all i really wanted

"a few years back, as i was driving home from work, i had a silly thought that suddenly turned straight genius on me. i realized that all i really wanted was for my life to be beautiful. i wanted my home to be beautiful, i wanted my thoughts to be beautiful, i wanted my feelings to be beautiful. i wanted to create beauty in my life. if it was worth doing, i wanted it to be beautiful. life didn't seem beautiful at the time, but i wanted it to. it seemed silly and shallow, until suddenly it wasn't anymore. our god created for us an insanely beautiful world. why is that, i wondered? he created beauty around every corner. the earth, the animals, and music and art and science. all beautiful. and loving families, a passion for learning, and a sense that we can have an impact on what surrounds us--well, to me, that is beauty. and holy, for sure. so i stopped considering that desire shallow. i started to think of it as a way of honoring god, who is the one who created beauty to begin with, after all. "  -natalie holbrook

My family: A life less ordinary

We had family meetings, and listened to records, where I learned to love Sam Cooke, "Red, Red Wine," and "I danced with a dolly with a hole in her stockin' and her knees kept a'knockin' and her toes kept a'rockin...we danced by the light of the moon." We danced in the living room.

We had talks. Happy, sad, mad, and glad, we talked. (Except that time that Dad wouldn't get through the "Why Did Grandpa Have to Die?" book without crying. So I hid it. Sometimes, a girl's gotta take matters into her own pudgy hands.)

We had bedtime. After prayers and goodnights, we would sometimes sneak little lights on and blankets over our heads so that we could read until our eyes felt sandy.  I can also remember holding the blanket over my head like a babushka so that no one would remember that I had braids in my hair and ask me to take them out for more comfortable sleep. I just thought they were so beautiful.

"What will you do with your love?"

Sister Agnes Mary, SV asks this in a YouTube video on vocations.

Isn't it a beautiful question?

Hello. This is me.

I love those conversation games that people play when they're waiting for a bus, or riding a bus, or waiting for their table to be bussed. "Crowbar," or "Twenty Questions," or "Truth or Dare" (but leave out the dare because I just get nervous. The extended sleepover version of "Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Promise or Repeat" would just leave me with compounded ulcers). I love games where the only skills required are telling a) the truth, and b) stories about myself. I could tell and tell all the live-long day, and believe that behind me, the crowd is chanting "MVT! MVT*!"

When someone asks, "If you could meet anyone, dead or alive, who would you meet?" I always know just what I would like. If I could meet anyone, I would like to meet me. I would meet myself as an outsider (not Tala but hopefully someone kind, observant, and analytical), and size myself up. I would get that golden first impression, and people-watch myself with a great intensity, noting my quirks and graces, smiles, gestures and freckles that I've never been able to see. (I know. There are mirrors. Not the same!) I mean, what do I really look like when I sneeze? When I laugh? When I'm fuming in a passive aggressive manner at the people who insist on cutting ahead of me in concert ticket lines?

As much as I can tell my own stories into the ground, I don't really know what it's like to receive them, what it's like to receive me. (To type it like so lays that narcisissm out plain, with a blinking little cursor joining the "LOOKuphere! LOOKuphere!")

Still. I'm just saying.

Curious.



*Most Valuable Teller

The One Minute Manager

There is a rule that I have recently implemented into my life. I'm practicing at every possible chance, because Google's finest researchers haven't agreed on how many days it takes to break a habit. I only know it's a LOT more days than I wish it were. (I wish it could all be worked out in 30 minutes, like an episode of Full House.)

So...the newbie:
If it's worth doing, and takes one minute or less to do, do it now.

It is increasingly apparent to me that lots of good things take me sixty seconds or less:
Paying my rent online
Writing a postcard to a friend
Watering that plant in the living room
Taking out the trash.  Ohhhh, the trash. How many minutes have I fumed because I didn't use the first minute well.

