This has become my favorite blog.  Just thought I would share.

Design for Mankind. 

I was asked the other day what my friends would say was the one thing they most appreciate about me.  I replied, "that I am consistent."  Well my interrogator disagreed, and it has me thinking why I gave that answer.  "Are you sure you're not being humble?  They wouldn't say fun? I think they'd say fun." He's right, my friends probably wouldn't actually give, "consistent." After all, who does? I told him I might be being overly-confident, that they might not say consistent.  But I didn't want them to say "fun" - everyone in their twenties is fun - but few are consistent.

Somewhere along my journey, or perhaps all along, being consistent became one of my biggest measures.

Consistent = Trustworthy.

You can fake anything for a day, you can sell yourself as anything to a new group. So when people seem to become a color wheel of characters and styles, I give a wide berth to their spin.

I'm really not the most fun person in the room.  Nor the funniest.  I'm not the smartest.  I'm not the prettiest.  Lord knows I'm not the tallest. But whatever I am, regardless of how I may be feeling, I try to be the same person every day in every room.

I've been writing on this same blog at the same url for nearly nine years. I've published 3, 116 posts here. This blog is not the prettiest or wittiest in the room either.  But, it is consistent and honest.  And to me, that counts.

I'll be honest, I'm avoiding writing the next part of "our story".  I like it and I'd love to share it.  But I've been thinking so much on conversation lately and working intentionally to improve mine and what I post here is an extension of that - this is part of my contribution to the written conversations happening between us all. And I'm tired of the conversation  - so tired, that I'm willing to bite my tongue about John and I's story for a bit longer.

Instead, I'll tell you this.  There's seasons of life where you feel under water.  Not like you're drowning, just like all your movements are fluid and slow, not quiet obstructed but resisted.  You see the other end of the pool and you'd like to get there, but walking feels ridiculous, nearly humorous.  And so you dive under water to swim, but then you can't see where you're going, it's either pitch black or blurry shapes at best - you have to just point yourself in the right direction and hope to get there - bumping into all sorts of people and weird objects that have sunk along your way.  And if you're lucky, you'll get there.  And your shorts will still be on.

I'm in the pool. And swimming itself seems a bit silly right now, because I don't think getting out of the pool is the point.  And I don't know what "end" of the pool is really the best anyways.  But all my movements are so damn slow. I kind of just want to thrash around like a child, cut my arms along the surface and splash.  See if John will let me climb up on his shoulders and jump off.

It's hard to write when you're in a pool.  

Nebula

She is the center of her own world.  Ruling those around her with quick words, frenzied comments and an unbeatable drive to be first.  To conquer others through the sheer rush of finishing first. She imagines others spinning round her, colliding into the literature she consumes at the core and tosses out into her system as if she were their sun, leaving bright zodiacal light all around to be called dust.  But that dust was once stars.  And those stars are held together only by their own gravity.  They don’t need her to feed them light. In truth, it is her pull that would try to consume them.  Devour them.  Her fire burns the brightest on the surface as her core has already begun to shrink, so soon she’ll collapse and leave nothing more than a black hole. 

Last week I heard stamps were going up 1 cent over the weekend.

Naturally, I stockpiled.

It's Y2K for the snail-mailers.

         I’ve got a ticket in my pocket and it’s whispering my name.
         I've got a ticket for the train – hear it whistling miles away.
         Miles away, miles away, my mind’s caught it all the same. 

[image source]

Hope

Hope

Beloved and Pure,
Seem the two are enemies at war
Always desiring the love and the cure,
Though I know both are only in the Lord.

You looked into my heart,
And named my fighting nature
A core contradiction from my start
Two giants in this tiny stature.
So you peered into my future.

And when you watched me break my heart,
And my inmost cries call out,
You added Hope to play her part
To ensure I’d never quit my route,
To wrestle through my sins and doubt
And render in the end some rest
Beloved and Pure, in you, and blessed


July 31, 2010.  Poetry of Presence.

I needed to be reminded.  I've been asking in my heart for a refresher - What am I supposed to be doing?!  What is my calling?  Little did I realize where I'd come across it...  I haven't been too productive in collecting and editing my writing portfolio tonight, at least not many pieces I could send to a potential employer.  But, I've begun to remember something far more important...

