Today I am Writing: On Seeking

Why is it that there are days when I wake up and--no matter how faithful He was to me the day before--think that surely I will never encounter Him again?

It's a lie.

Seek, and you will find.

[The One who never lies, said.]

And so I draw near, to what is Near.

Today I am Writing: On Vinegar

This morning I sat with Him, the One who knows me.

Yesterday was one of those days that starts out with promise, but is filled with dismay. It was the kind where you are innocently standing on a lawn on a beautiful day and are suddenly confronted with a trifecta of all the things that have wounded you, and you cannot get away. And it ended well enough; I saw the truth quickly enough, I rested in clarity without too long of a swirl.

But there were tears, the emotions catching up with my rational thought and spilled out at the home of the friends who are safe, and then I slept, and then He woke me. Early.

And I sat with Him and He showed me the thorns, embedded in my body, sent by the one who steals, who kills, destroys.

And I heard the word "vinegar," used as ablution as we plucked each thorn out, to wipe away the remaining bacteria just longing to fester in the places those thorns stick me and cause me to swoon, time and time again.

And we talked it out, this One (who parents me, befriends me, counsels me) and I. And I said this one thing that was like sticking my own self with the thorn of my own prizing, and then in that place of mind-spirit eye I saw a whole bucket of vinegar, washing over me. As if He were saying (with one eyebrow raised), "let's make sure that one is good and gone."

I use vinegar to clean my toilet and to flavor my food, but today I use it to remind myself there is no enemy that can prevail when the One who knows me calls my name, and stands as my defense.

Today I am Writing: On Fruit Flies

I am sharing my cottage recently with a few very curious fruit flies.

It started with the garbage can, some rotting food left in there for just a bit too long. When I opened the lid and was hit in the face with a flurry of activity, I realized it was time for said bag o'garbage to go outside.  But not before the little fruities found their way into other spaces in my home.

I've found they like the shower, and the weird plant that secretes a weirdly sweet substance when it is in full bloom.

And I've also found that I actually do not mind them.

I think of comments I've heard others make, about the Dratted Fruit Fly.  I wonder though: what I hear lying ripe at the base of those comments is a sense of shame, that the flies are there because the house is dirty. The "how do I get rid of them?!" is indignation, that something so tiny could challenge personal cleanliness.

Living in a cottage that is practically in the wild will teach you some things. It will teach you that not every bug is sent to kill, and not every fruit fly is sent to contaminate. It will teach you the wonder of nature, how amazing it is that this little creature can literally go from babe to adult in one week's time, how beautiful it is that life can actually be created in a place where death is actively occurring.

Here in this cottage, we share the space. We're all God's creatures, and we're all finding life in the places we are dying.

Amen? Amen.

Today I am Writing: On Waiting

Two days ago, I decided to make cookie dough, the kind you leave in your fridge overnight to firm up. Yesterday was a day where making cookies just didn't fit, and so that dough just sat there.

Today, after the oven had finished heating up my lunch, I had the aha! thought of: Now would be a good time to make those cookies, since 350 degrees was ready and waiting.

I sliced up the dough, placed it on the baking sheets, slid it all into the oven, and suddenly discovered I am so tired, I can barely stand up.

A nap sounded lovely. (A nap, quite truthfully, was scarily urgent.)

But there were those dang cookies. Not yet done.

And so, the nap had to wait, and I desperately needed to find things to distract myself from my falling-down fate.

I went to the shed and got the goo-gone, to remove the sticker on the book that has been sitting around. I put the gifts I'd bought into the gift closet. I put the granola into a smaller container. I washed a dish left in my sink. I made a list, for tasks to be done tomorrow. I cleared off my table, putting all the little things away, and then I placed the cooling rack in their place.

It all felt very rewarding, these little things done that have been hanging around to do.

And that's when I noticed it: While waiting for the cookies to bake, I got some things in place.

