• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Feels Like Home

A blog by Krysta MacGray

  • Home
  • Krysta
  • Food
  • Gathering
  • Stories
  • Travel
  • Houses
  • Books
  • Contact

Stories

Two Songs for Christmas

December 17, 2018 By krystamacgray Leave a Comment

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…

Filed Under: Stories, Uncategorized Tagged With: christmas, Faith, Hope, Songs, Stories

Writing Process

October 4, 2018 By krystamacgray Leave a Comment

Today, I’m writing a chapter called “Somebody To Love.” I looked down at my shirt and thought, “well this is serendipitous,” so, naturally, I took a selfie.

Please enjoy….

Read More »

Filed Under: Books, Stories Tagged With: authors, books, writing, writing process

Sister, sister

August 26, 2018 By krystamacgray Leave a Comment

I know. Slack -ass here. Just letting you know I haven’t gone away. I’ve got a new post in the works and will publish Monday. End of summer, friends visiting, no-time- for-writing-things happened. So I’m sorry, but as Terminator says, I’ll be back. For now, I’ll leave you with something I learned this summer….

Read More »

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: family, sisters

Memory Box of Horrors

July 30, 2018 By krystamacgray Leave a Comment

The other day I went through the memory boxes my Grandma had put together and kept in her attic for me. Even though they’ve been in my storage for years, I’d never been through them before.

I giggled as I pulled out rude notes I wrote.

I marveled at old headshots:

I found cards and notes from my high school graduation, like this completely normal one  from my dad, in which he expresses his sincerest wishes to buy me the cheapest juicer that can be bought in honor of my big day.

There were cute birthday cards from my kindergarten friends. Original stories and a completely transcribed script of Beauty and The Beast that I had written out by hand.

These were all funny and cute things to comb through. These are things you might expect to see in your own memory box. But there are some things that come out of memory boxes that you do not expect.

Slightly disturbing things, even.

Things like THIS:

…

…

… (these “…” are my my written interpretation of stunned silence)

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL, right?

Like, why? Why would this BE?

You guys, just go with me here a moment. This means there was a real live day, back in 1993, when my hair was cut (normal), and then my Grandma, bless her heart, thought to herself, “I have a great idea! I think I’ll sweep up the hair on the floor and then wrap it lovingly in paper towels, and then stuff it into a manilla envelope for Krysta’s memory box. She might like to have this old hair someday.” (Not normal).

My hair.

My chopped off and discarded, now twenty four year old hair.

YOU GUYS?!

What do I even do with this? I can’t begin to think what one might do with their hair from when they were twelve years old EXCEPT write about it.

It is for this reason that my Grandmother is my very favorite person in the entire universe for giving me this gift.

I am so confused and in wonder and disturbed. This is gold.

Ten years from now I won’t remember the pictures and paintings or schoolwork, but I will most definitely, absolutely, remember this.

I’ll say to Jeremy when we are sixty years old, “Remember that one time I was unpacking my memory box when…?”

I decided that the only considerate thing to do with the hair package, besides tell you, was to pass the surprise on to someone else.

So I packed the hair back up and stuck it in the box, with no explanations, where it will languish in my garage among my keepsakes for decades and decades until one day, when I’m gone, my kids will go through my crap and discover it.

I’d give anything to be there.

Can you even imagine their faces? The only thing more disturbing than unearthing a package of your own hair, is unearthing a package of someone else’s hair.

I’m telling you what.

What can I say? I’m a giver.

 

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: memory box

If I Only Had a (Fill In the Blank)

July 12, 2018 By krystamacgray Leave a Comment

My daughter, Olivia, has been watching The Wizard of Oz a lot lately. My husband always says that he thinks this movie is kind of weird and that the lion is “disgusting,” but he didn’t really grow up watching it either so it lacks the nostalgic quality for him that it brings to most….

Read More »

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: wizard of oz

Time Travel

June 14, 2018 By krystamacgray 1 Comment

Hey guys. I’m still in unpacking craziness over here, moving into our new house, so I decided to post this little piece I wrote one day a little over two years ago. It’s one of those ditties I never published and just wrote for the fun of it. You know, like the other hundred of these I have in the notes on my phone…

So, let’s rewind back to the spring of 2016, shall we?…

Read More »

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: nostalgia, time travel, youth

I’m a terrible school mom. Period.

