Painting share :)

It's Christmas and I'm thinking about my goal of making the world a better and more beautiful place. Did you know this about me? At some point in my early youth, my favorite book was Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney (1982). Miss Rumphius was a lady who made a beautiful life in her work, in her travels, and in her scattering of lupine seeds on the hillside.

Miss Rumphius never married, and when she was old, she retired to a cottage by the sea. I don't know if I imagined my life the way it is today, single in my little cottage, perfectly content. I lived in the jungle once. I've seen some pretty cool things in my life, and my soul is fed by the work I do each day. These all seem like things Miss Rumphius would be proud of.

The holidays are a difficult time for me. I am reminded of the brokenness in the world, and the brokenness in my own life and family. But then, without fail, I am never alone in these feelings. A woman in yoga shouts "I hate Christmas" at the beginning of a class last week. I am welcomed into people's homes and families in ways that shock me with an abundance of love.

Tonight I will read several long passages of scripture at my church's annual Christmas Eve service. I was practicing just now. Think about how you say the word "homage". I've decided to say it like an English speaker, and not the francophone that leaves deep inside me ;)

Fun quotes of the day from fellow thrifters!

1. Great Expectations? I heard that's a terrible book. Sans irony, people. Sans irony.
2. Well, whatever turns you on, right?! In response to someone who enjoyed fantasy novels. Not romance novels. Fantasy novels. Poor man, publicly shamed for asexually enjoying Star Trek.

Life is pretty awesome, after all.

These vintage 3D latch hook kits are awesome :)

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.

Rumi

Everything in my life is so crazy and mixed up at the moment that all I can do is laugh and smile, and listen to songs on repeat.

Life takes some sharp twists and turns sometimes, but in the end, somehow, everything will be okay. Somehow, in the midst of neurological craziness, and health problems up the wang, and emotional overload, and missing people like crazy, it just stops mattering. Somehow, I'm alive and loved and I have joy in my life, so I really can't complain. And I'm gonna celebrate by wearing my favorite red pants tonight, so y'all can look forward to that.

So no complaints. Life is pretty awesome :)

Perhaps all is not lost.

Vintage, handwoven, Scotland, mohair, hot pink!

...And one more thing: Don't think that the great love which was once granted to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast and generous wishes didn't ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains so strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life...

Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet - #7)

100% Dog Person :)

So yeah, there are two kinds of people in the world: cat people and dog people. I've found that cat owners who own dogs, and vice-versa, still have a favored species between the two.

Well, I was raised to be an animal-hater. My mother allowed us to have animals because my stepdad loved dogs, but the dogs in our house were not treated very well. We weren't allowed to love them, and so I grew up not really caring too much about them. Dogs are meant to be loved and played with and cuddled with.

When I was about twenty-five, I met this dog, and that girl changed my heart, opened it wide open, and made me a crazy, talks-to-strange-dogs-on-the-street, dog lover. And when another dog came into the house, I thought my heart couldn't possibly open up to a whole other animal, but it did, and I fell in love a second time. They taught me how to love unconditionally, and they showed me that I was worth loving. It was a very symbiotic relationship.

I don't live with those two anymore. We were inseparable for a few wonderful years though, and I still go to visit them when I can. When I first got my car, we went to the beach, because one of my dreams in life was to see them see the ocean. It was all I had dreamed it to be :)

I can't ever be with a person who doesn't love dogs as much as I do. It's at the top of the list, along with some other things that I imagine a list should contain (like more than one thing), but nothing is springing to mind. It's entirely possible that that is all I really want in a partner. I'm a simple girl.

It's all about the afterlife.

Isn't this SO cute?

They always throw around this term "the liberal elite." And I kept thinking to myself about the Christian right. What's more elite than believing that only you will go to heaven?

Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

All the way to the end

I have taken the week off of thrifting and have committed to getting more of my inventory (i.e. overflowing box in my living room) listed. It seems to be going fairly well, if you don't include the rude intrusion of various humongous problems that shall not be listed here. I spent all of Monday photographing and listing, and that went very well. I have noticed, however, that there is a certain point where I have so much stuff that I have difficulty finding an item that has already been bought and paid for! When I had 100 items in my eBay shop, this was never a problem. But for some reason, 150 crosses that invisible line.

I have a couple dresses that need to be photographed. This photo reminds me that one of them is a vintage wedding dress. I tried to photograph it once before, but I just couldn't find the right light and surroundings to do it justice.

Now here's the important stuff that has nothing to do with the thrift store aspects of thrifting, prompted by the recent shootings in Seattle, by which my community has been affected directly: Life is really, really crappy, and life is really, really wonderful, and it's all jumbled up together in a big indistinguishable blob where you don't know which end is up, and whether suicide is a good option, or the stupidest option of all. In life, we will experience losses that will change us forever, scar us forever, and that is just how it is. There will always be grief, and there will always be loss, and our job sometimes is to ride the wave smoothly, even when the pain is unbearable.

