habits – Page 3 – gianna soderstrom

original

October 16, 2018Posted in courage, habits, writingTagged Anselm Society, art, artists, blogging, Colorado, Colorado Springs, creativity, essays, ideas, insecurity, learning, originality, photography, truth, writingLeave a comment

There is mysterious soulful glory in a community of artists. When you gather with people whose mission it is to manifest the unity between ethereal beauty and true holiness, magic happens. Conversations are spun out of real joy and gentle criticism and intangible dreams that may yet become reality. I’ve joined an Arts Guild. It is the most encouragement my writing has seen in years.

I used to worry that I didn’t think very original thoughts. All my ideas were old; they felt spoon-fed and recycled. I wanted to think fresh things but I didn’t know how. I was envious of the people who seemed to think of new wonderful things without effort; the people who could think a thought and write an essay and paint a picture without stagnating in the same repeated ideas. The ease of their intelligent communities frustrated me. How could I get there? Why was it so hard to think things?

I wanted more of this originality; if not my own, then to sit in on theirs. “They” was non-specific. Podcast hosts who somehow had new ideas every week. Writers whose words were fresh and thoughtful. Friends whose conversations seemed alive and interesting. I remember a conversation I once had about insecurity with a close friend. I don’t usually get intimidated by people who are better than me, she said, I think of them as examples. I can learn a lot from how they work. I have struggled with that idea for years, honestly. Envy is often my default reaction to excellence. I wish I didn’t think that way so often and I’m working hard to change it, but that used to be my default mode of thinking.

So this summer I began trying to change. If I couldn’t bring forth my own original ideas, the next best thing I could do was listen to them, immerse myself in them. So I kept listening to the podcasts. I even found more good speakers to listen to. I read the blog posts and essays that seemed beyond any aspiration of my own skill – perhaps they would rub off on me. I spent time with people who entertained big ideas and philosophies. At least I could learn from them.

I began to lean into knowledge instead of begrudging those who had it. And slowly, I learned: we become like those we surround ourselves with. The more I listened to these original conversations, the more original thoughts and ideas I began to have. I realized that my own mind could generate ideas, craft thoughts and story lines, put together questions and answers in new ways. I was learning how “to be governed by [my] admirations rather than [my] disgusts…” (Henry Van Dyke). It is a beautiful place to be.

I might not ever be able to shake my old habit envying everyone who is better than me. It’s a horrible vice that brings a twinge of shame every time I think of it. But I am learning more and more how to think differently. When envy creeps in, I try to pick out a few things I can learn from somebody else’s success. I look for all the ways that artists and writers and thinkers I admire are reaching back, holding out their hands and ideas to bring the rest of us forward. They share selflessly and I want to learn selflessly.

I am finally seeing that originality does not cohabitate with isolation. Just as giving gifts and having less brings spontaneous joy, so sharing ideas and relying on others for thoughtful community cultivates our own original thoughts and ideas. May we live into this paradox of artistic friendship with joy and generosity.

discipline

October 3, 2018Posted in Bible study, camp life, courage, habits, parentingTagged Bible study, blogging, discipline, habits, J. R. R. Tolkien, keep on, learning, parenting, study, truth, writingLeave a comment

hiking, pancake rocks, colorado, fall colors, mountains, friends

“Discipline is supposed to serve you; you’re not supposed to serve the discipline.” She wasn’t talking to me but I heard and remembered.

Were we halfway through the summer when those words sank into my heart? I held on to them the rest of the weeks we remained at camp. Discipline is supposed to serve you. I could list the ways I discovered that this summer.

One day in May I finally decided that if I sat down every day for a long time then I could finish a big writing project. I counted out the days and set a count-down widget on my phone to remind me time was ticking. There are 152 of 258 days left until my self-imposed deadline. The goal I set for myself is almost met. I’m in awe, and a bit afraid of my own progress, and eager to set a new goal. I’ve always been nervous about writing, but discipline served the ball back into Fear’s court. I’ve written a lot this summer, with gratitude to discipline.

I was handed a Bible study booklet in the last week of May to begin prepping for the study I would lead for four of the counselors. The nine steps of Bible study that were laid out in the beginning of the book startled me. I didn’t know how to begin – it had been so long since I studied scripture that way. So I broke the study down into chunks. I made it look manageable and I sat down to study every morning or afternoon while Erik napped. I learned so much about God, about scripture and about study this summer. A summer of discipline has gotten me excited to study God and his word more.

