For My Eldest Daughter

You wake up at the same time as me. You're twelve. You have many opinions laced with sarcasm and beauty and fear and joy. It's six o'clock in the morning and you want to tell me your opinions.

About football.
About coffee.
And a few stories about boys who keep stealing your science papers.

In between the lines of the stories are more questions. You are searching, muddling out your own new thoughts which are forming at a rapid rate.

It's six a.m. I wasn't made for loud mornings. I was made for gently crescendoing ones starting with hot coffee, two splashes of soy creamer, thank you.

I give you a morning hug. Your head doesn't fit under my chin anymore. You almost look me in the eye. You are tall, that is evident. But you are also lovely and I wasn't prepared for that. You don't know that you're pretty yet. When you look in the mirror you see a girl who is fun and goofy. But I see a pre-woman and I don't quite know what to do with the information.

We're both navigating the kitchen at the same time in the morning. Our bodies are colliding. "Sorry." "Pardon." "Can I squeeze by?" You are in my way a lot and I laugh at the reason. You are adopting my schedule and my habits. You even take the other vintage jadeite mug in the morning, filling it halfway with hot, black coffee and two splooshes of cream. Just like me. You hardly drink any, but there it is, matching my equally brown coffee.

Some of my clothing is missing. Some shoes. My winter boots. And also some gloves and a green coat. They appear to have found their way to your feet and shoulders and hands. You are thinner than me, but almost as tall. By the size of your feet you will grow at least two inches taller than me in a few scant years. This both delights and terrifies me.

Earlier this week you were spending all your time in your room. I was barking at you a lot. If I could change one thing about myself, it would be to bark less and to woo more. I try, I do. I fail a lot. Anyway, I was calling for you and you were annoyed because you were creating two dozen little stuffed objects out of felt. I never want you to lose the magic of creativity, taking something which is base and simple and ingredient-like and giving it form.

There are other goals I have for you.
Never stop asking questions. But ask them in a spirit of curiosity.
Be kind. Also be true and firm.
Like yourself. Love yourself. Be yourself.
Ask God many, many questions. He will answer you.
Laughter is learned. It's worth the work.
You are loved deeply. By your dad. By me.

Life may seem wobbily right now. You are changing at a rate which is faster than any other time in your life, suspended between childhood and adulthood, testing boundaries. By God's grace, I'll show you the footpath that I know. It's not perfect, but I'll do my best. Meanwhile: Run, grow, love.

Merry Christ-mess

It's a tremendously important time of year, Christmas.

I need Christmas more than ever.

I need the story of Mary's shame. And then her song.

I need the story to have a smelly donkey.

I need the inconvenience of all the circumstances. The rushed marriage. The disappointment of Joseph. The hurried journey for the census. The volatile government. The angry king. I need all the feelings to be messy.

I need the simplicity of the sleeping arrangements and the variety of visitors at the stable.

I need God to be flesh. To be poor. To be tired. To start with nothing. To be needy. To be inconvenienced and to be very small.

And then I need my soul to meet him there.

I need to enter the fear of Mary and Joseph as they wondered how they would start their life so impoverished and misunderstood.

I need to be still when people who I don't understand are called to be in my life. People like the shepherds. Or people like the kings, chasing stars, leaving symbolic but very odd gifts for a child. Perhaps they sold the frankincense for bread. Who brings perfume for a child?

I need the weariness of the Israelites, the tired watchers, looking for signs, longing for hope.

And then I need God to be born in me. To prepare a simple, earthy place in my heart where He resides and grows and spreads.

Everything which represents death to me, I need Him to be there. The rush of the season, the credit card bills, the misplaced expectations, the shame of being found wanting. I need God there in the murkiness of it all.

I need him to hold my schedule like the reins of a donkey and gentle guide me through all the busy places to the quietness where He is.

I need Him to feed and clothe me simply with forgiveness.

I need Him to meet me as a graphic designer, in my every day work and declare with wildly loud and bright, angelic proclamations that He is not contained by anything. Not by suits or ties or good presentations or perfect type treatments. Not by how we look or smell or how much money we make.

I need Him to remind me that families can have odd beginnings and endings and that the middle isn't perfect either.

I need Him to open my heart to make friends and acquaintances with whoever He sends my way. No matter what stars they chase.

I need Him to accept my gifts, no matter how wildly crazy or simple or inappropriate. I need Him to accept me, with all the ineffective ways I have clothed myself.

And then I need Him to grow in me, stomping on all the death in my life, leaving a trail of beauty where there was heartache and ashes and shame. I need Him to fill me so much that all the heartache in my life is simply a herald for new life to form. All the exhaustion is perfect for new strength, not my own.

