The Perfect Glissando

Watch carefully, the magic that occurs, 

when you give a person just enough comfort

to be themselves.

                                  —To Kill a Mockingbird

"What are you playing?!"

"This is a harp! Wanna try it?"

My fingers licked their way up the strings and made an enchanting hiccup of sound. It's called a glissando when you run your fingers up the harp strings, and to me it sounds like what drinking shattered stars would taste like. A fizziness so strong that you can't help but giggle; a champagne to the soul. My new little friend's bright eyes doubled in size as his fingers immediately started dancing all over the strings. I looked over at his mom, and her tired eyes smiled as she whispered a thank you to me. I told my little friend that he had just created the loveliest of noises. He was so excited. His joy glittered in my heart for the rest of that heavenly evening.

I was in absolute paradise. My amazing harp teacher, Lisa, and I were playing Christmas music at Tattered Cover bookstore, my favorite sanctuary of infinite inspiration. The towering shelves of books around me whispered their ages-long lullaby as I plucked away in their palace of words. I was connected with every human who had ever read a book, and I became an outlet of dreamy music surrounded by a billion stories burning furiously on delicate pages.

In that rich moment, I was struck by what beauty I was able to create with a part of me that had always felt so small. My thin fingers kept playing, and I loved that it didn't matter what I looked like. My mind and heart blended deeply into the watercolor of sound that I was painting. I exhaled through the notes and pushed them towards the people listening. The more I played, the more the connection grew between us. At first, they were looking at me. Oh, a harp! they thought. How cool it looks! And then the more I played, the more their brains untangled, and some even closed their eyes. We weren't necessarily looking at each other, but I was seeing them, seeing their restlessness during the hectic time of year, their sparkling eyes about to catch fire. When I played, I was able to give them a gift of momentary peace. A woman who had just gotten off the phone after what sounded like a stressful conversation came and sat near us and just listened. That's the message Lisa and I were trying to send: it's okay to just be. We all need a drink of pure water during the sticky syrup feasts of the season. I know this too, and playing was just as healing for me as it was for them. And they, too, saw me, not as a silly-looking 17 (18 on the 26th)-year-old in an ugly sweater, but as an outlet of soothing music that our raw hearts yearn for. It was connection.

Connection. Lately, that concept has kept popping up. Through the people I talk to and things I've read, I've come to realize that being looked at and being seen are not the same thing.

"There's a difference between being looked at and being seen. When you are looked at, your eyes can be closed. You suck energy, you steal the spotlight. When you are seen, your eyes must be open, and you are seeing and recognizing your witness. You accept energy and you generate energy. You create light. 

One is exhibitionism, the other is connection. 

Not everybody wants to be looked at. 

Everybody wants to be seen." 

-Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking

I'm tired of looking at others. It's so superficial, so shallow. I'm also tired of others looking at me and judging what they see. I've been asking myself, how do I start seeing people? After lots of scrawling in my journal and reading, I found that it's me that's stopping me. I'm still so consumed with myself, with how I look, with how I'm perceived, with who I'll be. I've battled long and hard with self-image, especially with my body. The first step for me is to recognize myself as Christ's beloved and to work on humility. It is only when we accept ourselves as beloved that we can stop judging ourselves and others. And soon, people will feel safe with us. Truly seeing someone and connecting with them takes no intellectual knowledge, no profound insight. It takes utter vulnerability and simplicity to open up a world of love and real life, to meet a person exactly where they are and reveal God's heart. We are all paperthin hymns of longing and lostness. Heartbreak is universal. Each one of us is just as lost as the other. Once we accept and acknowledge this, we can begin to destroy our own pride that stops us from connecting with those we're afraid of or uncomfortable around. Because truth be told, we are just as, if not more, hungry for real connection than they are. Henri Nouwen says this beautifully in his reflective book Discernment: "I learned that once you can see another concretely, recognizing the similar struggles and unfilled needs, you can step back a bit from your own life and understand that, in true friendship, there is give and take as two people learn to dance." Seeing someone is not looking at them but through them and into their heart.

journaling away

My best friend Kaylee texted me something pretty profound a few weeks ago after I was stupidly complaining about how my body's hormonal changes were making me breakout like crazy:

"Your imperfections don't make you any lesser of a person. You're beautiful inside and out and a little zit will never stop anyone from loving you. And I love you and will forever."  

