Another Page

Oh to spend the day,
trunk-side of a tree
To get lost in endless pages
of another's good story.

To bundle up in striped thick socks
and a scarf wound up my neck
To hold a cup of warmth in hand
become a universal speck.

These are A Few of My Favorite Things

Clamoring for inspiration this afternoon, I turned to easyinspirationboards.com, creating a compilation of a few of my favorite things. Clockwise from the top:

1. Cupcakes. I love them.
2. Strand Bookstore in New York. 18 miles of books + Hours of browsing fun.
3. Plaid, specifically scruffy bearded young men in plaid.
4. Archer: the font. Nerdilicious. I know.
5. Old barns. Can't beat the view of an idyllic roadside.
6. Amateur photography. I heart my dad's old Minolta.
7. Italy: the language, the people, the tastes. Mi cuore e nell'Italia.
8. (center) Journals, particularly worn, loved ones.

Tomorrow morning, I will stand to address a room full of high schoolers, detailing my professional path at the school-wide career fair. While I’m no stranger to high school halls, I am slightly intimidated to think of going back to impart any kind of wisdom or advice about the education/job-search process. Geez louise, I’m just a baby, and it was just a year ago that I was uneasy about the whole thing myself. I feel utterly inadequate to advise anyone. Should be interesting to see what comes out of my mouth... when I get nervous, I tend to say some pretty ridiculous things.

Wishing and Hoping

Waiting for instruction,

yet yearning for autonomy

I hold these feathers tightly

Burdened by their imagined weight

I know if I'd open my fest

They'd float in the wind

And carry with them

my guilt.

Profound

I didn't write this, but I wish I had:

"If someone is reading my blog, and then we meet in person, I want that person to recognize me face to face. In other words, I want that person to see the same person in the flesh as they see here in words and pictures. This is different from the need to feel seen; this is about wanting my blog and my self to be in alignment. This blog holds me accountable, and that just might be my favorite thing about keeping a blog. In aiming to write and share authentic stories about my life from a place of integrity, I find my way to like-minded souls and hopefully add a little extra sparkle to the world along the way. If I create a powerful, positive story in this space, I damn well better have the actual experience to back it up. Anything less is totally without meaning."

Christine Mason Miller, author/illustrator of Ordinary Sparkling Moments (a book I soon hope to have for my very own.)

Fall Fun Was Had by All

"I'm slowing to see the Cross in the clothespin, the Divine in the daily, God in the everyday." --Ann Voscamp

I spent all of Saturday morning preparing for the 2nd Annual Day of Fall Fun -- a plaid-clad celebration of autumn, complete with seasonal activities and tastes. I arose, my mind swimming with thoughts of cleaning, baking, table-setting... I was already two cups of coffee in when I calmed to sit and read for a few minutes. In the midst of my journaling, my mind turned to reflection upon last year's Day of Fall Fun...

Still semi-new to town, I had planned the event in desperate attempt to make some headway with newly-formed friendships. I hesitate to revisit my journals from my first few painful months here, for each page was soaked with crippling loneliness. As I sat in the sunroom of my new home on Saturday, I couldn't help but think how drastically my life has changed in the short time since then.

In thanksgiving I was led to the Psalms, opening up to these verses in chapter 16: I say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.' I say of the godly who are in the land, 'They are the noble people in whom is all my delight.' In the message, the latter verse reads: "And these G0d-chosen lives all around -- what splendid friends they make!"

Reading this, my heartbeat sped up, thinking of how my house would soon be filled with my own splendid friends - lives that God has so ordained to intersect with mine. I turned back to my busy preparations, all the while, thanking the Lord that in being hospitable, I was/am being generous with the gifts He Himself gives to me. (Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10.) I can honestly say with full heart, that I discovered a new way to worship my Lord this weekend - not by doing something I have never done before, but by dedicating an old love to a newfound purpose.

In The Gentle Art of Domesticity, Jane Brocket says, "Inspiration is inspiration, whether the end result is a painted masterpiece, a soul-searching sonnet, a richly colored homemade quilt or a batch of freshly baked scones. We shouldn't diminish our creativity by despising the results of our inspiration, but instead celebrate and exploit the wonderful feeling of elevated energy and enthusiasm we experience when we feel inspired. The quickening of the senses and the heightening of imagination are, I'm sure just the same for the Matisses and Wrens and Brownings as they are for the rest of us. It's just that they can do different things with their inspired talents."

