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A blog by Krysta MacGray

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Loaves and Fishes

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I pulled into the Walgreens parking lot and into the lane for the drive through pharmacy. Hillsong’s Oceans played over the speakers. 

“Okay, that’s going to be five hundred dollars (—big pause—) Is that normal?” the woman behind the counter asks me.

“Sadly, it is. It’s an expensive prescription.” I say.

The prescription is for three months worth, but still. Five hundred dollars. I let the sum of the amount hit me hard. Five hundred dollars every three months for the rest of my life? I don’t want to be a person who takes daily medication. And the things is, I was starting to feel like maybe I wasn’t meant to either. 

I was diagnosed with Hashimoto Thyroiditis four years ago, but they tell me I’ve had it much longer. The ultrasounds of my thyroid show extensive damage.“It looks like Swiss cheese” the thyroid tech had told me. I had gone on thyroid medication the first time when I was twenty years old, and even though it was temporary and I was able to wean off, when I had another baby four years later and my hair wouldn’t stop falling out by the fistful, they put me back on. Then I weaned off again until I had yet another baby and then re-did this whole cycle once more and it was then—my fourth rodeo—that they told me this was a sign of a chronic problem. It wasn’t just an isolated case. Instead, we were talking a real live autoimmune disease. Lifelong medication. No cure. My body was confused and my immune system had begun attacking my thyroid and not a thing could be done about it.

Oh, I tried all the things that they say can be done about it. All the things people on the internet and in books say will help. I did every possible test you could do to determine the root cause of my disease. This, in an attempt to treat it, in hopes it would help. 

Autoimmunity is progressive, meaning it doesn’t stop. And usually, if you’ve been diagnosed with one autoimmune disease, chances are, you’ll be diagnosed with another and maybe another. People who are autoimmune tend to “collect” disease. There is no known cure for autoimmune diseases—any of them. Knowing this, I figured I’d better do everything I could to slow progression and not get another ailment.  

So I tried extreme diets and cleanses. I avoided caffeine and sugar and fruit and alcohol and grains, and legumes, and nuts and seeds and nightshades and a partridge in a pear tree. I survived basically on meat, veggies, avocado and coconut oil for months. 

Next, I did a heavy metal detox and got tested for food allergies. I got a colon cleanse and did a cleansing and detox of my liver. Maybe? It was either cleansing or detoxing or both. Something like that. Anyway, I also took all the supplements. Went in the sauna to sweat. Went to accupuncture to…well, I’m not sure. I fixed my leaky gut—if I had a leaky gut. And all this time, I got my blood checked faithfully. Blood checks were necessary for me to see how much progress I was making and with all this change, sure enough, my Hashimoto antibody numbers went down. This is doctor talk for “I got better.” I mean, my hair still fell out like crazy, which was always my main symptom, so I couldn’t really tell, but my blood work said I was better-ish.

I tell you everything I did and yet I’d be remiss to not emphasize this fact: I was completely gluten free for three years. Anyone who knows anything about Hashimotos knows that gluten will kill you dead. 

I kid, I kid, (barely).

So because of all this work, my antibodies went down, but they never got below a certain point. They just sort of hovered around a couple hundred year after year with little variation while I did everything I could think of to do. That is, until in the most ironic twist of my life ever, my numbers went lower than they ever had before after I reintroduced gluten to my diet. 

I knew it, I thought. I just knew the whole time I was avoiding it that it wasn’t about the gluten. 

It was about something else. 

Now I found myself in line at a Walgreens pharmacy, having just spend five hundred dollars on medication I didn’t want to take, for a disease I was becoming more and more convinced had spiritual roots.

When I was first diagnosed, I read about there being spiritual roots to autoimmunity, but it all seemed a little hard to comprehend. Like, they say for *some* people, autoimmunity has spiritual roots but it seemed too nuanced and personal to untangle. Could be this, could be that, could be none of that, could be all of that, WHO KNOWS, ISN’T THIS A FUN GAME?

So I stopped studying about spiritual roots because even without that element, Hashimoto is multi-fasited and so complex. Like, it has to do with hormones and stress and diet and gut health and heavy metals and viruses and parasites and constipation and your emotional state and exercise and just EVERYTHING. And it’s exhausting. And as I reached across to grab my bag of mediation from the nice pharmacist lady at Walgreens while Hillsong’s Oceans played in the background I thought “I don’t ever want to have to buy this stuff again.”

I had the thought because of something that happened earlier that week. Something I haven’t told you yet, which is this: Lately I had had the thought that God might heal me. But I also wasn’t sure. BECAUSE HOW CAN YOU VERFIY GOD SAID HE MIGHT HEAL YOU? What if I’m just crazy? This seems the most likely answer. And yet. I was beginning to think that maybe He really and truly was going to —ahem—perform a miracle.

For me.

Would He? Wouldn’t He? Hope and doubt danced together in my brain and as I drove away in the tears of it all, I prayed along to the song:

“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior”

See, what happened before this was, I was going about my life normally when I came across this organization, or maybe it was a church? In any case, I came across a group of people who said they were Christ followers and said that through knowing, loving and living your life for Christ, along with addressing your strongholds—which I guess means “things that hold us back from living a Christ like life”and then taking accountability for our sins and renouncing them, or I guess “making a conscious decision to turn from them and not doing them habitually anymore because you finally realize the little things matter and you want to trust God when he says this is how you should live,” and then addressing any bitterness you might be harboring for people along with unforgiveness and pride, or “exaulting or glorifying yourself” and all the other stuff we nurse that brings death instead of life to our bodies by not allowing ourselves to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, all that stuff keeps us from healing. And in telling you through the longest run-on sentence of my life, that is what they say. They also say when we address these things and surrender our lives over to Christ and are free from lies that hold us back and keep us slaves to sin, and then know WHO WE ARE in Christ and live from that place, it allows our bodies to heal because we are finally functioning the way were were created to so the body is no longer confused or harboring unfavorable things in it.

You know. Just your normal everyday message to stumble upon.

The thing is, this idea makes complete sense to me if the kind of healing we seek has spiritual roots. And I do believe a lot of sicknesses we suffer have spiritual roots. But not all. What about when people who already walk with God intimately like this get sick? What about mental and physical handicaps, which get healed a lot less frequently? What about people who are not supposed to be healed? Who are being called home to heaven? What about falling into thinking that there is some formula, and that if we just found it, and renounced all our sins, and figured out every last person we hold grudges or bitterness against and then figured out, down to the nitty gritty, where we are in error and turned from that and then made amends and humbled ourselves and denied ourselves and figured out who we were in Christ and just DID ALL THE THINGS PERFECTLY AND COMPLETELY then we could get the miracle. What about falling into that thinking? Thinking there are works we can do to what? Earn healing?

This does not sound like my God. And I’m sure this is not how it’s presented. But it’s where I knew I’d go. I’m sure God uses healing programs like these to bring people into truth and healing and if I had been further led to go, maybe I would have, but as it stood, I AT FIRST felt led to go, and then immediately all these thoughts came up. I discerned a big pause. (and no, it wasn’t a “spirit of doubt” or something like that. This was God’s still small voice saying, “hey wait a minute. Let’s unpack this for you. I may have something else for you.”) And so I started to consider. If I knew Jesus as Christ and Savior, and if He has made himself real to me and I am learning to walk with him, free from the enemy’s lies now, in real time, and if I’m learning by His grace to deny myself and renew my mind, do I really need to rely on a program, as good as it might be, to help me do everything He’s doing with me anyway? Or is the program for people who may not know Jesus as Christ or how to walk with Him out of their lives of bondage and all the things that keeps them there? 

It’s probably that last one, huh?

That’s what I decided. I decided that my savior was bigger than any program or formula or solution and the reason I felt conflicted over “am I going to be healed or not healed? And am I going to need to take medication for the rest of my life or will He help deliver me? Should I go to the program or should I stand firm in the faith I already have?” was because THAT IS WHAT I WAS CONFLICTED OVER. My focus was on the healing and how it might happen and if I was doing the right thing in order to make it happen, and would he or wouldn’t He. That’s what I was focused on. So as I drove away, both thankful and resentful of my medication, unsure if I’d need to pick it up again, I knew that it was the healer I needed. Because the healing and the healer are the same.

“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior”

Increase my faith. Increase my trust. Take me deeper into you. That is where the healing is because that is where You are. That was my prayer that day.

I decided I did not want Him for what he could do for me, but for what He had already done for me. Him making himself real to me that one day not too long ago—his opening of my eyes and making me a new creation in Him, that had been my prayer my whole life. I didn’t know that’s what I was praying that whole time. But it’s what I was praying. So now that I had it, I was certain it was the only thing that really mattered becuase it changed me. He had answered that prayer. And I had done nothing to earn it. So I decided, if He never chose to do anything else for me, it would be enough. His bringing me from death to life in this life would be enough. But that isn’t the end of the story.

Because I know him, I know he also wants us to ask, seek, and knock. He deeply cares about our hurts and ailments and unrest. He wants us to come to him with that. He wants us to come to Him for everything. That’s the whole point of having a relationship with Him, but inside of our wants, our needs, our yearnings, He wants us to trust Him whatever the answer. To trust that He is still good. That His grace is sufficient because this is what He says. And the only way this is genuinely possible is if he has made Himself real to you first. If you have been saved and brought to life in Him. And I had. So I decided to ask, seek, and knock, but first, to be still and know that.

Jeremy has a tattoo on his thigh that says “saved by grace” and as I was riding my mountain bike the day after Walgreens, I was struck by that. I thought “I bet we are healed by grace too. Not because of what we do or don’t do, even though what we do is evidence of us being followers of Christ– The being a follower of Christ thing, that’s the key, and you know what? I bet the Followers of Christ who are healed, are healed by Grace and grace alone. Even if the healing comes by way of the body coming into alignment with the mind of peace and how it was supposed to function all along. That was God’s design that it would function that way, wasn’t it? That was his grace.

We don’t receive healing because we obey or do all the right things. We obey because we have received healing already through Christ. The healing comes first from knowing Him and following Him. If the body follows, it follows. That’s why it doesn’t work the other way. We can’t pursue healing without meeting the Healer.

“God?” I prayed “I can’t renounce my sins perfectly because I can’t remember them all. I can’t follow you perfectly even though I try. I can’t make sure the quality of my prayers are always top notch or that I’ll say the right words or ask the right thing. But I was saved by grace and now I am asking you to heal me by your grace.”

I told Him I believed I had a spiritual disease, and that none of my works or obedience or anything I can ever do in my own power would ever be able to reverse it fully. I told him that if I tried I’d get wrapped up in legalism and it would take my mind off abiding which was my main call.

I finished “If it be your will, I accept healing by your grace and your grace alone. I ask you to redeem my body through your grace. My hope is in Christ alone. But, regardless of the outcome or whether you heal me or not, I trust you. I trust you with my everything.”

. . .

Jesus said “you’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.“

There’s this famous story in the Bible about the loaves and fishes, you may have heard of it? In it, Jesus was preaching to a huge group of people for hours already when it came time to eat. However, they were in the middle of nowhere and the only food found was five loaves of bread and two fishes. Because there were well over five thousand people present, it meant they could not even come close to feeding everyone. Still, Jesus had the crowd sit, and then he started passing out what little food they had, and as he did, it multiplied. By the end, after the whole crowd of over five thousand had eaten, the disciples picked up twelve whole baskets of leftover food. It was a wonderful miracle that the whole crowd had witnessed. The crowd was so happy to be fed, they were ready to declare Jesus king.

But the miracle isn’t the part of the story that resonates with me. 

What resonates most with me happens after. Because what happens the next day, after the miracle is performed, is the people who witnessed the miracle go looking for Jesus, and when they find him, Jesus says “you’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions, but because I’ve fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.”

Jesus then said “don’t waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what He does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.”  

So I guess it’s not about the miracle, or in this case, the literal bread which filled their stomachs. The bread is just the cherry on top. The bread is not the focus or the prize. God is. Jesus is. We must want Him because He saved us—because we see God at work—not for what he can give us now. What we really should want is the One who makes our stomachs filled, but not because we want our stomachs filled. 

For me this means, I should want Him more than the miracle. 

