May 22nd

I keep thinking I should write an explanation about why I don't have comments open. There are two main reasons why I don't- my fear of my ego and my earlier experience with comments on my first blog, which quickly made it evident that, in the face of feedback, I found it difficult to write authentically.


When I write about my inner life, I am aware that what I am describing sounds impossible and outlandish, and also, amazing and wonderful. If I received comments that reinforced one idea or the other, I'm afraid my ego would have a hard time and I would be all over the place very quickly. I would either become inflated in my own eyes, or devastated. I know this because I lived it out in my first blog.


It wasn't a big deal then; it was mainly just an interesting thing to notice, how my blog content and voice altered as I pursued more and more positive feedback and how I changed the tone of my voice when I received no positive feedback. I don't want that to happen in this blog, which is given over increasingly to whatever Jesus is doing in my life.


Having no comments puts my ego on a permanent fast. I am simply very afraid that if I weren't on a comments fast, so to speak, my ego would grow out of control, and it's already an annoyance- I don't mean the healthy ego of a well adjusted, creative person, but the idea of being Someone Very Important.


It is always a temptation to think that way and I am many times a day in conversation with Jesus whenever this idea shows up, as transparency and leaning entirely on Him are the most important ways to curtain the growth of this idea. It is always tempting to secretly cherish the idea of being Someone Very Important.


Whenever I catch myself doing this, I turn to Jesus and lay before Him everything I was thinking. As I normally feel His presence around me all the time, it's hard for me to feel as though I can do anything "secretly," and that is also another safe guard, as I cannot usually pretend that His loving, gentle but keenly perceptive attention has ever wandered.


Writing in the silence enables me to give away freely the mysterious gift of love that was freely given to me. It's a way to acknowledge that ultimately, these things I'm sharing don't really belong to me, although they are incredibly important to me personally.


They don't belong to me in the sense that I don't and cannot earn them, and I don't and cannot make them happen or have any way of ensuring that they continue to happen. They are a gift from God, and so I give them away. Lastly, they don't belong to me because they are an illustration of God's love and faithfulness.


What I am hoping people might be considering as they come away from any story I've shared is- "Wow! If Jesus loves a very and sometimes absurdly human, middle aged American housewife this much, how loving is Jesus! His love is tender, personal, never ending and steadfast. He is a living, loving God."


*


"Being chosen doesn't mean that God likes one more than the other, or that some are better than others. Usually, in fact, they are quite flawed or at least ordinary people, so it is clear that their power is not their own. As Paul puts it, "If anyone wants to boast, they can only boast about the Lord" (I Corinthians 1:31).


It's not that God likes anyone better or that they are more worthy than the rest. God's chosenness is for the sake of communicating chosenness to everybody else! That is the paradox, and it often takes people a long time to learn that (read the Jonah story). You lead others to the depth to which you have been led...


"If anything, it is the gathering of the weak and the wounded, to show how God transforms and heals. God gets all the glory."


-Hidden Things: Scripture as Spirituality, by Richard Rohr

January 1st

Happy New Year!

My poor blog. I remember thinking, when I'm finally a mom, I'll have loads to blog about every day! All the cute mommy adventures! All the adorable baby milestones!

And those things happen, but I never have time to compose a blog about them. Weeks ago, I took a whole series of pictures from one normal day, dawn to dusk- the day Meri turned four months. I planned to sort through them and post a few here, but I have yet to do that. By the time I do, it's quite likely she'll be five months old!

I'm going to have to face facts- I just can't write as much as I could before- when I could write pages in my journal, and spend hours in whatever creative project I had going and finish a blog in one or two days and occasionally write an e-mail.

Now, I force myself to pick one writing project and spend the odd hours of the day working on it and it takes me a week or so to edit it, and even then I feel it's not very good.

I guess two or three blogs a month is my new normal for the new year. What will help is that I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be posting sections from my journals, starting with the first entry of my current journal.

I've been thinking about it and the way I relate to God is unconventional, perhaps even shocking sometimes- even more so if I simply describe how it is now, without showing how I got here. So I will share some of how I got to this point to hopefully provide perspective and context.

These will be from the second journal of this type that I have kept. The first journal was of the year before- 2011-2012, but after about a year of writing in it, I stopped.

I was starting to become legalistic in my spiritual life- trying to control and earn, which is impossible and in the end, shuts me off from receiving His love and presence, because I get too focused on controlling my thoughts, emotions, performance to even look at Him or to open myself to hearing Him- basically, a return to my legalistic upbringing. That way of thinking still trips me up sometimes; it's just my default place.

So I let everything rest, to learn to rest in His love at an even deeper level than before. Months later, I had to start writing again, to keep a private record and to try and process what was happening.

While reading Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus, by Lois Tverberg, I came across this passage, which is now one of my favorite quotes and fits in well here:

"While Job's friends had a theoretical knowledge of God, Job knew God in this latter, Hebraic sense of the word. Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft writes:

     "'Job sticks to God, retains intimacy, passion and care, while the three friends are satisfied with correctness of words, "dead orthodoxy." Job's words do not accurately reflect God as Job's friends' do, but Job himself is in true relationship with God, as the three friends are not: a relationship of heart and soul, life-or-death passion... Job stays married to God and throws dishes at him; the three friends have a polite non-marriage, with separate bedrooms and separate vacations.'"

-Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus, chapter 12, The Secrets that God Keeps

*

Written December 22nd, 2012

So I have to write about something lately.

 

I’ve been reading The Awakened Heart (by Gerald G. May) and in it, it talks about being awake to the present moment, no matter what it brings, without judgment, just to be in it. That is where one finds God.

I have found that to be true, and I have been practicing it.

Also, it talks about three ways of relating to God, and one is as His beloved.

I remembered of course, that kind of longing and I wondered where it went. I was pouring out my heart to Jesus a few nights ago, all my frustration over my confusion about faith and asking and receiving and my guilt about all that, not understanding it.

I mean, I was shouting at Jesus, bent over double, crying out. It was exhausting and risky, but I really have grown into Him, because I was able to do it.

He was there, tenderly listening and gracefully supporting. He didn’t give me an answer, except to remind me that I have asked Him about that before- because I had been feeling guilty that I hadn’t.

I asked Jesus about the longing, where did it go? And we remembered together all that longing and I couldn’t discern if it was Him or I that had tapered it away. But it seemed as though that was part of the journey, part of growth deeper into Him, a kind of give and take, rising and falling.

For some reason, I remembered Jesus all over again, how delicious He is. And I loved Him, I loved Him, I loved Him, without reserve, passionately. He received all this and gave back and I remembered all this kind of loving that is between us like that.

And Jesus said, you love Me even with all this? Which He could ask, because of the depth and trust of our relationship- all of the history between us, of arguing and risking on my side, and steady, faithful, good humored love on His side, even when He does not explain everything to my satisfaction. And it was as though He gestured back to all the unanswered questions and all the frustration and anger that I had about those unanswered questions and the discomfort of them.

And I said "Yes! Yes, yes, yes, with all that, no matter what, all the time, I love You with all that I am."

