As of yesterday, I still hadn’t picked a word for the year. As much as I wanted that to mean I was too cool and self-actualized to need one, the fact is that wordless and directionless are two sides of the same coin, and anyway, I’m only slightly cooler than a mealworm. Lately, I’ve been ungluing myself from bed at the last possible minute before getting the girls ready for school, and then hygiene and breakfast and allergy meds follow (not necessarily in that order), and by the time I sit down to take soul-inventory for the day, it’s already 9:00 without a single stray epiphany to show for it.

I know that life is a dynamic, untamable tempestress and that if I ever try claiming to have her figured out, I can expect a bitch slap upside the head.  But really. “Huh” does not count as a mantra.

Here is what I’m talking about:
The delightfully dreadlocked Mandy Steward chose “vulnerable” for the year.
Sarah Bessey, whose writing is fire and water all at once, went with “fearless.”
My precious warrioress Rain honed in on “unafraid.”
Erika Morrison, who is cooler than a whole stage of mealworms with their own backup dancers, picked “celebrate.”
Alise chose “do,” and Jeff chose “start,” and all around me, I see bravery, the determination to live life to its fullest. I see how starting the year with a focus puts each day into hopeful perspective, how it catapults daily routines into another stratosphere of worth.

To be honest, I feel like I’ve gypped myself by not staking the same kind of claim on 2012 from the beginning. However, my main goal when the calendar turned was riding out a dust storm that threatened to keep me an ocean away from my husband and girls. January was turmoil and surprise and blinding uncertainty, and the only thing I found myself whispering on repeat was “God with us, God with us.” The concept of Emmanuel, carried over from the Christmas crèche, carried me back home.

Since returning, I’ve taken the gift of joblessness as a wide-flung opportunity to be present for the people in my life—saying yes to invitations, penciling in long afternoons for relationships, participating in this online community, being with instead of just around. And I finally saw it this morning, the thread strung like a lifeline between January’s upheaval and February’s calendar blocks:

God with me, the warmth of divine-to-earth whispers in my ear even when religion leaves me cold.

I with you, here, fully engaged in connecting through my words, offering my authentic heart.

I with you, our conversations growing well worn and becoming ever more Real as I care them threadbare.

Partnering with the causes that rip compassion-wounds in my defenses.

Communicating with the people I’m inclined to write off.

Walking with my loved ones, old and new (even if this means [thinking really hard about] answering emails in a timely fashion…).

Making eye contact with my own life instead of ducking away to hide when it gets overwhelming.

Waking up with us—all of us, you and me and Emmanuel whispers—on my mind and my path for the day stretching double-wide.

I might be late to the party, but man, it’s good to be here.

One thing I have learned a lot about over the past year is that Italians do community they way they do pasta: effortlessly, enthusiastically, and often. It’s both one of the most daunting and one of the most delightful aspects of life here.

This picture I snapped at yesterday’s neighborhood Carnevale parade isn’t likely to win any photography awards.  In fact, I don’t even recognize anyone in it (that may or may not have anything to do with the camera angle), but I love it regardless. The people in it made up a small portion of the neighbors who paraded the streets yesterday disturbing the peace with high-volume joy. Little girls skipped through snow slush in their princess dresses, and little boys dressed as pirates tried to make it more than two yards before staging another sword fight, and grandparents held hands, and we mamas chatted over the clatter of homemade maracas while keeping an eye out for each other’s offspring. We were superbly loud.

Do you see the police car at the front of the line? Several officers came out to block traffic for us, and it made my heart swell every time one of their firm faces cracked into a grin at all the exuberance. Even the car drivers, whose big important plans were having to wait for short legs, waved and cheered from the sidelines. And do you see the man across the street toward the left of the photo wearing a bright blue scarf? His name is Michele, which I now know because the crowd made up a cheer for him as we walked past. I mean, why not?

After looping the neighborhood, we all squeezed into the elementary school gym for an epic dance party complete with disco lights and paper ribbon explosions, and it struck me that what I was doing at that moment—boogying with my girls and admiring their friends’ costumes and making plans for a moms-only date night and laughing with my neighbors—was exactly what we’d hoped for in moving to Italy. Doing community. Sure, neighborhood-wide disco parties can daunt an introvert like me into hiding, but it turns out that the delight of inclusion, of intentional, joyful togetherness, is just the thing to sweep an introvert like me right out of her shell.

 (Not an introvert.)

This is a Three Party Week.

To some of you, this will signify nothing beyond three individual chances to wear cute shoes and nosh on someone else’s potato chips while catching up with friends. If so, I am in awe of you. I probably wish I were you.

