Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

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Let it rain

Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash

I stand on the porch

as the storm rolls in

A rumble of thunder

sends the kids running inside

or to me

 

I no longer fear the storms

as I once did

 

midwest storms meant trouble

might be close behind

tornado was a term to be feared

mother assured me

we were safe in the valley

according to a legend

I believed her

 

In the midst of my fear

I read books to my brother

calming him

calming me

 

I did not understand

how someone could

dance in the rain

sing its praise

 

I love a rainy night

 

I did not love the rainy nights

but kenny loggins and

my favorite family

made me believe I could

 

No storm was ever as bad as I feared

lights out

no power

sometimes it was fun

 

The day the flood came was not fun

water poured into the basement

the pump stopped when the power was cut

three feet of water

turned our basement into a lake

our possessions floating

like boats

 

We never fully recovered

from the flood

 

It rained today

I stood in the kitchen

and watched as the dirt drank

the downpour

 

Let it rain,

my soul breathed.

 

The garden needs the water

 

I welcomed the storm

I once feared

 

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Nothing small about it: Review of Some Small Magic by Billy Coffey

Before I tell you everything I loved about this book, a story and a confession.

I have loved Billy Coffey’s writing from the first page I read. And though I had only read two of his books before this one, his writing is among my favorites all time. Last month, I had the opportunity to meet him. He gave a reading at a writers’ retreat I attended in Virginia, and nearly every attendee of the retreat can tell you how I gushed and fan-girled and made an awkward fool of myself telling him and his wife how much I loved his writing. He was so kind and they were both gracious. I mentioned that I had requested his new book for review months earlier and it had never arrived. (My plan had been to buy a book from him but he didn’t bring any along.)

Me with Billy Coffey

“You can have mine when I’m finished,” he said.

I think I gaped at him and mumbled something and then figured he’d probably forget about the offer and it would be no big deal. I’d just buy a copy anyway. But sure enough, after the reading, I approached him to tell him that I lived in Lancaster, where his mother’s side of the family is from, and he handed me the book he had just read from. I felt even more awkward as the ONLY person at the retreat with a copy of the book, so I ran to my friend’s van and stashed it in the passenger side and told not a soul except her (until now).

I finally had a chance to read it and it was worth the wait.

On to the book itself.

Two important notes about this story, in case you judge a book by its title:

1. There is nothing “small” about it.
2. Don’t let the world “magic” scare you away.

I can’t properly describe how I feel about this story, or any of Coffey’s stories. Reading them often lets loose some feeling in me that I didn’t know need to be freed. It is the kind of story that leaves you feeling happy-sad because it is true. There is nothing false about this fiction.

From the naming of characters–Abel, who is not able-bodied–to the turns of phrase and the pace that make you feel like you’re smack in the middle of the mountains of Virginia, Coffey’s writing is nothing short of stunning. (I try not to exaggerate when I review books. I wish I could give this book more than five stars because it is not in the same category as other books I’ve rated five stars.)

Coffey peels away layers of the story in such a way that I was never sure where we were headed. At one point (you’ll know it when you get to it) I gasped because I had not seen it coming. Looking back, maybe I should have, but I was so drawn in by the journey of Abel, Dumb Willie and the beautiful girl on the train that I did not know. Even in the final chapters, I could not predict how it all would end.

It is a rare book that can produce so many feelings that ought to be contradictory but instead are complementary.

Coffey’s books haunt in a good way. They don’t offer simple or easy answers, and they just might challenge what you think is the way of things. You are guaranteed immersion into a mountain culture and it will be hard to walk away.

It’s been a couple of years since I read one of Coffey’s books, but I’ll be reading his other books soon.

If you’re looking for fiction that is spiritual and beautifully written, I urge you to read any one of Coffey’s books. Just be warned that the endings are not tidy and happy like you might think. But they are good and true.

The luchador, a poet, an Englishman and me

It was a few weeks ago and I was feeling particularly bummed about life. Well, one part of life in particular. I had received some news I didn’t want which sent my thinking down a no-good track from which I couldn’t break free. I was alone in the house and I probably should have been working.

Instead, I curled up in bed with my computer and Netflix and watched “Nacho Libre,” a Jack Black movie I have only seen once, years ago. I remember laughing at its ridiculousness and this day was no different.