"SLT has taught me not only to be more self-conscious when it comes to my thoughts and how they are tied to my history, destiny, and the raw material of who God created me to be, but it’s taught me to use those same skills to perceive who others are deep down and given me some skills as to how to call that out. I’ve learned to ask questions, rather then tell. I’m practicing these skills today still, but my trajectory remains steep and I am so grateful for the abundance of lessons I’ve learned and the example my facilitator was to me of the sort of leader I want to be.

            When it came to xxx, I could see a lot in her that the Lord wanted to touch and change, things He desired to tell her and show her, but I’d also learned that the most lasting impact wouldn’t come from me telling those things to her, but by faithfully helping lead her to those revelations herself. My place was just to walk beside her, listen, and when the right moment came, ask the question. It came one night, “Why are you with him?” She opened up her heart, and listened to what God had already been faithful to plant. Two nights later I think, she had broken up with her boy friend. Within a couple weeks, she was at an Encounter Retreat, a week after that I was helping her move out of her apartment and in with an incredible family, months later she entered Masters Commission. Where she is today is a testimony to the Lord’s love for her, and her responding to his love. But it also has shown me that a question is many times more powerful then giving someone the right answer. The revelation you come to yourself sticks much deeper then the one someone easily hands you.

            I want to lead people to the Lion and the Lamb, not by telling them the right answers, but by guiding them. And I want to guide them through poetry and prose. Just last week a friend gave me a prophetic word that “your writing is going to  illuminate in people the things He’s called them to be that they couldn’t see or had a hard time believing. Making the invisible visible specifically in regards to destiny and calling. Prophetically calling out to them what is already a reality in heaven.” I want to write stories that hint at something magnificent, that pull people into the sublime and beautiful, marrying the two. I want to lead them to a place where they stand face to face with the Lion, and leave them there to hear Him speak what He wills.

            I don’t know that I would be able to accomplish the level of effectiveness in my writing that I feel called to, had I not received the tools I did in Strategic Life Training, especially Year 2 where the tools got worked out into life. As I mentioned earlier, it’s transformed the way I look not only at my future, but also at the literary past. I see the heroes of past literature and my heart aches, because I can see where their desires that should have led them face to face with God instead led them astray, and how those desires went unfulfilled. I want to be faithful to prepare, in order that my writing will accomplish all that the Lord has planned.  I have a healthy fear to keep myself hid in Him, searching Him out, but not looking to go outside of Him. I also don’t want to limit the Lord in my thoughts, dreams or expectations. He is the source of the sublime: awful, overwhelming, untame and uncontrollable. What an adventure He invites us in to!"

Working on my writing portfolio.  It's vastly more challenging than that might sound.  For starters: creative, technology, academic?  What type/ styles of writing to include.  Then, how to track some of them down.  I wish I'd been more intentional in saving samples in my first four years of work.  If you are young and plan on writing, in any degree: keep samples of your work - career and personal.  As long as it is not expressly against the culture of your company, save some.  Odds are, if you ask, they will say okay.  And you will need it one day.

Oh new year, what in the round world do you have in store?  Not a clue. Not a tip what 2013 will hold.  I think I'll go crazy if a few things don't change in this next year, but I don't know where to begin.  I feel less like a writer than ever, less motivated to try, less envisioned about what my "dream" even is, or that it's real.  I feel stuck in my career.  I feel challenged beyond belief in my identity and character.  And I feel stir crazy - near mad.

Sitting in a ski lift in a cloud.

2012 was full of so many wonderful things.  I'm a bit terrified of 2013... like it could take it all away.  Or just keep me exactly where I am.... for a WHOLE year.  I have to move closer to my destiny - I have to see something realized, some desire sharp and clear again or I'll just ebb away.

I try.  I sound just like a penny plopping in a pool.  That's it.

Wishes drowning.

Dreams waiting at the bottom.

I don't have time to master what I love -  I spend my hours wasting at something I hate.  And it is driving me mad.   I know I am here for a reason.  I keep reminding myself that.  But I can't see where I go next, or how I get there.  I can't see how I stop spending the majority of my hours in a seat where I feel dead.....

Dramatic?  I know.  I know this will pass.  Just dear God, please let 2013 be at least full of glimpses.  Remind me.  What work will make me truly happy?  What was I meant to spend myself on?

