Allegory

I don't always have a plan 

or even know what I'm doing,

But things generally 

work out in the end.

For instance, take this costume-y 

jacket that I found a year ago,

And these super-fly shoes that 

I found recently (for 80% off) 

while at an out-of-town wedding,

And the skirts that I've 

collected over a year's span...

Voila!

Oftentimes, we have to just do what we know is right, trusting that things will all come together in the end.

Whatever you're working on today - 

a question, a family, a plan - 

I pray that you go through it with 

joy and peace and assurance that 

it's worth sticking it out.

Merry Christmas!

18 Months

That's how long it took me to dress for church this morning.

Okay,

I mean, that's how long it took me to find this skirt,

to complete this ensemble,

to duplicate this look, I mean.

It was 18 months ago that I pinned the inspiration

~ time enough for a trend to pass

~ time enough for me to forget how much I liked it.
But that's the brilliance of Pinterest.

I pinned it and I waited and I watched the thrift store racks

...for 18 months...

But I completed the task!

inspiration source:  refinery29.com via Pinterest

What good are all those pins anyway without the follow-through?

What counts is that I'm happy with the result.

It's Been A While

"Oh...my...gosh.  Oh my gosh," I said in a growly, gutteral, oh my gosh kind of way as I pulled the dress from the pile.

My friend gave a sideways glance.

"For real," I said.  "How lovely."

Crickets chirruping.

"Don't you think this is a beautiful dress," I finally asked.

Still, no verbal affirmation but I think her answer was in the raised eyebrow and pursed lips.  We talked then about how well the 60's polyester holds its color and the fact that I'd better not light a match.



I was in a quandary for whether to wear it now, as we ease into the fall fashion season, or wait till the more springy season when the colors might make more sense.  I knew that "now" would require one of those "completer piece" things and then I remembered the pea green top thing.  I found it a couple of months ago and knew instantly that it was not for me. The fit, the color ~ I'm pretty sure that infant poo has never been the It color (but I kept it, just in case.)

...and then I sprained something.

So there are plenty of reasons for me not to have worn this.  Truth is, though, it's been a while since I
was this inspired by my ensemble, and that, seriously, should be one of our guiding factors when assembling a wardrobe.  Don't ya think?

Ten Hour Hat

I trust that by now I've raised your level of expectation regarding the photography aspect of this blog to that of greatest awfulticity.  And so, in my sincere desire never to disappoint, here is my latest installment.

But listen, for real.  As bad as that looks, it turned out to be one of my best attempts ever, ensemble-wise.  I left the house with confidence and zeal because that is the baddest hat on the planet.  But also because I'd driven ten hours to obtain the hat, there was a certain joy in having finally figured out what to do with it.

See, there's this event that happens twice a year in Gay, Georgia, that my mom, my sister, and I have been attending regularly since it started back in 1973.  The Cotton Pickin' Fair is like etsy, only live, and way better because it smells like farmland and biscuits and there's square dancin' and fiddlin' and cotton candy and an atmosphere that stirs what I know is my pioneer blood.

Before I moved to Florida, the fair was an hour-and-a-half away but now it's more like a five hour drive.  I go as much to breathe in that air in the company of my family as for anything else; however, there's no denying the allure of the craftsmen.  My rule is that purchases must be of things nowhere else to be found.

Here, I have to show you one of my favorites ~ an angel crafted from the bits of an old church salvaged somewhere in Alabama. 






So anyhow, a couple of years ago, I stumbled across The Hat Peddler's wares, and across one hat in particular.  In my genuine attempt to be a conscientious shopper, I left and came back to the hat several times but eventually left the fair without it. What resulted was a year-long pining away and search for its nonexistent replacement.  Finally, I contacted the shop owner, described the hat, asked her to duplicate it, and made the ten hour round trip to obtain it (at the following fair.)

Did I already say it's the 
baddest hat on the planet?











Anyhow, turns out the hat has stamina too because, whilst wearing it, the man and I excurded with both g'girls for what turned out to be a ten hour day.  Whew.

And speaking of my man ~ because I love him and want to honor him ~ though most of all, I want to acknowledge his comments about my hat, this one's for him...

You're so vain,
You probably think this
post 
is about you...

Betwixt My Lines

I wish to author some great masterpiece, be it literature or song or dance-craze choreography.  Bone-breaking, I’ve learned, is the latest to the stage.  Perhaps, I’ll bring bone-weapon wielding, permanent scar-inducing, blight your life forever, switch it up, switch it up.

My desperation to manifest begins to cross the lines of human language.
They still won’t get it.  But I get it.
I’ve always got it coming, so it seems.

I see my life in stanza.

Verse, verse, chorus.
Verse, verse, chorus.
Bridge...

The play through, the run, the birth pangs.
The play through, the run, the stalker.
Run and pay, start over.

The play through, the hard run, the good attempt.
The play through, the falling down, the surrender.
Run and pay, it starts over.

What I wish is love.
I was born with it even if I went away from it.
The going away was but for a while.
But there is no reproof from the going away, it seems.
You go, you stay.  Or you pay, in any case.

How many verses?
Where is crescendo’s peak?
What comes after the bridge?
I wish to pen my name, at last.

The Americanino Way

I thought it would be about my boots.
Or about the absurdity of wearing them after the climate change.

Or maybe about the validity of wearing white britches before Memorial day, even.

I thought I'd have a picture which highlighted my ability to rise above the clutter and chaos, resultant of keeping a three-year-old g'girl and a four-month-old g'boy entertained and trained.

But after 47 attempts and tinkers with the tripod and arranging the kidlets and closing the doors and telling honey hush, I knew I'd taken the very last one when g'girl said, "MeeMee, Pop is behind you making faces!"  Seriously, I just turned the camera off and went to edit.

