Somedays I Wake Up

And despite the missing blinds in our master bedroom and the boxes in the study and no furniture in one of the guest rooms - it feels like we've always been right where we are. Seeing as we've only slept a grand total of twenty-five nights in our new home, that's just astonishing to me. I didn't realize how quickly everything would feel this right.

I mean, sure, we're still working on the routine and the getting accustomed to space and all of that, but nothing feels off-kilter. So what if I've left my lunchbox at home more times than I'd care to because it's the step just before setting the alarm that I always forget? I'll get there in time.

Everything that matters still feels sort of blissfully surreal. Like I'm walking around in a dream sequence knowing I won't ever wake up but I still don't want to miss anything. And I know someday this will fade and the new house becomes old hat and life is like it is anywhere else, but for now I'm loving this.

I'm loving the normalcy and the grandeur and the simplicity of it. No projects, except for maybe buying some blinds tonight, or big parties - since we got those out of the way - just the settling part. The familiarizing of one's life in a new context... and a good one at that.

An Every Morning Celebration

There's nothing like a weekend in the woods to set my mind aright. From a bonding and planning retreat with my students to a time spent camping and hiking with friends, I feel like my heart is in a place it hasn't been in awhile.

Not one that's necessarily better, persay, just simpler. More grounded, less distracted, more focused and intent. It makes everything different and offers perspective. Perspective that takes what has felt like a string of months of busy mornings to one of calm - peace - reflection - and wonder. One that gave me the ability to see this day and its importance in a way I could not have just a couple of days ago.

Today, my mom and I celebrate our twelfth "spiritual" birthday. November 16th marks the day the two of us sat on metal folding chairs in a tiny Sunday school room in our church at the time and became believers. In that moment, we asked to give up everything we knew on our own to take the fullness that is a relationship with an incredibly relational God.

It's been a journey for the both of us individually, and I am thankful for every bit of it and namely that I share it with the woman who brought me into the world. That my rebirth, if you will, is shared with her is something I couldn't have asked the Lord to do more perfectly.

And so I celebrated, with a cup of tea, my favorite breakfast scramble, and some time spent studying in Ephesians. Sounds like a grand ole' party, doesn't it? Well to me, it does. It's the kind of habit I want every day to start with, seeing the beauty in simplicity and recognizing how everything must start in the place I know to be most secure, most true, and most present.

Call it an every morning celebration, if you will.

We're Alive

Sheesh, it's been awhile.

We've managed to do quite a bit in the last week and a half, but there's still a lot of catching up going on around here. I've pretty much given up on being able to write anything of substance of our travels or life as of late. (Or... as of ever. Remember that Washington trip post I wrote back in July? Oh, that's right, I never wrote it. Maybe I'll do like an end of the year "remember that one time we went to Washington?" post or something.)

Life as of late and as you can well tell, has consisted of being in different parts of the country and subsequently managing to get into our new home. That is quite the juxtaposition of positional elements.

Until I manage to stream together anything worth reading beyond this (because even that was a stretch), feast your eyes on the glory of New England in autumn, as seen through our eyes just a couple of weeks ago.

Something's Gotta Give

Boy, howdy! That's how that say it isn't it?

It's a southern expression of emphasis, exclamation, or plum worn-outness. The expression I generally wear on my face on most any given day that, thanks to a trip to Oregon (more on that later), isn't quite as severe as it has been recently.

There's been a lot of loose ends around here lately, and for a moderate control freak, I'm starting to feel the weariness of it all. Last week I couldn't help but live in it and embrace it, because I didn't have much in the way of options to do anything but.

But now? I sort of do, and I'm starting to get that fire in my gut feeling that only means one thing.

Reorganization. Not heartburn, as I'm sure you were thinking.

The obvious place to start is in the house. Our kitchen is mostly there and our bedroom as well, but the rest of it, not so much. And with an approaching "a sizeable number of people will be crossing your threshold to warm your house" sort of event here in the making, we've got to get a move on.

Oh, but the reorganization doesn't stop there. I'm feeling it every time I walk into my office. Or look in the mirror or in the refrigerator. Or at my journal or a calendar. I want everything in its place. Orderly. Simplified. Prioritized. If you were selling some sort product that could do it for me and I had to offer up my firstborn, I just might do it.

Because I want it that badly.

But there's a give and a take with all of this and mostly, I know I need to be willing to continue letting go of the desire for all of it to be tied up nice and neatly. Life is NEVER tied up nice and neatly. Amen?

So I will embrace it all, I say. And if I happen to create a to-do list for that embracing process, don't mind me.

If These Walls Could Talk

They would tell you about the sometimes serious but always funny antics of a young man and woman in their earliest stages of marriage. From the first night there, marked by undesired change and familial interference, to the last night spent lying in bed sort of reflecting but mostly laughing about our favorite memories. There was so much life there in that 814 square foot apartment – love, laughter, passion, emotion, anger, friends, family – I’m emotional even now just thinking of it all.

I keep reliving a scene from last night where I stood for a moment and tried to let everything I could remember from our time there flood my mind. Nothing, save a leftover shower caddy and a few marks on the wall, was left to show me anything of the parts of our story that stemmed from this setting. I don’t even have pictures to remind me. And so for just a minute, I captured everything I could, switched off the light, and locked the door for the very last time.

But I didn’t leave it and it didn’t leave me. The sound of that light switch going off continued to echo in my mind and heart as I drove to our new home, turning away from that entirely empty and utterly spotless apartment. An apartment no longer inhabited by the two people who had spent their last two years in it, probably not loving it nearly as much as they should have though they loved it as fully as they could.

Our routine will probably be off for just a little while, but with that will be discovery and joy walking right alongside. We noticed last night, lying in our old bed in our new home without window dressings, that we could see the stars in the pitch black outside our home. Already we’re looking forward to the next rain that makes sort of twinkling noise on our roof and the vent above our stove. Even the sun slowly rising this morning all around us glowed in a way I don’t ever remember it doing before. And the roses are in full bloom just outside, adding to my 10 foot walk to the car a beautifully fragrant romance.

And so we have begun seeing this part of our story written in a new setting. But setting is not just a place, it is a character too, adding value and humor and challenge and foundation to the life of people in it. I am thankful even now for what this place has and will mean for us in the future, meanwhile knowing our story just wouldn’t be what it is without 1505. Because walls do talk, even if only in our memories, in the same way the oldest stories of men were carved into the rocks of the world.