Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Pillows and Purpose

I've been spending a lot of time with pillows lately. I have been propping myself up with them so that I can watch TV, putting one under my laptop to cruise the internet, snuggling up with them while I read, and even watching my baby turtle run to hide under one when I get him out to play. However, today a special pillow came in the mail. It was protected by a box and in the left-hand corner of that box was the name of a very special friend.




Lately, I've been bewildered, you know, about the way life works sometimes. Sure, on the surface I've said things in moments that were negative and I've had a couple of whiney rants. (Wishing they'd involved a cup or two of wine and a table of good friends.) But deep down I know what it is to wait. I'm not naive. In fact, I'm very smart. College degree. Honors in English. Real world experiences that take me to above average using any type of measurement to determine "too wise for my own age." (Plus, I watch "The Big Bang Theory" and I use large words.) I knew it wasn't going to be easy to find a job when I first got out of school. The economy. Well, it is what it is right now, and it is not good or beautiful or brave. I don't believe I deserve a job more than any of the 13,967,000 reported persons unemployed for the month of my college graduation -- August 2011. I don't believe that the stack unpaid bills in my drawer is any bigger than that of the single parent trying to feed their child or those on the verge of losing their homes. I have a roof over my head, parents being supportive of my goals, and enough love to fill a well and spill, spill, spill over. I guess what I'm missing is a place to serve.



I want a job. I want to be writing more often. I want my health to improve. I want to move. I want a place to volunteer. I want to be advocating for the women that I love and the children that are hurting, to whom I can relate. But those are wants and though they are good wants, I am in the place of waiting, in between, and operating on a need-based level. I need to feed myself spiritually. I need to be thankful for what I do have. I need to be loving on my creativity and I need to be growing for what is next.



Back to the pillow (s). There have been several packages showing up on our doorstep without my name the past few days and birthdays coming up and Christmas -- so I do not open or touch too much, but today there was a package with my name. And his. I smiled big. I hugged the little box to me as I walked back to the house. As I sat down to open the package with my mailbox key I though of what reminded me of this man -- the mail-sender. I opened the taped box, removed, bubble wrap, and there it was -- a bronze pillow form.



I held it in my hands and glowed a bit. I felt the sun in Vermont as I sat at the picnic table and he in the chair. I saw the flowers and heard the noises flowing from the other studios as I chattered and distracted. I felt connected to the river that was breaths away and I felt the green, green Johnson grass under my feet. I knew. I knew what it looked like to close this pillow. All the different colors that went inside. I knew how long it took to make just one. How I'd offered to help without realizing that I wasn't the creator ... I thought of meals and laughing as I drank wine given to me from my favorite poet and learned football while he observed. Mornings in the kitchen. Open studios. Stowe. Movie nights with the fan club. Times when I was anything but silent about my passions, the creative atmosphere I loved, and the many different types of artists I learned from, loved there. I remembered community.



I thought about how I'd put out a request for art from this community I met two years ago to surround me with love, support and memories as I moved forward in my life. I thought of the calls that I've gotten. The mail from Australia. That special lady that sent it and what became of my life after I asked to sit with her at lunch and inherited a gorgeous fan club. I remembered sitting in an empty basket rolling around while she and my other friends did clothes and I well, tagged along. I though of another friend from that Fall. The trade she proposed last week and how special that offering was considering how long it has been since I've written -- anything. How she was giving me the chance to write about art and artists I love ... to do something for them. I remembered that community never ends. And even though I feel a bit listless these days, when they give, when they create, when they are fulfilling their purpose as artists, writers, human beings -- so am I in a miraculous way. We are forever connected.



What a gift a pillow can be and how holding it brought light into my whole day.


Sunday, May 1, 2011

Day Forty-Six

Written in response to seeing a light bulb
out during the praise band's rehearsal 
at The Anchor in Nashville, TN.
April 3, 2011

There were more than two. I saw two. There were four lights! There were many light bulbs. Strung. The ceiling of the church. Little “c.” They glowed yellow with light. Pale against the glorious sun pouring through the window like fresh, squeezed lemonade at the fair ground. One was grey. Dim. One wasn't needing to be replaced. It would have lit up any carousel. But the other was seen. By me. It is beautiful, He whispered, beautiful like the rest. It'd lost its glow. I want to shine again, I prayed. For You. I used to glow. I am greying like the clouds, green with silence before a tornado. Like the cold mist of rain, that covers my jeans, my shirt, my dollar-general-reddish hair. In April. I want to be the tiny rays of warmth propelling through fluffy peek holes. There were two lights. I hugged the different. One. My heart understood its pumping valve of electricity, leaking before reaching filament. Turn me. Turn me. Turn me. I'm sitting on the fake bear with eyes that never shut and a fish in his mouth. Turn me. Back on. I'm so in love with You. The brightest light bulb, smells the roses. I'll mixed-up what I like. Born a lightbulb. Strung from the ceiling of the Church. There were more than two. I saw one. 



Saturday, January 8, 2011

Day Forty-Five

Sometimes your brain feels like it is on a merry-go-round and focus is hard to come by. Sometimes the barista at Starbucks looks at you fearfully and hands you the green tea latte she has made. It tastes like foamy rabies saliva, bright green like Romulan blood, and you drink it anyway. Sometimes you stand in a long line to buy one book that costs $121.00 with tax. The book is for school, and you know that you will only get $5.00 max for it at the end of the semester. This will not even cover the minimum payment that has caused your credit card to be rejected because Netflix placed an unwarranted fee on it without letting you know, and now you walk away without the book but with the knowledge that you will be behind on your homework. Sometimes your refund check from the university you attend does not arrive when you need it. Sometimes it is grey and you walk around in the misty rain as it seeps cold into your bones while you try to fill time in between classes. Sometimes you seek to fly free of the nest and the rules that make you feel stuck, only to bump into restrictions from others. Sometimes your full of blessings that keep trying to force you to analyze them when you just want to pour gratitude and joy onto their brightness. Sometimes your beautiful holiday guests leave and you receive quiet in return, only to find there is no silence inside. Somehow I walk alone in this world yet, there is a Spirit holding my hand and a Lion both soft and ferocious never far away. He walks with me and the "sometimes" are just sometimes. They are surrounded by peace, contentment, and love. And the day has truly been beautiful, there has been strength and independence to place a wide smile on my face. And there are plays to be written, possibilities in the air, assignments to be checked off on a syllabus, and moments to receive with adoration for the Giver. The future is finished and untouchable. I never met anyone or any circumstance in a tomorrow. Each today (raindrop, latte, rejected credit card, opportunity, brave step, minute) I choose positivity and love adds up to a victorious finish lovingly walked out for me before I was born. "Sometimes" are temporary. I am "sometimes." Today I entrusted my day to the Lord and He added it to forever by overflow of His love. Happiness is not always the easiest choice. Yet, I am finding the work pays off in -- contentment. And not just sometimes.