Straight from the Container

A week ago I read about a woman whose blog I’d never read — someone I’d never even heard of, in fact — and since that time, like scores of people worldwide, I can’t stop thinking about her. Her life is utterly different than mine — at 27, she’s married with four children, a stay-at-home mom and Mormon who posts gloriously colorful photos of all the fun things that she finds time to do with her kids. Some of the things she comes up with — like a wonderful dinner party for her children to celebrate her two oldest girls going back to school, complete with a family theme for the year — are pretty amazing. I mean, I would like to go to that party. Her family is just the picture of radiance and fun.

In August, on my birthday in fact, she and her husband were in a private plane crash that killed the flight instructor (she’d purchased flying lessons for her husband as it was a dream of his to fly). She and her husband have been hospitalized ever since, critically burned. Her sister has taken over the mantle of updates and along with family has taken in her lovely children. She also writes wonderfully and movingly about her experiences these days. People across the globe are reading, commenting, praying, fund raising.

Today I read basically a one-line post from a family friend with a simple question: Are you were you thought you’d be today?

I’m in a familiar place, on the couch in my hot-pink office, on the laptop, morning sun streaming in, catching a few moments before the Ohio office comes back from lunch and my phone starts ringing again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I shifted my online writing from the ultra-personal (this was many years ago) and often painful to things like writing about carpets and paint colors and gardening and art. Mostly the shift has come as my life has shifted. As I found my one true love, as I found peace in my life, as we finally made a move that uprooted us from life as we knew it, we found ourselves exactly where we’re supposed to be.

In some ways, living in the Northwest is like living inside a gloriously colorful room. The trees are deep green, the sky (when it’s sunny, like today!) a brilliant blue, the air is crisp and cool, the flowers are a riot of color almost year round, the butterfly bushes grow to twice the size of the ones back in my hometown. (Though, yes, I need help with the tomatoes.) We go hiking on weekends and I get tears in my eyes — I really do — because we live here. A half-hour’s drive and we can be hiking up to a mountain ridge. In ten minutes we’re on a ferry at dusk, looking out over the Sound at the most heart-stoppingly gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier we’ve seen in the going-on two years we’ve been here. An hour and a half away, we can take a walk in a ridiculously moss-covered forest. It’s so surreal and amazing to live here. I miss it as soon as I travel away.

Moving here was a step outside ourselves — for me, it was really a step away from everything I’d ever known. I knew we’d find friends, but at the same time, I didn’t know. I knew we’d settle in, but at the same time, I wondered if I’d ever feel more than disoriented again. The friends we’ve met are a blessing. We have great neighbors. We adore our dogs. We know enough people we like to throw a rather rockin’ party. There have been stresses and setbacks and things are a little more expensive than we’d like, but it’s worth it. We feel like we’re building a life here. Our marriage is even stronger.

All of this to say that today I’m really thinking again about where we are, and why I write about what I do. Because so much of my life I struggled to remember (or even know) that life is beautiful, I like to write about the little things that keep it that way. I believe in the power of surroundings to make our lives better. It’s the little things, but the little things reflect the bigger things about how we feel. Otherwise, why bother to make anything beautiful at all?

Thinking about a woman who shared how she made her life more beautiful with the world, her struggle to heal, and her family’s struggle to cope, has made me slow down just a little this week, and really think about how lucky we are to have what we have right now. The basement’s a mess, there are too many weeds in our garden. And I am very loved and love very much. I’ve been given so much, and it took me a very long time to appreciate that. It’s time for me to start giving more back in return.

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