It’s been a while since a good Hollywood post, and there’s no stopping it this week. The Emmys happened Sunday night. And from the moment Jimmy Fallon met up with the cast of Glee and opened the show with a musical number complete with matching costumes and dancing in silhouette, I turned to Michael and said, “I’m so happy.”

Do you know the line in Music and Lyrics when Drew Barrymore’s character has just inadvertently dissed Hugh Grant’s character with a reference to how a “Pop song isn’t likely to impress” her ex-boyfriend? And Hugh Grant says, sure, it’s not great literature maybe, but nothing “makes people feel as good as fast as ‘I got sunshine, on a cloudy day.’”

It’s true. And nothing makes me as happy as fast as a good show-stopping musical number. When it was over, I applauded. Because I’ve done just enough singing and dancing in my life to know that stuff takes work, and I felt so thankful that they’d done the work and passed on the happy.

Then Monday came and with it the announcement for the new contestants on Dancing with the Stars. And I haven’t gotten excited about that cast in a couple years now, but this one made me very, very happy. Mostly because, it includes Jennifer Grey.

Dirty Dancing is one of the shows I watch pretty much any time I catch it on Cable. And if it happens to be at the final number, all the better. I’ve got “I had the time of my life” on my ipod, and when Dancing with the Stars did a Patrick Swayze tribute last year, I was beside myself. And as if just having Baby herself on the show wasn’t enough to thrill me, they paired her with Derek Hough. I like many of the professionals on DWTS, but he’s my favorite. As far as my world is concerned – and my Monday and Tuesday nights – Dancing is back.

Now, some of my friends and family members insist that I should also be watching So You Think You Can Dance. And I always intend to. But I know it will be missing two elements I really love about DWTS. One is the proven effectiveness of cross-pollenating your brand. So many times on DWTS, I haven’t even known the people who were cast. They were in fields (such as comedy, sports, the Disney Channel, or Reality TV) that I just wasn’t familiar with. Sometimes I didn’t like my first impression of them either. But then as they worked their butt off and showed us their vulnerability and their human-ness and their relatable thoughts, I came to like them. I cared that they existed, and I didn’t (always) want to see them go.

And speaking of working their butt off, that’s the other thing I love about this show. It’s the if-I-can-do-it-you-can factor. I love how often we actually watch people improve – right before our eyes. We see them struggle with the steps, feel embarrassed (I hate that part), get criticized (I really hate that part), and then get better. It’s a beautiful thing. A good dance can bring Carrie Inaba to tears, and I totally understand why. It tells a story. And sometimes it’s not a fictional one, and it’s not the story of a dance. It’s the story of a dancer, a person who wasn’t sure they could, a couple that fought and struggled through rehearsal but stayed persistent, or a person who’s been seen in every light but good, and then the work pays off and the couple comes together, and the person rises above, and it all comes together for the beautiful, inspiring end. And suddenly hard work seems so worth it, and very little seems too hard to overcome.

A cancer survivor once said that she dances every single day. She was definitely onto something.

(Photo by Xanda on Flickr.)

I like to-do lists and wish lists actually. I never have a wish list unless I’m pretty satisfied with life. And to-do lists are good because they give me something to look forward to. It would be awful to think you were done in life, wouldn’t it?

Still, I don’t like those moments – usually between 5 and 6 p.m., LIKE CLOCKWORK, when I’ve just finished work and I’m busy with supper and every single thing that’s out of place or left undone screams at me that my long-term to-do list looks exactly like it did months and months ago and it’s bound to look the same FOREVER. Poor Michael. He doesn’t even ask what’s wrong anymore when it’s that time of day, and I open the dishwasher a little harder than necessary and put spoons on the counter with emphasis.

So, in light of that, I am loving the delightful satisfaction of checking things off the list, here and there, the thrill of actually finishing something, of starting one week with a few more things completed than in the week before. Here are some of the things I’ve done lately to get that feeling.