Because it’s true. It amazed me, even in that moment, and I said, "I can’t help it- it’s Your nature. I can’t help loving You. I can’t resist You."

A part of me thought this was unfair, that I couldn’t resist Him. And I thought, Jesus must be narcissistic or something, to be able to go around not answering questions, doing whatever He wants and still being loved.

I resented this ease.

I recognized this emotional honesty as part of the process- the very important part of being in the moment and not resisting what I would like to deny. So instead of squelching that thought, I let it flow up.

I reminded myself that C.S. Lewis struggled with a similar thought- that God is always demanding to be worshiped and glorified.

I reminded myself that God does not keep Himself aloof, demanding to be glorified, but that He put on humanity and is with us, and so feels all the suffering and humiliation and longing and deprivation that this life brings.

Also, Jesus loves us even more irretrievably that I could ever love Him. It is as though He makes Himself a captive of His love for us.

You are My beloved, He affirmed, quietly.

I was glad; I welcomed this reminder of who I was, even though I did not feel that way just then. But I did not stir it up. I let myself be who I was in the moment.

So, I’ve been doing this all along and I have had some extraordinary times of simply being in love, as Gerald May would call it. I am able, now, to allow everything to flow up in love as it will, and not to run from it.

This morning I made myself open to the present moment. When I do this, I feel and hear and see everything so clearly. Everything has this extraordinary beauty, even myself.

I am especially delighted by sounds. Everything makes a sound and I hardly ever notice it, unless I am in the moment, and then I am surrounded by them. The sound of the water is especially intoxicating.

Each moment I tell myself not to seek out the experience, but to be present to what is real and the beauty washes through me. I can’t describe what it is like, except that it is as though I am infused with Him, and everything around me is infused with Him and yet also itself and beautiful in itself.

I was doing this, and again I opened myself to the moment, to the present physical reality that surrounded me. I didn’t feel Him in any particular way- I felt Him in everything and I kept opening myself up to this and it was intoxicating, awakening, without definition or boundary and as much physical as it was spiritual and it was simple- as simple as breathing, as simple as my skin breathing in moisture and my eyes taking in the light.

Jesus kept reminding me that no matter what the next moment might be, He was always there, always with me, that this was always true. I didn’t have to make it true or to grasp at it, I just had to trust that it was always true in each moment as it came.

I have made some leaps and bounds in my spiritual growth.

August 14th

Some of the leaves on the trees, bushes and vines down here in the South have begun to turn color, a phenomenon that always amazes me, seeing as how it is still stifling hot down here.

This was the week we were supposed to be moving into the new house and still we are here, amid boxes, waiting day and night for a call that could come at any time.

More and more things get packed away, including things that I should have saved out- like salt and orange drink mix and our steak knives, but we get by.

Keith and I fall into bed each night exhausted just by the extra emotional energy it takes to navigate this period in our life. Not to mention navigating all the clutter everywhere.

Yesterday, I said, Screw it, I'm packing no more! and instead, watched "Call the Midwife" on Netflix. That is a great show.

Way back in the days of our optimistic innocence, we thought we would need only six boxes or so, because the house loan would be closed! We would have weeks to move in! I could move stuff during the day, packing and unpacking boxes one room at a time, all leisurely-like!

Ha.

"So," asked one of Keith's friends- a full bird colonel, a man that in the normal course of Keith's professional career he would hardly get a glimpse of, let alone be friends with- "When is all this happening? When are you officially going on leave?"

This was a phone conversation- Keith had his phone on speaker. He gave me a wry look across the dinner table.

"At any time- they've had to stop her from going into labor three times already," I answered.

"So... Wow. How are you going to manage the move then?" the officer asked, confused.

"Indeed," I answered, amused.

Fortunately, my sense of humor is still intact. This is good, because I think I will need it.

We do have several plans in place- they are all slightly different, extremely complicated and alter by date. We hope like hell not to have to use any of them and that Baby remains in place until her due date, but no one thinks that will happen, at this point.

We have a scheduled conference call with our adoption specialist to help prepare us for the up coming visit and the time spent in the hospital.

Everyone is being generous and accommodating- even the bank and all their loan officers and inspectors. The loan is already out of underwriting and the final walk through is scheduled- it might even be today. That's record speed, right there.

In the meantime, I try to keep up with the laundry so we have all the clothing ready to pack at any moment and I pack one or two boxes a day.

I do think, in the years to come, that I will look back at this period of my life and wonder how on earth we made it through, but that happens so often in my life.

I thought the entire domestic infant adoption process would be impossible for me to manage! I thought it about completing the home study, the home inspection, the interviews, completing the pamphlet and the first phone call with the birth parents.

And yet I did manage those things and I continue to do so. And not just to manage them, but to live deeply in the process and sometimes even be creative in the midst of it.

That last poem I wrote, I love the best of anything I've written. I think those metaphors must be self explanatory, but there was one that puzzled me even as I wrote it. That is, I had no idea why I was writing it that way.

I talked about blown glass goblets and letting them shatter into a pathway like light on water. I loved those lines as I was writing them, and it felt powerful to write it out, but I had no idea why I was writing it or what it meant.

It took me a little while, but I figured out what it meant- the goblets are the things I do and believe that I might think makes me worthy of God- what I think of as my "good works and right thoughts," putting my best face forward, so to speak.

Throwing those small self created things down in the face of the mystery- letting those things shatter in the face of His presence- that's what I was writing about.

I guess it's a way of acknowledging one's humility and it made a beautiful path for Him to come to me. Instead, I lay my whole heart out on the table. It's not as pretty, it's not dainty- it's raw, but it's real, unadorned and all His.

And the thing is, He makes Himself vulnerable as well. In fact, He offered Himself this way first, and because He makes Himself vulnerable in love, I can follow suit. So the brokenness turns to heady sweetness, in the end.

August 11th

I usually never explain my poems- I guess because I keep thinking it's too pompous, considering they aren't that good. It was really difficult for me to merely post them, when I first started, let alone talk about them.

However, now I think they are good, in their own way, and whoever is reading this blog might be interested in how I write them and why they're written the way they are. I know many of you are creative- writers and artists- so I bet you can relate to a lot of this.

Yesterday evening, I just felt creative. It's almost a longing. When I have this feeling, if I can, I put everything else that I'm doing aside, so I can focus on it.

I put my headphones on- Keith was watching TV in the same room- and opened a blank page in my journal.

Then I just sit there. I guess you could say that I remain present in the longing- the longing to write, which is almost always tied up with my longing and love for God- which is my usual subject these days.

I begin to write down phrases and words and eventually, one phrase will ring true and other phrases will be flung off that one and the poem will begin to write itself.

Then I have to go back and cut a lot of stuff out. That's the key, right there. Well- other than being quiet enough to begin in the first place.

I use metaphor a lot- in fact, I don't think I ever simply describe the thing I writing about. I always hide it under metaphor. I wonder if I baldly wrote out the thing I wanted to, I might end up writing the poem that I wanted. The poem that I want to write remains out of reach.

In any case, in the last poem, I begin describing visual memories of my inner life- but in fragments too small for the reader to see the whole picture. Then I use movement to describe the impact on me.

