I think I am trying to cultivate in myself a more meaningful way of connecting, communicating, and relating in my life…also I am possibly selfishly trying to cut out devices and social constructs that are stealing my time, creativity, deep friendships, and actual presence in this world. Is this blog apart of all that? I don’t know yet.

I read this quote once by my favorite author in the whole world (and the name/answer to that question that you sometimes get asked, “if you could have dinner/tea/spend time/talk with anybody in the world, back in history to this day, who would it be?, well Henri J.M. Nouwen, will always and forever be my answer) and I cried when I read it because that is truly all I want (well not really, but that is pretty close). Here it is:

“More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.”  -Henri Nouwen

Anywho…all that to say, if you have missed any little moments of my daily life….and you don’t quite feel brave enough, or maybe energy enough, or maybe have the time or mind to write, or text or call or visit, here are some photos of life lately. These little beautiful moments that sometimes don’t feel so beautiful in the actual moment, but sometimes they do, but I am trying to capture all the moments regardless to look back on and say: “well that was not so lovely in the moment, but now look where we are” Or, “what a little slice of joy we were snacking on there”:

my spiritual findings:

there seems to be something very peculiar, magical, and almost-holy about being outside right before the sun crests:

being amongst the trees’ almost imperceptible-to-the-eyes growing and ever expanding

and the snow either crunching beneath or showering from above

and the gentle whispering of the prairie grass swaying from side to side

and the wind’s steady accompanyment

and the falling leaves; a last dance before the final curtain call

and the stillness of not wanting to add more but just wanting to be apart of

and the frosty smells and cold infused lungs

little jewels in forms of flowers welcoming you down a new path or an old one, such extravagance

and a twig snapping and a bird fluttering, a little song from the aforementioned one

and the sun, the literal star of the show, how many forms she takes, how many ways she presents herself, all true to who she is, all glorious and powerful, never can get enough…

all of this in the moment before your world wakes up and it seems, very precise and planned and all spinning on its axis as it should yet utterly wild and kindly chaotic.

and all these details, these bijou delights (I just learned this word and thought I would use it, it’s linked to its meaning, if you don’t know, because I certainly didn’t five minutes ago), reminding me to be awake and aware to the great presence around us. Almost in an animistic way, these creations are waiting to be noticed and interpreted (what does this say to me about the artist?) and somehow all whispering this common theme of….delight, maybe, love.

my mental/emotional findings:

more peace, more patience, more joy, more centeredness, more grounded, more calm.

my physical findings:

lighter in step, lighter in heart, lighter in mind, rejuvenated.

I started doing sunrise walking because I read on one of this guy‘s instagram posts that getting morning light into your eyes is really good for your circadian rhythm and overall health and a year ago, I was feeling anything but health. I thought I would give it a try.

So I started and have fallen in love and feel like my body is not trying to sabotage me anymore but is very capable of healing.

And that is my written report on why I walk every morning to watch the sunrise. the end.

Hello forgotten world of blogs and writing and paragraphs longer than an instagram post.

What delight.

What a strange place.

and what a stranger I feel like here.

Well, not quite.

More like looking at photos from 12 years ago like I did last night

I remember that girl, but also, who was she? Who am I now?

What a sweetie, so full of life and energy and hope.

or coming back to your childhood home and waking up in the morning in your old bed, with the old morning light streaming in and all the familiar sounds and smells from downstairs gently wafting and weaving its way up to you, but that is where the familiarity ends…everything else is so very different.

Anyway.

I am doing an experiment with myself.

I deleted, rather, deactivated both my Facebook (good ol’ pal from my youth) and instagram (the devil itself).

And I decided to come back home.

er, look back at the photos again

here.

to this familiar, foreign, forgotten friendship

what will I write about?

what I always have, I guess?

I feel like this is a practice for me to engage my brain more

to engage in processing more

to practice a more “quiet” life, hopefully

a return to more phone calls and letters and drop bys

to intentionally be aware of what is filling all the little spaces in my day

and to be more aware of the seemingly “normal” practices and traditions and realizing they don’t have to be my normal or tradition.

okay, that is all for now.

who know’s how this will go or if I’ll go back to the ol’ pal or devil

I’ve learned to never say never

and that’s it.

chao.

oh and a photo, because that is fun too!

what is this world?

fragmented

if there truly was a word to encapsulate all that it is I am feeling, it would be that

which reminds me of when I tried to encapsulate my placenta. I never ate it.

