words.

The past few weeks/life lately has provided excellent fodder for internal musings - many of which I've drafted and redrafted mentally - but all of which feel loaded and confused and thus hard to write down.

So, in the meantime - a quote that stuck out to me in The Economist, and three words that have reemerged in my thoughts lately:

But competence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. {found here}


Some words:
wrenching
juxtaposition
abounding

He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad.  Everything is Illuminated 

who knew adventuring could be so circumnavigatory?

“Farewell! O Gandalf! May you ever appear where you are most needed and least expected!”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

tres

{reblogged from}

And a link.

Pulpiteering

Disclaimer: This post is straight-up prattle and harangue.

This past week has been full-on crazy train.  Earlier in the week I developed an affinity for the word 'wizened' because in I read it once in Harry Potter and automatically defined it in my mind as the encapsulation of Dumbledore's character.

{as wizened should be}

Ellie's definition of wizened:

wizened [wiz-uhnd; wee-zuhnd]

(adj) sagacious, slightly greyed, long-white-bearded, perceptive, thoughtful. subtly keen, wizardly

{i *guess* i could use wizened correctly to describe this dumb leaf} 

REAL definition of wizened:

wizened [wiz-uhnd; wee-zuhnd] 

(adj) withered; shriveled

So I've been (incorrectly) wielding the word as a crutch in the moments of exacerbation. And then! The bloody dictionary had to go and unveil my usage of wizened as totally off-base (although potentially correct in it's own way).

I protest.  

When you have the World's Greatest Grandparents...

...you get the world's best {and most appropriate} birthday cards.

And a bit o this for a Mondaytime-morn:

Waiting.

I have been anxiously anticipating the move to DC.  The past two weeks my anxiety level ticked up a few notches as Charlie and I began our apartment search in earnest.

My friend, Hannah, best captured how the apartment hunt in DC makes you feel when she posted this picture on her own blog:

So over the past few days, I’ve been forced into a reflection on the worth of waiting.  That which started as thinking about waiting as it relates to finding the right apartment in an incredibly-crazed city (realty-wise, at minimum) manifested itself into something much deeper.

I realized the hardest part of the past two/three years has been in the waiting.  I’ve had to watch the brilliant mind of my ebullient, sharp and driven mother slowly deteriorate. 

And I’ve had to wait...  

...on the end of phone lines

...at the end of confusing accounts of medical appointments

...in the awkward pauses that come at the end of conversations trying to explain to others

...in the awkward pauses that come at the end of my thoughts when I ask if I’m just making things up

Waiting has been the worst part.

I am a planner; a list-maker; a strategist.  Much of this I actually inherited from my mother. 24-hour notice was king in my household growing up.  The only way mom could juggle working, taking care of a teen and toddler and all the other things life threw at her, was through marking down everything on the calendar.  She was the watermark as planner, list-maker, strategist, and balancer.

So, as I watch things fade away, I want to go – to do – to plan.  Not just in the short term, but to prepare for how the specter of whatever is behind the memory loss will impact the longer term.  I want to tackle what’s happening like I have the apartment search.  (Game plan: live on Craigslist -> email first -> be friendly-aggressive -> go prepared (I MADE A TENANT-RESUME) -> win.) 

But that’s not how sorting out, diagnosing and addressing memory loss works.

So far, what it’s meant is waiting between the spaces of doctors’ appointments, fears, forgetfulness and questions.

I’m still loitering in those spaces, but the apartment search has helped me to refocus, and to remember to lean into this:

{Oh!  Heyyyy there, waiting!}

 Let all that I am wait quietly before God,

 for my hope is in him.
 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress where I will not be shaken.
 My victory and honor come from God alone.
    He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.
 O my people, trust in him at all times.
    Pour out your heart to him,
    for God is our refuge.

Psalm 62:5-8 nlt