If you've ever laid back in the grass and thought about how the earth was swinging through space at incredible speeds and that the weight of it was holding you firmly in place, it's sort of that feeling.

As I wrote, I remembered when I was younger- my longing for God, for beauty beyond reach, so I used a metaphor of a winter fields and the cloud shadows passing over, the light breaking out over the horizon, but too far away for any real warmth. But the fields are set for a late harvest- a promise of something to come.

I use the metaphor of marks to describe my longing- it's telling me that I came from Divine Love and I am returning to Divine Love. It's the desire itself that first tells me I'm His.

Then I talk about distractions along the way home, as it were- that's pretty obvious, and how some paths in life can leave us caged and always hungry, following empty performances not natural to who we are and that insult our soul- but for a while we think maybe this is the only way to be fed or fulfilled, or to receive attention or meaning.

I get stuck in a holding pattern- the parking lot for several years, homeless and waiting, feeling discarded, until I figure out that I don't need the highway to find my way back home- that is, I don't need to follow the same route everyone else is- its actually a sort of barrier in and of itself.

So I go over those large walls meant to block out the sound of the highway- like denial of one's need for connection to what the city represents- false fulfillment, the surrendering of one's true self, the giving up of freedom for a role in the show.

I go through the lanes of bumper to bumper traffic- stalled, never getting anywhere, and through the internal defenses set up because of past hurt- but having those defenses prevents us from accepting love and being cherished and seen in those deep places, so I leave the bunker behind.

And past the power plant, which is the need to control the flow of love, of life- like a grid that we control, instead of being surrendered to the river of Divine Love- the greater Flow that always sustains and holds us.

So I am making my way through these obstacles looking upward, up beyond these temporal things, and this takes me all the way back home.

This looking back and remembering my journey home gives me even more clarity about what home means to me, so I let go of a lot of unnecessary things- like an inward spring cleaning. Because all I really need is Him.

That's what the poem means to me, or what I was thinking about, as I was writing it.

In the meantime, Baby remains on the verge of arrival, which leaves Keith and I very much on call, day and night. I can go nowhere without the phone.

Also, we seem to be staring down a collision course of epic proportions- instead of dealing with new house and then Baby, it seems more and more likely that these major events will be occurring nearly simultaneously.

"Shit is gonna get rough," as my husband put it so colorfully, yesterday morning, as we were taking stock.

Consider if Baby were to be born this evening, for example. On Tuesday or Wednesday, adoption paperwork could be signed, leading to a nearly two week period of waiting on interstate approval- which could take a while, as we are still waiting on Kentucky- something our adoption officials assure us will not prevent our adopting Baby, but would, in the worst case scenario, delay the process.

Guess what else happens in two weeks? Moving, that is what. The twenty second of this month is the last day we can live here. That, my friends, is next week.

If only we could begin moving into our completely finished new house now! But no. We cannot, because it takes up to ten days to close a loan, even with everything approved. Guess when those ten days are up? The nineteenth, that's when.

How can we move out of this house and into the next if we are out of state with a newborn while waiting for our adoption to clear?

Indeed, we cannot. Because every single thing appears to be happening at the same time.

So, worst case scenario- Baby is born early. Keith and I drive down for the birth and paperwork. After those two days, he returns to Georgia to move with the help of friends, leaving Baby and me alone in a hotel room/hospital for the next ten days while the adoption paperwork clears.

When it does or when he is done moving, he will either drive back down to get us, or arrange for me to rent a car and drive all the way back home. On my own. With Baby.

That's worst case scenario. Best case is that Baby remains where she is, growing stronger day by day, the loan closes some time this week, we move in like the wind and have the house set up before Baby's born.

That would be awesome. That would be great.

However, Baby's birthmother does not think this likely. She feels that Baby is ready to arrive at any moment, and she would know.

In the meantime, we are just waiting around, packing boxes and doing yard work, but mostly just waiting.

There is so much to consider that I don't have room to consider the possibility of the adoption failing. The more I get to know our birthparents, the less I fear this, though it always remains a possibility.

Early last week, I wandered around Baby's R Us, window shopping and day dreaming about setting up the perfect nursery and having every little accessory and all that. At the time, I thought that might be possible.

"This might be the only baby I ever have," I thought to myself. "I want every little thing perfect."

Lately, I've had to throw that idea right out the window. Life is not perfect. I will not have a lovely, completed, matching nursery when Baby comes home. Instead, I might have mountains of unpacked boxes and bare walls and frozen dinners and bottle paraphernalia and packing tape all over the counters.

But that's okay; that's life. Who cares about the nursery anyway? What does it matter? I'll have Baby in my arms or in the carrier or in the Moby wrap, if I can figure the darn thing out and I'll have my husband and a new house, and when my mom comes, which she will, I'll get some sleep, too! What riches! What more could a person ask?

I'll have everything that matters and everything else can come together later if it has to, including the nursery.

April 10th

Yesterday evening, Keith and I sat outside on the front lawn in camp chairs and watched the stars come out. Abby nosed around in the grass and then plopped down, her snout on her paws.

It was almost strange, to be sitting in chairs without any tv in front of them, I'm sorry to say, and yet also wonderful.

It was so quiet. We could feel the temperature slowly change from the warmth of the spring day to the cool of the evening. We could hear the sounds change slowly from bird song to insects singing.

At first the sky was a washed blue and then it began slowly to soak up color. One star came out, and then there were a scattering and then an airplane flew over the house, all the lights blinking. All the street lights came on, tall orange lamps, shining down the road.

"I'll meet you here tomorrow night," I offered to Keith, as we were folding up the chairs to go in.

"Sure thing," was his happy response.

When we went inside, the house was warm and quiet, the scent of Asian glazed salmon still faint in the air.

A few days ago, I went for a walk with our new camera. In the park, the dogwoods are coming out:

 

 

I think I've used up all my poem-writing creative energy, which is good timing, because I heard back from my friend about Torii.

 

He told me a lot of mind blowing things. First, he told me it was literature.

 

So... I guess I write literature.

 

What more could one want from life?

 

Probably a successful adoption and then a lot of sleepless nights and piles of dirty laundry, but I digress.

 

He told me not to change anything, but to add to it great depth of interior expression in order to make it great literature.

 

Anyone else, he said, would read it and think it was great as it was. However, he said that because he read my blog, he knew I was capable of going much deeper with the novel.

 

He suggested I open a new file, at almost any scene, and simply dive down into the characters- talk about what is driving them, what they remember, explore past associations, emotions, etc.

 

All this time, I'm frantically scribbling notes and nodding my head and pacing around my kitchen while various expressions of shock passed over my face, due to the incredible nature of this feedback.

 

I mean- dialogue, world construction, action scenes, plot movement, theme- all of that, needed no work. This man makes his living by writing.

 

He just wanted more. He said I kept dropping hints about all this other history and he kept waiting to hear this history.

 

He said he did know the characters better near the end of the story, but he said, "That's an awfully long time to make a person wait."

 

At the time that I received all this heaping mountain of extraordinary feedback, I was right in the middle of writing the poem, so I filed it away for future reference.

