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A blog by Krysta MacGray

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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?)

One Reason Non-Disciplined People Resist Doing The Things We Know We Should

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I’ll save you the 19 minute story if you prefer, and let you know that the reason we resist disciplining ourselves in a daily, ongoing fashion is because we KNOW when we start, there’s no stopping. You are either on the road of a disciplined person, or you hop off. We know it’s better to be on it, but it just seems like a lot of work, you know? Deciding to discipline ourselves in a specific, focused area each day is like opening Pandora’s box to all the other things we could be disciplining ourselves in to make our life more functional. It’s like our subconscious recognizes what we are doing and gets all up in our face about the OTHER things we could be doing and it doesn’t end. A choice has to be made. For a long while, I’d choose the disciplined road only half the time—but only if it had a specific time period attached to it. In other words, I was fine disciplining myself if whatever I was doing had an end date and I could go back to my normal way of life. I dabbled in discipline. I didn’t continue to lead a disciplined lifestyle.

This doesn’t work for the long term. Not to get where you really want to go anyway. Steven Pressfield describes this as the pro mindset versus the amateur mindset. “The amateur is in it for fun. A dabbler. A weekend warrior. The amateur has the option to back down when faced with difficulties. But the professional gets up every morning and does the work. They take days off only in an effort to come back stronger next time. When the pro hits adversity, they simply rally. If a pro is hurt, they play hurt. It’s a whole different mindset. Turning pro changes what time we go to bed and what time we get up. it changes how we organize our day. It changes what we read and what we feed our bodies. The amateur tweets, the pro works.”

So when I discuss why deciding to discipline myself to work out every day was important to me, it’s for that reason. I know shying away from fully committing to a goal, taking days off and making excuses makes me an amateur. I know I need to think of myself as a pro. For so long I told myself I didn’t really NEED to because if I wanted to be pro I knew I could, anytime I chose…I just really didn’t need to go “all the way” yet. I was good enough.

But what starts to happen though is you feel like you’re not living up to your potential. I knew I had all this talent and drive and gumption inside of me, but I didn’t know what to do with it and so I always felt like I was trying really hard but getting zero results. Because in the end, talent does matter as much as self-discipline, self-motivation, self-validation, and self-reinforcement. Because we can’t control our talent. We can only control how hard we work.

So in this video, I just talk about what that feels like for me and what other work I need to do. I also sing a little ditty in the beginning, so if you want to laugh at me, be my guest.

Happy Weekend, everybody!

Xoxo (becuase it was just Valentines Day)

Krysta

Conversations with Jeremy: Physical Discipline

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Oh heyyy, look at me! I worked out…again.


Scene: Jeremy and I are in the kitchen after eating a delicious dinner of taco bowls. 

Krysta: I have a real question for you, but you can’t laugh

Jeremy: I might. If it’s a dumb question, I might. I’m an INTJ and that’s what we do, so prepare yourself for that.

He’s joking, kind of. He’s not rude, but since his personality profile describes him as “the most strategically capable” he does find certain questions amusing and often asks “how do people survive in this world?” when they ask them. 

Krysta: I signed up for a month long booty and ab challenge with Betty Rocker. She’s this workout guru in Denver…anyway, each day I get a new 30-minute workout video sent to my email. Every day. Like, EVERY DAY, except weekends because you have to have rest days but still, Monday through Friday I have committed to work out for a whole month. 

I have his attention. This is new territory for me. For the past three years I had weight trained for 45 minutes consistently 2 days per week with a little 4-minute high intensity tabata or HIIT session at the end. There was usually another day or two during the week when I’d hike or walk or jog as well but not quickly and nothing else.

Getting to this point, my friends, was a huge deal for me. I had gone from dabbling in a yoga or zumba class a couple times a year to a consistent 2-3 day per week workout without too much struggle. In my mind, I was already slaying.

