K.M. Updike's Blog, page 3

How to Slow Time & Find Beauty Here and Now

“Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur? The very same surging magnificence that cascades our every day here. Who has time or eyes to notice?”

— Ann Voskamp

I feel it everyday, watching the sunset: time slipping away from me.

When there aren't enough hours in a day to do what really matters, when all you want is to crash into a bed of fluffy pillows and warm blankets because that's what the work day really does to you. When all life does is take, take, take, there's just one thing I've lost:

I've missed out on all the beautiful things. 

But really it's just this:

I've not been looking for all the beautiful things.

I haven't taken the time, out of the rush, out of the traffic, out of all the chances I'm offered, to sit and see the snow drifting like grace all around me. 

That's when time gets away from me and all of the sudden I'm looking at the sunset and wondering how I missed the sunrise.

I keep looking at myself and watching the elderly lady with her cane struggle down the step. I keep looking at myself and then watching the hard-crusted, anxious mind of the old man who's been forgotten so many times and broken himself so many times he's tired of it, he's lived so long he's forgotten how to see the good.

And I keep telling myself, "Time. Time. I just need time."

How do you even? When all you want to do is throw your hands into the air and yell, "Would you just hang on one minute already?"

Before I know it, I'll have kids and a house and this precious desire for love and beauty will get all mixed up with hungry man, hungry kids, messy house. 

Before I know it, I'll be too tired to live, my bones will ache, and I'll be wishing for the days to slip by faster. 

Before I know it, I'll be . . . gone.

I don't want to be gone and missed the point of living.

I want to have witnessed a blizzard on my prairie and to have actually noticed it. To have seen the wild, raging danger of it, but to have seen the blessed beauty of it, too.

I want to have witnessed the smiles of my co-workers and to have actually seen how their smiles manifest themselves so uniquely to them, wrapped them in their own kind of beauty.

I want to have witnessed the fresh cow's cream slip down the side of an old jar that used to house honey and have actually watched in awe how it makes galaxies in my coffee in the mornings. 

I don't want to have missed anything this world can offer.

I want to have a fulfilled life, to know I didn't waste a moment chasing an illusion of beauty that you have to go far and search hard for.

I don't want to have taken for granted the beauty and the hope and the grace and the joy of my life. Right here. Right now.

So this is what I do:

It started unconsciously at first. I didn't know it was a search for beauty. It was really just me and a camera, wandering.

But I started taking note. Noticing more. The light. The dirty dishes. The mud on the floor. The mess and tangle of headphones and yarn. The scattered look of a lived-in house. The howl of wind.

And in those moments of noticing . . . time slowed, the tick of the clock lost in the click of the shutter.

One day, I sat at the kitchen table, I don't even remember when, but I took pictures of everything I could see, every perspective I could get from that one single place. From a fixed point. From one look at life. My life.

And I finally understood that this is how you slow time.

That this is how you find beauty and grandeur right now.

You don't have to travel far to breathe in wonder. You don't have to cross things off a bucket list to have fulfilled your life.

Wonder is really just here. And you can reach out and touch it.

A life fulfilled is just in the moment. And you can capture it.

Around me, ahead of me, beside me, above me.

Every little thing.

And when you learn to see things from one place, you can learn to see your life from one place.

Today.

And that perspective becomes enough. Because He is enough. Because He has given us eternity.

And time slows and there is time for beauty.

Beauty where you don't expect it.

And there are gifts where you never thought possible. 

Love, Kayla

Loving Broken Things

So according to the draft, this post was supposed to be an autumn post. Nothing like two months late.

It was supposed to be about how narcissistic I am, my generation is. About how loving others over yourself always has been and always will be the right thing, no matter what. Because people and relationships are why we are here. How we're not here to burn bridges, but to build bridges. Bridges over hate, bridges over resentment, bridges over all the little things about your co-workers, your boss, your family that annoy the heck out of you. Bridges over all the mess of differences and opinions, bridges straight into people's hearts.

I guess this is still kinda, sorta about that.

Maybe this post is weeks late because a girl and her prairie and her undoctored words and free-spirit life just don't have answers. Prairies and tea and birds, they're just all so raw and beautiful--they can doctor hurt, but sometimes they just can't fix broken. 

Atticus said, "She always loved the things the rest of the world forgot, snails and slugs, and the broken flowers. I think that's why she loved me. I was just another broken thing the rest of the world forgot."

