To Do: pt. I

1. I love lists. 
2. I love making them, finding them, recreating them, photographing them. I love lists.
3. I love words put down in dutiful order, representing tasks that take up more than just the space of a 6 letter word.

I love:

The clustered closeness of To Do lists: a profound peek into the personal priorities of time.  

That sighing, brainstorming, 'what-is-everything-I-possibly-need-to-get-done" moment when what's inside the head, -bouncing, gnawing, scooping up attention- is suddenly birthed on to a page in a frenzy of scribbled ball point ink or No.2 pencil. 

The creative potential of grocery lists: how many meals could you make featuring an avocado, after all?

The Shopping lists around Holidays: What began as a scrap utility bill now suddenly morphed into gadsby of dictator. Popcorn maker for Mom? Check. Light-up bug net (Batteries not included)? Check. AAA Batteries? Check. And on... 

The casualness of the quickly written note, the transfer of life. When I find a discarded list in the bottom of a shopping cart or near my feet when I step out of the car, my heart leaps. I snatch the list up, delighting in a small piece of life treasure.
I am an archaeologist, observing historic cultures and people groups; I study the way the world once was, that different age and moment in which a post-it note well fulfilled it's purpose by being submitting to the scribble of a pen before the walk out the door. "I'm picking up paint. Please get your things out of the bathroom. XO "

  The next moment I am a psychologist in a small windowed room with a clip board, probing the writer for memories and emotions. "Your 'H's' seem a little staunch today, how are things with your mother?" I'd say. 

I love the potential that comes with every library due-date slip, parking ticket and disgruntled bookmark found.  I keep some, send some. Gleaning ideas for my own. 

I've recently reviewed some of my own lists taken down on a post-it, a gas receipt or the 'drafts' folder on my dorky cell phone and it sparked an idea. 

Below is glimpse in to my listy life. The beginning of a poetic series on planning and purpose and production.

April Triad 

I. "Render"

Export Images

Call D

Start Tax Prep

Give to God what is God's

II. "Adjustment"

Write thank you notes. Edlins/Micale/Jill

Call jen.

Finsh englunds.

Book tickets.

Wrap gifts.

Call Court Schedule Hearing for missing license plate.

Buy front plate holder.

Must. Change. Attitude.

III. "Restless"

Ipod+journal + pens

camera + 50mm adapter

essential oils from Grandma

think, recovering biblical manhood/womanhood

blog?

Mail B's disk

Cash check

bring pictures for client meeting stuff

suitcase blue+ cowbag

shoes, boots

These boots were made for walkin'.

Walkin'

Laura

Tear and Share

That moment when you open an old file and find an old saying. 

An old[er] photograph. 

Words, like smells carry memories. 

Found this image on an old hard drive and it brought me back to when I was just beginning to dream. 

This image brings me right back to being fifteen, face stuffed in a book in the back of the library, scribbling sayings in a little book -not because I knew what they meant and wanted to remember the idea behind them, but because they sounded beautiful when I read them out loud. Mostly to myself. 

Sometimes to others.

 The name Winston always reminds me of this quote, while Churchill always reminds me of a white hotel in the mountains and a photograph of a man on a bicycle. What words carry strong memories in your world?



kiki

Like snow.

Like Snow

By Wendell Berry, Leavings

Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.

Is my soul asleep.

Found this one on the deep basement shelf of Von's. 
Is your soul asleep?

Is My Soul Asleep?

Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that work
in the night stopped? And the water-
wheel of thought, is it
going around now, cups
empty, carrying only shadows?

No, my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its eyes wide open
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.

Antonio Machado

Ascents

There is a beauty in the quiet lenten moments.

 The white arcetecture of winter beings to run clear- a moveable, pliable prizim of color- trickling, dripping off the edge of the roof, and I am reminded of a earlier age.   

Lent is here, it's February and "Aslan is on the move."

An ashen smudge above my brow,  reminding me of my heritage with the ground. I came from that ground, now covered with snow. "Remember, O man, dust thou art..." 

I'll return just as soon.  

Lent, a liturgy to keep time with.

A space created for new things to grow. 

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord
    from this time forth and forevermore.

                                                                                                      Psalm 131

Hope in God, well wintered soul. 

