scattered leaves on an old picnic table
i like the lighting on this one.
on the way to homecoming
A lot has happened since I last wrote. I have been journaling a ton privately, but I thought it might be nice to get back into posting some thoughts on this site as well. This has been my motto since you last heard from me:
“Authentic prayer seeks to make God’s will our will—and being ready and willing to make the necessary transformations in our everyday life to make our prayers a reality. ”
I really took the bull by the horns in the past year and a half. Here are some major things that have changed since march of 2009:
1. I quit the job that was slowly devouring my soul in an effort to find out what I really want.
2. I began dating the man of my dreams. No, wait, actually he’s nothing like the “man of my dreams.” He’s better. He’s something I didn’t allow myself to imagine I could have.
3. I did the OperaWorks Advanced Artist program in Los Angeles in the summer of 2009, and it changed my life. It was the first time I experienced the glory of the west coast, the first time I truly felt what it was like to be open and radiant in my own body, the first time I danced in front of a crowd without wanting to hang myself, and the impetus for deciding that I truly want to be a singer.
4. I returned from California and become fully self-employed as a voice teacher. I now have 28 students and am happily successful a year later.
5. I went to Guatemala on a mission trip, and it has been a constant reminder to be content and grateful for the many blessings I take for granted in my every day life. From the people I met there, I learned that love and service to God and neighbor is the most important thing, and that joy can be found in that alone, if we let it.
6. I am learning that my own insight and experiences are shaping my view of the world. This patchwork of events, conversations, opinions, and miracles are forming the way I look at life. And having this pastiche of a world view is okay with me.
7. I have made health and exercise a top priority in my life, and I have never felt better. Since November of 2008, I am down 53 pounds and lots of inches, and that’s not even the best part. The best part is that I’m less afraid. I’m living life more fully. If I want to run, I run. If I want to jump, I jump. I was in training for a marathon last year, even though I didn’t end up doing it in the end because I got a slew of new jobs. I ran twelve miles, all the way to the ocean and back. I felt like hell, but oh my god, I couldn’t believe that my body was capable of doing that. Since then, I’ve learned so much about exercising and food, that I am on fire for being healthy.
8. In relation to that, I watched Food Inc., and it really made me think about the food I eat and purchase. Since then, I have been eating as much fresh and natural food as possible, making the changes I could afford, like switching to organic dairy products, eating less meat, and changing to whole grains. Not only is this better for my conscious and supportive of those who try to live sustainably, I just feel fantastic.
9. I finally moved into an apartment that I’m going to stay in for a little while (I moved four times in 2009). It’s beautiful. It actually feels like home. One of the walls is red. There are plants and photographs that I’ve taken all over the place. I have a little garden. I have an apron that I cook dinner in almost every night. I painted a canvas that is now hanging over the bed. I love having people over for dinner. Life is good.
10. I began studying with a new voice teacher who has opened my eyes to a great many things, imparting wisdom that perhaps I already knew deep within. Sometimes you just need validation. He is helping me to unite my mind, body, and spirit–three areas that I have worked so hard on individually, but have never known how to fully unite. I feel empowered and free and less afraid.
11. I have also begun taking yoga, partly because my voice teacher is a yoga instructor and we use that in lessons, but also because it reinforces this path of coordinating the mind, body, and spirit. Learning mindfulness and balance is gluing the puzzle together for me.
12. I have finally gotten myself organized as a business woman! I made a website, designed and printed business cards, and got my resume together. This is a major accomplishment. Check out the new site!
13. My uncle gave me one of his old cameras, which is a major step up from my standard point-and-shoot. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to learn how to take pictures that are more like what I see! I’ll be posting some of those on here.
14. I have become newly inspired as a performer and teacher. I aim to be uninhibited and honest, no matter what, and help those around me in my audience or in my studio to become more open in their views of the world and themselves. 
I want to turn my brain off. I want to stop making lists. I want to stop counting down the hours. I want to stop scheduling every minute. I want to stop planning. I want to stop worrying. I want to stop caring about trivial things. I want to wake up and have the house be clean. I want more time to read. I want to run farther. I want to have quiet time more often. I WANT TO START A COLONY OF ONLY PEOPLE I LIKE. I want to paint my room purple. I want to sing every day. I want to be an artist that I respect. I want to collaborate with composers. I WANT TO SLEEP MORE. I want a garden. I want to paint canvases and hang them all over the house. I want an apron with cherries on it. I want to climb a tree. I WANT TO BE UNSTOPPABLE. I want to be active and healthy. I want to be devoted. I want to be a beacon of God’s light. I WANT TO BRING PEOPLE HOPE. I want to serve. I want to build. I want to help. I want to create. I want to dance in the rain. I want to travel to so many places. I want to see my cousins even more often than I do. I want a bicylce. I want to make a tree house. I want watermelon in the summer. I want to write a book. I want to teach. I WANT TO DATE A GUY WHO RIDES A MOTORCYCLE. I want to learn how to bake. I want to own a horse. I want to learn everything I can about music. I want to get my doctorate from a good school. I want a fulfilling job. I WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Look at me, sitting here, eating my Fiber One cereal, brewing coffee, reading writings on spirituality by a Trappist monk, wearing my new running shoes, thinking of the vast power of the antioxidants in blueberries coursing through my body… Is this really what I’ve become? The poser I’ve always wanted to be? Sigh, I’m so happy.
As I’m peeling into my clementine, I’m thinking of what Laura said last night, “It’s as if the breathing peels back the layers, reaching deep into what is underneath.” She’s teaching me yoga. It’s easy to see why she’s so obsessed with it. You have to focus so much on your breathing and alignment during the poses that there really isn’t room for anything else but the discovery of your body.
