New Year's Eve, 2015

We drove home from out of town in the dark last night, but the headlights and streetlights were enough to show us there was ice everywhere. All we had to do was wait for the sun to come out. And today it did, firstborn of everyday miracles that it is, and it turned things silver--trees, power lines, blades of grass. This is the third time in my life I have seen this happen and I plan to carry it with me into the New Year: the memory of things touched, shining, un-captureable, un-keepable. And real. 

Light, 12/24/15:

Today's light: fractured, bent, scattered, dimmed, hidden. Beautiful. 

I keep thinking about this.

Light, 12/23/15:

Today's light: covered-over and breaking-through, over and over. 

How many ways is this story told every day?

Light, 12/22/15:

Today's light: for one moment it was something welling up from underneath.

Light, 12/21/15:

Today's light: dim, but then this.

Light, 12/20/15:

Today's light: sparks, flashes, warmth. 

Got lost in music, in making things, in the people around me. 

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Light, 12/19/15:

Today's light: brightest in the quiet places.

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Light, 12/18/15:

Today's light: handmade. Which is really more like a tapping-in, but it still counts.

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Light, 12/17/15:

Today's light: magnetic. Reminding me of every time I realized there was nothing 

to do but turn towards whatever light I could see at the moment.

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Light, 12/16/15:

Today's light: in stark contrast. Every time the sun came out today

I realized just how much I had missed it, and felt like a new person.

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Light, 12/15/15:

Today's light: asked-for and received. The day was long, and demanded much. And so in the interest of rest I gave myself five minutes to find something. It tells me volumes about the world that there always does seem to be something.

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Light, 12/14/15:

Today's light: peripheral. The way it rests on glasses stacked in the pantry cupboard, or glazes the detail on a vase, or plays with shadow on a wall, whether anyone notices or not. Which means really it is I that am on the periphery.

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Light, 12/13/15:

Today's light: a sheen over everything. Not long ago someone I love opened up about something. It is a thing that sometimes results in walls between people, but in our case it brought a wall down. And the light resulting from that toppled wall--it is a glow around us still. It is a light I want to pull through my skin, a light I want to breathe deep into my lungs. 

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Light, 12/12/15:

Today's light: morning sun through fog, through a dirty window, through a kaleidoscope.

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Light, 12/11/15:

Today's light: quiet. The end of a busy, busy week. 

Heavy fog, and the need to rest thick around us.

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Light, 12/10/15:

Today's light: I think I will call it some sort of defiance. 

The sunrise this morning was glorious and just kept getting better. Soon after, my Facebook feed was full of sunrise pictures. There are many things to pay attention to right now. I can feel their presence on my shoulders. I am determined to pay attention, and to respond. I am also determined that part of that response is, This exists, too, alongside of all that. And it matters that it will never stop being beautiful.

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Light, 12/9/15:

Today's light: bright, in dapples and stripes. Thoughts flash and flow on a morning run; it feels as if with every step my feet are pulling them free from the earth by the roots.

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Light, 12/8/15:

Today's light: a fiery sunset, a night (mostly) at home.

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Light, 12/7/15:

Today's light: stories. This has been on my mind a lot--how listening to the stories of others can open a heart, change a mind, illuminate both the inner workings and the path ahead. This could almost turn into a thankful post.

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Light, 12/6/15:

Today's light: we decorated. It was a highly imperfect process. (Highly.) 

And beautiful things came of it, anyway.

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Light: 12/5/15:

Today's light. I have been thinking about this all night--the ability 

to create and arrange bright spots. No small thing.

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Light, 12/4/15:

Today's light: sun through a frosted car window. I took pictures before scraping. There was not time, but also there had to be. 

When Oldest came out he helped me scrape. But not before stopping to take pictures.

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Light, 12/3/15:

Today's light: what these kids can do.

