Month: August 2017

While writing my novel I truly felt God’s pleasure.  And I know that He felt mine towards Him.  I walked in His love, understanding the magnitude and limitlessness of His blessings and I glimpsed the heritage of deity that is offered to me as His daughter.

The magic and mystery of writing, of sobbing next to my computer when one of my characters had broken my heart with the choice that he had made, felt euphoric and otherworldly.  Writing was my passageway to a secret place where worlds are created and souls are brought to life.  We required nothing more from each other–writing and me–than a promise to meet each night after my kids were in bed.  Until, allowing myself to be influenced by others–well meaning as they may have been–I began to wonder if I should be requiring more.

“are you published?”… “it’s nearly impossible to get published”… “you can’t make money with writing”… “unless you know the right people, writing’s pretty much a waste of time”

Turns out that if you tell people you’re a writer they in turn will tell you–in not so many words–that you are a fool.  And just like that my beautiful, otherworldly sanctuary became corrupted by this world of money, statistics and practicality.

I started to feel self conscious and selfish for spending my time on something that–by the worlds measurements–had no worth. So I quit my nightly rendezvous and tried to work on “better” things. Until the world of blogging knocked me right off the wagon and back into self indulgence.

But blogging felt different.  Blogging was public, unpolished and open. And as much as I loved to write I couldn’t get over the level of vulnerability that came with it.  So once again I moved on to “better” things.

Unable to permanently stay away, posting on Facebook became my new outlet, leading my sister, my mom and some friends to say, “I miss your words. Please start writing again.”  And the truth is that I missed me too.  Because writing is me.  So I started a new blog and I promised to write which, in time, sent me bolting  back to the security of “better” things.

Now as I write of these, my “better” things, I see that they too can be placed into the category of self indulgence. And yet no one has ever asked me what I plan to do with working out or how I plan to make money decorating.  They–and more importantly I–find value in these things simply for the soul fulfilling happiness they bring to my life.

I am a writer.  That is a complete sentence with nothing more to add.  I am a writer.  I don’t need an agenda.  I don’t want a plan.  All I want are sleepless nights and stomach butterflies. I want to look up to find my chores completed while my mind’s been off at play.  I want to sneak from my bed and tiptoe through the wardrobe to find dear friends, awaiting my return.  I want to listen to their stories with reverence and awe, honored to be chosen to bring them to life.

I am a writer. A writer who’s discovered that a novel awaits, a novel meant for me.

Hot dang, the butterflies have already started.

 

My son’s school classes are divided between what is called an A day and a B day.  For example, he’ll have his weights class on A day and P.E. on B.  But core classes like Math are everyday.  Of course.  We mustn’t have too much fun at school.

I too have a “class schedule” in my life.  One that–as I’ve recently discovered–has quite the chronic pattern.  And after reading the following Facebook comment from my sister, I thought I probably should explain how it works.

“Thank you for your words! I’m so happy to be reading them again. P.S. Please don’t stop this time :)”

What I’ve discovered is that my life consists of an A, B and C day of electives. On A day it’s all about physical fitness, B is decorating/organizing and C is writing.

A day is my longest day, lasting on average between four to six months.  A day is all about health and strength.  Health and strength are king.  During A day I workout religiously and I am very conscious of how I fuel my body, eating the cleanest foods in just the right amounts.  A day makes me feel like a bad a**, mindful, whole and present.  During A day I do very well in my everyday core classes too.  But just as I begin to reach the level of, “Dang Girl…” I wake up one morning and instead of reaching for my workout clothes I say, “There’s a blank wall in the family room that needs decorating. And I know just what I want to do to it.” And B day begins.

B day, decorating and organizing, is my very favorite day.  B day lasts about one to two months. One to two months of free-flowing, dancing with my spirit, creative bliss.  I love B day.  During B day I wake up excited and energized everyday.  B day is me day.  During B day I’m an artist, my home is my canvas and I let my soul lead.  B day holds all of my favorite things.  Antique stores, thrift stores, yard sales, treasure hunts, art, color and collecting pieces of history.  Most recently B day brought me Emerson, my pipe smoking deer, which lead me gracefully into C day.

C day should be the highlight, the lunch break of my life.  But like school lunch, C day invites vulnerability.  The walking into a crowded cafeteria, wondering if you’ll find your people kind of vulnerability.  A vulnerability that can only be sustained for two, maybe three months before I move safely, securely back into A day.  It wasn’t always this way. C day used to be more like B day, free-flowing, soul soaring, bliss (I just wrote all about my journey from free-flowing to stifled but it made this post 42 years long so I’ll save it for another day).

And now at the request of my sister I’m working to get back to that place.  Or to at least show up, look vulnerability right in the eye and walk into that cafeteria even if it means sitting at a table alone.

Perhaps I’ll even get C day changed to one of my core classes and A day too.  But I think B day needs to keep it’s status as a supplemental course like sex ed or a pep rally. I mean, I only have so many walls and I still have kids to put through college.

