the twinkling of an eye

A tale of two photos

2013-05-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write this post—part confession, part apology, part artistic manifesto—for a few months. It's been brewing in my mind ever since a local Christian radio station that I follow on Facebook posted the image on the left to its timeline. The original photo, shown on the right, is mine. Two summers ago, my dad and I spent the day hiking at Gatineau Park, got lost on our drive out, and wound up on this lookout just before the sun began to set.

God proceeded to treat me to one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd ever seen. The sky was lustrous, tinged with effusive pink and veiled in a soft, late-afternoon mist. It was all I could do not to squeal, so I channeled my enthusiasm into my shutter-release button, taking picture upon picture. Then, as if to complete the scene, a stranger wandered onto the ledge below with a book and a camera of his own. I doubled down on my shooting. My subject must have heard the rapid-fire clicks because he turned around and appeared to make eye contact with my lens three times, while I clumsily pretended to point my camera elsewhere.

The awkwardness was worth it: this photo is still my absolute favourite. And on the morning when I saw it in my Facebook feed, I smiled at how it had made the rounds on the Internet and ended up right back in the National Capital Region. Sure, I was a bit thrown off by the lack of credit and the editing—this version had a grey cast instead of the milky glow I'd laboured over in Photoshop—but it was a nice surprise to see something of my own pop up out of the blue.

Then, I made a fatal mistake: I reverse-Google-image-searched my photo to see where else it might be floating. To my surprise, the original shot had garnered a whopping 24,000 notes on Tumblr. The edited version had at least 8,000. I'd never seen so many digits associated with one of my works.

That knowledge transformed the image for me—suddenly, it was no longer just a personal favourite. It was, quite possibly, the ticket out of online obscurity. What if this shot could give me the breakthrough I needed in order to start up a brand, escape an office job, sell hundreds of prints, and spend my life shooting, drawing, and designing pretty things from a sea-facing apartment on the British Isles? (In my defence, it was unreasonably early in the morning, and I'm given to leaps of logic when I'm running low on sleep). As soon as this window of opportunity blew open in my mind, I became fiercely defensive of my photo. How dare someone edit all those beautiful colours out of my very pride and joy, stick a cliché phrase over the top, and cast it out onto the web without credit or permission? I wrote a peevish Tumblr post and basked in my grievance.

Not only does God have a sense of humour, but he also has impeccable comedic timing. Not even an hour later, my Communication Ethics professor put on a documentary in defence of derivative works and the public domain. The long-and-short of it was that humans have always built upon the innovation of others, and today's witch-hunting brand of copyright protection is blocking our main avenue of progress and creativity. Hot on the heels of the morning's photo fiasco, the documentary brought up issues that made me squirm.

I wasn't losing anything just because someone had edited and shared my work. The people who were reblogging the image had only a casual interest in it; they were sharing it to inspire, not to steal from me. If someone really wanted to buy my photo, they could always do a quick reverse search and message me to ask for a print (which I don't even offer yet). I had nothing to lose, so what was I trying to protect? My sense of control? My pride? And besides, I certainly hadn't been scrupulous about sourcing every picture I pinned or posted online.

Then, I went back to the image and read the caption. God has a great plan for your life. Trust him. As the sentiment sank in, I finally appreciated how my photo—of a scene that I had no part in creating—had pointed someone's thoughts to God, and that person had refashioned it into a tool for encouragement which was shared with thousands before it plopped right onto my own Facebook feed. This couldn't have happened twenty years ago. Somewhere between Flickr and WeHeartIt and Facebook and Tumblr, a modern-day miracle had transpired, and I was indignant because my name wasn't stamped on it.

This wasn't what I had set out to be. Somehow, my vision for my art had devolved into dollar signs. My self-proclaimed creative mission, full of grand, lofty aspirations about glorifying God, sharing beauty, and inspiring people, had dwarfed into yet another chase after recognition. My photography, which I've always said helps me to see, had blinded me to any purpose or plan bigger than myself. And worst of all, in writing a snarky message to assert my own authorship, I had given no credit to the Author of all that is beautiful, inspiring, and true.

So I've decided to take a different route. I want to take a cue from the Zen masters—the ones who compose poems, fold them into paper boats, and send them, unsigned, down rivers to be found by passersby or to sink into obscurity. I heard this story once, and it's stuck with me, a challenge: my art isn't about me. Sure, if photography or graphic design turns into my day job, I might start pushing some Report Infringement buttons. But all the same, I never want to forget how privileged I am to witness God's grand beauty, to capture it in my imperfect way, and to see it scattering, spreading, taking on a life of its own.

It's so much more beautiful that way.

(And now, an absolutely crucial disclaimer: The above describes how I want to approach my art—not other peoples' work. After all, my experience also showed me how much it sucks to find your work shared without credit or edited without permission. We Christians are dismally prolific for plagiarizing in Jesus' name. Let's change that reputation by giving artists the courtesy of proper credit. For my part, I've been holding off on pinning or posting images until I make a solid attempt to unearth the creator's name. Artists [of all kinds, not just the visual variety] make the world a more enchanting and colourful place... let's support them.)

curtains & blinds

2013-01-13T12:26:00.001-08:00

When I first got my camera, I did this nearly every day: snapped dozens of photos of a single, mundane subject—watched its edges drift in and out of focus, watched the light encircle its form, leaned back into the silence and held my breath for every click.

That was before the everyday began to strike me as boring, before I prioritized finding flaws over searching out beauty, before I began dismissing my work as uninspired and my world as unphotogenic. Lately, I've been dissatisfied with myself and my surroundings, and that discontentment has manifested itself in the form of disappointing photos. I've thought about selling my camera, because, instead of being an avenue into wonder, it's become another channel for my perfectionism and control. As I wrote a while ago, I use my camera to capture moments instead of letting these moments capture me.

But last Saturday, I found my imagination captured by something completely unexpected—something that I don't consider particularly attractive: my kitchen window. (The fact that I was trying to delay writing a [now-completed] 10,000-word essay may have had something to do with this experience). I picked up my camera and spent half an hour teasing out beauty from something that I pass by every day without a second glance...

The resulting photos aren't particularly remarkable, but they surprise me—they remind me that my world, while it may not be as glamorous or attractive as my Pinterest and Tumblr feeds, is extraordinary. If I don't get into a habit of recognizing that beauty now, what makes me think that I would appreciate more picturesque landscapes or a more elegant home?

My word for this year is Enter—it means a lot of things to me (if I have time, I'll blog about it), but one of its most important connotations is this: I want to enter my everyday life. I've grown too used to overlooking it, to escaping it through daydreams, computer screens, and noise-cancelling earphones. This year, I want to practice being present precisely where I am—and maybe my camera can help me to understand what that looks like. Because sometimes, enter is just a call to enter your kitchen, to step into the dancing noonday light, and to see.

Darlings and dreams (The Story Series #2)

2012-08-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

The other day I was reading this (because I'm still on a huge Wicked high and I want to find out every behind-the-scenes detail I can get my hands on), and I was struck by something that Stephen Schwartz, mastermind composer, wrote to a fan:

...the last few months of putting on a new Broadway musical are extremely stressful -- there is so much pressure, what with so much at stake financially for so many people, so many reputations on the line, and the relatively hostile environment that is Broadway these days. And this is of course coupled with the reality that a production of a show, no matter how well achieved, can never really be what the authors had in their heads, so there are all sorts of emotional adjustments to be made.

I'm familiar with this, though not for the reasons that Schwartz is. He had to make circumstantial adjustments—some songs didn't fit the actors, others made the show too long, that sort of thing. I, on the other hand, experience this out of a sheer lack of skill. When I do visual art, I can never get things to turn out on paper (or the computer screen) they way I envision them in my head. My hands start improvising with complete disregard to the thoughts in my brain. Sometimes, the result is better than I could have imagined; other times, I resign myself to the reality that it's as good as it'll ever get, and pretend I made it that way on purpose.

It's okay, though. Art is just a hobby, so if something doesn't quite work out, I can just throw it away and go read a book. But when other things in my life don't turn out as planned... well, Stephen was right—there's an emotional adjustment to be made. Sure, I can know that God is in control. I can recognize that the dreams I'd held dear were never really meant to be mine. I can figure out why things happened the way they did. I can even accept that my present reality is much better than my wildest imaginings could have foretold… but all the logic in the world can't substitute for contentment.

I was in grade school when I first came across (in some writing-advice book that undoubtedly went over my head) the phrase, "kill your darlings." Those sentences and turns of phrase that thrill you when you think about them, the ones that make you smug if you read over them a dozen times, the ones without which you just know your piece would shrivel up and die? "Kill them," William Faulkner said.

I thought this was a throwaway cliche until I signed up for a creative writing course this summer. As I write, I become really fond of certain ideas and phrases, and they provide the surge of excitement that makes my fingers fly across the keyboard double-time. The prose takes on a life of its own, surges and swells through unexpected twists, becomes almost unrecognizable… and ultimately, it outgrows those beloved darlings that had given me enough hope to keep writing. Much as I love them, they stick out like sore thumbs, and I regretfully snap them off because I know that the piece is better off without.

I think life is a bit like that, too. At any given moment, you have certain dreams that mean the world to you. They compel you to make choices that you'd never dare make otherwise and spur you on when the going gets tough. They're like scaffolding that supports your life as it blossoms and unwinds, but sometimes, it grows too big for them. Somehow, those darlings of yours give rise to something greater than themselves, something you barely recognize, and you realize that they were only seasons. They leave their mark and drift away.

