When I am not reading proposals or writing proposals of my own, I somehow find time to continue my lifelong habit of reading avidly. Books are piled beside my bed, many finding their way under my bed, scores on my desk, and some even making their way in a bookbag. I'm a nerd at heart and can chalk my bad eyes up to reading by the light of my alarm clock as a little girl when "lights out" was long past and I was in the wee hours of the night, alone - with a book.
The selections I read and when are telling of my current moods and life journey. And as a woman with varied moods, I usually have several books going at a time. Now, I am engrossed in the final chapters of the sci-fi soon-to-be movie "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger http://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Wife-Audrey-Niffenegger/dp/015602943X/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-5007173-6039019?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179110872&sr=8-2, in addition to completing the final pages of the non-fiction "Fast Food Nation" by Atlantic Monthly contributor Eric Schlosser http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Food-Nation-Eric-Schlosser/dp/0060838582/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5007173-6039019?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179110982&sr=1-1. After consuming "The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living" by His Holiness The Dalai Lama (now on faculty at Emory) on audio, I am thoughtfully picking my way through the hard cover http://www.amazon.com/Art-Happiness-Handbook-Living/dp/1573221112/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-5007173-6039019?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179111140&sr=1-2. Finally, I am pouring through the early chapters of "Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality" by Donald Miller with three new friends http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Like-Jazz-Nonreligious-Spirituality/dp/0785263705/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5007173-6039019?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179111241&sr=1-1.
Don Miller is one of the most enlightened, thoughtful writers of my generation - a 35 y/o man from Oregon, he paints spirituality in a light that has never been cast before, nor will it be after he leaves this life. A philosopher/artist/rambler at heart, the words he paints on paper resonate with the chords of my life. As if "Blue Like Jazz" is not enough, today 
I picked up "Through Painted Deserts" (an earlier work by Miller) as a companion to my reading of "Blue" --http://www.amazon.com/Through-Painted-Deserts-Light-Beauty/dp/0785209824/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5007173-6039019?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179111445&sr=1-1.
I picked up "Through Painted Deserts" (an earlier work by Miller) as a companion to my reading of "Blue" --http://www.amazon.com/Through-Painted-Deserts-Light-Beauty/dp/0785209824/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5007173-6039019?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179111445&sr=1-1. "Desert" is a multi-part essay about the process of change and really far more than just the three-month journey across the U.S. in VW bus that marches across the pages (now where a guy of my generation got a VW bus that STILL runs, I have no idea -- but I have to go with him on this!).
I have to share one part with you that really grabbed me when I read it -- I needed to hear it tonight, as I lay in my bed with my glasses across my face in the moments before turning out the light -- it speaks to my life now and resonates so fully with my previous blog. I'm feeling the close rumblings of soon-to-be change in my own life...
Miller writes,
I remember the sweet sensation of leaving, years ago, some ten now...And I could not have known then that if I had been born here [his new home Oregon], I would have left here, gone someplace south to deal with horses...I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. All my life I have been changing...Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.
I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently...Time has pressed you and me into a book, too, this tiny chapter we share together, this vapor of a scene, pulling our seconds into minutes and minutes into hours. Everything we were is no more, and what we will become, will become what was. This is from where story stems, the stuff of its construction lying at our feet like cut strips of philosophy.
...No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath.
...And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.
Wouldn't it?
