Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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thursday morning magic

Somehow the morning sun is bolder, more gilded and alive, with the windows open. Or is it the time of year? This sneak peek of autumn? Wide, flat sheets of moving light slice across the wood floor and make floating bits of dust look like fairies. Magic. The early birdsong is definitely stronger. And I had forgotten how sweet the air can taste at this kinder temperature.

I passed by the upstairs hallway windows, the ones overlooking the middle field, and marveled at the thick prairie grasses and their diamond wet. Grey fog rolling upward off the pond in strong, thoughtful columns of energy. Water that normally has a reddish cast, this morning was a murky blue-grey, a werewolf shade in broad daylight.

Chanta was grazing just below these open windows. I could hear his gentle horse breath and the juicy chomp-crunch-swallow of his green breakfast. I wondered briefly what were my odds of injury if I were to pry off one of those window screens and jump down onto his broad, muscular back? I never made a sound, but I think he must heave heard my thoughts because he let out an extended snuffle and walked away, sharply to his right.

Now the Lone Ranger music is in my head and I need to go for a run. I need to taste the sweet air more deeply. Feel the brackish touch of sun and shade on my skin and let the dew splash high on my legs. As much as I love the brutally hot summertime, this cool morning is filled with magic and I love it. I won’t waste it.

pull magic

What magic are you pursuing today?

XOXOXOXO

 

worry door cracked open

This is the door to our smoke house, which is actually more of a garden shed right now. The door was salvaged from a century-old Land Run house in northwestern Oklahoma, a property belonging to my husband’s family. I fell in love with the chipped milk paint (original, not fashioned in a trendy boutique), the heft of the door, the memories attached. Its hinges are rusted and the window opening is only covered by hand pleated drop cloth fabric stapled on, a band aid really, but it’s beautiful to me. I love how ivy grows around it and how it creaks and swells with rain. How difficult it is to open and close. You have to kinda lift and scoot it. At the threshold, mud collects and sometimes we find snakes and scorpions.

worry door

Most doors are easy to open and close. That’s the nature of most doors, to be used and used easily and often. But we barely use this outbuilding, at least not on a daily basis, so having a cumbersome but beautiful door here is fine.

Speaking of doors that aren’t supposed to open much…

Do you remember the Worry Door? The vision I had almost exactly three years ago of the big, thick door that was forcibly (but lovingly) sealed shut against a room containing all of my worst fears? Well, something strange and wonderful has been evolving here lately. The Worry Door has been cracking open, only to be either pushed shut in a spongy, gentle way (like we do this antique wooden door with the muddy scorpion-rich threshold) or maybe, sometimes, left just barely ajar.

Weird, right? After so many lessons on keeping it locked shut, no matter what?

Well, in the time since my first hard lesson that worry is wrong, I have been on a spiritual and emotional roller coaster. I’ve learned a lot not just about the direction to worry not and only trust but also about my own personal strengths and weaknesses, my own propensities and, honestly, addictions to negative thinking.

And you know something? I have made a ton of progress. I have literally broken my addiction to negative thinking, and now I kind of have a healthy aversion to it. When I am in the company of people who cannot resist bitterness or anger or something similar, I get itchy. My vision narrows and turns inward to sort of protect myself, you know? Like a filter. My heart can feel some fear but now I deal with it swiftly. My mind can be aware of horrible possibilities but sort through them and take action instead of simmering in awfulness and poisoning my reality. I’m learning how to magnetize for amazing things, not terrible.

For these changes I am so deeply grateful.

The reason it is now safe for me to sometimes leave the worry door cracked open is that I have learned how to funnel that previously dangerous energy into prayer and allow a healthy amount of fear to fuel my days instead of douse them. Does that make sense? This is such a far cry from how life was before the Worry Door vision. The world is expanding, in really tangible ways and in beautifully abstract ones, to so many possibilities. Imagination, prayers, faith, and exponential growth. Love is ruling everything, even the cracked open doors.

We have a lot going on in life, a whole lot of really heavy stuff that never makes it to this blog. Private struggles, family issues, church problems, seriously life altering stuff that Handsome and I never thought we would face. As cathartic as writing can be, I have so far felt like sharing most of it here is just not appropriate. We barely even discuss most of this stuff with our closest friends and loved ones, because we know by now that only prayer and trust will change anything. Talking about problems tends to grow them, you know? Still, some people know a little about what we are dealing with, and occasionally a well meaning friend will ask me a question like, “Well have you heard from…? How long has it been now?” And when I answer truthfully the look of shock or maybe disappointment in me as a person is pretty hurtful. Or maybe, in an incredulous tone, someone challenges me, “Well what if (this) happens? What will you do? What is your legal recourse? Aren’t you gong to do anything?” Surely from the outside some people may think me apathetic by taking less action than they would in my situation, but they don’t see how firmly I am trusting God. How excited I am by what is coming.

