God's Love

For the love of God will transform you.  When the love of God is through with you, you will be shot through with his light.  You will be changed into something you never expected to be. You will be what he planned you to be from the beginning-- the only one of you in the universe. (166 Mathewes-Green).  

I'm loving this message today.

Calm

I love my city, my Cleveland. I love driving through Tremont. I love the people with their plastic bags.  I love the girl driving her bike with no hands. I love lattes from Lucky's Cafe. I love the grit and the musicand even the humidity. 

Feeling grateful,  expansive, strong,  and calm in this moment.  

Been needing this moment for a long ass time.

Love,  love,  it's all around.

In My Element

The reality of being on Christmas break did not set in until this morning when no alarms went off, unless you count children.  Then I got to indulge in finishing Carter Beats the Devil -- between staying up stupid late to read, reading this morning over breakfast, and reading after lunch while the kids were sleeping.  Holy heck that is a fine book indeed!  I can't decide if I like that better than Kavalier and Clay.  This one wraps up more cleanly and enjoyably, but I like the very real painfulness of K and C because it feels authentic and like you can't breathe right for the last fifty or hundred pages of it.  There are more haunting images in K and C, but... well, I liked them both a lot and want to recommend them to people, but it takes the right kind of person to appreciate them, so I will be judicious with those recommendations.  Now what to read next?!?!?? 

Oh, and I left breakfast and reading because, in the process of cutting an apple this morning, I had three good ideas at once and had to write them all down or I'd lose them.  Caught two of the three, which is pretty good.  

And we ran errands and bought food to share with guests today!  And then two families with two kids each came over and played all afternoon!  We had a lovely tea party with fancy tea cups and saucers.  And it was so great to say, "Hey, just stay for dinner!  It's no problem!" and throw something good and healthy together and eat at the table and use the festive paper plates I bought and didn't use yesterday. 

Speaking of yesterday... I might have to murder this cat if she doesn't stop sneezing on me and lying on the keyboard... anyway, yesterday, we hosted three couples for dinner and busted out the good dishes.  .  I made breads (Jones was very excited and kept asking for more "home made bread" very clearly).  We averted a meat disaster successfully.  They liked dessert.  There was so much laughter and banter and goodness.  I liked watching the empty bottles collect on the table and the people sit back and stretch their full bellies.  

It was lovely to have the house filled with company two days in a row, to feed everyone and bring tea around, to hold other people's kids and smell new babies.  And more visiting tomorrow morning, which will probably bleed into feeding everyone lunch, which is beautiful.  

And tomorrow morning I'll probably make that baked oatmeal, but tweak up that recipe and ooooh whip up a caramelized pear sauce to top it off.  Yes!  With that good Greek yogurt from Mustard Seed.  Who am I kidding?  I fully enjoy prepping all this food and then I eat three bites and feel like I'm going to explode.  Ya'll are going to have to come over and get fat or this is all going to to go waste.  

My brain is so unrestrained and undisciplined today.  I'm just allowing it to roam in all it's hyperactivity.  Probably also part of why I feel so in my element-- because I'm up to my elbows in fifteen different ideas and actions at any given moment today.  

AND today was bright happy sun and warmth outside (relative warmth for Clevecember), so we went out and chalked before lunch!  

And after everyone left and the dishes and children were clean, Emilia and I drew and I made my best Elsa yet and Emilia made her best Anna (with crazy hair because she was jumping on her bed, in case you can't tell)

A night scene where fairies and princesses played on the stars and snowflakes, my happy Christmas message, part of a table setting, which doesn't capture the beauty of the whole table, but I mainly just want to remember that using the wrapping paper as a table runner was a fine idea.

And this is just one day.  The first day.  And there are many more days of break to come, so more naps, more creativity, wrapping presents!!!!!! and visiting and fifteen kinds of other good times.  There is so much writing and studying I want to do, too.  Oh my peas, life is full of joys.

Thanks

You who know any ounce of me know that gratitude is the refrain for my song.  And on a day devoted to giving thanks, the need to speak it feels even greater.  Even deeper.  

I don't have words for it all.  Not shareable words, but I was writing in my mind earlier and I'll try to capture what of it I can remember (worded less gracefully, connected less fluently).

--Oh, and a necessary quick interlude before I go on-- can we sing the praises of French press coffee?  Can we take a moment to bask in its innate superiority?  Okay.  I'm done stalling.

I guess the gist of it is that I am grateful to recognize the God behind all of the difficulties I have faced in my life.  I know that in the physical pain I've faced, my body crumpled and broken, He draws me closer to him.  In the guilt of dark wishes answered, He draws me closer to him.  I know that in the ache and sadness, in the worry and uncertainty, in the hope and in the wind dropping from my sails in open water, He draws me closer to him.  

It would make sense to prefer an easy life.  And I do wish to be delivered from all these thorns that catch at my skin so I can dance and dance and dance, but I know that I wouldn't feel as constantly drawn to Him if it were that easy.  Or I would, but in a less complete way.  The struggle and the wait has a way of deepening my connection to Him.  Probably, obviously, because it requires faith.  

The gratitude helps me welcome the hard parts.  I try to embrace it as another chance to prove my mettle to the One who trusts me with questions this big.  I don't usually feel like I need to prove myself, but with Him, I want to be worthy of who He is and what He's given and worthy of the promises in store.   And I'm grateful for the opportunity.  It's a many faceted love. So I feel lost sometimes, yeah.  And I want to get churlish and demand answers.  And I feel so in love with the One who made this world and so glad He sees all the beauty I see.  I feel frustrated and unsure.  And I feel confident that He's giving all of this to me for a reason.  I feel humbled and small and grateful for all of the goodness He's poured into my life.  I feel like I'm a cup with no bottom.  I want to faithfully receive what He has to give me in full knowledge that there will always be more good than bad.  That even sitting and choking  in a broken Corolla, I could see the micro-slivers of shattered glass make the most beautiful motes in the slanted sun.  

