a happy story

a book shop unphotographable

Unphotographables are moments from life that my camera couldn't capture. SOOJ means straight out of the journal.  This post is both.

Last Saturday I spent a little time at Barnes and Nobel.  As I sat down at the only available table in the cafe, I cringed because it placed me only inches away from a couple.  The thing is, in a bookstore cafe, if you want peace and quiet, you sit beside an individual.  Couples chat.  Groups laugh.  Individuals read.  I read and write, and I didn't want to hear any chat.

Phooey!  They were chatting.  Often.  My headphones and favorite playlist couldn't quite drown them out.  I couldn't help but listen.  A couple in their mid-thirties was very seriously, and with great care, choosing a name for their baby boy.  They discussed Dallas, and Emmett, and Benjamin.  With a chuckle, he mentioned all manner of odd names which he discovered in the five inch thick baby names book on the table between them.  Finally, they returned to the first name they had both loved.

"Clayton it is."  Welcome to our wonderful world, little Clayton.  Be well.  

reflections on 2014

Sloane, my biggest blessing

If you've been my blog friend for a while you know that I sometimes share unedited entries from my paper journal.  I call these entries SOOJ, as in, straight out of the journal.  This is one such entry.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014@ home on the couch with Sloane

When I look back over 2014, I can't remember a single really bad day.  There wasn't a single day when I didn't go to bed grateful and satisfied.  There wasn't a morning that I didn't wake up joyful and grateful.  That's what living in Christ does.  Because, when I think back over the year, there was nothing exceptionally good about it.  We had a hard, long winter that made the school year extend so long that we had a terribly short summer.  That makes for a rough new school year.  Plus, we not only didn't get to travel, but we had to spend all our saved vacation money on Jeffrey's knee surgery.  And we still owe $3,000.  UGH!  I could go on and on with a list of trials from 2014, but that's not my point.  My point is that in the midst of all these trials and struggles, when my heart was breaking at the disappointment about our new home, as our finances took hit after hit, each day was a good day.  Each day I went to sleep grateful and woke up satisfied. That is God at work in our lives.  He takes our fragile, silly, messed up world and makes beautiful things out of the broken pieces.   

That's His grace.  

That's my King.   

questions

From time to time, I post something straight out of my journal. I call them my SOOJ posts. Today's is from the pages I wrote first thing this morning.

Monday, January 31, 2011

A month gone by. One out of twelve already past. How did I spend it? Did I spend it well? Did I pursue my passions and my interests? Did I serve God by serving others? Did I have self-control and offer proofs of love? Did I spend time with Sloane and make her feel special, adorable, wonderful? Did I parent well? Did I make each day, each moment count? Did I serve Jeffrey or only allow myself to be served? Did I perform well at work and give my boss more than I was paid for? Did I truly live the values that I hold? Did I spend time each day in the Word? Did I spend time each day in prayer? Did I spend time each day in worship? Did I call my mother every day? Did I focus on paying more attention to friends and what is going on with them? Did I remember that my priority is people over productivity? Did I cherish the people with whom I share my life? Did I really do my best with the tasks before me? How well did I live in January? How did I live?

Christmas Comes

If you are unfamiliar with SOOJ, what I mean is "straight out of the journal." From time to time I post, unedited, something that I wrote in the journal I carry with me everywhere. This is one such post.

Sunday, November 14, 2010
Ozark, MO

There comes a moment every holiday season when Christmas enters my heart. A moment when Christmas arrives. Some years, it doesn't arrive until as late as Christmas Eve. This year, it arrived before Thanksgiving. I sat and cried and cried as a as a "Give This Christmas Away" played and the aisle at church filled with people. The huge pile of nearly 300 Operation Christmas Child boxes grew and grew and grew as children and adults poured into the aisles to come and lay their gifts on the alter. I wish I could photograph the enormous pile of shoes boxes packed full to bursting with gifts for children around the world. I'm still crying 10 minutes later. I can't seem to stop. I am so moved to be a part of this. Christmas is unselfish giving. Christmas is love for family and love for strangers. Christmas is here. God bless us, every one.

an Ozarks Unphotographable

SOOJ means straight out of the journal. Unphotographables are moments from life that my camera couldn't capture. This post is both.

Friday night, May 14, 2010
screening of Winter's Bone

An old woman standing on a stage,
in old jeans and red gardening clogs.
There she stands - feet splayed,
hands thrust into pockets,
looking like nothing special;
like someone's great aunt.

And then she opens her mouth,
and she sounds like nothing less
than a whiskey voiced angel.

And I am reminded again
that angels come in a variety of guises and
beauty can not only be measured with your eyes.
In fact, your eyes are likely
the least reliable measurement of beauty.

a moment last Saturday

From time to time I write a post that is straight out of my journal. Hence, SOOJ. Here's a moment I thought I would share with you. I took the picture above just after writing this.

