Tag: joy

the waiting months

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Spring and waiting seem to go together like coffee and cream. It’s not winter anymore; some parts of the country have crocuses and snowdrops springing up and snow hasn’t been on the forecast for weeks. At the same time, a certain Dairy Queen in Moorhead, Minnesota opens for the season March 1st and you can see a line of people with spring in their hearts and winter boots on their feet stretched out several feet long, waiting to get ice cream that they hope will, with an irony as swirled as their chocolate-and-vanilla cones, convince the cold to leave again.

But whether you’re licking an ice cream while you stand in the snow, or welcoming snowdrops, there’s no finality to March and April. They’re an in-between. Spring probably doesn’t feel fully real yet in the first warm days. And yet spring is a season unto itself. These months may be seem to be a segue to summer but they’re really a destination too. 

I think there are seasons in our lives that feel like that. We’ve waited and worked to get to where we are and we’re there now, at a destination of sorts, but it’s a moving, shifting destination. An arrival that signals an end and a beginning, and is itself a long, stretching, middle. It’s like having toddlers. (So many of my ideas and writing and topics revolve around toddlers right now.) You’ve waited and wanted to become a mom, and then you were eager for them to be walking and talking, and now they’re walking and talking, and you know that childhood comes next but it’ll be a minute yet, and here you are! But here you remain. 

It’s possible that this is largely the sleep deprivation talking. The nap strikes, the refusal to eat dinner. Don’t misunderstand me – I love this boy of mine and his sweet attitude and his constant activity and his curiosity. I love him deep and whole and I love him all the time. But if you’ve ever gotten on a treadmill to run at a fast jog for hours until your legs give out and then another lap for good measure, you know what kind of energy and tenacity it takes to parent a toddler. 

It’s just like the month of March. You’re in between two starkly contrasted seasons and it’s a season of its own and it seems to be longer than January and February put together, ya know? 

But don’t swear off children just yet. Recall the snowdrops I was talking about. They’re not the only spring flowers. Snowdrops come and then crocuses come, and soon there are even daffodils. Here in Colorado the golden forsythia glow even on a cloudy day. There are green spikes of irises reviving in my neighbor’s garden bed. The sharp yucca plants become more vibrant. Lilacs are stirring. Trees are budding out before they sprout leaves. You may lay down on the landing of the staircase in exhaustion and open your eyes to discover your toddler bending over you to give you a goodnight kiss as he “tucka ‘oo in” for a nap. You may find that one day when you lay down next to him in the middle of the nap strike, you both begin to giggle uncontrollably, down on the floor, face to face. Making memories, I hope. Laughing memories that stay bright in the dusty storage banks of recall.

Look for those moments. Hunt for them. Lay down – a patch as small as the landing of the stairs will do – and stare at the ceiling until you can remember what it is about this season that brings you joy. Don’t hustle too far too fast yet: let moments of happiness “tuck ‘oo in” to the season of in-between. It is better when we linger.

don’t forget what you love

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Darling – will you hear me for a second? Don’t forget to love the things you love. I relearned this for my own self recently, and I think the story is important. Get cozy.

I used to take my phone with me everywhere not so much for phone things but for the camera. In fact if there was a pretty aesthetic somewhere, I’d go and get my phone so I could try to find a way to photograph it. Raining? Let me find the prettiest view of raindrops through the right window. Sunshine? Maybe I could blow some bubbles and catch rainbow reflections. A pile of pillows in a coffee shop window? Excuse me while I’m the weirdo trying to subtly get the lighting just right and keep that lady working on her computer out of the photo. 

Two summers ago we moved up to a summer camp for my husband’s job and there was no cell signal. We had wi-fi in a few select locations, but I began to use the lack of reception and internet as a good reason to disconnect from my phone on a regular basis. I don’t think that was a bad idea, but I began to lose my habit of cell phone photography. I wasn’t a professional by any means – I just loved trying to capture moments of beauty. But slowly that capturing slipped away. A whole year went by that way. I even started taking walks at home without my phone. I don’t think that was a bad practice either, but maybe I was too thorough. I went through our second summer at camp and have scarcely any photographs to show for it. 

But now I’ve realized that since I’m not looking for beautiful pictures, I’m not even looking as much. I don’t notice the beautiful things that would have captivated me a year or two ago. And I miss that. 

