2019

Been There. Done That.

I’ve been at this awhile now – this seeking beautiful things in August.

I typed peaches into my search browser on this site and the first hit is a post from 2015.

I’ve observed the sights and smells of summer before.

I’ve been moved by the bounty appearing on my counter tops – harvested fresh from farmers fields nearby and tiny pots warming on my porch.

I wrote about the peach lady here and encounters with fresh produce here.

I’ve written about my gardens here and lessons from tomatoes here and my appreciation for nature and growth of flowers and trees and the promises of soil here.

It’s happened again. The days turned into months and with each sleep came seasons unfurling in my same lap – the one often longing for something different. As if repetition means stagnant and recurring inspiration means I’ve missed some big opportunity.

Sometimes I catch myself dreaming of other lives I could be living. An urban woman in black pencil skirt, taking the subway to a publishing house – her fancy heels tucked in an expensive black shoulder bag. The J-Crew dressed scholar with tiny-framed glasses burrowed in a dimly lit library while working on a masters degree in something world changing. A mother tending to toddlers with curls, wishing her hair was washed and her stretchy yoga pants were freshly laundered. The REI-outfitted adventurer with worn hiking boots and tales of sleeping in hostiles and fighting off flirtatious men in Europe.

Maybe some day those visions will come true.

For now, I lift up my head and turn the calendar page for here it is – August again – and I sit, still me, with clean hair up and my square-framed glasses I should be wearing buried in the trusty, worn Timbuktu bag resting behind the desk chair I used in college.

Yesterday, we went to the farmers market and picked a bag full of bright orange carrots, crisp green peppers, a cantaloupe, and stone-sized potatoes still grimy with dirt.

Today, we drove home on the busy highway and pulled over to visit a bright yellow awning with fruit the size of baseballs ready to be bought. I wrote a check and handed it to  the teenage boy who only briefly nodded when I said I get excited to come get my peaches every year.

On Sunday, we went for a bike ride at dusk on the familiar trail near our house. Cool breezes from the river nearby lapped at my face as I peddled along, long grasses licking at my ankles.

The carrots and corn are still growing. Peaches wait to be picked.

I’ve got a pallet of luscious fruit wafting on my counter top begging to be doused in ice cream. Dusk still falls with purple and orange and the cool breeze waits to kiss my cheeks when I pass by on a bicycle.

Yes, I’ve been here and done these things before.

With all the chaos out there I’m reminded, in this moment, I don’t need anything more.

What a beautiful thing.

August Favorite Things – 2019

Better late than never.

  1. Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Word nerds rejoice! I giggled to myself, I was delighted. The book affirmed I’m on the right track. Keep reading.

2. Toms with Sloths on them.

Because your feet are happy when sloths are on them.

3. Lily Kershaw

Her voice is enchanting, haunting, engaging. I want more. I found out she’s coming to my town to perform in October and I’ll be gone. So if one of you could go in my place and live stream to my phone I’d appreciate it. Lily, I’ll pay for the remote experience.

4. Utter Nonsense

It will keep you laughing. Not for the faint of heart or easily offended.

5. Good ol’ fashioned school supplies.

You’ll find me wandering the hallways at Target. At least until the college kids show up next weekend. Go ahead – buy yourself the big box of crayons.

Of this I am sure.

“I’m not sure I know what I want to do” I said swatting at the mosquito nibbling on my ankles.

“And no matter what we choose, it’s all moving quickly.” said my friend sitting across from me, the orange dusk moving in on us.

She touched her elbows to her knees and rested her chin in her hands. We made eye contact and sighed.

When one goes to grief group, one is reminded of the slippery little secret we don’t like to talk about.

All of this will someday come to a close.

Each new day feels a vulnerable, brilliant breath as the sun rises to once again turn the darkness into light.

The time we think we have is not promised and not guaranteed.

This realization should move me into action and valiantly push me into new places.

No more settling.

I could be using this loss to wiggle my way into new rooms, and have bold conversations, invest in experiences to expand and take up space.

ropeBut I am still myself –  the one slow to dip into cold pools. I observe situations for stillness before I act – like a double-dutch jumper waiting for the perfect in.

I watch the plastic ropes thwacking the cement each time as wrists turn them in arching rounds. There is a space where I can insert myself gracefully without the sting of plastic rectangles jangling on their strings stinging my skin. I watch. I wait. I trust the ropes will come around again, leaving me space to jump.

Tonight, I’m not sure what comes next. Not sure where to compromise, where to push, where to pull. Where do I risk and where do I play it safe? Where to put my trust in myself and in others.

Where do we lay our fragile beating hearts?

