Anxious for Nothing

‘Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God’. – Phil. 4:6

‘Be anxious for nothing…’

Nothing.

No Thing.

Nothing...

Do not be anxious about:

An Infected Finger

Fertility Issues

Career

Adoption Process

Getting a New Roof

Car Problems

Broken Sewing Machine

Leaky Basement

Tomatoes that are Splitting

A Float Trip

Husband’s Job

Be anxious for NOTHING.

—-

‘But in everything…’

Everything.

Every Thing.

(See above issues)

—-

‘By prayer and supplication…’

Prayer = Talking to God

Supplication = Asking or petitioning God for something

—-

‘With thanksgiving…’

I am thankful for:

My boss driving me to the Metrolink station two days last week

Urgent care

My brother picking me up from the Metro

My husband’s work car

A shop vac for our basement

Public transportation

A date set for an initial home visit for adoption

My mom lettting me borrow her car yesterday

An estimate on a roof

Our garden and fresh produce

A free diagnostic on our car

Antibiotics

An Amazon gift card from generous travel clients

A free two nights stay at a hotel in Pureto Vallarta my husband won through a webinar ( We have a year to use it)

Time with family

—-

‘Let your requests…’

‘Let’ = giving up, releasing

‘Your’ = Personal, intimate, applicable to your life, hopes, dreams, desires

‘Requests’ = Things you need, want, desire, hope and long for and are currently asking God for leading and guidance

—-

‘Be made known…’

Let God know what these things are. He knows already, but that is where the ‘prayer and supplication’ part comes in. It’s the relationship aspect of the ‘asking’.

—-

‘to God…’

‘To God…’

You’re not putting out your requests into the air or ‘the Universe’ in a vain hope that they might be answered one day, some day.

Your prayers, supplications and requests are going to someone. They’re going to God.

—-

‘God…’

The Maker of the World, the One who sees all, hears all, knows all, the Jehovah Jireh, the One who Lives and Sees Me, the God who Cares, the One who knows the beginning from the End, the God who came as a Man to this earth who knows our struggles and our weaknesses, the God who understands.

These are where your prayers are going.

So be anxious for nothing.

Routines

Routines. They are comfortable, safe, predictable and I tend to thrive on them.

Maybe it is my personality or maybe, personality aside, we all, as humans, need routines to give us a sense of rhythm and ritual in our daily lives.

Routines may help us feel in control when other parts of our lives seem askew. They give us a feeling that all is right with the world, a sense of normalcy to our being here, alive, on planet earth.

Routines may change with the seasons; the calendar seasons and the seasons of our lives.

Routines tend to be what we actually do in our day-to-day lives. The getting up, eating breakfast, going to work, fixing dinner, watching the news, reading before bed. Traditions, in contrast, tend to be what we do on a more quarterly or yearly basis, and are often in celebration of a holiday like Christmas or New Years, or a shift in the seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter. We tend do traditions with other people; family, friends.

Routines are the daily stuff of life, personal or shared with those in your household. The things we need to do to prepare and prep ourselves for the day to come, both morning and evening.

The daily routine that I share with my husband goes something like this:

Our radio alarm goes off at 5:45a. I generally hit the snooze button once. I find that I need the nine minutes of time before it goes off again to get myself used to the idea that it’s time to get up and start the day.

Once up, I head downstairs for a 10 minute-ish time with a devotional book and prayer (I’m currently going through Prayers for Today by Kurt Bjorklund) while Adam goes outside to water the garden. We meet in the kitchen a little after 6a. I take my vitamins (Probiotic, multi and cod liver oil — that stuff is disgusting, fyi) while Adam puts the dishes away. I start some water for tea, Adam pours his cereal and preps his coffee. I either make a smoothie, have cereal or, in the summer, eat overnight oatmeal (See recipe at end).

