Re-Gifting {3}

Time for a little Friday reflecting on the beautiful gifts of this week.  I even have a few pictures to go along.  And to kick it all off, I'm thankful I FINALLY figured out why the Linky Tool hasn't worked, at the bottom of the post, for anyone to link their own blog posts to.  It's this simple: I just needed to change my blog template.  Apparently I'd chosen one of the few template options that isn't compatible with Linky Tools, among many other things.  Phew.  So, here we go.  I find it's much easier to write this list when I've been jotting it down all week long...

1) Working out kinks in my blog design - yipeeeeee!!!

2) New running shoes, and rocking BOTH at once.

3) Name change and new photo on driver's license (Praise God, no more picture of me with dark brown hair.  It was a phase.)

4) A week of "firsts": First time walking all around without the aid of any devices in three and a half months. First trip to the gym with my now husband.  First time going on a walk together since the wedding. First time taking out trash and recycling since my injury (and strangely, really stoked about that little feat). First time washing and vacuuming the car in... well, suffice it to say, it's been awhile. First early morning swim in the lake since we moved here.

5) Coupons for haircuts and, much to my surprise and delight, an outcome I like.

6) Lunch with my family on a rough anniversary.

7) Goat and umbrella decals, custom-made with love.

8) Ricardo's ongoing Albertson's treasure hunt.

 
 

9) Parking on a towel at the beach in Kirkland, watching a kite surfer with glee.

10) A bag of "new" clothes, hip hand-me-downs fitting perfect.

11) Watermelon water, homemade, snuck into the movie theater.

12) Lovely salmon on their journey through the Locks.

13) Neon bandaid decorations on a stinkin' cute kid (read: my niece).

14) Swimming twice in one summer day, just because I can.

15) August 27th: My back-to-work date.

16) That one blackberry I could reach, plump off the bush.

17) Practice walking without a limp (not limp-free yet, but working on it!).

Anyone care to join in? I'm not kidding, I'd be so thrilled to read your lists, too.  Don't be shy.  If you have a blog and want to give it a shot, just post the list on your blog, then link up here, at the bottom of this post.  If you don't have a blog, no worries.  You can leave a list in the comment section...

Starting points: A tribute to Papa

I will remember the last conversation between Papa and I forever as eerily punctuating my transition to writerhood.  The temperature remained solidly in the upper eighties that week in August as he and I worked together on an outdoor painting job.  I painted in shorts and a bikini top, to maximize the inevitable tan, since we were mostly working secluded in a backyard.  Working between free-flowing conversation and silence, we had been talking about my plans for the near future.

I was but two months out of grad school, just two and a half weeks out from packing my belongings into my Honda civic and driving cross country with my dad to Minneapolis.  I had big hopes for working with an organization in the city that provided culturally creative mental health services to refugee clients who’d survived major traumatic events.  This is what I’d been grooming myself for in grad school these past two years, and really, what I’d been preparing for all of my twenties.  And here I was, twenty-seven, finally on the brink of launching out into my field.

I stopped to give my forearm a quick break and turned to look at my dad a few feet away with a paintbrush.  The sun fixed its gaze on me with beady eyes, until the sweat crept from my temples and quietly rolled down my cheeks.  “Papa?”

“Yeah?”

“I know this sounds crazy and ridiculous, considering I just finished school with a Master’s in counseling, but, all I’ve wanted to do since finishing school is to write.”  I studied his face, which didn’t look at all surprised by this confession, feeling a secret weight roll off my heart.  I hadn’t told this to anyone.

“I don’t think that’s crazy, honey.  If writing’s what you want to do, then do it.  You’re an incredible writer, I’ve always thought so.”

I nodded my gratitude.  I could always count on my dad to understand.  After all, I’d inherited my distaste for conventionality, my hunger for adventure, my artistic bent, from him.  My dad didn’t fit into a box, and I admired him for that.

  

“I don’t know what that means,” I continued, “Where to start, what to write, what, if anything, I’ll ever publish.  I just know it’s in me, it’s what I love.  Much more than counseling.”

Our conversation shifted to plans for the big move.  Something in me felt that I’d just gotten the blessing from my dad, to be something more than I went to school for.  To unleash more creativity in my dreams for life.

I recalled this conversation with a growing sense of displacement and detachment just a few days later.  The evening following our conversation, I sat down to write.  Finding a computer with internet access in the ICU waiting room at Harborview Medical Center, I posted a note on facebook requesting prayer for my dad.  He fell off a ladder and hit his head on the concrete driveway while painting that morning.  Now he lay in a coma in the hospital.  I had no clue what sorrow the next week and months and years would bring, only this deep down rumbling, this knowledge that I would not be taking that cross country trek to Minnesota with my Papa after all.

And I was right, life had a very different turn in mind.  Nine days after that conversation with Papa, he passed away, not having woken from his coma.  The past four years have been my journey to uncover and accept the beautiful in a landscape of rubbish.  It’s a story very much in process.

The story continues today over at DaySpring's blog, my first online "publication," and a fitting tribute to my Papa on the anniversary week of his passing...

