the good earth

I don’t often find myself reading the obituary section of the local paper, however, I found myself there out of a necessity to kill some time last November. That’s where I met Sylvia. I was drawn in by her old hollywood glam. Whichever kid of hers was tasked with picking the proper photo to memorialize her deserves a hearty congrats and a strong glass of the appropriate adult beverage of their liking because they truly nailed it.

Sylvia spent her life learning to love the places that she found herself in. In her late twenties, she chose to let go of the green Ohio lands she knew and found all sorts of goodness in this dry and sometimes dreary West Texas basin. She spent her decades rearing babies, honing in on her artistic abilities and growing up (not old) in a land she never anticipated to be her home. Her obituary told the story of a woman hell-bent on giving it her all, no matter where her return address placed her on the map. Plainly put -- she pressed in.

I'll never know the exact reason why I stumbled upon her on a random Saturday morning and she'll never know how much (the synopsis of) the life she lead means to me but I believe it was all divinely orchestrated. I'm almost certain God placed Sylvia on this earth and in this town in part so that in death she could spur me on. As wild as that may sound.

It was as if her obituary was the coffee shop postmortem pep talk she knew I needed. These last words were the confirmation and the recognition of what I had been desperately trying to do for nearly two years.

I had made a similar sort of choice. Sylvia just happened to spend nearly 60 years charting the course ahead of me.

You see, I could have dug my heels in and said no when I got the call that would lead me to the same West Texas town. I could have placed fear in the driver's seat and listened to its terrible choice of music all the way through. I could have told God his plan was dumb and, frankly, was asking too much of me. But I would have missed it all if I had.

I've found wonder and beauty in some of the strangest places over the last two years. Strange being the discretionary word here, as they really weren't strange at all. If even the most aesthetically displeasing regions of the world are worthy of His admiration then they should demand my affection as well. Tucked behind the corners and hidden within the cracks I have found such magic in the mundane because I've looked for it. I refused to play the broken record and get stuck on all the things I could, should, would have any where else.

This dry flat land has been good to me for He he has followed me here. His mercy has given me rose-colored glasses and filled its borders with hope and promise.

Sylvia -- Slyvi (Syl-vee), maybe? --in all her wit and wisdom gave it her all and left behind just enough to remind me -- a stranger who is coming up with nicknames for a woman she has never actually met -- yikes -- just how good it is to live with wide eyes.

“And now, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to start all over again. I’m taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date, and I’ll court her. I’ll give her bouquets of roses. I’ll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope. She’ll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was fresh out of Egypt...On the very same day, I’ll answer”—this is GOD ’s Message— “I’ll answer the sky, sky will answer earth, Earth will answer grain and wine and olive oil, and they’ll all answer Jezreel. I’ll plant her in the good earth. I’ll have mercy on No-Mercy. I’ll say to Nobody, ‘You’re my dear Somebody,’ and he’ll say ‘You’re my God!’” Hosea‬ ‭2:14-15, 21-23‬ ‭MSG‬‬

preaching to myself

Generosity doesn’t come dressed like convenience. So stop calling after it like it will strut down the Catwalk of Ease.

The art of Going Out of Your Way is far less glamorous. It takes boots on the ground and all hands on deck. It's the in-between of the sliver of a nanosecond. The breath between rolling your eyes at her persistence and her, completely oblivious to the eye-roll, thanking you for all your help.

You see, it's denying the selfishness of a to-do list a mile long for the sake of another. It's winding the long hallways of the basement and standing outside of the shipping and receiving dock hoping someone will answer the door and point you in the right direction of a large box containing a new mom's glider and ottoman set, when all you really want to do is figure out how to create more time in a day. Daylight Savings, though, can go to hell.

How generous it is to be used as the unintentional vessel to bring "good news," as she called the nursery furniture's perfect timing, to someone. So why do you try to treat it as a chore when it causes the slightest of inconveniences?

You know there is far greater Good News than the chairs babies are rocked in. And because you know that, it's your duty to treat generosity like a "get to" and not a "have to."

Because at the end of the day it’s the beautiful time-gaining (not losing), winding nature of the road paved of largess. Frankly, it’s as simple as this: Get out of your own way so you can go out of your way.

I doubt she ever dreamed it

I doubt she ever thought about it. I doubt she ever wondered what would become of this boomerang shaped coffee table.

I doubt she ever dreamed it would sit in her granddaughter's living room, sharing a weekly cup of coffee and a reading of the New York Times. Yet it does, along with the ghost of her secrets. Secrets clothed in pride.

