A book of flowers

Apparently, I am frustrated. I swear that I'm trying really hard not to be. But still. I noticed it last night as I laid on my bedroom floor and painted abstract florals and a few valentines. My hands had been shaking, but they stopped halfway through, and I noticed my shoulders loosening and a load falling off.
This quarter has been a very difficult one.
In a way, I feel like I'm only making it through because of John Keats and C. S. Lewis and tea. Literally, I make enough tea to share with a table-full of people every morning, and I drink it. All by myself. Because no one (aside from the lovely A) is here and no one has come here.

I miss my family.

I think you should all know, there is a context to this. As I expressed above, this term is a beast. I have yet to find any work. I've been comparing myself far too much again. They cut a bunch of programs at my school. Doubt is my constant companion. And thus far this year — but really, it's only February — I have had four sets of friends get engaged.

I really miss my family.

I was remembering last night, whilst mixing up some pale pink and peach because I don't have those colors of gouache. I remembered that when I was really little, my mom used to wash my hair over the stainless steel sink in our kitchen. Light and suds would spill everywhere, and the water was always just warm enough. Then she would trim my split ends and we would scatter them off the porch in the backyard for the birds to use in their nests. 
I had forgotten about that.

The truth is, I want a family. That has become painfully obvious to me. My heart has been thrumming full of the reasons I chose to go to school in the first place, and honestly? Many of them had to do with my children. How I wanted my children to be able to come to me ask me about the color of Neptune and how to use a microscope and what Shakespeare really meant, and I would have some of those answers for them. I have always wanted that for them.
But a family is not an option right now. That is not on my horizon. As far as I can tell, there's not even any broad shoulders and strong forearms reaching for me yet. Nothing, no one, not at all. I just stand alone in my kitchen and make butter and chocolate cake and read about Christopher Robin and listen to La Traviata on repeat and wonder about what to do after next year.

And so, I miss my family.

I really want to go home. I thought I would before spring break, but now the roads are an utter mess, and there's really no chance of that happening. Now I'll just have to bide my time and paint more small illustrations and prints. Now I will have to be alone for awhile longer.
I am actually learning to appreciate that, being alone. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I am.
There is something sacred and gorgeous about knowing yourself so well from your experiences of solitude and quiet breathing.
I have had many of those as of late. And so many magical memories that have been keeping me awake.

I started a book. It is full of good, lovely things I will do with my daughters and sons. Maybe you will read it someday. Or maybe you will see it.
I have hope for the latter one.

Rush in November

-early mornings
-poetry
-painting on the kitchen floor
-forts for weeks
-coffee
-Downton Abbey
-books, read aloud
-piles of homework
-plans to go home
-small notes
-a need for waterproof mascara
-chai
-Brian Andreas
-owls
-Matthew, in more ways than one
-dark washed jeans
-sweaters + quilts
-C. S. Lewis discussions
-Operation Christmas Child
-pumpkins
-dreamers, and the pursuit of dreams

Being nice is not overrated

Some days I see the point of all this. I wake up passionate and ready and brimming, almost spilling over with effort. And it's easy. It's easy to sit through the lectures. It's easy to read the countless articles and pages of pages textbooks. It's easy to watch the documentaries. It's easy to memorize and recite and practice and discover and explore.
And then there are days.
Then there are mornings.

There are mornings when all I want to do is quit.

But I am coming to see that this is only what I make of it, and those mornings, those mornings are my choice. I choose whether or not to fully embrace today or every day. I choose that.
So I am choosing to make this what I want it to be.
I am choosing no bad days.
I am choosing to forgive others + myself.
I am choosing no regrets.
I am choosing to work harder, and then harder.
I am choosing to hide the love letters in the hallways and books and cracks and desks and chairs.

I am choosing to make a difference + an impact in these years.

I am choosing to love.

I am choosing to be salt.

I am choosing to be light.

