I love this way of talking about the Atonement and Jesus Christ's mission. He didn't just teach truth, He is truth. And taking full advantage of His grace is doing our best to be like Him.
I made a Pandora station of this band a while back, to mix up my Sunday playlists, and I've gotta say, it's Monday and I'm still listening.
Somehow this semester is still shaping up to be crazy busy, because I am working fewer hours and I quit the ballroom team/world.
I love it, and I love the things I'm doing, but sometimes there are days when it just swallows me up.
A lot has happened and a lot has stayed the same in the past few weeks.
I dated someone and then I didn't date someone.
I didn't know what I wanted and I felt unsettled about the whole thing, so I ended it.
And now I think I know what I want, but I'm not sure how to go after it. Or if I should wait for it to come after me. Or worry that it won't.
But this is familiar, I'm used to being this girl. And I'm good at it. And I'm trying to muster up some hope because doubt is my vice.
I just have to keep treading water and telling myself that somehow I will get everything done that I need to, and if I don't, then it probably wasn't that important anyway.
So we'll see what the rest of this season holds. But, come what may, I'm going to make it great.
{This is the song that made me fall in love with Carbon Leaf}
My relationship with music can be pretty random.
There are some days where I'll listen to the same song 10 times in a row, and other days where my mix will be nothing short of Ella Fitzgerald, the Les Miserables soundtrack and Hanson.
I've never been someone who defines themselves by the music they listen to. I don't know everything about classic rock, or have 40 hours of orchestral music on my iPod, and I don't only listen to bands that no one has heard of.
But I love the Joshua Tree album, anything by Frank Sinatra, the Chopin nocturnes (thank you, parents), and a few bands that no one I know seems to be familiar with.
Carbon Leaf, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, and Jon McLaughlin are the musical men that I've had pretty long term relationships with, stereo speaking. I don't listen to them every day, but I've never played one of their songs and not fallen in love with them all over again.
I saw Carbon Leaf in concert last summer at one of my favorite little concert venues, literally an old garage turned hipster scene. It was incredible. I don't know what it is about their music, but it hits me right in the soul. It's like coming home.
SK and the Sixers has some kind of drawl, but they aren't really country, and their music doesn't make me want to dance, but it makes me love my life a little bit more.
In 2008, when I saw Sara Bareilles in concert, I found out later that she'd been touring with Jon, but not when I saw her. Jon McLaughlin's music is like a breath of much needed fresh air. It's like a weekend in the country, when you've been stuck at the office all week, smothered in city smog and subway steel. (Not that I've actually had that experience, but I'm pretty sure if I had, Jon's music is the sort of thing that would keep me sane.)
They are like old friends that, even when we haven't talked in a few months or years, when we bump into each other and decide to grab lunch, after five minutes, it's like we're back in high school and we never lost touch.
Not to say I don't take effort in putting myself together, but I grew up with my mother's and grandmother's examples of timeless class rather than of-the-minute fashion fads.
However, I've always been partial to old things, so I guess you could say I'm vintage in the sense that I love old movies, used books and the music of my parents' and grandparents' era.
Someday when my bookshelves stop moving themselves every year or so, I'll stock them with a collection of Barbra Streisand movies, books I've read and reread so many times they automatically open to my favorite pages, and Rat Pack records that make that scratchy sound when placed on the turntable.
*Thanks to Ryan Woodward for making this masterpiece. It is absolutely stunning. I can't say enough good things about it, so i'll just leave it at that.
Some people like to go to haunted houses and watch scary movies and let their imaginations run wild to feel that thrill of utter horror and fright.
But I've never been like that.
I'm the one who watches sad movies when I'm happy. And listens to rainy day music when it's bright and sunny. And cries not only in movies but at the end of really good books. Whose idea of a perfect Saturday morning is curling up in a blanket with a mug of hot cocoa and watching something like "The Way We Were."
Because there is something about that heartbreaking, purely human rush of delicious melancholy that gets me every time.
Maybe I need to add one more thing to the poll on my sidebar: go spend the summer with my extended southern family in beautiful South Carolina. Oh and this little ad shop intrigues me.
Hmm..I wonder what interning in the South would be like. Do they down too many cups of sweet tea instead of coffee, and have big porches instead of basketball courts? Do they still wear suits and say "Yes, Ma'am"? Do they get late night bbq instead of Chinese?
I fell in love with the South when I was 8 years old.
And I wonder if I'd make a better southern belle or city girl.
I think I might like the pace of the South better than the hustle and bustle of the city.
But, then again, there is something magical about the city that never sleeps.
Jack: Maybe you should let somebody help you out every once in a while.
Melanie: Definitely not. I've got all of these little balls up in the air. And if somebody else caught one for me, I'd drop them all.
-One Fine Day
Today I feel like I'm barely keeping all the little balls from crashing to the ground.
And I wish I knew how or who to ask for help.
I need a mental health day.
Or a good old fashioned Saturday.
A day to curl up in many many blankets (because our heat is not working right now), make a huge mug of hot cocoa, and watch a silly movie that will make me cry and laugh in the same hour and a half.*
*As my friend Clark pointed out, 90s chick flicks are the best. I agree. Am I old enough to say things like, "they just don't make them like they used to.."?
**On another note, I liked One Fine Day so much that I taped it when it was on TV and still have an old, worn out VHS copy with commercials. Maybe the plot is incredibly unrealistic, but I don't even care. Maybe it's not. Maybe you can meet someone on the worst day of your year and things could turn out alright. And this song is half of the reason I love the movie.
*According to this little peek into my 16 year old self, Nat King Cole is already on the list to be played at my wedding reception. I'm not sure how many of the other songs I'll keep. But definitely Mr. Cole.
We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it. The number of good things we can do far exceeds the time available to accomplish them. Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.
I think sometimes I have too many good things in my life, and I neglect a few of the "Best" things.
So this semester is going to be another semester of learning. Because that's what education is about.
Not just books.
Or tests.*
It's about life.
And learning how to do it right.
*like the one I need to be studying for right now.
Not for the coffee, because I don't drink coffee. (though they generally have killer hot cocoa)
But because of the atmosphere and the energy.
They just seem like creative spaces.
And I love that.
There's something really endearing about the boy in this video. Maybe it's that he seems like more of a boy getting into mischief than a man looking for his soulmate.
Maybe he's both.
Either way, I'm digging the video.
ps: I just checked out a couple of his other songs, and love love love this one.
