Cheap Thrills: Splurge.

Oh hello, blog world. I'm sorry I've been neglecting you sorely over the last month or so... I've been up to my ears in wedding madness. I'll try to jump back on the bandwagon here, and maybe even use my Fridays to show you bits and pieces of wedding planning love. But for today, as it is Tuesday, we're cheap-thrilling it up.

I confess that this cheap thrill breaks the rules. It sort of annihilates the rules, really, at over three times my promised budget of $5 (hey, I'm planning a wedding... going over budget is what I'm supposed to do, right? ;) ). But it's one of my absolute favorite fall things, and I have to pitch it to you. Ladies and gents, meet my daily guilty fall pleasure:



Cinnamon Buns by Philosophy. Oh how I <3 this body wash/shampoo/bubble bath. It's like bathing in a bakery. It smells so darn edible that they suggest it not be used by children since they are likely to wind up eating. I'd caution adults: you too may wind up trying to eat this stuff. I can assure you with confidence that it tastes like soap. Don't bother.

Anyway, once a year in early October, I treat myself to a bottle of this yummy scented stuff. It's one of my very favorite fall rituals, and if you are feeling a bit splurgy, I highly recommend it. I usually make the bottle last through February, so really, that's a lot of bang for your 16 bucks. Bonus points if you use the recipe on the bottle to actually make cinnamon buns.

You can get some at Sephora, or online through Amazon or Drugstore.com. Or, if you're Rachelle, Shannon, or Kevin, you can find some in our shower. Have at it. :)

love.

Wanna hear it? Here it goes.

This story begins with an ending.

In the end of 2004, I was a broken girl with a stubborn heart and a bruised sense of hope. Around that time, I picked up a little book called Blue Like Jazz and found comfort in stories about Portland, a faraway sort of place for me at the time, and an honest look at spirituality, which wasn't yet en vogue and certainly outside of how I'd been relating to God thus far. I read every Don Miller book I could find for the next few years and filed their contents away in my mind.

Two years later I found myself in Oregon, in a little house in my parents' brand new big backyard, and began the slow and painful process of learning how to be alone, how to mourn the life I'd anticipated and face the life I had, how to be content with the woods and a family who loves me and a God who knows my name. I made friends who hadn't known me as I had been, reworked my relationships, watched and protested as God rewrote my story.

Two years later I found myself in Portland, lonely for a church family, standing in front of a book case with a copy of Blue Like Jazz in my hands, scanning the pages frantically for the name of that church, you know, the one Don Miller talks about, the one with the football player pastor and the new idea of religion. In only hours I found myself seated alone in a high school auditorium, unaware of the significant moment of my body in that chair, my heart in that building, my first day in a new home that I couldn't yet recognize.

Nearly two years later I found myself at a party, a celebration of the birth of the incomparable Annie Skroski, one of the many amazing people who have become my Imago/Portland family. I'd been to dozens of parties like this one over the last year and a half, full of laughter and costumes and belonging and love. Parties with dancing, and friends, and food, and photo booths.

Favorite and I met that night, in a photo booth. I could tell you how it went down, but I'll show you instead. Here we are meeting for the very first time:




Since that beautifully orchestrated night, photo booths have been a strange sort of motif in our relationship. For example, here we are on the day we officially became an item:



We've been photographed together at weddings, parties, and in numerous arcades and bars and aquariums, squished together in old school booths that take our $5 and hand us a memory.

More importantly, I've been loved gracefully, wholly, and unrelentingly by the most amazing, generous, and intelligent man. He has never allowed me to hide, never let me feel less than beautiful, and invited me into every corner of his life, his space, his time. He has given me an extraordinary gift - the privilege to love and be loved in a way that acknowledges God, respects the journey, and inspires me to be a better follower, to love more, to give more, to open up.

Last Friday I uncovered my eyes and found myself in a photo booth that Favorite had set up in his house. And, after a bit of goofy photo taking, Favorite found himself down on one knee.

Oh, you'd like to see? Well, go figure, I have pictures:





This story ends with a beginning. Five months from now, I will stand in front of friends and family with the man I've chosen who so wonderfully has also chosen me, and we will be married by our cherished friend Tony, who was once only a beat poet in a book that brought me to my new family, and is now someone I call friend and share a table with every Sunday night. If God is in the details, and you know I believe He is, He is most certainly in that one.

What I would say to you is this: This story you're in, I'm in, we're in, is a symphony. It's so much bigger than all of us, the plan is so much greater than we can fathom, and the pieces come together in ways we can't begin to imagine. The miracle will come, grace is yours to accept, God wants to bless you. Watch for the tiny patterns, the echoes of amazing love. You'll find them. You'll feel them. God takes broken edges and marries them like puzzle pieces. Hold on. Stay in. Wait for the miracle. And when it comes, and it will come, try to take a few pictures.

love.

In Other Words...

Favorite's words: "Will you marry me?"
Mine: "Yes!"

God is good all the time. :)

!!!!!!!!!!

(details to follow... stay tuned)

love.

Fall Cometh. (!)

Next week it will officially be autumn.

The days here are still oddly sticky, warming in the late afternoon in that Oregon way that I'm not sure I'll ever get used to, but the mornings are arriving with the tiniest suggestion of a chill, a whisper that yes, fall is coming. I am beside myself with anticipation.

One of the many perils of the hopelessly romantic is our ability to become madly, passionately enamored of things like flowers and oceans and entire seasons. But seriously, is anything better than fall? I'd have never guessed I could love a time of year as fiercely as I love fall in the Pacific Northwest. There is a part of my soul that lives only in smoke spirals snaking out of chimneys and the bitter softness of wool on the skin of my neck, and it stumbles out of hibernation in the early days of September, squinting in the light and quivering with the sheer fantasticness of it all - months of uninterrupted loveliness, color, joy.

I grew up in a place where it was perpetually spring - consistently somewhere between warmish and too warm with a smattering of rain and a month or two of summer heat tossed in for good measure. I loved autumn then, but not with the distracting fervor with which I crave it here. Because here, here there are leaves and fabulously unexpected shivery breezes. Here, hats and scarves and gloves begin to sheath the hurrying bodies on sidewalks, gift wrapping the city in handknits and coziness and fuzz. Here the seasonal totems are abundant and unmissable - pumpkins growing in yards, turkeys running wild through my family's pastures, Christmas trees lined up on the sides of the highway. Here people will begin to stand closer together, will let the light of the coming holidays begin to ignite them, will huddle for warmth and snuggle for the simple perfection that is being tangled up with loved ones as the world cools around them.

Autumn is coming, and I'm wishing you mugs filled with warm things, hands to hold, and cozy sweaters. I'm wishing you the smell of chimney smoke and harvest and rain and the time to recognize it. I'm wishing you sharpened pencils and apple cider and holiday kitsch. I'm wishing you the faith of children and the ability to see this season through their eyes. I'm wishing something deep within you to begin the celebration of gratitude, the spirit of giving, the desire for peace on earth. I'm wishing you people to love, and those who will love you. I'm wishing you autumn and magic and joy.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Be in the right place at the wrong time.

