Brand new pillow

Brand new pillow.

First dreams on it, tonight.

What a reach of unfathomable, infinite possibilities.

The purity of this virgin-like moment is staggering. It's almost holy.

Almost. 

Remembering last summer.

I also have a new duvet cover and new pillowcases. They're yellow. Yellow is a happy color.

Remembering that the chosen theme for this year of 2013 was solitude. Realizing how true that has been over the past 6 months.

I'm considering going full recluse.

Just me and my virtuous, chaste pillow and my happy colored bedspread.

A book. Some paper. It's way past Lent and I'm feeling a strange desire to sacrifice something that I love in a spiritual manner.

A notebook. A pen. I'm slipping, slipping, slipping into another realm.

And as I begin to slip away- my dreams take over.

That was almost poetic.

Love me gently, brand new pillow.  Tender is this night, and vulnerable.

Open the shades. Let me watch the stars as if I could touch them with my hands.

Lord, my prayers are many. But tonight I have just one: take this beating heart- make of it what you will. Allow my soul to take leaping flight- far above my windowsill.

And let this be my prayer tonight as I drift quietly into my dreams. 

Remembering a quote. 

"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages." -Tennessee Williams. 

"I was never insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched." -Edgar Allan Poe.

You're up, brand new pillow.

This is your moment to shine. 

If Grace is an Ocean, We're All Sinking

Lovers,

What are the lies in your life?

The lies that you tell yourself- to make yourself believe that you're unworthy?

Make a chart.  List the lies.  Combat those with the truth.

This was an assignment for me today- in preparation for community group this week, reflecting over the sermon topic given on Sunday.

Spiritual warfare is used mentally and emotionally to crowd out the resounding cheer of love and salvation and mercy given to us by our Heavily Father, daily.

And we are too preoccupied to hear because of the overwhelming amount of lies that we are drowning in moment-to-moment.

"This should be simple enough," I thought- I am fully aware that I lie to myself often, and I know exactly what those lies are. 

So I sat down and began writing.

LIES:

• I am unworthy of anyone's time.
  
• The people I care most about in my life don't care about me at all.
  
• I am unforgivable.
  
• I am forgettable.
  
• I am unwanted.
  
• I am ugly.  Inside and out.
  
• I am unlovable.
  
• I am incapable.
  
• I am fat.
  
• I am insufficient.
  
• I am insignificant.
  
• I am responsible for fixing the sins of my family.
  
• I will never, ever, ever measure up.
  
• I will never achieve anything in this life.
  
• I am alone.
  
• I am always going to be alone.
   
• I must try harder.
  
• I will never be able to try hard enough.

These are just a few of the lies that I carry around with me on a day-to-day basis.

I know that they're lies.  I recognize that they don't hold an ounce of truth.




And yet, as I stared at the second column, under the heading "TRUTH", I realized I had nothing to write.

The truth.



What is the truth?

Sure- I know what the truth is.  I know the truth is that God already has forgiven me for every sin I've committed-past, present and future- and I know that I am created in His image, therefore I am beautiful and His Holy Spirit indwells me and therefore, I am of His royal bloodline, His royal priesthood, and should count myself as His holy daughter as well.

I am set apart.  I am chosen.  I am elect.  I am loved.


I am forgiven, and I am sought after, and I am redeemed, and His grace is sufficient for me.



Even after all of that, I still stare at that blank column on my yellow sheet of notebook paper and I feel a lump form in my throat.

There's a huge difference between knowing the truth and understanding the truth, lovers.



An even bigger difference lies between those two things and believing the truth.

So where am I today, lovers?

I am much further behind than I ever comprehended.

My whole life has been a battle.  I have been caught in spiritual warfare for the entire course of my humanity and I've only just begun to realize how many times I have let the enemy enter in.  I've only just understood how many battles I've let him win- how many battles I have surrendered to him before they even began.

The first lie on my list of devilish persuasions is this:  "I am unworthy."

I know what my first truth shall be.

Directly across the page from the lie, I write in small, quivering letters:

"I still feel unworthy, even though I know I am not."

This might not be a blazing, thundering, trumpet-shout of confident truth, lovers.

Maybe I have misunderstood the assignment.

But this statement is my truth today.

I am transitioning from "being" to "feeling," and while that may not seem like a large victory to you, (or even to me), I know that it's still a victory regardless.

I have to learn to receive the love and the grace that He gives with an open heart.  I have to learn to forgive myself as He has forgiven me- I still have to learn these things, even though I already know the answers.

I have to learn the "how" in order to live my way into the truth.

And that all looks really humbling, and I feel like I have been brought to my knees today.

But that's okay, because even though I'm bad at accepting His love- He will never stop loving me unconditionally.

And that is all the comfort I could possibly need at this moment.