Ach this is getting listy and I hate when my writing gets listy.

But right now, in this heap of heavy I've been carrying for months and years, I'm grateful for the parts that are drenched in gold.  I know He's got God ideas-- which are better than my crazy-eyed plans.  And my crazy-eyed plans are damn good.  As much as I long for the answers and the green light, I close my eyes and breathe.  He's there in my breath, filling my lungs with exactly what I need right now.  It's comforting to know that what I've been given is what I need and I fully, gratefully intend to embrace it.  Even the thorny parts. And when I bleed, I'll gently tuck my wounds in the bigger ones He suffered for me.  And I'll know it's nothing because I've already been given everything.

It's not the typical Thanksgiving pie motif, but Faith, Hope, and Love.  That's what my heart spoke to me today.
And love and love and love.

For the Love

For the love of quark-spin and chakras,
For the personality of each chemical element
(Antimony,Tin, Iridium, Colbalt, Gold)
For weather smells and well-lit clouds
For birds in formation
Dragging fall down from the North.
For soap on my skin
And a world without sin
For crickets and disobedient grass.
For pocked clouds and star haze,
Rebar and cement,
For aquaducts and high tension cables,
For cohesion and recoil.
For an infinity of leaves,
Electric arcs sparking
For poles and filaments,
Magnesium fires and helmets.
For chicken bones, for nitrogen, for the love.
I will.

A Day of Many Days

I'm sitting on the deck outside the upstairs bathroom right now.  I'm in my underpants and watching a gamboling humdinger of a lightning storm roll in.  Except for the glow of this here computer screen, it's great.  Ah the clouds just broke!

New scene: I'm lying on the floor beside Muffy's crib.  The window here faces a good part of sky and its proximity to leaves creates ocean sounds out of the wind.  You could be anywhere if you are here.  Sailing the high seas in your underpants, guided by glowy screens instead of a sextant.  Too poetical, maybe.  How about I'm just here.  A Helen in a rainstorm in the dark in her underpants and the front is passing through and my babes are all asleep.  And where I am is good.  It always is, if I make sure I'm fully there. <--That right there is a whole other topic for another post. Today is for writing about days of many days.

You have those days of many days, right?  So full of moments and conversations, adventures and tasks, that they seem like many days.  Today was one of those.  A week's worth of connections (some half made, maybe, to be picked up later), struggles, and just goodness and laughter, skin and the smell of children's hair on hot days, smiles from former students, oh and the disappointment in myself for forgetting one of my special one's names.  To be fair, he graduated two or three or four years ago, but I still should have remembered.  Even in the half light of the parking lot, I could see his disappointment. Poor kid.  He was a bright spot in my life that year, too.  Now he will think he was just forgettable, but he wasn't!  

The point is that I like the fullness of days like this.  I want to relive them sometimes, so I could space all the moments out and savor them a little longer.  Let the flavors roll around in my mouth before I swallow.  I listed some of them in my paper journal and more came and bells rang and a half list remains.

Last night, Chris and spent a few hours on the front porch after the kids were down.  In the course of our excellent, meandering conversation, we talked about how there are people in life we love but don't say it to.  Here's one of those times when I especially sympathize with men because our world makes it harder for them to verbally express love to friends.  But even as a woman, there are many relationships that ARE love, but the love isn't spoken.  It's too bad.

Remember those times when you were dating and you had that talk-- the one where you finally said you loved the person?  And your heart was beating in your throat somewhere and you weren't sure what they would say.  Part of you wanted to splash into a puddle on the floor and the rest just wanted to sing it out because it was real and it was love and you felt it.  Then you said it and you emptied and filled all in the same three syllables.  It really doesn't even matter how the other person responded because you said it.  You sat down and intentionally stated the words, eyeball to eyeball.  No casual "love ya."  The real thing.

I wonder why our friendships don't tend to give phrase "I love you" the place it deserves.  We might say it, eventually.  Your friend gets the flu and "Oh no!  Is there anything I can do?  Feel better!  Love you!"  or after a heart to heart you say goodbye and "Thanks for listening!  Love you so much! We need to get together more often!"  There's no denying that these are beautiful expressions, but I wonder what it would be like if we took the time to sit down with friends and confess our love.  I've had two friendships in which we did that.  One was a little more complicated of a relationship at the time, but that conversation solidified our friendship and gave it a foundation that has allowed it to last almost two decades.  The other was just a pure and simple long-time friend.  It felt so good to say the words in a serious way. I LOE you.  (That's an inside joke, not a typo).  And to hear them in a way that was intentional instead of in passing.  It made me love that friend even more just knowing that we took the time to say it in words.

There are a lot of people in my life who I do love.  I'd like to challenge myself to say it more.  To get over the fact that people just don't do that very often and get over the fact that it might be weird.  Frankly, if we all knew how loved we were, we'd probably go about life with more kindness, calm, and a generous humility that comes from feeling sure we are loved.  I challenge myself in this way knowing that I will still probably wuss out for a  while.  I mean, I love these people and the last thing I want to do is alienate them with declarations of love.  But then, who keeps their light under a bushel basket, right?  Can I get an AMEN?