When I don't have enough time or money or patience or aura or love or clarity or esteem. When I succumb to really good marketing because I don't have enough time to research something else,  I need Jesus to laugh and say, "Welcome to Christmas. Rest. Be loved."

Happy Happy Soul Soul

Over and over again this year, a line has been running in my head and it goes like this:

I want to live a life observed.

I know where this thought originated. I'm ashamed to admit it.

It came because I was throwing food down my throat without thinking or tasting or knowing. Or I'd skim through books and think I had reached the essence. It came because I told myself "If only I can be a little more efficient in this area of life, then I can truly rest in another area." Only the rest never came.

This thought of living a life observed originated when I put life on auto-pilot and treadmill mode, never going anywhere, just doing life. Keeping up. Filling out forms. Pushing paper. Rearranging schedules. Always planning for life but never really allowing myself to enjoy it.

But when I push the efficiency aside, when I shush my expectations and just let my soul speak up a little, I realize that it won't take too much to live a little differently.

Instead of showing up to work early, I can use 15, maybe 30 minutes to read or pray or draw or walk.

Instead of beleaguering a math problem with my 7-year old, I can stop and play a game. Reset our brains.

Instead of taking a walk by looking at caloric numbers accruing, I can take deep lungs-full of air and look at the sky.

An odd thing happens when I push the pause button on life... Somehow I am more energetic and focused and present. I've connected with a deeper part of myself.

I'm doing the slow work of saying "no" a whole lot to a bunch of beautiful invitations because my family needs breathing space. Adding margin to our schedule.

I'm marveling at people who tell slow, beautiful stories. Our society is so bullet-point oriented. In the past few years, I've altered the way I've spoken to people and not for the better. I tell them how many points I have to make and then I rattle them off. I didn't realize how much I spoke this way until I was in a parent-teacher conference with Eve's teacher and the teacher laughed saying that Eve numbered her points before speaking. I managed a smile, but my heart sank a little.

I have a few red flags which tell me when we're running low on time or time to think:
When I buy a lot of office supplies or organizational knick-knacks, that tells me I'm feeling stressed.
When I nosh on carbs.
When I bark at my children or say negative, brash things.
When I forget if I took my vitamins.
Or when someone lovely, like my daughter Morgan, looks me directly in my eyes and talks to me and I have to catch myself to listen to her.

I don't want to live a big, busy, soul-less life.

So when I make my way to the kitchen in the morning and see the pile of greasy dishes we neglected to clean the night before, I roll up my sleeves. I pour warm water and too-much dish soap in the sink and watch the suds climb up, up, up. I immerse a few dishes to soak. I look out the window and marvel at four fat chickadees and sparrows bouncing around my patio, eating seed that fell from the feeder. I start some coffee. I drink it slowly while sitting. I don't let myself stand until I have had a few minutes to enjoy the morning. The clatter of the morning will start soon enough.

Morgan is at a great age for sharing hilarious, loud and dramatic stories. So at 6:30 in the morning, I try to listen. Dan is laughing and Eve is just getting out of bed, her hair knotted in the back.

I take a dozen papers off my kitchen desk. Note to self: Make desk a happy place. This thing is a pile of responsibilities. Noted.

I push aside thoughts of the desk and push flash cards in the direction of Eve while finishing the last of my coffee. She is bouncing on a chair, waving her hands in the air while she answers correctly. After ten or fifteen minutes, she is beyond done answering what 3 + 8 is. So we play a game, her choice.

She bossily tells me how I must play and how I must act and I obey everything that she says. We laugh and enjoy these few moments before she goes to school.

She has lost her shoes again. And a library book. It seems like this happens every morning. I am tempted to run to my computer for answers to these stressors, but it won't matter, not in these minutes. I help her get out the door.

I write a few thoughts on my blog and start the day.

Not efficient. Not perfect. Just observed.
My soul is happy.

Len, the Dishwasher Repair Man

There was a large pool of water originating from my dishwasher, speedily traveling to my dining room. I didn't see it, but my feet did and I nearly lost my footing.

A week before a repairman came and found nothing wrong with my dishwasher which had been releasing rivers of water whenever it wanted. The repairman told me I was using the wrong soap. I looked at him skeptically. Because I have reached the age where I'm trying to save time by being honest, I told him that that didn't seem like a good assessment for such a large problem. He told me a long story supporting his argument and we parted ways. To alleviate my concerns about his diagnosis, he ordered some parts to come to my house, just in case I needed to call again. A few days later, assorted sizes of boxes appeared in the mail to repair the problem I didn't have.

Finding a puddle of water again in my kitchen wasn't unexpected.