 

 

 

 

“I can’t think of a single scenario in which I would choose to spend several hours of my finite time on this earth pulling weeds.” I tell myself during our church lesson on self reliance and hard work.  I wonder why these lessons always seem to come back to the pulling of weeds. I wonder if perhaps weed pulling is the badge of the righteous, a key into heaven.

I think for a moment–judging by the thoughts and stories shared by the  good mothers in our class–that, by not pulling weeds, perhaps I am causing irreparable damage to my children, maybe even leading them down a pathway to eternal damnation.

The thought scares me until I remember Manhattan high rise families. Manhattan high rise children surely never pull weeds. I feel fairly confident that Manhattan high rise children are not destined to an afterlife spent in purgatory.  This brings me peace.  We are just Manhattan high rise people living on country acreage.  We’ll be alright.

As a young girl I believed in order to reach the pinnacle of womanhood–to be righteous, capable and good–I needed to master three things: baking bread, canning food and quilting.  After all this is what all of the good, righteous, capable pioneer women had done and what good, righteous, capable women all around me were still doing. Yes, doing these things would make me very righteous indeed.

Except…

I hate quilting.  And I have a Sam’s Club membership and no garden (I know, I know… righteous people are supposed to have a garden) so I find canning food to be a tedious waste of my time. But I do like baking bread. On occasion.  Yes, occasional bread is good.

While experimenting with these things I made a miraculous discovery.  Even though I hated these wholesome, righteous people activities, I still felt righteous and strong and good. And I realized that somewhere, somehow in my young mind I had blurred the lines between the activities that certain righteous people choose to do and actual righteousness.  I mistakenly believed that in order to be righteous we all must be the same.

Now I know better. I know that we were never meant, nor asked to be the same.  I know that it’s an impossibility that will drive us to destruction if we try to make it so.  And that there is but one thing in which we are required to agree.

Commandments and Covenants.  God’s Family Rules.  Much like the rules we make for our own families, printed out on cute little plaques that hang on our walls, God’s rules are designed to keep us safe and happy and to bring love and order to the human family and our earthly home.

Commandments and Covenants are our common ground. Our touchstones for righteousness.  In these we are the same.

But in all else it’s up to us to decide what we will do, how we will live and what our lives should be.

“When I run I feel God’s Pleasure”

(Chariots of Fire)

It’s up to us to find those things–those gifts, talents and interests–that make us feel God’s pleasure.  For where we find His pleasure there will we find righteousness.

 

 

 

On my birthday, the day that–when I decided I was special enough to myself to make it special for myself–has become one of my favorite days of the year, I asked myself, “What do you want to wear on this, your very special day?”

To which I answered, “My ‘get naked’ shirt.” Not only because nothing says birthday suit quite like a reference to your birthday suit, but because to me a birthday is a day for epiphanies–a day to set intentions–for what this added gift of another year of life should look like.

And for this, my precious added year, I’m choosing to be naked–dancing in the fountains, streaking through the ball parks–stark raving naked.

Before you start planning tactics for avoiding me this year, please allow me to explain.

Naked means vulnerability.  Naked means truth. Naked is our offering–when we wish upon a star–that gives the Blue Fairy her power to make us real.

Naked is how we came into this world and naked is how we were always meant to live.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.  Genesis 2:25

I was born completely naked and I was not ashamed.  Until the influences and experiences of this life sent me diving into the bushes–rummaging frantically for fig leaves big enough to hide my nakedness, my imperfections, insecurities and fear.  I forgot who I really am.  Who the Lord sent me here to be.  I gave away my power.  Gave it to a lie.  But this year I’m ready to call a bluff a bluff.

The first effect of Adam’s sin was that he was afraid (Genesis 3:10)

 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Sin destroys that feeling of confidence God’s child should feel in a loving Father and produces instead a feeling of shame and guilt. Ever since the Fall God has been teaching men not to fear…         (Bible dictionary)

My intention for this year is to take back my power, to throw off my fig leaves and to place my confidence in a God who loves me.

This year I’ll call that Blue Fairy and I’ll tell her I’m ready. This year I will be made real.

And I’ll do it in my birthday suit because there is no other way.

 

 

 

 

(my hair and makeup might be awful but my Swatch watch is pretty sweet)

Dear kids,

What I would tell you about my birthday is that I used to hate it.  A lot. Which has nothing at all to do with aging because, for the most part, I’ve really loved getting to try out different ages.

Take today for instance.  Today is the first ever day I get to try life out as a 48 year old.  There’s something quite thrilling about that to me.  I’ve never been 48.  I think it’s going to be fun.

It was expectations–or more honestly a fear of disappointment–that made me hate my birthday. Somewhere along the way I decided that the expectation to disappointment ratio that comes from a day designed to be “all about me” was just too risky.  So I closed myself off to it.

