This is mine

I just spent 15 minutes nursing Liv on my left, and using my right arm to tickle Ada's back as she fell asleep. It was one of those moments where I looked down and saw a pair of tiny feet perched on a little back and framed by two toddler hands and thought, "This is my life?! This is my life. This is my life."

It's always a blur of disbelief and gratitude.

Ada and I spent time this afternoon watching her monthly videos. I spent time wiping tears, especially while watching the month before we left for Italy and seeing images of our first month there. It was another flash of, "This is my life?"

The past 2 years have been incredible in about a million ways.

So has the past month.

I've been continually impressed with how different a second child is. Maybe it's that I worry less, or have less time, or have less attention, or this baby is just requires different stuff of me, but I feel like I've only spent a fraction of the time tracing her profile and watching her sleep faces that I did with Ada. It's not that I love her any less, or find her any less incredible, but the newness of loving a being I created is not as new anymore. Not that it's old hat either. It just is. After I had Ada I remember feeling my heart change. And maybe it just needed one initiation into becoming a mother-heart; just one maturation before it was ready for children-plural, and not just child-one. Maybe it doesn't need to shed something else or grow another size to fit another tiny human inside. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that number two just feels more natural.

That's the craziest thing to me: I'm a mother of two. An exceptionally young mother of two. But I'm doing it. And I think I'm doing a pretty fine job.

Sweat

I feel like I've been sweaty all day.

This morning I took the girls to the library for story time. Despite the fact that we left in the 9AM hour, it was probably 800 degrees outside by the time we walked through the handicap entrance and were greeted with a flood of cold air conditioned air. Bless you, tax dollars, for keeping the library so cold.

The walk back was twice as hot because it was about 500 degrees warmer out and I had a little fireball wrapped to my body. And I was pushing 35 pounds of toddler, plus 35 pounds of library books. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, just to load the stroller-turned-handcart up a little more.

After putting Ada to sleep I nursed Liv before her nap. (The smell—the mixture of sweat and breastmilk—took me right back to 651 N. 800 E. in Orem where I spent weeks upon weeks of frenzied nights trying to figure out how to use my body to sustain a human life. Nursing didn't come easily to Ada and I.) My shirt was still damp from our walk this morning as little Liv sucked away, doing what babies magically know how to do upon being born.

It was one of those increasingly rare long-nap days. Both girls were down for over 2 hours which is some sort of noteworthy miracle. Naturally, I painted for two full episodes of This American Life—the only way I keep track of time in the studio these days. I was sweating on the balcony as I worked, the occasional breeze felt like a gift every time it blew by.

Now baby 1 is awake, eating a balanced meal of snap peas and the last of my Cadburry mini eggs and baby 2 is stirring. I'm finally dry. But I've truly appreciated the work-like nature of my day so far. The literal sweat that has reminded me that life should be hard, but that its punctuated with enough gifts and breaks that make us think: This isn't so bad. In fact, I'm really enjoying it.

Bright and shiny happy formulas

I painted yesterday. Both girls were sleeping, Ada in her bed and Liv in her bassinet within arms reach. It was another "I got this" sort of afternoon. Until it wasn't, because those bright and shiny moments are fleeting—though somehow they sustain you through the longer darker ones.

Que fussing baby (what happened to my ever-so-placid babe?!) and a toddler who was so content gluing paper flowers on construction paper and talking about friends she's met once or probably won't ever see again that it sent her already guilt-prone mother into a guilt spiral. I felt guilty for not trying harder to expand her circle of friends here. I felt bad for missing out on opportunities she would have loved because they seemed too hard for me. I felt bad for Liv who is the current back-burner child that gets nursed on demand, but that's about it. And I felt lonely for the first time in a long while. And all of the sudden everything felt hard. Hard to get dinner on. Hard to pick up. Hard to get kids to bed. Hard to even think about facing another night that might be sleepless and difficult. (It was only a few nights before where all four of us were on the couch around 3 AM. Three of us were crying. I'll let you guess who the one holding it together was.)

But I guess this is what it takes to recognize the bright and shiny moments.