If you aren’t familiar with the plot, Jack Black plays a Mexican monk named Ignacio who has a dream to become a luchador, a Mexican professional wrestler. He pursues his dream even though it is in conflict with his vows as a monk. He is not a great luchador, but he cannot give up his dream.

After a string of losses, Ignacio, in frustration, prays these words:

“Precious Father, why have you given me this desire to wrestle and then made me such a stinky warrior?”

I belly-laughed. Alone.

It was just what I needed.

Part of my funk that day was directed at my writing, and I could identify with the prayer of a fictional movie character.

Photo by Oliver Thomas Klein on Unsplash

 

I could pray those same words, and sometimes I pray/wonder something similar:

God, why have You put this thing in me to write and yet I see no real success?

Or, in Ignacio’s words: Why have you given me this desire to write and then made me such a stinky writer?

Don’t ask me my definition of success. Ignacio has me beat there. He, at least, knew what success at his dream looked like. Me? I’m not so sure. Will I be “successful” if I have a certain number of blog subscribers? If a blog post goes viral? If I sign with an agent? If a publisher wants my book?

I don’t know.

—

Years ago at a used book sale, I picked up an old volume of poetry. It is one of the only books in our house that smells old, and every time I open it, the scent surrounds. They are a collection of religious poems, but I can’t say I’ve ever read any of them before. I have a renewed interest in reading poetry, so I’ve been trying to read one of these each day.

Not long after the Nacho Libre day, the selected poem I read was by Robert Burns. (Can we just pause a moment here and recognize how ridiculous it is that I just used the words “nacho libre” and “Robert Burns” in a sentence?)

O Thou Unknown, it is called, and I will admit that some of these poems contain theology I’m not sure I agree with. Still, there are turns of phrase that are works of beauty.

This stanza stopped me as I read:

Thou know’t that Thou hast formed me

With passions wild and strong;

And listening to their witching voice

Has often led me wrong.

I could not help but think of how I was feeling about my writing. I echoed the poem’s cry: You know You’ve made me this way!

And though I did not want to admit it, my passion for writing sometimes leads me wrong. Especially when I dwell too long on the results and what I think I should get from my writing. I am drawn back to the words I started asking myself months ago: What would it look like if I only wrote for God’s pleasure, with no “result” in mind?

Yes, my passion is often wild and strong, and yes it often leads me down an untrue path, but it is still part of me. Something I cannot rid myself of, even if I wanted to.

—

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash

On Tuesday nights this summer, my husband has been on an adult men’s soccer team. The guys are all mostly like him, passionate about soccer, in their 30s and 40s, and with bodies that won’t quite do what they want them to do, at least not without pain.

But they love every second of it. I mean, they all complain about their aching body parts but they don’t stop, not really. They rest when they need to and they rub medicines on their muscles and pop pain relievers and talk about drinking beer to numb the pain afterward.

Honestly, I was a little worried the first time he came home from a match and could barely walk the next day. Really? We just paid money for you to hobble around and maybe not be able to work this week? That’s what I thought. But when I started going to the games, I saw that they were all, mostly, in the same state and for some reason that made me feel better.

Several of his teammates are foreign-born and that gives me an extra fondness for his team. They have a lot of fun and they play hard but they don’t take themselves too seriously. It’s a joy to watch.

I don’t know a lot about the rules of soccer, though I’m picking it up a little after several weeks of watching. During a recent game, the play from the opposing team was not as honorable, it seemed, as it could be and the official did not always intervene. During one play, a shot on goal, our team’s goalie seemed to think a player was offsides before he shot. I don’t remember if they scored a goal on that play, but our goalie had maybe given up a little because he thought offsides was going to be called.

An English (as in born in England, not the “not Amish” version of English; in Lancaster County, you have to make this distinction) teammate of my husband was on the sidelines at that point.

“You’ve got to play the whistle,” he said to himself, although I overheard.

And I understood immediately. On the field, you play as if the game is going to proceed until you hear the whistle called stopping play. The players can have an opinion, but the official is the one who gets to decide when play stops. If you want to win, you can’t let a couple of missed calls stop you.

Somehow this also made sense to my attitude about writing. I think I’ve been taking myself out of the game while play continues around me. I’ve been waiting for someone to make a call in my favor while the other players on the field keep working the ball toward the goal. Then I get upset when they score.

I’ve not been playing the whistle.

