Happy Monday, my friends! I hope your weekend was all that you needed it to be — slow or full, quiet or adventurous, restful or playful. Mine was all of the above. Saturday, on the recommendation of my precious friend Kate, I took a field trip to St. Gregory’s the Great, a gorgeous Catholic Church here in San Diego. I took Brazen with me, to do some of the final finessing, and I let the inspiration of the grounds and the architecture seep into my editing decisions.

Sometimes we assume there isn’t time for a field trip, even though our souls are asking for a bit of beauty. I’m learning to listen to that Created Center inside me that is longing for fuel. When I give it the fuel it craves, it shows up for me in miraculous and mysterious ways.

Then, on Saturday evening, Steve and I went to a “Wild Game” dinner hosted by some creative and resourceful friends.

Tina set the most gorgeous table — china, crystal, silver all juxtaposed with the Wild Game — crowned with the most stunning Elk shed she painted gold running through the center. We ate bear, bison, pheasant, wild turkey, elk, antelope. The hunters shared their stories while we ate. This is the kind of meal that makes you so grateful for this wild world. I’m very hopeful that Tina will now make it her life’s mission to write a Wild Game cookbook because every bite was insanely delicious.

On Sunday, after church, I watched my beloved Chargers lose at the very last minute (which I can’t even talk about) and Ken and Elaine came over with marinated chicken thighs and squash in hand ready to lavish love on us through the ministry of meat. Isn’t it extraordinary that we get to take care of each other in this life.

I am now staring down a literal mountain of laundry, not to mention complete mayhem on pretty much every horizontal surface in my home. (Always we begin again.)

Today, we are all set to talk about Chapter 12 from Breathing Room, “Getting Life Under Your Nails.” I’m struck this morning, as I reread the chapter, with the opening quote by the American poet, William Stafford:

I’m sort of gutted by these words today. They tell our story of rescue, recovery, and — even — risk. They are the words of hope. Even the Hard and the broken can become what saves us, if we will do the hard work of weaving, if we let God help us do the weaving. It’s easy to look back and see all the wrong turns, all the regrets, all the ways we wish we would have done things differently, and I love the idea of taking all of that energy and using it to weave together a parachute.

This is really the essence of Breathing Room, to me. God is always throwing us lifelines, possibilities. One of those lifelines has been getting my hands in my life.

I put my hands in life — quite literally — with art. I’m no expert, let’s be very clear. But I love to dabble. I love to get paint on my hands. I love to layer and mix. This is my favorite thing about writing, too: layering and mixing. It brings me endless joy to play with words, with paint, with textures, with the composition of a room in my home. All of this gets me back to breathing.

The point of this chapter is very simple, really. Find one small way to get your life under your nails. Cooking, painting, gardening, sewing, journaling, sculpting. Invest yourself in the texture of your life. What will happen will be nothing short of a parachute, nothing short of a healthy dose of soul fuel.

With love upon love,

Leeana