Journeys of a Wandering Wordsmith
Journey with me on my blog!
To Watch the Storms of My Sadness
Gluggavedur, "window-weather," is the notion of watching a storm from afar. Of being safely indoors, warm and secure, while the storm brews on the horizon. Lightning, swirling clouds, and rain – all seen through a pane of glass. The concept can be taken metaphorically, too, to separate yourself from your swirling emotions within. Of creating a space between you and the storms: sadness, anger, stress, fear, etc. Of not ignoring these hard feelings, but being aware of them, watching them from the other side of the glass...until they eventually pass.
I (Still) Love You, Camp Ridgecrest
I'm only twenty miles away from Camp Ridgecrest, but it might as well be twenty dimensions. A bunch of foggy memories along with a million unformed, never-to-be ones. It's a fog I can't shake, follows my footsteps within and beyond the Blue Ridge. Am I crazy? Obsessed? Why does a camp have such a grip on me after all these years? It was one summer. One effing brutal beautiful summer. Why do I feel so much? Why do I hurt with a longing for what was and what wasn't? And why do a bunch of entitled white southern Gen X Christian moms rake me to the core?
Another Dawn Closer
What a comfort. What an assurance. That no matter how much the last day or last four years have tested us, drained us, broken us . . . the sun rises anew. Gives us a new chance to absorb the light and also a new chance to shine it. Or as poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, perfectly put it at today's inauguration: "For there is always light if only we're brave enough to see it, if only we're brave enough to be it."
What Will I Have Done This Year?
Instead of saying, "What do I want to do this year?" try saying, "What will I have done this year?" It's a productivity tip I learned from Donald Miller, and I've never been more eager to implement this subtle mental tweak for 2021.
Can You Feel the Fatigue Tonight?
I'm ready for the election to be over. I'm ready for 2020 to be over. I'm ready for the main stage of my disease to be over. I'm ready for my tiredness over it all to be over. I heard something described on a podcast as "fatigue-fatigue," and boy do I feel that. Do you?
Am I Worthy of Your Giving?
Am I really worth your hard-earned dollars? Am I worth your kindness? You say I am, but am I really? I don't want to waste my money – your money. I don't want to buy things I don't "need." But I also "need" some amount of pleasure and joy. Can I buy a milkshake with your money? What about a new lamp for my studio? I want to make you proud of my journey, however much you've contributed to it. I want to be worthy of every cent.
Change, Leave!
I want to leave my usual ways of changing, leaving. Of always running from things, even if I'm also running to new ones. Of masking my loneliness and shame with adventures and Instagram posts. I want to continue learning to stay for a change, staying for change.
The God Who Won't Speak Back
Six months into a pandemic, three into an autoimmune disease, my outlook feels more than a little frantic right now. Constantly on my phone or laptop and craving some sense of connection or novelty. A momentary break in the loneliness, the stuckness, and the waiting. Sometimes the break comes. Often it doesn't. Often I am greeted with silence. Thick, dark. Empty.
This Disease from Up Top
It's unnerving not knowing where you are. Like I'm on the bottom level of a parking deck (garage) with no idea how long or far or deep or wide or harrowing this thing goes. Was this last month of infusions a definitive leap toward healing or a total wash? Do I move on to the next phase, or do I start over with something else?
Prisoner of Hope
Oh, the freedom to no longer hope in anything far off. To forget the future and, perhaps, attain a greater ability to live in this present. It hurts to hope, I've been learning (groaning) through adulthood. It hurts to hope for things, only to see them fall flat – or, worse, fall further.
These Hills Have Me
I'm not getting out much these days. I used to sprawl all over this city and region, but I've become more of a homebody than ever before. But I'm living in my favorite dwelling I've ever built for myself, a homier, "Tom-ier" place than anywhere else, complete with maps and globes and buffalo art; early mornings with lighted candles and open windows and blanketed fog amidst the canopy. It feels good to be a body in this home.
'Twas the Night Before Treatment
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I set out on a new quest. A new quest within an already new journey of the last couple months – this unforeseen journey with an autoimmune disease. Tomorrow begins this new quest for healing and recovery. Remission. Or so I hope.
Teach Me How to Live
Of course, I want to travel again one day, set loose to wander once more. I want it badly. But for now, I do have this strange desire to be settled. To stay home and enjoy safety and solitude. And I don't necessarily feel relegated to this reality, forced into it against my wandering will. For all this restless angst I've had since childhood, perhaps I'm finally stumbling onto the cure?
A Time to Refrain from Embracing
Looking down at my precious niece in my arms, I realized it's really something, how we need physical touch to survive. Need to be swaddled. Need to be held. Need to feel the warmth of another human emanating against us, if only to affirm to one another we are not alone in this desert. To embrace for my soul or not to embrace for my body? Life with an autoimmune disease during the pandemic of the century: one calculated risk after another.
Not So Wonderfully Made
I don't feel wonderfully made right now. My autoimmune disease makes me feel newly flawed. Like my Designer forgot to quality-check my body before He sent me to the womb, apparently knit with this broken strand.
I Am Not in Control
I have control issues. I have known this about myself for a little while now. Counseling has helped me see it more clearly, though I feel I've known this for many years prior. I don't like being at the mercy of my circumstances. Especially the mercy of another human.
Jesus Year
In 2017, when I was 30, I quit my full-time job at a boarding school to pursue more of Your Other Brothers. It's work, certainly, editing blogs and producing regular streams of podcasts and videos, but it's also a lot of ministry. Responding to emails from new readers. Engaging with supporters at coffee shops. Planning weekly digital gatherings and yearly "real-life" retreats. Am I comparing myself to Jesus, you're asking? Why, of course I am. But shouldn't we all?
40 Days of Ashes
Forty days ago, I sought to burn my psalms for Lent. Writing one in the back of my journal before bed each night, then ripping out the page, entering my closet and closing the door behind me, and setting fire to my words in an old toolbox. It was a different sort of Lenten season this year, for many reasons, and I have three main thoughts.
He is Still For You
May we rest in this comfort: that we are cosmically not alone in our loneliness. The One who forged heaven and earth walked a harrowing road with nowhere to lay His head. He is with us. He is for us. All these centuries later. In times of peace. In times of famine. Even still.
Give Us Tomorrow's Barabbas
Our entire lives we have wanted to be more present. And now that we've been given nothing but buckets upon buckets of the present, we are kicking away the pails and saying, "Give us back our precious longings." The savior we have anticipated through countless yesterdays is finally here in our midst, and we cry for Barabbas.