anne m. wilson

Today I began packing up our first home. It’s bittersweet. Caitlin came over to help me get a little organized, and after we came up with a plan (I use that word gently), we got to business. What’s even weirder is we spent a good three hours on the kitchen and I can hardly tell I’ve packed anything.

As sad as it feels to pack up our first home together, I’m ready to move onward. So here’s to a little more consistency, having a living room big enough for lots of friends, and a kitchen to feed their bellies.

Indianapolis, we’re here to stay for a while. :)

To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember what day we picked up Abigail. But I know it was a Thursday, and I know it was in February.

I remember the day clearly because my brother and sister-in-law lost their precious baby Whitney that morning, and you never forget a morning like that. I started the coffee and Kyle and I both just sort of wandered around our apartment, getting everything together while at the same time not even knowing how to mourn the loss of a child we never got to know. It’s an odd feeling to mourn what might have, could have, or should have been. It’s a different kind, and definitely not the same kind of mourning what once was. To go from such joy and excitement to not being an aunt and uncle anymore after all in what seemed like the snap of a finger felt punishing. But no matter how we felt, or how much we wanted to lay around all morning and stare at the wall, we had semi-impulsively committed to pick up Abigail that day.

There’s sort of theme to our road trips, regardless of which car we take. My iPod usually wins, because no matter how much Kyle thinks he has good taste in music, the truth remains that he just doesn’t. Okay, that’s a little unfair. It’s not that he doesn’t have good taste–it’s more that he just doesn’t care. He enjoys oldies, will listen to just about anything acoustic-guitar-lead, and aside from that, it’s all mush to him.

Rosie Thomas is usually appropriate for any season, but specifically winter. There’s something about looking outside your window to a dreary, gray sky and listening to Rosie Thomas pound it out on the keys that just fits. So we began our journey, with Rosie Thomas singing something like, “I have much farther to go,” and we rode most of the way in silence. After arriving to Bethel, Ohio, we got out of our car and put aside our grief for a minute to welcome the new addition to our own family.

Nobody ever tells you when you’re young that when you get older, life gets more complicated. No one seems to mention that you are going to encounter loss time and time again, and each time it’s going to rip your heart out just a little bit more. People don’t highlight that love and pain come hand in hand, and that the harder you love something or someone, the more painful it is when they are taken away from you. And not that I’d want them to, and I probably wouldn’t have listened, anyhow. But I do find it strange and somewhat unsettling that while I watched all the mommies grow big bellies, sip tea, and talk about baby clothes I never heard the stories about the women that longed for motherhood.

I remember that February day. It was a day I realized for probably the 3rd time in my life that there are days that no words will do. And, that with every pain and harsh feeling this world brings, there can be a taste of sweetness. Somewhere. So thanks, Abigail Wilson, for bringing just a bit of sweetness to a very bitter day for us.

I stopped ignoring my soul’s cry for rest and rejuvenation and decided to spend some time away over the next few days. I drove to Cincinnati today to stay at a little hideaway called Sustainable Faith. I’ve “unplugged” from all things technology–Yahoo! articles, Twitter, email  (besides my husband), and yes, even Facebook. And so you’re wondering, “And you’re still on your blog because. . .?” Because. I love to write. Not that I’m any good at it, but I love it. And I have never been reenergized by completely disconnecting from human life all around me. So, in between naps, walks, delicious food, and books that feed my soul, I will be writing.

But for now, I’m going to go join some strangers for dinner and sip hot tea.

On Thursday after my delightful day of rest I came up with a list of “things I do” (inspiration from Shauna Niequist’s book Bittersweet). To give you a little picture of where she was headed, here’s an excerpt…

I love the illusion of being able to do it all, and I’m fascinated with people who seem to do that, who have challenging careers and beautiful homes and vibrant minds and well-tended abs. Throw in polite children and a garden, and I’m coming over for lessons. Out to lunch one day with my friend Denise, I asked her about it. Denise is a mother of four, and a grandmother, and she works and writes and cooks and travels–and–most important to me at the time–she seems settled in some fundamental way. There’s something she knows about herself that I didn’t know yet about myself, certainly.
…
And this is what Denise told me: she said it’s not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What’s hard, she said, is figuring out what you’re willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about..” (53-54)

And thus came her list of “things I do,” and “things I don’t do.” After a few days of contemplation, I think I’m ready to commit to my own list of “things I don’t do.” However, before I begin, I feel as though it’s necessary to echo some of Shauna’s “things I don’t do,” since some of hers mirrored my own things I just don’t do. Why reinvent the wheel?

Thanks Shauna, for getting me started.
I don’t garden. … I’ve been feeling like sort of a loser because I don’t garden. I have friends who garden, and they talk a lot about the spiritual implications of new life springing from the earth, the deep communion with God that they experience as they lovingly tend to their herbs and flowers. But I’m going to have to miss out on all that, because for now, no gardening.