And isn't that the nature of waiting? The promise given but not yet granted, the dream born but long deferred. In the waiting, the little things get organized. Rearranged, readied.

So that when the cookies come out of the oven, the table is cleared, and you have a place to put them.

From Friday to Friday, 4

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On Being with Coffee

I used to be a "make your coffee at home only" kind of woman, and usually just the one steaming mug to fill the quiet of the early dark. But somewhere over the course of the year I got into the habit of one cup at home, plus one cup picked up at my on-campus-and-the-way-to-my-office coffee spot. There was just something about that small cup of warm, just the size of my hand with its flat disk of a plastic lid that I could peel right off as I settled into my desk. It changed the trajectory of my willingness to exist, on full and complex days.

Settling into May my time on campus is less, to the point where just going to campus feels worthy of the reward of a coffee stop. So this morning, when I stepped up to the cashier with my cup and she said, "A large one this morning, huh?" I laughed, and said "big meeting today, got to get through it!" As I walked away from her I chuckled to myself, thinking how when the cashier knows your coffee habits it might explain why you keep running out of money at the end of the month...

Yesterday morning I was working from home, upstairs in the cozy of my bedroom at my newly acquired writing desk. It was early, and the glow of my golden curtains in the morning breeze was as lovely as lovely could be. I had made a brew in my little french press and brought my cup up with me, leisurely bringing it to my lips as I brainstormed and wrote. It was time for another one, but I wasn't ready to interrupt my stream of thought. I heartily wished I could call someone up, a coffee delivery service, to rush me one right over.

It reminded me of a day after Christmas when my father was newly out of surgery and his fate was newly at odds with the world and my mother and I were slogging out of bed early to get to the hospital to find what we would find. On that day I was over-the-moon grateful (of the perhaps-irrationally kind) to find that there was coffee left in the pot, from the day before.

But as the days wore on, how I wished and wished and wished and wished, as we gathered ourselves early to get out the door once more, that someone would just deliver us a cup of coffee. The effort to find what I needed in the pantry and to get a new bottle of water from the basement and to reach for the filters high up in the cabinet felt nearly capable of sliding me over the edge each time. Everything else I could handle, but this one thing? Felt like I could not.

My recent coffee habits have included a once-a-week date with myself at the cafe just around the corner. I gather up all the things I'm thinking about and I get to the counter and order an Americano. I settle into a table or chair of choice, and they bring it to me, steam furling out of their hand-made mug. Sometimes I meet a friend there, and we talk about the piano-related things, and I hold my mug in one hand while the other rests along the top of my head, the universal sign for "Lauren is thinking, with excitement."

And I think of all of these ways of being with coffee. I think of how the mug in my hand helps me think, it helps me center myself in a universe of possibility. It is more than a substance that may or may not be addictive; it's a touch-point with reality.

Today I am Writing: On Birds and Bugs

This afternoon a friend was coming over to chat, but, [in the way that things go] neither of us had had time for lunch. Since the day had turned surprisingly non-rainy, I quickly set out the cushions and threw the tablecloth over the table, before going inside to gather up some food.

I wasn't inside long. Long, however, is not what a bird needs to streak a perfectly good tablecloth with a bit of poop. Apparently.

We worked around it, we still sat and ate and enjoyed the cool-ish warm air. As we talked, bugs clattered around us, hitting the table with force, scooting their back legs and fluttering their wings to find some kind of balance. I fingered them over to the side, away from my salad, listening to my friend but slightly distracted.

I have been thinking about birds and bugs lately, because listen:
I love them.

I am utterly fascinated by the variety of bug that sit with me as I read by the pond, exploring the chair with all their wonder of dots and swizzles and color and flame. And I am the first to stop what I'm doing to watch the birds thrumming through the air as I move throughout my yard, to notice their nuances as they sing their song.

But I have been thinking more recently about the fact that though I find bugs and birds to be so glorious, I also find them to be rather...

Irritating.