I have had to be disciplined with my parenting too. It’s incredibly self-sacrificing to hand little Erik a spoon when I’m giving him a bowl of oatmeal or Greek yogurt and let him try to shovel a few bites into his mouth. Things are a lot less messy when I just feed him. But will he ever learn that way? It’s important to me to teach him the things he needs to live life well, love God well. It’s taken a lot of discipline to consistently choose the messy education experience instead of the tidy spoon-feeding.

I don’t really like discipline. That’s not the point of this post. But when I’m not in the thick of parenting I usually have enough perspective to reframe it. “Step by step, one travels far,” J. R. R. Tolkien says. I think discipline is applicable to more than just the hard things that challenge you at the core of who you want to be. There’s other things – like looking for small beautiful moments in you day or remembering to write down what you’re grateful for. Little by little, one unpacks every box after moving to a new home, or learns to love healthier foods. Little by little the autumn colors roll down the mountains each October. Maybe the longer we practice discipline the more we discover that it’s pure gold.

I’m in the thick of everything right now – the parenting, the writing, the unpacking, the study. The fall colors. Don’t think I’m advising back over my shoulder from the other side. I’m stuck hating the act of discipline right alongside you (trust me.) I’ve just seen the outcome before and I’m willing to work for that.

There’s a song called Keep On Keeping On by Colony House that tends to fall flat to my ears in the middle of my best seasons. When life is easy, I can’t listen. There’s no real keeping on to do. It’s in the mirey middle sections of trying to do things that won’t be finished for weeks or years that I have to have that anthem running through my head and heart.

So, friend, keep on keeping on. You’ll get there. Remember, “Little by little, one travels far.”

stir-fry

September 20, 2018Posted in courage, habits, writingTagged blogging, confidence, cooking, courage, food, learning, selflessness, shame, stir fry, truth, welcoming, writingLeave a comment

Sometimes lethargy reaches long fingers into our weekends. Sometimes we’ve spent three or four days at camp, working and walking and keeping Erik busy and ourselves being kept busy that when we get back to the house on Galileo Drive we just get too comfortable on the couch for too long while little E chases matchbox cars in giggling circles and makes toddling forays down the hall.

Sometimes shame piggybacks on laziness until not doing anything becomes a fear of doing anything. It might just be me, I know. But after months of not cooking meals and inventing recipes for our family I get nervous in the kitchen. What odds and ends do we have in the house? Is there protein around? How do I season this dish? Google and I are good friends.

And then yesterday when I was in the kitchen throwing the odds and ends we had in the house into a deep skillet, the lethargy slipped off. I shook my shoulders free and sprinkled soy sauce liberally, garlic less liberally, ginger most tentatively of all. Maybe I put too much turmeric and olive oil in the cauliflower rice that turned yellow but I served it up anyway, trying not to make self-deprecating excuses to hide behind.

Dinner was good. Grant and I made wow faces at each other, sampling the shredded chicken and veggies over the yellowed rice. It was really, really good. Well credit to Google; I just threw together what was in the house and looked up how to season it, I shrugged. No, credit to you, Grant said directly, You cooked this.

I did cook it. In fact I’ve cooked a lot of good meals over the last year. Who cares if they were mostly from cookbooks or online recipes: they’re still my work. I swirled my wine in my glass, feeling more at home in the goosebump-cool evening air than I did with my own thoughts. I can… cook. I sit with the realization for a few moments, trying to make it sink in. My years of trying to put together meals and studying different ways of eating – Paleo, sugar-free, gluten-free, Whole30 – those practice meals and experimental dishes have paid off. I can throw together a good meal.

I’m not a virtuoso cook or anything. Somebody else would have put those odds and ends together faster or seasoned them just a little bit better. But honestly, I think it’s ok to acknowledge the thing well done because it helps me throw off shame.

My goal is real humility, not just yummy stir fry. But I believe humility is way more closely related to the intersection of confidence and selflessness than it is to shame. Shame is who I’ve hung out with for years but I’m over it like a needy romantic in a comedy who’s really, truly trying to be over it and finally breaks free in the happy kissing-in-the-rain scene at the end.