I set out to spend less time with my phone and I accomplished that goal, but I should maybe have been more specific with myself. I should maybe spend less time scrolling through social media from the comfort of my cozy corner chair, and more time out photographing the pretty things I love to share on Instagram. So darling, don’t forget to love what you love. You can find yourself missing pieces of you that you never intended to let go of, and that would be a real heart-break. The world needs all the beauty you have to offer. 

It’s true that sometimes you need to step back from the things that you love for a little while. I stepped back from writing for a while and came back refreshed and ready to do more. It was wholesome, if tumultuous. I understand that we need breaks, time to rest, moments or months of quiet. But I came back and I think the coming back is important. 

I’m just now coming back to taking pictures on my cell phone and it’s giving me life in ways I had forgotten about. What beautiful things have you forgotten to love? What favorite habits or life-giving places have you been setting aside for too long? Don’t forget that it’s ok to love the simple things – taking walks or going for a run, walking through a greenhouse or planting a garden, sitting at a coffee shop or practicing a pour over. These little habits of ours are restful and nurturing and odds are when you neglect them they’re taking more from you than you know. 

Set aside some time to be frivolous. Take your phone with you on a long walk. Stop to photograph anything that catches your eye, big as a house or small as a leaf. Lace up your running shoes and do the extra mile, even if you feel like you should be home doing the dishes. Bake something and if you’re worried about that baking habit sticking to your hips, look up a new recipe and discover ways to make your favorite foods love you back. Just don’t forget to love the things that you love, babe.

some assembly required

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Do we build our lives moment by moment? 

I have nearly finished arranging the wall above our chairs in the living room. A large framed poster, a small piece of art from a craft fair, two photo grids with miniature clothes pins, a star-chart, a macramé hanging. One framed picture card left to hang. A few photographs left to clip up to the photo grid. Not complete, but close. 

I’ve collected the things over a long time. It took even longer to realize I wanted a gallery wall like this. I’ve never fallen in love with the gallery walls Pinterest has to offer when I search for them. But somehow the homemade macramé, year-old star chart, framed poster from an Airbnb, photo-grids that are just gold-colored cooling racks from a kitchen, and craft fair art from ten years ago all belong together. A motley crowd, joined by the fact that I admire them, and some occasional overlapping colors. 

In so many ways we’re moving into this new home the way I’ve collected art for our wall. Piece by piece, bit by bit. We settle one thing here and then there until we find where it belongs, where we love it. Should the clock stay in the kitchen, or do we hang the spice rack there next to the fridge and move the clock to the dining room, pop of color between two windows? I pushed the huge, wheeled coffee table back and forth across the room three times in one day while Erik napped. I stopped when I was too tired to remember my own opinion about where it should go, and too tired to push it anymore. We grew to rather like it where it is though, and I haven’t had to sacrifice anymore of Erik’s nap times to shuffle it around. Good thing too, as there’s a box with bathroom cabinet supplies waiting out in the garage and I still don’t know where my mixing bowls are.

Sometimes I feel as if all of life were scattered piecemeal around like this, waiting to be unpacked and admired, or not, depending on our own choices and actions. The choose-your-own adventure novel happening right here when I decide to move the clock and leave the writing desk; who knows what lives will begin or end on those decisions? 

The most wonderful moments of our lives are tucked in, just waiting to be noticed and gathered up over years. A picture, a feeling, a kiss. They’re as real as the photos clipped to the gold kitchen cooling racks and as intangible as the seconds stepping steadily by in the clock. You’ve got to keep your eyes open. 

At this moment in these years, I think my eyes are open. I call Erik sweet baby boy child and I feel his smile alter the thrumming of my heart when I do. I stand on the first step to kiss Grant and some days my heart stops altogether, just for a second; just to hold that soft moment out of time, where it belongs. 

Every morning the waving arms of the trees trace their arcs across the floor. Every evening the faint luminescence of the moon ignites the snow in cool sparks and glows subtly through the white curtains. Every week I get a text from Johanna and I send one and we slowly plan around our baby boys’ naps to spend time together, sipping hot coffee or pushing strollers on long walks. The trickle of friendship seems to color all of my days by the buzzing of texts on my phone and the dates we keep for thrift shopping, eating gyros, stumbling into Toddler Time at the library only a few minutes late. 