She probably doesn't even remember saying this, but I stared at my phone for a good 10 minutes as tears swam down my face. Why did I care so much about ME? None of this even matters! Kaylee, in her loving sometimes-so-truthful-it's-annoying-best-friend-like way reminded me that the people who love me, really love me, don't care if I have a breakout. They've seen me with no makeup, ridiculous hair, and when I pig out. They love me when I want to go everywhere on earth, and they love me when I want to stay in bed all day. They love me for the real conversations I have with them. They love my ideas, my dreams. They know me, they see me, they love me. And that's beautiful.

This body isn't mine. This skin and bones is a rental. I need to appreciate my body for all the wonderful things it can do, like write, play the harp, go on early morning jogs, do yoga, hug people, decorate cookies, and sing. Yes, sometimes I feel uncomfortably full or ugly or whatever and feel gross about myself, but in those moments it's essential that I remember the things that matter: the relationships I have, the opportunities brimming each day, the hope for my future. Not a single one of these has to do with my weight or acne. I just need strength to step away from the mirror and start living. Start connecting. Start seeing people and not just looking at them.

I'll end with one of my journal entries from when I was in Nebraska a few weeks ago:

Today at the farm. I brush my numb fingers over the champagne powder like froth on chocolatey grass. With the sky like frail guitar strings, rusty clouds humming over a fretboard of silver. The cold earth seeping through my boots and oozing between my toes, spreading the chill like honey. My rosy cheeks sting. The insides of my nose are an ice cave, crusty and sharp. My breath coils and burns against the drowsy prairie. I feel alive. My heartbeat reminds me that I have the capacity to love like thousand endless prairies. I long to be seen like the prairie sees me, like God sees me. I will see great things when I am willing to be seen. Take me Jesus, all of me. You alone are enough.

Let heaven and nature sing.

 frothy snow

 artsy

 the four C Kleins in our element

 my favorite creepy concert hall

and this time I got a picture of the inside... 

If you look close enough on the stage you can kinda see the piano

 thank you for appreciating my ugly sweater cookie

Lindsey, Hannah and I went to Not So Silent Night on Dec. 5 and yes, this picture is to prove that we were actually that close! It was a prime concert for sure

harpy holidays

A Colorful Clutter

With mournful joy she finally lets out her cry

Death has been swallowed up by life

                                   —Flyleaf

I picked up a plushy Mexican doll from a flawlessly woven basket in a tiny candle shop on Olvera Street. This dainty doll had gaping black eyes, a triangle nose, and sharply upturned red lips that begged for permission to giggle. I was admiring her thready tangerine dress and stringy hair, wondering who's tough hands made such a lovely little thing, when I turned my head and beheld a wall decorated with a clutter of colorful crucifixes. I inched closer and squeezed the dolly's torso with both my hands. Never before had a flock of agonized Jesuses gaze at me with such weight. They were all unique, some realistic and bloody, some blue and Picasso-esque, but they were each suffering, dying on that wall in their own artistic way. Handwritten price tags dangled from their tiny nailed hands. I stood there, loving it and being unsure of it at the same time. On the next wall over, a dozen more Virgins-of-Guadalupes floated above a fabulous catacomb of sugar skulls. 

My saltwater heart was already dripping from being back in Cali, but in that moment, surrounded by crosses and beautiful Marys, I felt ethereal, caught in a fantasy of palm trees and flamenco dresses. I returned my dolly to her friends in the basket, snagged a pair of Frida Kahlo socks (the queen herself, on my feet! how could I resist?), paid, took one last glance at the crosses, and rushed out with my mom. (we had places to be.)