See, I fall into the category of people who started reaching for their security blankets at the words “Three Party Week.” I’m not exactly anti-social—one of my favorite things to do in the world is sit down for a heart-talk with close friends—but large group events have a way of swallowing my energy whole. The pleasantries, the social expectations, the whirl of activity, and the noise! noise! noise! noise! inevitably bring out the Grinchiest in me.

Take right now for example. I am sitting at my computer shooting reproachful glances at my own reflection because an entire morning of gold-plated writing time has resulted in… one Tweet. This is despite my getting up at 5:45 with motivation and a caramel cappuccino in my favor.  The reason I spent all morning staring at the wasteland formerly known as my brain is that I spent all afternoon and evening yesterday at an indoor play place with about 100,000,000,000 shrieking children and assorted moms and dads. The girls had more fun than their little hearts knew what to do with, and I was glad to be a part of the community there, but… oh. Oh oh. I explained to Daniel afterward that I might be able to handle people using their vocal chords in front of me again come Sunday.

Warning: Children may be louder than they appear.

Unfortunately, silence isn’t an option as the girls and I are due at another party in… twenty-eight minutes. This party is being thrown for our entire neighborhood, and I know for a fact that the elementary school has been busy handcrafting noisemakers for the occasion. Based on previous track records, I’ll probably need to lie in bed with earplugs for the next month. That won’t  mess with my ability to socialize tomorrow’s party, will it?

Crap.

I recently started reading a blog that is so good, so good, that every single post has me either laughing or crying. Often both. (It’s hard to choose a favorite, but this post has my heart firmly entwined around its little finger.) Glennon writes with such humor and candor and ridiculous grace that my day is always better for reading her, but one thing in particular has stuck with me. She mentions how storytelling and shamelessness are her strengths, the gifts that fuel her unique purposes in life. To this, I say Rock on, sister! with accompanying fist-pumps.

To myself, however, I say something less celebratory like Huh. and finger the edges of my own uncertainty over the future. The decision to leave my job this year was hard-won, but it only feels like the lifting of my foot before choosing in which direction to step. Questions, doubts, worries, and more questions rise in quick succession these days, and I kick myself under the desk for consistently accomplishing less now that I have more time at my disposal.

My sense of social guilt has nagged at me for years now about not having a “brand,” a platform, a niche, a signature—whatever word best conveys direction and potential. Now, it’s morphing from unfocused guilt to true, urgent need as I look out over this blank-page year and ask, God, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?

I need to write like I need to breathe; that much is clear. It’s also clear that I’m not so much a storyteller as I am a thought painter, watching concepts take color and shape beneath my fingers. My brain-waves on any given day might pull toward mothering or spirituality or travel or the creative life or brownies; in fact, if I find myself slipping into a topic rut, I instinctively stop writing. I have a wild suspicion that if I rehash old material, my blog and everyone reading it will lapse into comatose boredom.

But isn’t that what a brand essentially is? The same lines of thought tackled from a variety of angles? A stamp of consistency that draws people with similar interests to comment and contribute and build a like-minded community? That’s just it—I don’t think I’ve been exactly the same person for any two days of my entire life. In the constant struggle and exhilaration of change, it’s hard enough to keep tabs on who I am without also nailing down what I’m about. Besides brownies, I mean.

I’m embarrassed to be outing myself as a lifelong flibbertigibbet, which just goes to show that I do not share Glennon’s gift of shamelessness. It could be that this state of flux is my strength, but I have a hard time seeing how something so vague and unwieldy can result in the kind of direction that gets someone up before dawn.

I’m not fishing for insta-answers here, though your speculations and stories are absolutely welcome. I’m simply painting my thoughts out as wide strokes on a blurred background in hopes that in the process, I’ll catch a glimpse of my bigger picture.

In defense of my slow start this morning, even the sky has opted to burrow under quilts rather than face the flurrying cold. I have to wonder if the temperatures this February are some kind of karmic grudge for all the sun we soaked up last month in Florida, some bitter Sherpa spirit blasting away at the residual glow of swimsuits and lime sherbet. If you live in a climate that requires you to dig your car out of snow banks every morning, 1) I’m so sorry, and 2) you might want to skip this next line: The thermometer hasn’t risen above freezing in a week. This is where I show my southern roots by shivering promptly to death.

I had penciled in our first week back from the States as a recovery period, but a round of seasonal bugs and the ensuing laundry apocalypse turned one week into two, and it’s only now that I’m marking out new routines… by which I mean hitting the snooze button and tunneling back under the covers because my Texas-bred sensibilities don’t know how else to respond to icicles.

Motivation has been a finicky bird this year, alternately hopping with impatience and swooping out of reach, and I don’t know yet how to get from here to the spring-loaded 6 a.m. writing sessions I imagine. However, I’m working on finding the way—on wrestling my night owl feathers into bed before tiredness turns to mania, on tethering my focus to deadlines instead of minutia, on honoring this gift of time. It’s a worthy work, and I’m happy.