My best friend as told me about "happy formulas." Everyone's is different, but it's important to know yours and make it happen the best you can. I think all of us at our house are just reformulating right now. And I'm not worried. Things will work themselves out and everything will feel (relatively) smooth again. I'm beginning to understand what I need to be happy (and make everyone around me happy). Here's what I've got so far: I know it is at least one-part Haagan-Dazs Salted Caramel Truffle ice cream. See? On the right track already, right?

Sacralization of space

I came across a line in a book Mike and I have been reading together that was this, "THAT'S IT!" type sentence; I immediately made a note to revisit it.

I have a hard time talking about my art. In fact, Mike walked me through writing the artist statement for my final show and all of the best lines people mentioned in the guest book could pretty much be attributed to him. He has a gift for taking in lots of information and spitting it back out in digestible bites. In the case of my artist statement, he took lots and lots of late night talks, recounted conversations with professors, secondhand critiques, and mostly lots of random bumbling from me (that nearly always ended in the phrase, ". . . I don't know how to say it, but you know what I mean?") and helped me synthesize it into a few beautiful paragraphs.

I just really love that boy

House of Bondmen, 12"x12" oil on panel

*     *     *

So this line in the book. It stood there, answering the question I've had about my work for the last few months: "What is this about anymore?" The motifs I'm using are the same—pattern, shape, covering, revealing, repetition, meditative processes—but I can't seem to explain my work in the same way I did over 2 years ago. It's just not really about ancestry anymore. It's more about this: "The sacralization of space [that] usually results from a succession of holy events like repeated miracles, or from accumulated layers of worship and veneration . . ."

I have thought a lot about space lately—how physical space is tied to emotional or spiritual space, how the daily acts in my space affect the feeling of that space, how I can make my home a sacred space no matter where it is and what our budget. I love the idea of repeated acts sacralizing a space; that as we repeatedly pray, or love, or aid in the space of our homes, those acts make it sacred. I think about repetitious acts that can tend toward monotony but allow for a holy work to take place there. I think about temples. I think about motherhood and routine and divinity. I think about our hands and our hearts and what motivates us to use them. And as my baby grows and my belly swells, I think about creation and time and how space is shaped by both.

To think of another

This is where I want to start:

For a solid two years my world has been wrapped up in Ada's. We first discovered Florence together. She was my travel companion to Verona. We've spent hours exploring, hours on a train, hours pounding out journeys by foot, just the two of us. And even though for most of it she has been too small to express a single thought, knowing she was there was my comfort, my constant. Ada is my everything.

And that is why it's so hard for me to think of another.

Before my ultrasound a few weeks ago, thoughts about a new baby swung from overwhelming worry about what two kids means physically—an frenetic ball of toddler and a needy swaddle of baby—to grief that the time I've had with Ada is almost over, and that I'll never be able to spend this kind of time with my next child. There was joy and mystery and excitement sneaking through the cracks like sunshine, but I wanted to feel light bursts of gladness and the sort of wrapped-up enthusiasm that came with the news about expecting Ada. What I felt was more heavy, more solemn.

Don't get me wrong. It all sounds so gloomy compressed into a paragraph. This baby is going to be a bright one. (Tangentially, I am a second daughter and am sure that the time I spent with my own mother was less than she was able to devote to a single child. I have no delusions about this, nor do I think it's sad like my imagination sometimes wants to picture it. It's just one of those many Facts of Life that stand like pillars holding up what's ours.)

On the drive home from the ultrasound appointment, I was washed with peace and calm. All the thoughts about being torn from diaper change to nursing session to meal prep to clean up to art projects to building blocks—and will I ever paint again?—melted with the knowledge that I was carrying a daughter. Two girls. Nothing more perfect. A sister. It was the first time during this pregnancy I've had near-tangible reassuring feelings that this is going to be our greatest blessing yet.

Many of my happiest thoughts about what this baby means come in terms of knowing that she'll be a sister, and that she'll have a sister, Ada Louise, who I rank as one of the best humans on the planet. I know this next daughter will be the same way. To know what joy my own sisters have brought me creates an unbounded thought of gratitude when I picture my own daughters as sisters.

I feel her often now. She kicks and moves and lets me know all the time that she's forming and growing and preparing.

I am too.

I have to ready my heart and trust that a cavernous space I didn't know will be filled and make me full.