Sabbath, March 27, 2010
Roaring River State Park
Cassville, Missouri

I didn't get to my morning pages this morning as Jeffrey had breakfast ready when Sloane woke me with a kiss. Then, we rushed out the door to head off on our adventure. I was with Sloane at the playground when Jeffrey called me to come over.

Now here I sit on a set of steps leading down to the water. Nearby I can hear the constant slosh of water eddying downsteam. A ways upstream I can hear the steady, low roar of a river aptly named. In all of the world there's nothing I find so peaceful as sitting outside near moving water with a pen in hand, a journal on my lap, and a camera in my pocket.

Oh. The page is becoming polka dotted as the rain falls harder and harder. What a day!

So, tell me. What makes you feel peaceful?

She Is Watching Me

I haven't shared a SOOJ post in awhile, and I thought you might like this one.
If you're wondering, SOOJ means straight out of the journal.

Saturday, February 20, 2010
Morning Pages

Another thing to add to my list: - make a new journal for my morning pages - get some ironing done; really, really - get some ironing done.

Sloane is awake and asking me about doing morning pages of her own. I love that! It does remind me that what I do is very important - especially my habits. The life I choose to live in front of Sloane is the life she will choose for herself. That's a lovely and amazing truth when I am talking about blogging and morning pages and daily prayer time.

How terrific is it when I am talking about what I eat, or my exercise habits? What about my spending habits and my overall attitudes toward others? When I think I have them in check and that all is well, I still need to be aware and careful. She is watching me. And she is choosing to live the life she watches me live.

I want her to see me live with kindness. I want her to see in me a person flooded with compassion. I want her to see in me a woman of strong, strong faith. I want her to see in me a woman whose first impulse is always toward prayer and whose attitude is constantly one of gratefulness. I want her to see in me a person who works long and hard and uncomplaining. In general, I want her to see a person who is uncomplaining. I want her to see a woman who sets goals and works hard to achieve them. I want her to see a person who is friendly and open to new people in her life. I want her to see someone who is courteous and mannerly. I want her to see a person who is prompt; not just on time to places, but with birthday cards, permission slips and the like.

How am I doing?


The image above is my sweet "she"; one of the results of our photowalk on Saturday.

Contentment

This is another SOOJ post. For those of you who don't know what SOOJ is, it means straight out of the journal. From time to time I copy things exactly from my journal and post them unedited. If you like this, you might click on the SOOJ tag at the end of this post for more.


Saturday night
at home
January 2, 2010

This is what contentment looks like:

It is two people who have shared a long love. Two people who sit together in a room, each happy to pursue their own pleasure. It is a low hum of voices as they reach out and briefly draw the other into their realm. It is the quiet accompaniment of a dryer stolidly doing its chore while you sit and ruminate. It is a good book, half read. A steady companion who does not mind its conversation being set aside frequently because you have other things you wish to think about. It is the cheery sound of applause that the red-faced ember men give the dancing girls in their dresses of flame tinged with blue. It is a perfect piece of music. It is a place to prop your feet. It is a kiss on the neck when your love gets up to stoke the fire. It is the funny way the star has gone crooked on top of your tree. It is the one more late night at home before winter break truly begins to end. It is a blank page and the scratch of a pen. It is the magic of language that turns emptiness into a perfect evening, captured forever.


The image is from a little corner in my home. I love, love, love art and have a few small collections of original watercolors. These were painted by Dorothy Klyver, who became a very good friend after I wrote her a thank you note telling her what her work meant to me.

How I Named My Blog Day

I was visiting Beth tonight and was inspired by this post. I thought I'd play along.


Some time early in 2008 I decided to start a blog. It took me some time to get started because I was searching for the perfect name. I thought about it for a while. A longish while. I really wanted to get it right since I had a feeling it would become a real part of my identity. Was I ever right about that.

Tonight I went in the Sparkle Room and dug out my old journal. Here are some blog names I considered: Daily Joy, Scatter Joy, Giggles and Glitter, A Thing With Feathers, Glass Slipper, Sursum Corda, Once Upon A Time, Cabinet of Curiosities, A Net for Catching Joy...

After nearly four weeks of pondering I wrote this in my journal:

Leap Day 29 February 2008
I am pretty excited thinking about getting started on my blog. I finally have a name. comeandsitbymyfire. Like it? Great, hunh? I knew Brent would help me think of the best name. When I told him about it, he said, "What about your favorite poem?"

Believe it or not, magic bean buyer is already gone, but I think I like come and sit by my fire better anyway. I think I am going to go ahead and set up my account this weekend. I am so excited about this chance for a new creative endeavor. I can hardly wait.

... ... ... ...

