Yesterday I organized my yarn cupboard. I found several tiny rolled up balls of scraps from previous projects, some as old as five years. They inspired me to make a scrap baby blanket, not for anyone in particular just for fun though I am sure it will find a home eventually.  I sat down yesterday and began to crochet while binging Life Sentence on Netflix (I recommend).  The blanket was more than a quarter finished and my eyes were happy with the contrast of colors and textures. Stopped working to do laundry, walk Ruby, make dinner and eat, fold laundry, and then bed. This morning I Facetimed Mom. She is in Birmingham helping my cousins go through my Aunt Nana’s belongings. I showed her my scrappy blanket and told her that there was one section right at the beginning that was a bit stiff. I rationalized that maybe the stiff part would be good for swaddling. (Right…a baby would love to be wrapped in cardboard). Mom suggested a bigger needle to soften and loosen the blanket up. When we hung up I undid all my work. Matt asked me if it bothered me to have put all that time (six and a half episodes of Life Sentence at an average of 41/42 minutes per episode) into something only to undo the fruit of my labor and have to start over. I said, “No, because the new thing will be better. It’s like when I get a big NO in life I know its because God has something better for me.” Even if it is hard to swallow I know in my gut that that is as true as it gets. I laughed and said, “That’s a good blog post!” You see I am still waiting for some big dreams of mine to come true, but I am still working. Completing things and then undoing them not just to make them better, but to make them right for me. And it’s not just dreams of career. It’s about my heart and who I am in the world, what I have to offer and what I have to learn.  And I am willing to wait and do and undo until what is for me becomes realized.  


So if you are struggling with anything that feels like a dead end or wasted time or regret, know that you are not alone and that, uncomfortable as it may be, you are right where you are supposed to be. My mother can go and pack up her late sister's belongings, and as she remembers, feel tremendous sadness. But it is also in the service of helping her two beautiful nieces move forward to something new, something glorious. Don’t be afraid to pull the strings apart and start over, to trust that this place you feel stuck in isn’t the best there is for you. There is more. There is a softer and looser, not always faster and easier (cardboard baby blanket), way to intertwine all that has come before in order to get you to what happens next. I have to be willing let go of how I thought it would look, stop rationalizing (“cutting it to fit” as my Grandmother used to say) reasons why it could be passable, and try again to refine by starting at the beginning. 


I fully expect that even when one arrives to that new place it will be imperfect. Strings may come loose through the years and it might even get a bit chilly from time to time, but all the scrappy pieces of what you know and have learned will braid together and you will be in the right place with a blanket.

I'm tired of grieving.  These past three years have had so much continuous grief.  I lived through it, learned from it, at times been blessed by it and have been thrown on my ass with it.  I could continue on with grief- its still atmospheric, always will be a bit.  I'm strong enough to do it, but I don't need anyone to see that.  I know it in my bones so why linger.  I am just flat out tired of talking about it- sharing, commiserating, one upping, proving, martyring, glorifying and being surprised by grief.  

I noticed recently that southernerners are a bit morbid in this vein.  I caught myself saying to Matt when we were home in Tennessee, "Oh Robert Urich.  He was a great actor.  Died of cancer."  Southerners, you can hear me say it, right?  You know the exact cadence. But why does that stay in my mind that way?  Why do I share that detail?  It made my head tilt in interest, but also made me smile.  I come by it honestly I guess.  