"He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy

When all of the sudden, I am aware
Of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

Oh, how He loves us so.
Oh, how He loves us.
How He loves us, so.

So we are His portion,
And He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.

Heaven meets earth likes a sloppy wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way

That He loves us
Oh, how He loves us.
Oh, how He loves us.
Oh, how He loves."

Part 2: When the Earth Fell in Love with the Sky

Part Two of a Two-Part Series on Love and Legends:

I was a little girl once, warm and quiet underneath the legends of origin.

They say the sky came down and made love to the earth, and thus, the gods were born.

He was captivated by her beauty.  She smiled under his protection.

I am not a little girl today.

Your smile is as old to me as the legends of this world- and your eyes are as warm as the protection of the sky over the earth- and when I close mine, I smell dust. 

I smell bone.

And behind my eyelids, I see a storied beginning.

When the Earth fell in love with the Sky:

She laid there, full of dust and bone, and gazed up at the cool, distant expanse of blue. She was silent- as silent as the earth could be before she was filled with life.  Lonely and quiet.  Her rivers were deep, but they were empty.  Her mountains were tall, but they were empty.  Her forests, and oceans, and valleys, and jungles, and deserts were empty.

When Night fell, she watched the way he pined after Day- and distantly she wondered.

Sometimes, Earth dreamed.

She didn't know it, but she was dreaming of lovely things, such as peaches and swing-sets.  Keep smiling, I remember, too.

Sky watched Earth from above- and was amazed by his own reflection in her waters.  Neither understood what the other was.

Day broke- Night passed.  Steam ran down from the high places and Wind began to play a song through the grassy low places and the tops of the trees.

I believe in a different story of origin.  But even now I think of these two hopeless, lovely beings from time to time- and I breathe in the pine trees, I gasp at the glory of the mountain- I seek after the sounds of you cooking me breakfast in the wee hours of the morning- and I wonder, what would it have been like to be Earth?

Take this sad song.  Make me better.

I've been meaning to tell you, dinner's at six.

In and out of days, time passed as the Sky continued to hover above Earth- how much time? Can anybody ever know?

One Twilight, while Day and Night were lost in the glow of each others present luminescence- Sky understood.

He spoke to Earth silently, in a whisper. Reached down a hand to clasp hers, strong.  "Cross over with me."

And then, Night was over- and a beautiful, acoustic sunrise was born.

With it, came the fish to swim in the rivers and oceans- and the beasts to inhabit the fields- the many, favored birds which belonged both to Sky and Earth, and earned a special place in both of their hearts.

"And it was all yellow," plays from your radio.  I am no longer lost in thought about these ancient legends of origin... Have I ever told you that you smell like something beautiful from my childhood?

Open.  Love is on the way.

The joy of the my heart is golden.  That is, factually, a shimmering shade of yellow.

Love rejoices with the truth, a letter written very long-ago to a church in Corinth, tells me this.

Listen- can you hear the noise of the bittersweet?

These steel strings greet outstretched fingertips, and I, too, remember that time you sheltered me from the wind.

In the hazy stretch of evening-time, I can hear the fluttering of damselfly wings, and the gutting, distant call of the loon.

Memory brings to mind a vulnerability deeper than the mysteries of this old world- and I stand humbled in the light of a Savior who makes my weaknesses turn to beauty in your beholden eyes.

These country roads- will they really take me home? 

I look down and my apron is full of apples.  Sometimes it is full of flour. Full of cans.  Full of walnuts.  It is always full of life.  I cast my eyes down the hall and I know they slumber there.  The tinies.

Tiny fingers.  Tiny ears.  Tiny eyelashes. Tiny freckles- like mine.   Tiny toes.

Rust.  Rain.  Warm ceramic in my hands.

Your hands on my steering wheel- and I don't even mind?

Whisper.

Sometimes, I close my eyes and I wonder what it must have been like to be Earth, all those legends ago, when the Earth fell in Love with the Sky.

Sometimes, I think I know.

Dust.  Bone.

Part One: When the Night Fell in Love with the Day

Part One of a Two-Part Series on Love and Legends.

When the Night fell in love with the Day:

It was a world of street-corners, piano keys and coffee foam.

Black and white were the sidewalks of Paris in Autumn. Blackest of blacks, like nylons on skin.  Afternoon warmth, speckled, like glittering eyeshadow on the face of the earth.

For a few moments- in the earliest of the day, and during the latest of night, they met. Dancers of kitchen tiles, and living to the fullest point of tears.

When the Night fell in love with the Day:

It was fragile.  And deep. He was titanium and she was satin. Love, they breathed, was not self-seeking.  Love is easy. There was comfort in grey skies, a world in which they could both almost meet.

