Revealing Grace

 I was recently speaking to a friend of mine who has cancer. We talked about all of the things that only us cancer patients know, our affinity for bagels, and our lives.  If you know the man, you know he is a force. He is joyous, gregarious, and quite a presence. I've known him almost my whole life and we talked about some of those memories and what he had taught me through them.  What he had taught me and my siblings was that we were stronger and braver than we believed. He always made us do things we were scared to do like hold the giant slimy ocean fish we had just caught or ride the four-wheeler. As little kids this was challenging, but afterwards we were always grateful that he had pushed us beyond what we thought possible. In the end, we always left proud of what we had accomplished. And it didn't hurt that he kept a drawer of full-size candy bars as well.   I have been rolling this lesson and sentiment over in my mind the last few days. It will pop into my head at random

When I feel unsettled, I move furniture. I seem to believe that if I can just get my furniture in the right place, then my heart will be at peace. It is also, perhaps, a need to believe that I can control something in a life that feels out of my control. I may not know what the future holds, but I sure as heck know a better place for this bookcase.  I remember when I was staying in my parents' basement after my divorce, shoving an antique roll-top desk across the floor with the full force of my body in the middle of the night.  I think I moved the furniture in my 600 square foot apartment in Dallas at least 12 times in two years. I would be trying to scoot my impossibly weighty king size mattress, inch by inch, just because I became certain that my bed should be on the other wall. Every time my mom arrived in town for my cancer treatment, something would be different.  And not all of my furniture is light Ikea pieces, mind you. My furniture is solid wood. It is heavy and ridiculous

I woke up this morning and turned on the lights, took a shower, brushed my teeth, and filled my water bottle for work.  For me, it is routine.  For others, it is the dream.  I knew that the Navajo reservation had poverty and I knew that some people didn't have running water or electricity, but what I did not know was how prevalent it was.  Last weekend in the town of Silver Lake, New Mexico, 90% of the people I met did not have at least one of the following: running water, indoor plumbing, and/or electricity. Many people did not have any of those things.  You would not guess it if you saw them and sat down to lunch together. The Navajo are a proud and beautiful people group. They care for themselves and others and make little to no mention of the hardships they face.  But when you take the time to get to know people, stories emerge. Stories of using the canyon as a bathroom or walking to the outhouse in the dead of winter. Stories of hauling barrels of water to use for washing and

I haven’t written anything in a while. Perhaps you noticed. It isn’t just with you. I haven’t written anything in my personal life either. I think perhaps I needed time to simply dwell within my own new existence. I needed to live my life without reporting on it or shaping it for the ears of others. Perhaps I did not yet have the words for this life I now live, one that feels in some ways like a completely different life from the one I had before. But this morning I woke up with joy and gratitude and decided it was time for an update. It was time to let you know about this little life on the farm. Perhaps the most jarring change in my life is that my body has started to adjust to farmer time, which I despise. I wake up at 6:30am thinking I have slept in, while the spirit of my 20s groans with frustration that I can no longer seem to sleep until 9am.  We have just planted alfalfa on the field next to our house, so I am greatly anticipating a true change of scenery from my windows! I hav

My apartment in Dallas was the home that signified my new beginning. It was my oasis in the trees after a long trek through the desert. There was the porch I sat on with Amanda, who had flown in on a moment's notice and of her own accord, because I had just called to tell her I had cancer. For a while she was the only person in the world who knew. It was the place where I recovered from an unexpected mastectomy, just two months after moving in. It was where my friends, from all over the country, came to stay, to cook, to laugh, and to care for my dog while I endured chemotherapy treatments. It was where I fell in love with my husband. It was from that back window that I looked down and saw him for the first time when he pulled up for our first date. It was at those stairs that I nervously waited and those walls that I gave him an unnecessary tour of when he first arrived. That apartment was where my cousin came to take care of me when I was randomly sick and scared of

Every night I wake up at 3:10am. It is exact, as if my body has made a pact with the night and signed it without my permission.  At 3:10am I have a routine. First, I wake up and I look outside. My eyes silently plead with the sun to start rising and prove that I have made it to daybreak, but each morning it is dark and I know that it is 3:10am, again. I then contemplate getting out of bed or waking Jeff up just to hang out, but finally, I close my eyes until the sky fills with the red and orange of a New Mexico sunrise. I don't know why I have gotten into this routine and I haven't quite decided what to do with it yet. It isn't as if my soul or mind has unfinished business or worry, or that my stress keeps me up even when my eyes beg to be closed. No, those days are over.  Some days it seems that I have not only started a new chapter of my life, but that I have completely changed books. The quarantine has forced me to rest, to not jump into any commitments, to

As you can imagine, Jeff and I are getting used to each other this week. It is my first week on the farm since we got married, and considering all of our travel plans got canceled, we have been at the farmhouse without too much distraction. I have learned some key things so far. 1. A small white dog on a farm that also sleeps in your bed is kind of a hot mess. 2. People who decorate their fake farmhouses with white linens don't actually understand the dirt associated with farms. White things and farms just don't mix well. 3. I love my chickens and they also scare the crap out of me. I am just waiting for one of my roosters to pounce on me when I try to give them food. 4. We should have bought more toilet paper before the world went crazy. It has also been a swift kick in the pants to join a small farm town during a quarantine. If I thought weekends in Dallas were slow, I was mistaken. I am used to such a fast-paced way of life that I am having to adjust to quiet, t

I took a student on her very first hike recently and every time we hit the slightest elevation change (and I am talking a few inches of difference) her whole body would instantly crumble. In seconds she would be folded into herself as she took to the ground to hug the dirt. I would coax and pull and try to talk sense into her, but her fear was overwhelming and she couldn't make herself move. Eventually I would pick her up under her arms and make her move her feet over the small incline or decline as we walked on to the next change in elevation. It didn't matter how many she survived, at each turn going up or down or over rocks, she would crumble again. There was no sense to it. Simply her fear got the best of her. Often, this is what has happened to me over the past year as I tried to emotionally navigate my life post-cancer.  I've put on a tough front, I've acted like I don't need help, but with the slightest change in my path, I crumbled. Something as s