This morning I went into my dad's woodshop with him, which is an experience few and far between in the past years of my preteen era onward. As a young girl I often (and most likely daily) visited Dad in his shop, usually making the 800-foot trek armed with donuts and coffee for his "mid-morning snack". I would let myself in amidst the buzzing of a machine or despite the saturation of furniture stain smell and I would sit on the floor with a hammer and nails and scrapwood. Dad and I would either talk or not talk at all and we'd sit there in his shop for minutes, perhaps an hour. He'd tell me about what he was working on and eat the food I brought and then I'd leave and walk back to the house.

I did that so often that the mere sight of woodchips, the singular sound of a saw, or the overwhelming smell of lacquer immediately reminds me of my father. I find a part of home in these things, and walking down the street or listening from my bedroom window to construction outside are gifts of memory to me that I greedily seize whenever I can.

This morning I walked into Dad's shop with him. It is a new shop, only about four years old, but it is nonetheless hopelessly dusty inside with mounds of woodshavings, piles of scrapwood, and papers of draftwork at his drafting table. I look around and breathe in deeply as he shows me the carvings for a bedpost, a stand-up bench for a judge. The half-done work is beautiful already and I am overwhelmed at the artistry my dad exudes. I smile at the dust-ridden rolodex that I remember from years ago. I know he still sifts through it despite the decrepit state.

I look at the machines, with their films of grime on them. As a girl I wrote notes to Dad in that dust. "I love you" or "Good job, Dad!".

I look around the room at there, balanced on a top rung of the wall high above everything else is the sticker my dad's had in his shop for as long as I can remember. White writing set against a deep blue says, "My boss is a Jewish carpenter."

So much has changed in this life. And so much remains constant.

Busy-ness drains not only time, but creativity.

(Or at least the busy-ness we sometimes encounter.

ie,

the kind I've had in my life recently.)

And so now I come to write and these are the things I remember:

I see myself tying my apron before I walk onto the floor at work, imagine the constant smell of soup in one of the homes I do therapy in, I see coffee beans pouring into a grinder or into an espresso bin, I feel myself cuddling under the covers at night, laying on my right side, pillow over my head. I see the digits on my phone light up as I call someone about flowers, someone about locking the keys in my car, call an old friend, call my mom, call the doctor, as I text you, text him, call the reception site, run to the art store, go to the bank, call about nannying, call to check in at work. I see purples and browns and greens, blues. I hear birds in the morning as I lie in bed and hug the pillow. Sun shines through the leaves on trees, on to my car's window, through the slits of a shade. More texts, more calls, more coffee beans, more breaks, some reading, more notes, less remembering. More therapy work, driving, filling up at this gas station, at that one. Stopping for food, always stopping for food. "Chicken sandwich, please!" I do not often like hamburgers. Driving, talking, planning, enjoying, burn out, sleep, waking, breathing, blinking.

Life is busy.

Life is rich.

But now I rest.

Matthew supports my bread business.

Est. Noon

Today my hands got very sticky with flour, egg, honey, salt, yeast, water, dill, and onions.

For the first time in my life I am making bread by hand. And it is completely awesome.

The event is that someone had a baby and they don't like fruit or caramel [which I cannot comprehend]. "I will make you bread," I thought to myself. And so I am. While babysitting yesterday, I scoured through The Joy of Cooking (and felt like Julia's betrayer), and came across a recipe for Dill Bread. My heart pounded, my eyes got big, and a large smile stretched across my face.

And so here I am, waiting for the precious dough to rise. I have stirred and kneaded it, pounded and rolled it. And now the ingredients sit together as they rise in the noonday sun and I sit here on my computer, catching whiffs of dill and onion from my fingers as I type.

This, perhaps, is epic. I have already started to plan for how I can work homemade bread into my schedule, and I have daydreamed about this experience morphing into my very own bread business.

Homemade bread is simply my favorite thing to eat.

Homemade bread is wonderful.

I will conquer homemade bread.

Today I am remembering how good the sun feels on my skin. I envision the days spent at the beach with friends in high school, how we'd call one another sometime in the morning and make plans to go lay in the sand that afternoon. How I would throw on a suit, squeeze sunscreen from its tube, scurry to look for a towel while Jessica waited in her Mustang, as Jordan pulled up in her Volvo. I always had a pair of obnoxious sunglasses and a book which I intended to read and never did.

We'd roll the windows down or roll the top down and drive down Highway 278 with either the radio or Regina Spektor's cd brazenly singing to the traffic. And we would sometime go to Sonic and we would sometimes honk at tourist boys and then laugh and drive off, over the bridge, onto William Hilton Parkway, and through the island until we came to Burkes Beach, where there was usually free parking.