How do you react when you've put years (and all of your heart) into loving someone before realizing that they're not the one with whom you're meant to spend the rest of your life?

How do you react when you have to trade in your dream of being a dancer—a dream that cost you 10 hours at the studio each week, 52 weeks a year—for an office job?

How do you react when you racked up debt and grey hairs in law school only to find that being a stay-at-home mom is your true calling?

I've never had to deal with anything this drastic, though I'm sure I'll have my fair share of these moments someday, considering how idealistic and impractical some of my dreams are. How will I react? I hope I won't cling to the past or wallow in regrets. I hope I'll have the courage to admit it when my darlings don't fit the story any more… the courage to face them and mourn them and let them go. I hope I'll be able to thank those dreams for setting my life onto a new trajectory, a narrative arc more beautiful than any I could have imagined. And I hope I'll never be afraid to jump with both feet into new adventures just because they "might come to nothing."

They will never come to nothing.

Faulkner was wrong; you can't exterminate your darlings—they leave an indelible mark on your art, your story, your life. And you let go; you adjust; you learn to love it all… the beautiful, unexpected final product, the countless transformations that came before, and all the false starts and fancies that arose along the way.

.:.

Emily Freeman wrote a good post on this topic a while ago that stuck with me for months... For when your future keeps changing: "Why must we always insist that the destination is the most important measure of success? We put so many worry hours into our future only to discover that it keeps changing."

When I don't want to be an artist anymore

2012-08-09T12:37:00.004-07:00

Lately, washing dishes has felt more real to me than writing, drawing, or taking photos. Every time I pick up my pencil or my camera, a big "Why?" seems to materialize in the air, and I can't come up with a good, honest response to it. It's funny because I used to question housework in that very same way: why spend my life organizing and decorating a temporary home when there's so much more to life than that? Art, I've always assumed, is worthwhile because it's, well, art—it tugs heartstrings, it ruffles feathers, it captures beauty, it outlives you. When you delight yourself in creating, you discover a bit of God's nature. Isn't there something inherently valuable in that? But these days, when I force myself into the familiar motions—spinning metaphors, shading shapes, snapping shutters, lining up letters—that Why crashes into the scene and suddenly my work appears so stilted, so artificial and empty. What's the point, when there are far more important things in life?

And dishwashing, well... it's immediate and tangible and practical. There's no pretence in it; it doesn't claim to portray some abstract facet of the human condition or to express some aspect of my soul. It doesn't promise to live on long after I'm gone, impressing and inspiring people around the world. It's as mortal, ordinary, and unglamorous as I am.

I guess I've grown sick of my drive to capture, of how inadequate I feel when I experience something beautiful but don't have the agility to catch it on camera or the eloquence to do it justice with a poem. The weight of my camera in my hands—a weight that used to thrill me and urged me to explore, study, and contemplate—now feels like a burden. I stare through the viewfinder at lavish sunsets, peer between the focus marks at tousled fields of wildflowers, and shake my head: Too busy. Bad light. Wrong lens. And what's so special about taking the world's five-trillion-three-thousand-two-hundred-sixty-seventh nature snapshot (or portrait), anyway?

This dissatisfaction is inevitable—a photo of God's creation, after all, is only a shadow of what's already but a shadow. It has its place in the grand scheme of things, but so do I. And my place isn't to continually hide behind my camera, skirting around the edges of that grand Creation. My place is to stand smack-dab in the middle of it and breathe it in, minister to it, dwell among it, shout praises in chorus with it. For some people, their paintbrushes, cameras, and pencils are instruments for doing just that... for me, these things are obstacles.

"I want to capture God's beauty": I tagged that onto countless blogs, photo galleries, and Fictionpress profiles, but never lived it; instead, I used art to construct an artificial 'presence' that allowed me to avoid being really, truly present. There's a certain vulnerability in observing nature, hearing a good story, or loving someone—those things are so much greater than you that you become small and vulnerable in their presence. I escaped that vulnerability by convincing myself that I could—that I needed to—possess, distill, and capture the things that would otherwise capture me. Art became my default response, a handy excuse for escaping my own sense of awe: "I need to go get my camera. Or grab a notebook. I need to do something to preserve this moment." I was satisfied with mere output. If something bad happened in my life and I got a moving poem out of it, it no longer mattered whether or not I resolved the issue: having milked it for its artistic merit, I was off the hook. If I spent a summer being listless and withdrawn but managed to upload a few dozen photos onto Flickr between June and August, the summer was a success—I had something to show for it. Instead of trying to create a beautiful legacy with my day-to-day life, I focused on simply leaving a trail of artwork for others to remember me by.

I don't know what started to shatter the illusion—the news that a loved one had been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease and would someday be incapable of seeing the pretty things to which I devoted my life? Was it the awareness that right now, as I'm pinning the hundredth addition to my Illustration board, there are little children being sold into prostitution? Or was it my Victorian Farm binge that opened my eyes to a how full, creative, and beautiful a life without Photoshop and Blogger could be?

But perhaps the two biggest wake-up calls were these: two weeks ago, I took my Bible (sans Moleskine) to the park, and there in the golden light of 5 p.m., I realized that I didn't know what to do with the text. I was so used to dissecting, bullet-pointing, and journalling it, that I'd forgotten how to just read it—mere reading felt passive; pointless, even. Then, the next week, I went to see Wicked, and the whole time my thoughts kept hopping from, "I wish I was up on that stage... or at least working behind the scenes," to, "I wish I could tape this and relive it again and again." Those thoughts betrayed a sad reality: as an artist, I'm supposed to be a storyteller, but I don't even know how to respect stories for what they are—when I can't contribute to them in some way, I lose interest in them. This urge to produce and respond squeezes out that vital, elusive be still and turns my creativity into a channel for narcissism.

So now, for the first time in... well, in as far back as I can remember... I don't want to be an artist. My passion for the creative has been one of the most constant things in my life, and now that it's quaking, I feel terrified and directionless, but also oddly liberated—I'm free to take a step back, scrutinize from a distance, and redefine what "artist" is without feeling like I'm massacring a huge chunk of my identity in the process. I still believe that art is beautiful and God-ordained and valuable, so it's not like this post is a resignation speech from the right side of my brain (honestly, I'll probably be back to doodling before you've finished reading this paragraph). But I don't want to keep creating out of habit or with the assumption that art is, without condition, the best thing I have to offer. I'll keep questioning my motives and reworking my attitudes (and washing dishes) until the process becomes as beautiful as the product... until I begin living a good answer to the Why.

{Incidentally, it looks like I'm not the only person in the blogosphere meditating over this idea. Read Adrian, Russ, and Sarah's takes.}

"I don't cause commotions, I am one."

2012-08-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was lucky enough to fulfill a four-years-in-the-making dream of mine: to see Wicked on stage. I'd bought my ticket to celebrate third-year survival and spent an unhealthy portion of the summer in sheer anticipation. I talked about it constantly; I forced myself to stop listening to the soundtrack so that I wouldn't get jaded with the songs by the time July 27th rolled around; I even passed up an amazing essay topic for my music class because it would require me to wiki Wicked's plot and spoil the ending for myself. You'd think I was setting myself up for disappointment with all these preparations, but the show took every expectation I had and blew it out of the water. I couldn't have imagined a more tightly choreographed, visually stunning, or musically rich production.

I was particularly blown away by the sets, with their odd little combinations of steampunk aesthetics, Victorian flourishes, neon-bright NYC streets, and old-fashioned fairytale charm. One thing that took me by surprise was how bright the stage was. This hadn't come across on the, uh, surreptitious Act I videos that I'd watched on YouTube, but when I was sitting there in the fifth row, my face was completely lit up by the on-stage lights… it was like watching a fireworks show—lavish and effervescent and fanciful. But the production had a quieter side too, a gravity and tragedy that drew me in so that I genuinely forgot to breathe at times. The suspense, humour, and rockin' musicdidn't hurt either. Every song was perfectly tailored the characters' quirks and personalities—sometimes peppy, sometimes wistful, always lushly orchestrated. Listen to the Finale and tell me if it doesn't tear your heart into little shreds (don't worry; it won't spoil anything... though the comments might).

One of the show's main themes is that things aren't always as they seem, and the characters are appropriately complex. It came as no surprise to me that I identified with Elphaba—studious, unpopular, painfully conspicuous, socially awkward... an idealistic girl with a heart for the oppressed and a knack for turning good intentions into lifelong regrets. I get her appetite for acclaim and how that grates against her personal integrity (only difference is, she ultimately chooses the latter and I often don't). But I definitely didn't expect to sympathize with Glinda. Turns out, she and I share an unfortunate tendency of trying to fix everything, control everything, and impress everyone, all while letting down the people we ought to cherish most. Thank Goodness haunted me for days. It reminded me of my own mixed feelings when I'd looked at my grades earlier this year: perfect rows of A's (who wouldn't be happier?) that had come at a cost.