I’m not sure.

And yet, last night as I was trying to sleep my husband sat next to me strumming his guitar. His chords and his presence made me feel safe. I closed my eyes and whispered thanks.

I’m sure I want more of his music and his warmth and his work-on-the-car jeans leaving marks on our bedspread.

I woke and watched the sun seep into our bedroom window as my dog stretched between us, her scratching legs kick-starting her jangling collar to act as my wake-up call.

I’m sure I want more of those still mornings, seeping sun mingling with morning breath and puppy kisses.

Still in my pajamas, I brewed some coffee, poured thick white cream, and picked up a small book. Pressing the title to my chest, I juggled a full plaid mug with prose, moving myself and a story to the worn reading chair in the corner of our living room.

I’m sure I want to fill my life with the creative words of others.

I’m sure I want to find a way to share my creative words with those who need them.

I’m sure I want to publish.

I’m sure I want a cover with my name on it.

I’m sure I’m a reader.

I’m sure I’m going to write.

I’m sure of the simple, of the comfort found in conversations and knowing glances. I’m sure I’ll live my life seeing people and taking time to list the beautiful things filling my heart.

Perhaps that will be enough.

 

 

Why do you think that is?

“I haven’t been as regular in posting,” I said to the man on the other end of a Skype connection.

“Why do you think that is?” he asked kindly.

I was in the middle of a podcast interview last weekend and his question gave me pause.

My answer centered on my desire to turn this project into a book and how with each new post I ask myself, “Is this the last one before I stop?”

There is truth in that sentiment and when I take off my interviewee hat and listen to my heart I hear this too.

I am getting tired of risking my vulnerability here.

Not in an exasperated way. It’s not that I’m over it – not in the least.

Rather, sharing my search for good and beautiful things has left me open and raw and seeking connection with other brave peace warriors. Sometimes this internet space is not as fulfilling as Instagram tells me it will be.

I talk about grief and joy and feelings and fewer want to engage with these truths than with work-out routines and make-up tips and how to make the perfect soufflé.

This practice, my friends, takes time and emotional fortitude and sometimes I wonder if I’ve still got what it takes. Whatever “it” is.

All the doubts creatives have start trickling in and I question – Is this really the best place for me to process my way through the world?

And then, I read this tweet by Jon Acuff:

“You can hold your breath and pretend your perfect, shoving those fears back into a quiet corner or you can be vulnerable and brave enough to ignore the handful of people who will mock your vulnerability because they are terrified of their own. You get to choose each day.” 

I let out the breath I’ve been holding and climbed out of my dark corner. My fingers began to twitch with the need to keep typing tales of my life and the beauty found here.

I am not terrified of my vulnerability – only in how you will receive my expressions – and the difference there is much more about you than me.

This week I’ve been sick, coughing until abs I did not know I had in my body are sore. I’m constantly sucking on Ricola, the Swiss sweets soothing my scratchy throat.

I slept for eleven hours thanks to the help of Tylenol PM.

My body is recovering and in my resting I’m making lists of the beautiful while my body shakes from gack in my chest.

Here’s the beautiful things surrounding me as I start again:

silviannnm-hgQB3ZQZS_E-unsplash.jpg

Big bowls of bright red cherries – bursting with juice

Rolling thunderstorms clouds and quaking thunder claps

Butterflies with patterned wings

Lemon Mint cough drops

Peanut M&Ms

Influencers tweeting

Stretchy pants

Drives to the airport with accents

An ounce of bravery for tough conversations

Warm cups of tea

There’s so much beauty and good and holy things around me, even when I feel raw, achy and sore.

Why do you think that is?

 

Sweating for a Sandwich

Turn on the oven to 400 degrees.

Take a pound of bacon and layer on a foil-lined cookie sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes until crispy.

While you start to sweat because your house is eighty degrees and the oven is on at 400 degrees, take out the toaster. Plug the metal machine in to the socket.

Turn from your cool granite counter and take the package off the top off the whirring fridge.

Remove the plastic twist-tie from the crinkly, cellophane bag holding the precious loaf of sourdough bread.

Turn back to your cold counter.

Select two of the softest slices of bread and place in the toaster, pressing down on the black metal bar to engage the heat.

More heat.

While the bread toasts, wash some lettuce with cool, cool water and slice a tomato once warming on the counter. If you’re feeling luxurious, slice up an expensive avocado before it turns from the heat.

Pop!

Your bread is done.

Remove the toasted pieces from the hot metal grates with your fingers. If you feel brave, unplug the toaster and use a fork to get the bread out. Do not mix up the order here.

