out like that," he says, pointing behind him to a tray with cookies the size of my face on it.

My heart sinks.

17. Sometimes revelations come when you least expect them-- like the knowledge that I'd pay good money for a baseball-sized hunk of cookie dough dipped in chocolate.

16. Thank you to my friends who don't just indulge my imagination, but play in it with me.

15. "Do I have anything in my teeth?" I ask, stepping over 8 or so pairs of shoes in my friend's entryway. "I just scarfed down some dinner on my way over."

"Yeah," my friend says after a quick glance at my bared lips. "I can get you some floss." I walk into the bathroom to check out the damage, certain that the focal, perhaps only, perpetrator is between my front two teeth.

Grin -- hmm.

Yeah, or there's stuff between all my teeth.

Lessons in humility. And what to carry in my purse (floss).

14. A woman asked herself

if she might like some company,

to talk over dreams and disappointments

and such, to become better acquainted.

"No, thank you," her amicable self replied.

"I spend enough time with myself

as it is. I've long since moved along,

my dear,

to more important things."

13. "Pride is a deep, insatiable need for unreality, an exorbitant demand that others believe the lie we have made ourselves believe about ourselves. It is a stubborn insistence on being what we are not and never were intended to be." - Thomas Merton

12. Thank you to my friends who give me grace...in more than just the little things.

11. "There's a dose of reality you get in your 20's that no one tells you about," my friend says at dinner. She and I look firmly in each other's eyes across the table and nod. "It's like life just...took the gloves off."

10. As Maya Angelou said... "The job of being a human is so hard, and it is the only job there is left--though we keep on pretending otherwise."

9.

"how you survived the war" - the weepies

8. My life cannot be about my surviving and thriving as one person, alone. "No. It doesn't please me to do so."

7. "Real power is usually unspectacular, a simple setting aside of fear that allows the free flow of love. But it changes everything." - Martha Beck

6. Thank you, my strong, clear-sighted counselors.

5. In high school, my brother painted a picture of a white rowboat on the shore of Cape Cod. A decade later, the brightly shadowed image still breathes true. He wrapped our memories in oil paints, signed and dated them, and gave them to me. I feel at home in the painting propped against my wall.

4. "He worked hard on those!" my mom says as I open the first homemade card in a stack my dad hands over. It's the first course of all our birthday dinners, when we laugh and groan over old tucked-away photos that he turned into greeting cards. There's a side of people you'd never know if you didn't see what they create.  So much of my dad's love comes through laughter.

3. My mom wore a sorbet green blouse to dinner. When she wears it, she often stretches her arm across the table with a secret smile and bends her hand so I'll look at her wrist. There it is, on her elegant arm, the bracelet I made probably 20 years ago with a string of plastic flower beads. She shows it off to me every time she wears it, and every time I feel so loved.

2. Thank you, my family who loves me better than I can understand.

1. There's something defining about being elsewhere. Finding what you're made of. Being away from your accumulated self and your self of the moment. Examining your "usual" self from a distance, when change doesn't feel so difficult. Coming to know your vulnerable self up-close. Feeling separate from, and more deeply aware of, the love of those who make you who(m?) you are.

The times in my life when I have felt so unguarded and loved shine out at me like stars. Being in France was one of them.  Thank you for each of these special gifts, for the wisdom of another year, and for all these people in my life.

high sun of summer

I ate lunch outside on Friday and the ground was already littered with leaves.  I couldn't believe it.  It's only August!  I'm not ready for the seasons to change.  The cooler air puts my heart's bags in my hands and sets my soul wandering.   That "clever north wind..."* always gets me...so please, summer, stay with us a little longer.

*the clip I linked to is the end of Chocolat...be careful if you don't want to know the resolution.

as we forgive - follow-up

Well, I just wanted to let you know that the movie screening went great -- and I'm excited to show the film again elsewhere.  This project isn't over for our little team (3 other people and I).  We're probably going to have other screenings in different types of locations, and host conversations afterward.  I hope it will be as invigorating as it was on Sunday night!  

It's amazing to me how deeply the film touches people.  As powerful as it is, it's hard to know what to make of all of it immediately after the film.  Just talking about it with other people helped me draw out more meaning... it was an awesome, awesome time.