Perhaps it was the bird who would not cease her incessant chirping at the pitch aimed to make me crazy that one morning. Maybe it was the bug that would not stop insistently flying into my cheekbone as I read on the porch, or the ones that I can't see but am sure are settling into my hair for a long-term vacation from bug reality every time I cross the threshold of my door. Or possibly it was the kingdom of ants who took up residence in my kitchen window plant, in conjunction with the bird who tried to take up residence in my shed and scared me half to death.

I don't know what it was, exactly, but somewhere recently my love story with bugs and birds has shifted to include the not-so-lovely side of their existence. And today, as I wiped and sprayed bird residue off my tablecloth, I thought about how isn't this just true, of all things worth noticing?

There is poop mixed in with singing, there is insistence mixed in with wonder. It is the way of Love.

Today I am Writing: On Caring for Little Souls

Today was Piano Recital Day.

We gathered in the room with the grand piano and the green plastic chairs at our local music store. The children entered in bursts of hodges and podges, trying out the piano, settling into their chairs.

When it was time to begin I stood before them, their little faces peering up at me with varying levels of excitement and fear.

"Who is excited to play?" I ask them. Hands, shoot up. "Who has got the nerves?" I ask. More hands.

"Let's welcome those nerves," I say, and we tell the nerves hello, that we're glad that they are here.

(It was this week during one of the lessons when the little one said, "I'm so scared..." and I looked into her soul-filled beauty eyes and thought "oh baby, oh, yes. I know. But at least in this place you can be safe." I got straight down into her small sweet face and I said with all the courage I have found in all of my years, "Do you know why your nerves were created?"  and then simply we talked, for quite a while. About being in danger, about how our nerves were made to help us remember to run away. And then we did the run-through hundreds of times, to help her nerves learn how to settle inside of her body, just here, with her.)

"Are we in danger?" I want to ask them, all. But instead I say, "Turn around in your chair!" We tell the people we're glad they're here too.

Then we stand to practice our bows, the serious ones, and "the ones you would do if I gave you no rules." I tell them (surprise!) that today they can choose.

And then they play and I watch them listen to each and every sound. I watch them stay calm in their moments of struggle, take time to breathe as they find their own way. I am proud, I am amazed, at every single moment. "This is victory," I think; "this is what victory looks like."

Afterward I ask them, "Was it your worst? your best? somewhere in the middle?" I ask them this after every song in every lesson. I ask them what they wanted to hear and did they hear it, what they wanted to do and did they do it? I ask them this so many times, they are not surprised to hear it again now.

Some of them say it was their worst, sparkles in their eyes for jokes. I laugh at them, I say "put your hands down!" Some of them look at me with confident side-ways smiles. "It was kind of in the middle" they tell me, their shoulders little shrugs of acknowledgement that this moment is not the one that defines what they know as their most-true-about-you. I ask if anyone needs a re-do, and they just wiggle their faces at me, already on the edges of their chairs. They know there will be another moment, another day.

Afterwards the children run free, most of them clearing the room in a matter of seconds, going to find some other interesting thing. Some of them come to me first; I look in their eyes and tell them what I saw in them. I tell the soul-filled beauty eyed one that I know how hard it is to do the scary thing, I tell her little nodding head that she was so so brave.

The parents hover a bit, they hug me, thank me. Many of them have tears. I thank them back, for trusting their children with me, these little musician-spirits encased inside of flesh and bone. I have some unveiled tears of my own.

And I think of those tears, and I wonder why they're there. I wonder why our hearts are overflowing and we do not even hardly have words.

And I think: It's because we did more than make music here today. Today, we cared for little souls.

From Friday to Friday, 3

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On Productivity

Every year when May hits, I think: Hooray for May! 

I think: Now I can be productive! Because the campus is cleared and the emails slow down and the sun is shining and the birds continually sing, I envision myself writing heartily away, every single day.

I get out all my writing gear, sit myself down, and: Slump.

