the lone bellow.

So have you ever experienced that thing that happens when your soul crashes into your skin and you realize that you want to express more than your body will allow you to? That thing that makes you want to fling your arms open just to get it out or fist pump or yell or shake someone and say, "Do you understand how awesome this is?!"

Music does this to me. And most recently, The Lone Bellow did this to me. My friend recommended it and so I bought the album without ever having heard a note. And wow. Best purchase in a long time. As I started listening in my car, I continued to turn the volume up, turn the volume up, turn the volume up. And I found myself continuing to drive just so I could keep listening.

From the very first note in 'Green Eyes and a Heart of Gold' I knew that I would love it all. I don't know if it's the music, the lyrics, the sounds of those three voices together, or all of it. But it is absolutely amazing and eventually brought me to tears.

Lyrics like these from 'Bleeding Out':
All the buildings, they lean and they smile down on us
And they shout from their rooftops words we can’t trust
Like you’re dead, you are tired, you’re ruined, you’re dust
Oh, you won’t ‘mount to nothing, like thanks full of rust

But we scream back at them from below on the street
All in unison we sing, our time’s been redeemed
We are all of the beauty that has not been seen
We are full of the color that’s never been dreamed
And these from 'Tree to Grow':
A tree I’ll grow, to let you know
My love is older than my soul

You should listen to these songs. You should listen to these words. Let them transport you and let them affect you.

in retrospect.

Looking back to this point last year, quite a bit has changed since then. Some of these changes have been wonderful and fun and exciting and I have embraced them with every step. Others have been every bit the opposite and I am resigned to say that I have not always managed these instances with as much grace or acceptance.

Over the last year these are some of the things that occurred. I got a cat. I ran my first marathon in Nashville and then liked it so much I ran my second one in Portland 6 months later. I got trained to practice EMDR at work and then we hosted a training to have everyone in our agency trained. My Granny passed away. I did some of my own therapy. My younger sister got married. I had yet another round of roommates move in. I watched more friends get married and have babies. We had a remodel at work and then we hired 6 new staff and increased our team size to 20 people, the biggest its ever been. I joined Match. I've gone on dates with new people, not a ton of which were very good dates. I SWITCHED churches. I made new friends. Lost touch with some old friends. Even more friends left Dallas. And I started to really examine what I believe about life and about people and about how those things work together.

A realization that comes up upon looking back is that at 6 months from turning 30, my life actually looks nothing like what I thought it would at this point. In some ways, it is much better than what I had expected or planned. In others, my heart and chest well up with pain and sadness at the loneliness that these differences have meant. Reconciling both of those feelings together feels odd and almost impossible, but I have a sneaking suspicion that is actually how life tends to go.

Being half a year from 30 and single for someone who has always desperately wanted a family of her own continues to be a tough pill to swallow. I hear all the time, "But you're actually so young! You've still got plenty of time!" There was a time in my life when those sentiments have been helpful. That time is no more. When your best friends started getting married when you were 21 and you've been a bridesmaid now 9 times, you start to lose hope in that sentiment. Please pardon the bitter...it sneaks out sometimes.

It's not all hard though and in some ways this has been my best year yet. I feel like I have learned who my true friends are and that is an invaluable gift. I plan to keep running which makes me really happy and proud of myself. And I am really proud of the work I do. In a lot of ways, that is the most fulfilling and meaningful part of my life and I absolutely wouldn't trade that. I get to go to work everyday knowing that I get to be the face and voice of safety and acceptance for someone who has known very little of that, sometimes recently but more often throughout their entire life. That makes me proud.

So here's to the next year as this one draws to a close. I feel like I pushed myself in a great many ways during this last year and I hope to do that again. And here's to hoping there will be someone standing beside me at the end of it.

a new review: bread & wine

Folks, you all know my love for the writing of Shauna Niequist. Her books and words and sentences are one of the things that most refreshes my soul. And, having had the opportunity to spend time with Shauna herself, these words and sentences that she writes could not be any more authentic to the person that she actually is, so naturally this makes her written words all the more powerful.

I have been given the great privilege to read and review her latest book, 'Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes.'

Three words: I loved it.

But seriously, was there a chance I wouldn't? Shauna does what she does best by interweaving her own experiences and honest insights while drawing broader conclusions about life, all the while in this go-round including recipes that tie into these experiences. As the title would suggest, many of the stories Shauna chooses to share are centered around the table, a place she calls "the place where the doing stops, the trying stops, the masks are removed, and we allow ourselves to be nourished, like children."Shauna recounts all the people, places, and ways she has fed people through the years and how each of these encounters felt significant in its own way.