I am tired of too many feelings

of too many thoughts

Pass the bitter

When I meant to say butter

I want mundane yet i loathe it

I feel like a hypocrite most times

I have kept some secrets so hidden in my heart that sometimes I even forget they are there, but then I catch a glimpse of them and I am frightened by the whispered “what if’s”

I am constantly going off coffee and then coming back with more coffee drinking angst then I had before

I write something and am asked “are you okay? Something must have happened to you”.
i am not trying to be cynical or cruel, there is too much of that in this world, I won’t reply with the snarky comment that I wanted to

so much has changed

not all of it bad

Ella

enough light to last me to the end of my days

words that resonate with my inner natural harmonic

the sunlight

toast

steam

the raw wind on a winter’s sunny day

the romance hour (aka the hour of dusk)

the sun saying “hi” and the sun saying “goodbye”

blankets of mist on a summer’s morn

the nostalgia of autumn (why we truly all love autumn)

crackling records, bacon, and burning logs

a sharp cheese, wine, and knife

(now this is becoming fun)

Twinkling lights, eyes, and stars

now that I think of it, I could go on and on

there really is much to be grateful for and now I understand David and his writings make so much more sense.

adieu

Because I cannot yet see

The calm after a storm

The town that is not yet awake

The moments before I open my eyes from sleep

I am

The sun slowly rising over the Andes

Just hovering at the crest

Not yet breaking over

And spilling my golden magic on valley dwellers

I know

As a mother knows too

As she passing her hand over her womb

The time is near

I am

The morning sun

The break in the clouds

The turn in the corner leading to

The promised land

It reminds me of an untold story

Something I’ve seen before

Many times

But what would the dress say if it could speak?

What story would it tell?

It could tell of a story of a girl going on her first date

Anxious, glittering eyes, pit pattering heart, flirty twirl

It could tell of a story of a routine life

9-5, lunch at noon, something nice, smile, and walk, and smile and leave, repeat

(how I miss routine)

It could tell of a story of a twist in the plot

Something different, “I quit’, tickets bought to who knows where, this is new

It could tell of a story of a ceremony of death

Tears, black, it’s over, the end

Or it could tell my story, of me

Tomorrow is Sunday

I am going to church

Tomorrow is Sunday

I am going to church

Always

With songs to sing

With wings to fly

Free, untamed, wild

Flitting across the sky

It’s always been my dream to fly

But now you’ve caught me

And I can barley remember

How it feels like to fly

I’m use to this cage

To being tethered

I’ve forgotten the feeling of

How it is to fly

I thought this was kind of funny, because I am NOT a hairstylist, but something in me nudged me to say, “Okay”.

The thing was, they were performing in a different state, so I hopped in my vehicle and drove down to be their “hairstylist” for the night.

When I got there they were setting up the concert, it was an outdoor one and they were playing for a crowd of people all high off of drugs and drunk, all of them.

I thought, “jeeze, why are they playing for these people….they aren’t even going to enjoy it they are so high!?!”

But as they started the concert, many people put down their bottles, their bongs, and started listening. The music and the words of the band were about love, and redemption. And before I knew it, everybody was crying, and coming up to the band members and…me and telling us their stories and their heartaches, their troubles and how sad and sorry they were. I was kind of overwhelmed.

Then I caught the eye of one of the lead singers and he motioned me over and said they would like me style their hair so they could look more presentable and spend more time with the people.

I was SO nervous. Then all of a sudden I realized that all I had brought along with me was a straightener and a brush, that was it!

I couldn’t believe it! I had no clue how I was going to style their hair with just these two items much less style it at all because I had no clue how to even do hair!

But that same little something inside of me nudged me again and said, “don’t worry, just do it”

So as I started heading to the trailer were I was going to style their hair, I ran into this weird stand where they were offering free hair products….brushes, gel, hairspray, different combs and gadgets to style hair with…I was shocked! This was soo good, so I grabbed a bunch of the free products and entered the trailer feeling a little more prepared to style hair.

When I got inside the trailer they were all there, waiting for me, so I asked the first person to step up and I started cutting their hair, not quite sure what I was doing, but cutting away nonetheless. The whole time I was just praying for help and guidance…well after a while I finished and the person looked at their hair and gave me a thumbs up and a huge grin.

WHEW! I was so glad they liked it, but I had about five more people to go…I was just about to start on the second person’s hair when all of a sudden I heard this low, angry voice coming from right outside of the trailer, then the door opened and there stood a HUGE man with a gang behind him, all of them holding guns pointed at us. The HUGE man, whom I assumed was the leader, asked us in a very accusing and angry voice,  “what the hell” we were doing.