So I will be sure to post about the next screening we host.  Hopefully I'll have improved in front of the microphone by then...and I hope there will be even more good conversations in store.

as we forgive - movie screening

Since I already drove all around town to put up posters for this event, I may as well make sure you all know about it too!

You are most cordially and earnestly invited to come see this truly powerful movie:

as we forgive

a documentary about two Rwandan women struggling to live again as neighbors with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide.

(they must have changed the movie title at some point, since it shows up as as we forgive those in this trailer)

We'll be showing the film at Hillcrest Covenant Church at 7pm this Sunday, Aug 9th.

PLEASE consider coming -- it will be such a good experience.  We'll be showing it first and then spending some time in discussion.  Please tell your friends and family!

Here's the church website and address:

Hillcrest Covenant Church - Prairie Village Campus

8801 Nall Ave.

Prairie Village, KS 66207

Leave me a comment if you have any questions.

 Hope I'll see you there!

katie costello

Another artist I'm liking lately.

"anywhere place"

And a song that fits with it well.  Speaking of getting away, seeing our lives clearly from a distance.  So often it's hard to see the larger contours we're sculpting as we go through our day-to-day motions.

"embrace me" - greg laswell

make your own concert

My list of people I'd love to see in concert keeps growing!  I've already internally committed to following The Weepies just about anywhere they go, plus Greg Laswell can count on seeing me in the audience whenever he's within a reasonable radius and I'm still gainfully employed.  Regina Spektor has captured my eardrums ever since I heard the chirpy part of "Fidelity" jumping through the speakers at Anthropologie, which is actually the same place Lenka's sing-songy "Don't Let Me Fall" caught my attention.  I sometimes think about how awesome it would be if all the artists I love had a concert together...wouldn't that be amazing?  And then they could sing duets and renditions of each other's songs...I would be in heaven.  

So here's a question...who would be at your dream concert??  Don't limit yourself!  You could even have a music festival!  

Just something to think about. 

deb talan

"comfort"

"forgiven"

behave like free spirits

"To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable."

Helen Keller

--

Sometimes I need to be totally alone to remember that I'm free. It makes me feel peaceful, and not worried. I remember that I'm only me, that I'm so insignificant, that all the world doesn't rest on my shoulders or rely on my behaving the way I always have or the way others expect me to.  I live in a present moment in which I can make any decision I want, and the world will not spin off its axis.  And then I feel freedom-- to just be in the world and enjoy it and take chances with my life. I'm not in control, and it takes a weird kind of strength to keep admitting that.

blue dress

I made myself a dress.  It's heavy and swishy, with pleats that bring me back to playground memories and days full of chasing and giggling and dreaming about funny things.  Sometimes I feel like I've become more serious in a bad way as I've gotten older-- but however I am now, my thoughts certainly feel lighter when I'm traipsing around in this big ol' skirt.  

More projects to come.  

color & crafts

I just returned from a trip to Virginia to help run a kids' camp for a week.  I helped lead crafts, so not only was the setting of the camp (in the Appalachian mountains) very photo-worthy, so was all the kids' creativity!  Here are some of the colors and sweet smiles that surrounded me all week.

things we can and cannot keep

There are points in our lives when we can feel the change coming.  Viscerally.  We're wrapped in a swirl, sensing that the things around us and in us don't mean what they used to, and we begin taking stock of what we still want and what we don't want anymore.  

In times of change, we're forced to make the hard choices.  

What to keep?  

What to let go?  

What to knock down and what to rebuild?  

Where to plant?  

Where to let the ground lie fallow?

I'm going to post a few things about this topic, because I'm feeling & learning a lot about it right now.  Here's the first piece -- from The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard.  Yup, some of this is just going to be other people's words on the topic.

---

When you write, you lay out a line of words.  The line of words is a miner's pick, a wood-carver's gouge, a surgeon's probe.  You wield it, and it digs a path you follow.  Soon you find yourself deep in new territory.  Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject?  You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.

You make the path boldly and follow it fearfully.  You go where the path leads.  At the end of the path, you find a box canyon.  You hammer out reports, dispatch bulletins.

