Writing and Holidays and Tears and Goodbyes

Whew! It feels like it has been ages since I last updated this blog. I try to be a good little blogger, but I'm just terrible at it (as is evidenced by my posting history...).

It's been an eventful few months. I got to spend Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family, and we threw a surprise Sound of Music themed 90th birthday party for my grandma, which was a huge success and I'm sure I'll be hearing teary-eyed reminiscences about it for years to come. I spent November and December working on my first round of revisions on the book, and then sent it to my editor for a first round light edit over the holidays. Christmas found us spending time with my mom her side of the family. It was beautiful, laid back, and relaxing. I played Yahtzee and card games with my Grandma Norma (mom's mom) and got to hang out with my sister and her family who just moved back to the states from Peru.

I'm so thankful for that time at Christmas, because on January 10th, my Grandma Norma passed away.

Grandma Norma and me at my baby shower in 2009.

The last 2.5 weeks have been full of nerves and tension and tears. We scrambled to get out to my mom's house in time to see Grammy one last time, but we just missed that opportunity by a small window of less than an hour. It will probably grieve me for a long time to come that I didn't get to say one last goodbye, one last I Love You. But I know I can't dwell in the past. So I will try to breathe and continue to be present as I live out my own life. She would have wanted that.

We ended up in New Jersey for the funeral, and while it was difficult (financially and emotionally), I got to see extended family I hand't seen in years. Under the circumstances, I realized that I want to make every effort possible to visit with them as much as I can. Saying goodbye to a loved one is hard, but so much harder when you haven't talked to them recently.

The funeral was beautiful, and my husband and I were humbled by the opportunity to sing Grandma's favorite song, "How Great Thou Art," during the service. Somehow, miraculously, we made it through the song without falling into tears.

In the midst of this flurry of activity and grief and introspection, I am trying my best to get my book into shape. (It's my book's New Year's resolution.) Currently, I'm working on cover design, and I plan to commission a map for the book in the coming weeks.

Due to the very eventful past few months, and the fact that I am grieving (and prone to depression and anxiety), I'm trying to give myself some space to breathe. I need to make sure that I remain healthy through this process of self-publishing. And because of that, I've decided to push my release date back a few months. I want to make sure every detail is taken care of and every loose end is tied up before sending this baby out into the world. I want it to be perfect for you, the reader. I want it to pull at your heart in all the right ways. And so, I'm now looking at the Summer Solstice--June 21st--as the new release date for the book.

And from now on I will try to be a better blogger. :)

Wild Words: Dining Room

I keep thinking back to when I first saw the photos of my dining room on the real estate website. My husband and I had been wanting to buy our own home for years, but the timing was never right. But in the midst of searching through endless listings, I found this picture of a dining room, warm and bright with sunlight streaming in, falling all over the floor. It felt like home, just looking at it. This house wasn't the "ideal" of what we were looking for. We had been looking for something with more space - something where we could each have an office (I write, he composes music) and maybe a playroom/schoolroom for the children, as we wanted to homeschool them. This house was smaller by several hundred square feet. Still much more room than we'd ever had before. But I hesitated because it didn't fit into the box.

But when house after house fell through (we had put in several offers and even had a contract fall through), we came here on a rainy day in May of 2013 with our realtor to walk through the house. 

Our kids loved it immediately. Our daughter ran into the large living room, lay down on the new carpet, and started making "snow angels." Our son enjoyed how is voice echoed through the dining room and bedrooms with their hardwood floors. I remember standing in the dining room, looking out through the double glass doors at the rain pouring down onto the deck, closing my eyes, and imagining the sunlight streaming into the dining room, streaming over me where I stood. 

We made an offer on the house. The owners liked the offer. But then, during the inspection process, we found out that the roof had to be replaced and there were moisture issues in the crawl space. We sat on the floor in the living room with the home inspector, listening as he listed off the things that needed to be fixed before FHA would approve a loan. I looked at my daughter, making snow angels on the floor, and I cried silent tears. How do I tell her this isn't going to be her home?

In a miraculous turn of events, the roof inspector, who came to give us a second opinion, told us that the owners may be able to claim the roof under their insurance, as there was extensive hail damage. Our realtor talked to them, and the roof was replaced without us having to pay a dime toward it. The moisture issue in the crawl space was remedied, without us having to pay a dime for it. And in July, we moved in. 

It's been a little more than a year since we moved into our own home. The sunlight still fills the dining room, warming the walls and floor, brightening the atmosphere, although the dining room often has a cluttered table, books everywhere, backpacks and a purse on the floor, and a million random preschooler paintings floating about. It's not always as pretty, aesthetically, as it was in that picture that first captured my attention. But it holds its own beauty. And I want it to always be inviting - to me, my husband, our children, and whomever might walk through our door. I want to be able to offer a cup of tea and a chat to a friend as we sit in my dining room, enveloped in the warm light of the sun.

