Hymnal Thoughts

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Before now, I have been hesitant to state which is my favorite Christmas hymn, and honestly, that is because I couldn’t decide. But now I have an answer. Definitely have an answer.

As I drove around through the cold January air, the rain falling in sheets and the sky a slate grey blanket above me, my car was full of warmth. Yes, I was listening to Christmas music in January, plainly breaking the family “rule” about no Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. (When I am alone in my car and no Doc McStuffins soundtrack is being requested, I shall listen to what feeds my soul, thank you very much!) This song came on and stayed on repeat for most of the rest of my errand trip. I couldn’t get enough of hearing it, of singing it, of feeling it.

Without a doubt, “The First Noel” is my favorite Christmas hymn. There is no song that elicits that sense of thrumming anticipation and elation that the season embodies like it. No song that fills my soul to the brim and overflowing with that peaceful expectation, that serene joy that is all that Christmas means to me. It feels like song reaches into every part of my soul, flooding it with warmth and the desire to see light and love and hope everywhere, to see with my heart rather than just my eyes.

I want to keep that song, keep its core, its joy, anticipation, and watchful spirit alive in my life all the year through, not just Christmas. I want it to echo in my heart and in my life and spread out to others in the way I live each and every day.

PS. Thank you to my music teachers all through school for teaching me how to find and carry a part in a choral arrangement! I cannot tell you the joy I had finding that I could still sing along well enough to enjoy vocalizing along to this wonderful group of vocalists in their beautiful rendition.

The Spirituality of Fandom

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I don’t often do this. I actually rather avoid writing or posting about such happenings like the plague, but it has filled my mind all day. So here goes.

In the wake of the unexpected death of Alan Rickman and others this week and the outpouring of sadness, grief, and even reverence to their memories that has resulted, I have come to realize something. Our fandoms have become a spirituality, a faith of sorts. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, necessarily.

Our fandoms, like faith, have brought us near the untouchable. It has taken these untouchable stories, these untouchable characters, and made them as flesh. Flesh and blood and heart and soul, that we can hold close and know and love, without ever having met them or seen them with our own eyes. That faith renders them wholly real to us, not only the characters but also these people who have breathed life into them and into the ideals they represent that feed our souls.

In a society that already idolizes celebrities, I’m not calling for more of the same. However, I am more than willing to recognize and be grateful for the contribution that these people have made to imagination, soul-healing, and heart-hardiness in the face of a difficult, pain-filled, and broken world.

Thank you, all of you. We will not forget the light that you shared with us and have urged us to spread.

On Wish-Making

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People think that wish-making is an easy to-do. That you just say “I wish” and bing! there it is! Well, allow me to tell you: that’s absolute stupidity. Wish-making is a serious business and no one, and I mean no one, takes it seriously!

People just blurt out stuff without thinking about it. They think “I wish” makes us mind-readers. Serves them right when bad things happen.

“I wish to be rich.”

That’s it? Okay, you’ve just given me carte blanche to turn you into someone named Richard Wellington Freybrush the Third, but everyone calls him Rich.

“I wish to be wealthy.”

Better. But I could just make you the “wealthiest” internet celebrity (whatever the seven hells that is) ever, with not a real penny to your name. For gods’ sake, be specific!

“I wish to have excessive, extravagant wealth in spendable coin for the remainder of my life.”

Now that’s what I’m talking about. Specifics! You want results, you do the legwork and give specifics.

Take that Rampion/Rapunzel chick. You think she was born with that mane? Nope. I popped into the see the Black Forest Witch about a reference and there the little chit was. She saw my bottle fastened to my belt and, the next thing I knew, she was blurting out, “I wish I could have long hair forever!” All the witch could do was facepalm. If a desk had been there at the time, I swear her forehead would have made a respectable thump upon it.

Well, once the words are said, you can’t take them back, can you? No, you can’t, in case you were wondering. You can check it if you don’t believe me. It’s in the Sigils and Smoke Contract. Fine print.

So…what else could I do? I gave her long hair forever. No matter how she cut it, it was always down to her hips again next morning and would keep growing unless she cut it. Serves the stupid girl right. You think she would have learned something being raised by the Black Forest Witch and all.

Wish-making is no la-di-da business! It takes us centuries to train to become wish-granters and we take our jobs very seriously. So when you screw around with wish-making and make, quite frankly, stupid wishes, it insults us. So what do we do? We will give you stupid results. Not our fault. It’s what you asked for.