Because it’s Him that saves. It’s through Him we are provided all we need.

I think I always thought the bread was the miracle (along with everything else I think I need to keep my belly full and happy). But the best part of this whole story is when the people are all looking around like “huh?” after Jesus essentially says “you’ve only come looking for me for what you can get” Jesus then says “I AM the Bread. He who comes to me will never go hungry. He who believes in me will never be thirsty.” When Jesus says “I am the Bread” he is saying “I am what you seek.”

He is saying, I AM the miracle. The living miracle.

Then He says “the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. Whoever eats this Bread will live always.”

I’ve read the story about Jesus saying He is the bread of life before, but never, not even once did I connect it to the loaves and fishes story. I never knew the reason Jesus was talking about bread was because he literally just performed a miracle using bread and now that everybody came to him wanting more bread he had to be like, stop looking for the bread. I AM THE BREAD!

I mean, really.

The miracle isn’t the point.

Being healed isn’t the point.

Jesus is the point.

So that’s what I learned.

I’ll still asking. I’m still knocking because He wants me to, but I will not mistake the miracle for the miracle worker.

Because what I seek is Him. Above and below everything else, I seek Him.

I know this loaves and fishes story doesn’t answer the “Hashimoto Walgreens story” directly. Will He? Won’t He heal? But the thing is, I don’t think it is supposed to. What we do and don’t do, what miracles come, and which ones don’t, I think what I’m learning is through it all, what matters is that we realize He is the point and when He is the point, we are to come to Him. “We’re in pain” we cry. Jesus says ”Come to me.” It’s not an answer, and yet, somehow, it’s the complete answer. It’s the only answer. And when you know Him, really know Him, this answer is more than enough.

When I pray “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me” He says “come to me.”

So I’m coming to you, God— whatever your answers are, that is what they are—answers. But You are the point, and I’m coming to You, for You.

You are the bread.

May I never forget.

Ham is a Loser

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taken for his memorial video

Sometimes, it’s not wise to spout off what you actually think on the internet. But my whole job as a writer is to do just that. Spout off what I actually think. Yesterday I wrote an essay about my dog and it makes me look like an absolute monster. It’s also what I actually think. Houston, we have a problem.

This means that maybe I’m a monster.

I told Jeremy “I can’t post this! What will people think?” and he said “you can’t be the real you, huh?” which is exactly what I’m supposed to be! It’s just that the real me is usually not a monster. The real me is usually lovely. Then I go and say something like this and it’s scary because YOU MEAN I’M NOT MARY POPPINS BAKING BREAD ALL THE TIME? How can I let anyone know this?!

You probably already know because people are perceptive like that. You sense the edge. But dogs are a sensitive matter where I live. We are named “Dog Town USA” and I think this is why I’m the tiniest bit sensitive about it. I run the risk of people legit thinking I don’t care about my dogs. That when I post a picture of them sitting funny or something, that it’s all a show. But it’s not a show. Every morning I let them outside to pee and say “welcome to your day, guys! Welcome to your day! It’s the morning! Did you sleep good? Ohhhh, my baaaaabies!” While I scratch their ears and Jeremy looks on in horror. 

The thing of it is is that Ham though, he is just the worst. He’s a taker. 

You know why we ended up adopting him in the first place? We were at a Denver pet shelter called—I kid you not— The Dumb Friends League. 

You guys, The DUMB FRIENDS? That’s cold.

So anyway, we were eat the Dumb Friends League and I was originally there for a cat but then there was this chihuahua mix sitting all alone, so small in his cage looking up at me. That is, until he started blinking real slow like. He blinked once, then again, then once more a little slower, and then he just shut his eyes completely. We determined he fell asleep because he tumbled to the left. So to recap, he was sitting up, sleeping, and then fell over. And I felt so bad for him because what kind of dog does that? How was he going to survive this shelter in that condition?

So we adopted him because I felt bad for him.

And I still feel bad for him.

For three years in a row I thought he was seven years old. I kept saying “that dog is like, seven” and every time we would do the math and figure out he was only five and I’d be like FIVE? He is only FIVE? I am going to have this dog for another nine or ten years?!

What kind of life is this?

I told you. He’s a taker. He only comes around when he wants to be pet or needs something. Otherwise he sits on his perch, otherwise known as the tops of my couch pillows which DESTROYS THEM COMPLETELY, and ignores us, that is unless he isn’t policing the kids and other dogs. He barks incessantly when any of them  dare to run or yell, which is all the time, so all the time he is barking. I yell “Ham STOP IT” but he doesn’t. 

Remember in Jaws how that guy says to the other on the boat “he’s got those dead black doll eyes”? That’s Ham. Sometimes he looks at you and you can tell nothing is there. He’s soul-less.

I know you’re not supposed to say these things about your pet. I know it and yet, I can’t help myself. Ham is not a loyal best friend. He is a paranoid freak. He hasn’t always been. When he was younger and spryer he barked less. Came around more. I used to take pictures with him, even. One time, I realized I didn’t take as many pictures with him as a typical pet owner and I worried that when he died I wouldn’t have enough to fill a memorial video in his honor. So I started taking more pictures with Ham. For about a year I took so many intentional pictures until I realized I’ll never make a video. What is this imaginary video I felt I needed to make? Was I going to post it on Facebook? Here are some pictures of me and my dead dog set to an Enya soundtrack. Enjoy! 

It’s my husbands fault, really. I used to just feel bad for Ham. It was a growing pity. Not anything vehement. But then one day Jeremy said “ham is a loser” and I gasped. Don’t call him that! But then he started to sing. Started to make up a whole song about Ham and his loser ship. And a legendary moment in our family was born. It became a sort of anthem in our house. Together we’d sing it “ham you’re a loser. You’re not a winner” and we’d laugh and laugh.

Other hits followed: “raise you hand if you can’t stand Ham. Raise your hand if you can’t stand Ham! If you wish he would rot, like a dead old worm, raise you hand if you can’t staaaaaannnd Ham.”

Jeremy sang these things. Then WE sang these things and before you know it we were united in our thought. That dog was not a dog. He was a loser.

You know how they say there are no bad dogs, just bad dog owners? 

I am kind of a bad dog owner. I will be the first to admit it. I’m ashamed but it’s also the truth. I mean I LOVE my dogs. I feed them and I sneak them treats and I walk them way more than I would prefer because they are psychos on leash—and I cuddle them and even give them raw eggs when I’m making them sometimes. But they are not trained. I mean, Ham cannot even sit. He won’t sit for a treat. It’s very concerning. 

I tried. It’s not like I didn’t try. I hired a real live professional dog trainer to come in and teach me how to be the alpha of my dogs. Well—not of Ham. Ham is unteachable like I said. And old man stuck in his ways. He won’t sit for nobody! So it was really only for the Frenchies because we you know what we said to ourselves when life was just starting to calm down? We said “you know what would be a great life journey for us right now? Two French bull dog puppies!!! And while I’m not saying I *regret* it because I love them dearly, I do actually regret it. 

Like, if I could take it back without ever knowing my love for them, I might. But I can’t and so I’ll just continue to love them fiercely, give them eggs and walk them more than I’d like. But the point is the trainer came and told me what to do. And I did all the things. I followed through! And sure enough they learned some basics. They sit because they are normal dogs and can learn. Plus they want to please me, unlike Hammy. Still, they are unruly and like Ham, they bark constantly. 

My life is a constellation of barking and running and screaming kids. That it. I swear, except for all the good parts, that’s IT. 

And at the center of it all is Ham. 

But I realized the bright side the other day.  I was considering my life whilst in the midst of a barking blizzard and noticing how Ham starts all the beef with the other dogs. He starts it and can’t stop it—He’s so drama. And then I remembered something. See, Ham is not seven anymore. You guys, he is ELEVEN next month…

So, things are looking up. Cue Enya.

Grab The Mic

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Two days ago I prayed to God to please help me know a way to write my book. I have been trying and trying to figure out what. 

The hell. 

It is. 

About. 

Fervently and to no avail.

That same day I found out Dani Shapiro was coming to my little town in the mountains and giving a talk on her memoir “Inheritance.”

I went to instagram to thank her for coming. An author of her caliber does not often make Steamboat Springs, Colorado one of their stops. To my surprise she wrote me back.

“I’ll actually be skyping/zooming in, alas. The travel became too much of a concern. But please come. There will be a Q and A.”

The second I read it I know this is why I’m going.

I need to ask her a question.

I pretend as if I have the option to stay home. Like I don’t really need to ask because I have all the answers I need inside. Nevermind that I could not locate any of these answers this past year. But surely they are there. Surely I’ll find them on my own. Despite the disappointment of her to being there in person, and insisting the answers are already inside me, I am open to the notion that maybe a way to find them is following the nudge to ask?

At Library Hall I am gathered in a room with two hundred people who are all 60-75 years old with the glaring exception of me and a handful of others. Jenny is our MC for the night. She is a middle aged woman with brown hair pulled back into a high braided pony tail. She’s wearing glasses low on her nose, is dressed in earth tones, and says “um” after every other word.

Jenny welcomes Dani and the talk begins. So far nothing has been said that isn’t directly related to Inheritance, the book we are here to learn about. Dani has not said anything about writing. She is instead, talking about what it means to find out you are not who you thought you were. About finding out the truth. What happens then? This is what her book is about, having discovered in her fifties that she had been conceived by sperm donor and unbeknownst to her to that point, is another man’s biological child.

“I’m going to turn the mic over for questions now” Jenny says.

I sit there and my heart pounds as a women sitting a few seats away from me immediately gestures for the microphone.

Shit.

I was supposed to gesture before her. I sit while she asks something about one of the authors first books and whether or not she thought her main characters quote at the end of the book was foreshadowing for what was to come in the authors own life.

I look to the right and Jenny is already handing the microphone to another woman. Somehow, I’ve lost my chance again.

“You’re not going to be able to ask her your question if you’re not assertive” I hear a voice inside say. “You’d better figure out how to get that microphone.” So I do what I always do when pressure is mounting, and I tell myself it’s not that big of a deal. Maybe I shouldn’t ask my question anyway. Maybe it’s not meant to be. What if it’s not appropriate to ask a question about writing when all we’ve discussed is her book exclusively? No one else is talking about writing. I’m too nervous anyway. What am I nervous about? It’s just a question! What’s wrong with me? I should probably bow out and forget the whole thing.”

Then I remember what my therapist said to me in my EMDR session that morning. After I’d told her I was self conscious about talking about a lump in my throat (again) when I *should* to be talking about my fear of flying, which is why I’m there, she said “should?”

“Yes” I said. “I ‘should’ myself a lot.”

“I noticed that” she said. Which made me question whether my shoulds were actually helpful.

I breathe deep breaths as I try and slow my heart rate and worry about how I’ll ask the question if I do indeed ask. I can’t make it too much about me specifically. I’m surrounded by a bunch of people. This is public. Dani Shapiro is not my personal mentor. I have to be respectful of everyones time.

But you have a question to ask, I hear myself push. ASK IT.

I fix my eyes on Jenny. When her eyes start searching the room my hand shoots up toward her and she walks over and hands me the microphone.

My heart beats wildly and I can hear the blood in my ears and then, it’s my turn.

“Hi Dani, I’m Krysta from Instagram. I know you teach writing and so I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a question about the process?”

“Not at all” she says.

“Oh good. Have you ever written a memoir that, a good part of the way through writing it, you still didn’t know what it was about? And if not—how do you get clarity around themes while in the middle of trying to write?”

Dani doesn’t hesitate. “Trying to think about theme during the writing process is too overwhelming.”She says. “It’s like standing in a house and trying to look out all the windows at the same time. You can’t do it. You can only look out one window at a time and ask yourself the question relevant to that one window. Theme—it turns out to be whatever you’re obsessed with. Theme turns out to be the thing you just keep writing about because you can’t not write about it.”

She took a breath.

“When I was writing “Devotion” which is a memoir I wrote when my son at the time was asking lots of questions like ‘what happens after we die?” and ‘will I go to heaven?’ and all these questions I had not allowed myself to sit with I just thought ‘you know, what would it be like to sit with these questions?’ and that’s what became really interesting to me. And so it was me looking out one window at a time with that question in mind. It’s only later themes emerge. So the only way to figure out clarity of theme is to write and while you’re writing, don’t think about theme. Because if you think about theme, it will sort of manhandle the writing. It will direct it and force it to places it would not have organically gone otherwise.”