This morning I walked into work early.  Grabbed coffee, opened up the great interwebs and dived into a half a dozen different windows.  Load Orca card.  Order more posters.  Follow up with event coordinator.  Find contact info for press release.  Check DJC for RFQs.  Research Architecture in Horror Fiction for my work presentation tomorrow.  Contact property manager for work.  Has anyone asked Local 360 if they'd post up regarding the Special Hope Benefit, since they are catering?  Does OMG still want to donate to the auction? 

No joke - my mind is only running along 3 or 4 tracks right now - they are just very fast trains. 

The DeVotchka Pandora station is helping keep me calm, and the coffee keeping me fueled. 

I'm really in heaven.  These are the things I love.  Researching and writing about the intersections between architecture and literature - how the corruption of basic tenants of architecture can be used to create a sense of terror, casting shadows that become the primary character of a story and stir emotion in a reader decades after publication.  Analysis and writing - I miss this!!

Coordinating communications for a benefit I'm excited about, an organization I believe in, and an artist I support - I'm alive. 

Responding to all the other calls, emails, breaking down printers, running low toners, invoice questions and calendar scheduling with friends and the Beau.... they are pleasant kindle on a cold rainy day like today.  I like a clean desk with one project sitting on it and two black pens - but I like a dozen projects firing along in my mind and the freedom to switch from one to the other as creativity and innovation strikes.  This is where I'm happy in work.  And this morning, I have it all.  Surprisingly, we are only 3 hours deep.

And on top of all this, there are new hopes and goals I'm itching to stretch my fingers out to when a few of these current trains pull into station.

res·o·nance [ rézzənənss ]

1.underlying meaning: the effect of an event or work of art beyond its immediate or surface meaning


2.amplified sound: an intense and prolonged sound produced by sympathetic vibration

3.ringing quality of instrument or voice: an amplification of a sound, e.g. that of an instrument or the human voice, caused by sympathetic vibration in a chamber such as an auditorium or a singer's chest

Beautiful writing makes me want to write.  Especially the more it sounds like my own style.  As if the vibrations of that story strike up the strings in my own creative self.  When the sentence ends, I find myself still humming along.   Reminds me of my violin teacher's instruction regarding resonance.  When you strike a certain key on one string, others which share an overtone will begin to vibrate, aka, resonate.

Amazing how art resonates, in ways that can be measured in waves and in ways that cannot.



Via Wikipedia:  "String resonance occurs on string instruments. Strings or parts of strings may resonate at their fundamental or overtone frequencies when other strings are sounded. For example, an A string at 440 Hz will cause an E string at 330 Hz to resonate, because they share an overtone of 1320 Hz (3rd overtone of A and 4th overtone of E)."  > oh how I wish I really understood that.

6 Years

I missed the big grand day (May 23rd), but Hope is an Anchor is 6 years old.  I have officially been rambling on this site for a very long time.  I've recorded my thoughts, experiences, adventures and to the best of my ability, the people who have shaped the major part of my adult life thus far.  Tied here is my MC tour, graduation, first quarter at University, countless hours of studying, writing, researching, and (thankfully) unnumbered coffees.  I processed through all four years of my undergrad here, wrestled through what would come next, applied for the Rhodes and Gates scholarships, felt the excitement of nomination and the serious pain of denial.  I've written about heartaches in codes that perhaps only I and a few other scholars know how to transcribe.  I've recorded favorite quotes and poems.  Odd pieces of conversation.  I've done my best to copy down favorite strangers I've seen on streets and bus seats.  You might find shadows of the five jobs and 7 managers I've had while living in this literary apartment.  There was graduation.  My first time ever getting "let go."  Saying goodbye to my favorite tree, to my quad, to my campus and friends.  There were lots of trips to California, Montana, Vegas and Nashville.  A whole lot of dreaming.  And somewhere a track of how I've been becoming who I am.  I love this place.  I love that it's mine.  I love that I get to share it with you and host you all in some little way every day.  And yet, I think it might be time for something new. 