After the show, I went on a Wicked blog-reading binge, and every post I found seemed to have taken something different from from the show. For some, it was about friendship and accepting differences. Others saw it as an exposition on the nature of good and evil, or as a metaphor for political oppression. For my part, I was most struck by the show's idea of legacy—how people pass through your life for a season; how, sometimes, you hurt them and don't have a chance to live out a happily-ever-after friendship in recompense; how you might have no way to say "sorry" or "thank you" except to be changed by the person and carry on their life through your own. I also loved the way the show approached the topic of humility. One blogger pointed out:

Elphaba is powerful and independent, and she could have been a Nietzchean Superman and rule over the pathetic rest of Oz. Instead, her friendship with [other characters] raises them to her level of moral authority and healthy autonomy as they also learn to use their social influence and magical power to serve rather than to force life to serve their convenience.

There's nothing preachy about Wicked, but it does make you wonder how you'd react if you were vilified for taking a stand against injustice—and had the opportunity to trade it all in for power and acclaim in a second. With all of these ideas spinning in my head, I was in sort of a daze after the show. The after-excitement kept me awake till 4 a.m., and the next day, I bought my very reluctant dad a ticket because I couldn't bear having no one to share the experience with or quote dialogue snippets to for the rest of the summer. Dad left the theatre completely won over (I'll admit I did rub it in), and for the rest of the week, I spent way too much time singing the songs, reading up on fun Wicked facts (like how Elphaba conducts the orchestra with her broomstick), and (sadly) photoshopping my face green.

Oh, admit it, you'd do that too...

This has been the messiest post ever, but Wicked was so chock-full of food for thought that I can't collect my impressions into anything coherent just yet. I must give a shoutout to Christine Dwyer, the pure-voiced, passionate, and endearing Elphie, and to Jeanna De Waal's loveable, hilarious, and at times heartbreaking portrayal of Glinda (big kudos to both of them for making me laugh at jokes I'd heard a hundred times in the YouTube videos). The rest of the cast were amazing as well; Billy Tighe was the charmingest of Fiyeros, and the ensemble injected loads of funny little details into their choreography (and one of the singers seemed to be looking directly at me during the first song. I know that, with the stage lights, he probably didn't see me at all, but it was still pretty fun). I was worried that sitting near the stage would cause me to miss a lot of the action, but aside from having to crane my neck just a little during Defying Gravity (and a lot to see the dragon), there weren't any downsides: I loved being able to see the little nuances in the acting—the little breaths, the trembles, the glinting teeth and twinkling eyes. And I was close enough that a big glob of streamers fell into my row, which, naturally, I picked up, brought home, and stored in a very apropos bubble-shaped container for posterity.

Only souvenir I brought home. Well, that and the memories.

Have you seen the show? If so, what did you take away from it? If not, what's your favourite musical?

Wicked set image source. Disclosure: the Wicked soundtrack link is monetized... I have to fund these tickets somehow, don't I? ;)

Walls

2012-07-08T09:09:00.001-07:00

mistake the walls for horizons
and the summer for hell—prisoner
of someone else's war.
I live in a tower
with a man unbearably ashen
and a woman unbearably strained,
and wave away the sunset's scarlet
while the rooms shiver off
each day's ache.

She

is a wall of eyes
and a raging battle—
that loves surrender like a feather bed,
that loves her offspring like an iron cage.
I could not lie to her for there are already
a hundred curses
tangling her up, screaming deceit
with telephone rings and quiet
hallway steps.

You

are resistant and frank,
of malleable morals. Your love is a whirlwind
that passes by my door to drop
a secret you created with your hands.
But plaster gifts are prone to break
like eggshells against these walls
(as if I need more eggshells to tread on)
and you depart in a fury at how hopeless I am—
friend, do you know
how your gift makes my hands emptier? But

this

is a season, turning inevitably:
from the parched grey of summer,
to the autumn red of blade to skin,
to the vacant white of walls. Years later,

I stare straight into sunsets;
you study to be a healer;
her millions of eyes are growing dim;
and this parting winter is bellowing its final blizzard—
one dying breath to topple every wall.

.:.

I'm cleaning house these days, spending the humid afternoons sifting through hundreds of pages and knick knacks and memories, filling up trash can after trash can (because I am not who I was?). But yesterday, I found an old online chat transcript from a dark time in my life and realized that I hadn't even scratched the surface... there's so much of my past that I've blocked out. 322 lines. A well-meaning friend, a mess of personal circumstances, and me, caught in the middle—it brought me face-to-face with a part of my story that I'd taught myself to forget, and I didn't know how to respond, so I wrote the above, faster and more effortlessly than I can ever remember having written a poem before.

The cure for senioritis

2012-06-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Finished my summer class the other week. I now have just nine short courses to complete before I graduate, and I'm already being overwhelmed by big waves of senioritis. Partly for the usual reasons: the finish line is in sight and I'm burnt out and I just want these last two semesters to be over so that I can have a summer or a year (or the rest of my life) without another school year looming in the future. [I'm not sure about graduate studies. I just know I won't rush into anything… I'll take a year or two off—perhaps overseas—to figure out what I'm passionate about and see what God has in store for me].

But the biggest driving force behind my premature senioritis is this: in these last three years, a ridiculous number of things have changed in my life, and I've changed along with them. A few weeks ago, I suddenly realized that when I thought of my first-day-of-university self, I couldn't recognize her anymore. It was a bit unsettling, actually—to feel so unfamiliar with who I was a few short years ago. I find myself craving closure. It just feels like the chapter is dragging on for far too long… the character development has taken place but the setting hasn't changed. If my life were a manuscript, I'm sure the editor would lose all patience with it at this point.

Of course, life doesn't conveniently offer nice changes of scenery each time some kind of transformation occurs in your mind or soul. A big part of changing involves dealing with that incongruity—someone you love dies and the world spins on; you may discover God on a Sunday but come to the same old cubicle on Monday; you have a huge revelation that forever alters the way you think, but you'll probably still need to keep on washing dishes for the rest of your life unless you capitalize on your epiphany and write a bestselling book and use its profits to hire a maid but I digress. That incongruity scares me a little. Some of you might know that I dealt with depression for the past few months, and one of the most frustrating things about depression was how out-of-sync I was with the outside world—whether that outside world was a joyful gathering at church or a bustling street or even a mall. I never want to revisit that sense of isolation and vulnerability if I can help it.

I don't even want to be reminded of it. And maybe that's why I want to be surrounded by circumstances that meet me where I'm at. I want the security of being in step with the world around me. I want myself and my situation to align for a season, and uni doesn't really promise that kind of intersection.

But I'm only fooling myself if I think that that's going to bring me joy or comfort. C.S. Lewis once wrote, "Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity." What I'm craving is simple change—a change of scene which somehow reflects or acknowledges the changes that these last few years have wrought in me. But what I really need is growth, and growth arises from that tension between stillness and metamorphosis. It happens when the transformed one keeps on washing dishes, dwelling in his cubicle, or attending her university—and learns to look upon these things with a new perspective, to understand them in new ways.

Sometimes, the result is comforting. My iPod's shuffle recently threw a few songs my way that I had come to associate with a really painful time in my life. For years I hadn't been able to listen to them because they brought back horrible feelings. But this time around, the lyrics didn't sting and the melodies didn't send me tumbling down that old trajectory of aching memories. Healing had come, and it manifested itself in the surprising form of being able to listen to "Lies" without a lump in my throat. Hearing it again as someone older (and a little wiser?), I discovered notes and nuances that I had missed before.

So I'm trying to remind myself that going back to university next year doesn't equal stagnation. Even if I had to go back there every day for the rest of my life, I wouldn't necessarily outgrow it—not unless I wanted to. Next year, I'll revisit the familiar things—the textbooks and exams and lectures—with a new perspective… and hopefully with new joy. I'll have new eyes with which to search out nuances, opportunities, and shades of meaning that would have never come to my attention a few years ago. I'll learn new lessons from old situations and see old lessons play themselves out in new situations. And maybe, when I walk across the stage to get my diploma, I'll walk not as someone who has merely changed, but as someone who has grown.

A friend of mine released an EP. It's creative, energetic, and thought-provoking. Check it out; you won't be disappointed.

For the past few weeks, I've been falling asleep at 4 and waking up around noon. This is really not optimal and needs to change...

I've been strangely obsessed with this story/song for the last few months. I put it on repeat and blissfully float away to a distant land. It's probably the accent.

I saw newborn goats the other day at the Experimental Farm! I adore goats so this was the highlight of my summer, bar none.

The last little while

2012-04-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

I survived third year!

'Survived' isn't a hyperbole. This year was nothing like I'd expected it to be. It came on the heels of my very best summer ever—a summer full of adventures, fellowship, and memories—and I expected third year to include more of the same. But in August, I started getting a persistent low fever that made me feel like I'd been run over by a bus. I've had it on and off ever since, so I feel as though I'm perpetually on the brink of having the flu. I also get nauseous on a regular basis (ginger has become my best friend. I just chop it up and eat it raw [yum?]. It really works... or else, it's a darn good placebo). And to top it off, last semester, I caught a cold or flu every fortnight or so. I think it worked out to my advantage though, because after a few months, I built up immunity and managed to get through February and March without so much as a sniffle... this is a rare and wonderful victory for me!

The miserable-ness could have been manageable if, well, I had managed it well. Unfortunately, I decided that, if I couldn't control my health, I'd compensate by throwing myself head-first into obsessive, perfectionist workaholism. Now, there's nothing wrong with going the extra mile with schoolwork instead of coasting by on the least amount of effort possible. But there's definitely something wrong with overworking yourself to the point where you don't see friends for months, start dissolving into tears every couple of days, miss church for weeks at a time, and so on. The thing is, it became hard to control. I could never predict when my immune system would next give up on me, so my mantra was, "Work yourself to death while you can."