Snapfish – I used to upload all my digital pictures to Snapfish.com with the goal that I would print them out eventually. (I still like albums you can flip through; I’m old-fashioned like that). But, you can probably see where I’m going with this. I stopped ordering actual prints about October of 2003. So I have some catching up to do, and it thrills me to no end to order a bunch and get that brightly-colored envelope in the mail, and then – more importantly – to tuck my memories into pretty albums and put them on our shelves. I love that feeling. And along these lines, I have ordered prints of the photographs from Jake’s birth and his first few weeks at home, so I’m at least one step toward that resolution at least.

Betsy-Tacy – Mom got me the first Betsy-Tacy book for Christmas, because of our blog-friend Katie who loves them. But I didn’t get to it until last week. You may know I once gave Anne of Green Gables to my niece and namesake, Nola Serenity, and wrote in it that when she read it someday, she’d be reading pieces of me. And that’s how it felt to read a beautiful children’s book that I knew Katie loved. And I didn’t realize until the very last chapter when Betsy and Tacy meet Tib that this is the very book Kathleen Kelly talks about in You’ve Got Mail when she says of Tib, “Whose real name, I’m sorry to say, is Thelma.” You know, Anne of Green Gables is mentioned fondly in that movie too, and suddenly it was like sitting down with Katie, Maud Hart-Lovelace, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and Kathleen Kelly as we all just gushed about the literature we love.

Audrey Hepburn – I’ve now seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sabrina, and Roman Holiday thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law Mary who gave them to me for my birthday. My old-movie repertoire was sadly lacking and now feels much more complete. Roman Holiday, incidentally, was my first Gregory Peck flick. I now have a huge crush on Gregory Peck and feel I should buy a poster of him for my wall. Felicity said Michael might not like that, but all he said was, “He’s dead, right?” And speaking of my crush on Gregory Peck…

To Kill a Mockingbird – I finally bought this book that I have never read. I haven’t seen the movie either (with my aforementioned crush). And my life, as a person rather fond of words, feels a bit less fraudulent now. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but since reading it is such a delight, I don’t plan to hurry.

And that’s just the beginning. But it gives you an idea. I also clean the kitchen, sort through the boys’ not-so-endless-when-I-actually-take-the-time-for-it mound of paperwork, do a load of laundry, write in my journal, blog, or download a new song from iTunes. It’s the little things that squelch the five p.m. blues. What are your small, satisfying accomplishments that serve to keep you sane?

*Photo by tellmewhat2 on Flickr.

One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.

I have so much to tell you. Felicity sent to me the above quote (by Thomas Wolfe) before I even had a trip to New York City planned. And now it’s become my mantra. I loved New York City. I loved it like Sabrina loved Paris. (Though don’t rule me out for adopting that city one day too). People ask me my favorite part of the trip, and I say, “Waking up.” I loved getting up each morning knowing that city was just outside my door. I loved walking its streets and entering its coffee shops and discovering its most famous landmarks for myself. I loved viewing it from above and even riding its trains below. I loved the overwhelming mass of humanity on Times Square and the miraculous quiet just blocks away in Central Park. And I loved the people.

There are lots of places I want to visit one day. Washington D.C. was one of them, and now I have. Paris is one. The Grand Canyon, Japan, Greece, Italy. They’re all on the list, and many more. But New York was different. I didn’t want to just observe it from its sky-high decks and stroll through its streets with a camera. I wanted to actually go inside. I wanted to meet New York. I was hoping that when I met Manhattan, Manhattan would meet me.

And then, in the last few years, it began to happen. I met a blogger and writer who works in New York City. I got a literary agent from there. And I started working for a travel company. Thanks to all of these things, my first trip to New York could not have been better if my favorite celebrity had marched up to me and asked, “You’re Serenity, right?”

