awake, my soul

I know it's been a while.  Sometimes I'm struck with a sudden fear that the things I spend my time doing are completely pointless, so this was my way of cleansing.  Still, there is something in me that needs to express my life in words, so here are some highlights from the past 6 weeks or so.

To start, here's a life lesson:  If you decide to eat a banana as a snack before your third class, you should not put it in your backpack for the duration of your first two classes.  If you do, it will squish itself into banana mush all over the inside of your backpack, and your stomach will make embarrassingly loud grumbling noises during Creative Writing.

I actually love Creative Writing more than I thought it was possible to love a college class.  My first story was terrifying ("It has to be PERFECT, oh I love this idea, no wait that sounds dumb, I should use this phrase because it's awesome, how did it get to be 11:30 already?!"), but since then it's become more and more satisfying to write my two-page story every week.  I realized pretty quickly that I actually have a voice.  No, really, and I have stories!   And I can tell them!  And so can you.  It was so exciting/liberating/surprising to find a deep well of "story seeds" somewhere in my imagination, just waiting for me to let them out.

Last week I was stricken by a mean nasty stomach-flu demon that necessitated that I confine myself to a mattress, sleep about 18 hours a day, and give up eating for the better part of a week.  I also learned that roommates make good mothers.


My 7-year-old violin student gave me girl scout cookies and a pink decorated pencil. I got a gift card to the Friendly City Food Co-op for Valentine's Day (thanks parents!), and I can't wait to spend it on things like soy milk and Greek yogurt and peanut butter and tea. I get excited to be at church. My friends and I spend Sunday afternoons putting together puzzles on the living room floor. I started running and it makes me feel thankful.

And yesterday and today I've been discovering that a significant amount of the pressure I feel about life comes from me.  I don't really want to explain it except to say that it was kind of a shock to realize that I'm my own enemy, but hey, that seems pretty fitting with what I've learned about life.
So here's to becoming my own solution.  I’m gonna start acting the way I say I want people to act.  How’s that for radical?

In the words of this week's Spiritual Life speaker/artist/songwriter/child advocate, this is how I feel about life currently.

The sun is coming out
in me.


I hope you feel the same.