After breakfast we have a little devotional reading together and pray for our family members who have birthdays in the month we happen to be in. That routine started a number of years ago and I love it because we pray for each member of our family for a month every year. It’s also nice because between Adam’s family and mine we have every month covered. 🙂

After breakfast we make our lunch for the day (Adam’s hardcore go-to is peanut butter and jelly, pretzels and fruit. People, I’ve tried to get him to vary this…only on occasion has it actually worked. My sister said she admires him for his devotion to his PBJ; mostly because her husband eats out a lot for lunch and that annoys her. They’re working on it too). Adam does the dishes and I get two strips of sweet peppers and a chard leaf from the fridge, the guinea pigs’ morning ‘salad’, before heading upstairs with the veggies and my cup of tea. I open the downstairs blinds and curtains on my way up. This ritual of opening the curtains gives the day a fresh start, a waking up of the house for the day to come.

The guinea pigs hear me walk up the stairs and they know what’s coming — veggies! They start squeaking and munch happily (Or greedily?!) on their treats when I give it to them.

I make the bed. Another simple routine that preps the day. Once a month I change the sheets, which gives the sense of something luxurious, new, fresh and clean.

After the bed is made, I get dressed for the day; enjoying my tea as I do so. Clothes on, face washed, teeth brushed, deodorant applied, hair combed — there is something satisfying with the daily morning routine for me; there’s a beauty and a simplicity to it that makes me happy and contented.

After Adam is done with the dishes, he heads upstairs and reads one chapter of the Bible as I look for a ten minute exercise video on YouTube; something to get the blood flowing and energize me for the day. We exercise (I know, why don’t we do this first thing after waking?) and Adam gets ready for his shower and I get ready to leave. The day has started. The drive to work, the work day with it’s own routine, the drive home.

Coming home from work I grab the mail on the way inside, drop everything on our hall table. I hang my purse up, open the mail, put my dirty lunch dishes in the sink, refill my water bottle and put it by the door for the next day. I go upstairs and say hi to the piggies and try to relax for a few minutes before getting dinner started. Adam gets home after six and we eat…sometimes leisurely, sometimes not, depends on what the evening plans are.

For our evening routine I prep my oatmeal for the next morning, shut the blinds and curtains and the door that leads to our backstairs. I shower, maybe do some yoga and then I read for half hour to an hour (I’m currently reading The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw) before sleeping.

This is our typical morning and evening routine. I know it will shift and change as life moves forward, but for now, this is it. What is your routine? What do you like about it? Find comforting? Do you find a simple beauty in yours as I do mine?

Overnight Oatmeal Recipe

I say ‘recipe’ loosely because I don’t generally measure anything besides the oatmeal. The measurements given are a guideline to help you recreate it. Soaking the oats help break down the phylatic acid in the oats, making it easier for your tummy to digest.

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1/4 raisins

1 – 2 Tb sunflower seeds, toasted

2 Tb sesame seeds

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 – 1 tsp vanilla

1 – 2 Tbs honey

I put everything in a mason jar and cover with water, just enough to cover everything. Don’t drown it! I put the lid on and stick it in the fridge and let it soak overnight. In the morning I scoop the soaked oatmeal mixture into a bowl and add almond milk. Sometimes I’ll add chopped fruit too. This is eaten cold, straight from the fridge.

This recipe is easy to vary with what you have on hand. Mix it up with flaxseeds, chia seeds, dried cranberries or other dried fruit, nuts, vary the spices or add cocoa powder. Enjoy!

The Piggie Story

About a year ago Adam and I watched my brother’s guinea pig, Oreo, while he and his family were on vacation.

That one week of watching Oreo made Adam realize that we wanted a guinea pig of our own and we ended up getting our pig, Molly. You can read that story here.

Earlier this year my brother, Nahum, and his family bought another pig to keep Oreo company since the kids weren’t giving it quite as much attention. Guinea pigs are herd animals and need friends and social interaction. Since Oreo was a female, they bought another female which they named Cinnamon.

One day I received a text from my sister-in-law, Abby; ‘We think Cinnamon is pregnant…she must have been pregnant when we got her from the pet store because the timing works out’.

I didn’t question the logic, it has happened, but when I told Adam the news over dinner he was like, ‘Or Oreo is a boy’.

