and i know you can't stay but i wish you would

picture found here

According to many, home is where the heart is. But what if your heart is in many different places?

I flew out of Oklahoma City on Tuesday afternoon. There was a brief layover in Dallas, and then I landed in Houston. My mom greeted me at the airport. I spent Tuesday evening with my mom and brother. We ate, drank wine, and watched home videos. On Wednesday, my brother went off to work, and my mom and I stayed home. We watched Eat Pray Love, and then, Wednesday evening was a repeat of Tuesday with dinner, wine, and home videos.

Spending time with my family is more rare than I would like. In college, I enjoyed the eight-hour drive between Houston and Oklahoma City. Just a few years later, I despise the eight-hour drive and find myself entertaining the idea of living in Texas. It's not as easy as saying "let's move." There are jobs and houses and a husband and in-laws and dogs in Oklahoma.

My heart is in Oklahoma with my husband and my dogs. We are building a life there. It's not as easy as I want. Sometimes it is so difficult that it seems as though it would be easier to forget everything and move someplace new where we could just start over. But forgetting and starting over is not a pattern we are wanting to follow.

My heart is also in Texas with my parents and my Nana. There's familiarity here. I have a few friends who I miss dearly and would love to be able to call and meet for coffee or dinner on any night of the week. The grocery stores are also better (and cheaper) than the grocery stores in Oklahoma.

But my heart is also in Michigan. It longs for the crashing waves of Lake Michigan, the clear skies, the stars, and the sunsets. When I close my eyes, I see the park near my grandparents house. I can practically smell the fresh corn waiting to be purchased straight from the farm.

During my sophomore year of college, a professor had us think about our writing home. For me, it was Michigan. But what about my other home? What about where my heart is?

I want to have roots. I want to take a deep breath and settle somewhere. I'm trying to settle into a life in Oklahoma, and while many would argue that marriage is putting down roots (and it is in many ways), I still feel myself searching for the best soil for us both to put down roots.

I don't know if there is anything that would make it easier. While I do want to leave Oklahoma and return to Texas, I know it would present a new array of challenges. And I know that some of those challenges would make me long for life in Oklahoma, just as the challenges in Oklahoma make me long for life in Texas.

As a child, I was so ready to grow up. I wanted to move from one stage of life to the next as quickly as I could. Now that I am an adult, I want to move back into previous stages of life. I want to slow down. I want time to sit and contemplate where home is. I want a chance to just breathe and focus on what I want.

But life moves quickly. I go to work and make dinner almost every day. Weekends pass far too quickly. There is so much to catch up on, and while twenty-four hours seems like a good amount of time (in theory), it is never enough. I just can't seem to keep up.

I will board a flight on Monday evening. There will be no layover in Dallas this time. My plane will touch down in Oklahoma City after 5pm. I will be back with my husband and our dogs. Maybe my heart will be there, too. We'll see.

(title from "dance so good" by wakey!wakey!)

out of chaos life is being found

We had the pleasure of worshipping with a new band on Sunday morning. Our church will soon open a second campus in Oklahoma, and the band from this second campus played on Sunday morning. The worship was heartfelt. Watching the band, I could tell their heart was in the right place - with God. Mine wasn't on Sunday morning. To be honest, my heart hasn't been in the right place for the last several days.

It's not for lack of trying. I want my heart to line up with His desires. I want to shake off the negativity, the worry, the endless questions and just rest in His promises and His presence.

I think He's working in me right now. In fact, I know He is. I can feel Him pushing aside so many things and doing His best to show me what is important in life. He's providing me with the choice to stop and watch His work or to keep going and miss His calling.

I am doing my best to stop and watch. I am praying for patience, for understanding, for a chance to stand still. I am journaling and hoping.

One of the songs from Sunday speaks of how God is making beautiful things out of the dust and out of us. I listened to it twice last night before falling asleep and have played in at least ten twenty times this morning. The lyrics are calming my nerves, reminding me I am not the only one who feels like dust, who wonders if anything worthwhile will grow from the garden of my life. The lyrics are also doing their best to help me to stop and to remember what all He has done so far.


flowers in fishtown, mi

  I've attempted more silence over the past few days in an effort to hear from God, to be reminded by Him of what He is doing. I have also attempted more whispered prayers. So far, I have not received a response, but I am hopeful. He knows what He is doing. So for now, I wait to see what will spring up from the ground.

(title from "beautiful things" by gungor)

my head is in the clouds

It's raining outside, and I am inside my office, enjoying the last ten minutes of my lunch break. Oklahoma's recent weather has made my yearning for Michigan much more realized. The almost start of fall feels like summer in Michigan. The almost start of small even smells like Michigan. And it reminds me how badly I miss the lake, the geese and swans, walking to town for ice cream, and kayaking. I have so many memories from my weeks spent in Michigan, and I would love nothing more than to return now.

