In Just One Week

Last Wednesday, a mere one week ago, I was doing something completely and utterly different than I am today.  I was sitting at a crude desk, surrounded by first graders. The bench was tight as two little bodies sat and I occupied the last bit, my long legs continuing down the aisle. How does one sit ladylike when she’s wearing a dress and sitting 2 and half feet off the dirt floor? I attempted.

I was starting to loose my voice as I tried to talk over the kindergartners next door, their voices coming through the thatch walls. “Ok, and now write, ‘I am’…that's correct ‘i’…am…’a,’’m.’ Now write your age. Write how many years you have. That’s right, now ‘years old’…” I continued. “Faith, sweetheart, I need you to now write ‘I like’ and then what you like to do…Princess are you finished? Can you please read Christian his letter?”

In the moment it was both a huge challenge and exhilarating. It was amazing how much they could do and at the same time how much they have to learn.

I loved first grade. I remember things about first grade that I don't remember about other years of school. I remember really learning how to read and doing math problems. I remember learning how to address a letter and having both a mouse and chickens as class pets. My teachers were a little crazy, I’ll admit, but in the best way possible. It was all so that we would learn.

As I sat in that first grade classroom for the third sweltering day, the day where I knew most of their names and knew the ones that were helpers and the ones that just needed extra attention, I saw their potential. They didn't have pencil boxes, overhead projectors, incubators or tubs of markers. But just like my first grade teachers, their teachers wanted them to learn and grow and excel. 

As we all together inched {and I mean snail pace} towards finished letters, I couldn't help but have love and joy overflowing within me. Such a simple act, writing a letter, but what a profound impact. Each child went home with a letter and a photo of the person who took the time to send them care. And each child wrote a letter. It may have been done with me muttering “oh dear” under my breath, without edits {and thus a few crossed out words} and very much in colored markers. But they did it. They wrote them. They struggled and fought through.  And I was so very proud.

Pictures coming soon!

Challenges of Growing

 

I planted a few things a few weeks ago.  I was preparing to do an Instagram post and get all artsy.  There was all this prep for real life.  It was slightly absurd.  And I decided to just dig in.  Literally.  I decided that it was ok to be messy.  My fingernails had dirt under them for days.  I washed them many times, to the point of needing lotion after every wash.  Frankly, an unnatural thing for me. 

I dug in, to the messy side of life.  Once I made the decision I was gleeful.  It was exhilarating.  I dug and planted, patted, and watered with abandon.

Some of the seeds will come up.  They are finally coming up.  It’s just 2, but it’s a blessing.  I am so thankful for the rain, so I wouldn’t forget to water these fragile biological lives.  But some of the seeds won’t come up.  They were doomed from the beginning.  They were never going to be, no matter how carefully handled.

See, there are two things I take away from this.  There will be dreams, no matter how big {these are bulbs we’re talking about} that are not going to happen.  They were an idea, which was not firmly rooted.  They were doomed from the beginning.  But that does not mean that they never should have been planted, nurtured, and hoped for.  Most of all hoped for.

The same goes for the messy side of life.  There are arguments that we can dig for just the right information, argument, rebuttal.  But the thing is, were not going to win it.  Not that battle.  And that is ok.  We can not win them all.  We can not always be right, we can not always have beautiful flowers without the dirt beneath our finger nails.  For if we did not enter into the messy, we would not fully understand the challenge of growing.

I hope for those seedlings and bulbs to grow.  I want to see the dirt give way to beautiful life.  I want the reminder that beautiful things come out of the messy, hard, challenges.

The challenges are what make life a beautiful adventure.

Worlds Collide

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I love seeing people become friends and connect.  I love the stories of how people met, or know each other.  One of my best friends and I love to tell the story of our first meeting.  We even fight about it and cut in on each other like an old married couple.  It’s great fun!

Lately I’ve found my connections are varied, wide, and cross over.   Part of it, but not all of it, is the fact that I grew up and lived in the same neighborhood for my whole life.  And I don’t live in a small town.

I should also note that I went to public school, but not my neighborhood {two blocks out my front door} high school.  This means my circles were broadened.  I also went to a big university, ok moderately big, but lots of room for meeting people.