And I've spent a lot of this year feeling dead. Dead tired, brain-dead, spiritually dead. My mom and I call it "feeling like a squeezed lemon" (it sounds better in Ukrainian) because my mom adores lemon juice and she squeezes every last drop out of a lemon each time she makes breakfast, lunch, or dinner. She really gets her money's worth out of those lemons. And if you go by grades, I got my money's worth out of this year. But I'm also physically and emotionally spent. Sometimes I'm too exhausted to think, and anxiety eats up all of the remaining drops of energy that burnout leaves behind. It's not a fun place to be.

Third year ended up being nothing like what I'd imagined, but it was also well-needed wake-up call. For one thing, I learned to say "no"—admittedly, I often said it to important things, but at least sheer exhaustion forced me to accept the fact that I couldn't do everything. Second semester, I managed to dial down my self-pressure a bit, especially towards the end—miraculously, this last round of exams was actually the most relaxing part of the year for me. I also realized that I needed to prioritize my life better and learn to live with weakness and uncertainty. And most importantly, I realized just how quickly the little seeds of worry and pressure in my life could balloon into something way too big for me to control.

I think I'll be writing more about burnout and anxiety over the next couple of months because I need to sort things out in my head... I want to be more levelheaded when the next stressful patch of life hits. I'm going to make a valiant attempt to blog regularly this summer, because writing helps me figure things out, and I've been realizing that I won't be able to deal with issues which I'm unwilling to bring out into the open.

So all of this was a fancy way of saying, excuse my absence; I had good reasons for it, which now also happen to be good reasons for blog posts. But first, I'll enjoy one last day off before summer classes start. So far, I've celebrated by seeing The Artist with my dad, pinning a bunch of lovely and inspiring things to Pinterest, ordering myself a Sketchbook Project sketchbook, ordering Wicked tickets (fifth-row seats, guys!), sleeping in, watching lots of Arthur, taking a few walks, and writing four good lines of poetry. Okay, so maybe I need some lessons on how to celebrate… but after third year, just about anything feels celebratory. :)

If you're in school, how was your year? If you're not in school, how has life been?

P.S. Music lovers! Something completely unrelated to this post, but thoroughly lovely: do check out these stunning free instrumentals by Ólafur Arnalds. If I had discovered them earlier this year, I might have stayed a little saner.

Grace Enough

2011-07-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

Stupid words. Even before I say them, I know I'll regret them, but I speak nonetheless, breathing contempt recklessly through the scalding steam of my coffee. My friend in the chair across from me is taken aback and I cringe inside, cowering from the echoes already jangling through me. Why on earth would I say something like that? I didn't even mean it! I want nothing more than to turn back time.

Fear descends on the awkward silence that follows. What if the person I just spoke against is sitting right here? I glance around the coffeeshop and breathe easier, seeing no familiar face, but paranoia quickly invades my thoughts again. What if that woman sitting beside us knows him? What if she's his aunt and she's going to phone him up about this as soon as I get home? What if that barista knows him? Heck, what if my friend is secretly recording this conversation and streaming it live as we speak? It's a case of the robber thinking that everyone else is a robber too—when you betray someone's trust, your own trust takes a blow.

And when you wound someone with your speech, you feel the wounds tenfold. For days, I gingerly roll those words around in my heart, feel them leave fresh scars every time I replay them. By the time the week winds down to Saturday night, church night, I'm in a state of perpetual distraction. The worship songs start and I mouth along to the words, but my mind keeps circling back to that coffeeshop date, to those careless words, to the person whom I hurt without him even knowing it.

I want nothing more than to turn back time.

So I do. I think back to one cloudy recess in first grade, when I was standing in queue at the top of the play structure and waiting for my turn down the slide. As I watched one boy make his way to the bottom of the slide and walk below me back to the ladder, I picked up some of the sand that had piled up on the wooden platform. Then, for reasons I'll probably never understand, I discreetly but with great precision threw the sand down onto his head. He climbed up with a miserable look on his face, angrily brushing his hands through his hair and demanding to know who had thrown the sand. Feigning innocence, I hastily made my escape down the slide.

I'd bet anything that this boy, now in his twenties, doesn't remember this episode, but I remember it well enough for the both of us. I remember the intense guilt that my six-year-old self carried for weeks, and I remember accidentally bumping into him at the grocery store a few months later. Although he still had no idea that I was the culprit (and had probably forgotten the incident anyway), I was so ashamed that I literally couldn't bring myself to look him in the eyes. I said hello while staring at my sneakers.

It all seems so familiar. Today, just like then, I still find myself doing stupid things and spending weeks awash in remorse. How little has changed—I throw words like I threw sand.

But I come before before a God who didn't throw a stone. And that changes everything.

So I teach myself a new refrain. Each time I feel the guilt crawl through my thoughts, I answer, there is grace enough. There is grace enough for stupid words and loveless acts and bad examples. No, I have no right to slander someone over a coffee at Starbucks, but my only remedy is grace. My only escape from the mistakes lies in God, in his spirit, in his indwelling. And yet, just as that shame kept me from coming to him in worship, when I'm racked with guilt, I can't enter his presence—guilt bars me from reaching for the very thing I need.

And it reminds me.

Of a time years ago when I was so clothed in shame that I couldn't bear to look at God, when my guilt made a divide between us that stretched as far as heaven is from hell. But there was grace enough for all my mistakes, grace dressed in scars and crowned with thorns and nailed to a tree for my freedom's sake. And I will walk the path I've walked before, retrace the route from repentance to liberation, rediscover the power of his forgiveness.

How little has changed. Each day, I need the gospel just as much as I needed it the last.

And each day, like manna, the promise falls softly to the ground: there is grace enough still.

The Sound of Silence

2011-06-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

The girl in the picture is my friend J (I'll call her Jen). Last week, Jen and I met up for a conversation and mini photoshoot. Incidentally, the photoshoot ended with me stepping in some goose, uh, byproduct, with my bare foot—I'm still slightly traumatized, but even that couldn't overshadow the wonderfulness of the time we spent together. Between Jen's out-of-town university studies and ministry work, we don't get to see each other very often, but when I do meet up with her, I come away from our conversation challenged and inspired... she's one of the humblest, kindest, and most honest people I know.

During our latest meeting, we spent a lot of time talking about silence. We talked about how nice it is to have friends with whom we can share non-awkward pauses. How much better it is to let somebody's words sink in, to slowly turn them over in your mind and ponder them, instead of shooting off the obligatory, thoughtless response. And we spent some time in silence, sorting through our thoughts and savouring all of the little sounds that it amplified... the soft click of a librarian's keyboard, the footsteps brushing across the carpet, the quiet conversations of other visitors.

—

I'm not a confident talker.

During the first 17 years of my life, for various reasons, I had nearly no face-to-face or phone contact with my friends outside of school. Basically, my only chance to talk with people my age was during recess (which ended in grade 6), before and after classes, during lunches (many of which I spent at home anyway), and during class (but I was a good kid and didn't do that as often as I should have).

Nevertheless, I still found people who were willing to listen to me, share secrets with me, and encourage me, even if I couldn't see them beyond school grounds. Jen was one of those people—during her senior year, she spent almost every lunch hour and 8-minute between-class break with me, offering all of her free time to walk with me through everything that I was facing at the time (and, to top it off, she wrote me nice long emails every few weeks). So between the Internet, friends like Jen, and the loads of time that I spent with my parents, I can't say I lacked social contact when I was younger... sure, I missed out on the sleepovers and late-night phonecalls, but I had some of the best relationships anyone could dream of. Still, that aspect of my life affected me in one big way: it made me extremely insecure about speaking.

Over the past two years, a few changes in my life situation have given me many more opportunities to see people face-to-face. And while it's been wonderful to share secrets over coffee or sit together in the sun, it's also taken me a while to fight down the feeling of panic over not knowing what to say, or not being able to say what I want. To stop rewinding conversations in my head for days and beating myself up over a bad joke or lame remark. To make small talk with strangers (I'm so glad I've gotten better at that. The other day, I had a great chat with a man on the bus who was undergoing radiation for cancer. I can never get over what a priviledge it is when a complete stranger chooses to share his heart with me).

Last year, I had a pretty hard time learning to wade in the deeper end of the social world. It was kind of like playing badminton in high school. I was a total mess at badminton—I'd blindly swing around the racket, without any aim or strategy, in hopes that it would eventually hit the ball. And that's kind of how I talked to people last year: as soon as the conversation came barreling my way, I'd desperately shoot off a reply. Sometimes it came out mangled, sometimes exaggerated, sometimes flattering, sometimes curt; occasionally, it hit the mark of sincerity and honesty. But either way, all I really focused on was myself and what I needed to say.

With practice, I learned to be more diligent, more vulnerable, more caring in the way I spoke. But I still can't shake one big insecurity of mine: I still don't like being silent with someone. Being able to say something—anything, no matter how artless—still gives me confidence, a sense of power. I hate admitting that I don't know what to say. I hate 'wasting' someone else's time as I rummage through my thoughts. I hate not having the answers.

—

In Judaism, there's a custom called sitting shiva. When someone dies, friends visit the grieving family and spend a few hours sitting together in silence. Unless the mourner says something, no words are exchanged; even "hello" goes unspoken. The mourner and comforter sit together, reflecting, waiting, listening.

