Climbed a mountain & I turned around

Love this.

It's an anthem for many seasons in life
but I'd never heard it sung by children before

& it's a haunting fit.

Read more here.
Sending love to many people tonight.

Landslides come in many forms...

xo

Playing big

Today as I was watching my daughter's violin lesson, her wonderful teacher Cate asked "Maddy, do you consider yourself to be someone who holds pieces of herself back & tries to take up less room? Or do you think of yourself as someone who opens right up and shares with everybody and isn't afraid to be noticed?"

"Well...both, I guess." (Which is true...she does both. Maybe we all do.)

"Hmm. Right now your violin is asking you to open up more.  To be bigger.  To take up space. To share more of what you're feeling through your music.  It's a great invitation!  Can you do it?"

Meanwhile, I'm over on the scratchy sofa, inspired and inwardly nodding my head and saying "Yes, I can, Cate. I will play bigger.  I will share. I will take up space."  

My life has been asking that of me lately, too, and it's scary: a challenging new church calling, for example. A chance to step up and demonstrate what I've learned in an unfamiliar setting. And a lingering desire to express myself in writing.  I'm a walking contradiction (um, my first blog was called Ambitious Homebody...that about sums it up). I want to rise to the challenge that opportunities bring.  But I also crave staying well within my comfort zone.  Preferably with jammies on. Pieces of this Nelson Mandela passage have been rattling around my brain so I had to go look it up:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Amen, Nelson Mandela. You know what you're talking about, sir.

[I have edited this a couple of times as I've thought about it further. Sorry for the re-publishing!]

Creationism

I remember the first year that I (well, we) served as Santa for our little family, our distant east coast outpost celebration so far from the rest of our clan. Up until then--even as a married couple--I had gone to bed at a certain point so I didn't have to see Santa do his work. I just didn't want to see behind that curtain, even though I knew what was there.

So that first year was both thrilling and, well, a little empty. I was used to being a consumer of the magic. Not the magic creator. It was daunting and humbling. I realized just how much my own parents had done through the years to create that magic that I hungrily lapped up.

I'm feeling that all over again, the distinct difference between consuming and creating.

Over the last few weeks, I've been working on writing down some stories that have been swirling around my head. Now, I've always been a reader. I love to get immersed in a great book, to be on the receiving end of that literary magic. But. I'm newly daunted by the creation of that magic, suddenly humbled and appreciative of all of those manymany thousands of pages I have gobbled up. On one level I knew it was work. Now I know it on another level. I want to write to each of the authors or visit them and bow at their feet and apologize for how lightly I took their seeming effortlessness.

So I pull out my favorites, hoping their magic touch of dialogue~setting~characters~details will seep through their pages to my fingertips and out to my own writing. Thank you Harper Lee, Justin Cronin, Susan Minot, Wallace Stegner, Anne Lamott, Kent Haruf, and others for being my pantheon of writing gods. I aspire to your magic and I'll probably never get there.

* * *

Speaking of creation, I've been wanting to share a few artists that I've been admiring lately.

Photographer Julie Blackmon

photos via her website

* * *
Painter Paul Ferney

paintings via his website
* * *
Painter Nathan Florence
(& disclosure: he's my second cousin)

paintings via his website
* * *
Painter Claerwen James

images via Flowers East Gallery

I think if I could go back and ask for a talent, I would hurry over to the painting line. Or the broadway singing one.