A Head Full of Fuzz and a Puzzle

Contemplating recipes and writing...

I started Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird last night and I can barely put it down. Seriously...I wish I'd brought it with me to work so I could sneak peaks under the table, especially now that Dad has apparently gone to work and ceased our string of emails. It seems every time I pick up a book on writing I become inspired to write--the trouble is that then I get bogged down because it's not as wonderful as the writing I've just read. Especially after Reading Like a Writer. That one, which makes extensive use of quotations from literary classics, made it more or less impossible to sit and write a chick-lit book. But the second chapter of BbB tells me that my first draft is meant to be shitty. Yes, shitty! That's exactly what she says. I just need to get it all out and then find what is good buried in the mess. It's like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I'm ready to write again.

Recipes...I have the veggies to make a ratatouille. End of the season creole tomatoes (apparently a hot seller at the market), zucchini and eggplant. We'll see if this girl that has to force herself to eat veggies without carbs will enjoy the recipe...and if I can keep up the energy long enough to make it. Also am going to try a simple chicken tikka masala after having some whole foods prepared stuff and realizing I could probably make it for cheaper. I love Indian food and would love to cook it authentically but...well, someday.

So I'm still sick with the cold of death but am now attempting preventative measures so I stop becoming sick altogether. Have my echinacea, have my vitamins, have nice fresh fruits and juice. Trying not to push myself and convince myself I'm well even when I'm still recovering. I want to be healthy and get out of this permanent sickness rut. It's really not pleasant.

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Now playing: Nightmare Of You - My Name is Trouble
via FoxyTunes

I could feel something different for the first time

The unknown frightens us, the unfamiliar discomforts us, even though they offer new life. Encountering great love or deep emotion, we fear lack of control and loss of self, so we use speech to dispel the experience and regain solid footing. We are afraid of seeing in a new way someone we have neatly classified, afraid of having our minds changed, our hearts moved, our soul turned inside out. Comfortable with our everyday, slightly despised mediocrity, we shy away from revelations of the intimate closeness of the transcendent God.

...Pastor Dan Schlewitz (soon to be Doctor Pastor Dan Schlewitz)

There is so much packed into these few sentences that it's hard for me to even express why they strike me so. But I'm carrying this paragraph around in my wallet so I'd like to try.

The unknown frightens us
The unfamiliar discomforts us

I'm frightened. I'm scared of school, of whether I decided to take the right path and the right concentration. It's hard for me to step out of my box and make new friends and make an effort to get outside my little house. I'm worried about not knowing the future and what it might bring. Yes, it will bring newness, but what if it's not better?

Encountering great love or deep emotion, we fear lack of control and loss of self

Recently I've had close encounters with deep emotion, and what do I do? I talk or I write it out. Over and over. I try to articulate it, try to make sense of it. Am I making less of it that way? I don't know, but I do know that I'm trying to get a handle on my emotions that feel as though they are betraying me. I do feel as though I am spinning out of control.

We are afraid of having our minds changed

Yes. Most definitely. I find an idea and I hang on to it. I have a perception of a person and it sticks with me. But when I do allow my mind to be changed, it is almost always amazing.

Comfortable with our everyday, slightly despised mediocrity

The number one reason, I think, that I can't make myself finish my book. What if it's not good enough? I may as well just stick with what I got now, because what if my dreams can't be realized?

So what is this saying?
It's saying Kirsten, stop being scared. You've come this far. Why does your pessimism cause you to believe that life gets worse, not better? It's ok. Step up to the edge, take a deep breath, and jump. You'll find your voice. You'll keep discovering how you can change the world. You can let down the barriers around your heart. Don't try to force things to conform to your timetable.

God is cutting through everything that I thought I knew and sending it spinning in circles, making me feel like I've been flipped upside down. But in the middle of all that, I feel as though I am finally learning patience. Rather than rush through these experiences so that I can analyze them or so that I can move on to the next stage, I am attempting to slow down and just enjoy. It will fall into place.

I am not really sure how that fits with the top quote, but it's where my thoughts went.