As long as I can still write, I need to be writing, not sitting around waiting for something to happen to my writing that gives me an advantage. It might never come. But the words are always there and no matter what happens, the words together make something and it is not wasted effort.

The only way to “score” is to get on the field and play the game. And not everyone can score but everyone contributes. Maybe I will never score that goal I want, but that doesn’t mean I’m out of the game. And if someone else scores, that doesn’t mean it’s over for me, either.

—

Gosh, I hope that all makes sense. It clicked together in my mind, these strange pieces of wisdom, if I can call them that.

God made me a writer. (I can tell you more about that someday.)

I can’t always trust my writing desires to lead me in the right direction.

And I have to keep writing, even if I think the “game” is unfair.

I know not everyone who reads this will be a writer, but maybe you can apply it to your dreams, too. Maybe there is something that was put inside you from a young age that you can’t not do. And sometimes it goes wrong and sometimes it’s not fair.

Keep playing. Keep doing that thing you were meant to do.

We need all the players on the field.

What I don’t want to feel

I’m sitting on the porch as I write this, a cool and gentle breeze wrapping around the wrap-around porch, my kids yelling at each other in the driveway as they “play” (God bless summer). I am shaded from the sun and able to enjoy being outside without suffering the heat and humidity of the past week.

The porch is my favorite place. For writing. For reading. For sipping coffee in the morning. For taking a break in the afternoon when I’ve dedicated the morning to the housework that I hate.

But this sanctuary was violated. And now I have to fight the fear that I don’t want to feel.

—

On Friday morning, on our way out the door to catch the bus to downtown, the kids raised the alarm.

“Mom, where’s your bike?”

I turned to the spot on the porch by the door through which we enter the house and sure enough, my bicycle was missing. People describe it as a “sinking feeling” and it’s totally true. Like an anchor had been dropped into my stomach. We only had a few minutes before we needed to meet the bus, so I did a quick scan of the porch to see if anything else was missing.

It wasn’t.

I texted my husband, who leaves for work in the pre-dawn hours, to ask if he had seen it. I tried to rationalize the circumstances. Maybe, on a whim, he decided to load the bike in the van in the middle of the night and take it for a tune-up. Even as I write, this makes no sense, but it was a much more desirable scenario than what had actually happened.

My bicycle had been stolen.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

We went about our day with friends and my husband assured me he had not seen the bicycle and could not remember if it was there when he left for work or not. He encouraged me to file a police report, which I vowed to do later in the day. It was not a storm cloud over our day, more like a slight overcast. As we lunched with friends and hung out in the city, my mind kept returning to the porch and the feeling that we were not safe and neither was our stuff.

I wanted to beat myself up for not having a lock on the bike, for not paying closer to attention to details. I tried to laugh it off–it’s taken four years of living in this place for us to have something stolen, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before now! I wanted to believe the best about someone. Maybe they needed it for work or to get groceries or some other worthy reason.

I visited all of these emotions because of the one thing I don’t want to be: afraid.

—

As we drove home later that day, I found my eyes drawn to anyone on a bicycle. To the sides of the road where it might be lying abandoned. The police officer who filed the report said I should drive through the neighborhoods and look for it in someone’s yard. His first point of blame was the kids from the nearby apartments. (The same kids who last year were drawn to our garden and its bounty of food.)

Now I am eyeing my neighbors with suspicion. Every person who walks past our house is a suspect. I am harboring anger that someone would be so bold as to walk up to our porch and practically into our house to take something that does not belong to them.

I AM afraid. Afraid that someone has been watching our comings and goings. That someone knows when we sleep and when we rise. I am afraid they will come back and take something else or that I will accidentally catch someone in the act of thieving and someone will come to harm because of it.

Most of all, though, I am afraid of being afraid. I know what happens when fear is in control. I circle the wagons, build the walls around my heart, and refuse to trust my fellow man. I look at people not like me with suspicion. I fuel the stereotypes instead of fight them. I assume the worst in people. I adopt a posture of protection.

—

Yesterday, on our way home from a short hike through a beautiful woods in the middle of town, I was scanning the neighborhood again when I caught a glimpse of handlebars in a grassy area next to a sidewalk.

“There’s a bike over there!” I yelled. We pulled into our driveway and my husband walked the short distance to investigate. The kids wanted to go with him but we told them to stay put so they watched from the porch. A minute or two later, my husband returned with my bike on his shoulders. The back wheel was bent and dented, rendering the bike useless to whomever had taken it, I guess.

