Summer Glory

From my balcony right now, I find myself surrounded by growth and life, from the buzz of a fly to the cheep of a blackbird across the fields. Summer is here in all of her fullness, swollen with heat and rain, bursting with plants, food, and life. My cat keeps me company out here, stretched out on a chair in the semi-humid breeze of a July afternoon. I do my homework, sporadically looking up to watch the leaves of thousands of corn stalks sway and flutter, like a vast undulating sea of green water, never still, always moving. It's July already.

I think on the summer so far, of watching fireworks from this balcony with Nathan, huddled under a shawl against the unnaturally cool July evening. It has been days of satisfying work and getting through school, punctuated with memory-making, sweet as a ripe peach. Exploring the Art Institute with a dear friend while baring our souls on a train. Looking out on the swollen Mississippi with two of my best friends. Meeting my mom for ice cream. Watching a best friend walk up the aisle to her new husband. Spending days at a living history museum with my sister and family, pretending we've gone back in time. Reading more Barbara Kingsolver. Picking up fresh vegetables from a local farm, my arms laden with greens and beets and summer squash galore. Dancing with Nathan. Baking my birthday cake with my friend's sweet little girl.

I find myself giving thanks much more during the warm months, when the world is luscious and generous. Today, I'm thankful for fresh food on my plate and warm breezes through the screen door. I'm grateful for support systems, for the friends and family I don't deserve who care for me in big ways and in small. I'm thankful for morning sunshine, little adventures, driving through farm country, zucchini muffins. I breathe in the world around me and exhale my thanks, wrapping myself in summer's glory, in all of the possibility she offers.

Color

Winter blues. Homework blues. The season of Lent started with a piece of bread, a sip of wine, and an ash cross on my forehead. The sacred and the humble of the season don't match the chaos and rush of these weeks and I try to set some time aside, try to catch my breath, try to remember to feed my soul but I fail at all three things and soon it is the next day. My soul is starving for color, for warmth, for fresh air and Vitamin D, for laughter and silence and sacred. So I seek it out, finding what I need in substitutes, in little things.

My "Mary-Jane's Farm" magazine, like spring in my mailbox. Sprinkling bird seed. A Skype date with Colorado. Mint ice cream-and-movie dates on the couch. Reading blog posts by inspirational women. [This one. (For Lent.) And this one. (For peace.) And this one. (For the power of food.)] Mumford & Sons. Stocking the freezer.

It doesn't always work but I still keep trying to push back the dark of winter with everything I have, working every day to find the color, wherever it may be hidden. It's out there somewhere.

The List

For today, a list of loves:

I love.....

Jesus.

Hot tea. And hot cocoa. Any hot beverage, actually.

Mourning doves on the balcony.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream.

The sound of peepers in the spring.

Random texts from my best friend.

My partner in crime (also known as my husband.)

Shopping at the farmer's market.

Jane Eyre.  

Words and language.

German Christmas carols.

Traveling. Especially to Ireland.

Lazy mornings.

Watching Gilmore Girls for the zillionth time.

Cows. (Addendum: The smell of cow manure. Don't ask.)

Snuggling with my katz.

W.B. Yeats' poetry.

Making dinner and trying new recipes.

Spending time with my sister.

History and archives and museums and libraries. It's a lifestyle.

Being part of a close-knit family.

Reading in bed.

Louisa May Alcott.

The baby aisle at Target.

Skirts and sandals.

Writing.

Yup, lots of love here. Today and every day.

A Day

The Wisconsin landscape is ablaze with white, our fields scoured and glistening under the intense chill of a sub-zero day. The library was closed today, so the Norwegian church records and the obituaries in piles on my desk must wait one more day. I miss them already.

Today was a robe and hot cocoa day, a pasta and prayer day, a day of comfortable silences and pens scratching against paper. The cat skittered across the floor, no doubt pretending he was romping through his own winter wonderland, joyful that his two humans were home. Four dark-eyed juncos pecked at seed on our balcony, clearly taking great enjoyment in plundering the free food.



At my great-grandmother's table, I read essays by Barbara Tuchman for class, knocked backward by the force of the voice and soul erupting from her words. In an instant, I felt again that passion for what I do, the reminder of why I study, why I surround myself with documents and records. Like a bloom from a snowbank, her compelling essay reawakened in me my own stories of library stacks and childhood books and life-changing moments that led to my love for history, for a good story, for writing. And she made me yearn for more.

With dusk creeping over the fields, I turned to the kitchen, squeezing pleasure from the simple act of creating in silence, cutting garlic and sifting oregano with joy in my fingers and prayers in my head.

Life is often so much rushing, so much doing. I'm actually grateful for the snow and the cold today. It made us stay still, listening to each other and ourselves, counting the time in words read and cocoa sips and meals made, rather than seconds or minutes or to-do lists. I need to seek these days out more, in which my soul finds the permission to do what it needs and wants, to go nowhere, to find the beauty in home routines.

Be still, be still, be silent and still, for there the sacred is found.

No Rules

The conversation flew like the snow outside the window as we tossed words from one to the other. Without leaving our chairs, we wandered down the paths of womanhood and motherhood and jobs and passions, poking our heads around bends in the road and relaying our observations. Distracted as I was when she walked through the door, I felt that skip of delight that I had almost forgotten. Most of my soulmates live miles from my door and after awhile, I don't even realize I've gotten used to that void and forget the face-to-face. This morning, I remembered. Remembered what it is to have a friend drop in, to begin anywhere, to drift lazily at sea among an ocean of words and laughter. Hopscotching from topic to topic, pulling each other up and giving each other a little push.

Every day, I miss the blond with the fiery resolve and infectious laugh who holds my secrets. I miss the curly-haired one with whom I shared food, an apartment, and millions of every-day moments. I miss the talented, quiet brunette who first sat next to me junior year. I miss the sister of my blood and my soul. They are part of me always. I miss, but I am learning how not to let the distance define us. I'm moving from missing to accepting. From regret to appreciation, as we work together, tugging and pulling, forcing that distance to shrink. And I revel in the fact that I have one friend I don't have to miss yet, the dark-haired creative artist that I can visit anytime.

Tonight, my feet are warmed by slippers made with a sister's love. My best friend's faces laugh up at me from the frame on the coffee table. And the morning holds a particular smile, and a reminder that friendship is not a limited space with defined rules, but an ever-widening sphere that can encompass it all- the far, the near, the lonely, the fulfillment, the memories, the future. I have everything.