What makes a writer?

4
Apr

It’s not smudged pencil on the chubby part of your hand.

It isn’t teeth stained from endless cups of coffee and tea.

It doesn’t depend on long hours staring out the rain-washed window of an industrial loft or countryside cottage.

We’ve created a cloud of mystery and intrigue around the writer’s life, made it full of drama, angst, darkened corners and visits from a fickle Muse.

It can be this way, but also, it is often more mundane than this…

Trips through the slush to the office supply store for more printer ink when feels like you were just there a week ago.

It is forcing yourself out of the toasty covers into the cold morning. Click on the coffeepot, the red illumined button the only light in the house except the nightlights in your kids’ bedrooms…and the hallway…and the bathroom.

The blue-light of the computer screen makes you squint until your eyes finally adjust. In a while you’ll be unable to see the child who emerges from the darkness and makes your heart jump. You’re suffering an alternate form of snow-blindness — screen blindness (related to the screen deafness my children experience if I try to talk to them while they’re watching a show).

This slogging through, grinding it out, is what it looks like for me, but inside the tedium are moments of soaring —

a scene that writes itself,

an connection you didn’t see when you first wrote something but now can be developed into something more complete,

a dialog or exchange that rings with truth,

the glorious satisfaction of scratching that writer’s itch that remains at your outside edge until you sit down to write.

No matter what ends up happening with your writing, if you do the hard work of writing – whatever the topic, whatever the genre, whatever the mode of expression — you’re a writer. Write true. Write bravely. Write beauty, even when it’s ugly. The world needs your words, your voice. Enrich our human experience with your perspective. We need one another. We need you.

Linking up today with Lisa-jo Baker (http://lisajobaker.com) and Five Minute Friday.

Just one word

27
Mar

Can you name one teacher who saw something in you?

Or can you remember a coach who pushed you to improve, knowing your potential?

Do you have champions in your life? People who claim something – call it out – about you before you’re able to see it in yourself?

Calling to you quietly,

Singing over you with words you dare not repeat,

Dreams you dare not claim as your own,

Bolster, buoy you with unearned confidence, trust, and opportunity.

Secret poems written in scrawled pencil, smudged by the hurry to get it down and tuck it away in its safe place.

Songs hummed over and over inside your head, only aloud when the woods or parking lot afforded you safety and solitude.

Have you heard the whisper?

Let it draw near and echo in your ears.

You are mighty.

You are beautiful.

You are powerful.

You are fierce.

You are loyal.

You are true.

You are not alone.

You are not finished,

And no matter where you are right now, God is not finished with you yet.

If you can hear just one word (which is really more than a single word, but it is a single thought) today and let it ring mightily in your ears: you are loved. Now. Here. No modifications or improvements required. You are loved.

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Question: Is there someone who makes you brave, calls out the best in you, someone who makes you be the best version of yourself? How do they accomplish this feat, and how can you do it for someone else?

This is a link-up with Lisa-jo Baker, who just happens to be having her book come out next week. If you want to linkup, read other posts, or find out more about her book, here’s the website to click: http://lisajobaker.com

Come into the light

28
Feb

You stand under a bridge.

An old cottonwood tree throws off tiny clouds of cotton that parachute down and gather in pools.

The light creeps closer, closer to the edge of your toes.

From your spot in the shadow, the strength of the sunlight warms the air to a shimmer, and you smell the combination of dust and grass.

Will you step out from the darkness and take the chance of being exposed

to the light,

to the risk,

to being seen?

You toe the line of light, and wonder how much further it will come. You resist the way it invades your safety, forces the decision between moving forward and retreat.

The sun passes overhead, the day draws out and darkness slowly returns, and from your place of shelter you feel the moisture seep from the ground, feel it fill the air with coolness and relief.

Will you choose to trust that the sun will return?

Does the darkness hold

danger

possibility?

Will tomorrow bring hope or destruction?

Instagram: tclmn

You can choose — hope, joy, faith, belief in goodness — these can all be plucked out of the air, as cottonwood fluff can be chased and captured.

Even in the night, after you skinnied up that nearby tree, you can trust there are not jackals circling beneath it.