I let slip a word I try not to say in front of my kids then apologized. I left a message for the police officer with whom I had filed the report and I wondered if the insurance claim would be necessary after all. As I sat on the porch that afternoon, my mind found some dark places. I mentally called the “kids” who had taken my bike all kinds of names, the most mild of which was “punks.” I imagined encountering them in person and being angry, yelling at them for their lack of disrespect for someone else’s property.

I am furious that I now have to fix something that I didn’t even break.

I wondered how you bend the back tire without the rest of the bike being damaged. My dad suggested that someone was jumping it off of something high and landing hard. This, too, puts me in a rage. They broke my bike FOR FUN and will probably never have to pay the consequences for it.

Life is not fair.

—

It is not wrong to want to feel safe. Or be safe. It is wrong to worship safety or let the pursuit of safety be our primary aim in life. Guaranteed safety is unachievable. That might be frightening or it might be liberating.

A few days before my bike was stolen, I wrote a blog post about how terrible and wonderful the world can be. I almost laughed at the timing of the theft because now I had more life experience on which to draw. The same day my bicycle was taken and my sense of safety threatened, the kids and I had lunch with friends from out-of-town, took a food tour with more friends, and spent an evening poolside with yet a third set of friends. Our day was full of goodness with a blip of unpleasantness.

There was a time when the one “bad” part of the day would have ruined the rest of it for me. I could decide not to sit on my porch anymore because the idea of someone invading it is too unsettling. I could decide to lock up everything we own, to never leave the house anymore, to get a security system or leave the porch light on all night every night. I could choose all sorts of reactions to this event.

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Before we found the bike, I had resolved to be tender about the whole thing, taking each next step as it came: police report, insurance claim, vigilance. I was surprised by how easy it was to throw all of those feelings aside when the resolution was not to my liking. Sure, we got my bike back, but it’s broken and for what? It is almost natural, these feelings of anger and hatred toward some person or people I don’t know who have wronged me.

This, too, I must fight with everything I have.

I still need to feel the disappointment of putting a family bike ride on hold. And I can be angry and upset about the condition of my bike. But I must keep my heart open because it is the way I want to live.

Fear is like a weed that wants to overtake the garden of my soul and I will yank it out again and again until it knows it is not welcome here. I could say the same for the kind of anger that leads to meanness or hatred.

These emotions will not be the boss of me any more than safety will be my ultimate goal.

I am choosing to love despite this small inconvenience.

It is not and will not be easy.

But it will be good.

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What it takes to change the world

I hesitated before I clicked the link on the story.

I’m a notorious scroller through my newsfeed, consuming headlines and scanning for an overview of information rather than reading every single word. When I click a link to a story, it has to be worth it. My time is limited (so I think) and I only want to read the best stuff. Or the important stuff.

As much as I hate “click bait” headlines, this one was hard to ignore.

Rip currents swept away a Florida family. Then beachgoers formed a human chain.”

First, I watched a video, which featured an interview with the victims. While I was glad they were alive, the story the video told was not what I was looking for. I wanted to know about the human chain. About how it started and who, if anyone, led the way.

The video had not affected me emotionally, so I was surprised that when I read the article I was crying real tears and I could not stop the flow of them.

With 10 people stranded in a rip current and law enforcement waiting for a rescue boat, ordinary people enjoying the beach that day decided to take action. And they changed the story. What could have been a tragedy is now a legendary tale of everyday heroics.

And how they did it is all the encouragement any of us need to change the world.

Photo by Margarida CSilva on Unsplash

First, they decided to do something about it.

“These people are not drowning today,” Jessica Simmons thought, she told the Panama City News Herald. “It’s not happening. We’re going to get them out.” (Quoted in The Washington Post.)

This is the first step any one of us can take to effect change.

Whatever that thing is that’s happening in front of us that isn’t right, we can do something about it just by deciding to participate and not be a bystander.

Not today. Not on my watch. Not if I can help it.

Next, they recognized their strengths.

The woman who made this decision did so because she knew she was a strong swimmer. She did not enter the water on a passionate whim. That may have been what got some of the people into trouble, although I’d rather be the kind of person who jumps into the water to help than stands by waiting for someone else to help.

