I love epiphany days.
They make me smile.
I wish they would come every day, although I’m not entirely certain my head could contain all of them. I’m sure that in my wishing for an overwhelming avalanche of epiphanies, eventually they would start leaking out of my heart, lost like individual snowflakes melting away in the winter sun.
Perhaps that’s why epiphanies seem to come one at a time, so few and far between. That way, they come in, introduce themselves, make themselves at home. It’s my decision whether or not to welcome them or push them away – I’m not ready for you yet. But they’re there to be welcomed, absorbed, turned over and over, pondered over. For whatever reason, God usually works in processes. Only in very rare instances does He work instantaneously. Maybe epiphanies are the chapter headings of what He’s doing in my life as He writes the (sometimes interminably long) novel that He’s crafting.
As God is a writer, so am I.
Anyway, epiphany moment coming back. Friday night, in the middle of a lovely and sometimes painful conversation with my best friend, so many things suddenly became clear. Or at least clearer than they’d been in such a long time. It’s always humbling to talk with someone who knows you so well that they call you out on everything. Sigh. One day I’d like to have this all figured out. But I saw the pieces of my life, random, fragmented moments that meant nothing at the time, that somehow prepared me for this exact place I’m in today. I couldn’t have constructed something like this if I’d tried, if I’d even had the imagination to dream something like this up.
And this morning, sitting in my Starbucks, watching the cloudy Beverly Hills morning pass by outside the window, I was reminded of a C.S. Lewis quote. It’s one of his most famous, so I’m sure some of you will have heard it before. Anyway…
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
C.S. Lewis
Our presence automatically liberates others? I have lived my life so small, so tinily! I have been so afraid. So terrified of what could actually be. Who am I to be…? What if I have bigger dreams than can be contained in a life so small? What if I am called to be more? To do more? To live my life in an enormous way – not so that others feel diminished or small, but so they feel encouraged and loved? What if my life becomes the life of my dreams? What if I lived that very life of my dreams for the joy and comfort and life-giving encouragement of others? What if every success I had was dipped in the idea of loving and serving others? What if I looked at every good and lovely thing in my life as simply a way of blessing others?
There would be no need for fear. Fear of success, fear of losing others, fear of self-absorption, fear of losing the very things that make me the person I am. It all disappears.
Suddenly, the question becomes not Who am I to do this? but rather…
Who am I to hide away?
What if the words I write bring hope? Peace? Joy? What if they challenge others? What if they bring life where there was only death before? It is very true that I am imperfect and incomplete. I am still being formed. My words are never perfect, never shaped exactly as I want them, never the be all-end all I occasionally imagine. But I have this crazy idea that maybe something I write could change someone’s entire life.
I hope my words are always words of life and freedom. You, all of you out there in the great wide world, have my permission to tell me if my words ever lose that.
And in the meantime, I will be becoming less and less afraid, and more and more the warrior girl I am made to be.
Rough day today… Actually, that doesn’t even begin to cover it.
But three hours of very in-depth conversation later, there’s a hopefulness that is beginning to well up inside me. Hello, hope. I didn’t think I’d see you again for a while. Now the trick will be falling to sleep and waking up in the morning, still wrapped up in it.
Why is it so difficult to hold on sometimes?
For breakfast, I had a tablespoon (or so) of peanut butter, spread over a slice of whole grain toast. It was heavenly! And I realized – why have I never eaten this for breakfast before? We’ll be remedying this in no time flat, I promise you. Such a lovely reminder to savor the little things in life and appreciate them for what they truly are.
Julie & Julia
Luke and I finally had a chance to spend the morning together (it’s been a little crazy in our neck of the woods lately). And like the amazing, wonderful husband that he is, he took me to see Julie & Julia, a wonderful puff pastry of a film that warmed my heart and made me want to spend hundreds of dollars and every single day of the rest of my life in the kitchen. I started a food blog at one point. Maybe I’ll start it again. I’ll call it The Cheeseless Culinary Adventures of a Hopeful Foodie… Sounds good. But anyway, back to the film.
First thing’s first – Meryl Streep is beyond amazing. She’s going to get nominated for an Oscar, and probably win.
Second – major kudos to Nora Ephron for putting Dan Akroyd’s brilliant SNL skit in the film. It’s a testament to Meryl Streep that she so thoroughly inhabited the character that she never once seemed like parody or imitation. You forget that Julia Child was not Meryl Streep was not Julia Child. It’s brilliant. But in case you miss that point, let’s show you what a real parody looks like. And make you laugh. Loved it.