May 26, 2018 By krystamacgray 1 Comment

I’m trying hard to resist jumping on Jen Hatmaker’s coat tails, to tell you about how I’m the worst end of school year mom ever, but I can’t do it any longer because it’s true. I am the worst. In fact, I’m worse than Jen because I don’t just check out at the end of the year. It’s pretty much the case all year long….

Read More »

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: kids, school, school mom

Mother’s Day

May 18, 2018 By krystamacgray Leave a Comment

When I came downstairs on Mother’s Day morning I found my son working at the table on a present for me. He gave me instructions not to look at his paper until he was done.

A little while later at brunch he said, “Hey, Mom, I left a paper in your purse – can you get it for me?”

Ellie was sitting next to me, and my purse was on the other side of her, so I strained over and rifled through quickly, but after a few seconds said, “I don’t see it. Sorry, bud.”

Jeremiah said, “But, Mom. I left it in there. Can you look again?”

Sort of exasperated I again reached over Ellie and gave it another quick look. “Nope. Nothing. Did you put it somewhere weird?? Jeremiah, it’s kind of hard for me to look around with your sister here. Can you just get up and get it?”

Jeremy widened his eyes. Through clenched teeth he sang, “It’s your preeesennnt…”

Oh. Right.

So I looked again. I found it folded up in a pocket. When I took it out, I was stunned by my boy.

Jeremiah draws very well. Anime and cartoons are more his thing, but because he always asks me, “Mom, what should I draw?” And I always answer, “I don’t know, because I like flowers, but I’m sure you want to draw dinosaurs or something, right?” he drew me a flower. But that’s not the part that blew me away. As I read, I could tell Jeremiah’s words were deep. Like, for an eleven year old, he knew what he was talking about and had a gift for articulating himself in ways outside of convention. The words he choose to highlight and how he called attention to each individual thing and then encompassed them “all” at the end with the exact number of petals he had drawn.

It caught me off guard.

“Wow,” I said. “Buddy, this is an amazing poem.”

He gave me a confused look, “It’s a poem?”

“Well, it strikes me as a poem. Did you not mean to write it like one?”

“Not really,” he said. “I just wrote down my message.”

And my heart, wildly proud of my boy’s talent, swelled as I thought about how he hadn’t EVEN TRIED to write a poem, but just naturally communicated that way. My gracious.

“This is an amazing gift, love. Thank you.” I said to him.

He smiled satisfactorily and then said something funny. My son. He’s not particularly prideful. He’s also not a show off or full of himself. He genuinely just speaks the very truth of what he sees, which usually puts him smack dab in the middle with everyone else in the world. But sometimes, the very truth of what he sees elevates him above the others just a little bit.

He said very, very rationally and matter of factly, “Well, I gave Dad, like, the most (eyebrow raise) AMAZING Father’s Day present ever last year, and now I’ve given you a pretty AMAZING Mother’s Day present this year, so…yeah…”

And then he went back to coloring on the paper the restaurant had given him, done with the assessment of his work.

It’s true, he had given Jeremy the most heart felt Father’s Day gift last year and had asked his Papa Gott (Scott) to help him make it. He made a frame out of wood, asked me to print a picture of him and his dad, and then he wrote, the most thoughtful message to his dad. It was extraordinary. The kind of thing that makes you all choked up and look at your kids with wonder like, “Where did THAT come from?”

After Ellie presented me with her card and drawing, she still wanted to give me gifts so she found some scrap cardboard and drew me this little guy.

Then, she drew another one with three people on it. “This one’s a zombie,” she said, “and this is me and you, and I was scared, but you were not.”

Oooook…Happy Mother’s Day?

I laughed pretty hard.

That night before bed, I texted a picture of Jeremiah’s gift to my sister-in-law, her husband and Jeremy’s parents. After the “aww’s” and “wow’s” my sister-in-law wrote back and shared her own bounty.

“This is from the six year old,” she wrote:

“I don’t want you to die”

KIDS ARE THE BEST!

Filed Under: Stories Tagged With: family funny, kids, mother's day

So You Want To Write A Book?

