let evening come

It's my favorite time of day.  Or, my new favorite, I should say.  I will never abandon my undying love for early mornings, but living in a westward-facing home has brought with it a new appreciation for the dusky, twilit world.

The work is done...or at least laid aside until tomorrow.  The dishes are dripping their way to being dry.  The sun is bidding his final farewell as he peeks out from behind the ridge. My wineglass grows more illumined by the second as the candlelit lantern sends its flickers across the table.  My feet are up.  My hands are overflowing with fresh grapes from my garden. And Puzzle, the cross-eyed cat (yes, it's true), has come to say 'good evening'.

I spent yesterday evening in this same spot, catching up with a friend by lantern light after a 6-year hiatus (actually, probably really more like 10) from each others' lives. We reflected our individual journeys, as we recounted what has brought us to this point in time.  And here we are.  In the same city.  In similar seasons of life.

She commented on the way I didn't hide the messiness or the tension as I recounted my story of the last few years.  "That's life," she said, "We want it to fit nicely in boxes, but it doesn't."  We want there to be airtight solutions to the problems and easy answers to our nagging questions.  And it would be nice if it was all wrapped up with a beautiful bow on top.  but that's not life.


And maybe this is why I am coming to love evenings.


The mornings are full of pent-up potential.  There is room for hope, possibility, fresh starts.  I love the unknown.  The anticipation.  The energy of the stillness.  When I look at the day through my morning eyes, I am filled with gratitude.

I've never really liked evenings.  I have always associated them with weariness, heaviness, the weight of the day's work and failures.  The unknown is now known.  The morning's stillness has been replaced by a cacophony of voices. The din has undone me.  When I look at the day through my evening eyes, I am quick to see the negative - it is all-to-easy to latch on to the faults and failures.

But, the longer I sit, the more I force myself to pause and remember, the more I start see the beauty of the day.  A word of affirmation.  A shared moment of laughter.  A surprising turn of events.  An unexpected gift.


Over the years, as I have explored the idea of "Sabbath" - I have come to love the idea of the Sabbath beginning at sundown.  I love that it begins with rest. I love that it begins with what is, by American standards, the most unproductive thing we can do.  I love that surrender to the darkness and the stillness serves as the link between days.   I love that even in the hours that hold such terror and dread for so many - the moments when we are left defenseless and vulnerable - this - even this - is the time to begin anew.

And so, I say, let evening come.  Let it come and bring with it an awareness of our failures and shortcomings. Let it come and bring with it the weariness and weight of the day.  Let it come and bring with it the recollections of quiet moments of beauty in the chaos.  Let it come, and let us embrace it.  Let it come, and let us yield to the darkness, to the stillness.  Let it come, and let us lean into the grace that holds us.

Let it come, as it will, and don't

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

 - Jane Kenyon

Photo Credit:  Chinwe Edeani

it is what it is

I hate blank walls.

Always have, always will.

So it should come as no surprise that one of the first things I do when I move to a new place, even before all the boxes are unpacked, is start laying out picture collages on the floor.

My father, ever the photo journalist, captured one such humidity-and-exhaustion-soaked moment 2 years ago this week as I settled in Baltimore.

I love this part of the process.  It centers me and settles me, to acquaint myself with my new floor, surrounded by old friends, familiar faces that have followed me on my journey.  After the craziness of moving, my little introvert self is thankful for the chance to absorb the quiet, to reflect, to remember, to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, to make this new place my own.

But as I finally had the "aha" moment and found the perfect place for one little piece of artwork this evening (it has been sitting, homeless, on my desk for weeks), I realize that I have also come to love the change. The paintings and posters and picture frames that call my walls home have found their way to a plethora of different walls over the years - and have hung side-by-side a vast array of different objects.  And though they have remained unchanged over the years, they look different each time I put them up. The light hits them from a new angle. The walls behind them highlight their vibrant colors in a new way. The pieces they are now paired with bring out parts of them I'd never noticed before. 

I love how there is change in the constancy.  I love how you can look at something a million times and not really see it until you look at it that million-and-first time.  I love how everything eventually finds its place - sometimes where we least expect it to.

And isn't this true in life in general?  We bring the same set of strengths and weaknesses to each table we encounter - the same personality quirks - the same set of baggage.   The older I get and the further I travel, the more I am dismayed to find out that I am the same person wherever I wander.  Somehow, even though I attempt to leave it behind, my storage unit full of complexities and idiosyncrasies and selfishness and fears finds its way into each new town I call my home.

But there's hope. There are fresh starts.  There are new circumstances and new relationships and new walls to decorate.  The light falls differently and offers a new perspective.  Weaknesses become strengths.  Fears become motivators.  Shadows are chased away by sunbeams.  They are not bound by their former identities. They have been redefined in the present.  And sure, we cannot change the past or its long-lasting effects on us. And we lean, depend, feed on our hope for the future.  But the fact of the matter remains: we only have this moment.  We only have the present.

In the year before I left for Baltimore, my dear soul sister and I would, at times (OK, often), find ourselves overwhelmed by life.  There were days when we gave up on words and just laughed.  And there were days when we gave up on words and just cried.  And amidst fits of giggles and streams of tears, our mantra became, "It is what it is."  And for us, at the time, I think it meant "I'll take the hand I'm dealt; it's out of my control anyway." "I will accept this reality and trust that it's not forever."

Shortly before I left for graduate school, I found a little wooden sign that said just that: "it is what it is."  So off it went with me to Baltimore. And every morning, as I brushed my teeth, I pondered it.  For two years, I pondered....and also I cried and I laughed (a bit more of the former than the latter).  And for those two years it took on a new meaning: "It is what it is, so I will choose gratitude."

Today that sign has found a new resting place on the shelf beside my dining room table, to the right of my mug collection, just below my produce basket full of Walla Walla sweet onions, to the left of two pictures of my soul sisters.  Today, it reminds me of the tears and the laughter, of the fight to stay grateful.  And today it takes on a new meaning: "it isn't what it was."