Nashville, TN: I'm sitting at my desk in my home office, working on about 5 different projects at the same time: tightening up the final details on a show in San Antonio next weekend, searching for blogs for an upcoming blog tour of Find Your Way Home, photoshopping hundreds of photos from the fall tour (and getting frustrated while Photoshop Bridge keeps crashing on me), transcribing an interview I did with Jordan (a sweet girl in the Magdalene / Thistle Farms program who shared her life story with me over coffee & chocolate chip scones) and spending needless amounts of time reading friends' status updates on Facebook.
I'm also drinking tea to hopefully kick this sore throat I have before it leads to a full-fledged cold and thinking about the other 5+++ things I have to get to at some point soon (put together my taxes, look through Italy pics from '06, go to the gym before it closes, etc. etc.)....
Then a song comes on my iTunes that I haven't heard in years, by an artist named
Jann Arden. I first heard of this Canadian songstress while my heart was being ripped in two by a college boyfriend and her "
Insensitive" became the anthem to my pain... right next to Alanis Morrisette's "
You Oughta Know." (God bless angry women who perform music for a living!)
But the song that is now filling up the air is called "Looking For It." It wasn't a single, so I can't find a video or even a soundclip to place here (still trying to figure out how to attach an mp3 to a blog... hopefully I can post an addendum to this story soon -- put in on my list of things to do). However, I'm listening closely to the words:
I'll bite the hand that feeds the pain
I'll lay my life down for love
I lost the truth,
I lost my way
But I am looking for it,
Oh I am looking for it now
I am looking for it
I am looking for myself
A savior sent to save the world
An angel has no armor
Now torn and bent,
no wings unfurl
We are looking for it
We need to find but one thing good
And under every star
~I'm finding Heaven~
In every breath of air
~I'm finding Heaven~
In everything I have
~I'm finding Heaven~
In everything I am...
The world is big,
the world is bad
But I will find the beauty
I see a vision in my head
I am looking for it
Oh I am looking for it now.
Those words literally just make me stop everything I'm doing. I take a deep, cleaning breath and let it out through my nose, as I've learned in meditation. I take another one. I have been spending so much time focusing on my journey and searching for wholeness and seeking happiness that I sometimes lose sight of the realization...
I am finding it.
I've been so consumed about what HAPPY might look like or how would I actually discover GOD without becoming a crazy southern Christian (no offense to those who are) that I've been missing the point that THIS is the point. This just for today, living each moment, taking care of yourself and taking care of others, splendidly imperfect life that I am so fortunate to have.
Though there are still down days and painful flashbacks, through my job that I deeply appreciate and all the women of Thistle Farms who I admire and the friends I open up to and the meditation I do (at least) weekly and the working out I do daily (on a good week) and the laughter that comes from no where and the sweet kisses that I wasn't quite sure would actually happen again and the house that now feels like home... it's all coming together.