This time the repair company sent Len. I had never met Len, but he came to my front door with a smile and I let him in, my dog barking frantically. He came in the house and set a large canvas tool box on the floor. Then he placed an industrial laptop on my kitchen counter and asked, "Okay, what's the problem?"

I told him of the water. I told him about the soap diagnosis. And I gave him three oddly shaped boxes which contained mystery dishwasher parts. Len looked at me and said, "That guy must have been new. It wasn't a soap problem, I can tell you that much." Len spoke strongly and confidently. He did a series of tests via trial-and-error to see if it was the motor or the gaskets. He ran the dishwasher empty. He couldn't recreate the problem, but he believed me about the puddles of water and he persevered.

Len punctuated his findings with stories. About an old lady who put undiluted dish soap into her washer and found herself in a sea of mess. He told me about how he saved up money for his son's college education. He told me that he had the same dishwasher as me and he hoped to high heaven that it never died because, in his words, "they don't make this kind of motor anymore." These words both comforted and frustrated me because I work my appliances hard so I buy strong brands.

In one story, he described how his wife emptied the dishwasher. First she slid open the top shelf where the glassware sat and lay a towel over it to absorb the water pooled in the top of the cups. As he spoke his hands moved musically in the air as if he were invisibly removing all the contents of a dishwasher. His story was so simple and lovely and ordinary that I was mesmerized by it. He smiled with his eyes. He must have a special relationship with his wife. Her, and his dishwasher.

He told me that my machine would benefit from a special cleansing solution once every 6 months. "Listen," he said, "at my company, they'll tell you you need this stuff every 3 months, but you don't. Every 6 months will do the trick. Now I have some of this stuff on the truck, but it's twelve dollars to you. You can easily go to Target and get it for half that price. I need to tell you this because some lady on social security got mad at my buddy for not divulging this information. Either way." His honesty was so beautiful that I paid the twelve dollars right there. In my mind, I paid six dollars for the solution and six dollars for the stories he told.

He noticed that I had a Kenmore Elite fridge that he was thinking of getting. He seemed like the kind of person who would appreciate frugality. I proudly told him that I bought it on Craigslist, a little pre-dinged. "My kids will ding it up anyway," I said.  I told him the one thing I didn't like was the flow of water from the fridge door. Within minutes, I found myself showing him the plumbing in our basement while he spoke of a saddle valve a quarter inch in diameter which would alleviate my water valve problem. Then he told me of a specialty store which carries these parts that no one else sells. "You know where the mall is?" he asked. And then he described in great detail how to find this little hole-in-the-wall place. "Even my company doesn't sell these parts."

After a half hour of chatting while he worked, I realized that this man represented so many other hard-working older men in my life who are largely invisible. They're old school. They change their own oil. They repair their own appliances and get their lawnmower blades sharpened every mowing season. They trim their own bushes and make sure their driveway is sealed every year. If you go to their garage, they have all their tools outlined on a pegboard. A lot of these men grew up in hard times and learned to do everything they could to make a living. They have difficulty paying other people to do work which they can do, despite the fact that their age is creeping and their knees are creaking.

There was something about Len's build and candor that reminded me so much of my paternal grandfather that I almost wanted to hug him. Who knows. He may have hugged me back.

When he left, I secretly hoped my dishwasher would break again so I could hear his stories.

The Stories We Tell

When I was a little girl, I sat across the table from two women. Both women had artistic backgrounds. I can't remember exactly how the conversation started. Maybe I showed them one of my pastel drawings. Not sure. But somewhere in the conversation the two women began to bemoan the loss of their friend, art. They spoke of art as if it was a memory, wistfully. I remember that moment because I remember thinking, "That would be so sad to have to give up something you love."



My early days as an artist were very preachy. I drew pictures of the Vietnam War and such. I forced symbolism and layers of meaning upon simple drawings.

One of my most liberating art classes happened at Montgomery College in Maryland. Watercolor 101. In this class I learned about pre-planning the color applications (generally dark colors last) and about letting my brush strokes be swift, simple and strong. Watercolor is perfect for people who are overly controlling. Once you take a saturated brush to a lightly dampened page and see the tendrils of pigment shoot, you just have to stand back and marvel. Don't touch it too much. Let it do its thing.



One day in class our teacher had us paint the portrait of the person to the left of us. The lady to my left was a very talented and refined painter. I held great respect for her work. She was a petite asian woman with glossy black hair. Since art class generally is messy, we didn't dress up. We often wore old clothes or smocks. And for some reason this dear lady who I admired didn't tend to brush her hair either. It was the 1990s so grunge was in trend anyway. So that day in class, I painted a portrait of her which very closely resembled her. It was a profile painting, which is generally easier to do for me, because the outline of the face is strong and clear. I was so caught up in the flow of the painting process, that I painted her hair exactly as disheveled as it was.



