So, it seems spring went ahead and made a group decision (without consulting the entire group that is North Texas) that we should take a step back. We’ve had glimpses of the pleasures that are ahead, but spring, I believe, has decided to not be in too great a hurry to come and stay.

Nature is echoing my current season of life. I think God is laughing.

Today felt much more like fall then spring – with the sky painted grey and the air tilted cool, it echoed the Paris that I know and the New York that I visited last fall – so I decided to embrace it, wrap up in a scarf and my most photographic shoes and take a stretch my legs around town.

While Fort Worth is, indeed, a city, it’s not the walkable type. One of the most frustrating readjustments I had last summer was moving from walking everwhere to once again, driving. You would think, having grown up in a driving city that it wouldn’t be that difficult, but there’s just something deeply pleasurable about walking in a city. I think it’s the connection you have with the space around you; literally, as step by step you keep in touch with the ground beneath you, but also, the sounds of the scene around you, the people that you see or talk to – it’s a much different experience than floating in our individual boxes and spinning down and around streets. I love it.

And so I found myself at the outdoor mall, coffee in hand, wondering and dreaming. Sketching stories and chapters for the some day book I hope to write. Skimming books and staring at cookware, thinking about the home I one day want to create. I go into Barnes & Noble and search out Shauna Neiquist. I’m awating the arrival of her newest book, Bread and Wine to my doorstep, and until then, am craving her words and stories. So I stand in the middle of the aisle and read a chapter, laughing out loud and wishing she would be my real-life friend. Oh, Shauna, I’m so serious.

As much as I feel like I don’t understand this current season of life, I know that it’s a gift to be back in Texas at this exact time. I get to be near as Baby Boy R rounds the corner to homebase – I get to be here and greet him soon, so very soon. I also get to be near as one of my best friends plans her wedding. I get to be close by for weekends together and linger with her in these last few months before her world shifts in a very big way. These are gifts. I am meant to be here now.

Some days I feel like I’m standing over my own life with a microscope – surveying every millimeter of action, interaction and thought for a sign, a break, a pointing-to of the future. It’s exhausting. And while I don’t think it’s bad to be observant, I know that I’m stepping into God’s territory. My job is not to stand over my life like a scientist deciphering DNA code. My job is to take a step back, wrap up in that scarf, put on those great shoes and walk briskly out into the world.