 

Yesterday, I pulled out good ol' Torii and I was all, "Awwwww! I love Tenshio! He's so adorable."

 

Then I set about telling all his deepest secrets and generally making him more accessible.

 

I wrote about five or six paragraphs, to insert into the original scene and sent them off to my friend, to get his feedback, before I went any further in that direction.

 

He said, and I quote: "It's simply brilliant."

 

Excuse me while I fall

off.

my.

chair.

 

*

*

*

 

Okay, I'm back.

 

Holy crap!!!

 

So now I'm going to be writing through the entire first half of the story- which I think is the most spare, in terms of interior richness, and just fill it out.

 

In other news, it's time to renew our lease and as usual, this has spurred my husband into a house search, thinking that searching for a house, buying a house and moving into a house, all while in the middle of an adoption, is much preferable than signing the new lease.

 

My husband, he is always on a quest for greatness.



Picprompt

This is a short picprompt for my friend Brandi, who is doing a series of them on her author blog, The Musings of Brandi Kennedy. She writes adult contemporary romance novels that are full of humor, charm and emotion.

He was crying on the stairs- Simon, my best friend from high school.

 

He looked just the same, same dark pseudo military clothing, uncut hair, clumsy hands. You'd think he was goth and into punk rock, but he wasn't. He was into biology and when he talked about the elegance of a virus strain, he looked like a choir boy singing hallelujah.

 

It'd been forever since I'd seen him. Well, okay, more like five years, but it felt like forever. I had fallen in love with leaving. I had gone all the way to the northwest coast, found a job, a tiny apartment, a few funky relationships.

 

Simon had stayed in the sleepy southern town. He could have gone anywhere, with his grades, but he stayed in the same ramshackle house he'd grown up in, balancing the pedestrian demands of the local college with the needs of his ailing grandmother.

 

That was what had made us friends, in that first, miserable year of middle school- the fact that neither of us had any parents to speak of. We had grandmothers instead.

 

His grandmother was tall and lean, like a strip of tanned leather, with a shock of short hair, a barking laugh and rough voice we should have paid more attention to. Mine was round and deceptively frail, wearing her print dresses and horn rimmed glasses with a kind of graceful dignity that hinted at the beauty she'd had once, years earlier.

 

Despite everything Simon had done and everything he had spent, his grandmother lost her battle to lung cancer the year he graduated. He sold the house to pay the medical bills. He took a job at the local chemical company, a large complex to the north of town.

 

I learned all this from my grandmother, who stayed, perennially, it seemed, in good health, weeding her flower beds and marching to church every Sunday in her sturdy polished pumps.

 

She called me on Tuesday nights, to give me my weekly, liberal dose of love, advice and guilt for not visiting- after everything she'd done for me, and did I know how long it'd been since she'd seen me last and surely Easter meant something even to a heathen granddaughter, and what did she have to do to get me to come back home again, die?

 

So I came home, despite the rising price of gas and all that waiting history I'd been so happy to escape the first time.

 

I'd arrived the night before, and the first thing I did the next morning, after eating my grandmother's buttermilk pancakes, was to make my way along the path that wound into the gully behind my house and back up to the alley that ran behind Simon's apartment building.

 

We'd fallen out of touch; the only way I had been able to leave at all, was to leave completely, so he had no idea I was back, let alone at the foot of his stairs. Even I hadn't known, exactly, where I was going that morning, until I arrived there, to see him in the fresh spring sunshine, looking heartbroken, abject and just like my best friend.

 

It hadn't been forever. It was yesterday that I'd seen him last, on the back porch doing our homework, listening to the radio down low, so my grandmother wouldn't overhear the jazz from the kitchen. I'd seen him cry before.

 

He looked up when I said his name, his hands going up to smear the tears across his cheeks in furtive movement. Then his hands froze.

 

"Sylvie?" he asked, the amazement making his voice crack.

 

And it was so familiar a sound, and so unbearable, that I marched right up the stairs and threw my arms around his shoulders, as if I could bridge all that time and all that sorrow just by my reach alone.

 

"What happened?" I whispered.

February 11th

I've gotten so lazy with my blogging, after having had pre-made material for so long!

Let's see, what is life really like in the middle of this particular February?

It's rainy, for one thing.

Abby is snoring on the couch behind me.

Keith took our adoption portfolio into work with him, to secure our third year here in GA. Next month we'll be one year into his two years of dwell time, due to his job.

This whole process has been so drawn out, it took that entire year just to do the home study and get the house rented. That left us only one year to go active, find a match and legalize the adoption.

That is not enough time.

So, we'll be here a third year, and though I am not a fanatic fan of GA, I am very grateful to have enough time to finish the adoption without the anxiety of it being disrupted by a military move.

That is, provided we actually begin the next step of the adoption.

I can't really go into detail, but we've had several health scares with Keith, bad enough where we questioned if it would even be feasible to adopt. There were some surreal and serious conversations over that time period, as we tried to come to terms with what might be happening.

Things seem to be resolving and worst case scenarios are turning out not to be the case, but I think going through that drained me more than I was aware of; I feel kind of battered and leery of what might happen next.

I try not to look at the whole thing; it's too overwhelming. We are taking one small step forward today. That is good. It will have to be enough for now.

Thank goodness I am writing. Infertility and mortality seem to be the emerging themes of this new story.

Heh!

Doesn't that sound like a boat load of fun.

I'm still not sure if this sequel will actually get written or not. As much as I'm enjoying watching the characters grow, I admit, I'm a little suspicious of it. Maybe because I've never done a sequel before.

Also, it's lacking a strong external conflict. As usual. As all my stories do, at the beginning. I'm not sure if a sequel will even be necessary.

But I guess I never write because it's necessary, so that shouldn't matter.

February 6th

There's one more chapter of Rosemary- it sort of ties up just a few more loose endings, but my other writing has distracted me.

My mom pointed out that Cederic is a lot like my husband, and while that makes me laugh, I have to agree. He is kind of is.

I think I was a couple years into my marriage before I realized that I had actually married a man much like my characters; it took me that long to recognize this because all the outer trappings are completely different, as is the vocabulary. It's the heart and character that holds the similarity.

I've tentatively decided to try a sequel to Torii. I'm about ten pages in and I have a vague but growing sense of the inner and outer conflicts that the story might center around.

I want to write it, and that sense of desire is a good sign. Where there's desire, there's usually a lot of creative energy waiting to be accessed, in my experience.

As I've started this, I've realized all over again just how much work it is, to write, and how the beginning can be so deceptive.

Whenever I start a story, I'm thinking of a hundred different things that I'm failing to do or to capture; I'm aware of all the things I don't know about my story. I'm almost never sure of my direction.

The thing is, if I stay true to my desire- if I write the thing that I want, in my gut, to exist, the story eventually writes itself true.

But it doesn't look like it at first, because it's nearly impossible to capture everything in the first go. So it's imperative to trust one's instincts at the first. Everything can be edited later, and probably will be.

When trying to write the Allegory, my instincts kept taking me out into deeper water than I was ready for, and I kept bracing myself against it, like a stubborn donkey. Maybe one day I will be ready to engage those things in words. I hope so.

