life

In My Lady Danbury Era

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Yesterday, on my Instagram, I posted one of my favorite cos-bound outfits from this year: Lady Danbury from Bridgerton in one of my favorite color palettes of peony pink and plum. I noticed, with some measure of joy, that my silver streak at the front of my hair is becoming even more noticeable, too, which one thing that I adore about Lady Danbury’s style. In the caption for my post, I noted that I am still very much in my Bridgerton/Lady Danbury era and that has stuck with me over the last 24 hours. The way I described Lady Danbury was classy, smart, sharp, and heart for days. She is undoubtedly my favorite character in the Bridgerton series and that may easily be attributed to my own “advancing age”. As I have entered my forties, I have been finding myself less and less concerned with outside forces, as it were.

I want to look and feel good, but I care less about how my body and personal style stack up against social beauty standards.

I want to be respected, but I care less about pleasing people just so they will like me, even my students.

I want to be around people who feel like home to me, so I care less about being seen as “antisocial” because I get to pick with whom I expend my energy.

I want to live my life in a way that is true to my faith, and I don’t care if my love for and welcoming of others make people uncomfortable. (I mean, when was the establishment ever comfortable with Jesus, after all?)

The older I get the more I realize that I want to be a combination of Lady Agatha Danbury and Lady Violet Bridgerton: sharp, smart, classy, and heart-full. I want to be fierce in my defense of those who need it, gentle and generous when souls are weary or hurting, sharp in my dress and comfortable in my own beauty, and strong to shore up loved and dear ones when they need it.

As a former people-pleaser, this personal transformation is proving to be nothing short of foundation-rocking. Growing up, I cared so much about what people thought of me and how that reflected on my family that I drove myself to distraction to be perfect, to live up to expectations…to be the diamond of my community as it were. It has taken me the majority of my life to reach a point where I am now concerned with my own happiness with my life and the truth and integrity of my own being. Am I being true to God and what I feel He is saying to me? Am I being true to myself and the woman in whose skin I always want to feel desperately at home? Am I doing what is not only good for others but good for myself?

In my 41 years, I have won, I have lost, I have worked, I have achieved, I have loved, and I have been hurt and disappointed, just like everyone else around me. But, as Lady Danbury says, the benefit of having lived a life is that “I have earned the right to do whatever I please, whenever I please and however I please to do it.” I know that I am far from done with living my life, but I do like the fact that I am getting to this point of doing what I enjoy and what is good for me without the same debilitating fear that was my companion in my first few decades. Are there things that I still need to be mindful of? Of course! But I am enjoying solidifying my core while still softening my edges.

Stark Bright Moments in the Snow

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Late this morning, the snow began to fall. We have not had a proper snowfall this winter and today seemed desperate to make up for that. It has been snowing for close to 8 hours while the world has transformed. And quieted.

I know I have written before about the profound silence of snowfall and the peace that it brings me. Today, when I got home with my kiddo, I let them thump their way upstairs while I took my sweet time divesting myself of my things. When I heard their bedroom door shut and knew my husband to also be safely ensconced in his office, I pulled my arm warmers back on, wrapped up in a fleece shawl, and slipped out the front door to sit on our porch to watch the snow fall.

As I sat there, I let the silence of the snow wrap around me. After hours, days, a week of words and movement and change and work, I deeply needed silence. Even if just for a few moments. So I sat very still and watched my little neighborhood become Narnia as the outside lamps and lights of the houses turned on amidst the swirling snow. Snowfalls can make the familiar magical, the rush slower, the busy calmer. I welcomed it, breathed it in.

I sat there until my fingers grew cold beneath my shawl and the wool of my arm-warmers. But, before I could move to go inside, I was surprised by a flash of color through the white. Bright red. A cardinal. Then another shot by to join the first in the neighbors’ tree, shaking the snow from branch to ground as they hopped from limb to limb.

I smiled to myself and could not help but think, a story line unfurling in my mind like the runner on a dining room table. “Cardinals love the snow. They love to splash and flap in it, washing their ruby feathers until they shine and their color glows bright against the stark white. They are one of Winter’s favorite ornaments.”