The writing has changed, in your hands, and in a twinkling... The new place interests you because it is not clear.  You attend.  In your humility, you lay down the words carefully, watching all the angles.  Now the earlier writing looks soft and careless.  Process is nothing; erase your tracks.  The path is not the work.  I hope your tracks have grown over; I hope the birds ate the crumbs; I hope you will toss it all and not look back.

perfect for today.

joe purdy & shiny toy guns

I've been liking these songs a lot lately.

Joe Purdy - surgery

Shiny Toy Guns - Season of Love

the weepies

"Nobody Knows Me At All"

Just another feeling of wonder at how unique we all are.  

Who knows you best?  What do they see, when they see you?  What treasure is it that they alone see, or that you alone know?  What about you is all your own?  How would it feel to be fully known?

found and lost

I remember the coarse skin of a fingertip
caressing slim bubbles on a page.
I remember a half-squinted eye, closed, casting
backward toward memory.
I remember tidal waves of emotion reduced
to lapping dew, crawling over, over,
over toward the seeking shore.
I remember wearing down to numbness
the confused whorls of sense, and still
touching, tracing, tenderly
inviting Your path to the door.

sing across the world

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Thanks to JS for the link. :)

hugs & helmets

I'm hoping to use my bike more if I can get it in riding condition in the near future, to take some little jaunts to the park, or the grocery store, or maybe even to Foo's for some custard.  It will be so fun!  But you know what...I think I would have already ridden my bike this spring if I didn't have to wear a helmet.  

Not kidding.  Having to get decked out in all that gear??  (Meaning...the helmet.)  And...making sure my tires aren't flat?  (What would I do if they were?  I don't know.)  And did I mention having to put on a helmet?  

It would be so easy to just hop on my bike, not even have to worry about getting helmet hair, and enjoy a breezy ride to any one of those nearby places.  It's not far, after all-- and my head could be so free, no prep needed, no plastic clips under my chin making me feel like a 5-year-old.  I could look fresh.  Fun.  Eco-friendly.

But (sorry, now I'm going to get all mom-ish) those would all be silly reasons to not be safe.  Do they really matter?  If my parents were to clip me into my helmet like I really was 5, wouldn't that be their way of reminding me that I matter to them?  And that that's reason enough to try to be safe?  Even now, when we're just saying goodbye for a short time, their hugs are enough reminder to be safe without hearing the actual words or feeling a helmet clip click under my chin.  

So, in the balance, it's not that much of a sacrifice to try to be safe.  And I think I respond better to a hug than to repeated reprimands or scolding.  In this context, hugs and helmets basically get at the same thing-- "you matter to me, so please be safe."  That seems to have been the thought behind this campaign in Denmark (wow, sorry, this was a super-long introduction), where the police handed out hugs and helmets to bare-headed bicyclists, instead of fines.  I think it would make me think differently about my value as a person, rather than just my responsibility as a citizen.  It would definitely make me think twice, in a good way.  

And just because I just thought of this, here's a link to another kind of counter-intuitive philosophy held by a corporate entity for people breaking the rules (see last few questions).  Not totally related, but interesting.

words for today - thomas merton

Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted?  Why do we waste our time doing things which, if we only stopped to think about them, are just the opposite of what we were made for?

We cannot be ourselves unless we know ourselves.  But self-knowledge is impossible when thoughtless and automatic activity keeps our souls in confusion.  In order to know ourselves it is not necessary to cease all activity in order to think about ourselves.  That would be useless, and would probably do most of us a great deal of harm.  But we have to cut down our activity to the point where we can think calmly and reasonably about our actions.  We cannot begin to know ourselves until we can see the real reasons why we do the things we do, and we cannot be ourselves until our actions correspond to our intentions, and our intentions are appropriate to our own situation.  But that is enough.  It is not necessary that we succeed in everything.  

...

We cannot make the best of what we are, if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not.

i'm a convert

I saw the Star Trek movie tonight, and it was AWESOME. I'm ready to join a spaceship and explore the galaxy. If tonight was any indication, I'll be shuddering, gasping, laughing, cringing and applauding a whole lot.  So who's with me?!