Home again

Despite the fatigue-inducing hassle that often comes with flying, there's a moment on each flight that makes air travel magical.

I don't think I've been on a flight yet where the moment wasn't there.

Right after the fasten seatbelt light is turned on for the last time, tray tables and seat backs are at their full and upright position, everyone is quite. Their electronics are off, their eyes are reopened, and they sit quietly with their stranger-turned-neighbor and stare out the tiny oval windows that run the length of the plane.

Yesterday the afternoon sun lit up our faces and made dancing patterns on the overhead bins as the airplane turned and the angle of the light shifted.

It's such a quiet moment. Maybe it's anticipation to be some place new, or a thoughtful time to regroup and ready yourself for home.

But it feels like group extra-spection. As you see the tiny roads and rivers carve out forests and cities, and the patchwork geometry of agriculture unfolds below, I know that I can't feel a little smaller, a little more like I'm just one tiny piece of something so big and so beautiful. It feels like the plane load of passengers is held in a collective awe of what we just did—spanned a continent in a few hours—and in collective awe of how beautiful the world is.

I'm not sure how God wouldn't cross your mind in a moment like that. I thought about Him, and said a thankful prayer as we touched down on the runway.

a free couch...

I keep thinking about my couch.

It's become quite a personal symbol of God's love for me. You see, DC met us with surprise expenses and a mostly unfurnished apartment, meaning the futon that was left here had to cut it, because there just wasn't any wiggle room in our budget. And it was a huge blow for me. I can't even completely say why. It's probably partly due to the fact that I fantasize about decorating each apartment we move into and then am faced with harsh realities every time. Or it's because I was so desperate for friends but the ugliness of the futon was enough to make me turn down play-dates at my house. Or it's because after an evening of sitting on it, catching up on Parks and Recreation my tailbone literally ached from the lumpy, awkwardly angled, hideousness that was to be our "couch" for the next 9 months. I just couldn't take it.

I cried about it. More than once. Yes! Cried! About how ugly and uncomfortable my futon was! And the knowledge of just how petty and stupid I was being would cause me to plunge deeper into my tears.

Sigh.

Those were the days.

But I got over it. Sometimes it takes a good cry and a good bath to realign your perspective so that you see you actually have everything you could possibly need. I have four walls and a roof. And a sweet (albeit force to be reckoned with) daughter. And a loving husband. And access to a billion free things in the city to distract my toddler (and myself) with. And food. And a bike. In many ways I'm living the life I suppose.

So I went to bed repenting, but grateful one night. Grateful that I have so abundantly much. And repenting for have forgotten so completely.

The next morning Mike woke me up saying, "Free couch!" (I thought he said, "FREAK OUT!" and I was so confused coming out of my blurry-sleep that I thought there was a terrorist attack or something). But no. No terrorist. Just a free, not-bad-looking, genuine leather couch that was up for grabs to whomever would haul it away. We made a phone call, rented a van, and by lunch had a new couch.

It only took me letting go a little bit and realizing that I am blessed beyond measure. And I do believe that God was involved, as silly as it may sound when taking about free couches.

So there's this wearing pants to church thing going around. And like everything that comes and seems to rock the boat a bit, so too has come the sort of vitriolic comments (see, I would have linked to the Facebook group that started the pants-wearing-thing, but the comments are so off-putting it's not even worth revisiting the page to get the hyperlink) and back-and-forths that make me want to delete my Facebook, ditch this blog, and take my family to the hills. But that's not very courageous, now is it?

But the pants thing keeps turning my thoughts to my couch. I guess I can't stop thinking about God's love for us. That He cares about what we care about; that he cares about what others care about (even when it seems as silly as a couch; that He cares that some of his daughters (and sons) feel belittled and underrepresented in His Church; that He cares about our questions and our doubts and even about us wearing pants to church. Because he loves us.

I read two things recently that also have been swirling around my brain and mixing with all these thoughts about feminism and couches and pants-wearing. The first are the verses in Mosiah 18 about  mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that need comfort; about knitting our hearts together in love; about compassion and service and standing together with one heart and an eye towards God. I love those verses. I think they speak to what we strive toward. I think they stand as a stark contrast to what I read online between passionate members ofttimes. The second is in 2 Nephi 30. We read that chapter last night and the last few verses stuck with me because it reminded me that there is yet so much to be revealed. We just have to trust God and keep on keeping on.