Cannot. come up with. a thing. to. say.

This year I think: Give yourself some time.

So I clean up the yard. I wash the windows. I reorganize the spaces and switch out the summer clothes and pile the things to give away. I invite people into my house again, feed them, listen behind their words for what their hearts want most.

I breathe. I listen. I recover all of the space I had given away.

It takes longer than I think, but suddenly I begin to notice:

Questions regarding how to proceed in a new year at the Institute simmer to the surface, in parts of my thinking that got unavailable in the whirlwind of a flying fast semester. I write them down, I chew on them in the back of my brain. Then, suddenly, without the slightest plan of it, I discover I am having a visioning meeting as I'm knee-deep in the closet. Ideas come left and right, bantering away.

The book I'm writing except-for-the-wall-I-have-hit begins to float into parcels of "go here" and "let that go." Elbow-high in soapy water, gates of my thinking open to reveal what people need, what I need, what someone else has already done and what is waiting yet to be.

It turns out that being productive with my hands makes space for my heart and my mind to join in.

I think of something I read the other day, that "the practice of paying attention really does take time*."

And I realize that in order to be truly Productive, one must first allow the time to find the space in which there is the simple capacity to simply pay attention.

*An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor, p. 24

Today I am Writing: On Skunks

At 1:50 a.m., I awoke, in need of a drink.

I groped my way to the kitchen, returned to my bed, and fell to sleep.

At 2:36 a.m., I awoke, too hot.

I flipped over the side of the bed and turned on the fan, returning to a deep sleep almost immediately.

At 4:28 a.m., I awoke, DROWNING IN SKUNK JUICE.

In the fog of "why am I not sleeping?!", I eventually deduced that somewhere between the hours of 2:36 and 4:28 a.m., a skunk had an unfortunate altercation on my front yard, and I was called to suffer for it.

I have seen skunks waddling across my lawn before, upon returning home from an evening out. In these instances I have very quietly and quickly slipped into my house, and all is well. I have watched them from the window, thinking they're kind of cute, in all their ponderous ways.

After waking with a mouth full of one of those ways, however, I will tell you that I wish this particular skunk of my a.m. awakening had been a little bit MORE ponderous, when choosing to blast the neighborhood with his rays.

At around 4:48 a.m., having been fully awoken now by such a deadly pestilence wafting maniacally into every crevice of my bedroom, I (finally) rolled out of my bed to shut the window. I spent the next hour or so periodically searching with my hand in the dark for the bottle of lavender spray I keep nearby, until I finally just sprayed beneath the covers, burying myself away.

As I write, the scent of skunk lingers, whisking on the whispering breeze, reminding me poignantly of my nighttime encounter. But also on the breeze waft the sounds of birdsong and flower blossoms.

I remember Julian of Norwich:
Everything has being through the love of God.

Even the skunk.

Today I am Writing: On Weeding

My yard is a whirlwind of green in these Spring has Sprung days.

Yesterday, in a whirlwind of "taking care of life," I came out here to skim off the pond. Surrounded by a multitude of growing things, I frittered away, pleased to be outside, enjoying the abundance of green. Suddenly, as I hovered over the waters, I became aware that not all of that green was actually meant to be there. There had been a planter, who had planted with intention. And then there were some extraneous seeds blown in by the winds, that had taken root and grown up, often straight in the middle of those legitimate plantings.

Suddenly, I found myself pulling out piles and piles and piles of weeds. I collected them up in my arms, dumped them where they could be taken away. Then I ran inside and went on with my day.

Today, for the first time this year, I found myself with a moment to sit out by the pond, to watch the birds hopping and the chipmunks skittering, to breathe.

I intended to read and to think, but as I leaned my head against the cushion, my eyes fluttered open and closed as the sun shuttered back and forth behind the clouds.

Never fully out-of-consciousness, there were moments where I nonetheless stuttered into awareness of what was around me. I turned my head. I simply looked. Around.