Back home two weeks later, when I decided to wear my Frida socks to school, I thought about those Jesuses again. Every single day they garnish that wall, watching people waltz through the shop, and then leaving, just like I did. They see all kinds of people, broken and bloody and blue just like them. I stared at Frida and brought my knees to my chest. Jesus, I miss you. I miss the real you. On my carpeted floor at 7 a.m., I felt a fierce longing for change. Something was missing in me. My heart felt like decay, like an empty drawer of dust fairies. I needed it to be swallowed up by life. 

These past few months have burned a hole in my heart. I've been living for the world and trying to fill myself with passing pleasures and whims that slowly pull me further and further from the peace of Christ. I've fallen and tumbled, and only now do I see my bruises. Crosses have kept showing up recently, and I don't think it's a coincidence. 

It's obvious that I've been running from it, trying to escape it with every flutter of my gypsy heart. The cross. My cross. I can't put it any better than Thomas Kempis did: "No matter how you plan things and arrange them to your liking, you still will find something to suffer, either willingly or unwillingly, and so you will always find the cross." No matter how well we think we are avoiding our raw and utter selves to escape pain, the cross is still there. Everything I suffer--insecurities, anxieties, sorrows, loneliness--these are heavy crosses to carry. I can try to abandon them on the dirty ground and run away, but they always trip me as I flee, becoming heavier each time. 

Tonight, I choose to take up my cross: my longing to be loved, to be perfect. I will carry it on my back, realizing that though it should be weighing me down, my acceptance of it and willingness to carry it has made it lighter. I won't escape this torment, this aching. I want to die right here for Christ. Raise me up to live again. I'm tired of floating through life, ignoring pain, but at the same time ignoring joy, because you can't have one without the other. It hurts to be trapped in a life of existence, once you realize you are there, to rip your delicate skin from the vicious metal chains to see real life again. I'm slowly getting there. Slowly bringing myself back to real life, starting to listen to the voice of truth. I don't need to bask in memories anymore. I'm starting over. And it's a breathless feeling. I can't wait to start living again.

That night after our quick adventure on Olvera Street, as my mom and I drove wildly through the savage streets of LA, the sky suddenly became a blazing, bloody, beautiful bruise. It was as if the army of skeletal palm trees had bitten and pinched the baby blue haze. We came to a stoplight and I held my arm out the window, asking the California sky to bleed on me, so I could feel the syrupy wetness of vivid pink life. As quick as it had come, the sky bandaged itself in stars and city lights, leaving no trace of the battle it had just fought.

No matter how many times we are stung and gnawed on by our circumstances (or vicious palm trees), we will win only because have a savior who already won. Like the sky we will be swathed with a radiance so divine that the world can't rob us of it. We are loved, and we are real.

 late night blogging with Frida

olé

love love love

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

Windy City Fairytale

And when they say that I'm just a terrible kite

Tell them you're proud of my marvelous flight.

                                               —Copeland

I found myself perfectly lost among the galvanizing streets and buildings of Chicago. In a vibrant city of skyscrapers and misty, frothy dreams, my mind was dissolving and unraveling like the clouds that hovered above me, just beneath the towers. My heart throbbed with endless possibility. As I stood in awe on the corner of Michigan Avenue, with busy bodies hustling past me, I drank in the sensation of pure thrill that I was in a place congested with stories and sibylline streets that yearned for my wandering feet. The mysteries dripped out of traffic lights and leaked out of freckled bricks. I knew, as I blended into that moment and soaked it in like watercolor, that I desperately want to live in a big city someday. Deep in my dusty bones, I felt the electricity of being unknown, and they clattered at the thought of experiencing the unfamiliar. I find a home in the idea of someday.

