Wake Up Call

Most days, we wake up with the rings and chimes of our alarms forcing their way into our dreams. Turn off alarm, lurch out of bed, stumble to the bathroom. Get ready for another day of work and play. It’s funny how sleeping outside changes that. This weekend, we woke without electronic prompts at about five each morning, when most of the time I refuse to leave my bed before seven. Five in the morning in the Door County woods is different than the mornings I usually know. It’s light and loud and alive, a celebration of the day to come. Streamers of pink dawn light flooded the tent and birds held rich, buoyant conversations all around our corner of the campsite. Even with less sleep, I felt more awake and rejuvenated than I normally do before a hot shower and hot coffee.

Waterbead, Red X

And I will learn to love the skies I’m under….. ~ Mumford & Sons

There are skies that I know intimately. Illinois-cornfield-sunset skies are the ones I know best. They are wide-open and spacious, revealing horizons several hours away, flecked with V’s of geese heading home. They wrap around lone farmsteads and the islands of trees scattered in the fields; they lay over cities like a blanket. On bright days, they soften our fields and homes, but on stormy ones, they turn green and angry, lashing out against us.

The Beating Heart

Three months ago, I unintentionally put this blog away. My veins felt empty, bled dry of words and images, and I didn’t have the heart or the energy to get the blood flowing again. I folded up this space and tucked it into a drawer, waiting for a perfect writing day that seemed to never come. Since then, it has been a heart beating beneath the floorboards, a Siren call I can no longer ignore. So I’m sitting down to it, setting that heart at ease.

October Thoughts

I drive every day past shorn fields and golden foliage, serenaded by October. I read somewhere that October is like an older woman who has accepted her flaws and gets on with living, even at the end of her life. I love that imagery for this season and this month of wonder. I am awed by how we still instinctively “batten down the hatches” in our own 21st-century way: buying warmer clothes,

Tape and Glue

Sometimes we just need to say it out loud or hear our beloveds say it to us instead: I am perfect in my imperfections. Or: I am not my body. Or: I am more than how I define myself or how the world defines me. I don’t fit inside a box and that is ok.

Summer Waning

Water bubbles. I drop ears of yellow corn, fresh from the roadside, into my waiting pot. They boil for only a minute before they are dunked in cold water. We won’t eat them yet- instead, they will be added to soups and casseroles throughout the winter.

Spontaneous Prayer

I started the month of August nose-deep in a memoir (Found by Micha Boyett) on learning how to pray amid the busy, the chaos, the to-do lists. A birthday present from my husband who understands my seeker soul. I found myself nodding my head with the writer as she learned to shed the guilt that has mixed in with her faith, embracing the idea that we don’t choose Jesus and we certainly don’t earn Him.

Contradictions

What to write?

I want to write about our trip, which was another chance to spend a few days with one of the few people in this world who really understands me. We spent the days filling our lungs with dry mountain air, driving around town, laughing loudly at outdoor cafes as we won and lost board games, sharing a bowl of ice cream. It was satisfaction and exhilaration and comfort all rolled into one- vulnerability over a walk and a drink paired with sweet silence while munching cereal and watching 30 Rock.

Raw Beans

I have vivid memories of growing up with two gardens in our backyard. Memories of walking down the rows with my Opa or watering with my Mom or washing produce at the spigot with Oma- memories that are sometimes forgotten, only to be resurrected when I bite into a pea pod or smell wet earth or pull a raspberry off the bush. Back then, I didn’t notice the magic of a garden’s yield or food straight from the ground, streaked with dirt.