RTVM - 3.21.11

I've been spending my days lately playing with four adorable, fun and well-mannered kids - swimming, playing in the ocean, building sand castles and taking long and luxurious naps.  It's been a sweet reminder of what it looks like to enjoy our weeks, our days and our moments.  It's been two weeks since I've gotten on my computer, and tonight as I sit outside at 5th Avenue Coffee in Naples, Florida listening to the chirp of the crickets and the murmur of the busy sidewalks around the corner, I'm thankful for the break from email, endless google searching, music downloads, facebook and blogs.  I'm thankful for the space.

Right This Very Minute I love the idea of making space in our lives.  Space for all kinds of things.

If you live by the church calendar, as I (try to) do then you know that it is Lent right now.  A season where we give up something in our life that we focus too much on, that consumes too much of our time or that has just become more important than it warrants.  We give that "something" up, so that we can find space for God.  Instead of reading magazines or blogs, we pray.  Instead of eating chocolate or drinking wine, we reflect.  Instead of watching TV or getting sucked in to FB, we contemplate the silence.  We pray, we reflect, we contemplate and we make space.  We make space for God and for the resurrection.  We prepare our hearts for the celebration of Easter by making sure we have space for a risen and ruling Christ.  Space.  I need that.

During this season of my life (a season that is probably much longer than the shortness of Lent) I also find myself needing to make space for kindness.  I need to be kind to others, kind with my words, kind with my actions - but my focus right now is on making space to show myself kindness.  My therapist and I seem to keep coming back to this topic in our conversations.  What does it look like to notice good in myself and honor that?  What does it look like to see beauty in myself and honor that also?  It looks like space.  Like space to give yourself a do-over.  Space to honor your beauty by dressing it up with a pedicure, a gorgeous necklace or a soul-changing book.  Space to honor your goodness by slowing down and recognizing it, by giving yourself credit for what you normally try to push off.  Space.  Yep, I definitely need that.

So, right this very minute, I'm in love with the idea of space.  Space for Christ, space for beauty and space for goodness... quite specifically.

xoxo.

RTVM - 3.6.11

Right this very minute I'm completely in love with Aspen.  Sure, there is the beautiful mountains, the bluest sky I've ever seen, and an unimaginable amount of sunshine... but none of that really matters.  I'm in love with Aspen because of so much more.

There is the family I have there...

There is the Best Friends A Girl Could Ask For I have there...

There is my first home and the kids who brought me to Colorado there...

There is some DAMN good music there...

And there is the streets I've made memories on there...

This is why RTVM Aspen holds a piece of my heart!  I wonder, does everyone have a place that they would consider home, a place where they feel completely comfortable, completely loved, completely able to express themselves, completely welcome?  

I think part of becoming a grown up is creating such a place.  Maybe it's where we grew up, or where our family of origin is, or where we spent our summers as children, but maybe it's something more than that.  Maybe it's a place we discover, a place we just happen upon one day and then, years later, we realize that this place is home, that these are our people.  It doesn't have to take away from all the other places in our lives, but it most definitely holds its own special place.  

And Aspen?  It's streets are my home.  It's people are my tribe.  And it's seasons are my heartbeat.

xoxo.

The 5 "W"s

Who: Me.  A 26 year old girl. 

What: Right This Very Minute.  A blog.

Where:  Somewhere.  Maybe Colorado or Maryland or New York or Florida or Washington or Texas or Illinois.  But I am somewhere.  Always.

When: Now. Today. Right this very minute.

Why:  My thoughts and passions and opinions are here today and gone tomorrow, replaced by new thoughts and passions and opinions.  I don't what to forget who I am right this very minute. 

I'll grab a cup of coffee, sit where the sun is shining, and relax because I'm home.  You're welcome to sit with me, in your own corner of the world, whenever you'd like.  Welcome.

xoxo.