Turns out Adam was correct and Oreo, who they thought was a girl since that’s what the pet store had told them, was in actuality a boy. Ooops! I guess that really is a classic, not wholly uncommon story, ‘The pet store got it wrong’.

So Cinnamon had her babies in due time, three little cute balls of fluff.

People, guinea pig babies are adorable. They’re born with hair, with all their markings, they eat both milk and solid food the day they’re born and run around and ‘popcorn’…they’re too cute!

My guess, before I saw or met the new piggies, is that their names would be Ginger, Nutmeg and Snickerdoodle. When we went to my brother Nahum’s house for a birthday party just days after they were born, my niece comes up to me and says their names are Ginger, Nutmeg and Snickerdoodle. Hmmm, well, I called that one! 😉

After three weeks new piggies can be separated from their mother. My sister-in-law Abby took them all to the vet to get their genders identified from a professional (Never mind the pet store). Ginger and Nutmeg, male, Snickerdoodle, female. Abby arranged for Cinnamon and Snickerdoodle, the two official females, to be given to a mutual friend of ours, while they kept the boys. One guiea pig turned into three real fast.

A couple months later I get a text from Abby saying they were at our friend’s house and that, ‘Cinnamon is pregnant again’.

Oh, dear. Apparently Oreo and Cinnamon had some more piggie ‘fun’ before she was given away.

Abby said she had warned her friend that Cinnamon ‘might’ be pregnant when they took her, but that she would take full responsibility of finding homes for the new ones.

Cinnamon, again, had her babies in due time. This time four cute little balls of fluff. Abby sent me a picture of them the day after they were born. *heart emojii*

Adam and I had a discussion. And yes, you may know what is coming next: Did we want to take one of Cinnamon’s babies as a friend for Molly?

We ended up with a Yes answer. While Molly is a sweet pig and even though we held her often, gave her treats, bought a nice play pen for her and kept her as occupied and happy as we could, we felt she was probably bored at times and most likely lonely.

So we officially told Abby that once they were weaned we’d take one female pig. It ended up that Cinnamon only had one female out of the litter, and yes, she was vet verified before we took her.

We bought a new habitat, one big enough for housing two guinea pigs. We loosely decided to name the new one Rita, from the Beatles song ‘Lovely Rita’. We could have Molly, the singer in a band with a ‘pretty face’ and Rita, a ‘lovely’ meter maid; Beatle character BFFs living it up piggie style.

It turned out that the family had already named the new guinea pigs, the female we were taking they named Peanut Butter. I told my nieces we were renaming it to Rita and they were horrified. ‘Rita? That’s such a dumb name’ they told me in no uncertain terms. Oh, the opinions of teens and pre-teens who may not…yet…be Beatle fans. 🙂

Adam and I ended up deciding against naming it Rita, much to the relief of my nieces. But we did drop the ‘Butter’ and just named it Peanut.

We went to pick up our new piggie, Peanut, on a Friday evening. We brought a box for transport, complete with hay, pepper and chard to keep it occupied. We got to our friend’s house, and out she comes with our new little pig; cute, tiny (Only three weeks old) and who immedately started squeaking our ears off. ‘Oh, we have a talker!’, I said. The understatement of the year.

We got her situated in the box; I held her on my lap, Adam started our 20 minute drive home. She squeaked and squeaked and squeaked…she literally went ‘Wee, wee, wee…all. the. way. home’.

Taking her upstairs to meet Molly, still squeaking for all she was worth, Molly’s ears perked up at the sound of another guinea pig. We put Peanut in the new habitat, squeaking. She ran around, getting used to her new environment, squeaking. I looked at Adam, What did we just do??

Fast forward to today; it’s now been a good two weeks since we first got Peanut. She has acclimated to her new home, we’ve integrated Molly and Peanut to the new habitat together and they are living peacefully. Molly is the older, introverted, quieter more dominant guinea pig. Peanut, the younger, extroverted one, who is still a talker, just not quite as intense or a loud as when we first brought her home.