The travel gig got us some very fun perks – a meeting in the Empire State Building (plus we got to skip the line to the top and we got to see the publicity shots that only VIPs usually see), a visit at the table with restaurant managers, and a plethora (well, a handful) of wonderful New York City guides giving us the real-deal, inside scoop on everything from celebrity sightings (“Hey, there went that famous Fox News guy…”) to 9/11 (more on that later and how we cried…).

And then I got to meet my agent and my friend, and that’s when it all came together and I knew I was living, breathing, walking in a total dream come true. I met my agent, Holly, on Wednesday. She changed the spot last-minute since I was trapped in a long (but very cool) tour at Tommy Hilfiger. We met in a little coffee shop where I discovered the news of her loveliness has been understated to a massive degree. No superlative quite does justice to how lucky I feel to have met this person, let alone signed with her on a professional level. NO SUPERLATIVE.

And then I met Anne Dayton of anneandmay.com, and I might have signed a real estate agreement then and there to live nearby these people if I didn’t think I’d have to leave my husband to do it. I wanted to hug both Holly and Anne after everything they said. I restrained myself. If I didn’t think they might read this I would gush even more, because they made my trip to New York what it was. I went – theoretically – for the Empire State Building and Top of the Rock and Tommy Hilfiger. But I’m going back for them.

For me, New York is like the ocean. I love life on earth so much more just remembering that it’s out there. Its enormity gives me perspective, shrinking my small stresses and sweeping the large ones into the stream of all human striving so that I no longer feel alone in them. It was a dream come true to go their once and to have friends to greet once I arrived. But for me it definitely didn’t feel like once-in-a-lifetime. It just felt like a first.

My next several posts will be more about the trip I’m sure. I don’t think you’ll be bored. No historical site or New York City experience is safe from my life-sized introspection. Emotional connections galore.

UPDATE** Here is a link to my NYC pictures on facebook.

“For a moment Anne’s heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert’s gaze…It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation…Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways… Gilbert wisely said nothing more; but in his silence he read the history of the next four years in the light of Anne’s remembered blush. Four years of earnest, happy work…and then the guerdon of a useful knowledge gained and a sweet heart won.” Anne of Avonlea

Some time ago I lost my new book momentum. I have worked for several years now to increase my library of books read, having spent most of my life re-perusing the same few treasured ones over and over. The list was growing nicely and then I settled into the Anne books as research for my next project. And new books lost all their shine. Suddenly I couldn’t remember if I even had any books on my to-be-read list. Maybe I was done with all the good books in the world and should just re-read the old ones. I even reopened the Twilight series, which kind of captivates me and only a little because I know L.M. Montgomery was one of Stephenie Meyer’s literary influences.

Thankfully, it’s summer. And with summer comes – well, tons of happy for one thing. I love summer at my house. The kids are home but highly self-entertaining. And the days seem so full of potential for accomplishing things. Plus, we start going to the library again. Before we went tonight, I opened good ol’ Goodreads and wrote down several of the books I’ve hastily added to my to-read section on there whenever I happened to read about them online or hear about them from a friend. And my library came through in a very big way. So many of them were there and available that I got three – THREE, which is insanely ambitious for me in a 2-week period.

I love the above passage from Anne of Avonlea; it’s one of my favorites, setting up the book that IS the Anne and Gilbert romance through every tragic moment until the crowning end. I can’t wait to get to that one and sink into it for the millionth time. But I’m so glad that Goodreads and my wonderful library have reminded me there are other books in the world. And I’m so glad my to-be-read pile is now three real live books just waiting to be opened.

Photo by David Paul Ohmer on Flickr of the courtyard at the Boston Public Library – the first free municipal library in the country, something I’ve been writing about for work this week, and a setting extremely inspiring for finding new books to sink into.

You know what I love? I mean, yet another thing I love – since I talk about things I love all the time on here… I love unexpected friendships. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, Captain Jack and Will Turner, Legolas and Gimli (apparently I especially like unexpected friendships when one of the players is Orlando Bloom…) and, you know, ALL of the characters on LOST with each other.

