Amy Lu's View

As a kid growing up in rural Wisconsin in the seventies, there were elements to a wedding that seemed like a given, including: A reception filled with drunk happy guests, the dollar dance, and hearing “The Wedding Song” (by Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame) featured in the service. 

When Chad and I got married in slightly less rural Wisconsin in 1995, it was up to us to decide what aspects of ceremony and ritual and celebration to include in our wedding service and festivities. We landed on a mix of the new and the old. We definitely had the drunk, happy, guests (never in question) but we did decide to forgo the dollar dance, which I now regret. I think we thought we were too cool or sophisticated or something. (If you’re not familiar with the dollar dance, I’m sure you know how to Google, but you can also check this out: https://www.brides.com/money-dance-tradition-5074509). 

We also had “The Wedding Song” in our service, but as I felt a little uncomfortable with the God language of the song, we had our pianist play it while we did the unity candle thing (rather new to me at the time) and we didn’t have anybody sing it. 

I’ve been reminiscing about our wedding as we recently hit the milestone of our 27th Anniversary on May 27 (sort of our golden anniversary, but of course not to be confused with a 50th anniversary which is the actual “Golden Anniversary.” The traditional gift for a 27th anniversary isn’t gold, but sculpture, which is kind of cool, but we didn’t have any time for gifts this year. We do have a Groot Chia Pet that we’ve had for years, maybe sometime this summer we’ll get around to “planting” it and consider that our anniversary sculpture?)

To commemorate our anniversary, I decided to perform my version of “The Wedding Song” for our church’s online coffee house. This gave me an opportunity to revisit the lyrics of the song. The inner monologue of my emotional/spiritual/philosophical journey went something like this:

“I don’t want to be so self-righteous as I was in my youth about using God-as-a-Being language, but I also don’t want to just stick with God as “He”..can I mix it up and use “She” and “They” for God? Why yes, I can, but singing “Wherever two or more of you are gathering in HER name” is surprisingly making me think about my mom and now I’m tearing up and I don’t know if I can sing this! And yes, wow, I can NOT sing “becoming MAN and wife” and I will make ‘husband’ fit even if it’s awkward.” 

I unexpectedly went from making a theological statement to being pulled through a doorway of remembrance and love. I was thinking about my mom, my dad, and Chad’s grandparents, all of whom have died since our wedding, and all the other relationships that we’ve lost or have changed in ways that feel like a diminishment. I can’t adequately define it, but I had a new appreciation of our wedding as a time when we all gathered in love, not just in Chamy Love, but love of family, friends and community. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has definitely inspired me to reconsider what “gathering” means and to appreciate it in new ways. How can we gather in ways that don’t involve physical proximity? How can we gather in ways that are inclusive and honor the past and appreciate the present moment? 

How can I make my mom “real” not by thinking some platitudes about Heaven or even sharing memories of her with those who knew and loved her (although that is awesome and I’m always up for that), but by gathering together in love with others? Does the mere attempt of trying to connect with others honor and invoke all our past expressions and experiences of love?

I don’t know, but just thinking about trying makes me feel closer to my mom.

AND I will now totally dance with anyone who asks me to, no dollar needed (although with inflation, would that be a TWO AND A HALF dollar dance? But do not blame Joe!)

P.S.–(okay, I think that is technically only for letters but I don’t know what the blog equivalent is…I know I have definitely been Amy Grumpy Pants of late which makes me feel like I’m in a precarious position to write about love, etc., but may also explain why I’m particularly interested in it).

I want to blog, but I can’t.

I’m too busy.

I have to learn my lines and rehearse for the play I’m in that opens in less than two weeks.

Okay, that’s too passive. Let’s try reframing that.

I’m choosing not to blog because I’m prioritizing learning my lines for the upcoming play I’m in (which you should all see: https://dreamlandarts.com/the-brothers-grimm-spectaculathon/!)

I am thankful that I get to spend my time and energy on this creative endeavor. It’s an opportunity I’ve chosen and not a burden imposed upon me by outside forces (such as the capricious deities of theater).

But okay, yes, I do feel a little put upon because I could probably learn my lines and rehearse more successfully and still work and run and blog more if life didn’t seem to be throwing some extra drama (not the stage-based kind) my way and I could actually focus on something for more than ten minutes.

Maybe I could even stop eating so many chips and crackers before I need to give away a quarter of my clothes. (Giving away a quarter of my clothes would actually be a good thing as far as closet space goes).