I've been seriously considering two ideas, and I'm warning you right now, what I am about to say is not a joke.  I get asked a lot if I'm enjoying my job, and the truth is, I really am.  But my position isn't really turning what was presented to me, at least not currently. I am learning new skills, but not quite getting the experience I'd hoped.  And moreover, I miss writing.  I'd taken this position hoping that a change from law to architecture would also bring more creative work opportunities.  There have been a few.  And those have been great new tools.  But mostly, I fill out spreadsheets.  And I still don't love Excel. In short, I miss writing.  And I still really want a job where I get paid to write.  What?  Really anything.  I'd love marketing too if it were allowed to be my focus and I were given a few more resources and liberty to be out and about.  I still receive the mass mailings from the English Department at UW and every few weeks I see an internship at Seattle Met Magazine open up, and I want it.  But going back to an unpaid internship???  Can't exactly happen - unless - they'd be flexible with my hours and my current boss would allow me to adjust my schedule a bit temporarily.  It would be asking quite a bit I feel.  But I would LOVE to write for the Seattle Met one day (soon).  And really, I need more experience.  I've been feeling the pressure to keep crafting my career, intentionally moving in the direction of my dreams and collecting the skill set I will need along the way.  Right now, I'm learning Photoshop, a lot more about the business of architecture, some accounting skills (I hope I don't really need), perhaps a bit about visual composition, and realizing I should also be using this time to re-master the basics of grammar and clarity.

The second thought (and remember, this is not a joke): become an airline stewardess.  I love flying.  I love travelling - and I've done hardly any.  I'm 25.  I'm relatively free in life, no family or major career I wouldn't want to walk away from.  Ideally, it would allow me flexibility in my schedule that I've been craving, and opportunities to write.  I think the travel could enrich my writing, and in general just help spur it on.  (I've been having the hardest time writing since starting my new job - I don't feel creative.) It also would provide free flights for me and discounted flights for my family and that sounds wonderful, with one sis in Tennessee, another soon in Spokane, and friends all over the country....it could be really cool.  I've thought about the idea here and there for the past couple years, it just never sounded "wise" when looking at my long term career goals.  But, if I want to be a writer and not locked to a corporation per se, it might be exactly what I need. 

Maybe, pray for me.  That the Lord would make it clear and open up the right doors.  Stay where I am.  Add an internship?  Find a new job?  Join an airline?  All I know is I feel like I'm wasting a part of me, and no matter how hard I've been trying lately, I'm not writing anything worthwhile.  I just end up closing the page without ever saving or posting.

One of my goals for this year was to write a short story every week.  I knew this was ridiculously ambitious, seeing as I've probably written less than five complete short stories in my life.  But I wanted to go at it hard.  And I did.  For three weeks. 

It's had me thinking though, there's a certain power that someone truly believing in you can bring. As a writer, it's those who have read your work, even just pieces and call it good.  And not just that, but somehow actually believe that you will accomplish what you've hoped to - what you've set out to. 

There a small handful of those people in my life and they mean the world to me.  But, I think there also grows to be a certain stagnation, where they've been waiting to see you do it and haven't yet, that they stop expecting it right now.  They still think it will happen one day, just as much as you do, if not more.  But there isn't the same sense of excitement and expectation.

But when someone has first begun to believe in you - it's like a charge.  And I'm realizing it's a charge I don't want to waste.  I want to do something worthwhile while the expectation is still in the air - before like all the others - they've come to know the wait. The long wait.  The not right now wait. Before they become part of the someday believers, I want to write something beautiful and make it matter.

A good concert always reminds me of the same fact... 

Sometimes you just have to
write the hell out of it. 

Out of a heartache.  Out of happiness.  Out of the world inside your head.  Rid it of the tortures and the tears that you can't remove from the world we all share.  That's the best chance we have of writing something strong enough and real enough to reach back in and invade others' secret worlds.  It's what's still true.

I love writing. 

To the point that I get giddy in my head when I get a challenge, and get to play.

Giddy. 

I want to be an expert writer.  Know every rule.  And know how and when to break it.  I want to be able to change and shape my voice like a ventriloquist, throwing characters against the wall.  I want to be able to represent people with style and clarity and grace and humor, as they would themselves wish to be represented.  I want to sound like them when I write for them.  Whether they are my client or my character. 

You want to talk about a goal for this year?  How about become a better writer. 

[Go ahead and say it, I know, "hopeless romantic," but you have to admit - that is really good.]