The Edges of Mercy

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We often define mercy as giving someone better than they deserve. Dr. Barry H. Corey of Biola University wrote in his book Loving Kindness about having a “firm core with soft edges”. Edges that are givable, shapeable if mercy is needed, but that surround a solid, strong core of love and integrity. That is what teaching feels like at times, honestly: needing to have a solid core with soft edges.

When a student makes a poor judgement call, I have a choice about which edge I show that student: a sharp one or a soft one. At my core, I’m going to do what is best for my student, but how will I get them there? I can lambaste them for their poor decision and cut them to the quick with that sharp edge, filling the cut with shame. Or I can address their choice more softly, laying out the facts before them and the reality of their poor choice in a way that makes sense. I can let them see it how I and others see it, what it tells us about their core, and can hold them accountable in a way that hopefully helps to solidify and strengthen that core.

This is mercy. The chance to understand, learn, and try again–do better. Yes, mercy can be squandered, the chance refused, or the lesson ignored. But that choice is not my responsibility. My responsibility is to offer the mercy.

Mercy is challenging. Mercy is hard. Particularly, when the other person’s choice or action angers or hurts mercy. Mercy is often so hard because it involves us thinking about what will benefit the core of the other person, what will help them be better while still holding them accountable. That can be a difficult line to walk.

However, we are called by God to do justice and love mercy. Having a solid core with soft edges is where our merciful strength comes into play. I am hoping and praying that, as I continue into this year, I continue to solidify my core and soften my edges. The world we live in makes it so easy for edges to harden and sharpen, just to be able to survive in an environment that has become very harsh. As Vonnegut admonished: “Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard.” Let’s love mercy and hold our firm core with soft edges so that we may welcome others in gently and help them strengthen their cores, too.

What is Right and Good

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Yesterday, I reposted an old Twitter post by Stephen Bryce that starts out “I am utterly convinced that God will have all kinds of grace if we got the theology wrong…” It continues on to say that we might be more upsetting to Him is if we got the part about loving people, seeking justice, and being merciful wrong, a statement mined from my favorite verse of Scripture, Micah 6:8. My heart leapt the first time I read this. Yes!

I fully believe that God will have compassion on us if we got our theology and eschatology wrong, if we got our Scriptural interpretation a bit off. But if we have chosen to love others with kindness, seek justice for those who need it, show mercy to those to whom life has been harsh, and live our faith humbly and gently in the way He commanded, I fully believe that God will smile upon us at the end. “Welcome home, Dear One.”

Is it possible that I am wrong? Of course it is! I am only human; I am no theologian; I am not gifted with deep discernment in Biblical matters. But, to be honest, I would much rather err on the side of love, justice, and humility while I live this life. Jesus was not dogmatic; He always put others first. Before Himself, before the Temple and priests, before the Sabbath. He reached for people, not pedagogy or precept.

It feels a little like how I teach. I would rather reach for improving my students’ hearts and empathy for others rather than skyrocketing their test scores. I’d rather teach them to take risks in the course of doing good than clinging to the rules as their validation. Perfection does not equate to a well-lived life.

“But I did everything right!”

“But, dear one, did you do anything good?”

Starting Back at the Beginning

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In fewer than 48 hours, I return to the classroom after our two-week winter break, and whew! That letdown is hitting hard this year. I have done myself a great service in that I gave myself several days of absolute planless laziness. Hours to just read, nap, watch movies, etc. I needed that, desperately. Usually, I would be kicking and cursing myself right now for such stupidity because I would be neck-deep in grading for report cards that are due next week. However, this year, by some miracle, 95% of the grading is done already, so I thankfully do not have that particular stress currently on my soul.

That doesn’t stop me from being an anxious, sad puddle of a person right now, though. Last night, as I desperately tried to sleep after a very mentally-taxing evening, all my brain could do was think about my classroom and my first lesson next Tuesday. Then I had a random thought (yes, even more random than normal):

“Do I even remember these kids’ names?”