To be fair, this week's Cheap Thrill is not a new idea. I've heard it suggested in many different forums, read about it in a few books, and watched it play out in a movie or two. That said, it is sort of a fun challenge, and I'm daring you to do it sometime this week. That's right. I dare you. Double dog.

Here are your steps:

1. Choose a buddy. I especially like the idea of doing this with someone you see regularly in a way that could be perceived as "routine." This person could be your significant other, a coworker, a close friend, or a sibling or parent or child... someone with whom you spend some time doing the sameoldsameold thing. It also helps if your buddy of choice is, well, down with crazy. Because they're going to need a bit of a can-do attitude for this one.

2. Choose an activity that has an appropriate time and place, like eating breakfast or dinner, or rollerskating, or sleeping, or sitting on a couch, or watching a movie. You'll be wise to choose an activity that doesn't require help from professionals - for example, getting pedicures won't work out so well here. Unless you DIY it up.

3. Choose a completely incongruous time and/or place to perform your activity of choice. This is where it gets fun. Get together and make pancakes at 2am. Go rollerskating in the snootiest neighborhood in town. Stage a sleepover on your front porch. Load a loveseat into a truck and take it up a hill to sit and watch the sunset. Form a knitting circle in a popular bar on a Friday night. Grab your laptop and a DVD and have a movie afternoon at the beach. Go for a walk in the pouring rain. Agree to meet for coffee at 4am, bring a french press and a blanket, and chat until the sun comes up. Get all dressed up and go eat at McDonald's. Do something in a way that you've never done it before.

4. Enjoy seeing your chosen buddy in a new context. Laugh about that time you met for hamburgers on the roof at midnight for years and years to come. Learn something about each other, form a bond, mend a distance, create a moment.

5. Tell me what you do! I'm dying to know if you'll try it.

love.

In Other Words...

Favorite thinks I'm dating him for his car and his ability to apply a quote from UHF to nearly any situation. I'm actually dating him for his ability to recite the following piece of loveliness... among other reasons too copious to list here.

If You Knew
by Ellen Bass

What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm
brush your fingertips
along the lifeline's crease.

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn't signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won't say thank you, I don't remember
they're going to die.

A friend told me she'd been with her aunt,
They'd just had lunch, and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.

How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?

Ellen Bass has a book out, The Human Line. I vote we go get it. Who's with me?

My prayer for you, for us, this week is that we remember to touch each other, remember to notice, remember to see.

love.

If I live to be a hundred...

I'm fairly certain that the following is common knowledge, but just in case you haven't checked your email in the last several years or have just returned to blog reading after a stint on a reality television show or an island somewhere, I'll make sure it's perfectly clear: I am the biggest cheeseball on the face of the planet.

I've tried at different phases of my life to act somehow less ridiculously cheesy than I natural am, but despite valiant efforts at the ages of 14 and 22, the cheese eventually finds its way to the surface. I am a total cheese fest. I like horrible movies. I am routinely moved to tears by YouTube videos starring animals and small children (Christian the Lion?!? Please. I'm welling up just typing about it). I can find the bright side of a nuclear war and I genuinely believe with every sparkly fiber of my cheesy being that Disneyland is the happiest place on earth. I can't help but clap my hands when asked if I believe in fairies. I'm practically carved out of cheddar.

Which means, sometimes, when I'm feeling a little off or a little headache-y or a little blue, it requires the cheesiest of something to cheer me up. Today, it was country singer Jessica Andrews. Jessica had, like, one hit song ever, and on the cheesy meter, it's a total chart topper. But the best thing about this song is that I can change the lyrics so that they directly apply to MY life! Oh joy of cheesy cheesy joys!

So this afternoon found me in my car, in the rain, driving down the highway and singing at the top of my lungs:

I am GENEVIEVE's grandaughter
the spittin' image of my MOTHER
and when the day is done
my DADDY's still my biggest fan...

... like the complete fool that I am. I got all choked up and everything. It was pathetic and beautiful.

All of which to say...

Thank God we were given spirits that delight in ridiculous things. Thank God that we all have our silly, tiny moments of cheesy joy. Thank God that we can laugh at our lame little selves and have a good cry when we need one over nothing more than a deer smelling a cat on a computer screen. And thanks, God, for delighting in ridiculous us.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Local Addition Edition

Okay, so when I started this whole Cheap Thrills bit, the goal was to keep things very non-Portland specific to allow for equal opportunity participation. However, tonight I'm making an exception to the rule for the purpose of plugging one perfectly perfect new Portland haunt.

People, you must go visit my favorite new spot, Palace of Industry. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine that Anthropologie suddenly became less corporate and spendy and is now all genuinely second-hand or handmade, and then imagine that they started selling delicious food and obtained a liquor license and became somehow just, well, cooler, and there -hold that thought! You have behind your eyelids the fantasticness that is Palace of Industry.

I keep hearing that the stretch of N Killingsworth near our house is going to be reborn, revitalized, and turn into one of the hip little Portland neighborhoods it looks up to and admires. Palace of Industry makes me believe. And with The Naked Sheep, a fairly decent yarn store, mere feet away from the door, it's entirely possible that I might start spending ridiculous amounts of time there.

Palace of Industry wins the cheap thrill award today because I bought a very cute dress there for $5. They have a ton of super well-edited, spot on vintage clothes, and if you have a sewing machine, you can score something with a split seam or tiny hole for next to nothing and fix it up. I had my new dress in wearable shape within 10 minutes of bringing it in the house. There were plenty of $5 or less (fewer? The money thing always gets me...) items left on the shelves, so get to it already.

Palace's FB page is here. If you want to just take my advice and go there, set your GPS to 5426 N Gay Ave. Portland, OR 97217.

love.

In Other Words

Today's In Other Words is brought to you by Billy Collins and my favorite three-year-old of the week. I highly recommend experiencing the following poem by going here and watching it recited by this super cool kid who will probably have a hard time getting a date in high school and marry a supermodel shortly thereafter.

Seriously, click here.

Or you can be all traditional and just read it. It goes like this:

Litany
by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.


However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.


It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.


And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.


It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.


I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.


I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.


By the way, it's cloudy and a little chilly and delightfully fall-like outside. I'm wishing you somebody wonderful to cozy up with. ;)

love.

Last Thursday

8/26/10

tonight we will stand in the presence of wonder
swirled tightly into a sea of the masked and the painted
they will carve roads around us
brush us with their feathers
singe us with the tips of fire soaked swords

tonight strangers will dance with the ghosts of old friends
and the corners will smell of sweat and lost causes
dogs will lie down on the sidewalks
truths will be learned
lies will be carried

tonight we will bear witness to a thousand magical onces
we will feel the heat of the many and watch as they twirl
you and i will wander past fallen kings
and emerging artists
someone's first kiss, someone's child
the poet and his guitar
a drunk and a lover
the vain and the bleeding
the last and the first


the miracle being only
that among them
i will hold your hand

love.

