A Blank Person

I am a night person. I try to be a morning person, but I am a night person. This was very evident to me in the writing project this last month. I committed to writing a book in a month. Generally it takes 6 - 8 months to write a book. I probably need to stop saying yes to the 5 - 6 week book writing. I've done it more than once! What an idiot. Often what happens is that it exhausts me and then the people I write for don't evaluate the work based on that they asked me to do something impossible and I made it possible. Instead they evaluate it based on what I could have done in 8 months. Oh well. I wanted to do this project. And actually I think it came out very well. Splendid was the word the editor used, which helped the exhaustion quite a bit.

I was fairly crazed during the process so in desperation I set the schedule according to my internal life -- writing until 2am, sleep until 9am. Work until 2pm, nap until 4pm, work until 9pm eat dinner then write until 2am.

My next writing project has connections to Egypt and all my Egyptian friends live this way. Probably because it is so hot. But when I want to speak with my friends in Egypt often I call at my dinner time, 6pm and they are sitting down to their dinner at midnight.

I want to be a morning person. get up at 6am, go for a run, then come home have coffee, bfast, then start work. But I am a night person. And this I must accept. As well as I must adjust who I am to match the world I'm in which is the 8 - 8 world. Once I move to Egypt for my research I can eat spicy zucchini salad at midnight and rise at noon.

Henry and I were having a conversation about different types of people. I asked him if Mommy was a serious person or a silly person. Silly. We went through a list of people related to different areas of his life. Mostly people he loves were in the Silly category and people he has to work for (teachers and the like) were in the serious category. Then I asked him about Sydney, the girl at school who loves him and whom he loves.

"Is Sydney a silly person or a serious person?"

The game stopped almost immediately.

"Sydney is a Great person."

As if she were a historical figure. Which, in his life, perhaps she is.

Idaho brings the Inspiration

Something I wrote a few Idaho summers ago that holds true today:

Ancestral Home

by Alice Bass

I want

the smell of coffee

the sizzle of sausages

and

late morning sleep.

I want

the kiss of a lover

the embrace of a friend

and

the knowing glance of the husband.

I want

the laugh of my child

a conversation with my son

and

the fishing boat at dawn with my father.

I want

steam rising from cups in the morning

a full bodied red in the evening

all

from the deck of my ancestral home.

The Order of the North Star

The Royal Order of the North Star is a medal that was given to my Father by the King upon the end of his term as the Naval Attache from the United States to Sweden. The 70's was quite a time to be in Sweden -- not only was ABBA still touring but it was the cold war, and we were closest to Moscow and Berlin and he has stories to tell. It's a grand medal that hangs around his neck on a blue and yellow ribbon flecked with white stars.

I am imagining this hanging around my neck.

In the last five years, and the last year especially, my life's circumstances have changed. Drastically? Well, to those outside the vessel which is me, yes, I imagine so. To me inside (what I imagine to be an old fashioned dirigible from which I chart my course towards the heavenlies) not so much. A shift here, an adjustment there, a course correction certainly.

As I look back I am amazed at how, more often than not, I have been buffeted off course not by my own faulty choices but by the impact of those around me.

Input I highly value and surround myself with people I love and trust. But Impact is when the opinions of others -- trusted advisors, caring neighbors, interested sales clerks, out right enemies -- slam into the fragile hull and knock me ever so slightly south. I then try to steer to these ways and end up disoriented if not lost. As a child I was fascinated with cults (it was the era of Jim Jones) because I felt susceptible to being drawn in by smiles and doughnuts.

Input to Influence to Impact.

When Henry was a newborn I read one book from a casual friend on Christian Infant Scheduling. Another mother looked at me with great meaning and placed a book on natural child birth and breast-feeding in my hands. I still see clearly the picture of Henry's father holding the frail jaundiced 5 week old while we sat in the Dr.'s office. "Just feed him forumla" the lactation consultant ordered, "Whenever he wants it." Which he lapped up. Turns out my milk was too weak because I was too weak from my Placenta Abruption Emergency C-section.

I thought about that this week and I put it very dramatically to my soul's Captain, "I almost starved my child due to my focus on others."

Joel has preached a lot about Job lately, including the friends & the wife's input. Ultimately it is Job's cry and God's answer that confirms Job's place, which at that moment was on the ground covered in ashes and sores.

In a recent large move on my part 98% of my community assented with tight lipped grim nods. They said they knew, they thought so, and they were sad but understood. Only 2 % stepped back in open-mouth horror.

Where have my restless nights been spent? On the 2%.

So I conjure the image of the Order of the North Star. I remember the power I have to chart my own course, because I listen to God. I know the power of His Word and His word to me. I know His choices and His voice. I know His deliverance and the sight of His outstretched hand. I know my Master and Commander and I know how to turn my sails into the wind that lifts me and moves me ever closer to shore.