But in those times when there are jackals, you can trust that your high branch will keep you safe from the teeth and claws, even as you keep your eyes open all night long.

Do you find it difficult to hope in the face of hopelessness? How do you approach risk? What areas of your life might there actually be a choice — even in your own attitude toward the situation — where it seems there is none?

This is a post written alongside lots of other people who participate in Five Minute Friday through Lisa-jo Baker. She gives a word prompt, you set your
timer and write for five minutes flat. No editing (okay, I read over mine and do spellcheck it — is that cheating??), no self-criticizing, just go for it. You can read more posts and find out more at http://lisajobaker.com . And as always, thank you for coming by and reading today!

UPDATE: In an interesting convergence, the Creative Blog Hop was focused on the word “choices” so I decided to include this post there. If this is your first time coming by the blog, thank you for reading!

Young does not mean “Small”

20
Feb

There’s nothing small about their feelings, even if they’re unjustified or disproportionate.

There’s no smallness to their generosity or their unconditional offer of love, heedless of a person’s otherwise social awkwardness or prickly first impression.

You can’t tell me their gestures of gratitude feel small, the smallness of their chubby arms, or that place between elbow and wrist where the skin plumps up as if by the presence of a rubber band. Those arms, wrapped caution-to-the-wind around your neck will dispel any idea of smallness in the grandness of their embrace.

Though they be small, the force of their innocence will fell the loftiest person to the ground, brought low from their presumed place of importance or stature. They care not for etiquette or fancy graces.

They care for you,

and in all your imperfections,

that is no small thing.

This post is part of a link-up through Lisa-Jo Baker’s website: http://lisa-jobaker.com . A welcoming band of women write for five minutes, no self-critique, no self-editing, no perfectionism. We write for the joy of writing. It is open to anyone who wishes to participate, and you’ll find all kinds of fun blogs you may not have previously known about. It’s an amazing group of people.

Five Minute Friday: Visit

25
Jan

It has been so fun to connect through Lisa-jo Baker’s linkup, Five Minute Friday. The attempt is to quiet our inner critic and allow ourselves to write for the fun of it. Five minutes, no editing, no censoring, just do it. It’s open to anyone, and you can find other posts and details at Lisa-jo’s blog, http://lisa-jobaker.com Here’s my contribution this week.

Prompt: Visit

Three, two, one, go.

A Visit to My Youth

The snow begins falling as we pull into town. The limestone cliffs along the western edge of the road, the river on our right, these indicate our entrance into a portal back in time, back to my youth.

This is a time before marriage, before children and before the surety of routine and day to day, a time before we thought we knew it all. We didn’t know what we didn’t know…and so we asked stupid questions that, looking back, were the wrong questions but they were all we had at the time. Details about a tree falling in the woods and who would hear it, an appreciation for our hands we couldn’t articulate and it came out tinny and small in our ears.

I visit my youth and I laugh too loudly with little care for disturbing, free abandon leaking all over the room and exuberance splashing onto the people around me. You are the best, you are the funniest, you are the wittiest, most interesting person I’ve ever met and I only have attention for you…until someone else draws me into their conversation and then it begins afresh.

Here children have no trouble in math, they have no bad dreams at night, they don’t ask questions I can’t answer.

Here husbands don’t need their needs accounted for, their relationship attended to, their vibes unpacked.

There is only freedom, warmth, expansive inclusion to the whole restaurant, and this witching hour only lasts until the stroke of midnight. Then my nearly 40-year-old head is on the pillow, my visit over and I return to reality.

There you have it. A hacky five minute post, but it is something rather than nothing. Do you have locations or people that launch you back in time? Situations when you find yourself acting as a younger version of yourself? Tell us about it in the comments below, we’d love to hear about YOU.

Five Minute Friday: Encouragement

17
Jan

Someone close to me brought me a meal.

I hadn’t had a baby, broken a leg or been in a car accident.

But she brought me a meal.

So did another friend, and she was the one who had just delivered. I was supposed to bring her a meal.

Words sent to someone else and passed on to me — kind, affirming, validating.

These things breathed air into my floppy balloon, the one that was in danger of settling on the floor, a puckered, withered, sandy shadow of the party favor it had once been. Their words, their phone calls, their messages, buoyed me up and let me float in a more proper balloon-y place.