Just Write: River of concrete

A three man band plays to the street underneath a tent, singing of a man born near a river of concrete.  He thought the river always would run dry, or so the song goes, carrying me along with the riveting pluck of mandolin strings and percussion beat.  And I sit enchanted on a plastic chair in the middle of an L-shaped river of concrete on the edge of our little downtown.  The river here is all but dry, though the sun bakes us through the middle.  It teems with life.
  

I watch a steady flow of people moving up and down the street with cloth bags and a leisurely pace, a cool breeze blowing. Arms and bags and mouths fill with chocolate truffles from the shop down the street; an organic artisan ice cream truck; handcrafted cheeses; bouquets of flowers as vibrant as the scarves sold at Guatemalan markets; garden grown bushy leaves of kale, bunches of carrots, heads of cabbage, the final crop of apricots, plump peaches, tender plums, husks of corn, green tomatoes, snap peas; gluten-free goodies; farm-raised cuts of beef, lamb and pork; food trucks offering beef or pork tamales, quesadillas stuffed with market fresh veggies, gourmet burgers, wood-fired pizza, and spicy sausage dogs.

The music continues to carry us with the current through the streets.  The woman spoon-feeding her elderly mother ice cream.  The young dad with long hair and sandals, pacing back and forth with a sleeping infant nestled in a pack against his chest.  The little girl with shiny black hair and dark eyes waving shyly at me as she passes.  The teenage boy and girl lying on their backs in the grass, in the shade of tree, talking and laughing.  The small child pulled in a red wagon beneath a canopy, hauling fresh food for home.  The man on crutches trying to keep pace with his family.  We are all swimming in this river.

This is our Sunday market, concrete come alive.

Mercer Island Farmer's Market

* This post is linked up with Just Write, a Tuesday free-writing exercise.

Re-Gifting {2}

Friday is here, time for the second installation of Re-Gifting, and on the correct day this time.  Hehe.  I tell you, being without schedule is completely disorienting.  So let's try this again.  It didn't receive any responses the first time around, and just maybe, it will take a little time and coaxing to catch on.  That's OK.  Whoever wants to join in, I think we could have ourselves a little fun with our re-gifted lists of gratitude.

1) Hard conversations working to deepen love

2) Friends of different ages, and not even noticing

3) Heart etched in a mound of red spice

4) Ethiopian cooking class

5) Sharing a meal with strangers

6) Conspiring with others to bless someone we love

7) Handwritten card from Grandma, with an unexpected gift inside

8) Weekly check for medical leave

9) Calf stretch growing wider

10) Shoes on both feet for the first time in 3 1/2 months

11) Cluttered house, reminding me what's more important

12) Scar on my leg, reminding me of lessons learned in injury, of the gift of recovery

13) Delirious giggling

14) A dip in the lake at dusk and picnic dinner

15) Peace that truly surpasses my understanding

Ok, friends, I'd be so thrilled to read your lists.  Remember, there aren't any rules.  Lists can be any length, about anything big or small or somewhere in between.  Just give them thought and make them about real gratitude.  Oh, and I'm still working out the kinks to make this easier and more sophisticated for those with blogs (using Linky Tools).  Very soon, you should be able to add your blog as a link to a list below and upload a thumbnail image to go along with it.  For now, however, please leave your list in the comment section.

Prayers for Terence

 

Some days, I admit, I haven't wanted to get out of bed.

I haven't always realized what a huge gift it is,

to get out of bed.

And walk. 

 

And some days, I, too, have sat by the bed of one I loved, 

playing my guitar and singing with as much faith as I could muster to the God 

who always hears.

 

 

It's too easy to take the ones we love for granted.  

This couple, in their own journey, have shown me a glimpse of what real love is.  

And it takes my breath away, it's that pure.  

What a gift it is to look into the faces of the ones we love, 

as long as they have breath, and let our eyes do the talking. 

 

 

To refuse to give up on living life, savoring each moment as long as you are here ... 

this is something even cancer cannot steal, 

as Terence and his family have shown us. 

 

There are moments, too, that will forever be etched in our minds,

 framed on our hearts.

These are the ones we reach out and take hold of gently,

storing them away for the days when we need to remember love.

For love lives on,

always.  

 

Terence, Terence.  Eyes so blue and pure and true.  Thank you, for showing us the way of love ~ in the quiet strength of your smile, your unwavering persistence, your selflessness and faith.  Thank you, for showing us Jesus.  He holds onto you, as you hold onto him.  And he won't let go. 

My prayers are with Terence Luttrell and his family, as he continues to fight for his life and hold onto Jesus.  

Please join with the thousands who are praying. 

 

liveabovecancer-terence.blogspot.com

 

Just Write: Four years of water

What a difference four years makes.  One thousand four hundred sixty-two days, in fact, since I've seen my dad alive.  Yesterday marked four years since our family got the call that catapulted us into an eight-day vigil in the ICU at Harborview Medical Center.  Dad in a coma. 

