My brain is always going. Every moment of the day is spent watching and imagining. I see strangers on the street, and I immediately imagine their background. Characters come to life in the personalities that pass me on the sidewalk.
Observation is both the blessing and the curse placed squarely upon the writer’s shoulders.
We don’t just see the flower, we see the petals – and they dance.
We don’t just see the person, we see the way her hair floats in the breeze, or the wisdom in the lines that fan out from the corners of his eyes.
We hear the song of the birds, and the magic in a laugh that cuts through the air like the like a happy melody.
And when we stop to think about God Himself – well, the image cannot possibly be written in bulleted form. It’s a poem, because God isn’t abstract in the mind of a writer. He is the vibrant orange of the sunset. He’s the rumble of thunder, and the gentle whisper in a breeze. He’s the highest peak, and the lowest valley. He is the soft whir of a hummingbird’s wings, and he is the power behind a lion’s roar.
He is all the color and all the music, and He’s hidden in the laughter of the smallest of babies.
This is what it’s like inside the mind of a writer.
It can, at times, be utterly exhausting.
I am currently enjoying a week away with my family, and the people watching is superb. How anyone makes it through this life without observing the personalities around them is beyond me.
We are on Spring Break this week, taking a much needed time away from the daily grind of an over-scheduled life. We will be on a bit of an adventure as the six of us share one hotel room.
This could either be miraculous or a total disaster.
Either way, I will be taking a few days to enjoy my family, to read books (the kind with paper), and to make a few memories. I’ll pop in online now and then to share photos and the joys of family travel.
Blessings to you all as you head into this next week. Spring is upon us! Rejoice!
I am giving myself permission to do something that I haven’t allowed myself to do in the six and a half years I’ve been blogging.
I am going to take a break.
Funny story: Last week, Lee and I decided to take a spontaneous family trip to Gatlinberg, Tennessee. We rarely take vacations just the five of us – in fact, I honestly am not sure we’ve ever taken a vacation just the five of us. Most of our trips consist of traveling with people, or traveling to see people.
The problem is, I got my dates wrong. I was certain that I made our hotel reservation for Wednesday to Sunday, with the plan being we would leave Tuesday, drive half way, and arrive Wednesday. So I’ve been frantically trying to get us packed and ready to leave tomorrow for three weeks away, because after Gatlinberg, we’re sending Tia to camp in Crossville, TN, while the rest of us go to Nashville. And from there, we’re all headed to Arkansas for a week.
Are you exhausted, yet?
I realized just this morning that our hotel reservations are actually Thursday to Sunday, which means we’re leaving a day later than planned, which kind of disappoints me, honestly. But I’m also a bit relieved because trying to pack for three weeks in three different locations was giving me palpitations.
My brain is on serious summer overload, which normally wouldn’t be too much of a problem; however, I happen to be 64 27 weeks pregnant, which means sleep is already elusive. Add to that a little stress, and this mama ends up tired and emotional.
In an effort to not throw myself into an early labor, I’m unloading a few things from my plate. I simply don’t have the mental capacity to generate decent blog content right now. As it is, I already have a few deadlines pressing down on me for other sites (the ones that actually pay me to write), and I’m in the final stages of editing my e-book, which I will hopefully get to the designer in the next few days.
So I’m going to take a couple of weeks off in this space. I’m going to breathe a little, enjoy my family, read a few books, unplug, and take in a little fresh, mountain air.
I’ll be updating on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter on occasion if you want to keep up with our family and see whether or not it really was a good idea to take a trip to the mountains at 28 weeks pregnant.
Also, Lee and I are attending a celebrity charity dinner in Nashville on Sunday night. Tune in to see what my gigantic belly looks like in a nice dress, and to see if I get to rub elbows with Carrie Underwood, or if I simply stalk her from across the room.
I’ll come back here in a couple of weeks when the dust of family fun time has settled, and I can string together a coherent sentence outside of, “Did you pack your toothbrush? What about underwear?”
In the meantime, I hope all of you are enjoying some fun in the sun this summer break. Sit back with a good book, a tall glass of iced tea (sweetened, of course), and take some time to breathe.
This is the fourth year I’ve gathered with my group of like-minded, creative friends, and every year I find myself more blessed by our time together. Each person here is so uniquely gifted and blessed, and I learn so much from them. My soul is nourished, and I find myself lost in my craft.
Today I finished my e-book. Stay tuned, because my hope is to have it published within the next few weeks.
This year, each one of us has new ventures that we are developing, and during the quiet hours of the day, we’re deepening our skills, supporting one another in our respective crafts, and sharing delicious meals filled with conversation and laughter.
It’s truly inspiring to be here, and I find myself more and more wanting to pull other women into this fold. It’s a dream that’s turning into a goal, and this weekend is fanning the flame.
As I go back to my work, I’ll leave you with a few photos of our days here. I’ve been so focused on my book that I haven’t spent much time photographing our amazing, Southern California surroundings, nor have I been overly drawn to blogging. My brain has been fully engaged in this one project, and I’m so thrilled to have finished it today.
So without further ado, I give you Scenes from a Creative Retreat
