Saradactyl.com

Brilliantly... er, hopelessly flawed?

I spent some time yesterday reading through some of Nattie's blog archives. If it wasn't in a typed format, I could almost picture that she had drawn little doodles about her personality types, sketched pictures of herself... of her kids; shared bits and pieces of thoughts and ideas that would be sort of haphazardly inked on graph paper - no real rhyme or reason. Each individual piece seeming somewhat insignificant and awkward. But the whole? Wow. The Whole. The slow unfolding of each thought... the painful vulnerability of the account of the events of her life... the grace that links them all together. With her gone, it is a breathtaking tapestry that I can log-on to and study in fine detail any time I want to. A small piece of her finite-being left to tide us over until we can hang out together in Glory.

Anyway. Going through those archives prompted me to go through mine. Why didn't y'all tell me I'm such a whiny-ass punk? Ohhhh sure, there are moments every now and then when I have a glimmer of clarity, and what I WANT to say is actually communicated without my words getting in the way. I love it when that happens.

Lately though, I've felt this mounting pressure to only write things "worth" writing about, and only sharing those brief insights of brilliantly flawed revelations. That's why I haven't been around much lately, because I haven't had any brief (or otherwise) insights of brilliantly flawed revelations. I have been quick (and possibly wrong?) to believe it wasn't worth my time (or yours) to tell you about how I painted my fingernails black this week, and it's made me feel all cool and confident. Or that I ran into this guy today that I've been secretly harboring a crush for and he seems to be content with just knowing my name. Or how my Godson will be celebrating his 1 year anniversary of life on this planet on the  28th, and I couldn't be prouder of him or his Mama. Or how I typically wear a size 8 shoe, and the 7 1/2's that I'm wearing are WAY too big, but that I think it's not really that my feet have become smaller - rather it's a CONSPIRACY mounted by the shoe companies around the world to label bigger shoes with smaller sizes so as to TRICK consumers into a false sense of CONFIDENCE so as to boost sales, and rob us all blind. BLIND!

Ah, the minutia. See what you've been missing out on? I've weighed too heavily my choice of "To blog, or not to blog?" Over-thinking has always been my biggest foe, and I feel that it has done me a disservice by tricking me into believing that the MAJOR things are some how more important than the minors. Truth is, my life consists of a whole BUNCH of minors, and maybe one day I'll look back and see that it was all culminating into something MAJOR.

*shrugs* Who knows?

Basically what I'm trying to say is: "Dear Sara, yes - you're flawed. HOPELESSLY so. Embrace it. Give it milk and cookies and send it off to bed. It IS actually acceptable for you to write about the small stuff. Ok? So get over yourself."

The End.

Light in dark places.

Frodo: I wish it need not have happened in my time.

Gandalf: So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

I've been stuck in an alternate dimension somewhere between Hogwarts and odor eaters. I am the type of person who will compulsively inhale a book series - which is why I decided to wait until all the Harry Potter books were published before embarking on that particular journey. Now that it comes to it? I'm sad that it's over. I read the books in a matter of weeks - forgoing food and human contact for words and stories. It was nice to have an escape from the sadness; a spark of light in a dark place; a little bit of joy in the midst of all this grief.

I do think it's funny that for all the flack that Rowling received from Christendom - there were so many Biblical parallels and applications in her story. She in NO way claims that the books are allegorical (much like Tolkien poo-poo'd the label), and I couldn't personally claim that I viewed it as such, but I believe it was very applicable. VERY applicable... especially in that 7th book.   

After finishing Deathly Hallows, it made my heart ache that Nattie never got to read the last one. I know she would've loved it. I wonder if she felt the same kind of emotion - being left hanging after the 6th book.

It's how I felt when Nattie's story came to such an abrupt end. So many unanswered questions. The dense fog that settled over the life in which I knew her had so thickly distorted my perceptions of eternity. Or maybe it made things more clear: there is hope. The air is riddled with electric anticipation - knowing that Nattie's story is NOT left incomplete. Her story is still being written. I had the joy of knowing her through the journey, and unlike Harry Potter - I didn't wait until it was all finished until I became familiar with that beautiful Rose. I just have to be patient in the waiting. All those loose ends will be tied up for me one day, when God ushers me into His presence - we'll all stand before Him in glorious completion. It will all be clear..... and it will be like we never left.

For this, the tenth of August, two-thousand and seven...

• Leather bottomed flip-flops
• Mane & Tail Shampoo/Conditioner
• Gas for $2.68 a gallon
• Midol
• Harry Potter [and The Order of the Phoenix]
• "I'm Chiquita Banana...."
• THE FAIR COMETH!!!!!!
• Summer air so thick, it takes your breath away
• My short li'l monkey toes

Normalcy [and all that it entails]

It seems as though I've been wordless for a long time. The only updates I've made to my blog are those in which I have little to no obligation to really say anything. Memes... photo posts... Wordless Wednesdays, and the like. It reeks of wounded animal syndrome. You know, those times in your life where you hide in a secret place away from the world to nurse your wounds; only slinking out of hiding for food and drink.

I'm slowly cycling back to normalcy. I've wrestled with the loss, and have come to terms with what happened. Some things don't fix - and I'm okay with that. I find a lot of comfort in the knowledge that God is the antonym of me; that He cried, too; that He is big enough.

In the midst of all this turmoil, and decay - my senses have been... well, heightened. On Saturday I took a trip to visit my Mom. It was absolutely the most beautiful day it has been all summer. Even the harsh roar of diesel engines sounded like a sweet whisper of "O, the beauty of it all." Strands of hair, still damp from my morning shower, whipped around my face and clung to my lips and eyes. I met everyone at the Monroe Farmer's Market and plodded toward the vendors with a heart full of mileage and asphalt. There's just something about barreling down a highway with an outstretched arm - fingers lacing with those of the wind. It brings calm. It brings me closer to God.

Grief is a strange bedfellow. Recently, I've forgotten to shun his icy presence for missing his simple companionship. How can a thing which causes so much pain, become a reliable filter through which can be seen the reality of the circumstances?

In the words of David Crowder, it's a beautiful collision.

It's how things should be, colliding with how things really are.

It's the smallness of me, colliding with the bigness of God.

It's the joyful elation of true friendship, colliding with the sorrow of a loss too deep to mend. 

It's that moment in which you're laughing through your tears, and the sound of your heart splintering is muffled by the embrace of a love that will not let you go.