In the meantime, I am finding this new story compelling and interesting. It's the first time I've ever tried a sequel and it is unexpectedly fun to meet up with the characters again- to see how they've grown, adapted or stayed the same, and to create the new ways that they interact with each other.

February 1st

I feel as if I've had my head in the imaginary clouds for quite some time.

Between posting Rosemary (which makes me squirm sometimes, to notice all the flaws in my writing), and working on Torii, I'm amazed that I even know what month it is.

When I wrote Rosemary, I didn't realize how much freedom the author has, in terms of perspective. Almost every descriptive sentence was directed through Letha- as though the reader had to see, hear, feel, taste, etc, all through her and her alone.

It's too funny, when I think back. I didn't write it that way on purpose; I wasn't aware of it. The story isn't written from the first person perspective. It's supposed to be third person. My writing just came out that way, at first.

But now, when I get it ready to post on my blog, I have to go through and untangle nearly every other sentence.

My poor editor friend. I can see, as I read through now, just how much work she did.

It made me think, though, that it really is true; that writing is best learned by writing. There's no point being embarrassed that one is still learning. We're all learning something.

It makes me wonder what is going to stand out to me in Torii, years from now. But that doesn't bear thinking about, certainly not now, as I'm about to send it away.

Gulp.

I finished the end, even the very end.

I should probably get back to my poor neglected merperson, but all I really want to do is write more Torii. I want the characters to live on and on. I don't want to leave them be.

January 21st

The mint lives!

I guess mother nature is a powerful healer and mint is sturdy enough to survive even my black thumb. It is sprouting tiny shoots as we speak.

I have a lot of work to do because...

I am sending Torii to my friend to be read and he will pass it on to his friend, the publisher!

There is no guarantee of it getting published, but just the thought of this process has already loosened up several new ideas on certain scenes that have been driving me crazy.

It's helping me take my work much more seriously- other people that I respect a great deal are serious about my writing.

As soon as I found out about this path that Torii will be taking, I went running out to the garage, to tell Keith.

He took one look at my face. "Did we win the lottery?" he asked, breathlessly.

I couldn't fall asleep last night, thinking about everything.

Hopefully the ending of Torii will come clear now. I feel like there should be an epilogue, as a companion piece to the prologue- something that will sum up and symbolize the theme of the story.

So far, this scene has eluded me, but maybe it will come clear, as I read the story again.

Okay, I have to stop procrastinating and start working on it. Oh dear.

January 19th

I'm trying a few new things.

Namely, I'm going to see if I can list the blog posts that contain Rosemary in the upper left hand corner, to make them easier to go back to. Otherwise, they will disappear into the soup that is my massive, unorganized blog.

I will label those posts, Rosemary, Chp. (whatever) and then, if I can manage it, link them up there in order.

Okay, already that is not working. Must try something else.

I have been blogging for five years and on this blog alone, I have close to a thousand posts. Which is crazy, when you think about it. That is a lot of random writing.

Listing them by date alone, as I have, does not make for an easy way to find blog entries, so I'm thinking of tagging them and listing the tags on the side bar.

That way, hopefully, if a person clicks on, say, "random household news" or whatever, they will be taken to a page of all blogs that contain random household news. Or adoption blogs. Or spirituality. Etc.

Okay, wow. That is going to take forever.

I don't even know if this is going to help. My blogs are almost always about a little bit of everything.

Anyway. Must carry on.

These tags are driving me crazy. I can't tell if I should be more specific or less specific...

Mostly this is all practice in trying to take myself seriously.

We'll see how that goes.

January 17th

Thoughts lately:

I have emerged from two days of agonizing writer's block. Not only could I not write the adoption letter, but I couldn't write anything else, either.

Now I have the letter half way done, the articles finished, the photographs somewhat sorted and my ridiculous story is also moving forward.

I have purchased two pounds of salmon to feed my husband's increasing appetite for it. The woman from the sea food department recognizes me by now.

"And how is everybody?" she asked me cheerfully, today.

She probably imagines that there is an entire household of hungry mouths all clamouring for salmon, but there is, in fact, only one hungry Staff Sergeant.

I almost introduced myself, but I couldn't quite read her name tag and if I were to try and look any closer, it would probably have been awkward.

Come to think of it, I might need new glasses. Considering that I haven't had an eye exam in six years, it's a definite possibility.

The mint continues clinging to life. I go outside from time to time to encourage it. I think it is sprouting new leaves, but that might be just wishful thinking.

I also rescued a drowning earthworm that had washed up at the back door. How the rain washed him or her up onto the concrete patio, I will never know, but he or she was returned to the grass.

These are the great dramas of my life.

There are also some questions I've been mulling over, the most interesting being whether or not to self-publish.

If I self published, I would have to promote my book. I cannot imagine doing this, to be honest.

And this is also not my fault! It turns out that this is a hang up of an INFP:

"INFPs have very high standards and are perfectionists. Consequently, they are usually hard on themselves, and don't give themselves enough credit. INFPs may have problems working on a project in a group, because their standards are likely to be higher than other members' of the group. In group situations, they may have a "control" problem. The INFP needs to work on balancing their high ideals with the requirements of every day living. Without resolving this conflict, they will never be happy with themselves, and they may become confused and paralyzed about what to do with their lives."

While I am deeply offended at the implication that I may have a "control" problem working in a group, I have a feeling that any of my previous coworkers from any of my previous places of employment might have something colorful to say on that topic.

Anyway, that's not important. What's important is that I have a great deal of trouble balancing my high ideals for my writing with the requirements of reality, and I certainly am, as they point out, confused and paralyzed concerning the future of my writing.

I am thinking about how to resolve this conflict.

Part of me is tempted just to pull the trigger on self publishing Ceallach; just to drop it like it's hot, as it were, just put it out there.

The problem is, there is a vast sea of tens of thousands of indie authors who are also self publishing and my novel will probably drop like a needle into the towering, groaning haystack that is Amazon and Kindle, never to be found again.

In order to prevent this from happening as completely as it would otherwise, I must create an Author's Blog and Facebook Page, and then keep them both happy, hip, and up to date.

Just the thought fills me with dread.

And do you know how mean other authors can be to one another? They are cut throat! What's so bad about dialogue tags anyway? I love dialogue tags; who doesn't?

On the other hand, what if my novel sells? How exciting would that be!

I have an extremely brave friend and fellow writer who simply wrote a novel and then published it. Now she is getting ready to publish her second novel. Like, because, that's what one does, after one has finished writing something. One publishes it.

This was news to me. I thought one held on to it indefinitely, because it's never quite up to snuff and trying to write blurbs and sell oneself to literary agents is a form of hell I don't want to revisit.

But what if Ceallach sells, and I gathered a decent following- I'm not sure what constitutes a "decent" following, but anyway- what if I got some kind of following on my blog?

That would make selling myself to literary agents much easier, not a hell at all.

I could try to snag one by saying, hey look! I have this blog with this many blog readers and I've sold this many copies of Ceallach and I happen to have yet another novel all ready to go -surprise!- but this one I want to publish traditionally. Can you work with me?

