A year for something bigger than ourselves

"Maybe I don't want a Happy New Year, he said.

Maybe I want an intense New Year with a lot of growth experiences
& I had to admit I'd never thought of that."

Brian Andreas

A Good Night.

I found a mountain coffee shop in the middle of the city.

Following crafty signs up creaky wooden steps, the smell of coffee and sound of guitars floats down from the warm shop. I am given a chipped mug and told the internet password is Revolution. I can tell the workers love telling people that. I find my way next to a cold window and set up my area across from a hippie family of four. The mother spends her time gazing at her beautiful girls and knitting...a scarf? a sweater? The father tirelessly draws with the girls, himself as genuinely amused as they are. He laughs loudly and often. I haven't seen a family this happy since the Italian mothers doted on their bambinos near the gray water.

As they get up to leave, the father begins to show fatigue. Yawning through his smile. What a blessing to see God's idea of family in such a real way.

It's a good night to be alone. It's a good night to not make conversation, with close friends or strangers. It's a good night to absorb and make myself another cup of coffee.

I like happiness. Do you like happiness, too?

Listening to my ipod at work is distracting in a necessary way. It almost makes folding over 200 letters and stuffing envelopes poetic. Almost.

On days like today when almost all the leaves have fallen off the trees and the air is mild while the sun blinds city drivers and I sit in front of a computer in a windowless room, suffocating with lack of sleep and inspiration, I wonder if I've already settled. Maybe I needed to understand myself in this realm in order to leave it and move on. But for now it's an uncomfortable challenge, so I'm all in. I know can do this. I just hope I can do it and be happy at the same time.

I could use a good laugh. Give me a tall mug of coffee and a long conversation anytime. I need to stop eating so badly and spending so much time on my hair. I need to sit in the sunshine and eat sliced apples and be ok with being alone for awhile.

I want days and weeks to focus on writing one precious truth that touches everyone who reads it in a place they had forgotten about and leads to good and purposeful action. The other day I was feeling particularly uninspired, and met an older Irish man in the coffee shop who told me that it's better to be a bad writer than to not write at all. He admitted that most of his writing is completely awful. And then he shared with me one of his published novels that was for sale in the shop. Mmm. Bad writing it is.

Back to writing.

I'm uncomfortable and excited.
I am writing again.

There's no way that isn't awkward to begin a new blog. Even that sentence was awkward. So I'm diving in. Again.