I moved through the jungle of skyscrapers and pondered the ferocious beauty enveloping me. The dazzling city lights illuminated the night sky that dripped between the twinkling windows like tar, dragging stars down onto the sidewalk like a thick, gooey sap that slowly spread into gutters. Overwhelmed with the life brimming between the buildings, I felt as if I were stepping on those sticky stars while a thousand symphonies thundered in my heart, making it beat as fast as the "L" zoomed by on its track. There I found a portrait of myself, dissolving in the mist and discovering treasure troves of words everywhere I look. My restless soul is hungry for change, and I devoured those Chicago streets with every dancing step I took in my torn up Toms.

I love this city, this busy, flourishing garden of steel and brick. In the clouds, I'm together, just slightly ripped apart by towers piercing through me. A mosaic of possibility, I'm splitting at the seams.
 

My trip to Chicago with my mom was one of the greatest adventures I've had so far. We ended up relying on maps (real maps, not iPhone maps, because that thing glitched out and left us in the dark) yet somehow, things miraculously worked out great for us. From staying in an antique, quirky hotel with an old-fashioned, sketchy-at-best elevator, to figuring out the Amtrack and waiting four whole minutes for Uber cabs in Milwaukee, not to mention walking more than 30 miles and feeling like my legs were going to deflate and wilt like a three-day old balloon animal, we will definitely carry some memories to laugh about. (like the big dude waiting at the L station early in the morning, complaining about his BROKE DOWN TUUUUUUUUB, and the beyond heavenly mini deep dish pizza from Gino's *slobbers*)

Northwestern

Looking at colleges while we were there was kind of a kick in the gut. Like okay, start your applications now, but it was super exciting at the same time. I'm lucky because I've always known just what I want to do, which is write. Big shock, I know. So I will be a journalist one day and hopefully write and interview and tell stories about spectacular things. This is what I want, deep in my heart. Just thinking about it makes my heart beat faster. The undeniable truth though, is that God could have an entirely different plan for me. In an instant my life could be completely turned upside down with all the contents shaken out, and my hollow, wooden body would still be his. It scares me that my fairytale might never come true, but I need to trust that it'll be okay, whatever alternate fairytale occurs.

Loyola

No matter where my city heart wants to go, Christ is with me. I don't want to run from him, but I know that I would never be able to if I tried. I know that wherever I go, He is there. I don't feel the burning fire of the Holy Spirit I remember feeling last summer, but I will not give up on him because he will never give up on me. I know that my relationship with him is not an emotion, it's faith. And faith can be utterly painful sometimes, I know because I'm struggling right now, overwhelmed with my present and future smashing in my face all at once, but my faith still drums in my chest. My faith is what drags me to my knees in front of the cross, thirsty for the tiniest dribble of Christ's blood, and even I know I don't deserve that much.

He carries my complexity like a delicate music box, and knows exactly where and when he will open it up to sing. I'm a dirty, filthy sinner, I know I let my Jesus down every single day, but his love holds me fast when I feel like running away. No matter what I did or how I sinned this time, he calls me back to himself. Lately I've felt like such a sinner that I'm ripping myself from his fabric of peace and shriveling like an annoying strand of thread, but everyday, without fail, I feel that gentle knock on my heart to come to him. To come to him and write. To write my prayers like I've always done. He doesn't care how I've sinned, it won't stop him from beckoning me, his first love, my first love. My truest love, the reason I'm able to love. I belong to him, and the ways I've disappointed him and myself won't keep him from embracing me like a helpless newborn, as I weep into his wounded sides. Without him, I know that my big city dreams would mean nothing. They would be material, cheap satisfaction. But with him, my dreams come to life, and he takes my hand and sprints through the busy streets with me. My future belongs to him, and every story still to be told. He is just waiting for the right time to hand me the ink so I don't stain my pale skin.