She finished talking and I gave her a thumbs up—which I regretted immediately. Then I hurried back to my seat with directions for moving forward.

I smiled to myself because you cannot possibly know what you don’t know until you do. I have so much time invested in trying to look out all the windows at the same time, then wondering what is wrong with me for not being able.

But I never needed to try so hard.

I only ever needed someone to say “here honey. Here is how it’s done.”

And for that, I needed to grab the damn mic.

Design

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Designing a house from scratch can be daunting. When you can pick anything—literally anything within budget—it can be overwhelming. With limitless possibilities, how does one even start?

There’s really only one way. 

First, you look at anything and everything and drive yourself crazy with options. You look for shower tile and fireplace designs. You consider shiplap and hardwood floors. Dark or light? Grey hews or brown? Gold? No, not gold. Then there are the paint colors. The color palette. Of course the countertops must be considered. If you go with something busy, the cabinets and floors better be chill, you know? 

PS. Don’t go with something busy. It’s 2020 after all. 

Besides the look, you need to choose material. Are we going granite or cement? No wait, quartz! But hold on, because if I do cream quarts countertops with a lovely little grey vein in the kitchen, and then also pick white cabinets and a white/cream backsplash will everything look too white? Where do we add color exactly?

PSS. No. It won’t look too white once you put all your stuff in there. 

Then there is the cabinet hardware. If you go all white with everything else, should you go black or gold on the hardware so it pops? Yes, unless of course you like silver best, in which case always choose what you like best. 

But look at me, spending all this time on cabinet hardware when there are obviously much more interesting things to consider anyway, like light fixtures and sinks. 

Oh, the sinks. 

Do you want a bowl sink? Don’t do it in your master. For the master, only inset sinks will do. Don’t pick one that mounts over the countertop. You know, the sinks that sit on top of the countertop and have ornate edges? So messy. No, you want under mount so you can just wipe whatever is on the counter quickly and cleanly back into the sink. But then again, that’s just me. 

Then comes the worry. You have to worry whether it’s okay that you put silver faucets on your bathroom sinks but brass for you shower head (the answer is yes, it’s fine). And then you will worry about your doors. How will the doors open—in or out? Does my pantry need a door? Will it be a standard door or a barn door or a pocket door, or a dutch door or a paneled door or a white door or chalkboard door? A wood door? But wait—you have the wooden hutch that is going to go right by it and you are worried it will be too wood matchy. WILL IT BE TOO WOOD MATCHY? 

So you’ll look at everything a drive yourself crazy with worry and options. And then you’ll feel shame for being so worried about something like house design when people in the world are suffering. You’ll vow to be better the next day. You’ll fail. Repeat cycle.

Okay, so that happens first. Best to be prepared for it. 

If you do that long enough, here is what happens next: A path appears. 

In order for a path to appear you have to find one thing—a tile pattern, a rug, a landscape design for your outdoor entertaining space—I don’t care what it is—but whatever it is, it will be one thing you are absolutely sold on. Something that looks so much like you and your specific taste that when you look at it your insides jump. This is actually what all the searching and pinning and scrolling through Luxe magazine’s instagram feed is for. You are not actually looking for “ideas.” You are looking for one thing to fall completely, madly, 100% in love with. Because when you do, a path appears. 

Suddenly, you can sense what everything else in the room will feel like once this one thing is there. You instinctively know the color and tone. You can suddenly see it. You can pick a floor that will compliment without fuss.

That is the process. You look and look until you find one thing that you are absolutely sure about and smitten with, because when you do, it will inform the rest of the design and make it easier to pick everything else. And you won’t have to second guess yourself because all the decisions are being made around the thing you are certain about. So wait for the one thing you’re sure of.

This is how you start. 

And this, my friends, is where design becomes a metaphor for life. 

My one thing for my Park Place house was this gorgeous hand painted Tabarka Studio shower tile. It had me at “hello.”

You Can’t Stop Me

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My dad, in his new place down the street from me.

“Is the last time you blogged in November?” My husband asked me the other day.

“Yeah, I guess so”

“I’m gonna unsubscribe” he said. I was not amused. “Seriously though, you need to post again.”

Here’s the thing. I’ve never been the kind of blogger that “prepares material” for you guys. I was never the one that had the valentine recipe posted the week before Valentine’s Day so that you could plan accordingly and make it. I was the one that posted it the day after to show you what I made. Pictures were usually with a normal background. No staged red and pink ribbons and flowers, I mean, unless it was authentically there waiting to be used. This is because I bring you the real me—my real self—in real time—each time I come to this space. I’m not gong to engineer anything to make it look like I had holiday appropriate food props and perfect lighting if I didn’t. 

And I won’t just post something because I haven’t posted in a while. I’m posting now because Jeremy brought it to my attention and then, I wanted to write you. So here I am.

Blogging 101 says you have to do certain things, like post regularly and often. I know this. Always have. But I reject it, not because I don’t like listening to prevailing wisdom, but because I’ve always felt this sort of finagling is not for me. Of this, I have always been certain. Whatever it is I do here, I don’t engineer it for a certain outcome. Not that it’s wrong to engineer things for certain outcomes. I do that in other spheres. Just not in blogging. 

Here, I just bring myself. However I am. Chatty or reflective. Frequent or infrequent. I’m in the latter season right now.

Right now, my life is bananas. Like, right now I have to stop writing and leave because I have a meeting at Land Title. 

Please hold.

Okay, I’m back. 

That wasn’t a stunt. I did actually leave and then return to the page. I have another appointment in a little bit, too. And dinner to make and laundry to fold. And a book to write. And kid to take to school at 10am. That’s just the normal stuff. What I want to talk about though, is that my life has been filled lately—just filled—with very abnormal things too.

First, some background information.

So, almost seven years ago, I started having a mid-life crisis which lasted until last year. The mid-life crisis was composed of the usual stuff. Who am I? What am I doing? What *can* I do? and stemmed from the fact that I was about to have my last baby. This baby would grow up and go to school and then what? All I had ever been was a stay-at-home-mom. I had my first child when I was twenty and literally had not done anything else. I didn’t want to do anything else. Stay-at-home-moming was my jam. The thought of doing something else depressed me. I thought I was made to be a mom and only a mom, and my purpose was running out with my babies. When I had Ellie, the clock started to tick. I had finite time to figure out what was next and make some decisions. 

My baby never slept and I stopped blogging and writing.

I got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disease.

I spend a year doing every diet and taking every test to try and “cure” it. 

I tested myself and challenged myself in mini ways to “see what I was made of” because of my “who am I, what am I doing, and what can I do?“ questions.

My fear of flying blew up.

I overdid everything because I didn’t know what to focus on. In one year, I tried to move to LA to become an actress (yes, you can laugh), buy a wedding venue property, write a memoir, write a cookbook, learn how to build a spec house, start an Airbnb business, and fundraise for Angelman Syndrome. Then I got two puppies that always peed in the house and barked non stop and I had to put everything on hold to train them…which never really worked.

I flailed. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing with my life.

Then I decided I would make space for what needed to come to life so I stopped doing everything. I stopped writing except for pleasure. I stopped trying to find properties and build businesses. I stopped trying to become an actress (because, duh), I stopped fundraising and formulating recipes and making plans. I decided to focus on God and quiet.

Soon, something did come to life. Specifically, my want to write the book, with the realization that this is what I was supposed to be doing the whole time. That I was doing everything else because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to write the book. This because I had tried before and couldn’t. More than that, I didn’t know what I was writing about, which is one of the reasons I could never do it. When someone asked “what is your book about?” I’d say “I don’t know” and that—well, it didn’t inspire confidence. I knew I needed to write the book anyway, despite the absence of clarity, and self doubt. To trust that whatever I was writing needed to get written through that lens. So I needed to get serious and go all in. The book became my singular focus.

So my “what am I doing, what can I do?”  was figured out. 

For a hot minute, I thought maybe I was home free.

Except writing is not all there is to life. Around the same time I decided I needed to go all in on the book, I sensed I also needed to get in shape. Urgently. Metaphorically and physically.

I needed to confront some of my old “avoidance of hard things and conversations tactics” and tackle them head-on instead. I also needed to sweat and drink more water. So I started challenging my body regularly and drinking (and peeing) more often. This all felt very important and so I was writing and working out and confronting old patterns. Which felt great. I finally went to the writing retreat I knew I needed to go to. I started making headway in my book. It felt like everything was on the right track.

Then I got plantar fascitis. 

During this time I became my fathers trustee, for his special needs trust–This is relevant, I swear–My dad was involved in a car accident in Brazil in 1995. He has resulting brain damage and is wheel chair bound and has lived in California his whole life. I became trustee because my dad was involved in a legal battle against his former trustee and there was no one else to handle it. Overnight, I was responsible for managing my dad’s money to make sure he didn’t run out in his lifetime, (let me tell you what I suck at: making sure money doesn’t run out in lifetimes) keeping his HOA dues and bills paid, managing doctors appointments and making sure his insurance didn’t lapse (which it did), singing powers of attorney and medical powers of attorney and providing banks with the trustee agreements so I could gain control and access to his accounts and all this, without being in the same state— with no access to his mail or figuring out who he had bills with or when they were due. I didn’t get the notice that his insurance had lapsed because they did not have my address on file. I hadn’t notified them because I had no idea who he had insurance with or who to call. No one could tell me where to find out the information I needed to stay on top of things. 

I was paying attorneys. And someone to forward his mail to me. Then he got injured and needed to stay in a rehab facility until he healed. Except he never really healed and I had to move him from one facility to another to another assisted living facility that he could not afford from OUT OF STATE and AHHHHHHH. I know you don’t follow everything and I am not saying everything, but know this:

Nightmare of nightmares.

It was the nightmare of all nightmares.

I started losing my hair. Not just thinning. I lost a clump. Like a bald spot. Like—not normal. It was the size of a nickel and was very obvious. My doctor says it’s because I’m autoimmune, which is lovely information. I go a few months doing comb overs and not knowing whether it will grow back.

Then I had a pre-cancerous mole removed.

My step-dad died and all sorts of weird things happened with my family.

Then, I decided I needed to move my dad here to Colorado to be closer because managing everything from one thousand miles away was proving to be impossible. 

I need his physical, real ID to send to social security so he can get a new card? HOW AM I GOING TO GET HIS REAL ID FROM ONE THOUSAND MILES AWAY WHEN HE CAN’T SEND IT TO ME HIMSELF? AND WHAT IF HE NEEDS HIS ID WHILE IT’S GONE?

Meanwhile, he’s afraid he’ll be cold if he moves to Colorado and I have to give his place in California 30 days notice and his bank account has no more money in it, and I have to move my dad here to my state BEFORE they can tell me if they will approve him for Colorado insurance and once he’s here I have a mountain of paperwork and I need to call my Uncle and ask him to locate birth certificates and what not. And I can’t even remember who I need to give them to.

That’s not true. I do remember.

I’m just being dramatic.

In all seriousness though? Nightmare of nightmares. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Regardless, it is consuming me. It’s consuming all my time and all my energy—seemingly without end—my “to do” just keeps growing—and I have not been able to get writing time in for my book. And I don’t mean this in a “I cannot make the time because it’s not important enough to me” way. I mean this in a “I was on hold with medicare for 1 1/2 hours, and then I have to go to the bank and get a 1099 for the tax years 2016, 2017, 2018 that my dad’s trust didn’t file for back then, and then scan and email those documents to the tax guy, then call my dad’s facility and get them that Medicare number, and then call his old place and give 30 day notice and then figure out how I am going to move his stuff out of his condo without a place to take it to since we are both out of state now—then repeat the next day with a different set of to-do’s” kind of way. I don’t have time for my book. And I don’t have time to blog. So that’s why I haven’t blogged since November, Jeremy. Then, you know, there are the normal things. There is school pick up and laundry and grocery shopping and dinner and working out and eating well and praying. All this, for something I know I need to do (take care of my dad) and I know is important, but I feel like I’m trying to do all the things and keep all the balls in the air and…and…AND.

