To Call My Own

I’ve been in the process of giving birth to a home recording studio for the past two weeks but I have to admit that it has not been the liberating and fulfilling journey hoped for. Instead, it has been a series of intense contractions and unflattering pushes with lulls to consider it all. I’ve sent back one breakout box in favor of another which necessitated uninstalling software that I’ll only have to reinstall in 3 days time when the new box gets here. My monitors are too large and the room is too small. There’s something oozing from the concrete under the carpeting and I think whoever chose fire engine red for the walls a few years back must be a crazy woman. (Or she will be shortly.) When this baby arrives however, you can bet I’ll be handing out cigars and passing around photos. If I can just survive the labor! I’m not demanding perfection. I’m just hoping for a healthy, happy sacred space to call my own.

That Kind of Day

“I have found that in the simple act of living with hope… the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious.” – Elizabeth Edwards

I’ve got a big pot of chili bubbling away on the stove with just the right amount of two favorite secret ingredients to light up my mouth in just the right way because… it’s that kind of day. When I was at the grocery store picking up the ingredients for the chili, a woman mopping the floor kicked the bucket (literally) and declared, “It’s that kind of day!” And I got an email from a friend that said, “What started off as a beautiful morning has turned into the worst possible night." In other words… “It’s that kind of day.”

That beautiful morning, Sandy and her family gathered to lay to rest her sister Brenda, finding closure in the fast and furious disease that took her life. That would have been one kind of day. Except for the arrival of the news that Brenda's ex-husband had died unexpectedly that very same evening. This comes on the heels of a long chain of loss this family has suffered over the past year.  "That kind of day?!"  I can hear Sandy snort right about now, “How about ‘That kind of YEAR!’”  I assure you this is not the ranting of a bitter heart but the dry sarcasm of a woman who missed her calling on SNL. Like when she imagined Brenda confronting her ex ‘up there’…“What the HELL are YOU doing here?! Those kids need you!” I marvel at her sense of humor in the thick of all this crap.  She hasn’t lost hope in the face of ‘that kind of day’. Repetitively.  

This is where I might be tempted to trumpet some trite charge like “Carpe Diem!”. However, the day has been seized, squeezed, spilled and mopped up again. Instead I am just going to agree. It IS ‘that kind of day’. For me with my pot of chili. For Sandy with all that loss. Even for the lady with the mop.

Alive and Well

I don’t care if anyone reads this. What I care about is making sure I write. To hold myself accountable to the simple resolution to be present and aware in my life. To see God in the ordinary. To wake into the sacred day and merge with its sacred pulse. Somehow setting this blog up some time ago set me off balance by the sheer expectation of it. What if I don’t have anything to write? What if the well runs dry and I’m left with a dusty cup and nothing to offer? Well clang, clang… welcome to the inner ramblings of the self-fulfilling prophetess. I’m done rambling and am just going to write, which at times may be nothing more than rambling, but it’s better than nothing. It is something - to show up for my day and acknowledge that the Sacred is there whether I see it or not. So read if you want or not. I’ll be writing regardless, clanging my pen against the cup that overflows and groping for that pulse when it is faint; declaring the Sacred alive and well each time.