Returning to a Writing Life

In this season, I’m hoping to find my way with fewer people in the house and more solitude. I’m not naïve enough to expect perfection, but I do need time. As any writer knows, you must show up regularly to get your work done. It must be given priority and long hours of concentration. I write best if I start first thing in the morning, which means pushing everything else aside: walking past the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, not starting a load of laundry, resisting the urge to restore order in the household, and going directly to my desk.

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The Virtue of Community

We all contribute to dinner, and this tends to be my favorite part — us huddled in the kitchen to chop ingredients while talking over the week’s events. Often our time in the dining room lasts much of the evening, and this lingering always helps me to catch my breath. I’m consistently aware of how something as simple as laughter between good friends can melt away the stress of the day.

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Beauty and the Mess

I don't mean to satirize mom blogs. As an artist, I live to create beauty and to breathe it in, and I am often inspired by these creative mamas. Neither do I condemn the blogging mamas themselves. After all, I am one of them. I'm no celebrity, but I have definitely projected — through my blog and through my posts — a picture of a beautiful life. I am only suggesting that we think twice about the standard we create when we post only the good stuff.

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Matters of Perspective

That is what I crave, I’m hungry to understand my purpose, to believe that human finiteness is okay, and to know and believe when God made us to live in dailyness He said, “It is good.” I’d like to live with a certain clarity that though the day inevitably comes with suffering, it’s still good, and I would like to gratefully receive that day with all its shuffling and waiting as a gift.

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Things Left Undone

We seldom see each other’s things left undone, and we sure don’t want others to see ours. We pretend we’re finished works in public, our seams finished, our loose threads neatly trimmed. Exposing the messy undersides is one of the vulnerabilities of living with others — and one of the graces of being intimately known.

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