The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom by Christian Valters Paintner has served as my spine text this school year, the first year of my sons attending high school full-time. Divided into twelve chapters, each chapter takes the reader through a process of discerning how to bring artistic and monastic practices into our daily lives. The last chapter helped me build a rule to practice, based on where I currently sense to create. It’s something I’m piecing together over time.

In my ideal world I would awake each day to greet the sunrise and calibrate my heart with the Spirit in the early morning hours. I don’t know what props I would use beyond the pinks of early morning and the songbirds.

Terce represents the third hour after dawn. It also represents my favorite time of day. At my dream graduate school, the bells chime at 9, noon, and 3 and the entire building, including the professors, take a moment of silence to pray. I find myself at my creative best between 9 and noon (maybe that’s why SillyDoodah and I are such good friends), a time I find it the most natural to believe there is enough resource for life. I find life in the water and chose my favorite blue-greens to represent this part of my day.

And then there’s Sext. The noon through three. I call this the White-Hot time of my day. Because that’s how I roll, swing. From the Blue/Green of Terce to the WHITE/HOT of Sext. I love white. On my home’s trim. Through my windows. While melting mid-day and even in the dead of winter. Bring the white-hot. In my clothing. My personality. Any art I might try to create. I want light. Hot. Heat. For me it means housekeeping that polishes, cleans, keeps the windows bright. Today it meant I worked with the grandparents, shopped on budget, dealt with the homework. I was on.

But there’s also None. And by None, the hours of 3pm-6pm, I am swimming in an attempt to keep it together. That’s where I am as I write. I’m sucking down cold caffeine-filled tea. Chomping on chips. Coordinating driving the kids tonight and discussing life with the man who has no commute and shows up this time of day in “my” office with what’s on his mind. This is not the time of day for “None”…no emotions…HA! So it’s silver. Silver is when I rely on my (thanks be to God) husband’s steady income. Run to the store? Yes. Drink a little wine? Maybe. Say yes to the kids? Ask me now.

But by 6:30, dinner is decided. The evening has shaped up. It might be a night they all leave (Wednesday, glorious Wednesday) or the night we light the fire and live it up (Saturday). It might be a night we argue together over dinner that’s taken twice as long to make as eat. (Fwiw, my teens like to banter with each other for fun. GAH!). Regardless, I start to cut myself slack in the purple. For purple is the true riches, the deep color. The music plays, the meat is served, the wine (maybe) pours. Sometimes we watch those who create better stories than we can (Downton Abbey, LOST, Game of Thrones, Friday Night Lights). We put our feet up, give the dogs our scraps, clean the kitchen leisurely, and maybe, maybe let others into our lives. That is a rarity these days. But someday, I hope that will change. Because during this time of day, we transition from the American life we live of silver, to the Child of God life we live of purple…of believing we are royalty no matter what struggles we face. We attend events, walk downtown to our gourmet ice cream shop, play music and dance in our kitchen. Life is good. I rarely write about this time of day because I can embrace it. This life. The gifts of God. Whatever happens, happens.

But then there’s Vespers. Compline. The end of the work day. And I admit. If you text or call after 9:30…even if you are my offspring or mate…I will CHOOSE to give you time. It is time to rest. To rest in the navy blue. Maybe with sex. DEFINITELY with reading. The stars cycle. The moon cycle. The navy blue of life. I anticipate greeting the sunrise. And even if I love you, I also love the sunrise. Curfews, night owls, details..maybe, MAYBE I will give you attention. But I take meds. At 9:30. Oh, offspring. You of my womb who broke curfew last night. I long to greet the sunrise. With the Spirit.

Color.

You are my sunshine.

It is not for the timid to answer the commission to mine. Mining where I live in California Gold Country is more than just a metaphor. Our bars and histories and property titles are defined by mine shafts. We stand as tourists and residents and gaze down the deepest holes in the earth we’ve most likely seen, imagining the men plunging under the earth day after day without the sun, returning covered with dirt, risking their claustrophobic lives and yet it being their jobs.  Lately, I sense this as my job, too.

Go deeper.

No deeper.

Yes, deeper still.

But it can be so dangerous. Lives were lost mining for all that gold. Of men and canaries.

If you’ve read my blog this year, you know my favorite book so far in 2013 has been Birdsong, the story of Stephen and his juxtaposed life in love and war, a war that was fought in mine shafts. In the scenes from the movie, as the men dig the tunnels and fight underground in World War I, the only color are the yellow canaries, chirping in their rustic cages waiting to be taken underground by these men who hoped the birds would warn them if the underground air was too toxic.

I think a canary might have died last weekend as I mined into a shaft of conflict. It hurts. And I think it’s part of the job.

I can’t decide if I’m a miner or canary. Am I super-sensitive to toxins or commissioned to dig deeply despite the toxins possible presence? It’s most likely that I’m a combination of both. But the bottom line is that this time of year despite the spring weather above and the yellow birds chirping in my version of dirty work I am trying to be brave and face another day of plunging underground. And I want to take a moment to say, without the en-courage-ment of friends, I would be paralyzed with fear that the darkness would completely swallow me.

It’s a depth I’ve longed for, asked for, met with other miners for. But it still makes me terribly grimy while I circle down, unearthing another layer, commissioned to mine to the core. I don’t know yet if I will find the enemy or jewels. This commission doesn’t tell me how my work ends. Just, “Deeper. No deeper. Yes, deeper still.”