Right now, life is magical. My gold award project is coming together better than I ever dreamed it would. My friends are amazing, and I met an incredible boy named Grant that writes beautiful poetry and goes cloud watching with me. I definitely didn't see him coming, but now that he's in my life he's all I could ask for. Kaylee is 18 and still the most down-to-earth, inspiring best friend I know, and Peyton is 18 now too and such an exciting, gorgeous best friend (some things never change :) As I'm sitting on my familiar bed, looking around my cluttered, randomly embellished room, I'm realizing how blessed I am to be alive, in this place, with the people I know in my life. How a simple girl like me is finding heaven on earth, in the people she talks to and the experiences that make her heart stop.

A few weekends ago, I got the chance to attend Steubenville, which is this hugeeeeee youth conference for Catholic teens. No really, there were 2,500 people there from all over. It was mind-blowing. Anyways, during Saturday night adoration, I was expecting to start bawling like I usually do during adoration, but that didn't happen. At first, I was like, I'm doing this wrong. My heart isn't in it. But, I learned later, it was in it, and it's okay to not cry. It's okay to rest in his peace. I asked him to speak some sort of word or sentence to my heart that I needed at that moment. Nothing came for a while, but finally, I had a vision of him looking straight into my eyes and telling me, You Are Mine. I've kept going back to that phrase when I'm feeling unworthy or sinful. It doesn't matter to him. I am his. He is my city in all of its glory.

We will see where my journalism dreams take me. For now, I'll just imagine the radiant city in the palm of my hand, and my suburb heart will spin with high-rise hope.

P.S. My temporary break from blogging has left me feeling like an uprooted tree, with dry, itchy roots that poke through dusty soil like skeleton fingers. I'm that tree in the blogging forest, the one that's in danger of being outdated and hauled to the dumpster. BUT, I'm back. I've decided that no matter how busy my life becomes, writing is a priority, and ever since getting a blog I've been pressured to write, which is sooo good for me. So, I will try my very best to write more and tell more stories of my adventures. Such as...

 Okay, more trip pictures. Milwaukee, believe it or not, was full of gorgeous architecture. This is the Chamber of Commerce building or something!

GINO'S *cue the angels*

We stayed in the lovely Salida cabin at the beginning of June, which gave me a heavenly escape and chance to write. Best medicine out there folks.

Let's go paddle board forever

My awesome cousin Josh came to stay with us for a week in June. He's grown up to be so down-to-earth but perfectly goofy at the same time. I can't wait to see where life takes him. And to go to his Bar Mitzvah in August! (Cali here I come)

Could I be a news anchor? Nah. But, I was on 9News for an interview about my project on July 7! It was definitely an experience I'll never forget (I was desperately hoping my awkwardness wouldn't show on camera, but I think I faked it pretty well!)

Clouds are free. They're one of the freest things in nature.

 They just float around and have a good time.

                                   Bob Ross

Porcelain Words

I am the patron saint of lost causes

Aren't we all to you just near lost causes?

                                     —Anberlin

I love words. All kinds of words. I like the fleshy, buttery words that drip off your tongue and melt in your mouth, like aroma, rococo, and ooze. I like the crunchy, crispy words that crackle in your voice, like raconteur, chimerical, and bellicose. I like the whisper, lullaby words that dance on your lips, like dolorous, labyrinthine, and morose. I see them, hear them, and feel them knitting themselves into never-ending knots of ideas and dreams and secrets all around me. They're all so entangled and in love with one another, and they ignite my imagination and allow me to go wherever I want. Words help me to find myself and lose myself at the same time. They are the lullaby that keeps me awake.

Words are my favorite form of art. I love getting my hands sticky with the 1,025,109.8 different words in the English language and wiping them onto every situation I find myself in. Wherever I might be, words grow in the air and beg to be plucked and chewed on. Last weekend, I had the most wonderful time going downtown with my five favorite journalist-friends (all from the best news magazine in the world, ThunderRidge's Growl) and getting to attend the National Journalism Convention (which happened to be in Denver this year!) Not only were words the main focus of the entire weekend, but I could literally feel them trembling in my bony fingers as I itched to write. Even riding the light rail early in the morning filled my soul with sleepy words and unknown stories of all the people. The free-spirited guy headbanging and dancing on the train at 7:30 a.m. definitely shook some leftover words of his into the train car. I tried to take some with me. Words are the best kind of souvenirs. I have a giant collection on my shelf, stored in dirty journals.

