Thirty Thanks, Day 27: Thanksgiving

I will be brief, for there are friends to be loved, conversations to be had, memories to be made. Today I am thankful for Thanksgiving--for the opportunity we are given to make our gratitude intentional. We are given a day and a space to be thankful for every blessing, to surround ourselves with love and thankfulness. For every good and perfect gift comes from God. I am thankful, today, to be in the presence of loved ones. There is a warm fire, an unending supply of coffee, beautiful snow on the ground outside, and a delicious meal in progress.

Thanks...

Thirty Thanks, Day 26: Roadtrips

The movies will make you believe that roadtrips are always catalytic and full of growth, like a coming-of-age novella. They'll convince you that every pit stop can be transformative, every bump in the road a metaphor for life. Movies will also show you that at least one person is always miserable, and at least one person is oblivious to the other's misery.

But the truth is that sometimes roadtrips are just another part of life. Sometimes they're really meaningful. Sometimes they're full of angst. Sometimes you're asleep the whole way. I'm thankful for them, regardless of the outcome or the journey. 

Roadtrips have always just been a normal part of my life. They were often methods of travel--moving to Washington from Montana, visiting Montana, visiting family in Oregon at least once a year. And when I was little, they symbolized uninterrupted time with my a sketch pad or a Mrs. Piggle Wiggle book. As I grew I began to use the time to listen to my portable CD player, alone in the backseat. Even if we didn't stop anywhere exciting on the way to our destination, even if I was bored out of my mind because we got stuck in a traffic jam, I still enjoyed the journey.

Now that I'm an adult, my roadtrips are more meaningful, and transformative... but only because I made the decision to take them myself. Not quite a month after I got married, we roadtripped across America so I could get back to school. And last year some friends and I took a roadtrip to Missouri for a wedding. Today I'm roadtripping up to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving.

But they're not meaningful because of the location. Or the occasion. Or the duration.

They're meaningful because of the memories made with the people you care about most.

I'm thankful for roadtrips, because sometimes they do allow you to grow. And even if you don't grow into a "better" person or a "new" person sometimes you just grow closer to your friends, or yourself, or to God. I'm thankful for the opportunity to see new places and experience new things, to find adventure and inspiration. I'm thankful for a semi-reliable car. I'm thankful for the company of good friends, today and every day.

Thanks, roadtrips. You're incredible.

Thirty Thanks, Day 24 & 25: Kids & The Bright Side

Yesterday was a lovely Monday. I was tired, and there was snow. Beautiful, beautiful snow. I bought a peppermint mocha/hot cocoa from a gas station on the way to work. When I got there I prepared for kindergarten, and then we made adorable Christmas ornaments for an hour.

I don't have a lot to say about it, because I've already discussed how I'm thankful for my job. But I am thankful for those kids. I'm thankful for their silliness, their giggles, their creativity, their willingness to try new things. Sometimes the most stressful days can turn around because a four-year-old likes your sparkly pipe-cleaner snowflake.

As for today... it was not a lovely Tuesday.

We're leaving for Wisconsin tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving at a friend's house, so a lot needed to be done today. We set the alarm for 10 but didn't wake up until 10:30 when the maintenance men knocked on our front door. I went to the door in my pajamas (yikes!) and made them wait a minute while we composed ourselves and Joey took the dog out. The men came in, replaced our smoke detector, and left.

We ate breakfast quickly, and watched a few minutes of 'Up' on the Disney channel. Then Joey went to do laundry and I started making a pie crust. I'm making apple pie to take with us... and will soon be preparing the apple filling. More on that later.

After he returned from the laundromat we got everything ready to go. Once again we stopped at the gas station for coffee. I went and taught kindergarten. I spent an hour and a half planning for next week. And then I intended on going to the craft store.

I did not make it to the craft store. No, instead I spent half an hour trying to start the car. When it started, I decided to go straight home instead. Then I remembered I hadn't eaten all day and my husband had suggested I get a pizza, so I stopped at Little Caesar's. I turned the car off, then tried to turn it on again (just in case) and spent another thirty minutes trying to start the car. I made the same mistake again, just trying to figure out if maybe I could start it without any trouble.

The best part is that the Little Caesar's is literally a five minute walk from home. I could have gone home, gotten warm, except that I couldn't leave the car in the parking lot all night, especially since my husband wouldn't be around to turn it on (because he knows how) until after midnight. So I called roadside service, and bought a pizza while waiting for the two truck. It didn't take long for him to arrive and only took thirty seconds to get home.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it took thirty seconds to drive me home. Watching him jerk and pull my car up onto the ramp was fascinating. Because of the problem we have with the car, it couldn't be put into neutral, so part of me feared the car would just break apart when he pulled it. It didn't.