Money is nothing.

Vintage Tupperware measuring cups

If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.

~ Karl Marx

Ack! Lent is coming!

I haven't given anything up for Lent in years. My life is already about deprivation. Not a day goes by that I don't willingly live without something I want. The only reason I'm considering going to weekly Lenten prayers at my church is because everyone goes out for bagels afterwards. I'm tired of living through Lent, listening to people detail their wonderful deprivation skills, their ability to go without. Am I being judgmental? Definitely.

I am often judgmental. As long as this depraved habit doesn't affect my life in too negative a way, I usually just forgive myself and move on. Except then I miss out on what Lent offers for me (ah, perhaps individualism could benefit me in some way in this instance). Maybe Lent offers me a reason to spend less time on the computer. Maybe Lent offers me outside time for gardening, or more yoga and less ice cream, or vice versa. I don't know.

A while back there was a significant other in my life, in that he was significant because he'd seen me naked, and an other, because he wasn't a lady from my gym locker room. He was always looking to be more spiritual. He tried and tried to be monk-like without actually being celibate. We listened to monks-chanting-psalms on tape in the car. We lit candles and read the bible. When he was upset, I read to him from my favorite book of sermons.

This all felt like an act, like a play with meaningful lines, but with actors playing parts, not real people living their real lives. It all felt false, and I felt empty. On the surface, for me, it looked like I was making good decisions-I'd chosen a good Christian man, hadn't I? But being in this relationship made it feel like someone stuck a maple tap into my heart, and blood just dripped out day by day. I needed an infusion, and I was lost.

Sometimes spirituality is empty because it's only on the surface. We can't make something happen in our souls. We can try, but there has to be a response from the other side. Even Mother Theresa felt like God didn't speak to her. Being "spiritual" doesn't always mean what we think it means.

Maybe take some time this Lenten season for your spirit, in whatever way feeds your soul. I will continue to contemplate the ritual, as I do every year.

What's up with that?

 

At my job, I can make one hundred good decisions, and generally just be my bad ass self, and then one bad decision, and suddenly, I'm a failure. Everything I've done for the past few days is for naught, and I should never be gainfully employed, and I suck suck suck.

What's up with that?

Forgiving ourselves: treating ourselves the way we'd want to be treated by other people, is a difficult thing indeed. I can't tell you how many times this subject comes up for me in conversation with other people. At least once a day, I have to explain that it is unacceptable for you (i.e. the person sitting in front of me) to demean yourself in my presence. Don't do it. It serves no purpose. It is never therapeutic for you to hate yourself. It will never do you any good, no matter how much you think about it. So knock it off.

Speech over. Peace out mofos.

A life of thrift

"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought."

Matthew 5:4-5 (The Message)

Thrift means never having everything you want, all at the same time. Thrift means sacrificing what you want for the greater good. Thrift means being content with who you are, no more, no less.

 

Living a life of thrift means not selling your soul, the invaluable, intangible part of you.

Looking ahead, somehow...

"If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a 'wandering to find home', why should we not look forward to the arrival?"

 C.S. Lewis

How can there be punishment for life on earth, when life on earth is so hard, every day? It never ends. There is no rest, no peace; there is only more pain, and suffering, and death, and sickness. Even at our very best, we are imperfect, flawed, and broken. We walk around in weakened bodies and poisoned minds. We may hope for better, but no one knows what "better" even is. We're told to be happy, but we aren't. We're told to be strong, but we aren't.

I am an extravagant hoper, yet I still fail. You read it here, as I hash out my own life on this blog. I talk big, and act small. I strive for the best. I want so much, and end up with so little. I am human, and impatient, and these past five days, although I have tried desperately to put a brave face forward, have been so very painful for me.

Please hug your dog for me, or your cat, or someone else's dog. If I could somehow spread a little dog love with this post, I think I could stop crying and eat some dinner.

Thank you :)

Just pick something.

 Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.

Bertrand Russell

In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I am a stubborn fool, and believe in things that will never be. But I am also a wise fool, because I believe in the impossible, and maybe, just maybe, hope things into being. I've been told that I would die without hope, because I said I didn't have any. But to live without hope is no life at all. To live without believing, even somewhere deep inside your own unconscious mind, that something better is possible, is to be dead.

Every person alive has some form of drive to live, and I call that hope, I guess, whether or not it really fits (If I tweak the definition a bit, I can claim that I have some and no one will worry about me). Depression can be the realization that there is no reason to hope, and no thing to hope for. So every day, I wake up, and I find something that keeps me going. Sometimes, it's completely delusional. Actually, it's usually delusional; that's why it sticks around. It's the rational hopes that don't last long-they are quickly swept into the "not possible" pile and filed away in the garage.

