blogs i'm reading

Since you are here, I’ll assume you read blogs, at least occasionally. Or look at them, anyway. Have you noticed how so many blogs have lots of images and few words? This of course makes sense for a lot of blogs. I really enjoy design, food and photography blogs that are picture-heavy. But I also enjoy a good writing blog, or at least a blog with good writing. A site where stories and sentences can sing.

I’ve recently found two that I’ve come to particularly treasure, so I thought I’d share them, and maybe you’ll feel inspired to share your favorites with me.

A quick note: What I appreciate about these blogs is that I feel like they are a backstage pass to the practice of writing. I’m sure these bloggers write and revise at least some of their pieces (and it shows!) but that’s it — no boss or editor involved. What you get is the result of the imagination and motivation required to simply wrestle with words. And many of the posts are about very ordinary events told in a way that brings out the extraordinary in them, which is what writing is all about, I think.  

Djiboutijones is the blog of freelance writer Rachel Pieh Jones. A few months ago I read her moving story of pregnancy and childbirth as an expat in Somaliland, and it whetted my appetite for more. I googled her and found her blog, and with it more reasons to read: She shares stories of faith, running, getting published and motherhood in addition to her third-culture experiences in America (during an extended visit) and Djibouti (where she and her family live and work). I love how she writes about anything and everything. I feel invited to observe with her and inspired to be as open to opportunity to simply write. 

A friend introduced me to this one, and I'm so glad. Mount Custard is the home of sweet stories of a mother of two boys in New York City. On the surface they are about a very ordinary life, and then with the turn of a sentence this writer opens up this whole new layer of complexity. I think I tear up or nod or sit with an open mouth or all three during every one of her posts. My friend and I both agree that her writing voice is phenomenal — gentle and strong.

Any more recommendations? What about a blog makes you want to keep reading?

a steady push

A few months back I signed up for a long race. To prepare I’ve been putting in a lot of running — about double the mileage and time I was running before training started. At first the new challenge was fun, and when I say at first I mean the first week. It didn’t take long for my legs to get fatigued, my mind to feel tired and weak, and my heart to second-guess the commitment I’d made to a time goal. The experience has been quite the lesson is sustaining a vision — body, mind and soul — through the long haul.

Yesterday when I started out on my run, my legs were stiff and my stride felt awkward, so I took it slow, expecting to loosen up and gain speed as I went. But I’d planned a route with a steady incline for most of the first half, so the ease never really came, even when I turned the corner and started on a decline. It was a steady push the whole run.

And then towards the end were two longer hills. On the first I felt my pace slow more than I’d have liked, and as I approached the second my mind and legs were both tired. Stopping wasn’t an option. I considered pulling out my ipod to switch songs, but then a new song came on, the same one that’s been queuing during tough parts of my runs a lot lately.

Lord you are good and your mercy endures forever.

I’d spent most of my run feeling the pain of the run, wondering when it would ease up and I’d start to coast. Most of the run I’d spent trying to pass walkers and weave between runners, easily annoyed at people who didn’t move out of my way and critical of people who weren’t doing it right (like I even know…). And then there was the difficulty of life, the pain of attempting that particular run and sustaining a vision in places that seem desolate and not worthy my time or hope. Of how my life feels like my running right now: a concerted effort that’s been consuming and tiring but with little outward progress to show for it. A steady push. A long haul. I’m tired.

I ran up that hill at what felt like a walking pace, but my feet were leaving the ground, my head was down and my arms were swinging. I made slow but steady progress to the top. The repeated reminder of God’s goodness, his enduring mercy, that He’s committed to me forever. Maybe I’d hoped for the ground below to miraculously flatten beneath my feet, or to grow wings that would lift me to the higher ground ahead. Those miracles, of course, didn’t happen. I had to just keep going.

I did reach the top of that hill. Then I kept running.

happy march

 

Sometimes the change in months feels like more than just a new day. It’s a big leap forward. March is one of those. Goodbye dreary, dragging winter. Hello spring, welcome warm weather, pleased to meet you long days, won’t you stay into the night daylight? There are birds chirping outside this morning, and it’s quite possible that they were singing the same song yesterday, but today I hear them. Jasmine is blooming along the fence, gently blowing the scent of spring, and I’ve been holding my breath each time I get a whiff, willing spring to stay.

I am ready.

taking lessons

I wrote before about dabbling in CrossFit. This movement is hardcore — there are timed runs and sandbags and warm-ups that feel like workouts. I’m not gonna lie, there has been some swearing, some near-tears and maybe even a little pee. When I first went to the workouts, I put on a tough face, in part to mentally prepare, and also to convince others that I was Serious.

And then I started laughing.

A few weeks in, one of the workouts included the wheelbarrow and crabwalk. I hadn't done these since the relay races of elementary school. Trust me, it’s much harder as an adult! Later there were wall walks and forward rolls over someone holding a plank position. I literally thought I might break my neck. And though I had quite a bit of hesitation, I found that punctuating such high-intensity workouts with these movements helped me to lighten up. Eventually I learned to ease my tightly-held need for a certain kind of workout and a time that put me at the top of the pack and decided to just have fun.

