I spent time with Pablo, today.

XVII (I do not love you…)

Learning Your Partner is Someone You Love, Not Someone You Don’t

“For an entire day, or maybe a few, she lives with this man as though he were a stranger or roommate. She might glare at him over a latptop, ignore his advances and feel annoyed by the sound of his body always next to hers. There are other things too! The songs he sings, the garbage sitting sticky in the kitchen!

Maybe it’s not where he is– but she is. In a notebook, she writes that she is trying to “drive” her life. “To be in the drivers seat, in control”. She used to ask him: Where should she go? How does she get there? Now, she feels angry when he gives advice. She feels angry when he is angry and she looks for somewhere, someone else. But she is unsure of where she is headed.

But then in bed with the lights on or the sunlight coming in, she is out of her thoughts and into her body– that sparkle in the center of her chest. And next to her, this man is vulnerable. They become soft together. She tries to understand– this is the same man who is playful or annoying. Who is angry or distant–this man, this man–they are all the same.

This man is someone whose heart she is entrusted with. She touches his hair, feather-soft, and she feels the weight of this promise. He is a being, with a heart, he has entrusted to her.

The way she thinks of it, is to hold one in each hand. The keys to her life in one, his heart in the other.”

-Rachel White

A magic cabin in the woods.

I still don’t really believe that I live here.

That I was blessed enough to have this two-floor cabin to my own for such a small price. I find, now, that even in solitude, I opt to turn the music off. I prefer to sit in silence and crack the window open, because the birds sing all day here.

I’m actually finding it difficult to get moving and get work done or commit myself to orchestrating a shoot outside, simply because it’s so whimsical, I have a hard time moving. Is it normal to freeze in the presence of too much creative inspiration?

For now, my 365 is lagging with uploads and new ideas, my emails aren’t getting answered, and my downstairs level floor is only half painted.

Hip-hip-hooray for being blinded by the twinkle of magic and crippled in life. I consider this nothing more than an extraordinary blessing.

Family Christmas Card, November 22nd, 2010

I think a valid and common part of growing older is realizing the dysfunction in your seemingly perfect world.

Excuse my blanket statements, because I believe to be only testifying for the one demographic I know -the one I’ve lived: The seemingly-perfect Christian childhood in a middle class American family. Growing up I felt like very little was wrong in my world or any other. My mother always had a delicious meal on the table, I remember mostly just playing outside with my own imagination and my friends as a child, and I grew closer and then further from my siblings while going into adolescence and beyond… but that was all normal, right?

My family was perfect, and far from the dysfunction and heartache some of my friends with unstable homes experienced. The Murrows were idealized to be “The perfect family you spent holiday dinners with because nothing was thrown and no dreams were shattered.” My friends experienced apathetic parents, broken marriages, smoke filled houses with hidden closets, and growing up with strangers they were forced to title, “family.” Mine was nothing like that.

But now living on my own, working through the muck and mire that is “finding oneself” I am realizing that my family has many problems. Problems debatably worse than those of obvious drug habits, because we never acknowledged ours. The biggest mutual sin, I feel, has been silence. From generational sin of the past and beyond, we were all raised with the mentality that quieting up and moving on was better than being transparent and hashing out honest issues the moment they arise. So they fester, they heap, they poison our lives and sink bitterness into our hearts for years until we are not only a dysfunctional family, but we are a group of confused, angry people with years of therapy and digging to do.

How did we get here, God? In a moment of pure weakness I am tempted to say that I would’ve almost preferred to be the broken girl making a new life for herself while working in Vegas and forgetting about her abusive home. But I know that’s not really true. I just appreciate the honesty. What I do appreciate about my family now is their recent brokenness and propensity to talk about things, and fix what we can. God has planted a genuine desire in my parents’ hearts to work through everything we’ve been piling in the closet for years and spring cleaning it out. It is that earnest desire to change and grow that will grant our family that divine “perfection” one day, if we all surrender our hearts to God.