I remember once, during a really rough week in high school, I got up at lunch and declared to my locker bay, "Who wants to come with me and sit in front of a window and think?" I was half-joking and half-desperate. I needed space; I needed time to grieve the 'old normal' that had been replaced with a bewildering new reality. I needed to enjoy the company of another without feeling that I had to entertain or impress or explain anything to them. So a friend of mine came along and we sat in front of a big window in the hallway for half an hour, staring into the sky.

As much as I feel threatened, sometimes, by silence, I have to admit that it can also be incredibly comforting. Sometimes, presence speaks louder than words, and silence is the most sincere response you can give. It can be nice to know that you have space to wonder and dream in someone's presence. It can be nice to walk together through a sunset in quiet awe. It can be nice to listen.

Do you feel comfortable being silent around others?

Another video that looks into the spiritual side of silence.

Dropping In

2011-06-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to post much for the next week because that's how long I have to read half a textbook and study for my last exam. After that, I have some plans for this blog that I'm pretty excited about. Until then, though, here are a few things I want to share with you...

Photoblogging

If you follow me on Twitter or like my photography page on Facebook, this is going to be a bit redundant for you, but I have a new post waiting over at my photoblog. Here's a sampling...

I've got lots of photoshoots planned this summer, so you should see more posts there if all goes as planned.

Summer reading list

I've finally put together my book list for this summer. I'm probably only going to read 8 since I'll only have two months to get through them, but here's what I'm thinking of...

Miracles, C.S. Lewis
Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller
Little Heathens, Mildred Kalish
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
All of Grace, Charles Spurgeon
Same Kind of Different As Me, Ron Hall & Denver Moore
The Pilgrim's Regress, C.S. Lewis
Emma, Jane Austen

Have you read any of these?

Pinterest

I've been absolutely enamored with Pinterest lately. I have almost 5,000 faves on Flickr, over 1,000 on Tumblr, and over 500 starred items on Google Reader. With Pinterest, I can sort the best of those beautiful, inspiring things into visual pinboards by topic, subject matter, and so on. The slightly-OCD part of me is thanking me (the part of me that's trying to study is not). Here's my account; if you want an invite, give me a shout!

My favourite song of the moment

Introduced to me by the lovely and talented Jocelyn.

Askbox

If you want to drop a word or two in my askbox, I'm all ears. See you in a week! :)

Salt of the Earth (The Story Series: #1)

2011-06-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, I said that I'd begin a blog series on the topic of story. Finally making good on that promise. This won't become a regular or frequent thing, but I'll be writing posts for this series now and then, whenever inspiration hits. Here's the first...

Yesterday, I watched a bit of Dan Cruickshank's "Around the World in Eighty Treasures" series on TV.

(As a side note, I would love to have Dan come along with me to Doors Open Ottawa this weekend. He gets so enthralled by everything around him... at one point in the special, he spent a good five minutes gushing over a chair as if it were, I don't know, a rocketship or the last surviving dodo bird. I wish my own wonder and curiosity were captured that easily).

In this particular film, he made a stop in Poland to visit one of the most fascinating places I've ever seen. It's called the Wieliczka Salt Mine, and it produced salt from the 13th century all the way up till 2007, making it one of the world's oldest operating salt mines. That alone is pretty significant, but the most astonishing thing about the mine is this:

...and this...

...and this.

Those are sculptures that were carved out of the salt by the miners who worked there. The whole mine is filled with these. Many of them are religious in nature—some are reproductions of Christian iconography, others, carvings of revered saints. The skill and effort that was put into these is mindblowing.

All I could think of after I saw that (and forgive the slightly lame allegory I'm about to draw here) was that those miners had carved out a legacy in a place where we'd least expect to see one. The tools they were given became more than tools for earning money; they became tools for telling stories, tools for exploring faith, tools for worshipping their maker. And to these men, the mine was not a dark, frigid prison cell a thousand feet below the surface of the earth, but a sanctuary. They didn't need to see stained-glass windows or hear birdsong or watch sunsets to remember God's glory... and because of that, out of what looked like a tomb, a cathedral emerged.

I'm not sure I approach my life with the same kind of attitude. I depend too much on things like journals and blogs to send a message, to record my story. And since I've never been much of a journaler or a particularly disciplined blogger, I often beat myself up for not trying harder to leave a tangible legacy that future generations can look back on. But I've been coming to realize that scribbles and keystrokes and pages and posts are only a fraction of the tools that a can storyteller use.

See, I'm pretty snobby when it comes to my environment: I feel oppressed in an office cubicle or in a windowless, fluorescent-lit classroom. If I could have any job I wanted, I'd become a freelance writer and graphic designer who'd spend her days dreaming up images and weaving stories at the park or in the warm glow of a Starbucks. But I know that the reality probably won't be that pretty. Like those miners, I won't always be in a workplace (or community, or life situation, or family, or relationship) that appeals to me.

Am I going to let that snuff out my desire to tell of God? Am I going to retreat to my Moleskines and blogs to 'make a difference'? Will I be so narrow in my definition of an 'artist' that I'll miss out on the most important canvas, the greatest blank page, that lies open before me?

Or will I begin to carve out a message of glory—right where I am?

How fitting that those mining for salt many centuries ago left us with such a marvelous metaphor for what being "the salt of the earth" means. It means, in part, telling God's story right where you are with what you have. Some salt gets sprinkled on the king's dinner plate, some gets set aside for cattle to lick. Some people paint frescoes in cathedrals, others engrave them in cold, dim mines. But we wherever we are, we are to be the flavor of forgiveness, the seasoning of the Spirit. There is no place where grace cannot be proclaimed; there is no better page upon which we can write our legacy than right here.

As Charles Spurgeon said...

You are expected, therefore, to influence others for good. You are an employer; let your influence be felt by your servants. You are a child at home; let influence be felt around the social hearth. [...] Your influence must act quietly and unostentatiously, like the influence of salt, which is not noisy but yet potent. You cannot get through this world rightly by saying, "If I do no good, at least, I do no hurt;" that might the plea of a stone or a brick, but it cannot be an apology for savourless salt; for if when the salt is rubbed into the meat it does not season and preserve it, it is bad salt, and has not performed its work, but has caused loss to the owner, and left the meat to become putrid. And if you in this world, according to your capacity and means, do not affect other people for good, you have convicted yourself of being useless, worthless, a cumberer of the ground.

(Image credits: Margy's Musings; Destination Europe; Wikipedia. There are some great images here too).

Royal Wedding Inspired

2011-05-22T00:21:00.000-07:00

It's old news, but that won't stop me from blogging about it. ;)

I know this is going to lose me coolness points among some people, but I watched the royal wedding... twice. (Didn't stay up late for it, though... I'd had enough of that during exams). I do agree that way too much fuss had been made about it in advance, but it was a lovely, very classy ceremony. So to mark the nearing one-month anniversary (and because I can't think of anything else to write about at the moment), I want to share a few of the things that I particularly liked about it.

1. The dress and decor.

I was really struck by how wonderfully understated Kate's dress was for the occasion and setting. And as I watched the wedding, I noticed that this kind of juxtaposition was a recurring trend—the simple, elegant gown against a regal, ornate carriage; the trees inside a grandiose cathedral; the royals driving off on a balloon-and-ribbon-decorated car; the intricate but very subtle, near-monochrome cake. By the end of the service, I fell in love with this pattern... those little details were breaths of fresh air against the overall background of pomp and pageantry.

As I mentioned a bit earlier, I want to start using this blog to collect and share visual inspiration, and this seems like a good place to start... I found that aspect of the wedding really inspiring. Ever since, I've been keeping an eye out for art and photos that explore that blend of aristocracy, regality and/or majesty with simplicity and subtlety. I think these capture it quite nicely (click each thumbnail to see the full piece on the artist's website)...

Left: Leanne Ellis for Santoro. Right: Arthur Rackham.
See what I'm getting at? Simple but regal.

L & R: Kate Alizadeh. Love the contrast between the
majesty of nature and the wee little celebrating people.

L: Julianna Swaney. R: Renee Nault. Don't you love
that juxtaposition between the aristocratic reader and
the elements of wilderness in Julianna's? As for
Renee's piece, ditto what I said above about Kate's.

L: Amy Sol. R: Jeremy Cowart. Amy Sol's piece is regal but
beautifully understated, and Jeremy nails the theme
in this shot taken in my home country, the Ukraine.

I've already started playing around with this theme in my sketchbook... lots of potential here. I love it when inspiration springs up in the most unexpected places.

2. Bishop Chartres' speech.

I loved this guy's address—full of grace and truth and hope, but also simple, humble, and utterly non-preachy. I don't think there was anyone in the audience, regardless of their beliefs and background, who couldn't relate to at least something he said... what a great way to establish common ground with a diverse audience. Here are a few of my favourite parts:

The spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this: the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.

I was really struck by the parallel between this and C.S. Lewis's idea that we become more ourselves when we serve God: "The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become—because he made us. He invented all the different people you and I intended to be. … It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own." Isn't it wonderful to think of marriage doing the same thing? The more we serve the other, the more we become the people that God meant us to be.

You have both made your decision today – “I will” – and by making this new relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a creative future for the human race.

It's true. God created the world in such a way that progress and love increase together—the more love, unity, and compassion we have, the more meaningful things we produce and the more we can move forward... and upward, toward God.