Her action was fueled by her conviction that she could do it. How many of us walk through life wanting to make a difference but believing that we can’t? I wonder what the world would be like if we took an honest look at our strengths and put them into action when a need crossed our paths.

Then, they used what they had on hand: surfboards and boogie boards and their own bodies.

It sounds like there wasn’t any professional rescue equipment on the beach at the time of the rescue. People grabbed what they had with them, the stuff they brought to the beach so they could enjoy the water.

I tell people all the time that I have no special skills when it comes to volunteering with a refugee resettlement agency. I don’t speak a language other than English. I’m not a teacher. I don’t have a law degree or social work training. But I’ve quickly learned that I can bring what I have: a working knowledge of American culture, life experience living in the U.S., a friendly smile, an incurable case of curiosity and a fierce loyalty for the newly arrived residents of our community.

Photo by Om Prakash Sethia on Unsplash

One of the most powerful messages I’ve ever heard from a non-profit centered around the question “What do you have in your hands?” The organization funds and distributes micro-loans in developing countries and it’s the question that disarms helplessness. We all have resources, experience, talent that we can share with others, even if it’s not financial. That’s often the first thing we think of, but it’s not the only thing needed.

On the beach that day, all some people had to contribute was arms and legs. It was more than enough.

Finally, they worked together.

I don’t know how many people it takes to make a chain to cover 100 yards, but I know that five people wasn’t enough. Neither was 15. Some reports say it was more than 80 people who linked arms and stood firm and passed the struggling swimmers down the line until they, too, were on solid ground.

Few people can change the world alone. I’m sure there are some who do and who have, but the most effective change comes when people work together. Following the crowd doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.

Ten people are alive because these four principles were put into action, and more than those ten people have a renewed sense of the human capability for goodness.

So, can you change the world?

I absolutely believe we can.

What a wonderful, terrible, holy world

“Daddy, some of these are terrifying. The colors are so beautiful.”

My friend’s daughter lay nearby on a blanket as fireworks flash-banged in the sky above us.

She was right. So many colors filled the sky, and it was breathtaking. I found myself whispering “wow” more times than I could count. I’m not always the most patriotic American, but I will never not love fireworks.

As I lay there in awe, I thought about our proximity to the fireworks. How for safety reasons we can’t be really close and how they are entrusted to trained professionals (most of the time).

Photo by Shireah Ragnar on Unsplash

Beautiful as they are, fireworks are also dangerous. It wouldn’t take much for a celebration to become a tragedy. Fireworks are fun, but they are explosives to be handled with care.

Beautiful. And dangerous.

Some of the best things are.

Read the rest at Putting on the New, where I post on the 12th of each month.

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A soul-satisfying read: Review of Just Look Up by Courtney Walsh

Sometimes I’m afraid that if I keep reading books by the same author, I’m going to stumble onto one I don’t care for. So far, so good with Courtney Walsh, and her newest release, Just Look Up, is a soul-satisfying read.

Featuring two characters with childhood baggage, Just Look Up illustrates how isolating the pain of rejection can be and how persistent love can lead to healing. Lane and Ryan are likable and adorable childhood friends who haven’t seen each other in a while. A family emergency brings them back in contact, and their emotional wounds threaten to keep them apart.

It’s page-turning and far from predictable. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher. Opinion reflected in this review is my honest one.) Courtney is one of my favorite writers because she includes the right amount of detail: enough to paint a picture but not too much to stall the story. Her settings feel like real places and the situations her characters face are never easy and always relatable.

Any book by Courtney should be on your to-read list. Add this one to your summer reading plans this year. It’ll make you squirm a little, crave belonging, and sigh with satisfaction.

You can find out more about Courtney’s books, sign up for her newsletter (I hear there are some freebies coming for subscribers!), and read the first chapter of Just Look Up on her website. It’s available now, so no need to wait!

These things I can’t forget

We’ve driven these roads dozens of times over the years, hauling children and their stuff back and forth between Pennsylvania and Illinois. They throb with the familiar, pulse with memories. The laughter, the tears, the twice-as-long-as-it-should-take trips, the smoother-than-expected ones.

When we weave through the mountains, my soul stirs at the beauty. We’ve seen them snow-covered and bare, shadowed in the pre-dawn light. Their beauty struck me anew this last time. Everything was so brilliantly green. The sun was already casting its light on the mountains. My breathing slowed, my mouth temporarily agape.

