painted leaves

I can hear the bells ringing.
They sing to me while I am still buried beneath the warmth, eyes shut up, my dreams still in halos around my head. The air coming in at my window breathes like Autumn.
I can feel old footsteps weaving around me, I walk down old paths covered in dust trying to catch a glimpse of a former life, but now it evades me.
And I wonder about it all. I lie there taking in my first aware breaths, breathing in deeply, sighing, what does it mean? Before the rest of the world awakes, what does it mean? In the quiet early morning air that grabs my heart, what does it mean?
I have this peace without explanation, pictures of places, blurred faces of people I know-more than know- people who have become a part of me….a piece of them has made me who I am.
And I walk down this road with a certain sort of solemn air, the dust clinging to my feet, the leaves doing whirlwind dances, the crisp wind waking me and making melodies around me.

I find it odd that the one time of the year that entirely enraptures me is the one where everything is dying. (And I am not alone in that sentiment) And in it’s dying it isn’t frightful, nor does it strive to avoid some mysterious thing that it cannot.
Instead there is a calm.
Instead there is the quiet music.
Instead there are the last remnants of life, bursting brightly into brilliance, mysteries held tightly, the world goes forth into it’s unknown slumber. It remembers something we have forgotten. It remembers and is at peace:
Everything must die to become alive.

Ironically, dying contains the beauty of life and speaks more about it than sometimes the living can. It strips us of something we have tried to hold in closed hands for ourselves. It is the dying that reflects the change in our eyes……
It is the dying that paints where value really dwells.
It is the dying that rips our many misconceptions.
It is the dying that makes us face another who is much more than ourselves.
The very thing so many of us flee from, turn down all paths to avoid, is maybe the one thing that makes this whole living business clear.
Maybe death isn’t really death anymore.
Maybe it’s the beginning of the story. Perhaps all we are living in right now is the great prelude to the real music. A distant echo of sorts.

And I breathe in the Autumns wisps of air. I wait for the painted leaves. I wait for the death that cries out something more than life.
And the mystery of the beauty that reflects in something dying.

Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord .

(just in case anyone forgot what 'steadfast' means.....)

1 a : firmly fixed in place : immovable b : not subject to change
2 : firm in belief, determination, or adherence

how to break in to your own house

Here are some random occurrences of the day:

making about 40 or some odd pancakes.....

Locking myself out of the house for the second time this week even though this week is the only time in the last 6 months that I have managed this.....

Steps to break in to your own apartment after grocery shopping and realizing that your keys are still residing in your house. your locked house. :

-make sure to lock yourself out of the house a couple days in advance so that you get time to practice the technique of climbing through windows....

-also make sure you are wearing a dress for the practice round so that you feel really spoiled when it happens for real and you're fortunate enough to have pants on that time around.

-use the window on the front porch the first time. hey, you have to take baby steps... you get an easy to reach window the first time.

-After round one, if you want a real challenge make sure the only window available to climb through is one that is about 5 feet off the ground.

-make sure your bag of groceries is secure on the ground.

-hit the screen just right, so as to knock the operating window fan onto the floor (out of your way)

-scout out a possible route to climb up the flat brick wall that is preventing you with reuniting with your apartment bedroom window.

-climb up previously mentioned route (in this case, some pipes, a window sill around the corner and a post sticking out of the ground nearby) and pretend you are spiderman for a couple minutes as you climb around the side of the house to the break-in window.

-push the top part of the window down all the way, grin sheepishly at the people in the backyard, who are watching you...apparently curious and amused, whom you've never met, and laugh, and say you locked yourself out.....

-climb through the top part of the window, and shimmy inside.

-grab your keys, go back outside for the groceries, and smile your triumphant smile to curious backyard onlookers.

trust me, these tips will come in handy someday, just you wait.

anyway, back to the random occurrences:

drive out in the country in connecticut (yes, there's actually some country here!!) and not hit anyone. : )

get some lovely peaceful rain.

walk up a large hill/rock/thing (too small for a mountain) with great company.

decide that you will someday take a bike trip through the british isles, run a bed and breakfast, scheme up book/project ideas, and be fairies together in some random medieval festival (fairies with wings) (this was olivia's idea, actually, not mine! hah!)

write a list of schemes and see how many actually get accomplished, (hey at least you'll never run out of good ideas)

watch ALF .....

realize that I have had an amazingly peaceful day off, that God has been walking the whole way through with me, that it was so fun. that there was no pretentiousness in the people
I spent the day with, or the things we did. And that feels good in a city that's so concerned with being pretentious.

I could go for days like these more often.

I wonder how often we walk around, blindly seeking Jesus when He is right in front of our face.

I just came home to the coolest surprise:

a little orange slip in my mailbox......

informing me that I can pick up my ....yep, my mandolin!!!! ...at the post office tomorrow!


OH! and I'm gonna be an aunt!!! my sister-in-law and brother are gonna have a baby!!!


(well, I think I've hit my exclamation mark quota for the day)

When I am writing, I’d like to think sometimes that what I write is worth reading to someone, or that I can say something profound, something eloquent, something brilliant…….
Sometimes it’s the temptation to sound like a certain type of person. Or to say something oh so true.
These are the times I usually try to avoid writing. (not that it always works) Because anything I write will only be at best semi-honest. And because, horribly, then the words written become more about me, or how I look, or who I am than anything else. I don’t really want to sound good right now, I really just want to be honest.

So here’s my un-eloquence for the day:

Jesus.
He loves me.
I’m gonna go find out what that means.
Every day.
Over and over again.
Til nothing else matters.

house centipede: the sequel.

I woke up this morning, walked into the bathroom, with my flip-flops on of course- so that no crawly creatures somehow ended up underneath my bare feet- and saw a house centipede.....
It was struggling to get out of the bathtub ..... evidently it had crawled in but couldn't get back out....at which point I turned the water all the way on....hot...
and about 5 minutes later....drowned house centipede.

eww.

eeewwwwwwwww..........!!

i don't live in a basement anymore.

and I just saw my first house-centipede of the summer.
In my apartment.

this does not make me happy.

this in fact makes me not want to sleep.

or be anywhere in my bare/hobbit feet.

why in the world would God make something with so many legs???? it's just not fair. really.

and so creepy and fast.


I'm not one for killing creatures, but that thing is going to come into contact with the bottom of my shoe, or for that matter, anything within grabbing distance that will bring death to all it's little legs as quickly as possible if it comes within my eye sight.... and isn't faster than me.

oh, it's death to the house-centipede's, and they better flippin watch out, cause I'm on a mission now.