So feel free to acknowledge your success. Don’t let shame convince you that you can’t cook, that this aromatic dish sitting on the table owes you no credit. And once you’ve realized you have some skill in something after all, shape your confidence towards selflessness. Cook for others – invite them to your table. Nourish their bodies with your food and their souls with your listening. These words are my own dream too.

crazy days, lovely days

June 4, 2018Posted in adventure, camp life, habitsTagged blogging, Colorado, Eagle Lake, Eagle Lake Camp, earth, home, learning, mountain meadow, mountains, nature, photography, Pikes Peak, truthLeave a comment

The days are crazy here. I may look back on this conclusion someday and wonder what I thought was so crazy about them, but it still seems true now. I live more unplugged, since taking my phone out of the house means losing reception instantly. I play more with Baby E. We play hide-and-seek around and around the large comfy chair in the living room, or wrestling games, or chasing games. We play upstairs on the porch with the others, although Erik is a bit of a loner so far.

We walk downhill to the dining hall once or twice a day (which means uphill back and we mamas all groan the whole way.) When Erik naps I put the monitor on the front patio and walk laps around the driveway to staff housing, checking the monitor every five minutes when I pass through. Sometimes we all walk down to the beach together, or up to the gate to see Pikes Peak. If I’m feeling energetic and adventurous, we’ll hike the “mother loop” which feels 90% uphill, or walk out on the trail towards Halfway Meadow.

There’s a trail up to the Cross I haven’t explored yet, since it’s too steep to take Erik up, or to hike without a radio connection. There’s a trail to the Raven’s Craig where I’ve only discovered the trailhead and the first few yards of the narrow, winding track. There’s a bike track that stretches out past where another trail meets the road. The lake is surrounded by a trail that rides up over the damn. There are burn scars and wildernesses waiting at our doorstep. Overall there’s a lot of walking. I barely drive anywhere.

I’m learning to find beauty in the repetition. When I walk laps around the willow marsh during E’s naps, I look for new wildflowers blooming, or study the few aspens that rise above the willow brush more closely. There are new birdsongs to be heard, new shades of green to be discovered. I try to look with fresh eyes every time I walk around it.

I’m trying to see God the same way, new and deep and beyond what I could ever comprehend, yet always revealing more of himself. I try to look deeper and more closely at the scriptures I’ve read so often. There is more to be found, understood, absorbed, applied – if only I can learn to see it. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow but his mercies are new every morning. I cling to these thoughts and passages and look for the new mercies of God in the old, old words he gave us, just like I look for the newness of leafy aspens and blooming wildflowers in the narrow marsh below our front door.

beauty from ashes

May 26, 2018Posted in adventure, camp life, habits, writingTagged beauty, beauty from ashes, Colorado, creativity, earth, Ephesians, Ephesians 3:20, exploring, God, learning, more than we ask or think, nature, parents, photography, stillness, truth, walking, writingLeave a comment

“The Waldo Canyon fire burned all the way around camp,” Grant tells me. I’m impressed, and I see the hand of God in the story as clearly as if he were opening the camp gate to let us in. But to me it is just a story still. In the year of the fires I was in Minnesota, celebrating my graduation, finding a new job, planning travels for the next year. I didn’t understand just how close the fires had come until I began to explore.

I walked back to the horsebarn one evening. There are trails and work roads that split off into the hollow woods as I walk, and I notice that the forest is scarred and sooty. Black and gray trees point up like crooked bony fingers. They stretch down to the very edges of this tiny green valley, closer than I imagined. With practice you could stand at the edge of the barn and spit into the burn area. It is the same when I walk around the rest of the camp, stretching my legs on a cool afternoon and looking for the places I will walk with Erik in the lazy days ahead.

“This is Excursions Valley,” Grant explains as we crest a hill and walk down towards the cabins dotted along its side. There are more wildfire scars here. We walk in the spring-green valley and when we look up at the next hills their rounded tops are clearly arched against the blue sky. There are no evergreens filled with the low rush of breeze to obscure the edges of rising mountains here. No, there are only the skeletons. Here the green pines are gone and only seasonal grasses and the young whip-like Aspens bring color to the hillsides.

But there is color. The grasses have come back; their green ranks have pushed through the dry growth from last year and are springing up, brighter with every sunny day. Where mature Aspens grow in the mountains they form delightful streaks of bright green amongst the evergreens, and here instead of veins and pools of lighter green amid dark, they form a haze of bright growth around the bases of old burnt stems.

There is an unused wood stove in the Dining Hall that people have set wood paintings of encouraging sayings on. A small one near the front says Beauty From Ashes. I remember it day after day when I sit at our kitchen table, looking out at the burned slope reaching down almost to the camp; the soft green haze of fresh leaves reaches a little higher and shimmers a little brighter every time I look. Glory and growth are springing up from the graves of old trees. Beauty from ashes.