And Ann says, "Love breaks us vulnerably open--and then can break us with rejection."

Yeah, Atticus and Ann, they know.

And me, it's easy for me to see the broken in someone else. Easy before they've hurt me. It's easy to love when your heart is whole. Easy to overlook stuff before you've been broken.

Ain't gonna lie. Finding all this, even just loving yourself, and not beating yourself up, removing the me, the I, from everything, and still smiling and still being understanding when you just don't understand, still looking for all the good stuff--it ain't easy. Ain't ever gonna be easy to love a broken thing, let alone yourself.

Ain't gonna be pretty looking past the ugly black marks people have slashed out at you and building a bridge over it to step into their hearts, to see all they're tormented with, all their hurt, all their worries, all their losses. Yeah, it's hard to really, truly see someone when they've dug their claws into you. When they've broken you.

And even after you've burned a bridge, how do you lift the pieces and build another bridge back into the blackened, smoldering space it left in your heart, and their's?

Clouds break open, that's how a sunset is made.

Light breaks through darkness, that's how day comes.

Sometimes you gotta break just to let the beauty in.

Yeah, I get that. I got the breaking part down, girl.

What now? Just wait for the light to get in? For the light to appear? For the beauty to make itself out of your hurt? Yeah, and what about the simmering, festering hurt that reigns un-medicated, bleeding inside you from the open wound ripping you from the inside out? What about all the terror that so easily turns to hate inside you? Yeah, what about that?

Do you have answers for that?

That Ann girl says you find healing in the sacrifice. I'm sitting there, reading her words, nodding, and inside I'm this painful knot because all I can think about is all the times I've given and listened to the complaints, the hard things, went unnoticed because the world just takes, went on thankless, and all I can think about is how it still hurts. When I've loved someone to death, poured all I've had, and still they turn away, unmoved, unchanged, undisturbed by the waves of my love--what then?

What about when you wake up in the morning and you just don't feel like you have anything to give?

What about when you have given and it still hurts?

What about that, huh?

I try not to think about hurting, about being stuck, run-over, abandoned. Broken. Yeah, cause I know we're all broken, I can see they're all broken just like me, and why don't they see me back? So I just try not to think about any of it. 'Cause I am the Great Avoid-er of Conflict. So I think about Christmas.

Once, I felt sad about growing up and losing the magic of opening presents on Christmas. But I'm not sad about that any more. Because giving presents--watching the loved ones' faces light up with joy--that's even better than getting.

 Oh. 

Wait.

Girl, what IS the matter with you?

Whenever we think of sacrifice--oh, but we don't like to think of sacrifice. It's conflict in your free-spirit, breathless, beautiful life. It usually hurts, that's why.

We don't usually think about Time when we think about sacrifice. Sacrifice brings up negative connotations--blood. Wounds. Tears. Hurt. Exhaustion. Broken. Everywhere. Just broken.

It's never usually Time. It's never usually handing over a present. It's never usually infused with memories of love. Never just plain thoughtfulness of just one single person. Never usually their name on your lips, the way they hung their head in stress. Never.

Girl, even you said to yourself when things got rough, your very own words, your own gospel to yourself: "Whenever I'm having a hard time loving people, I want to set out to take my yarn and knitting needles and make them something." 

Wasn't it you who decided to do just that? Make something and give it away?

Isn't that sacrifice, too? 

Giving and loving and presenting.

Time. Your most precious sacrifice.

Time you could have spent binge-watching that one TV-show that required no brain power whatsoever. Time you could have spent sleeping. Time you could have spent whiling away hours online, searching Pinterest for some beautiful distraction. Time you could have spent searching the fridge for something to stuff your face with. Time you could have spent scanning the aisles in Wal-Mart for that perfect bar of dark chocolate you would snarf down later.

Yeah, that time you would have spent on yourself? Time you would have spent hurting, time you would have spent crying, time you would have spent over-thinking, time you would have spent listing all the reasons to hate, time you would have spent running away from all those people because they didn't reach your expectations--Think of someone else. Use the Me Time and turn it into the Love Time. List all the reasons to love.

Those times you fixed up some boxes with string and a card and gave some joy away, weren't those some of the best days of your life? Just to see the happy smiles? Just to hear the joy? Just to give? 

Sacrifice doesn't have to be bloody. It doesn't have to hurt.

