The Friday Five: What gets me up in the morning?

My women's group has been reading An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor, and in the introduction she shares advice a minister gave her when she was asked to speak to his congregation: "Tell us what is saving your life now." I love this thought, so I'm going to start taking Fridays to tell you what is saving my life now, whenever now happens to be. I hope you'll join in!

To kick it off, here are five keys to my 2016 morning schedule that have made me happy to get up and begin the day (and I am NOT a morning person).

1. Headspace. Ever since I took a mindfulness class followed by a spiritual formation class a few years ago, I've been wishing that I was the meditation type. But I'm impatient, and I'm a perpetual Snooze presser, so as much as I imagined waking up at 5:00 a.m. to do 20 minutes of centering prayer, it just never happened. This fall, I downloaded the app Insight Timer, which has a plethora of free meditations to tap into, or simply a timer that sounds like that wonderful resonant bell we associate with mindfulness. I started setting the timer for five minutes in the morning on weekdays, and mostly stuck to it. When I heard about the meditation app Headspace (also from women's group conversation), I thought I'd give the first ten 10-minute sessions a try. When I finished those, I decided to pay for a yearlong subscription. I'm on day 18 now, and can really tell a difference in my level of anxiety, both in the morning and throughout the day. I appreciate having the same (British) voice talk me through the practice daily. It also adds meaningful elements to consider (empathy, purpose, restlessness /boredom) along the way.

2. A Jessica Smith workout. If you know me well, you know that the lovely ladies at work and I work out with Jessica Smith three times a week. On the days we don't meet, I try to do a quick video of hers in the morning. I don't belong to a gym right now, but honestly I don't feel like I need to with the variety of videos she offers. I've moved from 3/5 lb. weights to 5/8/10 lbs. in less than a year, and feel like I'm in a lot better cardio and strength shape. (Plus she doesn't yell at you, and her dog Peanut is adorable!)

3. A free write. I've been trying to get journal writing back in my life for awhile, and found a pathway by writing while my tea kettle comes to a boil. It's a set amount of time (7-8 minutes?) that gets something else done (hot water!) while I get something done for myself. And it really doesn't seem to matter what spills out from the ink to the page; just knowing that I've started the day putting down thoughts is enough.

4. English breakfast tea + skim milk. And once that water is boiled... I've never been a coffee drinker, and turned to tea when we used to go out to Sunday brunch with my grandparents. It sounded so grown-up in fourth grade to try something called "cinnamon stick tea" (with my dessert, of course). Not surprisingly, back then I dumped in a ton of sugar and milk. It's been enough years now where I quit the sugar, but hot tea with milk is still my morning fave. And skim means I can dump in as much as I want.

5. NPR. I've been waking up to the voices of Morning Edition and Marketplace Morning Report since I was in middle school (and probably before), one routine that I predict will never change. National Public Radio is always a comforting companion, even when the news itself is discomforting.

What's your Friday Five this week? What is saving your life now? In the mornings? Any time of day?

Enjoy the weekend, friends!

Blogging hiatus, over and OUT.

Claire's 2015: This basically sums it up.

Y'all. This is embarrassing. My last post was April 3, 2015.

In case you weren't aware, it's February 2016. Ack ack ick. 14-year-old blogging Claire (who blogged an average of five times a day) would be very disappointed in 28-year-old not-blogging Claire.

But, 14-year-old self (and everyone else), can we back up so I can tell you what's been going on and give you an idea of just WHY I haven't blogged for ten whole months?

Proof! It happened!

First and foremost, #MFAlife. #amwriting. (14-year-old self would not understand why I'm attaching the number sign to words. Sometimes 28-year-old self does not understand either. Le sigh.) In other words, 2002 Claire, future you got a Masters of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. And the last year of this program took up a LOT of time. Like, a lot. Time that I didn't really have to begin with and so would squeeze hurried and harried into Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes late weeknights while Sean slept. Reading and underlining books shakily on the bus to and from work, closing my eyes to delve and dive into the last 18 months of my life so that I could emerge with something... and I did! I wrote a book, a manuscript draft. It exists, I printed it out (multiple times), I read from it in front of a bunch of people (including the people I was writing about), I gave a graduation speech and got a new diploma and an alumni pin. But all of that just wound down in the last month, and so I'm still adjusting to having writing time on my hands that doesn't have to do with deadlines.

Actually, I spent plenty of time away from the laptop. With all the friends, weddings, reunions, birthdays, my college classmate winning NBA MVP, and a certain husband, 2015 was pretty epic.

I've been teaching, too, which began as a requirement for my degree and has become a fun, challenging and rewarding addition to my life. I feel constantly amazed by all I've actually learned/read/experienced in the past 5-10 years to be able to do this, and very glad that the folks who come to my classes seem to leave feeling inspired - and then return the next week! Some parts still feel quite experimental, but I'm excited to continue on the journey and see where it leads.

So those are my two biggest excuses, middle school Claire, for having gone my longest stint ever without blogging since the eighth grade. And then of course there's everything in between - the most important people, the full-time job, the early bedtimes and occasional (...) TV binges. For the first time in a long time, I've lived life without writing about it simultaneously. Even on paper, the everyday has gone unchecked. (I read Sarah Manguso's Ongoingness: The End of a Diary with rapt fascination, hearing myself and not-myself on every page.)

