my 97 year old reflection

my great aunt julia died on march 9th. we're burying her this weekend and i'm officiating. that sounds very official.

i'm not one for speaking in front of people. i'll take all the help i can get when asked to do things like this. so instead of writing a sermon, i asked my mom and her two sisters to pull together some information about julia: her life, what and who she loved, where and how she lived, the kind of person she was... i received it today. julia's life compressed into 8 pages of a word document.

8 pages.

sometimes i look at someone, read a story, or hear a song, and something inside of me stirs awake. like the tuning fork of my very being has been struck and everything in me resonates. as my eyes floated over the words of julia's 97 years of life, it was like looking in an old smudgy mirror, the kind that no matter how hard you scrub, you still can't quite make out the reflection. but you know it's you. rub your eyes. it has to be you. you're standing right there.

she loved to write. she loved to read. she was a water baby, and watched lake michigan every day, picking up on its every nuance. she stood up for the underdog and found it easy to love the people that others found easy to hate. she had aspirations, but ended up somewhere other than where she had planned. she loved, and fought. she had a tough shell with a tender underbelly. she was bundled contradictions. you couldn't peg her.

i have to keep blinking. the reflection is blurry. but it's me isn't it, somewhere in there...

on march 9th of this year, julia dale released her grip on earthly life, and launched out into the depths to kiss His Face. may the same grit, grace, and courage that ran in her veins race through mine.

new dannon flavor: bowels on the bottom

the scene is this: a college dorm room, one girl dressed up, ready to go out. she invites her roommate along for the frivolity. said roommate is in sweats, studying, with plates of food in front of her, running the gamut from pizza to ramen noodles. roommate says she can't go out because she's bloated from eating bad food. dressed-up-girl shakes her head with a smile and says "you need to eat some dannon activa", which, based on the information i got on the commercial, is a new dannon yogurt "proven" to "regulate" your digestive system in two weeks.

i just threw up in my mouth a little bit, thinking about eating yogurt everyday for 2 weeks. this offers no immediate help whatsoever. i have a better, more immediately gratifying plan for sweaty-bloated-roommate...

vodka.

a few shots and you won't even remember you were bloated. perfect.

my proposed new dannon flavor: vodka on the bottom.

birthing a promise

the truth is this: it's amazing what the human body can do when abundant with adrenaline and inspiration.

i trained minimally for the 5K 'race for the cure' i ran on sunday. i've never run a 'race' before, so my mentality was definitely not to beat my best personal time. i just wanted to finish before everyone went home and forgot that there was still someone running way, way, way back there.

perhaps some of you out there reading this are those hard core runners that wear those tight black pants and cannot relate to what i'm saying because running 3.1 miles is nothing to you. but this distance was a feat for me. up until yesterday, i had never run the 3.1 miles without stopping to ask myself, as i huffed what felt like the last breaths God would ever give me, "why am i doing this again?"

but yesterday, let me tell you about yesterday. crammed into that mass of 50,000 people before the starting line, counting down to the beginning of the race, people all around you stretching, cheering... women running in pink to show that they've come through on the other side of breast cancer... women running in the tender memory of someone they've lost... women struggling to beat the disease. i was running behind a women who donned a shirt reading "i run for my daughter's future". it was hopeful. beautiful.

mandie and i ran the whole thing. we did it. in 33 minutes. we particiated in an event that is birthing a promise of hope to a lot of women out there in the throws of cancer. i am proud. and really sore.

a cracker, do you think it's enough

i'm surrounded by some of the most amazing musicians i've ever known in my life, almost every day; their cups overflow with lyrical genius, musical camaraderie, and creative endeavors. i could sit and listen to her sing for hours, or watch him write, or listen to him play... but this interesting shift has taken place. i just don't know if this canvas as any room for me and what i have to offer. some of this is the truth: i am well aware that there are many things that i cannot do. but what about the stuff that's left over after that one truth? meet my identity Thief.

i struggle knowing if there's anything for me to contribute to this audio canvas. and what does a girl do in a time like this? well, self-medicate for one, go for a sweaty jog for two, and try to remember who i am. it's been probably 7 months since i sat down at my girl (read: piano) and dug in. so i did, and it was as if He gave my starving soul some crackers. when i sit down to play, i mean really play, all that is wrong and wrapped in melancholy is flipped right side up. and that's the amazing thing about being an artist... your skin, your ears, your eyes, your grey matter, your soul, your heart, they're all interconnected.

i played rachmaninoff's g-sharp minor prelude and felt the notes fly under my skin; i imagined what rachmaninoff was thinking, feeling, when he crossed his thumbs over on that chord, or rolled his wrist to get all of those notes. i took my fingers for a jog in the key of E to the rhythyms of bach, wondering how in the world did he write like this?

this is something amazing that i can do. i can do this.

i don't know what else in my life i will have to offer, but it felt really good to remember that what i have been given is this... this is part of what i was made to do, and who i was made to be.

identity thieves

i never pictured being 28. i never saw myself here.

i have been forced to begin the process of admitting... admitting that i learned at a young age to let everyone's approval and opinion of me be the one thing that defined me. admitting that when i have tried things and failed, i have believed that i had no intrinsic value. admitting that i have long since forgotten how to even try, for fear of the fail and the fall.

i am learning to admit that along the way, i have drowned out the still small Voice that's been waiting to get a word in edgewise.

if everyone else's 28 is the new 18, my 28 feels like the new dead. but in this dying, this admitting, there must be life. there has to be life.

"...and so help me let go of the gap between who and where i thought i'd be, and who and where i am."