In our last home the walls were plaster, no hanging of picture frames allowed without the express permission and assistance of the landlord. I resorted to the use of command strips. I didn’t want his help with my interior decorating. It felt odd and intrusive. The small blue picture-card in its glass frame wasn’t sticking with the command strips I’d stuck to the back of it, so I carefully unscrewed the small bracket for hanging and saved it in my toolbox. The frame was flat enough against the wall then; the command strips were still on it when I unpacked the first box of our décor in the cottage. 

It was just a guess that the hanging bracket would be in the toolbox, in the capsule of nails and tacks I kept there, but they were. I took them out, found the Philips screwdriver with the right sized head. I’m not new to a toolbox but I’m still a bit timid around it. And there I was anyway, getting a picture ready to hang on the gallery wall I’d designed. Piece by piece, year by year, beautiful things have come and stayed. Friendships, photographs, clocks, coffee tables, coffee dates, a family. 

Ikea furniture comes with the prior knowledge that some assembly is required. You can walk through the maze of assembled showrooms and show-homes with a belly-full of Swedish meatballs from their café, but when you pick that furniture out of the warehouse and put in on your unwieldy cart, you’ve got a box full of pieces, an instruction manual with no words, and one extra wooden peg for good measure. Assembly, styling, use, appreciation; all are up to you now. Nobody’s going to come and hang the mirror on the floor-to-ceiling cabinet that holds your newly inspired minimalist wardrobe and bookshelf both. You’ll never sit in the chair if you don’t start twisting in the screws, pounding in the pegs, attaching the legs. 

Life is a lot like that, I think. You can get all the good things in the world and you’ll never see them if you don’t look. You’ve got to put together the pieces. 

I don’t think life is easy. There are months when grief drives through you like the twisted sharp steel of a train wreck. You feel the sharpness in your throat and the throbbing in your mind and the heaviness in your feet. Yes, those days come and sometimes they come to stay for a while. 

But when they go again? When the sun traces tree-shadows on the floors like moving laughter, when the kiss is long and slow, the evening hands you a cup of wine, the morning brings a smiling toddler in footy pajamas sliding down the stairs on his tummy – we’d be fools not to laugh along.

dandelion moments

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I was standing down by the lake-edge, blinking back tears of goodbye and wishing this rich green Minnesota environment could be mine all the time. And then I turned and saw my toddler blowing a dandelion that had gone to seed, the magic of it as much in his eyes as in the wish he doesn’t know how to make yet. The almost-physical ache I had felt faded soft as the lapping lake water. I could be ok, with moments like this that slip in with unexpected happiness. I chased the boy around with my camera, instructing him to blow. Mom even grabbed him a new dandelion when the first one was out of seeds. I went inside with thoughts of dandelion hope echoing through the punchy grief of my goodbyes.

I have a tendency to let moments like this disappear into the humdrum of my days. When I curl up on the couch in the evening and my husband asks how my day was, these aren’t the things I think of first. My automatic response is to describe the lakeshore, the tears, the goodbyes, the ache I didn’t want to feel. And then I look forward to the next hard thing: I say words like, “And now we’re home and he’ll have to get used to not being the center of attention all the time; he’ll cry and hang on my legs, and ask for special treats like Larabars and his pacifier.” I forget the dandelion wishes until the very end: “There were a few good moments. Erik was so cute, blowing a dandelion with his lips all full and pursed. But I don’t know if I got any good pictures.”

I’d like to think we color our perspectives beginning with the best and happiest memories, but I don’t think it’s true. I felt joy just as strongly as pain but I focused on what was hard and hurtful instead of what was beautiful. It’s easy to do, honestly. Hard moments do make a strong impression on us. Hurt is real. Goodbyes suck. And just like that, the rain clouds that lasted for half-an-hour are all we can remember of our sunny days. It’s like a trick we help our own memories play. Like the movie Inside Out; let Sadness touch one memory and it all turns blue. No amount of scolding from Joy can stop the infectious touch spreading across a myriad of dandelion moments.

It feels like that’s an inevitable truth; the memories that sit strongest with you will color your whole day – maybe eventually your whole life. And what if your whole life, day by day, turns blue? But I don’t think that’s the whole picture, not quite.

I think we have a say in the process. I think we have a voice in the way these memories shape us – we give them some of their power and we can take some of it away. And maybe we’ll never be able to erase the hurting parts of our days. Goodbyes will always be painful, won’t they? But we don’t need to erase pain to feel joy. We just need to feel it, to really see it and honor it and give it the place it should have. And that might take some fighting.