Maybe I’m not floating on an airstream across the world with a special note hanging from my string, but

I’m more in that middle air of the hallway, at the level that makes you think there’s a person walking towards you,

the kind that makes you jump and if someone’s watching they laugh to see your surprise. That moment that gives freedom from worry and concern, hope that there will be laughter again.

The encouragement of friends who hold you up when it is hard to get off the floor — this is a precious thing indeed.

*****

Join a great group of people for Five Minute Friday to write without editing for the sheer joy of it. Find out more at http://lisa-jobaker.com.

Are you facing challenges or a hard time? This is a safe place to share about it. I genuinely hope you have people in your life who can help breath air into your life. Maybe in the comments we should name names. Who is an encourager in your life?

An Apology: I was Petty but You Didn’t Know It

7
Dec

Today’s prompt is REFLECT.

*****

I thought you’d be around more often once you moved to the same area, but you arranged things so you’d be gone for months at a time.

You continued on with your own life, your own dreams, and I was left behind.

When you returned I was conflicted: excited to see you but resentful that you’d receive such a reception after choosing to leave in the first place.

I constructed a moat in my mind, a separation between us so I could hold you loosely, not care if you were nearby, not rely on you since I felt you’d become unreliable, despite your ideals or desires. I didn’t understand your need to do it, your need to pursue an independent life of adventure away from the rest of us. You tried to explain it was something you had to do for your own health. I didn’t understand that, probably can’t understand until I’m in the same position and life station.

January (Photo credit: Deadly Tedly)

Then when you wanted a voice, wanted a say in the plans we’d make, I resented it, felt you had abdicated that right by being far away.

I’m sorry.

I was petty.

I was small.

I was cowardly, holding my thoughts and feelings inside. I lacked the bravery required to have the hard conversations. Leaving things unsaid was my attempt to allow the sediment to settle back into place, let the murky water clear so I could see the relationship for its beauty instead of the small irritants or unintentional, momentary offenses. In the midst of trying to let things roll off my back, I collected some of them along my spine and they became a residue
that tainted my internal attitude.

I’m sorry.

Those things were petty and unimportant. I was wrong, even if you didn’t know I was being wrong.

(Photo credit: dotpitch)

*****

Today I’m linking up with Lisa-jo Baker and the crew who join her to do Five Minute Friday. She gives a word prompt and people write for five minutes. No second guessing, no censoring, just writing for the fun of writing. Silence your inner critic and write. It is open to anyone who is interested, but there won’t be any more link-ups until January.

When something is bothering you, do you keep it to yourself or talk it out? How do you handle it when you’ve been wrong? In what relationships do you find it most difficult to admit fault…and why?

Being a Junior Birdman…uh, Birdperson

22
Nov

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: south hangar panorama, including Air France Concorde, Boeing 307 Stratoliner “Clipper Flying Cloud”, De Havilland-Canada DHC-1A Chipmunk Pennzoil Special, Monocoupe 110 Special among others (Photo credit: Chris Devers)

There are so many little knobs. Textured with ridges, adorned with a simple white circle at the top and much of the white has rubbed off from the many hands that have adjusted it. You can tell which ones are the most used by their lack of white, even if you had no idea what it controlled.

There were special compartments, secret compartments, places you’d never think to look to stow your huge headphones.

And the codes.

Such great codes and terms only known to those who used them.

The cold air.

The check lists.

The tiny window within a window that you got to open and yell a quick, sharp, “Clear!”

That meant the game was afoot, and the prop whirled to life.

We joggled and bopped along the ground where we were never meant to stay, until we felt that ‘whoosh’ in the stomach that could only mean one thing…

Lift off.

And then we’d fly.

****

This is my flimsy little Five Minute Friday contribution. On the surface it’s not deep, not profound, not spiritual, but it is personal.

My Dad loves to fly. When in doubt, any gift for any occasion can always be money for Air Time and he’ll be thrilled. He’s taken me flying my whole life (in small aircraft, prop planes with three or four seats usually), and now he occasionally will fly over my house and the kids and I will rush outside and he tips a wing to show us he sees us. It’s fantastic.