It can just be five minutes more listening to that girl who has absolutely nothing to say, but just needs someone to listen.

How come you forget so quickly, girl?

Don't run away from people just because they don't reach your expectations. Sit with them in all their broken, and share your brokenness together.

Hear this good, girl:

Loving broken things is giving your heart away so maybe other broken things can find a home there. So maybe the broken things will fill up with other broken hearts.

Sacrifice, being broken, IS THE SIMPLE, UNADULTERATED ACT OF YOUR TIME SPENT IN THOUGHT OF ANOTHER INSTEAD OF YOURSELF.

Love, Kayla

Pieces of Midnight | How To Make Memories

We've got us a history with late night cop shows and midnight snacks, my little sister and me. It's those nights in the kitchen in orange-yellow light from old lights, when the parents' bedroom is dark and we sneak up the stairs to raid the cupboards, concealing giggles until we burst 'cause this is so risky it's funny.

There's been brownies in mugs with a dollop of ice cream a little too often to be good for the waistline and a good night's sleep.

But then we grew up a little bit and she moved out, and the late nights and the cop shows had to wait in line, 'cause when you crawl in bed with your sister with a laptop and a good show and some snack sneaked through midnight, you just really can't do it without her. It's just not really the same.

They waited, just quietly, though. Fewer and far between and better for the waistline and sleep, maybe, but they waited still, not forgotten. Like how you know you can sleep better when the sister that's been your sidekick, your hero, your best person, is in the bed across from yours, you just know special moments won't be forgotten.

Last night, we both saw it, the pasta they were eating in the cop show, and it was like this simultaneous wish sighed in both of us. Out loud.

So we crept upstairs and revisited the orange-yellow lit kitchen, the dangerous business of sneaking about and not waking parents while you're being mischievous and really just a little bit naughty.   

No, it was really more like Midnight and not 3:41 like the stove clock says, but it might as well have been for all the sleep we got that night. It was really like a rescue mission, just her and me. Her cooking good pasta and me capturing art, kind of like this one long moment with a lot "shh--shh"'s whispered and purpose and good things made.

Just a few pieces of midnight, like a few pieces of hope set into place.

Love, Kayla

A Prayer For Those In January's Dark

Inspired by Alyosha

There's an oppressive, confining, imprisoning depression that fills up our spirits in January.

Comes with clouds and little to no moments of sunshine. And the pressure of "new year, new me."

Just about suffocates you with lonely darkness and hollow days where going through the motions is about the only way to survive. Just getting through a day the only thing they're gonna get out of you.

Yeah, I know.

There's a cold that contaminates the world and there's a cold that contaminates your soul.

And they both seem to walk hand in hand this time of year.

It's no lie, I know depression in its ugly form.

I know the moments when you're just too weary to lift yourself out of bed.

I know how hiding in the dark alone is just about the only way to find pure relief from the bad things pressing your walls in closer.

I know how "Things will look better in the morning," is sometimes just this grisly dark humor that only makes you feel more awful and more alone and misunderstood.

2 AM and I are long distance friends, meeting up with each other maybe only once or twice a year.

But I can't honestly say that I've suffered chronic depression or chronic insomnia.

I've never battled day in and day out for years for happiness and joy.

I don't know 3 and 4 AM like the back of my hand.

I don't know the extreme hopelessness like some of you.

I don't know what it's like to never, ever sleep well.

I don't know days and months with absolutely no light even if I've watched the sunrise and sunset both in a day.

I don't know what it's like to never be happy, to never have hope, to never see anything good.

I don't know what it's like to have the cold and Christmas and a new year make all the hurting, cracked places in you ten times more worse.

That's an honesty that burns me deep, because I may be able to empathize with you, but I will never truly know how you feel. It's easy for me to step in your shoes and understand completely, but I will never fully know. 

I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

But I can't lie here, either:

I love the cold.

I love the snow.

The weather is my therapist, my messenger from God. 

Every piece of the day, every cloud, every star, every color, every breeze, is my hope. Even here in the Midwest where there are 60 degree days in December and the next day we have snow and minus temperatures. I love it all.

I hate it when Christmas ends, yeah, not lying there.

I've found January so long and depressing.

But it's no lie, I love the icy depths of January. I love deep snow and the wind that numbs your legs right through. I love the long, enduring isolation of the cold.