As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive. We need mutual forgiveness in order to thrive.
As we move towards our partner in love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light. This leads on to a family life which offers the best conditions in which the next generation can receive and exchange those gifts which can overcome fear and division and incubate the coming world of the Spirit, whose fruits are love and joy and peace.

"Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We can never experience the perfection of heaven here on earth, but we can start to approach it by aligning ourselves with God's ways. Expecting that perfection from people is burdensome and leads to disappointment, while journeying together to find it in God leaves a legacy that inspires future generations.

3. The cheering.

Whether it's the sound of Vancouver after the Canucks win (and I don't even care for hockey) or the sound of Britain after the heir to the throne gets married, something about cheering crowds always gets me. I think we humans are hard-wired to enjoy the sound of many voices joining together in rejoicing ...well, most of us, anyway. But, seriously, it's like a little glimpse of what heaven is going to sound like when we stand face to face with God.

4. The music.

Need I say more?

5. Princess Felizia.

I hate to make this post so girly, but I can't hold myself back from saying one more thing about fashion: didn't the Princess of Spain have the loveliest outfits for the wedding and pre-wedding dinner? I mean, half the time, I don't even notice peoples' gowns, but these are just works of art. :)

(Image credits: Will and Kate photo found here; left Princess Letizia photo by Bauer Griffin, don't know who took the one on the right. The art included in this post is copyright its respective authors, and meant solely to promote their work and to inspire. :)

A few lines of gratitude

2011-05-19T19:41:00.001-07:00

You've probably seen this clip already, but in case you've not, take a look. It's wonderful (even though it's one of those sneaky videos that turns out to be a commercial in the end).

This encapsulates everything I love about writing. I get a strange satisfaction from putting just the right words into just the right places, from trying on a hundred ways of saying something before finding a phrase that fits just right, from turning a simple sentiment into something powerful, haunting, lingering. And it nicely sums up what I love about blogging, too: thousands of people getting together to write about the same things—life, religion, world news, relationships, struggles—using different words... words that challenge, inspire, and spur into action. Writing's been making me really happy lately.

And while we're on the subject of happiness, here's a list of other things that have brought me joy recently (sorry; as much as I love writing, I'm a bit too lazy to write a proper blog post at this moment). Right now, I'm grateful for...

• The baby girl who laughed the whole bus ride downtown the other day. Put me in the best possible mood for my midterm.

• Watching Charlie Chaplin's 'City Lights' with my fam this weekend. Who doesn't love a silent movie night?

• Going to a movie theatre for the first time to see 'Jane Eyre,' a book I've reread at least five times, come to life with stunning cinematography.

• IKEA frozen pancakes.

• That feeling of wanting to burst into song during long bus rides.

• Filling out volunteer applications, and the challenge of putting into words what kind of difference I want to make in my city.

• A semester that started off feeling like my worst semester ever and ended up being my best semester yet.

• A city-wide "open doors" day happening soon. My camera and I are going on an outing!

• Half a dozen half-written blog posts waiting to come alive.

• The suddenness of a late spring rainstorm.

• Church, fellowship, and worship; every day becoming more and more knit into the body of Christ.

What's made you happy today?

Why School Matters

2011-05-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, Pete Wilson posted an excellent question on his blog. He asked, "Are you honestly able to make a connect between what you do for a living and God’s Kingdom?" I started typing up a response but never posted it because I couldn't quite put into words what I wanted to say and, well, because I was ashamed of having such a bad attitude about school. Nevertheless, I saved a copy of it, and I want to share it now because I've realized a thing or two since then.

Such a good question and convicting post. I've been thinking about this nonstop. I don't have a job yet, but as a university student, I'd honestly have to answer "no." I find it really hard to make a connection between the Kingdom and my role as a student (that is, as someone who listens to lectures, does homework, studies for exams...) unless I'm in a religion/philosophy class or something of that kind. It's relevant to my future career, but not at this point directly relevant to the kingdom.
It's different when it comes to my role as a friend. It's easy to connect my social time on campus with the kingdom (I attend a Christian club and Bible studies, help out with outreach efforts, have lots of great conversation with friends, etc.), but that's only one side of the coin. I still can't really find the relevance of the other side—the strictly academic part that involves writing essays and reading textbooks. Maybe I shouldn't be making this distinction between my social and academic time, but it's frustrating.

Yup, that's precisely the attitude with which I trudged through my first two years of university. And just knowing that it was a bad attitude didn't help—changing it took prayer. If I could, I'd say a couple of things to my slightly-younger self that would have saved me some stress and depression last semester.

First off, if we can eat pizza and drink tea for the glory of God, then there's got to be a way to read textbooks and write exams for his glory too. Maybe that means smiling at the prof as I pass by or not stressing out when I don't know an answer. Maybe that means getting excited about the opportunity to discover dozens of different perspectives on an issue (even if doing so entails reading a couple hundred pages). Maybe that just means being diligent and paying attention to what I'm doing. It's hard to know in advance what that looks like, but that's what makes this so exciting: I can ask God at any moment to show me exactly what about my attitude or behaviour I can change to glorify him better as I highlight that book or sharpen my pencil for that exam. By looking for God's purpose in things that seem totally unrelated to him, I'll discover just how vast and, for lack of a more powerful word, pertinent he is.

Second, my experience as a student enriches my social interactions. I understand exactly what others going through... I know the stress, the pressure, the isolation (yup, even in a university of 30,000—I didn't meet anyone from my program until 2nd year). I think it's a bit like missionary work... I'm sure that the most effective missionaries are those who spend their nights in the slums instead of sleeping in a luxury hotel (and for the record, I don't mean this judgmentally; just an illustration). The more fully I embrace and invest in student life, the better I can serve within it. I shouldn't separate the academic and social realms, just like I shouldn't separate cleaning my house form entertaining friends at my house—I can't do the latter without doing the rather-unglamorous former... at least, not as effectively.

Finally, in the words of C.S. Lewis... (which I found, incidentally, while researching for a paper. It's a tad long, but there's a lot of truth in it, and if I were you, I'd read the whole speech—it's called "Learning in War-Time.").

There is no essential quarrel between the spiritual life and the human activities as such. Thus the omnipresence of obedience to God in a Christian's life is, in a way, analogous to the omnipresence of God in space. God does not fill space as a body fills it, in the sense that parts of Him are in different parts of space, excluding other object from them. Yet He is everywhere—totally present at every point of space—according to good theologians. [...]
The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us. Of course, it will be so only so long as we keep the impulse pure and disinterested. That is the great difficulty. As the author of the Theologia Germanicai says, we may come to love knowledge—our knowing—more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar's life increases this danger. If it becomes irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work. The time for plucking our the right eye has arrived. [...]
The learned life then is, for some, a duty. At the moment it looks as if it were your duty. I am well aware that there may seem to be an almost comic discrepancy between the high issues we have been considering and the immediate task you may be set down to, such as Anglo-Saxon sound laws or chemical formulae. But there is a similar shock awaiting us in every vocation—a young priest finds himself involved in choir treats and a young subaltern in accounting for pots of jam. It is well that it should be so. It weeds out the vain, windy people and keeps in those who are both humble and tough.

The Sandpaper Sofa #1

2011-05-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I read a tweet from @xianity that quipped, "Desiring God introduces the 'Don't Waste Your Life' sandpaper recliner."

Seriously, where can I buy one?

I've been reclining too much, physically and spiritually. I've burrowed so deep into my comfort zone that I've lost sight of the opportunities that lie just beyond it. So I'm going to start taking note of the things that inspire me, stretch me, or call my ways of thinking and acting into question, and I'll share them here once a month. To paraphrase from @xianity, this is going to be my sandpaper sofa: a collection of things that force me away from the comforts of complacency and familiarity. Feel free to comment with your own challenging things, or grab the banner and join in on your blog; if this gathers some steam, I'll turn it into a blog carnival (let me know if you'd be interested in that!). Here goes...

1. Robertson McQuilkin's inspiring speech of resignation from his presidency over Columbia Bible College in order to care full-time for his wife, an Alzheimer's sufferer. (Via Justin Taylor)

What a beautiful example of devotion. The word spent comes to mind... I want my life to be spent like this. Offered entirely to God, poured out fully for his children.

2. Jon Acuff's blog post on grace spots.

It made me realize that there are some moments in life where people aren’t getting any grace. There are some places where people aren’t being shown any kindness, ever. There are some times in the day where people aren’t getting any love. And although I might like to think I am graceful in those situations, I’m not.
But what if showing grace to someone was like anything else in life, you had to be deliberate? What if I could consciously pick ahead of time “Grace Spots” where no matter what, I was going to do my best to throw out wild amounts of grace? Would that change somebody’s day? Would that show someone Christ in a really unexpected way? [...]
When I was in the ninth grade my mom made me write an apology note to the dentist. He swore he’d never see me again as a patient because I was such a jerk to him. So when we moved to Nashville, I determined I’d pick the dentist’s office as a grace spot. After a few visits of showering everyone in that office with grace, a new hygienist handled my appointment. She said, “I was so excited to finally meet you today. Everyone was talking this morning about how much they enjoy when you come in for a visit and I hadn’t met you yet.” Then a few days later she sent me the first hand written thank you note I’ve ever received from a dentist’s office.