Maybe they don’t see that praying and believing is doing.

Yep, I know this sounds a little vague and for that I’m sorry, but it’s just an example of how your Worry Door can be cracked open by someone else. Despite your best efforts, sometimes other people will very nearly insist that you fret over stuff. They mean it with love, usually. They want what they perceive to be the best thing for you. Okay. And sometimes they could be projecting their own fear onto you. Trying to find solutions ahead of time in case the same tragedy befalls them later. That’s human nature. Don’t waste energy being mad about this, and please don’t let it end any otherwise good friendships; just learn how to field it.

One more thought, then I will leave you to your beautiful Sunday: Yoga has been a useful tool in this journey. Often in a sequence, the instructor of choice will offer advice to just acknowledge a toxic thought and let it pass. Spending too much energy resisting or battling opposition can sometimes heighten the threat. Instead, combat these moments with a flood of positive thought. Replace the What if this horrible thing happens with What if this amazing thing happens? Try that for a while and see if your outlook improves.

Love is far more powerful that you are by yourself. Learn to tap into the power of prayer and faith and stop relying on your own muscles to hold this door shut.

Deep breath. Balance. Center. Clear mind. Peaceful heart. Trust that Love is in control of everything and faith can move mountains.

XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

watermelon, life seasons, and making the details last

I have lost track of how many complete watermelons have made their sweet, juicy way into my belly since the beginning of summer. You’re not counting, are you? Good. Know that I appreciate that. A lot.

watermelon heart

Buying different striped behemoths, usually seedless but not always, is fun to begin with. Then hearing the treasure roll around in my Jeep during the drive back to the farm. Stashing it in the pantry where it can stay cool for a while. I love it. It’s summertime. This probably happens at least weekly, but we’re not counting, okay?

The watermelon cutting itself is the true ritual, though. I always stand to the left of my kitchen sink (everything must be scrupulously clean) with probably some French pop playing in the background. My favorite lately is Camelia Jordana. Give her a listen. I like for Klaussen to be near my feet if he doesn’t mind (he never does), and if I can be finished with all my work and possibly wearing three or four of my favorite necklaces while watermeloning, well, even better.

First I cut the gorgeous green thing in two right at the equator, leaving one half in the sink while I work on the other. With no hurrying at all, the fruit divides and divides again, over and over, tumbling back and rolling, and all the while I’m thinking about how miraculously cells divide and then time and sometimes people. And families or political parties. Friendships.

About how joy, when shared, is doubled but somehow grief is lightened.

Now slowly slicing the red meat away from the green rind in a curved, sliding motion, then slicing again lengthwise, then chopping, occasionally salting the juicy chunks and taking samples for my trouble. (Friends, it’s okay if you do not count the calories of watermelon chunks you eat while completing this lovely task. I’m pretty sure it’s a wash.)

From this location with my back to the rest of the house, I can see all the artsy treasures that surround the sink. Paintings, metal wind chimes, Mexican pottery. I can scribble things on the chalkboard to my left if a needed grocery springs to mind or I feel like remembering a poem. And I can gaze out to the herb garden. Right now this curvy little spot on the farm is jam packed with color. Buzzing and fluttering with pollinators. Just mesmerizing. Zinnias, roses, sage, basils, mints, daisies, cannas, crepe myrtles, sunflowers, strawberries, and more. One emerald green hummingbird visits a tall flower near the window screen every afternoon, when the day is baking hot.

chair w herbs

I love watermleon.

I love my little herb-and-flower garden.

I love being home and practicing thsese quiet rituals all by myself.

Sometimes, though, after rinsing a big, heavy watermelon, just when the tip of my knife first pierces the rind, a weird sadness washes over me. It’s the same feeling I sometimes get while enjoying the herb garden: A fleeting panic. Like the beauty I crave and need is temporary. The hard truth that soon watermelon season will be over and the zinnias and cannas will fade, and we will be on the sad slope toward another winter.

Nothing good lasts forever, is that what they say? All day every day I am thinking of my girls. Of how true it can be, that the days are long but the years are short.

But I cannot dwell there, emotionally. These past few years have taught me how to better control my thoughts, steer my feelings, and not only live in the moment but magnify it. Squeeze out every possible bit of joy from every gift.

Which is why watermelon slicing has become such a treasured ritual. I know it’s just food. But it’s a brief season and a glorious one, and I don’t want to rush through it. I want to enjoy every pink puddle of sticky juice. Every crunch and whistle of my blade, every empty rind that will eventually be offered to either some chickens or a horse.

