Each day I rise early. It’s not particularly a habit, it simply is the way my body works. There is a quiet moving from our master bedroom and I creep past our children…now teenagers rooms and smile as I still love to watch them sleep. I love to go in and kiss their forehead, but in their rooms that has become hazardous. There’s nothing sweet or lovely about having your mother land on you as she trips over your gear. A lesson learned the hard way, so I smile and take a moment to watch their slumber.
In my office there are windows in two views, so the backyard is filled with life on these early moment. Today a blackbird flirts with me. Often a
cardinal comes to play on my deck and fence and it is as though we have become old friends. A friend recently shared that cardinals were her sign that God was in a moment. I love that! For me they remind me of my Grandmother Geddie, who loved all things red (you see it IS genetic) and cardinals and brought the kind of joy that this morning’s visitor’s do. She was joy in action as a teacher, wife, friend, and spirit….and the joy was infectious.
The hydrangeas are in bloom and the house is alive with them. I so adore flowers, they simply share the magnificence of God’s creation. There’s a part of Southernism that simply has to have cut flowers in a home. In my childhood, cutting gardens were maintained, shared, and delighted in as a way to soften the blows of a hard life. Organization, if it has any purpose, in my life, is much that way. The ease keeping things well maintained overcomes my need to be in a whirlwind lately. My mother would be so pleased. You see, there has always been time for creating, seldom for cleaning up. 🙂 However, the older I become the more I enjoy order, and its gift of peace. Chaos is my friend as well, it is necessary for creation to begin, but now more as a tunnel to pass through, to find the comfort of a joyful place called peace.
Today’s journey is one of my favorites, up the rolling hills into Tennessee. I love that two hour drive to where the studio is that I love so. There is a majesty in the drive as the Appalachian hills wake up each morning and the sun sets late in the day. One can imagine the realities of bringing a wagon across the land and see the homes that were built in the process, scattered across the fields. It is as much home to me as the opening of The Sound of Music was to my childhood. Familiar, beautiful, and expansive in opening one’s mind to drink in the possibilities.
There will be a fundraiser later today for a songwriter’s family. Friends gathering to pay honor to the music and one who lived and captured
it’s muse through song writing. I love gatherings of hearts to do good works for families. Later, the week will then be a shifted focus for the next few days as I trade in my apron and home card for strategist and producer. I’ll trade in this space for a quiet hotel room and enjoy the muse that often follows me there. It is that space that has taught me the wealth of order for the mind to receive whatever it is that God has to say. Each room quiet with order, and expansive listening….and so the writing flows.
A new project or three this week is exhilarating, and the fun folks involved will make for such exciting moments. I love to see people become who they are on camera. I am so privileged to be present when many find their voice on film. My heart will be here, at home, in each early day moment at the hotel. The whispers will be there too that say “stop, look around, listen….there is such joy in being a part of this moment” and I will once again drink life in and thank God for the privilege of being here another day.
My hope is that this day, you too, will find…..a joyful place.