Well, I did it. It's almost one in the morning and I am now a blogger. Just writing my profile has been lots of fun. I don't really have expectations of my blog. Right now I am most excited because this is a wonderful way to do some visual journaling. I do love the scratch of a pen on paper, but what I really love is technology. I think of this as Jeffrelynews [family paper newsletter] on steroids. A chance to make lists and to connect with others. I think this is going to be a lot of fun.

I was right. On every count. Come Sit By My Fire is much better than Magic Bean Buyer. Brent does have wonderful ideas. I do use my blog to make lists and connect with others. And, of course, I think blogging is a lot of fun.

What about you? Where did your blog name come from?


If you're curious, here's my first blog post. Poor thing is still commentless.

Another Unphotographable

In case you are new to this space, SOOJ means straight out of the journal. Unphotographable is s what I call the moments I try to capture with paper and pen when the camera fails me. Want to play along?

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Another unphotographable moment:

Richard Avedon exhibit - SF MOMA

Three pretty girls, probably late teens, very casually dressed in jeans and t-shirts. All of them standing in slack-jawed wonder gazing at Avedon's portrait of Marilyn Monroe. After a few silent seconds, they all reach into their pockets and pull out cameras and cell phones. Trying to capture a little bit of Marilyn for their own lives, a little bit of her incredible glamour.

They don't know yet that they have a beauty all their own.

Photograph by Richard Avedon. I wish you could see it as I did. Huge - like eight feet by eight feet. Huge.

Unphotographable

I had so much to write about while I was in San Francisco that I ended up needing to buy a new journal. I know, what a hardship. The people-watching was excellent, and you know how much I love to people watch. One of the things I did while I enjoyed the city was write a collection of unphotographable moments. Like this one:

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Another Unphotographable:

Riding the N Judah - by 23rd Avenue

We just passed a big football-player-in-college looking guy sitting outside on a little bitty balcony. He was wearing a sweatshirt, shoulders hunched against the cold, drinking steaming coffee out of a mug. The balcony was only big enough for him, a tiny chair, and a minuscule table. The difference in scale should have been amusing, but he was so obviously enjoying his mini kingdom. Instead, he reminded me of Babar; somehow dignified and smile-inducing in his undersized chair and balcony.

Babar rare image found here. Wonderful books about his adventures found in a bookstore near you.

More SOOJ

Tonight I've been reading Elizabeth Berg's new book. I've been laughing out loud and my fingers have been twitching to grab a pencil. At one point the narrator said she'd try to write a stream of consciousness list. My fingers began to do more than twitch. They were tingling. Time to write. So, I closed my eyes, opened the book to a page in the middle, pointed, and opened my eyes. The word was "taste". What follows is what I wrote.

Taste...

Taste. Even now I can taste that loaf of bread in Colonial Williamsburg, still warm, passing from the baker's hands to my fathers, from his to mine... the taste of it with that odd soft, pale yellow cheese... how both made a perfect mouthful... the exultant feeling that this was dinner... how odd... how wonderful... how exquisite that we were, all four of us, having an adventure. That all four of us were on this adventure together, instead of having the separate ones we usually had as we went off to school, to work, to... what kind of adventures did Mom have being at home all day? I think I assumed that she just sat around bored, waiting for me to get home from my own adventures, so that she could hear all about them and start living again... of course, that's what she lived for - me... and tangentially my brother and father. Oh, the arrogance of children.

Back to taste... That meal of bread and cheese, one of the most perfect meals in a lifetime of eating. Simple bread and cheese. You know? I can still taste it. Was it so delicious because we touched the hands that prepared it? Or because we ate it standing up, walking around, looking at things from such a long time ago? Or, was it so delicious because it was so out of the ordinary?

Normally we were a family who sat down together at 5:30 for dinner. If the phone rang, Dad would answer it and inform the caller that it was dinner time and that was family time. Back then, family dinner seemed so normal. Now, I realize what a gift it was.

I had a family that sat together, ate together, talked together, enjoyed a meal together. Every night. Every single night, with very few exceptions. How marvelous is that? Family dinnertime. Something so commonplace. And, anymore, profound. If Dad had a meeting that evening, he would make the long drive back home in time for dinner, and turn right around and head back to church; to work. Neither Mom or Dad ever said it, but family dinnertime was sacred.

Family meals. That's a bit of the precious ordinary. Isn't it? Mom cooks the meal, one child sets the table, the other cleans up after. Family of four sits down together, holds hands, blesses the food... Eats, talks, shares, is just... together. I guess that's it. That's what makes it so profound. We were together. Not only in the same place physically, but in the same place mentally. No one was rushing to get to a ballgame, or practice, or work. No one had a TV show they didn't want to miss. No one was shut off from the family with music playing only for their ears. We were all together. Together.

Oh, what precious ordinary.



