Tuesday, January 1, 2013

January 1st

Hello 2013.

I have high hopes for you.

I don't do resolutions, but I do have some confessions.

Here we go.

I love this song.

(a friendly warning- it's loud):


Will I ever grow out of my taste for this type of music and grow into something more refined and grown up?

I guess not, at this point.

Next.

I probably read only four new books in 2012. Wait. I think five.

Okay, now that I list them, I see there were more, but really, how can I call myself a bookworm, with this embarrassingly small amount of new reading material?

They were:

The Happiest Baby on the Block, by Harvey Karp, M.D.

The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis

Raising Adopted Children, by Lois Ruskai Melina

Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, by Richard Rohr

Talking with Young Children about Adoption, by Mary Watkins and Susan Fisher

I Come Quietly to Meet You: An Intimate Journey in God's Presence, by Amy Carmichael

The Baby Book, by William Sears, M.D. and Martha Sears, R.N.

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

and last but not least,

The Awakened Heart, by Gerald G. May.

I'm sensing a trend...

Moving on.

I'm writing about a merman.

Oh yes. I just wrote that.

What? It could be worse!

I could be writing about a vampire.

Thank heaven I'm not. I got that out of my system years ago, long before the word twilight had any connotation other than that time of day just after sunset or before dawn.

Thankfully, that old story is on my laptop with the missing cable and so no one will ever, ever read it.

Anyway, I've had this story in my head for years and years now, and recently I finally decided to write it out and see what happened.

I'm about one hundred and fifty pages in, or about half way through, and I love it.

The allegory is dead in the water. I know exactly why; that story is too far ahead of myself. I have to live further into those truths before I can write about them.

There. Now you all know about my questionable and dissimilar taste in music, books and writing.

As for fashion, I assure you, it's not worth your while to ask.

Though I did buy myself a lovely new sweater thing, very hip and impractical, with no way to fasten closed, the front much longer than the back and made in a zigzag pattern of many colors, so that it matches and clashes with everything at the same time.

My taste in men remains the same. I am drawn to the blue-eyed, copper haired farm boy who goes to work in a uniform, a dog tag dropped in the shoulder pocket.

As for religion, in the words of R.E.M., I have lost it. This state of affairs, while at times bittersweet, has certainly put me in good company.

Next year, I hope, if not to hold my child in my arms, at least to meet their birth mother.

I hope my heart won't be crushed.

I hope to spend summer days beside the pool, eating hot dogs for dinner with my damp haired husband, while massive concert speakers set with such class in the disused flower beds blare country music about someone who has lost something. Probably their truck.

I hope to go for long walks in the stillness, with the sun on my face.

I hope to finish this ridiculous, addictive book I'm writing.

I hope then to write another one.

I hope, in some way, that Torii might move closer to publication, possibly even self-publication.

Before that, I hope I'm finally able to figure out what the hell the ending still needs. Inspiration? That is your cue. Call me.

I hope to visit New England again, and both sides of the family, and to read a great deal more than I did this year.

I hope to love deliciously and to rest peacefully in the present moment and to trust God, who is always with me, just as I am.