I am thankful for all of the growth, and the move toward change, but right now I, too, am sweeping the dusty bitterness out of my instant thoughts that I have a hard time controlling. I want to be a part of that revolution for change in our lives rather than part of the concrete problem that’s hard to shift.

Something truly wonderful about watching this dynamic in my family recently has been the blueprints of desire being drawn in my mind for my future. God has been orchestrating ideas for the life I want that include a large and cohesive family. Not one without problems, but a sibling group with forged hearts and lives. I want to watch my kids be great siblings to one another. I want my boys to be men and stand up for their sisters’ honor. I want my girls to respect themselves and make decisions based on integrity. I want my marriage to be something of complete honesty, whatever state it is in, and always be there for my kids to look at and assess in a complete and transparent way.

I’ve recently been introduced to a few families that I really respect for all of these qualities. These families, I know, have just as many relational issues to deal with in order to love each other so intensely. But their heart for one another and themselves as a whole, is so incredible.

I think these things I want will be drawn back down to the man I choose to spend my life with. But I mean that less on the level of the man I marry -because I trust God to bless my marriage if I give the decision and operation to him. But more as I choose to spend my life with Christ, and -on a daily basis- humble my heart and always go back to humility, honesty, integrity, and hope, that this life will be blessed and have God’s name written all over it.

I think that for this dream of mine it is crucial that I accept right now that there will be nothing I can do to make it happen, aside from committing my heart and dreams to God and always being honest. Whatever my life ends up looking like, my married heart with Christ (Lord willing) will lead to blessings abound, afterward.

LORD, I know these plans and ideas, hopes, dreams, and actual realities will change 100 times over before they occur and their face will be much different than I had ever imagined. But please take this part of my heart to yours and know that I am thankful for what you’ve given me now and I can’t wait for my future to be blessed in your name.

I can’t do it. But you can.

"But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." -Joshua 24:15 

Have I found you, flightless bird?

Two times this week I’ve had dreams of my future wedding. I’m the one to big-talk how much my profession has worn me out of the concept of a wedding. And I’m sure it won’t be traditional. Maybe not even thoroughly planned, because I am earnest about not making a big of deal about the day as much we do the ceremonial significance. But truth be told (that many already know) I’m a sucker for weddings done well, as well as a girl who wants a wedding day, all the same.

But I try my best to not stay up late at night and think about the details of this potential ceremonial day.

These two dreams this week only burned two separate (but so similar) snapshots into my mind. They both involved my Dad and I beginning to walk down the aisle -with no sight of the destination- and the song “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” by Iron & Wine serving as the wedding march.

What does this mean, except that my mind is probably planning an entire wedding day I’m trying to ignore? Maybe nothing. The lyrics aren’t even that poignant. But this is the kind of stuff I thought I ought to write down.

Have I found you 

Flightless bird,

grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth

Big pill stuck going down

Moratorium: a room of hats.

It’s a word I’ve been using a lot lately. A loose reference to the psychological definition of the word suggests it is: “the time in early adulthood when one remains unattached to any group, belief, or identity while they sift through many different hats in search of their own.”

It was a moment of peace and one of frustration, reading through my Psych books for class and realizing that most every milestone I have arrived at and passed, was to be expected. I felt like a lab rat running through a wheel that I just noticed was there, all while the book editors and psychologists of the world peered at me through the bars, nodding and checking off their list what they’d predicted would happen.

This portion of the [expected] stage of my life is definitively moratorium. 

I’m turning the corner on finding out who I am; just this year arriving at plenty of pivotal points of discovery and conflict alike. But what I’m going to be for the world and where I’m headed in the meantime are two very vague topics for me.

My pulse begins to rise as I start researching a life trade or possible personal identity that I hadn’t even considered until “three minutes ago when I saw a poster.” You’ve got to laugh at how silly it is, really. My excitement can peak and wane all in the same hour as I start to digest an idea and think, ‘I don’t really want to do that. It just seemed like a good idea, I suppose, because it was a new one…’

I’m in a hat store that is covered, floor to ceiling, with options to try on. I’ve just got to be patient with my excitement and how long this might take.