We know what we are in for when we cross the state line into Ohio. Mostly flatness, but even this has its own kind of beauty. As a child of the flatlands, acres of farmland stretching as far as my eyes can see will always spark feelings of home. The hours across Ohio are some of the most uninteresting of the trip, and yet my breath catches for a different reason.

I will never forget what happened here.

Photo by Rucksack Magazine on Unsplash

—

I’m not always good at remembering but when I am, I seem unable to forget.

The memories flash in my mind as if they happened recently or are happening now. Sometimes I can feel the same feelings. It is both a gift and a burden.

—

On this stretch of Ohio road, I remember the wind and the ice, the trucks traveling faster than was safe. I remember the third lane, the one I shouldn’t have been in. I remember the days leading up to this trip, how I wallowed on the couch, ill, taking sick time from work before taking vacation days because I couldn’t break my fever, couldn’t conquer the cough.

We persisted with our trip, though, because it was crucial, we thought, to our future. Sometimes I wonder what would have been different if we had given in to the obstacles and turned around. Or canceled. But try as we might, we can’t change the past, no matter how much we might want to step into the memory and give warning. Or permission. What would I say to the girl pressing through illness and snowstorm to please the man she loved? I don’t always know. Sometimes I am still that girl.

I remember losing control of the car, the one that didn’t belong to me. I remember Phil saying, “It’s going to be okay” as the front of the car hit the concrete median at 75, how we spun, I think. How minutes earlier we were being passed by semis and how a fleeting thought was certain we would die. I remember seeing the back end of a pick-up truck glance our car. I remember coming to a stop on the opposite shoulder. We were upright. Alive. I had hit my head on the side window. A gallon of milk in the cooler had exploded, showering the interior with a white substance we at first couldn’t identify.

A man pulled up and asked if we were okay. He said help was on the way. Traffic streamed by as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t believe we were alive. I remember the officer interviewing me about my speed. He handed me a ticket. I remember the tow truck driver and how we squished into the seat together. I remember the phone calls Phil made, to his parents, to our pastor friend who was waiting for us in Pennsylvania.

I don’t remember much after that except that we removed what we needed from the car. We got a rental. And Phil drove the rest of the way, through the snow in the mountains with trucks passing us. I remember being tired and terrified.

All of these memories flood my mind when we drive that road in Ohio. Whether it is January or June, I can’t ever forget. It feels important to remember that it could have turned out so much differently.

—

It is an annual fact that our kids spend a couple of weeks in Illinois with their grandparents. When I tell people this, most other parents are jealous, even though we go months without seeing family. I don’t always understand the jealousy but I’m thankful that we have the opportunity. It is life-giving for the kids. And for us.

—

Our hometown has a festival every summer, near the Fourth of July. It is one of my favorite things. Last year, I got to go home for it for the first time in many years, thanks to a well-timed class reunion I didn’t want to miss. There is a fair, and food, a parade, fireworks and all the people you haven’t seen in ages. The whole town, it seems, comes out for some part of it. Did I mention its central theme is petunias? There are worse things.

I’ve attended dozens of Petunia Festivals in my life. A few stick in my mind. Like the year my best friend and I decided to ride the Zipper for the first time. We screamed the whole time and afterwards, she threw up behind one of the concession stands. There were the years I was on some kind of official assignment for the newspaper. The years our summer softball team rode on top of a fire truck in the parade.

The pancake breakfast is always a highlight. Eating a stack of pancakes and a side of sausage under a tent near the river, shooing away flies, sweltering in the heat. It sounds awful when I describe it, but it’s a tradition. Last year, we took my grandpa with us. I sat across from him and smiled every time someone stopped to greet him. He was a teacher in the local school system, then manager of the Dairy Queen, then a pharmacy driver. He was a character everyone seemed to have a story about, quick with a joke, and with the kind of memory that surprised you for a nonagenarian.

When our weekend came to a close, we took this picture.

I didn’t know it would be our last. Our last group picture: my kids and my grandparents. Our last memories of pancakes in the park, of stories of Grandpa “babysitting” the kids (or maybe it was vice versa) and accompanying them and my mom on a tour of our hometown’s parks.