That, my friends, is the guinea pig story.

Slow Work

I was at work a couple of weeks ago, in our not-so-lovely warehouse, counting our Christmas inventory.

I knew this was something that I was going to have to do because my manager gave me a heads up about it, so I knew it was coming and was trying not to dread it.

Counting is not my forte. There are many other things I’d much rather be doing than counting things, especially counting inventory at work.

Our system at the warehouse for doing inventory is a little old-fashioned. We have no fancy scanners or anything, it literally is just counting.

every.

item.

by.

hand.

And we have a lot of Christmas stuff.

It all goes into a computer system, but the actual doing it is by hand, pen and paper.

So there I was in the shelves, counting away, when I had a thought.

The thought was: ‘Let the slow work be slow work’.

Because I knew it was going to take a while. Like, most of the day, if not longer.

And work that is slow can be so boooooring; long, tedious, dull, unexciting. A virtual snooze-fest.

There could a be a dread factor, like there was with me and the inventory. And I was trying, in a way, to rush through it because I didn’t want to do it.

But rushing slow work only makes a mess and then you have to redo it, or parts of it, and then it just takes even longer to do.

So I let the slow work be slow work, took my time, and got it done.

It ended up that a couple of my co-workers helped me when they weren’t doing other tasks, which lightened the load considerably. So it really didn’t take as long as I originally thought, which I was very thankful for.

Yet that situation got me thinking about working slow. What things in my life do I try to rush and get done as fast as possible, when really, the task is just naturally slow moving?There really might not be anything I can do to make it go faster except to just start and put one foot in front of the other and eventually it’ll get done.

I am, in general, a slower moving person; I like to think, contemplate, consider. This is not a bad thing. But I can get frustrated when things take time; when the work I am doing is slow.

Like art.

Art is slow.

It is slow work.

There are many factors involved; a canvas to prep, ideas to gather or inspiration to find, a color pallette to choose, a sketch, a drawing, a draft to start with, a mock-up of the finished piece, the letting go and taking the first step into you’re not sure what — the faith that all the preparations you put into it, the slow work, will end up like what you imagined in your head. And once you’ve taken that step, the continuing of the journey of that particular piece, the day-to-day work, the slow work, to complete the piece. There are doubts and frustrations and patience and perseverance along the way. It may take hours, days, weeks, months or, in some cases, even years to finish what you began.

Art is slow work.

I found this video on YouTube about a book artist and printer who creates one book a year.

One book.

Now, she does make many copies of said book and sells to libraries and collectors, so in essence she does make more than just one lone, single, solitary book, but she only comes up with one concept, one idea per year. She takes months to come up with the idea, to formulate everything, to get all the elements together before actually making the book.

Now that is slow work.

The Chicken Story

I called my brother late at night.

In reality, it was only about 8:45p, but it was dark outside making it feel later than it actually was.

‘Hello?’, my brother answered.

‘Hey, I…uh…regret to inform you that one of your chickens has…uh, died’, I said. I couldn’t sugar coat it. He had to know. Better just tell him plainly. He was gone for the week, on vacation in Colorado, and we were tag teaming the care of the chickens and watering of plants with another of my siblings.

My brother took it calmly, but I knew he was sad. He has kept chickens off and on for the past twelve years, and has had chickens die on him in the past, however he is a great animal lover, so losing any animal is hard for him.

I asked what the best way was to dispose of the remians. Put it in the dumpster? Yes, he said. But don’t touch it. Get a trash bag from under the sink and use that to handle it and then put it in another trash bag before taking it to the dumpster.

We figured it probably died of heat exhaustion because it’s been so hot (Heat index over 100 degrees), but if by chance it had a virus, don’t touch it.

It seemed a little funny; if it had access to food and water, which it did, why didn’t it drink and eat? Who’s to know; I couldn’t keep an eye on them 24/7.

Adam was with me and I had him get the bags and then go over to the chicken that was lying face up by the side of the coop. Not moving. Dead.

Only when Adam went to touch it, it moved. It had a resurrection moment and then went limp…but it was alive!