From the beginning, it was the people and their crazy-dramatic back stories and the unexpected friendships that grew between them that kept me coming back for more. I loved the way a plane crash on a mystical island allowed a murderer to be friends with a neurosurgeon, a con man with a lotto winner, an Iraqi soldier with a spoiled American girl.

This book, The Gospel According to LOST by Chris Seay, agrees with me and elaborates on that plus so many other things to love about this show. I think my biggest complaint is that I wished I was sitting in a living room with Chris Seay instead of reading the book. I didn’t want to be the person actually talking to him, though. I just want to sit nearby and watch him talk about LOST with some equally intelligent, equally admiring fan. Seay and this imaginary person could enlighten each other on all the philosophical theories referenced throughout the television series and the many names and story lines that mirror biblical ones and the possibilities they’ve considered based on the many ways all of the characters (called “Losties” in the book) are connected to each other and always have been as well as how they are connected to other characters like the mysterious, god-like Jacob. I would sit by and listen with wide eyes and an oh-my-gosh-I-hadn’t-thought-of-that sort of grin and occasionally say things like, “Locke gave me the creeps even before he was possessed by the mysterious dark side” and “I heart Jack.”

If you frequently dissect LOST with other people, you may not read a lot in this book that you hadn’t thought of before. And on the flip side, if you don’t catch any of the connections and references sprinkled throughout the series on your own, there are better places to look than in this book. It’s hardly a book of revelation. It’s more like a celebration. It seems to say throughout, “Embrace messy humanity, embrace Story, and embrace the mystery. The answers are in the journey, not in an absolution.”

Apparently this isn’t Seay’s first attempt to elaborate on meaning in popular culture, and I’d definitely pick up anything else he wrote. He’s great at celebrating art that has intention and that has the ability to drive us to yet more learning, yet more discovery, and many, many more questions.

Another thing I loved about this book? Felicity pointed out a new version of the Bible recently. It’s called The Voice by Ecclesia Bible Society of which Chris Seay is the president. It’s this version that Seay uses when quoting Scripture in this book. I found this sort of beautiful, because the point to The Voice, I understand, is to represent the story of the Gospel message. And similarly, LOST is all about story, and how much we can discover by just diving in and participating in it.

**

I requested this book as part of the Thomas Nelson program now called Book Sneeze – which is WAY easier to say than their old title. I got the book for free but with no obligation to review it favorably. The title of the book and bible, above, are affiliate links from which I’ll receive a commission if you click the links and make a purchase. I say all this to keep from being arrested by the FTC. The End.

I’ve offered to guest host Serenity’s blog a few times, mostly in jest (she doesn’t trust me – with good reason), but I finally decided that I should really take a shot at it. Seren, I promise to behave myself. What’s the worst that could happen to me, right? I mean, it’s not like she has a bunch of writers on here, critiquing my every word…

I’ll preface my post by acknowledging that I could not be more out of my element than right at this moment. I am akin to a fish that is waterless. However, given my present lack of good judgment, I will press on. I am a supreme novice when it comes to the world of blogging, although I do think I understand its most basic concepts. I realize that in the grand scheme of things, I’m writing this more for Serenity than anyone else, but I also realize that my topic of choice could not be more commonly shared by so many people. So, all of the writers that are logging in, I kindly thank you in advance for keeping your editorial comments to yourself. All non-writers, don’t even think about it.

I, like most men, am not a complex creature. I have a few hobbies, things that I’m interested in, but nothing all that fascinating. I think about things: Religion, politics, will the Tigers stay in the Big 12? But that doesn’t mean I have an overwhelming urge, or even an underwhelming urge, to share those thoughts with anyone. I have friends, although I’m not sure they know that. I have things I want to accomplish in life, and even though it may take me longer than I thought, I’ll get there. I’m just your average, run of the mill guy who married a hot chick way out of his league.