My kids are in Illinois right now and this is what I am thinking of. How this time last year, they were having a blast with all of their family and none of us knew that three weeks later, we’d be back in Dixon for a funeral.

—

Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash

I think this is how July will always be for me: joy in the beginning, grief lurking in the shadows, waiting its turn. Maybe this is how all of life is: seasons of joy and sadness, celebration and grief. Maybe all memories hold a mixture of emotions and not a single one can be classified as only “good” or “bad.”

Were the good memories all good and the bad memories all bad? I’m not sure anymore.

 

It’s like sunscreen for your soul

I could feel summer in the air. And on my face.

After two cooler days, the temperatures were rising back to their normal summery levels. The sun was free from cloud cover and only the slightest of breezes stirred the muggy air.

I don’t always remember to wear sunscreen even though I have what you would call a fair complexion and a tendency to turn tomato red after just a bit of sun exposure. It’s the effort, sometimes, that keeps me from applying it. I just want to get where I’m going and not have to stop for a few seconds to spray on some protection or apply some cream to my face.

But I’ve suffered enough painful burns in my life to know that the effort is worth it. Smear some cream on my face. Spray my arms and neck. Put on a hat. These things take time but not that much and if I didn’t do them, my time would be spent applying aloe and moaning about the pain. Let’s not even talk about the possibility of skin cancer.

Wear sunscreen. It’s good advice.

I don’t normally bask in the sun, either. I love a sunny day but if I’m going to be out I seek the shade as relief. On this day, I had two stops to make in the city, and one place to park, so walking was part of the plan. And it was the right time of day for neither side of the street to be particularly shady.

I didn’t mind. I might have even raised my face to the sun a couple of times. I was wearing sunscreen. I was protected. I could take my time. I didn’t have to hurry to get out of the sun’s reach. Not like a few days earlier when I hadn’t applied sunscreen and I was standing in the heat of day on a Virginia farm and I interrupted a conversation so we could move to the shade.

When I’m not wearing sunscreen, I’m distracted by my need for shade. When I do have it on, I still look for opportunity to find relief under a tree or in the shadow of a building, but it’s not my main motivator.

With sunscreen on my skin, I feel a bit of freedom. I don’t have to worry as much about where I go or how quickly I get there. I don’t have to worry as much about being burned, about later pain as a result of my interaction with the sun.

As I walked through the city, something else occurred to me:

My soul needs its own kind of sunscreen.

Natalie Collins

Not long ago, I realized I was shielding my soul with a hard shell. Hate, it seemed, was my protection against hurt. It was like wrapping my body in long sleeves and long pants no matter the temperature, or spending every sunny day inside my house, away from the sun.

But my soul was exposed anyway. What I thought was protecting it was really just making it shriveled and hard. Like skin repeatedly exposed to the sun without sunscreen, leathery and tough. That’s not how I wanted to be. That’s not how I want to be.

So, I’m trying something new. Okay, it’s not at all new. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Instead of protecting my soul by withdrawing, I’m going to slather it with love first.

Love.

It is central to everything.

I am loved by a Source so much bigger than myself.

When I start with love, knowing that at my core I am loved as I am before I do anything, I can walk through life with a sort of protection. I am free to go anywhere, be anything. To love without demand, to give generously, to share joy. With love on my soul, I can speak what is true without being hurt by those who don’t agree. It might sting a little. I might sweat. But the imprint of the hurt won’t be burned on my soul.

Love is my soul-screen. I will not start a day without it unless I want to spend my nights complaining about the pain and tending my wounds.

Love does not mean I will never be hurt, but I will be hurt less by the heat of life.

Love does not mean I will never seek relief for my soul. I will still need to rest in the shade of those friends and loved ones who offer themselves as a shield.

And it’s not a once-and-for-all. Like sunscreen, I will need to apply my soul-screen regularly. And maybe there will be times I need a stronger dose. But I’m much more interested in interacting with the world around me than I am withdrawing from it.

For me, the only way to do that is to wear sunscreen on my soul.

“And over all these virtues put on love …”

Nothing and Everything {Reflections on a Retreat}

I didn’t know I needed the silence until I had it, and then it totally freaked me out.

I didn’t know I could do less and still feel like I’d accomplished something.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

I spent the weekend at a writing retreat. On a farm. Nestled in the mountains of Virginia. Months ago, my mom graciously offered to pay my way to the retreat AND take my kids so that I could go. Best birthday present ever. As the weeks passed I was varying degrees of nervous and anxious and excited.

