Category: Writing

Spring is for Wishes

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I have taken to calling the white dandelion puffs that pop up all around the country in yards and parks “wishes.” You know, when you try and blow all the little seedlings off at once you’re supposed to make a wish, and if you blow all of them off at once, that wish will come true, of course! So, since you make a wish for them, I now just call them “wishes.” We go to the park and I say, “Look at all the wishes!” with a big smile on my face and excitement in my eyes or “They’re mowing down all the wishes!”, sadness weaving its way through my voice. My husband laughs at me and then when I’m at work sends me a picture of wishes still alive at the park and beneath it he says, “And look, there are still wishes after the mowing yesterday.” He knows me well and the things that bring me joy.

Most homeowners find these little puffs of fun and hope and laughter to be nuisances. They call them weeds and spray their yards with weed killer so they don’t have to deal with them. Me, I’d deal with them all day, blowing like I’m blowing out a million birthday candles making wishes left and right. Wish can often sounds like a light and fluffy word. But, if it makes you feel better or more comfortable or feel like my words have more weight, just read prayer or hope in place of wish. That’s essentially what I’m doing when I make a wish. I’m praying for a friend’s cancer to go into remission. I’m hoping for a world where children don’t die of starvation. I’m hoping for goodness and light in my relationship with Reed or I’m praying for our country to get its shit together and stop being so hateful.

Spring has sprung and it has brought us wishes by the thousands and millions. Spring is when the death of winter has come back to life. For Christians, we celebrate this through Easter, the rising of Christ from the dead. We believe that new life can burst forth where death had previously been. Joy and happiness can burst forth out of depression. Love can be born out of hate. Easter is the hope that not all will end in disaster, that the world won’t burn to the ground around us. It’s the hope that we can have lasting peace, that people can some day learn to get along. It’s the hope that we can set our differences aside long enough to see that we’re all just humans trying to be loved in a world that sometimes offers so little love. It’s the hope that we can see each other for who we really are.

Spring is bursting forth all around us here in Illinois. Birds are chirping every morning when I leave for work and the leaves are coming out in droves. A few days ago, I stood underneath a tree we were walking under at the park and looked up. “Look!,” I said, “It’s full of leaves. It’s so green! And it’s so shady under here!” Friends, I pray, hope, wish for us to marvel at the newness, to look for the hope when it all feels so bleak. I will keep making wishes for all of us to feel spring in our hearts and minds and bodies, to be bursting to the brim with goodness and peace and most of all, love. I wish love upon each and everyone of you: love for yourself, love for your family and friends, and love for those you don’t know and those you don’t like. May you hope and pray for goodness and love when you see wishes popping up in your front yard and at the park when you’re hanging out or having a picnic. When life feels hopeless, remember to pick up some wishes and blow with all your might. For wishes born of love and hope have such a good chance of being carried by the wind and planted in the place they ought to be.

On Talking to Plants and Writing a Book

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Sometimes, I talk to our plants.

There, I said it. I know, I’m weird. But, I can’t help it. I love our plants. I love talking to our plants, encouraging them to grow. It is scientifically proven that plants do better when talked to, when we give them our carbon dioxide in soothing, encouraging tones. I tell them, “You’re doing so good.” “Look at you!” “You’re growing so well. Keep up the good work.” “I love you.”

We have four plants. I’ve already killed two, but I saved a leaf from one of the succulents and replanted it. It’s actually growing a root! So, technically, I’ve only killed one plant so far. I had no idea how to care for it and could not figure it out. The other one, I watered too much. That’s one of the easiest ways to kill plants, especially succulents. But, it’s regenerating. The bamboo plants are shooting up taller than I had expected. They’ve bounced back quite nicely since the move and the aloe plant is doing great.

A few days ago, I saw new growth on another succulent and I got so excited. I took it to Reed and shoved it in his face. “Look! It’s growing where the dead leaves had fallen off!” I said excitedly. I love watching the plants grow. I love watching growth and birth and newness happen in the things I am taking care of. It’s magical. Watching life grow and become new and more beautiful is pure magic for me.

And speaking of birthing new things, I’m attempting to write a novel. Ideas keep shooting up in me like our bamboo plants, growing in me until I write them down because they’re bubbling up and over the sides. I keep procrastinating, doing other things thinking that I can’t actually write a book. But, this is me saying it out loud (virtually out loud, at least). I’m working on a book. I’m making myself sit down and write…also because I love writing. I’ve always loved it and now I’m claiming it. I’m not sure if I’m claiming the label of a writer, yet. (I’ll get there someday, even though deep down I think I know I am.)

Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic that inspiration strikes and if we don’t take hold of an idea and partner with it to birth it, the idea will move on to someone else. I’m making this post my official partnership contract with this idea. I will write this novel. It may not be that good and it may not ever make it into people’s hands, but I have to give it my best shot. I have to submit myself to the whims of inspiration and see where she takes me. So, if you (the reader) will join me in this process, I welcome you along. As it takes shape, I’ll give you a bit more. But, for now, know that it’s a love story (because I know nothing more compelling than love, be it romantic, familial, or friendship).

So, in the spirit of how I care for the plants, I am going to attempt to care for myself and this story. I’m going to encourage myself and this story to grow together. I’m going to feed it with time spent in front of the computer writing. I’m going to nourish it with planning sessions, notebooks and paper filled with names and charts and maps of the story I’m trying to tell. I’m going to grow it with friendship and openness and vulnerability and most of all, love.

The Dark Ferret Society: Friendship, Family, and the Importance of Fighting Injustice

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The past few days I have found my thoughts growing darker and darker as Trump continues to win primaries and people continue to cling to their racism instead of giving it up for a chance at a better home for future generations. I stock shelves thinking the world is going up in flames, that some people like to watch the world burn (and not the good kind of Bern). Then, when I feel most hopeless, I remember that my friend Emily wrote a book! A book filled with mystery and adventure. A book filled with friendship and family. A book filled with injustice and the teenagers who right the scales of injustice through mischief, through pranks, through targeting those at the source of the injustice.

Friends, Emily Humpherys (who also blogs regularly at www.emilyhumpherys.com) wrote a book called The Dark Ferret Society and it’s for purchase right now on Amazon. Here’s the link:The Dark Ferret Society. Go buy it right now because it’s truly delightful! I had the privilege to read and review it before it was published.

The Dark Ferret Society is a coming-of-age story about a redheaded (my kinda family) girl by the name of Ruby Fink (great name, right?). Ruby’s the daughter of famous photographer, Frank Fink, and that means they move on a regular basis, going wherever Frank’s work takes him. Therefore, Ruby’s family is grounded in rituals, routines that bind them to each other and their temporary homes as opposed to a particular location or town. Each new house means a new dining room table, a new school, new people that Ruby barely comes to call friends, until she attends Desert Academy in Snowflake, Arizona and that all changes.

Over the course of her time at Desert Academy, Ruby is initiated into The Dark Ferret Society. The DFS is a secret group at the high school who prank both the school and specific individuals. The nature of the pranks are to right the wrongs that have occurred at Desert Academy, to bring justice to the students who are picked on and to the teachers who are tormented by wealthy students who can get away with anything.

The book is full of secrets, adventure is around every corner, and whimsy is throughout. It wouldn’t be an Emily Humpherys novel without whimsical characters, without hilarious pranks, without the love that binds friends and family together. This YA novel will warm your heart while making you shout in surprise (and often in outrage, too) at every twist and turn. If you’re looking for the next best book to read, look no further: The Dark Ferret Society is just for you (or your kids)(or both!).

This quote is taken from the beginning of the book and gives you a taste of the ritual, of the adventure, of the Ruby Fink I have come to know and love:

“Ruby Fink sat on a bench across the street from Desert Academy writing on her canvas tennis shoes. Ruby considered herself a professional at beginnings, so much so that she started all of her first days the same. She brushed a strand of her long, red hair away from her face as she inked Snowflake, Arizona in an arc near Copenhagen, Denmark and Istanbul, Turkey on her left shoe. She didn’t remember when she started turning her favorite pair of tennis shoes into a passport, but the Shoe Tradition was important. This way, every place she lived traveled with her, every place her parents dared to call home collected on her feet…Ruby took a deep breath and whispered “Geronimo!” to herself as she stepped over the sidewalk and onto school grounds.”

May you take a deep breath and whisper “Geronimo!” as you step into adventure and into Ruby’s trusty, traveled shoes.

