fire clay flour

i love clay.  i love baking.  i love the beauty that fire makes.  i love this video. 

forward motion

“I moved on because I had to, because pain gets heavy when you carry it far from its source, like a bucket of water hauled miles from a stream–it acquires a whole new value, which is the sum of itsprimary essence and your secondary investment.”

from Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann

i speak much about transition.  many of my posts on this blog describe change, movement, and new beginnings.  i love this quote from hilary thayer hamann because it explains moving forward in such a beautiful way.  so often i find myself carrying burdens or heartbreak for so long, it almost feels as though there is a separate attachment altogether to the pain.  letting go. moving on. those are things i find hard.  i almost can handle the pain i didn't inflict on myself better than even the question or possible thought of what letting go of it might feel like.  but in this moment and in the moment i read that quote, i felt relief.  we are not meant to carry our burdens for so long and so far away from their sources.  we are supposed to lay them down.  let them lay.  walk away.  leaving with the knowledge and the strength that they gave us.  not forgetting where they came from.  no leaving behind the beauty.  walking tall with a new energy.  embracing the motion forward.  

that is a beauty of life. 

amen. 

lately

Here are some things i'm really into or just simply really enjoy lately:

1. VOTING! go vote. we all know you are super cool and hilarious and informed and have opinions and might bitch about the future, so go vote. it's important. it's your right. it's fun.  oh, and it's important.  like really important.

2. this article among others from thought catalog 

3. zoe muth. beautiful southern twang in her voice.

4. remembering how amazing this album is.




5. dreams of the future

6. remembering how talented and amazing my friends are.
    i.e. frankie

7. READING books! whoa.  currently: dearie, the omnivore's dilema, and big sur

honesty

i have decided that i want to be. to be more. to be more consistantly. to live more.

i know i sound like a silly twenty something that lives in asheville right now, but seriously.

i want to experience more. to stop living amongst judgement and fear, but more around the doers.

i want to read books and create and have real relationships and to feel confident and honest and myself.

that's all i've ever really wanted.  really.



i found this that i wrote on my birthday this year.


i find it rich and completely appropriate to celebrate, or at least acknowledge, that you have life, time passes, life is beautiful.  time is changing us.  growth is occurring.  things are becoming the past.  the future becoming the present.  the answers becoming clearer. the questions gaining more parts. 


i think it's honest.

i find myself inspired by my own thoughts a little over six months ago.
i think that is something to hold dear.

transformation

transformation happens in one fail swoop, but do we have the hearts and minds to pay attention?


a dear friend posed this to me a couple days ago while i was finalizing my goodbye/thank you letters to my previous bosses and simmering in my transition over espresso.   i find this question ominous and brilliant.  yet troubling, i suppose.

do we have the hearts and minds to pay attention?
do we?

is that why so many things seem to pass us by? because we are simply not paying attention.

my hope is that i will not be so adrift or so caught up that i cannot see the transformation in front of me.
let me be engaged in my world around me.
allowing my heart and my mind to fully absorb what it is that surrounds me.

time has changed us.
for the better.

today i cleaned out my inbox.  i had over 3,000 unread messages.
no, i'm not that popular.  no, i'm not famous.
yes, i have a problem.  yes, i sign up for newsletters and coupons and clubs and never EVER read the emails.  yes, the first step is recognizing my problem.  i get it.  it's ridiculous.
but as of right now, i have ZERO unread messages.

today, i bought a new macbook pro.  i have had this one currently typing this blog for over four years and i bought it from a friend used.  it has been loved and is acting like a dinosaur.  i will need to be more social network-y and mobile for my new job so i decided to grow up and bite the bullet. and i feel good.  no buyers remorse here. it will be here so soon. ahhh.

today, i will sit in the sun and read my copy of Garden and Gun that came to me today and i will be happy.

and here i am, realizing that i'm a writer.  again.  and i want to write.

i have wanted to stay private for a while, for some much needed self care and understanding.

but prepare yourselves to be apart of my world, the beauty and brokenness that it is,
if anyone even reads this anymore.
lovelovelove.

hi.
it's been a while.
my life, as life in general goes, has been in a constant state of change and movement.
mostly good, positive movement.
movement in many ways.

change is good. necessary. beautiful.
yet change is also hard. challenging. painful.

there is always a part of big change that takes leaving something behind.  whether it be part of the person you once were, the memories, the stillness.
change puts fear in me.  and i take it in. soak in it during the transition. because that is the only way i know how to deal with it.  the only way i know how to not long for it afterwards.  i must soak. absorb. drench my soul in all that once was in order to be prepared and be entirely whole and present for the whatever the future may hold.

in this change, i have realized that my way of dealing with my change is difficult to watch from the outside at times.

perspective.
perspective has forced me to dig in and figure out why i do what i do. why certain things are difficult for my heart. why i make certain things difficult.

growth is eminent.
change is beauty.
i am understanding.

more & more.