Forty Isn't for the Faint of Heart

A major milestone is looming.  It comes to mind already because this month - October - is brimming with birthdays of some special people in my life: both my Mom and Dad and my adorable niece to name a few.  It has me thinking ahead to turning the big 4-0.

My hope is to move forward, full steam, and embrace this new phase with all it's complexities.  I don't know what lies ahead and I cannot boast of 'tomorrow' but I am constructing a mental list of 'birthday year' wishes that I would like to begin to document here in hopes of fulfilling each one in time.  The list may grow beyond 'one-per-month'.  That's okay - I'm writing the rules and I can break them.

So to begin, in random order:

1) A roller skating birthday party, complete with speed skate and 'limbo'.

2) Fabulous trip to this spa (recommended by my boot camp trainer/friend, Sabine)

www.jejusauna.net

Not for the modest, but while we're breaking down walls and overcoming fears and issues, we might as well tackle the body image hurdle and enjoy other-worldly spa experiences for the day, to boot...check it out.  I am thinking this will be more suited for spring or early summer...after a good (and rigorous) exercise regime and a tan...

3)  Visit Howard Finster's Paradise Gardens

http://www.finstersparadisegardens.org/

Saw his work at the High Museum of Art over the summer and was fascinated...

4) Try a zipline - a really good one.

5)  Do a karaoke tune - by.my.self...doesn't sound daring to most...to this girl (yes, I still feel like a mere girl on the inside...) standing up in front of a crowd of any number brings back memories of junior English class and complete paralysis...

6) Sleep in the desert under the stars.  I got this idea from an article I saw recently.  It listed pricey venues for sleeping outside under the stars complete with turn-down service and a shot of Kahlua in your hot chocolate ...and then I thought, "Wait - I can't, in good conscience, plunk down that kind of dough...I can create my own experience on a much more economic budget..."  So I hope to find a spot much like I found before and put down a comfortable air mattress, crank out the favorite tune "Peaceful Easy Feeling" by The Eagles, and sip on my own concoction of Bailey's Hot Cocoa under a canopy of stars.

7)  An overnight train trip...this idea came to me tonight as I got caught at a railroad crossing.  I have not EVER viewed this as an inconvenience.  I always roll all the windows down, turn down the radio and listen to the howl of the horn and the rumble of the wheels on the track that can be felt in your chest.  I love it.

8) One more stamp in the passport - hopefully Nicaragua.

9) In conjunction with number 8, possibly, I would like to do some sort of missions in this year.  I could look for an orphanage there and hold babies....yes.  This sounds JUST like what I would love to do.

10)  Take another road trip - probably a shorter version this time.  Just point Silver due west and watch the moon and stars follow the car...


I could list more but I would like to leave room for spontaneity and new ideas to crop up along the way.  I cannot wait.

One of the many chill songs on tap tonight...

Few and Far Between

Wow.  Just read that last post and wondered, 'What the-?'  *sigh*  Inspiration comes so very little now.  The last entry sounds to me more like a ride on a tricycle down a washboard dirt road.  Overlook the horrible sentence structure and lack of grammatical sense, will you?  I am stretching these days to even eek out a few coherent syllables.

However, this past Sunday while staring out the window in the morning, these words just floated into my brain, much like the subject at hand that I was witnessing in the crisp new sun:

'glitter-gold leaves of fall,
the last of summer's hopeful sunlight
determined and clinging within the branches
before fading away'

The thoughts, like the green of summer, came and went.  Just like that.

I am hesitantly happy about something:  for the past, oh week and a half to two weeks, dreams have punctuated my sleep.  Happy for obvious reasons, but hesitant at the idea that as mysteriously as they have 'returned', I am afraid they might fade to black again.  I am wondering if they are surfacing due to more physiological reasons.  I have been taking some supplements to ward off the scary monster called 'brain fog' that plagued me for the better part of August and September.  It could be because I have been effectively eliminating toxins and nasty stuff in my diet so that I am basically subsisting on fresh fruits and veggies, nuts and the like.  The reasons could be more spiritual/emotional as well, or a combination of all reasons for weaving night tales into my dreaming world.  I will embrace them while they last, and wake to smile that I've told stories in my sleep.

Reason #432

The list is growing rapidly for all the reasons that I am more adapted every day to live in some tropical, Central American climate:

Someone is going to have to pry my open-toed shoes/flip flops off of my frozen, popsicle toes.  While friends and cohorts alike have already sprung out their fashionable boots and sweaters and vests and scarves, I remain solidly planted in my flip flops and short sleeves.  It has been balmy 75 degrees, after all, every afternoon so far.  While those same people are peeling layers and complaining of the heat, I am comfortably flying out the door and down the road, less layers - unencumbered. 

Well, look at the time.  It is officially Friday.  I've waited for this day to come for a million Tuesdays this week.  Finally.  I can look forward to 'family day' on Saturday where we go on the hunt for these:

And roast some of these:

...and sit by one of these:

There's not much better in the world.

It's the Little Things

I searched and searched for my card reader so that I could post a picture of this meaningful thing.  Right now it is hiding so a picture will have to wait.  I'll go ahead and tell about what I did find.

Two summers ago I had bought a wide silver band to wear as a thumb ring.  I am not really sure why, I just loved the look and what little jewelry I ever do wear is silver or accented with it.  Since I started wearing it , I had not taken it off.  Ever.  So imagine my bewilderment and dismay when, last fall, it just disappeared.  I could NOT figure out where it might be, or when I might have lost it.  I wondered if maybe it had slipped off due to the cooler temps that often cause my fingers to shrink.  I also thought that maybe it had come off when I played with it on my thumb, pulling it up and down over my knuckle.  No - I was sure I would have felt it drop off.