Vacation-related memory atrophy is absolutely a thing. At the end of the school year, my brain shuffles out most of the 150+ names that I had to memorize because it knows that in just a few short weeks, I will be shoving a whole new set of faces and accompanying names into its databanks. However, on the heels of this particular random thought came another:

“If I am struggling to remember what name goes with what face…can I really expect these teenagers to launch right back into schoolwork off the bat? Will they even remember how things work in our classroom? Have they even charged their Chromebooks once during break?”

So I am considering migrating my currently planned lesson and replacing it with a refresher course on how to “do school” after two weeks off. Maybe we could all use a day to start back at the beginning.

That can be scary sometimes, can’t it? Starting over? Starting back? Beginning again? And yet…here we are…at the beginning of another year. We are literally starting back at the beginning. So, with that in mind, why are we not willing to give ourselves the grace that comes with starting over, with being new at something?

We have never seen 2024 before; it is brand new to all of us. These days are still shrink-wrapped and shiny, and we are still wobbly on our new-year legs. It hurts my heart that we expect ourselves to barrel into this year as if we are old hat at it. We aren’t. It’s new; it’s different. Maybe we can allow ourselves to approach it the way we approach a new experience or new skill: one step at a time, with the willingness to take it slowly and learn what’s needed, and giving ourselves and others the grace to say, “It’s okay; that didn’t work so let’s go back, figure out why, and try something else.”

So maybe my coming Tuesday will be about taking it slow and re-learning how to exist in our classroom and in our school instead of throwing myself and my student heroes feet-first into the deep end of Quarter 3 (incidentally, it’s also the longest quarter of the school year). Maybe if I make the time to re-teach them what is needed, then we will be able to move more smoothly along with what is expected as the quarter proceeds. Better to set the bone correctly than to have it heal wrongly and have to re-break it and start over, if you’ll forgive the analogy.

So, as you find yourself at the beginning of this year, please do give yourself the grace of a beginning. It does not need to be perfect; it does not need to be rushed. Review and reinforce what is important for you, whether that is consistency, routine, rest, process steps, etc. Whatever you need as you begin, please give that to yourself now. Rest and re-learning go hand-in-hand. Sometimes we need to start back at the beginning in order to move forward.

Winter’s Restorative Quiet

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Recent snowy weather lined up with the timing for our annual big winter storm, and, honestly, I had been looking forward to it. I have come to love those days of forced slowing down, forced quietude. When Winter settles its blanket heavily over everyone and everything, keeping us in and still.

Winter has a quality of serenity all its own. There is a profundity to winter-quiet, with all the discernible and the subsonic buzz of the growing and harvesting seasons dampened and silenced. It’s a clear sort of quiet instead of a heavy one, as if something has been released instead of taken on. That silence is something I could listen to for minutes at a time, just standing in the cold and soaking the calm into my hurried, harried soul.

I am reaching for quiet in these days of 2023. Perhaps my word for the year has snuck up on me, in fact. But, yes, I have found myself reaching for it, both physically and otherwise. I am rediscovering the joy of a seat, a blanket, a good cup of coffee, and a book. I am reacquainting myself with my pen and a new journal. I am reaching for lulled, slowed moments over my lunch time. I am longing for soft silence. I feel it in my sigh when I step into my home at the end of the day and in the longing glances I cast towards my couch.

I feel it in the loveliness of my soul’s calm in the soft ambiance of rain falling outside, which I crack open the patio door to listen to. I can feel it in the warmth of a fireplace at my back, in my smile at finishing a book, something that has been painfully infrequent in recent years.

My hands are stretched out for quiet this year. Often with repose comes rest, but rest only is not what I find I am wanting. I am desperate for stillness and peace, for the space to let my imagination roam and bloom. I want the stillness of hours, of comfort, of escape, of heart-tending. So I shall sink into winter-quiet and soak it into my bones before the world stirs and wakes again. Though I cannot hibernate, I can certainly engaged in wintering.