The left puzzle piece absorbs the right puzzle piece- the bookshelves and the ironing boards cohabit with beauty and  indie rock. "Flash. Bam. Alakazam. Wonderful You Came By."

Stand on your firmly planted feet.  If I call you darling- will you be my fairytale? Will you make a wish of me? Pray without ceasing, Night, for your Day is almost at hand.  Twilight and Dawn shine like twinkling lights, they are merry and pregnant with hope for your future- down below on Earth's old crust, a Woman wears polka dots in the freshly falling snow.

A Man catches one snowflake on his tongue, and smiles. Woman's heart trembles with feeling.

Fitzgerald titters, "You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known." And you, Night- you envelop these words for they capture the way you love Day, with all-encompassing fervor.

Will the waiting ever cease? Down on Earth, you watch as pincushions are prodded, and notebooks are filled completely.  Why are there so many words? Words on paper.  Words on tape.  Words on hearts.  So many words and yet you look at Day, Night- and all your words are gone.

Life as you have always known it- for eternity and beyond- is gone.

Suddenly, there are street-corners again.  Piano keys, and coffee foam.

And in front of you are eyes of green- sea green, which remind you of all that you fear, and all you deeply, deeply love, and you are no longer Night.

You are Man.

She is no longer Day.

She is Here.   It all begins with her.

Titanic.

What I really want out of life, what I actually need, is to spend my life with someone who will understand how I feel about the healing, familiar, powerful safety in a favorite movie.

I want someone who understands my need for comfort in a very specific way. I can't handle someone who would be annoyed or confused. I just need understanding.

Sometimes I am an incredibly fragile person. All of whom know me figure this out at one point or another.

Rarely, people respond in a way that is soothing. Mostly they respond with the well-intentioned desire to fix or change and in the end, I become more fragile than I started out.

What I really want, and what I really actually honest-to-goodness need, is someone who will sit here with me, snacking on this bowl of grapes balanced in my lap and watching Titanic.

I don't need someone to understand how I feel about the movie itself, I realize that people these days don't like Titanic. It's begotten some ridiculous sort of reputation for being passé, antiquated and "overly emotional."

I'm sorry- what is the purpose of acting? To evoke emotion?

I digress.

I don't need someone to understand or love the movie the way I do, what I need is for someone to understand what the movie means to me on an emotionally comforting level.

It's like drinking Gatorade and eating Tapioca when I'm sick.

It's homey.

It's supportive. And sturdy. Like a good armchair.

I just want someone who will sit here quietly with me. Someone who is forgiving of my repetitive habits.

There are plenty of comforting habits that I can do alone, things I don't need another presence around for. I do not ask for anyone to understand my need to walk alone periodically- or to understand my frenzied inspirations at large, difficult French meals.

I don't even need someone to understand my love for the ocean, not really. My own love has been enough in that respect.

But this is different.

This is the one thing above all other significant trivialities.

I need someone who will watch Titanic with me.

Someone who won't judge my tears every single time.

Someone who won't be jealous of my momentary relapses of falling in love with Leonardo DiCaprio over and over again.

Someone who accepts my unorthodox manner of combating sadness with more sadness.

So please, my love, if you're out there, not waiting- because you can't wait for something you're not expecting- but just existing, or if, in a strange and funny world, you happen to be reading this right now- prepare yourself.

I won't ask for much. I really won't.

But I am a fragile heart, and if I give you mine, please treat it right and please, bear my grievances quietly. Hold my hand, re-fill this bowl of grapes, watch me repeat these scripted sequences from memory and pass no judgement on me for my instabilities and frailties.

That's all I really need.

So I'm Going to Become a Swimmer

Did you know that octopuses can recognize and familiarize human faces?

So that means that if you visit your local aquarium on an almost- monthly basis, that gorgeous 8-armed creature in the viewing tank with the narrow-slit eyes does notice you- not only does he notice you, he remembers you.

And if you're that douchebag tapping on the case, or bobbling the surface of the water, trying to get the octopus to grab your finger, and he remembers you- he's likely to turn a vibrant shade of aggressive red and retreat to the opposite side of the tank.

But if he just stares back at you, moves closer, and his coloring is smooth and pale- does not change in pattern, density or shade- he's likely to approve of your presence.

And maybe, just maybe, he looks forward to the next time you two can have another wordless conversation.

Lovers,

I've decided to become a swimmer.

I mean that literally and figuratively.  Professionally and recreationally.  Purposefully and accidentally.

2 things:

1.  I have been promised surf lessons on the condition that I train myself by working up to the physical capacity of surviving daily 45-minute lap sessions and by learning how to hold my breath for at least two minutes.  (This is not at all an impressive accomplishment- most professional surfers can hold their breath for up to 4 minutes or longer if the dangerous occasion arises, but hey, 120 seconds is a long freaking time for recreational swimmers, okay?!)