But then the other morning - not surprisingly, a day or two after my writing group and I had done ten minutes of free writing on a prompt - I switched my electric tea kettle to "on," and something clicked on within me. "I'll just write until the water boils," I thought, grabbing the most recent blank journal I'd tried unsuccessfully to jump start.

And there it went. The words, again.

It was lovely to write with a deadline - until the water boils! - about nothing and everything. I tried not to monitor what appeared messily on the page, and much of it was mundane, but it felt so good to write and not try and make it deep and sweeping. I liked seeing my handwriting on the page again, even when my hand started to ache from lack of practice.

I got a couple of pages down and then the kettle clicked and I closed the book, got up, filled my mug with English Breakfast and skim milk, poured a bowl of dry Honey Nut Cheerios, sliced up a pear and spread my toast with peanut butter. Turned on NPR.

The day was beginning, but not before I had begun myself. And while I have enjoyed living life without writing about it, finding that to be a mixture of outwardly relaxed and inwardly tense (or inwardly relaxed and outwardly tense?), I am excited to have the time to return. No, to MAKE the time to return. 

Speaking of Sarah Manguso - I ran into her in The New York Times this week, and was struck so soundly by this thought:

“The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair. If you keep that in mind always, the wish to make something beautiful or smart looks slight and vain in comparison. If people read your work and, as a result, choose life, then you are doing your job.”

So I'm back. Choosing life, and writing. Writing, and life. For myself and for you, whoever you may be. And I hope you'll come along for the ride, wherever it goes next.

Celebrating March.

What? A monthly update that isn't backtracking to catch up on more than one month at a time? Written within the first week of the new month? It's a miracle! (Well, it's a Friday off, which I'm thankful for!)

I'm so excited for spring to kick it into high gear in April, but really, March was lovely. Here are some highlights...

Our new church website launched! I'm part of the communications committee, and we had been working on this revamp since the fall. It was so cool to watch it come together with the ideas and hard work of so many dedicated people, especially our communications director, Sara. I love the fresh, clean look and the many photos of our wonderful community - plus the new logo!

Davidson basketball. My beloved Wildcats had some exciting moments in March, especially towards the beginning. We earned our first at-large NCAA bid, which was a huge achievement, and though the game itself wasn't so hot, it's always a joy to hang out with fellow Davidsonians - in person and via text - and bother everyone else in the bar with cheers and shrieks. (But post-second round, I haven't been into March Madness at all... not much of a Cinderella year, huh?)

Lunch with a dear friend. My Maid of Honor Jessie lives out west and came into town for a couple of days, during which we got to have lunch and watch the Davidson game on a big-screen TV and devour cookies and brownies a la mode when things didn't go so well on the court. I was so happy to have some quality time with her.

Bridal shower. One of my wonderful childhood friends is getting married this summer, and we celebrated her - on her March birthday, no less! - with delicious food, gifts, laughter, and the fun moment when her fiance surprised her with his homemade apple pie. Can't wait to celebrate Allie and Sam in a few months!

Meals with family. Sean and I have gotten to have multiple meals with both of our families this month, which is lovely, and one of the prime reasons we chose to move back home. It was especially fun one weekend to meet new additions to the family from Tennessee and to go through old photos at my grandmother's house, laughing over good memories (and bad hairstyles).

The farmer's market. There's a Tuesday farmer's market near my office, and my coworkers and I have started making a regular trip. Of course we usually wind up with sweet treats instead of organic vegetables, but who says that's a bad thing?

Books! I have absolutely loved my reading list for this MFA semester, and feel like several have really moved me in particular. Literarily (is that a word?), Roger Rosenblatt's Boy Detective: A New York Childhood is sharp and cool, so snappily written it makes me want to write his way instead of flowing on and on like I tend to do. Literarily but also life-wise, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry have been beautiful reads and have inspired me to try and live more simply and gratefully. Let's just say it's an ongoing process, but I was really drawn into both books and their characters, but also their rootedness in faith, community and simplicity.

Marilynne Robinson. Speaking of that esteemed author... in March she spoke at a conference at Emory, where they had a book signing afterwards, so now I have a little shine of Marilynne Robinson in my book where I hope it will somehow seep through into my own fingers to give me a little boost on writing and life through the years. 

Before work... I've really been enjoying my morning routine, sitting in the dining room (we have a dining room! in my old place I barely had a place to sit), drinking jasmine green tea with skim milk, munching on granola and a banana with peanut butter, listening to NPR. Writing and reading sometimes, or just watching the birds outside. 

After work... Since the time change, Sean and I have made a point to take a walk through our neighborhood most every evening, which has made for a new and beloved part of the daily routine. We catch up on the day, meet neighbors, walk quietly, enjoy the now-blooming trees... A great way to end the day.

P.S. Food, y'all. Some of the best eats this month... almond butter cookies, sauteed garlicky kale, white bean chicken chili, pimento cheese sandwiches, chocolate peppermint biscotti.