Category Archives: identity

January 23, 2016 · 6:52 am

diamond love

All right you guys, I’m going to try not to get too metaphorical or too sentimental in this post. (It might be difficult.) Thursday morning, I was sitting alone in a mostly empty plane, next to a window. And the sunlight was just streaming in. My engagement ring caught the light and scattered it everywhere in shards of colored beauty.

SAMSUNG

I had just left the biggest loves of my life behind in Manhattan and was flying – alone – to Memphis for a short week of rehearsals and concerts. But I wasn’t leaving all my loves behind in just that single place – some of my loves are in Texas and Florida, in Colorado and North Carolina. Some are in Brooklyn and Astoria. Some are in the woods and some are here no more. Some are words in books, some are the notes of a score. Some are the crashing waves and some are the breathtaking sunsets.

I have many loves.

And although I was leaving some behind – I was also heading straight for some others.  Continue reading →

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January 8, 2016 · 2:26 pm

The F’s

sunrise

So this will be a short post (see! It can be done), but in light of JANUARY FIRST, I’ve been thinking about the new year and what’s ahead and the idea of making “New Year’s Resolutions.”

I loved two recent but fairly dissimilar posts I read on this topic (and you should read them, too!). Addie Zierman writes wonderfully and beautifully about how and why she makes resolutions each year – how they represent “a praise, a prayer, a confession, a cry of hope” – in her post In Defense of New Year’s Resolutions. Meanwhile, Glennon Doyle Melton preaches “I don’t want to be a BETTER ME in 2016. Screw that. I don’t want to chase after some imaginary more fabulous version of myself. I AM what the people I love need.” in her post Best New Year’s Ever.

Growing up, I nearly always made New Year’s resolutions. Depending on my age, they generally focused around being nicer to my sister, how many A’s I’d make in school, saying thank-you more often to my parents, eating better, exercising better, praying more, memorizing Scripture, cooking more – and on and on. They generally lasted – like most resolutions, as far as I can tell – sometime between twenty-four hours and twenty-four days. So it goes.

Then I got married, and one day another married couple (who had been married nearly five whole years by that point) told us about The F’s.  Continue reading →

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January 6, 2016 · 12:11 pm

new year, new purpose

jars of clay

So it’s a new year! And, with the New Year, a new post, and also a new purpose for this space. I recently read that famous passage Christians like to quote about how “we have this treasure in jars of clay.”[1] We carry around a treasure – and this treasure is found in a jar made of clay. It’s not necessarily a beautiful, glazed, perfected jar, but a clay jar. It’s probably a simple jar. An unimpressive jar. Possibly even a broken jar. But it’s not the jar that is important – isn’t that the idea? It’s the treasure inside.

This got me thinking: what is my treasure?  Continue reading →

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August 22, 2015 · 9:42 pm

15 miles in manhattan

NYC_2013_05_CROP

I had an incredible run today. It was incredible not because of the dirt roads or the farmland, not because of the breathtaking views or scenic waterways, not because of the cool breeze blowing my hair or the cacophony of bird noises filling my ears. It was incredible because of the way I witnessed and relived my own story of coming into adulthood in New York City.

Today I started out at the home that my husband and I own in upper Manhattan (well, technically the bank still owns most of it), the home where we are raising our two kiddos and figuring out what it is to be a family of four, living in THE City. I headed north, passing the playground where we took Jacob the day Hannah Grace was born and the swings that I rocked gently on that morning, wondering if that day would be the day that our lives would be forever changed – again. I turned around at the lighthouse that was my first “big destination” when I started running again after Hannah Grace was born, and ran beneath “our bridge,” as our toddler calls the GW.

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Heading south, I entered such familiar territory. The miles I ran during our early marriage, sometimes staring blindly out at the water, wondering what I had gotten myself into as I tried to figure out how to bend my life to meet and embrace someone else’s. The miles I ran the morning I found out we were expecting Jacob, plotting how to tell Harrison and practically sprinting the entire distance in elated joy. The miles I walked when eight months pregnant with Jacob and I could run no more, and the loops I ran with our stroller when I first started running again after he was born. Continue reading →

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July 2, 2015 · 5:45 am

a year of grace

My sweet baby girl —

It’s been a hard year, hasn’t it?

You experienced so much change and you had to learn so much. In fact, you learned more in this first year of your life than perhaps you will in any other single year moving forward (!). And the change you experienced – it was unimaginable, too. You went from having every single need met so perfectly that you had never even experienced need – to a world in which you experienced every basic need and more – hunger, exhaustion, frustration, anger, fear, sadness – sometimes all in one day or even one hour. I’m so sorry, sweet baby girl of mine, that it’s been so hard.

And yet – you amaze me. Despite all these hard things, you grew and thrived. You learned to roll over, sit, crawl, stand, start to walk. You learned to drink and eat (and boy do you love food!), to smile and laugh and start to talk. I am so proud of you, already, for your persistence, for your feisty spirit, for all the many things you have learned and accomplished in this short year. Today, you are ONE.