I guess I just want to say that I'm hopeful that answers will come and hearts will be mended. Because I got a couch. And that is way more silly and inconsequential than any of the things so many of those that I love are grappling with every day. That's why I'm hopeful and how I know that God loves us.

In every heart, there is a room

Most of the trees are bare, acting has home to more squirrels than leaves, but there are still a good bunch holding on to their shaky leaves and keeping things feeling more like Fall and less like Winter here on Capitol Hill.

Ada and I spent a crisp morning at the park. It was deserted but for the leaf blowers and riding lawn mowers making more noise than clean spaces. We wandered around a bit, trying to find dogs to pet and tunnels to hide under while sharing crackers and kicking leaves. We ran for nearly a block, all the way to 11th street and then balanced on the edge of the sidewalk back towards 13th.

Having an empty playground meant that I got to chase Ada all over it. Up the stairs, down the slide. Up the ladder, down the ramp. We rode the springy bikes together and crawled under the slide.

I remember being pregnant with Ada and thinking, "Geez, I love this little human!" I had no idea just how completely she'd win me over. My friends have adorable kids, I've got World's Best nieces and nephews and cousins who are darling and charming and smart. But none of them are my Ada. My stubborn and feisty, independent but fiercely needy, assertive, curious, and endlessly entertaining Louise. I guess it's good we're hard-wired to adore our own. Otherwise the seemingly semi-hourly tantrums would probably push me to auction her off to the highest bidder. Not.

Becoming a mother made me realize that our hearts know so little of how much room there is inside. I didn't feel like room was made when I had Ada, but rather room I didn't know existed was filled.

Womanly monotony

I've been painting quite a bit lately. At least a little each day, which is a real accomplishment some days. On one piece in particular (there are a few pictures of it in-progress on my Instagram feed @paigecanderson #thatyebenotdecieved), there are nearly 4,000 triangles. I've filled in over half of them, but as soon as they're all meticulously painted I'll brush over the whole of panel and attack the surface with a power sander.

It's always a scary moment—the jump into the dark; the one you know is coming (that you're bringing on yourself) but the unknowns still overwhelm you; the one right before a mass of paint covers up what took so many hours to do; right before a glaze covers things over; right before I sand everything away. Am I being dramatic?

There's a bit of exciting suspense in it all, too. Sometimes a glaze works, it urges colors to life, merges shapes into other forms, releases the painting from something too rigid and sterile to be emotive and gives it depth and richness. Other times, it dulls the whole surface, making it seem dead. And so I get to work reviving it, breathing color and structure back into it as I work the pattern up again (and again, and again). Each time some of the process remains, like a record that work happened and progress was made.

I'm always reassured by my process. As scary as the point before no return is, I'm find repose knowing that I have a process to regain whatever what was lost as my hand hums across the surface again.

It has memorized how to fill the triangle in just a few strokes. Down. Diagonal. Cross. Down. Diagonal. Cross. And in the monotony I find myself in quiet meditation, that tranquil spot that lives in me often when I'm working. Maybe it's why I paint, and why I get so anxious to get back after a long weekend or a busy few days.

I've started to find the same meditative powers in the repetitious activities I compulsorily complete each day. Folding a mountain of clothes. Wiping down the table. Changing a diaper. Putting on shoes. Filling up a sippy cup. My hands are memorizing these works too.

The whole process is making me feel so womanly.

(and now, for those of you who only check back here to see pictures of The Lou, here you are:)

Lincoln Park is so magical

In the small of my back

I was in my mom's math classes for three years in high school. Algebra. Geometry. Pre-Calculus. I sat in her classroom every day and watched her be a teacher, not my mother (though the lines blurred a bit for me anyway. I grew up in a house where a hasty clean up would merit a, "Yeah, that's about a B+ job"-type response from my mom).

I remember some of the nuances of the way she moved in front of the white board at the head of the class; how she erased the multicolored dry erase marker in big swooshes with her whole arm; the way she would wipe her fingers clean after they got black from writing. I always loved that she used a different colored marker for each problem we worked out on the board.