Krysta: And Jeremy? These are high intensity workouts. It’s jumping cardio stuff in-between challenging deliberate body quivering things like planks. What I’m trying to convey is that it’s uncomfortable for me. I don’t like to work that hard when I work out. I like keeping a nice pace hiking, or gassing it on a jog for a bit before coming back to a comfortable pace and mostly, I do all these things so I can listen to podcasts and music and get lost in my thoughts. That’s what make physical activity enjoyable for me. But just working hard the whole time is not enjoyable for me. It’s hard and I don’t like what I’ve signed up for. 

Jeremy: yeah, you don’t like to feeling physically uncomfortable.

Krysta: Right. I discipline myself in other areas, but I always let myself off the hook when it comes to pushing myself  physically. I quit a workout early or skip days because I can’t remember what the huge deal is in completing it if I’ve done “enough” already. I don’t ever feel bad about cutting workouts short or skipping days if I’ve already given a solid effort and done more than I would have. I actually believe it’s not that important to finish so long as I keep doing good enough. I don’t know why. Being alright with good enough is healthy many times but when it comes to the subject of discipline, not so much. I recognize I haven’t put my hand to the fire in this specific area. That’s why I signed up but I’m scared because I know there will be many days I don’t want to do it. So my question is what should I do to make myself do the workout when I don’t want to do it? 

I’m asking Jeremy because he is the most physically disciplined person I know. He races mountain bikes and is always going on training rides when he doesn’t feel like it, when he doesn’t have time, when it’s -1 outside, you name it. 

Jeremy: Well, discipline is doing what you want to do when you don’t want to do it. In order to motivate yourself, I think you need an activity you love. Or at least an end goal. I make myself go on all my rides because eventually I have a race to compete in. Theres a race goal.

Krysta: Yeah, I don’t have a goal outside of just feeling like I should.

He lifts up a magazine. The picture is of a guy mountain biking through rough terrain by a lake. “Well it helps to be doing something you theoretically like doing even when you don’t want to do it. That activity for me right now is mountain biking. I love the sport but I don’t always want to go on rides. See this picture right here though? It makes me want to ride. I see this and I imagine biking through this place and instantly I want to get on my bike and go. Do any activities make you feel like that? 

Krysta: I know what you are talking about but I feel that way  about writing and cooking and a few other things. Sometimes I’ll read something that’s so inspiring I literally have to stop everything I am doing and write down my thoughts about it. Or sometimes I’ll come across an idea for an interesting recipe and I’m already half way to the store to pick up the ingredients to make it immediately. Never though, do I experience that in the exercise realm. I enjoy hiking or running on occasion if it’s not too hard and I can listen to podcasts and get lost in thought but—I don’t experience that with any challenging physical activities. Ever. And I could be wrong but I really doubt I ever will.

We live in a small town. There is no Soul Cycle here.

Jeremy: You liked skate skiing though?

Krysta: I enjoy it, but I’m not jonesing to get out and do it again or anything. I’ll go and enjoy what I can but after a while it’s sort of like, okay enough.

Jeremy: You know, every morning I come down and read  books for my quiet time but I don’t particularly enjoy it. I do it because I know the tremendous value of reading and the things I learn by doing it and so it’s kind of like a discipline for me each day.”

I gasped. 

“You don’t like…READING?!?”

I’ve been married to the man for fifteen years, and he reads every morning. We have rows and rows of books on our bookshelf that he’s read. He has never said this before.

Jeremy: I mean I do for a little while, but I burn out pretty quickly. I don’t want to keep doing it. I mostly discipline myself to do it each day, which is why some of my quiet time’s are shorter than others and maybe that’s what physical activity will be like for you. A discipline you can enjoy the benefits of but not something your all hung-ho to do over and over again everyday.

This for me, ladies an gentlemen, was like an Oprah A-ha moment. The second he said it something clicked together in my brain that hadn’t come together before.

