Poetry & Words

how do you answer the question, ‘are you ready for the baby?’

it’s a quiet day here. it’s been gray outside all day, but gray in a lovely, sleepy, peaceful way. lisa hannigan and damien rice softly sing in the background while the dog sleeps, the Christmas tree lights twinkle, and the votive candles silently flicker.

silver metal votive holder with diecut snoflake design - lit with tea light on black background

at the request of generous friends who’ve offered to make me meals after baby is born, i’ve been working for hours on an exhaustive list of allergy-safe foods. you know, those strange ingredients which are free of corn, dairy, and wheat/gluten. they DO exist. they’re just elusive. i’ll post the list here, in PDF form, after i’ve finished compiling it.

beginnings of an embroidered flower on a baby shirt

speaking of baby, she’s due four-and-a-half weeks from now. eeee! obviously, i know she could be earlier or later than that, but it was quite a reality check when my doctor informed me this week that baby has already dropped.Β  and how do you answer the question, “are you ready for the baby?” i mean, the crib is set up. the changing table is stocked with diapers. the clothes are washed and folded. my tummy is more than ready to stop stretching. the freezer meals…ok, the freezer meals aren’t made.Β  and the hospital bag is not packed.

hanging white paper stars from the ceiling of the dining room

but how do you answer that question? are we ready for the baby? everything, and nothing, prepares us for this moment. we are altogether entirely ready and entirely unprepared. we are entering the unknown for which we’ve longed and prayed. we do not know what faces us, and yet, we run madly into this moment. we run madly, with eyes open and with eyes closed, with open arms and with overflowing joyful hearts.

beginnings of a 3D cardboard giant letters project - hope - lowercase century gothic

and hope shines on, every brightly.

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Poetry & Words

reading kierkegaard in a coffee shop

for some reason, this weather makes me feel like i should be reading kierkegaard in a coffee shop. (and doesn’t that sound like the most perfect title for a novel?)

that’s just what i was doing in this photo, which i took four years ago this week. i am flooded with pensive nostalgia looking at this picture again, remembering what was tumbling around in my head as i alternated between staring out that window and scribbling pencil notes in the margins of my copy of fear and trembling. those privately scribbled pencil notes said everything i was thinking, and yet were lacking at the same time; and it was this lacking that kept me reading, kept me underlining, kept me scribbling, kept me yearning.

great Shakespeare!, you who can say everything, everything, everything exactly as it is – and yet why was this torment one you never gave voice to? was it perhaps that you kept it to yourself, like the beloved whose name one still cannot bear the world to mention? for a poet buys this power of words to utter all the grim secrets of others at the cost of a little secret he himself cannot utter. –sΓΈren kierkegaard

Poetry & Words

the sun will rise, and with it, our daily bread

it’s been an odd year. i think back to last december, when we nearly had to move out of the house into which we’d only just moved. that was stressful. but we’re still here, wild with the hope.

and so much has happened since then.

praying every single day for a full-time job for my husband. quitting my own job just a couple of weeks before finding out i was expecting. it has been a wild ride. i’d like to say that i’ve learned a lot, but really, it’s more accurate to say, i have so much yet to learn.

like learning to trust. learning to know that God will take care of me tomorrow, just as he’s taken care of me today. learning what it means to pray for “our daily bread.” not our weekly bread, or our bread for the entire upcoming year; but rather, our daily bread.

that takes a lot more faith. wouldn’t it be nice to see it all stacked up, in neat little piles of 30 and 31, all marked out by month? but it’s not like that. it’s manna in the morning, and it melts away with the sun. and yet He promises the sun will rise again tomorrow. arise, shine, for your light has come.(isaiah 60:1)Β  the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. (malachi 4:2) and with that healing, rising, sun, comes another layer of sweet, sweet manna.

if only i could learn that his mercies are new every morning. if only i could learn that his mercies never fail. if only i could learn that the sun will always rise. if only i could learn that he always hears our prayer for daily bread, and He does not give a scorpion or a snake. if only i could learn this, it might save me some tears during the darkness of night.

Poetry & Words

“i pray light will leak from our pockets” -josh garrels [listen!]

i can’t even begin to tell you how much the (very newly discovered) music of josh garrels has blessed me this week. take a moment to listen to jacaranda tree.

image via joshgarrels.com

“Sitting on porches
Since Friday while the sky
Tilts like a watery glass
We wait for downpours
A drenching joy
A carnival sky
But what I don’t say
What I can’t say
Is that with this joy Continue reading ““i pray light will leak from our pockets” -josh garrels [listen!]”

Poetry & Words

for now, i want to stay

just a little preview of an upcoming project… (remember the pendant inspiration i blogged about last month?)

pendant flags

now back to the laundry and the dishes. (why do these two things multiply so quickly? and it’s only the dirty piles that grow. the clean piles never, ever do.)Β  but, it’s ok. the dog is snoozing, my husband is working on an art test, and the music of josh rouse fills the house. a rather peaceful november night.

I know somewhere there is a party going down.
Interesting people; conversation to be found.
I’ve lived in cities where there is no solitude
Made some friends there that I hope I’ll never lose.
But, for now, I want to stay in this quiet town. -Josh Rouse

Poetry & Words

of cedarwood, acorns, and being 30 weeks

it smells sweetly of cedarwood inside these walls, cedarwood intermingled with the invigorating scents of eucalyptus and tea tree oil. such is the unintended result of a having discovered a few jumpy fleas on the little dog. it was doggie spa, last night, with freshly laundered dog beds and toys and blankets, and a long soapy doggie scrubdown in the tub. he’s a pile of fluffiness today, a little walking diffuser of cedarwood oil.

outside, there are various engine rumbles and engine stalls, alternating between a sputtering and a roar without any sort of pattern or rythmn. little dog reacts with a muffled cross between a bark and a sigh. the oak trees stubbornly cling to their leaves, hesitant to drop even one aged and crumbling leaf. the acorns, on the other hand, eagerly leap down, one after another, until the patio rings with their staccato descent to freedom.

the sample ballot lies open beside me.Β  tiny little ovals ask for my yes or no, and i get lost in the pros and cons.

inside my womb, our little girl stretches and turns and kicks. she pushes up against my hand resting across my stomach, as if to say hello.Β  i smile. it’s hard to believe it has already been 30 weeks.Β  only 10 weeks to go.

i can’t wait to meet you, little girl!!

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Poetry & Words

“leaves gathering in the corners, lichen greening the high grey rocks”

white ceramic bowl holding three balls of yarn - green, light brown, and grey - next to a gold picture frame

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside–
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it’s all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles–
each a different height–
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt–
frog at the edge of a pond–
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches. -Billy Collins