This is a tremendous idea, being intentional in showing grace to people who tend to get disregarded... or, worse, disrespected. There are definitely some people I see each day who don't get much grace from others. Bus drivers. Professors. Custodians. Baristas. Telemarketers. And, yup, dentists. I'd be lying if I said I intentionally showed grace at a dentist's office. Honestly, most of the time, I cry at dentists' offices (they're a life-long phobia of mine; don't laugh :)... but I've got to wonder whether turning the dentist's office into a grace spot wouldn't be a win-win situation. I could brighten up the dentists', hygienists', and office workers' days, and at the same time, by turning my attention outward, I'd feel less stressed out and anxious. Guess it's just my luck that I have an appointment today, so I can try it out and see how it works. ;)

3. The story of Nayanaran Krishnan, who gave up his day job as a doctor to serve India's "untouchables." (Via Jamie)

Love in action. This guy isn't waiting for social change to open up an opportunity for him... he's pushing through the stigma and barreling through the norms on his own, and his actions, while they may be relatively small and aimed at individual recipients, are making massive waves in his community—and, now, in the attitudes of the whole world.

Pretty inspiring, no?

What's challenging you today?

Blogging

2011-05-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

I'm determined to make this blogging thing work. I created my first blog when I was 12 and that fell through a few months later; I tried it a few more times over the years but couldn't keep it up past a year or so. (And I'm glad, because I just found an old blog of mine through the Wayback Machine and was thoroughly embarrassed... I don't think I could stand still having that stuff in my archives. But I'm grateful for the indulgent comments of my five or so regular readers... their encouragement kept me writing even though they must have cringed at what I wrote).

So now I'm on to my fifth blog, and have a long, free (read: jobless) summer before me—seems like a perfect time to take this up again. I think the reason I've gotten so intimidated by blogging in the past is that I've generally aimed to write deep, thoughtful posts on profound topics. But since there's only so much profundity I can tackle at a time, it's always gotten too hard to keep up the trend. So for this summer, I don't want to concentrate on writing 'deep' things... I want to make a discipline of writing, full stop. Short or long, trivial or deep, flowery prose or unrefined ramble—I just want to share, and not let my perfectionism or past posts hold me back from saying exactly what's on my heart at any given moment. Because as often as I quit, blogging keeps calling me back... I just can't ignore or take lightly this opportunity to connect and dialogue with people all over the world. And speaking of dialogue, I invite you to send me questions, thoughts, and ideas that I can eventually respond to on this blog.

I also want to make these posts a bit more art-driven. I've been really getting into graphic design lately, and I would love to devote some more space on this blog to gathering together visual inspiration. And, I mean, I currently subscribe to 96 blogs... I can appreciate how much more appealing image-based posts are over long-winded text posts.

Lastly, I want to practice honesty. Blogs have produced some of the most powerful, inspiring, and healing perspective shifts that I've ever had, all because the writers were transparent about their struggles. I've become pretty tired of image maintenance, so this blog seems like a nice place to become more real, especially now that I've finally shared the URL with some of my 'real-life' friends.

So to sum all of that up, I want to give this another shot. I'm going to aim for about one or two posts per week to start with. Right now, I'm working on a post about drawing Jesus' crucifixion... still looking for the right words to describe that experience, because it was pretty powerful. And I'll also probably end up writing a gushy thing or two about the royal wedding, as much as I'd like to prevent myself. We'll see if good sense prevails. Stay tuned. :)

(And in case you need more encouragment, contact me contact me contact me).

Some thoughts on trials

2011-05-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

Finals ended last week. I'm already having the usual recurring post-exam nightmares about failing or forgetting to come; those usually last until September. Not fun. But I guess it's nice to have something to keep me on my toes over the summer, right?

I haven't gotten many of my marks back yet, but considering what was going on in my life during that month, I think I did pretty well. It was a pretty crazy time for me... if you follow my tweets, you'll know that my family went through a crisis of sorts at the start of April. It didn't involve me per se, but watching the situation unfold truly felt like the whole world was crashing down around me. I didn't stop crying for days. And even after things got better, I didn't really recover from the experience for a few weeks... I stayed inside my self-pity, withdrew from my family, and recoiled from any sign of returning normalcy. How could things ever be normal again? I think, sometimes, it's harder to accept that a trial has passed than it is to go through the trial itself. Receiving blessings after your world turns upside down takes trust and humility.

Nevertheless, right now, I'm grateful I went through that because, as clichéd as it sounds, I learned some important lessons along the way. Last weekend, someone at church shared a story he'd read on an email forward. Now I'm not generally a fan of forwards, but hearing this story gave me goosebumps. I know it's not completely accurate, but it's still a beautiful parable...

Malachi 3:3 says: 'He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.' This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study, and one of them decided to call up a silversmith and make an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest in order to burn away all the impurities.
The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: 'He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.' She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, 'How do you know when the silver is fully refined?' He smiled at her and answered, 'Oh, that's easy—when I see my image in it.'

Wasn't that a brilliant way of putting it? I mean, I knew that suffering conforms us to the character of Jesus, but somehow this story made that truth come to life, and cut straight through my self-pity. I'm not called to try and make things better in a situation over which I have no control; I am called to reflect God. And this trial wasn't a matter of him forsaking me; it was proof that he had a plan for me and needed to clear away the dross obstructing that plan. It was a painful but vital prelude to discovering more of his nature in me. It was an opportunity to yield to his reflection—to identify with him, suffering and all.

And it was a reflection of his goodness. That's something I've had to grapple with over the past few weeks, the idea that God is good when bad things happen. I mean, I know it. But it's only recently that I've begun to really know it. Jamie said it much better than I can...

...Thanks to a financial gift from our home church, and a few more from [readers], the cost of the trip, engine, and labor was covered to within a few dollars of our actual expenses. Pretty cool, huh?
This is the part where I'm supposed to say, "God is good".
Which He is. But. He was also good when our the car died on the side of the road under the blazing Nicaraguan sun. He is good when the house burns to the ground, and He is good when the accident is terrible, even if it happens to me. He is good when the report says "cancer". God's goodness simply can't be measured by what my stupid, human heart deems satisfactory. So I guess what I'm getting at is that we got our car back and we can still afford to eat [...] and, of course, that God is good. Just like always.

A-men. And the post couldn't have come at a better time. The next day, I went to church, heard that silversmith story, admitted my need, had a few people pray for me and for the situation (let me tell you, that is one of the most powerful things ever), and I was finally ready to move past the pain of the fire and to enjoy the greater fullness of God that had resulted from it. Right now, for instance, I'm exploring one lesson I learned from the experience, best encapsulated in this tweet that I wrote in the midst of the situation...

It's not often that I felt so much grief over a situation that I just wanted to keel over from the emotional pain... that tweet was written on one of the few days I ever experienced that kind of pain. And it was hard. Yet that's just a fragment of the grief Jesus willingly entered into as he took the punishment for us. It's just a shadow of Gethsemane. It's just a small part of what the Perfect One felt while walking this broken, unbelieving earth.

So I've been learning to feel God's kind of sorrow for the world—and I don't mean 'sorrow' in the despairing sense. I'm talking about becoming burdened with, rather than calloused towards, the needs and concerns of others, and in the process, to see them a bit more like God sees them. To 'have a heart for' the world; to invest in their situations and empathize with their suffering. I guess, in a way, my own pain made me more sensitive to the pain of others. It's been a huge perspective shift and I'm still adjusting to it... but I can see that it sure made the time in the fire worth it.

Have you gone through a trial recently? What have you learned from it? How can I pray for you?

(And while I'm at it, I want to throw out a huge thank you to everyone who put up with my angsty tweets and prayed for that situation to get better. Love you guys).

Where Arms Are Raised

2011-04-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

This is a repost/rewrite of something I posted a while ago as I was reading through the OT... I felt it would be fitting for Good Friday. I'll take up blogging again in May. Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!

Moses lifting his hands on the hilltop.

There's something about that scene that gets me every time. I can see it even as I type—the powerful, electrifying strength with which he first raised his arms over the raging battle—the pain that gripped them as they grew unrelentingly heavy and fell to his sides—the weight of his body slumping down upon the rock—the weak, numb arms falling into the hands of Aaron and Hur—the arrows gleaming through the blazing atmosphere—the victory proclaimed by sunset.

It's so awe-inspiring, how a stuttering, awkward man was chosen to stumble down from a mountain engulfed in the presence of the Holiest One and proclaim the law of God before his people. That the same elderly man—overcome by weakness, desperately yoking his tired arms about the shoulders of his descendants—was entrusted with the power to lead his nation to victory. That the man who cried, from the depths of his fears and insecurities, "Send someone else!" would hear the creator of the universe say, "Go."

I stand in wonder of the God who pours his might into our weakness, who does not despise our messy, blundering offerings, who makes victorious those who lack the strength to hold up their own hands.

And I see glimmerings of Moses everywhere: in the young man lifting his arms during worship, overcome with waves of doubt and condemnation; in the young woman raising her hands in prayer, crying as she looks back on the life that's brought her to her knees; in the mother raising her newborn above her head and feeling a piercing pain as she remembers the father he will never meet; in the husband lifting his wife over the threshold of their new home, struggling to fight away the memories of his parents' relentless quarrels.

Where arms are raised, a battle is raging. And where arms are falling, crumbling under the weight of a broken world, they find support—held, embraced, rising, linked, outstretched, interwoven, unrestrained—as two or more gather in His name. For wherever the day is dying, hope is fading, and sunlight is languishing, the God of light waits to lavish victory upon his people.

