Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is to dance to it. ~R. Alves

She also dances in the kitchen and discourses with the fruit bowl, holds conversations peppered with song and frequent bursts of unbridled laughter, smiles at strangers and befriends waiters, and walks with a limp to remind her the costs of being too competitive and that her warrior cry of but I'm a delicate flower deludes no one.

 

But it was worth it.  Her team won.  Besides, the foot doesn't hurt as much as it did yesterday.  A temporary pain for such an honorable gain.

 

She has come to the conclusion that she enjoys her life.  It isn't, perhaps, the life she once envisioned.  But the wanderlust has settled into hibernation and without it roaring in her ears, she is startled to discover that she has a productive and fulfilling life.  Which seems to ever be increasing, step by step, inch by inch, until she looks back and wonders how she ever began this journey.  Yes, it's a happy, thrilling, fascinating journey.  For the moment.  But she knows that it is still a season of preparation.  For what, she knows not.  She must merely be content in the knowledge that she is being prepared for something.

 

She is amazed to discover that most people associate her with music and laughter.  She doesn't think she laughs more than anyone else, nor does she believe she has anything above an ordinary level of musical ability.  Yet there are those who aspire to have her talents.  Who tell her that she warms their hearts when she bursts into laughter.  The why-fors cause her much puzzlement.  How could mere laughter cause a hurting heart to open and gasp in desperation for healing?  And, moreover, why would this heart assume the answer lies in the bearer of such joy?

 

But she is learning to stop asking so many questions, to stop denying and avoiding, and to merely be herself (a person not so fearful and horrible as once believed).

 

Furthermore, she loves where she lives.  There's something so magical about residing in a place that provides a morning blizzard and covers the world in a thick, icy, white blanket of snow, but by the afternoon the sun is beaming down on this crystal world, clearing streets and warming the land.  Yes, she loves living in a place that two days after a foot of snow will boast a temperature in the near-seventies.

 

She thinks one day she will be known for her words.  Not right now, of course.  No, she is still in Preparation.  There are still many experiences and life lessons to be discovered before she will be able to take her flights of fancy seriously.  Or make anyone else take them seriously.  But, she decides, it isn't exactly normal for a person to conceive entire story ideas from what one might consider thin air.  One day, perhaps, they will not be merely ideas.  One day.

 

She also realizes that she has been lax in blogging (and keeping up with the blogosphere).  She does not apologize.  She is tired of apologizing.  She apologizes too much, she thinks.  Besides, she doesn't think she needs to apologize for living a full life and focusing her energy and attention on living that life.

 

Yes.

 

Some things are better lived than said.