Days Pass by Me

Let the days keep passing by me. I'm doing alright.

Its been a month with the wind at my back. There's no need to push or shove to get there, everything has been divinely effortless.
Its good. Its so good when my soul gives in and lets the universe swirl around me. Its so nice to let things go and let things be everything more than you imagined they could be.

Taylor and I said to eachother just months ago. "We're going to wake up soon, and wonder how we got here." It happened sooner than we thought. We're closing on the new house on Monday. One month ago we put the sign in the front yard and now we are already moving in to our dreamiest home yet. This is more than I imagined for "next."
Thank you God of our universe for helping me, us, to believe beyond our expectations.
Life continues to unfold in ways that surprise me. I am not as surprised by what happens, as by how it happens and by the pains or the ease at which things unfold. Its usually only a fuzzy mimics of what I thought it would be like. But the essence of it all is still coming from a place in my heart.

I had a great dream last night.
It was a trip back in time and I saw some great old friends. They reminded me of who I am.
And you know... not much has changed. Some things greatly, yes. But at the core of my core I am still full of the same perplexities and the same marvelous flaws.
I am so grateful.

Its Friday night... and I say "here's to the day... its been a really great string of days."

Very relaxing

Just a little taste of a fall day here at Riverside. This is our last autumn here. I love the way the hard wood floors reflect the light. It feels very much like autumn here today.

I will miss this home when we move. It has been a place that has loved us as much as we have loved this home. So many friends have come and gone through the doors. We have crossed over so many life thresholds...

My Birthday 2006

What an crazy and wonderful birthday. We put our house up for sale on the morning of my birthday. I thought that would be kinda cool. Reflecting the change we hoped would be possible for the coming year of my life.
Wow. We had a full price offer almost before the sign was in the ground. A trip home to Indiana to see my family and experience the fall weather is just what I need now. Now that I have to soak up this whole moving thing. Ahhh. How exciting. What a year its going to be. I can feel it coming.

Learning to Fly

The big girl here gets up every morning and faces the day with a positive attitude and confidence. I am here to assure the doubters, quell anger, and manage all the little trival details of a day. I am here to make things happen and I believe in my ability to do so.
But the litle girl inside of me is hesitant, afraid of failure, still scared of loud yelling voices and people who insist they are right. This little girl still feels nervous when she meets new people and has to make it through auditions of her worthiness in a new crowd. This little girl still wants to cry when things get overwhelming.
My birthday approaches and I reach my annual tradition of celebrating my life's journey. Its time to look at my life and decifer this year's mantra from the puzzle piece of my days behind and ahead. Still Growing. That's this year's Birthday mantra, I believe. I might be all grown up, but inside my human psyche there is still a heart and soul still growing wiser, more mature, and more aware of the complexities of life on planet earth. :)
I picked up a book off the bookshelf this morning that I read several years ago, right before I took the leap away from another familiar place and into total chaos, for the sake of a dream. Learning to Fly, by Sam Keen, is a sixy something year old man's memoir of making a lifelong dream of flying come true on a trapeze. He talked about feeling freedom. A freedom he had not experienced since childhood days spent roaming in the woods behind his house. I understood how this freedom felt... it feels like peace. It feels like being in the right place at the right time. It feels like being who you are really meant to be. I know when I feel this freedom, I often feel it here, when I am writing. I feel it when I am lost in an art project that is expressing my soul. This year I hope I spend more time flying, and less time worrying about falling. I hope I am still growing. I hope I am free.

Tuesday Morning

Ever since I started this "blog thing" I have waffled around it. My days are crazy, and filled with stories fit for writing. My nights are often sleepless, and ripe for midnight moments with these keys, but I still haven't written much. Its ok since no one is reading it. hahaahah Its just a place to be. In my head, a place to sit awhile with other people who are also sitting. ahaahha
I'm not creative in comparison to the young souls I feel coming in behind me. I'm just moving at my own speed. And this is my life, so why would there be anything else for me to be, but me.

This morning my coffee is too strong, so I only sip it and think about everything that is trying to be in the little world immediately surrounding me. There is nervousness in the air, as our lives teeter totter on the edge of selling this house and moving. What's next? Can we get where we are going from here, or is there a detour into unknown seasons?