We would track across the sand and often complain of the heat under-toe. We would decide not to care and throw our Rainbow flipflops off and run across the white, loose sand to the packed, wet sand from where the water had just receded back to low tide.

We would lie our towels down.

We would drink our gatorades or waters or slushes and we would bask in glory.

Things we talked about never meant much, else I would remember them now. The importance of the beach was not the conversation. Of course not and rather, it was the purpose of being there, of letting the sun darken us, of watching the people from Ohio mill around and look for shells and sometimes we talked about how white their skin was before looking at ours and laughing at how white ours was, too.

The beach was about just lying there and letting the wet sand soak our towels. It was about twenty minutes on the stomach, twenty minutes on the back. About pretending to read a book and instead talking about inconsequential things. It was about taking pictures, and sometimes going in the water, and never feeding our food to the seagulls.

Near the end of our stay, our stomachs would be tight with irritated redness and we would cover ourselves and haphazardly talk about aloe vera. Then we'd suggest going to the mall to shop and always decided not to because we surely get caught in traffic.

We'd walk back over the sand, complaining of the heat.

We'd get in our car and decide we needed to find something to drink.

We'd turn the music up and lower the windows and swing our seats back and throw our legs out and we'd drive back through the island.

And we would be teenagers who cared not about insurance or scheduling or jobs.

As I filled empty plastic carmel bottles, I watched a first date between a shy man with awry blonde hair and an overweight woman with a slight smile, a boisterous laugh. The two seemed oddly matched and spent an hour and a half in the store.

She came in around six o'clock and ordered a Venti Green Tea latte. Her conversation with me was short, she looked over her shoulder a few times, and held herself without slouching. It wasn't until twenty minutes later that I realized the purpose behind these mannerisms. This woman, dressed in trendy attire with hair softly blown dry, was preparing for a first date. A blind date! (I served the man as well but cannot remember the interaction we had.) I proceeded to eavesdrop as I spent time with the caramel containers. (My grandmother likes to call this "rubbernecking" - a slight euphemism that doesn't present me as the strange creeper I can be.) And so, I rubbernecked. And I found out that this woman is a very hard worker - in fact, used it (it seemed) as a way to impress her cohort. She went to school during the day, worked at night, only slept once every three days or so.

Perhaps I always heard right when she said she had a child. "It's one of those Southern Baptist things" she told him. His face was red (perhaps anxiety?) as he nodded.

"I have my child to this day." She played with her latte. "Never gave her up to my parents like some people do."

That's honorable - truly.

Anyway. What was my point in this entry? Perhaps to try and capture the delicacy of a first date. Perhaps just so all you readers out there are aware that baristas are very aware of our surroundings.

At any rate, whatever my intent, I have failed again.

I am constantly reminded of the work it takes to be a writer. Who am I kidding that to sit here on my meal break on a Sunday night produces anything worth reading?

Yet -

yet.

I also remind myself that these moments continue to sharpen that which I have found and come to love. This unwarranted talent which I desperately wish to improve.

Upon maturity, I have noticed insecurities even adults harbor to which, as a child, I was entirely oblivious. The woman waiting in line adjusts her shirt hem and then holds her hand loosely over her stomach as she stands. Someone else keeps his head and eyes down as he walks to his car in the parking lot. He searches for keys in his pocket and shuffles down the row.

A woman does not stop playing with her hair, tries to get her ponytail to look perfect.

A man does not make eye contact during conversation. Perhaps he is unsure of what he says?

A woman refuses to smile widely, for fear her teeth are not straight enough.

I see teenagers glancing at the magazines on the stands. I see them watch how, every week, the glitz of airbrush presents flawlessness, how the teenagers look at those images, how they compare.

I see some people as part adult and part their teenage self, because there are moments I pick up on what may have been an experience that hurt them. In passing someone haphazardly mentions that they were the brunt of a joke, or make lighthearted jokes about their weight or acne as a fifteen year old. Maybe they reference low grades, maybe they were not good enough to be on the baseball team, the tennis team, to be a swimmer.

Enough, enough, enough. You are not good enough because you are too short. You cannot do it because you don't think the way I do. You are not pretty enough, you are not tall enough, spirited enough, happy enough, normal.

Why can we all be so cruel to one another?

Oh, to dream this dream: that we would begin to encourage one another and even to encourage strangers. We are all insecure about something. But what if we could unanimously let whatever "it" is go? Think about what a simple compliment from a good place could do.