But I'm not here to reminisce about those eight days, or the one thousand four hundred fifty-four after, since he's been gone.  I've already written a lot about this journey of grief, in the nitty gritty raw emotion of experience, but today, I'm just thinking about how grief and water go together.  What can I say, I'm a girl who likes her similes.

In the ICU, grief was like a raging river, dragging us along in the grip of its current.  We could hear the waterfall roaring in the distance and hoped we'd be rescued from the river before we reached it.  But on August 13th, we fell over the top of the falls as we said goodbye to Dad - Mom and Sis and the rest of our family and me - tumbling together to the bottom, paddling to stay afloat.  

In my bereavement counseling internship, leading up to Dad's death, I learned that grief is not linear.  It's more like waves of the ocean.  Waves that start off looming large, cresting hard and frothy, falling in cascading roars like the open jaws of a lion.  In the beginning, one wave hitting after another, eventually spacing out.  And over time, those waves decrease in intensity, less distance to fall from the height of emotion to the surface of the sea.  But anyone in grief knows, a sneaker wave can come in at any time.  I remember those waves very well.  Every now and then, a wave still hits, though they're spaced out much farther apart and not often as intense as those earlier months.  

In Guatemala, less than two months after his death, grief was like the thunderstorms that popped up in a matter of one minute of an otherwise warm afternoon.  The skies would open and release torrents of rain in a clash of thunder, relentlessly, for several minutes.  And then, the clouds rolled up and the sun returned.  I remember standing in awe of those thunderstorms, almost in jealousy, wishing for the ability to release my grief with such force, only to peel back the clouds so quickly and allow the sun to shine again.  

And now, grief four years out, feels more like coasting along in a tamer river.  Most of the time, I'm floating the river and it's peaceful and gentle.  And then I'll hit a little whirpool here, or a stronger current there, and occasionally some rapids that toss me around for awhile.  But most of the time, I'm just floating, remembering the man who helped bring me into this world and walked alongside me for twenty-seven years.  The man who gave me his eyes and blonde hair, a quirky sense of humor and ability to laugh at my own jokes, an affinity for words and my propensity for dreaming.  Yes, I think of him. 

*This post is linked up with JustWrite, a Tuesday free-writing exercise

Re-Gifting {1}

At the end of this week, I find myself wanting to look back.  Not in regret or introspection, but in reflection and gratitude.  It's not a new thing for me, this topic of gratitude, but I have a small idea that I think I'd like to try out, specifically on Fridays here on my blog (by the way, I realize just now that I jumped the gun and it's not Friday... but we'll just get an early start this first time!).  I just need some others to join me.

I'd like to call it Re-Gifting.

What if, every Friday, I were to close the weekdays and enter into the weekend on an intentional note of gratitude?  I'm not one who typically enjoys making lists or reading other people's lists... but when it comes to thankfulness, that desire changes.  It actually helps me, changes me, to make lists of the gifts I'm thankful for (even the hard stuff), and if I make a practice of doing that on Fridays, what a great way to remember. 

So, why Re-Gifting?  It just fits.  I know this term often has a slightly negative connotation (e.g., getting rid of our unwanted gifts), but in this case, I like it as a way of sharing the gifts we have with others through written word.  Maybe some of my weekly gifts include something I appreciate about someone else or an interaction with a person that positively impacted me, and my sharing it is a way of giving the gift back to them and touching someone else... 

But I don't want to stop with posting my lists alone.  What gets me really excited is the thought of you, my readers, some whose names and faces I know and others I've never met, sharing your lists here.  In this community.  To inspire each other.  To challenge each other.  To remind each other.  Would you join me in this simple venture?  It doesn't have to be long or eloquent or profound - or even comprehensive.  The simplest of lists will do.  Just be sincere and own it.  

If you'd like to join me, please post your list on Fridays on your personal blog and link back to this site, then post the link to your blog in the comment section here (I need to figure out a more streamlined way of doing this, as I see happen on other blogs, but for now this will have to do).  If you don't have a blog, you might consider starting one, or simply let us know some of your gifts in a comment.  Either way, it's great to hear from each other.

Here we go... my first (delivered on Thursday) Friday Re-Gifting list:

1. Stumptown coffee, browsing bookstore, salted caramel truffles and fried plantains with  Ruthie

2. Mastering new technological skills after frustrating hours of trying

3. Ricardo's beaming face, holding up new polo shirts with his business logo printed 

4. Engrossed in the Olympics, for hours on end

5. An aching heart for a family in pain, driving me to pray

6. Stiff limping barefoot in the house, first time without a walking boot on my injured leg 

7. Breaking a sweat on the stationary bike after months of no workouts

8. Lingering in long conversation with my sweet Leah in the summer afternoon

9. Husband scrubbing dishes in the bathtub when the kitchen sink is plugged

10. Catching up with Juli (and seeing bubbly baby Andrew) at Volunteer Park Cafe

I hope we can have fun with this together.  If you're interested in reading more about keeping lists of gifts and living full of gratitude, check out the author who inspired me on this journey and her bestselling book, One thousand gifts.

Happy Re-Gifting, friends!