A Little Wind To Clean the Sky :: Exactly nine days ago I was sitting on this beach with him, watching giant waves crash into giant rocks. It was really windy. Unconsciously, I think I repeated outloud some 15 times, “It’s so windy, It’s just so windy… And oh my gosh, THOSE WAVES. Goodness, it’s just so windy.” Talk about seriously annoying and obvious commentary.

His English is okay, but far from that of a native speaker. One of the things I really love about communicating with a person whose first language differs from my own is the simplifying of language. In an attempt to be best understood, I notice I choose simpler words to get my point across and in some instances this forces me to be more direct and honest with my thoughts and feelings.

Another thing that happens is that the other person, with fewer English words available to him will choose creative combinations of words to communicate. And sometimes, that unexpected word choice, even when subtle, does something quite special to a simple statement. Such was the case with the response that my endless repetitive comments about the wind that day at the beach garnered…

“Wind is not always bad. Sometimes you need the wind to clean the sky so that the sun can shine.”

Just Write :: I had every intention of WRITING during the past 7 weeks I spent in Europe. I did do a bit of journaling, but my intention was to write thoughtful pretty things and post them here and that did not happen. I don’t consider myself a real writer and yet, there’s been this small nagging, nudging thing somewhere in my brain saying WRITE. I imagine this is what happens on a very regular basis to the real writers of the world.

My time away took twists and turns that I did not expect and I didn’t write because I was too busy being so gloriously PRESENT with really special people and some of the most amazing places. For some reason, I’d anticipated having more time alone on this trip and thought I was going to spend more time with my laptop applying to jobs or… writing. That, was not what this trip turned out to be(Thank goodness! Who goes on the trip of a lifetime to hang out with their laptop?!) Now that I’m back in Seattle(atleast for now) where it is April and still gray and drizzly perhaps I will carve out a little bit of time for some REAL PRETTY WRITING. I’m a little overwhelmed by the thought because oddly I feel like I have things to say and I’m nervous that I won’t be able to pull it all together or communicate it well or make it pretty or profound enough, but I’m going to try. And maybe when I’m feeling overwhelmed I’ll just post a picture and a few sentences because you know what they say, Perfectionism is the enemy of GOODNESS… and also happiness, success, creativity and well, maybe everything.