goodbye, nashville

Sometimes goodbyes are quick, one tug and the sting ripples but for a moment. Other times (now) they linger, and I let them. I keep taking the long way home, feeling all of it a few last times. My engine whirrs, gasoline dwindles. I grin and cry and speak prayers aloud, my favorite songs as white noise. I couldn't do those things two months ago.

On May 24th my car was full of everything but a plan. I had no inkling of what this season would be like. Only when it came time to leave, I knew I wouldn't be the same. For months prior, it'd felt like hurricane season had overstayed its welcome and my life kept bumping into the line of fire. I was tired and sad and I'd decided my emotions could be turned off so I fumbled until I found and flipped the switch. Maybe this sounds confusing and vague (maybe it just is). Even so, I can assure you these words are honest. 

I showed up and rented a mattress (no, I didn't get bed bugs ok?) dove headfirst into two jobs and tried to remember what living felt like. Most of the time I didn't really know what I was doing, but as I write, I feel a new richness coursing through my veins, glad to have grown and begun again.

Front porch hangs while fireflies (my very own staccato and redundant bits of hope) lit dusky nights, party-crashing/dancing along to a live reggae band, twenty concerts and aimless neighborhood walks, making set-lists and cowriting songs, 7 Harry Potter books and The Holiday (x3), lots of self-made iced cubans and meals alone, learning to write again and feel again, sunday morning's doxology and spending time with people I've come to love and believe in. All of it played into the grand art of moving forward that has left me so alive and bursting with gratitude for the intricate way my Father chose to bind my heart. I wish I had words to do the stories I lived justice, and also enough time to tell them all here.

So I tied up my loose ends and said my goodbyes, but I got to bid summer farewell the best way I know how: a road trip! 10 cities & 4 states in 6 days with my friend Ellie. Her life sings of trust and light and she is a friend I am more than proud to know. We sprinted in rainstorms twice, felt the breeze by three different lakes, and entered into homes of our friends. I'll never forget Lake Michigan's immense blue, singing 'You Are the Best Thing' with a trolley full of strangers, or feeling the least alone I've felt ever.

And now the goodbye that lingers is actually happening. By the time you, whoever you are, read these words, Nashville will be a distant speck in my rearview mirror. I feel the pang of loss, but more so, I feel a peace that literally surpasses my understanding; it is time to go and I will be ok.

At the beginning of the summer, two people I care a whole lot about passed along a message the Lord had for me: "I have brought you out of the woods and into a clearing; do not expect the woods to be fast approaching again anytime soon." Nashville: thank you for being the clearing. I love you with every part of me, and I will surely be seeing you soon.

xo,

-L

WWLT: Excuses - Cereus Bright

forty days

I knew it'd happen somehow. I really did. An empty house, untamed grass. Soil allowing for deep roots often overtakes the overlooked, unlikely places.

There's this cliche: "be where your feet are." It's reasonably repeated; an easily pocketed reminder to be present and attentive. It's figurative, of course. Yet when I close my eyes I see the literal. I see myself on my front porch at dusk, surrounded by people I love, and I see twining vines shoot out from beneath my bare feet, cutting through the wooden planks and the foundation, pelting into the ground with great force, thousands of feet down until they wrap tight around earth's core.

These roots are most peculiar, though. Normally, planting implies confinement. However, I feel free to roam the city's entire expanse of skyline and green, its mingling of suburb and bustle.

I fear the time to uproot, for it will come rather soon. And now as I press on the subject, words won't come. Maybe because the thought of a temporary sever is too much for my mind to grasp. Maybe also because it goes against my self-made promise to live rather than wait. All I can see is a tear-stained drive, muffled sobs drowned out by Tennessee Quick and even the prospect of it's made my heart tense. So enough for now.

I came here, to Nashville, hoping for more passion, for more boldness, for answers to my suitcase full of questions. My fists are clenched less than they were before. One, I realize, is empty. Another fills slowly (this one's for boldness). Elusive stuff, it used to be. Now I think it's more a sticky syrup, not easily shaken. Aside from what's held within them, my hands are calloused and stained- a byproduct of hard work. Pulling espresso shots and drafting emails may not sound like much. Barely dents in the earth, but dents just the same. My hands are making a difference and that's all they ever wanted to do.

As for the questions, they're clingy, still unanswered mostly. What I do know is this:

God is orchestrating his grand idea of Good. One hard year is not the end. When faced with the sting of moving forward or the ache of standing still, one must always, always choose forward.

- L

thoughts for the road

Travel's ruined me. In a sense, I'd never ventured outside the lines of comfort, never taught to be curious. I was perpetually blind and blissful, unaware of the thrill I've finally felt. 

Back in October, a friend and I hopped in my car to traipse through Tennessee and Chicago. Those five days were some of the most magical I've lived. It was my first true taste of freedom; exploration at its root, cities seen as homes, memories so vivid I can still hear the songs and see the colors. Upon return, my own home felt subpar, and I cared less for familiarity.

This time included a new car, new friends and cities, but the same kind of freedom popping on my tongue.  I'll never not remember warm, mid-March air and patches of blue bonnets, country songs and kindness, and laughter that trickled on for midwest miles. But I feel it again, the slump of return. Life's just as I left it, but I am not.

The rhythmic rotation of tire treads felt like home. I didn't want it to, but it did. I know the Road is not home. I need consistency, and people to know me. I guess the allure of travel is its rarity, its brevity. Travel ends. You go and you go, but then you come home. What to do when home feels like the in-between? I still want to see more, do more, run and go until yellow lines blur beneath me.

If Travel's taught me anything, curiosity becomes no small feat in the face of normalcy. I've grown so callous towards the towns I inhabit. My mind does not wander and my curiosity does not crawl. Dormant. I feel dormant and dormant's not where I belong.

How to keep asking questions? How to keep fighting apathy? How to find beauty nonetheless?

That's three right there. Three questions. It's a start.

       WWLT: Makeshift - Penny and Sparrow // A Way to You Again - P. B. Adams & Jill Andrews // Take My Love - The Lone Bellow