Once, a friend and I returned home from Ash Wednesday Mass to find the trash bag we had conveniently leaned by the patio now wiggling IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALKWAY. On the WELCOME MAT. Where it was WIGGLING and certainly NOT WELCOME.

There was a possum inside.

He had a great fondness for sweet potato fries, and just knew with his keen possum sense that we had hidden fry remnants two crusty layers deep in the trash bag. (That's the real picture up there. I was praying that our sliding glass door was bulletproof, in case the possum wanted in and was really, really fast.)

We shuddered and shouted for a broom. Weapon in hand, we felt menacing enough to sprint like Olympic sissies past the hoppin' Hefty bag, into the house. We double-locked the door in case possum Spidey sense could get past knob locks, too.

(The trash bag battle is a toughie. Here is one of many mouse-hole pictures I have texted to all four housemates to underline a grave fact: our back patio may be the neighborhood Great American Buffet for rodents. They're out there telling each other that those ladies with the big backyard provide plastic-wrapped, bite-sized Trader Joe's samples on a bi-weekly basis.)

Other one-minute wonders:

Making my bed.

Filing receipts each week.

Loading the dishwasher.

Emailing one person just because.

Choosing my clothes for the next day.

Those minutes help me appreciate and remember the bigger things that have to happen in order to accomplish the smaller tasks: I can't pay the rent in 39 seconds unless I have taken 60 hours that month to earn the money. I can't pack a real lunch unless I have planned ahead and purchased groceries.

They also remind me how quick tasks can turn into drawn-out chaos if I don't take care of them in a timely manner. Like that time the $10 parking ticket blossomed into a $92 late fee because I lost it under a pile of to-do lists. (To understand my feelings in that moment, please see picture above.)

Here's to "the heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body." -St. Josemaria Escriva

Can't even wish it were already tomorrow. (On Grief.)

There's this feeling I've had twice in my life. I think it can only really climb over my limbs in the night, because then you have to stop doing, but your brain can't fully man the wheel and start thinking enough for the awfulness to go away. The things that you witnessed in the daylight were not right; they hardly seemed real in the way that the Grand Canyon hardly seems real. In these times, my body feels an icy ache, and I can't even fathom what falling asleep might feel like. It's hard to breathe, but I don't worry about not breathing because I can't worry about anything. I'm too sad to worry. My brain searches in a wild-and-exhausted scrabble for something that feels solid, and for something to slow the thinking. Even the floor of a hospital room is solid, because you're in a place where people do things. Not many people really really think in a hospital. The mystery of sickness and pain suffocates a little, and the wasted suffering makes it hard to think, and the flourescent lighting snuffs out the real thinking that's left.

When I first felt this feeling, John Mayer sang a song called "Dreaming with a Broken Heart" that was perfect. John Mayer needs to wash his hair and probably make his bed. He's a mess. But his song was just how I felt. Well-played, plaintive piano is how this feeling sounds:

"When you're dreamin with a broken heart, the wakin' up is the hardest part. 
You roll outta bed, and down on your knees. 
And for a moment you can hardly breathe
wondering was she really here? Is she standing in my room?
No she's not. 'Cause she's gone, gone, gone, gone, gone."

He even repeats it just right. When someone's gone, gone, horribly, awfully gone or changed or hurting, you have to repeat really simple things, and still expect them not to make sense until the chill slinks away and you forget the enormity of this so that you can live and brush your teeth and read your Shakespeare homework again. The first time I felt this feeling, I sat on the back porch and told the dog the simple things that I couldn't understand. It felt good that Marshall the Alaskan Malamute could "get" them in a dog way, but no more. I felt like I was only a few steps removed, understanding all of this in a human way, but no more.

In a time like this, you don't even want to wish it were tomorrow, because more of this wakefulness seems overwhelming. What are you to do?

Do I have to feel asleep with roses in my hand?
Would you get them if I did? 
No, you won't. 
'Cause you're gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.