If you are in love with something fleeting, whatever it is, I want to encourage you to slow down the enjoying of it. Gather your energies and shape your environment so that you can, without distraction, more fully experience that thing. That gift. The more you slow down and magnify the details, the more you have internalized it. The more it has become a part of you, so that when the season is over, you can recall it better and vibrate with the joy all over again. This way it will never be totally lost to you.

I miss my girls. I miss them hard and sad, happy and hopeful, but it’s okay. Our life seasons are constantly changing, and I know by now to appreciate exactly where we are, right this minute, in every detail.

So I cut the watermelon and grow the flowers and pray for them. Keep the Apartment ready. Smile at every diem I am given to carpe.

XOXOXOXO

a sight for sore eyes, welcome spring

First the “Builder Bradfords,” then an errant fruit orchard or wild sand plum tree here and there along a creek, maybe a dogwood or two, certainly the magnolias… Now today the Redbuds, Forsythia, and Roses of Sharon are waking up. Slowly but surely our Oklahoma hills and forests are breaking dormancy and taking on the gentle blush of springtime. Daffodils, tulips, pansies, the earliest shoots of day-lilies and cool-season veggies, so many delicate splashes of color everywhere. The muted browns and grays of winter will soon be forgotten, and we don’t even care if half the flat green we see is from weeds.

Almost every year I forget how powerful the surge of new life is, how thrilling that first glimpse of a sprouted seed can be (I almost cried yesterday when my indoor marigold seeds had grown a centimeter in a few hours!) or how exciting it is when forgotten perennials reappear without my help. Science now proudly declares that skin contact with warm earth is good for us physically, too, that healthy soil contains depression-fighting microbes or some such? That, plus the undeniable deep bliss we get from the close-approaching sun this time of year… Friends, we are about to shed all those winter doldrums for good. Or at least for a good long while. Hang in there, okay?

forsythia
Electric yellow forsythia blooming at the Will Rogers garden in Oklahoma City.

 

white magnolia
White magnolia tree blooming, tall and elegant, at the Will Rogers garden in Oklahoma City.

 

Whether you’re an avid and experienced gardener or you just crave to grow a thing or seven, dive in. Dive in now, with both feet wearing flip flops and both hands, un-gloved, fingernails ready to scrape up some dirt. Do not waste time changing clothes or making a fancy list and plan; just start. Ignore your housework for an hour. This is the perfect time. Seize the sun and all his energy. Use whatever quarters and dollar bills you can find under the couch cushions and go buy the first seeds you find (lettuce and spinach are excellent things to start in March). Scratch up some soil. Plant those tiny babies. Tuck them in lovingly, with exactly the same native soil as you just scratched up. Water them gently.

Know that you have just become part of a miracle. Savor that idea.

My gosh. It’s only seeds, right? It’s only food that we eat all the time anyway, cheap and easy enough to buy at the grocery store, ready for dinner. But it’s actually the biggest miracle ever. It’s new life, the stuff of energy and motion and health, all from this tiny, inconspicuous fleck of brown that when touched by the right elements at the right time are brought into the fullness of all those promises imprinted by the Maker. He said this will become lettuce, and this kale, and this spinach. He said so, and it always happens that way.

Do you know what else He said? He said, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” ~Jeremiah 29:11

How truly stunning, that while gardening we have this opportunity to participate in so many little (but huge!) miracles. How amazing to see His plan worked out over and over again, so many promises fulfilled that at first we are shocked by it all; then eventually we are so surrounded by lushness that maybe we take it for granted.

Of course, the biggest, strongest, most long lasting treasures, like maybe oak trees? They take a lot longer to grow. You really have to be willing to wait. I have to remind myself of this when I ache for the biggest prayers to be answered. It will be worth the wait. It will be strong and beautiful when it finally happens. These words echo in my ribs and belly.

Life is so beautiful, friends. Winter is hard and sometimes ugly, and it’s dangerous and it breaks our spirits a little. But springtime always, always, without exception, returns. The sun warms us. The earth thaws and breaks open with abundance. Color and texture explode, sometimes to feed us and other times just to delight our senses.

tulip
The Will Rogers gardens in Oklahoma City are filled with tulips right now! Go see if you’re local. They are just beautiful.

God loves you. He loves you so much and He wants your prayers to be answered. He wants you to live a happy, peaceful, successful, fulfilling life. There are hidden meanings to the wintry seasons we all endure, but they are only seasons. And He works it all out. Then He comforts us with seeds and sprouts and new life. (And we get veggies! And tulips!)

Are you interested in some slightly more practical gardening ideas this year? Something beyond “find spare change and throw down the first seeds you find?” haha Please stay tuned. I have lots of fun ideas for us. In the mean time, stay hopeful. Keep planting seeds. Keep trusting. And enjoy the slow parade of color. It’s about to get out of control. As always, thanks so much for visiting.

“Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist,
but where there is suffering you will find grace
in many facets and colors.”
~William Paul Young, The Shack
XOXOXOXO

 

dreams come true

When I was pregnant with her, I was only a couple of years older than she is today. That is a weird thought process all by itself. Month by month I dreamed of her face, sight unseen, and fell in love with her and all of her carefree somersaults and even my widening belly. She consumed my thoughts then, just as she does today. I was blessed with a truly healthy, happy, comfortable pregnancy, something I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.

I was in such a hurry to meet her that my doctor had no trouble convincing me to induce labor around our actual due date. He suggested it not for any particular medical reason; it just seemed to be a fad at the time. A practice of convenience. We both were healthy and she was full weight and well developed. He scheduled it, I prepared for it, and she was born without incident after a really easy labor. Still healthy and happy, and yet again I didn’t fully appreciate these blessings.

joc newborn me

joc studio newborn pic

 

When she was finally born on a bright and cool afternoon in September, I was not at all surprised to see her wide ebony eyes, her tiny rosebud mouth, her profile, her perfect olive skin. Everything about her was exactly as I had seen in those sleeping dreams. She was a beautiful baby then, just as she is beautiful young woman now. I am still so grateful for those dreams that showed me her face ahead of time. She was imprinted on my heart in a million silent, priceless ways.

Looking back, so many parts of me wish I had allowed her birth to happen naturally, to experience unmedicated labor pains and the thrilling surprise, the curious timing of the miracle of life.

I wish I had let her arrive in her own way, at her own time.

 

baby joc

Then this precious girl was gone for a while, for too many years, for reasons we are just beginning to fully understand. But she was never removed from my heart. Not even for one minute.

For a second time in our life together as mother and daughter, I found myself literally dreaming of her when I couldn’t see her. When I couldn’t touch her, hear her voice, or smell her vanilla-shampooed hair. In her long, sad absence these past years, I would sleep roughly but often catch phantom glimpses of her face in my dreams. Those same ebony eyes, her same small rosebud mouth, that same perfect olive skin that just glows. In this new set of dreams, instead of appearing as the infant I’d not yet held, she was appearing as her grown self or sometimes as a ten year old version of herself, whispering to me the secret that she was soon coming home. She was not just happy in these prophecied moments; she was giddy. Effervescent with joy. I would try so hard to stay asleep and whisper back to her all my love and longing, to cling to those stolen moments. But every time of course I’d wake up to the raw reality that she was still gone.

I Saw You Last Night

My baby in kindergarten. I remember thinking then how grown up she was.
My baby in kindergarten. I remember thinking then how grown up she was.

Do you know how wonderful God is? How far-reaching His Love is? He has seen into my heart all these nineteen years, the regret I have harbored over planning her birth and missing out on the dazzling unknown of His design. He took her away from me for a while only to bring her home, in surprising and unpredictable ways. During her absence He showed me when to push and when to rest; He taught me how to breathe deeply and fruitfully and when to wait. He showed me through those waiting years how constant and powerful Love is. He forced me (kicking and screaming at first) into a place of trust and kept me there until I wanted to trust, until that was my genuine and natural position. In time I became both vulnerable and strong.

It turns out He was working this complex miracle in her as well.

(Have you followed my discipline with the Worry Door?)

worry prayers graphic

 

Then one day she finally arrived (again). Quite out of the blue, in the surprising, thrilling, somewhat terrifying way she might have been born the first time had I allowed it to happen naturally. One day this past September (almost exactly nineteen years since her first birth) I got the overwhelming phone call that was very much like a rebirth. She was free, and she was coming home.

She showed her pretty face for the second time in my life, exactly as I had been dreaming of her while she was away.

 

joc

insterstellar quote with joc dusty photo

joc happy farewell

 

This strong, beautiful girl has possessed a slice of my heart and soul for almost twenty years now, and that will never change. This is just the beginning. I am once more living every promise of motherhood and every hope. We are seeing that not only is time elastic; Love is sovereign.

 

joc dusty

 

It’s mid-March now. Six months after her rebirth when she finally arrived in her own way, at her own time. She is peeling away from me and pressing close again, over and over, this time in the best possible, most natural ways. Finding her own legs and learning to walk (again). Squeezing me tight and boring into my eyes with hers (again). Letting me feed her mightily because it satisfies us both (again).

Making me proud beyond description. Always.

Thank you, friends, for every single prayer and every positive thought and word of encouragement you’ve offered, especially when you didn’t really know what was happening. She amazes us daily. She is on a good, strong path today, chasing her own joy and pursuing her own dreams, just exactly like a nineteen year old girl should do. And because of this she continues to benefit from prayer and Loving energy, so please keep it up.

Love is so real. Prayer absolutely changes things. And natural processes best. Don’t force it.

Fear knocked at the door.
Faith answered.
And lo, no one was there.
~Author Unknown
XOXOXOXO