Wait, it seems like I CAN actually focus on something for more than ten minutes: Whining and feeling sorry for myself. Not a good look.

I wanted to illustrate this post about not posting with one of those old-school “Technical difficulties–Please stand by” images TV stations used to use when something went amiss. (Maybe they still use them but I don’t think so?) I’m not having “technical difficulties” exactly but that phrase has become a euphemism for things being a hot mess behind the scenes, which feels like a pretty apt description for why my blog needs to be on a bit of a hiatus.

However, I couldn’t find a “technical difficulties” illustration that wasn’t copyrighted. So instead, I found a free “time out” image, which might be more helpful. Maybe I can even find a little wisdom in this image. It’s very calming, and even contains a little message of gratitude with its simple “thanks.”

I’m putting my blog and myself in a Time Out, but we’ll be back.

Sometimes time travel is possible. 

I say this not as a geek, (although I proudly am one–just ask me about being a Dr. Who fan way before the Era of David Tennant) but as someone who recently experienced a random connection between objects separated by almost 40 years. 

“Hey that’s my rose!” I said to myself at church this Sunday as I surveyed the collection of flowers we could choose from to take home with us and spotted the pink rose. This flower claiming was part of our annual Flower Communion, a beautiful and simple ritual celebrated by Unitarian Universalists churches throughout the world.

There is a great deal of symbolism and meaning in the Flower Communion, but for me, in that moment, the meaning was wrapped up in communining not so much with my fellow congregants or the beauty of the natural world, but with my 16-year-old self. 

The communion wasn’t necessarily all that deep. It was basically “Hey, once upon a time I was 16 and now I’m 52 and then I enjoyed art class even though I wasn’t that good at it and now I enjoy church and yay I’m still here and enjoying things, including roses I create–even if not very well–and roses that are a gift from someone who didn’t even intend to give it specifically to me.”

When I got home, clutching my pink rose, I was pleased to discover that I did indeed still have my rose painting that I created so many years ago. (I knew that I had recently discovered it, but wasn’t sure if I kept it or threw it out in my recent decluttering efforts. Happily, I kept my artistic creation–it was the “original” poster by artist Brian Davis that I tossed). 

I think I was also particularly happy to get a cool pink rose and ponder roses because we now frequently do the icebreaker “rose, bud, thorn” at work. (No, I am not the leader of these meetings or we would not have an icebreaker–or check-in fellow MSUS folk–but I try to rise above my snarkiness and participate in good faith). It’s a simple and innocuous icebreaker–you are asked to talk about (from your professional or personal life) a current “rose” (something good), “bud” (something you’re anticipating, looking forward to) and a “thorn” (something that’s painful or a pain in the ass). I just think about icebreakers too much…What is appropriate to share at this meeting? How can I be entertaining and interesting and relevant and brief? 

And, most importantly, how can I get the song “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” out of my head after any mention of or thought I have of roses? I don’t even know who that song is by. Poison? Okay, going to the Google in real blog time…YES, it is by Poison! It was released in 1988, the same year I graduated from high school and two years after I created my rose painting masterpiece inspired by the work of Brian Davis (which really is oh so very, very 80’s).

Of course I could do a blog deep dive, and maybe someday I will, about the wisdom of Poison’s song…DOES every rose really have a thorn? And what does it mean if it doesn’t? But that is a question left to tackle at a later day, or perhaps left an unsolved mystery.

Hmmm, this post really doesn’t have anything to do about time travel, but about memory and the boundaries between my past and current (and future) selves getting blurry. Or maybe me just drinking a wee too much and my thinking getting blurry.

Or maybe I just need to do a cover of Poison’s song at our church’s coffee house and take up painting again!

There are many things that I love and appreciate about being in a play.

Learning lines is not one of them. 

People often say how hard it is to learn and memorize as they get older. I don’t really have a sense of my memory getting worse (I may just be in denial) but I do think my focus and concentration have gone to hell.

I don’t know if it’s because of aging, or the interwebs and smartphones, or living through the Time of Covid, or just stress in general, or the cumulative effect of consuming too much alcohol or too many processed snacks, but I think I get distracted more easily than I used to. 

I had REALLY good intentions today of being very successful and productive with memorizing my lines for a play that I’m in that opens in just a smidge over a month (https://dreamlandarts.com/the-brothers-grimm-spectaculathon/). 

However, instead of actually learning my lines, I spent most of my time panicking about how I needed to learn my lines. 

