Category: writing

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a place that calms my soul

I’m currently working on a reflexive journaling project with my students, and part of the journaling experience, as the professor, is to model what I’m teaching. Over the course of the next ten weeks I’ll be posting my entry here. Some of the topics will be general, like today’s, and others might be a little more academic. I invite you to use the prompts. If you’d like to link here and share your thoughts, that would be cool. I think my students would enjoy seeing how others respond, especially as an enjoyable writing exercise (instead of an assignment in a composition course). And so, without further ado, here’s mine:

Write about a place that calms your soul.

I love the beach. As long as I can remember, I’ve been pulled toward the shore.

If I say beach, it calls to mind a number of things — sand, blue skies, the wide open ocean. Maybe images of colorful umbrellas scattered across the sand. While it’s true that all that and more represent the beach, the part that calls to me and calms my soul is the shore.

That fluid place where the land ends and the water begins mesmerizes me. I am most often found sitting right at that line, digging my toes into the loose wet sand and watching my ankles get engulfed by the water as the waves wash over my feet.

It’s probably not an accident that the force behind those waves, the tide, also has a mesmerizing pull. Few things are more spectacular than sitting along the shoreline at night with a full moon.

I love a calm sea. I love a violent sea even more. I love seeing, feeling, and hearing the sounds of the ocean as waves either lap at the shore or crash into it.

If I sit along the shore long enough, I become a part of that rhythm and it is both soothing and calming. It frees me to empty my mind. In those moments I feel closest to all Creation. To God.

Most of my work week is filled with noise. Man-made noises are always assaulting my ears — the constant onslaught of media, the persistent hum of electronics, and my own continuing need to be in front of a class talking take a toll on my ears. When I can get away to the beach, I do.

I can sit and unwind as the waves wash away the noise. It usually just takes an afternoon to hit that re-set button in my mind. Then I’m ready for real refreshment. It puts me in the mood to reflect. It puts me in the mood to pray, and my soul is calmed.

shore

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bubbles. bubbly bubbles.

cork

I recently completed the manuscript for a book that will be available in the fall of this year. I can’t wait to share more on this later, but in the meantime, I’m basking in a kind of twilight between absolute and immeasurable joy (part accomplishment, part astonishment) and sheer terror.

It’s a good thing I’m not in this alone — I have a kind and generous editor, a supportive and understanding husband and family that’s put up with too many leftovers, and a bunch of friends who have prayed me through tens of thousands of words.

I am one blessed woman. And bubbly, too.

One of those amazing friends showed up with a special bottle of champagne to toast this milestone, and I gotta say this: never has anything tickled my nose and brought tears to my eyes like this surprise. Well, maybe the tears weren’t entirely from the champagne, but let’s be real — it was a right tasty toast. And then some.

I tried to be gentle with the bottle so I could open it without incident, but just as soon as I released the wire cage and positioned the bottle to loosen the cork, it flew off madly, hitting one of the paddles on the ceiling fan and bouncing off the wall. A minor scramble to save the champagne followed: we only spilled a little bit (that we wore behind our ears). And the rest was a delightful evening of sharing, and laughter, and maybe a few more tears. There’s something about champagne, a rare treat, that really tickles my nose.

We drank to the completed manuscript — but there was so much more in the process than just the few months I took to write it. This book has been a long time coming, and not just because I’ve been working at being a writer since I could hold a pencil. Everything has had to reach a certain level of readiness — of maturity. The obvious, of course, is my ability to string words together in a way that makes sense and speaks to others. But there’s been more growth. In my confidence. In my discipline (still a mess there), and in the maturing of my faith, too. It’s all there, wrapped up in a digital file.

It was good to celebrate.

The vintage 2004 champagne matured beautifully. When the grapes from that year were being gathered and prepared, I was in the midst of my own “fields” in my vocations of wife, mother, and teacher. I was scrambling from carpool to after school event, from class to class, and trying to keep my sanity taking care of a household. In the midst of all that chaos, I was scribbling notes and penning poems that were stuffed away in boxes and in the pages of unfinished journals.

Like the champagne, I’d like to think I have matured well, too. Enough to be bubbly about my book. Enough to be bubbly about the projects that may come next — because the real toast that night was for more than the book. I feel like I’ve finally taken this gift that came from God and I can put it to good use, for Him.

That bottle of champagne waited patiently to be uncorked, and then it let loose. I feel the same way.

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how to write a book in 5 easy steps

journal1. Come up with a great idea. Congratulate yourself on your brilliance.

2. Write a fantastic first page. Show everybody who loves you. Especially show your mother. Congratulate yourself on your brilliance.

3. Show your work to that friend. You know, the one who has no qualms about telling you when you’re full of shit.

4.Go back to the page and do better. Congratulate yourself on picking your friends well.

5. Write. Write some more. Write again. Forget to do laundry. Eat take out. Generally abandon everything. Remember* to take a shower.

* Remember to thank all the kind people who encouraged you, especially the people who wondered what happened to all the clean underwear and towels, and the people who read mediocre drafts and said do better, and people who never read a word and said you can do it, and people who bought you mojitos and laughed, and the dog, who thinks you’re brilliant, no matter what.

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