Even if I can’t stop shivering.

How does winter weather affect your day? What gets you up and at ‘em on dark, snow-lashed mornings? Is it at all forgivable to be mentioning lime sherbet in February?

Vacations are always tricky terrain for me. My overly analytical brain drives itself dizzy reminding me that I need to make every moment count but that I shouldn’t lose myself in the process but that I shouldn’t take precious time away from family to recharge but that I shouldn’t neglect my writing but that I should be out living so that I’ll actually have new writing material but that I need to take care of my introverted soul so that I can enjoy these moments I’m living but that it’s selfish to claim time for myself when we have such limited opportunities to spend with the people and places we came to see but, but, but, but, but. Basically, there’s no winning this one. (Anyone else get way on trips? Please say yes.)

Last week was especially intense, and as we’re gearing up for another stretch of absolute insanity—which will hope-beyond-hope land us all back in Italy together—I’m trying to figure out how to process all of it in triple time. My working strategy involves a little bit of running and a whole lot of peanut butter M&Ms. Other suggestions welcome, though I can’t promise restraint when it comes to M&Ms.

The jury is still out on whether or not my mental processing methods work, but one aspect of this trip stands out in my mind in stunning detail. All of the upheaval and impossibility and hair-pulling bureaucratic situations we’ve faced over the last few weeks have made the perfect backdrop for divine intervention. We’ve been racking up miracles like frequent flyer miles over here, and it’s the best possible way to start this year—assured in my own heart, for whatever it’s worth, that we’re not alone.

It’s a good thing I feel this way because we still have some pretty big hurdles to clear before I can get on a European-bound plane. If I weren’t able to trust that everything will work out, I might end up resorting to self-medication. Scarfing down peanut butter M&Ms, for instance. Can you imagine?

(Don’t feel like you have to answer that last one.)

The trick is finding a way to be still. I could push myself beyond sleep, breathe coffee, prioritize like a woman running for her life. I could certainly find a way to do more. But my soul… It starves while I pour myself into other forms of survival, and my heart retreats, scared off by the panicky mess it knows is coming.

You would not believe how frustrating it can be to fall into soggy crumbles when I try to sustain productivity for any significant duration. Those times I am trying the hardest to move mountains are often the times I showcase my incapability, and how the hell did I hold down jobs and a scholarship GPA in college? (Answer: I was a decade younger. Also, unlimited coffee refills at the all-night IHOP.) I can feel the shutdown coming on when I try to power through another late-late night, and that’s when I know it’s time to shut off.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t replied to your emails or responded to your comments or kept up with your blogs or thanked you personally for supporting my book, please know that I’m not ignoring you. On the contrary, I’ve never been so reliant on or so appreciative of this gorgeous online community. However, I’m trying to balance out the runaway rush of life light now with moments of quiet, computer closed and mind unplugged. It’s the only way I can fall asleep these days and the only way I’m going to survive this month with body, heart, and soul intact.

So this is me signing off for the night. See you tomorrow? 

(Photo from our misadventurous trip to Milan in October;
wouldn’t you love to just sit on the side and watch the water glimmer by?)

Once upon a time, my husband suggested we pack up our preschoolers and drive to Ireland, and I made the mistake of laughing. Several thousand kilometers, one hurling match, and a collection of impossibly beautiful memories later, I had to concede—the man knows a thing or two about dreaming. (He also knows a thing or two about teasing his pessimistic wife until she can’t remember what she was protesting in the first place.) The next year when he suggested we pack up our kidlets and drive to Scotland, I remembered not to laugh, and I hardly blinked when Portugal showed up on our road trip radar this summer. We wouldn’t have experienced any of our family adventures to date without Daniel’s creativity and optimism, and I’ve learned better than to doubt his big ideas.

Not that I don’t still try.

For example, when he recommended I give notice at work so that I could devote the first half of the new year to writing a book, I laughed. After all, we’re a two-freelancer household now, and as delightful as it sounds to trade in teaching for typing, we wouldn’t last long on a one-freelancer income.

And when he suggested raising the funds to make it possible, I rolled my eyes. I mean, we’re barely a month away from 2012 (!!!!) , and these things—if they are actually possible and not just hopeful delusions—take time.

And when he insisted that we could launch a website and a Kickstarter page the same weekend we were hosting Thanksgiving dinner for a houseful of friends, I choked in an extremely dignified and ladylike way on the cheesecake batter I was swiping. Because……no. Just no.