My inner list of obsessive thoughts went something like this: 

• OMG I have so many lines to learn, I will never learn all these lines.
• I want more snacks.
• Is it too early to have a drink?
• OMG I have so many lines to learn, I will never learn all these lines.
• Why do I keep eating snacks?
• I have to go to the bathroom. 
• I’m too hot in the sunroom and I need to change my clothes.
• Is it time to feed StanLee?
• I must focus on learning these lines!
• Where’s my phone? Do I have any messages?
• I want to blog, but I must learn lines first! 
• But if I change my clothes, I’ll be cold when I’m in the other rooms of the house. 
• Are the neighbors having a backyard party? That seems more fun than memorizing lines.
• Where’s my phone? Do I have any emails?
• OMG I have so many lines to learn, I will never learn all these lines.
• What can I blog about?
• Why won’t StanLee stop barking?
• Why won’t the neighbor dogs stop barking?
• Can the neighbors hear me reciting lines? If so, what in world must they think I’m doing?
• Where’s my phone? What’s happened on Facebook?
• OMG I haven’t learned any lines and I’ve been “working” on them all day.
• I can NOT have any more snacks.
• I’m definitely having a drink.

Not surprisingly, all these thoughts did not result in an accomplished day of mastering my script. It does have some new snack splatters on it, though, which I guess is at least a sign of effort (Chad’s scripts always look pristine at the end of a show where mine are a mangled mess filled with weird and disgusting stains). 

So, I still have a long way to go before I conquer my script…but I do have some favorite lines that I’ve learned (although no promises that I know where they fit in the show). Yes, as a very transparent attempt at creating some interest in this show and getting some butts in the theater seats, here are some of my most intriguing lines:

• Why does my cologne smell like gravy?
• There are no crab people!
• I’m extreme!
• Everyone knows babies come from The Devil.
• These curves are tight and streamlined like a racing yacht owned by a rich Russian oligarch. 
• I was about eleven when I figured out I didn’t have a Fairy Godmother. 

They’re even more intriguing out of context, right? So now, of course, you want to come see our show and see how they fit in the production–or maybe I’ll just randomly say them. 

Especially if I don’t do more with my script than just getting food and beverage debris on it. 

We don’t have power. 

I should probably not be using up my phone’s battery life to blog. 

But what else can I do without power, besides worrying about how long it will be before the groceries I just bought today go bad?

I do feel very lucky that my food status is my biggest concern and that we’re safe–no tornadoes or storm damage to contend with. 

I also feel lucky that I made supper before we lost power. 

But I just realized that if we don’t have power by the morning I can’t make coffee!! No, I can’t go there…

We did entertain ourselves by listening to an episode of our beloved Too Beautiful Too Live podcast on Chad’s phone. But it was hard to concentrate…how could I just sit and listen?! (So I also drank booze and ate snacks. Needed to keep my hands busy but need way more light to latch hook by).

We also attempted to talk…but it was tricky not to end up fighting about the difference between a tornado WATCH vs WARNING (or more accurately that I should be respected for knowing the difference–as someone who’s scared of storms, I feel I’ve earned this area of expertise).

So we’re giving up–going to bed early and hoping to get some sleep without any white noise. Hoping that StanLee won’t need to go out and pee in two hours after my disastrous attempt to take him outside that only succeeded in us crouching in a puddle and getting soaked.

One of the catch phrases of TBTL is “Power Out”–as in that’s a cool and awesome way to end something. I don’t feel awesome right now, and as the temperature rises and we don’t have fans, I’ll be less and less cool. But I can say I have literally used the phrase accurately (it’s a bit of a pet peeve for me when people misuse “literally” to just mean “really.”

And I literally need to wrap this post up so I have enough power to keep checking Facebook for a while.

I was surprised. Maybe even a little shocked.

Our friend, and minister, Laura, had just said Chad and I were playful.

I certainly wasn’t offended–I wish I was more playful–but I don’t think I’m very playful. 

I’m thinking about play now because Laura explored it recently in a sermon, and is encouraging us all to think about the spiritual dimensions of play. 

I never did follow up with Laura about why she thinks we’re playful, but I’m guessing it’s because we are into a lot of pop culture that’s intended for children. 

It could also be because we literally play a lot–at least we play instruments, and we are in theater plays, so we play act. 

