Sunday Sum Up: Getting Up

It's been colder lately.  The fall season officially started well over a month ago, but lately the cold has really started to creep in.  The sun is still shining, but there's less heat in it--not enough heat to warm the icy wind.  I used to be the sort of person who didn't mind the cold so much.  Maybe it was after I lost a significant amount of weight (twice) that I started feeling the cold deep down in my bones.  And when the cold gets into my bones, it can take me hours before I feel warm again.  And then when the fall comes, I start coughing.  My nose gets stuffy.  I have to rely on generic Claritin to be able to function semi-normally.  Most people have seasonal allergies in the spring; mine don't come until fall and winter.

I really think I'm allergic to cold.

This morning when I woke to the sun shining through my windows, I first thought that I'd overslept.  Then I realized the time had changed, and 8 a.m is the new 7 a.m.  Or something like that.  My second thought, once I realized that I hadn't overslept, was that I really didn't want to get out of bed.  It wasn't because I knew that my bed was much warmer than the rest of my apartment.  It wasn't because I was still tired after an extra hour of sleep.  It wasn't because I was hoping to drift back into some wonderful dream involving a mid-90's version of Bill Pullman making me some banana pancakes and turkey bacon for breakfast.  It was because I really just didn't see much point in getting out of bed.

And seriously...I really think humans should take a cue from bears.  We should stuff ourselves full of food and then just lie in our caves beds all winter.  Humans should totally hibernate.

Yes, the fall depression has hit me.  I really didn't expect it this year, just because I figured if I was going to get it, I would have already gotten it.  But I guess it didn't want to come until it got good and cold.  See, every time the weather gets colder and the days get shorter, I get depressed.  It's nothing too severe.  It's been happening since college (and probably before that, too, but it's hard to tell because I was sort of emo in high school--before emo was cool...or even invented).  When I first noticed it, I didn't know what to do with it, so I freaked out.  That's kind of what I do when presented with anything new.  I freak out.  But later on, once I realized what was going on, I stopped freaking out.  When the depression hit, when I started having that feeling like, "Oh, there's no point in getting out of bed again.  Ever," I'd just get out of bed anyway.  I'd put on my big girl pants and deal with it--because I'm going to have to work and pay bills and be nice to my friends whether I'm depressed or not.

Only, I really gotta say, I just don't want to write this blog today.  I don't want to do much of anything besides lie around and eat candy.  I could give myself an excuse to do that, since I did successfully finish my first 10K yesterday (and by "successfully," I mean that I jogged/waddled the whole thing, I didn't die, and there were at least five three people who finished after I did).  But since I ate candy, cheese biscuits, and Chick-fil-a yesterday, I'm pretty sure I ate three five times as many calories as I burned off yesterday.

Sometimes, I really think it's okay to not feel like writing or blogging.  I just get afraid sometimes that my lack of writing desire is lasting too long.  I didn't feel much like blogging this week because I'd just gotten back from a short vacation, and oddly enough, I needed to recover from my vacation.  Also, I was busy training for a 10K and working my usual three five guess a number between one and ten jobs.  So I'm fairly surprised I got any blogging done at all.  And sometimes I think it's good to take a break from blogging so that you can actually spend some time living.  It's just that I wasn't living so much this week as I was sitting on my bum watching reruns of M.A.S.H.

But, you know, I'm oddly grateful for this feeling of depression--as long as I don't let it decay into true apathy.  I need to care about my writing.  I need to care about my work.  I need to care about the people in my life.  I need to care about life in general, and I need to remember that it's not about how I feel or even about me at all.  Because that one word that's defining this whole season of my life keeps reappearing.

Hope.

I was reading in Romans yesterday, and I came to chapter 8.  Surely, this is one of the best Biblical chapters to read after running a 10K.  I like a lot of what Paul said in this chapter, but this is the part that really got me:

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." Romans 8:18-25

I don't know if I'm right in my perceptions or not, but it seems to me that God's reminding me to keep hoping, to keep waiting and trusting.  I keep seeing/hearing so many reminders, whether it's a song on the radio, an impatient child at work, a word from a friend, or a Word from Scripture.  I'm reminded to hope.  And I can't help but think that there's a reason I'm being called to persevere in this time of my life.  I think it's because some of the things I've hoped and waited for are coming soon.


