From the rooftop of her north-side apartment, we could see Lake Michigan moonlit and lapping quietly only two blocks away. How surreal to see its vast expanse emerge past the high-rises and city streets, past the rush of human life and commerce into pure nature.

It is a funny beautiful world we live in.

And because it’s been a long week (long month, long year, long life) and the hot night begged us to, we made a spur-of-the-moment walk down to the shore where we let the waves race to our ankles and we gazed at the blend of blue darkness. The brightest stars overhead were just visible beyond the florescent glow of street lamps, and I, speechless with wonder, expelled a deep sigh of relief.

Sometimes the best way to put our trivialities in their place is to step away from them into the vast expanse of life, the life you cannot control but can enjoy because you are in it and it is a miracle.

What was your favorite moment this week?

A few good reads :

The time that she almost got published.

Dear Morning.

Hello, it’s Mr. Nasty.

We are the real rebels.

Young ones with old hearts.

Just ask Jo : Blogging as a Career.

“If you love your reader, you will go first. You have to lead them on this journey.” On Writing with Vulnerability.

“What I learned that day is that sometimes the most liberating exercise of freedom is voluntarily laying it down.” The Best Drink I Never Had.

“But it’s not about deserving anything. It’s about loving ourselves anyway. Because God loves us… Because we are slums being turned into holy temples.” The Day I Stopped Eating.

“I think much of the blogosphere can’t do without [conflict.] We have become the outrage-industrial complex, building a digital empire by speaking in the vitriolic language of us vs. them.” A History of Outrage.

“As a blogger, it’s taken me some time to learn, but I realized one day a long while ago that I didn’t want the readers or the blog traffic the professionals had if I had to push people away from each other instead of bring them together.” Great thoughts on careful consumption online.

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It is Friday, and for the first time in two weeks, it’s raining. Ripples of thunder and warm rain are a thrill after the dry, dogged heat of summer thus far.

Peace and relief are returning to me as I move back into a well-worn rhythm of full-time office work and put the freelance debacle behind me. In a weird way, things feel right again. I don’t think it’s because of the return to routine and stability and the known near future as it were, but rather, a result of my own acceptance and resolve to move forward. I struggle with this mightily in most areas of my life. My sense of justice keeps me clinging to what I want instead what I have, what happened instead of what will happen if I just let go.

So instead of resenting the ways that things have not changed this year, I’m choosing to be thankful for what I have and for a little rain to go along with it. Today is enough.

Thanks so much for all your generous and smart comments on yesterday’s post (and on Monday’s!) Have a lovely weekend.

This week’s good reads :

“Maybe that’s why God met me in my neighborhood.” Love in a Taco Shop.

These three posts spoke to me this week about disconnecting and finding space in my life for quiet : On Mindfulness, Living a Rhythmed Life (online), and Nothing is Something.

“What she wants is for him to be willing to take the small risk, not because she feels like she’s worth it, but because she wants to know that someday, when the risk is bigger, he’ll take it.” – A Pre-Engagement Question.

“I’ve been turned up from the dirt, washed in the water, and called by a name I’m certain I did not and do not deserve.” Things Treasured and Things Not Remembered.

And when it’s hard and scary and it just plain sucks, I’m taking Melissa’s advice.

 [Photo and lovely recipe I'm drooling over.]

It’s Saturday, and I’m a day late in posting this – and if I’m being really honest, a dollar short in very literal ways.

I’ve been questioning myself a lot lately – why things seem to be so out of order; why the steady rhythm I held early in this difficult year seems to have disappeared; why week after week goes by and at the end of it my anxiety has snowballed into itself and all the things I didn’t want to happen have occurred; why I surrender my self-worth so easily when someone questions it, especially when it comes to my work; why I haven’t been ready to come out and talk about it openly here on the blog.

But I think I’m finally in a place where ears and heart are open to the truth that everyone has tried to tell me, patiently, lovingly, in this season : it’s okay. It’s okay to stumble and learn from this, it’s okay to not have it all figured out, it’s okay to ask for help. I am enough. As a writer, as a wife, as woman.

And so I finally give in and let go, acknowledging that nothing is certain, that worst case scenarios are a disguise for the best opportunities, that the whole world spins on without my hypervigilance to help it along and so the real question I need to ask myself  is this : why am I pushing so hard to get my way?

More thoughts to come next week, in which I will actually come out and talk about it all more openly. Until then, happy weekend reading.

The best part of my week. Love you, Daddy.

“It’s not until I walk out of the door that I see her pick up a pen and start to write.” Conversations with Ourselves.

“I’m not going to give in to the cultural pressure that says women’s bodies are only beautiful when they’re very, very small. I’m going to take up every inch of space that I need, even though our world is obsessed with the idea that women should only take up just the tiniest bits of space.” Swimsuit Ready or Not.

“Art is faith. I am a believer.” The Shadow Artist Emerges.

The magic of July : spacious skies and fireflies.

10 Rules of Good Writing and the biggest freelancing “do.”

And finally, a sneak peek at next Monday’s bookish post.

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I’m skipping town this weekend to visit these lovely, goofy college roomies of mine. There will be river floating and farmer’s markets, juicy stories and maybe a little dancing. I can hardly contain myself!

In case you couldn’t tell from yesterday’s cynicism, this week has not gone as planned (full explanation is another post for another day), but this plan that we’ve been anticipating for six months is happening, and for that I am relieved and deeply thankful.