I have given up on writing many times. There was a year when I scarcely wrote at all, even to journal. There were a few months when I pushed through a large project only to set it aside, unfinished, for over a year. I eventually began to consider it pointless to pick up again. The last season has seen me working and spousing and parenting all together and addicted to my phone in between. There wasn’t time or energy to write. There wasn’t quiet space to find creativity.

I’ve discovered the vitality that walking and silence bring to my creative side this season, and writing has been possible again. Fear has been sliding away. I’ve been pushing fear away; fighting for my words, my inspiration, my quietness. Some beauty is returning to this old love of mine.

I keep praying over my writing. I’d love to be famous you know, and perhaps I have it in me, but I don’t think that’s what my writing is for. If my goal is to be a well-known and well-loved author, it will get in the way of having a unified, sound marriage, of parenting with connectedness and wisdom and presence. Those goals are more important.

But God is the God who “can do far more than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…” (Ephesians 3:20) I keep asking for beauty to come from the ashes of my writing habits, my creative desolation. I keep asking that God would do far more than all I could ask or think – that he would use this creativity and desire for His purposes, that he would help me to focus on what is most important, and bring the writing to fruition in its own time.

seeing

May 11, 2018Posted in adventure, camp life, habitsTagged adventure, Adventure Camp, beauty, blogging, cabin, camp life, Colorado, Eagle Lake, Eagle Lake Camp, earth, God, gratitude, Jesus, kids, learning, light, nature, outdoors, parenting, parents, sky, teaching, truth, writing5 Comments

Yesterday we moved most of our summer things up to camp. The back of the truck was full of boxes, the baby boy full of rice and stew. The higher we climbed up Rampart Range, the higher the anxiety mounted in my own heart. We unpacked, stowing our favorite mugs in the cabinets, tucking away canned tuna and steel cut oats in a cupboard, setting bread and tortillas on top of the fridge.

With each thing I unpacked, the stark reality of our summer at camp took on form. I had known the fridge would be small as but I tucked kefir on the top shelf and then negotiated the almond milk behind it I wondered how I would work with this space. I knew there wasn’t a bookshelf but when I stowed my favorite books behind a charming little end table door, I wondered how I would survive in this literary desert. The windows, larger than I had remembered, were covered in window wells and my heart sank a little more. I had planned for Erik to share our room but when I put him down in the pack’n’play, still unhappy after a bottle of milk, I wondered how much more motherhood I could manage for the day.

I saw the sun shining through a hedge a few days ago. The sidewalk was shadowy and dark but in the gap between the leaves the sun was bright and gold, all the more beautiful for having trickled through the leaves, maybe. And when the sun slips behind the dark-rising mountains in the evening, the colorful rays of evening shine out the more lovely for being ephemeral.

Perhaps that is the way with all beautiful things. I must learn to see them. The moments of glory in parenting will only shine the brighter when I am looking for them, when I have walked through the frustrations. The small closet, the narrow cupboards, the welled windows; these will all become worthwhile when I have looked for the ways that camp life is shot through with light. The same moment the sun sets, the stars begin to appear. When the challenges rise like the dusky mountains in the evening, the soft rays of joy may just become more beautiful.

Look for the light, my friends.

walks that don’t go anywhere

April 30, 2018Posted in habits, writingTagged Colorado, flowers, home, Minnesota, photography, solitude, stillness, walk, walkingLeave a comment

The first year I fell in love with long walks I was only an awkward, sincere teenager. I discovered sometime that summer a large stick I liked to walk with and it was replaced in the fall with a slender stick captured in the Boundary Waters by a friend who sympathized with my wanderings. My sisters teased and called them my “Moses Sticks” but I enjoyed my long rambles too much to mind them.

I grew up from then spending hours walking the gravel roads – roads that could not get me to any destination, but that took me out of myself, gave me the chance to breathe deeply and think quietly and wander widely. Even on a dreary day, I could walk a half mile to The Corner and it would suffice, somehow.

I often thought desperately that I’d love to live in town, so that my rambles could take me somewhere; and I do enjoy being able to walk to favorite destinations, but I was surprised to learn that I missed my solitary rambles through the empty countryside. I walk to destinations less and less lately, opting to wander through the prettiest streets and past the bloomiest yards. I crave the solitude, the emptiness that turned me to entertaining myself with my own thoughts. Those long walks supplied me with time to think and reflect, and create. I miss that most – the creativity that was born of quietness.