That's the funny thing about pride and furniture. They live on after we've become worm food. Or a box full of ash. They keep our secrets just below the tangible surface of understanding. In plain sight and just out of reach.

I've changed the table's legs from their stumpy originals in an attempt to refine and polish the thing. The new thinly tapered set isn't quite right, though. It wobbles on its weak foundation. My attempt to update the table seems futile as, in reality, I am only trying to drown out the thought of our similarities ending at our shared middle name and this triangular, unsteady object.

Did I end up with her self-sabotaging prideful ways? Do I have her fear of being truly known? This woman whom I've never met but seem to encounter every time I step foot into my living room haunts me with the possibility of sameness.

Grace and mercy covers the generation that came before me, a valley of peace sandwiched between the pragmatism of the one before her and the one after her. Born to one and the giver of birth to the other, shouldn't my mother's life have been the catalyst of change? Wasn't her humility the bridge to better? Here I sit, questioning the genetics of the soul. Do we get the strands of DNA that have been spliced and pinched from those who've come before us to craft the foundations of our souls? Is this the growth place for the marrow in our bones?

Perhaps it would be easier to come to a conclusion if the liquor hadn't soured her liver, turned her eyes yellow and brought death in her fifties. Maybe if I could sit across from that woman shrouded in her secrets, instead of her 1960's knock-off antique, I just might be able to define our similarities from presumptions.

What if my questions are exactly that which makes us different? While she spent her life in the trap of what she couldn't bring herself to say out loud, maybe I am the one who is supposed to do the dirty work of ending the silence. What if she lived through the dark so that I could glean from the light? A busted and holy combination of my ancestry 一 grandmother, mother, daughter.

Is it possible a namesake does bring with it a cloak of responsibility?

the first date chronicles: part 3 - Jared-Dylan-Adam

Clarissa Toll

This is an actual event that took place my junior year of college. Be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 before you read this post, the third and final installment of a very odd first date. 

A bell chimed over her head as she walked in to the diner.

The boy had apologized about his use of chameleon names and tried to explain it away as a bad joke gone wrong. Whatever, she thought, just give me my spot in the library back and we'll move on. 

There was just one problem, though. He wouldn't leave her alone. The boy asked to meet her at a small, local diner to discuss the book over lunch. Intrigue and a foolish grip on possibility made the girl agree, much to her father's dismay. 

She spotted him by the counter, half-way shocked to actually see him there in the flesh. She would be lying if she said wasn't the slightest bit scared of him standing her up. 

They picked a booth by the front window and looked over the menu. She ordered a burger. He ordered the breakfast special.

Somewhere in-between the awkward pauses and surface conversation, it began to ease in to a semi-comfortable rhythm. 

They discussed the book, the author and the little intricacies the story wove together -- both fully enjoying hashing out all of the details. Towards the end of their meal, she mentioned her current stint as a staff writer for their university's newspaper. She had to get back to campus to meet a deadline.

"Really?" he remarked. Interested in continuing the conversation, he sheepishly mentioned he liked to write too.  Then he mumbled something almost inaudible across the table. 

When she quizzically asked him to repeat what he had just said, he leaned back in to the booth pulling away from the table and then said, "I'm actually an author of my own book." 

"That's great," she said. "You'd like to be published?"

"Actually, it's been published," he said with slight uncomfortableness.

Immediately the girl's brain flashed a neon sign that read: I AM ON A DATE WITH A PUBLISHED AUTHOR. HE'S KIND OF WEIRD, BUT THIS IS COOL. ALSO, IS THIS WHAT A GIRL WEARS ON A DATE WITH AN AUTHOR?!

As he explained what his book was about, it all started to make sense why he was so interested in a  girl who laughed as she read books in the library. 

The girl made sure to get the title of this said book of his. She was going to double check his stories. He didn't have a great track record of keeping things straight thus far. 

He paid for the bill and they walked out on to the sidewalk. They both got quiet. Leaving a first date is always strange. Do you hug? Do you mention a next time? No one has ever truly figured out the best method for hopeful strangers to part ways. 

After a few moments of standing there, he was the one to lean in for a hug and the one to say "let's do this again." Those words allowed just a smidgen of possibility to grow. Maybe this could be something after all, she thought. 

When back at her computer and finishing up an article, she googled his book. Sure enough, there it was. His description and name lined up perfectly. It seemed there was no strange joke or story with this piece of information. 

She stared at her computer screen in a busy newsroom smiling like a fool and thought how fun this little adventure could be.

She planned to gain a copy of the book and have him sign it. She waited for her phone to ring and to come upon him in the library the following week, but her phone never rang and her spot in the library never housed him again. 

