Our Hearts Are Restless

…even though I ignored them until I moved out and THEN discovered just how much sense they made. 1   Turn around and look at the kitchen before you leave it! Any dishes you missed?  Stray spoons?  A hotpad you could put away?  It makes life easier in the long run.  Thanks, Daddy. 2 Shake the crumbs out of the toaster when you’re done. Yes, it does get nasty when you don’t do that for a week…or two months.  Sorry about all the complaining, Mommy! 3 Open your windowshades and make your bed in the morning. Okay, I haven’t thoroughly gotten into the habit of this yet, but I’m definitely starting to see the value of coming home to a lit, neat-looking room. 4 Saturdays are for cleaning. Oh, how I hated this custom as a child…now, I’m so happy for Saturdays because I can catch up on all the chores that just can’t get done during the week.  And then I can start off the new week with a clean, neat apartment, which som...

I needed a clever way to give y’all an update on my life as an Anachronistic Millennial.  Thus was spawned In which I give you all the current “ings” of my life! Reading : A coworker lent me two fairly new books, which I have to admit is a little out of my usual style!  The first was The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why , a non-fiction study of disasters and how they affect the human mind. It was an absolutely fascinating work – the author, Amanda Ripley, delved into everything from psychology to physics.  The other was a recent Pulitzer Prize novel, All the Light We Cannot See .  This was occasionally a rough read, since it takes place during the traumatic times of World War II, and sometimes gets a bit graphic.  Not my favorite style—this new fad of first-person present tense can be irritating—but on the whole, the work was a well-woven series of vignettes with a feel of realism. Watching: One of my coworkers had ...

When the chaos of the world's evil begins to encroach, it's time to grab hold of the nearest lifeline of beauty.  Inextricably linked as it is to order, beauty in all its forms is the best stress relief.  For me, one of the best sources of true leisure and calm is a symphony concert. I'm an auditory learner, not visual; so while some would see colors and shapes in the instruments' sounds, I sense rather than see threads of sound, weaving together a tapestry of texture.  The conductors' hands seem to take on a life of their own, gently grasping or sharply tugging on a strand to fit it into the pattern of the whole.  As my eyes dart around the stage, my ear is picking out layers, and eye and ear work together to connect part and whole. Each instrument and its sound has a particular character, and I love them all.  The trombone is at its best in its nobility, the violin as a dance partner, the clarinet when it's showing off at a party, the French horn when r...

Imagine yourself in a room - sitting in your chair, rows of people around you.  Some of them you know, some of them you've seen in passing but never spoken to.  There's a man at the head of the room speaking.  You're taking notes, sometimes spacing out, but most of the time trying to pay attention to his words.  You glance at the clock frequently, and mentally plan your afternoon when the class gets out.  Typing, the clock ticking, pencils and pens scritching, the drone of the teacher's voice, occasional sounds of walking, laughing, talking in the hallway, perhaps another teacher's voice filtering in from the adjoining room.  These sounds are joined by a sharp, repeated popping sound, which gets louder and closer. You have no idea what the sound is until the door is slammed open.  There's a person standing in the doorway; black ski mask, dressed in black, carrying a gun.  The people around you start to gasp and scream, but fall still when the gu...

Hi y'all!  Sorry I haven't posted much for a while.  I've had a few writing gigs - my new monthly post at CatholicMom, a guest post for Erin, and I just finished up a meditation for next year's Daily Gospel Reflections at CM.  These have absorbed most of my recent creativity!  But now that those are done, I have one more major project, and then my brain is free to write whatever I want on this little blog! This post is a special one, dedicated to the one person who probably reads my blog more often than I do, the best grandmother I could ask for.  (And not just because she spoiled me when I was little!)  Also, it's dedicated to my parents, who are quite enjoying their new gig as grandparents to a little blonde troublemaker. While watching and reading the Pope's words during his visit to the Americas last week, there was one theme that struck me repeatedly: his emphasis on memory.  This came out in his address to Congress, where he focused on histor...