Waiting.

Sarah laughed at God’s word.
She couldn’t believe what she had just heard.
A baby in her belly after all these years…
I am not ninety years old
but I walk around like there’s nothing left to unfold.
Close the book, it’s over on this story.
But I’m starting to believe.
There’s faith where there was none before
and hope where there had been despair
and confidence that seems to come from nowhere.
God will do what He said He will do.
God will do what He said…
I’m starting to believe.
-Starting to Believe, Jenny Youngman

Last year on my birthday, I felt the first pangs of my age getting away from me. I think everyone has that internal map, something like a checklist to occasionally consult. Some take stock on a birthday or anniversary or the beginning of a new year. Until last year, I hadn’t done much of that. But there it was and in a few weeks will come again.

I think of family – my parents and my brother. My grandfathers who are dead now and my grandmothers who aren’t. I think of the family I want, the children I hope I’ll have, the husband I hope I’ll love. I wonder when those things will happen and why they seem so far away when I want so desperately to find them.

It’s no secret from those who know me well that I want a large family. Five children sounds beautiful to me. A family that knows and loves each other. A home where a life with God is known and loved and lived out. I reject the thought that this is too idealistic and although I understand women—usually mothers—who gently laugh at me, I am holding on to this dream. Yet I have come through another year and still don’t see the page turning. I remain in this chapter of life, shrugging off feelings of disappointment.

I’ve seen the movies of the almost-forty woman finding at long last the love of her life and think: God, please don’t let that be me. Yet in it’s way there is a quiet beauty there. And still, I think of my father’s mother, finding love at eighty and think: God, please don’t let that be me. Yet I sang and prayed and cried at her wedding. 

And I don’t feel sad or desperate or alone so much as I feel like I’m waiting.

It seems much of our lives are spent waiting. Waiting for the next job or relationship or adventure. Or even the next fight or disappointment or pain. It makes me a bit sad that we spend so much time waiting when life is happening in the midst of these things. For some reason we must always be on the brink of something. The brink of a new discovery. Something just around the corner. A finish line just ahead. But what of the now?

A very wise friend of mine once told me she felt a little, tiny prick of heartbreak when she became engaged to the man now her husband. She had a strong faith at a time when I had little and she explained that her faith led her to believe that once united as a couple, a unit, she and her husband would share an intertwined relationship with God. It would no longer be her alone with God, but them. An us. Being in love with love, this seemed beautiful to me and of course it is beautiful. But for her, that new beginning was also an ending.

Though I’m sure she has no idea, her insight has stayed with me for many years. This is a time to treasure and grow and come to know God as only I can right now. The truths I find are mine, small pieces of clarity and joy that are between this one single young woman and her God, her Creator, who loves her beyond all understanding.

So just as God loves me—whom He dreamed up and loved before I ever saw life—I will keep my own dreams of love and life and family. And I will keep waiting, but with thankfulness that God will guide and protect my heart. I am His and He is mine, for life’s best and its worst. When I fall and when I rise up. In moments of richness and times of poverty. Until my death and through all things. I will keep living and loving and waiting.

Moments.

There are moments on those gray afternoons when clouds seem to fight just to contain themselves and my one small piece of creation seems filled with tension. Moments before the rain falls when you can still leave the door open and hear sounds of far-off wind chimes and rustling leaves through the screen. Deep within that place and those moments, I can hear the whispers of ideas that I want to tell to the world. Whispers of wonderful thoughts, creatively and musically spun together so that if I were to just listen a little more carefully, it might change who I am on the outside.

But soon the tension eases and the rain stops and the clouds gather themselves up again. And the trees and wind chimes are still and I’m distracted by other sounds. Sounds that turn my head ever so slightly until I’ve all but lost those soft, soul-murmurs and I’m left with the fleeting sensation that I brushed up against something important.

And so these are moments I’m searching for. These missing moments, which, though brief, are like melodies you can’t get out of your head or the taste you can’t quite name which lies so ironically on the tip of your tongue. Or maybe a face in a crowd that looks just like someone you’re so sure you should know. Or have known and maybe don’t know anymore. And isn’t it sad that you just can’t quite remember.

These are my missing moments.

Some are gentle and peaceful, bright white like the color of dandelion seeds after they’ve turned all fluffy and soft. A moment like this seems to linger and settle and fill my mind with such peace that all the sounds in the world around me seem to melt together. As if they had all been made by God or by man for that one moment alone.

Others are like memories, dark yellow and deep like the walls of my mother’s kitchen, inspired by paintings of Tuscan sunsets and Spanish pottery. Colored by ancient brushstrokes along the surfaces in swirling, wandering patterns of age.

You should know that if you see them—my moments—you may mistake them for things quite ordinary. Perhaps that’s why so often they stay just out of reach, away from my sharply cynical and critical world. My moments are wise and crafty and they know me well.

So today I type with my eyes closed and the door open. And I work at letting go. Peeling away the fear and rejection so that my moments will know me when they see me, recognize me as the one they belong with. Because there are moments—faithful, Spirit-brushing moments that are meant just for each of us.

They fill the spaces, the cracks within us in such a way that no room is left for doubt. There is a truth that lies in the center of our moments, glimpses of a creator-God who has weaved us and wrapped us around those Spirit-pieces. Of a father-God who smells of earth and rain. Who has given us life in such a way that we are not just of Him, but also within Him. Of a mother-God who has brushed the insides of our souls with a color uniquely our own.