If I don’t think that makes me playful, what does it mean to be playful? According to vocabulary.com, “playful” describes “someone who likes to have fun and doesn’t take things too seriously.” 

Well, I do like to have fun, but I don’t think I’m all that good at it, because my tendency to overthink things usually gets in the way. I can be too busy thinking “Is this fun? Am I having fun? Are other people having fun?” to actually have fun. 

Although it may not be obvious to others (except for Chad and our pets) I actually DO take many things pretty seriously, but perhaps not the always the same things others take seriously. 

I’m usually too goal-oriented, too preoccupied with thinking “what’s the point of this?” to be playful. I’m not living in the present. I’m not very open to experiencing something for its own sake. I may seem playful because I’m typically not concerned with looking silly or because I don’t limit myself to interests that are “age-appropriate,” but that often doesn’t translate to that experience of engagement and experimentation that I see as play. 

I may look playful, I definitely want to be more playful…how can I be more playful?

Happily, I’ve had a couple of coffee house music experiences recently that have felt surprisingly playful that I think can be good examples I can learn from. With the last two songs I performed, I practiced, I was prepared, and at the last moment had the opportunity  to play the songs with other people. 

I was tempted to say “No, I’m not prepared for this…” but instead I said “Yes.” I was open…to experimenting, to collaborating, to doing my best while still accepting it could all go awry. 

Both song performances turned out to be better and more interesting than if I had performed solo. And yeah, there were some goofy, silly moments of mistakes, but I think I, and my awesome collaborators, and the audience, had more fun. 

Years and years ago, I said something to Chad about having fun and he replied, “I don’t know what fun is.” I gave, and continue, to give him a hard time about that, but I think I’m the one who is really confused by what fun is. I may have the demeanor of a muppet and wear otter print dresses, but Chad is more capable of presence, which I think is key to play and having fun. 

Having a goal to be more playful seems counterproductive, but I am going to seek to be more present and more open. And I will have many engaging opportunities to explore what that means as we start rehearsals for an upcoming play, “The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon,” more info at: https://www.act-mn.org/. (YES, see how I work in that marketing!)

Oh, I am going to have to work hard to be prepared for this play. But work and effort aren’t antithetical to play–they can lay the foundation for making play more spontaneous. 

I’m going to hug Munson (my stuffed one-armed bear, thanks to StanLee), keep drinking some wine, and ponder this.

Ah, spring. Yes, it’s April, and the time for flowers and brightly-colored dresses, eggs and hats and Peeps and holidays of renewals. 

And snow. Sigh. 

Meteorological bitterness aside, most people’s religious and spiritual calendars and inclinations agree this is a time of renewal. 

But renewal of what? 

I think because I’m in the Library Biz, at least still nominally, my thoughts immediately go to library checkout renewals. As in, “Your items have been renewed and you get to have them for another three weeks.”

My thoughts go to renewal as an extension…just like they did over two years ago when I blogged about renewal: https://amyluedtke.wordpress.com/2020/08/19/again-and-again/. (Yes, I recently wrote that I would no longer worry about repeating content, but I did check and discovered that I have posted about “renewal” before.) But my thoughts are a little different now. 

Now I’m not thinking so much about the possibilities of extension and continuation and how those might feel like promise, but if I really want or need all those opportunities for renewal.

I don’t have anything specific in mind. I’m just thinking about how I have automatic renewals for so many things: magazine subscriptions, our public radio membership, coffee purchases. It’s no secret that marketers love to get us to subscribe to things. Once we’ve done that, it’s more than likely that inertia will keep us continuing as members/subscribers (not to mention how difficult corporations make it to cancel a subscription).   

So while I’m anxiously, sometimes desperately, waiting for the rejuvenating energy that the renewal of spring brings, maybe I can take some time to make sure not all my renewals are automatic or unthinking. Do I need, or even still want, all the magazines and services and products I subscribe to? 

More than likely, the answer is “yes”–I love my Broadcast Coffee from Seattle and all the streaming entertainment services we have. I love the convenience of automatic renewals and would be really annoyed if I had to sign up for everything again. But still, it’s good to take a little time to see if I can declutter my life in some small ways. Maybe the subscription to “Wired” magazine can go…

More importantly, there are probably less obvious automatic renewals in my life that I should ponder and evaluate–thoughts, habits, relationships that I just keep continuing, without reflecting on if they still serve me well. 