I looked at those plantings, without the weeds. I saw them for what they were: Beautiful. Simple. Healthy.

Yesterday, they were overcrowded. Today they are just right.

This is me, too, in this Present Moment. I thought all the stuff I'd collected was fine, was good, abundant. I was frittering away in what just was. Then, the Master Planter began to show me the things to clear out. To Reclaim what He intended. Beautiful, Simple, Healthy.

Just Right.
His.

Today I am Writing: On Something Real

Hi everyone,

If you have been wondering what's happening in Marlo-land, I apologize for the long silence (and for having a tendency to only update when there is drama...). Here's the news:

Tomorrow and Tuesday he goes to the cancer center as an out-patient, to receive the beginning of HIS FINAL ROUND OF CHEMO. Then, next Wednesday, he'll go in the hospital for 3ish days, to complete this last cycle. 

(This is a revised plan from the original, because he was having such extreme reactions to the treatment. Since the half-way mark pet-scan returned showing the cancer in remission, the doctors have felt comfortable revising things a bit.) (I will confess that at first I was unsure that this was a good idea, but within the last two weeks or so have felt a great peace that all will be well.)

When the final round is complete, he will have more scans and a bone biopsy to see if he is truly free and clear from all cancer-like invasion. We should know by mid-June where we stand, which seems both impossibly short and impossibly long from the time this journey began. 

I just spoke with them, and Marlo reports that he is feeling better than ever, even back to 'normal.' We continue to thank you all for your prayer and care--we have truly been overwhelmed by the goodness of God and of all those who love us in the midst of uncertainty.

I will try to be good about keeping you posted, and --in the meantime-- send so much love!

Today I am Writing: On Valerian Root

My grad assistant and I were finishing up a semester, loaded down with draft after draft of newsletter and little tasks that needed her attention before she packed her office up and graduated. I bounded up the stairs to her office one afternoon (to ask her a question or give a direction, I don't remember now which) and was struck to find a tidal wave of semester-ending had left detritus across her desk, accompanied by a vaguely strange but overly forceful odor.

"Sorry for the mess," she said, immediately upon my arrival. We agreed it was that kind of time of year, and I was about to press on when she said, "and sorry for the smell...."

Having assumed the smell was part and parcel of the mess, I waved my hand through the air, as if to brush the comment aside. "No," she said, "really, it's this tea..."

Into my face she offered a plastic bag with a few innocent tea bags floating inside. I took a whiff, and--

Whoa. (I said.)

Whatever was in that bag had a life of its own that has long since passed on, leaving only this packet of decay. (I thought.)

"It's Valerian root," she said, explaining at length what it was all about. "I love it," she said, "but it stinks."

Turns out, Valerian root is a) a stinky but b) sedative type herb, perfect for putting one to sleep. (Why she needed such a thing at work, I did not ask.) And, since I had been struggling to sleep in recent days, she offered me one. She placed it in a plastic bag and brought it to my office, on her way out that day.

There it sat, on my desk. I left for a meeting, returned, opened my door, and--

Whoa. (I said.)

This stuff stiiiiiiiinks. (I also said.)

I put a book on top of the bag, to quell the stench.

Shortly thereafter a colleague stopped in, to sign some papers. He sat at the chair across from me, and I moved some things to give him space. Suddenly--

Whoa.

"Sorry for the smell," I said to him, concerned that he might think I was just stinky, compelled to tell him the whole story, understanding anew why my grad assistant had continued to talk until she assessed I fully understood the situation.

I took the bag home later that day, and placed it on the table by my stove, near some other tea items. For weeks, I simply looked at it, wondering if I wanted to taste the source of such disaster. The odor calmed down slightly as it sat in one place, but any time I got too close, or --whoa-- moved it, I was once again reminded of the possibility that it was simply a tiny package of downright death.

"Am I really going to drink this stuff?" I asked myself.