I don’t do major home improvement projects (AMEN!) or scour flea markets and antique shops for the perfect home accessories. No expectation for perfect housekeeping, either–I try to clean countertops and no horrible smells, but beyond that, it’s pretty rough. At our house, “home improvement” involves clearing off the coffee table every few days and loading and unloading the dishwasher.

I don’t make my bed in the morning, standing on the adolescent belief that there’s no sense in doing something you’re just going to undo at the end of the day.

Scrapbooking and photo album making are both on that list, too.

I don’t spend time with people who routinely make me feel less than I am, or who spend most of their time talking about what’s wrong with everyone else and what’s wrong with the world. Instead, I want to spend time talking about what we can do about what’s wrong.

AHEM. My turn.
I don’t know the art of being “hostess.” I try, seriously-I try, but there’s something “natural” about it that I haven’t mastered yet. I don’t know what that is, and maybe that’s the problem-that I’m even trying at all, but regardless, for now, people will just have to come on over and not judge. My house is open (except for Thursday), just don’t anticipate cherry pie on the kitchen table. I care about you, and I love you, it’s just that I would rather spend time talking to you than wondering what you want to eat or drink. My fridge is “come one, come all,” so this is your invitation to be my guest at our house.

I don’t shave every day. Sorry if that’s way too personal, but seriously, there’s only so much time. I also don’t care about my nails… I’m going to bite them, anyhow.

I don’t do well with “small talk.” I am getting better, really, but most of the time-I am guilty of wanting to jump into the main dish before even getting a sip of water. Sometimes I always want to know the heart of a person before I even know why their hair is the way it is, what football team they root for, or why they have a Southern draw but live in Indianapolis, etc. If I have ever tried to start a conversation with you about any of those things, it was probably horrifically awkward. Just a guess, right?

I’ll quote another friend in ministry on this–I don’t fight about stupid stuff or stuff I can’t know. I don’t care whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or anything else. That’s not to say I don’t like conversation, I do enjoy conversations with people that can teach me something new and converse about things that matter. It’s just that I want to be intentional with my time, and fighting about things we can’t know seems wasteful.

Alright, that’s it for now. What’s on your list of dos/don’ts?

I’ve been reading Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist (alert: expect several excerpts from her book to come in future posts), and it’s come at an incredibly convenient time. There are several things she has spoken to my soul about, but the first is her list of “things I do/things I don’t do.” I thought for good measure I would make my own list of “things I do,” and “things I don’t do,” after her inspiration, of course. So, here it goes…

Things I Do:

I am making my best attempts to keep my faith in Christ the center of my life, the center of my marriage, and the center of my relationships. I actively pursue the Spirit’s guiding in my life… especially during a season where I feel like I’m grabbing at the dark.

I am getting better at giving the best part of my day to my husband. I’m not there yet, but it’s something I know I need to spend much more intentional time fostering. He is the most important person in my life, and therefore, I don’t want him to have the leftovers of my day.

I work hard at my job. I desire to serve people well and love them fully. With that said, I’m not perfect. I recognize that I am not God and that I cannot be God for people. However, I do pray that God would use me as a small part of a much bigger story.

I am serious about living in community. I don’t take this lightly because I know that without it, I will dry up like a raisin waiting on the curb to be ground into the dirt. No that metaphor didn’t make sense, and that’s because life without people doesn’t make sense. That, and I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. But seriously–I refuse to live life in an isolated state of loneliness. Therefore, I spend the majority of my free time with people that I can pour life into and vice versa. I love laughing and having real conversations that go beyond the surface.

I do the grocery shopping. Grocery shopping relaxes me, and I have no idea why. At the beginning part of our marriage, due to schedules, Kyle did most of the grocery shopping. No more. I love going through aisles, looking at brands, smelling ingredients and watching families shop together. There may come a day when grocery shopping is not relaxing, but for now, grocery shopping is on my list of “things I do.”

I rest to live, not live to rest. I purposefully take Thursday as a day of rest/relaxation. If you were not standing beside me on my wedding day, chances are slim that you will hear from me on a Thursday. And please, take no offense to that. My husband, my parents, and my best friends are the only ones that do not fall into this category–so do not feel in any way, shape, or form that I don’t love you if I don’t answer your call on Thursdays. It’s just that I’m probably answering your call every other day, and so–in order to have a real, honest, intentional conversation on that day, I have to take Thursday to unplug, relax, and reenergize myself for the other days.

Now that I’ve come up with my things I do list, I’ll have to spend some real time thinking about “things I don’t do.” This list might take a little longer… but I know that “gardening” will definitely make that one.

That’s what the last two months have felt like–scraping the pavement. Scraping the pavement for more paint, more depth, more gravel, more anything only to find I am really just scraping pavement. There’s not much there to scrape.

And so, more than ever, I have clung onto the only thing I know to be sustainable… the word of God. When there are no answers, what do I have left? When there seems to be no right or wrong answer, what do I say? When someone is looking at me–awaiting an answer when I only have pavement to scrape–what can I wrap my mind around? The Word.