I love being out on the prairie knowing I'm the only one out in the wonderland that is winter. Good for this girl's quiet soul, being alone.

But I look at you and feel your hurt, the deep ache inside you. Because I forget, all those things, the cold, the pressure, the mental health, they ache inside me, too. And often times when I get past a bad thing, I leave with no memory of it. I forget how much it hurt when I should remember. 

So I've got this prayer for you. For me. For us. For everyone bound by January's Dark. I've got these words that will let you know I see you. That there is a way around this, through this, and after this.

I'm reaching my hand out to hold yours and together we can brave this dark.  

A Prayer for Those in January's Dark

When all this darkness fills up day and the light-less moments feed off our souls,

May we learn to see the darkness not as a depravity of light but as a depravity of all the eye can see.

May we learn to see the darkness as a way to stop looking for outward things and a way to start looking inward. M ay this darkness bring you comparison not to bodily form, but to the shape of the soul.

May the enveloping darkness reveal to us all which remains unseen, the concrete fade and the abstract arise. May we see not the superficial of life, of ourselves, of others, but the depths and the worlds within each other. 

May the darkness give not to moments where our thoughts are tinged with regrets, but to moments where we see patterns and movements, purpose and conviction invisible in the light of our lives.

May we learn to use the darkness as a time to use our hearts and not our heads to see the world, and in so doing find the light that was hidden before. 

May this cold freeze our fears and turn our tears to light-reflecting prisms.

May it numb our heart aches and fill our lungs with refreshed life.

May this cold chill the gloating voices of guilt, the ugly taunts of shame, the puncturing nails of anger, the blackened hands of all judgement, the grits of impatience, and the hot coals of jealousy.

May these deep snows fill our paths not to slow our journey, but to slow our efforts to be perfect, to perform, to slow our pace, to calm our raging hearts, to rest our weary bodies, and in so doing rest our weary souls.

May the wind blow through us and not against us. And when it blows unhindered through a howling darkness, all those icy, chilled off corners of our hearts? All those places we haven't found the courage to let go of? All those patches of black ice dotting our souls? All those angry, tight-wound pillars of cold we haven't been able to crush but have ruled our lives with malice and hate, abuse and injustice, destructive mental health and depression? May the cold winds that blow this January take these places with them.

May we learn to feel the cold not as a thing of torment, not as a feeding ground for depression, but as a place where we can hear and see the silent exhale of all the toxic, all the harmful.

May we learn to see the darkness not as a place to fear, not as place where howling monsters arise, but as a place where we are free in the presence of the holy. 

 

for K, N, and Mama

Love, Kayla

Ode to Winter | In Pictures

I do a secret little dance inside and smile when it snows.

I breathe in deep and welcome the cold freshness on my face. 

I bundle up tight and wander the snowy blankets of fields and make believe I can just keep right on walking up into the sky, that there is no dividing line between space and earth.

Seasons are magic to me.

Just to see the seasons change, to be what they are, to live in them, to be their friend and most ardent admirer--this is a happiness I find little of elsewhere.

This is Winter. North Winds. Snow.

Love, Kayla

 

 

 

When you can't find purpose - do this

It's just all too messy.

The work.

The life.

The bedroom.

The hair.

The heart.

I left for work this morning and the day was so beautiful. And I couldn't enjoy it. I couldn't feel the air on my face. I couldn't stand in awe of the sunflower field or the three whitetail deer racing my car down our dirt road. I couldn't be home to enjoy this autumn as I wanted.

Ain't gonna lie, the attitude was more than a little messy today.

But I got to work and my best friend greets me with a smile. We catch up from over our long weekend. We get to work.

And some of it, yeah, it turned out to be work outside. Where the air was just this crisp, enveloping edge of goodness and the sun was this amazing golden light, the kind you get when it's slipping further and further away towards the cold, dark nights of winter.

It was just a bit more than I deserved at the moment. And it was just a bit more of a reminder that life isn't about perfection. It's about intention. And when you INTEND your life instead of PERFECT your life, what you find is PURPOSE.

I wanted to intentionally enjoy autumn. That's just a little bit of a hard thing for this spontaneous girl to do. But I made a list, because I hate lists. So it made perfect sense to write a list of everything I wanted to get out of this autumn. I didn't want it to fly by, and with the first winter snow I didn't want to look back and wonder where it had gone when I wasn't looking.

I wanted to LOOK. I wanted to SEE autumn. So I wrote that list.