I am also thankful that in the years since we graduated from college and ventured out on our own I have found another community of lovely people that have helped me thrive. Most of them I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face, but there is deep joy with every exchanged word – the blog posts and tweets and emails are a growing history of love letters and real friendship, I believe. You know who you are. Thank you for filling my heart with laughter and rich words.

A purpose to unfold.

“There is one thing you can do in a valley you can’t do on peaked mountaintop: you can walk a level path, a flat one, one made for the weary. And I’ll take it. Today I’ll take it.”

Joyous congratulations go to Sarah for her first book deal and to Preston for his fully-funded kickstarter to write his book! I eagerly anticipate holding both.

Death by Cuteness.

Good-bye, sweet Nora. Your witty dialogue and beautiful words will be forever cherished.

And lastly, did you hear? You could be the next face of The Write Practice. Get on that!

Friday is where I’ve found redemption this week. I was deep in a funk for most of it – frustrated again with software problems and thwarted plans. Missing mom and her words of wisdom. Sweating the small stuff, the scary stuff, and the summer weather that has turned every blade of grass to tinder.

But today.

This morning.

I woke up to this sweet face and this pot of impatiens that, having survived the heat of this suffocating week, bloomed lovely in the early sun, and I was reminded – it is good to be alive.

Tell me, where did you find grace this week? 

Some encouraging links for you :

Great advice on the publishing rollercoaster and the 5 stages of dealing with rejection.

On purpose, His plan, and paychecks : When the Boss Doesn’t Know God’s Plan.

“Women find smart women intimidating,” “You shouldn’t say you have a PhD, because that implies ‘you’re better than everybody,’” or, in a nutshell, why Hila is my blog heroine!

Be excited by the mess.

“All is grace, even typeface.” Preston bravely talks singleness during wedding season.

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So this is what I hope my freelance home office will look like this summer, weather permitting. Note the pot of impatiens that survived last week’s squirrel massacre. Does that make me a successful gardner? Because if the flowers survive, then we can get a dog… someday. Right?

We set all these weird little milestones for ourselves, building the strange, constant mix of pride and anxiety that we label adulthood. And it’s lovely and hard and crazy and terrifying, but we only get one shot.

On that theme, and in honor of  my freelance plans, here are some inspiring links.

“For me, becoming an adult hasn’t been a transition from one person to another: it’s been sinking into the eclectic, unexpected combination of everyone I’ve ever been, all rolled into one. Refreshing, isn’t it?”

Helena asked a really good question that forced me to think about a a personal weakness of mine : Were you taught about financial literacy? Or did you learn the hard way?

“It takes you to a place of non-conformity and non-complacency, keeps you on edge, helps you search and strive for something deeper, fuller, more true. Restlessness makes you a better person. Restlessness is godliness because God doesn’t want us to be stuck. He wants us on the move.” On restless and why it’s important.

“I spent the first couple of years just waiting for the ‘job of my dreams’ to come to me. I figured it would show up on my doorstep or something. I prayed a lot about it, but I didn’t do very much about it, and surprise surprise — not very much happened.” Is This the Life of Your Dreams?

“Young people in relationships tend to give negative things too much weight and underrate the positives…  But look at married couples in their eighties. Their little annoyances are often all they talk and joke about. ‘Oh, Miriam always says this…’ ‘Oh, Herb always does that…’ The little annoyances are acknowledged, accepted and part of the fabric of their relationship.” I love Alex and Jo’s thoughts on living and loving, even when they’re annoyed.

And last but best, how blogging changed her life. What decisions have changed your life?

It’s been a crazy wonderful first week in the new She Writes and Rights space. I’m a little overwhelmed by all of the support and positive response. Thank you!

I will admit that my introverted self is a little fidgety with all the attention, especially the new Facebook page thing. You can ‘like’ it, and I’d be flattered, but launching the blog and the Facebook page and the whole shebang made me sweaty-palms nervous, like I was about to give a public speech in front of 500+ people, instead of just posting it for you to read for yourself.

So while I’ve been really happy and blessed this week, I’m kinda ready to get back to our regularly scheduled programming, aren’t you? More poems and less this is how it’s done. Like I said, I’m not a how-to blogger.

Other than the bloggyness this week, I’ve been reading a lot. I finished A Moveable Feast awhile ago, and now I’m deep into Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and though I loved Hemingway, Miller’s words are grabbing my heart at a time when it needs to be shaken up and moved. I’m a little late to the party when it comes to Miller’s writing, but hey. Better late than never, right?

And reading Miller’s thoughts on learning to live a better story came at exactly the right time because we’ve been exploring the idea of living a good story over at Prodigal this week. (Did you see my post in the series?) We’ve had a flood of great submissions, so be sure to check them out. This one, “How the Best Story Found Me” was my personal fave. An excerpt :

“I think about what I will tell my niece, and our daughter if we have one, about the pursuit of love: how for so long I worked so hard to find it, when all along it was meant to find me. How it looks nothing like fear or desperation but sure can feel like stillness and faith. How often I’ve stood in the middle of my life with a map of my own making, thinking I knew just the way to go, and how much of the time I was dead lost and didn’t even know it. How, when it mattered, love located me and wrote its chapter of my life itself.”

A few other words that wowed me this week :

How hope is circular.

Five words that will change your life.

A love letter to my city.

“Never take advice from lists. Stories are better.” Yep.

“People often ask me who my heros are, who do I look up to, and who do I get my inspiration from. If only Indiana Jones had been a whip-wielding, Nazi-killing, fedora-wearing writer instead of an archeologist, I’d have a respectable answer.” You are a writer, so just admit it.

Did you have a personal post favorite this week? Leave a lovelink and have a wonderful weekend!

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