And so, in a season where I need so many answers and have so few to offer, I’ll continue to scrape the pavement.

Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God. For the Lord grants wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those with integrity. (Proverbs 2)

Today marks a day in history-a day that my husband successfully talked me into something that only a week ago I was adamant against. “What is it, Anne? Tell us–we want to pretend to care, us anonymous readers out there in cyberland that pretend to read about your life.” Well, that quest is something we call house-hunting.

I won’t fib, I love apartment life. If it weren’t for the fact that we are shoved into 600 square feet, with too many books and a dog that we don’t particularly love walking in 95˚ heat, then I could probably live in an apartment forever. I actually don’t mind living within five feet of our neighbors, and I certainly could do without cutting the grass, lawn maintenance in general, and going to a big office every time we get a package. Honestly. I. love. it. Low responsibility = good times for Anne.

…but here’s where that “marriage” part comes in.

Kyle has wanted a house since the day we got married. Whenever we’d drive to a friend’s house, he would always look. Prices, square feet, wooded lots, etc. Me-not so much. Sure, I know what I’d like in a home, but I wasn’t itching to move into one of my own. But you know, that whole love + compromise = marriage thing finally got the best of me and tonight, I broke down. And what do you know? The first time I say, “Wanna go look?” we run into a house we both really love and have entirely too high of hopes about being night one of the house hunt.

So, there it is, folks. Who knows, maybe we will discover after getting knee-deep that apartment life is for us. Somehow, though, I doubt it. I think Kyle’s already mapping out where his Michigan work room will be… and I’m rolling my eyes. :)

Kyle has this game he plays where he majorly downplays very exciting events.

Tonight, he did just that. Until I wouldn’t let him.

A few weeks ago, Kyle went in for interview 241 at Covenant Christian High School. The interview seemed promising, but we’d heard that song and dance before, so even though we both wanted to get our hopes up, we just waited.

Two weeks ago, he went in for his second interview… again, seemingly promising but secretly scared it wouldn’t work out. This past week in Boston I knew it was on his mind the entire time, “Will they call?” “Will I get the job?” “Will they give it to someone else?” “Why haven’t they called me yet?”

Tonight, Kyle’s phone rang at 9:12. Yes, 9:12 exactly. And I’m typing this at 9:51. Kyle got offered a teaching job for this coming fall. Needless to say, in words that don’t do our emotions justice… we’re excited. Both of us have our dream jobs. Oh, and did I mention? Covenant and Chapel Rock practically share a parking lot. Looks like we’ll be sharing a lot of lunches and rides.

We’re going on month six of being married, and the time has already come for a vacation. :-) My heart can hardly take it. Fortunately for us, my Uncle Steve (shout-out!) gave us a pretty sweet wedding gift… frequent flyer miles. The conversation was pretty short… “Where could we go?” *Pause for dramatic effect* “To see MIKE AND KIM IN BOSTON!” Our friends, Mike and Kim Fightmaster, live/work/go to grad school in Boston, and we’ve been trying to figure out a way to go see them. Now that we’re married, it makes life way less complicated traveling together without having to worry about staying in different places. +100 points for marriage. Here are some pics of us with the Fightmasters back in the golden years…

So… off we go! 2nd vacation as a married couple. Even better spending it with two of our favorite people and exploring a new city together. Goodbye Indiana!

Taking Thursdays as a day of rest/relaxation/reflection.etc, I get to enjoy doing whatever-the-heck-I-want and still have Friday to play catch-up. Therefore, I take the day to literally unwind and get re-inspired. . . whether that is from Eagle Creek Park, my couch, or the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

This past week, I chose the IMA. Kyle and I went through the exhibits together, and the entire time I drooled over what people are capable of with their hands. Seriously, my creative spirit grew green horns of envy. Interestingly enough, today I came across a speech by Elizabeth Gilbert that expresses oh-so-eloquently some of my very thoughts yesterday. All of us, as created people, hold the power of creativity. And because I believe in a God bigger than I could ever possibly understand or limit with words, I also believe that God shows us glimpses of the Divine through creativity. Art, music, writing, sculptures, fashion, nature, colors, whatever. I look around at the world our Creator made and am grateful He gives us a peek sometimes.

Francis Schaeffer wrote, “No work of art is more important than the Christian’s own life, and every Christian is called upon to be an artist in this sense. He may have no gift of writing, no gift of composing or singing, but each man has the gift of creativity in terms of the way he lives his life. In this sense, the Christian’s life is to be an art work. The Christian’s life is to be a thing of truth and also a thing of beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing word.” How beautiful and true. . . and yet also how tragic when we all keep our inner-spirits locked up inside and live dull, quiet, boring lives instead of ones that draw people near to our Creator.

I hope to live a life that could one day be expressed as a work of Art, don’t you?