But last night, after a few more sleepless nights, I dove in. I boiled the water, rubbing my hands together anxiously at what I was about to do. I placed that stinky little body into my mug, where it brewed into a color somewhere between dandelions and dirt. I sniffed it, curious to find that the smell was far better than expected, pleasant even. And then I held my breath, and tasted.

It was actually, delicious.

Whoa. (I said.)

And then sleep. (I did.)

From Friday to Friday, 2

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On Sleep Masks

I have never been a Sleep Mask kind of woman.

{Sleep Masks are for the highly maintenanced, of which somewhere I was told I should never be.}

That was until I fell into weeks upon weeks that turned into months and there I was and I just couldn't sleep. I'd go down like lightning, thinking hopefully, only to meet myself a few hours later hurtling to the surface like someone drowning in her own rest. I'd lie there then, hours, hours, thoughts like nails, driving through my head.

I have never been a Sleep Mask kind of woman, until that one day I'd lost all hope that sleep would be mine again, and decided to go militant.

It was bedtime. I put my pajamas on, limb by limb, like a suit of armor. I took up my shield, the old white noise machine stored in the closet since I moved to this place. I plugged it in near my bed, to the left.

I marched through the house then, to find my sword tucked into its storage place, an essential oil diffuser that I filled with great determination, water and lavender and cedarwood oil, and I marched it up the stairs and I placed it near my bed, to the right.

Shield in left hand, sword in right hand. Now, where was my helmet?

In my bedside table, there it was. The sleep mask labeled "Qatar Airways," maroon and gray and kept there as an "I am not a Sleep Mask kind of woman, but I will keep it just in case."

All my senses cared for then, I discovered: Sleep gradually returned.

I still wake up, but when I do I don't always know it. I lie curled there in my re-created womb. Night remains night instead of desiccated morning.

And sometimes, I open my eyes to find that the Mask has slid up so that I can see just an edge of nighttime. I watch it then, girded in the bed that holds me. And the next thing I know, what I see is morning.

Today I am Writing: On Multiplying

My friend and I sat in the window of our local Japanese restaurant yesterday, noshing on ramen and the realities of an academic year, come to an end.

Her time here at our University is over, her appointment up. In a few short weeks she leaves us, to go elsewhere for a teaching fellowship, where she will continue her writing her reading her thinking in a space provided for her, while engaging art students on special occasions with critical thought. It is a perfect gig for her, but only lasts a semester.

She is tired (I can see this in her lines) of the academic game of hopping from appointment to appointment, fellowship to fellowship, as lovely as each might be. "I just want a job!" she tells me.

She tells me that if there is no job after this one, then she is calling her academic drive done. "What has all this work been for," she asks me, "if no one will give me a job to show for it?" And I look at her, and I look at what I know of her, and I see lines and lines and webs and webs of impact, made out of that work and her investment in those she has encountered in it.

I say: You've been Multiplying. That's what the work is for.

I hear all this, out of my own purview of my appointment is complete in a year, and what then will I do? Will we all agree that we should renew, or will I move on, to what's next? And if I do, move on to what's next, what next is there to do? (I am tired, too.)

I look at my own life, the things left undone, like the book I want to write (if I only knew what it was really about) and the things I want to know so that I can go out and tell the world, and the music I want to make out of the depths of my deepest soul. I think of all the things I thought I'd do and all the things I wanted to be. I think of how I really thought that all of those things would be wrapped up tight, inside a "job," one that made sense and said: This is who she is.

But then I think of all the ones I've gathered into my office and talked with, listened, prayed. I think of the partnerships across this place and the seeds sown and the still growing things. I think of the notes written from the leaving ones, saying that they are better because they knew me, and the gifts on my table to recognize I cared. I think of the piano babes who curl in my chairs and commandeer my home as if it were theirs.

And it changes me. It centers me. It says to me it doesn't so much matter what I do, as long as I am there. To plant my seeds, to Multiply.

