wordless//ness

4.26

Discontentment, my bad friend.

I tell myself to quit that. Quit wanting something different, something bigger. This is here for now, so it is good for now. But restlessness has always lived inside my stomach like a parasite. It slumbers, sometimes. Certainly. In its sleep I find the most rest. But I think I should become an expert, for when the slumbering part is over and the awakening—the churning—starts up again. 

Over the last week, I’ve set aside time to daydream. It sounds a little silly, I guess. But someone encouraged me once to practice being silent. Awake in dreams. Pen and paper in hand, for an hour. To write down anything and everything that came to mind regarding the present, the future; goals, lifestyle, career… 

My daydreams have had plenty to say. Because there are no rules in the daydream game, certain things can exist, while other realities can disappear. (I like this part very much). So far, dreamland is a land unfamiliar with the stresses of money. In dreamland, people love to barter. Home brew for goat cheese; bike tune-ups for fresh-baked scones; furniture in exchange for stories and jokes. A cup of coffee and, in return, a cup of wisdom. In dreamland, I am constantly learning new truths. I am perpetually hearing and documenting stories, recording them and replaying them. Because in dreamland, stories make the best falling asleep soundtracks and the best making breakfast soundtracks. I am perpetually seeing the beautiful and making the beautiful and talking about the beautiful. In dreamland, every interaction and every event weighs just a little bit—a physical reminder that the day-to-day is meaningful. Substantial. For something. To build strength. 

4.11

A certain Annie Dillard quote lives on a magnet, stuck to my lamp, next to my bed. Gifted to me by another Annie Dillard-loving soul, the piece says,

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. 

I am certain my whole existence will be a slow discovery of my necessity. I wonder (and maybe Annie would say) whether there could be several necessities. Christ, certainly. The kingdom, I hope—in slivers and shards, pieced together as best we can. Community, absolutely. The building of it, the sustaining of it, the trials of it. But also learning. The pulse, the breath, the energy of new understanding, new creation, new beginnings, new ends, new growth, new fractures, new ideas, new collaborations.   

In the lulls, I grow rigid. Asleep. Sore.

So maybe I can strive to dangle limply from the exertion. The waking ups. The stretches. 

4.1

…it remains one of the paradoxes of our educational system that most people receive almost no instruction in design thinking and in how our designed environment comes to be: why some spaces work better than others and why some spaces affect us more than others. Indeed, most of us learn far more in school about the natural environment, which we can do relatively little to change, than we do about the designed environment, which we have a great capacity to improve (Fisher, T. in Martin & Guerin, 2010).

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I’m beginning a list entitled “Stuff I Don’t Know.” So far: 

- investment banking: what, how; taxes: what to claim, how to keep track (also under “how to be organized”), auditing: could it happen to me; tofu: how to cook it, is it worth cooking, but what about chicken; health insurance: how to pay for it; tires: how to change them.

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I’m trying to be a person that makes others feel human. Important. Alive. I feel convicted lately of doing the opposite. Of judgement, criticism, cynacism, frustration. How can we prevent utter exhaustion? How can we stay filled enough to always be giving people their humanity? 

3.18

I haven’t written in awhile. Probably because I’m afraid of heavy boots (to borrow the most relatable terminology, from my current read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close). I find that words demand honesty; if I’m wearing heavy boots, I have to either blog in heavy boots or talk about the weather. And talking about the weather sounds empty and hollow, if I’m not really caring about the weather at all. 

If I allocated more time for writing tonight, I think a certain heaviness would ooze out of the wellspring of my introspection. Heaviness about divorce. Heaviness about fractured relationships. Heaviness about homelessness. Heaviness about the brevity of youth. Heaviness about not being able to read all the books that are ever written. Heaviness about war. Heaviness about heaviness. 

But I have on light boots too. My company moved to Fort Collins, which I feel thrilled about for so many reasons. Spring is here (bike rides and patio beers)! My mom was up visiting for the weekend; she and my brother and my church people all gathered in my kitchen this morning, eating french toast and making me feel thankful. My friends are spread out across the country, and I feel proud of them all. People are doing things to combat injustice, to take care of one another, to lighten heavy boots. 

3.1.12

Everything seems to have slowed down, or stopped. It’s nice. Like sitting down after a run across the continent. 

2.12

Growth over a six month’s time is palpable. Something about the 20-somethings. The next best thing is a ghost of an idea; the now is rich and beautiful and tragic. Goal-setting is encased in patience and diligent planning, rather than in desperate need for spontaneity and change. And change! It is anticipated, expected, revered. Time lapses arbitrarily—she is the strictest Professor of Happenings. We are the traveling Temple—individually and together—approaching the Holy of Holies with confidence, the rope untied from our waists. 

2.1

This afternoon, a client took me out to lunch. She also gave me gift card to a boutique downtown. She’s also given me multiple thank you cards. I simply helped her and her husband select carpet and bathroom tile. I also advised them on a hip, gun-metal finished sink option, and I assured them their existing faucet would coordinate. I only did the kinds of things I dub insignificant on most days— days I sometimes spend existing elsewhere, in my mind. Existing in graduate school, or existing at a firm that makes bold, conceptual statements about the relationship between space and identity. Existing in a day filled with “more important” tasks. But my client’s overwhelming gratefulness today has reminded me that home is an important space. Of course it is! And it felt wonderful to connect with someone in a kindred kind of way. I like the idea that that can happen in the midst of business. I felt so loved and valued today. By a stranger, practically. The day-to-day: it is full of importance. 

Next. I am currently staring at the evidence of my own dysfunction. It is this: I hate putting away clean laundry. It takes me at least 4 days. I leave it in the dryer for one, usually. Then I haul it to my bed. By that time, I’m so weary of the chore that I typically leave it to eat a snack, check my e-mail, do a different chore, etc. By the time I return, it is too late for more chores, of course. At nights, I just move the clean pile to the foot of the bed, convincing myself it adds a blanket-like warmth for my toes (so as to avoid wearing socks to sleep, you know. I also hate wearing socks to sleep). In any event, a pile of clean clothes rests below me now. I’m saying this to the internet universe because someone really should intervene. It is either that or the option to co-habitat with someone who willingly puts away another’s clean laundry (this seems to require some sort of romantic investment; a sacrifice in exchange for another, like washing all the dishes). That’s all I have to say about that.  

The third update is simply that I am reading “The Psychopath Test,” by Jon Ronson. I am engaged so far, 59 pages in.