THAT’S IT! I thought. That’s exactly the way I need to think about my workouts. Maybe it’s okay that I don’t get fired up all the time to be active. Maybe nothing is wrong with me. Maybe it’s okay that I don’t like to do it the whole time. When it comes to food that’s not our favorite we always tell our kids “you know, you don’t have to like it to eat it.” We do this because we know the value of eating something less than enjoyable and we take nutrient intake seriously.

Of course, there are also many enjoyable aspects to making a choice to workout daily. I feel energized and happy after a challenging workout. I feel proud of myself and inspired about life, about projects, about everything afterwards. This also leads me to make better food choices naturally because I WANT to. I don’t feel like burgers after I workout. I feel like salads with chicken and sprouts or smoothies with protein, greens, berries and avocado. This sets me up for the next meal and the next and it snowballs. I sleep better when I workout. I feel like connecting with people or slaying everything on my to do list with enthusiasm after I work out. I feel capable in all respects after a workout. I may not particularly enjoy the 30 minutes that I’m working hard but it’s thirty minutes. I can do anything for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes is nothing, really. It could be so much worse. It could be a 90 minute yoga class.

Maybe it’s okay that workouts don’t beckon and interest me like they do other people. Maybe other people don’t get pulled to the page to express themselves creatively like I do, or inspired to the kitchen to try a new recipe either. I’ve often been told it’s lucky that I like to cook since I have to do it anyway each day. 

I’ve always thought people who like to work out are lucky since it’s something that we are supposed to do everyday. 

I’d never considered that those work-out enthusiasts had to perhaps discipline themselves in the kitchen or another area that I’m much more inclined. 

My friend Ailini likes to clean. Serious. She LIKES it because it makes her feel calm. I’ve always thought that was lucky since again, it’s something we all have to do anyway. So I thought I’d try thinking of working out as something I had to do to—same as laundry or dishes or any other of the mundane tasks I loathe but regularly do because I have to. 

I guess this is what fitness people mean when they say “make workouts non-negotiable” but for whatever reason I never understood it that way. I never understood it to mean to make it something you have to do in order to keep your very life running. If I didn’t do the dishes, I could get away with it for a day or so but before long we would run out of forks. 

What the hell is it with missing forks anyway? Never the spoons, always the forks. 

The point is I would HAVE to do the dishes in order to move my life forward. It wouldn’t matter if I didn’t feel like it. I would have to stop whatever more enjoyable thing I was doing and wash the dishes already so that I could then eat dinner without issue. What if I approached it that way? I could get behind that.

Maybe it all just evens out in the end. Some necessary things are easy for us, and some necessary things are hard for us, and there’s a huge space in between that we feel sort of indifferent about, but disciplining ourselves to do what we ought, regardless of how we feel brings tremendous value, regardless. 

I’m lucky that the two areas I feel most inspired about is cooking and creative expression, mostly of the written sort. At first I de-valued the creative expression one. I mean, people don’t have to express themselves creatively. However, the discipline of writing teaches you many valuable things that make life easy in other areas. I was at a talk last week for Jordan Petersons Book 12 Rules For Life and he reminded me that the act of writing and editing teaches you how to think. This bleeds into all areas of life. Writers get to think about things more thoughtfully and carefully than the average person has time for. This is an advantage and a luxury.

All is not lost. We are all lucky. Bonus points if what you like has to be done daily, but even if it doesn’t every noble and creative thing has value and place.

I’ll see you in the gym tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that because I’m going to look at it as something the whole rest of my life depends on me to do in order to function well. After my month is up, I’ll have disciplined myself into a spot that’ll allow me to think only working out four days a week is luxuriant. But I just might keep going with this whole five days a week regime because it makes so much sense to me now and really, it’s 30 minutes. I think I used to think a workout = an hour minimum, but a workout could mean 15 minutes. It adds up if done daily and I think that’s what I’m sold on. The daily aspect.

I don’t have to love it to do it. What a revelation. I just have to do it regardless of how I feel, baring injury or sickness. It’s so simple. You do that in enough areas of your life and that’s what success is born of. It’s easy to do what you want to do. It takes someone with strength of mind to do what they don’t want, for their own good. 