April 14, 2018 By krystamacgray 1 Comment

I’m writing a book, did you know that? Have I said it out loud? I’ve been so afraid of saying it out loud because then people will ask me things like “how is the book coming along?” An innocent question, except I associate it with PRESSURE! THE PRESSURE IS ON! EVERYBODY KNOWS SO YOU HAVE TO DELIVER! MAKE SURE IT’S GOOD!

I hear this is motivating to some people. Accountability and all that. For me, however, it has the opposite affect. I have a tendency to want to self sabotage anytime pressure, real or perceived, enters the mix. I’ll be like “oh, you want to know how the book is coming? How about NOT AT ALL because I can’t subject myself to living up to your expectations of what I’m doing.”

I don’t really say this, or let it stop me, but it’s in my nature to want to, and so I struggle the teensiest bit.

Did you know it’s common for authors to spend 2-7 years on their books? It varies depending on size and time spent researching, but still, I feel like nobody realizes this. I’ve given myself what feels like a cushy four years to complete my book because it’s something I do on the side. It’s not my primary job. I still have a preschooler at home some days, I also write a weekly blog, plus have to do things like grocery shop, keep our clothes clean, workout and cook dinner every night. So four years seems reasonable to me. Anytime I tell somebody about that four year goal, they seem very unimpressed. People think writing brilliantly is easy and quick work. Meanwhile, I’m never sure I can actually do it. And much of what I’ll write in the next four years will never make it into the book. That is the way it is. Realtors show several houses before someone will make an offer on a property, IF they make an offer at all, and writing drafts and stories is a bit like that. There’s an lot of time spent on the the hope your writing efforts will pay off, but you just never know until the fat lady sings.

My father-in-law heard me talking about how sometimes I sit to write but can’t complete my essay’s. He heard me tell of other times I start essay’s but then put them on hold because I don’t know the ending yet. When this happens I have no choice but to let it go for a while. I do this by telling my mind to please subconsciously sniff out the answer I need while I actively forget about it. It usually works. Maybe a month later I’ll be listening to a podcast and something will be said that relates back to my unfinished essay which will in turn remind me of something else and then all of a sudden, I realize what the ending should be.

After I told him this, my father-in-law, somewhat amused, said “you mean your writing just doesn’t pour out of you?”

Ha. HA. HAAAAAA!

What?

No.

I told him that sometimes it did, but it’s hard to measure because a lot of time, stories that pour out of me to completion are all first drafts anyway. Editing and writing when it doesn’t pour out of you, is a more lengthy, complicated and mystical process.

 

I used to think writers just sat down and wrote effortlessly the first time, in one sitting, and that was that. My blog posts are written more like this. However, my blog posts are not composed of writing that challenges me. I  publish here regularly so the amount of time I spend on any one post is limited. These blog posts are all mostly just first drafts with minor edits. Some I spend more time on, but it’s not the normal rule. But writing, writing? Like, real, good writing? That’s not how it is at all. That kind of writing tends to be much more involved.

It’s hard to explain my process but I think of it like this: I’ve got like, a hundred thousand file folders in my head, and each of these folders contains small bits of information that together, make up what I know and believe about everything. However because there are so many folders and they’re all spread out and unorganized, I can’t really grasp, in it’s entirety, what I think and believe about anything without gathering all the right file folders, containing all the right information, and then looking at it all together, like pieces of a puzzle finally being brought together. When I see it all written out clearly I can be like “ahh, there you are! THAT’S what I think! I knew I knew!”

Except this blessed event only happens once you know where all the right folders are that contain all the right information you are looking for. But you don’t. You can take educated guesses, and you may know where some of the information is located, but the rest? It’s an Easter egg hunt in a field of one hundred thousand eggs.

That’s basically what writing is for me. It’s a process of hunting down all the right folders of information, when I don’t know where the hell they are located, in attempt to put fully formed thought and feeling to words. Sometimes, it actually happens.

Which sounds slightly depressing, but I find it to be an interesting and slightly magical process.

