Love in the Fog

Photo Credit

My love and I have been floating for a a few months.

Not in the dreamy, newlywed way,

but rather, in the suspended, circling the airport, waiting to land, kind of floating.

We're in the fog, antsy, uncomfortable.

Yet here we remain sitting next to each other close enough to touch

with hands in our laps.

Waiting for the clear to land, waiting for a voice to say it's safe and our turn.

What if the safety never comes?

Will we run out of fuel and plummet, stomachs lifting before a quick end on solid ground?

Will we turn around and fly to better weather and clearer runways?

Either way, whether it's crashing and burning, or landing and moving on,

I think I need to reach out and take your hand,

hold it tightly and remain.

***

For it's your hand, love

that I've vowed to hold in light and dark.

It's your hand that's patient, kind, knowing, gentle, strong.

It's your hand I want to hold when we find our footing again

and run, run, run out of the fog

grounded and facing the bright blue of

love everlasting.

I want to say...

Acrylic on canvas by Katie M. Berggren

When I started this blog I wanted it to be the place where I explore everything "non-mommy" since so many hours of my days are spent being mommy. My life is full of our children and they make my joy full, yet I still want space for me; to think, pray, create, learn and be quiet.

And yet...

Louise Erdrich has said, "the world tips away when we look into our children's faces", and I've found this profoundly true, especially when seasons of trial muddle my sight of life's beauty. I look into my children's faces, and I am reminded.  I'm reminded of the fact that every day I get to love and care for God's living, breathing, learning, laughing, beautiful creations. They are part of me, reflect me, and reflect God. I find them miraculous in every sense. They make the world's ugly fade with the beauty of their faces and hearts.

How could I leave them out of this space?

In light of this I'm going to do a series where each week in April I'll write about my kids, and Jon too, since without him, our wee ones wouldn't be. These three, the biggest, most constant, always giving gifts in my life.

As I'm writing this, JJ Heller just sang in my ears, "If I could not hold a pen, I would write of you with my heart instead."  I feel like I've been doing a lot of this--holding precious snapshots of daily moments with Jon and our kids inside my heart. But since I can hold a "pen", I want to write with my heart and honor my loves inside of my "non-mommy" place on the internet.

Blue Like Jazz. The Movie. April 13th!

My friend Michele and I had the chance to see a pre-screening of Blue Like Jazz on Monday. We also got to meet Donald Miller, Steve Taylor (director) and Marshall Allman (plays Donald Miller in the film). They held a Q&A after the film, and it was interesting to hear their stories about creating and producing the film.

Donald Miller-author of Blue Like Jazz

When I read the book, Blue Like Jazz in 2003, I immediately loved Miller's humor and honesty in sharing his spiritual journey. I felt it fully deserved its 40 plus weeks on the National Bestseller List. In 2009 I read A Million Miles in A Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. In this book, Miller shares a lot about writing the script for Blue Like Jazz, and I loved this book even more than his prior two. It was one of those "laugh-out-loud, then ugly cry, then laugh again" books for me. If you haven't read either book, and you want to see the movie, "A Million Miles", would be great to read first.

Steve Taylor and Marshall Allman

The film is a comedy about young Donald Miller (Marshall Allman) who had grown up Southern-Baptist in Texas, and decides to attend Reed College in Portland, Oregon his freshman year. He is wanting to escape his sub-culture, his family issues, and God Himself. Reed College is the perfect setting for the escape he's seeking. Reed  has actually been called "the most godless campus in the U.S."  The story progresses as he navigates making friends and getting involved on campus, all the while quietly dealing with his existential  questions.

I believe the first way to ruin a potentially good story, in literature or film, is to make it "message heavy". To make a message the priority over the story structure, character development, or other important elements, is damaging to the story's integrity. It makes it preachy and awkward and I can't even stand it. I never felt any sermonizing from this film. The creators of the film don't call Blue Like Jazz a "Christian Movie", but rather a movie about a Christian. The story succeeded in telling an entertaining story about a conflicted student, and how he deals with the conflict.

For me, if watching movies that are adapted from books is a hobby, I claim that as one of mine! I love how each medium can work together to tell the story, each with different strengths--all the better if the film adaptation makes a lot of changes! I enjoy reading the book first, then seeing the movie and visa-versa. Even though much of the content from the book was altered to fit the movie, it worked. An excerpt from "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" perfectly sums up the need to alter the book for film:

"Let me put this another way," Steve said. "While you've written a good book, thoughts don't translate onto the screen very well. The audience can't get inside your head like they can in a book. They will be restless. They won't engage. Trying to be true to the book is like asking people to read your mind. A story has to move in real life and real time. It's all about action."

"You think they might be bored if we just show my life the way it is," I clarified. I guess I was asking for reassurance that my life was okay. "I think they'd stab each other in the necks with drinking straws," Steve said. 

One element I love most about the art of film is the acting--it's a deal-breaker for me if the acting doesn't measure up. I have much respect for actors who can pull off a convincing performance, since I can't even control my facial expressions or express emotion in appropriate ways in normal life! (Don't argue with me on this point, friends.) I love how an actor can add nuance to the emotion in a story that I sometimes don't imagine when I'm reading--even sometimes in brilliantly written stories. I felt each performance by the main characters in Blue Like Jazz was excellent. Each character was richly portrayed by the actors.

I'm happy to say this movie was not message heavy, but a vivid portrayal of a college student's life, even though heavily altered and adapted from book form. Steve Taylor said they took full advantage of their PG-13 rating to attempt a realistic portrayal of the culture at Reed College. They wanted to walk the line between honest storytelling and gratuitousness. Personally, I think they did a good job. Just don't take your kids unless you want them to learn some early lessons about drinking, drugs, sexuality, civil disobedience and almost-naked marching bands.