I don't deserve to have anything good come to me, but I've been commanded to wait for it anyway.  The Father who won't give us a stone when we ask for bread, or a snake when we ask for a fish, He knows how to give us good things.  I'm not talking about the "prosperity gospel" here at all.  It's just that I know my Father has already given me the greatest Hope.  In hope in Christ, I have been saved.  And I will see the fulfillment of that hope.

But while I'm still down here, living in a body that is affected by heat and cold, by changes in the seasons, by the passage of time, by sickness and sin...I must wait.  I must wait for the fulfillment of that great Hope, and I must wait for the fulfillment of smaller hopes.  But there is work to do while I'm waiting.  There are people all around who need that great Hope, and there are people all around me who need smaller hopes.  And I've been given breath to breathe and songs to sing and hands (though horribly chapped by this blasted cold wind!) to work.  I can't hibernate, even if I think it's a really good idea.  I have to get out of bed in the morning.

Because I believe there's going to be a Time and Place where the wind will be warm, even without the sun.  We won't need the sun anymore, because the Lord will be our light.  That's the hope that lights all my other hopes.  So I'm going to rise, and keep rising, whether I feel like it or not. 

Sunday Sum Up: Weekend Trip Highlights

I got back from my trip to KY less than an hour ago.  I'm tired.  I have to unpack--or at least get what I need out of my suitcase in order to function tonight and tomorrow.  I'm not the only one who does that, right?  So anyway, here's a list of the highlights of my trip.  I might go into more detail later, or I might get caught up in work and life and forget to blog again.  Who knows? 

-Got to watch the Cards win game six of the World Series.  I listened to the game on the way up in my schmancy rental car, and I got home just in time (as I thought) to see the Cards lose.  But they didn't lose.  They came back and beat the Rangers in an exciting turn of events that can only be described as extremely well-played baseball.  And I got to share that with my family!

-Got to see my extended family and celebrate the marriage of my grandfather, as well as welcome new people into my family.  ...and I thought my family was big before.  I loved my grandmother.  She was one of the most loving people in my life.  She taught me the importance of family; she taught me that there's always room for more people to love.  And I miss my grandmother and think about how she and my grandfather were married for 60 years, but I can't be sad that my grandfather chose to remarry.  The lady who is now his wife is beautiful and precious.  She's not my grandmother and she doesn't have to be.  She's who she is, and my grandfather loves her, and so do I.

-Got to see about six of my younger cousins who have recently had, are about to have, or are currently having birthdays.  Three have turned seven, one is about to turn nine, one is about to turn twelve (I remember visiting the hospital when she was BORN...what happened?), and one is about to turn ONE.  I love being part of a large extended family with lots of kids.  They're all so wonderful.  And I loved seeing their parents and grown up siblings, too.  I even got to see one of my aunts who I rarely ever see, so that was an unexpected blessing.

-As the wedding reception died down, I saw that my dad was sitting on the couch watching the last game of the World Series.  I sat with him a bit, then got up to be social, but I went back later when I realized it was the last inning.  And I sat there with my daddy and watched the Cards win the 2011 World Series.  I know this sounds weird, but that was worth the whole trip to me.  I'm not a "daddy's girl," but I love my dad.  He's the one that got me interested in baseball, in the St. Louis Cardinals.  So sharing that moment was just special.  That brief experience is something I'm going to remember always. 

-My sister and her family couldn't make it to the wedding reception, and they live 4 hours away from my parents.  So my wonderful mom offered to drive me up those 4 hours (and back) in one day so I could see my nieces and nephew (the birthday boy).  It was a quick trip, but so worth it.  The kids were so excited to see me, and I enjoyed spending a few hours with them and their awesome parents.  I'll remember that always, too.

-I really remember very little from the drive up to KY (I drove about half of it in the dark and I just kind of went on auto-pilot), but today's drive down was beautiful.  The sunshine was golden and the leaves were beautiful.  Autumn is here.  Change is coming.

And life is good.

I'm glad to be back, though it feels sort of surreal.  I'm thankful I got to go.  This very short trip will live in my memories for a long time.