Portlandiversary.

Dear Portland-

I know you are only a city. I know that you are only the sum of the living, breathing bodies that inhabit you - the things they build, the places they live, the doings they do. I know that, though we often speak of you as though you are one of us, you have no real pulse, no heartbeat, no soul, no energy of your own. I know you don't really have a "heart." But you have mine.

My dear friend Annie and I were talking yesterday about how today is her 5 year anniversary with you, which started me thinking that it's also our 2 year celebration, you and me. I remember how vast you seemed when I first met you, how I stubbornly tried to learn a city built on a grid in tiny rings of concentric circles, how you patiently let me get lost and found a thousand times, how your people smiled me right on through. I noticed today, driving familiar streets, that you have become a collection of small places for me - a memory in every neighborhood, an adventure in every restaurant, an echo on every corner. You have both shrunken and grown, lovely city, and I am poised and ready to continue to explore you and the hundreds of other somewheres hiding within your walls and under your trees that I will slowly, methodically, patiently claim as my own.

Dear Portland, thank you for becoming home to me. Thank you for letting me be myself, for wrapping me up, for taking me in. Happy Anni(Annie!)versary.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Felt It Up

Today's Cheap Thrill is a craft project! Hooray!

I love felt. I love felt because it's cheap and fairly sturdy and doesn't unravel when you cut it. My beautiful friend Katherine got married a while back, and we used felt for all kinds of projects, not the least of which was this pretty little flower in her hair:

Here are your steps:

1. Admire how cute groom Chris looks over Kat's right shoulder all smiley in the photo above. Happiness is adorable.

2. Go to the store and get some felt (should be about 30 cents a sheet... go buck wild!) in the colors you prefer, and some cheap buttons (or raid your button stash if you have that sort of thing, or use one of those spare buttons that came with a coat or something).

3. Go to this sweet little blog and acquire the template: Click Here!

4. Cut out your petals, stitch or glue them together, stick the whole shebang on a spare bobby pin, and tada! You are now a craft genius. Martha is shaking in her intimidatingly well chosen and sensible shoes. Of course, she's making a five course dinner from scratch while she's shaking, but whatever. Screw her.

5. Wear. Feel proud. Glow a little. Make more (cause felt is cheap!) and give them away.

love.

In other words...

If you haven't read Hyperbole and a Half, you may not actually be aware of how hard you can laugh. If you'd like to find out, I strongly encourage you to start with this recent post that may well be a contender for my new favorite. But they're all good. Seriously. All of them.

Go here and read this!!!

love.

Cartoon Friday

My sister sent me this sweet little video -





love.

Ah, yes, poetic Thursday

where your tears have fallen
there are riverbeds
etched winding into the previously unmarred
landscape of my forehead
visible to me only
i can see them like a fingerprint
on the topography of my reflection
feel them like a memory
on the map of my soul
i carry them like a whisper
like a melody
like time
and smile secretly over the many small ways
you have already begun to change me

so altered, i am only yours

love.

Love Letter

I turned 28 on Sunday.

28 is a lot of things: one of the precious few ages I'll ever be that end in my favorite number, a mere two years hopskipjump from a new decade, and, most significantly, the age my mother was when she gave birth to me. As of Sunday, August 15th, I've known my parents for exactly half of their lives. Which is, well, interesting. I don't really know what I feel about that.

But I do know how I felt on Sunday: loved. I am blessed and surrounded by amazing people who went above and beyond to make my day a special one. Favorite showed up at the crack of dawn to wake me and make a breakfast of all my favorite things. He came with beautiful flowers and seemingly bottomless pockets full of cards from just about everyone I know. My birthday team assembled and transcribed messages from all of my nearest and dearest and armed Favorite with them to deliver to me nearly every fifteen minutes throughout the day. 41 cards in all. Wow.

Here's what I love about God - He's the master of completing the cycle. There I was, birthday joy incarnate, reading hundreds of thoughtful, flattering, beautiful words from people I love and admire, walking completely unarmed into an Imago service that ended in an elder's public confession of an affair. One brave, well-loved, and surrounded man stood trembling before our congregation and whispered the story of his failure. And I wept, and fought to keep myself in my seat. Because I have stood in rooms of people who suddenly saw me as a different person than they had only moments before. Because I know what it feels like to fail hugely, publicly, painfully, and irrevocably. And because I know that God sees him with exactly the same eyes, the same love, with which He still sees me - the same love that has been mine to bask in from the moment of my birth and will remain mine, will remain his, through a thousand other failures and let downs and public humiliations.

I hold these 41 cards in my hands with their beautiful words and I love them, I cherish them, I count them treasure, but I know the traits attributed to me on them aren't really mine. I am all things destructive, I am stubborn and prideful, and I could never account on my own for the hurt that I've caused. These things you see in me, friends whom I love, they are only the product of the grace I've been afforded. They are redemption. They are not mine to claim, but I'm grateful any time I can be a vessel for them. I am none of these words on my own, and all of them through Christ who lives in me. What a privilege to have them laid out before me, to be able to read forgiveness on a notecard, to remember that but for the grace of God go I, to remember that in all things He wants to bless me and use me.

My amazing Portland family, you gathered at Favorite's in the afternoon and jumped out and yelled surprise, despite my best efforts to melt you. You had a beautiful cake and beautiful faces and I'm not sure I've ever been grateful for or in love with any time in my life more than this one, so obviously surrounded by love. The already amazing family I was blessed with has grown to include all of you, and I'm so very glad. You are my evidence of God's ability and desire to rebuild. Yours are the words He uses to love me. You are my very best birthday present.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Operation Beautiful

Today's Cheap Thrill is a real do-gooder, and it's brought to you by one beautiful girl named Caitlin who saw fit to start a bit of a body image revolution that I can't help but get behind.

Most of you who follow this blog know that I deal with women and their body image issues at work every day. I witness first hand the absurd tendency that we all have to zoom in on the worst parts of ourselves the moment we step in front of a mirror, and the venomous way we turn that critical gaze onto each other. It's tragic really - so many beautiful pieces of intentional creation being torn into unrecognizable ugliness, verbally berated, and scornfully poked and pinched. How very wasteful and how very sad.

Operation Beautiful is a rockstar of an idea - effective, unexpected, and cheap and easy to participate in. Here's how you roll:

1) Buy some PostIt notes. Standard PostIts can run you anywhere from $1.99 up, depending on how many you want and how fancy you want to go. Or take some off your desk at home. Or ask your boss if you can have a pack for a good cause. Take note that this blog does not advocate stealing PostIts from work. But I'm not really watching you, either. Get some sticky notes.