Only the ticking of the clock will reveal the outcome of this season. Until then I have only to focus on this present moment and what my heart is telling me. I think I will be doing a little bit more writing. I hope some of it ends up here.

beach

I was dreaming of a visit to the beach the other day, and it reminded me to look back at my summer vacation pictures. I can hear the surf.

Its not about what you have.
Its how you think
how you live
how you wear what you have collected through life.

lightening bugs

When's the last time you caught a lightening bug? When's the last time you at least THOUGHT about catching one? or remembered catching them as a child, staying up past your regular bedtime so that you could see the sun set completely.
Tonight the sky is displaying a lightening storm. Its not raining, just displaying... lightening ! in the sky and flying near the grass in my yard.
There's a field I drive by often, where the lightening bugs are too many to count. Its a spectacular site... thousands and thousands of lightening bugs maybe, and nothing but nature and trees surrounding the field. I always imagine to stopping my car to run through the field, and through the field of lightening bugs. I did stop one day to take a picture. You can't quite see the magesty that the field has...but I will share it here with you, and then you can go out and find your own lightening bugs. Don't wait. This summer will be over before we know it.

The night of a summer storm

These are the nights I live for. I can feel my heart. I can feel emotion surfacing in me that are archives from the days I didn’t let emotionally come to the surface. Emotions that have been pushed down in me for days, finally getting a breath of fresh air, and some acknowledgement from my soul.
My skin has the heat of summer in it. I sit here in my summer dress, carressed by the dampness one gets while moving through a June summer day. My skin is kissed with my own dew.
The breeze, as most always, is coming through the window and having conversations with me. The candle is lit, as it should be, and I am relaxed. This is my home of homes.
The only other time today that I have felt relaxed was when I stole to the back porch of the house to sit in a rocker with three year old Grace and watch the storm come in. That was beautiful. I hope I never forget it. It was a fairytale moment that I am sure I had dreamed of experiencing before today. Surely I had hoped for that moment long before. It was a materialization of ideals and photograph coffee table books. It was the scene from a beautiful movie. It was a tiny piece of my childhood, mixed with what I hoped for my own children someday. The thunder rumbled and the trees whispered of the coming rain. The frogs started singing out to each other.... and Grace laughed and talked about how the frogs were talking. It was real for a moment and I sat in a rocking chair and soaked it up.

Live in the Inspiration

My new mantra has been "Live in the Inspiration."
In fact I effortlessly found it dancing in my brain several days last week and realized it was a mantra for my life these days.

Within that moment I grabbed a nearby paper and scribbled it down. The paper soon landed smack dab in the middle of the wall in my dining room. Right where the blank wall had been begging me to hang a new picture where I had taken the old one down. The paper went right over the nail that was potruding from the wall wrecklessly.

Ahhh... I no longer had to look at that wall and feel disgruntled that I hadn't yet replaced the artwork. No more pressure. Just inspiration.

By the way... in the midst of inspiration, the wall was refreshed with the perfect artwork just a few days later. Ahhh... all in the moment of inspiration.

Life is so much easier when I remember to LIVE IN THE INSPIRATION.

What are You going to do with You?

"hmm?" I said, distracted.
And she looked up at me and said louder this time "What are you going to do with you?"

She is 3 and a half and is used to hearing me say "What are We going to do with You!" when she does something adorable or silly.

Her question was innocently copying my style, with no real intentions of alarming me. On this day it did alarm me though. I was already caught up in an inward state of tension and confusion.
Her question was piercing, and I thought about it all day long. What am I going to do with me!
hahahhah

dining in the "garden"

We had a marvelous dinner on the back porch tonight. After spending the better part of the day biking at Shelby, I was set to spend the rest of my Memorial Day weekend relaxing. I did little bits of nothing all afternoon. my favorite kind of piddling. Taylor got inspired by the Food Network's grilling special and started creating his own grilling masterpieces. He made mahi mahi with an original, sparky grilling paste that he concocted in the kitchen. It was spicy and suprising. I had never had such great mahi before. He also grilled corn on the cob, and made up another original- cajan cole slaw. Delicious... I sneeked three bowls before dinner! The dinner conversaton was mostly "ummm, ummm."
We sat under our deck canopy and ate ice cream and drank coffee until the sun went down. Then we watered our deck garden by moonlight and flickering candles. This is the kind of extraordinary ordinary days I love to experience.