Today's List

1.  At the end of the day, supper at 9 pm after Nora is asleep, a pile of pickles, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella, chips and salsa.  Headphones and the Mary Tyler Moore show because I need Mary, how she goes to a big city and finds an apartment and a job and she rebuilds.  And, yeah, I love 70's fashion.  I'm not going to lie.

2.  Coming home from the first classes and Mom and Nora have made chickens and a book, which Nora reads to me.  She has drawn a watch on her arm in marker and asks what time it is.  "It's 3:00."  She goes to the sink, washes the watch off, redraws:  "Will you write a 3 on it now and I'll make the arms?"

3.  Realizing that 5 classes in a day is a lot, each composed of hour and 15 minute blocks and I find myself dipping and rising and leaning, praying in the car before I get out, "I know this is the work you've given me, and I trust that you'll carry me through."

4.  Loving, open, ready students.

5.  Chapel and Pastor "The Voice" Jurchen telling it like it is.  We suffer.  Yes.  We tell the story of our suffering.  Yes.  We do not suffer alone.

6.  Laughing.  How it shakes the shoulders loose, opens us, releases, lifts us out of our burdens, and we are present, joyfully responding.

7.  Me eyeing the garden as I climb out of the car with the book bag and I am thinking of when I'll see it next.  This weekend, perhaps.

8.  A woman dreaming of sailing.

9.  [                                                                          ]

10.  Messages and notes and cookbooks and hugs and "you did a great job this morning" and I know how much I rely on the love of others to lift me, and this seems more like a strength than a weakness.  We need each other.  Let us get on with the business of leaning into this love.

11.  Sometimes I think the acoustic guitar is the sweetest sound God ever thought of.

12.  Determined to be present, to not let the busy days become overwhelming--moving toward fullness and trust and holding on, holding on, holding on.  Like Mary Tyler Moore.