My post from yesterday prompted me to really think about what I’m looking for in this house I’m going to build in North Carolina, and so I thought I”d wander through those ideas a bit more here, if that’s okay with you. (If it’s not, come back tomorrow where I’ll be talking about writing some more – no hard feelings.)

There’s something restful in the very presence of nature for me (note – I consider humans a part of nature, but I haven’t figured out a better way to talk about plant and animal life that is largely devoid of human intervention). I can sit outside, even on my back deck in my little townhome community, and look at the trees and birds – breathing more deeply every minute. That’s what I want more of in North Carolina. I want to be able to take walks on country roads where I’m not always having to make (or avoid) eye contact with other people that I don’t know.

But on the flip side, I want the kind of real interaction that comes, sometimes, in more rural communities – where people stop by uninvited or come over for dinner on the spur of the moment. Maybe these things are part of a life that doesn’t or can’t exist in the States anymore, but I want to see if I can help revive it in the country, if it needs reviving.

I want to grow my own food (yes, I am still reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it’s really influencing this part of my thinking) and have a garden full of flowers that sparkle with color. I want to be able to have animals that can run free outside – it’s always been my dream to have a bevy of dogs named for ways that creatures walk slowly, i.e. Meander, Mosey, Poke. I want big wide floorboards that can be clean and still look imperfect, especially since they’ll probably rarely be “really” clean.

I want a wide open living room where people can come and stay with a book for a while, where we can cook in the kitchen and talk to the people sitting with a glass of wine on the couch. I want a fireplace that people can dance in front of. I want big comfy duvets on the bed for winter and light as air sheets for the summer.

Most of all, at the moment, I want space – head space as LitLove said in yesterday’s comments. For me, that space comes when I can take my time with each thing I am doing and do it well (did anyone else’s father teach them that “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right?”), not always be worried about the next twenty things that have to be done. I don’t mind having the twenty things, but I want to be able to savor each of them without the franticness of a busy life.

I also want space in my home so that there’s room to move – lack of clutter I suppose it is. (I’m having a big yard sale in ten days to begin this process of removing clutter, even now). I want to walk into the rooms of my house and sigh out the world.

This place will be, Beth, in the mountains of North Carolina, probably a little south of Asheville. It will sit on a mountain with a view that looks over those gorgeous gray-blue Smokies. The house will have a deck with chairs where people can sip sweet iced tea in the evenings or wrap in a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate in the fall as the leaves shimmer into color. In the mornings, I will sit here with my cup of coffee and write or read. And that is what this place will be, ultimately – my place (your place if you want it to be) of words.

Right now, I wait patiently for the next steps and work on those that are in motion. Waiting is not something I’m always good at, but here I am learning. . . “All things work together for the good for those that love God and are called according to God’s purpose” – thanks, Becca, for that reminder. I wait for the good in this dream of mine.

What space do you dream of for yourself? What can you do to make that happen now or in the future? Where is your dream space?

“Devil’s Courthouse” by Christian Yates

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I think there’s a small but very real chance that Becca and I are connected psychically. Here’s what she posted this week for Write on Wednesday.

How about you? How do you cultivate creativity in your life? Have you found the things that make you come alive? Are you doing them? Shouldn’t you be?

I have been thinking about this very thing a great deal these days as I get into a firm writing practice, as I try to be more true to what I want to do not what I feel I need to do, and as I try to plan this place that I’m building in North Carolina (talked to my real estate agent here about putting my current house on the market – things are moving folks). . . . so this series of questions hits home for me, hard.

When I was just out of college, the pastor of my church, an amazing man and the best preacher I ever heard, Woody Dalton said in a sermon that we should “love God and do what we want.” I wrote this on a notecard and hung it on the inside of my door so that I saw it every time I left my apartment. To me, both parts of this statement are important, the first being more so, but the second being only a slight second. For if we love God – truly love God (or the universe or creation or whatever you call that thing sits beyond ourselves) we will try our best to do the right things, these things will become what we want. And if we do what we want in this context, then we will be happy and fulfilled and gloriously becoming who we were created to be.

So it is in this context that I think of the creative life. What I want, more than anything, is to be a writer. And so I know that even on days when I don’t feel like it, like today when I awoke with a blazing headache, I will get up and write. And that is a reward for the whole day, carrying me forward into the things I also want to do – like get my syllabi together for the fall semester and meet with marketing about our speakers series materials and work on some business stuff for my writing. If I get that first thing, that most important thing done, then I am okay and all the rest of my day is food for that most important thing.

