Tuesday, October 28, 2014

A New Direction

I have been thinking about my writing and the direction I want it to go.

I want to make some changes.

Nothing major, but I have been wanting to open my blog up to be about more aspects of my life. This will always be a place for me to pour out my heart and to pour it out about Gideon and his life and how his life and death still have an impact on me daily.

I wont stop writing about him.

But lately, I have felt stuck in my writing on this blog. I have written some here, but not as much as I would like. I am in the process of writing a series of children's books and a novel and that has taken a lot of my writing time. I am busy with M.E.N.D., at church and with my husband and living son. I want to keep writing my heart (and I even have some ideas for upcoming blog posts!). But I wasnt sure what to do with my blog. I want to keep it going.and love writing here, but I feel kind of stuck. I mostly feel joy at being Gideon's mommy and joy from getting to see him again. I feel joy knowing that God still uses his life to impact this world. I miss him, oh yes. I miss his presence in my life. However, most of the time the joy outweighs the pain.  So, I have not been sure what to write about.

I've been waiting to get inspiration or direction. Then it came.

I was reading on Still Standing Magazine and one of the posts was about journal prompts. It was written by Beryl Young and she teaches photography classes online, as well as many other things. I took her photography class in 2012 and learned so much through that process about how to look at life through  lens and to process my grief with my camera. So when I saw her post on Still Standing, I read it. It is called 35 Journal Prompts for Finding Light After Loss. So that is what I will be doing, writing based on her journal prompts (and maybe some others that I find along the way). These will be interspersed throughout my blog, as I feel the desire to write one.

These prompts will sometimes be about Gideon and where I am on my journey of grief, but will be about other things as well.

I am excited to start this! So, I will begin with a simple one today:

25) I wish I could go to… because…

I wish I could go to Venice, Italy because I am in love what that city! I read a book, The City of Falling Angels, years ago by John Berendt, who also wrote Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (another favorite of mine), and I fell in love with the book. It is a non-fiction book about his experiences and the stories of people he met while in Italy during the time right after the Fenice Opera House burned and during its rebuilding.
He talked about the people and the city. He wrote of the history and the art. Hearing about that, about it all made me want to know more. I looked at more pictures and read more on the history of the city and the people. I have always loved hand blown glass and that is something they have done there and in Murano just 1.5 kilometers away from Venice. I want to learn to blow glass. I love the Venetian and Murano glass. It is exquisite.
 My parents have been there and brought me back a hand blown glass butterfly charm for a necklace. Since I first read that book in 2006 I have wanted to go there. I am just a little obsessed with Italy and especially Venice.
I have heard that no matter where you stand in Venice, you can see something beautiful. I want to
experience that. I want to see everything that Italy has to offer. I want to ride in a gondola down the Grand Canal. I want to see the beauty, the culture, the people. I want to walk where people hundreds and hundreds of years ago walked. I want to see the art, the theatre, the opera. I want to see the architecture of many years past (I have an obsession with architecture, it comes with being a set designer, I think). I want to see the extravagant Rococo designs that don many of the homes and buildings in Venice. I am fascinated by the fact that their city is sinking and in some areas they have simply built on top of the old buildings, so if you were to go underground you would find these buildings of times past with newer buildings built on top of them.

I want to see the canals. I want to go to Venice in the off season when less people are traveling there to see what the city is like for the people who live there. However, I would love to go to a masked ball wearing a Venetian mask in the Carnival season.  Othello and The Merchant of Venice were set in Venice. The poet Ezra Pound lived there with his mistress until his death in the 1970s. Henry James wrote books that were set in Venice, like The Aspern Papers. I want to see the place where many famous authors have written about. Many movies have been shot in Venice. This isn't even mentioning many of the other famous people, artists and composers who lived in Venice.  So I wish I could go to Venice, Italy (really, all of Italy, but I wont be greedy, haha). Ok, I could go on...And I haven't even mentioned many of the specific places in Venice I want to see....


I want to walk along the streets with Todd's hand in mine while looking at all the buildings and walking in St. Mark's Square. I want to kiss him on the Rialto Bridge. I want to show Silas all the history and the
grand beauty. I want to experience all that there is to offer in this life. I want to go to Venice and to soak it all in.
So if any of you want to have mercy on me and take me there one day, I'd greatly appreciate it. I have my passport, I can be ready in about 2 hours.

Otherwise, Todd and I will be saving so we can go there one day. I can't wait!