When Advent Doesn’t Go As Expected

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This year marked a break in what had become a much-enjoyed activity. Let’s just say that things have not gone to plan this Advent. Work, life, and mental health intervened and overall weariness has lain me out of late. So, in short, I have not written anything past week 1 of Advent. That is not what I had planned. Advent writings have been such a balm for me these past two Christmases. They have been a light amidst all the rush and fuss and struggle, and it makes me rather sad that I just could not make it happen this year. Along with that, I haven’t planned any holiday activities for the family — no lights viewings, no Christkindlmarkt before the big day, nothing like that. I just have not had the wherewithal for anything like that, and that honestly makes part of my Christmas-loving heart very downcast and disappointed.

Here we are…less than a week away from Christmas…and I am deeply battling the sense of not-enough. Fighting the feeling that I am not doing enough, haven’t bought enough, haven’t decorated or celebrated enough. This feeling also wars with trying to ensure that needs are met as well as desires. In the midst of all this, I am doing my best to remind myself and others that what we are doing/have done is enough. What I am doing/have done is enough. A manger was enough for the dear babe who Himself was enough for Mary and Joseph, though I can guarantee that Advent did not go as planned for them either.

So, Dear Ones, if this Advent has not been what you expected or hoped, allow me to speak truth to your tender heart. It is enough. What you are doing is enough. You are enough. As we move towards the end of Advent and the beginning of Christmas, remember and hold close that a simple, faithful teenage girl was enough. A good Godly man was enough. A manger in a stable was enough. And you, Dear Heart, are enough. You are enough for Christmas.

~

‘Maybe Christmas,’ he thought, ‘doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more!’ 

Christmas Day is in our grasp, as long as we have hands to clasp! Christmas Day will always be, just as long, as we have we! Welcome Christmas while we stand, heart to heart, and hand in hand!”

~ Dr. Seuss

Ushering in October

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I don’t know about you, Friendly Reader, but I am definitely feeling Fall-ish. The air has crisped a bit here, the sun is bright, the sky is blue, and I can already see some leaves starting to warm into reds and golds on the trees. Last night, I cleaned my little house a bit, sweeping September out with the wash and trash, and prepared for October’s arrival with twinkle lights, warmly-scented candles, comfiest clothes, and blanket nests on the couches with some of my favorite soul-refreshers.

I did not grow up in a world with Fall as a season and so have learned to cherish it as something beautiful and comforting and magical. It is change that fuels that feeling — though, yes, the feeling is often the opposite for me — but it is change to a quieter time. In the Fall, all start to make ready for winter, for rest, for dormancy. From the flora to the fauna to the folx, we all make preparation in Autumn, and I have come to crave it, especially in the last ten years.

I need this change. I need this preparation for wintering, for dormancy. I need the permission of Fall.

I need to know that it is okay to swaddle and start to hunker down. It is okay to hobbit inside my little home, cozy and warm and provisioned. The rapid time of the Holidays will come soon enough and then the deep quiet of winter. It is okay for me to embrace this time of change, of preparation, of movement towards quiet.

I need Fall with its cozying as much as I need Spring with its burgeoning life. I need the permission that fall gives me for warm clothes and cozy knits, for weighted blankets on my bed and a fire in the hearth, for twinkle lights and caramel-pumpkin-scented candles. I need the warmth of its colors amidst the cool of its air.

I need Fall. Autumn is a must for me now. I do not know how I might ever live without it again.

Welcome, October! You came in so beautifully, and it is so good to see you. Stay for a good long while, yeah?

Communing with the morning – October 1, 2022
Small ways to refresh my soul.
My faithful furbaby
How can you get more fall than being foxy?
Perfectly hobbitish evening snack to go with the first hearth-fire of the season.

I’m Still Here.

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If you think I have been avoiding you…you’d be right. I’m sorry. I have been avoiding you. It’s not that I haven’t been trying to write. I have! There are any number of drafts sitting here, I promise you, but it has honestly been a real struggle this summer. A struggle to put my heart down into words. Now with the beginning of another school year looming, I am feeling way too vulnerable for my own liking. Things are spilling out way too easily, and it makes me feel even more out of control than I am in reality. I am feeling ALL the things right now.