One of the ideas that Shauna promotes in 'B&W' is to start where you are, the idea that you don't have to be the perfect hostess or an accomplished chef to have the people you love over and to feed them. The key is creating a space where people feel welcomed, at home, and safe to be themselves. She describes this, saying, "I wanted cars parked all the way down the street, and people who came in without knocking, so familiar with our home that they mixed their own drinks and knew where to put the dishes after drying them." This is the thing about life around the table, it's familiar. And those faces are family.

Another theme that was very prominent throughout 'B&W' was the pervasiveness and power of shame. This theme continued to pop up over and over again and it was one of the most helpful and freeing things about this book because of Shauna's trademark honesty. These are the kinds of things she says about shame: "It whispers to us that everyone is as obsessed with our failings as we are." "Shames tells us that we're wrong for having the audacity to be happy when we're so clearly terrible. Shame wants us to be deeply apologetic for just daring to exist." To know that someone else has felt this way, that I am not the only one, was a profound thing to read and it is there because Shauna dared to be honest.

The importance of being present with people, both around the table and just in general, was another idea that was touched upon over and over again, almost methodically. It would seem, in fact, that this very idea of being present with people, is the whole point of this book and in many ways the point in Shauna's other books as well. I think that may be what I love most about her writing. She values people and relationships and the experiences in life, like sharing a meal, that make us slow down and really focus on what really matters: each other. She talks about her friends from her former house church, seemingly her dearest friends, and says this of them, "They were our people, our stand-in family, our truth tellers, our problem solvers, our middle of the night phone calls and unannounced stopovers." I LOVE this. It made me stop and think, "Who are these people in my life?" And I knew immediately. And I even called one of them and thanked them right then for being this kind of person in my life. These kinds of relationships ought to be celebrated, cultivated, and sought out. And Shauna's book encourages all these things.

Another fun bonus of this book is that at the end of each vignette, a recipe is included that corresponds with that story. I have made the Farmers Market Potato Salad: delicious.  The way Shauna talks about food will make you hungry, so I suggest reading with a snack.

I loved this book and I think you will too. It will be released in April and you can pre-order on Amazon now.

Here you go: http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Wine-Finding-Community-Around/dp/0310328179/

You should do that. I promise, you will thank me when you're finished. And while you're at it, you should read her other two books as well. They are 'Cold Tangerines' and 'Bittersweet'. Also, you can read more from Shauna on her blog here: www.shaunaniequist.com.

the year of cooking.

I'm not really into New Years resolutions, but I do generally try to identify if there is an area of my life I would like to work on during the next year. Some may call that a New Years resolution, but whatever. That's too much pressure.

So last year I decided I wanted to exercise more and Voila, I'm running a marathon in April. Exercise goal...check. This year, my focus is cooking. I realized how much I eat out and in opposition how much I enjoy cooking when I actually do take the time to do it. Also, I bought this cookbook, 'The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook' for my mom for Christmas. As I looked through it, I realized how 'do-able' those recipes are and that they all sounded like foods I would eat. There it is. Goal for 2013.

Part of my lack of cooking has always fallen on my excuse that it's hard to cook for only one person. I blame things like not wanting to eat the same thing all week or it spiraling me into a dark depression that I have no one to share this food with. Alas, I no longer feel I can use these excuses and am discarding them as irrelevant.

2013 will be the year of cooking for me. So bring on the cookbooks, blenders, and randomly needed ingredients. Hopefully by this time next year I'll be as satisfied with my progress as I am in the exercise arena from last year.

for granny.

Granny,

I’m not sure which words to say first. Should I first tell you that I love you, I’ll miss you, and can’t believe you’re gone? Or should I tell you all the things that I loved about you and what made you so very special to me. I guess I can do both.

First, I love you with my whole heart. You were such a sweet spirit and constant presence of love, gentleness, and good humor. How lucky am I that I got to call you my grandmother? I will miss you immensely and so desperately wish that I’d had the chance to tell you how much I love you one more time or had the chance to tell you goodbye. I really can’t believe that you’re gone and was in no way prepared for a world of mine in which you do not exist. A comfort to me comes in knowing that you most likely were in no pain and that you are most certainly in a place with no pain now. 