She rested her left hand in the small of her back as she wrote and erased with her right. For hours it must have sat there, nestled, and I remember thinking about why she did that. Isn't it easier to let it hang loose? I asked her once. I don't remember what she said.

I spent a few hours painting today (actually, I'm in the middle of it now, but I wanted to write this while I was thinking about it). I realized as I was into it about an hour that my left arm was resting in the small of my back, just the way my mother does it. I realized soon thereafter that it's often nestled there for hours as I work. And I'm glad to be like her in another little way. I've heard people lament, "Heaven help me! I'm turning into my mother!" But it never seems like a crisis to me.

Maybe it's because mine is so awesome.

The hum

I haven't written here as much lately. Part of it is that I don't have much to say. The other part is that I don't know how to articulate my thoughts. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a women, and a Christian, and open, and God-fearing, and full of faith. I've been thinking about peace and contentment and how you find it when things seem less-than-peaceful and you feel less-than content.

I've found a lot of help while on my knees. I've felt so good and happy this week. And it's been much like weeks previously: parks, bike rides, a walk around the block, a trip to the National Mall a few times, reading the same books for the umpteenth time (and wishing she would listen to me read the books I  want to read sometimes), trips to the grocery store, samples at Costco. Only this week I've been full of gratitude rather than full of "I seriously need a new couch"-type thoughts.

Life hums on.

We attended the National Book Festival last Saturday. Ada was in heaven. From the bands, to the books, to the oodles of babies, she could have spent all day there. We had plans that afternoon to go swimming with friends, however. It was fun to stretch on our suits one last time (I thought the beach was the last time...) before the chill sets in. I loved chatting with friends from Bologna (and wishing we were back there. I would so go back, even though it's so far away).

Yesterday Ada and jumped on the bike and headed to the Air and Space Museum. This is always one of the most crowded. Not as much fun with a toddler. She was more excited about the fans on the ceiling and riding the escalator than the ROCKET SHIPS hanging from the rafters. We spent 20 solid minutes sitting in a hot air balloon basket eating Pirate's Booty and string cheese. I'm gearing up to take her to an art museum one of these days. The Hirshorn, maybe?

Ada is learning new words by the minute it seems. She is beginning to try everything and pick up things I didn't even realize. She's also in a strangely lovey phase. She gives kisses to everyone and has been giving "loves" to the couch. (?) It's silly 'round these parts. She's also becoming more assertive and lets us know even more clearly (i.e. screaming louder and thrashing harder) when she has a "need" not being met.

This morning she woke up particularly happy. She hung out in bed with us for a bit and then saw the ghost in the living room and had to go in and give him a kiss with a big, "Muahm!" Mike and I talked about how much we love her and listened to her play. Then it was quiet for too long and the silence begged me out of bed. I found her bathing the ghost in the toilet and patting her own head with water from the bowl. Yikes.

Constant vigilance. . .

Aestheticization

the latest 11x14 watercolor

 A recent article on the Art21 Blog got my mind moving. It talked about fashion and altruism and the dangers in associating inherent morals to images. In a culture so image-based, I often overlook the underlying meaning in many of the images or messages in day-to-day objects. I especially thought it true in so-called "religious" art that appropriates an image and super-imposes its related-values onto other unrelated spheres.

As a Mormon artist I often grapple with how I can draw on my culture and beliefs in creating, but not produce art that comes off as a cheap knock-off, borrowing images that convey quick superficial messages. (I had a good wrestle about using beeswax and the hexagon in the installation I created for my thesis show). Like everything else, good art needs to have a lasting value, the kind that settles on you slowly and fills you from the bottom-up—rather than shoving a quick snack down your throat.

Here's a quote from the article that stuck with me:

[Here is] the danger inherent in aestheticization: signifiers become detached from their original meanings [and] float unmoored within our culture of images, vulnerable to endless appropriation and misuse.

There is a season

I remember listening to a guest lecturer during my undergrad who was a mother and an artist and spoke candidly about what life was like day to day for her. I specifically remember her talking about the seasons in our lives where we are able to do more as our kids need less. It made so much sense to me and gave me hope as a then-pregnant student wondering what my artistic life would look like after my baby was born.