I have a yearning to take pictures. Pictures of flowers and clouds and life and wonderful, amazing things that I find. I need to turn the yearning into a reality and find the beauty here. Because right now, I am meant to live my life out on Oklahoma soil.

But.. it won't stop me from thinking about, dreaming about, and remembering Michigan.

clouds over mackinac island

lake huron

lighthouse on mackinac island.

It's not that I don't love Oklahoma because I do. But my heart feels so much more at peace up North.

Still, this is where I am called to be. This is where God has placed me. My roots are slowly growing into the red clay. And flowers are beginning to bloom. It's too soon to go into specifics, but God is showing me exactly what a little water, fertilizer, sunlight, and patience can do.

If it were up to me, I would have bloomed already, but it is up to Him and Him alone. And He knows best.

(title from "will you dance me" by julianne hough)

finally ready to be here

In my twenty-five years of life, I've lived in four states. I've traveled to eight countries. I've seen so much of the beauty that the world has to offer.

I spent just under two years in California. I was a baby then. I didn't like the water. I lived in a house I do not remember with two parents and a beautiful yellow labrador retriever who enjoyed eating the fruit that fell in our backyard.

Then I lived in New Jersey. I remember that our house was "upside down" with the kitchen on the second story. My brother was born in New Jersey. I made friends with a set of twins. I dressed up as a mermaid for Halloween. I hid behind the couch of the twins' house the day my family moved to Texas.

Then, it was off to Texas. This is where I grew up. I picked the smaller bedroom with wood floors and clown wallpaper, though my parents tried to persuade me to take the larger, carepeted bedroom. We later took off all the clown wallpaper and painted the walls a light pink. Then years later we painted the walls a pepto bismol pink and sponged the walls with a lighter pink. For years, I was the only little girl on the street. I did my best to keep up with the boys by playing football and cowboys/indians.

I grew up in Texas. I found myself and lost myself. Then found myself again and eventually lost myself again. I made friends. I rode the bus to school, something I was not able to do in New Jersey. I swam in the pool in our backyard. I had sleepovers with friends. I stayed up chatting online and writing. I thought I fell in-love in Texas, but I didn't know what love meant. I don't think anyone really does at that age.

After a year of college in Nacogdoches, TX, I spent three weeks in Europe and then moved to Oklahoma, where I now live.

Through these moves, there has been one constant. My constant has been Michigan. Both my parents were born and raised in Michigan; both left after graduating college and neither moved back. I always hoped to experience Michigan as a resident, but it was not meant to be.

My relationship with Michigan is one of summers spent swimming in cold lake water, of walking into town for ice cream, of sleeping in the converted attic with sheets sticking to me some nights and shivering under the sheets some nights.

The cottage began as a one-bedroom home. My grandmother visited the home with her parents as a child for long weekends and week vacations. Eventually, my mother visited the home with her parents and siblings for long weekends and week vacations. My grandparents later purchased the cottage. It now has a bedroom and two bathrooms on the main level. There are narrow, creaky stairs to walk up that open to an attic. There are three twin-sized beds and a full-size bed in the attic.

There's a guest house close to the garage with a bed, a sink, and a toilet. The water only runs cold, and there's no heater or air conditioner in the guest cottage.

This is my favorite place in the world. New York City might have bright lights and Broadway. Paris offers the Eifeel Tower. But I would much rather be in Suttons Bay, Michigan.

I see it more clearly that my childhood home. I hear the creaks of the stairs and the waves of the lake. I smell the fresh corn and the mint and the plump tomatoes. I taste the clean air. I crave the homemade ice cream.

It's my home in so many ways. When I am there, my heart is at rest. I feel at peace, like I belong. It's the place that inspires me to write. It's where I want to be almost all the time. It's my Northern Star, the guiding light that brings me home when I lose my way and forget what is the most important in life.

I learned to daydream here. I wore hula skirts with my grandmother and pretended the creek was Hawaii. I went on adventures with friends, exploring the secret passages in the houses aroun the cottage. I scraped me knees crawling through the sewer system. I kayaked from the cottage to the library and walked the boardwalk. I made friends here with myself and with others. I combined my past and present with the past and present of my family. I pretended like I could play the piano, like I could sing. I dressed up in my great-grandmother's clothes. I watched the weather change in the span of five minutes just like I so often changed.

Suttons Bay has grown. But it has stayed the same. Just like I have grown but also stayed the same. It is my heart. It is my guiding light. It is the one place I know will always be there. It envelopes me like a hooded sweatshirt just out of the dryer.

Sometimes, if the wind blows right in Oklahoma and the clouds cover the sun, it feels like I am there. And I let that feeling wash over me again and again.

(title from "been a long day" by rosi galan)