A Toast to Words and Their Givers

Posted in Faith, Toast, Writing2 Comments

To words: you have given me the most precious gift of expression. You allow me to express my pain and joy, my love and hate, my passions and the values for which I stand. You give me the space to live into the creativity the First Word instilled in me and you nudge me until I set you free.  You have given me the ability to express my love for others more fully. You continue to teach me how to use you to express myself, how to bring about good, how to stand up to those who abuse their power. You have let me in on a secret so many either keep locked up or neglect to admit: you bring power. Words bring knowledge and knowledge is power for those who are oppressed, for those who are on the fringes, for those who seek to live into the freedom and love for which we were created. You, oh dear words, bring power that has been used for good and for ill, and I pray that I can use you for all the good in the world. I pray that you bring love and peace, hope and light, joy and fulfillment through my feeble attempts to heed the urging you place upon my lips and fingertips. You have freed me to love myself and others more fully and more beautifully than I could have ever imagined, and I long for others to know the love and joy you bring.

To those who have given me words: I have too many to thank in this regard, but there are some who have played an important role in giving the most beautiful gift of language and expression.

To my mother: you were the first to give me words, and they came in the form of stories read at nighttime under the cover of darkness and a single lamp above my bed. We read for hours and hours countless books, tales of adventure, of bravery, of love and of joy. As a sponge, I absorbed all those words, held them tender in my soul and let them guide me, giving me the light and life I needed to traverse the landscape of school. You gave me the foundation of words that the rest of my life has been built upon. For that, I am forever grateful for I would not be where I am today if it were not for your delight in a story.

To the Church: you have given me the language of faith, ever-changing as it is. You have walked beside me through the long, arduous journey of discovering a faith as old as time itself. Even when I wanted to give up, you gave me more friends, mentors, and professors who gave me more and more language from which to choose to express my sense of the Divine that I found etching itself into my conscience. I found the Divine in a brook bubbling its way through the forest floor or friends reconciling in a warm embrace.

To the musicians, Jennifer Knapp, Joy Williams and John Paul White, Justin Vernon, and Andrew Hozier-Byrne and the other minor poets of my life: you gave me words for my experiences, usually more specifically for my pain. You met me in some of my darkest places and you said, “I know,” with your wailing words and your haunting melodies. You understood me through your music more than anyone besides my husband ever has. To you, I am forever grateful for being with me through thick and thin and for giving expression to that which I could not express myself.

To the authors, J.K. Rowling, Gregory Maguire, Ellen Hopkins, and Alice Walker and the other great story-tellers: you have given me beautiful worlds of magic paired with the extraordinariness of the mundane. You have given me the lens of compassion for teens caught in sex trafficking and drugs, as well as the cold, hard reality of racism we still live amidst. You have inspired me, challenged me, and made me into a better human because I have read your words. You have always pointed to the Truth, no matter what stage of life I have been in when I read you.

To the theologians, Yolanda Pierce, Ruth Huston, Henri Nouwen, and Katherine Sakenfeld and the other brilliant minds who I’ve read or been taught by: you have given me the priceless gift of theological language, of expressing my faith with emotion and brilliance. You have refused to let me be complacent with myself and with the world around me. Your words have stuck with me, changed me and formed me into a more compassionate, understanding, and challenging person of faith. Because of you, I cannot be content to continue in silence when my LGBTQ sisters and brothers, my black brothers and sisters, my Muslim brothers and sisters are being oppressed. You have given me life through the introduction to a God who is not a sadistic, blood-lusting monster and for that, I owe you all my sanity and my faith and a life (hopefully) well-lived.

To the everyday poet and lover of words and life, Emily Humpherys: you inspire me with every word you write. Keep writing, it will bring you and so many others joy and peace and happiness. You have a gift for crafting words and sentences that are deeply rich and full of life. Don’t ever let it die, unless it’s to birth something even more beautiful than what you’ve written.

To the articulate one and lover of people, Caleb Romoser: your eloquence with speech is a combination of your prowess of the English language and also your keen discernment between which words to use and which words to leave out. You love people so well, and you do it so well because you know what words will best be heard in that moment. Never stop speaking for the world is all the brighter because you decide to speak out.

To the most concise and intentional word-smith I know, my husband Reed Burge-Lape: I treasure every word you have ever written or spoken to me. While I could write a five hundred page book about my love for you, you would write a twenty page chapter and it would be just as powerful. I envy your precision and your intentionality with words. I strive to ruthlessly cut my word count and I fail miserably every time, while you naturally say what you mean and that’s that. You write more eloquently than I ever could. Never stop being frugal and intentional with your words, for you do it so well and the world would forever miss the potential power and impact of a word if you stopped.

To all of you: may words be with you all, forever and always, bringing you light and life and good, good love.

Photo cred: Em Martin