Then, I got tinnitus. 

You guys, a week and a half ago I did not have tinnitus and then, I started to hear a sound in my ear a few times a day for two days for a couple minutes and then it would go away and I thought, that’s weird. Then, two weekends ago we sat down to watch “Ford vs Ferrari” and the sound happened again and NEVER STOPPED. I hear a sound in my ear all the time now. All. The. Time.

I am young for having tinnitus without ever having an event to spur it on so suddenly and no known family genetic history, the doctor tells me. 

I had a mole bleed the other day so I went to the dermatologist yesterday and they had to remove it and biopsy.

My left shoulder/neck totally seized up and I have a muscle headache for a week now despite doing all the stretches I’m supposed to do for that area and my PT can’t get me in until April. 

APRIL.

Here is my question. When did I become a medically ailing person?

WHEN????

Why did my body stop working in the midst of the most stressful time, while I tried in earnest to limit how stressful it could be by feeding myself well, moving my body, staying hydrated, praying, and trying not to drop any of the balls. Well, for very long, anyway.

Like. I tried. 

But nothing is working right. Nothing is smooth. I have to work ten times harder just to move ten times slower than other seasons I’ve been in.

And I don’t understand.

So that’s the backstory. 

And here I am now. I can tell you what has changed since the mid-life crisis started: This whole last seven years has been preparing me for whatever is next. It’s been a weird time. I have stepped into parts of my personhood that we’re not prominent before and made them more developed. Things that I’d rather have not developed, like saying what I need to say when it’s hard instead of avoiding conversations. And standing up for myself and believing I am worth standing up for and completely capable of doing that when I’m on the phone with people who intimidate me.  

Then this past year has felt like it’s finally go-time. Like the first five years were preparing for go-time, and the last year has been “now, now, go, go, go!”

Where I am going? I have no idea. But I know that wherever it is, I’m on the way, AND that I need to be able to handle a lot, for a long period of time, maybe while having a million bizarre small medical things happen during, AND handle it well while taking care of myself in the process, AND know that I am capable of the task before me.

Oh, and also be able to stand up for myself and talk to potentially intimidating people on the phone like it ain’t no thing. Because that’s what keeps happening.

That’s what I know so far.

I’ve been afraid of this spot. It seems too overwhelming. Too much. Not sustainable. It’s in the water too. I know you know what I’m talking about.

I’m not here to complain, (well, not ONLY to complain), and I do want to tell you what I’ve noticed about this spot. This place of being on the way to something you’ve been preparing for, which is hard enough, while just getting absolutely pummeled with wave after wave in the most frustrating and unrelenting fashion.

I think I’ve always been afraid of this spot because I believed the “hard” would discourage and prevent me from moving forward. I think I thought it would be enough to stop me. And being stopped and unable to move forward because I don’t have the skills or development to make good decisions and do so, is scary to me.

But I have the skills and development necessary. This is what I know now that I didn’t before. The last six years were spent developing skills that were necessary to getting to this point. And because I have them, nothing can stop me. Not hard things. And not harder things. 

Here’s how I know: when things get particularly hard, they actually serve to reinforce me.

When something is trying to take me down, I feel like giving up for 5 minutes. Everything sucks and I send out SOS texts that say “I don’t know what to do” and my life is ending and I cry. That happens. But the whole time I do this, I know I do out of habit and for connection. Because I FEEL like everything sucks and my life is ending and I’ll never be able to figure it out or know what to do ever again. But I don’t believe myself. That’s the difference. I used to believe it. Now, I can feel the feelings while knowing they are not true.

I know it’s not true because there have been too many times these last seven years when I have felt this every same way, and the situation resolved itself. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I feel there is no way, then I make a call I don’t want to make, and say some things I don’t want to say, and then all of a sudden a way opens up. Or, I have a talk with a friend or my husband and they say something that illuminates a path forward. 

Everything is figure-out-able. 

I know that now. Tricky is figure-out-able. Hard is figure-out-able. Tired is figure-out-able. Unrelenting is figure-out-able. You just have to be willing to do the thing that leads to figuring it out. Which is much, much easier said than done.

I feel this force—I don’t know an un-corny way to say that—it’s a real, live force, okay? And whenever something hard happens it gets stronger and stronger inside of me and all it does is convey this message: “No. Not today, not ever. I am onto you and YOU. CAN’T. STOP. ME.”

You can’t stop me. 

Because I’m ready now. I’m already on the way. 

I don’t know, you guys. 

I’m ready. 

That is scary to say. But I need to say it.

Because resistance and self-doubt and hard things. They can’t stop me now.

I’m ready to do whatever it is I am supposed to do. 

One of those things? I am supposed to write a damn book. 

So I will write. First I will write this to you and not worry about what you will think of this post. It’s kind of gritty, you know? A little self indulgent. Like, maybe I should polish it up before I hit publish because a vulnerability shame storm is sure to hit afterwards. Maybe I should not write this sort of thing at all until it’s had time to breathe and mature because what is this even about? An overwhelming season? My dad? Writing a book? WHO KNOWS. In the writing world, we call this kind of piece an “inhale.” It’s not meant for public consumption. You’re supposed to wait for an “exhale” because exhales are orderly and follow one idea through to the end. But order takes time. And I don’t got that. I have a book to write you guys, too. I do promise you though, the book will only be exhales. 😉

It’s Valentine’s Day.

So today, I will hit publish without editing this post. Then, I will go to my kitchen and make homemade cream puffs. I will whip cream and fold it in a vanilla pastry cream and I will pipe choux dough onto parchment and I will fill and dust with powdered sugar. Then I will take one to my dad, who I take care of now, and who lives down the street as of last month. Then I will pile the rest high on a plate to give to my family tonight because cream puffs are Jeremy’s favorite and also because part of my purpose is providing delight and beauty for the people I love. 

Then tomorrow I will write again. 

I can’t be stopped. 

Holy Grief and Thanksgiving

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for Dave

I’m in my pantry, door closed, sitting in the dark, the glow of the computer screen illuminating the mason jar full of strawberry smoothie next to me. I like to close the blinds when I write. I like to create a cocoon of dim light because it helps me focus on what I want to say. Snowy days are the best writing days. But the sun is out today and I am much too sorrowful for the sun. The blinds won’t even do. So here I am in my windowless pantry because what I have to write feels much too sacred to have out in the light of day yet.

Grief is a terrible thing. What I didn’t know until today though, is that grief is also a holy thing. 

When deep sorrow comes knocking it always seems a little unfair, doesn’t it? Even though we know there is sorrow in this life. Even though we have always understood we will have to say goodbye, it still seems wildly unfair when it comes time to actually bear it ourselves.

Our family is being put through the ringer of grief right now. It’s potent—in the air. It’s uncomfortable at best, twistingly painful at worst. Each day is tinged with pain. And it feels like it will go on and on forever and never stop. Will we ever not be sad again? That becomes the question. 

I have a sign up in my house in anticipation for Thanksgiving. It reads “In All Things Give Thanks.” 

The other morning, after a night of fervent praying and overwhelm at everything going on and not knowing what I could or should do, I woke up and remembered the verse I memorized five years prior: “be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thesselonians 5:16-18). I decided when I don’t know what to do, this is what I will do.  

Thanks is a hard thing to give when we are in such deep grief. I’m supposed to give THANKS? Of all things, THANKS? It’s like this song that comes on the Christian radio station sometimes. 

So I’m thankful for the scars

‘Cause without them I wouldn’t know Your heart

And I know they’ll always tell of who You are

So forever I am thankful for the scars

Jeremy hates it. He’s always shouting “you are not thankful for your scars! You don’t say ‘thank you God for allowing this horrible thing to happen because now I know God better. That’s not the point.’” 

It’s true. The thanks is meant for God for being who He says He is in the midst of what will leave a scar. Our savior. Always near. Who will never leave us. Who will always, always work even the most bleak circumstances, for our good. Who makes beauty from ashes. Who binds up the brokenhearted. Our thanks is to Him *for* Him. That even in this, He is here at work binding up hearts. Comforting. Offering lavish displays of mercy. We shouldn’t give thanks to our pain just because there are silver linings. Rather, our thanks demonstrates that we acknowledge that even though we may not feel grateful for much in the midst of pain, we will choose to be thankful for who He is and trust Him to do what He says He will do—even in this. We will trust we are not alone. That all will be well. That we are held. The thanks is a proclamation of faith. And it’s for our own good or He wouldn’t tell us this is what He wants us to do “always”

While I’m talking about songs, you know that old one “It Is Well With My Soul?” 

When peace like a river attendeth my way

when sorrows like sea billows roll;

whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say

it is well, it is well

with my soul

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blest assurance control,

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

It was written by Horatio Spafford after his four daughters died when their ship sunk in 1873. After, as he himself sailed near where his daughters had died he penned the lyrics. In immense grief he said “thou has taught me to say, it is well with my soul.”

Somehow his soul could find respite, even in the face of this. That’s what great faith produces. There’s something about grief that pushes us deeper and deeper toward the heart of God. Not that we want the pain in order to get there, or that pain is necessary to the process—it’s not, but we find that in grief He fulfills His promise that he will make beauty from ashes. One of the ways he accomplishes this is when you find you grief pushing you further and further to Him. It’s a natural process. Our dependence grows as our independence and what we have control over fades away and what feels like a curse paves a way to be held and safe. He says “if you are in pain I will be near you and I will lead you closer and closer into faith and belief and comfort. He says “it’s okay, you can trust me. Whatever it is, you can trust me.”

Notice trust doesn’t promise a certain desired outcome but instead gives you a way through, come what may…come what may. 

It seems I am always asking “how does God exist in this?” My question is never does God actually exist?  I am never trying to suss out whether or not He is there. I am trying to determine how he is there—when he doesn’t provide the miracle for the people we love. How is He existing in the midst of that? And what will I do with myself then?

When CS Lewis’ wife was dying he wrote, “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

He goes on, “Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead. From the rational point of view, what new factor has her death introduced into the problem of the universe? What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe? I knew already that these things, and worse, happened daily. I would have said that I had taken them into account. I had been warned—I had warned myself—not to reckon on worldly happiness. We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accepted it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination.”

I read verses like “And I will do what ever you ask in my name” and “do not fear” and I wonder if some of us interpret this as a direct promise from God that all will be well. I’ve been a part of circles where the thinking is “God will make everything okay if we just believe enough.”

But we are never promised a certain outcome. We are promised that come what may, He is faithful, will wipe every tear, fight for us, and take care of us. He is not telling us do not fear because nothing bad will happen. He is saying don’t let your heart be troubled, come what may—this is how I want you to be. This is how you can live and find joy. This is how you move forward. Come ever back to me. I am where your help comes from. Before I came, death got the ultimate ending, but then I came and now death has lost it’s sting. 

Come what may. Come what may.

This is faith. This is knowing God. 

I still don’t know Him as well as I’d like. This is why I often get scared and then I have to remember how He is and what I am promised. I have to remember I am His. I have to remember that when people I love leave this world earlier than should be allowed, I am only a mere blink behind. Even if I live to a ripe old age, I am only 50-60 years behind. We are all going to the same place.  And if heaven is here and now and all around then it just like that Henry Scott-Holland quote: 

“Death is nothing at all. 

It does not count. 

I have only slipped away into the next room. 

Nothing has happened. 

Everything remains exactly as it was. 

I am I, and you are you, 

and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. 

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still… 

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? 

I am but waiting for you, for an interval, 

somewhere very near, 

just round the corner. 

All is well. 

Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. 

One brief moment and all will be as it was before. 

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!”

 I may not know God as well as I’d like, but I am letting my pain push me further into the heart of who He is so I can be changed. So I can know how to be. So I can live and love and hope and not be in fear. So I can one day say “it is well with my soul” and really mean it.

For now, I practice returning back to Him. Again and again. As many times as it takes. Praying continually. Remembering where my help comes from. And giving thanks…not for the scar, but for who He is amid the scars and how He loves.

How he loves us. 

At the end of time it will be you and God. That’s it. That’s all that will matter. 