Until next time...

inspiration + lisa hannigan

The weather's been so overcast, I've been having to get a little creative to keep from getting cranky. This video came to my mind tonight and, just as it made me eager to get crafty, it also made me feel so refreshed to remember how big a world our imaginations let us in on. I've been so taken lately with the way each person's creations are such a wonderful window into their minds, hearts and souls...and into their desires and dreams, worries and hopes. It's amazing! So the ideal for tonight is getting in touch with my own creative side just a bit...grooving along to good music while letting my imagination run. Sounds like the perfect way to spend a cloudy evening.

I Don't Know from ATO Records on Vimeo.

what a surprise!!

We had a May Day visitor today, and it was such a wonderful surprise!!! Thank you, whoever you are...you made my day!!!

happy poem in your pocket day!

"This is just to say"

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams

--

Have a great day!  And in case you're wondering, this is the one in my pocket.

love is not all

A favorite poem that I first read in college.
--
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

they're here!

Took this picture the evening I wrote this post.

How far we've both come.

love after love

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here.  Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

anyone want to celebrate?

This Thursday, April 30th, is "Poem in Your Pocket" Day.  I feel like I know a lot of weird celebratory "day"s, mostly food-related, but this one I'm actually more serious about.  Would anyone like to celebrate it with me, and possibly think of a bigger way to celebrate it?

Here are a couple links.

I've been really amazed lately by the strength poems lend me, and the impact they can carry.  They're just words, but when they express something I've always thought or felt or am just coming to know, I feel like a part of me has been completed in a way.  When someone else has known what I know-- not in the intellectual sense, but the experiential, emotional sense-- that makes me feel more known.  Poems make me feel less estranged from myself, and more aware of, and tender in, my relationships to others.  

A good poem can just get to truth-- not by making some big statement, but by being perfectly itself.  By stating the essence of something perfectly.  

I used to sing in choir, and this thing would happen sometimes when each part would harmonize perfectly-- it was like extra notes would suddenly appear all around the ones we were singing.  They were audible notes, but we weren't singing them.  They're called overtones, and apparently hearing them is a "psychoacoustic effect" (I just looked it up) caused by singers' (or instruments') natural resonances interacting in a particular way.  Is that not what happens in poetry, or fiction, when whatever life experiences you bring combine with whatever the writer has said, and the two begin to resonate?  Something strikes a chord, and something new appears in your life?  

I really think poetry does that.  Do you?

like this

it's

like 

listening

to a quiet stone

like smelling 

one 

small 

seed

like watching 

a  b rook

             w a s h i n g  m y  h a n d s

like learning a question

it's 

like  living an answer

irena sendler

You may not be much of a Hallmark movie fan, but I have to recommend this movie, which just aired tonight for the Hallmark Hall of Fame.  It starred Anna Paquin and Marcia Gay Harden, and depicted some of the amazing acts of kindness performed by Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker in WWII.  Unbelievably, her story wasn't that widely known until a few high school students in KS researched more about her and started a project in her name.  Now she's known by some as the "Female Schindler."  I'm in awe.  

As a Polish Catholic social worker in the early 1940s, Irena Sendler created and led a conspiracy of women who moved in and out of Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto disguised as nurses employed by Warsaw's Health Department. Though they worked under the guise of merely attempting to prevent and contain the spread of Typhus and Spotted Fever, Sendler and her brave cohorts emerged each time with the children of consenting Jewish parents. The children were sometimes sedated and hidden inside boxes, suitcases and coffins as a means of rescuing them from their imminent deportation to death camps. They were given new identities and placed with Polish families and in convents. Sendler kept a hidden record of their birth names and where they were placed with the hope that they would some day be reunited with their own families.

In 1943, the Nazis discovered Sendler's daring and dangerous ruse and arrested her. She was tortured by Gestapo agents and suffered broken feet. On the day of her scheduled execution she was rescued by "Zegota," the underground network with which she worked to save the Jewish children.

As a result of Sendler's efforts, approximately 2,500 children were smuggled to safety. Not a single child she rescued was ever betrayed or discovered by the Nazis.

Today, April 19th, is also the anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  It's amazing to think of the history each day holds.