After class two things happened. First, my model looked very unhappy. She left quietly. And secondly, my teacher approached me with what can only be described as a split expression. She could tell that I had hurt this person's feelings. At the same time, the art produced was aesthetically pretty good. I remember the ache in her face as she struggled to convey this.

The next class the lady brushed her hair. And ever after. I felt sad that I made her feel so badly.

In this same class there was a lady studying art therapy. After each class project, the students hung their art at the front of the class and we took turns critiquing each other. This process was very helpful to see where we could improve and where we were strong. At nearly every critique session, this particular student looked absolutely paralyzed. Sometimes her paper was nearly blank and she would introduce her painting by saying, "I WAS going to put a tree here..." and then she would look at us expectantly and trail off. The process was always so disappointing.

I think that if we look at art the same way we look at making dinner, then we would see that people simply want to eat something. They don't need something fancy all the time. Just food. And sometimes the most simple of meals proves to be the most memorable of all. Sometimes dinner flops and you order pizza. But the point is: You don't give up on eating. You still need to eat. You still need to make dinner and try. At least put something on the plate. With any luck, you'll start to make food with more consistency and flair to the point where you won't even need a cookbook anymore. But make something. Anything. We need to eat.



It seems to me that art is less about color and brush and medium and firing and casting and more about showing up again and again and choosing the right story to tell. More about the time we allocate to composing an image. More about what we don't say rather than what we do say. And sometimes art offends. Generally I find that art simply wants to draw out a truth and offer it for contemplation. The truth could be as simple as, "Have you seen this color? Isn't it amazing how it interacts with its neighbor?"

I'm never offended when people say, "Well, I could do that" upon seeing a piece of art. The reasons for this are threefold:
1. I'm glad. That means the art was edited well. A lot of strong art looks accessible and easy to reproduce.
2. It means others might join the chorus. Great. Engage your creative side! Let's all respond to this magnificence called life.
3. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you have the time or heart or patience for it longterm. By the argument that "I could do that," we would all be expected to do all the professions and that just won't work for me. I don't see myself being a teacher anytime soon. I respect people who do it, however.

I have spent a lot of my life trying to quiet my artistic side. Tone it down. I went into marketing and branding. It's a fun line of work for artists. It pays bills for making pretty pictures and telling stories. Hopefully true stories. :)

But there's still a part of me that longs for my own voice where no one else is saying, "Be this. Say this." And for that, I'm thankful that I can take a few simple tools and put together shapes and colors and textures. So thankful.

I'm hoping to expand my designs, but I'm not in any hurry. The wise Elizabeth Gilbert was quoted in an interview as saying that she told her art something to the effect of, "Listen, I don't need you to support me. I will support you. I will wait tables or whatever it is so that you can exist." And some might say that her art is purer and fresher for it because Elizabeth wasn't burdening her artistic endeavors to bring food to the table.

Maybe so.

As I approach the five year mark of making calendars, I marvel at how many people said, "Hey, that's fun! I want that in my life." They let me have a little voice, a side of their kitchen cabinet or a section of their cubicle to say, "Hey, this is worth noting."

I sketched and reflected and edited and tossed and then people bought images of the result of this process. That amazes me. Art is like buying a piece of meditation. What a gift to have people speak into each other's lives.

What a gift, art.
What a gift, people.
What a gift, life.

Phases of Grace

When I was little I would hear people talk about grace and think it must be something special because their eyes got wet when they spoke of it. They'd sing a song about grace and their voice would crack a little and diminish until they cleared their throat. Grace had meaning.

I can't say that grace has had meaning for me my whole life. It's been mostly a mystery to me. The closest thing I could picture to grace was ballerinas and tutus. Grace was pink and fluffy to me.

I have tried to make grace originate from me. It's a massive failure. With me as the source, grace looks more like Pollyanna jacked up on caffeine.

I have come to a place in life where grace has more dimension to my life.

Grace is the mortar in my broken life. I have a bunch of broken pieces. I have irritating pieces, like billing departments who make my life complicated with wrong balances. I have guilt pieces, like the terrible thing I said to my young daughter who keeps repeating it back to me. I have sadness and devastation and I have elation; it's all there. I have lots of pieces and they're all glass. When I lay them out delicately they make no sense, but when Mortar Grace is poured between the spaces, they're connected. They have meaning. And all the sharp edges are gone. All that is left is one whole piece. It's a mosaic, but it's all stuck together. Broken, stuck-togetherness.

