Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Born as a Roman citizen in Britain, he was brought to Ireland as a slave at the age of 16. He escaped back to Britain after six years but the suffering throughout his life led him to a deeper connection with God which inspired him to return to Ireland. He is largely responsible for building and organizing the church in Ireland, instrumental in shaping it into what later became known as the “isle of saints and scholars.”
Of course, the day that I’m finally struck with a creative brainwave for a short story that I’d love to write, my computer decides to fail me. New characters are clamoring around in my mind, playing tug-of-war with my emotions and using my mouth to speak their emphatic heartache, begging me to write their story, and I can’t seem to get a good wifi connection. I sincerely hope the trail of creative breadcrumbs I’ve left for myself will be enough to find my way back at a later date when I can log into Google Docs and get to work. It’s always a danger with writing. I can’t wait to get to know those characters, interview them over a cup of coffee. I want to learn their names, who their friends are, where they grew up and why they made the choices that they did. But for now, it’s enough that they’ve stopped shouting and we can all get a good night’s sleep.
Good enough for now is never that for very long. Change is the only constant for humanity. You’re both growing. The only question is whether you grow together or apart. In school and in work, perfectionism can be a terrible trap which holds you back from your true potential when a good enough job will do. But when it comes to people; friends, family, romantic interests, don’t ever settle for good enough for now. Be a perfectionist. Believe in unicorns and fairytales and the existence of true love.
More than that, live in such a way that you can look in the mirror everyday and find yourself capable of both giving and receiving that kind of love. It’s not easy. Convincing yourself that you deserve to be deeply and truly loved is one of the most difficult things you may ever do and even if you succeed, you might find yourself doing it all over again the next day. Every person on the planet has wondered this at some point but it’s a battle worth fighting. If you can hold out for the right people and take the initiative when they do come along, you’ll have a life of few regrets.
This short freewrite was the product of a quiet afternoon shortly after relocating to Indiana. It’s a welcome reminder. Whoever you are, don’t ever forget to practice your pirouettes. Happy Friday.
She was so giddy she felt lightheaded. Her toes barely brushed the floor as she bounded from kitchen to living room to bedroom with her arms splayed in what she imagined was a graceful arc above her head, like a professional ballerina. She’d never wanted to be a ballerina but in that moment she was so happy that she could have pirouetted with the best of them. Anything was possible. The sky was the limit and she had such grand plans. The last time she could remember being so intensely full of yellow joy, she’d been eleven and had just discovered the truth about Santa Clause. It had been the best Christmas she’d ever had and she was too happy to care that it had been her parents leaving those gifts under the tree all along. Mom and Dad were Santa but it didn’t matter because they’d just given her the most perfect, most magical Christmas she could think of.
I had no idea what to write this evening but as the hours slipped by I found myself scrolling through hundreds of photos that I’ve collected during my adventures since moving to Indiana. I couldn’t help chuckling when I came to this one. I heard Vizzini’s nasally and emphatic exclamation as he and his company approached the cliffs with the captive princess Buttercup.
It seems like a theme has developed on this blog over the last week revolving around my completion of Book One in the Stormlight Archive series. My intrigue for Brandon Sanderson’s work has blossomed into a full blown obsession and I simply must talk about it. As I’m well into Book Two, Words of Radiance, it felt like a good time to share some of my favorite bits from The Way of Kings, real life inspiration from fantasy people.
“You can’t go someplace a second time until you been there a first time, I reckon. Everyone has to stand out sometime…” – Yalb to Shallan on the docks at Kharbranth
It’s so easy to get ahead of ourselves. Too often I catch myself dwelling in the useless realm of someday, dreaming up perfect conversations with perfect people who I still have yet to meet. Life just doesn’t play out that way. Things never go the way you expect them to but that’s what makes it interesting. We like to pretend that we know where we’re going when in reality, we’re all just wandering through life waiting for the day that our prayers are answered and we bump into the right people.
“A blank page was nothing but potential, pointless until it was used.” – Shallan thinking on drawing and art.