The Drive Home

My windows are rolled down, as usual, but the air feels different.  It doesn't yet feel cool and crisp as it does in the autumn.  In fact, the air is still distinctly summerish.  But it's different.  And I don't realize what it is until I catch the faint smells of chlorine, of steak grilling, of sweat, of freshly cut grass.  These are smells of goodbye, smells of people doing last-minute summer activities before autumn comes.  This is what is in the air--the difference that I feel.  It's not quite summer, not quite fall, but some kind of unnamed season that comes in between the two.  It is some kind of unnamed season that blends the two.  The wind blows.  The trees clap their hands.  The world feels alive, yet sleepy, as though it knows a colder, darker time is coming and it must finish its adventures while it still has the vitality to finish them.  Then, it can rest.

And I look up into the sky and fall in love with the colors there as they reflect off the clouds.  The clouds aren't puffy.  They seem to have been stretched out, as if they don't know exactly where they want to be.  So they just scatter everywhere, and the light that falls upon them seems cautious, almost afraid, as if its not sure the clouds are really supposed to be there at all, or if its supposed to shine on them.  The result is that they kiss the clouds with just the most delicate touch of pale, hauntingly beautiful color.

Blue is my favorite color.  I like the blue of the summertime sky when the sun is out and the clouds are full, but my favorite shade of blue doesn't come until the sunset.  Here the blue fades into a darker, deeper hue.  The daytime blue is rich and alive, but the evening blue seems secretive, as if it is hiding some precious and mysterious knowledge.  And once again there is something unnamed.  There is no name for the color that occurs when the sunset's orange blends with the evening blue.  But I know it must exist, for there is a place where the blue ceases to be blue and becomes orange, and where the orange ceases to be orange and becomes blue.  And in that place there is something that is either too faint or too powerful for my eyes to perceive.  Still, I try to see it.

I stop at a stoplight and look at the streetlights as they fail in their attempts to shine more brightly than the sunset before me.  And I think about how in a few short months, I'll be driving home by their artificial illumination alone.  The days will be shorter.  The sun will sleep earlier and wake up later.  The darkness and the coldness is coming, and maybe there will be a time when autumn will blend with winter into another unnamed season.  We'll make that last loaf of pumpkin bread and put away the Indian corn, and we'll pull out the hot cocoa and Christmas decorations.  And in that in between time?  We will reflect.

I pull into my apartment's small parking lot while some familiar song plays on my car's speakers.  I sing along and roll my windows up.  I turn off the engine and the song stops, though I keep singing harmony as if the melody is still playing.  Then I take in a deep breath of the air in my car that is quickly growing stale.  It takes so little time for things to become stale. 

And I'm grateful for moments like these, when I see and hear, smell and feel.  Life is more than sensations, but they are a big part of the experience of life, as are seasons.  Sometimes, there will be stale moments, and sometimes it's even important to walk through those stale moments, clinging to the truths we know even when we are too numb to feel them.  But for the most part, life is meant to be lived.  And right now, I feel very alive.

Sunday Update: Now

There's a hilly field that I pass by on my way to and from church.  When my preschool job (which is also at my church) starts again, I'll be passing this field several times a week, as I did this past school year.  This field is next to a white house, and all of it is enclosed by a brown fence.  A chestnut horse often peacefully grazes within my view as I drive past this field.  I guess I'll be a Kentucky girl no matter where I live, because I happen to very much like looking at chestnut horses in hilly fields next to white houses, enclosed by brown fences.  My parents taught school  in a county that was half an hour away from where we lived, and I went to elementary and middle school in the county where my parents taught instead of in the county where I lived.  As a result, I spent a great deal of my childhood staring out car windows at Kentucky fields and hills, white houses surrounded by brown fences, horses and cattle grazing on green grass.

It's amazing that I've even paid enough attention to the hilly field I pass several times a week to be able to tell you the color of the house, horse, and fence.  Such things should be commonplace to me, and often times they are.  There is a difference between Kentucky hills and North Carolina hills, just as there's a difference between Kentucky mountains and North Carolina mountains.  But I've spent so much of my life driving past scenic country farmland that I often take all the separate beauty for granted. 

But today, on my drive home from church, that field I pass all the time looked different.  Thousands and thousands of golden flowers (I think they were golden rods) were scattered across the green.  Great purplish bushes contrasted with the gold, causing me to mentally pause (if I had actually paused, the guy riding my bumper would have gladly rear-ended me).  I couldn't stay there, but I took a moment to commit that beautiful scene to memory, because the way nature keeps moving and changing, that field of flowers could be gone tomorrow.  And something tells me I was meant to see them before they passed away.