This morning was one of those mornings. I woke up and poured my tea on my hand not in my mug + I wanted to cry for no reason at all. I had a sad song in the back of my mind, my French homework was hard to understand, and I hadn't gotten enough sleep for precisely those two reasons. I missed people. I wanted to mope. And sob. And give up. And frown. And do everything but exude joy + bursting.
So I wrote a love letter.
I scratched some happy truths out on a small painted card. I sealed a creamy pale yellow envelope. I pressed some bright fall leaves into the back pages of my Bible. I put my headphones in + listened to Josh Garrels while I walked to the bus stop. I pondered grace. I got over myself.
And I made a choice.
I made the most of today.
I know that sometimes it is hard. I'm definitely not preaching happiness constantly and in a never-ending manner, but I am preaching persistence. I think that oftentimes we don't try hard enough. And yes, I have my teary-eyed moments + I sob my tiny heart out in very true form, but many of those times have been more of a lie than a truth. It was just me giving up. It was just me wanting to quit. It was just me, all about me.
A + I are by no means doing everything perfectly over here. We've been down south for almost two months now — longer for me — and we still don't have jobs. I have turned in over twenty applications and resumés. We sometimes lack motivation. We deny ourselves things we want or need because we fear the future. We procrastinate. We don't understand. And we stand for Jesus in a way here that is already beginning to bring condemnation in a fiercer manner than I would have thought.
But all is well.
We choose for all to be well. I choose it, daily + with an anchor of a soul. This will be one of the greatest portions of my life. This will be one of my best mountains I conquer. This will be beautiful. I am determined for it to be so. With small paintings of letters + flowers at our kitchen table and love letters and dedication and a perpetual pressing forward.

I just want you to know, this morning I chose to be nice.
It was one of the best things.
You should try it.

I have some dear, dear things to share with all of you soon, about changing churches + being a single woman + pursuing things. I am learning a lot these days as I am striking out on my own, and I hope to be more of an encouragement as I express the things that God is working in me. He is so constant + good friends, always, always. He is blossoming some new dreams in the pockets of my heart — or — more likely I am only just now uncovering the buds that were already there, but they are wondrous. That you need to know. They are wondrous, and you have some too. I promise, I'll help show you. 
Sometimes all we need is someone to help us out a little bit. Sometimes all we need is a little niceness. 

Impractical and Hard

Be impractical. 
I left this last weekend with those words. No one actually said them. No one even implied them. In fact, quite the opposite. People preached otherwise almost. But the thing is, something needs to change.
We need to be impractical. We need to do hard things.
That was my second thought.
Do hard things.
I've heard it so many times in my life. People I listen to preach it constantly. I've seen people do them, those hard things. But the truth is, until you hear a story that resonates in the very center of your heart in a way that crushes everything you ever hoped about the people you know, and you know that they messed up, you will never actually understand what it means to do hard things. Hard things are hard. Can you just think about that for a second? Please. Hard things are hard. They are scary. They are difficult. They take effort. They are impractical. They might even be dangerous. Hard things are hard.
But we're still supposed to do them.

I spent the other day in the kitchen, my hands pressed into the soft dough for brioche pretzels, and I thought about the gospel.
The gospel is a hard thing.
It is impractical. Sometimes it takes time to preach it. Because the gospel is not just words. It is action. It's true that Jesus saves souls. I cannot save someone's soul. I can't do that. It's impossible for me. I can't even convince someone to be saved. Jesus saves souls.
Jesus changes hearts.
But we're supposed to change lives.
I think it is hard for people to get that concept. We want to be good Christians in comfortable houses with white walls and dutch ovens and nice dinner parties with the church family over constantly and read easy books like Ephesians because that book applies to us here and now with our petty problems and not dirt. But there are other books of the Bible. Job and Hosea exist too. Hard lives exist too.
I don't want a lazy gospel. I said that as I pulled and twisted my pretzels and pressed chocolate into them. And it was hard for me to admit that. Because I like comfort. I like warmth and good food and joy and singing and things.
I don't always like dirt, but I don't want a lazy gospel.
I want the real gospel. The living, breathing, heart beating, aching, suffering gospel of Jesus Christ who changes the hearts but gave me the hands and voice and feet and ability to change the lives.
I want the hard gospel.
The real one.

I want to be impractical.

And never, never will I preach the word of Jesus Christ to someone and leave them in despair after.
That is a false gospel.
That is wrong.

Philippians 4:13

I am going to finish some easy things now, namely painting. But these will prepare me for the hard ones someday.

Dirt + Blood.