Yes I would smile, say thank you and make merry but all the while my heart felt empty, broken.  Because what I didn’t understand is that without expectations life moves to disappointment by default. In trying so desperately to protect myself I created the very thing I feared most.

Then, for a few years in a row, Dad got called away for business on my birthday.  Now it was all on me to make my birthday all about me and a shift took place. I had to have expectations or nothing would happen.  I had to find my voice. And disappointments be damned, I found my voice.

I learned that surrendering to a day that’s all about me is a glorious thing indeed. It started out with taking you all out to a celebratory dinner then on to eating cake in my bed late at night while watching a movie.  Following years brought me my beloved Ziggy Piggy ice cream treat–I love my Ziggy Piggy– and trips to my favorite antiques and thrift stores.  And in all of this my heart was opened, my mind expanded, as I realized that in trying to protect myself from disappointment I was robbing myself of joy.

“I do not leap or jump for the landing.  I leap for the experience through the air.  Because we cannot predict the landing.”             ~Brene Brown

Hiding from disappointment–expecting the worst–just meant that I was scraping along the ground crashing at every turn.  With high expectations it’s true that I might have to live through disappointment, but at least I get to fly, to feel elated and free before the crash.  I get to enjoy my experience through the air.

So I invite you now to come on in–take that leap–the air is fine.

…and today is my birthday. Did I ever tell you that it’s one of my favorite days of the year?

(enjoying last year’s Ziggy Piggy)

 

 

Dear Kids,

What I would tell you about our good friend Emerson is that–from the moment I first met him in that Antiques mall in Chandler–he has brought me immeasurable joy.  He greets me each morning with a calming presence that brings a smile to my heart.  In short, I love him.

And when he told me that he was a gentleman deer–an author–thoughtful and poetic, I knew I needed to outfit him accordingly. I never even questioned his need for a pipe.  He told me it helps him think and I was happy to oblige.

So it surprised me (but not really) when–upon meeting Emerson–one of our extended family members lost her ever living mind over the fact that I would allow our good pal Emerson to have a pipe, IN OUR HOUSE! (emphasis added to illustrate how truly distraught she was)

She then asked, “What would your home teacher say?”

home-teacher: noun

a person who visits your home once a month to talk about Jesus, light, love and happiness (and sports, jobs, life etc.) while gifting you, if you are lucky, with fresh baked goods or other delicious treats.

And I had to bite my tongue, though you may have heard me mumble a few words under my breath.  Because her comment took me back to a time when I was young.  A time when a good friend of mine did something that her mother deemed unacceptable, leading her to lose her ever living mind and say, “What will the people at church think?”  A statement that confused me then and still does today because I’ve always believed that church is a place where we go to please God, to strengthen our connection to Him.  And that we should make our choices based on what we believe will make Him happy. And to me, what my friend had chosen to do didn’t really seem like something that would make God unhappy.

And as for Emerson’s pipe? Well, I don’t believe that would make God unhappy either.  Because I believe that God has a twinkle in His eye and that He likes it when his children are cleaver and creative. I know He does. And I know He feels my gratitude for His bounteous gifts.  And I know that, even with Emerson’s need for a pipe, He knows I am crazy in love with His Word of Wisdom.

“The Word of Wisdom is a law of health revealed by the Lord for the physical and spiritual benefit of His children. On February 27, 1833, as recorded in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord revealed which foods are good for us to eat and which substances are not good for the human body.”

The Word of Wisdom is such a great gift and I’m positive that it’s a true, modern revelation given from God because it’s full of sound advice and because, 1833? Really?  Who knew about harmful substances in 1833? The Lord. The creator of our bodies. That’s who.

And you know I’m in love with the idea of having a healthy body. You’ve seen me work toward that goal your entire lives.  So I choose to live the Word of Wisdom.  I live it because it’s an awesome blueprint on how to make that goal come true.  I live it because it makes me happy.

But…

I don’t believe this makes me a better person than those who choose a different way.  I believe that we are all children of God and that God’s love is unconditional. There is nothing we can do to separate ourselves from it.  But good health? Well, that’s something we have to work for.  So I’ll continue working.  I’ll try my best to fuel my body with God’s pure and glorious creations while recognizing that others are also trying to live the best lives they can, the best way they know how. It’s all any of us can do.

And I think it’s safe to say that I’ll never smoke a pipe, even though Emerson does, because I know it’s not good for my body–and also because my fifth grade teacher smoked a pipe and his breath… Wow!  And I hope that you will choose to refrain from pipe smoking as well, even though our distraught family member assured me that Emerson’s presence in our home will undoubtedly lead you (and if not you than certainly your children) to this undesirable end.

And please, do be patient with our good friend Emerson.  Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I sure have, that he has never even lit his pipe in the house.  Not even once. Which shows me that he’s trying his best too.  The dear deer.