I feel like I’m undergoing an excavation.
…to make up for the 47 things that currently piss me off.
1. I cherish having morning time to myself to write, have breakfast, and drink coffee in the sunshine-filled living room.
2. I cherish being able to work on music late, late, late into the night.
3. I cherish the time I spend with my aunt Lisa’s family and what they have taught me about loving unconditionally.
4. I cherish flowers of all kinds (particularly orchids, tulips, coxcomb, and ranunculus).
5. I cherish taking pictures of those beautiful flowers, even on my amateur camera.
6. I cherish my burgeoning bookshelves.
7. I cherish taking walks on my lunch break, even if it’s FREEZING, especially on the street lined with sycamore trees.
8. I cherish the freedom I have to reflect on life and faith and love with my friends and family.
9. I cherish sharing a meal that I’ve prepared with others and the fellowship that brings.
10. I cherish my deliciously warm and mercifully comfortable bed.
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
[john cage]
I would like to be in Greece, standing at the foot of the acropolis. Well that’s irritating.
the acropolis
I once again believed in miracles and in the impossible things that human beings can accomplish in their daily lives. The mountain peaks seemed to say to me that they were there only as a challenge to humans–and that humans exist only to accept the honor of that challenge.
[paulo cohelo]
It’s challenge city around here these days. If it isn’t one thing, it’s the next. You know what, though? I feel calm and cool as a cucumber. That’s right. I feel like everything is unfolding just as it should. Kind of makes me want to sit back, grab a martini, and enjoy the ride.
“No matter where I live, I always try to make friends with a tree. I find them so much like us in so many ways. They have their feet on the ground, their heads in the sky…. They have good years and bad years, and yet they endure. They know how to withstand all seasons, to be patient with adversity, to store up strength for hard times. They are nourished by the land. When the wind blows, they understand the power of the unseen, and bow their heads before it.“
This morning I had a very pleasant run along the canal. The air was crisp and fragrant with the smell of damp bark, the sky blue and welcoming. I feel alive when I am outside. I think it is the only time I gain true perspective, perhaps even more than in a pew. Even when everything seems insurmountable, the still, small voice that is ever-present, ever-calming says “go outside.” It always works. Absorbed into nature, my breathing regulates, my mind is invigorated, and my heart is filled with an unspeakable peace. I’m put back into the puzzle, just as a piece, not as the picture.
I suspected that I might find a new tree today. There was something about the way the sunlight was cutting into the woods on a diagonal. I thought that at any moment I would find one I hadn’t seen before. Usually my hunches are right. Before the bridge, there it was, shining white amid the rest of the dull greys and browns–a sycamore I had somehow not yet seen. It looked young and eager, reaching toward the light. Reminded me of me.
When I was little, I used to climb these really old, nasty trees that formed a border between our yard and a cemetery. There was an old vine that made a rope of sorts, and I used to climb it as if it were a portal to another land like Narnia or perhaps the front door to my Swiss Family Robinson treetop chalet. I was always a little scared that I wouldn’t be able to get back down again once I had started, but it was worth it to escape for even a short while. At the top, I would look out over the cemetery and the corn field behind it and think about life and how much I still did not know. I guess I was always the way I am deep down, even as a child. I always felt older than everyone else, as if I knew things they did not know, not so much in a prideful way, but in an “old soul” kind of way. I think I understand why people believe in past lives and reincarnation.
Sometimes these senses of knowing are so strong that it seems I’ve actually experienced them. Climbing those trees and looking out over the graves in the cemetery taught me more about death than anything else. In fascination, I watched people as they visited the gravesites. Many times, the visitor was one person, preparing the foot of the stone for fresh flowers. He or she would wipe away the debris, grass clippings, and old leaves from the ground and remove the old flowers hanging limply in one of those red glass vases. Other times, people would come in pairs, holding one another around the shoulders and quietly crying. Men often came and stood with their hands in their pockets. The most difficult scene I ever witnessed was at the grave of a child who had been killed in a car accident. On the tombstone, there was etched an image of Christ holding a lamb. The child’s mother came almost every day, ruined with grief but steadfast in prayer.
I distinctly remember observing these scenes and then seeing the trees that lined the far side of the cemetery blowing in the wind, and I knew that God was there watching, too. Maybe those are some of my truest, earliest memories of God–the wind in the trees.
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails…explore. Dream. Discover.”
[Mark Twain]
Lord, please take away all my resistance.
Lord, please do not let me be slavish to my plans.
Lord, do not let me be done in by my discouragement.
Lord, let me turn over to you all my self-doubt.
Lord, let me make of my life this Lent a true sacrifice to you.
Lent is not about dieting, nor is it about drowning in misery and sinfulness. Rather, it is just the opposite. I am learning that Lent is about experiencing the fullness of God in a new and focused way. It is deliberately sacrificing the time and energy to make your faith a joyful reality in a life that is bombarded with distraction and discontent.
For me, this is so relevant to what lies ahead. So many things are about to change. For a control freak like me, this is terrifying–beyond terrifying, actually. But there is so much joy to be uncovered if I am able to peel back the layers of fear, doubt, and self-preservation. Under those layers are a core of sheer joy and gratitude, and they should be protected by a shroud of hope and possibility not their usual, faulty armor. This is my prayer for Lent. While it is true that I am giving up a couple of material things as reminders, I wish to give up this notion of self-reliance, which only breeds anxiety, and adopt a life of possibility in Christ.