That’s what I’m learning anyway.

I think this is especially true regarding physical challenges which require an output on your part. It’s not like I hadn’t had physical challenges before. I voluntarily chose drug-free natural childbirth—twice. I can withstand suffering. But to produce my own suffering voluntarily, over and over again is another story. 

But I guess it’s what I’m doing for the next month. I wonder what’ll be next? I mean, I’m only on day 3 and I’m already so sore I can’t bend down to pick up my dogs or walk down the stairs but you know, I think it will get better. It’ll get better. It’s got to get better.


Two Songs for Christmas

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I think Just Breathe was intended to be a song about somebody you love dying. But I sing Pearl Jam’s Just Breathe, to God. Because it’s all my fears, prayers, and all I could ever ask Him, in one song.

Yes I understand that every life must end, uh huh

As I sit alone I know someday we must go, uh-huh

Oh, I’m a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love. Some folks just have one, yeah others they got none. Uh-huh.

Stay with me. Let’s just breathe.

Practiced are my sins, never gonna let me win, uh huh.

Under everything, just another human being, uh-huh.

Yeah I don’t want to hurt, there’s so much in this world to make me bleed.

Stay with me. You’re all see. 

Did I say that I need you? 

Did I say that I want you? 

For if I didn’t I’m a fool you see, no one knows this more than me, as I come clean.

I wonder every day As I look upon your face, uh-huh. Everything you gave and nothing you wouldn’t take, uh-huh. 

Nothing you would take. Everything you gave…

Did I say that I need you? 

Did I say that I want you?

For if I didn’t I’m a fool you see, no one knows this more than me, as I come clean.

Nothing you would take everything you gave. 

Hold me till I die.

Meet you on the other side…

Christmas is the season of perpetual hope. A thrill of hope, as O Holy Night reminds me, as the weary world rejoices.

I am the weary world. My hope is that Jesus came so that He might accompany me in my weariness, lighten the load with his presence should I have Him, and take me to Him and Love along with all the people I cherish and hold dear when someday it’s my time to go. 

A thrill of hope.

Oh Holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear saviors birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till he appeared and the soul felt it’s worth. 

My soul doesn’t always feel it’s worth. I question things a lot. I’d like to think God is okay with this because this is how he made me, but sometimes I wonder, does he think it’s okay? Does my questioning bring me nearer to Him or further away? At what point does it matter?  

 For yonder breaks a new a glorious mourn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angle voices. Oh night divine.

Nat King Cole beseeches me to hear. To fall on my knees and to declare the night divine. To feel the sheer thrill of it. That we might not have to be alone with our suffering without end.

The night of our dear Saviors birth.  

I had a big ole Christmas party last Friday night. Many people came. We ate, drank and were merry. I celebrated many friends and health and happiness. I went to sleep in a warm bed, woke up to warm food, and basked in the warmth of my family. 

Yeah I’m a lucky man to count on both hands the one’s I love.

Then the restlessness started to creep back.  My constant companion as of late. Now what? it says. The party is done. What will you plan next? And it knows I must plan something next, or else the restlessness. The feeling of doing nothing, contributing nothing, being nothing and even more so, having no work to do that’s of any value—being a waste of space. Even though I am loved. Even though I love. Even though I am happy, I feel like I am not living up to my potential. That I am not doing the work I am meant to do. Not living my purpose. Not even knowing what it is. That I’m wasting my days, not taking time seriously, and what if when the “one day I must go” comes and I’m still living this way and haven’t figured it out? The regret. The sadness. And so I regularly lament in the midst of my lovely, wonderful life. 

It’s a strange thing. A waste of a lovely, wonderful life in a way. How ironic. Why not just enjoy my life?