One creative choice the filmmakers made was to bring some of the cartoon elements from the book into the movie. If you've read the book, remember the sexy carrot? Yes, she's in the movie. Weird. I think they could have pulled off some of the cartoony-ness if they had the budget for quality CG effects, but instead they give you some awkward moments that made me cringe a little. Considering this is the only weakness that stood out to me, I really enjoyed the movie overall and feel it artfully tells Don's story with strong themes of love, friendship, and forgiveness. I hope they have much success when they open in select cities April 13th! I'm actually slightly insanely curious about how this film will be received!

If you're a big fan of the book and want the movie in your city, visit the Blue Like Jazz website to find out how you can get it there! 

Painting. A Year Late

This week I took a painting class with Wendy Brightbill, a local mixed-media artist, and had so much fun! This was a goal from 2011, and even though accomplished late, it's directed me unexpectedly in my goal setting for this year. Okay, "a bit", is understating it--novel work is pushed aside (for now) and I'm ready to PAINT!! Though writing brings me serious happiness on an ontological level, visual art does the same, yet it feels more do-able on a daily basis at this stage in life. Also, I'm loving that I can invite my kids to join in the mess with me!

One of my favorite pieces by Wendy Brightbill. Check out her etsy shop!

First up--I'm doing an art journal! This idea has been around for a while, but I'm just now learning about it and it seems perfect for learning and growing as an artist.

I'm doing the journal in the form of an "altered book"--a recycled, hardcover children's book transformed into my own original work. Each page or spread will be a practice in a different mixed-media technique, but really personal to whatever is on my heart and mind that day or season. I looked through several of Wendy's books at the class, and I was moved by them in such a way, all I could say was,

"Wow--these are like, an experience!!"

 Art. Journal.

Perfect for someone who likes words and color at the same time--me! Happiness. Ontologically. :)

The Breathtaking Empty Space

My prayer these days. Maybe it will be a good one for you too!

Photograph by Erica DeDell

Lord,
Help me to listen to these signs of change, of growth; help me to listen seriously and follow where they lead through the breathtaking empty space of an open door.
--Common Prayer; A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals


This is the last line of a prayer in the book of Common Prayer; A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro. You can read all the prayers in the book on this site!

Town Mouse, Country Mouse

This will be me--a town girl, living with country mice--if we get the house we have an offer on right now. The one I lost three hours of sleep over last night. The one that feels like a mountain retreat with a breathtaking peak view; that is completely, miraculously, in our price range.

It's been thirteen years since I've lived anywhere remotely country, probably about ten years since Jon was a ranch worker, riding a horse with a lasso (I'm imagining the lasso--not sure if that's totally true) herding Longhorn Cattle.

Our last house was so bug-free it was an event when we had a housefly inside. I'm certain this house will come with much more than that--spiders, beetles, woodpeckers, mice...

If we get this house, we will have what we think we want. Forest, meadow, acres, view, yet close enough to town to remain actively engaged with school, friends and family.

I might fall on the floor in mourning if this doesn't work out. I'm ready to embrace all that comes with country-living, including mice helping me put on my earrings.

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Check out the artist of this painting. Love her work!

Hopefully the Last Post About Packing, Ever

I am DOG tired. Dog tired as in--I want to lay on my kitchen floor with my legs curled under me and my head on the floor and fall asleep in the sunshine. I love this illustration because it captures my current state so well: So tired I'm walking around with one eye closed (figuratively), and I also have a cold so my breathing is a little bulldog-ish, if you're familiar with their lovely sound. The flowers--well I just like flowers. Not sure why they are all over his head.

This move has been wrecking me. In the past, Jon and I get all macho-tough-guy about moving and we're like, "We're going to ROCK this packing!" We get prideful, like packing snobs, because we think we are so good at packing. We have phases, systems, detailed labeling of boxes. And we're fast. We make the boxes our biatch, yo.

Not this time. This time I'm a sniveling little baby, who half the time is living in denial that packing is even an activity to do, and the other half I'm blatantly procrastinating by checking facebook 100 times a day and overdosing on TV in the evenings. I've been in some existential crisis over this moment in our lives. I won't go into it all, because I'd rather be laying on the floor, but for a while I was stumped about why I felt so crazy about this move. Stumped because we have really wanted this move to happen. Selling our house is good for so many reasons. Yes, packing and moving stinks for anyone, but still, why the existential crazy-crisis? I think I've figured it out.

I had been working so hard to order my life to make room for art and writing, yet still play with my family and friends, all while having a clean house. I was fighting for it, and succeeding sometimes. To me, it was all about order, and packing up a house to move to a yet-to-be-discovered location, screamed loudly in my ears, disorder. I'm afraid our fuzzy future and chaos is going to steal my creativity and my time to invest into that part of myself.

Somehow, just by recognizing this fear, I've been able to release it a bit. I have to stop being so dependent on order and comfort and predictability. I guess I thought I had a handle on that because of the nature of Jon's work, but apparently I'm not at the master level of openness yet. My friend Michele reminded me of Ann Voskamp's physical motion that helps in the act of letting go. Clenched fist, opening and releasing that which we hold tightly. I may or may not have paced around my house doing this over and over. Okay, yes I did. While deep-breathing like a bulldog. :)

Now I'm going back downstairs to finish packing the kitchen. I'm still going to keep my labeling system:

All-caps in the upper left hand corner of the box. KITCHEN.
Listed below it in small-caps, all the contents in the box.

Don't make me let go of that!


***Bulldog Illustration