I don’t know why it has taken me nearly two years to catch up with my own needs. I am walking more now, trying to make space for reflection and inspiration. Urban life still feels crowded, as if anytime I stretch my arms out I will bump something that is not mine, or be noticed by somebody who does not understand. I must stretch though, must keep my elbow room somehow, must find the space to breathe. So I keep walking.

spring

April 16, 2018Posted in adventure, habitsTagged beauty, Colorado, daffodils, flowers, hiking, hyacinths, minne, seasons, spring, walkingLeave a comment

I have always said that fall is my favorite season, until it is spring. Then spring is my favorite. It is still true, and it is spring now. Last year at this time I made it my goal to walk a mile a day until Erik was born. I started walking, sunshine or no. I took laps around the park, crossed the busy street into the quiet neighborhoods, walked along the golf course and the bike trails. Spring was popping up everywhere, and it is again.

There are hyacinths growing, and tulips and daffodils and grape hyacinths. I see the spiky shoots that will be irises this summer, and the waxy lilac leaves unfolding slowly. Creeping ground covers are subtly regaining color from their tough roots to their tender fingertips. Trees are slowly, slowly greening and blooming. This city is its most vibrant self during the spring, I think.

I put Erik on my back and we set out. I take mental pictures over and over – that sweet cottage with the cherry tree, a glimpse of sky through that the willow branches. Erik pushes against my back and turns his bald head to watch the passing cars, neighborhood dogs, anyone on a bicycle.

In Minnesota, spring began as soon as the air was above freezing temperatures. Puddles grew, roofs dripped through the gutters, snow glistened, mists formed. The air itself seemed new and fresh; indescribably so. There is no damp, new smell of changing season in Colorado. We are “high desert” after all. But there is a fresh scent still – a whiff of pine carried down the mountain, the dry-green smell of yuccas washed over the sun-baked rocks. Yes, there is still a hint of spring in the air, even as on the ground.

Spring has a power like no other season to get me outside in Colorado. I like to wander, to discover. I hunt beauty and bloom, keeping photographs as my bounty. We come home with roses in our cheeks, and set out again tomorrow.

example

April 4, 2018Posted in Bible study, habits, parenting, writingTagged Bible, Bible study, blogging, caring, children, Colorado, God, heritage, kids, learning, love, loving others, loving well, Mom, parenting, parents, Proverbs, Proverbs 4, teach, teaching, truth, writingLeave a comment

Morning nap – first nap of the day. Sit you down and read I tell myself. I leave the breakfast dishes, the scattered letter blocks with baby teeth marks, and I begin my mid-morning with scripture. It’s a slow-forming habit. To ignore the sunshine, the messy floors, the urge to spend quiet hours indulging in youtube – it’s not easy. The rewards come slowly, but they come. So I sit with my Bible again.

I don’t like to have a daily time with God unless I have a plan of some kind. Lately, as I attempt to parent well, I have chosen Proverbs as my starting point. I’m reading through the gospels as well, but I start each study time by reading through the chapter in Proverbs that corresponds with the day of the month.

It is four months in; I love the repetition. Again and again I hear the same warnings against adultery, the same urging to seek wisdom, the same need for a fear of the Lord. And again and again Proverbs says “listen, my son”. Each time I’ve read it I’ve thought, What have my parents taught me that I need to remember and listen to right now? Today, God changed what I heard. What do I want Erik to learn from me, and remember?

That was not a comfortable question.

I want Erik to learn love. I want him to know the “breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,” so that he can love others with that same abundance. So then, that is how I need to live. I am pondering now how I can better love others. I want to be somebody who cares, who remembers somebody’s name, who hears their struggle without condemnation.

My mama was a great one for loving people. She’d invite anyone over for holidays if they didn’t have a place to gather. She’d talk to a stranger in the grocery store or a wrong number on the phone for an hour, just because she cared enough to feel their hurts. I want that heritage to run strongly in Erik, so it will need to run strongly in me. I have heard it said that a mother’s biggest contribution to the world may be those she raises. If that is true, then the only way I can truly magnify that contribution is to lead Erik by my own example.