Because something inside me prompts me to more. Prompts is a bad word. Invites. Something invites me to more. The “more” isn’t inherently bad, it simply keeps whispering that there is more than just enjoying your life. That maybe even just enjoying your life leaves you the most hollowed out and alone because there is good and useful work for me to do that merely enjoying doesn’t give. That maybe even just enjoying betrays. But “more” won’t say what that work is–not specifically. So I spend my days searching for it. 

Maybe it’s THIS. Maybe it’s THAT. Perhaps I’d be useful at this. Maybe that’s why I have these gifts, because I’m supposed to be using them this way. If I go and do this thing, surely I’ll find my purpose which will give me lasting fulfillment and I won’t have to pine after it everyday. I won’t have to wonder who I am or what I’m good at anymore because I’ll finally know and then I’ll just keep doing that. I won’t have to long for it anymore because it’ll be there.

I’ll do a thing or take on a project. I’ll like it. It maybe even brings value to people other than myself. I’ll feel good. I’ll feel useful and worthy of my life. I want to do it again so I search for the next project or thing to work on. But in between, the restlessness and sadness and doubt.

I know I’m looking for something that doesn’t bring lasting fullness. The thing I should be looking for, I know, is Jesus. I should be looking for God. Confusing since I thought I’d found Him. 

Do you ever really find God? When you do, do you ever really get to hold onto him or do you just have to keeping trying to find him hundreds of different ways, hundreds of different days? Him in plain sight, but I’m blind again.

Practiced are my sins, never gonna let me win, uh huh.

Did I say that I need you? Did I say that I want you? For if I didn’t I’m a fool you see, no one knows this more than me.

Jesus came to earth to be born as a baby.

A thrill of hope.

I am loved and doubtful and full of questions that never provide answers. I am taken care of and I take care. I am not worthy or living up to my potential. Perhaps I never will. I can’t seem to grasp how to do it—how to hold the stars. I’m too self involved and overly indulgent at times. I don’t give until it hurts. I fail over and over. 

And yet He came. One night in December, He came for me. He came for all my not enough-ness, and then also for the times when I believe I am EVERYTHING AWESOME. He came just the same. And I can question if it really happened, and ponder my doubt mixed with hope that it did, and pray to make my faith stronger so that belief could just be easy and tidy for me to accept. 

Or I can just decide to accept, in an audacious act of faith. 

Acts of faith like that are hard to maintain for me.

It’s not in my nature, I don’t think. I’ll surely forget again. Forget how to have faith like that all the time. 

But for this season of advent, and in anticipation of celebrating Christ’s birthday, the gift I will give is my audacious faith and celebration and thanks and praise that He came. I will show him a weary world rejoices—even if it’s a conscious choice rather than a genuine reaction because I’m so jaded and poor and not understanding.

This Christmas, I’m leaving space. I’m not filling it with another project to make me feel better, useful or relieved. I choose Christmas. I choose to behold the night divine. I choose God with me. Even if I don’t feel it all the time. Even if I doubt it will make a difference. I will let God be enough. Alas, He is the only thing that ever has been.

Hold me till I die. 

Meet you on the other side…

Avgolemono Soup

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Hey Guys,

This post is little bit of a throwback to old school blogging. We didn’t write essays back then. We just kind of wrote letters telling you about our life and what happened that week and then oh, look here’s a soup I made, with the recipe.

So hi. There’s a soup recipe down below and it’s the coziest bowl of comfort that I make these days. I bet you’ll like it.

Today it snowed. Last week it snowed too. I have a tradition with my kids about the first snowfall every year. The first time actual flakes fall from the sky while we are awake (waking up to snow doesn’t count) I make them cups of homemade hot chocolate with whipped cream. We top it with sprinkles if we have it, but this year we didn’t.

The kids enjoying their hot chocolate 

I make simple cocoa on the stove top. I just fill mugs with milk and add splashes of heavy cream (about 3 tablespoons each mug) and then dump it all into a pot. For each cup of milk I add 1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and a tiny pinch of salt. Then I whisk everything together over medium heat until hot. I divide the hot cocoa back into each of the mugs and top with whipped cream. I make whipped cream from scratch mostly, but for hot chocolate we just get the stuff in a can.