I intended, and got purpose.

Autumn To-Do Check ListPick Apples

That day when Aunt Connie and Uncle Donnie were visiting, and Mama and her sister were talking up a storm about canning and gardening and storing up for winter, I offered and said I'd haul on out to the shelter belt and pick a couple gallons of crab apples for them both. So they said sure, and I went.

Take pictures of Autumn

Oh, this autumn. It needs a place here all to its self. It's been so beautiful.

Make a Thankful TreeMake a Thankful List

When your sister buys a mini milk can 'cause you were broke and just wanted something to put your Thankful Tree in because it was just so lovely, the thought of hanging leaves full of beautiful things that have happened to you on a branch.

Some of the beautiful things:

Carl's smileSpontaneously spending the night at Hannah's houseFirst corn maze and pumpkin patchThe birds gatheringDinner at the Chinese Restaurant with Dawna























Light cinnamon candleLight any candle

This really wasn't a hard one for me. I wake up in the morning, get dressed, get breakfast, light a candle. I get home from work, take my boots off, sit at my desk, and light a candle. Candles are just there. Always.

Walk in the leaves/Jump in a pile of leaves

That day we hauled on out to the lake and found a golden afternoon on the beach. Call me an introvert, but the best lakes and beaches are the ones when you're the only one out there on a blustery day with leaves falling and shoreline roaring and ice cream at the end of it.

Take an evening walk with Sarge

It's just me and him most evenings when I get home. 

Make cinnamon leaf ornaments

These ornaments and me, we go back a long way. When I was eight and we lived in a ranch house in Wyoming and Mama was getting ready for Christmas, I opened the oven and all these cinnamon gingerbread men were looking back at me with the most delicious smell. I wanted to eat them, but we hung them on the Christmas tree instead.

I've made cinnamon heart ornaments for Valentines, I made cinnamon birds for my Christmas tree, and now I've got leaves to string across the dining room windows for autumn.

Watch the geese fly south

Though I have paused in a moment of glory to watch the geese fly south, I didn't have my camera and they were gone before I could have gotten it. I hope I will see more of them come November.

What's miraculous about this autumn, though, are the birds. Flocks and flocks just hanging and rising and dipping and diving over the fields, the millet and the sunflowers. I've seen flocks of Meadow Larks, Grackles, and even a flock of Common Starlings landed on our house passing through one day. 

This day, below, I was out on the bales, basking in the glorious Saturday, and all of the sudden they were there, swooping and diving.

Make hot chocolate

If I could just remark, there have been far more than one hot chocolate made this autumn. And I fully intend that there should be more.

Knit/Crochet a scarfGo through summer clothesChop woodSip apple ciderWear dark nail polish

These are just a few of the things on my list that I have done but didn't get the chance to take a picture of. Although, there will be more dark nail polish, more apple cider, and more chopping wood, and plenty more knitting and crocheting.

17 of 50, and one full month to go before Christmas starts peeking around the corners of November. Even if I don't get them all, it's been lovely still. Autumn has lasted far longer than I thought. And it still has such a long way to go. So much to look forward to, so much to do.

The other day, though, I thought for sure I felt winter tugging at an edge of my soul.

Love, Kayla

When All Leaves Fall + To-do List

“Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul . . .”

— Peggy Toney Horton

There's autumn here, touching my piece of prairie, but I've been feeling it for days beforehand.

This inconsolable ache, right here in the center of me, is reaching out and pulling toward something calling it away. It always happens now, right now, when the edges of the noon day sun are laced with a cool and lingering wind, waiting on the moment when night and day are joined and equal, when you see the rain coming, when you feel the twisting equinox beginning to pass, and you know in a moment, a single, solitary moment, the world will change. 

The First Day of Autumn was a cloudy, cool morning that warmed to the best kind of day. And I missed my deadline again to enjoy it.

I'm not sure why, but for some reason the thought grabbed hold of me to write out a list of things to do this autumn. And to my surprise there came fifty of them. They're mostly special to me, things only I could really do within the comfort of my home, that don't really require very much effort, or many things to buy or scrounge. 

It's really for the quiet hearts, the country people, the home-bodies, but for anyone who loves autumn.

You can do them alone or with your person.

The bolded ones require some forethought or planning or something to buy, but the others are just some simple things you can do spontaneously, whenever the thought catches you!

“The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.”

