Skip to main content

Holidays are for Breathing Space

The best part of a vacation is that I don't spend 8 hours a day sitting in front of a computer. Of course, I make up for it mostly in phone-browsing, but it also means I contribute less to the Internet. Probably for the best, although I always feel I should apologize.  Because, you know, SO MANY PEOPLE depend on me for their Internet joy.

The past few weeks have been delightful. A wedding. A DIY project (my first, and possibly last. I hope to post on this as soon as I finish it...). Relaxing in the garage with a beloved friend. Reading on the deck with a beloved friend. Lying on a bed talking late at night with the same beloved friend.

Do you have friends around whom you find yourself breathing deeper, thinking less, and laughing more? I do. And it was a delight to host one, then go to the airport with her, say our goodbyes, and hop on a plane to visit a second.

We spoke of many things; school and books, boys and families. Moms and gift-giving and Jesus and much much more. We teared up. Sometimes we didn't talk - because with good friends, there is freedom for space. And we laughed. Nothing is better than shared laughter. e

I often lament the way my community is spread across countries and continents, but truly, I'm grateful just to have these ladies in my life.

And then home again for a couple of days before heading back to the second home (or possibly first?). Yesterday I cuddled with all the kidlets. This morning I take a 3 year-old out to tea. Tonight, a 94 year-old is taking me to the theatre.

There is much gratitude and joy, and not just for the return of this warm weather.
(No photos though...because I assume y'all have seen them on instagram. And my uploader isn't cooperating. Sigh.)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro...

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st...