Like anyone else, I vaguely understand how I feel about most things. This allows me to engage in conversations around the dinner table, and this also means I know the general direction an essay of mine will go. This helps me get started with the writing process. However, when it comes to other needed aspects, I have to wait until the right words come to me. This usually feels less like someone else feeding me exact words and more like a flash of recognition in what another says. It’s a hint. Someone will mention something in the movie I’m watching or in line at the grocery store and my ears will perk up. This flash is like someone appearing in my brain, amongst all the file folders giving me a hint saying “you’re getting hot. Getting colder, okay now warmer, hotter, BURNING HOT!” until I look down and find the folder I needed. That’s the only way I can describe it.

This is why I write.

Because when I finish a piece I’m proud of, that also accurately expresses what’s in my insides (or at least comes close) it’s like I’ve taken the bits and pieces from all the folders and put them together into a new folder that makes sense and is not scattered. All the puzzle pieces appear perfectly organized and the picture they display looks like an accurate representation of my thoughts. It’s such a relief.

It’s how I discover what I think about the world.

Flannery O’ Connor said “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

Nicole Krauss said “why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost…”

THAT’S IT.

I’m always so delightfully surprised when I read something back of mine and can nod my head in recognition “Yes! Yes, that’s what I think! What a marvel!” but it’s because I don’t communicate as well when I speak. Every time I open up my mouth, I sense all these deeper and more thoughtful things I think just beneath the surface, lurking in some far away folder, and I can never seem to get to it. I always leave conversations thinking “I just should have kept quiet. I only served to inarticulately scratch the surface of what I really think with my spoken responses.” It feels like I’ve let myself down. Like I’m deficient in some way. I feel misunderstood by no fault of anyone listening, but by my own self, because I’m simply not eloquent of speech. And so writing is redeeming. When I do it well it’s such a comfort. My good writing whispers back to me “Thank God. You do have interesting, original and thoughtful things to say. I knew it! You had me worried for a while.”

 

Each day I hear messages on podcasts and movies or read things in books and articles. I’m bombarded with information. I find most satisfaction when I can take in those messages, sit with them, and figure out what I alone think of them, and then figure out where the holes may be, where the merit may be, instead of accepting at face value. I use the information as a jumping off point in an attempt to discover what’s really going on. Do I really think that’s true? And then I write about it.

It’s out of this drive to figure things out for myself and uncover what I think, plus the sheer wonder of the process that I’m writing a book. So that I can attempt to “rephrase the world to give it back again differently so that everything is used and nothing is lost.”

IF I can do it, that is.

And the fact that I do not know whether I can actually do it (well), makes it an interesting challenge.

As luck would have it, interesting challenges excite me.

I never knew this would be part of my story. I never knew I liked to read, let alone write until I was a full grown adult, not too many years ago. Isn’t that weird? And now a book?

I didn’t decide to become a writer so much as the realization that I was one happened to settle in one day. And it came as such a surprise.

I feel like Mark Haddon, who said “I don’t remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.”

Indeed.

Filed Under: Stories

LIFE UPDATE + SLOW COOKER PORK LOIN “CARNITAS”

April 3, 2018 By krystamacgray Leave a Comment

I hope everyone had a fabulous Easter weekend.

I’m going to do something a little different today. This blog post is going to be a letter to you, instead of a story with a beginning, middle and end, all wrapped up in a bow….

Read More »

Filed Under: Food, Stories Tagged With: books, family, husbands, life, marriage, pork carnitas, sisters, The Husbands Wife

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Krysta MacGray

Wife of one, mother of four, lover of books, seeker of growth, hunter of beauty, gatherer of inspiration, student of wisdom, maker of art, spreader of wildly inappropriate humor, and writer of longer than necessary texts.
More about me →

Connect with me

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST


WHAT I’M LOVING

WHAT I’M LOVING

SEARCH THE BLOG

Categories

  • Books
  • Food
  • Gathering
  • Houses
  • Stories
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized

Footer

Let’s Connect

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

Featured Posts

  • Proper Hot Fudge Sauce

    Proper Hot Fudge Sauce
  • Nosara, Costa Rica – “Like a pomegranate!”

    Nosara, Costa Rica – “Like a pomegranate!”
  • Farm House

    Farm House

BLOG

  • Books
  • Food
  • Gathering
  • Houses
  • Stories
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized

HELP

  • New here?
  • Contact

Instagram

…

Copyright © 2021 · Krysta MacGray · All rights reserved. · Web Design