My life is arranged simply: God, my wife, my kids, family, friends, and Clay (my Lab –last but not necessarily least). That’s it. If I find myself giving more importance to things other than what’s on my list, it’s time to stop and reevaluate. I don’t like things complicated, I want to keep it simple. And for those who really know Serenity, I’m sure you’re laughing right now. Yeah…complete awareness of the one you marry – did not have it.

On June 16, 2005, my simple life got messed with. Cancer. Seren and I had been thinking about our third child that would arrive in 8 months, and now we were wondering if she would even live that long. What do you do when everything you’ve been given, even life itself, is being threatened? Well, you live. I couldn’t be more proud of how Serenity made the decision that she was going to live, for however long that might be. And over the last five years, we’ve tasted the bitter and the sweet that life has to offer, and we’ve kept putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes we were taking steps into what seemed like a great unknown, not sure if there was going to be solid ground under our feet when they landed, but we always seemed to find our way. Our faith was tested time after time. And if we stumbled, there were always friends and family members around to help us along. I’m not suggesting that Serenity beat cancer because of our faith in God, but I will tell you, we’ve lived because of our faith in God. And however many days we are given, we’ll live.

So Seren, thanks for not leaving me. When I wake up early in the mornings, I’m very grateful that you are still lying next to me in bed…then I get up, go pee, and go back to sleep – stupid diet coke right before bed.

Jennifer Garner

Sarah over at Sarah with a Chance wrote about happy things yesterday (including cupcakes – sort of – which I made last night because she got me hungry for them). And it inspired me to make my own happy list, with of course a Golden Globes bent since I want to share some of my happy moments from that as well.

I’m basically stuffed full of happy these days. Shelter and knowing where all my loved ones are and that they’re safe – these things top the list for sure. But here are some more things that make me happy, almost all tied to something I would have leaned over and whispered to you had you been watching the Golden Globes with me.

1. Great quotes make me happy. My favorite quote from the globes was from Meryl Streep:

I’ve played so many extraordinary women that I’m being mistaken for one.

I love that. Especially as a beautiful complement to the hilarious Ricky Gervais quip that, let’s face it, actors really are the most important people in the world. A great quote goes such a long way, doesn’t it? But what I love even more is when we have amazing spontaneous moments in real life that go down in family history as that really funny thing that happened once. The other night at supper we quoted several of these from our life together, and I was even happier than when I watched the Golden Globes.

2. Pretty things. I don’t even feel ashamed of this. Not even a little bit. Nice shoes, a great bag, new home decor, even – for goodness sake – a freshly-made bed or when your hair lays just the way you want it – can anyone deny how deeply satisfying these things are? Perhaps, though, that’s only true when all the big things – like loved ones and shelter – are in place first of all…

My favorite pretty things at the Globes were Kate Hudson’s brilliant white gown – she was luminous, Jennifer Garner’s girly long hair (a fun change from her normally straight look – which is also beautiful), Julia Roberts’ waves and her ready laugh (“Wow, NBC, you guys are really in the toilet, aren’t you?), and the rest of Meryl Streep’s speech, which was a lovely tribute to her mother and to her mother’s ability to smile in the face of trying times and trouble.

3. Laughing makes me happy. And Ricky Gervais is so good at making people laugh. As are my boys. Case in point: The other day when I steered Jake to the bathroom and told him we needed to brush his teeth, he who still sometimes says complete phrases that we can’t understand at all, sarcastically quoted, “Yea, that’s gonna happen.”

4. Did I mention cupcakes?

5. Having a job that allows me to work from home when necessary so that no snow day, holiday, or sick day can make me wonder, “But what will I do about work?” This makes me happy.

6. A sense of accomplishment.

7. The belief that dreams can come true. You can almost always count on at least one speech maker to preach this message. This year, I’d say that award goes to Mo’Nique. She said that at 14 she told her (now) husband, “Someday we’re gonna be stars.” And his response was, “You first.” The thing I really, really love, though, is that I believe dreams can come true and yet I also believe dreams can evolve and adjust and that sometimes we find the dream we’re living is something amazing too.