This is The Way - the way that it is.  I'm fiddlin' with a (ridiculous) hobby; honey is making fun; g'girl is singing like a bird; baby man is wondering what in the what he has gotten himself into.

It's a good way.



By the way, the boots were $2; needed some work but were worth it; could not wait till fall.

Also for the record, honey's first response was to ask if I remember CHIPS.

This Is What Is The Happening

I don't know exactly what or why it's happening but it seems to be happening all around me.

It's in the updates, the tweets, the pics, the pins.  Sometimes it's an allusion.  Many times, it's "what she said."  A share.  A re-has#.

Me? I like (or have, for most of my life, found it inexplicably necessary) to be cryptic.  I am often speaking in code.

The bulk of my sharing is via facebook which ~ I know ~ is already considered archaic.  There's just too much room to sprawl out on facebook, too many letters allowed.  That's one part of The Big Problem, in my opinion - this drive to boil everything down.  To keep it nice and neatly contained.

Tell me quick in one sentence, please, 
or just show me a picture.  
I have things to do, my own things to worry about.

Does anybody know, yet, what I'm talking about?  Have I already written too many words?

Or maybe I've already made it too personal.  Maybe I shouldn't have made any allusion to "most of my life."  Anybody?  Anybody...

Anyhow.

There exists a myriad of reasons that I am always holding something back.  Some of it is that my proper manners restrict me from splatting all over the screen.  (Some of you think you've seen me do it anyway.  I promise you have not.)  Some of it is dysfunctional pattern.  Much of it is fear.  Much of it is [my attempt to] control. And most of what I've just said either has been written about before or needs to be saved for later.  (What's my word count?)

In a minute, I'm going to share some words that are better than my own but first I'd like to forget all about character counts and fear and the illusion of control and just speak plainly.

First of all, I was a citizen of the original Prozac nation, having it prescribed to me in my late teens, after Lithium and "a good talking to" didn't pick my butt up off the ground.  I don't know how it's possible but, in hindsight, it seems to me that I'd been struggling with depression from far too early an age (I can't even bring myself to say), and taking Prozac was like taking off sunglasses and seeing the world in color. For the first time that I could recall.  I'm grateful for Prozac.

2008, the year that followed my dad's year-long struggle with (terminal) lung cancer:  that was my Effexor year.  Effexor because it was the only drug out there which could treat both depression and anger.  For the record, it was not my dad's cancer that caused my anger.  My dad's cancer was just the pinnacle battle of that season of my life.  Those few years were dark and Effexor, unfortunately, turned out to be part of my battle.  I'm grateful that season is past.

Now, I woke up one morning this week and my first conscious thought was that I wanted it to be sundown already.  The sun was shining gloriously through my curtains in a way that negates the need for purchased art.  My lungs were full of clean air, my body whole, for the most part.  My man, who is the best man on the planet since Jesus, was in another room waiting to greet me for the day.  Healthy, buoyant grandbabies were due to arrive shortly.  But, please.  Please.  I just want to go back to sleep.

Not the cheesy, "oh, it's Saturday morning and I can't believe I'm awake because I just want to roll around in my comfy bed because this makes such a cute picture or tweet or status update,"

but because I am struggling.

Yes, I have blessings beyond measure.

Yet I am struggling.  Again.

I'm not scared to tell you what I've told thus far ~ that I've struggled with depression, that I've taken medication, that I've done therapy, and all of this more times than I'm telling here.  I'm not scared to tell you that I'm struggling now. There are other things, though, things that propagate my struggles, that I cannot or am not willing to tell you and for a myriad of reasons.

And I do have guilt, because I also have friends whose husbands have cancer.  Or whose grandbabies have cancer.  I have friends who have cancer.  Friends who've lost their jobs or their homes.  And this isn't happening just within my circle.  I watch the feed.  I know the stories.   People everywhere are struggling.

And that's really what I want this to be all about.  None of us face exactly the same struggles but none of us are alone, either, in the fact that we struggle.  None of us has a picture-perfect life, no matter how perfect the picture.  None of us should feel so obligated or so afraid of the alternative that we pack our struggles away, living less and less truthfully until we're really not living at all.

There are others out there and they are sharing unhindered and for that, I am grateful.

And now those better words I promised...

Kendi is one of the very first bloggers that I discovered and is my favorite fashion blogger, which I've shared before in An Exact Copy.  In her recent post, life, lately, she took the lid off her pot.  And then she shared about how much she was Overwhelmed by the responses she received.  Do not make any assumptions here.

Rachel is another of the first bloggers whose path I was so fortunate to cross.  She is one of the very best real-life bloggers that I know and Unlearning... is a perfect demonstration.  Plus, there's code here.

And here is A Miniature Clay Pot, saying better than I can say it myself, how it is that I, personally, am moving through this present season.  After The Rain, there will be color.

When I started working on this post, I honestly thought it would be just a simple, practical, "I struggle with it.  It's okay if you struggle with it too," kind of post.  I thought there would not be any of my usual points to God's artfulness or pattern-play.  But I can't not tell you that I'd written most of this before I read After The Rain.  So if you catch any of the specific relevance or similarities, hers did not influence mine.  Hers was an answer to mine.  

And that's just how it happens with Him.  






















Right Here, let me say stereophonically that one of the reasons I don't share everything is because I have a great fear of causing harm to others.  The Lord knows that the blogging world, all of the social network, has been a vacuous arena of slop-slinging and emotional take-downs, especially of late to my way of seeing.  I will be posting this - as I always do - with a prayer that I do no harm.  Depression, anger, anxiety - these are difficult matters to navigate.  As I always do, I am sharing my own experience and with a deeply sincere desire to help anyone that I may.