And what if they said yes, they could?

That would be great, right?

I think so too.

So I'm thinking about self publishing, but we'll see.

As I told my father, I'm stalking the idea. I'm creeping up to it, all suspiciously, not entirely sure if I'm hungry enough for the chase.

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.

November 16th

I have been so distracted lately.

Today I should be cleaning frantically in preparation for my parents, who are coming to visit over Thanksgiving. But it's hard to do that, because I feel so pleasantly laid back about the whole thing.

Parents are the best sort of guests. I can try all kinds of ridiculous recipes and not be worried if they fall flat, because, hey! It's Mom and Dad.

Being who they are, they both would have been helping me cook it and Dad probably would have altered the recipe in such a way that it was no longer recognizable (and yet also better) and Mom would insist that it tasted wonderful no matter what.

Still, I really should be doing some housework...

I keep getting this strange feeling. It's as if I've just put this really interesting story down somewhere and wandered away, and now I want to find it so I keep reading it.

And then I remember that I'm not reading it, I'm writing it. And then I feel exhausted, because damn it, writing it is so much work.

The entire plot line of the allegory has somehow become nothing more than an introduction to this whole other story that remains a mystery.

I make no progress on that story because I have to write this one scene and I'm refusing to write the scene and so nothing gets done.

Instead, I spent all my time writing other stories that don't require as much from me. That's the story I keep thinking I've put down somewhere.

November 3rd

This, dear blog reader, will be a long, most likely boring post talking about my writing, mostly so I can have a sounding board for all these ideas I've been working out. If that sounds interesting to you, read on.

I have been writing nonstop and my head is full of Torii. Certain things about that story have become clear, things that I knew were off in some way that I couldn't pin point until now.

I had several questions.

Did the story require scenes of Gilly's parents, abuser and her real life setting?

I had written them in, but I knew if I was going to keep them, I would have to take them apart and completely rework them.

The last time I worked on the story, I simply cut every one of those scenes out.

When I reread the story without the scenes, I knew taking them out was the correct choice. They aren't necessary; they take up too much room and clutter the focus of the story.

The reader is perfectly capable, with the few clues I have left them, to construct their own idea of what Gilly's original family and society were like.

Another important question concerned the structure of the overall story. The story has two parts. One is the journey across the Kagamihara, ending at the Sacred Gate. The other describes Gilly growing up at the Nishiyama village, ending with her abduction to and resolution at the Underworld Gate.

The question is, where would the second part of the story begin?

I had two options, both with strong appeal.

One was to begin with five year old Gilly learning and adjusting to her new way of life at the Nishiyama village.

The other was to skip completely to an eleven year old Gilly, a month before she turns twelve.

I wrote the original draft beginning with the five year old Gilly- three chapters worth.

Every time I read it, I worried that it dragged down the pace of the story. Feedback from my editor friend confirmed this.

On the other hand, some of these scenes were the emotional foundation for other scenes. I needed them.

I thought of two options for those chapters. Take them out entirely, or switch them to the first half of the story, extending the ending.

If I choose the later, I felt the ending would drag. I preferred the clean cut ending right at the Sacred Gate. Besides, the first half was already too long.

So I cut the three chapters entirely out, but I simply wasn't sure if this was correct or not.

This is the part of writing that is so annoying when it goes wrong and so exhilarating when it comes right. There isn't any sort of clean cut equation to show the correct answer. It's all instinct and feedback and experimentation.

This time around, I realized that I could layer those key scenes further into the second half of the story as recollections or flashbacks, as opposed to bunching them all up at the beginning.

This allows the story to move forward immediately, as it should, but it also retains its depth of memory.

I have been busy attempting to discover where and how I should do that weaving. I'm not sure if I've gotten it right or not. Time will tell.

Since resolving those two major structural question, I feel much happier with the story.

I have taken out a great deal of unnecessary narration.

I am an earnest story teller. I very much want the reader to understand, to see, to feel, so I end up over directing them at every point.

I have pushed down into several key scenes, deepening their emotional tone. The characters have become more human and natural in those scenes.

Doing that has allowed me to finally see the ending. I understand how it will be structured- what scenes are required and in what order.

I have questions about whether or not I should take out some scenes already written, and I wonder if there are a few I should write in. I still have to actually write the ending.

All in all, it is a good story. It's always better than I thought it would be, when I finally drag it out and make myself read it.

In addition to this, I have been writing three other stories.

One is the allegory. That story proceeds the slowest. It wants to go to places that I can't understand and that I don't like. I have to force myself to let it go there. I write it, question it, delete it.

I have these two contradictory beliefs about the story. One is that it is exactly like everything else I've ever written and therefore why am I writing it. The other is that it's more real and more raw than anything I've written before and therefore it is promising.

These can't both be true. I don't know which is true.

The other two stories are like reservoirs where I freely dump everything that bothers me about the allegory. I can say anything that I want in those stories, because it doesn't matter. No one will read those stories.

No one may ever read the allegory either, but I persist in writing it as though they might.

I keep telling myself, be real. Don't gloss over. Don't side step. Just write it.

Then I write it, question it, delete it.

This is a good sign. It means that I am stretching myself. I can't see the results yet, but I'm hoping they will be worth it. I just have to stay with it.

And it's so satisfying. It just is. It's like tearing a hunk of bread off with one's teeth or something.

October 29th

The temperature dropped all day yesterday.

Yesterday morning, Keith and I woke up in a tent, huddled close to keep warm, and bleary-eyed. Our camping neighbors had played rap music that night until two in the morning.

I was so tired that I fell into a kind of half sleep, the music becoming my dream's continuous sound track. I dreamed of them dancing between their campers, beers held high. In my dream, they were going to war and this was their ceremonial dance before the slaughter.

There must be some strong subconscious connection that I make between mudding and potential violence.

There was also country rap. Here is a sample for your listening enjoyment:

Mud on the outside, clean on the inside.
Mud on the outside, clean on the inside.
Mud on the outside, clean on the inside.
Mud on the outside, clean on the inside.

You can't even see my paint job!


Stirring, yes?

We rode up a creek bed, Keith having convinced me that I wouldn't get wet.

I know, I know. Put like that, it just sounds silly. But he was so excited.

We reached a bend in the creek where one poor fellow was up to his chest in water, the back wheels of his machine completely submerged. Other riders began piling up there; they leaned forward on their handlebars and watched with good humored comments, beer in hand.

Eventually the first fellow got unstuck, allowing the next guy to become stuck. He in turn was pulled out. The third guy made it through, but he was driving a beast of a machine with a wide stance and a roll cage.

Then it was our turn to get stuck. Keith stood knee deep in creek water beside our partially submerged ATV and looked up at me.

"I did not see that coming," he said.

I would have laughed, except that I was also wet to the knees.

He winched the machine out and we made our way further on down river, the trees arching over the creek like a tunnel of redneck love, the leaves dropping down through the air, carpeting the surface of the water with golden coins.

Keith was not satisfied until we had turned around and faced the sink hole again. This time he powered through, the wheels spinning up white water.

Yesterday morning, my sneakers were still wet. They're wet now, and waiting their turn in the laundry.