The photograph of Colonial Williamburg was taken by Foto Blitz Color. It is a scene very much like ones that I remember from our walk in Colonial Williamsburg. SOOJ is a term I came up with. It means, straight out of the journal. I keep a paper journal - have for years. SOOJ posts are unedited reprints of a journal entry.

People Watching

I have a thing for people watching. I just find it so very interesting. I love to make up stories to go with expressions, body language, outfits. Every once in a while I take the time to write down what I see. Here's an example.


Saturday night, February 7, 2009
Kansas City - on the Plaza

I'm sitting in a cushy chair near the Barnes & Nobel Cafe. There is a man sitting there who caught my eye with his intensely studious expression. He has that scowl of concentration and he flips through pages and jots down furious scribblings in the notebook beside him. Here's the thing that intrigues me. That make me want to write a story with him as a character. He is completely intent on what he is doing. In front of him is a pile of four books topped with a stack of papers. Two of the books have spines that are five inches thick. One book is emblazoned ACT Victory. One is called College Majors.

He is probably 45.


It's a perfect movie scene, actually. He's in faded jeans and a white button down. His wedding ring gleams on his finger. His glasses are black wire rims and his hair is a silver-tipped black. Both books are black and red with white lettering. One has words ----->. The other reads upside down <--------. The stack is just crooked enough to be completely random. The man is Everyman. Not especially good looking. No ugly. Just an ordinary guy fast approaching the end of middle age. His concentration is fierce. The whir of the espresso machine, the clink of the forks, the quiet conversations all around him, even my steady scrutiny. This guy never wavers.

I wonder what his story is? Is he a dad with a slacker kid, so he is compelled to take furious notes on her behalf? Is he heading to college himself to complete a long-held dream? I wonder.




This is my first SOOJ blog post. The first picture is a few of my journals, the next is my actual journal page of this writing. Also, I took the third picture surreptitiously because I was terribly nervous. It's not great, but I thought you might like to see the man.

SOOC? No. SOOJ

Do you know the Flickr tag SOOC? It means straight out of the camera. SOOC indicates an unmanipulated image. Isn't it amazing that in a handful of years that distinction has become important? Well. All my pictures are straight out of the camera. At least until I learn Photoshop Elements, which is one of my summer projects.

This post is something different. My own version of SOOC.

You see, I am a keeper of journals. I probably have more than 40 journals in plastic storage bins under our bed. I still have each journal I've written except the one gone missing in a stolen purse. Don't you know, I still long for that little notebook.

The first journal entry (I called it a diary back then.) I ever made was on January 1, 1980. The diary was a Christmas present. A treasure in hunter green leatherette with a gold clasp and tiny key. I was 9 years old and I couldn't wait for New Year's Day so I could write an entry in my pre-dated diary. It never occurred to me to do anything but write on the page that the date provided. I remember years of trying to squeeze my stories into the few lines provided for a particular day. I have no idea how old I was before I finally said to heck with that and began doing what I wanted to with my own diaries.
Anyway. We experienced an earthquake that day. Mid-morning, New Year's Day, 1980. At the epicenter, the quake registered 8.2 on the Richter scale. At the time, we lived on Tecera Island in the Azores, many ocean miles from the epicenter, but the earthquake still did quite a bit of damage to the island. Let me tell you, a major earthquake = a major life event. Wanna know what I wrote in my diary?

We had an earthquake today. How exciting! Green beans for dinner. YUCK!

So not kidding. My journaling skills have grown a bit since that day nearly 30 years ago. (Oh my. How can I have lived long enough to remember something thirty years ago??) My journals are a melange of... well. Of me. Here. I'll flip through and show you. My last journal was handmade in Nepal with a graphic black and cream cover and rag paper. In the first twelve pages I have:

~ written in four different ink colors
~ glued in three magazine snippets
~ drawn four doodles
~ tucked in one note from Jeffrey,
~ given Sloane a page to doodle on
~ written a list of Evocative Words and Phrases
~listed Ten Things I Would Like To Do Every Day
~ written a movie review
~ listed 6 books I perused at Borders complete with notes like "library, don't buy" and "Blech!"
~ noted three websites to visit
~ wrote three separate To Do lists

All that and some meandering rambles through my brain in loosely arranged paragraphs. I love to journal. Love it! I carry a journal and pen absolutely everywhere I go. Actually, I always carry a journal, at least three pens, a book, and my camera. But, that's another story.
This post is about SOOJ. Or, it was going to be before I waxed rhapsodic about journaling. From time to time on my blog I plan to post something straight out of the journal. Unedited, unchanged. See? SOOJ.

Come back tomorrow for my first SOOJ post, won't y0u? I think you'll like it. I do. Happy Friday.




I took the first two photographs. The last image is a journal entry by Jo36, journal artist extraordinaire. Click here for a wonderful post about journaling.