Last week, I went to a meeting of college and post college people, and my worlds collided in one room.  There were people from my high school, people that I knew when they were 7, and people I met last weekend.  There were people I’ve known for most of my life, people I’ve known for a few months and people I’ve known for a few weeks.  And it was crazy because some of them knew each other.   Even last night I got asked by a friend that was there that night, ‘How do you know so-and-so?’

The reasons we know each other are crazy.  It can by choice or circumstance.  It can grow or can trickle off.  It takes work to keep up contact, yet sometimes people collide.  And when we collide we cross over, above, and underneath each other.  We create a web.  We become intertwined.  Our stories although our own, become a part of another’s through connection and relationship.

Even when you know no one in a place, there is a connection.  Someone you know, knows someone or something about that place.  Somewhere there is a connection.  And believe me you can find it.  But it takes listening, it takes sharing, and sometimes it takes lots of questions over a long period of time.  I promise you, you have connection.  We were meant to build relationships and relationships {most of them} are built out of connections.  Isn’t it crazy wonderful how they shape our stories!

How are your worlds colliding?  How do you know so-and-so?  Was yours a chance meeting or a deliberate collision?  What’s your craziest world collision story?

Happy Heart Day!

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Rain

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Today it’s raining.  While I usually put on music while I work {ahem…working to find work} today I am just listening.  The rain makes beautiful noises and it reminds me of kindergarten; nature walks, leaf rubs, muddy shoes, puddle jumping.  Sound. 

Our world is so loud.  It doesn’t need to be, but it is.  Water makes some of the most beautiful noises.  A few weekends ago a friend and I went paddle boarding out at Santa Cruz. {I know, I was at the beach and in the water in January.  Crazy talk} While we were out, cruising, and getting mad at the boats making wakes, she remarked that this was her quiet.  That is what refreshes her soul. 

Today, the sound of the rain on the roof, hitting the brick patio, sliding down the thirsty plant, is refreshing me.  The world is making music.  This time around I’m happy to listen.

 

{And I’m happy that we have rain in dry California!}

Tuning and Pruning

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been thinking about tuning and pruning lately.  It’s the perfect season right now.  Spring is coming out in beautiful flowers, longer days, and peaceful sunsets.  And time is slipping and swishing past.

But the reason I’ve been thinking about tuning is for my love of music.  I was thinking about how I regret in some ways not pushing myself more to learn an instrument when I was young.  I think I was fearful of the time and commitment that it would take to practice.  I was fearful of failing expectations.

And now I sit in the coffee house just off campus.  There are so many things that are buzzing about this place, but the one that stands out is the man tuning the piano.  It’s the most atrocious sound.  It goes above all the other noises, above the people talking, and the typing, and paper crinkling. 

It stands out. 

It’s different and unusual, but that’s not why it stands out.  It stands out because it sounds awful.  It takes time hitting the keys and hearing horrible noises to make the piano just right.  And in the same way the tuning in our lives is accomplished.  It takes time to be refined, tuned, and form new habits.  It takes time to deal with the problems and the issues. 

Every so often we need to be tuned and it is a process.  Its takes work and it can be awful.  We want to run away from the pain that we hear or feel or that is a part of the process.  But there is hope.

In the end, after the tuning, the piano makes beautiful music.  The sound that was once horrible is one that draws people in.  From the broken and messiness comes the beautiful.  The process makes the end note that much sweeter.  Refining in the tuning and pruning becomes beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Conversations of Joy

I've been away for awhile.  Blogging could not be a priority.  And even in the midst of that, I was still writing.  My thoughts still poured out on a page.  Nothing bad happened, there was no catastrophe, I just wasn't posting.  There were things in life that were more important and those things took time and attention.

This was written awhile ago, but I can express these sediments today as well.  Happy Sunday!  Happy Cinco de Mayo!

How do we discover joy?  I think as others have said before me that joy is found in the little things, the things in which we stop and are thankful.  And if it true that we find joy in the things we are thankful for then I am thankful for conversations.  Conversations bring me joy; especially conversations that come from nowhere, in a coffee shop, in the park, on the bus.  They are of an introductory nature.  A catching up on life and the things that make it beautiful.   A way to see the world as a place where passion and discovery grows.  People know things.  They know what makes their world tick.  They know what makes them excited.  They know more than I will ever know.  And they can do more things than I will ever learn to do.

Oh life is beautiful.  Have a conversation and discover joy in relationship.