write on: words on notes

If you couldn’t tell by my sudden on-burst of multiple blogs & poems, I’m a bit behind on writing. So much that it pains me, and I am finally losing sleep over it: sleep time spent writing. It’s necessary.

The notes keep piling up. It starts with a Post-It or a few lines on my phone. It doesn’t seem like much until they’re everywhere. I reached a breaking point when an offering envelope from my sister’s church fell out of my pocket; it was empty save for a few lines written across the back. Or again when I reached into my bag for a pen and pulled out three crinkled Post-Its with dirt coating their sticky backs and the smeared writing barely legible.

The tension builds every day because I know that the words are there, but they are not being captured. Every once in a while, I find peace in the unwritten: let them go; they were not meant to stay. Most of the time, this is not the case. I’m still fretting over the loss of recordings I made on a hike. I always had the intent of listening to them to write down the poems and lines, but when I got a new computer at work, the recordings broke. The words are gone. I have to save the smudged Post-Its before it’s too late.

I am always trying to keep up, even if that just means moving the notes to my official “notebook” instead of loose words floating around my possessions, waiting to be lost. Just when I think I’ve covered them all, or at least found them a temporary home before expanding on their ideas, I find more: a sun-stained page on the windowsill, a few notes jotted in the corner of the church bulletin. The thoughts don’t stop, so even while I am behind in recording them, new ideas or realizations are rushing in, begging to be written down.

I think of Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird: "So whenever I am leaving the house without my purse - in which there are actual note pads, let alone index cards- I fold an index card lengthwise in half, stick it in my back pocket with a pen, and head out, knowing that if I have an idea, or see something lovely or strange or for any reason worth remembering, I will be able to jot down a couple of words to remind me of it." Reading that may have been the start of my obsession with notes. But then there is the encouragement: "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table, close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

So here’s to the forgotten words: to those lost in my mind, on the street, in cyberspace. And here’s to “keeping up”: to writing through what’s there, to recognizing that, even with words gone, there is no shortage of material. Here’s to the muses: to continuing to write despite exhaustion, emptiness, and busyness, to finding motivation when the words hide or shrink or prolonged seasons without writing try to convince me the writing life is over.

Write on, friends, note by note. 

end of day

“The sun rises, & the sun goes down, & it hastens to the place where it rises.” – Ecclesiastes 1:5

When I get into bed each night, the lists try to gobble me up—all of the things I didn’t do; all of the new things to do tomorrow. Like counting sheep, I track on my fingers what I didn’t write down, what I must remember, what has to get done. When I wake up, I do the same. Lists have become my prayers, and they empty me.

When I really do pray, it feels empty—my heart & mind consumed by the jumble of shit yet to happen; it weighs on me & steals my thoughts. I usually stop praying mid-sentence & with, “That’s all I have” or “I just can’t talk anymore”.

Why am I wordless when it comes to God, yet the words do not stop within me?

It’s not just God—I’ve been void of words in general. It has taken a struggling force to get myself to write these days. I feel the pull, yet I cannot get the words out. They are in my head, but they refuse to touch the page.

I wonder if people had so much on their minds when they called it a night in biblical times. I also think of the Amish: rising & lying down with the sun. Are they all so anxious to get to bed and disappear for a while? Does the unending to-do list weigh on them like the hope of one day getting it all done?

I like to imagine that days came to a peaceful close for them: what’s done is done.

Even as a child, my nighttime mind was restless. I’ve probably spent more time tossing & turning over thoughts than I have actually sleeping in my bed—the words, the work, the uncertainty are the single pea under my mattress. All of the “but I didn’t do”s and the “I never got around to”s make my whole self restless.

Yet we are called to work until we return to dust. What are the fruits of my labor?

“Even in the night, his heart does not rest.” – Ecclesiastes 2:23

Literally & figuratively, the heart does not rest, even at night. We are filled. With what? Data, words, questions, doubts, love, empathy, emotion, plans. All of the worry and wonder feels more real once time is up at end of day.

Yet the sun hastens to return, and the lists and concerns will be waiting, & as best said by the Weepies: the world spins madly on.

signs: part wednesday

I’ve written before that I believe in signs. Today, the signs were everywhere: I ran into all the right people at all the right times, people I wouldn’t typically see on a Wednesday.

And yet, while I may have seen them, talked to them, and parted ways, I didn’t have the right words yet. I tend to freeze at unexpected encounters.

I can’t get over one though: I was sitting in the living room, writing out bridal shower invitations, when Pickle jumped up and decided she needed to go outside. Usually when she does that, it just means she has to go to the bathroom, but when we got out there, she just wanted to walk around. As we turned the corner, not even a block from our building, there was our Pastor.

I wish I had the right words; I wish I could make the most of a conversation on the street. Instead, I fumbled through some half-hearted sentences.

But somehow, just running into him was an encouragement.

change is yet to come

Art creates a magical bond between creation & viewer. This has become more apparent to me the past few months as I am re-reading a book that I ready last year and didn’t like. This year, I feel drawn to its mystery and feel connected to its words. How much can change in a year.