This past year, for a time without knowing it and now more intentionally, I have been taking lessons in Not Taking Myself Too Seriously. Incorporating both humility and goofiness, these lessons include:

• Wearing brightly-colored knee-high socks when I run
• Playing a game and being ok with losing (over and over to the same people, at times)
• Engaging in pointless banter, especially with authority figures
• Not needing an excuse for every stupid thing I do
• Taking lessons from cheesy pop music videos (watch until the end!)
• Saying the crazy things that pop into my head — even if they’re slightly inappropriate and I need to be corrected
• Engaging in conversations with children. They are masters!

Any others you can suggest? This game is fun! And life is a lot more fun — and easy — without always having to be so darn Serious.

free-write: on rediscovering

Looking for something a former-me wrote, I slid my 2009 journal off my shelf. It's a thin volume of lined (always lined) cream-colored pages with a bright woven fabric covering reminiscent of those pot holders we used to make as children (remember those?). I bought it from the clearance bin at Urban Outfitters in Santa Barbara for $4.95 and then couldn't decide if it was ugly or not, so it sat on my shelf, empty and stiff, for some time. Journals are to me what shoes are to most women: I can't resist a deal and sometimes that can lead to buyers remorse. 

Finally I decided that at the very least it was fit for scraps of information that didn't fit anywhere in the neat, tidy, narrative-only journals I used to keep. I started with recipes, an email address, and directions to I don't know where. My idea-collecting evolved to include church notes, weekend to-do lists, prayer items and taped blurbs cut from magazines, even poems, anything from mundane to inspiring. Soon it bulged with all the extra papers I stuff inside the front cover and I wrapped it with a rubber-band to contain it. Bursting -- this is what I wanted my imagination to be. I took it everywhere, and it held everything that was important to me. It's bright, ugly colors soon became endearing because it was unique and bold and sure of itself in an overstated way.

****

A few weeks back, I did one final desperate search for a passport I haven't seen since two apartments ago. We had just finished dinner, the house was warm and dimly lit, and my housemates all sat contentedly in the living room, reading or playing on their iphones. And I, feeling lazy and a bit lonely, tried to guilt-trip them into helping me look for it. Drudgery is always easier with company. One housemate graciously obliged and sat on my bedroom floor to keep me company as I pulled out old shoeboxes and containers to root through. The search included my old green plastic expanding file, one I've had for nearly 10 years and haven't looked through in at least 3. Started before the time of google reader, pinterest and bottomless email storage, I used to print out articles, or rip them from magazines, and even cut them from newspapers, information I knew I'd want to access someday. There was an LA Times article on slums, the piece written and read by my cousin from my Nana's funeral, and an update letter I wrote to family and friends after my trip to Manila. My housemate and I laughed at some of the things I'd saved, but I also held those remnants with great care, and afterward put them back in the file, because I knew the girl who had collected those things. I can look back now and marvel at what she was trying to do, who she was trying to be. Even if I'm not sure she would recognize me, that night I remembered with respect and a bit of awe what she was like.

where has reading taken you?

For the holidays, I decided to ask my nieces and nephews to name a goal or wish they had for the coming year so that I could choose a thoughtful gift that would encourage and motivate them. To my utter delight, two of them responded with reading-related goals (though no less delightful were the wishes of my other niece and nephew, who want to go to Disney and make more cookies -- these kids play seriously, let me tell you).

But back to the reading. This morning NPR featured a story on the newly-appointed Ambassador for Youth Literature, Walter Dean Myers. The new ambassador has chosen the slogan, "Reading is Not Optional." Give the interview a listen (or a read). Ambassador Myers is delightful, the interviewer is one of my NPR-nerd crushes, and the story is a serious and uplifting reminder of the places reading takes us in our imaginations and in fulfilling our individual potential.

Where has reading taken you?

joy that comes from being quiet

In lieu of resolutions, I've made a loose list of goals and hopes for 2012. They range from the very concrete "read Brothers Karamozov" to the more exploratory "love my work and play wardrobes" and "create and stick to a budget that really works for me" to the aspirational "see the Grand Canyon." Perhaps the one that is most like a resolution -- a discipline I intend to stick to throughout the year -- is to spend my Sunday's without internet, tv and movies, with the exception of enjoying them for social reasons (ie watching a movie with my housemates). This past Sunday was my first try, and it was more difficult than I expected. Checking email constantly is habit and whenever I have a random question, I look it up unquestioningly. My screenless-sabbath made me re-think my habits, and when after dinner the kitchen drain suffered a clog that draino couldn't fix (and on the first day of the year -- what an omen!) I couldn't retreat into streaming a stupid tv show episode on netflix or starting a new scrabble game on my phone.

Instead, I actually had to deal with my emotions, and after avoiding them briefly by cleaning my room -- perhaps I need physical space to allow for some mental and spiritual quiet -- I settled down, prayed, wrote, remembered and experienced peace, even in the midst of a very imperfect start to my year (and I'm not just talking about the kitchen drain).

Have any of you read this article called The Joy of Quiet from the New York Time? I have a hunch that it is, ironically, making it's way around the web.Joy, the author of the article quotes a monk as saying, is "that kind of happiness that doesn't depend on what happens." And it's not something that can be found by being endlessly and assuredly connected to people and ideas and things but, I believe, by being connected to our Maker and what He is making in and around us.

May you experience the joy that comes from being quiet, alone and connected in an unconnected way, throughout 2012.