Wild Words: Ancient-Place-Experience

I have to travel the world. It's an insatiable need. I must stand on rocky promontories on the coast of Ireland and feel the sea spray kiss my face. I need to watch the sun set over a glassy lake in the Swiss Alps. My soul craves the lush foliage of the ancient forests of China. I have this deep need to visit the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, the Redwood Forest, and plant my feet where the native people of this land walked hundreds of years ago with a deep respect for the earth. I want to see Machu Picchu. I need to experience the wonder of Aurora Borealis.

I need to feel the earth and its wonders with an ancient knowing of place. And I feel this need growing all the time. It hits me randomly , unexpectedly. When I'm drinking coffee in the morning, or watching my children ride their trikes in the driveway, or when I'm writing.

I can't escape it. My soul swells, sighs, with anticipation of digging my toes into ancient soil, of breathing in the salt and air of the Irish coastline, of witnessing the amazing light show God made in the north. It makes my breath catch.

But how am I supposed to travel? How am I supposed to experience these beautiful, amazing things? I can't even afford some normal, everyday things. So, how does one travel? How does one fill that soul-requirement of ancient-place-experience?

I could dream. Imagination in and of itself is quite a wonder. And my imagination does take me to some wonderful places.

But it's not enough. It's not enough to just think about it. I need tofeel it. To experience it. I need to be there, to let the earth speak its secrets to my soul. I need to hear the whispers of those who have gone before me. I need my feet to walk to the same path, my soul to follow the same wind.

I need to absorb the spirit of the earth by experiencing these places, these wonders.

I need to breathe in and exhale their stories, their life. My own life feels incomplete without these experiences.

And I don’t seek them out of selfish gain. It would be lovely to visit places simply because the experiences would make my life more meaningful. But, I feel this connection to these places I’ve never been, like the stories are calling out to me. Stories of pasts that never were. Stories of futures that could be. Stories of beauty, devastation, life, death, ethereal wonder. The stories find my soul, and they tug at me, pulling me until I have no choice but to follow.

So follow I must. Somehow, some way. Someday.

I want someday to be now.

Focus: Fire

I recently found out about the “word for the year” movement (you can find more information on it here), in which you choose a word that represents an overarching goal or theme for the year (or in some cases, like wands in the wizarding world of Harry Potter, the word chooses you).

Even though we are more than half-way through the year, my word (which clearly chose me) has been mysteriously popping up all over the place. I started noticing it as a theme about a month ago, and since then I have seen its mark everywhere.

What is my word, you ask?

FIRE.

Fire is probably not a word I would have chosen on my own. I love looking at fire. I think it’s beautiful. But I’m naturally hot-blooded, so heat and I don’t agree too well. I’d have to say that fire is the element I least identify with – water, wind, and earth are fine, but I’ve never really considered myself a fiery person. I don’t look at myself and see a conflagration of passion. I see calm, laid-back, easygoing, hesitant to make waves, content to stay in the background.

And yet, this theme of “fire” has been coming up all year. It started, I think, when I first heard Ellie Goulding’s song “Burn.” It really struck a chord with me. It’s kind of been my theme song this year – I’ve posted the video a million places, it seems. I even art journaled the lyrics.

And then I went to a revival service (or, well, services) last week, and the speaker talked about the fire of the Spirit burning us up. And those days were deeply meaningful to me, and I walked away changed, yet again.

And even this week – even today – the word “fire” has cropped up several times. And I keep seeing it. And I don’t think it’s going away. I think this is the message God is trying to tell me: that in order to be complete, fire has to be a part of me. Water (emotions), Air (intellect), and Earth (senses) are all great. But without Fire (passion), those other things are…not all they could be. They’re lifeless.

Fire is what keeps us on our toes. It warms us, makes us run, makes us dance. We celebrate with it. We fear it. It represents the pulse of life, but can also be the sting of death. Fire never stays the same, it is always changing, always moving. Sometimes it grows, blazing, shedding sparks and sending waves of heat shimmering through the air. Sometimes it dwindles, hushing itself into embers and ashes. But still, the light is there.

So for the rest of this year, I’m going to explore the concept of fire in my life, in my soul. I want to see what happens when I light it up, what happens when I set my passion ablaze. Where will my writing go? Where will my faith go? I believe that the flames will only make them wilder and freer.

So I’m going to strike my match and find out.

Wild Words: Wander With

For far too long, I've wandered. I've wandered away from God, and back again, grazing here or there at whim, whenever I felt like I wanted something particularly nice, a tasty morsel of God’s Word. But there was always the pull of greener pastures. And so I’d wander. Away.