Evidence A: 31 lb. turkey

Evidence B: Chronic fear of taking risks, relying on others, and/or getting my hopes up only to have them dashed against the cold hard face of reality

It turns out that the moral to this story is the same one which Daniel has been gleefully reminding me of since Ireland: “Thou shalt not doubt thy husband.” For all my skepticism and worry and spontaneous freak-out sessions, I am completely thrilled (and probably more surprised than anyone) to be announcing…

(I’ll wait while you check out the video; can you tell it was a blast to make?)

In case you’re not familiar with how Kickstarter works, we have until the evening of December 23^rd to raise $10,00 in support. ($10,000 because that’s the minimum I’ll need to replace my current income for half a year, and December 23^rd because we’re insane.) If the total pledges meet our financial goal by its deadline, our book will be funded, each contributor will receive rewards and lots of warm fuzzy feelings, and creativity will live long and prosper in our household. The mere possibility of it is buzzing like caffeine through my veins. I am so excited about writing this book that I’m having trouble focusing on other, less important concerns right now… such as food. And sleep.

I’ve already waxed epic about the book’s background and content on the Kickstarter page and our shiny new website, so I’ll let you head over there in a second. I just wanted to end by thanking all of you who have relentlessly encouraged my writing over the years, all of you who are willing to pre-order a book on Kickstarter (or simply spam everyone you know with constant and increasingly annoying reminders to check out our project), and all of you like my husband who see awesome possibility where I would just roll my eyes and continue eating cheesecake batter. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And now, it’s about time I started getting my hopes up.

I should probably clarify after my last post—I don’t hate my job. Not even close. I get along well with my colleagues, I enjoy getting to know my students, and watching them improve in English holds a special satisfaction as all teachers know. However, the time factor simply isn’t sustainable for me. Teaching isn’t a job that can be done more quickly or efficiently to make time for other pursuits; when students pay for twenty hours, those twenty hours belong to them. Also, the job requires almost as many unpaid hours in lesson preparation, paperwork, travel, and office minutia as it does in paid ones. Throw in students’ schedule openings—usually only during evenings when my girls most need their mama and their mama most needs to unwind—and the stress of coordinating childcare when my husband’s traveling for work, and you have one headache of a lifestyle.

Possibly even more compelling is my realization that I’m only working for work’s sake, i.e. to earn something, keep my résumé current, pretend to be a bona fide adult, all the standard reasons responsible people sign over eight hours a day. I’m good at my job, but it drains rather than inspires, and I find myself increasingly resentful of the time it takes away from my real life, everything and everyone of big-picture significance to me. I can’t continue giving away the best of myself to what matters the least.

So Daniel and I have a project in the works, a tangible form to one of the grand ideas I hinted at in my last post. I am equal parts terror and excitement. I am so tired from this year that I can hardly imagine summoning up the extra energy and enthusiasm this project will require, and I dread taking a risk that would dangle a very poignant kind of failure above my head. On the other hand, oh goodness am I looking forward to it. I’m desperate to dislodge my soul from my current routine, and this is an opportunity to dive back into my one wild and precious life rather than continue banishing it to the eternal waiting room of Someday. Even with my inner ‘fraidy cat protesting, it feels like the plunge into peace.

If it’s okay with you all, I’d like to take this opportunity to scream with fright, dance a little jig, and pour myself an extra coffee. It’s going to be a good winter.

(Details are forthcoming; stay tuned!)

Apologies for all the sturm und drang around here lately. This has been one helluva year, and I’m experiencing every blip of turbulence with my usual intensity. I find myself craving simplicity—plotting my escape from the piles of things around the house that need organizing (or ironing, or mending, or de-spidering ::shudder::), disconnecting from the debates and demands of social media, and daydreaming of secret forest log cabins that come with their own cleaning ladies. There are so many things right now that we need, or at least think we do, but I’m weary of needing. I’m ready for the feng shui now, please.

We’re getting to a point in our transition time where I can actually choose what I want to do in the new year (i.e. – we won’t be relying as much on my income, fingers crossed), and goodness. What do I do with that kind of opportunity? Can I possibly inspire this angsty brain of mine to make something of it? I have grand ideas, but this year has sapped my energy to make them happen. Besides, my muse and intuition are off somewhere hanging out with the cool kids; the decision is all mine to make. And I feel as capable of making it as I am of jumping off the couch and running a marathon.

So I’ll let you friends do it for me. If you were wrapping up a long, turbulent year and needed to decide within a week what to pour yourself into come 2012, would you decide to:

A) Write a book, maybe even two, knowing that this decision is probably doomed to failure thanks to your chronic inability to self-inspire,
B) Keep your current job as it is a dependable source of spending money and you don’t want to let anyone down even though it keeps you too busy and stressed to be your true self,
or
C) Take the next flight to Canada and find yourself the nearest available secret log cabin?

(Photo from two summers ago in Scotland… which, come to think of it, would work pretty well too.)