Open the hot oven to check your bacon.

Has it reached toasted perfection?

Once it’s done, put on insulated oven mitts and remove the hot pan from the hot oven.

Take your bread, now cooled, and spread refrigerated mayo with a cool knife to one side of the one slice. Take your expensive, normal temperature avocado and spread with the cool knife on the remaining slice of bread.

Layer warm bacon, cool lettuce, and warm tomato slices. If you’re like my dad, you’ll add a slice of cold cheese. Cheddar or Muenster will do. Smack those slices together and cut into triangles with your knife, cold mayo lingering on the blade.

Turn off the 400 degree oven.

Eat your sandwich outside because both you and your house are now stifling.

BLTs, my friends, are beautiful things.

gardie-design-social-media-marketing-a-eC_o3TRCU-unsplash

In other news, my favorite dinosaur Carl now has his own Instagram. Please follow along.

And don’t forget to tell me what’s bringing you joy this month. More details here.

July Favorite Things – 2019

New month. New favorites.

I want to hear about your gratitude lists and what’s bringing you joy!

These are some things bringing me joy this month.

  1. Ursa Major Skin Care
    I like using natural skin care products and many of them are amazingly expensive. Not this stuff. The face wash leaves my skin feeling fresh and the balm leaves me moisturized and happy. The scents are refreshing, natural and light. And all the products are within my budget.
  2. No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffie

This book is charming, smart, and gives me hope for the workplace. As someone who cries at work, I’m encouraged people are leading the charge to encourage more empathy and healthy coping mechanisms in the spaces we spend most of our time.

3. This foccacia recipe

Even though it’s 94 degrees out, I’ve got the oven and the air conditioning on. And if you need me, I’ll be eating this delicious bread. Scared of yeast? You can’t go wrong with this stuff perfect for the amateur baker.

4. Watermelon Cucumber Cooler

I gave up alcohol for the month of June and have been drinking this instead. Mix with some sparkling water and lime for a refreshing after-work drink. If you’re feeling fancy I suppose you could add some tequila or vodka. I won’t tell.

5. Rainboots

Because Colorado can’t make up it’s mind. Bring some joy to the afternoon thunderstorm with these fun galoshes.

Have a joyful July.

Let’s Have a Joyful July

Hi Gang!

How are we doing?

Summer has officially started and it’s as if my body forgot how to sweat the month of June and is catching up in preparation for July.

Just me?

Gross, I know.

As we’ve reached the half way mark of 2019 and I’ve been looking at my goals I wrote down in January, I’m reminding myself I want to live with more joy. As humans we carry many things in our backpacks. How can we move our burdens around in our pack to fit just a few more marbles of joy?

There’s usually something whispering to us, even when our hearts hurt.

I want to hear what is bringing you joy this month! Will you play along?

let's have a.png

There are three ways to play for a chance to win some of my favorite things:

  1. Type up your list of joyful things and send it to me at 52beautifulthings at gmail dot com
  2. Post a picture of something bringing you joy on Instagram with the hashtag #joyfuljuly and tag @52beautifulthings so I’m sure to see it
  3. Send me a DM on Instagram with your list
  4. Tag a friend who could participate. If they follow along, you’ll both get an extra entry

All lists will be compiled and shared here at the end of the month. Photos shared on Instagram will be shared in my stories.

Each contributor will be entered to win a few of my favorite things.

Can we plant the seeds and spark more smiles together this month?

**Please keep content appropriate – I reserve the right to refuse to post if I feel content is offensive or could cause harm to others. By submitting your materials, you give me permission to share your responses on this blog and on social media. I appreciate when you share your contributions with your networks, but this is not required.

You need not live in Colorado to win. Winners must respond to notification within two days or I will draw another name.

For Sarver

I went to a show last night. We entered a big dark room filled with eager fans. I shuffled to claim my space and looked up to see rows of massive speakers suspended overhead. Lucky for me, my friends were keen to lean against the grubby wall with torn purple wall paper. How do you know you’re old at a concert? You wear tennis shoes for support and seek out hidden spaces to rest your legs already aching from eight hours at a standing desk.

As the singer screamed with passion, I nodded along in the back hiding from the rays of yellow flickering from the wands of light on stage.
It felt good to be in that room.

As the musicians emoted and the twenty-somethings jumped to the beat, I stood with my feet planted to the concrete floor. I swung my arms and let the intensity pulse through my body causing my knees to bend and shake. With each drum beat I absorbed the reverberations and welcomed, over and over again, the pounding reminder – I am beautifully alive.