Everyone thinks they can be like Aladdin and trick wish-granters. Stupid Disney and their stupid movie. We aren’t idiots, you know? We’ve trained for this; we know the tricks, we know the loopholes. If we grant you something for free, it’s because we decided to, not because you’re so all-fire clever. Believe me, you’re not. Even Peter Pan isn’t that clever; he thinks he is but no, trust me. Tinkerbell has had him well in hand for the past 200 years and he has no idea just what he gave up with “I wish to be a little boy forever and have fun”. Please! Never grow up? Massive loss on his end and little skin off her pert little nose since Never Land itself maintains the Magic of such a massive and long-term granting rather than it coming from her personal stores. That’s why she was Wish-Granter of the Month for nigh on three-quarters of a century.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a few good wish-makers in my time. There was this lovely little immortal woman, petite little sword-wielding thing. The most striking green eyes. Now that woman! That woman was a customer of the highest caliber. You’ve never seen such detail in wish-making as she gave. Written out, party-of-the-first-and-second-parts, and all that lovely legalese. Smoke and air, I love working with her! But I digress.

In short: please, if you find yourself with a consultation from a wish-granter, do us a favor, would you? Show a little respect and be specific. Know what you want and speak it, clear and detailed. That way, we get to do our job and you get exactly what you want. Everyone is happy. For a while at least, in most cases (chances are three to one). After all, it is Magic.

Winter Whispers 

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The world is feathering around me, turning my cozy home into a silent scene in a snow globe. The frost frames the window pane, turning it into an artistic trope. The wind has plastered the sides of my little cottage in snow, and I can still see the trees outside tremble in its icy grip. The cold has become absolute, bespoken by its aura radiating from the panes like a pulse. 

Winter has arrived properly enough, fluffed its feathers, and settled in for its stay. Just how long it will sit upon the nest of the earth remains to be seen.  

To See and Be Seen

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The Doctor: Well?
Clara: Well what?
The Doctor: He asked you a question. Will you help me?
Clara: You shouldn’t have been listening.
The Doctor: I wasn’t, I didn’t need to. That was me talking. You can’t see me, can you? You look at me and you can’t see. Have you any idea what that’s like? I’m not on the phone, I’m right here. Standing in front of you. Please just…just see me. (Doctor Who, Series 8, Episode 1: “Deep Breath”)

This is the cry of every human heart, isn’t it?”

“Please, just see me.”

How we long to noticed, to be seen. For someone to have the desire and take the time to look past how we appear to be, past the carefully-crafted social mask that each of us has developed, and look for who we truly are. For someone to see and still embrace us in all our messy humanity and imperfect progress. We long to be a destination, not merely a stop on someone’s journey or a means to an end.

“Please, just see me.”

Seeing someone takes time, it takes effort, it takes stretching and being willing to listen rather than talk. Seeing someone means learning about them, their good and their bad. It means accepting them.

Being seen means vulnerability, courage, and showing our belly, as it were. It means revealing feelings, possibly secrets, struggles, and hard places. It means taking a deep breath and trusting someone else. Trusting not only that they will listen and hear us, but that they will not cast us aside upon the hearing. Being seen takes risk; it takes trust.

“Please, just see me.”

What would it be like if we chose to see others? I know that we all want to be seen but, in order to be seen, it means that we must be willing to see others as well.

A Broken Beauty

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This was my final piece of fiction written for my very first MES (Mind’s Eye Society) character before her retirement. She is still near and dear to my heart, a prettily manic, doll-obsessed Mekhet by the name of Dovasary Meredith Windemere.

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She felt a profound emptiness consume her as she gazed around their home. Leaving. After 107 years. Leaving. After she had sworn never to do so.

“It is the only way. It is better if they think us dead and gone. It is the only way to have peace.” Sebastian had spoken with a touch of sadness and resigned fervor.

The only way. They had tried so very hard to build this city, to do right by her. Yet they were threatened constantly for doing what was best for Muncie, for their home. Perhaps he was right and it was the only way.

But it did not making leaving any less painful.

“My home…my city…I am so sorry,” she whispered brokenly to the silent halls, “Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” the manse seemed to reply, in an all-too-familiar voice, “My love, my turtle-dove.”

If she wasn’t already dead, the words would have felled her cold. But, all of a sudden, she felt him. In her, around her, cold yet soft at the same time.

“Lucien? Impossible…” Dove’s lips trembled.

“Yes, Liebchen. I am here. I have found you again at last.”

She almost sobbed aloud. “Forgive me, Lucien. Please! We cannot stay; we have to leave.”

“I know, darling. And I shall go with you. I shall not leave you again.”

Then, she could see him before her, beautifully crystalline and translucent. Reaching out, his left hand enveloped her right and she could positively felt the soft lambskin of his grip–-supple and dark.

He smiled then and its beauty broke Dove’s heart.

“Dove,” Vincent’s voice sliced into the moment. He was standing ready with Dolly near him, clutching her Teddy. “It’s time to go.”