But then, I come to deeper questions here about what it means to live a good life. For me, soon, that will mean living a life where I have more “free” time – and by that I mean discretionary time that isn’t locked up in a schedule. For me, that creative life also means a life full of art and mystery and nature. It means a life of sustainability, both in terms of the resources I use but also in terms of my own psychological, emotional, intellectual, and creative health. These are the important things because they are the things that let me serve others and serve my writing.

I was taught these lessons early by parents who have, with rare exception, chosen to do what they love with their lives. They have never been people who have taken the high-paying job just because it is high-paying or lived somewhere because the “lifestyle” was the image they wanted. They love God and do what they want, and I hope they always will. My mom is a wonderful piano teacher who adores each and every one of her students – all 20-something of them each year. My dad is a tree farmer – Woody, the tree farmer – who is tiring of his work in the business but is planning to retire soon – being true again to where he is at the moment.

And that’s the secret of this creative life, I think – to know ourselves and what we value to be able to choose the right thing for the moment. What a gift . . . and one I try to live more into every day. To revel in who I am created to be instead of trying to become something else – there’s true peace and glory in that.

I come alive in and through words, through music, in great food, in wonderful time with friends, and in those moments when I’m not thinking about the “next” thing or even “this” thing – but where I am just there, breathing in the moment and then breathing it back out.

“Alive” by Renata Baiao

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A few months ago, a bunch of us bloggers got on a role about the causes and organizations we support. I thought I would share a few of my favorite organizations here, just in case any of you would like to support them as well.

Heifer Project. Heifer works to bring sustainable agriculture, farm animals, water, and anything else a community needs to that community. In the past, I have given a duckling, a part of a well, a backpack filled with educational supplies to people in developing communities that need a little help to get themselves started. When Heifer gives an animal to a family, that family is expected to use that animal to first and foremost breed other animals and then give those offspring away. They can also use the animals milk and labor if need be. But in the end, Heifer’s goal is self-sustainability. Their current initiatives also focus on HIV-AIDS education, gender equity, and ecologically sound agriculture.

Amnesty International. From their website, they are “a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world – so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity.” Currently, they are focusing on China, a country who has broken most of the promises it made about human rights when it was bidding for the Olympics. Additionally, Amnesty is asking for people to protect the censorship that is surrounding the games. You can do so by adding a badge like this one –

Hope International. Hope is a Christian organization (that works with people no matter their religious background) that uses microfinance to help alleviate poverty. In addition to provide micro-loans to people in developing countries, they also provide others with more resources with great ways to help, including donating building supplies to construct homes (somewhat like Habitat for Humanity here in the states) and taking trips to see the situations around the world.

CODE PINK: Women for Peace. Their mission statement is — “CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education and other life-affirming activities.” They organize grass-roots initiatives all around the country and send out regular updates about ways that individuals can get involved to stop the escalation of war. I believe very strongly in this movement because I see us moving down the road to more violence as a way to, supposedly, end violence while also getting what we want – oil, power, money – in return. We cannot get peace through war – I just deeply believe that.

These are four of the organizations that I’m most excited about, but of course there are countless others doing amazing things. My belief – and it really is a belief – is that people should take what they have – money, time, skills, voice – and use it to help other people. What do you guys think about this? Do you have organizations that you like to support? Why do you support those? What makes you passionate? What makes you want to stand up and speak out?

Filed by Andi at 7:19 am under Uncategorized
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Sometimes God gives you what you need, not what you think you need or what you want – and that seems to be the case for me these days. Yesterday, as I was perched on the top of a ladder, a power sander pressed to the spackle on my basement ceiling, the power cut off – and it cut out hard. We didn’t get electricity again for two hours. Once I had carefully climbed down from the ladder and unplugged the sander so as not to accidentally sand the ladder itself when power was restored, I was left with little to do besides read and write. And that’s just what I did – what a glorious gift. By the time, the power was back on, it was too late in the day to really tackle the basement – at least too late on a Sunday – and I just took it easy the rest of the night.

Also, the storm poured so much water into the creek below my house that I could hear it loudly through my then-open screen door. I love the sound of running water. Plus, the air cooled off so much that I could open the house up, turn off the air, and glory in the night of crickets. I still have all the windows open, and another storm is approaching. I intend to work in the basement again today, but perhaps the thunderstorms will prevent me again – wouldn’t that be lovely.