(The next few paragraphs I’ll be quoting  or summarizing from: http://kenpulsmusic.com/pilgrimsprogress131.html) 

In John Bunyans classic Pillgram’s Progress, The pilgrims realize that death is unavoidable. As they enter the river, which symbolizes the crossing over from life to death to life again, they are encouraged and accompanied by the Shining Ones. The allegory shows that the Shining Ones represent God’s work of grace in heart. And God send them to guide pilgrims in the final steps of the journey. The Shining Ones tell the pilgrims that the river will be shallow or deep depending on their faith. As the pilgrims enter the water, we see that they all experience death differently. Christian, the main character, is in great turmoil. His pride has long been his greatest obstacle, and even in death, his thoughts are of himself. He remembers his sins and ponders his failings. He begins to sink and cry out in distress. He quotes David in the bible: Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me.Save me, O God!

Death is a great trial. Doubts that he believed were long past, flood his soul again. Fear engulfs him. He fears he will never make it to heaven. The enemy’s he faced in life now return and seek to pull him under. This is Christians experience. 

But Hopeful, who is with him, is full of hope. He finds the river much shallower and unlike Christian, walks across with firm footing. He keeps his head above the waves and sees heaven on the other side when Christian is unable. It is God’s kindness that Christian and Hopeful walk together. Hopeful’s thoughts are of Christ. Even in death, Hopeful points his brother to the Savior and the promise of eternal life. Hopeful tells Christian that the trial he is facing in death is an indication of God’s grace at work. Christian is concerned for his soul, distressed by his doubts, and troubled by his sin. 

Every true pilgrim who sets out for Heaven will complete the journey. God will do everything necessary to bring us home to glory. 

“Being confident of this very thing, that He who begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” Philippians 1:6.

But our awareness of His grace as we near the end of life and experience death will be strengthened or weakened by our faith, as we “believe in the King of the place.” We must exercise our faith now. We must learn to walk by faith, not by sight, and be grateful for every circumstance and providence that keeps us pointed to Christ and oriented toward eternity. This requires a radical shift in our thinking…What this world most prizes—status, privilege, wealth, youth and vigor—are things that bind us to this life. Sadly, they can prevent us from looking to Christ and yearning for the life to come. But what the world most fears—hardship, illness, poverty, old age and frailty—are things that cause us to grow weary of this life. Thankfully, they can serve us, if they teach us to value Christ and yearn more for the life to come.

Those most at home in this world will have the hardest time leaving it. It is difficult to face death when you are clinging tenaciously to the world. Those least encumbered by the world will have an easier time leaving it. When we realize that Christ and His promises—which for now are unseen (seen only with the eyes of faith)—are more real and more valuable than anything the world can offer, then we can greet death not as an enemy but as an entrance to glory.”

Until recently I have been at home in this world. I would have a hard time leaving it. Like Kara Tippets once said while in hospice “I feel like I’m a little girl at a party  whose dad’s asking her to leave early. And I’m throwing a fit. I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to go.”

I don’t want to go. I don’t want anyone to go. And of course, my own fear drifts back to me. Do I believe enough? Am I earnestly trying to know God enough so that I can walk the river like Hopeful? I want to be like Hopeful. I fear I am much more like Christian, but I want to be like Hopeful. I will spend the rest of my time here tying to be Hopeful. Trying to trust. Trying to fear not. And I think this is why God designed grief to naturally point us back to Himself. Because he is the one who saves. He is the one who can save us from ourselves and our fear–if we let Him. That’s what free will is. We have to let Him. You have to say you want Him to.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; 

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you ;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you

—Isaish 43:1-2

I vividly remember the day Jeremy told me about the Pilgrims Progress river story. I hadn’t read it but I was scared about dying. He said “you know, I don’t think there is any point at which the lights go out. There is no darkness. It’s a crossing over. In Pilgrims Progress Christian has to walk across a river to get to heavens side and he panics as the water rises up over his head but he keeps walking and right at the deepest part his head starts to reemerge and he can breathe again. He has not lost consciousness—he’s just gone from one consciousness to another. He is in heaven. He has crossed over, without any lapse in time. He was at one moment here and the next there. Nothing to it.”

My family is being put through the ringer right now. And despite my most sincere efforts, I cannot do anything about it. I have tried and there is absolutely nothing I can do but sit in my tears and uncertainty while trying to remember God’s promises that He will be near. And so I will continue with my instructions: be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

I will give thanks to God for who He is in this. And I will pray continually. 

The River Prayer, from Pilgrims Progress:

Lord, we pray for those now crossing

Through the River, death’s cold tide.

Help them through its flowing current,

Bring them safe on Canaan’s side.

We are all going to the same place. We are all coming. We’ll be there in but a blink.

I love you.

Find What’s Useful For You. A Life Lesson

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I know. It’s been…a while. 

And do you know why?

I’m writing a book. Cough! Let me rephrase that. I’m trying to write a book. It’s going to hell in a hand basket and everything I write sucks and it’s terrible—or—awesomely amazing, it’s really coming together, miracle of miracles, I have written good things.

All depends on the day.  

And I haven’t written here because everything I write is potentially book material and also because I don’t think anyone actually reads this blog. Except my sisters. And Gretchen. And Jeremy. And Craig. 

Hi Sisters!

Hi Gretchen!

Hi Husband!

Hi Craig!

I appreciate your support. It makes me feel loved.

Anyway enough about my insecurity. How are you?

You can’t answer so imma just go ahead and talk about me some more. Good? Good.

Here’s the haps: It’s snowing today. My son just came into the kitchen where I’m sitting writing this and Jeremy is typing up the highlights of The Divine Conspiracy, one of his favorite books. 

“Ugh, the snow” Jeremiah says.

“you don’t like the snow?” Jeremy asks

He shakes his head, sullen.

“Jeremiah, it snows here a lot. You know, the better thing would be to figure out the gifts in the snow. Like, figure out what you like about it or what it offers you so you can look forward to that thing when it starts to snow.”

“Yeah” Jeremy says “I’m sitting here relaxing because it’s snowing. It makes me feel like I just want to be at home and have some down time instead of going somewhere. I like that.”

I’ve been learning how to figure out the gifts of the less than desireable lately. 

My favorite author in the whole wide world, Glennon Doyle, announced the title of her new book a few days ago. 

UNTAMED

On the back cover? 

“What would you do if you trusted yourself?”

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Best because omg I love her and everything she writes and admittedly have an unnatural affinity for her. Worst of times because although I still have no real idea about what my book is about (it keeps changing), I do know a huge theme is trusting myself. I actually have written the words “I think I just needed to learn that I could trust myself enough to know how to take care of me.” And then once, when outlining what my book might be about I wrote “a memoir about learning to trust God, learning to trust myself, and how the two commingle . It’s a combination of dealing with faith and doubt and listening to myself. When I wasn’t sure what lessons I’d learned I’d ask myself “what did learning to trust God and myself teach me about faith and doubt?” And “how did I become who I’m capable of being through these things? How did I learn to trust?”

The answer would be the big idea of your story.

I did not answer what the big idea of my story was, by the way. Because from the time I wrote that to now, it’s evolved. My book is not really that so much anymore. It’s dang close, but I don’t think the God piece is so prevalent. Not because I don’t want Him to be! Just because it’s not the way it’s shaping up. I think maybe my book is about my mid-life crisis instead. How when I got pregnant with Ellie, I was sent into a panic about her going to school and feared my purpose (as a stay-at-home-mom) was running out with my role. This prompted me to ask a bunch of panicky questions like who am I? What can I do in the world? WILL I HAVE TO GET A JOB AT STARBUCKS?! Or maybe my book is about being a Housewife and roles. I don’t know. It’s also about getting an autoimmune disease and what that meant—how I’d have to heal myself in ALL the ways. I’d have to learn to feed myself well and move my body more and…and…and…It’s probably little bit of all of that but I don’t know the label under which all of that fits.

I DON’T KNOW OKAY? 

Diary Of An Overdramatic Hot Mess, maybe?

Just kidding, that’s a stupidly generic title. And too self deprecating. I had a REAL crisis, ya’ll!

The point is, trusting myself is the ONLY thing that I know about my book. And then my hero wrote a book about learning to trust yourself. It hurt a little because I knew that’s how I was going to feel when I read what she had to say about something I’ve been trying to articulate for three years to no avail (yet) and then blew whatever I had to say out of the water—hurt.

How can I be so sure of this? Because pretty much everything the woman has written blows everything I’ve ever read out of the water. 

Heres the thing about this though. In the writing world this whole “she wrote my book before I could get done” is a bizarrely common phenomenon. I’ve read many authors accounts about how the very book they were writing was written faster by another renowned author. Nothing new under the sun and all that. The lesson is always the same: there’s room for everybody at the table. We need your voice. We need their voice. Keep writing.

Still, I felt like I was just drafted to the junior high basketball team when I learn Kobe Bryant is coming to play with us. Like…do they even need me? Do I just quit now?  I can’t imagine I’ll add any value after he steps on the court.

Vulnerable, I decided I needed to send out a little SOS email to my editor, Kelly. I don’t ever write to Kelly about personal matters. I pay her to edit my work. She is not a therapist. She owes me no free advice. But I wrote her because being a writer herself, she was one of the only people I knew who would understand and because I kept getting this nudge–tell Kelly, tell Kelly. 

As I told you, I’m learning to trust myself?

So I sent it. I ended with this question: “today I fear somebody already wrote my book better than I can. That’s not true, right?”

 Then I went to lunch with my sister and told her this whole story. 

“I know it’s not true” I say to her “but I feel like my book has no place now. She’s going to do it better.”

“Unless you’re a doubter, a worrier, a nail biter, an apologizer, a re-thinker. Then Memoir may not be your play pen. That’s the quality I found most consistently in those life story writers I’ve met. Truth is not their enemy, it’s the banister they grab for while feeling around on the dark cellar stairs. It’s the solution.” —Mary Karr

So you see, all this self-doubt and worrying makes me a legitimate candidate for the line of work I’m in. 

Funny thing is, after the initial disappointment, all the worry suddenly propelled me to articulate what I needed to say and get it down on the page before Glennon’s book gets released into the world. The threat of her doing it better than me prompted me to ask “what am I worried she’s going to say better than me?” which allowed me to actually know what I wanted to say. You’d think a writer would know what they want to say, but you’d be wrong.

In one day I re-wrote two chapters and then a new prospective intro. (I say “prospective” because I’ve written what I thought were three separate intros before realizing they were all chapters instead–THE INSANITY!)

What surprised me the most was after I’d written the prospective intro I woke up the next day and read my words and…here’s the crazy part…still felt like they were true.

Here is what I wrote:

“Let me tell you about the women who interest me. 

They are the ones who aren’t afraid.

of aging

of their bodies

of feeding themselves

of what they want

of becoming more

Let me tell you about the women who interest me. 

They are the ones who know love.

of God

of family

of self

of neighbors 

of the unloveable.

They know that beauty isn’t found in the reflection of a mirror but in the reflection of a life. 

They know the wisest guidance is not out there, but inside.

Let me tell you about the women who interest me.

They do the work they were born to do the way they were born to do it. 

They let themselves be human.

They know to see the unseen

They know how to be.

They know. They know. They know.

Those are the women who interest me. 

And I want to be one.”

I don’t know if this is what my book is about but I know that the gift of disappointment pushed me to write true things with urgency.

A few days after I’d found new wind in my writing sails, Kelly wrote me back. 

She said that she acknowledges that sometimes what God does “for” us actually looks and feels like getting pushed out of a tree.

“I’ll tell you something I know for sure” she writes, “Glennon Doyle can’t write Krysta MacGray’s book. Only you are having Krysta MacGray’s journey. And there really isn’t anything more special about her OR her writing than there is about you and yours. I promise. Pinky swear.

My best advice is to find what’s useful for you here. This really feels like some kind of gift in disguise to me. Feel the feels. But when you’re ready, be willing to poke through the ashes of your worry/disappointment and look for that little sparkly gem that’s hiding there.”

Don’t you just wish you knew Kelly?!

I mean.

Sometimes what God does “for” us actually looks and feels like getting pushed out of a tree.

Sometimes it looks like the threat of your hero outdoing you. Sometimes it looks like self-doubt, or fear the the unknown.