She nodded quietly, the barest hint of a smile tugging at her lips at the sight of her son and his likeness to her Lucien. “Yes, dearest ones. I am coming.”

One last look around and then, still holding his hand, she turned away forever. Vincent took hold of her left arm gently, guiding his sire away from the manse. Glancing down, he saw that, in her right hand, was clutched a worn lambskin leather glove; and her eyes shone with a faint glow, not unlike that of one has seen the face of their god and lived.

 

 

 

On Steps and Tears

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As I sit here in my quiet living room, wrapped in my ridiculously-comfy cable-knit poncho and relishing the absence of sound coming from my daughter’s room that tells me she’s asleep, I inhale the deepest and exhale the slowest I have all day (including the moments immediately following when I found said daughter had thrown her plate of mashed potatoes and corn down onto the rug). It’s like I can feel the world slowing down, quieting down, getting ready for the end of the day and forthcoming sleep. The television is off for the nonce, though I’ll probably indulge in some (countless) rewatching of “The Great British Baking Show” before bedtime.

Here we are almost a full week into 2016. It’s a thought that I am having trouble reconciling; it feels like it should have been longer than that right now and yet the days are taking their time a bit. I feel like I have accomplished a great deal and yet that I am falling behind on my To Do list. The decorations are coming down slowly. I’ve already written and submitted an article to the editors of The Well Written Woman. The laundry mountain is being chipped away at. I’ve cooked supper at home several nights this week. I’ve ready several chapters of a new book (you’ll find some favorite quotes from For the Love in the next post back). I’ve also been to the gym and kept up with my daily exercises. Pros and cons, progress and lag. But, on the whole, I find myself very pleased with how this year has begun. Baby steps.

I will confess that I have been busier than I had been expecting and need to work on being a bit more present with my little girl but I did take her out for her first snowfall play of this winter on Monday, which was wonderful. Then we sat on the floor and colored today before Mamaw gave us a call on Skype. So that was fun, particularly with me hilariously trying to defend my meticulously-colored picture from my daughter slapdash creativity. (I managed to snap a picture of my page for myself before surrendering my MLP: FIM coloring book to her mad genuis.)

I am looking forward to this year. I know that it is setting up to be challenging, difficult, or just plain hard for some in my life and it pulls my heart towards them, full of the desire to be there for them, even if there is nothing that I really, physically do for them. But I can be there for them. I can offer love and acceptance and an ear to listen. One of my goals this year is to speak less and listen more and offer as safe a place as I can for others. I don’t really have the words for how important this has become to me.

I have noticed firsthand of late just how ingrained it has become in us to not cry. Don’t cry. Whatever you do, don’t cry. And, if you do cry, apologize for your over-emotionality. Immediately. I am completely guilty of this and it breaks my heart to see those I love feel like they are putting too much on me or embarrassing me or themselves by crying. So I am retraining myself to never say, “Don’t cry”. (Oh, how hard that is with a three year old and those big fat tears over those chubby cheeks over the littlest thing.) Rather, I try to say, “It’s OK. Go on. I’m here,” and then just let them cry as they need. I am trying not to offer advice or platitudes or admonitions, or, really, even say anything aside from reminding them that I am right there (especially if it’s over the phone or Skype, as this is my verbal alternative to being able to hold their hand while they cry). Advice is not what they need from me in that moment. What they need is to be able release those tears, to release that emotion in a place where they do not fear being judged, condemned, or thought ridiculous. They don’t need “don’t cry”; they need “go ahead, you’re safe”.  And that is what I want to give these friends, family, and loved ones. I am a sympathetic crier so there will most likely be two people crying before all is said and done, and that’s okay.

2016 has had a good start, with goals and hopes in place and progress made. It might be little progress but it’s still progress and I am glad for that. Here’s to the progress continuing. Cheers, dears!

Reblog: My Favorite Badass

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This was too excellent not to share from Elizabeth Gilbert’s facebook page today!

I have so many absolute badasses in my life, to be honest. Those few of you to whom I spoke today, believe me, you ARE badasses and I love you dearly in all your excellent and awesome badassery. MUAH!

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WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE BADASS?

Dear Ones –

Our sweet friend Ruth Sze at www.doodlebubbledesigns.com posted this lovely drawing on Instagram yesterday and I love it so. She invited us to ponder who our favorite badass is right now, and I invite you to do the same, and to tag that person in your response.

My favorite badass this week is my friend Glennon Doyle Melton (Momastery) because she always uses her broken heart to heal a broken world. She is a tireless and generous love ninja, who is not afraid to be vulnerable, not afraid to risk connection, not afraid to share her scars and fears so that others do not feel so alone in their confusion.