— unknown
MAKE HOMEMADE PUMPKIN SPICE LATTELIGHT A CINNAMON CANDLEPICK APPLESPUT ON YOUR FAVORITE SWEATERWEAR YOUR FAVORITE SCARFWALK IN THE LEAVESBAKE PUMPKIN BREADSIP APPLE CIDERWEAR DARK NAIL POLISHSPLASH IN PUDDLESENJOY HOMEMADE PIECURL UP IN SOME BLANKETSTAKE A MORNING WALKSTAY WARM IN A COZY CARDIGANDECORATE YOUR FRONT DOOR OR STOOPMAKE YUMMY CROCKPOT STEWJUMP IN A PILE OF LEAVESREAD BY THE FIREMAKE CARAMEL APPLESSHOP FOR NEW FALL CLOTHESBREATHE THE SCENT OF FIREWOODTAKE AN EVENING WALK WITH YOUR DOGTAKE PICTURES OF FALLEAT SOME CHOCOLATEREAD OUTSIDEMAKE A THANKFUL LISTKNIT/CROCHET AN AUTUMN SCARFGO THROUGH SUMMER CLOTHESDIY FLEECE BLANKETWATCH A FALL MOVIELIGHT ANY CANDLEMAKE CHILIMAKE APPLE MUFFINSMAKE HOMEMADE HOT CHOCOLATECHOP WOODRAKE LEAVESNO PHONE/COMPUTER DAY - JUST ENJOY FALLMAKE CINNAMON LEAF ORNAMENTSMAKE FRONT WALK LIGHTS FOR AUTUMN - BRANCHES LEAVES ETC.MAKE A THANKFUL TREE FROM BRANCHMAKE A CLOVE ORANGEMAKE A BIRDSEED ORNAMENT FEEDERGET LOST DOWN A COUNTRY ROADWATCH A SUNRISEGO ON A BREAKFAST PICNICBUILD A BONFIREWATCH THE GEESE FLY SOUTHWRITE A POEMPAINT AN AUTUMN PICTUREBUILD A SWING

It's nearly a week since the first day of autumn, but it's never too late to begin.

I don't know if I'll get them all done, but I want intention, I want meaning, and I want life. And I'm going in search of adventure.

Love, Kayla

When You're in the Dog Days of Summer & Your Soul Needs Watered

I just wait here, day after day.

The land burns, but there's no need for flame. It dries and shrivels beneath a sun unforgiving. 

Clouds rise in the north west, white thunderheads triumphant.

The dark blue of a storm wraps around us from everywhere. 

There's rain in them clouds, you can smell it miles off, see the showers over the hills. Somewhere there's a bit of earth tasting sweetness.

Here I am, watching the goodness soak in everywhere else but where I am. 

Why not here? Why not us? 

We park cars under safety, preparing for--praying for--rain. Day after day we watch those clouds, hope anxious.

Them clouds have lots to spill and they split down the middle like the parting of the Red Sea and we're left in a dry and bloody strip of land.

Along with the prairie, my soul is just thirsty. And I've traipsed and wandered and thought and I have ransacked my heart, and this earth, for some way to get it all back.

 . . . get all what back?

I have to wonder, What was it I lost in the dying drying summer that burned the dreams and the hopes and pleasures out of me? What was it? It's like the Manna they found in the desert. They didn't know what it was, but they knew they needed it. And when I lost it I couldn't find it again because I didn't know the name of it, I couldn't call it back or go searching for a nameless thing. 

That's how I feel: a dried up soul in a thirsty land that doesn't know what she lost when she forgot to remember whatever it was she was supposed to hold on to. 

You wake up one morning when you went to bed happy, you put your boots on, you make your bed, you get your coffee and God's word, and then the world caves in. There's fire taking homes and lives and burning places you'll never see now. And Mama's reading the news aloud and is there never any hope? I'm sitting there with a book of words written by God and I can't find anything.

Where did hope go when the land dried up?

The Dog Days of Summer. Yeah, I have to smile a bit when I read it 'cause I feel just a little bit like a dog gone crazy with the heat, with the tongue swelling dry, not finding any water.

I watch those clouds. Still hoping. But I've stopped driving my car into safety out of storm and wind, cause there ain't no storm and there ain't no wind, and ain't there a God up there? Why's He sending all the rain everywhere else except where it's needed?

I don't have an answer to put in here.