I think we can turn our lives bright again in small but meaningful ways if we really pay attention. The deep, the real and the magnificent exist for each of us if we are willing to notice it and hold on. I can’t tell you how you will do this. There isn’t a prescription for joy because no two lives or circumstances are the same. No two people feel and capture and remember emotions the same way. Your dandelion wishes will look different from mine, even if you have a dandelion-blowing toddler trundling across the dewy grass, enchanting his aunts and grandma all together. But that said, I do have a few ideas.

  1. Write it down. Sit with your thoughts and memories at the end of a day or early the next morning and just scribble a few notes of the things that made you smile. Dandelion blowing. The airplane ride with a toddler that actually went really well. Dewy grass on my feet for one last morning, before we returned to dry Colorado. Let these things grow into a habit and you will begin to find the permeating ability of joy.
  2. Take pictures. Maybe only one in one hundred will be instagram worthy and honestly, isn’t that ok? Taking a photograph can help you remember. It may pop up in your memories, or maybe Google photos will throw it into a video for you. Or your mother will ask you for those photographs and years later you’ll find them tucked in a box or an album somewhere, and you’ll remember.
  3. Ponder. When you have those quiet seconds, the waiting seconds when you could pick up a phone and scroll, just review your own hours. Look for the beautiful things. It’s there, it’s waiting – just hunt through your own memories and dig them up. Color your days in the in-between seconds. And maybe when you find yourself lying in bed at night, you’ll realize that even with the goodbyes and the long travel and the way he cried all the long drive back from the airport, it was a day of dandelion moments.

your story

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I have had a head cold for three weeks and counting now. I’m not even disgusted by going around the house, picking up my used tissues, or scooping up the pile of snotty toilet paper that’s inevitably accrued next to my bed each morning. I just do it. I’m tired of it, sure, and I cry with frustration sometimes when I just want to take a short walk without feeling exhausted or blowing my nose in the cold again, but whatever. I’ll get better eventually. (I’ve been to a doctor and there really is nothing serious wrong with me. Don’t worry.)

In an attempt to self-medicate against the discouragement of feeling like crap all the time, I’ve been binging good books, listening to all the podcasts, and enjoying conversations even though they kill my already-sore throat. But none of those things have had the substance I’m looking for. No matter which encouraging thing I listen to or what lovely ideas and lives I read about, they don’t really cheer me up. Because I start to get jealous. Even in the little conversations, envy of my friends’ non-congested voices and un-achy throats starts to creep in. I don’t like jealousy, and here it is even in the moments when I’m just trying to find a little courage.

I’ve never cemented the habit of simply not comparing myself to others. It’s ugly, written that bald-faced and plain, but it’s true. I compare my voice, my figure, my writing style, my perceived success to how I perceive theirs. I even compare the things I like doing to the things others like doing. Do I host like she does, do I have a vision like that, have I written anything that motivating, will I ever be able to publish as much as her?

I could, and should, ruminate instead on how full and beautiful my own life really is. I tend to forget that my own story is the one that matters most to me – not in a selfish way, but in a centering way, a way that recognizes the influence each of us has and uses it. I think when we pay too much attention to the stories we aren’t living, we make our own lives less effective, less deep and true. It’s like cleaning your house while you’re mentally planning a menu, and interrupting yourself to add to the grocery list. Nothing will get done the same way it will if, while you clean, you plan and focus and strategize how you intend to clean the house to your best ability. Not that our lives are really much like a house, but I think you can picture the difference between a clean house with the dishes drying on the counter, and a clean house with the counters bare and flowers arranged on the kitchen table.

We’ve got to come back to our own stories. I am realizing how imperative it is to really see our own lives, begin to recount the story of ourselves. Knowing where we are and where we came from is crucial if we want to see the beauty in where we are going. I know this all sounds vague, but I think acting on it is simple. Start noticing. See the people in your life, see the patterns, see the joy and the pain. Some of it needs changing, sure, but a lot of it is just good stuff, even if it’s hard good stuff. And be thankful, too. Recognize what is good and cling to that – write it down or photograph it or get a tattoo or throw a dinner party. Remind yourself where you fit in the grand scheme of humanity, of the Church; in your community, your family, your own house. Give yourself an orientation tour of this life you live, and then use your one sweet life to make that space beautiful.

