We interrupt your regularly scheduled series….
to bring you a post about paint. ing. Paint and painting. In a post of yesteryear, I mentioned that I’d been wanting to re-paint our red wall. I loved that red wall, loved it well for 4 years, but it was time for a change. Beige did not win. Grey did! Enter “Gray Shower” by Benjamin Moore. With the help of a wonderful paint-and-color-savvy friend, I had it narrowed down to either “Gray Shower” or “Trout Gray.” I have to say that the name is partly what won me over. Didn’t want to be...
read moreStalled.
I’ve been “stalled” this week with a case of bronchitis. I write to you now from the road to recovery… hoorah! For the past 4 days, though, I’ve puttered about in a cloud of semi-coherent thought, the piling dishes and pajamas-past-the-hour-of-pajamas compounding my general feeling of ickiness. Add to that the self-directed shrug of admittance at the end of the day that nothing was accomplished in all those hours of homebound opportunity, and the result is this haunting thought: hopefully things will get back to...
read more“Dead” Ends.
Those quotes (see title) are intentional. Why are those quotes intentional? Because I’m not fully on board with that phrase. Say the phrase “dead end,” and other thoughts crop up on cue, ready to torment:Wrong turn. Mistake. ...
read moreDo What’s Next.
Ready for another quote from Mr. George MacDonald (are you beginning to see why he’s one of my favorites?)? “It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to concern ourselves with- what to do next. No man can do the second thing. He can only do the first. If he omits that, the wheels of time roll over him and leave him powerless behind. If he does it, he keeps in front and finds room to do the next thing and so is sure to arrive at something in due time.” (from The Tutor’s First Love) Do what’s...
read moreIf Trees Could Talk…
Do you think this one would be speechless? I think so, but only if the shoes could talk, too. How many people, places, stories, mistakes, victories, tears, peals of laughter do you think those shoes have collectively seen? It wonders me. A lonesome tree, on “the Loneliest Highway,” somehow irresistibly beckoning people to cast off and toss upward their footwear, and drive away unshod. Phenomenon? Yes. Lesson? Not sure… but it does remind me of the body of Christ. People from all walks of life, of every personality and...
read moreStreets That Talk.
Upon arrival in London many years ago, I was relieved to find that, as my clever roommate put it, “the streets came with instructions.” I did wonder, as I strolled those noisy thoroughfares, why the words were so widely sprawled upon the asphault. Consistently. On nearly every corner (and I think I counted twelve million corners). I tried not to dwell too much on the events surmised by my imagination that surely caused countless men in white curly wigs to come together in an echoing parliament chamber and decree that the...
read more“I’m Still Here.”
or, A Lesson from the Airwaves. It struck me years ago, on a roadtrip with my mom. Somewhere in the day’s travels over hill and vale, via hairpin turns, the sporadic radio signal gave me a life lesson. Our ears were greeted intermittently by alternating music and white noise. I’m pretty sure we opted for silence after a while, giving up on the spotty airwaves. In the quiet, the thought came: The road winds, the terrain changes, and even if we can’t hear the music, the radio signal is still broadcasting somewhere....
read moreWhat’s In Your Boot?
No, not that kind of boot. Think…British. Yeah, that’s the one. What’s in your boot? Here’s my guess: Jumper cables Flashlight Snowchains, perhaps? Spare tire Trusty can of Fix-a-Flat… …and if you’re anything like me, artifacts from recent (or long past) road trips. Have you ever been caught without one of these things when you needed it? I was thinking last night (a dangerous pastime, I know!). It’s not enough to simply know where to obtain these items if needed....
read moreBe Still, My Heart! Be Unclenched, White Knuckles!
Note: This is a re-run, from the archives…originally posted waaaay back in November 2010. Forgive the reprise, but I thought I’d post it again to kick off the February series, “Lessons from the Road.” Road trip yesterday. 3 am departure time, with approximately 5 hours to destination. I drove. There’s this thing I do when I encounter windy roads or low visibility or sheer drop-offs or even steep-slopey drop-offs. I sit straight up in my seat and clench that steering wheel like you wouldn’t believe. It’s quite...
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