There is a certain beauty in wild wandering. I like to imagine someone backpacking the emerald terrain of Ireland, standing above the coastal cliffs and looking out over the choppy seas and just owning the world for a moment. Or maybe someone trekking through the Redwoods, marveling at the immensity of those ancient forests. There’s just something wild and beautiful and free about the wilderness. Prairies, mountains, forests, rivers, seas. Exploration. Adventure.

But the type of wandering I've done for so long looked a lot more like…hiding. Running. Trying to escape. Because instead of walking next to God as we journeyed together through the beautiful places (and through the dark, difficult places – but always together), I would get scared. I would lose trust and hope, and so I’d run up to the crags, crouching among the boulders, skinning my knees and my hands as I fell on sharp rocks in an attempt to climb away, to hide.

But Monday night, everything changed.

Monday night, at a revival service, I wrestled with God. Because I've had this thorn in my side. And God was standing there with his giant spirit-tweezers, ready to pluck the thing out before it got even more infected, and I was running away and hiding like a child whose fear of the pain of splinter removal was greater than the fear of infection, hospitalization, even death (because who understands death anyway?).

So Monday night, I wrestled with God. And finally, I removed my hand from the thorn, from the wound. I exposed it. I let God see it, really see it, so that He could get in there with his spirit-tweezers and pull the thing out and cleanse the wound so that it would heal.

It didn't hurt nearly as badly as I’d thought it would. In fact, the most painful part was realizing that I’d been the one holding onto it. All this time I've been fighting and arguing with Him – whining, really – “Why, God, why? Why won’t you take this away?” And His simple, patient, loving response was, “You have to open your hands if you want me to take it from you. I can’t take something that you’re still holding onto.”

And last night, I realized that I was still holding onto the ashes of all the pain, the lies the enemy has been throwing at me for so long, the shame, the guilt…even the pleasure of all those things going on in my mind, all those things related to the thorn (which was now gone, but the remnants, the ashes, weren't). And so, I lifted the  ashes in my hands and blew them into the four winds, scattering the ashes to the farthest reaches, where they could no longer haunt me.

In the midst of all this change and giving up of self, I cried out to God, “I cannot wander away from you anymore! I want to wander with you!” And I heard God say (because I certainly would not have been able to make this up), “From now on, you shall be called Wander With.”

All Monday night and all day Tuesday, I wondered, “Wander With…what? Who? The name feels incomplete. I certainly don’t want it to be ‘Wander With…Evil.’ Can’t we put something definitive in there, God? Like, umm, ‘God’?” And again I heard God’s voice, that I would know the rest of the name Tuesday evening.

I was a little distracted throughout the revival service that night – not only because my son had refused to stay in the nursery and so I held him the entire time, but also because I kept seeking the rest of my new name. “Is it Spirit, Lord? Wander With Spirit? Or, what about Power? That kind of sounds nice.” I had to pray that God would keep me focused on Him instead of my search for my name, so that I wouldn't miss anything else important.

By the end of the service, after the minister had spoken about a whole list of things I could possibly tack on the end of “Wander With,” I realized something. God was right the first time. (Go figure.) It’s just “Wander With.” Because I am called to Wander With God, with the Spirit, with Jesus, with Passion, with Purity, with Fire, with Faith. Wander With a whole bunch of things.

But not Wander Away.

That is a thing of the past.

Micro Monday Flash Fiction: Dormant

Today's one-word prompt is "dormant." Inhabit the word, let it speak to you, and then write!

(I'f you're joining us for the first time, every Monday is our day to exercise our writing muscles by writing a 300-words-or-less flash fiction piece. Want to share yours? Either paste it in the comments below the post, or post it on your own blog and link up on twitter with #mmflashfic! Easy peasy!)

Have fun writing!

*****

She felt her lungs expand as she inhaled, then held that breath, staring at herself in the mirror. She could see the difference already in her eyes, in the glow of her skin, in the way the left corner of her mouth turned up just so. She exhaled through her mouth, expelling with her breath all of the negativity and criticism she had lived under for far too long. She had let other people dictate her life, her hows and whys, while she had slowly retreated, farther and farther into the dark recesses of her own self. She had been dormant for so long that she had nearly forgotten where she was. Who she was.

But not anymore.

Something had awoken her. She smiled at the memory. It had been so simple, so ordinary: a drop of dew on one of her roses out front. She had gone out for the mail and, for some reason, had literally stopped to smell the roses. Usually she was too rushed to pay much attention. But that day, something captured her.

She had lowered her face to the rose, so close that she startled when a soft petal brushed her cheek. She had forgotten how soft the roses were, and she gently held the petal between her thumb and forefinger, marveling at its velvety feel. And that’s when she saw it.