We have stood and stumbled and sprinted in these bodies, and She has held open Her arms. Wrapping tightly with a love both fierce and faithful. Waiting for those moments to rise and be recognized.

So to all my missing moments – I’m sorry. I had forgotten that you aren’t really mine; that you don’t belong to me. And I’m sorry that I am the one who left, but I’m grateful that you have stayed. I may lose you again or misplace you, but I have seen you and heard your truth, and I will keep looking. Be faithful moments; be kind and merciful and forgiving. Be growing moments of greatness so that I am filled with only these moments.

Thank you for my dreams and for my words and for this life. Thank you for graceful whispers of truth and thank you for love. Thank you for this moment and for all my moments.

And now rise up. Let this be, for someone, a new moment. Your moment.

Porch.

The hours that rest between evening and morning seem to be a favorite of mine. Tonight I’m on the porch swing, wishing it were summer and a little warmer. And thinking of other evenings on other porches in Paris and London and Krakow and Florence. Life feels a bit more glamorous when I remember back to those wee hours in cities that are never truly still. Here—it’s very still here. 

I can hear a few lonely cars and the constant hum of machinery from the chemical plant not too far off. A long way from Piazza del Duomo. The peeling porch on my quaint, little green rental doesn’t quite compare to the room atop a London pub. I suppose it’s easy to remember the fun and the fantastic and to forget the insecurities, the tight budgets and the loneliness. I suppose there’s no way around being human wherever we are.

And I suppose it is easy on this porch, in this place, to think only of those difficult things and forget the fun and the fantastic. This theme of self-pity and destruction is becoming old. And soon it has to end. If it doesn’t, I know I will never see France or Italy again. I will never feel alive again if I don’t choose to live in these moments, here and now. I must start, this day, in this moment. And choose to begin. And when I fall, to begin again. And again and again. Until I am happy and proud to be me wherever I am.

Spoken word

Note: As a result from the combination of watching too much "Brave New World" (slam poetry) and working to break through this writer's block.... my most recent attempt at a new post very quickly gained rhythm and rhyme. It is somewhat without the same meaning when it is written and not spoken, but I'm still posting it as proof that I have in fact been trying to write.

Inside me is the small and tiny truth that speaks out to why I live like this.

Because I feel like this.

Because maybe I think I deserve this.

A space so cluttered with garbage and trash and dirt that it makes my head spin

and physically forces me out before I’m ever really in.

That small and tiny voice has become my daily enemy and I’m fighting.

Fighting to keep my sanity and my spirituality.

Today I am going to begin to listen to that voice more carefully

and recognize its cry for help.

The crying out to help myself

out from under this mess where I’ve stored myself.

I will remember to listen to me,

to be a friend to me,

to be the life I was created to be.

I will see God’s child in me and not God’s enemy.

I will clean and wipe and sanitize and take time out from other, lesser things.

Things I do to earn my place but have become just time I waste.

I will write and dream and think out loud,

unashamed of what comes out

because who I am is good enough.

Who I am is strong enough and smart enough.

And who I am is made of tougher stuff.

Who I am will listen to me

and be that friend to me.

That small and tiny place will be erased

and I will rise up,

rise above and love the me in me.

I will learn again to know the truth and see

that I am not God’s enemy.

I will forgive and see that what I have, I am,

God’s child in me.

I will embrace and love and see that who I am, whose I have come to be:

God’s child in me and not God’s enemy.

SWF Seeking Self

Has it really been TWO MONTHS since I wrote an entry? ...I am shamed. It'd be appropriate to say life's been crazy and all that, but it's not really an honest excuse. I just haven't been taking much time out for things like self-expression and introspection. For that I actually am ashamed. And the toil it's taken on my life and my body and my surroundings is bad, bad, bad.

I read an article recently that talked about speaking self-affirmations everyday and have decided I might take it up: "I am responsible. I deserve a good life." It was surprisingly difficult to come up with the shortest line(s) that would encompass the most. Really I was thinking about the mess in my house and was trying to come up with a positive, affirming way of saying: "Stop being an irresponsible pig." That is definitely not affirming. Anyway, we'll see how it works out.

What I am NOT feeling these days is empowered. I seem unable to accomplish things or maybe just unable to acknowledge the few things I do accomplish. In conversations, I've done some complaining of post-holiday blues, which is probably true. Although, I doubt if it's the only thing that's going on. It mostly goes back to the lack of spending time with me.

One of my current favorite movies is Sex and the City, which will always have a special corner of my heart because of the amazing times I've spent with girlfriends watching episode after episode. Towards the end of the movie [spoiler alert!] Samantha breaks up with Smith and gives as a reason the thing that "you're never supposed to say." She's been in a great relationship with him for a number of years, but she's been in a relationship with HER for much longer and THAT is the one that needs work.

I guess that's how I feel right now -- that I'm neglecting myself in a pursuit for something "else" or worse, for nothing at all. If I weren't kind of stuck being me, I would definitely break up with me.

This isn't the tone that I usually choose for this blog, but I figured putting down what's going on right now is some small piece of an explanation for the gap in entries. Maybe I'll buckle down and write something with purpose soon. Stay tuned!