Just as soon as he had swept in, he left just as quickly leaving no evidence of ever being there in the first place. 

He, in effect, had completely vanished. 

Perhaps, he was using her and the encounter for new book material. Perhaps, he was just a strange character all his own. She never would have the answers to her theories. 

She did, however, learn of a killer diner close to school and gain a cool story out of the experience. That was enough for her.

box 03 // wear the hope

Clarissa Toll

We've all seen that article about the very loved and fashion forward stores that only pay many of their workers 4 bucks an hour for the gruling and laborious tasks they perform day in and day out. 

How very many of those lifeless statements I hang in my closet. It kills me to think that I have in some ways encouraged a broken system with my desire for "cute" clothing. 

The terms: Sweat Shop, Child Labor and Fair Wages way heavy on me like an itchy wool sweater I can't shake. 

For about six months, I've been researching ways to be more ethical with my clothing purchases. Brands. Causes. Organizations. I've been searching for a way to give back and empower my closet. 

And I'll be real with you, my bank account cried at just the thought of the prices we'd be paying.  It's not something you can just do. It's a price hike and takes extensive amounts of intentionality. 

I know there is something to be said about cheap prices, (I'm a recent college graduate who works for a non profit. I get it.) but I'm afraid those cheap prices will just add up to a cheaply clothed life cloaked in uncaring and disregard. I refuse to live out a legacy with the lace trim of indifference and nonchalance sewn into its seams. 

But that doesn't mean I don't peruse the Target clothing section or salivate at all the pretty garnet and emerald colored things in H&M. 

A new favorite blogger of mine, Ellie at Selflessly Styled, puts it this way: 

"I'm an ethical fashion blogger, and I still own several things that I know were probably made poorly and in very poor conditions.And I will keep wearing those things until they wear out.
And when they wear out I will have saved up enough to replace them with ethically-made alternatives.
Sometimes the most "ethical" thing to do is keep wearing your sweatshop-made clothes until they've become too tattered to work for you.
If you have a small budget (like I do), it's so freeing to have time to save for responsible replacements instead of the weight of a guilt-driven rush to change everything."
 So, that's how I'm doing it too. Taking it slow, attempting to save, stuffing my pockets full of hope and wearing what I've got."

So, that's what I'm doing. Doing the research, attempting to save, stuffing my pockets full of hope and wearing what I've got. 

One of the great finds in my research was Hope Supply, a subscription box of fashion accessories from a variety of different ethical brands. Each box is curated with four beautiful hand crafted items for your closet as well as your home. 

Hope Supply is the steam engine that continues to empower and bring better to impoverished women in Honduras through Mi Esperanza, an organization that works to educate and provide resources to improve the lives of local artisan women through training and micro-loans.

My favorite part: every item is labeled with the name of the woman who made it. 

Box 03 is simple and sweet. A scarf made from recycled clothing by Reyna. A ring and a necklace crafted by Denia so dainty they're precious. And the loveliest hand-stamped pillow case by Amparo. 

When you wear items with heart and soul behind them, you sense the love and the beauty and the commitment it took for them to be with you. As if these pieces have voices and a story to whisper in your ear.

Clarissa Toll

When I wrap the scarf Reyna made around my neck, it's like a hug from a woman I have never met. A love story is stitched into edges. A sweet blessing of hope covers its fabric. It's an honor to play a small role in ensuring Reyna and girls like her get the beautiful life they deserve.

Clarissa Toll

Hope Supply is such a beautiful representation of how choosing the pieces that have a heart and a story – the ones that make a difference – can do so much more than make a fashion statement. 

Clarissa Toll

You can purchase the same box here and, if you go follow @hopesupply on instagram, you'll get you're self a pretty sweet discount code of TEN DOLLARS off!

This is not an ad. I received no compensation for this post and purchased the box on my own (without the coupon). 

on the other side of 22

Every year, I have written a birthday post. It's been a time to use my words to bid ado to the year previous and prepare/pray/dream/cast vision about the new year ahead. It's something I have always considered a sacred group of words that seek to honor the blessing living this life is, which threaded together create a concrete timeline for reflection later -- a visual of what the Lord will do and has done.

Last year, I felt itchy and restless. I couldn't bring the words to my fingers tips, let alone know what words I wanted to represent my twenty-second year. My world was in more limbo than ever had it been before. This birthday came on the eve of change. In the middle of my final quarter of college, I entered a new chapter altogether. What would follow after that early day in October only created more limbo and more uncertainty.

