My Digging Day

With a few weeks under my belt, I am feeling settled into my new place. I am acquainted with each room; the walls now have something of "me" on them; and the smells that greet me when I walk in the door are, thankfully, familiar (three candles and a "birthday cake" air freshener later). I have picked up some old routines (wheat thins with cheese at my desk after work), and I have started some new ones (spending time in my kitchen making too much food for just one person). In short, I am starting to believe I am home.

One place I hadn't tinkered with too much yet was my front yard (a liberal term for a very small piece of grass). So with a few Saturday hours to spare this weekend, I started washing windows and squirting down shutters; and despite their not looking much different after, it still felt good to work on something that looked like it needed my help. The last thing I left for myself was my very sad-looking flower garden, which hadn't been remembered by anyone for more than a year. So, on my hands and knees and with my untied shoe laces soaking in the wet dirt, I dug around every weed I could for more than two hours. And surprisingly, in the middle of my fingernails becoming marinated in mud, I realized that my insides were smiling, and smiling wide. I couldn't help but feel like I was preparing for something with all of my digging and changing and creating, and that perhaps something good, something fulfilling, something magnificent was soon coming my way.

This hopeful, almost magical feeling stayed with me all weekend. And I welcomed it with a kid-sized hug. I am grateful for any moment in life when instead of wanting to pull the covers over my head in the morning, I have the urge to rip them off with great enthusiasm for the day. I am grateful that my very center is telling me that all of my work and effort, the digging and pulling, are about to lead to something great.

After all, flowers grow from where dirt used to be.

The Art of Resting

Last night during one of my sporadic stints of yoga going, my inner voice was being particularly snarky with me about having to go to positions like "crescent pose" and "warrior 1, 3, 2, and reverse." I silently cursed all of the stretching and reaching and breathing as I stood there with shaking muscles, wondering if I would have been better off riding my bike instead. But then the instructor said the blessed words, "Go to child's pose," and I remembered why I started to believe that there really is something to all this. With my body whispering a thank you, I knelt down on my mat and rested my forehead flat on the ground, my arms limp beside me. In that moment, every pressure and expectation that had been perfectly perched on my back and shoulders throughout the week had no choice but to roll forward and away from me. And my forehead, which so rarely makes contact with anything, slowly melted into the ground along with my thoughts.

As I drove home after the class, I thought more and more about stretching, breathing, and meditating. We so often praise the person who runs the longest or the fastest and less the person who can bear to sit still for an hour and stretch. Even with my own exercising, I stick a bigger gold star on my long bike rides and hard lifting sessions than I ever do on my yoga classes. Yet, when I think about it, it is a bigger accomplishment for me to sit silently for an hour and just "be" than it is for me to stay in constant motion. And it is often while sitting still, my forehead to the floor, that I receive much needed emotional refueling and a quietness of spirit that I can then carry with me for the rest of the week.

Maybe there is something to the art of reaching instead of running, stretching instead of sprinting. And maybe, despite our mad dashing to different goals and destinations, the rest really is as important as the race.

Ripples

I saw a movie this week, "Beasts of the Southern Wild," that left an indelible on me as a person, so much so that at one point in the movie, I was holding in audible (and embarrassing) sobs. I felt so deeply and thickly the poverty some people live with their entire lives, that they can never seem to escape. And while we often use the cliché saying that "there are starving kids in Africa," this film showed that it is as much the case in our own city and country as it is halfway around the world. In truth, people are starving all around us, not just for food, but for affection, safety, attention, and education, to only name a few. And yet, some of the most unlikely of people face it all with bravery and a magnanimous spirit.

Sometimes when I am in bed at night and can't sleep, I started to wonder what my purpose and contribution will be (or even more haunting, what it was meant to be and if I missed it). Sometimes the most I accomplish after work is to go for a bike ride, cook dinner for one person (i.e., myself), and paint my toenails. But in those silent moments in bed, I often dream that I could one day be as big as to touch the world with a feel-better wand, that something I could do or say would travel far enough to make a difference. I have to remind myself though of the story of a group of people who were trying to safely move a piano. After much discussing and measuring, someone finally said to the group, "Just lift where you stand." 

As much as I would like to leave behind a legacy of humanity or compassion, I may have to accept my influence in a smaller sphere. I can simply believe, as someone once said, that I am responsible for the energy I bring into a space. So maybe the smile I gave a stranger in the grocery store parking lot, or the tone I took with a coworker, or even my own laugh floating across a room will unintentionally raise the spirits of someone I don't see. Maybe the ripples of these small things alone will circle wide enough to collide with the ripples someone else creates by lifting where they stand.

And if they do, then the world is covered.

Decisions

A week ago, someone I very much respect was talking to a group of people about what motivates us to make decisions. He asked everyone if we are the kind of person who makes decisions based on consequence or makes decisions based on our identity. At first, my mind glossed over what he said, deciding that I was not ready to look at my "identity" at 2:00 in the afternoon (in the summer, no less). But as I went home and mulled over what he said, it sank in—deeply. Do I make decisions because of what will happen to me if I do or don't? Or do I make decisions because, despite the consequence, it is in line with who I am?

