My hope is to offer encouragement to writers as well as those who simply love to read. You will find eclectic snippets here—news of projects I’m working on, comments regarding books I enjoy, favorite authors, quotes, and reflections regarding my own experiences. I especially like to write about my dreams—those parables in the night seasons. Symbols and metaphors delight and intrigue me. You will find them here.
Keep taking chances. Keep going. Keep, keep going forward.~E-mail from a good friend
I'm more of a tortoise. The hare wears me out. Exhausts me. I need margin. A slower pace. At times I feel guilty about needing to move more slowly in life, feel pressure to accelerate my pace. Get it done faster. Especially with writing. There are now programs you can sign up for where you write a novel in one month. That makes me want to faint. I couldn't do it. Don't want to do it.
It's taken me three years to finish my current novel. Thousands and thousands of steps. One by one. A loyal tortoise, intentionally ignoring the hare, even though I see him out of the corner of my eye, rushing past and waving. Urging me to join his rapidity.
But the stars were still blanketed, out of sight. I wanted to see them. I wanted to feel their comfort.~Matt Haig (From The Humans)
Things just feel so out of control. They are.
The day after I returned from Italy, I got COVID. I'd had all the vaccinations. But I was still really sick. Coughing, stuffed up, fever, sneezing. Very weak. Couldn't smell anything. In quarantine on the second floor of my house. Away from my husband. Away from everyone.
But really, in the scheme of all that's out of control in the world, I have no reason to complain. I can rest, drink water, take medication, pray. Read. And text. So few people call anymore. That's okay with me. I'm not really a phone person anyway.
You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.~Psalm 65:11
Giovanni and I are edging closer to leaving Italy, this beautiful country. I took a last walk yesterday on the pathway that loops through the bucolic setting. The weather had cooled, and I felt a refreshing breeze on my face. A few bikers rushed past. Tractors harvested crops. A flock of white birds gathered to feast on the bits of grain left scattered in the fields.
Last year when I was in Italy, I often walked over to an abandoned farmhouse. I always thought that the weathered, broken-down structure could be restored--reconstructed into something beautiful again.
This is the most difficult thing I've ever done--to be in a country where I have so few words. Yet I choose to be here, reminding myself it is important to be grateful for the experience. This is how I grow. This is how I increase love and empathy for others. For myself. This is how I trust God. 'What is it like?' I ask myself.~Journal entry for September 7, 2023
Being underwater. The experience in Italy is like being underwater without an oxygen tank. I have only so much air in my lungs, only so much language. Even experiencing the beauty of Italy, like an underwater world--brilliantly colored fish and vivid orange coral--I can't stay long. I must surface for air, gulp down more oxygen. Sometimes if feels much easier to stay on the ocean surface than to take another deep dive.
Giovanni and I vacationed a few days with his sister and her friend on the Lago di Garda. His sister's generosity allowed us to stay in an apartment with breathtaking mountain vistas. Yet when you are spending a few days with others, you need words for soap and sheets, language for how to open the sliding glass door, and to tell others that you wrote another book and how to respond when they ask what it's about. And what's the word for "towel?" I knew it, but can't remember. "Breathe," I remind myself. My lungs are bursting. My oxygen is language and I have so very little. Dive again. Do it again.
Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.~Zen Proverb
Today Giovanni and I celebrate nineteen years of marriage. Our relationship carries the amalgam of vibrant romance, brazen conflict and two wildly different cultures. And we remain together despite this conglomeration of fragrance and thorns.
We are in Giovanni's country. Last week we rode the motorcycle across the Italian countryside. Fields of tomatoes flashed past us--red orbs gleaming amidst verdant meadows. Tractors amended the earth. Lavender mountains sat propped against the horizon, sun sliding onto their glorious faces. Castle turrets soared into cerulean skies. Still our love story unfurls across the years.
Yet marriage is deeply anointed by the oil of incremental daily steps.