I miss my deadline, last Friday, cause there's still no rain and it's September, and isn't it supposed to be autumn already?

I have to put this off because I look out at the clouds and all I want is rain.

Rain to soothe my Mama's fears.

Rain to make the earth smell good again.

Rain to wash away my hurts.

Rain to give the children back their homes that burnt to the ground.

Rain to give back all the memories that were taken.

Rain that will seemingly make everything better. All right again. Good. If we just had rain, life would be good again, right?

But how can I ask for rain when on the other side of the country there's too much of it?

Where can I find a balance? 

Then I'm looking around my house, the cool, fresh mornings that I love when it's just me and Mama awake, getting ready for the day.

The peace in the stillness before the heat. Home. God's here, He's in the quiet of all this. The sweetness of all this. I can feel Him seeping in around the edges of this haven He's given me. Taste Him in the solitude. Life is grace right here.

Then I have to shake my head at myself because I hear it, plain as day:

Why are you limiting the God of abundance to only this moment? To only these clouds? To only this peace? To only rain? To things you only want?

He is not only in rain and relief.

He is the relief.

But He is in the pain, too.

Like the words of a girl who'd only lived twenty-two years of life and faced a chopping block, on her last day, she said it, "The sun still shines . . ."

If God was with a girl willing to die and spoke these words through her on her death day, if God was there in her wrongful death, then God is here in these days without rain. God is here in the face of this empty dryness.

They all wondered where God was, when the world was broken and ravaged with war, they asked it right out, "Where are you God?"

All those Jews who escaped? All those citizens who hid God's Chosen People from Nazis? All those soldiers who left home for foreign shores? All those women who faced death camps and still sang praises to God? All those teenagers who refused to follow Hitler's Youth down a path to glory? All those noble Frenchmen who worked the underground? All those who never gave up hope and kept fighting in any way they could?

That's where God was. If He was not there, the world would have burned clear through, 'cause there wouldn't have been anyone fighting. There wouldn't have been any good.

So when your soul is thirsty and you just need something to stop the burning? 

Just look at the clouds pouring rain somewhere else and say, "God is there."

Then look at the dust beneath your feet, the dry grass waving, the fallen leaves crackling, look at all the burning. But then--THEN look at the cool of the morning, the little things you love, the shoots that bare witness to God, and you say, "God is here."

This is my balance: When the world's broken and thirsty and I can't find water where water should be, I look where water isn't, and all these little trickles lead to streams, and all these streams lead to rivers in a dry land.

Love, Kayla

The Leaving & The Moving

I'm not partial to changing and moving.
If I like something I keep it the way it is until I feel the need to move on. And that is usually a long, long, long time later.
I know it's time to move on when I'm not satisfied with it any more.

So I treated myself to a new blog site this past April.
It's made me really happy and just a little tickled to death.

It has a new place for my book , a photography collection , and a shelf to store my short stories so you can read them!







It's still called The Song of My Soul, but the link will be https://www.kaylaupdike.com.


I'll be posting over there from now on, but I've moved some of my favorite posts over there, and this old place will be around for as long as I can keep it.

If you would like to subscribe to the new blog feed, click below:

Subscribe to KaylaUpdike.com New Blog Feed

Thank you to all my faithful readers over the years, my mama, family and friends. It's been such a lovely, growing place, that's why I've hung on here so long. I didn't want to change it. But now, even though I want to stay, it is time to go.

Nothing else has changed except the site name and the place where I write, I hope to still be me over there, not to acquire any airs, but still make art and share the beauty of God's grace with you.

Love you all.

Here's not to leaving and moving on, but to gaining a new way to pour out life.

Love, Kayla

What You Should Tell Yourself Everyday Because Life is Short

There is something wrong with our stove.

Some days, when all I want is a cup of tea, I have to stand by the stove for a full five minutes while I wait for the water to boil, pressing the cancel button each time it starts beeping and the screen starts flashing a green -F1-. 

The electrician said to turn the breaker off for ten minutes and maybe it would reset itself. Now, turning off the breaker has become an act of pure survival as it tends to go off beeping in the middle of the night and raise Cain about it.

Secretly, I believe it is dying a slow and painful death.

No one has bothered to google it or call the electrician back, or make the round of phone calls it takes to get approval from the rail road to buy a new stove. That's life in my household. Some things just never make it onto the to-do list. But it's okay.