Third – I will never cook lobster. End of story.
And finally – I was surprised by how much I related to Amy Adams’ character, Julie. She’s happily married, a halfway decent cook, and completely at a loss with what her life might look like. I’ve had my meltdowns, and Luke is definitely the more sane of the two of us. We laughed at so many of the meltdown moments in the film, not just because they were funny (and they were), but mostly because they were so true. It was like watching ourselves on film. Sometimes I dream of doing something like that. I wonder if I have the patience, though. I tend to be a “right now” sort of person, which is strange because for so much of my life, I’ve always waited for dessert until after dinner. I waited to get to high school before I went to an after party. I was 18 (and in Europe, where it’s legal) before I had my first taste of alcohol. There’s something so sweet about the anticipation of a moment. When did I become so impatient?
I feel like I’ve been waiting for so long, and yet there are days I don’t want to simply put one foot in front of the other. I’d rather write 50 pages in a single day than five pages a day for ten days. Leap tall buildings in a single bound. It’s just so much more fun to imagine writing 50 pages in a single day. But I am not Supergirl, unfortunately. I feel like a failure if I can’t write 50 pages, and then I don’t want to write any other day. Which really, if you think about it, is so ridiculous. I’m pretty sure my computer would grow legs and run away (in a non-metaphorical sense) if I tried to push it through 50 pages all at once. It would just snap shut and say, “I’m finding someone else to be my person, thank you very much.” And it would turn on it’s little freshly-sprouted legs, open my front door (hey, it’s a talented computer) and run screaming down my hall. And that’s to say nothing about my poor hands, which would also try to abandon ship.
But yet, like Julie Powell, there are people who can set a goal (365 days, 524 recipes) and understand and appreciate the process for what it is.
No one looked down on her because she didn’t cook every recipe in a single day. It was meant to be a process! How often do I forget that very thing? So it’s okay that today, I am not where I want to be (hello full-time screenwriter!) But if every morning, I wake up and write, I am a success. I am doing what I was made to do. And one day, it will pay off. But if I don’t write because I am so overwhelmed, so worried, so frustrated that I can’t write an entire film in a single day, so tired, so… terrified – where will that put me?
Whether or not I write, every day I wake up, I will be one day older. Monday will turn into Tuesday and Wednesday and so on. So I keep writing and keep dreaming, maybe just a little bit every day. Because eventually, a lot of little bits will add up to one complete project. And then another and another. I already have three projects complete. One in a more or less put together stage. Three more in notecard stage. Four in what I call my “random idea” stage.
But if I keep putting one foot in front of the other, one day I will have eleven completed projects, and even more in the other stages. So my little feet have to just keep on moving. At least I just had a pedicure to get started! 
I promise this started as an entry about a movie. Which you should all go see.
But that’s the joy of writing – you never know where it’s going to end up taking you. It’s always an adventure.
What is it in our souls that causes us to beg for the impossible? What is it that makes us crave what is not naturally possible, what shouldn’t happen, what won’t happen unless a miracle kisses our face and says, “Beloved, you are mine, and this deepest desire of your heart is yours. You needed only to ask.”
How do you ask for a miracle?
Have I not asked correctly? Have I misinterpreted the answers given back? Have I missed out on what could have been, content in the muddy wash of what is? Sometimes I wonder if I ask for too much. I’ve asked for a miracle and been given air, sunshine, food, a love of writing, an amazing husband who fits me perfectly, wonderful friends. Am I so bold to keep asking for yet another miracle?
Is that even fair? It’s like asking to win the lottery tonight while holding last night’s winning ticket. I just want to hear the whisper, “I love you.” I just want so much more.
July 20th, 1969 gave the world one of, if not the biggest moment in history.
Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon for the first time, leaving footprints and the collective dreams of the world pressed into the surface of the moon. And now, forty years later, we’re looking back and celebrating.
And I was trying to imagine the world they lived in. I was born into a world where man had already walked on the moon. It was already a fact, a part of history. But sometimes I wonder what it must have felt like to watch it happening at that very moment. I wonder how that must have ignited imaginations… how must it have felt like, at least at that very moment, that anything was possible.
I wish I could have seen that. I wish I could have been there. I hope that the next time someone walks on the moon, literally or metaphorically, that I will get to notice and celebrate the moment of sheer insanity, excitement and dreams come to life. We live in a beautiful world where every once in a while, everything comes together perfectly – and we are never the same. Those giant leaps are a moment to savor, indeed.