2) Onto said sticky notes, write encouraging phrases, like: "You are beautiful EXACTLY as you are" or "Hey hottie, you look GOOD!" or "You are worth so much more than just your reflection. Beauty starts inside of you. And girl, you've got it going on." or whatever you would like someone to say to you while you're bikini shopping.

3) Take your PostIt army and deploy it onto mirrors in public places where women, or men, might see a PostIt in an insecure moment: dressing rooms, school bathrooms, other bathrooms, department stores, etc.

4) If you want to, take a picture and send it to Caitlin at www.operationbeautiful.com. She'll write back to you, even, which is neat. Definitely visit the site for inspiration.

5) Remember that the words you've written to encourage others also apply to you. Remember that you were created to be who you are, not who you could be airbrushed into. Remember that you are a work of art. Wear yourself proudly. Go forth and be beautiful.

love.

In Other Words...

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for my silence for the last several days. Turns out I took a week off of blogging for my birthday. Not really on purpose. Sorry. Moving on...

For today's other words, I'd like to direct you to a blog belonging to my friend Joy. Joy spends her days researching the relationships of those in the 18-35 age bracket and, as a result, she has some very interesting and entertaining wisdom to offer. I love this girl's spirit. Go check her out.

Joy's Fabulous Blog

love.

In other words...

Our pastor shared this poem with us a while back. I think it's beautiful, so I'm sharing it with you.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

love.

True Story.

I want to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was very stubborn girl. This girl spent a lot of time being sure of things: sure that she knew what was best for her life, sure that she knew how to get it, sure of her decisions, and sure of herself. She walked in the right directions, she made good choices, she gave sound advice. Things went pretty well for this stubborn little girl for the longest of long times.

But the problem with being sure is confidence alone won't keep you from failure. After awhile, the girl found that the choices she had made weren't as sound as she thought. She realized the foundation she'd built for herself was full of holes, far from level, and sinking fast. And like most any stubborn and prideful child stuck on sinking ground, she did the only thing she could think of to do: she panicked. She tantrummed. She fled.

There is another important piece to this story. This girl, this stubborn, prideful girl, she was loved. She was fiercely, wildly, permanently loved. And when she finished panicking and tantrumming and opened her eyes to find herself miles and miles from everything she had been and everything she knew, that love swooped down and picked her up like a paperdoll and surrounded her like a cocoon and rewrote her story.

It's a revolutionary experience, being rewritten by love. Suddenly, the things the girl had taken for granted or believed were rightfully hers became treasures, became gifts, became physical shards of a powerful grace. The stubborn grip that she'd kept on her plans and her ideas loosened, then slipped, then released altogether, and she was still loved. She learned to close her eyes and walk blindly, to run barefoot in the sand, to trust in promises and learn to laugh at her restless little heart, and was still loved. She traced the outlines of all her weaknesses onto cardboard and carried them like a banner through the streets of all her relationships and was still loved. She lost her cool and yelled like an idiot and got mad and got even and got hurt and failed hugely and was still loved.

She learns every day. She is sometimes disappointed, sometimes overjoyed, always blessed, and always, always, always loved. And that love, the love that bore her, that saved her, that keeps her and makes her, is the only thing of which she is sure. Which is how she prefers things, nowadays. :)

God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.

Cheap Thrills: Textapalooza

Okay, today's cheap thrill is actually free if you have unlimited text messaging, and if you don't, a lot of plans will allow you to upgrade to unlimited text messaging for (say it with me) five dollars! Hooray!

Here's how to use your powers of text messaging to annoy/encourage your friends and laugh hard and feel great about life.

Annoy

This gag requires you to be in the presence of at least one other person. Annie and I are masters of this little game. You can be a master too, with a little practice. For the purposes of this blog, I'll use Annie and I as the two involved in the prank. Shocker. Kyle will be our target. Typical. Here's what you do.

1. Choose a target (why do so many of my blogs involve choosing a target?). Someone you know well enough to know that they won't hate your guts for messing with them. We choose Kyle.

2. I (you) send a text to Kyle (target) that says something like "Hey Annie, are we still on for coffee tomorrow?" Kyle now thinks I've sent the text to the wrong person. Which is not too far fetched, really.

3. Let the fun begin. Annie sends a text to Kyle that says something like "Yep. Coffee with Karyn is my favorite. What time?" Now Kyle is confused... and you, if you're like me, are collapsing into fits of giggles.

4. Choose your own adventure. Have an entire conversation, play dumb when Kyle texts you back asking what is going on, accuse him of eavesdropping, try to convince him you can conference-text, whatev. This is an expecially fun game to play if you're waiting in line for something or waiting for a show to start. For bonus points, involve a third or (gasp!) fourth person in the madness. Oh hilarity! Oh silly silliness!

Encourage

Now that your friends are good and annoyed with you, it's time to remind them that you love them again. Time for text bombing! This works especially well for job interviews, big tests, bad days, or emergency situations. The process is very simple:

1. Text everyone in your phone that knows your target and ask them to send an encouraging text to your target at 12:15 (you can choose anytime you want). Send your own text at the designated time.

2. Sit back and enjoy the knowing that your friend has just received 20 something texts of encouragement simultaneously. Cheap, easy, day-making fun. Gotta love it.

Take back text messaging from the teens, friends! Use it for good!

love.

In other words...

My friend Rachelle and I were talking about my height today and how she hadn't really noticed I was exceptionally tall until about three months ago. Not the first time I've had one person feel like I'm shorter than I am while random strangers continue to stop me on the street to ask if I play basketball. I suppose this height thing is all about perspective.

Speaking of perspective, I love Arianne Cohen's on the subject. At 6'3", she has a good solid three+ inches on me, but I relate to a lot of what she has to say, and her story is an interesting one... all about being a giraffe and a human exclamation point.

You may read it here.

love.

Two Months.

you make me happy.

On Beginning

6/6/10

i cannot speak to the you that you have been
cannot witness the unnumbered hours you lived
well before me
they are not and will not become mine to point to
and the pages and volumes that make up your once was
i can read only in fragments
scraping up sentences and coveting chapters
i may never see

but here, in this you and me standing
my face and your fingers
your laugh and my eyes
these few pieces of you are mine and mine only
your words and my hoping
my arms and your smile
they are only nothings, the smallest of moments
but into them i will start to carve my picture of you
upon them i will build my earliest knowings
the things in you i am sure of
the most in you i can see

these pieces of you i will use to begin it
add them to seconds, and somewheres, and time
and watch as the spaces that loom in my learning you
crowd up with memory
render you mine

love.

Dive! Dive! Dive!

I'm the victim of a relentless, painful, and humiliating attack. I am the target of unrelenting harassment and completely unjustified, but remarkably specific, vengeance. I'm being violently subjugated. By crows.

Three out of my four workdays find me trying to be a good Portlander and use the wealth of public transportation with which I have been provided. For the last year, I've hoofed the uneventful blocks between our house and the MAX station without a care or a second thought. I've enjoyed the pretty trees and the self-proclaimed "sexy coffee" stand that sits delightfully halfway to my destination. I've walked in rain and storms and almost snow, and it's never really been that bad. Until...