I called my brother back; it was alive, barely moving, but still breathing. What could we do? Could we do anything for it? To keep it alive, to save it’s life? My brother thought if we misted it with the hose it would revive some, enough for us to try and find a syringe and put water down it’s mouth.

The Great Chicken Resucitation commenced and all was a flurry of activity as I tried frantically to look for a syringe, that I didn’t find, while Adam went to get the chicken out of the pen and started misting it with the hose.

I joined Adam outside, it was dark, so I tucked my phone into the waistband of my pants with the flashlight on so we could see at least a little. Adam was crouching on the ground holding the limp chicken surrounded by a white trash bag while I took the hose and put it next to its mouth…maybe it would drink?

It did. It’s beak started moving, trying to suck in the water…then…it went limp again. I kept the hose by it’s mouth, hoping against hope that it would drink again, that something would go down it’s throat. Again the beak moved, its eyes opened, it stretched it’s neck…success! Then, it went limp again. But! We’re getting somewhere. There is a chance we can save this chicken.

The process continued. We held the hose up to it; it would drink a little, open it’s eyes, squak, then go limp.

Maybe the chicken needed to be cooler, thought Adam. Let’s get it in the basement, where there’s some AC.

So I opened up the basement and used a small wire fence as a pen, got some food for it, some water. Adam brought it inside, still holding it in the trash bag. He put it down…uh, not moving. Nothing.

Ok, so the hose is working I said, let’s go back outside. So we troop out, me leading, Adam with the half-dead chicken. We repeat the process of the hose, water, beak moving, eyes opening, stretch of the neck, a feeble squak…then limp.

‘We’re pretty much just waterboarding it,’ said Adam. ‘This is what they did to prisoners in Iraq’.

Again, we went inside, maybe it needed to be cooler. How long is this going to go on?? Can we really save this chicken?!?

But nothing. So our convoy went outside again and I took another look for a syringe, which I finally found.

So there we were, in a last ditch attempt to save the chicken’s life; kneeling on the back patio, surrounded by darkness, my phone stilll tucked into the waistband of my pants with the flashlight on, Adam still holding the poor chicken in the trash bag, the hose still on…I had grabbed a plastic bowl that I filled with water, filled the now-found syringe with water and as Adam misted the chicken with the hose with one hand, holding it up with the other, the chicken repeated the moving of the beak, this time I was able to get a syringe full of water down its throat. Finally, something that seemed more than just a taste of water. An actual swallow. We repeated the proceedure a few times with the hose, the moving beak, the syringe.

‘When do we give up?’, I asked Adam. It had been at least an hour of back and forth to the house, the basement, the patio, repeating all we knew how to do. We could literally be here all night and still not save the chicken. When do we call it?

‘I think we should call it’, said Adam, a few moments later.

‘Why don’t you call Elias and tell him what we’re going to do’, I said, as Adam once again took the chicken inside the basement to keep it cool.

He called Elias, who said to leave the chicken in the locked coop, to see if it would revive on it’s own during the night. I highly doubted it, but Adam once again picked up the chicken and took it outside to the coop with the other, peacefully sleeping, chickens.

We cleaned up. I felt terrible about the situation. I was also soaked, having gotten a good spray-down while we were ‘misting’ the chicken. Adam used a good many disinfecting wipes on his hands, legs, arms, shoes.

We went home, showered. I was hungry. It was about 10:30pm. The ordeal took it out of me, and I still felt awful about what happened, the chicken dying under our care, even though it was probably just heat exhaustion, which was out of my control.

I tried not to think about us leaving it in the coop, for my other brother, Jacob, to find in the morning. I did warn him about what happened, so he was prepared, but still. I can imagine him thinking, sarcastically, ‘Thanks, sis, for leaving the almost-dead chicken in the coop for it to die and me to dispose of it in the morning’.

But what more could we do? It was still alive, we tried to save it, having no experience or expertise, no vet was open at that time of night, especially not one who specialized in saving urban farm animals. We did all we could do. Besides, we couldn’t just throw away a live chicken. That, in any circumstance, is not right.

