delight

a word embroidered on pretty fabric, trapped tightly round by a wooden hoop, giving name to a restful weekend spent driving around central illinois fields with a close friend and kindred spirit.

i've had a (spirit-sucking) headache for weeks. i thought maybe it was because i needed new glasses. turns out, i need to relax. one would think - i certainly did - that time spent at home, between jobs (on the brink of a career), as the winter melts and warms into spring, would be relaxing and renewing. minus the anxiety of looking for work, dangling on the edge of an unknown future life, opening myself up to feeling what's left of wounds in the process of healing, seeing myself with honest, open eyes for the first time in a few years. all that, and staring intensely at a computer screen for hours, perfecting and agonizing over the words of many cover letters. i guess the stiffness that begins in your shoulders can travel up your neck and around your head and into your eyes until your body says STOP and you realize you've become the biggest grump in possibly the entire world.

which brings me back to that one simple word. the word i carry around with me on a coin in my wallet. that word, within which lies what i desire to be the philosophy of my entire life in seven simple letters, arranged to snap you out of your self-obsessed self-pity and draw you back into the beauty of the world and the beauty of the One.

i came to champaign because i needed to get away from that self who's been growing in the dark corners of my childhood home. i needed to open my eyes again and delight. in grass bright green where it used to be gray and white. in lilac bushes, distinct in their purple fragrance and tied to memories of running barefoot in my childhood backyard. in pretty fabric and creative ideas and hours of making and remaking and enjoying.

in three hours of open country road and windows rolled down, as the fields give way to farm houses and families of old, strong, rooted trees. it all feels like some home buried deep in my restless spirit, waiting for me with quiet, open, knowing arms. exposing so many set plans, fists closed tight, unwilling and afraid to open and let go.

a weekend in the past, except it's not the past - it's today, and i realize finally that lesson i've already learned so many times. life might surprise me if i let it. let it, let Him, soften my heart, now hard with grumblings in the wilderness.

so for now, i'll ask for help to find simple, trusting, faith-filled delight in sitting and talking and laughing with good friends on comfy couches as their beautiful children nap upstairs. in afternoon walks with my mom, or jaunts around the park with my dad. driving my car through green rolling hills and just-blooming forests, windows down and music turned up, on my way to care for the physical and emotional needs of public school elementary students as a bona fide nurse. nights out in chicago with my siblings and two close friends i've known since seventh grade volleyball. fun trips with good friends to minneapolis and a life-giving visit with my sister; six-hour trips home, wedged in the backseat with dimple-cheeked babies. free wednesdays at the art institute, checking in again with the impressionists and modern european artists. spring afternoon jogs through home-town neighborhoods. and of course, good coffee and quiet, long mornings.