Loving Tea and Lighting Candles

I have come to love Saturdays.

They have led me to loving tea and reading in bed and lighting candles.

This is my day of listening.

Listening to my breath.

Listening to music.

Listening to the ceiling fan in my room spin around, endlessly, effortlessly.

This is my day of learning.

Learning about Mumbai, India in my latest read, Shantaram. 

Learning to be human again and reenergize after a long week.

Learning to find that sweet spot between duties, obligations, deadlines and rest.

Oily, messy hair but a heart full of love and compassion for my space this day, my Saturday.

This day is beauty.

And I feel like myself today more than ever.

Here's a thought: Sometimes, just sometimes, we work too hard. 

We get so caught up in the stuff around us, all those external components that make our lives busy or make us feel important and useful, and we connect to those things. But then we become dependent on, enslaved to, and tied up with these things, until all the sudden, we become those external components without even realizing it.

Our identity is found in our stuff.

You know... the meetings, the committees, the certifications, all of it.

The stuff that makes us "really involved", "really invested", really "well known in the community".

We lose ourselves in what we are “supposed to do”, what people “expect” of us, what we "told people we would get done". 

But, who are we really?

Like, on a Saturday when we actually choose to pull away from everyone everywhere and just be alive in our own skin and listen to our own breath and relax?

Let us be real today.

In every way we know how.

The Watch Guard, Part I

I see wrinkly hands glowing in the dark. They are attached to a man with chapped lips, long wild hair and missing teeth. The man’s spine looks to be permanently bent over, never to be aligned into a straight position again.

The man stands next to the wooden door, the door we have all come to know as the entrance to the Unknown. He looks no one in the eye until he calls their name among the darkness.

His voice sounds like rock against pavement. There is no melody or song to his voice, just rough sounds from a hard heart. Standing in line, I stare at the back of a man’s shiny bald head to keep my mind awake.

I can’t help but wonder, how does this scary old man in the dark decide who gets to go on? 

I have never been told. 

I just know I have been waiting with hurting knees and headaches all my life. Just standing in line, waiting for my name to be called. I don’t even know what I am waiting for, to be honest. Or what is beyond this mysterious, ugly door.

The watch guard is an honor, people say. But I don’t think so. It feels dirty, to accept some people, to call their name, look them in the eyes, and let them through, while others stand and wait. To be the one thing that stands between a person and an opportunity, to be the ultimate gateway between life and death.

My fingers curl by my side, my breath gets shorter, faster, and I feel my heart beat out of control against my chest. For a second, I think I can almost hear its beat and I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Name is called.

Steps are taken.

The door opens.

The door closes.

And I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait.

The Poisonous Touch

Stress is a poison.

It’s like swallowing thorns or smashing your pinky finger in the car door. 

It eats away at your inner peace, leaving you with nothing but twitching eyelids and scattered thoughts.

I used to say I never let stress get to me, that I was always this carefree, worry-less soul that no storm could shatter.

But when I start to lose balance with love and grace and courage and play and creative flow and freedom and compassion, and I forget what it feels like to laugh at mistakes and turn the page and try again and pray and sing and run... it scares me.

Stress is a poison.

It has tangled me up in a web of sorrow and regret. It has frozen little ounces of anger, piled them on top of each other, and made a mountain of ugly, heavy lies.

You will never get it all done, my stress mountain tells me.

You are embarrassing yourself.

You are wasting your time.

And then I forget to notice.

I forget to notice my breath, the leaves turning yellow outside my window.

I forget to notice the warmth of a hug, the promise of a kiss.

Stress is a poison.

Yesterday I rode my bike. I sat up my hammock in the forest and reminded myself that it was Saturday and I am only 27. I found pleasure in the ants, the rough bark on the trees, the smiles of kids with dogs that passed. I even laughed a little bit when I got lost on a windy trail and had to ask an old man and his family how to find the nature center.

Yesterday, I noticed.

And for a small moment, at least, my stress mountain was just a small hill in the corner of my eye.

A Night Out in Nashville.

Last night I went to Live on the Green with my friend Chelsea. There was a rich coolness in the air and pretty much everyone had a jacket on. It made me excited about the fall- excited about Halloween and butternut squash and wearing boots and going camping and bonfires.