The next morning I still felt a little Ugh about the whole thing. Then I get a text from Jacob, who was letting them out in the morning. Two chickens. Dead.

Oh, boy.

He disposed of both, told Elias, told Adam, told me. Maybe they did have a virus. Elias said just to keep a close eye on the four that were left and to be careful handling them.

It’s been three days. So far, so good on the other chickens. They seem healthy; they are alive. Elias comes home tomorrow, then they’re his reponsibility again.

I told Adam after our ordeal, ‘There’s no one I’d rather try to resucitate a chicken with than you’.

It seemed a comedy of errors, this trying to save the chicken. I have no moral of this story, except to try and keep your chickens cool when it’s 100 degrees outside.

GPP; The New Flavor

How about this new ice cream flavor?

Guinea Pig Pellets.

Wait, before you decide to not read the rest of this post hear me out.

I’ve got this new flavor all worked out in my head.

Most of your run-of-the-pet-mill guinea pigs are white, brown/black and tan. Typically. Exceptions, yes, but this is generally speaking.

So…how about vanilla for the white, dark chocolate for the brown/black and carmel (Yes, carmel) for the tan. It would be a vanilla, dark chocolate and carmel swirl and the ‘pellet’ part would be small pellet shaped pieces of milk chocolate.

Doesn’t that sound delicious? Uh, YUM.

My husband wondered where the ‘hay’ part of the guinea pig life would come in. I thought that white chocolate sprinkles mixed in the ice cream would be an option. Again, yum.

Have I convinced you yet?

I know, I know, the name. Just call it GPP for short and leave everyone wondering and you’re good.

I could design a whole line of pet flavored ice creams. The Cat’s Meow. The Bees Knees (Honey flavor). The Barking Dog (Where it’s so good you’ll ‘woof’ it down). Pet lovers everywhere will eat it up…literally.

Ok, ok. So an ice cream named GPP/Guinea Pig Pellets might not go over so well marketing-wise, but hey, it’s something to think about!

Music Lessons

My mother-in-law is cleaning out her basement.

She gave my husband a three-ring binder she had where she had put all of Adam’s certificates and programs of things he was involved in as a kid in middle school and high school. Things like a Certificate of Participation in Quiz Bowl, Boy Scout Car Derby Racing, and even a Scrabble Tournament where Adam took second place (Good job, babe. You know how good I am at Scrabble, haha).

By no means did we keep all these somewhat meaningless certificates once she gave us the binder. We needed it for other ‘grown-up’ purposes, like Adam keeping a log of the inspections of his beehives and for my bookbinding notes, ideas and dimensions; very important.

One of the things that was in the binder was a program from Adam’s band concerts he played the trumpet and tuba in. At the back of the program there was a section called Why Learn Music? I liked what it had to say and wanted to share it with you.

Why Learn Music?

Music is a Science: It is exact, specific and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume change, melody and harmony all at once with the most exact control of time.

Music is Mathematical: It is rhthmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper.

Music is a Foreign Language: Most of the terms are in Italian, German or French, and the notation is certainly not English , but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

Music is History: Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation, often even the country and/or racial feeling.

Music is Physical Education: It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lip, cheek and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragmatic, back, stomach and chest muscles which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

Music is all these things, but most of all, music is Art: It allow a human being to take all these dry, technically boring, but difficult, techniques and use them to create emotion. That is one thing science cannot duplicate; humanism, feeling and emotions.

Now I love music, but I am not a musician despite my piano lessons as a kid by my own mother who had a Bachelors’s degree in Music Education. Sorry, Mom.

Even though I never took to piano or any other instrument, for that matter, I love listening to music.

Whether it was singing along to the ‘Oldies’ (ie, 50’s/60’s) station when I was growing up, or being in musical theatre when I was a teenager and knowing all the words to Godspell, or whether I love music because I am a dancer, music. is. in. me. It’s a part of me. Music is art; the feeling, the emotion, the words, the tune, the melody, evokes something in me that I can’t describe, but know that I would not be who I am without music in my life. It gives an extra layer to my days.