I tried calmly to tell him that I was just giving hair cuts to the member of this band, then he lowered his gun and asked if I would cut his hair.

We were all shocked, and I wasn’t sure what to do, but the little something inside me nudged me yet again and said, “do it”. So, I said sure and had the HUGE man sit down and I started cutting his hair, while I was cutting his hair the….

(this was a dream I had and I never finished writing it down and now I really want to know what happens next. Write your stories down, friends. Even if they seem foolish or un-penned-worthy, write them down.)

You and I

You say “Hola”

I say “Hi”

You’re from the south, I’m from the north

You’re from the coast, I’m from nowhere near it

You have a million and one different experiences than me

I have a million and one different experiences than you

But our differences create the beauty of a painting with a hundred different colors

All different shades

Leaning, supporting, swirling, in and around each other

Making this painting unique, unlike others.

On this canvas there are no colors of drab grey, but colors embracing and rejoicing in the different strokes of light

Because together, together……

We’re hope

We’re a beautiful, unfolding plan

We’re stronger

We’re café con leche

You and I

We’re not, “I fell in love”, and “You’re my perfect soul-mate”

But we love each other and choose, no matter what, to love

And we are best friends and will work to be so, until the end

Adventurous spirits, we’re dreamers, we’re believers in something more, something bigger, something greater than just us, than just us together

We’re worshipers, encouragers, laughers, lovers, readers, writers, creators, speakers, stubborn, hopeful, alive….

You and I

You and I

(this is still true today, although, like any painting that we walk by a hundred times a day a thousand times a year, we forget its beauty and worth….help me not forget.)

The winter on my heart was almost too hard to shake

Lost in deep fluff.

Has fluff ever derailed you?

I wanted to go deep but my roots felt frozen.

The earth’s layer hard, unbreakable.

(I really wished I would have finished these….the just leave me hanging like, “what was it that I was going to say?!?!”)

The build up

the refrain

Ending chorus

ending pain

Notes always trapped on keys

Never free

Never free

So they

Create their own story

Their own song

Wishing

And hoping

To escape the confides of the keys

To leap off the page

The last note, the last chord, the last time, this last song

I am free

I

Am

Free

I am free

Leaving the rose, is a petal still a rose or now just a petal?

What happens to a petal when it hits the ground?

Who thinks of it? Do they realize it was once a rose?

Parts or a whole.

Who notices? Who sees? Who remembers its past? Its fragrance?

A bud, a blossom, a rose, a fallen petal, crushed, gone

Carried away by a breeze

I like to notice the petals

How hard it must be to fall away

To realize that you are no longer part of the rose but now just a petal

I will always see you as a rose

Oh my!

These past two weeks have felt like I’ve been on one of those horrible merry-go-round type playground things. (great description…right?)

You know, the ones that you sit in the middle of or grab on to one of the worn, yellow painted side bars (from children holding on for dear life) and your friends grab on and start running around and around and around in circles until the centripetal force is so great you feel like gravity is sucking you into a wormhole but you know that if you let go you will either:

A. go flying into the air and land a few thousand feet away with a major headache and the inability to stand or make sense of which way is up or which way is down.

or

B. in the process of flying off you hit one of your horrible, running-around-in-circles-friends-who-won’t-stop-running-around-in-circles and you get caught under the platform and get twisted up and mangled. (Can you tell I LOATHE this playground contraption and hope that they have been pronounced harmful and illegal and have been promptly removed from all playgrounds thus sparing children needless stress and anxiety)

Does that make sense?

Here, I found a picture:

Now you know what I am talking about….you remember, right?

Anyway, THAT ^ is how I have been feeling these last two weeks.

Hold on for dear life.

DO NOT LET GO or else….(review line A or B)

THIS WILL NEVER END

I am literally just scraping by each day to get up, repeat, and wonder when Friday, May 22nd will dawn.

I don’t like it. I never like to just scrap by. To get lost in the hectic. To just want the days to pass fast.

So what do I do?

As with the horrible, merry-go-round contraption, this too will end.

There will be end.

It will stop, I will get off a little

Written in 2015

purple and pink, husky sky

alone but not

the wild racing in my heart

faster and faster

chasing the final fall, the end, the goodbye

the kiss of pink

the welcome of night

I wanted it to last forever

“don’t go” I wanted to say

but I knew it would go anyway

that moment between the shift, the moment between

was I running away or towards

being chased by the romance of His dusk

through the flint hills of Kansas.

written in 2015