Getting into the tow truck was also an adventure. I'm 5'3. And my legs were numb from sitting in the car for two hours in 21 degree weather.

I did finally make it home. I ate some cold pizza. I warmed my numb legs. It was a hard, stressful day. But in the end.... I am thankful for the bright side of this day. 

I'm thankful I didn't have to work all night, or sit at the computer and wait for my husband to get off of work. I'm thankful that I have a car, and that my husband knows how to start it. I'm thankful for car insurance. I'm thankful that we have free roadside service. I'm thankful for the really nice tow truck guy (although he was wearing way too much cologne.) I'm thankful for cheap pizza and my warm apartment and for the wonderful task of making an apple pie at midnight.

Thanks kids, and thanks bright side. (And thanks two-truck-man.) You're all incredible.

Thirty Thanks, Day 23: My Mind

I dreamed there was a consuming darkness. Even the sunlight was tainted by shadow. The world seemed faded and muted and dull--and yet, each negative sensation was more severe. All of the painful, confusing emotions that we typically try to keep at bay were enhanced and overwhelming. Thus, people found odd ways of putting their guard up. 

I went to a museum, dressed in all black leather, and felt at ease in my surroundings merely because I appeared sinister and untouchable. I wore awful heeled boots (definitely not real life anymore) and believed I could kill, if I wanted to. I felt that powerful, and that close to the edge. But the darkness seeped into even the indecipherable art in the museum. I knew I was looking at a sculpture, or a painting, but couldn't make out distinct colors or shapes. 

In search of something more engaging, I went to a mall. (Now we have definitely left Kansas.) I informed my husband and a friend (the same friend who visited me in real life last weekend) that I would be at the mall, and they should come pick me up. Once inside the enormous, gray shopping center I tried to find a suitable department to browse, but everything was separated by large doors and security agents. You couldn't look at baby clothes unless you were certifiably pregnant, or at formal dresses if you had no proof you would be attending a formal event, and the same went for any type of clothing or appliance or houseware. The agents would interrogate customers in order to let them through the doors and so I curled up in a shopping cart and took a nap. 

When I woke from my mall nap, there appeared before me a large rack of scarves. They were all brilliantly colored and had bright patterns. They were draped at all angles on the rack, calling me with their blues and reds and golds. I crawled out of the shopping cart and marveled at the scarves--the only truly colorful things I had yet found in this shadowed world. But each time I attempted to pull a scarf from the rack, it became caught. I could not have a single one, could not hold it or touch it or enjoy the fabric. 

Infuriated, I decided it was time to go home for dinner. We would order a pizza, because surely a pizza can't let you down in a shadowy place. I saw my husband and my friend approach the mall from a distance. It was extremely windy outside and my husband was carrying my purse, struggling against the coming storm. It would have been a funny sight except that he decided he would just meet me at home. My friend waved goodbye--he was heading back to his home on the train.

Once arriving at home my husband informed me that all pizza was now banned, and so we went to bed. I asked if our friend had made it home safely, and my husband looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently the friend was alright, but he had been in a train wreck, because the train had been carrying a large yacht. This overwhelmed me with sadness and despair and I wept, uncontrollably, inconsolably, for what seemed like years, until my husband started talking again. He said that all of this had happened a long time ago, and I had been in a coma, and while I was in the coma he had started helping out a woman with a baby. She was unmarried and needed to borrow our car on a regular basis. She had the car at that very moment.

Dazed but angry, I redressed in all of my powerful leather and my horrible boots, and went back to the mall. I wanted to get the car back, at least. When I returned to the mall I saw her immediately. She, too, was wearing all black leather. However, she was Latina, with long, dark, curly hair and gold hoop earrings--she pulled off the look much better than I did. Her eyes were sharp. She was pushing a stroller, and I knew there was a little girl sitting in it, but I could not tell what she looked like or if she was even alive. 

The woman intimidated me. I intended on confronting her but found myself incapable. I asked her where the car was and she said, "This way, another storm is coming." Her voice was hard and yet beautiful, her words pointed and haunting. We to the entrance of the mall and it started to rain. It came down in waves of water, relentless and violent. I stepped outside with an umbrella, which promptly broke. With my vision almost completely obscured I pulled my leather jacket over my head and we walked towards the car.

With every step the rain lessened. When we reached the car it had stopped and the ground was drying, but I noticed all the car doors were open--even the trunk and the hood. I suddenly realized the woman had not gone into my car, but had gone to another car next to it. Hers was white, and she put her child in the back. I also realized there was a green car pulled up behind mine. Initially I thought, "You've got to be kidding me! I can't back out with them there!" until someone started talking. 