There’s just something about thunderstorms that I love. When I was a kid, my dad used to take my brother and I walking through them – ostensibly to clean out the storm drains around our mountain neighborhood but really because he knew the glory of being out in that charged air (I’m not sure that my mom loved this, but she never complained and, since I have no memory of doing so myself, washed up our clothes for us). We would pound through deep, deep puddles, almost hoping the drains were clogged with leaves so that we could jump into knee-deep puddles. . . I remember one space near the Rose of Sharon bushes at a corner – it always clogged, and Jeremy and I would jump in and dig the leaves out with our feet. What a great memory.

It was so great for my brother – the composer – that he even wrote a song about it and gave it to my brother as a Christmas present one year. My dad cried – that’s one of the things that makes my dad great – and so did I. Jeremy doesn’t have this particular song up on his website, but if you like minimalist beauty, check this piece out.

So today, I sit at my desk and watch a much milder storm than yesterday build outside. . . the sky is that silver gray of light rain, and the air is tickling my nose with promise. There’s no charge like that which comes before one of those gut-busting storms like we had yesterday. The air on my arms isn’t floating, but today, just the rain would be enough to remind me that power – and today, that would be enough.

“Evening Storm near Asheville” by Alumay Design.

Filed by Andi at 7:01 am under Uncategorized
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Well, this week I had read quite a bit actually. But it’s that kind of reading that’s done in dribs and drabs and doesn’t really lend itself to a coherent thought but instead comes back to you hours or even years later, forming a perfect little bridge between one idea in your head and another. It’s actually the kind of reading I enjoy a great deal intellectually, but it quite as fulfilling psychologically as finishing a great book.

But I am working on that, too. I just started Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver on Friday, and I’m hooked. Hooked, I say. So many of bloggers have raved about it, so many people at my yoga studio have raved about it, even the ravers probably rave about it (are there still people that actually go to raves regularly, or am I dating myself?) – that I thought it had to be overrated. It’s not. I’m on chapter three, and if sleep hadn’t forced me to drop the book on my nose last night, I would probably be done with it by now. So you’ll be seeing a “rave” review from me in the coming week or so.

Meanwhile, I’ve read some great Judith Butler stuff this week – it’s not new stuff, at least in the world of academic theory, but it’s new for me and for most of the universe it seems. Her book Gender Trouble has as the basic thesis that these binaries about gender – women and men only – are erroneous, that they overlook all the limits of having gender exist only in these two forms. I know that this is odd and heavy stuff, and part of me wants to argue, but we only have two sexes (based on our anatomies), but then I remember that’s not true strictly – and I remember all the people I know whose anatomies have changed through surgery or hormones. And then I remember all those men I know who would be better described as feminine than masculine and women who are more masculine than feminine. . . and suddenly, I’m seeing Butler’s point. It’s an idea worth considering.

I also read some of Diane Elam’s work in Ms. en Abyme, where she talks about the identity of woman as being ever more complicated as we keep trying to portray that identity in one dimension. Her point is that if we take an image of what some people see as the epitome of “woman” (please, save me from this definition being applied to myself), say Donna Reed, then each time we see Donna Reed represented as “woman” that definition becomes more complicated as the real women of the world bounce their complexities of that representation, breaking it down into every smaller bits and into ever more complex images of “woman.” Think of a mirror broken into a thousand pieces that reflects the same picture – say bell hooks – over and over again in slightly different ways. They are all bell hooks (or they are all “woman”) but then they are all different. Now, imagine that same mirror shows every woman in the world that way – there is the idea. Nothing – no definition, no stereotype, no expectation – ever captures what it is to truly be woman. The same is true for man, although our society seems to more easily accept that idea. What do you think of Elam’s and Butler’s ideas?

Okay, so enough theory. (Sorry – I guess I’m excited by those thoughts.) I’m going to go spend some time reading Kingsolver, but before I do, I’d like to update my blog roll. . . so if you blog, particularly about books and writing and teaching, please let me know, and I”ll add you. I believe in sharing the wealth on this free Internet thingy, and I’d love to get you readership. (and if you blog about other stuff, let me know, too. I might post to anything – you never know). Thanks for reading.

“Mayan Woman Walking on the Beach in Cancun” by Ricard Carreon

Filed by Andi at 6:27 am under Book Recommendations, Written and Wrought
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