This isn’t a way to announce that I’m ending any relationships. It’s been almost 17 years since Chad and I had a public vow renewal, and we’re successfully renewing and extending our marriage on a daily basis, in a combination of unthinking and intentional ways. We’ve chosen to “Choose again,” (to quote our understanding of a central tenet in one of our favorite book series, “The Hyperion” by Dan Simmons), and acknowledge that we’re continuously making a choice.

Coffee is NOT a choice, though. It’s a necessity. Without coffee–not just the caffeine, but everything about it–my brain wouldn’t be able to produce any intentional thoughts.

Sometimes questions make me strangely prickly. 

I’m not sure why–I’m not a particularly private person (much to Chad’s dismay). I like talking about myself (much to Chad’s dismay). I’m not in the witness protection program. 

So it’s surprising that I didn’t get snippy when the very nice cashier at the Como Observatory recently asked me, “Where are you going to wear that?” 

I wasn’t snippy but I was flustered–Where WAS I going to wear that? 

The “that” in question was a sloth dress. Yes, a sloth dress. No, not a dress for sloths, but a dress for adult humans made with a sloth print material. (Please see the copious selfies I’ve included). 

I was immediately drawn to the dress when I spotted it. I don’t have any particular affinity with or connection to sloths (although we did see them in Costa Rica and I have an adorable stuffed sloth to commemorate that vacation which I diligently try to keep StanLee from eating) but I think most of us can agree that sloth iconography rocks. 

The dress was one of my favorites styles, made of soft fabric, machine washable, and it had pockets! The length looked good, and it seemed like it would work for our ambiguous Minnesota springs and falls. 

Yes, I considered my purchase of this dress carefully. I have an abundance of clothes, and I’m trying hard to be more thoughtful these days before adding to my collection that I already don’t have space for. I even walked around the Conservatory one more time while I pondered it. 

Did I need this dress? No. But was it a dress I could use, that was different from what I already have, that would remind me of a unique time and place? Yes. And come on, Sloths. 

So I shouldn’t have been thrown when the cashier asked me where I planned to wear the dress. I had considered that very question, and determined that it was a flexible, casual, comfortable dress that would be appropriate in many situations and environments. 

And yet, hearing the question out loud from someone else, totally discombobulated me. How to articulate to another human, in a coherent and yet succinct way, that I almost never leave my house? And while I consider working from home to be a tremendous gift, did I need to go into that? How could I explain, should I explain, that I intended to mainly wear the dress at home?

And that is probably why I find questions so challenging sometimes. Not because I’m overly defensive (or not just that) but because I overthink social interactions. I want to have the perfect answer that is informative, insightful, interesting, entertaining, accurate, and brief. 

All I needed to say was something like “Oh, I’ll wear it to work and church.” True, even if both these “places” are frequently online. Instead, I babbled about working from home which led to an even more awkward exchange about my job. 

At the risk of using the word “ironic” incorrectly (something I find quite annoying when others do it), it does seem at least a tad ironic that buying a dress featuring sloths, a popular symbol of relaxation (not saying that is zoologically accurate, I have no idea about the mental health of sloths) ended up causing me some anxiety. (Ironic, perhaps, but not unexpected). 

Now that I own the dress, and have worn the dress, I feel confident about its purpose and acquisition. My debut of the dress was to work–via an online meeting–and it received a compliment right away. #WorkWardrobeWin. 

I’m no longer questioning my sloth dress or its awesomeness, but I do have some lingering questions from my Como Observatory visit. Most notably, “How have I lived this long without ever having heard of peanut butter fruit? Does it really taste like peanut butter? If so, does it have fewer calories?”

This week I successfully played a drum groove that I’ve been working on learning since the Before Times–so over two years. 

This could be an inspiring story of perseverance. Or, it could be a rather sad story of lackadaisicalness. 

I think it’s somewhere in-between. 

I have NOT been working on this groove steadily for the last two years, but I have kept coming back to it–whenever I got around to it. I wasn’t on a mission, working determinedly toward a goal, but yet, I didn’t give up. 

There isn’t a special reason why I decided to try and learn this groove (enticingly entitled “Rock Beat #20.”) At some point, and the details are murky, I decided to stretch myself a bit when it came to my drumming. So of course, I turned to the internet, and came across the Drumeo website. I think I chose this lesson from instructor Jared Falk because it focused on sixteenth notes. 

This groove didn’t require physically strenuously drumming (I wasn’t pushed to the limit like the woman in the recent deodorant commercial). It wasn’t hard because of what I was trying to play, but because of what I was trying to NOT play.