Whether you’re a painter, writer, composer or musician, I think every artist on the planet can identify with this. That blank page is always there, begging to be filled even if only with the seemingly infinite mental clutter which obscures the true artistic gems of your consciousness.
“The hallmark of insecurity is bravado.” – Dalinar Kholin to his son, Adolin at the Shattered Plains
Have you ever noticed how the most uptight people are the only ones going out of their way to show the world how incredibly easy going they can be? This goes for all sorts of things. In my experience if you strut around like you’ve got something to prove, chances are, you do. No one is perfect. We’re all only human after all. How much simpler life would be if we all stopped trying to appear as we think we ought to and instead embraced the fabulous, singular individuals that we already are.
Every year my family and I pool our resources to find the perfect Christmas gifts for each other. During the last few Christmases this has resulted in some truly fantastic variety under the tree; everything from concert tickets to fantasy novels to knives to jewelry made from old bullet casings. However, there is one item on the Christmas list that never changes. Every year, without fail, my dad asks for a box of homemade raspberry thumbprint cookies. This recipe came from an old school friend of mine, a family recipe scribbled onto a scrap piece of paper back in middle school. The paper is now wrinkled and stained, the ink smudged in places. You can always tell which recipes are the good ones by how dirty the years have made them. Here it is, the secret to the best raspberry thumbprint cookies I’ve ever made.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Cream butter, sugar, almond extract and flour until smooth (until the dough begins to stick together). Refrigerate dough for one hour. Roll dough into roughly 1-inch diameter balls. Use your finger (or another round utensils) to place a small hole in the center of each cookie and fill it with raspberry jam. Bake for 14 to 18 minutes or until just barely beginning to brown.
Allow cookies to cool completely before icing them. To make the icing, mix powdered sugar, almond extract and water together in a small bowl. Drizzle over cookies and serve with a steaming cup of tea for the full experience.
“When your dreams are vague, it’s easy to rationalize little exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed.” – Atomic Habits, Chapter 5 by James Clear
I think this is my problem. In order to get what you want, you must first know what you want and be willing to work day in and day out to achieve that end. On a good day I’m capable of being highly motivated but my efforts always seem to crumble, whether it be in a single afternoon or gradually over the course of several weeks. Each new self-improvement kick lasts for a couple weeks until my work schedule changes and newly developed habits inevitably go by the wayside.
Growing up, I was always a little envious of the dreamers, those people who seemed to know exactly where they were going from the very beginning. The focus, clarity and defiant determination with which these individuals pursue their dreams is staggering and something I’m constantly trying to imitate. For them, there is always a vision, a guiding light and a next step to take, however difficult that step might be. Life rarely goes according to plan and detours are inevitable but, when you know where you want to end up, decisions become far less complicated. While never easy, they will at the very least adhere to certain guidelines which can be considered by answering the following question.
It’s a very simple question and yet impossible to answer without a highly specific and concrete goal in mind. The dreams you leave for someday will always stay there like the distant horizon, tragically out of reach no matter how many mountains you summit. You can’t go to the horizon but you can journey to a point on a map. X marks the spot. What are you doing today?
There’s always a period of time after finishing a really good book during which you can’t bring yourself to open another. To do so feels like a terrible betrayal, a blatant disrespect for its characters who are now dear friends. There will be a time for meeting new friends but right now you’re caught in a silent reverie, hugging this story to your chest after closing the scuffed back cover on its perfect ending. For a while all you want is to hold onto this world and the warm buzzing feeling that fills you up like a swarm of happy bumble bees. Soon you’ll replace this book in its home on the shelf beside its peers, its spine now cracked and its corners frayed from your adventures together. But right now, you just savor its familiar weight in your hands and smile to remember the people you met.
No matter what the weather, local popcorn celebrity, Orville Redenbacher is always ready to welcome visitors to Valparaiso, sitting in the Central Park Plaza in his characteristic bow tie. My parents and I couldn’t resist snapping a photo on this frosty afternoon. However, Orville is certainly in for more comfortable weather as the snow melts and Spring comes into view.
Girl of Steel 