Hold the Morning

I'm just going to start typing. This week I have felt full of nothing but words that can't get out and it hurts, each word pricking me like a pin as they try to find a way to leave. So I'm just going to open the floodgates and let them fall. School is almost over and the world is waking up with warmth and green. My soul is so full that it should be pouring out all over the place but I'm buried in a fort of books, stretched on the couch, reading five at a time because I can't get enough. I sit in the kitchen sink with Cassandra Mortmain, then I march in a vigil with Anne Lamott. The evening stretches before me to go where I want- to have time is one of the best feelings in the world.

I have started to meditate now, but not as often as I'd like. Developing new habits is hard work and I often don't have enough motivation to get out of bed earlier than normal. In the mornings, whether in bed or out, I take deep breaths, noticing the work of my lungs for the first time in ages. I feel God in my breath, in my deep prayers, in being next to Nate, in trying to be still and clearing my mind which sounds like an ideal state to be in but doesn't happen for long. I'm still practicing.

I fling the door open and breathe loamy earth from the field freshly plowed next door and the mourning doves flit all over my balcony, singing their own type of prayers. The days are longer and my bike gleams in the living room, waiting for another spin on the country roads. The last time I went out I realized how out-of-shape I've become, how hard it was to breathe after awhile. I see that the bike will be like a prayer mat for me, another place to focus and breathe and watch the sacred unfold around me, even as I sweat too much and coast down hills.

Getting dressed this morning, I slid my favorite bracelet on over my wrist, a wooden piece of art from Cameroon given to me years ago by a friend from that small nation next to Nigeria, where over 200 girls and women are still missing. Wearing it is my small way to remember them, to remind myself that we are sisters, no different, that their fates matter to the world and to me. Their names are printed out and propped up on my computer at work and I let my eyes drift over the list throughout the day. Mairama. Juliana. Lugwa. Asabe. Ruth. Esther. Rahap. Each name a little prayer. I am still furious at men I've never seen with an anger that I can't let go of. I'm sick of men determining women's rights and fates. I'm tired of women defined as "less than", whether in Nigeria, in Iran, or in the U.S. This isn't a Nigerian issue- it's a world issue. And I feel powerless, which makes me angrier.

I grab another book from my pile, a precarious stack on my bedside table. Any day the cat will knock it over but I keep adding to it. There is so much in this world to know and see- I always feel like I'm racing against time to experience it all. I don't have any answers to all of the questions in my soul, but I do know that the day is lovely, that words are powerful, and that I, like everyone else, am part of it all. The powerful play goes on and we all contribute a verse.

Whimsy and Water

I was in Kansas City, Missouri on Friday, several states away from the cold and gloom of the northern Midwest. I was there for a conference that turned out to be inspiring and exhilarating, a chance to network and score free coffee. The days were 80 degree ones, full of green and sun and the smell of hot tarmac. Several of us left the conference center for an exploratory walk through a park and down busy streets, into a beautiful old train station that held the sunlight and reflected it from marble floor to gilded ceiling. I felt as if I was in a sacred space, the echoes of hellos and goodbyes murmuring from the walls.

We ate lunch in a square full of families and white tables covered with umbrellas. I leaned back, weightless as a balloon without the heavy drag of a coat. Warm breezes playfully lifted my skirt and for several minutes, I think I entered heaven on a Kansas City afternoon. The day would have been perfect with all of that, but an announcement filled the courtyard and kids of all sizes scampered to a nearby fountain in the square. Adults everywhere turned expectantly and we waited. Soon enough, an unseen symphony started its opening notes and suddenly the fountain came to life, plumes of water dancing and sashaying around in time to the music. Like children, the jets of water skipped and leaped, as if they were drunk on the playful music and the spring sunshine. The strings hit their crescendo and the water rose higher and higher until it came crashing down, the children squealing and shrieking as the water darted out to touch them. My group all sat and watched this beautiful thing we had stumbled upon and I felt dizzy with gladness to be alive, here in Kansas City with warm rays of sun cloaking my arms, surrounded by friends and beauty, music and water. What an opportunity, what a gift to be able to live to see such things. How lucky to be able to bear witness to the fact that whimsy still exists in this world and that we are all prepared to put down our lunches to enjoy it. 

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.