Our house in Colorado still has no lease. I never thought that we'd be going into November without a new lease. It's never taken this long to rent before.

For two months now, Keith has been carrying two mortgages and all the household bills on the shoulders of his one salary. It's a heavy load and requires a fair amount of fiscal discipline, but he is able to do it.

It's astonishing, actually, and evidence of Keith's work ethic, all the Army schools he has excelled in and over a decade of service to his country, including three deployments. It also helps that we paid off all our debt, and that he has an uncanny instinct for buying and selling vehicles on the side.

It now seems possible that we could be going into December without a lease. For the first time ever, we have actually talked about possibility of selling the house, which is the worst case scenario.

This is all very stressful.

On another note, I have been writing like no body's business. I have started four or five new stories, including the allegory.

I am also in the process of rereading and editing Torii, as I am going to be sending it to a friend. Already I have cleaned up a great deal of the narrative.

It would be great if, this time around, I could actually write Torii's ending. We'll see.

I keep getting distracted from this work by my desire to work on the newer stories.

First beginning a story is like falling in love. I find myself wanting at all times to be within the story. I spend hours thinking about it; it keeps me up at night.

I want to write my way right into the warm and disturbing heart of the story, and I am trying to let myself, to a greater degree than I have in my previous stories. As a result, these stories have a kind of primal, unsettling feel to them.

The first version of Torii had that same feeling, before I went in and completely changed its entire tone. Now I wonder if maybe it would have made a better story if I had worked with the original draft.

I still think it's a powerful story. It's just wearing too much clothing, or something. It's as though it's too civilized.

Now I want to write as nakedly as possible.

I saw this quote recently and thought, yes, exactly:

"In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and grace."

-Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

Thank goodness I am writing. I don't know where else I would put all this anxious energy.

October 4th

Our home study has been written and approved, and is being mailed to us and our placement agency.

Now if only our house in Colorado would get rented; it has been completely repaired and looks move-in ready.

I don't think the home study approval thing has sunk in yet. We are officially declared acceptable parents; we provide an acceptable home for children.

We are cleared for take off. The only two things holding us back are getting the house rented so we can get our loan, and that damn essays/picture selection thing that will make up our pamphlet.

Resolve those things, and we are good to go. I guess it only took a summer. That doesn't seem too bad, looking back.

In other news, I have been brainstorming on my next novel. I'm pretty sure it's going to be another novel.

I'm going to try one more time to capture what I have begun to call, joking, "The Theme." Since I have lately realized, very clearly, what elements of The Theme draw me in, and what they symbolize, I will write a novel that clearly showcases those things, instead of using them or drawing on them unconsciously.

Lately, I feel energized and ideas are bubbling up almost effortlessly. I go to sleep with a question and wake up the next morning with an idea.

There's still a huge amount to flesh out and I haven't begun writing it, not one word. But I'm certain that I can write it, once I know what to write.

That's the great thing about experience. That's the value in the advice to write and keep writing- at the very least, it teaches experience, and experience gives confidence.

So, I'm not particularly -or at this point- agonizing over whether or not I can write a novel. I can; I have written two. I am familiar with their length and what it feels like to develop a story, characters, plot and theme to that degree.

I'm not agonizing over whether or not I can write- I write non-stop.

This not-agonizing frees up so much energy to simply create. And simply creating something is a joy. It's a joy for its own sake.

I'm going to try this one more time. I will try The Theme done right.

And then, I will try and write something completely alien to myself. I'm curious, what that would feel like.

No doubt, long before I reach that point and probably right when I am deep in writing, we will get matched with a birth parent, and adopt a child, and I will have no time to write!

Maybe I'll end up like many other mother-writers who get up at o'dark thirty to write a few pages before daily life begins.

If so, I'll look forward to it.

September 28th

I've been doing a lot of thinking about writing.

I've been feeling the creative energy of writing slowly welling up, and the question is, what do I write?

And maybe that isn't even a question; that is, maybe the impulse to write has an unknown but definite objective.

I keep getting caught between these two ideas about writing.

One is that writing is a tool that a person learns and then uses to their benefit. They are in control of their writing. They consciously create the thing they intend to create.

The other idea is that writing is a mysterious creative process that explains itself only along the way or will only go in a particular direction.

In this case, the writer is not in control.

It's probably both. Most things in life tend to be both/and.

In terms of myself, however, I am mostly the writer who is not in control of their writing. I can only use my writing as a tool to a certain extent- to write this blog, for example, or various personal letters.

Beyond that, and even in those things, my writing is largely a mystery to me.

This is frustrating. I keep thinking, if only...

If I were more self-disciplined...

If only I had a clear goal in mind...

If only I sat down and wrote out a plot summary...

If only I stopped whining and just started writing.

I keep thinking of sayings like, "Genius is only one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

I beat myself black and blue with those sayings. They are excellent for that sort of thing.

Last night, I lay awake for hours, thinking about everything I had ever written.

Do you know that they are all the same story? It's astonishing to me.

From the time I was fifteen years old, writing with smudged blue ink on papers torn out of a ring binder, I have been writing the same story.

Here is the story; I can tell it very simply.

There is a girl. She is powerless and unformed.

She is taken out of her known world.

She falls in love with a man who is powerful, self-aware, self-disciplined and ageless. He loves her first and for no reason.

She finds out who she is by two things: the internal conflict that comes as a result of extreme displacement-by contrast, and by the sense of belonging that comes as a result of instinctive, unconditional love- by acceptance.

End of story.

Any external conflict is largely meaningless, poorly thought out and badly timed. It always is, because it simply doesn't matter. It's the internal conflict and resolution that matters.

You recognize this story, I'm sure. It's a common story.

I've been writing about my longing for God. Within God are two things I want desperately-context and unconditional love.

What I can't understand is why I need the mechanism of the other world. Why does the girl need to be taken out of her known world in order to find God?

The other, more important question is, do I accept that this is the only story I have in me to write or do I, because I'm aware of what I doing, now consciously direct my writing toward some other story, a story I choose for myself?

This feels like an important question.

If that's the only story I can write, then what I must do is find the best way of writing it.

If it's not, then what other story do I want to write, and why?

That's what I've been thinking about, lately, when I haven't been thinking about other, more practical day to day things, like what to cook for dinner.

Thank goodness I don't angst over those things!

What should I cook for dinner, and why? What does frozen chicken mean to the human condition? If I bake it, what does that say about me?

Moving on.

I want to write like Madeleine L'Engle, like George MacDonald. I want my fantasy to be clothing over some much more beautiful body and to be as much woven into what is real as what is not.

Like, that's not too much to want. Maybe I should ask for world peace while I'm at it.

Lately, I keep sending up these wordless prayers, these little burbles of pure longing that come out of me like water out of a spring, to be able to write about it, whatever it is- I want to capture it.

I want to take the way that I have been known by God and translate this into fantasy, because those symbols are universal. And anyway, fantasy is my medium. I can't help it.

Or can I? And back we go to Question One.

I can see why writers, and artists in general, must have a healthy ego to be successful; one must believe in oneself, in order to believe that all this self absorbed introspection is of any value at all.