Sitting in the car were two black men, wearing Harvard sweatshirts. They announced that they were taking my car, and one told the other to search the car for valuables. I told them I didn't have any, and the driver said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't give a damn." A voice in my head somehow restrained me from telling them that the car wasn't worth much either, although it was definitely worth more than any 'valuables' inside. 

The woman drove away in her white car and I stood next to my black car, drenched and confused. All the doors were open and my life seemed to spill from it, pouring out of the seats and the little garbage bag and the blankets stored in the trunk. I felt defeated and broken from the inside out, like the shadowed world had taken advantage of me, had robbed me of my very soul, my only hope. I kept thinking that it simply didn't make sense, that I had so little--why would someone take from me when I practically had nothing to be taken? 

And so I told myself it wasn't real. I had an ounce of strength left and I used it to remind myself that none of it could be true, and I had to find what was true. 

I woke up breathless in the dark. Half-asleep, the sound of my own breathing and pounding heart immediately reminded me of the ocean. My senses slowly returned but I still felt terrified that all I had was gone. I listened carefully and found the sound of my dog snoring on the floor. I could not regain awareness, did not know where I was, could not find my husband. A few minutes of breathing deeply finally allowed me to roll over and find his warm back.

It was a nightmare. None of it was real.

I know I've mentioned before how lifelike my dreams are. I am easily convinced of their truth, in the beginning. I am carried away by the excitement of a new world, a sleepy discovery. This is why my nightmares are never short-lived. They carry on like a Charles Dickens novel, and you keep waiting for the happy ending, except that in this case they never come. The orphan does not find their family, or come into riches, or marry their true love. And so rather than stay trapped, I keep exploring until I can escape.

And so I am thankful for my mind.  It is a gift, surely, to be able to dream up such magnificent, detailed stories. I have traveled the world and flown the skies and had the desires of my heart, all without leaving the comfort of my bed. But when I am in danger, there is no real suffering. My mind has learned, after all these years of dreaming, to defend itself against the lies of a nightmare. It has learned to find a way out before my heart believes it is broken, before all the misery of the world crushes me in my sleep. It finds a way back to what is true.

I wasn't going to write a blog for the 23rd by itself. It was a long day and so I was going to pair it up with the 24th. But I went to sleep filled with anxiety, apparently. And I had this nightmare. So I was all shaken up. I tried reading the Psalms... but I couldn't resist the need to write it all down.

So perhaps this post is a little odd, considering the others I've done this month. But I truly am thankful not to be trapped in my nightmares.

Thanks, mind. You're incredible. Scary, but incredible.

Thirty Thanks, Day 22: The Art in Me

When I was little I used to sit down with a stack of paper or maybe a few coloring books and this big tin of crayons. Yes, a tin of crayons. My favorite color alternated by the hour, depending upon which crayon was sharpest. I would begin to draw and the pictures would just pour out of me--they practically gushed--like a frenzy of uncontrollable, heavenly colors. I would draw picture after picture until they probably piled around me and at the end of the day my mother would have to secretly throw most of them out because she couldn't possibly keep every single one.

This was my element. And it still is. When I am allowed the space and resources for creativity I am almost literally unstoppable. I am never more focused, more exhilarated, or more at peace than when I am making art. It doesn't have to be crayons and paper (like the photo to the left, August '14). It can be a square of polymer clay, or a canvas and some acrylics, a notebook and pen, a piano and some solitude, or even an apple pie.



Below is a project I'm prepping for kindergarten on Monday. Right now they are just tiny canvases with puffy painted words, but soon they will be fabulous Christmas ornaments. There's paint and sequins involved. Really.

And here's a sneak peak of this year's Christmas cards. The process has just begun.

The point is, art has always--and I mean always--been part of my identity. It wasn't until a few years ago that I began to realize how spiritual art is for me, how it grounds me and connects me. There's an old Jars of Clay song called "Art in Me," in which the speaker begs someone to "see the art in me." I've resonated with that on many levels, and it's that phrase which helps my understanding of my own art. I am so thankful for my own creativity--for the art in me. 

I'm thankful for what art gives me--peace when I am restless, resolution when I am aimless, clarity when I am overwhelmed, distraction when I'm anxious, joy when I'm in sorrow, and tenderness when I'm in rage. I'm thankful for how it allows me to connect with others, either by sharing my art with them or partaking in another's art. I'm thankful for the colors and sounds and textures I can be surrounded by. I'm thankful that my parents encouraged my artistic nature when I was young, even when I resisted. (I still resist taking art classes--I don't like being told what to do.) But most of all I'm thankful for the spiritual element of the art in me, the way it engages me with God in ways that cannot be explained or otherwise experienced. By creating, I connect with my Creator.