Being in the thick of a I-have-to-paint-less-because-my-kid needs-me-more phase is rewarding and frustrating. Progress on paintings is made so slowly it hardly can be termed "progress." By the time I get the house back to square one after putting her down and look at the clock, half the time I think, "It's hardly worth getting everything out my time is so short." And I'm not trying to complain, I'm just trying to work through this phase (which is in all honestly probably the beginning of many years like this) where I have to set my expectations low and take small opportunities as they arise.

But a question keeps bouncing around in my head as I work: how do you stay relevant and current and inspired when art is all-of-the-sudden such a small slice of the pie? How do I build on what I've done so that when this season in my life is over I can step out of it ready to create, rather than floundering for my artistic footing?

I started a painting a few days ago. It's a small watercolor. It's easy to pull out for just 10 minutes at a time as 10 unfilled minutes present themselves. I sighed while working on it the other night, "I have missed painting triangles!" Mike reponsded, "Did you used to paint a lot of triangles?"

He must have selective memory (I worked him way too hard in preparation for my final show).

It feels good to be working in a way that feels at once familiar and new.

I don't know where I'm going with all this. Maybe I just needed to write it down so that years from now when I'm a guest lecturer explaining how to balance it all, I can tell them, "Practice patience now and grow some faith and courage. You'll need it when you haven't made something serious in years and you're wondering if you'll ever make something serious again."

Now off to pick up my brush before the little one wakes!

Like a grandfather clock

I've never considered myself one of those pendulum-people who are constantly swinging between immense joy and immense trepidation and fear, but seeing as this post follows the previous one, you (and I) might reconsider.

Packing is in full swing. I've boxed up what kitchen supplies I can fit, stuffed all of our linens and towels into a bag, begun the tedious (but often freeing) process of sorting through clothes and trying to predict what things we can do without. When I'm being completely honest I know I can do with so much less. But the thought of all of these things spending another year in a basement while I rotate between the same 10 shirts makes me sad. And I hate that I'm sad about it.

I realized how much we could do without when we lived in Italy. The simplicity was refreshing. Six suitcases. That's it. If it didn't fit, it couldn't come. We didn't need it. And we truly didn't. I found as so many often do that so many of our "needs" are fabricated.

But it's easy to fall back into "needing" things again, into comparing, and wanting, and opening a box you haven't opened in years and realizing that you do have pretty dishes and things that you'd love to haul along. But there just isn't room for pretty apothecary jars when more important things like irons and towels and pots take precedence. So I'm learning again: you don't need it.

I fell into pieces last night thinking about this (and other things). As it always goes, a string of events brought me to a puddle in my husband's arms (I'm so grateful for those arms) but there I was, mad at myself for wanting things, sad that I couldn't take it all with me, frustrated by the constraints of packing, fearing making new friends, overwhelmed by the thought of driving across the country, completely exhausted by my day.

This morning I woke to a kiss and the words, "It will all work out, honey."

Things are looking more rosy already. See? Pendulum.

Bursting at the seams

We drove past sunflowers were bursting out of the median, setting off the bright lines painted on the road. The crunchy yellow grass spread out in both directions, truncated by mountains turned purple by the atmosphere. Minutes down the road, fuzzy rounds of sage brush densely dotted the landscape, the soft green sweeping back and forth across the valley.

Mike and I both agreed, we love the green desert. We agreed on another thing too: we're getting so excited for our road trip. There is so much world to see.

Just as the darkness got very dark

She woke suddenly when the mower across the street roared to life. Usually she signals her rising with jabber and slow kicks in her crib. Today she sounded scared.

*    

When we got back from dinner group last night the house felt like the thermostat was turned to "Tropical." I opened her window and turned on the fan, hoping she could sleep in the sweltering heat.  Sleep seemed to have come quickly, but just as quickly morning came and with it the sounds of busy neighbors and fresh cut grass.

I picked her up. She alternated between cries, pointing, and her car-honk noise: bap bap!. I let her know everything was okay. We walked to the window and I pointed: it was just a lawn mower. See?

She didn't want to leave my lap for a few minutes so I grabbed one of our favorite books off the top shelf and began reading (reciting, really). I got emotional reading the last few pages.

