I’m going through an online music library right now to find a new music track for the “hold” setting on our phone system at work, and I am encountering some of the most bizarre (and creepiest) titles for tracks. I thought you all could use a slightly bewildered laugh in your day!

Titles such as…

• I’d Split Agnes
• Faith in my Harem
• Hector’s Feminine Side
• Gulliver’s Grins
• Gladiator in my Jeans
• Love in the Biosphere
• Napa Valley Hangover
• Patchouli Aphrodisiac
• Pixie Cage Match
• Playas Time Share
• Random Shouting
• Shamrock Droppings
• Six Painted Psychos
• Smile or Else
• Suicide Note
• Tell it to the Wrist
• That Tissue Will Cost You
• The Insecure Butterfly
• Yoga Tantrum

I’m trying to picture the type of person whose job it is to come up with names for this generic, royalty-free music that one hears in elevators and when AT&T has put you on hold for the seventh time in three minutes. I just picture this dark room with exposed pipes,  filled with haphazard piles of file folders and old coffee cups, and some really bitter, slightly jumpy guy sitting at an old computer from the ’90s, next to a synthesizer, laughing, smoking a cigarette, and hating his job. (Basically, it’s Dwight from “The Office,” short-sleeved dress shirt and all, but even creepier and much less enthusiastic.)

“Heh, I bet Hector’s gay…I should totally name the next one ‘Hector’s Feminine Side,’” he mutters to himself, musing on his vendetta against Hector, the janitor, because of that one time Hector stood him up when they were supposed to go see “Star Trek” together.

Hmmm. I feel sad for Imaginary Hold Music Writer Guy. He needs to get outside, breathe in some air, put on some really good music, like Joni Mitchell or Sufjan Stevens, and remember that life isn’t all that bad. Just avoid elevators and corporate phone systems. You can do it, IHMWG.

I also just wanted to add that I am finding small ways to celebrate who I am, in my real self (see previous entry from earlier today), and it’s helping with the low patches I’ve been scraping against lately. Rob talked today about seeing the sacred in the common and everyday. I am reminded that when I stop, close my eyes, inhale, and open my eyes again, the world can always look different.

So here are things I am doing to encourage feeling good:

• Walking places that I would usually drive
• Buy lots of delicious produce at the Farmer’s Market and then actually cooking things with it
• Mastering how to make a decent crepe
• Only eating when I’m hungry instead of when I’m bored
• Allowing myself to be lazy without feeling guilty about it
• Reading when I feel like watching movies
• Walking around my beautiful neighborhood when I feel sorry for myself
• Drinking wine with dinner and sitting at my table, instead of curled up in bed
• Putting on pink lip gloss sometimes instead of chapstick, just because I feel a little sassier
• Giving good friends long hugs
• Flossing my teeth
• Using the pink grapefruit all-surface spray so my whole apartment smells fruity and fresh
• Finally using a gift card for a beauty boutique I got for Christmas and buying myself some nice perfume
• Making fresh peach puree for my iced tea
• Growing herbs
• Standing up straighter
• Reading the Bible out loud
• Praying to God like He’s my best friend and not some far-removed, stiff deity
• Going camping with my House Church this weekend

What are you doing to celebrate the sacred, especially within yourself?

I guarantee if you take the time to look at these, you will smile like a fool and your day will instantly perk up.

Seriously.
So worth it.

(Have you looked yet?)

I used to dream about living in a tree when I was younger. Like some impish fairy, I’d curl up in the hollow trunk amongst beds of fallen leaves and moss. I’d make friends with the squirrels, pick my breakfast off nearby branches, and spend long days doing nothing but looking at the sky. The flowers that drift down from the bows would be woven through my long hair, like a princess that never wanted to be rescued. I’d tiptoe across the limbs with perfect balance and do pirouettes from tree to tree, without any fear of ever falling. And if I did, it would be like a feather, drifting down in the exhales of the breeze till I was laid so softly on the ground that I might be asleep and never know it.

As I sit here on this beautiful spring afternoon, gazing out the window, I feel in my limbs a dream that never died. I hum Vivaldi’s “Primavera” as the branches of the tree outside my window unravel gracefully towards me, stretching outside of their rigid winter silohouette. They bow and curtsy in the breeze, dancing a dance that no one but the wind knows but that we all can feel. Those curled arms, beckoning towards me, pull me in, wrapping me in the renewal of spring, in the softness of the slow breathing of the earth as it draws deeply from the sun once again. As in the days when I would spend hours in trees, waiting for nothing in particular, I wish again that I could live scattered amongst those branches.

Today is having joy for its own sake.

Today is my roommate buying me a cup of coffee at the Sparrows on our way to work for no reason.

Today is crinkling my nose because I can hardly hold in how much I am falling in love with Seth Bernard and Daisy May (whoa-ho Kim, I am such a convert…proud???).

Today is getting to go to my parents’ house after work and make them quesadillas.

Today is writing grocery lists because for some reason, it makes me happy.

Today is breathing in more slowly just because I forget how good air tastes sometimes.

Today is being utterly happy with where I am, which has been a long time coming.

Today is acknowledging that I am single with a huge smile (note to Victor: SO single for SO long), because I know it’s just what I need and want right now.

Today is extra brownies left over from House Church, which I will probably giggle and eat for breakfast.

Today is feeling naturally pretty just being me (and yes that picture, for once, really IS me).

Today is beautiful because it’s today and it doesn’t have to be anything else.

What’s today for you?

I drove up to Mount Pleasant to see my Sandra yesterday, which was beautiful. One of my favorite parts of the trip is usually the drive up, for I am often blessed with stretches of blue skies and gorgeous, gorgeous solitude. As I was driving yesterday morning, I was thinking about what journeying with God looks like — like in the big, giant sense that is still somehow inherently personal. I am seeing how complicated, messy, and mysterious this relationship is between the two of us; a two-way street where we aren’t always at the same intersection, but still walking somewhere on the same road. And on those occasions where I do run smack into Him, I feel like the two of us collide in this laughing, graceful pile, like rolling down a hill of grass on a summer day.

In Jeremiah 29, we are told that “we will find Him when we seek Him with all our hearts”; this verse kept running through my head on repeat as I drove. It’s another reminder that He wants to be sought, wants to be wanted, just like we do. I forget that sometimes because He’s big and God and has things like mountains and sunsets and the wings on butterflies and snowflakes for company.

Perhaps it’s less like a rulebook and more like a love story; less like a disapproving father and more like a daddy that delights in who you are. God isn’t on this journey with us to punish; He just wants to walk beside me, I think. And I don’t always let Him.

In Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller talks about walking on a road towards God, and knowing that soon, he will see the lines on His face.

I want to see those lines.
And I’m starting to.