Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

journey

100 minutes in the air & those who journey with you

One of my favorite parts of flying is the people.

For an introvert who often prefers her house and solitude, this might seem out of character. I should be clear: I like people. Just not a lot of them all at one time. Being a writer allows me to be a casual and, I hope, an unnoticed observer of people, who are generally fascinating. As long as I don’t have to make conversation, being surrounded by people is mostly entertaining.

The moment I set foot at the airport, I’m on the lookout for those who will be traveling with me. Will it be the woman at the curb who is also crying after her husband pulls away or the family ahead of me in the security line who let me ahead of them while the other members of the family check in?

At the airport, almost everyone is going somewhere. Or coming back from somewhere. And my writer’s mind concocts a hundred stories or more. It’s almost overwhelming. I had trouble falling asleep my first night back in Illinois because my mind was full of people and conversations and faces and possible stories.

Brennan Barrows via Unsplash

Brennan Barrows via Unsplash

There was the Jewish family I noticed in the waiting area at the gate. I knew they were Jewish because of the way they were dressed and their focus on finding kosher food. The older girl was excited to be flying for the first time in what seemed like a while. She was hoping for a window seat so she could see the houses get smaller. And to pass the time, she was asking questions that all began with, “Can you imagine …?” She wondered what it was like to be a flight attendant.

When we boarded the plane, they ended up sitting behind me, and her excitement was contagious and obvious. I, too, am a bit giddy about flying. I love the anticipation of the takeoff as the engines fire up. I love the feeling of power as the plane surges forward and we lift into the air. I hope I never get over the marvel of flight.

But mine is a quiet wonder. This girl could not contain her excitement.

“Flying is so amazing!” she exclaimed. And I could not help but think of my own children whom I hadn’t seen in almost 10 days and how they are going to experience their second flight in just a few short days. I hope they feel free to express their joy.

It helped that we saw a rainbow as we took off. I even mentioned it to the guys sitting in my row. I prefer to fade into the background on a flight and keep my nose in a book, but I didn’t want them to miss the beauty.

Ours was a low-key flight, little to no drama. Not like the last time I flew. No one was extra-memorable, and that’s okay.

Still, when you share a space with strangers, even it’s only for 100 minutes at 40,000 feet, they do make an impression. Even if it’s faint. Their faces are recognizable in a crowded airport, and because we were on a plane to the same destination, I can’t help but feel a connection. For a brief period of life, you and a plane full of strangers share a trajectory, though the paths before and after differ.

It’s not all that different in the rest of life, is it?

I think of all the people I’ve shared space with. Maybe not at 40,000 feet but maybe for a semester at college or a year at a job. And maybe not as impersonally as strangers in a plane but as roommates or classmates or colleagues.

When I really give it thought, I can count hundreds of people who have left some kind of impression on me, and they are scattered all over the world. We have shared experiences and some have been more memorable than others. There are those who have merely traveled the same trajectory and those with whom I’ve developed deeper relationships.

There are those who inspire me to look at the world with wonder, like the Jewish girl who wanted a window seat, and those who have helped me see beauty, like I hope I did with my seat mates and the rainbow.

It’s so easy to just go about our business and blend in and keep our heads down and not be noticed. Much harder to engage the people in the space around us, whether it’s in a house or at a job or in a grocery store. I’m definitely guilty of tunnel vision, with my eyes on the destination, no looking to the left or the right.

But the truth is we need each other, even when we don’t think we do. My seat mate on the plane took my beverage from the flight attendant and handed it to me. All I’d said to him before that moment was, “Look, a rainbow.” I probably could have reached the drink myself, but he did a kind thing.

I could have kept the rainbow to myself, but not everyone has a window seat to beauty, so I shared what I saw. It’s the same in life. Some of us are stuck in an aisle seat, with necks craned to catch a glimpse of what’s outside.

Sofia Sforza via Unsplash

Sofia Sforza via Unsplash

[bctt tweet=”Sometimes we need someone with a better view to tell us what they see.” username=”lmbartelt”]

We’re all traveling somewhere. Maybe it’s not a literal journey. Maybe we’re not even sure where we’re headed. But if we take the time to look around, I think we’ll find our fellow travelers. And if we’re not sure of the way, we can lean on each other for guidance. We can share our stories of journeys past and commiserate when things don’t go according to plan.

We can take comfort in knowing there are others on the same trajectory. Others coming from the same place and headed in the same direction.

We might be together for as little as 100 minutes or as long as 50 years.

Sometimes all that matters is we’re not alone on the journey.

10 years a writer

It’s been a decade since an unbelievable opportunity fell in my lap. A gift that changed my life forever.