Light, 12/2/15:

Today's light: honestly, today was dark. I caught the news in between private students and Violin Project, and all I could think on my way to the school was, I am going to go spread light now, because it is the only thing I can do. And I saw Oldest walking through the park on his way home, and I got to class and saw the faces of my students and the volunteers who help me and friends who teach at the school and Middle and Youngest because they wait for me after school and Oh, this work drains me but all those faces connected to all those souls--they were the real light.





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Light, 12/1/15:

So it is the third day of Advent already, and as is my tradition I am late in observing it. I did not want to short-change the month of thankfulness by ending it early. I enjoyed that daily practice. At the same time, I have been looking forward to observing Advent by watching for and marking the light I see around me. I have always loved this season, and the light-charged air (holiday lights, Salvation Army bells, snowflakes.) It is so much more than pretty, now. 

Today's light: the first rays of morning--the ones that illuminate frost and make it glitter madly until it melts from the warmth. I have never thought it was fair that frost is brought to life and destroyed by the same thing, but I will admit now that it makes the moment the sun reaches across the treetops that much more precious. 

My car was generously spread with frost this morning. Like waves of buttercream. 

Thankful, 11/30/15:

For fancy cake on a Monday night. For quiet celebrations. 

For all the beautiful stuff that catches and holds.

Thankful, 11/29/15:

For laughter, driving home. For the light.

Thankful, 11/28/15:

For the new. For the chance to explore. For the stretching of mind and heart.

Thankful, 11/27/15:

For the intersection, the overlap, the edge. For what lingers.

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Thankful, 11/26/15:

For the fact that despite the imperfections, the messiness, the heartbreak, there is beauty here in this world. And love. And light. And always more to see, maybe, and always more to find.

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Thankful, 11/25/15:

For sky, for fields, for murmurations. For when we finally relaxed and enjoyed.

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Thankful, 11/24/15:

For every kind of window I find. For chances to see out. For chances to see in. 

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Thankful, 11/23/15:

For the feathers I keep finding, gathered off the floor on the final night of the musical and brought home as treasure. For the things that find their way in. 

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Thankful, 11/22/15:

For a quiet night. For time together.

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Thankful, 11/21/15:

For laughing together.

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Thankful, 11/20/15:

For every crack in every heart. 

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Thankful, 11/19/15:

(high school musical edition) 

For the moment before the curtain rises. For the continual awe of parenthood.

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Thankful, 11/18/15:

For how the warmth seeps in. For the silence at the end of the day.

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Thankful, 11/17/15:

For getting to see it in a different light. For how beautiful that can be.

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Thankful, 11/16/15:

For reminders.

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Thankful, 11/15/15:

For flowers that bloom while everything else is dying. For the sometimes-gift of feeling out of step with the world around you.





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Thankful, 11/14/15:

For laughter. Because of, in spite of, alongside.

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Thankful, 11/13/15:

For when words fail but you still have a voice.

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Thankful, 11/12/15:

For the possibility of looking at just the right moment.

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Thankful, 11/11/15:

For those who watch.

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Thankful, 11/10/15:

(Oh, the want in this world.) For the chance to ease it a bit when it comes to stand next to us.

Thankful, 11/9/15:

For full days. For moments within those full days when nothing exists except the sound of my own footsteps, the cold on my face, the thoughts in my head.





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Thankful, 11/8/15:

For the echo, the scent, the reflection. For how they change and charge a place.

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Thankful, 11/7/15:

For the play between made and found, old and new, chance and plan. For how things bound to this earth—the things I can touch—release the things bound inside my head and heart. For what can be done (say, with the newsprint ads that show up, unbidden, at my front door every week.)

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Thankful, 11/6/15:

For the fact that at night often people gather together to sing and make music. For the image in my head of the satellite picture that could capture the glow of this in a dark world. For the chance to be in one of those glowing places tonight.

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Thankful, 11/5/15:

For when the tears finally come. For that moment, later, when something breaks through and you know you will keep fighting.

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