Monday, April 30, 2012

Would you Like to Buy an 'O'?

Spotlight burns my eyes and blocks my view of the darkened house, as I nervously tap the microphone and utter low and soft into the sudden hush, "Hello? Is this thing on?"

Funny how taking a blog hiatus can seem so significant, and how coming back can seem such a hill to climb.

This school year has demanded a lot of focus from me, staying on top of home-school while we all get our feet with it. The first six weeks progressed fairly according to plan; then we added in activities and I started teaching a monthly class at church, and I reasonably concluded that blogging had to give way to real life. We have trudged day-to-day through the year since then, with five weeks remaining on the calendar and more than that left in the math book.

I have hardly written a word since December 1, the conclusion of an intense freelance writing assignment. And while you get no apology for my not posting, I need to apologize to my own self--for bottling the creative impulse and declaring this year a writing loss to the cause of home-school.

Because it's not true. I know this, because I still found time for Facebook.

I adore microblogging. Finding a way to share the adventures of a day in a single sentence. Or three, but definitely less than a blog post. It keeps my writing muscles flexed at least, practicing the art of spare speech. 

But sometimes a thought demands more than a witty phrase in order to fully convey its multifaceted nature. And lately more and more of them have bubbled to the surface, demanding to be given voice.

So in May, I propose to try something that should net me writing time previously thought lost. I have purposed to spend the next month off Facebook. Yikes! I might lose touch with all my friends! But I am given courage by a friend who recently quit the social network game, and she seems clear eyed and present in the moment. So perhaps a mere month break will reach me my goal of getting back in a blogging state of mind.

I promise you, this month will be interesting. We stand on the shores of a new life, selling our house and preparing to move to the country and start a home-school homestead. We are dreaming of chickens and cows, an aqua-ponic vegetable garden with attached tilapia pond, horses, tree houses, fruit trees, food preservation, and a fallout shelter. 

Okay, maybe not a fallout shelter. 

But the Captain works from home and plans to build himself an office on the property out of freight containers. And I'm dreaming of a little writing hut in the woods.

This new life is set to begin June 6.

Meantime our lovely suburban home still needs someone to commit to love it. And until then, it's a loose end. It does not stand between us and our new home, thankfully, but we will have to tighten our belts and put some other plans on hold until we can get it married off to someone else.

I find myself singing a line from an old song from Sesame Street, "Would you like to buy an 'O'?" and adding, "Comes with free H, U, S, and E!"

I thought we might have a buyer, someone we already know, and have been relaxing into the possibility by letting the cleaning slide, and sharing the good news with many of our mutual friends. But, as usual when I find myself running off ahead (and running my mouth), God has stepped in and quietly asked, "Were you relying on me? Or on your own understanding?"

Today I find myself opening my hands once again, surrendering my nearsighted desires for a neat and tidy transition to the keeper of a bigger picture than I can see. Our possible buyers have a set of individual dreams different from mine, and when all is said and done, this house doesn't stir their heart quite the way it did for me. No problem, I have prayed all along that this house would bless its next occupant, that it could be the answer to someone's dream. It will. I just don't know whose.

So I do not know exactly what adventures the month of May will bring. In my life, God has worked greatest and spoken loudest in the transitions. Something about selling a house just puts me way out of my comfort zone and opens my heart to where God wants to grow me. Maybe May will bring a buyer, or maybe just a pressing-in, closer to the one who has promised me, "I've got it all under control." 

You are invited to come with me, by following the blog. To be honest, Blogger has changed quite a bit in the past eight months. I don't understand "following" anymore. but links will publish to my Facebook author page, Krista Burdine | Writer. I think.

And when this whole transition is over, I am moving my blog to WordPress. To make it easier for you to comment, among other things. So you are reading the Burdine Family Blog: The Last Chapter. Don't you want to see how it graduates into something else?