Tiny Miracles and Holy Shit

 

Finally.

It is True Fall over here.
A blanket of yellow and red quivers on a bed of peridot grass. The air – slightly colder than my body would like it to be – drops frosty kisses on my plants and windows.
Here in California, rarely do we get to experience a season in true form. Usually it’s this hybrid creature – a mixture of all the seasons, in no particular order, splattered like paint on the months leading up to the close of the year.

I can no longer leave the house without coming back with an arm full of color-confused leaves. On especially lucky days, I also come home with a pinecone or two in my clutches. I scatter them throughout the house, mystifying a husband who does not see art and architecture in their unique form, but a sappy mess.

Oddly enough, as those of us in the state celebrate Thanksgiving, I am no more grateful today and I am on every other day. Relentless gratitude behooves a life of chronic illness. Being ill means I’m prone to anger, bitterness, and discontent. Gratitude keeps me soft, pliable. It keeps me aware of all the tiny miracles and holy shit whirring about my life like a beautiful tornado. Without gratitude, I would break and tear and wither like the trees outside my window.

Today, my goal is to further investigate the GIVING part of Thanksgiving.
We are called not only to be thankful, but to react to that thankfulness with generosity and kindness and Love. To be a fragrant offering.

So, today, may all who come near you be met with the decadence of gardenias.

Happy Thanksgiving, sisters and brothers.

The Human Movement

 

I’m not sure what it is.
If it’s in the air.
If it’s in the water.
But it’s HAPPENING.
Lately, I’ve noticed more and more sisters bravely stepping out of the shadows of their lives and bringing their truth into the light.
As a creative, at times I struggle to walk what seems to me to be a very thin and distinct line. Either you have a pretty feed or you have an honest and ugly one.
I think that’s wrong. I think that’s a steamy pile of beaver bullets.
We don’t have to choose one or the other. We can choose BOTH. Because WE are both. Flawless and scarred.
Yes, I want my living room to be a place that provides comfort and ambiance, but not at the expense of who I am. Yes, I am a maker. But I’m ALSO a human.
A messy human.
A broken human.
An an extremely sensitive human.
Every couple of days, a depressed human.
This is me. This is us. Stained and sanctified. Ruined and wanted. We are violently immaculate.
So please don’t stop.
Please continue breaking the barriers and ripping down the pristine walls hiding your most succulent treasure. Do these hard things; be vulnerable and brave and gentle and awake. Be ripe. Be succulent.
Please PLEASE keep sharing your truth. I love your art, I really do, but I NEED your truth. Your truth makes me brave. It helps me to remember that I am not alone. It reminds me I am a sacred and important and holy piece in God’s toolbox, just as you are. And because when you are you and I am me, we change all the stupid rules keeping us apart.
Sisters, this is SO MUCH BIGGER than the maker movement.
We are doing THE HUMAN MOVEMENT.
We are growing and falling and breaking and soaring, and we never have to worry about the landing part, because grace will be there to catch us. Every time. Grace is never absent or late. Grace is always right there, just below you, waiting to help you back up.
Love you.
Be succulent.

It’s My Heart Beating

You wouldn’t know by looking at me,

but I’m sick.

Not in THIS moment. Right this moment I am eating a delicious bowl of rice in preparation for a workout. 3 months ago, however, I was writhing on the floor, every molecule on fire. 18 months before that, I was fighting for my life. Specifically not to take it into my own hands and end it. Pain. Pain. Pain. Depression.

Anxiety.

Delirium.

More Pain.

This was my world. My tiny, little, needle-sharp world.

Most days I would lurk near the kitchen window, look out, wonder what all the healthy people were going to do with their day. I became very angry with and resentful of healthy people, convinced that none of them were grateful enough for their lives. Today they would complain and grumble, spend hours worrying about things that didn’t matter, miss a thousand moments hand-stitched just for them.

During these horrific months that were just like geodes – bleak and hopeless on the outside, impossibly beautiful on the inside – I determined that being healthy is its own kind of affliction; blindness and apathy and joy atrophy.

Still. I envied them. Healthy people. Sometimes I would imagine trading places, dream about how I would spend their 24 hour day sooo differently.

I told the Lord, in one of my many pleas, bargains and wrathful monologues, that if He were ever to make me well enough again to leave the house, I would never take a minute of my life for granted.

Honestly, I’ve not been a perfect steward of the life He gave back to me. But I AM changed. I’m better. I think maybe sometimes God has to make you sick so He can make you better.

And fuller. And braver. And softer.

This life is gorgeous and brutal and fleeting. It’s NOT to be wasted. Not a smile, sparrow, or a sunset of it.

It’s ALL for ME and YOU. There’s a buffet of magic right outside your door. I swear it. I’m looking at it. It’s looking at ME. Reminding me I have eyes and ears, legs and feet, a tongue to taste, and lips with which I can kiss the love of my life.

I have no greater gifts than these.

I own nothing more precious than Right Now.

It’s just a business card, says the photo. “No. No, it’s so much more than that . . . it’s my heart beating.”

The One That Will Never Get Away

10 Years. Ten of them – IN A ROW. It’s not a little mind boggling when I really stop to think about it. Other than exist, I’ve never done anything for 10 years straight. Well, all right; I’ve brushed my teeth and shaved my legs, but only to avoid the unfortunate consequences caused by not doing those things. Which are, of course, wookie legs and gingivitis.

On May 22nd of this year my husband and I celebrated 10 years of marriage. He came home with a bouquet roses, a juicy fillet and asparagus, and a bottle of champagne I sucked on until the very last drop slithered down my gullet. He also got me a little something, which turned out to be a lottle something, because I am easily delighted and slightly manic and tend to get excited and make a VERY BIG deal about little things. Done well, they’re better than big things, I think.

He bought a dozen bags of Skittles, in a variety of flavors, then separated them – one by one – into mason jars, creating his own “special blends.”

I’m not going to lie. He knocked this one outta the friggin’ park. Not only are they pretty to look at, a confection of color, jars of art, but — SKITTLES. Yum.

We celebrated the day by staying home, drinking the whole bottle of champagne, and watching Jimmy Fallon clips on YouTube. It was fabulous. We will do BIG celebrating this summer when we road-trip-it to San Francisco for TEN days! One for every year. That wasn’t intentional, but I rather like it; it’s fitting and feels right.

But to be honest, a decade ago, as I waited for the pastor come collect me and my entourage, Canon in D Minor wafting up the staircase, I wasn’t sure I would ever see ten years. Most brides are blushing and glowing and flicking scepters are their poor indentured bridesmaids doing everything from blotting spackled lips to waving thuribles to ward off evil spirits. I was calm, serene even. Frigid as my feet were, I knew I would say “I do.” It’s true I love a good spectacle every now and again, but my wedding, a 15k affair, wasn’t the time for one. I would marry my husband because I told him I would, and because he was a good man that would love me and take care of me. And I would do the same. For how long – that was the question. My heart was a mess and there were tears in my eyes; tears my guests mistook for tears of joy, as I glided down the staircase, smiling on cue, aware of the camera capturing what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. I dutifully took my place beside my fiancé. A broken girl in a stunning white dress, I took his hands.

“We are gathered here today . . .”

The next thing I knew, ten years had passed. I decided to write my husband, Michael, a letter.

 

Love Never Fails

I’m not big on Valentine’s Day. I am big on Love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

 

 

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

 

Happy Another Day To Love Someone.

 

~ Cara