Today I am Writing: On A Desk/Cottage Living

This evening, I supersede my task list to do something very important:

I scroll the interwebs, looking for the perfect desk.

I can see it in my mind's eye, just waiting for me somewhere.

I want to place it under the little square window in my attic pitch bedroom, where it will get sultry like toast once summer officially hits and where I can see myself staring out onto the passing street and the lilting trees, writing my little heart away.

I have a pond and a porch and an outdoor table. I have a piano and two cozy chairs and a candle burning on the bookshelf that might as well stand stead as a mantle. I have the world's coziest bed and a dresser excavated from an antique store somewhere in the hinterlands of Pennsylvania.

The only thing missing in my idyllic cottage life is a little desk beneath the window.

(Now, if only it would fit...)

Today I am Writing: On Chaos

The children are losing their minds.

My friend and I speculate that it is May, and by May they are overloaded and they do not any longer care, about decorum.

I, of course, am driven mad by their madness.

[Just PLAY the SONG!]

And yet, I laugh with pure glee at their witty observations.

I giggle at their impossibilities.

I turn my head at their brilliant offhand statements.

I find them irresistible in their liveliness.

It may be chaos, but it is a sacred rhythm.

Today I am Writing: On Reading

Today I was sitting in a getting-more-crowded space, waiting for a recital I was accompanying to begin.  I had brought my book, and was reading.

I was reading a short story that at first I didn't understand, and then when I did, I didn't particularly like. When I finished, I looked up with a snort of "huh!" and suddenly realized that

--so absorbed had I been--

I had lost awareness that there were other people in the room.

I mean, in terms of awareness, I had: Absolutely. None.

Which, was disconcerting.

But also, caused me to appreciate the art of story.

Maybe I didn't like the plot, but the story itself must be a win.

Today I am Writing: On Falling Rocks

I was driving through the mountains today, and I saw a sign that said FALLING ROCKS.

Positioned at the side of the road as it was, directly under a wall of rock that was terrible in its massiveness, I thought: Is this sign supposed to make me feel better?

Like, "hey, these might kill you, but at least there is this sign" is an answer to the FALLING ROCK PROBLEM.

I was brought back to a moment in my childhood, when, driving through some mountain pass on our way to visit family or friends in upstate New York, I saw a similar rock wall, with the exact same sign at its base. The sign of this morning caused me to remember quite vividly that in that childhood moment I had a very distinct thought, and it was:

Shouldn't somebody do something about that?!

But what I really meant was: Adults are really quite incapable. You'd best watch out for your own self. Falling rocks are everywhere.

From Friday to Friday, 1

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On Pencils and Erasers

I have a container of pencils, sitting near my piano. Their purpose is for my note-making during the lesson-taking, so I have placed them closely to my seat.

It is a regular occurrence that a waiting child will come with great intent, knocking over anything standing in the way, to take a pencil for his or her own purposes.

(I cannot begin to tell you how many times a week I need to act on my superhero instincts in order to save myself or a chair or a child from complete and utter disaster, simply because said child is looking for a pencil.)

And frequently, what I hear is something like, "this pencil needs to be sharpened!" or, "this pencil needs a better eraser!"

They are an exacting breed, these children.

So, today, in five minutes of "please allow me to care for your needs," I sharpened all of the pencils. Every single one.

And onto my shopping list I added: Buy a pack of those little eraser caps.

Because isn't it some kind of truth-about-life, that the eraser always seems to wear out before the pencil is close to done?

(We make a lot of mistakes, but it doesn't mean we're finished.)

Today I am Writing: On Wallets and Worship

I started my day in the local cafe. I sat in the leather chair, in the corner, with my thoughts, my ipad, my journal, and my drink. I checked the email, I read the things I read. I wrote down the thoughts collected through the course of a restlessly sleeping (but there is healing happening) night. I pondered, I asked, I breathed.