Next week, the girls I watch go back to school.  I've uploaded all of the pics I took with them this beautiful summer.  It has all gone by so quickly, and I'm glad for the memories I've made with them, as well as a bit regretful that I didn't try to make a few more.  This time of my life is almost over, and soon I'll just have the girls in the afternoons when they get out of school.  I'll be caring for a new classroom of children in my preschool (while saying another sort of goodbye to the ones I cared for last year, who will be across the hall in another classroom, getting loved on by new teachers who aren't me).  I'll be developing new relationships through work and church, choir and my running group, and God only knows what else.  I'll hopefully be writing/editing/querying again with renewed vigor.  And I'm reminded that I am a person who is often resistant to change.  But change happens.  Nothing can stop it.  It's the way life is. 

In the past year, God has done a lot in my life.  He brought me from a very long (5.5 years!!) season of winter into a season of springtime.  I've grown because He's changed me.  And since that winter was so long, I guess I expected the spring season to last a long time, too.  But the thing about spring is, it never seems to last.  There is a tremendous burst of life that all too quickly blossoms into summer, and summer just sort of relaxes into autumn.  And everything changes, once more. 

There's a line from Shadowlands (one of my favorite movies about the later life of C. S. Lewis) that fits my mood right now.  C. S. Lewis was sitting at a desk talking to a friend, and he said, "Give me blizzards and frozen pipes, but not this nothing time.  Not this waiting room of the world."  He was expressing his thoughts about the change--that transitional period between seasons and stages of life.  It was no longer winter, but spring had not yet come, and he felt restless.  And part of me has been restless, too.

The winter that I lived in for 5.5 years wasn't all bad, but a lot of the time I just felt like a frozen Narnia waiting for Aslan to come, bringing Christmas and spring in his wake.  Now that I've lived in a new and glorious Spiritual spring for a short year, I'm sensing that God's bringing me into another season.  Perhaps He's already brought me out of spring and into summer without my knowledge, because I sense that autumn is approaching--both in a literal sense (obviously; there is no stopping the calendar) and a Spiritual sense.  I sense a harvest coming.  I think the harvest is going to involve many things.  Since God has grown me so much in the spring, I expect the harvest is going to be plentiful. 

I am almost afraid to hope for it, but I have a strong sense that a lot of the things I've been waiting for for a VERY long time are going to come to fruition.  I don't know what that fruition will look like, but right now I am cautiously expectant, waiting (and trusting...always waiting and trusting) for what God's going to bring. 

Since I've sensed the end of summer coming upon me, in the past couple of weeks I've checked out tons of books from the library, hoping to read as much as I possibly can before I develop a scheduled routine that makes reading for fun nearly impossible.  I've taken a last-minute summer vacation in the only way I can financially afford to take one--by letting my mind enter into stories. 

One of the books I've read has just served to reemphasize the idea that things are going to change in my life for the better.  And maybe that means that I'm going to have to have a few final struggles before I can experience all the good things that harvest will bring.  Because harvesting is a lot of work.  It involves sweat and labor, long hours and effort.  It involves decisions and discipline, but there's joy in that, too.

And the time will come for that soon.  Very soon. 

Right now, the harvest still hasn't come.  I've still got some books from the library that want to be read.  I still have a couple weeks before the preschool job starts.  The calendar is moving.  The flowers are going through their life cycles.  Everything is changing.  But now, right now, is a gift from God.  There's nothing wrong with remembering; there's nothing wrong with looking expectantly towards the future.  These things are very good, but not if they interfere with the joy that's to be experienced in the now.  It might be one of those "nothing times" right now, but I don't feel restless anymore. 

Sometimes I have to pursue peace, and peace is really something worth pursuing.  That's something God has taught me a lot in this past Spring season.  But I've learned that sometimes peace has a way of sneaking up on you and taking you by surprise.  Right now, peace has surprised me.  I'm exceedingly thankful for this time.  The golden flowers on the hilly fields, the gently moving clouds in the blue late summer sky, the smells and sights and sounds of the world holding its breath...waiting for what the next season has in store. 

This is a good time to be alive.