My best advice is to find what’s useful for you here, she’d written.

I can’t change what Glennon’s book is about. I can’t change what mine will be about (because it’s my story). What I can do is find the gift in the uncertainty and doubt.

Find the gifts. Find the way. 

Otherwise, it can just look like a bleak struggle. 

When disappointment comes a knocking, look for the sparkly little gems hidden there.

I want to be a woman who knows these things.

The Best Part of Italy

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Italy has always been the place I’ve wanted to go. Number one on my bucket list. The non-negotiable destination. Above all the rest, and beyond compare, that is what Italy was to me. In fact, I wrote a blog post recently that proclaimed I’d “hopelessly fall in love with all of Italy,” which is why I find it curious that once finally there, I found myself in a villa in the gorgeous hills of Tuscany, trying to figure out how to leave. Zermatt is only six hours away by train I tell my husband. We could blow this pop stand tomorrow and go to see the Matterhorn instead. Our room in Tuscany had already been paid for. My husband reminds me of this. I don’t care, I can’t stay here another night. It’s raining every day. It’s apparent we need a car to get around and we don’t have a car. The bed is like a rock, my pillow a sand brick. I woke up with a sore lower back earlier this morning. I am thirty seven years young with no prior back problems. The hotel bed in Florence had been almost the same, only a tad better. The bed is stiff! I had remarked, not understanding that every bed in Italy is stiff. That this, apparently, is a well documented thing. 

I have a theory about what happens when you visit your number one dream destination, which is this: It’s not going to be your best trip. Not even close. It can’t be because you’ve doomed it by nursing the daydreams of how it will be, what it will look like, and which dress you will wear when you take a picture at that spot. The setting sun as it lights the Colosseum just so. The lounging by the pool on the Amalfi coast in the red bikini. Gelato and pasta every day! This is what people dream about. What you don’t dream about is waking bright eyed and bushy tailed super early in the morning on your first day, jazzed to explore by getting an espresso at the nearest coffee bar at 5:30am, which you’ve already patiently waited for since you got up at 4am, because HUGE time change, only to realize Italy isn’t awake yet. That Italy doesn’t wake up until after 7am. In fact Italy doesn’t open its coffee shops or drinks espresso until after 8am and closer to 9am. It’s not like the US where Starbucks is up and at’em and ready to serve. Italy is more like why would you be up right now you stupid American? 

Wandering dark streets with nobody in sight for an hour looking for coffee before heading back to the hotel room defeated and having nothing else to do, accidentally falling asleep for 3 hours which results in nearly missing your appointment for “skip the line” tickets at the Accadameia Museum to see the statue of David, and then touring it all without coffee or breakfast or anything at all since you had to literally run to the Museum to not miss the appointment, is not what you dream about.

The bed was not the capital issue, it’s just the latest in a series of events that had taken the rose color out of my glasses until I was left with what Italy actually was. A real place, with real people. A trip that had taken me six months to plan, two whole weeks to prepare and pack for, and then nine hours on a plane to get to, only to be smacked with a royal case of jet-lag and time change that had me feeling out of sorts for a whole week. 

Below the Duomo on our first day in Florence

“Italy smells like cologne and cigarettes” my husband Jeremy says to me, obligatory gelato in hand, on our very first day in the country. Struck by his keen observation I find my first impressions are less impressive. “I’ve noticed the men wear freshly shined dress shoes. With jeans, with slacks, with any and all pants” I say. Jeremy makes a frown, raises his eyebrows and cocks his head to the left to communicate fair enough. He’s won. Italy does smell like cologne and cigarettes. I wouldn’t have guessed that but it seems fitting. This at least, is one thing that matches my idea of what Italy probably is.

For as long as I could remember, I’d longed to see Italy. All of it. The Colosseum and Trevi Fountain in Rome, definitely. But I also grew up looking at pictures of the iconic Almalfi coast with it’s romantic terracotta, peach, and butter yellow buildings with bougainvillea lined balconies, cascading down the cliffside to pebble beach and sparkling blue sea. It called to me.

After four children and seventeen years of either babies or toddlers in the house, my youngest was finally five years old. This meant Jeremy and I could, for the first time in forever, fathom leaving the kids at home for a two week Italian extravaganza. Rome and Positano were at the tippy top of my must-see list but I remembered my Aunt Colleen, an experienced world traveler, had lived in Florence when she was in her twenties after finding herself an Italian boyfriend named Fabrizio. Her stories always sounded so glamorous to my I-haven’t-traveled-anywhere-ears and so I decide to tack on more destinations. Our official itinerary starts with two nights in Florence, and four nights at Greve in Chianti in Tuscany. From there, we’d board a train to Naples, where we would grab lunch at L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele, the rumored birthplace of pizza and the very first thing to ever make it onto my bucket list—pizza in Napoli—before heading down to Positano for another four nights and finally ending in Rome.

I turn back to Jeremy. We are still standing beneath the Duomo in Florence takings selfies. “I’ve also noticed the people here seem curiously invested in whether or not you thoroughly enjoyed your meal to the very depths of your soul” I say. It’s true. The waiters ask us many times if we are happy with the food and then, they sincerely try to read how excited you seem regardless of the answer. If they suspect you are less than blown away they become concerned. We ordered a Bistecca Florentine with carmelized potatoes at this one place, and when it came, discovered it was enough to feed a mammoth. Since it was just Jeremy and me, we didn’t even eat half. Mostly because we had just consumed a Parmigiano, prosciutto and flat bread platter not two hours before and then gelato because, when in Rome…or Firenze…We try to explain this to our waiter. We tell him it was excellent, that we are just full, but he doesn’t speak much English, an anomaly here, so he sends another waiter over to inquire again about why we hadn’t eaten more of the steak. When he understands nothing is wrong and we really are happy, he still insists on brining us icy cups of homemade limoncello on the house. He feels bad, assuming the portion size had gotten lost in translation.

After a full day of trying to convince myself that Florence, Italy was everything I thought it would be—better even, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I had not experienced Florence to be the wonderful place everyone had said it was. It was fine, in the way that all of Italy is fine, but because visitors tend to stay in the neighborhood around the Duomo and where The Statue of David resides, it feels like a bunch of tight, maze like streets among relatively tall buildings on each side, cars driving inches from your toes, where graffiti excessively graces the buildings, all of which causes a slight feeling of clausterphobia that you don’t notice until you reach a Piazza (read: open space) which causes you to breathe a long sigh of relief.

A piazza in Florence
The most beautiful part of Florence. The Arno River.

This is what had me trying to convince Jeremy to head to Switzerland in the middle of the night. Surely Zermatt would do us better I thought, what with all the ideallic, sweeping mountain majesty, wildflowers, and charming fondue restaurants. There would be plenty of room to roam in the mountains. Maybe the beds wouldn’t be so hard. Maybe Zermatt would be exactly what I had envisioned. I checked the weather in Zermatt. Snow was forecasted for the next few days. The Matterhorn is shy, one review said, and when it is cloudy you will not see it. You can go several days and not see the Matterhorn. I was not traveling all that way to not see the Matterhorn. Italy it was.

Play me a tune on your tiniest violin?

It wasn’t Italy’s fault. That’s what I keep telling everyone. Italy was everything you hear Italy will be—charming, historic, good food and wine—I’m not suggesting it’s not those things. I’m only suggesting it’s not only those things. 

The thing I most appreciated about Florence? The food. It is good most everywhere you go, but the best meal I had was across the Arno river, which lended a nice view of the Ponte Vecchio, in route to our ultimate destination, Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco. I have four words: The wild boar pasta. I snapped a picture of my half eaten plate and posted it to social media with the caption “I can die a happy woman now.” I’d eat there night after night, but it’s time to leave. I have other places to be.

Wild Boar Pasta

Thoughts on Florence:

What’s this? I look fifteen years older around the eyes you say? That would be the jet-lag/lack of sleep. It CHANGED MY FACE. I don’t even know.

Our next stop, Villa Bordoni in Tuscany. Upon arriving here, I realize everything I’ve always heard has been spot on. Tuscany is drop dead gorgeous.

view from our room in Tuscany

When I say Tuscany, you have to understand what I mean because Tuscany is huge. Florence is in Tuscany, for example, but is a big city. What I mean to tell you is that the picturesque hills, rows of vineyards and quaint country landscape everyone dreams about? That can be found in the small hill towns of Tuscany, in villas perched up high, that one can only get to by venturing up long windey roads, and those are the areas that are drop dead gorgeous. I’d been warned we would need a car while staying in a hill town but nobody could explain why exactly. It’s too spread out, some reviews would say, but being someone who needs to grasp what this means for me, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Here is what to expect, dear traveler: you must either get comfortable renting a car from one of the cities in Tuscany (Sienna, San Gimignano or Florence) and navigating the roads by yourself, or plan to schedule a driver for day trips in advance. The latter might result in a little car sickness, eating at your own villa every night, and resentment at having to be somewhere at a certain time each day. Consider yourself warned.

Another thing to do in Tuscany? Cooking classes.

Private cooking classes are a big deal here. We went to La Quercia Estate run by mother daughter team, Veronika and Margherita. The cooking lesson was held in a charming house that had been in their family for generations.

Veronika told us stories about how the space we were standing in had been her grandfathers art studio while teaching us the secret to real, fresh tomato sauce. Stick a bunch of quartered tomatoes—I think the official measurement was “a bowl full,” with one quartered raw red onion, some basil, sea salt, pepper, and a few glugs of olive oil into a small to medium pot. The key is not to cook it in too large a pot. You want it snug. Then cook this over medium-low heat until it renders juices and becomes liquid. After the sauce cooks down, run it through a food mill and finish it off by adding plenty of freshly grated Parmesan cheese before bathing homemade gnocchi in it. The sauce will be thinner than what you are used to. No one will die from thin sauce. You will die from how wonderful it tastes but something tells me you won’t be angry about that. Perhaps my favorite dish was when Veronika had us shell a huge stack of fresh fava beans. We stuck the beans raw, into a bowl before adding an equal amount of cubed Romano cheese, a large handful of mint and tossing it in a simple lemon and olive oil vinaigrette with plenty of salt and pepper. She instructed us to put the bowl on the table and let it sit out at room temperature to marinade for an hour before we ate it. Then, she said, right before we did, she’d add in a splash of Vermintino, a crisp white wine from Sardenia, to really send it. We also made meat balls in a lemon scented sauce over pancetta peas, and her grandmother’s recipe for apple cake with pine nuts and golden raisins with liquid cream on top— you know, just to make sure we had enough food.

Thoughts on Tuscany:

After our stay in Tuscany, we hoped on the train that would take us to Naples and that pizza lunch to which I had been so looking forward. When we arrived at L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele, our lively driver John Franco, hopped out and escorted us to the front where we were met with  dozens of people standing outside waiting to get in. John Franco walked up assertively, said a few words to the man calling out numbers, then walked back to us and said “you are number 50. I tell him we have to get going soon and he said ‘for you, John Franco, I will make an exception’ so you don’t wait in line, eh? He will call your number in a few minute. He’s on number 48 now, si? You understand?” I looked around at all the the hungry people waiting for their lunches and felt bad. I hadn’t asked for special treatment. But just then, they call out our number and we’re being ushered in when the smell of pizza dough with sweet, creamy mozzarella and fresh basil hits my nose and I don’t feel that bad.

The lunch is exquisite. My brother-in-law asks me later “was it actually that great, or did you just expect it to be great and so it was?” I tell him I was aware of this, but that I went in willing to be disappointed. I am happy to report to him later that bar none, this was the best pizza I have ever had the pleasure of eating. I have a picture from that day, pizza in front of me, and a smile as big as you’ve ever seen in your life. A kid in a candy store, and I hadn’t even taken my first bite. The edges blackened in places, crisp on top but tender and bite-y underneath, and was a match for the center of the pizza which was so soft, that most people used a fork and knife to get through it. I preferred to cradle a whole slice with both my hands, cajoling it to my mouth as it weeped beneath it’s own weight. Perfetto! It’s the happiest I’ve been in Italy. Things start to turn around.