Sometimes I think it’s funny how all media can affect us at different points in our lives. I think of how songs or albums carry an era with them. I think of the first time I saw Dali’s paintings in-person. I think of visiting The David. They each mean different things to each of us based on our original experience or knowledge of them –that is the era they represent to us.

One example is the band Vampire Weekend. I had only heard a few of their songs, but in preparation for a road trip, I bought their only two albums and listened to them on-repeat during the 28 hour drive to Arizona. From the snowy mountains to the lengthy Californian plains at 5 am, those albums became a symbol to me of independence and adventure. When I heard one of those songs now, I sense a brief glimpse of how it felt to be alone, to witness the colors and the snow, the heat of Joshua Tree, the gasping cold of Bryce Canyon, all in the same trip.

So here I am, re-reading My Bright Abyss, and I don’t even know who I was when I read it the first time. I know that a lot around me has changed since then, but it’s strange to think how much has changed within. So much that I now better appreciate chapters and verses that I did not like or did not understand before.

What does it mean to grow & change around something that is unchanging?

Maybe that is what it means to be in relationship with God. We are always told that he does not change: his ways and promises are constant. It can be so hard to believe, especially when I think about how shifty I am as a person, but I am not God. Far from it. Change as a human is a must: if we do not change, there is no growth. And what purpose is there without growth, learning, challenge? Maybe this is the perspective of my naïve youth; it seems many real adults I talk to are totally content with doing nothing and ending learning and avoiding challenge. Why?

I guess I’ve always been afraid of change, but it’s one thing that I have been learning to jump into because without change, we will never be able to better our situations. Sad? Change something. Maybe not that straight-forward, but it’s the concept here.

In thinking about the book and how much just one year has affected my outlook, it’s mesmerizing to think how different I am since Derek knew me. 99% of the people I see and/or interact with on a daily basis were not in my life 2 years ago. A year ago, I didn’t know this apartment existed; a year and a half ago, I didn’t know a puppy was born that would soon be my sweet puppy; two years ago, I didn’t know this city’s silhouette or that it was a thriving place where I could and would live. I won’t go back to before I moved to Seattle; it’s not necessary. It doesn’t take much time for everything to become the new normal.

If this is truly so, why do I still long for so much of my past? While the new is better than I would have dreamed, I still miss much and often long for the simplicity of the way things were.

And yet, I am glad that going back is not an option. I do not think that God ever intended us to be backward looking people. Believe in what is constant; adjust to what is shaping around us; look ever onward at what is yet to come.

the five-year plan

My new job has been a challenge. I’ve always been one to accept a challenge, but as I talked with some ladies at church about careers and God and what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives and how that compares with what we are doing, I realized that I have no idea what I’m doing. Actually, that realization hits me in the face every day.

I think it started when one of my friends mentioned that she wanted to look for a job where she felt challenged. My first thought was, “I would like my next job to not be a challenge.” Then I stopped and let that sink in: it isn’t true; I only want to believe it’s true as a mental escape from the current untamable busyness that is my day-to-day. I think that’s an okay place to be.

I’m nearly two months into my new role, and just today, I had that “aha” moment of how what I do now is different from what I did before. The whole dynamics have changed, and it was a necessary shift in order to effectively do my job. Let’s face it: deep down, I enjoy what I am currently doing, BUT it is hard. Duh. I admit, I’ve had several breakdowns on-the-job where I just caved in to feeling inadequate or overwhelmed. It’s like training for a marathon: you have to start with the short runs, and you’re going to get blisters before you achieve a sustained pace.

Feeling humbled by the “aha” moment, I told my manager about it. She added to my feeling-like-I-am-where-I-belong joy by telling me that I’m getting a career coach—a professional coach who I can ask anything about careers, skills, the corporate world, what’s next: anything. The doors to opportunity are opening; will I be able to step inside?

At work, I tend to be shy and lack confidence. Today, I had my first mentoring session, yet another moment of me realizing just how much I have to learn. I think my first month on the job was me pretending to be totally confident so that I could prove that they hired the right person. My second month is now me realizing that I have so much to grow on and so much to learn, and I need to be open to taking it all in.

It’s much harder than it sounds.

In the session, my mentor explained how to best network within the company. As she spoke, a tiny fear crept up my chest, just thinking about having to talk to strangers. Even though we work on the same team, this was the first real conversation my mentor and I had even had, and we had a pretty awkward elevator ride to the coffee shop. Even then, she talked most of the time. I need to learn to shake the awkward, inverted shyness and become a conversationalist. Maybe that’s something for the career coach.

Every day, I wake up shocked that I work where I do. Blessed but shocked. Also, every day, I realize that I have no idea what I am doing presently and furthermore have no idea what my 5-year plan looks like.

I’ve always had a 5-year plan. Now, I have ideas or speculations, even, of what I’d like to do, but I’m not certain that they are things I want to achieve…plans change…It’s not that I want to leave, it’s just that I’m always planning, but it feels weird because I took this job for the people; I spent months at my last job imagining a new job, now I have it—the dream job, and it’s not where I thought I’d be, but it is what I want right now, but it’s not the long-term solution, so how do I prepare for the future, for what’s next without losing contentment for where I am?