(John wrote the song about a woman he loved, but I definitely pretend that it applies beyond his original context. I got the practice when he came out with "Your Body is a Wonderland" my freshman year of college, and I pretended the whole time that he wrote it about a communicative couple in a committed marital relationship. So Theology-of-the-Body of you, Mr. Mayer. Well done.)

Wondering could you stay, my love? Would you wake up by my side? 
No she can't. 'Cause she's gone, gone, gone, gone.

A great many things.

There are a great many things that you think to do when it's time to finish a final exam.

In the last three days, I've been tempted to:
make and decorate cake pops
create the world's best Pinterest board to win a Vespa from Kate Spade
start training for another marathon or some other halfs
survive on three hours of sleep a night
launch a full-scale overhaul of mental health services to medical students at Vanderbilt Medical School
weed the back yard
seed the front yard
join Catholic Match
get a nannying job
dip-dye a boring white dress
go into real estate
try yoga
iron fabrics I've never ironed before
spend money on really chic heels
paint on canvas
create my own Women and Gender Studies curriculum
make jewelry from vintage brooches
befriend the neighbor that is afraid of Catholics
ask the other neighbor if she stole the boxes off our porch
research language acquisition
tell people off
apologize to people
translate Love and Responsibility and present it to the American Psychological Association
finally mail wedding gifts, birthday cards, baby gifts, and newsy letters that have sat in my car/dresser/closet/work bag for days/months/years
read Introduction to the Devout Life
rearrange my furniture
write a list of all the phrases that I finally understood in revelatory fashion as an adult but should have realized earlier in life. (E.g. "The jury's still out." "Come to terms with it." Etc. Etc.)
learn Italian
learn Spanish
kareoke

The list goes on. However, I would feel sheepish if it ended up longer than the research paper I'm supposed to be finishing.

You think I'm kidding.

Maybe I did succumb to the pressures of some of these temptations.

I totally weeded the yard. Howdjalikemenowww.

I am going to love him.

When my family decided to get our first pet without gills in the early '90s, my parents called a family meeting to discuss the responsibilities that accompany a new dog. We talked about the investment of time and money that Oreo, our dalmatian (who was just born, so new he was still spotless) would need. We delegated tasks according to each person's particular preference and talent.

Dad was a hard worker. He would scoop Oreo's poop.
Mom noticed what people needed. She would pick up Oreo's food from the Farm Service downtown.
Tala was diligent. She would feed and water Oreo every day.
Someone asked, "What will your job be, Hannah?"

And Hannah answered: "I will love him."

from Henri Nouwen's The Inner Voice of Love

"When you get exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed or run down, your body is saying that you are doing things that are none of your business.  God does not require of you what is beyond your ability, what leads you away from God, or what makes you depressed or sad.  God wants you to live for others and to live that presence well...Your way of being present to your community may require times of absence, prayer, writing, or solitude.  These too are times for your community.  They allow you to be deeply present [for them] and speak words that come from God in you.  When it is part of your vocation to offer your family a vision that will nurture them and allow them to keep moving forward, it is crucial that you give yourself the time and space to let that vision mature in you and become an integral part of your being.

"Your community needs you, but maybe not as a constant presence.  Your community might need you as a presence that offers courage and spiritual food for the journey, a presence that creates the safe ground in which others can grow and develop, a presence that belongs to the matrix of your community.  But your community also needs your creative absence.

"You might need certain things that the community cannot provide.  For these you may have to go elsewhere from time to time.  This does not mean that you are selfish, abnormal, or unfit for community life.  It means that your way of being present to your community necessitates personal nurturing of a special kind.  Do not be afraid to ask for these things.  Doing so allows you to be faithful to your vocation and to feel safe.  It is a service to those for whom you want to be a source of hope and a life-giving presence."

Birthday wish.

Volo quidquid vis,

volo quia vis,

volo quómodo vis

volo quámdiu vis.

I want to do what you ask of me:

in the way you ask,

for as long as you ask,

because you ask it.

-Oratio Universalis

attributed to Pope Clement XI