8. It makes me happy when my favorite people win. Or present. Or show up at all, really. My favorite people at these Globes included Julia Roberts and Jennifer Garner as previously mentioned, Sandra Bullock, Robert Downey, Jr., and George oh-so-classy Clooney (who would have evidently preferred “to be planning a telethon for Haiti” according to the guy who wrote the screenplay for Clooney’s Up in the Air and said that George “is one of the best men I’ve ever met), my Friends – Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, and the cast of Glee. The songs from the soundtracks of that show are a huge picker-upper, and I was thrilled it won for best comedy. In more Clooney news, remember that one? Up in the Air? The movie in which I SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN EXTRA. Yea, it must have been a pretty decent little flick. Sigh.

9. Creating, creating, creating. “Do something creative every day,” director Nick Cassavetes once said (or rather, his dad I think said it. Hollywood is “not a place on a map,” Michael Eisner said, “But a state of being that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine.” Creating makes me happy.

10. Sisters make me happy. Charity sent me an email Monday with some of her thoughts about the Globes. And so many of them were just exactly what I had thought as well. I watched this awards show alone and for once wondered if perhaps the rest of the world wasn’t watching it after all, if maybe the universe didn’t revolve around the film industry and George Clooney and Kate Hudson’s gown. If maybe I am the only person who still feels like movies bring us all together. It was nice to hear from Charity and realize I hadn’t enjoyed them alone after all.

Photo by Capital M on Flickr.

I really hate dissing other people who claim to be washed in the blood. It’s not pretty, it tears us apart, and it accomplishes nothing. But DISS I DID. I tweeted and facebooked the life out of that video, and got just the responses I was hoping for, i.e, “This is disheartening.”

Now to tread lightly into my past and confess something. I’ve been there. This is what Felicity and I were talking about. We’ve been under a circle of influence that seemed to suggest that possibly no Christian author (let alone, oh my gosh, the nonChristian ones) had anything to say that we should hear. (This suggestion did NOT come from my parents, who are both well-read, wonderful people).

And as Felic and I were talking, I felt so grateful that we didn’t stay there. (Not a physical location but a mindset). I’m so glad that I eventually knocked on some doors to see what other people in the world had to say about things (random movie quote: Sense and Sensibility: “I like them. They talk about things. We never talk about things). And I’m especially, supremely grateful that those people let me in when I did.

Here are some doors on which I’m so glad I’ve begun to knock:

My agent, Holly Root, and with her a world of writers and readers and people who love, love books. Technically, Holly knocked on my door, a stroke of luck I will forever think of as the climactic you-can-do-it heroine song in a musical. She sent me a memoir right away that moved me to this day and I knew, Anything is possible now. Since writing my memoir, I have awakened to this whole wide world of literature that I somehow completely ignored before. I HAVE SO MUCH CATCHING UP TO DO. But I’m getting there. And I am so glad.

Travel. I traveled around the midwest with my fellow youth-groupers in high school performing a play, and I drug my feet every single time. I hated being away from my small town and my crush and my bedroom with all my stuff. And I was just such a homebody! I went to Colombia, South America, my first year of college and, again, almost threw up from the homesickness. But after a few days I started to get the appeal. Today I have a husband and three children and two jobs and the pursuit of a writing career, and I don’t get out of town much. But I’m ready now. I want to get out of town more. I want to see more of the world. And I work for a place that lets me get even more aware of what’s out there, so I’ll know where I’m going when I go. I’m grateful for that.

