It's a wild morning in the canyon. Our dog rope is frozen stiff and the Hellgate winds have drifted a carpet of snow in front of the sliding door. The air is cloudy with wind-displaced snow.
After the initial wake-up pee, Geronimo and I get back in bed. I woke up hot this morning... in an apartment we keep at 60 degrees thermostat.
Last night Dacia called me, looking for adventure. In the right place. She caught me eating BBQ pizza, drinking a local unflitered Doppel Weizen, dancing in the kitchen. I love that in a lot of ways our friendship is just as it was ten years ago. Me in the dorms, her in a little apartment, a quick call and we're in her car going who knows where around town. Only now I have Geronimo, she has Maya. Excellent additions in my humble opinion.
I'm extra giggly by the time I walk into her mom's apartment next door. Two 7.5 % beers... she loads my silly self and Maya into the van and we drive across town to her apartment. "I swept the snow off your car this morning! It was my little love note to you." she says. "But I didn't leave the apartment until 6pm today! Shoot!" We laugh. I'm almost sad purely for that gesture that I didn't drive to the office at 8am. What love.
We get to her place and she sends me to her storage unit to inspect a futon mattress her neighbor stashed in her unit. She needs it out for Maya's toys, I need to not feel the slats under my current futon mattress. We tromp through snow loading baby clothes for donation, my backpacking food, and a pretty nice futon mattress into the van. And drive back across town.
We talk about guys, work, our homes, our babies. We vent, we dream, we hope, and laugh until we nearly pee our pants.
I start singing and dancing with Maya. More more she giggles. Shy, but always charming she steals the show around my home.
We get this mattress into my room and I decide the best thing is to fold over my current mattress, with all my bedding still on it, and just... you know... sliiiiiide the second one under it. Yeah right. These floppy mattresses, weighted down with a Montana amount of blankets- Dacia has the foot, I have the head, and I yell for Errin, Miss Sporty Spice to bring her muscles in here and work out this issue. So Maya climbs on the bed and starts pushing. Sweet almost two year old Maya. What a mighty baby. Errin, of course is the secret ingredient, and somehow we work it all out - panting, laughing.
"Princess and the Pea!" Errin yells. =) Yep. But the real princess hops on before I can even try it out... and Geronimo stays in bed the rest of the night.
Dacia threatens that aunty Bekah will have to try to get Maya to sleep after all the excitement.... but I know I'm off the hook, because I don't have what My calls "milkyside".
Morning - Errin's already made coffee. I grab a cup, topped with some of Andie's extra creamy whip cream. Mo and I get back in the warmest, coziest, loveliest nest in all of Missoula.
Another beautiful day of blessing, love, laughter - and having just enough shelter from a howling wind to know just how lucky I am.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast".
~Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
I have loved the Alice tales since I can remember hearing stories. Riddles, wit, nonsense, dreaming, curiosity, adventure, poetry... I love them.
Having caught a nasty illness, I spent most of last week in bed; while there I watched Tim Burton's Alice and Disney's Alice... because... why not?
Having moved into a new, completely unfurnished apartment recently... with other... non furniture nomads... I've been on pintrest a lot, dreaming about how to frugally and artfully arrange my new home.
Some of my best friends in Missoula have been visiting a church they enjoy, so I've been tagging along. We sit in a large space with a lot of strangers, feeling the comfort of camaraderie, and listen to the pastor get all fired up about how beautiful the Christian world view is.
In a way, the Bible is a fairy tale, as Alice is, as Cinderella and King Arthur are. And why shouldn't it be? For stories stitch our being together. Words that mean something to us, stir our souls, shape the world we believe we're living in. Epic tales of adventure, hope ... impossible things happening. And we, as students of stories, begin to believe this adventure, hope, impossible things.... miracles... can happen to us too! Our very own story.
I believe them all. I know this makes me silly, full of nonsense to many people. But let me tell you... in my near thirty years of life, what others find impossible, often becomes possible for me. Miracles. Blessing. And I am nothing but awed and grateful in the wonder of it all.
Recent events.... Six impossible things ....
1. I found dog-friendly, affordable housing and community to share it with in the only city I wanted to live in!
2. My new home is on the river, in a gorgeous mountain canyon, across the grass from my best friend's Mom and now we see each other often!
3. I have a new job where I'm paid to learn and share about river recovery and restoration, and a little independent contracting on the side for an organization I'm super excited about.
4. After ten years of purging my possessions every move to only keep what fits in my car... I'm now the proud new owner of a truck and trailer full of furniture a best friend needed to unload.... and all it cost me were phone calls, emails, catching up with old friends and sharing chili dinner with the movers/ new friends.
5. My longest, dearest friends in Missoula have all sat in Church with me! And hopefully will again soon!
6. Last year was hard on Geronimo and the CR-V. They're both hanging tough, doing well, carrying me through the beginning of yet another life chapter.
I've never read much formally on the power of positivity... but I know this...
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
~Romans 5, ESV Bible
Hope, does not put us to shame. It's all possible. My cup overflows, my heart could burst.
So... the only question is - what have you been practicing? I recommend believing impossible things before breakfast... and using the rest of the day to bring the dream into your reality.
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast".
~Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
I have loved the Alice tales since I can remember hearing stories. Riddles, wit, nonsense, dreaming, curiosity, adventure, poetry... I love them.
Having caught a nasty illness, I spent most of last week in bed; while there I watched Tim Burton's Alice and Disney's Alice... because... why not?
Having moved into a new, completely unfurnished apartment recently... with other... non furniture nomads... I've been on pintrest a lot, dreaming about how to frugally and artfully arrange my new home.
Some of my best friends in Missoula have been visiting a church they enjoy, so I've been tagging along. We sit in a large space with a lot of strangers, feeling the comfort of camaraderie, and listen to the pastor get all fired up about how beautiful the Christian world view is.
In a way, the Bible is a fairy tale, as Alice is, as Cinderella and King Arthur are. And why shouldn't it be? For stories stitch our being together. Words that mean something to us, stir our souls, shape the world we believe we're living in. Epic tales of adventure, hope ... impossible things happening. And we, as students of stories, begin to believe this adventure, hope, impossible things.... miracles... can happen to us too! Our very own story.
I believe them all. I know this makes me silly, full of nonsense to many people. But let me tell you... in my near thirty years of life, what others find impossible, often becomes possible for me. Miracles. Blessing. And I am nothing but awed and grateful in the wonder of it all.
Recent events.... Six impossible things ....
1. I found dog-friendly, affordable housing and community to share it with in the only city I wanted to live in!
2. My new home is on the river, in a gorgeous mountain canyon, across the grass from my best friend's Mom and now we see each other often!
3. I have a new job where I'm paid to learn and share about river recovery and restoration, and a little independent contracting on the side for an organization I'm super excited about.
4. After ten years of purging my possessions every move to only keep what fits in my car... I'm now the proud new owner of a truck and trailer full of furniture a best friend needed to unload.... and all it cost me were phone calls, emails, catching up with old friends and sharing chili dinner with the movers/ new friends.
5. My longest, dearest friends in Missoula have all sat in Church with me! And hopefully will again soon!
6. Last year was hard on Geronimo and the CR-V. They're both hanging tough, doing well, carrying me through the beginning of yet another life chapter.
I've never read much formally on the power of positivity... but I know this...
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
~Romans 5, ESV Bible
Hope, does not put us to shame. It's all possible. My cup overflows, my heart could burst.
So... the only question is - what have you been practicing? I recommend believing impossible things before breakfast... and using the rest of the day to bring the dream into your reality.
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