I keep thinking about what my writer friend said to me months ago- that I already knew how to write, what I would have to find was my message, the thing I wanted to say.

It's just so true, and so frustrating.

September 6th

So yesterday evening, I was sitting outside by the pool, marinating in melancholy. (How's that for an opening sentence?) It was almost a pleasant melancholy, the sort that fall inspires so often.

At first, the setting sun was lighting up all the leaves from underneath, so they were rich gold under and thick green on top, and this swath of gold shot almost horizontally through the grove of trees toward the low hills at the east.

Then the sun set and everything was blue and green, and them mostly blue. I was sitting there thinking about how stressful everything is right now, and how the stress has been unrelenting- just pressing down and pressing down, and how it is wearing Keith and I down as if it were a grinding stone.

For some reason, maybe some sweet scent in the evening air, I remembered feeling exactly like that even when I was fifteen or sixteen, only at that time, my anxieties and stresses were based on completely different things.

This was a comforting thought. I remembered the critically important thing to remember at all times: life is difficult.

Life is difficult, but in my experience, it only approaches intolerable when one has gotten hold of the wrong idea that it wasn't supposed to be like that. Then one wonders what is wrong with oneself, that one's life is actually not like a bowl of cherries at all.

Sitting there, I had a sudden inclination to dig out my old journal from those early days, so when I went into the bedroom, I pulled the tattered, spiral-bound notebook out of its hiding place and crawled into bed to read it.

And what did I read upon first opening the page, but a litany my internal suffering, which I had, for the first time ever, dared to scrawl upon a page. And there were pages of it. I dared even to hate God, in that first journal entry.

I was in awe of my boldness, my emotional authenticity. Apparently, so was the I that was writing the journal. In fact, I can remember writing it, and how I trembled, and how I didn't want to stop, because once I stopped, I would have to face God after having written all those horrible things about Him.

I didn't even end the journal on a positive note. No, not at all. I went out the same way I came in, with a miserable bang.

And then. Just a few days later, I wrote this little fable, tucked away into a longer entry, without any explanation, which I will copy without editing, even though it pains me. Please remember, I was a terribly romantic child, raised on Tolkien, fairy tales and the King James, and obviously not the least bit concerned with science, so that sort of explains it:

Once upon a time, there was a moon that was lonely. She saw the sun with his bride, and what lover has not walked beneath the sympathizing moon's rays? And are not the very stars bright for they dance with the partners God gave them?

All these things the moon saw and wondered, had God forgotten her?

But she did not wish to ask Him, for she wanted to have a lover that loved her for himself, and not for law. So she paced the night sky, growing paler and paler 'til men could not see her, then brighter and brighter, as she has for God's glory these many centuries.

God knew her thoughts, for He knew of everything He ever created. And He knew why she did not feel to ask Him for a partner.

So He came to her, when she rested in her palace while the sun drove his chariots across the sky.

"Tell me why the leaves grow upon the trees," He asked her.

She was puzzled.

"Why, so that the tree can live," she answered.

"Do you not think the tree could live without leaves all year if I wished it to?"

"Why, of course," exclaimed the moon in surprise.

"So tell me why I put the leaves upon the trees."

And the moon thought. Why is anything, she wondered.

"Of course!" she cried. "Because You wished there to be leaves."

And God smiled.

"All things I created are for My pleasure. All things I allow are for men's independence. His independence is for My pleasure. It is My will that what I create for My joy gives joy to my creation. Nothing is for itself only. Do you understand, My daughter?"

"Yes," she said with a smile. "That means Your creation must learn humility."

"Do not worry, My daughter. I myself with teach them. And when they learn humility, they will fully know Joy."

And He blessed her and took His leave.

And the moon still dances alone. Perhaps when God creates a new world out of the ashes of this one will He create for her a partner.

The Moon learned humility, and then knew Joy. Joy is love and God is Love. There is no room in her for loneliness, nor sorrow, nor incompleteness.

Her God is her all, and there is no more.

------

A few days later, I must have read, for the first time, The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Gouge. I copied several quotes about suffering, and thereafter, scattered all through out the journal, I have written, somewhat enigmatically:

 "Thy will be done, Thee I adore, Into Thy hands. I will."

By which I meant, I will suffer. I will walk into the heart of this. As far as I can tell, that was the first time I learned that lesson, the lesson I would be relearning, in one way or another, all my life.

November 22nd

I sent the first five pages of my newest story to my writer friend.

That story gets worked on slowly, by the way. Achingly slowly. In fact, I downright avoid the thing.

However, I had managed five pages or so, so I sent them. He called me back. He said, "Clearly you know how to write and need no instruction on the art of writing."

(This compliment I quite obviously memorized, from sheer delight.)

However, he gave me two tasks. One was to describe myself. He said I described so completely what I was seeing that he could not see myself in it at all.

I must be able to step in and out of my own skin, in a pleasing and well rounded way, so the reader sees first the child seeing, and then the sight itself, or visa versa, or simultaneously. Just so long as there are both things to see.

That was the easier task. The second task was to connect the dots. He said from reading my descriptions he knew that I was seeing what lay below the surface, but I wasn't allowing myself to actually talk about what was under the surface.

He said, ask the question.

That's the harder task.

He sent me the memoir, An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard. I keep turning down the corners of pages as I go along:

"I was too aware to do this, and had done it anyway. What could touch me now? For what were the people on Penn Avenue to me, or what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth? I had not seen a great deal accomplished in the name of dignity, ever."

Last night we experienced the Night of the Living Cockroach, which is a thriller. In this thriller, one's unsuspecting husband, in his cotton shorts and clean socks, turns back the newly washed sheets. There he finds a cockroach all of two inches long, glistening in the light and making with all haste for the headboard.

The next scene, with compassionate editing for the sake of the husband, will be focused conveniently on the paper lamp shade. Note the soothing light, with its narrow creases of amber and white, and attendant oblong shadow cast against the wall. We will use but one adjective for this scene and that adjective is: vehement.

Next, all is chaos as the villain is insulted, searched for and threatened, but never found. Mattresses must be upended, dogs must be uprooted, and headboards pried from the wall. Pillows, made buoyant by passion, are tossed through the air.

Poison foam was sprayed upon every surface, and then sprayed again. Some people put lavender scent on their pillows; last night, we slept with insect killer haunting our troubled dreams. Even in our shallow sleep, the edges of the mattress loomed large.

In the morning, we found the dead body of our interloper. He lay upon his back by the French doors, as if, in his death throes, he had tried with fading instinct to make for the great outdoors and sweet, sweet freedom.

No such luck for him. If his relatives live nearby, let this be a lesson to them- no one here wants a sequel.

It is settled. We are heading up to Indiana for Thanksgiving.

This afternoon I rested my arms on the back of the couch and surveyed my reclining husband, who was peaceably watching Netflix. "What?" he asked.

"Are you ready?"

"For what?"

"For the holidays."

The light died in his eyes. "No," he said gravely, and then began to chuckle, shaking his head slowly. "No. Not at all. Are you?"

"No. No way."

Ready or not, here it comes.