make room

something i'm most thankful for this week - besides central A/C - is my renovated bedroom in this old house.  it took more than half a year to complete it, but it is now THE most beautiful spot in our home.  and the spot i'm obviously (yet happily) confined to for some hours during this hot spell.

we still wait for Baby.  and i've begun reading another book, one about the writing life.  the first pages inspired me to pull out a memory and mark it with a poem.

rooms

this week i have
spent in my new room
newly remade
my oasis for days
and these, scorching
outside
the first i have 
ever designed altogether
in adulthood
though many
i drafted in 
early years -
did you have
barbies who lived 
on armchairs 
with hankies for blankets
and tissue box
beds?

it was wooded 
outside that was
drawing board
life-size
where trunks of tree 
were corner posts
for walls marked 
off by roots
exposed
stumps and logs
made sitting places
brier and branches
divided spaces
each with carpets
lush moss or
dried leaves


sister and cousins
or kid-down-the-street
would be well into
role-play
as i'd stay
in visions
adding new touches
to newly made rooms
just as inside
i stay
and envision
new touches to make
to this painted room
a luscious color:
dry leaf


- c. l. atkinson

* * * * *

sharing this post with 

what IS in a name?

a name nerd. that's what i've been called.

studying names, making lists of them, respelling them, and writing them across a page was a favorite pastime.  i was little more than a babe myself when i conceived my first list.  and when my child-bearing years were literally upon me, the lists had grown to be dozens-long.  i chose names unpopular, ones that seemed to carry more distinctiveness.  the sound or appearance or movement all had meaning.  and its story - the actual meaning - could never be dismissed.

name nerd!  why such an obsession? why did i long to name even when i had no baby coming? was it fantasy?  maybe just a part of my great affection for words?  or perhaps, it was a sign of something much deeper.  i am a creature made to create.  you and i both: we experience the joy of our purpose when creating, bearing the image of the master Artist.  mysteriously, i can participate in Adam's first Garden gift when i name my children - or when i simply dream of it.  alexander schmemann writes,

      "in the Bible a name is infinitely more than a means to distinguish one thing from another.  it reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God's gift.  to name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it, to know it as coming from God and to know its place and function within the cosmos created by God . . . to bless God for it and in it."

the way i name has changed.  our third child was named with two that popped up at seemingly random times, not from my collection.  when i investigated their meanings, finding they matched the promises and truths God was giving in that season, i knew they'd been chosen for her.  my supply has also dwindled over the years - names being used by others we know or just losing their pizazz for me.  as baby four came on the scene, i had only five or six to choose from.  and even those felt bound to be rejected.  makes sense.  i have changed, too.

this baby is coming soon and a name has been given.  i found it when going through a name book that i've had for years.  yet i don't remember ever seeing this particular name.  every time it comes to mind, i am astonished.  how precisely it captures the place where God has led Kenn and me, what he has been teaching us and giving of himself in this season.

name nerd or not, in my finite way i am celebrating the essence of the blessing in this new life.  i'm so excited to introduce him to the world, to speak his name like the people of old.  baby and i have reached 33 weeks!  won't be long 'til we're announcing more of the goodness of our loving Father, the matchless Creator.

why not?

i haven't included any poems here. however, poetry is summoning again because i've been neglectful. again. this month is national poetry month, so why not include one now? it's a little one i wrote in response to someone else's prodding. (thanks, l.l. and RAP!) i think i need to set up another blog for this kind of thing. that, or change "ours" a bit. so far it's only seen entries from me and doesn't have the exact shape i imagined. hmm.

join me. inhale and exhale some more sweet lines this month.


because it's april

why write a poem
words to share
to dare spill what's within
like the clutter on the desk
seem unrelated worthless
yet have their place
tape measure, hole puncher, dollar bill
and the camera's back is turned
as if to say
none of you matter

- c. l. atkinson

design in me

the little ones fed and occupied, two loads of laundry down, dishes cleaned, dinner planned. i was mopping floors while pondering this recent fixation on remaking the rooms in my house. we've lived here nearly two years but the renovations and decorating and other processes have been, well, a process. most of my walls are still bare, poor walls. however, i've been given new license to jump in. i've gotten in over my head and i'm LOVING it! even though it's still ninety-nine percent in my head...

i am a "closet" designer. there's vivid recollection of dreaming up outfits for myself - in my head - as a preteen. and i can spend hours and days exploring color or texture with absolutely no goal in mind. did anyone else have one of those groovy drafting kits for home interiors as a kid? i pulled mine out many years later, wishing i had an adult version. in fact, my favorite part of playing in the woods as a child was designing imaginary houses from the tree limbs and roots, shrubs and fallen sticks. as deeply satisfying as creating lovely spaces for my family with a near-imaginary pocketbook!

these kinds of pleasures energize me. ask kenn. i am a different person after looking through photos of beautiful things. and that's what i asked God about while cleaning the floors - vibrantly fueled by the images of what my living room could look like one day. the question pains the artist and it hardly matters that countless have asked and answered it before. we all dance around the subject in our own way. isn't this just frivolous?

so while mopping, God reminded me. he's [a] Designer. i hadn't really forgotten, i just hadn't heard it from him lately. he said something like, "you know that word about the lilies, right? i clothe them on purpose. and what about every other masterpiece of mine? i know you don't think all that beauty is a waste. night and day you find me there, in created things. what would this planet, this life be without the splendor i've shown? or even without the treasures man has fashioned?"

when will my little heart learn? God has made me like himself. and creating is somehow my way of sharing my Beautiful with others. that is never a trivial, frivolous thing.

gifts (these and those)

i am trying to wrap my heart round a certain concept. if God is my God, what room is there for concern for things, namely the stuff we buy and give and collect and design and hope to add to our other things?

i am struggling again with the christmastime rule: you give nice things to the ones you love. give me permission to break it! please! such demands make me tense. yet i wrestle just the same and more often with the gifts inside me - they dream of color and shape and design, to furbish, enhance and arrange, using hands and mind to create pleasing spaces and nonessentials. be sure, i've understood the good advice and firm arguments for each conflict. i still find myself here, conflicted.

it is tonight i think i've reached the end of this maze, realizing the end should have been my start. i shall begin with the knowledge - i mean a full grasp - that what lies within me is by God's design of grace. it will be freedom to abide by his rules and pursue the privilege of sharing my gifts. if he chooses to grace me with such opportunity, i pray i will joyously bestow them. whether family, friend, neighbor or stranger, those i love will then possess something of another Rule.

this start is not the desire to gain, achieve, impress, appease. start is in profound thankfulness, revelling in the undeserved and mysterious favor received. this is logic leaving no room for anxiety.

now to wrap up my heart with it. . .
what are you wrapped up in?