Until I did something to anger the local wildlife. About three weeks ago, I was walking along, minding my own, when from behind I heard the jarring "caaahhh caaaahhh" of crows. Two crows. Two seemingly angry crows who seemed to be aiming their anger squarely in my direction. "Strange," thought me, " I wonder if they have a nest or something. Oh well." I proceeded then to turn back around and continue along my way. Worst. Idea. Ever.

Turns out crows are the minions of Satan. They are evil little buggers who wait until your back is turned to unleash their dive-bombing fury on your unsuspecting head. You know the dungeon levels in Super Mario games with the ghosts that only move if you look away from them, then sneak up from behind you and kill you dead? Based on these crows. The moment my back was turned, I heard the swoosh of wings and the unnerving sound of a "caaaahhh" closing in and fwaaaack! Crow wings to the back of the head. Not even kidding.

At this point I become a rather sorry version of my former self, the self that loves all creatures and fears no beaks or talons. The new me is ducking and inching down the sidewalk, completely terrified and completely without a clue as to why I've suddenly become the target of choice for the crow militia. It took everything in me not to pound on the door of the nearest house and seek sanctuary until they went away. Instead, I sort of hop-ran until I made it to the MAX shelter where they finally relented. Four blocks. They hounded me for four blocks. Bullies.

Traumatic though the experience was, I chalked it up to crazy timing and freakish coincidence, until it happened the next day... and the next. It was then that I started to notice the crows weren't attacking other pedestrians. Call me crazy, but those jerks were waiting, and watching, and targeting me. This is unfair for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the amount of time I've actually devoted to rescuing birds of all kinds. I've fed their abandoned kindred, plopped babies back into nests, shielded wayward waterfowl, and for what? To be abused by a couple of lousy ne'er do wells who seem to think we're on the set of a Hitchcock film? Uncalled for, I say.

I'm not sure what to do about this crow problem. They don't seem to be tiring of the fun in the slightest. I have a theory that involves a strategically timed umbrella opening, but so far the presence of the umbrella in my purse seems to be the only thing that will keep the attacks from happening. They're nowhere to be found on days I'm prepared for the ambush, but on days like today, when I finally decide they've moved on and boldly leave my umbrella at home, they're back in force. Three of them this morning. Thunked me on the noggin. Made me miss my MAX. Uncalled for.

Please tell me I'm not the only person this has happened to.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Comfort Food

I didn't go to Home Community tonight. Instead, I took a dog and a book and a blanket and a sandwich and sat myself down on the lawn at Mt. Tabor and enjoyed just being outside and peaceful for awhile. Which was lovely. But if I had gone to Home Community, I would have needed to bring my favorite food for the "Favorite Foods" potluck. And I would have brought this:

Oh, Haagen-Dazs vanilla raspberry swirl frozen yogurt - I love thee with a love that is more than love.

Now, make no mistake, this frozen yogurt isn't good for you. Its list of ingredients, though refreshingly short, has both sugar and corn syrup (not really any better than its high fructose cousin) in the first four spots. But it isn't terrible for you. And if you're going to eat ice cream, I mean, come on. We'll settle for "not terrible."

Calorie wise, if you eat this whole pint, it'll only set you back 510. Which is, ya know, a meal, and though you probably shouldn't eat the whole pint if you can help it, (though you may not be able to help it. I understand.) it still beats the heck outta the 1000 calories you'd be downing in a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

And for crying out loud, this isn't a blog about nutrition, it's a blog about cheap happiness. And at around $3, a pint of this will make you super happy on a hot summer day. Because it is super, super yummy - just the right blend of vanilla and berry to achieve total summery bliss. It's pink, it's sweet, it's cold, it's just about perfect. It might even be perfect. Whatever it is, it's too darn good to be yogurt.

Yum.

love.

In Other Words...

Donald Miller's blog has gone to the dogs. One dog in particular. Her name is Lucy, and she's lovely, and delightfully insightful, and Caper has a big crush on her. You should read them all, but this one made me smile:

How to Love and Be Loved

I saw Donald Miller at the Doug Fir the other night, but didn't say anything so as not to be one of the hundreds of Blue Like Jazzers clambering to inform him that we'd probably be best friends because he just soooo gets it. But I will say: Good taste in concerts, Don Miller. And way to let your dog take over your blog.

Hope you had a good Monday, friends. Go forth and love and be loved.

love. ;)

A little link lovin...

I didn't blog yesterday. You can be mad at me if you want to.

Here are some lovely things I've seen this week:

I want to make these tables and put them, well, I'll figure that out later.

Coporate prayer nights are one of the many things I love about Imago. Here's a good argument for why you should come.

I mean, the man is a genius.

Oh Winona... you're my favorite best friend I haven't met yet. And this post made me smile.

My friend Rachelle has a beautiful soul.

These t-shirts made me drool just a little...

Shameless plug: I heart Claire Pettibone, and whisper sweet nothings to her in this post.

Speaking of souls, if mine has a color pallette, this is it.

I hope you have a beautiful weekend!

love.

A long, long time ago...

Vintage poetry today...

10/29/06

you who has been always, and nothing...

you appear here in lines yet unwritten
offering a vocabulary i couldn't have anticipated

the heart of me knows what follows
it recognizes in you the ancient-once it has loved equally -
curiosity, undeterred by self-preservation, requests you

mildly

just behind my eyes
so subtle, your arrival there at the front of all daydreams
quietly quickly and
firmly denied

there are risks my body still cannot fathom
parts of my heart it can no longer trust, and justly

i who have broken you always, and never
can't be selfless enough not to risk you again

an improbable proposition - yours is the safest rejection, all silence and miles
would you hate to know there are parts of me that still wake up with your name

my lastly well-loved boy, imagine...

i may be sonnet to your prose
you, all irreverent language
i, always, the fear to oppose

love.

On time and the lack thereof...

I've been reminded this week that we're mortal, each and every one of us - broken and breakable, fragile and flawed. As reminders go, I can't say this one is my favorite, but I think it's important.

I like to pretend I'm going to live forever. As long as I can remember, and much to my mother's dismay, I've been relatively unconcerned about my own safety. I'll gladly jump out of a plane, or climb that treacherous rock, or wander around dark neighborhoods at unwise hours of the night. I like to believe that I'm wandering through life in some sort of protective bubble, impervious to evil or accident or fate. I wear my confidence in a good God like it's physical armor instead of spiritual, as though faith alone can save me from tripping and scraping my knee.

But faith doesn't guarantee safety - in the Bible and in many parts of the world it has almost the opposite effect. God doesn't promise safe passage for my physical person along with His permanent destination for my soul. I felt the weight of that this week as I counted my father's heartbeats when I hugged him on Sunday and rested in the rhythm of his newly reset self. I witnessed it in the words of a wife who sat and prayed open-eyed at the end of her husband's hospital bed, kissing his feet through the blankets and smiling, beautiful and brave. I watched her, I hugged my father, and I remembered that these moments that we have here are fleeting - they are nothings, echoes, beginnings, vapor, dust in the wind. We have only the time we're given.