~future editors-in-chief~

On Friday night, I stayed up late reading my old journals going all the way back to sixth grade, when I really started to believe that I could be a word-artist. It's crazy to read those words and realize how life can rip me apart one day and glue me back together the next. In middle school, I was so sure that the worries of the day were going to be the end of me. Even freshman year, I thought I knew who I was. I thought I had the rest of high school figured out. Ha, life changes so fast. Some days I feel like I'm cautiously "painting" by numbers so I don't offend anyone or stand out, while on other days I'm splattering everyone with the bloody words that dance beneath my veins. Those are the days that I feel the most passionate, the most alive. The days I allow myself to actually be myself. They don't happen as often as I'd like.

As much as I love words and sentences and poems and books and lyrics and names, I have to be careful. I can only use words to describe things to a certain extent. Especially with people, words will only ever be half the story. Because even if someone is one word or group of related words, they are also a million other things, and honestly, those words can't in any way begin to portray the intricate beauty that a single soul contains. I can use words to describe experiences and places and objects, but not people, not a fraction of who they are. After all, human souls are created by a God who isn't contained by language and words, so we, in our full being and existence, can't be either. It's refreshing to think that the venomous tongue of the world can't speak truth about me. 

I recently read a phenomenal passage from a book written by Thomas Merton (thanks again to my youth minister for introducing me to yet another reading that will dance around in my head) I copied the part that stuck out to me most, which in all honesty, was achingly hard for me to read because it is so true about myself and what I do. I live for experiences, but what do they offer me other than momentary pleasures?

I wind experiences around myself and cover myself with pleasures and glory like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world, as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface...The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence. 

Who am I really, if you stripped me down and looked inside of me with a flashlight? Little dust fairies would tell you that I'm completely hollow, and my sins echo and bounce off the walls of my skin. They never really leave, and they feed off the "experiences" that I live for. Without a real understanding of who I am in Christ, I'm hollow. I use fake, flowery words to fill up my empty frame, but they die the very next day, and I'm left scrumming for other words that I can momentarily fill myself up with. 

My biggest fear is that if I shatter, all you'll have left of me are little porcelain shards that prove how fake I was. Without finding who I am in a perfect, indestructible God, I'm just a broken symphony of splinters, glued hastily together, daintily scooting through life so fragile and careful so I can momentarily keep myself from cracking. Human affections are a beautiful part of life, but they don't make me any more whole. All too often, they leave me feeling emptier than before.

On this rainy Sunday afternoon, I want to remember that I am painfully fragile, and I can't use words as my armor. People will come and go, my heart will be dismantled and repaired, but I'm working on finding who I am in Him. I have a feeling I'll never fully know, but the more I work toward it, the more he'll fill my hollow body with a silvery, treasure-like soul. His spirit will ooze into every empty area of me and fill it with words of life and truth. These words will be like jewels, and my rococo heart will be decorated with them.

To be myself is to be a saint. I'm working on finding who I am. I still have no clue, but the more I give myself up to God, the more I find out. For now, I'll continue to obsess over the words that decorate my life, and I'll remember to recognize the sheer beauty of an ordinary person, because they are a saint. And not even the best words in the universe can begin to describe a saint. We are ripped jean wearing, alt-rock listening, late night dancing saints, and we have to allow ourselves to fully be ourselves to be able to inspire the aching world around us.

"I paint flowers so they will not die" ~Frida Kahlo 

(I've been slightly obsessed with her lately) (she's great)

Barn Hearts

I'll be the other hand, that always holds the line

connecting in between your sweet heart and mine

I'm strung out on that wire

                                                   —Nickel Creek

I wonder what happened to them.

