Someday Soon

I'll start with someone else's words... because usually others say it better than we can ;)

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.  Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.  Do not now look for the answers.  They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.  It is a question of experiencing everything.  At present you need to live the question.  Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." - Rainer Maria Rilke


I am in a place of questions, having to be happy enough with just that one half of the equation.   Reading backward, this project has covered a number of musings:  purpose, place, family, self- all tied into the over-arching theme of 'Home'.    It is all questions, though.  Sure, answers have come here or there, but the questions are usually the living part.  I'm starting to realize we live in the questions.  The answers- they are less fulfilling than we imagine.

The questions are moving tides.  Questions require that we have a 'quest' at hand... a journey.  They are alive and breathing.  They sweat and hurt and sometimes laugh and always feel, and feel deeply.  The 'quest'... the questions... they are the good parts.  We were taught to look for the answers though- and to find them as quickly as possible.

I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't crave more 'answers' in my life.  I'd also be lying, though, to say that I haven't found a new understanding of Faith in the 'questions'.   To know that this journey is intentional, important, and that time is never wasted- it is a gift worth all the uncertainty.

So.  Someday Soon... what?  Someday Soon I will have new answers and new questions.  A year ago I would have told you that by X&X date I would have achieved certain goals and answers and dreams.  Now I know that's not my place to say, because I am not the author of time.  Someday Soon- what will I have in that ethereal 'Someday Soon'?

Someday Soon I will have seen myself through any and all of the present challenges... and I will see how much stronger I am than I would have imagined at this present moment.

Someday Soon I will relish in time with friends and family who I feared I might lose... and I will see how the important people in life will never actually leave you.

Someday Soon I will see dreams realized that I hoped in faith for... but secretly believed would never come to fruition.  And in those moments I will see a faithfulness beyond what I could ever muster.

Someday Soon... I will still be me.  Maybe a different me.  Maybe a bigger me.  But still me.

Someday Soon I will still be standing.  And that is enough for tonight's peaceful sleep :)

All my love and hope for all your dreams, and peaceful sleeps~
Juls

Falling In Love with the Little Things Again

I've been gone for awhile.  I know, I know.  I could give you a million reasons and yet no reason at all... simply put- I've been present elsewhere.

I think there is this strange thing that happens continually through life, in seasons it comes, where we are called to face ourselves past, present and future.  Where we are asked to step in front of the mirror and given permission to say "wait a minute... that doesn't look like me at all!"

I've been in one of those seasons lately and it has been marvelous darlings; simply marvelous.


There are all these pieces of each of us that make us whole, make us unique.  We are all just mosaic hearts. Broken sea glass mixed with polished pebbles.  Perfect parts and fractured parts- some shiny, some rusted... some just in need of attention.  If we allow it, these parts fit together perfectly.  Most of the time, though, we ignore one thing or another, we beg for certain parts to be taken away, we hide in fear or shame.

So I looked in the mirror one day and realized I only recognized half of the face staring back at me.  I saw a writer and an actor and a director in desperation for a show.  I saw a 20-something with heavy goals and weighty ambitions, a small budget and a big vision.  I didn't, though, see a person.  A lovely and love-able gal.  A complex and interesting soul.  I didn't see any of the person I felt myself to be on the deepest level.  And I wanted to find her again.

So I've been falling in love with the little things.  Learning to be present in the small moments.  Finding joy in watering my little tomato plants in the morning, and cooking for friends in the evening.  Riding my bike to the farmer's markets in between.  Redecorating my space so that it actually looked like me (I've been living a lie with my bedroom decor over the past 8 months!).

I've remembered that I love to paint and do art projects with full permission to be bad, and full permission to hang them on my walls anyway.  I've remembered how much I love those farmer's markets and fresh, real foods.  My inner hippie crunchy goddess is loud and proud.  The head scarves are back as a staple of my wardrobe.  My dreams of the farm/cafe/bar/art center that I've talked about for years are back and forming new visions and shapes daily.

I'm assured now of my ultimate belief that people come first, and are the center of everything for me.  I smile in the morning as the sun streams in my bedroom window and I give a humble 'thank you' for all the incredible families of people I've been blessed with so far, and so many yet to come- briefly hinted to me in outlines and vaporizing images.  Promises; teaching me to be patient and dwell in as much peace as I can muster, because good things are always on the way.


So, fellow travelers and wanderers, that is where I stand on this journey I've found myself on.  I've discovered deeper meanings of family over the past few months, as we've seen.  I've delved into past memories.  I've felt my way through all the changing relationships around me until I found myself in the place I am in now, facing the most challenging relationship of them all; the one you have to figure out with yourself- past present and future reconciled to one another.

So far, this has been my favorite part of the trip :)



**Happy Lists from the Journey Thus Far**

-My garden
-Morning coffee & meditation/prayer
-Madeleine Peyroux
-Old '40s classics
-Norah Jones
-Tomatoes
-BASIL
-Riding the bike
-Farmers Markets
-Moroccan Lanterns
-Cooking for friends
-Family.  Immediate, extended, all of them
-Lemons
-Chopping herbs
-Holding babies that aren't mine
-Waking up early
-Reading
-Breathing.  And feeling a peace that I don't know I've ever felt before.

That last line is so true.  I've been more peaceful over the past few weeks than I can ever remember being, and it makes no sense in certain circumstances.  But its real.  And feels so good.

Falling in love with the little things.  That is the chapter I am in on this little jaunt.  We'll see what comes next ;)