Now the summer is starting.  Every green thing in Los Angeles will turn brown eventually, but not me.  This is another natural progression I don't have to follow whole heartedly, habitually.  Instead this summer is for scooping my life up with a big fisherman's net and seeing what is substantial enough to stay and what I will watch and let slip through the knots.  I am so ready to let go of so much and the first wave goodbye is to grief.  I am tired of mourning so many could haves, or worse should have beens.  Goodbye sticky, ruddy grief.  I'm done with you.  

a few months ago God blessed me with extra.  like extra innings that won the cubbies a long wanted world series or an extra piece of cake.  extra comes when things are already good and you feel filled with or without it.  i learned the difference in right on time miracles and extra when i was leaving new york city to move to los angeles with my husband, matthew.  we were the most financially well off we ever hoped to be, paying off more on our student loans, traveling a bit to see family without robbing peter to pay paul to make logistics work in our favor.  we were facing a move across the country and knew where every present dollar was going.  and just then God gave me another job.  i didn’t know then that that money from this new provision would bubble up at perfect moments over the next two years, but walking from my trailer to the makeup trailer God stilled me enough to impress just what extra meant.  i didn’t need it.  i was full and yet He gave me a gift just because.  for the past five years i have gone deeper into my faith and the Word of God.  in doing so i have learned to live fully today, right now, and have worked on letting go of what could be, what i thought i couldn’t do without.  until a few months ago i hadn’t worked as an actress in two years.   and sure i have moments of frustration.  just last week i wept on the phone with my manager as i hiked with my puppy, the puppy i used to pray for with matt when we lived in new york city and dreamed of space, the manager I know to be God given who believes in me tirelessly.  i am human.  but i got a job and again i felt the extra love that can only come from God’s grace and promise.  in every day leading up to my first day on set i couldn’t get green beans off my mind.  green beans is my symbol for extra.  


in the south people bring food over for every possible occasion.  when a baby comes into this world casseroles are delivered and frozen to last in the new, adjusting first weeks.  when we lose someone comfort is given in forms that can stabilize and nourish right then and there.  the immediacy is automatic.  you might not eat it, but you want to hold it in place of what you have lost.  i did at least.  i was ready, quickly awaiting to grasp anything up and hold it in place of the crashing wave of grief that loomed just over my head when i lost my grandmother.  she was the heart of our family and then her heart gave out and we were all at sea.  coming home from the hospital that night was foggy.  we stayed in the car for a long time before entering the house again.  we were afraid to go on without her.  i had been by her side in the hospital, singing amazing grace to her as she passed away.  and now sitting in the car outside of what felt like my true childhood home, my mom, aunts, and i could only stare.  how was the frame still standing when the foundation was gone?  nothing would ever be the same.  when we finally entered and got settled around the dinning room table papa got out mama’s bible.  in it was a passage about faith.  she wrote about turning it all over to Him, true faith.  it was dated on my birthday, march 31st, years before i was born.  later i would lift her writing from that passage and have faith, written in her penmanship, tattooed on my body along with my mother’s script of hope and my own of love.  the next day people came.  fried chicken, pie, biscuits.  things to hold and warm and comfort.  these memories are a jumble of images, but very clearly i see something that has stuck with me ever since.  faded turqouise tupperware holding green beans in the weathered hands of an old country woman in clothes she made herself and a hat that was meant for church.  her husband stood beside her dressed up in overalls and a working man’s gentility.  they had known fannie sue her whole life.  i can fill out every piece of this memory, every corner and shade, as if i am standing right in front of them again.  i was struck then and still am by this simplicity, this precious offering of all they had to give, the humility with which it was offered, the deep truth in the paying of their respects. green beans.  for years now it has been a symbol of where i come from that has anchored me in goodness, grace, and humility.  a few days after this i would lose my first off-broadway theatre job because the director didn’t want to wait for me to bury my grandmother and then a few days after that i would get my first television job.  breathe in.  breathe out.  like paul says in Philippians “i faced plenty” surrounded by my family in a time of grief that to this day still clings to our skin like smoke, a time that i now look on as one of the richest times of my life, sitting on the back porch with my aunts and momma and papa in our bare feet and trying to put the fractured pieces of our lives back together again.  it was a quiet time that seemed to stand still and apart from all that swirled in my little world.  the priviledge of that time outweighed the loss of a job and the second opportunity that came, with the timing we all swore was a result of Mama Toney herself having a sit down with God about it in heaven, was extra.  green beans.  
i think my relationship with my Heavenly Father has been one of my greatest accomplishments, and in looking at my life so far,  at what i thought i wanted and used to hope for, i see His hand and favor guiding me to something more.  i could only see that by letting go, saying goodbye, and walking through grief into new promises.  i have had to do this many times since my grandmother’s passing, sometimes wondering when and if i would ever be done working on myself and if my walk would ever be easier, but each time I have been surprised by goodness, by green beans.  as a gift to myself for this last job i bought a gold green bean necklace.  (yes, i know!  i was surprised they made them too!)  my hope for all of us is that we continue to walk well and allow for those moments of extra to catch us and take our breathe for a second.  
green beans,
lesley