I'm fairly certain that the only reasons my friends have promised me these lessons is because they're positive I won't stick with it.  But they have no idea what my endurance is capable of- and they also have no insight into the desire I've had to surf for my entire life, and they are completely oblivious to the fire it burns in my soul every. single. day.


In effect, I HAVE TO PROVE THEM WRONG.  I must prove them wrong on a strictly competitive level, and on a level much deeper than mere competition.  If this is my only shot in life to ride a wave, then, shoot- I better start taking it seriously, right?

2. I have not only decided to swim for surfing, but I have realized recently that marine biology is, in all honesty, where it's at, future-wise.  I mean let's be honest folks, from the days of my toddling youth, scampering in the woods digging for salamanders and asking my mother to let me keep potato bugs as pets, to my high school summer days spent volunteering at the Oregon Zoo, holding cockroaches  and cleaning endless piles of goat poop and loving EVERY minute of it, to standing in the freezing, winding, raining elements for hours and hours during the day just to be able to share in a Midwesterner's first exciting contact with a green sea anemone at Haystack this past year, I'm sort of a born naturalist.

My parents used to buy me shark encyclopedias for my 8th birthday, and for Christmas, and whenever we visited aquariums, which I loved.  One of my earliest memories involves Shamu.  I had a book, I remembered the stories on the television- I was in love with that orca. 

Intensely little known fact about me: Free Willy used to be my favorite movie of all time.

The first time I ever went to Seaworld, I almost cried because I wanted to work with dolphins so bad I could hardly stand it.

Let's not forget that I watched Animal Planet and Discovery Channel more than I ever watched cartoons when I was growing up. 

Shark Week is my favorite week of the year.

Aquariums literally soothe my anxiety.  I recently discovered this, because a few weeks ago I had a panic/anxiety attack relapse for the first time in over a year and the only thing that sounded soothing was to be inside an aquarium- lucky for me, the Portland Aquarium recently opened, and so I hi-tailed it over there "ASAPLEASE" and for the next 1.5 hours as I silently watched the marine world around me, I felt incredibly calm.



I  mean, I pay money to watch the newest ocean documentaries.


All I EVER want to write about, and all I ever do end up writing about, really, are fairy tales about mermaids and lengthy descriptions of the sea and all of the life within it, and  I use wave metaphors, and sand metaphors, and ocean metaphors in literally everything I write.

Okay, okay- remember when they found that giant squid off the coast of Japan recently?

You do not even want to KNOW how excited I got about that.  I talked about it for DAYS.  Just ask my family.  They remember that, too.


I have an entire board on pinterest dedicated to the photography of coastal reefs and ocean creatures. That pinterest board makes me happier than ANY OTHER PINTEREST BOARD I'VE EVER MADE.  Including the one solely for dreadlocks, and the one for trucker hats, and the one for my ideal MAN.

.... I had a point to all of this.....

Oh yeah.  The point is, that if I do follow this marine biology trail of bread crumbs- I'm going to need to be a strong swimmer.  Especially because the path I'd like to take with it involves researching the behavioral science of sharks in the wild, which, as you can probably ascertain, involves open sea dives.  Lots of them. (By the way, I can't help but feel like that just makes me sound cool.)

So. 

Swimming. 

My new goal is to spend at least 5 days (preferably 6, in a perfect, idyllic world, 7) a week swimming for as long as I can- until I can at least get to 45 minutes a day. Then after I meet that goal, I'll probably set a new goal, of an hour- or an hour and a half.  Maybe someday I'll be able to hold my breath for 4 minutes, too.

So I tried it out yesterday for the first time- I'm already itching to get back into the water.  It's day 2 and I'm already dreaming of bumper stickers that read, "I'd rather be swimming,"  and taking classes on breathing techniques and that cool rock-walking -under-the-surface-of-the-water training you see in all the surf movies.

I'm starting off as a pretty strong swimmer, I learned young and fast and practiced often when I was little in my grandparents in-ground pool.



I didn't last anywhere near 45 minutes, but I'm staying positive.  I still felt proud of my 20 minutes, nonstop ten full laps- I wanted to keep going because even though every inch of my body was burning, I was having FUN.

But my legs were about to start cramping- and the pool was 10 feet deep, and I decided soundly that it was not quite a good day to drown.

So I packed up and went home feeling intensely invigorated.

I'm excited about this new phase of life, lovers.

Something is stirring and it feels real good.  Real scientific, and real practical- but real good.

Here's to the future, and to this summer- and for motivation, and discipline- and research.


Maybe, just maybe I'll reward myself with that December 2013 plane ticket to Hawaii for Pipeline, after all. I mean, if I accomplish my goals this year, I'd say I might actually deserve that by the end of 2013:)

Wish me luck, and strong lungs.