This groove was hard for me because my typical drumming is so ingrained. I don’t mix things up very much. I generally play the same basic rock beat with any rock song. It may not be exciting, but it works, at least for our garage band purposes. It’s not flashy, but my role is to support the band, right? I’m pretty sure that at least two out of my three fellow bandmates don’t notice that my drumming repertoire is pretty limited (as long as I keep the beat and don’t pass out or spontaneously combust at the drumset). 

Yes, to be Captain Obvious once again, this is a spot-on metaphor for life: breaking out of our habits, and NOT doing something we’re used to doing, can be as hard as, if not harder, than doing something new. 

I also got in my head a bit about learning this groove and that definitely made it harder. I relatively quickly learned Beats 11-19 (I started with 11) and then, #20 loomed out of the page at me. “Okay, here it is, the groove I CAN NOT PLAY.” And then, of course, I couldn’t play it.

I still have a long way to go before I can play this groove comfortably, without thinking. (I also don’t like thinking that the difficulty level for this groove is ONLY 2, according to Drumeo. I’m not sure what the scale is…2/5? Heaven forbid, 2/10? But this doesn’t say a lot for my drumming prowess, or ego). I definitely don’t feel it’s accurate to call this a victory in the annals of drumming or learning or dedication, but I do think it’s a small win to celebrate, and I’m all about the small wins. 

I don’t know if I will ever be able to play this groove with a band as part of a song–unless I can get someone to write a song specifically to make use of this. Surely a songwriter out there must be inspired by the number 20? 

I’m the one who moved my cheese. (Yes, cleverly trying to reference the 1998 bestseller that I’ve never read–and don’t plan to. Wikipedia describes it as a “motivational business fable,” definitely not calling to me). 

I take full responsibility, but even though it’s not a mystery, I’m not pleased with the result of my cheese relocation. I recently took a tub of perfectly good low-fat feta cheese and in the process of making salads for supper, mistakenly moved it from the refrigerator to the cupboard. 

Of course, when I discovered this the next morning, I had to move my cheese again–to the compost. Sigh. 

I did this within a week of another cheese move gone awry, when I moved an unopened block of my beloved truffle cheddar cheese from the basement refrigerator to the counter, where I let it sit out for a couple of days. That cheese also ended up in the compost. 

These cheese mishaps were not only sad, but disconcerting. What is going on that I can’t keep my cheese properly refrigerated? Am I that distracted, that flustered, that scattered?

Yes, yes I am (and the wine I’m usually drinking while making supper and moving cheese here and there definitely doesn’t help). Not constantly, not all the time, but enough that it’s sometimes frustrating and/or entertaining. 

I often describe my thoughts and attention as scattered–as in scatterbrained. My mind flits from one idea or task to the next, and I don’t stay focused. My emotions often feel scattered, too–they’re contradictory and I don’t know what to feel. I’m scatterhearted (can I take credit for inventing this word?) 

“Scattered” also applies to my physical possessions. My clothes, dishes, papers, latch hook yarn, are all frequently strewn about various rooms and surfaces. 

I definitely experienced scatteredness in the Before Times, and I don’t know if the last two years has made it worse, but it certainly hasn’t made it better. 

When I saw the title of today’s sermon was “The Scattered Church,” I immediately thought it would be about how our church is disorganized and unfocused (which we, as all human entities, sometimes are.) It wasn’t–”scattered” was used in contrast to “gathered” and explored how we live our faith in times when we’re together as a congregation and in times when we’re out in the world. 

I usually think of “focused” as the opposite to “scattered,” but I’m intrigued by thinking about “gathered” instead of focused. And maybe I’m not looking for an opposite to scattered, but a companion idea. Maybe being scattered isn’t always a negative. 

Scattered can mean mess and chaos, but also freedom and possibility. Are there times when it’s good to have a myriad of thoughts and ideas and feelings and experiences, and throw them out to the world, especially if I can carefully collect them when needed? 

“When needed”–that may be the key. If I could, I’d add that to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (and the song “Turn, Turn, Turn,”): For everything there is a season,…a time to scatter (and be scattered) and a time to gather (and be gathered). 

So I think I’ll try to be a little more open to being scattered, and see where it leads me. I’ll try to be more intentional about what I gather, too.

EXCEPT when it comes to cheese. I need to get my cheese protocols in order. Wasting cheese is a sin (I’m from Wisconsin, after all).