When we were young, I feel like we learned right from wrong through a series of rewards and punishments. If you did something right, you were given praise, a treat, or a privilege. When you did something wrong, you were grounded, put in time out, or you lost something you wanted. As an adult, the rewards and punishments have changed slightly, but we often operate under the same principle. If I do well at work, I will be promoted and will earn more money. If I launder money from my work, I will go to prison (hopefully).

After thinking about this idea throughout the week, I decided to take the time to look at the decisions I make in my own life. Instead of doing a good job at work because I want my boss to notice, I will do well because I am a hard, honest worker, whether someone sees it or not. Instead of making good spiritual decisions because of what will happen to me if I don't, I will make them because I am a person who wants God to know that I honor Him. And instead of loving and serving someone because I hope they will do it back, I will do it because I am a person with an immeasurable capacity to love, despite its returns.

In the words of the Disney creator, "When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier." So here is to clearer values, and the courage to make decisions from my core.

Making Room

In what seemed like a day, I made the decision to finally leave roommate housing behind and find a place all on my own. After a few weeks of looking, something popped up that felt nothing short of fate. My soon-to-be-home is small, and to some, may seem incredibly cramped and sparse all at the same time. But with a fridge entirely to myself and more than one shelf in the pantry to stock, I am already salivating at the available space to reinvent myself and my habits.

In an effort to simplify, cleanse, and prepare for my new space, I have been in a fit of organization. Each thing I own has been carefully sized up as I ask myself what "things" have become "stuff" and what "stuff" is really just "junk." Belongings that were once kept in shoe boxes under my bed (which created waves of guilt when I realized just how many shoe boxes there were) now have a neat, designated container. A little box for hardware. A little box for important papers. A little box with my shoe shining kit (a gift from an old school dad). A little box with cards people have given me. In putting everything in its place, I became soaked in nostalgia. The photographs, birthday cards, and what I now realize are real love letters put me on a merry-go-round of memories. The pictures showed outfits I could barely afford in college but bought anyway for that one special date. They showed my first car with chipped paint, campfire double dates, international movie nights on couches that couldn't have been sanitary, and late night dinners at stale breakfast spots. They showed me crushes I hadn't thought about in years and great loves I won't forget in years.

As I sat there, I started to feel indebted to all of the things strewn across my floor. All of my experiences, the ones that stung and the ones that sung, had given me the confidence to sign the lease agreement on my desk. Each good, great, and awful moment proved to me that I can move somewhere with an unplanted flower garden, a bare kitchen, and a very empty living room (which might be empty for a while longer considering my shoe purchases), and that I fully believe I will populate these new spaces with things that are grand.

21 more days.

Diamonds

July, to me, is the great American month—fireworks, barbeques, and long nights outside holding tight to light that lingers. My nights lately have been spent cheering on local sports teams with friends, cokes in hand, while we sit on the grass and gossip about our lives. Best of all, nights like this always include laughter, the kind that feels like tangible happiness you wish you could bottle and drink in the cold month of February. Truth be told, nothing makes me happier than seeing a friend smile so wide it's almost audible or laugh so loud, you know it comes from their middle.

I read somewhere that as you age, you don't need a lot of friends, you just need real ones. In college, the pressure to know everyone was overwhelming, and confidence seemed to be built on the contacts in your phone and the number of hellos you said on campus. But as someone who inherently keeps a small circle around me, the changing friendships of adulthood suit me. The list of people I lean on is short, but our mutual experiences together long. I have friends that care when you break up with the same person for the 20th time, but listen to you like it's the first; friends that know what to say to make you laugh and know when silence and a good movie are the best remedy for a very bad day; friends that joy in your successes even when their own hearts were needing a victory; friends that never forget you, forsake you, or stay mad at you too long.

In the words of a great writer, "it is not diamonds that are a girl's best friend, but your best friends who are diamonds. It is your friends who are supremely resilient, made under pressure, and of astonishing value. They're everlasting; they can cut glass."

To all the diamonds in my life—I am shaped by your perspective and in constant awe of your hearts.

Pacing Myself

Last week I went for a trail run with a friend who recently made the change from graphic designer to full time photographer. In talking about this big change, I asked him what his "ideal" situation in life would be. His answer, though not new to the world of advice, was that he tried not to look too far into the future at the risk of missing the things he was experiencing right then.

Sadly, I am not naturally a "Zen" thinker. At some point in my life, I began to think that we were all running the exact same race. And as time passed, and I reached landmarks at a different pace and order than people around me, I fell victim to the thought that I was "behind." But as my friend and I remarked, and in light of the Olympics, I need to remember that like runners on a track, we too start at staggered places on the field. Built uniquely for different destinations, paces, and distances, we were never meant to compare ourselves to each other as if we were running the same course, in the same lane, toward the same finish line.

My new hope then is to slow my internal clock a few clicks and enjoy more my individual race. While there are still things that I hope will happen, great things, I will try and culture the thought (like the popular country song) that I simply "could not ask for more." By doing that, I am telling the divine beings at large that I recognize the experiences I am having right now. And when something different is given to me later in my race, I will know how to appreciate that too.

While "ideal" may still sound a little more appealing to me than it does to my friend, so do the slow possibilities of this very moment. And in not focusing too much on what could be, I more readily show my gratitude for what is.