I also got my nails painted red this week too. Nothing like a little cranberry red to usher in the fall season. Fall = when it snows here. Fall/winter mixed. Red works for both, I figure.

I’m currently watching my nephews so their parents can sneak away for a quick trip to NYC. It’s loud and exciting here. There are donuts on the counter and Jurassic World  on the TV. I’m blogging and drinking a cup of sleepy time tea. It’s a great Sunday.

My puppies are getting huge! Did you know we got puppies? Two French Bulldogs. Aren’t they just the cutest?

We named the white one Star Lord, which is a Guardians of the Galaxy reference and the black one is Norma Jean. Everyone thinks the white one is Norma Jean because the white one is more beautiful and photogenic.

I’m not being rude, it’s just the truth.

Here look, this is Star Lord:

He’s a stud.

Now here’s Norma Jean:

She’s just never quite as beautiful in pictures. I’m not even picking bad pictures, you guys, she just always looks like this. She never looks at the camera. She relaxes into a shapeless lump when you hold her. It’s so funny.

Oh, and hey, here’s that soup I was telling you about. It’s Avgolemono, a traditional Greek soup thickened with eggs, which makes it looks all creamy despite not having cream. It’s lemony and thick, full of chicken and fat rice. It’s what we make instead of chicken noodle. Th little bit of dill on top absolutely makes the dish. My husband disagrees. I said this one time and he responded “no it doesn’t. I just had a bowl without the dill and it was delicious. The dill doesn’t MAKE it.” Whatever. You tell me and report back. Dill or no dill, it’s so, so yummy.

Avgolemono Soup

Serves 6

Ingredients:

  • Olive oil
  • 4 stalks celery, chopped small
  • 1 yellow onion, chopped small
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 8 cups chicken broth (see note)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 cup arborio rice
  • Salt and pepper
  • A 4-5lb whole chicken, shredded (see note)
  • 1/2 cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
  • 4 large eggs, plus one egg yolk
  • Fresh dill for garnish

*for chicken and chicken stock, you can always just buy cartons of stock and a rotisserie chicken from your local store, but I always make mine as home. I have two methods, One is slower, one is fast. Either 1) I boil a whole chicken in water with a quartered onion, a couple whole carrots and celery sticks, peppercorns and a head of garlic cut in half AND PLENTY OF SALT for an hour until the chicken is cooked through and tender, and then I remove the chicken until it’s cool enough to shred, strain the stock into a bowl and use that for my broth OR 2) I place the whole chicken in a pressure cooker with 2 1/2 cups of water and cook on high for 26 minutes. When it’s done, I set the chicken aside until cool enough to shred and I strain the water from the pressure cooker into a bowl and use that as part of my stock (you’ll need to add salt to the whole soup later). If you employ this method you’ll have three cups of liquid for your soup and you’ll only need to add 5 more cups of stock. I typically use water and better than bullion when I do this method. 

In a large soup pot heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add the carrots and onions and sauce until tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauce for another minute. Add the chicken broth, bay leaves, shredded chicken and 2  teaspoons salt. Bring to a boil, then cover the pot with a lid and turn the heat down and simmer for one to two hours (this is to make sure the chicken gets very tender).

About 30 minutes before serving, add rice. When the rice is cooked, prepare the egg-lemon sauce. In a large bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and eggs and egg yolk. While whisking add three ladlefuls of hot broth from the soup slowly (this tempers the eggs and ensures they don’t curdle when added to the hot soup pot). Once fully combined, add the sauce to the chicken soup and stir for a minute until it’s thickened. Remove from he heat—you don’t want it to boil too much once the eggs have been added— and eat immediately.

Garnish with dill and a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper.

I just realized that upon reading this recipe it might sound like more steps than you’d like, but I promise, if you make it once you get it and it’s really easy the next time. It’s one of my go-to dishes.

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