Goodbyes. Unemployment. Adventures. Urgent care trips. Weddings. Distance. All things I couldn't see coming. 

I wracked my heart and brain at the time for the words and the vision and the prayer, but I felt slightly like someone had turned off my gravity switch and I was just floating around bumping into people, things, moments, and memories. What was I going to do with such a blurry outlook with no words or actions to fill the void? 

To be honest, here we are a year later, on the other side of 22, and I still haven't a solid conglomeration of words or a complete understanding of the past year. Or the new one -- 23 feels just as foggy.

Yet, I'm pretty sure I'm okay with the fog and the confusion. Don't get me wrong it's still strange and uncomfortable at times, but I'm grateful to not understand everything. I believe in a Creator who does know it all, therefore surrendering complete knowledge comes with the territory.

This I know: last year was sacred and this coming year will be just as sacred, regardless of what comes my way. Life is one heck of a gift and it kills me to doubt any bit of it.

For 23, I'm jumping on the roller coaster and lowering the bar tight against me. There will be whoops and dips and loops.

"Hope can be a mighty powerful thing when you decide to tangle it into a journey. Hope can shake things up a bit. It'll convince you that even if you don't know which direction you're headed in, something will meet you at the end." - Hannah Brencher, If You Find This Letter 

I'm going to write this year a love letter drenched in hope. It'll be beautiful and broken -- just the way it's meant to be. 

don't step on my blue suede shoes

Once in high school, I and a few others from my ASB traveled to the state capitol to develop and speak on our suggestions for the Board of Education. We found ourselves shotgunned into groups of students from all over the state to learn how to debate and create legislation together. It was a long weekend of late nights and groups built like patchwork quilts -- stitched together with our passion to change the world. 

In my group, there was this boy. He had charm and height and an air about him which exuded confidence that was a border town to cockiness. We shared a few laughs and a package of care-packed Redvines on the couch at a downtown hotel. He made fun of my pink energy drink, which to this day I can't find a reason as to why I was even drinking it. That drink was like death -- pink death. 

This boy was the kind to have it all already figured out. He was a card carrying MENSA member and was going to be a lawyer. There was no plan, only certainty. When he talked it wasn't the sort of passion filled determination of a hopeful high school student, but a robust certainty that only those with their own law firm would/could know. As a fifteen year-old with a ramshackle sack of unknown and sort of kind of desires and dreams, I stared at him in awe and bewilderment.

How did he become one of those people who knew what he wanted to be -- was it knit between the strands of his DNA? Was it a dream he found tucked into his kindergarten knapsack or on the play ground during recess? Did his grandfather's grandfather start the family line of lawyers-who-always-knew? 

Even now, I sit back and want to peel back the layers to see what makes these kinds of people know. Sometimes I wish I could gather all these sorts of people up on to a big old couch in the middle of a big city, break apart a package of licorice like we're breaking bread, and have them each tell me one by one how they exactly know.

In July, I started my first job post-college in the PR world. I, a lot of the time, still feel like the fifteen year old girl I once was with her bag full of undecided dreams. Except now, I'm wearing electric blue suede kitten heels and have a cubical and a work phone. Transition is so strange and sometimes it feels like you've been uninvited to your own story. Like, life is just a whirl-wind that blows past you on its way to more.

I have been blessed with a position that houses a ton of learning opportunities and ways to garner experience. It's a depiction of what I always spoke about wanting: a nonprofit who works to make the world better for those who have been wronged, but it doesn't quite yet feel like home. And that in it of it self feels strange, because I convinced myself it already should.

Like when as a kid your sweet momma bought you new jeans or thrifted a worn, strong pair always with a hem that flapped around your heel at the beginning of every school year. She'd remind you that you wouldn't forever be the scrawny, half-lanky kid, but one who would stretch a handful of inches by the end of the year -- you'd grow into them, they wouldn't grow around you.

Transition is the too long in the legs and a little bit loose in the waist part of life. The here and the now of change feels like the never ending yanking up on the hips and the cuffing of the too much, but in the end the button gets tight and the ankles of life look as if they're preparing for a flood. Growing into the new takes time. Wearing in that denim is an art form.

I guess I'll still look up from my desk some days and stare at the grey-blue walls of my cubical wondering if the world and my place in it still exists outside of the office, but I know that I know that cubical won't hold me forever.

I pray the lawyer-boy felt the ramification of change despite his "knowing." I hope he takes the time to wear in a few pairs of jeans. As for me, I want to wear in my jeans until they are good and hole-ly, tight and lived in.

Besides, a good pair of jeans and pair of blue suede kitten heels make for one hell of an outfit.