I am just so darn glad that for the first time in my life, I feel as though I have found God's purpose for my love of the 'domestic arts.' I am given the desire to be creative by a Creator who delights in my use of His good gifts.

Another Year, Another New Moleskine

Ah, the untold glory of a blank page... the promise of a new year that will bring with it new friends, new opportunities, new places and experiences. Though the turn of another year is still months away, I've prepped myself with the purchase of a brand new moleskine*. It's a big day when a fresh one arrives on my doorstep. I peel back it's plastic casing and thumb through the perfect untouched pages...

I've amassed a collection of these used planners, looking back into them as I do my journals. Their pages tell the story of each year: who I spend my time with, where I go, what I value enough to use my time for... Here's what my current one looks like, chock-full with busyness, scribbly notes and to-do's:

And on my desk, now sit 365 BLANK leather-bound days. In the coming days and weeks, I will pencil in appointments, happenings, birthdays... trying to live in today, but conceeding to the fact that my job has me peering into the future, planning for what's upcoming.

But, OH! how exciting it is to think of what sparkling-new things my moleskine will contain, taking me another year deep into this journey!

*for those not privvy, Moleskine is "the legendary notebook of Hemingway, Picasso, Chatwin." According to the "history of the legendary notebook"(which can be read here, or on the insert tucked into each notebook's back pocket), the moleskine is a "reservoir of ideas and feelings, a battery that stores discoveries and perceptions, and whose energy can be tapped over time."

Nostalgiamania

This morning, I tread the path of my former years. I clothed myself in anonymity amid the replacement students of my alma mater. I sipped a slow warm mug of Walker's coffee, and chased it down with a solo walk through North Campus, clicking the sights into my digital eyes for later remembrance. I snapped "hip shots" of the grassy knoll where I used to enjoy long lingering picnics with my senior year "lunch bunch." I moseyed over to the library, gazing up to remember my study sessions nestled in the nook of the sixth floor alcoves. I headed past the law library, thinking of the many times I walked those stairs, collecting friends along the way toward downtown. I walked around the Arches, wishing that I could again be the wide-eyed superstitious undergrad who knew better than to pass beneath and thereby threaten all hopes of graduating. I perpetually long for the hope mixed with fear that accompanied my life before real life began.

The fall is beautiful in Athens.

If I could go wild, I would...

As a part of my job each month, I find one interesting woman request her response to a list of random questions, printing her answers in a Q and A format. Some of the answers I've received have been pretty hilarious; others sad; others thought-provoking. One of my favorite prompts has always been "If I could go totally wild, I would..." The typical response usually includes some form of spontaneous travel and/or realization of a long-lost dream. What would I do? Any of the following...

-put on my boogie shoes, take to the dance floor and tear.it.up., leaving my inhibitions at home.
-buy into a fashion trend that i think i'm not quite cool enough to pull off

-sing in a public place

-move to Italy, Colorado or New York and pursue post-college plans B, C, and D.

-play hooky with (all of) my sick days.

-move somewhere new and start over AGAIN

-chase an artistic ambition

-adopt a surfer lifestyle

-quit my job and find a way to open up the bed and breakfast of my dreams

What would you do if timidity/money/responsibility didn't tie you down?

Sweet Spot

I treasure long mornings in this front porch spot. Butter-colored sunlight pours in through the screens, speckled with lacey shade of surrounding tree branches. Small sips of home-brewed coffee chased with deep draughts of God-alive. I ease my way out of slumber and into each new day. As I wake, I relax into watching the neighbors emerge from their homes and embark on their own routines. I depend on the couple that crosses our sidewalk each morning at 8:15. I sit up to see Bill and his small dog, tromping across the autumn-dried yards. Engines turn over as people speed off towards their workweeks. The world spins on as I sit and watch, just glad that I'm given grace to spectate for awhile before becoming a part of each today.

Here you go, mama.

The Volvo is finally here. Hip hip hooray!