People wandered in and out; some I knew, and some I did not. I nodded heads with a man wearing scrubs and carrying out a tray of drinks; I know him, I just don't know how. Across in the corner sat a friend I had lost touch with over this long semester, wrapped in a blanket shawl, working on her laptop; we set our calendars up to chat. Another young friend came with her backpack lightly hanging on her back; she sat down on the chair at my knee and I listened to her life update and smiled at the peace new in her eyes.

And then, the colleague entered, the one I respect, admire, consider friend though our paths rarely cross. As she unloaded her things at a table nearby, we exchanged the typical end of semester greeting: Are you done? Done. Me too. Phew.

I noticed her pick up her wallet, out of her bag, tuck it into her pocket to go buy her fare.

I don't know why it struck me that her wallet was just so her: Strong, solid, rectangular. Pink, but with a yellow edge.

And I don't know why I had a strange moment of wonder: Inside of that wallet, what would I find?

Would the cash be separated out, like mine, each category paying for a certain type of thing? Would it be laid out bills, pristine and even? Or folded ones, jumbled and jarring?

Was there even cash in there?

It made me think how every person in that room had their own wallet, their own way of going about things. It made me think that there are probably no two wallets alike, on this whole green earth. Which made me quiver with unthinkable joy, that there are no two people alike on this whole green earth at all. 

And if a wallet can turn into worship, I simply Wondered.

Today I am Writing: On Starbucks

This morning I was standing in front of a display case in my local Starbucks. Having gotten my car maintained (in this week of "welcome back to real-world-living"), I decided to maintain my morning get-into-the-office delay via an Americano, freshly made and gift-card paid.

I stood at the display case, holding a $60 coffee maker that had caught my eye and called me to itself, sleek and beautiful and "exactly what I needed!" until I realized that this was likely and simply an installment of my yearly "I am transitioning from semester to summer and hence want to purchase everything in sight in order to maintain some sort of belief that I can control my surroundings," and put the darn thing back.

But then, I returned to the display case, and stood looking at the variety of cold beverages and cheese sticks they had to offer. Suddenly, I was transported back 12 or so years, to a display case that looked exactly the same, but a) held cold sandwiches in triangulated plastic ware and b) existed in the very-much-not-here city of London, England.

For a moment, I could remember the texture of the egg salad sandwich I purchased there (as well as the shock that Starbucks in England sold food.) And I could call up the memory of sitting down to eat it, in that somewhat familiar place, before I explored a less than familiar city. That memory felt more real to me, somehow, than even the Americano waiting present minutes.

Maybe it was my younger self, reminding me to not settle for safety found in a sleek and beautiful coffee maker. Or maybe it was my younger self saying: Live a little, and get it.

Today I am Writing: On the Instincts of Weather

I checked the weather when I came home today, to see if it might rain.

The sky was cloudy, but I had a pond to finish cleaning, before rainwater has a chance to cover the muck not yet removed and mosquitoes have a chance to hatch their precious offspring.

I saw threat of thunderstorms later with a little timely window, so I pulled on my boots and my gloves and got myself to work.

Then, my friends came, for their piano time. The adult one and I stayed inside for Beethoven, while the child one came bounding in and out, eventually settling down at the table in the yard, all growing legs and limbs.

It was cloudy still, no rain. The wind though...the wind was picking up.

It blew the child one inside when it was her time. We worked on her recital song. I spoke in an entirely-made-up-but-gosh-she-loves-it accent, the whole entire lesson long. (There is no explaining how tiring this can be, unless you have also tried it.)

The adult one sat on the porch, as darkness gathered and tree limbs swept from side to side.

When we were through, were saying good-bye, she said: There's a tornado warning, you know, until 10 o'clock.

I didn't know; I never would have thought.

Mosquitoes are predictable, so are the limbs of the growing girl.
You can plan ahead for this.
But the instincts of weather require we know enough to read the signs.
Life becomes a balance, of these.