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My sweet baby girl, it’s been a hard year for your Mama, too.  Continue reading →

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May 7, 2015 · 5:55 am

what’s in a year?

first-birthday-cakeHappy First Birthday to grace in the darkness! A year ago today, you made your way into cyberspace after many months of gestation (months which I spent researching and planning and writing and designing) and, like any birth, that day was filled with many hopes and dreams, much excitement, and certainly some nerves. It’s hard to believe it’s been this long already — and that some of you are still reading my words after 365 days.

Mostly, it’s hard to believe because it’s so easy to wish that I’d done more. Written more posts, taken more beautiful photos, facilitated more guest authors. Also, I’d hoped for more success. I wish I had acquired more followers, seen more readership growth, been offered more book deals (ha!). I’d hoped for more.

However, despite not being more, it’s been a good, full year. A hard year, certainly, but what year isn’t? As I was preparing to write this post, and thinking about the past year, I revisited many posts from the last twelve months (of course). I revisited the dark places and the questions, the favorite quotes, the letters to my son and daughter, the post about learning to love our family of four and the posts exploring Ed Welch’s book about faith and depression that I found so useful. I remembered my struggles with finding community in New York and applauded my efforts at starting to run again. And you know what? It’s not more, and it’s not the best, but it is good.  Continue reading →

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February 21, 2015 · 8:01 pm

depression this time around

Last time I promised that I’d write about what depression is like for me in this season of life. It’s no cakewalk, but it’s not Hollywood either.

I don’t spend days in bed crying, forgetting to eat and unable to take care of myself. I also don’t have dramatic breakdowns resulting in hospitalization. (Although, admittedly, on my worst days I have wished that was the case.) photo 1

In fact, all outward appearances probably look pretty good most of the time – certainly this time around. (Helps to have cute kids, right?)

When depression rears its ugly head in my life, it’s not always the same – certainly there have been times in the past of poor self-care, insomnia, extreme hopelessness and bouts of crying – but I mostly left that permutation behind in college. And there have been many periods of gray, when I’ve fought, every single day, to go through the motions, to take care of whatever job or child or spouse or friend or piece of music or writing I needed to do, because everything felt futile.

This time hasn’t been any of those things, exactly.  Continue reading →

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February 18, 2015 · 11:49 pm

learning to breathe

Remember how I wrote about figuring out what’s necessary in life?

Well, I’ll tell you how that’s going in a bit.

These days, I’m teaching my son to breathe. When he gets upset and I can’t talk any sense into him or get him to stop crying  long enough to look me in the eyes or answer a question, I try to breathe with him.

In and out, in and out, in and out.

remember to breatheIt often takes a long time until he can join me. But the minutes that I spend sitting with him, inhaling deeply and slowly and then exhaling fully –

those minutes are good practice for me, too.

Because I’ve been holding my breath for awhile now. Wondering what kinds of feelings each day will bring. Wondering if I’ll make it one, two, three hours before hopelessness starts to replace hopefulness. Wondering if I’ll start to know – and really feel, not just know in my head – that God is real. Wondering if it’s too early in the day to start drinking.

It’s been hard, the past few months.  Continue reading →

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January 22, 2015 · 3:00 pm

the necessary things

IMG_2344So, my son. He is just over two years old – you know, the beginning of the infamous “terrible twos,” so-named because this is the time when toddlers start to express feelings in all sorts of inappropriate ways (also known as, “tantrums”). Theoretically, this happens because the toddlers don’t yet know otherwise and haven’t learned how to manage their emotions.

My son has these outbursts – he actually becomes inconsolable and entirely hysterical, hyperventilating and such. So far these haven’t happened in the candy aisle at the grocery store (are NYC grocery stores big enough for a candy aisle?) or in the car seat as I try to buckle him in (what car?), but instead they happen in the stroller when we are walking home at night and he can’t see the moon (darn you, clouds), or at home because I took the corn out of the bowl and put it onto his plate.

(And we are talking MAJORLY upset, people. Out of control and sucking in air too fast and choking on saliva and tears everywhere upset. Hysterical upset.)

But the thing is, I’m not surprised.  Continue reading →

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January 7, 2015 · 9:50 pm

done

“I’m done,” I said without thinking for even one second about how to respond to his innocent “how’s it going?”

He looked at me blankly. I guess not the answer he was expecting.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I just mean, I’m done with today. You know, ready for it to be over.”

Another blank stare. I realized that he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

And for a minute, I struggled to remember any other time, any time when feeling completely exhausted, worn out, used, tried beyond my patience, and completely out of energy at the end of the day – done – wasn’t the norm. Wasn’t the reality. (Not to mention that I was referring to 7:30 PM as the end of the day.)  Continue reading →

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