If you are a musician, a singer, or a songwriter, thank you. Thank you for your long hours of practice and the work it takes to get a song written or a melody just right. Thank you for letting what is in you come to light and thank you for letting it enrich those around you. We are all better for it.

Contrasts

I ask for humility and God gives me free, luxury acommodations at a high-end spa resort overlooking the clear blue water of Cancun. I am struck by the contrast. What I ask for and what God gives.

And yet, my heart is strangely unimpressed by the luxury accommodations.

Whether they’ve become commonplace in my life over the past couple years or because I really just don’t care about having the best of the best; a concrete floor in a sleeping bag in India may suit me better — or maybe I just got used to that too. Maybe we can get used to anything, maybe anything can become commonplace, routine or ordinary.

This sounds like I am complaining or being unappreciative of the generosity of Adam’s work connections — I’m not. I don’t take it for granted, and I am truly thankful for it, I just feel like I don’t need it and I am content with less.

Is the human heart so easily satisfied?

A Walk With Hannah

Recently I was reading a biography about Madeleine L’Engle entitled ‘Becoming Madeleine’. The book was authored by L’Engle’s granddaughters and delves into her earlier years; childhood, adolescence, young adult, marriage and motherhood. Before she really, really became Madeleine L’Engle: The Author.

I’ve always been inspired by L’Engle’s life, her writing, her down-to-earth way of living life…she became a famous author who still had questions like, ‘What should I fix for dinner?’ and then made dinner with her own two hands. No servants, no high life, just a person, living, writing as she went, weaving stories for others, for herself, working hard, writing her life questions, ponderings, musings into the stories surrounded by family and friends she loved, living life with them together. These are my impressions, at least.

In ‘Becoming Madeleine‘ it mentioned that at an early age she started writing her journals in the third person, to get practice in writing fiction.

‘Why don’t I try that?’, I asked myself. Everything I write in in the first person…no wonder I have a hard time writing fiction.

I do write fiction in the third person, but I have a hard time experiencing it sometimes, like getting into the character’s head or writing dialogue.

What if, as a practice, I take an event that happened to me specifically, and write it out in the third person?

So, here is the little bit that I wrote after going for a walk in a park:

“On a crisp and cool day in May when the air was clean and clear, Hannah took a late morning walk through her favorite park. It was a weekend, so there were city dwellers biking, jogging and partying around the park as she walked down the concrete path, surrounded by the atmosphere of green open spaces, bushes, trees, flowers and other meandering paths, the occasional bridge of a small stream.

Hannah liked walking. It gave her time to think and internally process her past, present and future — immediate and long term. Exercise and fresh air helped her dreams along.

About halfway through her walk she met a small boy, maybe four years old. He had on a yellow shirt and brown trousers and held a red frisbee ring in his hand. He stood on the side of the path and asked in a friendly way, ‘Are you a teacher?’

‘No’, replied Hannah.

“Are you a mom?’, asked the boy.

The question took Hannah off guard, but she quickly brushed it aside and replied, ‘No’.

‘Who are you then?’, asked the boy.

‘I’m a human’, said Hannah.’Who are you?’

‘I’m Elliott’, said Elliott.

‘I’m Hannah’, said Hannah.

‘Those are my friends’, he said, pointing to a nearby pavilion where a group of grown ups were gathered.

‘Nice to meet you’, said Hannah as Elliott ran off to his friends.

Hannah walked on, recognizing the sting of Elliott’s unexpected second question and choosing not to dwell on the fact that she was not a mom. The pain ran deep and leave it to a sweet, innocent little boy through a chance encounter at a park on a Sunday morning to unearth a sensitive subject that she tried hard to cover up from everyone around her except the closest friends.

‘Not a mom’, Hannah mumbled to herself.

Not now, not yet, she thought as she walked the tree lined path. But one day, someday, soon. ‘God calls the things that are not as if they were’ flashed through her mind. It could happen. It will happen.”

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started