Droopy, abandoned barns speckled the foggy Missouri countryside like dirty stains on a patchwork quilt. Except these were stains that told a story, that reminded you of raw blood and sweat, drawn from heartbreaking emotions and backbreaking work. My dad and I drove through a sliver of Missouri just as the sun was coming up, and I absorbed the gutted barns in my mind as we flew past them. I watched as they groaned and creaked in the morning sunshine. While looking at their distorted and grotesque woody figures, I realized that my heart is just like a sleepy, messy barn. I'm a splattery stain sometimes. I'm sick of myself, but I love my life because of the experiences and people in it. Every day my barn heart aches for untold stories.

~~foggy early morning drives in unknown places~~

Two-ish weeks ago, I had the incredible opportunity to be a confirmation sponsor. My beautiful cousin Carolee was confirmed on March 13, and I (messy me) got to be a part of it. (That was our main destination for the roadtrip. Daddy and I stopped at colleges along the way too, which is how we ended up driving in Missouri to get to Lincoln.) A group of very smart fifth graders (oh, and *surprise* I'm definitely not smarter than a fifth grader! Especially when it comes to Catholicism. That's complicated stuff) were confirmed, but I think God decided to set fire to my barn heart that night too. That dark corner of my past that still haunts me had been throbbing in my mind that day, telling me I wasn't good enough to be a sponsor or someone to look up to. I'm way too messed up. Far too sinful to be inspiring. But there I was that night, on my knees and not caring, and I gave it all away. Take it all. I'm so fragile and broken and I need to be rescued. I can't do it by myself. I'm learning to surrender. Some days are better than others, but I know that Jesus is snipping the paper chains I've constructed for myself one day at a time.

Lent is almost over, and (shockingly?) I've survived without Pinterest the whole time. I had in my mind that this Lent would be life-changing, that this year it would finally mean something monumental. And it did, but not in the way I had planned. I feel like I've taken backwards steps, casually ripping myself away from God's cushiony presence. My barn heart collapses without warning, and I drudge through some days with vanity and stress eating away my insides. I need to stop trying so hard to be perfect. I need to love my body for where it's at right now, and I especially need to love my wild and crazy spirit that lingers in the broken wooden beams that make up my heart. I need to remember that all of us are frail, but none so frail as myself.

I have much to be thankful for right now. Yes, life is stressful, but I'm trusting. I'm going to take each day one at a time and trust that Christ has a handle on it all. I have joy right now. I have love. I'm searching for peace, and although I don't feel a bit peaceful by the world's standards, I'm experiencing that infinite and bizarre peace that only comes through Christ.

Cheers to new beginnings. As Easter comes this year, let's learn to let every day after it be a mini-Easter. After all, every time we defeat those yucky emotions and heartbreaks, we've experienced a mini-Resurrection. I'm ready to dunk myself in a fresh start and continue being brave. Little by little, I want to deconstruct my barn heart frame so I can allow myself to fall in love and trust that it will be okay. Life is overwhelming, but oh so beautiful.

These past few weeks...

 We drove through Kansas (Lt. Dansas)

 Marcy's pickles are love Marcy's pickles are life

 These sodas were disgusting. NEVER AGAIN

We surprised Juju on her 75th birthday. On her real birthday, my lovely aunt Holly flew out here and we surprised her by taking her to dinner. Then on Saturday, we threw her a big party in which all of her friends here in Colorado and even some from Texas and Arizona came to surprise her. It was a magical day.

"This is what heaven will be like!" -Juju

 My most favorite women in the whole world

 To go along with my being brave theme, I've been singing duets and quartets at church. It's scary, but kinda fun at the same time. Also, we drove to Boulder for delicious chai tea cause we can (and to see Diana's play!)

Spring skiing is 1000000000000000 times better than cold winter skiing

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.   

                                                           —Mother Teresa