What shared activities did you do with your parent(s) when you were growing up? Do you have a hobby you share with your family now?

Trees and other Growing Things

15
Nov

Today’s post is my typical attempt to participate in Five Minute Friday, a link up through Lisa-jo Baker. It is open to anyone,.She is a beautiful writer, and she’s creating a group of friends through the connections made on her site. Check it out at http://lisa-jobaker.com or search the hashtag #FiveMinuteFridays on Twitter.

There were two arborvitae, one on either side of the wide front steps that led to the front porch.

They barely touched the ceiling of the porch when we moved in.

Thuja Moment (Photo credit: monteregina)

When we moved away they were framed in the view from the upstairs windows.

The only thing that had grown more were my children.

Some days the minutes go by so slowly you check the clock, convinced it’s been at least a half hour only to discover it’s been two. Two long minutes playing blocks with someone who only wants to knock over your building,

Someone who only wants to undo the work you’ve done, eat one more snack, mess one more diaper.

And when you don’t notice it, when you’re not looking, the trees grow tall and strong. Your children develop friends, hobbies and interests, and calendars are needed to keep track of assignments and schedules.

Is it possible to note the growth of the trees without getting lost in the incremental close up?

It is good to take a wide shot every once in a while and note the way the child’s pants are too short or how far up their heads come when you hug them.

Then get back to cleaning up messes and driving kids here and there. While you’re at it, make more sandwiches, ’cause Lord knows they’re going to eat ’em.

Are you in a slow-growth period or is time zooming by for you? How do you make sure you’re paying attention in the every day so that years don’t go speeding by unrecognized?

(If you have a second and would consider liking my Facebook page, that would be above and beyond lovely. http://www.facebook.com/TCLarsonWrites or just click the Facebook doohickey on the sidebar. )

Teaching my kids the Truth about Heaven

8
Nov

Today’s post is a lazy (or pragmatic) woman’s attempt to kill two birds with one stone. Lisa-jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday has become part of the rhythm around here, and I’ve enjoyed the community involved there. This month I’m also participating in an online book club organized by Abi Bechtel. We’re reading Telling God’s Story by Peter Enns. Therefore, today’s post is based on the word prompt “Truth” and the first thing that came to mind was informed by book club, so I’m hybridizing the two.

Set the timer to five minutes.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

Two nights ago my son asked me about heaven.

He asked if it was really gold.

He said he used to feel scared of it, but now he feels better because he read in a kids booklet that there’s no crying or sickness there. This was a relief.

Then he did it. He asked what happens to the people who don’t have Jesus in their heart when they die. Do they go to heaven?

I want to be truthful, but I want to give him security. How can I do both when I feel like there is such a broad cannon of interpretation within Christendom? How can I tell him the questions in my own heart about the strict interpretation I was trained to accept? How do I tell him what is true?

The words of a former professor, Greg Boyd, popped into my head. I studied with him while at Bethel for more than one class, but his World Religions class was the scene of this truth bomb. I have come back to it again and again.

He said something similar to this, but this is not an exact quote…

Imagine you are a beggar with a loaf of bread. Another beggar comes to you holding a loaf of bread. It is moldy and dry. The beggar is breaking off bits and eating them. You say to him, “That bread may make you sick. It may not. But I can tell you for sure that the bread I have is good. It is life giving and you will not get sick from it.” And you share your bread with the man.

It goes along with the concept of there being a wideness in God’s mercy, which I love.

So what did I tell my son?

I told him that many many people who love the Lord have studied the Bible for years and years. These people have come up with different ideas about what it says. I gave him a couple short examples of what I meant.

I told him it is up to God to decide about who hangs out in heaven with Him, and He wants everyone, but that the simplest, most straightforward, reading exactly what the Bible says, is by asking Jesus into your heart…which he’s already done.

It’s not a fantastic answer.

Bread (Photo credit: CeresB)

Is it true?

Yes, sort of.

See what I mean?

STOP

*****

Sorry if this was hard to follow today. It was hard to corral my thoughts into a linear, succinct form.

May I ask how you interpret some of the hard, fast rules of entrance into the pearly gates? If you are a person of faith, how has your understanding changed from when you were a child? How do you handle the Big Questions of faith with your kids?