Writing is such a solitary endeavor, yet some of my closest friends I’ve met through writing. I knew this would be a fun weekend of hanging out with other weirdos writer types, and I hoped it would be as relaxing as it sounded. I just wasn’t prepared for the weekend to live up to my greatest expectations. (Spoilers: It did.)

The views were spectacular from every side. Whether you walked the grounds or sat in the barn, the natural world screamed for attention. And if the trees and mountains didn’t catch your attention, then the animals were sure to steal the spotlight.

I’m not much of a dog person, but I think I could become a Basset Hound person. This is Mosey, and he was the official welcoming committee for every person who arrived. Also, he might sit low to the ground, but that neck and nose stretch a good distance. I was smitten with this pooch from the moment we pulled into the field where we parked.

With a welcome like this, the tone was clear: Be here. Enjoy. Relax.

A Friday-night-to-Sunday-afternoon schedule could have been packed full of information. Instead, it was open to the imagination. With a free hour before lunch on Saturday, I found myself unsure of what to do. I am used to packing my days with tasks to be completed, places to be, but at 11 a.m. on a Saturday in the mountains of Virginia, I had nowhere to go, nothing I had to do, no one who needed me. I pulled a camp chair between two trees offering shade and there, overlooking the mountainous terrain, I read a book. (And not one single person thought that was strange.)

If I had to sum up the weekend with a word, it would be “relief.”

The retreat opened with the acknowledgement that we did not have to produce a single thing while we were there, the encouragement that this weekend was meant to refresh us, not add pressure.

By Saturday late afternoon, this was starting to bother me. It was more than half over, and we’d be going home the next day, and I had yet to feel that “high” that sometimes accompanies conferences and special events. If anything, I was feeling more mellow than I ever had in my life. Was I doing it wrong?

I often leave writing conferences or one-day events feeling excited and pumped up about getting out there and doing my best writing work. But I’m also generally overwhelmed by all the information and mentally exhausted. When I left this retreat, I felt rejuvenated and fulfilled. Tired, but not exhausted. Like something deep inside had shifted and I might not see the ripples of change for a few days.

In college, people used to say this to me, and about me: Still waters run deep. I was quiet. I didn’t say much. But when I did, it was usually meaningful and thoughtful. I believed this about myself, mostly, but lately, for many years, I’ve felt more like Niagara Falls on the inside. Like my thoughts and feelings and worries are just spilling over a steep drop and churning on the bottom. Like I’m trying to grab a clear thought before it cascades out of reach.

One of my favorite things we did at the retreat was spend 15 minutes in silence. It was some of the hardest work I’ve done. My body wanted to resist and fidget and my thoughts wanted to swirl and overwhelm, but at the suggestion of the woman leading the silence, I kept returning to a word or a phrase that would anchor me in the still waters. When she rang the bell signaling the end of the 15 minutes, I couldn’t believe it was over. I had a similar experience the next day. Fifteen minutes doesn’t sound like much time to do anything but sitting in silence that long sounds impossible.

Until you do it.

When I think about the amount of time I spent thinking about or talking about my writing this weekend, it doesn’t feel like that’s what the retreat was about. I mean, we talked about writing and we learned some new techniques and we helped each other with something we’d written, but the space is what I remember most. The silence is my biggest takeaway.

The silence, I realized, is as important to my writing as the actual words.

I typically want to fill my life with words because that is how I process and I think that to be a successful (whatever that means) writer, I have to always be cranking out words on a page. I do need to put words on pages, but I need the silence, too. I wasn’t doing it wrong at the retreat, but maybe I’ve been doing it wrong all the other times.

This is all to say that for one glorious weekend, I was invited to slow my frantic pace. To be rather than to do. I was given grace to set the writing goal and practice that works for me. No one told anyone else how to do it right. No one promised measurable growth in five easy steps.

It was easily one of the highlights of my writing life.

The people I met this week, they are treasures.

The three Lisas. Three Lisas are better than one!

If you are a writer or a creator and you have or can find the means to make it to Virginia in June, I encourage you to consider the retreat at God’s Whisper Farm. Dates have been set for next year: June 22-24. More information will be available soon. (And if you’re anywhere within hearing distance of my voice or my words, this won’t be the last time I talk about it!)