There is something sweet and nostalgic about fall. There is a warmth in the coolness and in the yellow-orange and crimson colors, in the crisp air that paints your cheeks and tickles your eyelashes.

Feeling safe and comfortable in my warm red zip-up, I stood and I watched a lot of people last night.

People-watching is one of my favorite things to do at live shows. Together, Chelsea and I stood in a massive crowd, eyes skirting across the tops of heads, all different heights and sizes, like the tip of a mountain range. It was the kind of crowd that requires you to constantly keep up with your group when you are meandering through the whirlwind of people. The kind of crowd where you get incredibly annoyed if someone is too loud or too drunk next to you because you don't exactly have a lot of wiggle room.

All in all, I counted about ten non-white people, if that gives any indication of my people-watching experience.

This always makes me initially laugh, and Chelsea and I commented on it several times. "We feel so... white," we would say to each other, smiling, noticing, taking it all in.

For whatever it is, I can really feel it when there is such a distinct presence of white people in one space. This may happen at a live show like this one or at a lacrosse match in New Hampshire or a sorority on basically any college campus in the South, or at a country club, or a church service, or basically, anything remotely Republican.

I have recently decided to merely become a student of myself in these moments. 

To be quiet and commit to asking questions. 

What am I learning, feeling, hating, benefiting from? 

Who am I isolating or not isolating? 

Why does it matter?

Here are a few observations of how my body reacts in these types of experiences...

On some occasions, I have noticed that I feel something heavy like concrete pressing against my chest, and it quickens my heartbeat. I feel closed in, small, tight. And then sometimes I feel my stomach turn around and around like a loud dryer rocking side to side, shaking up the whole house. Other times I feel nervous energy in my knees, and my eyebrows instinctively curve in, inching closer and closer together, as if I am deep in thought, trying to determine the secrets of the universe.

And then I ask questions like this-

1.) Do the faces in the crowd truly represent our city, or just our immediate circle and people that “are into this sort of thing”?

2.) What does this say about the way we live our lives and the assumptions we place on our world and the corners we back ourselves into?

3.) Do we do this out of fear, or habit, or both?

YES it was just a concert and YES, I had a lot of fun and I was glad that I went.

I just can’t ignore these questions or these feelings, even on a Saturday night when I am out with my friend hearing beautiful, heavenly music that makes me smile and makes me happy to be alive.

It is a scary, scary thing to only be around people that look, think, speak, and act just like you do.

And if it takes concrete against my chest, a washer and dryer tornado inside my stomach, and weak, shaky knees to pay attention to this truth, it is worth it.

The Sacred Choice.

To receive is to be.

To stand perfectly still.

With no “next steps”, no plans, no agenda.

Expectations drop to the earth.

Layers of shame fall away.

To receive is to listen.

With kindness.

With intention.

Resistance yields.

Anger subsides.

To receive is to touch.

Mind to the present.

Heart to the Spirit.

Slowed breath.

Open hands.

I choose to receive.

When life is hard.

When blessings flow.

I choose to receive.

When my feet hurt.

When my attention fades, and my breath runs dry.

I choose to receive.

When my thoughts are scattered.

When I want to give up.

When I run.

When I speak.

When I move.

Here I am held.

I am fed.
Understood.
Valued.

The greatest challenge is the greatest gift.

We were born to receive.

She Walks.

She walks up and down the grassy hills.

Up at a slant.

Down at a lean.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Slow.

Steady.

Calm.

The smell of a newly manicured golf course.

The smell of summer.

Lawnmowers.

Lemonade.

Chlorine.

Dirty knees.

Messy hair.

Bare feet.

The summit of each hill feels more like a smooth bump instead of a sharp, needle-like point.

And each hill meets her feet like loud music hits the chest.

Vibrating the body.

Intruding the senses.

But ever so kind.

She never stops to ask why or how or where she is going.

She just knows what it feels like when she stops- her muscles sob, her blisters plead for attention, and layers of skin start peeling away like pages in a calendar.

Each step presses into the earth, resembling a heartbeat pounding away during a long run.

Up.

Down.

Slowly, gracefully, she walks.