After leaving Naples and passing the great Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii, which was surprisingly located just to the left of our highway (isn’t it funny how that happens? Oh, this famed place here? It’s just past this congested bus stop beyond the weed patch yonder) the car started snaking its way through the Amalfi coast. First Sorrento, then after a while our driver points to two large rock islands in the sea to the right “these are named for the prima ballerina! Very famous!” he boasts.

After a 45 minute drive we have arrived.

Positano

The streets down to the beach in Positano are lined with an assortment of gelato and jewelry shops, and all things lemon—limoncello, lemon candles, lemon candy lemon lotion, and even perfume. Jeremy and I both come home with a fetching bottle of “Acqua di Positano” both which smell like lemon but his is blended with a hint of sea salt to make it more masculine and mine with flowers. Upon arrival, Jeremy and I drop our bags at the hotel and plop ourselves in a chair in the sand that faces the water and order a large Aperol spritz and plate of fresh fried calamari. This is all you do in Positano. Shop, eat, behold the view. Jeremy snaps a picture of me doing just that. It’s a candid of me cranking my neck around, having just arrived, mouth slightly open looking up from the beach at the view behind. I post it to my Instagram with the caption “today I made it to the place I always dreamed of going.” I feel especially content that it’s happened. This always seemed like one of those places people said they wanted to get to, but never did.

Store in Positano

While sitting here, staring down the sand, you cannot help but notice the most obvious thing, which is that women line the beach, some in elaborate outfits with what look like real live photographers, huge camera lenses and all, while they shamelessly strut and strike ridiculous poses. 

Case in point:

The woman in red, yo. There’s ten more where she came from

You might wonder if it’s a magazine shoot, but you’ll quickly realize it is not. These are just normal people being photographed. It was the most epic people watching I have ever seen. Endlessly entertaining. 

The next day, Jeremy and I decided we needed some beach costumes and so we headed off to one of the local shops to pick him up a blue linen shirt that showcased some of his chest hair and an impossibly chic, boho powder blue and white gypsy dress for me.

Dinner at Le Sireneuse
On the beach in Positano
Dinner at Le Sirenuse

Positano is best enjoyed while staying put but it’s also a fabulous home base to discover nearby places. We had a marvelous time taking the ferry to Capri—well, we had a marvelous time in Capri—the ferry was a bit hard for Jeremy–aka–“Captain Sea Sick.” Capri is a must see while in this neck of the woods. The view from the town of Capri is so beautiful, no picture I took could do it justice. I’m conflicted about posting them here because it just doesn’t translate. But you know imma go ahead and post some anyway…

Capri
Capri
Capri
Capri

My favorite day in Positano was our last. This was the day we had nothing planned other than soaking up the sun, and eating linguine and clams poolside, with a nice supply of limoncello spritzes to wash it down. I find it hard to leave, but I pull up my big girl panties and head to Rome because we can do hard things.

Thoughts on Positano:

I find Rome to be a surprise. Florence, in the main areas, had been a bit cramped with narrow streets and tall buildings, but Rome was more spread out, with trees and grass with the great Tiber river running through it. Some of the reviews I read had alleged Rome was “just a dirty city.” Well, I thought looking around, those people clearly haven’t been to Naples. Our driver, before dropping us at our hotel asked if we’d ever been in Rome before. When we said no, he pointed casually to the left at what appeared to be a sunken park. “This” he told us “is where they had the chariot races.” Excuse me? Did you just say, THE CHARIOT RACES? 

Forgive me, I knew we were in ancient Rome, but for some reason I was not prepared to hear they held chariot races in the park across the street from our hotel. You know, as if it was completely normal.

The theme of astonishment over expected sights continue on our walking tour of the city as our guide said things like “and this was the temple of Julius Caesar” or upon walking into the Panthenon, “this grave is for the queen. You will see her name is Margherita and this is for whom pizza Margherita is named” or when standing in the Roman Forum, our guide pointed to the stones we were standing and said “see these linear scratch marks? These are from the chariots” and my jaw would fall to the floor each time as if I had no idea I was going hear these sorts of things. These stones are marked by chariots and we are just WALKING ON THEM?

Margherita’s tomb
The Panthenon
The Trevi Fountain

Thoughts on Rome:

After returning from a place like Italy, where everyone dreams of going, people tend to ask “what was the best part?” On my flight home, I ask myself this very question but don’t immediately find an answer. I’m conflicted about how much work it took to get here, something I was not eager to repeat again anytime soon. I’m upset about how much effort and emotional strength it took for me to get on a plane for nine hours across an ocean and then back again. Flying has always been a huge fear of mine. Never-the-less she persisted…I might add…with great tumult and stress, she persisted. I was tired a lot of the time that first week due to the time change. I have two videos from our trip where I am sitting in gorgeous places talking about how it is my farewell tour. That I will never be back to Italy. It was just too hard to get here for what you get. It’s very funny.

There were first impressions to take into account. Florence, our first city, wasn’t my favorite—something I will say is a personal thing. Our friends who also traveled to Positano and Rome found Florence to be their favorite. Different strokes for different folks. I found the graffiti in Italy to be gratuitous. I expected it though. I knew it was part of the culture. I didn’t think I’d care all that much. But I did. It made me sad to see buildings that were run down and in need of a fresh coat of paint, literally everywhere. The cities of Italy—at least the parts I visited, left me with the impression that everything needed to be fixed up (Rome less so). It felt as if additions to buildings and decks were just haphazardly thrown together in the houses of Positano—not resorts or hotels, but private residences? Janky. Like maybe the Italians, who I have loved the idea of my entire life, in all their laid-back nature, couldn’t be bothered by timely construction or proper repairs. They are like “eh, lets throw a tarp on it and call it good, yes?” Jeremy kept looking at the balconies and decks in Positano and—a builder himself—kept saying “I don’t think they have building codes here. This deck looks like it’s going to fall down.”

Then there was the food. You hear the food will be extraordinary wherever you go. I really hate to burst your bubble but did not find this to be true. The food was good everywhere we went, but I only had three really extraordinary meals. So the best part? I don’t know. I was kind of upset about a lot of little things. And then upset that I was upset. I WAS FINALLY IN ITALY for goodness sake. What was wrong with me? I guess dear reader, that I was coming to discover the thing you have already noticed:

I am not the world traveler I believed myself to be. And I am quintessentially American.

This last thing became glaringly obvious when I got annoyed that our bill at restaurants didn’t come after we’d been sitting with empty dessert plates for thirty minutes already. I hated having to beg the server for il conto per favore? over and over again. Couple this with how I couldn’t have coffee for hours after I’d woken up because Italian cafe’s don’t open until 8 or 9am and I wake up at 6am? I don’t know…

I hate myself for saying this. I went to Costa Rica and loved it. I went to Anguilla and loved it. Mexico? A blasty blast. Hawaii? Fo sho! But I go to the one place I have always wanted to visit, to experience the one culture I’d always felt such a connection to, only to discover that I was like hmmm, I mean it’s great and all, but I’m still so “I don’t know” about it. And it was really hard to get here.

BOOOOOO!

I know. I’m booing with you.

And yet. 

It was wonderful wasn’t it? That’s the weirdest part. It was so wonderful.

To witness the Roman Forum:

To walk on stones the chariots marked:

To eat fresh, simple food:

To visit the Leaning Tower, a quick hour train ride from Florence:

To see the Tiber river in Rome:

To see these things? The things I’ve always wanted to see:

To drink wine at lunch, and wander the Tuscan countryside. To be with my husband for two weeks in one of the most romantic places in the world. To have had a dream vacation fulfilled. To get to know Italy for what Italy is. Wasn’t it glorious?

It was. It was glorious and confusing. It was both those things, and I think that’s okay.

When we get home, I start writing a list of the Italian dinner I will make my family. I always do this. I visit a place and then come home and make the food I experienced for the people I love. I decide I’ll serve both a Aperol spritz and Chianti for drinks, Castelventrano Olives and nuts for an appetizer, something that was on the table of every restaurant we dined. The gnocchi and fresh tomato sauce with the fava bean salad. The apple cake and some good gelato for dessert. We will top it off with limoncello we brought back straight from the freezer, of course.

I find myself in the kitchen, not too long after, showing my youngest daughter Ellie, how to make tomato sauce. Next, we sit down to feast. It’s then I realize, as I look across the table at food being shared and passed, that I know that the answer to the question, for me is obvious. The best part of Italy is not the Colosseum or anything else in the country itself. The best part of Italy is bringing it back to the people I love.


Hope

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I met someone recently who had lost her daughter. She told me about a visit she once had with her doctor. While talking about her emotional well being, this woman told her doctor she was struggling a bit. The doctor said something to the effect of “you need the healing power of Jesus Christ in your life.”

So.

Guess what she didn’t seek?

. . .

The meaning of names is a big thing in our family. Both mine and my husbands names have meanings that have each hinted about who we were and what we were doing here. We wanted to give our kids the same gift. We named our youngest Eleanor because we were smitten with the name itself and because it meant “shining light.” How great is that? Her middle name is Hope. For a while, I wasn’t on board with the middle name choice. My husband kept saying “I want to name her Hope. Hope is the greatest gift we’ve been given on this earth. There’s nothing better.” And I was always like “You think? What does that even mean? I don’t know about that.”

Around this time I happened upon Emily Dickinson’s famous poem:

Hope is the thing with feathers 

that perches in the soul

and sings the tune 

without the words

and never stops

at all—

This little string of sentences brought hope to life for me. Hope did do that. When we don’t have the words, it gives us the tune. And all of a sudden, there’s melody where there was once silence, however faint. And it never stops, at all. How great is that? I thought.

“We’ll name her Ellie Hope” I told Jeremy. 

I thought hope was amazing even though I was still thinking about it in the everyday sense. The way a new doctor with different ideas and methods might give a woman hope for a baby after not being able to get pregnant for five years. That kind of hope. Good for sure, but I hadn’t yet started to contemplate hope in the eternal sense. That is, hope as the gift that Jesus brought to the world. I knew my husband was thinking of that when he suggested the name in the first place. I knew about this kind of thing intellectually of course, but it didn’t really mean anything to me. Which is to say, I didn’t actually know.

. . .

The other night I had a dream. The night before, Jeremy had shown me a picture of Drew, a boy in Olivia’s class that had passed away last Thanksgiving. In the picture he was smiling for the camera on his mothers lap. Precious, beautiful boy he was. Jeremy said “I can’t imagine the sorrow his mom has to walk through everyday.” I always shut thoughts like this down real quick, or else they’ll destroy me right there on the spot. I won’t recover. I’ll end up a ball of worry, sadness and tears in my bedroom if I let the thought settle in past the first layer of my skin. I know this because I do let it settle sometimes. I do it intentionally. I let my heart break wide open in solidarity with the mothers and I pray on their behalf, mostly for comfort and peace. It’s just I don’t tend to do this when I am in the middle of making dinner like I had been this time. It stays with me though, even when I shut the sadness down quickly.

Then, I had my dream. In my dream, I was looking at Eleanor’s picture on my refrigerator and I knew she was gone. Sorrow settled deep in my chest as I thought about never being able to hold her again…

Until heaven anyway, I added. 

In my dream, I felt an epiphany of sorts. The words “until heaven” changed the way the dream felt to me. It wasn’t that anything dramatic happened. My sorrow did not leave me. But I think it was the moment when what I knew intellectually became what I actually knew. Because there was only sorrow the moment before, and then there was hope. A tune began to play. The dream played out a bit more and I despaired at having to walk with this tremendous loss for the rest of my life. The hope did not change that. But it did give me a sliver of thanksgiving amid my grief. When I woke up, groggy in the land of half-asleep half-awake, It occurred to me I had been dreaming. The sorrow was heavy on my chest. I could feel the weight of it, and then with the realization it was just a dream, relief blanketed me. I could breathe. And the breathing was easy. And then immediately, my thoughts went to Drew’s mom and the woman who had been to the doctors office. They hadn’t woken up to relief.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t FAIR. I raged that a mother or father anywhere would have to walk the rest of their days grieving the loss of their precious child. I found myself praying for them before I opened my eyes that morning. I prayed for the usual peace and comfort, and then I gave thanks that even in the midst of our greatest despair, God created a way to comfort us beyond what I had been praying—with the hope of Heaven. 