I used to think that grace was rigid and strong, but now I think that it is more stretchy than anything else. Every time I bring something before God that I think, "This can't possibly be in the scope of grace," I find that I am wrong. I bring weird things, like the fact that I hate planning dinner menus. I bring desires, I tell him of how much I want to design more. I bring fears and failures as well. I bring it all. When something disappointing happens, I've learned to say this: "Look forward to the grace that will be shown to you." It calms me somehow.

It's not a feeling. It's not a ballerina. It's not a trend.
Grace has a heartbeat. Grace is God turned human, created with fingerprints and nerve endings and experiencing limitations. Grace is someone who went before me so that I can live life in the beautiful shadow of that love.

My husband describes grace more elegantly, like the Milky Way. Our tiny planet sits snugly on the west arm of its vast expanse. We've sent out probes to know its magnificence but all the wonders we have already learned are just the beginning. We have years ahead of us. And not just decades. Astronomers are using words like "millions." Milky Way Grace. Mysterious. Evolving to us but never changing, really. Expansive. Thrilling. Humbling. Tangible. Murky at times. And then glorious.

Amazing, really.

Kite Flying

It was morning and I had coffee with a friend at a restaurant. The wind had really picked up. We sat outside the restaurant and tried to speak while whips of hair impeded our speech, making us laugh. It was windy all day. All morning and all afternoon. So much wind.

The afternoon felt heavy before it had really begun. It felt like too much. Dan wasn't going to be home for three hours and I knew the witching hour was approaching. I had already spent my energy for the day, but my 6-year old had not. She was pacing the floor after school asking for her battery of requests. Snacks. Playdates. No chores. It's a very whiny time of night.

"Let's fly a kite," I told her. I already had it in my hand and was heading for the back door. The kite is the shape of a cat flying in the air. My older daughter named the kite "Hobbes" after her favorite comic strip. It's really a ridiculous sight. Cats don't fly.

My youngest grabs the kite in her excitement. She is running backwards, holding the mess of fabric and excitedly talking about our adventure. I have told her too many times to not run or walk or skip or do any motion backwards. She falls, splaying over a scooter, sending the kite and string in many directions. She scoops up the kite irreverently with the unraveling string and heads for the back fence. I shake my head, not sure this kite will ever gain altitude.

In my mind, I am reviewing the rules of kite flying and realize that we might be in trouble. We have the wind and the large, unhindered space. We have the mechanism but the string has no way to give. It is caught on itself. A kite without a string is just airborne litter.

I can already feel the situation turning stressful. My daughter Eve is not known for patience. This comes as no surprise to me. My DNA runs deeply in her veins. She is clumsy and active and creative and full of life. All evidence of my genes.

She runs to the field behind our house and expects the kite to take flight. I grimace at the knot of string which will suspend our flying cat. I set my expectations to level zero and instead choose to make the best of the moment.

I try my best to unwind the bulk of the string. I ignore the knots and clumps. I stretch a length of string which is roughly twenty feet, maybe thirty. Whatever it is, it doesn't feel like enough. I tell her to hold the string while I take the triangular tip of the kite and point it toward the sky. "Run!" I tell her. "RUN, RUN, RUN!" She takes off wildly. The kite darts up and smacks the ground almost immediately. I'm not giving up. I pick it up again and we try this exercise again and again until the kite begin to looks less like a plow bouncing on the ground, digging up clumps of grass.

The wind was playful that day and finally swept the kite straight into the air, allowing it to suspend strong and steady for a few moments before batting it like a kitten.

Eventually Eve decided to run wildly around the field and I was left holding the string, feeling the wind tug and shift the kite. Without the pressure of trying to keep the kite afloat for my daughter, the moment felt strangely meditative. It surprised me. Here I was, standing in a field, using what I had, not mourning what I did not (more string, that is) and gauging the direction of the wind by a mere pull on the handle. The wind would pull and release and swat and guide and push. It was all very invisible and intuitive, making exchanges with the wind. I was connected with the sky.

Later a few neighbors joined us and each one seemed to stand in their own swaths of grass, letting their kites guide them while not entwining with the others.

When our faces were flushed with outside air, Eve picked up the kite and took it inside the house. She threw it on the floor in a heap and skipped away joyfully. Usually I insist that she picks up her shoes and her mess and, in this situation, the kite. Something in the moment told me to just be still.

I let her run wildly up to her room, caught up by the exhilaration of being outdoors. She is my carefree kite, dancing with the breeze. I am her anchor holding snags of string, realizing my inadequacy, holding the mess of what ties us together gently and releasing what I have into the wind.