You know I believe in heaven, and I believe that when we leave this place we go back to our home, our God, our wholeness. I wish I could say I was anxious to get there. But always I remember all the things I want to do still, the words I want to say, the things I want to feel, and I can't help but hope I'll have the time to live them. Because while we're here, this thing we're doing is beautiful... it's violent and messy and hard and lovely and human, but it's our story. Today I'm reminded that I need to live every day as though the story is concluding- every hour the potential climax and every conversation the potent last that will be remembered. It's good to remember that fear is a liar, that we should be a little wasteful and extravagant sometimes with our words and our feelings, that we should shower each other with truth, with heart, with sappy praise, with helpful thoughts, with words of love. Because we were born already beginning to run out of time.

Don't hold back, friends. Don't hold back, self. Do that thing you've always wanted to do, tell that person you've been wanting to tell, try that impossible something you've been avoiding all this time. We are fools not to harness these moments. We are fools not to saturate them with joy.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Start a War

The following is my all time favorite cheap thing to do on a random weeknight. I'm fairly convinced that 90% of what is wrong with the world today could be solved if grownups would simply remember how, and find time, to play. This week's thrill is offered with the intention to ignite that dormant spirit of playfulness. Go forth and be goofballs.

Here's your plan:

Step 1: Choose a target. Ideally, an easy going friend or couple or collection of friends who live near you, have a front door with at least a few feet of yard in front of it, and might be willing to engage in some shenanigans.

Step 2: Choose an accomplice. Who wants to run around in the middle of the night on a school night making mischief by themselves? Plus, having an accomplice doubles your buying budget.

Step 3: Head to your local Dollar Store. If you don't have a Dollar Store, a Walgreen's or Fred Meyer or Rite Aid will usually do. Find the toy aisle and locate the army men - you know, the cheap little plastic ones kids used to play with way back before Nintendo DS. At the Dollar Store, you should be able to purchase a package of 100 army men (or firefighters or police officers if you're the pacifist type) for $1. Buy five. We're maxing out the budget on this one. If you have an accomplice, this would be the best time to use them and their five dollars and buy 10 packs of army men.

Step 4: Giggle a little. This whole thing is very silly.

Step 5: Don't miss this step: OPEN ALL THE PLASTIC BAGS OF ARMY MEN and put them into one big, soft, canvas bag. Crinkly plastic negates any and all efforts to be sneaky.

Step 6: Go time. Wait until you suspect your targets are sleeping and set up a battle in their front yard. Aim all the men at the door if you want to be belligerent, or create two armies and have them war with each other. If it's windy, curse a few times as you fail to get the darn dudes to stand up on their own. Get creative. Put them in mailboxes, suspend them in midair, line them up in patterns or spell words. Let the spirit move you.

Step 7: Stand back and admire your work. Take a picture in case a squirrel or cat knocks the whole display over and you need to prove how awesome and artistic your original concept was.

Step 8: Try not to say anything doofy to your friends the next day like: "So, how was YOUR morning? Anything unUsual happen?" so as not to have the spotlight of suspicion aimed squarely at your forehead. Though, if you're me, you're the first one they'll blame anyway.

Step 9: Sit back and wait for your target to retaliate. Reduce, reuse, and recycle those little guys. Spread the love through your social circle. Attack each other. It's what friends do.

Go play. And send me pictures if you do. :)

love.

In other words...

Not quite sure what the format will be for the Monday post just yet, but today, since the day has gotten away from me and there are only two minutes left till Tuesday, we'll start with e. e. cummings. Because I've never loved anyone else's words more consistently than I've loved his.

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secret of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

-e. e. cummings

I think I'll let this be my mantra for the week. What's yours?

love.

A Friday Game for You

Ah, facial perception- the exciting and useful ability to recognize faces and read the emotions on them. Are you perceiving faces at your best possible level? You may test your skills and/or practice and refine them by guessing the emotions my handydandyassistant Favorite and I are portraying in the following photos. To the victor go the spoils (or "to the person who guesses the most correctly go the bragging rights")

Good luck.

love.

Thursdays I'm a poet.

7/13/10

some nights i believe i've only ever written what i fear
only ever recorded the ends or beginnings of feeling
the lost and the losing
the broken and the unclaimed
written only the empty space born of loving alone
of the restless elation that accompanies your hand on my shoulder
of the silence that follows the abrogated beating of breakable hearts

i am constantly to wonder if theses thoughts and the fears that bore them
are merely dog-eared pages of someone else's novel
tadpoles in the widest river
a wriggling army of identical echoes and photocopied emotion
my mind here written only the same drumbeat
heard by a thousand others a thousand times before

some mornings i believe i've only ever given what i lack
only ever offered empty vases and blank pages
the vague and the unworthy
the hopeless and the unnamed
given only the shadows of things you have left me
a woebegone recital of pieces i've cherished
a slapstick production of a symphony i can't begin to claim

i would have you dance where i can see you
in rooms where you have always played me songs
i would wrap your stories around my fingertips
and squeeze them into pencils
and rejoice in knowing i have nothing left to say

love.

In which Solomon basically says "Just Do It"

In my beautiful friend Jodi's Bible, Proverbs 4:7 reads:

The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom.

Helpful, right? Does anyone else feel like Solomon seems a little snarky here? Our group reaction to this last night at Home Community was essentially "Gee, thanks a lot for the tip." I mean, it's a lot like saying "The way to be cool is to be cool" or chirping "Remember to ____" exactly 30 seconds after someone tells you to remind them of ____ later - accurate, sure, but not exactly helpful. This passage, standing all on its lonesome, seems to require a basic understanding of what wisdom is and how to get it. Which requires wisdom. It's sort of one big biblical catch 22.

But maybe, just maybe, the beginning of wisdom, or in my Bible, the recognition that wisdom is supreme and worth giving up your life for, starts with discussion. Because as confusing as this little verse is, it did bring up some pretty interesting talk about what wisdom is and how we go about pursuing it.

Through our talk, I decided I like to use the word "perspective" as a synonym for wisdom in this chapter of Proverbs. I think that we as a culture tend to define wisdom as knowledge, as having all the right answers and knowing what to do in all situations- the ability to apply a wealth of accumulated information to the making of good decisions. I'm not sure that's the whole picture. I think it's worth thinking about seeking God's wisdom and understanding as seeking the ability to see the world, your situations, other people, with God's perspective. Maybe wisdom isn't learning all there is to know, but learning to become of one mind with the Master, and in doing so, beginning to embody all of the character traits that come along with that - humility, grace, mercy, compassion, love, virtue, honesty, general strength of character. Peace and humility are so closely linked to wisdom in my mind- I think the people I believe are closest to the heart of God are the first to admit that there is a lot they don't know for sure, but are still somehow able to approach the world with the God lens in place, receiving it with patience, with kindness, with understanding and love.

