They're Good For You

I don't think I've read a novel in at least a month and a half now. I have an entire stack of beautiful books waiting to be read, but all I've been able to handle are smatterings of poetry, theology and a book about books and motorcycles.
I'm not sure why exactly, but it seems that my reading life reflects the state of my heart. I've felt so at odds with my life and God and love and writing and ideas of justice and forgiveness and grace and hope, that it's been hard to stay in one place long enough to absorb anything, let alone one book. When India and I went camping in June, I found that after three days I had to pack up and move on. Everything in me felt so restless. Everything hurt - beauty as much as ugliness, and I needed to keep moving so that at least I felt in control of the places it met me in.

The past few days I have found, though I don't understand it, that my heart is beginning to feel a little bit more still, a little less frantic, a little less raw. I'm trying not to be afraid of happiness, which is, in itself, an uncomfortable thing to have to learn. So much letting go, my friends. The good news is, I started reading a novel on Friday. Sometimes, I have to put it down because I can hardly breathe it is so beautiful, or because the sadness in it feels unbearable. Books never used to do this to me. Life never used to do this to me.

The background on my laptop is of a picture I took a few months ago of the fantastically coloured peppers at the Farmer's Market. Odd, but, I go there to find solace in the vegetables. The colours never fail to convince me that God does love me, despite all the evidence to the contrary. In the middle of winter the golden squash and bright carrots make me feel as if I can bury my soul down deep under a life like this, and it will be safe in a world that can produce such beautiful things.

Books and vegetables. I'll take what I can get, cautiously and carefully, finally beginning to think I can sit still long enough to take what is on my plate.