So, here is to living the large love my mother taught me. Listen well, baby boy.

he dug down

April 3, 2018Posted in adventure, habits, writingTagged adventure, Bible, blogging, California, California Redwoods, digging, God, horses, Jesus, learning, Luke, Montgomery woods state reserve, Northern California, outdoors, photography, redwoods, scripture, travel, truth, writingLeave a comment

When I was half-grown, my family got horses. I thought it would be cool. It turned out to be a lot of work. My dad roused our family one Saturday and told us it was time to fence in a pasture for our future horse. He had outlined the perimeter of it, he said. Now we had to fence it. We set out, loading our supplies onto the four-wheeler. One of us took the post-hole digger and started digging. Dad would measure, and tell us to dig deeper. Two of us came behind, one holding the post with thick work gloves while the other slammed a post-pounder down on the top of it, over and over. Behind them we came filling in the holes, snapping on the insulators, stringing the wire. It was a long day. When we finished we could scarcely even see the slim wire fence against the thick prairie grass. It was there, and effective, but practically invisible.

I read the parable of the builders today, in Luke 6. Jesus says of the first builder that “he dug down” and laid a foundation. It didn’t even take having a horse to know that I hate digging, and here’s God, saying you have to keep digging if you don’t want your life to fall over.

“Do you really think these trees have been here for a thousand years?” Tiffany asked. Jon looked up. We all looked up. Standing there under the towering fragrant forest, we couldn’t doubt that they had seen a thousand years of sunrises, heard a thousand years of laughter. Their roots, I learned, grow up to 6 feet deep and nearly 100 feet out. The Redwoods are anchored for the centuries.

I spent about a year, maybe even more, digging through my crippling insecurity, trying to find the root of it, to dig that out too. You’ve got to dig down into yourself, but dig down into God too. It was only ever after I started with Him and His words as a foundation that I was able to dig up the crap I’d been standing on.

I’m trying to build this life-foundation strong, because I want to stand tall. Maybe it is hidden work, but even if nothing of the foundation shows, then at least the life-that-does-not-crumble will. Perhaps it will take hours at my kitchen table, reading and underlining and praying the scriptures. Maybe it will take years. Maybe it should take years. But perhaps if we stay where we are meant to be, if we dig down deep enough, then in a thousand years we will be as beautiful as this.

review

March 26, 2018March 26, 2018Posted in courage, habits, parenting, writingTagged blogging, hiking, learning, outdoors, photography, practice, review, SFO, skill, teaching, travel, walking, writingLeave a comment

I went for a barefoot walk yesterday. It forced me to be more aware. I noticed the old, roughened sidewalk outside our home, the broken gravelly walk beside the Missouri Synod church, the fresh new sidewalk a few blocks away. I imagined the prickly dry grasses, the packed full gravel of alleys. I began to notice other things too, with my senses so heightened. The fresh pine scent of a new fence around a corner house. The rocky shadows as clouds gathered around Pikes Peak. The way my legs itched to walk and walk and walk, muscles begging for exercise.

I pondered too, while I walked. In some smooth sequence of thoughts which I have now forgotten, my mind moved from the sidewalk textures to my aversion to review.

I’m not a perfectionist, but I am very success oriented. I’m wired to read social environments, to understand what other people value, and to try to be that as well as I can. It’s a comparison trap but one that’s always changing. If introspection and writing are what’s valued,I want to be the most introspective writer. If outdoor skills are in, I want to be the one acquainted with the most trails, the girl who makes her own granola for hiking snacks. If I don’t think I can do something well or impress a group on the first go around, I don’t usually try.

I hate to be told “That’s good, but you can do better.” All my rough drafts have to also be final edits. My first thoughts on a new topic must be airtight considerations.

I once heard that reading your writing out loud is the best way to catch errors in flow and grammar. It’s true. I hate it; or at least I used to. Now I’m slowly learning the power of double checking.

I view and read each of my blog posts as a preview before I publish them. I don’t catch everything but I do find a few improvements, errors, better ways to express myself. It’s still a challenge; I’m still a stubborn people-pleaser sometimes. But I’m learning. I’m learning how to practice, to let myself grow into skill instead of hiding anything that’s not immediately perfect. Mediocre is not always an insult; sometimes it’s a phase in between poor and excellent. Good work takes several practice rounds, multiple drafts. A series of photographs may reveal only one keeper. That is good. That is growth.

So, here’s to the in-betweeners, the ones who are practicing, who aren’t giving up even though they aren’t there yet. Tell me, what are you practicing?