a novel

we are learning to listen to our felt sense. don't ask me what that means, i can't really explain it. all i know is that it tells me when things are weird. it tells me when things are right. sometimes it turns into a nasty black kitten that scratches at my insides and demands to be let out (or in). and today i felt a change. a change in the wind. a spinning Pocahontas arrow. and i don't know where it's pointing. i have yet to find the strange clouds. and so i ask for prayer. and guidance as i approach what ever this change might be. maybe a change on how i see life, on where i put my focus, on what matters most. maybe a change that wont happen for sometime yet, or maybe its coming tomorrow. maybe it already happened and i don't know yet. but i feel that something has shifted. and i am going to try to be excited about it. i anticipate that it will be life changing.

i head back to school today. i feel that even though the year is 7 days old already, it truly begins for me today. the human measurement of time is arbitrary anyway, so i decided to celebrate my personal new years today. a date that is more than simply arbitrary. today i return to the place where my life is routine. to the place where i am making and breaking the habits that might last me a lifetime. to the easiest place to lose myself and the best place to be affirmed. i return to a home filled with 8 lovely people (though one is leaving and one is joining) who are committed to living god out through their lives together; an apartment housing the three most wonderful, rambunctious girls who ever drove me crazy and laughed me silly and held me close and dried my tears and helped me keep home; a job that brings me energy and challenge, commitment, little sleep once a week, and lots of joys and sorrows, regrets and hopes; a staff the supports and inspires me; a larger academic community ...