Ironic Poetry and Other Stuff

The journey to getting published is often one step forward and two steps back. I'm sure I'll learn this even more as the journey progresses. This week, I got all adventurous and decided I was going to attempt to send out some more queries (about time). Then I realized that while it's good that I'm wanting to start getting active again, I need to really take my time and do this right. I reread and revised my query. I like it. However, I'm going to have some people look over it again for me just to make sure it doesn't completely suck.



I also decided that I need to polish up a synopsis just in case an agent is intrigued enough by my query that they want to read a synopsis. So right now I'm just trying to line up all my hypothetical ducks to make sure they're in a hypothetical row. This is the part I really hate about being a writer who wants to get published. It's a time where I have to hurry up and wait--where I have to find the right balance and the proper timing. I've never been good at those things, but I'm excited to be doing something. I'm excited to see what will happen in the next few weeks.



In the meantime, I wrote a poem. I do write poetry, but I don't typically share my poetry. The reason for this is that I am a lousy poet.



Today, however, I thought it would only be right for me to share my latest poem. It snowed today in the beautiful state of North Carolina. I hate snow, but I have to admit that it was very pretty as it fell down and messed up the roads and got my car all snowified. Since it was such a wintry wonderland here where I live today, I thought I'd share a poem that I wrote a few weeks ago when everything was autumnal and snow free.



The autumn wind is expectant.
Its chill is vibrant and alive
Like it knows a happy secret
That it is trying not to hide.
All the trees are ablaze, now,
Like the bush that Moses could see
When he heard the Voice of "I AM"
Tell him to set His people free.
But the fire upon the trees here
Is just the color of the leaves.
I know the flames cannot consume
A single fiery autumn tree.
But the wind is still expectant.
I hear "I AM's" Voice in the sound
Of the breeze setting free each leaf
As they fall upon Holy Ground.

It Never Happens the Same Way Twice

I had hoped to be done with my 4th book this coming Sunday. At this point, I think it's safe to say I'm NOT going to meet that goal. I'm a little disappointed in myself, but overall, not so much.

There were a lot of times in the past three weeks when I chose to do other activities instead of writing. I went to visit friends. I went to the NC State Fair. I carved a pumpkin (this takes longer than one might think). I had fun and tried to actually EXPERIENCE the autumn a little bit. It's hard to do that when you're cooped up inside a "cave" attached to a computer.

Don't get me wrong. I did put in a lot of writing hours. I worked hard. It's just that inspiration didn't come as easily as I'd hoped. It still came.

Even though I probably won't meet my goal of having a rough draft completed by Sunday, I still have a LOT of it done. There are parts I know I'm going to have to rewrite. In fact, I'm toying with the idea of just pausing in the writing of this book to go back and fix things. Generally, I'm one to just say "Get the rough draft done, and then go back and edit." But I'm learning that writing is a process that can never be duplicated exactly.

In May, I wrote a 75K word book in less than 2 weeks. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that again. It was just something that happened (because I lost my mind for two weeks and was possessed by a fictional character--it was awesome). I can't duplicate the process.

And as I go back and look at the three books (2 of which are still rough drafts) I've completed, I realize that I've written all three of them very differently. The first one took me about seven years to finally complete (and two more years to edit to my satisfaction). It went through many changes in those seven years as I went through changes in my life (college, heartache, life, work, etc.). It is a true first book, one that grew up with me. The second book took me about 2-3 years to complete from conception to completion, but I forced myself to finish that one by making it into a serial novel for my friends to read. I'm glad I went that route, even though now I'm left with a 32 chapter monstrosity that needs major editing, and I have no idea when I'm going to get to that. My third book just flowed out of me (I really need to write more in first person!).

With this book, number four, well, I don't know. I tried to force it, but it won't be forced. It's kind of like a stubborn child that wants to be developed in its own way and in its own time. I think that it's going to need some coddling. I think I'm going to have to go back and coax the storyline and characters along before continuing to the end.

And it's okay. I'm not really that upset about not making my goal. I'm still going to strive for it, but not to the point of driving myself crazy. In other words, the computer gets turned off when I'm too tired to keep typing. If I'm not done at that point, then I'm not done.

My one regret in all of this is that the other night I turned down a friend who offered to take me to see dead bodies. My excuse was that I needed to write. I didn't write well that night, AND I missed out on seeing dead bodies. I mean, right now I'm not working on any stories involving knowledge of modern dead body facilities, but you NEVER know when that kind of knowledge might come in handy.

Pity.