In a small dewdrop, she saw her own reflection. Upside-down.

And she realized that she had been living upside-down for far too long. It was time to set herself right again. To wake the wild spirit that slept within her. To set herself free.

As she looked at her reflection now, she smiled at how very not upside-down she looked. And, fully awake, she turned and stepped into her life.

Focus: Death of a Dragonfly

Dragonflies hold a lot of symbolism, much of which resonates deeply with me. I also tend toward the mystical side of life, and I see symbolism everywhere. I feel connected with certain elements in nature, particularly water and air. The emotional depth and peace and the color blue and all that stuff that goes along with water resonate, as do the flight, transformation, changability, and reaching higher things that come with air. Dragonflies merge the two elements, and are symbolic of the intertwining of them, as dragonflies spend much of their lives flying and hovering above water. And so, anytime I see a dragonfly, I am mesmerized.

Earlier this week I was afforded such an opportunity. I was sitting at my dining table doing art with my littles, and I gazed out the glass door at one point and noticed a brilliant, shimmery blue dragonfly. I grabbed my phone and started the camera, knowing the whole time I wouldn't get a good shot at all. But I cautiously opened the door and stepped outside. The dragonfly was sitting on the leg of an upturned child's chair on the deck. Just sitting there, watching me approach. I got within three feet and it leapt into the air, darting this way and that, but staying within the boundaries of the deck. I watched it hover and dart for probably two or three minutes before it took off straight up above me, and then I lost sight of it completely.

Moments like that make my days magical. 

So two days after that incident, my kids wanted to go swimming in our small pool. It's so small, it doesn't have a filtration system, so I had to go out and skim for bugs and leaves. As I was cleaning out the water, I noticed this beautiful large shimmery green beetle floating on its back. This little guy was so incredibly beautiful, an amazing creature, a piece of God's handiwork. And again, I was mesmerized. So I scooped him up out of the water and righted him onto the ground. It took him a minute to get his footing and figure out that he wasn't going to drown. I crouched down on my knees, getting in really close to inspect the marvel that was his iridescent green wings. (I'm pretty sure he was a green rose chafer. I should have grabbed my camera but didn't.)

When I stood up to begin scooping out more bugs, I noticed a greyish-brown dragonfly struggling on its back on the surface of the water. Well, you know me and dragonflies by now. So I completely forgot about the other bugs and scooped up this little guy onto my hand. He immediately flopped onto his side, three of his four fragile wings stuck together from being in the water. I brought him up onto the deck and watched him for a moment. He curled and uncurled his long tail, waved his legs about, trying to flip himself over to stand. But the water holding his wings together was just too much. So I gently blew onto his wings, trying to see if I could help the drying process, waiting anxiously to see his wings unstick and open up so that he could fly again.

I placed him gently on the deck rail, hoping that the combination of the sunlight and air would help him recover. But still he struggled. At one point I picked him back up again to examine him more closely, and I noticed that two of his wings seemed to be missing several of the shimmery panels - in essence, his wings had holes in them. When I set him down again on the railing, he began to do what looked like some form of dragonfly yoga - standing on his legs but curling his tail underneath him dramatically. 

And then he flopped over on his side, wiggled his legs exhaustedly a few times, and gave up.

I saw the dragonfly give up.

He quit fighting for his life. 

I blew gently on him a few more times, trying to provoke movement, reaction, anything. I wanted this little creature to make it!

But he didn't respond. The effort of trying to live after nearly drowning was just too much. His wings were too heavy. He couldn't make his body work the way it was supposed to. And so, he gave up. 

I saw it. 

I can't even explain to you how I know that this dragonfly, this tiny, seemingly insignificant creature, gave up fighting. But he did. He just...gave up.

My heart was heavy. I mourned the death of a dragonfly.

Every one of us has something unique to offer the world. You may feel small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But you are not. Each person has a part to play, a job to do, something great to create or achieve. You may feel like you're too broken, you can't possibly do what you used to do. Maybe you've lost pieces of yourself as you've fought life's battles, pieces you might never recover. Maybe you feel stuck. 

There is hope for you.

God is waiting to help you in your brokenness. He's trying to help you get back on your feet so that you can do what you were created to do. It may feel like the only option you have left is to give up. To let your life atrophy. To let yourself be swallowed into the darkness, to become nothing. Because maybe that's what you feel like.

But you are not nothing.

Take some time to see and understand that broken wings can be mended. That sometimes the thing that scares you most is someone reaching out to help you. That maybe you're not shimmery and flamboyant and what people would consider pretty. But you have a purpose - an important one. A beautiful one. 

And that your life is worth fighting for.