I did look for it in all the places that made sense to me.  I was baffled that it could have just ceased to exist. To all who may be thinking, "it's just a ring..." I answer "True", but ever since I was very little, I have always attached random sentiment to some of the smallest and seemingly most insignificant objects.  Not just any and everything in my possession, but certain things.  This ring was no different.

I finally just ended up buying a second, thinner silver band to replace it. However it just wasn't the same.  That was last fall.  Imagine my complete surprise when I found my original thumb ring this past weekend.  I had begun my task of tackling one very small bite of the enormous undertaking of cleaning out things in the basement.  I had started with the clothing bins to sort through.  I was making room in a crate of shirts by compiling them into another bin, and I looked down and there was my ring, wedged right along the rim of that crate!  I could NOT believe it!  How in the world did it get here?  I don't even remember moving this crate.  Unbelievable.

So during spells of life when it seems everything is an uphill walk through molasses, it's the little things that make our day, and can even give us hope.  I now wear both rings on that left thumb: a daily reminder for all I have to be thankful.  Now if I could only find that card reader...

To commemorate this act of bravery one year ago today...

Skydiving was amazing in and of itself.  But to do this with my brother and my DAD???  Priceless...

Shape of My Heart

This is it.  This is the shape of my heart.  A place I've never been.  A land I've never known.  A people I've yet to meet.  It's borders define my heart's outer edges.  

It has been a few years that a 'pull' to live in another culture has been present.  The whisper has been getting more audible, more persistent.  My wandering, gypsy heart for as long as I can remember, now makes sense.

The journey may have begun years ago, way before I knew I was on one.  The wandering  soul has always been with me, I am certain.  It just began to materialize about five years ago when, for no other reason at all, we put our 'dream house' on the market.  This house had been visualized and constructed from the ground up, beginning with wishes and prayers while perched on a fallen log on a rolling hill overlooking the Chattahoochee.  From it's unique exterior, to it's three acres of wooded hills, to the touches we created inside and out - sound system throughout, balcony from an upstairs room, enormous deck for gatherings and a screened porch that became an extension of our dining area to let the outside in...My favorites:  dark wood floors throughout, a fireplace in the master, a sweeping two-story entry that was magical for me to decorate at Christmas - but most of all, my beloved hammock that hung at the far edge of the back of the property, suspended between two trees that made you feel like you were swinging above the river in the trees...

And over the course of days, after living there three years, we were asked to give it up.  God began to work on our hearts and asked us to let it all go.  Wresting with the 'whys' of something that made absolutely no sense, and crying out into the night, hanging onto that balcony and each other, we said, 'Yes', we would give it up.  

I liken what has been transpiring over the course of the next five years ago or so to a favorite part of a best-loved book, "Thank You, Mr. Faulkner" by Patricia Polacco:

Trisha's grandma used to say that the stars were holes in the sky. They were the light of heaven coming from the other side. And she used to say that someday she would be on the other side, where the light comes from.

One evening they lay on the grass together and counted the lights from heaven. "You know," her grandma said, "all of us will go there someday. Hang on to the grass, or you'll lift right off the ground, and there you'll be!"

They laughed, and both hung on to the grass.

But it was not long after that night that her grandma must have let go of the grass, because she went to where the lights were, on the other side. And not long after that, Trisha's grandpa let go of the grass, too.

There has been a subtle 'letting go' of everything I once held 'important' or of 'value'.  As in the book, it has been a slow dying to the "things of this world" (Romans 12:2) and I can feel this 'letting go' as things drop off and away from me with each step forward.  I am seeing everything around me so differently that sometimes I think if I really voiced what I was thinking at any given moment, all within hearing range would deem me non compos mentis.  But that's okay.  Along with so many other bits of chaff being burned away, is the concern over what others might think of me.  That may have been one of the first things to go.

Roughly two years ago, I began to have an overwhelming need to purge of all unnecessary items in my house.  I have a basement cluttered and full of things that I have not touched or thought of since moving them here five years ago.  I am realizing more and more what a careless and haphazard steward of resources this is.  I have yet to make much of a dent.  At the time, I brushed it off and let the urge fade.  It is coming back.  Full force.  At this point, I might just load it all up in the back of the truck and start peddling it "Free!!  One man's junk is another man's treasure!" up and down the streets of my town.

I would be remiss if I didn't also see yet another layer of learning for me on my trip a year ago. I gleaned so much from that experience.  Rather it changed me. I found that I could function - no THRIVE- with SO. MUCH.LESS.  I basically took just what I needed, and even then used less than I brought.  I verified that, yes, I could sleep on the ground or in a car.  I could survive torrential storms.  I could bathe in the ocean and brush my teeth outdoors.  I don't mind getting dirty.  I learned that I am just not made to do the same thing, day after day, month after month, year after year, and be settled and content.  Routine and predictability smother me.  I also saw people with such clarity that my perception of humanity has been forever altered.  

I could go on.  But for now, this little place will be called 'home' for a couple of weeks in the upcoming months to explore the possibility that I will have found my heart and we move there permanently in the next couple of years.  However, I am also learning to hold so many 'thoughts' tentative, like making plans for a couple of years away, and words like 'permanent' could change in a flash.  So I am inching forward, sliding one toe over into this unknown. 

View from the porch...

Notice the hammock...

Sunroof Saturday Songs

Sometimes you just have to go country.  I came across this song yesterday rolling along with the windows and sunroof open and just fell crazy head-over-heels for it.  Love it that Zac Brown Band is also from Atlanta.  Bonus.  So if you're inclined, get this song, play it loud, roll down the windows and stick your arm out into the wind to make that fun, wavy motion as you drive along!

Other favorites today...

Sing it Ella...