THAT’S why hope is so important. That’s why Christians fall on their faces in thanks to Jesus because that’s why he died. He died so that we could have new life after we die. Specifically, life with those we also love here. So that it doesn’t have to end and we’d get to see our beloveds again. That’s what it meant when I’d read the famous John 3:16 passage as a child, “For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son…” 

God loved us so, that he gave us a gift. A gift that cost the life of his own Son. The best possible gift ever—to not have to say goodbye for good—but only goodbye for now. 

Hope.  

That’s what the doctor was trying to tell the woman, I’m sure. He just really sucked at his delivery. And the timing was all wrong. Not to mention, I don’t think he was ever going to be the person able to give hope. Not then. Not like that. People muck this up all the time. We can be really insensitive about it and not even know. We can bust out with weird “you need the healing power of Jesus Christ” for people who are hurting in a way that we aren’t at the moment, who are not a part of Christian culture or accustomed to this kind of thing, and not realize it’s off putting. Not realize we are not offering the comfort or hope they so desperately need.

I think the hope of heaven can only be truly received if it’s shared out of trust that already exists in a relationship. Otherwise, I’m not sure it can have any weight or meaning. A doctor you see once a year who busts out with strange “Christianese” isn’t going to cut it. If we, the Christians, need years to cultivate trust and knowledge of who God is, then might I suggest so do other people? If we need years to get to place where we can believe God is good and He really does love us then, might I suggest, so do other people? And if we need somebody who we trust to share God with us, then might I suggest, that’s who they need too? 

I think our job as acquaintances and strangers, is to be the light. The shining light. Just like my little Ellie Hope. Always shining, never hiding, always learning from the marginalized, always inviting but never insisting or “should-ing” or thinking we are better than, but just shining on in the darkness.

. . .

There’s a scene in The Hunger Games where President Snow is talking to the Game Maker, Seneca Crane. If you don’t know the Hunger Games—-OMG, WHO ARE YOU?! FIX IT NOW!—I feel sorry for you. I do. 

Anyway, President Snow in all his cold, power hungry callousness asks the Game Maker, “why do you think we have a winner?” 

Seneca is confused, “what do you mean?” he asks. 

“I mean, why. Do we have. A winner?” he repeats it, heavy. “I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up 24 of them at random and execute them all at once? It would be a lot faster.” 

Seneca looks at him to say he doesn’t know. He’s never thought about it before. President Snow dips his head down, looks Seneca in the eyes and says “Hope.” 

Seneca repeats “Hope?” 

“Hope. it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective…A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine. As long as it’s contained.” 

Seneca answers “so?” searching for what President Snow wants him to do next. 

“So. Contain IT” President Snow directs.

President Snow is the dark force in The Hunger Games. A little hope is effective, he’ll permit it. A lot of hope is dangerous. Dangerous for him because he needs people to be afraid in order to retain power.

The darkness wants you afraid. A little hope is allowed so you don’t rebel or dare to seek more. It’s contained. 

The light wants you to live without limit. It offers hope abounding, even after death. Hope. The only thing stronger than fear.

We’re invited to dare to believe it’s true. But of course, I know it’s not that easy. I can make it sound tidy here in an essay but we all know it’s messier than that.

You must test and see that God is good. I get it. 

You must find a way to believe that Heaven is real. I know. 

Must you now believe just the right thing about Jesus? Yikes. That seems complicated.

Is any of this real?

Uh, huh. You are not original in your Charlie Foxtrot, okay?

Everyone grapples with this. 

Well, most everyone. I guess what I’d say is that, it’s allowed. It’s all part of it. What’s more, I figure God already knows I grapple and doubt and try to prove and…and…and…So I don’t need to try and hide it from Him. I figure he wants the real me. Not the me pretending to have it all figured out or hiding behind pat answers I’m actually skeptical of.

If you want to skip ahead of all these questions, which you probably won’t be able to do, but let’s pretend you could— I can tell you how it ends. 

God shows you He is good. Then, you start to believe Him when He says He loved us so much that he sent his Son so that we might be reunited with Him and those we love after death. 

This is where you end up. 

Eventually. 

I mean, first you’ll be confused by old testament God stuff and then absolutely shocked to learn that Jesus seems a little harder and opinionated than you imagined.

Then you’ll go off on weird tangents and particulars in your faith and get all distracted.  For example, Jesus not being all love bombs and rainbows confused me because he didn’t turn out to be what I expected. Because of this, for a while, I wondered if I could just deal with God and not figure out the whole Jesus thing. The Jesus part is what gets everybody uncomfortable anyway. God rarely does, you know. Most people accept there is a God even if they use a different word for it. It occurred to me at a certain point during this exploration, that without Jesus there is no Christianity, so my approach wasn’t going to work. Then mercifully, I realized it was the organized religion part of Christianity with their declarations of who-is-in and who-is-out that makes me uncomfortable, not actually Jesus. 

So, phew! Dodged that bullet.

It get complicated, okay? This is what you have to know. What I’ve learned though, is that for the most part, anything that confuses me is usually due to my own lack of understanding or context in some area. And so I keep learning until things smooth out and make sense to me. If I chase my questions long enough, I don’t usually get answers, but I do get brought back to the heart of God and Jesus—a soft place to land. But before this, I get all bound up over an issue of the times, conflicted and worried. Then eventually, I remember God is just there. Not waiting for me to figure it out perfectly but rather, just delighting that my heart is after Him and his goodness in the first place. And then I can breathe again. 

Forgetting-conflict-worry-remembering-grace-hope. This is my way. But regardless of how many times I go through this spin cycle, one thing is certain.

Hope in abundance is on the other side.

Which is Good News. I was tired of being contained and afraid.

On Bolognese and Italy

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I’ve prepared more than I thought I would for my trip to Italy. We are going in April and I admittedly bought a black versatile going out to dinner dress, three going out to dinner blouses, a going out to dinner jacket, sandals that will be comfortable for walking but also dress up a jean skirt, and two new pairs of jeans. I scheduled a facial three days before I leave. I will definitely get a manicure. I think I am just excited to go.

I have wanted to go Italy my whole life and I would like to feel good while visiting. It’s as if every day I’m there feels like it will be a momentous occasion. The way I’d plan for a big, high falutin’ black tie event is the same way I plan for my lifelong anticipated trip to Italy, it turns out. At the same time, I have a real desire to not over pack. I want to choose a “color palette” and this is not a sentence I ever thought I’d write since I’m more of a “eh–lets just wing it, it’ll be fine” kind of girl, but the thing is, I don’t want to have to pack too many shoes. The more colors and styles of clothing you have, the more shoes you need, so wanting to pack minimally requires MORE planning, not less. I find this annoying. To have my clothing choices be effortless, I have to put in a lot of planning up front. I’m judging myself for it, but it just is what it is at this point.

My sister went to Paris last year. She wore things there she doesn’t wear here. Black lace tights, red peplum skirts with a cream lace top and moto boots with buckles. I laughed about it. Why don’t you just go to Paris and look the way you look? I said. Why dress in Paris costumes?

Pot calling.

It’s not like I never buy new things for vacation. I almost always do. A new swim suit and cover-up for Anguilla. It’s just that mostly, I keep it to a minimum. Who am I when I get to go to Italy? Apparently the kind of nutcase that buys a whole new wardrobe and schedules facials before the flight. 

I’m regretting not booking more days in Rome. Too many people who’s opinion I respect, when they find out I’m going to Italy, have said “I loved Rome. Oh my gosh, you are going to love Rome!” Where were they when I was planning my trip? I had read that Rome was a dirty city and to not expect much magic there. To instead spend more time in Tuscany or Amalfi. So that’s what I scheduled. I will only be in Rome for a day and a half and regret is settling in hard core. But then again, how could I regret spending time in Italy, *anywhere?* You need to know who the type of people are leaving reviews. You cannot just decide because Harry and Martha and Leo from Michigan didn’t love Rome, that you won’t either. What if they are all uninteresting people who don’t find the majesty in the juxtaposition of a busy, modern city set in a landscape from a time gone by? That there could be a cafe with yeah, maybe some pigeons and trash  out front BUT also a stone pilar that looks like it was part of a building that got destroyed in 800AD, you know? I wonder about these things. Or what if the people who all said “stay in Amalfi” were too fancy for me? What if they were the people who dress in Gucci from head to toe and someone I wouldn’t ever take advice from anyway? My guess is I’m going to hopelessly love all of Italy. That I won’t fancy one thing over another but inhale it all like dessert—chocolate cake, donuts, hazelnut gelato, cream puffs, fig, chocolate and marscapone bread pudding—because how can you compare which is better? It just depends on your taste. And I never met a dessert I didn’t like. I’m already lusting over all I’ll miss in the North. Genoa, Bologna, Venice. 

My PT Ray, is half Italian with a penchant for Chianti’s. His family lives in north east Italy, right on the border of Austria, and he grew up visiting them. He also told me he makes a fantastic bolognese sauce. How do you make it, I asked? With very, very finely diced carrots, celery and onions. I don’t like a chunky bolognese and so it’s crucial you get the vegetables small enough. I use pancetta and bison instead of beef, red wine, cream, and a smooth tomato puree. Again, I like my bolognese smooth instead of chunky. You add  everything little by little and let it all simmer together until it’s rich and thick. He made sure to tell me that people from Bologna will tell you never to use cream—only milk. But he does it anyway because it’s just too outrageously good, he tells me.

Milk or cream, I didn’t care. All I knew was I got really hungry for Bolognese sauce. So I ran straight to the store and bought all the ingredients for it. I don’t have his recipe, but he told me enough. If I google the way Marcella Hazan makes it, I should be in business, I figure.

I’m going to make the tastiest bolognese sauce known to man, I thought, very pleased with my decision. I even bought real spaghetti pasta to layer below. Usually I make a quicker style bolognese for topping spaghetti squash with, but that will never do today. I’ve always fancied chunkier style sauces, but the way Ray describes meticulously chopping everything finely makes me hungry for a smoother sauce. I bought tomato puree instead of plum tomatoes for crushing between my fingers.

I’m excited about my tripe and the anticipation is building.

But I’m not leaving yet, and so I’m still in prep mode. So tonight I will render the fat from pancetta and add vegetables and wine and tomatoes and beef before simmering it away until it’s a tender, thick, succulent puddle of red. I shan’t forget the nutmeg. And then we’ll feast. 

If I’m going to over-prepare for Italy, I figure, I better include lots of feasting. 

6oz pancetta, chopped

2 large carrots, mined

3 large celery stalks, minced

1 yellow onion, minced

3 tablespoons butter

2 lbs ground beef or beef and pork combo

salt

pepper

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 cups white wine

1 28-oz can tomato puree (or 28-oz whole plum tomatoes w/ their juice and crush tomatoes through your hands before adding them into the sauce)

parmigiana reggiano for topping

buttered spaghetti for serving

Brown the pancetta with a little olive oil in the bottom of a heavy pot over medium high heat. Add butter, onion, celery and carrot. Cook about 5 minutes. Add ground beef, salt and pepper and crumble with your wooden spoon and cook on medium high until cooked. Add milk and cream and simmer until almost evaporated. Add wine and let it simmer until it has almost evaporated. Add tomatoes and nutmeg and another sprinkle of salt. Bring to a boil then turn the heat down to a low simmer and cook, uncovered for 3 hours, stiring occasionally. If sauce begins to dry out (fat will separate from meat), stir in a bit of water and keep cooking. Make sure all your water has evaporated before tasting for salt and adding more if needed (pro tip: it probably needs it) and serving. Serve over buttered pasta. Please butter it. Don’t be embarrassing.

PS- This is why I wrestle fiercely with editing. When writing, you are “supposed” to pick a subject and then write about that and nothing else so you don’t distract from the thing you are talking about. In this case, bolognese sauce and Italy. But then I go into over-preparing for my upcoming trip and then tell you a little ditty about my sister and how I’m a hypocrite and I thought “Krysta, you need to cut this part out, or just mention it briefly” but I just didn’t want to. Additionally, this PS address should be edited out as well. But you know what I love? Nuanced, rambley writing that leads you someplace by way of somewhere else—the long, scenic way. I like things layered and simmered and rich, like bolognese (see what I did there?)