The sun went down
beyond the river.
The sky grew wild and red
and the little fur child
turned around and 
ran for home.

And just as the darkness 
got very dark
he bumped into his big fur mother 
and she took her little fur child 
home in her arms

I sat there with my little child on my lap, wanting to hold her in my arms, willing her small again. It hit me like a bolt of thunder that I can't put the brakes on any of this. Not on her, not on me, not on the rushing roar of life that keeps tumbling us forward.

So we swim. And try to remember as much of the sweetness as we can and rely on the hope that there is more sweetness to come.

Climbed up the water spout

Lovin' her some mirror time

I was unpinning my crown braid in front of the bathroom mirror, reviewing the day in my mind and letting my eyes unfocus. They startled back into focus as they caught a spider jump out of the braided nest on my head as my hands reached its former home. It crawled onto my shoulder. I frantically brushed it onto the floor and finished unpinning, heart rate a little faster now.

I feel like there's something significant there. Cleaning out the spiders. A fresh start.

I get to this point before every move. Anxious. Just ready to be on the road. Not that I'm ever unhappy where I'm at, it's just that I'm not good with anticipation. I've begun gathering things to pack in (have you seen the 22 gallon size Ziplock Totes?!) and checked things off my list: ready the car, ready the kitchenware, ready my mind. 

Two weeks and counting...

Wishlist

I want to have the kind of face that rests with its lips turned up at the edges. I want to have the kind of eyes that are always open to beauty. I want to have the kind of heart that rejoices in others' successes. I want to have the kind of arms that find comfort in extending. I want to have the kind of spirit that finds happiness in hardship.

I opened my eyes

I felt almost like I'd never opened my eyes before, or at least, not in Utah. The landscape was seeping gold: from the sky, from the grass, from the ridges on the mountains. The colors were grounded, deeply adhered to the earth. I forget sometimes that pigment comes from the dirt and the plants and the elements. Deep purple, rich blue, warm gold. Greens, browns, pinks that I hadn't seen for what seemed like a long, long time. And then we saw a rainbow.

I had to take off my seat belt on our drive back from Idaho. I was bouncing from window to window with my phone nearly pressed against the glass.

Maybe I'll try some landscapes next. Utah is too beautiful to not honor with brush and knife.

I love the city. I loved our lifestyle in Bologna, walking to the store everyday, going to parks, piazzas, shops, the library. . . stopping by local events, feeling part of a community that extends beyond the back fence. But for a moment I thought I could be a cow girl. I could wake up happy smelling grass and mud and seeing the sky stretch out forever overhead. I could tromp for hours and never see another human being. I could let my hair grow wild. I could be free.

I felt connected to my roots, to my Utah heritage, to my God when I looked out the windows, constantly capturing. I think as much as I am many other things, I will always be a Utah girl.

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Don't forget to enter the giveaway before Wednesday, July 18th at 12:00 AM MDT (so it's basically like Tuesday night, right? Right)!

A bowl full

I'm a note maker. I jot thoughts or reminders in my study journal, in my planner, in my email, in my phone. . . It seems like a theme comes up again and again when I go back and read these notes: stories.

Our stories. The importance of stories. The vitality in sharing our stories.

I recently listened to an interview that focused on encouraging us to share our stories. I wrote again, on a sticky note on my computer's dashboard: stories are important. we need to share our stories.

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Spring two years ago I took a class on post-modern fiction. It sticks in my mind as one of my favorite classes in college—possibly my all-time favorite English class. In it, we talked a lot about truth. I remember reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. The same stories are told over and over highlighting different truths, perspectives. I think that's the advantage of telling your own story: you're in control of your truth.

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Even my journal isn't always raw. When I write while feeling particularly emotional, my writing reflects more of the truth that I feel, but perhaps less of the truth that I actually experienced. When I go back to read what I wrote, a new truth takes shape; the truth that comes from retrospection and the understanding of place. It makes the whole life-truths thing a lot more blurry. But perhaps its better that way.

Recording our stories, rereading our stories, sharing our stories helps us suss out the relevant truths for that moment, and leave the less-important stuff to filter to the bottom. That is until we resurrect it again. Our stories are going through a constant cycle: they're shaken, sieved, and left to settle again and again.