Like a lake

I've been holding these images on my desktop for sometime now. 

Sometimes you have to distance yourself from something to see it's value. 

My sister Emily and I went camping a while back last year. 

(When I say a while back, I mean October.)

The plan was to drive up north- cell phones off. Do real camping by a real lake, make a real fire and sleep on real[ly] hard ground under the post meridian sky. 

That sky that stole my words to describe it- that certain shade, pitch with a drop of navy ink. A plenum of  black and blue stealing the breath required to form my inadequate nouns and adjectives. Descriptive words.

Grammar never could do Creation justice. The mumbles of my descriptions and the scratches and scribbles of my pen never could compare to a single groan in wait for the Day. I'll never forget that sky. 

They say that camping is good for the soul. You know, spending a good night plastered to a hard ground somehow makes you more aware that you are on a planet spinning 6,000 miles an hour. I could almost feel the centrifugal force sticking me to the planet.Holding me there, in my sleeping bag, making certain I wouldn't float off into oblivion. It was remarkable.

While setting up camp on those stony shores of Lake Superior there was a certain song running through my head. 

I sang it as we watched the birches move the golden token leaves against the reflected sky. 

I sang it as we hiked along the paths and pitched (somewhat haphazardly) our little un-insulated tent in the midst of a big patch of glory that disguised its self as flat ground.   

I sang the line again, skipping rocks across the rocking waves near Splitrock, half singing, half praying:

"I will lay my heart wide open"

 I sang hushed, "like the surface of a lake

 wide open like lake."

A post long past, enjoy. 

"I will lay my heart wide open
like the surface of a lake

wide open like a lake." -Sara Groves 

"Go camping."
"But it's winter!"
"Go anyways."


Go camping by a lake.

Breadsmith: Preview

Excited about this essay, coming soon. 

Both/and

Twenty Twelve. Two things.



Stand up. Walk forward.

Sit down. Be quiet. 
Steady.

A Year Poured Out

Honest 

  Earnestly I seek you;
   my soul thirsts for you;
   my flesh faints for you, 

in your Name I will lift up my hands.

Pie & Sky

PIE

It's the day before the day before the first day. 

The hushed lull between the birth of a Child and the birth of a new year.  I've experienced much over these few weeks, I'm still ruminating over the stories and songs. 

I love Christmas. 

And I love this time of the year, even if it's a little odd without any snow. 

Speaking of a little odd, here's a recipe I'm posting for you. Yes, a recipe. (I know, odd.)

It's a Brink family tradition during the holidays (and any other day, for that matter) and one that I've been attempting to perfect (with much help of my Grandma) this Christmas season. Enjoy.

"Be good for each other. Be better than you need to be. Make pie." 

- A Prairie Home Companion

Apple Pie Cuts

 Filling:

10 medium sized apples

            (Peeled, sliced)

1 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Crust:

2 ½ cups of flour

1 cup of shortening

1teaspoon of salt

 (Mix together like pie crust, until granulated)

1 egg, separated

 Place yolk in a 1 cup measuring glass and fill with milk to the 2/3 cup line.  Whisk together. Set egg white aside in small bowl for later.

Take the crust mix and make a small well in the middle of the bowl. Add the egg and milk mixture all at once. Stir until completely incorporated.

Roll out half of the dough on a floured surface, on a 10 x 15 pan.

Place in pan and sprinkle 2 handfuls of dry flaked cereal (rice crispy, cornflakes etc.) on top of crust. Add apple mixture. Roll out remaining crust and place on top.

Beat egg white until frothy and smear over the top of crust.

Bake at  400˚ for ten minuets and then turn down heat to 375˚ and bake for a remaining 20 minuets.

Glaze:

1 generous cup of powdered sugar

Add a little bit of half& half so the consistency is thin enough to drizzle

Add ¼ teaspoon of vanilla.

Glaze immediately

From the kitchen of Grandma Jan Brink 2007

SKY

Waiting for the breaking

the heavenly host singing

glory

churning for this coming

air and planet humming

glory

to God in the highest

and peace 

to those with whom He is pleased. 

50mm, f/3.5 @ 1/40 A mid winter ev'n sky

Come and take Your Place, Jehovah Shammah