It just so happens to be the same amount of time since I became an “us” with my husband. In 2004, we started dating. In a few days, we celebrate seven years of marriage. But the life-changing opportunity happened a week before he made his move to start dating me.

This week, 10 years ago, God made his move in the mountains of North Carolina.

—

I’ve been seeing on social media posts and pictures and plans for the Blue Ridge Mountains Writers Conference. It’s a conference near and dear to my heart because it was there that God showed me the possibilities. It was there that He planted the seed of what writing could mean in my life.

But that’s getting a little bit ahead of things.

I’ve been reading Restless by Jennie Allen these past few months, and in that book, she talks about threads in your life and experiences that shape those threads. And in looking back over all of my 36 years, the times I’ve been most fulfilled are related to writing. So, whether I knew it or not, I think I’ve always been a writer. I remember filling notebooks with handwritten stories and forcing those notebooks on unsuspecting guests at our house, silently begging them to read what I’d written and to tell me it was good. (I think I’m still doing that sometimes.)

And when I worked as a journalist all those years after college, I was most satisfied by stories that made a difference. Some won awards, some didn’t, but always, always, I was filled by telling other people’s stories.

It was during those journalistic years that I was approached by a generous couple with an offer to attend the Blue Ridge Mountains Writers Conference, all expenses paid by them, to further my writing career. Even typing those words a decade later I’m still in shock at the offer. (P.S. I lived in Illinois at the time, so it’s not like it was close.) I had no clue what a writers conference was or why I should go but when someone offers to pay your way to spend some days in North Carolina, you say “yes.”

It was scary and thrilling and overwhelming all at the same time, and I wish I could go back and appreciate the experience for what it was.

Because in truth I had no idea there were so many Christian authors and because I was clueless and didn’t know any of the authors or what they’d written, I had no episodes of being starstruck. (Though I’m sure if I went back and looked over the names, I would smack myself on the head for not being more in tune with Christian publishing.)

See, at the time, I was a journalist. I’d been a journalist for four years and I had no plans to stop being a journalist or any energy to do more writing in my “free” time. I’d dreamed of maybe writing books someday, but that’s all it was: a dream. One writer asked me why I was there and my answer was an emphatic: I have no idea.

Sometimes I think I wasted that chance, but when I look at the experience as part of the whole journey, it really was just the beginning of something bigger.

I would love to go back someday but now I’m worried I have too much information and would still squander the opportunity. Now, I know more and I’m intimidated by conferences and expectations and meetings with authors and agents and the like. Now, I have words I’d like to see published and the risk of rejection is greater. When you have nothing in the way of goals, you risk nothing, and that’s what my first experience with the Blue Ridge Mountains Writers Conference was for me: low-risk.

But there I met people like me. People who had worked as journalists and now wrote books. People with stories bubbling inside of them. People who’d traveled the publishing path and were passing on knowledge. I still remember some of the tips from the workshops and encouragement from other writers.

It was the beginning of a journey, but I didn’t know it at the time.

But do we ever know when the journey starts?

—

In the last year, I’ve begun taking my writing more seriously. Yes, I’ve blogged for years but that’s always been for me first. An outlet I needed in the midst of  the early years of motherhood. If no one had ever read a word, I still would have written because I needed it.

But for years I’ve also been working on a novel. A very part-time effort that at times seemed to have no end. That’s changing, and it’s scary sometimes. I’m writing and pursuing ideas and making intentional efforts to connect with other writers and share my progress and learn about storytelling. A published novel is still very much a dream. Attending a conference has been almost impossible these past few years but it’s no longer completely out of reach.

Which is why I’ve been thinking back on that first conference.

Ten years seems like a really long time. And sometimes I wonder if I could have done more sooner. If I should have done more sooner. If I’ve missed my chance or if my chance is still out there.

I don’t know if God made me a writer at birth or not, but He has birthed something in me.

And for years He’s been building the writer in me, one brick at a time.

I’m sad and hopeful, frustrated and excited, discouraged and giddy about this crazy writing journey. I have no map or destination. I’m unfamiliar with the route. But I know where I’ve been, and I don’t think I’m lost. Not anymore. I’m seeing signs that I’m on the right path, wherever it might lead.

I have wanted to give up on it. I have wanted to call it a silly little dream. I have wanted my calling to be anything else because certainly anything else would be easier.

But I can’t. And it isn’t. And it wouldn’t be.

Sometimes, to keep moving forward, you need to look back and see where you’ve been.

That’s where I’m at this week. Looking back so I remember to keep moving forward.

(And trying not to be jealous of anyone spending the week in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mountains+writing=bliss.)

How are your dreams coming along these days?