There were times the audience’s screams of admiration caused me to plug my ears and I felt, once again, embarrassed to be an introvert in a loud space. I reminded myself it’s a radical act to care for oneself and while I left my ear plugs in the car, I pushed my hands to my head and my fingers in my ears. Sometimes, the noise and the darkness became too much.

While the band may not have been my first choice, they are my husband’s old favorite and I knew he was standing behind me, screaming well-known lyrics and smiling ear to ear.

This morning, my ears are ringing to prove it. I’ll never again get return to yesterday’s base level of hearing capabilities.

And this morning, I woke up and scrolled through my Facebook feed and found out again someone we knew, someone my brother loved, has died.

There is too much darkness haunting our young people. Hurting kids are turning to the wrong things to help ease their pain. And I swear to God it never gets easier to hear the truth that people we love will leave us. That one kind, searching kid just did.

Peace be with us.

We stand in darkness, there are flickering rays of light, and we bend and shake with the magnitude of our choices. We can lean on walls, hold hands, show up to support the ones we love. We can shake our heads and scream and pound and let the pulse move through us. And we can weep when people hurt.

A swirling mess of fog and noise and joy created in big, emotive sounds exists – this is what the world asks of us. I want to be affected. I refuse to go numb.

For we are still alive and we can choose to move toward the light.

If you know someone who is struggling, reach out.

If you are fighting demons, get help.

I want the pulse and the verve to continue on through me and through you. Lean on walls if you must. I want your ears to continue to hear the beautiful music. Please continue to live loudly. To see beauty. To run towards the flickering light mixing with the screeching feedback. Get on stage and help find your voice to sing.  I’ll be with you to help plug your ears when it all feels to much.

Here’s to the ones

To the ones who pick up the phone, send the texts, check in and ask how you’re doing.

To the ones who whisper and tell us on repeat, “We are ok. We don’t have to accomplish anything.”

To the ones who are seeking validation and a space to share your story.

To the ones aching for community.

To the ones who want more, better, beauty.

To the compassionate ones crying in your cubicles.

Our world makes you small when your heart beats so big you don’t know how to handle it.

bruno-cervera-1173727-unsplash

To the ones listening and leaning in.

To the ones who are haunted and hoping and hurting and here.

To the ones who bend and smell the roses and fill your arms with blooms in the garden, sorting weeds from the tiny blossoms of potential.

To the ones who buy themselves the peonies and bring their friends bread.

Caring for ourselves and our friends is a radical act.

To the ones who sit on blue benches whispering this just sucks.

To the ones who have loved and lost and to those who are waiting.

To the ones swirling to make sense of things.

To those who want to be seen.

Tonight, you are beautiful to me.

In Denial

I got an email from Nordstrom Rack this week. A classic promotion and the subject line read, “Which type is your dad?”

Screen Shot 2019-06-10 at 9.49.53 PM.png

A dead one – I thought to myself.

Oy

I wanted to send of a snarky reply but I didn’t.

Sometimes it’s easier to keep those little remarks to yourself. Advertisers are not often in the business of being sensitive to these kind of pain points.

Here we are. Another calendar year rolled by and I find myself clicking delete on promotions in my email, in the accounts I manage, and ignoring blatant ads on social media.

These Father’s Day triggers are everywhere.

After reading some of the pieces I published last year on the holiday I realized I’m at year number four, not three, of this holiday without him.

Four seems so much bigger than three.

You can ask the toddlers who have become bigger children in his absence.

I’m in Father’s Day denial. I was hoping to keep it at an arms distance.

But Nordstrom and Macy’s and Apple and even Starbucks are telling me I better prepare.

Sigh. Deeeeeeeeep sighs.

I’m missing him and breathing in his scent found in the hot popcorn popped fresh at the hardware store. I finger his sweatshirts hanging in my closet, next to my work blazers reminding me of how his fibers felt when brushed against him as I rushed out the door.

I’m in denial this year and so I turn my attention here. To the …

White walls painted fresh in a completed basement.

Slices of crisp dill pickle on dry crumbly bread.

Ham spread with mayo, no Minnesota butter to be found.

Small floating bubbles in spritzer.

Peas sprouting up in the garden.

Translucent squirts of lemon juice easing their way down into glasses full of cool water.

Coffee beans grinding.

Fitness instructors reminding me to tend to my back.

Encouragement from bosses.

Kisses on the cheek with an old friend. The ones who knew him too.

Red lipstick marks on coffee cups.

Baby Opal just one miraculous week old.

Maintained eye brows.

Dinners with grandmas and aunts and mother-in-laws.

Lottery tickets scratched clean.

These are the beautiful things this week is made of. And I’m focusing on them instead.