I believe in the impossible. It has gotten me through decades of life-not-always-worth-living. And to give it up, and hope in a God I cannot see or touch or feel, who may or may not ever return-that seems more delusional than thinking you can time travel to win the lottery, don't you think?

No one asked for this.

The following statements may make you shudder. I don't know you all that well, so please bear with me. This is a personal thing for every person, a decision that no one does or should make lightly. The decision is whether or not to have children, or more specifically bear children.

When I was a child, I learned about overpopulation, and it seemed like a perfect time for me to decide not to have kids. After all, from my experience, families weren't all that great, so I'd be doing myself and the rest of the world one big favor. Well, I was a kid, a kid without hormones. And now I am an adult, one big grown-up, and boy have things changed. Could I care about overpopulation? Not much.  I figure that a couple won't hurt anyone. But that's not true.

For every child that I bear on my own, I have to raise: feed, clothe, emotionally support, etc. That child, once brought into the world, is in it. They didn't ask to be, but they are, and it will be my responsibility to care for them. Now that's all well and good. I want children. I (hopefully) have the capacity to bear children; great. But just like my vocation, I choose my personal familial set-up based on a higher ethic. I do not only think of myself and my own needs when I bring a child/ren into the world. My faith informs me that I am not an island, and in knowing that, I lose the blasé attitude that what I do doesn't and shouldn't matter to anyone else.

There are children in the world who already need homes, and they aren't all in China, or Ethiopia, or Guatemala. They're around the corner from your house. They're living in a broken foster care system whose only hope is the faithful action of millions. It may not be a childhood dream of mine, but it's the reality I face as an adult. And right now, I'm not in a place to have a child, but when I am, this reality will weigh heavily on my decision.

You can read more here about people who make this same decision, but for other reasons.

For more information about foster-adoption in your area, search with your specific state or county.

Put the gun down.

So I'm watching Law & Order, Season 1; good stuff. Less technology, but the same general script. Anyhow, in this episode, two cops are chasing a suspect. One goes into the vacant building making a racket. The other positions himself at the fire escape, and sticks his gun into his pants. Then he looks around, sees some trash cans, and picks up a metal lid (old school trash can). The kid comes flying down the fire escape, gun in hand. The cop waits, then sticks the lid out just as the kid runs by-breaks the kid's nose. Awesome (i.e. the conscious choice not to kill).

I am a pacifist, to the core. I abhor violence. I'm even having to watch myself lately so I don't let my own feelings about violence cloud my relationships in my work. It's important that we allow others to make up their own minds about things, and not assume that we should bring them over to our side of any debate. Right now, I'm dealing with the issue of horror films. It's tough to stay quiet about my own opinion, but after I began doing it, I was better able to hear what the person was saying. Instead of spending my time trying to figure out how to convince them that they should never watch a horror movie ever again, I was spending my time hearing them, a much better option.

Anyhow, the kid's nose was broken, and I'm excited? Yup. Anytime I see someone with a more lethal option at their disposal, put it away and reach for something less lethal, I applaud. Violence will never go away. Human beings will always be stupid and try to hurt each other in any way they can; this is part of being human-we mess up. But we infinitely compound that stupidity when we purchase guns. More people get hurt, instead of fewer. More people live in fear, instead of fewer. Yes, the alternative might be strange (e.g. trash can lid), but it should always be first in our minds, rather than a grievous afterthought.

Grow old, Grow up

I have an incredible need to please. I also have an incredible need to be good. Sometimes these two things come together and I get very very stuck. Now is one of those times. The two are fighting against one another, and I'm caught in the middle of their battle. It's getting ugly; I'm thinking negative thoughts about myself.

I love people, but I assume that they won't love me unless they see me often, and see my best parts often. If they see my worst parts too often, they will abandon me. If that were really to happen, it wouldn't be my fault, but it really would. I can talk the big talk about how I am my own person and God loves me as I am, and I should surround myself with people who love me just as I am, but let's face it, life doesn't work that way. We have to be nice and phone our parents, and do the laundry and buy groceries and not scream at strangers. There is a limit to "being yourself". I can only skip church so often before people begin to forget me. I can only be mean to my best friend so many times before she just stops calling. Being "myself" isn't always about doing exactly what I feel at any given moment. Sometimes there needs to be some thought behind action.

So I feel like crap, but I'm going to do my very best not to throw that all over other people. Because that's my job. I'm an adult. I saw a license plate holder last week that said "I will grow old, but I'll never grow up" and I thought, "Seriously? If the adults don't [act like adults], who will?" We are responsible, not because of some cosmic philosophical idea of "free will", but because no matter what you believe, your actions have consequences. Be yourself to your heart's delight, but recognize that who you are affects other people, whether or not you like it.

So I'm going to go to sleep tonight with that thought. I feel bad, but I'm going to keep fighting. Because quitting is not an option. I have people who love me.