As you can tell, I’ve taken a bit of time off recently from updating my blog. It’s been a rough few weeks.
On July 7th, my grandpa passed away, and it’s been one of the most difficult experiences of my life. My entire childhood is filled with him! I honestly can’t remember a school play or concert or homecoming that didn’t start out with my grandparents coming over to my house, dressed up, camera (and sometimes flowers) in hand. It’s like all the important events in my life couldn’t actually get going until they were there. My grandpa was one of my favorite people in the world – and so much of his guidance and advice will take me through the rest of my life! I’m sure there will be more blogs in the next few weeks about him!
And in the meantime, I know three little babies who’ve just made their appearance in the world this last week. It’s incredible how beginnings and endings can overlap so drastically, and how there can still be amazing beauty and joy in the midst of the sadness in the world. I am completely blown away!
So I’ve been trying to reconcile this in my heart over the last few days, trying to work it out and uncover how it really works. And so far – all I have is this wonderful and frustrating awareness that God works even when there is darkness and doubt and difficulty. For some reason, he doesn’t always smooth the way. But I am still so grateful for the beauty… My dear Grandpa, I love you so much, and I will miss you every day. Thank you for being there.
What does it look like to live a creative life? This is a question I’ve been wrestling with the past few days. I’ve felt somewhat stuck recently. You know the saying, “When it rains, it pours”? That’s been the picture of my life recently, and between everything I’m working through, I’ve managed to find myself at an unfortunate stopping point. And I don’t want to stay here. So, in working through a lot of stuff, I’ve discovered a dearth of creativity in my life. Which is strange, coming from a writer and musician who adores cooking and really wishes she could draw more than a stick figure. But I think it’s a deeper issue than that.
I’m not talking about a creative life in the vein of what you normally might picture – artist, musician, writer, painter, etc. I’m looking for a whole-life creative life. Sometimes I have a tendency to cling so tightly to order and the way things have “always been done,” to my routine and safety nets that I forget that life, in its most crystalline form, is unexpected. It’s not meant to be a rigid set of routines and dogmatic assumptions. It’s being open to God whispering in my ear and saying, “I have something new.”
A creative life takes all of those routines and comfort zones and tosses them out. That’s not to say that a creative life is one of complete chaos. There’s something really beautiful in having your routines and order of doing things. There’s a certain level of joy and anticipation knowing that on Sunday mornings, I’m going to sit at my coffee shop with my tea and write. But a creative life comes from knowing that at any moment, that could change. If I turn down breakfast with a friend on a Sunday morning because I’m sticking so tightly to what I know, that would suck the life out of, well, life. So I enjoy the moment and I skip my routine, because really, there is nothing better than breakfast with friends.
The uncreative life says, “This is what I’ve done.” The creative life says, “This is what I will do, or what I could do.” That creative life opens the doors for possibilities and for change. It opens you up to an entirely new set of, “What ifs?” It allows you to be more present in your life, more available to the people in your life, and more aware of the beauty that surrounds every moment – if only you look for it.
A creative life also allows you to look for other answers and ways around problems. I hate my white apartment walls. They are painfully boring, and I want to do something fresh and exciting! But for the past four months, I’ve just looked at plain white walls and lived in the disappointment that our landlord said no paint. (We even offered to have someone paint it professionally!) But as I’m setting out to look for ways of living a more creative life, I came across the most fun ideas online. I could hang a huge piece of fabric across one wall. I could use wall decals (a fantastic idea I’m taking from some great friends of ours out here). At very least, I can stop cursing the white walls and appreciate their simplicity. Where else in my life can I do the same thing?
I hope that my life is one of creativity and fluidity and moving within the moment. I hope that I never become so absorbed in my own life that I miss you. I want to take risks and really live. I want to love the people in my life more fully and be more present for them. Feed them crazier food in a brightly colored dining room. I want to dream bigger.
I want the creative life.
For those of you out there already brilliantly doing just this – I would love to hear your thoughts and what your life looks like… I want to learn from you.
I would really like to know where the plot was buried in Transformers 2. Don’t get me wrong – it was meant to be a distracting summer popcorn flick, and it succeeded in that. But if anyone finds a lost plot wandering the streets, please contact Michael Bay and tell him you found it. I wonder if there is a reward…
“When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. I think it’s a wonderful way to spend one’s life.”
- Erica Jong
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Happy Saturday, everyone!