Deeper this weekend meant feeling all the feelings that came with important birthdays this time of year coupled with a Mother’s Day. I brought a baby home on Mother’s Day. My mother will turn 70 this year at this time. I can now say my sons are 15 and 17. The emotions for me churn like dirty, rushing water. There’s a rawness and ache and biting beauty that can leave me gasping for air and wondering if I’ll make it to the surface. Mining these places of raging waters and potential jewels are what I, as a grower and miner, are doing. It’s a brutal but worthy, messy but brave job.

Do good fences make good neighbors? Four weeks and decades later, I still wonder. So did Robert Frost in the poem “Mending Wall”:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense

Boundaries are such a hot topic where I come from. We talk about boundaries a lot in America and evangelicalism. We draw lines in the sand on our properties and in our religion, so much so my grandmother was a scandal to her father-in-law because she wore red and played cards.

I’ve been angry. I have felt so walled in and walled out. My friend challenged me. “Stand at the wall and rip some of it down. See what happens.”  So I did.

Yes, I made it personal. Most, if not all of you who read are my neighbors. I invited you into my backyard. I didn’t have to link these posts to Facebook. But if I hadn’t, if I’d kept my anger and questions anonymous, I wouldn’t really know. Who am I as a woman and a writer and a Christian if my boundary lines have changed and you now know it? I have worked so hard because I thought I had to be a good neighbor…A good girl, mom, and Christian. But my body, my creativity, and my hope for my future were breaking down. I needed to break down some other walls instead.

Here’s a quick review: In the four weeks I wrote, I welcomed into my backyard 155 unique visitors. The average length of the 669 visits over 150 of you made was 3 minutes, which is a very long time to average readers’ attention on the Internet. You liked my posts on Facebook, left me comments, sent me private messages, and cheered me on. Many of you read every day. And a lot of you who read didn’t say a word. Your chance to tell me what you really think isn’t over just because my series is. But the irony? Not one of you gave me harsh or negative feedback. Not one. And now I can know you know; my boundaries about parenting, myself, women in ministry, sexuality, and church culture have changed. Now I don’t have to wall myself off in the same way anymore.

How often in the news do the reporters ask the neighbors. “Did you have any idea?” How did what’s-his-name in Cleveland keep those girls captive for ten years? In my own neighborhood, a policeman stood on my porch yesterday needing to ask me questions about what I knew. A situation had gone that far.

Situations and people can go far. I’ve known I could be one of the statistics in the midst of this middle-age crisis. But thanks be to God, even in this public place, love met me in my messy honesty. My good neighbors didn’t scramble to reassemble the wall I needed to tear down. They stepped over the rubble into my backyard and in some cases even helped me through my tears and bleeding hands to keep ripping.

Thank you.

I live in Nevada City, CA. Nevada means “snow-covered”. But there was no snow-covered days this year. Every year I find myself thinking, “This is our worst precipitation year ever!”

Californians worry about water a lot. The wildfires this year already began and it’s only May.

What are we supposed to do if there’s not enough water?

One thing I know to do is plant natives in my garden. My master gardener girlfriend once wisely said, “Well, something will grow. But people get tired of the natives where they grow, so they try to change it up. However, that requires a lot more water.”

Yep. How right she was. The Pottery Barn catalogs, Sunset magazines, and EVEN Focus on the Family do not accurately show the ways most of us live.

I live with three kids, two dogs, and one husband. For the record, NONE of them help me look like the catalogs and Christian magazines, not one.

One of the things we decided to do for our son’s birthday was install a new ceiling fixture in his room. Exciting, I know. But last year was the yellow lab, so there you go.

I went upstairs earlier to see how it was going as my husband installed it while the freshman was at school. For the record, also? I rarely go upstairs in my own home.

I am not exaggerating when I write, I needed to lay down afterwards.

It was such a mess up there. Clothes, papers, projects, dog hair, and the old lighting fixture and the new lighting fixture in the middle of it all. DI-saster

When I meet people who’s lives run relatively smoothly, whose husbands wash the family car, whose sons do what momma asks them to do when it comes to cleaning up, I am in shock from drought. That is not my situation.

Why?

Maybe it’s because theoretically, I live in Bakersfield with oleanders as natives. Water is scarce.

I don’t know. You might tell me I just need to add water. But I’ve been worried about the cost and the environment. I’ve prayed instead that the skies would open. I’ve justified that I like birch trees, but I should be happy with scrub oaks instead. Sometimes I just drink, thinking that will at least hydrate ME. (Wrong.).

Year after year after year after year, the situation hasn’t really changed. My attempts to make my gardens looks like the catalogs have only left me gasping for a drink, a remodeling contractor, compliant children and husband that is just not coming.

It has been so painful to scream at the skies and family, “I need THIS amount of moisture, and you are only giving THIS!” And they look at me blankly. “Duh.This is Bakersfield, not Seattle. Oleanders are all you’re going to get.”

NO!!!

But I am environmentally conscious. This is my home and family. I might want to live like I’m in a Twilight movie, but that level of moisture is only a fantasy.

Oleanders might be the best it gets.

Plant more? Deny the reality? Water more despite the cost?

I’m still trying to figure it out .

I and the birch trees might cry out, “I MUST have MORE.” But it just is what is…however much rain (or lack thereof) or snow may fall.

Don’t you think?