Philosophy. I’m not sure that’s the right word, because I have a friend who is actually in philosophy, and I’m hardly even on the stoop of the house that holds that door. Still, I love that in reading and listening and watching the world and its people, you hear things like, “Humans seek comfort” and you realize that this explains why our lives tend to be BORING, or “We tend to consider any person we recognize, a member of our tribe,” and you realize why you care that Brad and Angelina had the twins out the other day. These little realizations that philosophers have gathered and put into words and scattered about the universe for us to discover in books and art and film and each other – I like these things. They’ve opened my world.

It’s nice to be let in, isn’t it?

There’s so much in the world for us all if we only have the eyes to see it.

~Anne Shirley

I saw a commercial this week for Old Navy Cardi Coats, and I thought about how almost every single day (for eight or nine months every year) I wish I had long sweaters. And today I bought some. That almost never happens – me buying clothes. Let alone the very clothes I saw on a commercial only days before.

I’ve already given Michael the, “I’ll wear them with everything” speech. Not that I needed to, because they were so on sale, and it was all Michael’s idea that I go shopping in the first place. I just think it’s noteworthy that we girls say that about things, and I did indeed say it about these sweaters. But I also remembered something as I imagined wearing them (with jeans! with dresses! on cool, summer nights with shorts or capris!). A friend of mine once described this kind of clothing as an extender. Bustles were extenders, trains on dresses, tails on a tux. I don’t remember the fashion science of it, but the understanding I gathered is that extenders stretch out the ahhh factor. And I definitely have that expectation for my new sweaters.

And now that I’ve put some extenders in my closet, I’ve been thinking about extenders that happen in life. Laughter, for instance. Any moment is more memorable if filled with genuine, could-not-stop-it-laughter. Dancing, children in just about any size or shape, music, good smells – they’re all extenders too. They are the parts of an experience that make it even better.

Our kids jumped in a lake today with their clothes on. Their cousins joined them as well, and Michael’s cousin said to us, “They will never forget this day.” They were laughing and excited and completely thrilled by that coloring-outside-the-lines feeling. But I don’t think I was fully in the moment until Jill said that. She extended it. So now, I’ll never forget it either.

I’ve always been kind of a moment extender. Both the exciting stuff and the traumatic ones were just a little bit bigger than they needed to be. But now I have a word for it. And that should help me extend them even more.

Felic’s post describes how our character shows through our words and actions. And it reminded me of a gift I got once that said, “Character is who you are when only God is watching.”

When I was a sophomore I threw away all my old journals and diaries. All of them. I put them in a brown paper bag, sealed them with duct tape, and put them in our trash can on the curb. I still try to go back in time and will that 15-year-old girl NOT to do that. You know one reason I threw them out? Because there was too much “Michael” in there. And I was afraid that if I married someone else, those words would hurt  that mysterious person’s feelings.

A year or so later, I took up the habit again. I couldn’t help it. I needed to write. Not write, write – it would be a while before that goal really bloomed. But just write. I roll my eyes sometimes when I read my old journals, because I tended to self-correct in them. I would gush or moan or freak out of course. But then I would say, “Of course what I should be feeling is…” or, “But then, at least I’ve learned….”

I didn’t write in a journal during much of my engagement or the first two months of marriage. I remember thinking I would tell Michael everything now, and it felt silly to write my thoughts in a book as if I didn’t want him to see them. Eventually I realized, that wasn’t the reason at all. And I began to tell Michael everything and write it down in the book.

There’s a scene in the movie I want to write one day in which Rilla Blythe runs through the woods with her diary so she can pour her heart out after a grueling week in which England enters World War I and Rilla’s brother and friend both enlist. I see myself that way sometimes. I grab my journal from the shelf by my bed and escape into its pages just like Rilla escapes to the woods. I write exactly what I feel and what I think. I still self-correct, but it’s no longer from the fear that my posterity will loathe me if I didn’t. It’s because the writing actually works things out. And I tend to leave the pages with more perspective than when I opened them.

I’ve been wondering lately if it’s only me. It’s such a huge part of my life, journaling. And I don’t know many other people who still do it. What about you? Do you capture somewhere a bit of who you are when only God is watching?