We were made with ambitions, with dreams, with the expectation that life will bring forth new life.  We want so badly.  Why do I so badly want to possess these dreams?  Why can't they be like art...beauty for beauty's sake, unspoiled with human stain?  Is it therefore wise to suspend our desires?  Or is that cynical?  Do we decide not to hope either way because we are emotionally terrified or is it because we are emotionally lazy?  I advise my dearest ones to suspend their feelings, but I think that's because I am petrified of picking up the pieces of their disappointment...that I will feel responsible for their pain.  They need to feel it.  I need to let them.

I promise, Red.

I promise.

I have been disappointed all day.  The saint and I are feeling the crunch of time as it threatens to smoooosh us.  We have to move by October 1, but as yet, we have not solidified a residence for ourselves.  On Sunday, he and I went into Seattle and found the most perfect home.  Location was stellar, the place was gorgeous and spacious, the backyard brimming with tomatoes, and the aesthetic was just completely suited to our taste.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to it fast enough.  If we had only arrived 1 hour earlier, we would currently be toasting to our fortuitous find.

But I've learned something about how I grieve...how it's changed in the last few years (along with everything else in my head).  Before, I would have completely guarded myself with cynicism towards "getting my hopes up."  I think the general idea behind this theory is that if you don't want it too much, then when it doesn't work out, the disappointment is less.  Only it never worked.  I was always disappointed whether or not I pinned my hopes on the outcome.

So these last few years, I've decided to hope.  Hope against all ration and reason (withing reality, of course.  I am still ME after all...analytical, rational etc)...hope despite the hidden pain it might bring to do so.  

Am I so very disappointed today because I hoped so much?  I don't think so.  I am so very sad because I didn't get what I wanted.  I will grieve it (banana splits help.  limoncello cocktails help.)  I will allow myself to be very blue; I will refuse to kick myself in the backside for hoping too much.  What's so great about guarding oneself from disappointment anyway?  It can, like every other emotion (shadowy or brilliant) bring incredible depth of soul, richness of thought, awareness of self.

I spent yesterday catching up on my life and one way I did that was reading all the final posts that came in from November's Month of Mail!  It was soo vastly satisfying to hold the entire month's mail in my hands and fondle it greedily.  It was wonderful to see people responding with such appreciation for not only the mail, but also for the idea itself. I cannot say enough about what a wonderful month it was. 

If mail isn't enough magic to bask in (can one bask in magic?), the heavens opened up and poured down its glorious white love upon my country home.

I don't think we have enough magic in our lives as adults.  I've encounterd countless people who feel that getting into Christmas (ie, buying a tree!!!) is unecessary if there are no children around to enjoy it.  I know everyone loves watching children's faces as they marvel at the magic of lights and mangers of Jesus, but I can't help but feel a small loss when adults cannot register a similar magic.  Joelio and I become children around this time of year, putting on music all the time, opening squares in advent calendars, ooohing and aaahing over our tacky Christmas decorations.  We have no small children in this household, but we have plenty of magic.

Fall of 2008 brought with it a deep depression, and one of the major symptoms of this depression was the loss of magic in life.  Nothing interested me...trees were just trees, not living souls.  Stars were just burning things in the sky, not a map of ancient perspectives.  Christmas was obligation and debt, not candlelight and conversation.  For whatever reason, the magic has returned and I couldn't feel more grateful for it.

This season, I truly hope the advent brings you magic, and if not, at least HOPE for magic to come.   I hope this magic is for YOU and not just the little souls in your life...

~crm

I don't do groups very well.
Correction: I don't enjoy groups very well.
The bubbling cauldron of everyone's issues mucking and mixing together burns my soul to the core.

That being said, I can do groups if I've managed to have approximately 1.5 tons of solitude. I am a solitude whore; an alone-time glutton. Though I have been able to fill my solitude tank to the brim, I noticed that since early July it has been rapidly depleting. It totally, fully caught up with me.

So this last week and weekend, I decided no groups. It was a good decision and by no means an antisocial one. I was able to see almost all of my friends on a one on one intimate basis. And this weekend? The first weekend with no big event. Oh so nice.


We went to Mom and Dad's house both days this weekend and stopped at yard sales, picked berries off the wild branches, took naps on a bright yellow blanket, ate too much pasta even WITH the smell of blackberry cobbler cooking, clipped dahlias, cuddled with Abbey, squeezed fresh limes, smelled tomato plants, and just rested, rested, rested.