I'm not sure what our old stove has to do with this post, but I wanted to write about it, so I think I will probably find out sooner or later. Maybe it's just because I want to write and I have not, and I want to leave a pretty piece somewhere where perhaps you'll find it and it will make you smile.

Maybe inspiration misses me and for once has come looking for me instead of the other way around.

Maybe it is because I miss you.

Maybe it because I've held off writing because I've felt the need to perform for you, and now I'm tired of being trapped by that feeling, and I'm letting it all out loose and wild, homespun and ordinary. 

So maybe you don't want a long, thought-out post, a performance. Maybe you just want some raw, free-spirited, undoctored words from someone normal, from just a girl and her tea cup and her prairie and her dreams.

Well, you've come to the right place.

The rancher cut his hay the other day. It was still May then, and it rained before he got it all in. Some of it is still drying in long flat rows and Dawna and I sang the harvest song from Larkrise to Candleford.

It is the earliest cutting I can ever remember for my stretch of prairie. At least, in a very long time.

These pictures are bits and pieces of my life this spring. I've been away and far, here and there, home, and gone. Anywhere but writing here. But these are small bits and crumbs from what has happened.

RainA road trip to Colorado & mountainsMore rainSplashes of pink across a dark skyMuddy bootsWarm days mixed between coldSunshineWishing for summer

A long, but hurried spring lies in my wake. A wake with few pictures, few pretty pieces that actually became pretty pieces and didn't just remain wishes. A lot of waiting and not really living. Getting through instead of making do. But I can't remember being more satisfied. 

Summer is here. Really, it's on its way. There's a whole lot of sunshine left out there for beautiful things to happen. Summer has become my moment to heave a long sigh of relief and quiet.

Something I keep telling myself is:

You are enough for you.

I found myself waiting for only one ultimate dream once upon a time. I waited for the pieces to fall into place. But I couldn't put them together so I wondered if there really were any pieces that fit me at all. 

I looked back behind me and saw so many things I could have done better. I looked ahead of me and saw so many more regrets and wasted opportunities.

But then I said, "No. Not this time."

Life is too short.

I sat with my grandmother today, her sister, her cousin. I watched them walk with walkers and canes. I wanted to touch the pure whiteness of their hair. I wanted to stroke the gnarled, crooked fingers, trace the deep blue veins beneath their skin. I sat there looking at them and I'm going to say this true, I didn't want to get old. I didn't want to be them. 

So I said, "So don't be. You are young and free. You've got time. Stop wasting it being afraid. Stop wasting it waiting. Go out and be."

And I told myself that no, it isn't that I don't want to be them. It's that I don't want to be the old woman who now is looking over her life and asking, "Why didn't I learn to play violin when I wished to? Why didn't I raise a horse when I was young and strong? Why didn't go to Australia before my body became too tired to travel? Why weren't you more kind to that person who needed you? Why didn't you get up to see that sunrise when you had the chance? Whywhywhy?"

So I told myself, "It's regrets you fear." And I was right.

I don't want regrets to come make a home on my doorstep when I can no longer leave the house. I want stories to tell and memories to relive. I want something to hold onto when I become so sad because my feet can't run any more, or my hands can't knit, or my eyes grow dim.

Regrets won't get a home on my doorstep when I'm alone at 80. Regrets will not become my companions.

So I'm gonna do this:

remember that yes, bad things happen. But I'm gonna be the goodI'm gonna look conflict in the face instead of skirt around the edge of itI'm gonna do what I've always wanted to do instead of just wishing itI'm not gonna wait, I'm gonna go out and let life happen to meI'm gonna make lifeI'm gonna leave pretty pieces, even if they aren't perfect, and leave places a little better than they were beforeI'm gonna stop focusing on myself and more on making the world prettierThere is no time for waiting, I don't want to leave holes, I want to leave pieces of meI'm gonna write about stoves that don't work and sunburns, rain that may have ruined hay, empty prairies and lost lovesI'm gonna be

You shouldn't just wait. You should be. Because "living for tomorrow only takes away today."

Maybe this became a bit real here that end?

Maybe it's a bit pretty. Maybe.

Maybe it will make you smile.

Maybe it will make its mark.

But there's no maybes when I leave off and say, 

Love, Kayla

PS I have discovered the purpose of our dying stove in this post:

Don't be an old stove finally protesting at the end of his life against the way he has lived it.

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