my mama.  she would have hated this picture because her hair and makeup were not done, but doesn’t she look lovely?  ​

when i first moved to los angeles i worked at a dive bar in valley village.  my paychecks were always late, they bounced twice, and they still owe me money that i left knowing i would never see.  i hated that place.  it was gross and the people were angry and out for themselves.  toward the end of my time there i would go into the smelly bathroom and get down on my knees and pray that God would help me get through the shift without falling into anger or worse, despair.  i would read bible studies right before i went in and write verses down on my waitress pad to reread over and over when i felt shaky on that sticky barroom floor.  i thought God wanted me there to be a light in dark place for a time.  that gave way eventually to trying to prove to myself how good i could be, how strong i could be if i stayed put and waited for deliverance. the end of the story was i didn’t need to be there.  i needed a job.  i needed money.  the end of story was i am good, always, without trying.  i don’t need to test myself to know that.  i do know that now.  but something happened to me one day that i think of quite often when i think of grace and mercy.  a man came in on a slow wednesday night and sat at the end of the bar right near where i was standing by the service station.  the bar tender ignored him.  the man was scruffy, but not dirty.  to me he just looked like an old hippie hanging at the bar.  he said hello and i greeted him and asked if i could get him something to drink.  he said, “may i have a soda water with limes and lemons.”  “absolutely,” i said and got behind the bar to take care of him.  i served his soda water with extra limes and lemons and he asked if i minded if he took it to a booth to watch a bit of the game that was on one of the many televisions.  “not at all,” i said and walked him and his drink to the booth he wanted.  you don’t make money waiting tables off of soda waters, but when you work in a dive you meet all kinds of people with all kinds of stories and you don’t ask questions.  sometimes you can feel an urging to stay quite and distant, and sometimes God gives you a nudge to smile, to be care full, not careful.  he sat there for a while and i went about my slow work. in a bit i noticed he had come back up to the bar to sit again.  i offered to refill his still almost full glass. he asked how much he owed me.  i told him, “nothing.  it’s on me.”  he said, “no, i have to pay you.”  he then explained to me he was in recovery and a part of his re-acclimation to living sober was coming to a bar and having self control, being able to sit and have a soda, to conduct himself well, to pay, and to leave and not want any more than that.  now i don’t know that much about aa so i don’t know the steps and the challenges that one in this process endures. but here i was testing myself to see if i too could conduct myself well, to do my job and not make a story about my worth based on my current position.  i was on my knees earlier in that bathroom asking for grace and mercy and this man was doing the same thing by asking for a simple, normal, everyday exchange. as a waitress i provided simply a service, but as a servant i provided grace.  in my discomfort and weariness God asked me to unknowingly help someone looking for a bit of light, a bit of normalcy and redemption.  i let him pay and he even tipped me.  he thanked me for being so nice to him when all he ordered was soda water in a bar.  had i huffed and puffed and worried about my tips that night i would have missed it.  had i white knuckled my will to show myself how good i could be in a shit job i would have missed it.  i would have missed a human being reaching out for grace and the filling of my cup that this patron (saint of dives) had, in turn, given me.