There are paintings on every page of my History textbook. Last night I had one by Camille Pissarro. I cried. Not because of the painting. Maybe a little. But mostly I cried because I just got into the chapter on World War I.
I always cry over wars.
Something in my chest presses really hard and I think I'm going to choke when I read about wars.
"The Book Thief" did it to me. Rudy Steiner laying in the street did it to me. Liesel Meminger sitting next to the sleeping Jew did it to me. Max Vandenburg standing and kissing her palm did it to me. That book, that stupid book that's not even true, it's not even real, that book did it to me.
Few things always make me cry.
Wars are one of them.

Sometimes I think I'm a pitiful woman because my History textbook makes me cry, but then so does Isaiah, and there's nothing pitiful about that. All too often I judge my emotions more harshly than I should. It's words. Words have a sway unlike anything else over me. They unmoor me. Someone could probably write a book about dirt, and it would make me cry. That is the depth of how I read. And there's nothing wrong with that. To each their own. We all have that one thing that just kills us inside. We're all different.

My French teacher said something about that the other day. We made illustrations for our Emile Zola story we read, and I painted mine and she stood up there holding it and said, we all have our gifts. We are all different. 
I think I forget that more than I should.
We are all different.

And so, a confession.
Wars make me weep. I have to watch Saving Private Ryan by myself because I cry so hard that I start making sounds and I can't help it. "The Book Thief" kills me. I can't even read quotes or excerpts from it without tears pressing on the corner of my wrinkled eyes. My History textbook makes me cry. It just does. Even though it's written in a dry voice and almost all facts and they only throw in one stanza of a poem, it just does. Just thinking about Matthew Crawley makes me cry. Birdsong makes me cry. Black Hawk Down makes me cry. Pictures of the holocaust make me cry. Pictures of marines make me cry. Pictures of soldiers make me cry.
Everything about war makes me cry.

And I don't know why.

Blood stained earth. That one gets me every time.

Birds.

Dear Fleur.
My hair's a big mess today. And I'm wearing eyeliner and mascara which I usually don't do. I have to file for financial aid. AGAIN. Nice church service this morning. Week of Prayer and Fasting started. Tulips on the table. And I decided to read Daniel again this week and write Charlie Meets The Sky. Maybe fixing the van. Trying to be a waitress. Cold hands. Good dreams lately. And I like wearing blouses these days. And I need a nice oak frame for the picture Victoria gave me; so I can hang it up. I'll paint more. Draw pictures. School. And I want to stargaze tonight. Maybe I'll convince Tazza to bundle up and we can lay on the lawn together.

I really want the flowers to grow back. So I can make a flower crown.
But all I have is bird earrings.
It'll do.

Victoria who speaks French.

Dear Fleur.
This morning was a french lesson over skype with Victoria. I adore her. She taught me how to say kiss and the colours. I like yellow and blue the best. Pink is too hard to say.
I was so glad that skype actually worked. It only works when we have the snowball now. So merci Nat for leaving it. And to Rog, for bringing it. One day I'll write you a letter in French or something else darling like that...

English breakfast tea. Did you know we have sugar cubes? They're 10 times cuter than loose sugar.

Today I have to do Art History homework with Tazza. Write Taite Isabeau a letter. Paint. Find le petit camera. Drink more tea. Possibly take a trip to Costco(I have some happy notes to hide). Read all three of my copies of The Little Prince. Make a book list for India. I want to write today. Really write. I need to fix one story. But there's another in my head that I need to get out. I blogged about it once. I need to find it again. We should got o the post office too.
But now there's laundry to do.
Love Bella.

the neighbor's lilacs bloomed, our's have not yet.

(via)

dear fleur.
i want to paint today. sounds good, no? maybe tandy will let me do this to her. that would be gorgeous.
and.
i want to make myself a little book of all my favourite facebook statuses from my friends. that is going to be just as gorgeous.

fact: rockstar energy drinks are grooooooosssssss.

i have not been having the best days lately. yesterday was tiring. a killer hill workout, and then tandy&i had to walk home. joy. rubber legs and a 2 mile skip back to my house up another hill? no problem.
and.
lately i watched too many fighting movies by myself.

fact: going into 7-eleven by yourself because your little sister doesn't have shoes on is b-a-d. you feel like you're going to get mugged for sure.

now i need to go eat homemade toast.
and.
sit outside surrounded by lilac blossoms.
and.
look for my paint.
love, bella.