Thanks, art. You're incredible.

Thirty Thanks, Day 21: Homespaces

I am slipping this post in just under the radar, I know. But it's my first "do nothing" day in over a week. I have been busy. I've been hostessing, and having doctor's appointments, and teaching children and teaching adults and planning plans. I'm a busy woman. My mind is at 110% capacity 200% of the time. (I am also really bad at math.) I am never not thinking about something, even if I look like I'm relaxed. It's this never ending cycle of being strong enough to handle all of it but fighting myself every step of the way because I either feel like I'm not doing enough or I'm sure that if I don't stop I will actually explode.

I used to call it "fighting my own strength." I wrote horrible poems about it in high school.

But you know what makes all of this fighting worth it?

Homespaces. Yes, I just made that up. But it's a real thing, which I will explain.

A homespace is a space (...) that feels like home. Obviously. You probably could have figured that out. But the root of it is that it doesn't have to be home. There are other elements that make it feel that way. This can make life tolerable, especially if you don't actually have a place to call home.

I've felt homeless for a while, really. My parents no longer live in the house I grew up in. My apartment, while it is the place I sleep, is not exactly homey and the fact that the property owners won't fix our leaking wall definitely doesn't give me a sense of belonging. And, in general, Illinois has never felt like home. The weather makes me miserable year-round, and most of my favorite people are very far away. I will always call Washington my home, even though I personally don't have a place to live there.

And that's because a homespace isn't about the location... it's about the sense of belonging.

So when I'm with my husband, I'm in my homespace. I belong where he is. When I'm with my parents in their apartment, I'm in my homespace, because I belong with them. When I'm with my dearest and closest friends in a coffee shop or at the movies or walking around the city, I'm in my homespace, because we belong with each other.

I am thankful for the many homespaces in my life. I am thankful for the group of wonderful women who have supported me this last year, and the ways they see me and love me and make sure I know I belong with them. I'm thankful that despite my apartment's shortcomings, it is a place where I can be safe with my husband or with friends. I'm thankful for the opportunity I had last December to visit home for Christmas, to experience a different homespace with my family. I'm thankful for the friends I've made at work, and the homespace there where I can be challenged and can touch the lives of students. I'm thankful most of all for the Holy Spirit, in allowing me to find "homespaces" in so many different experiences and places and situations.

Thanks, homespace. (Not homeslice...) You're incredible.

Thirty Thanks, Day 20: This Man

Five and a half years ago I met a really nice guy. He had, literally, the bluest eyes I'd ever seen and this adorable crooked smirk. He was really good with kids and animals and had such an upbeat attitude most of the time. He was just so nice. Such a nice guy.

And this was the summer I decided not to date anyone, or even think about dating anyone, or even become friends with boys. I'd just had my heart broken, so I swore I would not make the same mistake again so soon.

Oh well, right?

So I met this nice guy and we fell in love and two years after that we got married and now I'm living happily ever after with this really nice guy.

Except that he's not a nice guy.

It's not because he's the opposite of nice. It's just, I really hate the word nice. When I was teaching, I admonished every student that used "nice" as a descriptor. "Nice" has lost all meaning. Nice is boring, nice is simple, nice is uninspiring. There are so many more words that convey something deeper than "nice." So... no. My husband is not a nice guy. But he is a lot of other things. I am so thankful for my husband, and all of the not-nice things he is.

I am thankful that he is hilarious, because he loves making me laugh and finds humor in everything. I'm thankful that he's focused, and that (even if it takes a while for him to get started) once he gets into a task he doesn't stop until it's finished. I'm thankful that he is gentle and kindhearted, because it means even in our worst arguments he never aims to hurt me or cause me anxiety. It also means that when he apologizes, to me or other people, he is sincere. I'm thankful for his creativity, which allows him to do well at work but it also inspires me in my own creativity. I'm thankful that he's so ridiculously handsome, and that he has an awesome beard (because without it he looks like a twelve-year-old.) I'm thankful that he is faithful--not just to me, but to God. For underneath all the stress and fear caused by this world, he knows who to really trust and serve. I'm thankful that he is adventurous and isn't afraid to try new things with me. I'm thankful that he's extroverted and outgoing, because it takes a lot of the pressure off of me when we're in social situations. (Phew!) And I'm thankful that he loves me, and that despite my human-ness he chooses to love me every day.

I'm grateful that he's not nice, too. Thanks, husband. You're incredible. <3 p="">