Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Small parts

Sometimes it riles my skin
to think a part
is still
here.

Two years
gone.
His body wrapped in satin
wood
concrete
Earth

I am peeling today.
Sunburned.
I forgot my spf 90.
The flakes fly to his chair.
Where he sat
sunburned
peeling.

Settling in.
Crawling into nubs of peppered upholstery.
Working their way
into
foam.
Encased in wool
wood
air
Earth.
Small parts still here.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Unremarkably Human

Over six months. I'll make no excuses, so don't ask. I couldn't answer if you did.

I haven't been writing much. Funny, I quit my job in the name of writing and have written less in the last six months that in the six weeks prior to that event. Unless of course you count papers on the economics of stewardship and effective leadership in times of change - in that case, I've written a bunch.

Shortly after I stopped "working", I realized that my focus needed to be on school. On May 3rd, fifteen years after finishing high school, I finally graduated from Azusa Pacific. See, Dalton and I met while I was finishing my junior year at Santa Clara. One thing led to another and I never quite finished up those last few courses. When he died, I figured it was time.

So now, I'm at a loss. At least for clarity of purpose. Or maybe more accurately clarity of income. You'd think after everything I've been through with God, I'd be better at trusting Him, but only just a little. What I want to do, what I feel called to do is launch a business focused on the needs of cancer patients and their families while writing a book or two about grief and redemption for the unremarkably human Christian. What I keep coming back to is a nice safe job in some downtown financial services firm and a life that looks, well, normal.

For most of my life, I've felt different. A little too heady. Too sarcastic. Too dreamy. Dalton and I had finally achieved the look of normalcy when God reminded me that normalcy wasn't in His plan for me. He had something else in mind. So now, I need strength, encouragement, discipline and faith to embrace that idea, to trust Him that it - whatever it is - will happen.

In the meantime, I'll once again try (gosh I hate my own lack of follow through) to write. Musings. Poetry. Chapters. Who knows? I may even need to put some categories into this blog for those of you who are more interested in reflective thoughts on God's mercy than on the difficulties of an uncoordinated single mom trying to teach her desperately athletic 3-year old how to properly throw a baseball. Both are me.