And consequently, today...Monday, it feels grand and hopeful.
Here's to your Monday, your self-worth, and your weekends of nothing,

I have just returned from a trip to the Children's Museum at the Seattle Center. I have never been to a cooler museum for kids. It has a grocery store, a fake theatre, a little china town, an awesome art room, and fun play structures. As I enjoy the wonderful fatigue that comes from playing hard with children you love as much as you can imagine loving a child (without having children of my own), as the rosemary-thyme chicken cooks, as the sun creeps below the gray clouds on this wonderfully chilly Seattle day, I find my brain has turned to jello from all the talking, explaining, interceding, negotiating, laughing, and learning...and it feels beautiful.

This morning, my camera FINALLY arrived and it is again well with my soul. It's a beauty! Here's the first posted picture of my new baby, subject is my perspicacious Mekenzie. She's way too bright for this world...


Turns out she takes after Uncle Joel - biting her lip while engrossed in a project. This picture was made for Jesus, whom Mekenzie "loves oh so much."

i am in a quandary today.

and thanks to and idea by both umber and plume (see comments after yesterday's entry), i am feeling the damned hope creeping back in, slowing refilling the trenches dug by yesterday's battle wounds. (and let's be honest. part of my ultimate fear was that i lost the hope forever - that these last two years of health were a fabricated season).

actually, yesterday was so curious for me. i was just really thick in the marshy darks of deep, man-eating doubt - thicker than it's been in quite some time and in it's wake managed to produce ever-familiar anxiety and suffocation. sometimes i wish someone would punch me in the face so that i would finally stop beating myself down emotionally. you know, something physical to focus my pain on, rather than constantly being (as matthew arnold put it), "swept up with confused alarms of struggle and fight." honestly, who is the enemy is this self-contained scenario anyway? this is what frustrates me so much...

but back to yesterday. every time i post something about my internal frustrations, i get some sort of overwhelming validation that this is what i am supposed to be doing. the first time, it was a dear friend's tears. yesterday, it came in the form of an amazing email from andrew. this man should be the one blogging, because his words hang on the gargoyle-statues guarding my soul.

his letter of ultimate validation freed some tangley weeds that were bloody-ing up my ankles.

i guess i am just constantly reminded that i have to write - and that writing is cleansing for the community.

but i am still in a quandary.

you see, i was talking with tice and niki last week and we were imagining that this generation is really a new movement - but a movement without a name. we have art and beauty and freedom and a message - but no real option to sell all our possessions and just do it. i envisioned with them a monthly art show where tice could play, everyone's art could be displayed, i could write, jessica and jason could promote, etc. so this monthly idea is bouncing off the pinball boards of my creativity.

and then with the idea of this bookstore bar, etc. perhaps i can have a bookstore that can be my business already - but then can patronize the monthly art shows. how does one start a business? any advice? i don't know if you know this, but i would be really good owning my own business.

and this bookstore would have the famous book/cocktail pairings on the menu (east of eden and a pale ale, macbeth and deepest red bordeaux one can find, the great gatsby and mint julips, etc...), as well as a bakery with pink boxes, art studio, music venue, (do i have to add coffeee???, i am so tired of coffee bookstores), etc. but overwhelming the walls would be all of my delicious booklings.

well, not mine. don't even THINK you are going to get your greedy hands on my collection.

anyway, the idea of this makes me ache so badly...wishing, longing, dreaming. but it's enough to refuel my heart and keep the doubt at bay. and i have many of you to thank for this. because even if it's only ever a dream. a dream can sustain.

but back to my quandry.

i am soooo curious how people make money off blogging. for instance, this woman gets paid bucko bucks (she supports her entire family and was on good morning america for the "mommy blogging" craze with this blog!), to write about anything. today's oh so enriching installment was about dog shit. i mean it. can i get paid to write about dog shit? cuz i can.

i am not discrediting her blog at all, in fact, two days ago, she posted about a recent miscarriage, and it was soo amazingly heart warming and honest, but i am telling you...even just this doggie doo post got over 500 comments. 500!!!!

so this is my quandary. how does this happen? i want to sit with this woman and pick her blonde brain - "dear mommy bloger/doggie doo expert, how do you get money from a 686-word post?" cuz sign me up.

the end.