Also, this week, somebody was mean to Glennon (which makes me become a crazy she-wolf of protection for my friend!) but Glennon refused to let it stop her from her ongoing mission of love.

My favorite badasses are all people who are not afraid to feel their feelings.

A real badass is not afraid to forgive.

A true badass is not afraid to sit in her sadness and anger and pain until she works her way through it — rather than lashing out in retaliation at the world, or making other people suffer for her pain.

A beautiful badass — in my eyes — is someone who has learned that before she can make friends with anyone else, she must make friends with the crazy shit-tornado who is herself. Because until we love our own crazy shit-tornado, we can’t love anyone else’s crazy shit-tornado.

A creative badass is anyone who is not afraid to share her imagination with the public — regardless of the criticism that may arise.

A generous badass is anyone who says, “I have more than enough for myself and I ALWAYS WILL — therefore, I will share whatever I have with you.”

A resilient badass is anyone who stands in the wreckage of failure and error and says, “Oops. Guess we better start cleaning this up…anybody got a broom?”

A brave badass is anyone who has ever asked for help.

An optimistic badass is anyone who believes that this broken world is still worth fighting for.

A smart badass is anyone who can set boundaries without being punishing or vindictive.

And a holy badass is anyone who knows that — beyond this whole wild and messy world — there is power at work greater than anything we can imagine…and that we are part of that story.

I am so lucky to be surrounded by SO MANY badasses. It would take forever to list them all. But today, I especially honor Glennon, who had a rough week and who keeps going…and for whom I will ride or die.

Now…over to you guys.

Who is your favorite badass today?

ONWARD,
LG

Settling Into This Next Version of Myself

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My watchword for this year is grace and one of the books that I am reading (and have been looking forward to for a long while) is Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards.

Quotes of the Day:

“Now fully able to cheer wildly for friends and colleagues, I am free to be me without the constrictive mesh netting around my heart, everyone else is free to be themselves, and I am thrilled about us all.” – pg 15

“You decide your day should contain laughter and grace, strength and security. You realize insecurity, striving, jealousy, and living in comparison will eventually define your entire life, and that is NOT the legacy you want.” – pg 16

“This is your place. These are your people. This is your beautiful, precious life. Probably about halfway done here on earth, you lay down angst and pick up contentment.” – pg 16

From Chapter 2: “On Turning Forty”.

This chapter is written as a small treatise from her now-forty-year-old self to those who are coming up behind her in their twenties. I am not yet forty but so much of this resonated with me, even at (only) thirty-two. What Jen writes here feels very much like what I am processing through right now.

“Oh, my stars, when I was twenty-nine, I was so hamstrung by what everyone else was accomplishing. Other people were my benchmarks, and comparison stole entire years. I lost much time in jealousy, judgement, and imitation. I just couldn’t find my own song (15).”

I could have honestly written this myself and it couldn’t be any more true. I lost years comparing myself to others and finding myself wanting or thinking that others found me wanting in important ways. I gave up a great deal of power to others over what I perceived was their disapproval or my being “too much”. It’s only now, quite a few years later, that I am finding a place of peace with myself and others, stopping the looking sideways so much, and, as Jen puts, it “developing some chops”.

My favorite quote, though, is at the end of this chapter:

“So, sure, your body and mind get whack, but I promise: you wouldn’t return to your twenties for all the unwrinkled skin on earth. You’ll like it here. You will love better, stand taller, laugh louder. You’ll pass out grace like candy. Real life will temper your arrogance and fear, and you will adore the next version of yourself. We all will (16).”

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The Woman in the Mirror, Part 3

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Author’s Note: If you do not want to think of me in any other context than my sweet, mild side, you may not want to read this. Fair warning!

The woman who stares back out from my mirror, I have seen several sides of her. I have seen her soft and wise and feminine. I have seen her coy and coquettish. But, tonight, I saw a different side of her, one that I really like but don’t see as often anymore. As such, I am always struck when I do see it.

The woman who stared back at me in the bathroom window was raw and comely, absolute blood-pumping sex appeal. Goals and all of that set aside, she loves her body, loves to take care of it, sees herself as beautiful, desirable, and rather revels in it. I was taken aback a bit at the glance she gave me. That smirk pursed and curled her lips as she shook out her hair after settling the form-fitting black tank top over her torso, the fabric clinging in all the right places. It was almost as if she was daring me:

Say it. You know you want to. And it’s true besides.

What? That you’re hot and totally full of rawr (and other words that I probably won’t write down but definitely list off in my head and leave to others’ imaginations)?

 Yes. Yes, you are.

She just kept on smiling, even blowing me a kiss as she pulled on my favorite top, the black lace panels sitting cunningly off her shoulders. My shoulders?

Yes. You are.

Yes. I am.

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