Let's crave together like we crave chocolate

Home was a place she missed. There were days where the missing was a surface level feeling and other days it was a deep pit that could not be filled. Being far away in a vast city with coffee shops on every street corner was thrilling, exciting even, but there was a but.
That but was a bit that embodied a need to be with someone. Not in a "significant other" sense, rather, quite simply, a someone whose presence created company.

She had no "other" to accompany her to the street corner coffee shop. She would go alone, and alone is good for some time, but alone added up to loneliness. Her routine was the same: chai latte, skim milk, corner table. She hid the loneliness with laptop plugged in or book pulled out with pencil and notebook alongside.

She would watch. People came in, out, they stayed, they sat, they left. There were the young with young, the young and the old, and the old with the old. There were the couples: hand holding, conversation building, latte sharing couples that made her dream and gag all at once. There were the mothers wheeling their stroller bound children in, or clinging to their hand to make sure they did not wander away.

They were all together.

She craved together like she craved chocolate. She had a desire for someone to chat with and an even deeper desire to be with someone, simply to listen to them. To listen to their story of life. It had been some time since she did that: listen to someone. Each time she found herself together with someone, though rare, they wanted to hear about her; her house, her job, her this and her that. She was done, done talking about her. She craved a moment of togetherness, to sit with a steaming latte between her and someone else and listen.

//

Life is a story of not one, but many. Life is a simple, yet vastly overcomplicated story, woven together with a few pieces of thread. We are all living a story; yes, with different characters, different moments of climax, and different endings, but we all share the common bond of story.

It is a story where we crave togetherness. A good story, the ones we love to read, to hear are made up of more than just a party for one. We need one another. We need to talk, we need to listen. Life is beautiful. And our stories are best lived, best shared with one another. So lets crave together like we crave chocolate.

What I have been learning.

It begins with a rocking chair and tea.

Tea in a cup, hand crafted by the humble hands of a human. A human broken in a broken world. Unending pain, anger, confusion. Yet even amongst the broken, shattered pieces of this world joy is found. Joy is found while shaping a vessel of clay. A cup is shaped, which holds the fine perfection of tea. Tea that is sipped by me as I contemplate life from a rocking chair.

Five things to think on. Five things to comtemplate as I look out at big sky country. The mountain range of perfection. Why am I here? Why has God placed me here? In it I must be gentle, humble, and quiet. Listening is the key to the art of quietness. Here in this place I listen. I approach with gentleness and desire to hear. To hear the stories of broken people. I too listen for the voice of the Creator who shaped each triangle, each misshaped mountain. Among it all I pray for peace, discernment, for time. I pray among people. I pray alone. Praying for the brokenness of the Rez, the people I've encountered. And selfishly I pray for me, for my brokenness. I seek. Oh how I seek. In patience, I have received. And I've found peace in my quietness. Last, I remember that the shadow proves the sunshine. The trials of the beginning weeks. The baggage, the fear, the confusion, the uncertainty. How those trials have illuminated the greatness of the Creator. To go to the mountains, to seek our Creator. How I've grown. I find myself broken as all humans are. But I find hope in a Creator who has shaped the sky, the mountains, and me.

Searching for your story

When you are stuck, you desire a place of creative inspiration. A place filled with overwhelming creativity. A desk overlooking a garden filled with bright colored poppies. A quaint coffee shop on the corner between Central and Eighth. A room where rustic wood lines the walls, covered in vintage black and white photographs.

Photographs of stories. The wrinkled hands of a Navajo woman. The portrait of a flapper girl from the twenties. A "in the moment" snapshot of a young girl wrapped in the beauty of the ocean, searching.
How often we search. We search for meaning, words, stories, lives. We search for people, spouses, children. We search for meaning greater than our own. For faith.
We search.
Now I search for the words to type because I am stuck. I am stuck without words. My writing has halted, stalled.

In one month I will search for adventure. I will wander the mountains, the open field, the mighty big sky. I will search the sky for faith. I will stand arms open. Listening.
Listening for the words I seek. Standing in the purple field of love, from the handiwork of a Creator who loves me. Even in the weeks I fail to bow my head and whisper up a silent prayer. The days I fail to acknowledge a might greater than mine. He loves me.

I am tired of searching. Aren't we all. We see the photographs lining the wall and think they won in their search. Yet the Navajo woman searched for a place to call home as her land was swept out from beneath her. As her culture, her language was torn away from her in rooms boarded with rules. Searching for HER story in the midst of it all. The twenties flapper searched for beauty, for love. She threw herself at the word, searching for acceptance. The young girl at the ocean searched for a stone, a shell. For a smile and a hope.

Add your photograph to the wall. Will you be bent over a typewriter searching for a story. Huddled over a cup of tea searching for the words to say. The life to live. Here is a hint: stop searching for your story and start living it.

To those who taught

You sit at the table, carved down by the gnarled hands of a man whose spot now sits empty. You were young, the day that spot opened up, left for dust to collect on, but felt the pain. You lost a gentle hand to carry you through.
It has been years now since that spot was filled with the warmth of a body. Yet each day you head to the barn, cling to the wheel of the tractor, and feel the spot where his hands once held tight. You run your hand over the spot on the seat worn thin from Wrangler jeans.
So this day you will remember a man who taught you to work hard and never stop. To love through action, through silent words.

*A few months back I stumbled on this blog by Hannah Brencher through Good Women Project, and whoa! What a grand read. I was inspired, caught up in each word I read. She has the art of writing finely perfected. She knows how to pull your heart strings, and the ones connected to thought. She gets you thinking. That is what blogs are for, as much as they are for selfish pleasure of pouring thought into reader, it is as much a place for thought creation.
My hope, my wish is that one day my blog will become so finely tuned, that my words will have the impact of Hannah's; that I can provoke thought and create dreams.
So that is why todays piece is written as it is. It is a piece written to honor those who served, who loved, and who taught. On this Memorial Day take time to remember the people, like the grandfather above, who taught us to work hard and never stop loving through action. Oh and do not forget to check out Hannah's blog.