And sure, it’s good to draw inspiration from the stories other people are living. Perhaps they’ve had ideas that sparked your own. Perhaps their story was the courage you needed one day. But don’t settle into comparison. Take that courage and turn it into something difference-making.

I’ve never experienced the spring rush of allergies like so many others, but that’s what the doctor thought my head cold was. I protested, informed him I wasn’t allergic to anything. He smiled, and reiterated, “We see a lot of allergy cases this time of year. You’re not alone; you’re in good company.” That statement somehow gave me a bit of hope, even though it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Allergies, good company – hearing that give me the framework in which to set the story of being sick for three whole weeks. It’s a grounding piece of information. And even if I still think that the snotty nose my toddler had three weeks ago is part of this, or the sinus infection I just fought off, or the lowered immune system that pregnancy brings – at least I have a framework.

On my way home from urgent care, I was listening to a podcast by Christie Purifoy and Lisa-Jo Baker. The more I listen to their podcast, the more I usually compare – the more I wish my story was similar to one of theirs. But today even while I listened, I came to a reminder: my story is my own. I can’t exchange it for Lisa Jo’s or Christie’s, but I shouldn’t want to either. If I could, I’d miss out on all that was meant for me. Allergies or no allergies, I don’t want to go along so envious that I miss my own life; do you?

songbirds

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It can be hard to figure out what to write in this space some days. I’m not always a thinker of deep thoughts, a studious philosopher-type.

Some days I just take long walks with the wind a little too cold on my ears and the stroller bumping against my palms and I look for reasons to be grateful. These days the reasons come in the form of songbirds. They sing brazenly from the tops of pines, invisible but vibrantly present. They warm me to my core, ears and all, somehow. I think maybe it’s not even just the birds; maybe it’s the reminder that the long migration of winter will end.

I hear the songbirds and I think of blooming crabapple trees, of smelly Bradford Pears that look like white mist. I think of flowers; some bloom in orderly beds and some grow riotously beyond their own borders and some just pop up wild, like the pink wild roses in tangled hedges at camp. I think of sunshine that feels warm on bare skin. I think of the hours we spend with friends, finally outside again after months of playing indoors, meeting in coffee shops or bundling up for short walks to the park.

Summer feels like freedom until it’s here and then it brings the same regularity of discipline and cultivated habits that I’ve had all year. It’s a strange life to see summers as free time all our growing up years until one day we’re grown up and summers are still work time. But in the middle of the work time that used to be free, I realize again and again that moments of free-heartedness never really left. Because there were songbirds singing here in the middle of winter.

There are belly-laughs in the longest days of parenting. There are breakthroughs in the most drudging hours of writing. The sun breaks through the sky for a sunset glow on the gloomiest cloudy days. There’s always something.

So hang in there. Raise your eyes above the snow drifts and look at the wild blue sky. Even on the darkest night, the stars are still shining above the clouds. Remember the songbirds, because they remember you.

life-changing

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“Like I don’t want to hype the coffee up but it will change your life,” the text read. I almost laughed. Regardless of how life-changing the coffee will be at this new place, I am just looking forward to spending an evening with this wild, beautiful friend of mine.

Perhaps because I am a word-nerd and perhaps because I’m looking forward to good coffee, I’ve been thinking about that text message all day. (Heck maybe I’m just crazy for thinking about a text message all day. You decide.) Around lunch time, laughing through a staring contest with my toddler, the silly joy of it all just landed where I needed to hear it: what if you let it change your life?

Not in a big way – I don’t mean that. I’m not going to be stopping here every weekday AM for my morning coffee or anything. But I could let this expectation of great coffee fill my evening up with joy like a helium balloon so sky-bound it tugs against its string.

And if coffee can change my life, why not a silly staring contest with my toddler over lunch? Why not the contrasted flavor of sweet potatoes and a bowl of chili? Sometimes there just enough laughter involved in my grinning boy smearing his lunch across his tray (who says you can’t play with food?!) that clean up brings a memory and a smile, not a groan. On Wednesday the sky was pink with sunset clouds that hovered behind bare tree limbs. I left the sidewalk for the grass and snow, just to be more inside the sweet soft dusky beauty.

Maybe we need more moments like this. Maybe looking up at the smallest, most simple things can change our ordinary lives in the most profound ways of all.