I'm certainly not saying that I think the quest for knowledge is a bad one. I think the Bible is pretty clear that we should use the resources we've been given to search actively and desperately for the truth. However, I think after last night I'm looking at wisdom differently. I'm seeing it as a way of being, a way of viewing life, instead of as an encyclopedicreferencemanuallike eight ball of answers in your brain. The idea of pursuing wisdom as trying to become part of the mind of God, seeing through His eyes, approaching the world with His almighty, just, and perfect perspective - that's a goal to which I'd like to aspire. That's a journey I know I'll never complete, but one that I'm happy to be on.

My prayer for you, and for me, today is that we are able to get a few steps closer to seeing our world, our God, and each other with His wisdom, His perspective. May you look with God's eyes and love with His heart, and may you be seen by others as He sees you - whole, holy by grace, and wholly loved.

love.

Cheap Thrills Tuesday, Inaugural Post

Ok, so I'm not usually the sort of girl who gets all married to beauty products, as in "OMG, this moisturizer is life changing" or "I have not lived before this mascara." If anything, I'm sort of fickle... I gravitate toward whatever is new and shiny and on sale at Target and very rarely maintain any sort of brand loyalty. I'm fairly certain that most eyeliner is created equal. However...

I love, love, love, love, LOVE... Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers.

I know this isn't the first time you've heard about the magic or DPLS- I've heard many a celebrity rave about it and read about it on other blogs- but just in case you didn't believe it then, I'm telling you now. Holy cow, Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers will change your life. It tastes good (not really like Dr. Pepper at all, but good) and is perfectly pink (in an "I'm not wearing anything my lips are just naturally this sexy and kissable" way) and perfectly subtly shiny without being any stickier than Chapstick. I got some for Christmas several years ago and ignored it for awhile, but I'm telling you, I didn't know what I was missing.

Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers will cost you exactly $1.75 at the Lip Smacker website, which is where I lifted this picture. That $1.75 will buy you at least a solid month of satisfaction that won't dry out on your lips, make your hair stick to you, or smear all over your significant other. Trust me on this one.

Of course, this could be just another step in my lifelong journey to become Felicity:

I'm obsessed with Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers too, it's been my guilty pleasure for years! - Keri Russell via lipsmacker.com

You be the judge.

love.

Suppose we added a bit of structure to this thing...

So I like Tuesdays. Tuesdays are currently the first day of my weekend, my Saturday. I generally don't try to get much done on Tuesdays, apart from planning what I'm going to get done on Wednesday, which, let's face it, often doesn't wind up getting done at all. Today, for example, I've done a lot of cleaning and laundry (productive, but sort of stress relieving and restful in its own way) and a bit of knitting and dog loving and now I'm thinking about blogging. As in, what do I want to do with this blog? How do I be better at paying attention to the blog? How do I make this a regular part of my day?

I think the answer is structure. I follow a lot, I mean, a LOT of blogs, and most of the ones I like best are just a little bit predictable. I'd like to be the sort of girl who blogs something five days a week (ohhh, ambition), and I'd like to have the sort of blog that follows a pattern of sorts. Here's what I'm thinking:

Mondays will be the day for other people's words. I'd like to use Mondays to link to other articles I think are interesting, or post other people's poetry, or invite friends to write something. Plus I won't have to think much on Monday. Not that Mondays are all that difficult for me, but still.

Tuesdays, I want to post things I like. More specifically, cheap things I like. Many of the fashion and lifestyle blogs I follow are constantly telling me that I can achieve happiness by purchasing $300 dresses and $45 mascara and $1500 pairs of shoes. No offense, fashion blogging masses - I adore you, but let's face it. Buying those shoes will not make me happier in the long run. Buying those shoes will make me poor. So, on Tuesdays, I'm going to present you with one silly, superficial, short term way you, yes you, can buy a little happiness for $5 or less. The perfect price for a temporary retail high. :)

Wednesdays I'll try to write a good God observation for the week, as has been my usual routine so far.

Thursdays will be poetry days. Mostly to force me to write.

And Fridays I get to do whatever the heck I want. Cause that's what Fridays are for. Knitting, or linking, or rambling, or lists, or fun things to do in PDX... Friday is choose my own adventure day.

What do you think? I'm going to give it a shot, anyhow... we'll see how well we do.

love.

Springtime Love Song

6/30/10

i will begin, as always, with words already written
unqualified, i, to redefine spring
but today portland is the sun-hungry skin of Your body
that something always that glistens justly
and i am
glad for the prick of grass blades on bare ankles
tempered by the nearly violent sting of midday on the back of my neck
composed of only lazy almosts and flirtatious possibility
cradled merely by a swaddling of wildly vibrating mazarine sky

i am captive to the birth of hand-drawn freckles
arriving on my shoulders like a signature
like stars

every miracle is You and You only
there is he, there is spring
and i am for You wholly
i will place Your songs in evaporating puddles and watch the city breathe them
i will write Your name on the pavement
i will wear You home

There's a hope in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...

I'm doing that thing again where I stubbornly sit outside and try to use my laptop, even though I can't really see the screen, because it finally feels like summer and I don't want to go inside and be practical, dang it. You'd laugh if you could see my stubborn squinting face.

I was watching late night TV last night/this morning, which I haven't done in years, and wound up catching a bit on Nightline about The Secret and the booming self-help industry. I don't know much, but I'm pretty sure that The Secret isn't really a secret at all. The idea that positive thinking, creating a vision for your future, and believing in the possibility of success will help you to accomplish your goals is as old as religion, as old as logic, as old as dirt. Now, granted, I believe in a God who actively intervenes in our lives, and The Secret is more about quantum theory and mind over matter and self-fulfillment than seeking the will of the Almighty, but it all (prayer, intentional thought, a good attitude, visualizing success) boils down to the same idea: things are more likely to happen if you believe they will happen. If you have faith. If you have hope. If you speak the words and put the idea out there.

Which is why I like bucket lists. There is something powerful about writing down the things you'd like to see happen, about having them visibly before you. I'm more likely to accomplish goals when they are clearly laid out for me. I like assignments, and really, that's what a bucket list is: life homework. Things to do before the deadline, pun intended.

I've been extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to check a lot of big things of my list, which causes me to rethink and restructure and rearrange my priorities so as to always have a goal to push toward. When you aren't a particularly career-driven kid, it's easy to become sort of, well, stuck. Bucket lists are a little magical for me because they give me something to aspire to, and some idea of what I really want to be when I grow up.

So here's my list, as it is today: incomplete, ever evolving, and completely unrealistic - exactly the way I want it to be.