I think of Jesus. His arms straining, the weight of his body pulling his hands above his head, his shoulders buckling, his head bowing. As the sun slipped silently from view, the world saw two arms raised in helpless defeat.

But they weren't. They had been raised in petition, stretched out in forgiveness, lifted with reckless abandon in passionate worship.

And now, supported on either side by two dark, gleaming nails, they were raised in victory.

The battle was won.

Images: 'Victory O Lord' by John Everett Millais; 'Jesús crucificado expirante' by Francisco de Zurbarán

Promise

2011-02-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

Word made seed: a germination
dances quiet in its shell;
and by the wayside starts the blossoming
of a thousand little heads
inclining already toward sunrise.

Summer winds will tangle them
and winters lull to sleep
until the blush, the break, the beckoning
of faithful springs,

and the turning seasons will be to them a promise --

wavering ones: take root,
take rest and restoration.
I will make you innumerable,
yet count your every fibre.

The contours of your branches
will be outlines of my image
for the despised ones, the meek and contemned,
to adorn,
and your leaves will be a shelter to the fragile;
you will catch a thousand falling ones and never break.

And the promise gives life:
seed springs up sudden, blooms relentless,
word takes root and pollinates the earth
while seasons blow by on the wind;

then,
in the glow of a blazing harvest
heaven's readiness grows ripe,
the call descends and the free take flight,
a mist of tiny seeds
in one last migration, in one final sunset,

to be planted in a new world.

.:.

Freedom Song

2011-01-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

{I haven't written in so long... I miss this. Nice to feel the words pouring out, even if this prose is about as unrefined as it gets. This is about a new development that's been happening in my life recently... will talk about it more soon, but just want to share these vague tidbits for now...}

Perhaps it's better this way. To wait on His hand for daily water, to wait on His fields for daily bread. It's a far-off door, but it gives light enough for the sabbath, that I may learn what rest is. They are waiting too, I remind myself: the imprisoned messenger, the secret baptist, the persecuted teacher, the veiled disciple. Adopted orphans, widow brides — my kin, hoping for the heavenly things. I think of them as I wait on the miracle to inch its way to half past four.

"Go."

Oh how little my faith, that I trust the setting sun but doubt the Saviour's rising. Come as you are, and I answer back with blue jeans, sweater on shirt, bundled up and suede-booted, with fears and weaknesses and joys to lay into my Father's arms.

The sun is swaying low; the air makes visible my breath, and it is fitting, for I come to be made visible. I come for smiles and tears, for glances and greetings, for embrace and prayer-touch, for vivid Spirit, manifest grace, conspicuous faith.

A destination is a secret, and I keep mine in my ribcage and in my purse — the former, a heart-cry; the latter, heaven's correspondence, sent to me leather-bound with a return address called "Love." The living book breathes, prepares the heart to know the swell and surge of love.

Dizzying. Storm-tossed. Salty. Anchored. Still. This ship has no parlours, no first-class dining, no iron hull. She is really just a lifeboat, but I am drowning and if my pride prevents me from reaching, the sea will pull me apart. So I grow humble and find myself caught up to safety, with blankets and greetings and prayers, with shepherds and strangers and friends, with coffee and cookies and juice.

And it is all love, though it may not look like much — the stop, the walk through snow, the clattering staircase, the dingy and plain; this extraordinary and uncontainable home.

"Go."

And I steady myself for the song.

.

The Story Series

2010-08-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggy-friends,

I know I sound like a broken record; I've written 2 consecutive posts about how I'll start blogging soon, and I've broken that promise each time. Today, though, I got nostalgic and decided to take another dive into blog-land. Free-floating thoughts drive me crazy, and I've got many of those at the moment, so I need a place to pin them down and organize them and store them for safekeeping. I'm still struggling to find my normal, casual writing style—hopefully it's still lurking somewhere under all the pages academic essays that I had to do this year—so if my first few posts sound unbearably formal, try to bear with me anyway... I'm working on it.

I think I'm going to resurrect this blog by beginning a series about stories. Now that I think of it, I'm not quite sure how to define stories: I guess you could say that they're the processes by which different people, events, and situations get woven together and imbued with meaning. Don Miller does a much better job of defining story in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years—that's what first got me thinking about the concept. In the book, he describes how “editing” his life into a movie memoir stirred him to start looking for ways to “live a better story”—to accept conflicts and struggles as opportunities, to interact more closely with other people, to fashion memorable, meaningful moments out of his circumstances... in short, to make his life interesting and worthwhile.

Though I wouldn't say the book was groundbreaking, it kicked me into the habit of looking at my own life as a story. This mindset has proven to be both freeing and constraining. It's freeing because it helps me look past the pain of my struggles and see how beneficial they are in the grand scheme of things; it's constraining because it constantly forces me to ask, “What kind of message am I sending here? Is this choice going to develop my character in the right direction? What kind of ending might I miss out on if I turn back?” Seeing life as a story has made me more and more sensitive to “the big picture”—God's grand plan for humanity—and it's prompted me to think about how I'll the most of my little niche in that big picture.

So in this series, which I'll probably intersperse among more “normal” blog posts, I'll share a few glimpses of the stories and story elements I've been finding in my life and in the rest of the world. We, as a society, are enamored with stories... and I think there is some good in that, if put to good use. I'm going to explore that idea in the coming weeks. Hope you stay along for the ride... posts coming soon. :)

I know...

2010-05-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

... It's been ages. I'm not sure I can call my blog break a "hiatus" -- it was a full-out, AWOL desertion. But I'm going to do my best to come back this summer and fill you in on some of the stuff that's floating around in my head. Stay tuned for posts! It's going to be really hard to churn them out after writing only academic essays all year, but I've learned a lot about discipline this year, and I miss writing-for-pleasure terribly, so it seems like I've got the perfect recipe for a bloggy summer. :)

How has everyone been lately?

Thirsty

2009-04-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

breeze clingingly swings
from the tips of the stray
strands in her braids; unkempt.
she entertains little
shipwrecked ghosts of thoughts
as minutes fly on the drafts between
the windows open in her mind.

sky: grey and gold,
clouds collide in the pulse of the wind
meeting, passing, melting into
a directionless sea;
an expanse
that feels almost like stillness
and almost like infinity...

and not a mollecule of it has forgotten
the dust it was drawn from
on that creation morning.
there they will all return.
and while she wanders here, forgetting,
the very stones cry out...

harvest overflows onto her feet
as she passes by, but her hands
remain empty.
yet something must have stirred,
for, tentative, a prayer emerges --
silently she speaks,

lift up my face;

her eyes turn to follow the wind's transparent tracks;

break the storm like bread over me
let the wine pour --
drench me in your sacrifice, my salvation,
overwhelm me --
wash the very shadows out from under my feet
and teach me

to remember where the soul belongs,
so thirsty

is she,
for the golden-gilded pages
she reads each morning,
for the red letters, and all those numbers,

and the spirit that inhabits all the lives
that You've whispered in between its lines.

.

7:27

2009-03-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

It begins with a bird on a branch in my backyard.

I open my drawer and pull out my camera. Several soft clicks, and the screen clears; focused, meditative. Snap. Snap. The sound is startling in the day's-end cool silence, but it catches in the glass of the windowpane, and leaves the bird unfazed. She turns her head several times, searching for something. I relax my posture, lean on my elbows and wait for the perfect picture of flight. Stillness. The light fades in little increments, like someone is removing the sun, strand by strand, from the sky. I wait. Minutes yield nothing and my arms start to grow tired. There will be other birds, I tell myself. My feet shift, preparing to leave. But something in the air reaches out to pause me. It's as if God is telling me to linger.

Compelled, I allow my thoughts to slow; I melt into the pace of the approaching dusk. Particles and worries dissolve into the evening's stillness, leaving me grateful and pensive. The camera still aimed, my eyes drift elsewhere.

Unexpectedly, the bird takes off. My senses do not react for a few moments, and when my finger springs to the shutter release, it's too late; the branches are empty. Strangely, it doesn't bother me much; as I place the camera on my bed and return to the window, I am keenly aware of something greater than me unfolding. I know I am alone in this: surely, no one else is standing like me at their window, peering out from behind the fog of their breath into this mudane darkening, into this thickening night descending upon the city. No, nobody but me is watching this moment, and I feel as though I'm sharing a precious secret with God; witnessing something that no one sees but us two. I pick up a notebook and a pencil. The quiet grows quieter.

I draw my notebook near my chin and rest it against the windowpane to write. The words are growing dimmer, I strain harder and harder to discern the graphite from the page. This is not some magical, pink-tinged dusk. It is progressive colourlessness; a dim grey drinking up light and hue. Yet there is a certain iridescence to this dullness -- a tinge of comfort in this twilight's milky diffusion.

I watch the slow crawl of headlights as they light up the road in small, shifting patches. I listen to the coldness, and to the stillness, and feel the almost-touch of the light that emerges from the doorway of a farther room. The cold white frame of the building across the street. The flickering lamp on a neighbor's lawn. Earth covered in dead leaves, winter's debris. Candlelight through a curtained window.

This is real beauty; tangible, yet untouchable; this is the stream of poetry that runs between the paragraphs I write. These words are only a distraction, but they are all I can produce: scribbled sentences, breaths that catch upon the scratches on the surface of the sky.