When you are mad with someone and hold that feeling close to your heart in lieu of trying to communicate your feelings with them, instead of desiring to eradicate the anger from between you, instead of seeking after what is good and right, you choose death instead of life. Because festering in our own emotions of infuriation lead only to bitterness, leads only to broken friendships, leads only to everything that is not love, leads to the opposite of what is life.

Circa Sam Rit.

I think I'm drinking a green tea that's a mix between coconut, pineapple, peach, citrus, chocolate, cream, merlot, and chai.

My point is that there's a lot going on with it.

However, I taste the coconut the most.

And I absolutely refuse to try and extend this small concept into an extended metaphor that will then take up the rest of this entry. Instead, how about if you're interested in it, you can meditate on the idea that this little tea cup holds many, many flavors but that one is noticeable above the rest, that another is the foundation that all of the other flavors were infused into, and that it must sit in scalding water in order to steep out anything worth drinking.

Think about these things and ask Jesus if they're relevant to you. I found some parallels.

I am sitting at Barnes and Noble again because I love this place and I usually love their tea. Right now there is a gentleman in front of me, hunched over literature. I don't think he's looked up since I set my things down nearly thirty minutes ago. Then, there is a small group of loud middle-aged women who are planning a high school senior - dinner? prom? pep rally? Who knows. The only detail I've caught (except details about Krissi Harris' life and the co-chairman of an ..auction? She's new to First Baptist, you know) is that whatever said event is does not "require students to be cleared for graduation". What a relief.

Oh, new update: a father/daughter dance? How appropriate, considering my sentiments of late.

There is milk steaming in a steal pitcher off to my left. There is the obligatory mother with the stroller and toddler in the cafe. There are two (presumably) business women chatting with their 20 ounce drinks in hand.

Why can't I stop being enthralled by places like this?

Still more awesome than I know.

take

accept

run

jog

nod

shake

drool

laugh

sob

make

clap

cut

snap

tap

boost

smile

be

see

dream

vouch

send

go

create

save

throw

whisper

grow

love

step

toss

go

live

See how you have touched this life.

Dear Dad,

I have called you more often recently because I have finally realized how close you are to my heart. It's not that I ever misunderstood your significance or even desired not to know you. Rather, in preparation for marriage as well as graduating from college, I have determined that there are a rare few people who know me and care for me as well and you and Mom do, and of late I've often thought about what it must be like for you two to have watched a life from beginning until now, and knowing that you each have an integral part in not only creating but nurturing that life. And sometimes as I drive my car or wash the dishes or put on my shoes, it will suddenly astound me; the depth of emotion you must feel about such a gift, and I realize that how difficult it must have been for you two to let me go when I was thirteen, and then eighteen, now, and then in the future when I'm thirty-seven, and fifty-three.

But be assured. You never have to "let me go". You and I, we are simply transitioning once again. Just like the time I began walking. And when I first started riding my bike alone to tennis practice. Or when I started driving and coming home later than you'd have liked.

The cliches, the phrases I roll my eyes at, the impending emotions between father and daughter on her wedding day. All of these things are beckoning me to explore them, explore how you and I fit them, discover how we are more alike than not.

I love you, Dad. I miss you, as you miss me.

You are ever close to my heart and for God's sake, I do not want to miss out on life with you.

"Know thyself" is what they told us at the College. "Know thyself" rings in minds of countless students, graduates and teachers, and people who visit the campus. It streams through the minds of people who do not visit it. It is an ever-present challenge set before each of us individually. Know thyself. Know who you are. And then follow the desires of your heart that are given to you.

Whitman said, "I contain multitudes." He envisioned himself at once as himself and the man down the street, the woman across the state, the child at the dock.

You contain multitudes. We could live together as friends for the entirety of an earthly life and I still would not know all of you. Perhaps even you would even still be learning about yourself.

The challenge to "know thyself" is one that, I am convinced, does not end with this degree or that milestone or a singular thought. Finding who we are created to be is an ever-emerging process that grants itself to us as we continue to live. There is no reason to be fearful of it or to reject it. There is only, ever reason to embrace it.

I am compassionate,

I am unsure.

I enjoy simple things but lend myself to complexities.

I am contradictory,

Loved,

Full of:

Grace unwarranted and Love unlimited.

I am ambitious,

too-sensitive,

overly eager,

emotion-oriented,

(getting better).

My face is not symmetrical. My eyes are blue. My hands are usually cold and my feet are most comfortable in large socks. At times I talk too much and wish to just be instead. I am busy-oriented, but rest is sweet. And I love to go to bed early.

I hate the television.

I love movies.

Celebrity magazines are a waste of time.

Internet gossip seems not to be,

but books are the best way to spend it.

Let us never stop asking who we are.

"You do not have a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear." (Romans)

"We are God's workmanship" (Ephesians)