Bucket List

• Learn to sail. Not in a onetimelessoncutelittletourist way, but in an allowmetotakeyououtonmysailboat way
• Get paid to write something/have something published
• Become a competent seamstress
• Set foot on every continent except Antarctica. I have no desire to go to Antarctica. Walk the streets of Santorini, ride a gondola in Venice, order a beer in a pub in Limerick, wear a beret in Paris, dress like a Harajuku girl in Tokyo
• Do something to serve someone else at least once a day
  
• Write a knitting pattern that becomes an internet sensation
• Give a wildly extravagant gift to a stranger
• Sleep under a bridge
• Do a perfect cartwheel
• Learn to cook like a grownup. Know my way around a kitchen. Season things with confidence.
• Have a baby
• Practice yoga every day for a whole year
• Get married for keeps
• Stay here
• See the Northern Lights
• Ride on a dog sled
• Go backpacking. Leave the mascara at home (one small step for man, one giant leap...)
• Return to my natural hair color
• See Burning Man. I don't necessarily want to stay there, I just want to see it.
• Learn Swahili and/or sign language. Practical, no?
• Participate in a flash mob
• Read War and Peace. Seriously.
• Grow something edible
• Stop biting my fingernails once and for all
• Adopt a child
• Become more comfortable being uncomfortable
  
• Give James Taylor a high five
• Create something new - a new kind of business, a store, an idea, a non-profit- discover a new way to do something that's been done a thousand times before. Have an original idea, and follow through on it.
• Successfully eliminate high fructose corn syrup from my life. :)
• Memorize at least 100 Bible verses
  
• Sit in a hot spring in Iceland. So what if I got that idea from The Bachelorette?
• See the Waitomo Glow Worms in New Zealand
• Get scuba certified
• Play a team sport, regularly, on an actual team. Be not half bad.
• Open an Etsy store
• Sing an original song at an open mic night

And for good measure, and to feel that deep satisfaction that comes with knowing I've actually checked a few things off the list, here are a few of the things on older lists that I've managed to do:

• Go on safari in Africa
  
• Ride a horse in the ocean
• Skydive
• Get a tattoo
• Visit the Globe Theater in London
• See Bill Cosby live
• Swim with dolphins (and stingrays, which was better)
• Climb a waterfall
• Graduate from college
• Learn to knit well enough to make whatever I want
• Have the lead in a play
• Eat a snail
• Participate in a serious race
• Live in a tourist destination city
• Make a decent bucket list. ;)

Alrighty, kids. I showed you mine. Now you show me yours.

love.

Words to speak...

Y'all know this little blog is my soapbox... just remember that these are only my thoughts. Turns out I don't really know much. I just like writing to you.

So tonight I'm thinking about words. I've had a life long love affair with words, written, spoken, twisted, loaded, crafted and sculpted words. I love particular words (believe, lovely, gazebo, ethereal, remedy, whimsy, kismet) and particular collections of words (the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses, the ravages of generosity added to love, miles to go before I sleep). I commit them to memory, keep them, replay them in my mind, sneak them into conversations. I carry them. Words are sticky- they ride with you, become part of you, and remain.

I can also remember with alarming accuracy so many of the words other people have spoken to me- words that stung, words that healed, words that lifted. I've fallen victim to the damning weight of well-intended words from the mouths of people who truly wanted to help me, to offer wisdom, but forgot that our calling is to speak love before correction. I've rested in the confidence placed in me by a few well spoken words of encouragement, and been shaped by guidance offered gracefully and with carefully chosen words. There are words that were thrown at me thoughtlessly that still echo in my head whenever I face certain situations, and words that were given to me intentionally that I cling to when I need to be reassured. I can map my life in words.

Words are powerful. I think we owe it to each other to remember that power, to acknowledge the responsibility we have, to choose our words carefully and know when to speak them. In truth, I have very little of value to say - my experiences are limited, and viewed through my own tainted lenses and obnoxious biases, and I am often wrong and I am often afraid. But I have a big God, full of flawless words, who every now and then will give me the opportunity to speak, the words to use, and the confidence to say them. My understanding is, well, lame, but His is perfect. I'm a selfish kid, and what I see when I look at you is often as much about me as it is about you, but what He sees is someone loved. If I can speak with any small bit of that love, if I can be a vessel for words that will encourage, will build, will strengthen, or challenge through love, then I hope I have the emotional wherewithal to say them.

I guess my prayer is that our intention is always first to love. I pray that as we are figuring out how to live in community with each other, to speak into each others lives, we are given the wisdom to differentiate between our opinions and God's truth, our feelings and His love, our thoughts and His will, and that we choose our words accordingly. If we can focus on loving each other with the sort of love that is patient, kind, doesn't envy or boast, isn't proud, doesn't anger easily, keeps no record of wrongs... I trust that God will follow through on His promise to continue the good work he began, use us to strengthen and sharpen each other, and grow us as we live this thing out.

I absolutely believe we should continue to lift each other up and tell each other the truth, and I hope we remember to do so with an extraordinary amount of care and after having quadruple checked our intentions. I hope I can seek God first in my relationships, and remember to pray first and act second. I'm often pretty lazy about that. There is a load of good advice floating around out there, and some of the best I've been given looks like this: Words are powerful. Choose them with your whole heart. When you can, encourage the good instead of pointing out the bad. Seek to build. Love each other.

love.

On Spring, Flutter, and the Magic of Community

I spent nearly nine hours on Sunday in my new friend's beautiful backyard. It was one of those perfectly Portland days when the forecast is all doom and gloom but the reality is warm and mostly sunny and very nearly perfect, and I spent hours watching people come and go through gates and doorways, chat on the lawn, meet, catch up, learn, laugh. These aren't my usual folks, these Sunday night dinner gatherers, but they are lovely, and I love the chance to watch them and talk with them. I love figuring out the pieces we have in common, the birth of inside jokes, and the stirring of potential. Sometimes I think I'm happiest in these spaces.

The more I run with this crazy, ever-evolving crowd of Imago-ites and Mosaic-types, the more aware I become that we aren't living life under the usual circumstances. Here we are, some of us single, some of us less so, but not one of us is alone. We are, old friends and strangers, wrapped up in and with each other, and we form this unbelievably beautiful tangle of vastly varied ideas, lifestyles, and hopes, knotted by one common love. Which results in my sitting on a blanket on a backyard lawn, laughing and watching relationships form and marveling at the gift we've been given. Because I have to believe that this is how we are intended to live, how we were created to live- of and with each other, around and for each other, speaking love into each other's lives and helping one another draw closer to God in inches, in conversations, hamburgers, hoolahoops, laughter, in grace.

Spring, and community, and I am a blessed and happy girl. These spaces, these very nearly perfect Portland days, I will be grateful for the gift that is God being alive and so flawlessly evident. I will rejoice in His being easy to spot in blue skies, in flower-petal rain and clear nights. I will watch the beginnings of magic in first conversations, in new friends connecting and old ones checking in, in eyes-meet moments that make my heart skip and group sing-a-longs and simply being glad to be. I will be thankful for BBQs and backyards and blessings. I am wishing the same for you.

love.