I feel guilty for trying to rest this summer instead of doing the work to find another job. Attached to that is the sense of recklessness of even considering a different job when this one has so many “benefits” (read: life necessities). My guilt also extends into envy of those who have taken the plunge into new chapters outside of teaching. Envy of their faith, courage, attention to and action for their mental/emotional/physical health.

I am anxious as I have now entered into the enmity a small group of individuals who patently disagree with some of my stances as a teacher. I have said that I would be willing to lose my job over ensuring my classroom is an inclusive, welcoming space. Will I be indeed be called upon to do so? We shall see, I guess. So far the support and love have been loudest, but it doesn’t stop the anxiety.

I am tired from a summer that was quite busy with activity and ended with my spouse and I catching COVID and getting hit hard with it. Our vaccinations kept us out of hospital but we still had a rough time of it and are still in physical recovery mode after the fact.

I am nervous as I have new team members and a new principal to learn how to work with this year, as well as a new grade-level curriculum. So much to assimilate and implement. I am trying my best to take it one step at a time, though. Boundaries and work-life congruence have always been a struggle for me, and I have been trying to improve that. Trying not to be overwhelmed can be overwhelming in itself, however.

In some ways, I feel as though I wasted these weeks, the time I could have devoted to writing. I did serve myself by reading a fair bit, though, a good mix of new and familiar books that proved a safe hiding place for my soul. But I do miss the words flowing out of my pen and keyboard. I miss insights and contemplations blooming in my mind and then pouring out in a way that I can understand. That’s a large part of the difficulty lately, I think: understanding my own thoughts. I struggle to explain, struggle to write, struggle to understand me. So here I am, babbling on as honestly as I can even though it may not make a great deal of sense.

I haven’t given up writing, dear readers, but it is hard right now. I will keep trying, keep working to understand my own heart and mind. So much has happened and changed over the last few years that often I feel like a person I do not recognize or know, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way. It’s a struggle, yes, but I shall keep trying. Keep going. Keep stepping. Keep breathing. I’m still here.

A single rose bloom still hanging on after a fierce summer storm that broke apart entire trees.

Everlasting Words

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This morning, I sat on my front porch in an unseasonably cool breeze and set myself to the task of continuing to read through books for our new curriculum adoption. One of said books is Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir-in-verse Brown Girl Dreaming. As I read her fluidly-beautiful narrative set in chronological poems, two in particular stood out to me: “The Beginning” and “Composition Notebook”. These chapters capture so beautifully exactly how I feel about words and writing. I do not recall the first notebook I received but I have a feeling that my reaction was much like hers, coupled with the desire to start writing right now!

My daughter has recently begun writing her first independent narrative story, appropriately a fan-fiction piece about one of her favorite cartoon shows. I cannot express my joy at watching her get excited to put her ideas down in writing. It is simply amazing to see her “creating art with words” as she put it today.

I have been writing for approximately 33 years — stories, poems, song lyrics, speeches, essays, and articles — and I hold it as one of my greatest talents and delights in life. Lately, however, writing has felt incredibly difficult. Not the words themselves, truly, but, as Rachel Macy Stafford so succinctly stated the other day, “it’s hard to publish words in the world right now”. I want to write to help and heal, to be authentic and open, to welcome those who might need something deeper in a world full of quick quips that lodge in our brains and hearts like darts. But I am unsure of how to do so or what to say when I am struggling so deeply with feeling existentially exhausted myself.

I am trying but so often feel as though my trying isn’t enough. These chapters of Woodson’s book, however, feel like a tug on my heart, reminding me of what I love (to write) and why I love to do it (because it might mean something, somewhere, to someone). I want to embrace the infinity of words, “how wonderfully on and on they go” (62). Even if it is not perfect (or what I think is perfect), even if it feels too open, too honest, it might be just what some other soul needs in that moment. If only I am but brave enough to set that offering of words down to be what it will be.

So today I share these words that gave life to me today with you, dear ones.