You were my granny. You were there, present, consistent, loving, and ever so thoughtful toward your family and your grandkids. What a blessing you were to so many people. There were so many things you did so well, but one of my favorite attributes of yours was your ability to make some incredible food. You know that your meatloaf, banana split cake, and macaroni and cheese have always been favorites of mine. In your honor, I’m going to do my best to make the banana split cake this year at Christmas. It won’t be as good as yours, but then nobody’s would be. 

I loved your Christmas bags that you sewed yourself. It was always so much fun opening gifts at your house out of those. I loved the plastic apple full of jellybeans that was always full and ready to feed us a treat when we were at your house. I loved that you called your freezer an ice box still and the way you giggled when you thought you had been mischievous about something. I love the rolling chairs at your kitchen table and the fact that your trashcan was always a brown paper sack under your sink. I loved our tradition that I would always ring your doorbell over and over again until you answered your door. Looking back, I imagine that was rather annoying, but you never let on. You just answered the door with a big smile every time and always with the greeting, “Hi, hon.” I loved watching the Cowboys and Rangers with you and always being entertained by how invested in the games and players you would get. I love that you have had the same blue couch for literally as long as I can remember and the green astroturf on your front porch. 

I love the smell of rose soap because it always makes me think of you. Some of my earliest memories of spending the night at your house have that smell tied to them. What a wonderful reminder of you that smell will always be. I also love how much you loved Jesus. Thank you for that and for talking about it with me. 

Granny, I love you. I will miss you so much and am so sad that you are gone. I’m sad that you won’t get the chance to see me get married or have my own kids and that those people in my life won’t have had the chance to know you, but I am thankful that these first 28 years of mine had you in them. What a special woman you were.

With great love and affection,

Jessica

come on in.

One of the things I am learning that I find pretty valuable in relationships with people is actually a relatively simple thing. I don’t need people to be super entertaining, make the wittiest comments, or be the smartest. I don’t care one bit who is the coolest, has the most expensive things, or is the most socially connected. There is one quality that seems to stand out above the rest for me: presence. 

When someone is able to be present and consistent, that is a truly valuable quality to me. Some of my very favorite people are those that I know I can trust to do what they say they are going to do. That’s not to say that this is a rigid expectation of others always sticking with some original plan, but more a general reliability factor that can be expected. To use a technical term, I’m referring to what could be called “non-flakiness.”

This quality of presence doesn’t have to look very extravagant either. You don’t need to be present with me at a cool concert, event, or always doing some exciting activity. For me, presence actually means more in the everyday, routine things of life. Contrary to popular belief about single people, I would actually love to run errands with you and your kids. I would love to sit in the same room and read with you. I would love to clean up your kitchen if you let me eat dinner at your house. 

When people open their doors and their hearts and allow you to be a part of their everyday lives, that is the true presence that I feel is the most significant. It is significant because these are the moments that life is woven of, these everyday, routine, patterned times of life. It is significant because these are also the moments that are really easy to just let pass by and not include others in. But I tend to think these times are a gift because the people you can include in these moments of your life are the people you know are “your people.” These are the people that you know are in this thing with you because they’re willing to run to the grocery store with you or to go have your car inspected...just because. 

So for me, some of the best words are not, “Oh yeah, let’s get together soon” from someone that is all about a full social calendar or with people that may be really interesting but I know may cancel at any minute. The best words for me really are these familiar ones: “The door’s open. Come on in when you get here.”

the attempt.

Well, it has been about 6 months since my last blog post and after scanning back over my blog as a whole, I recognize the great sporadic-ness with which I write. This is about to change. 

I had coffee with my wonderful friend Steve this week and he has challenged me to write more and more regularly. I have committed to him to try and write 2 blogs a week, and he the same, and we will help hold one another accountable to this. I’m feeling rather shaky about my ability to hold down my end of this deal, but I’m going to do my very best to make the most concerted effort I can. 

For me, writing has always been a whimsy thing. I am not disciplined, not structured, and am on no real schedule. It has purely been something that I have used as a creative outlet when I needed a place to express myself. But what I’m finding and what I hear from friends who are real writers, like Steve, is that if you are serious about writing it can’t just be on a whim. If that’s how you write, you’ll never get any better and you won’t be able to pursue writing on any sort of grander scale.  

Blogs are great and a wonderful avenue to express our feelings and thoughts in a public way, but I have always had hopes of writing on a bigger scale. I would love to write a book or do some sort of writing that could be published. That is going to take discipline though and so here is my attempt at moving in that direction. This is my effort to see what happens, both internally and in my writing, if I begin to make it a habit of sorts. 

This is my attempt. Feel free to hold me accountable.