glowing embers
today i gave a talk in church...on zoom. zoom church but not the church of zoom. you know what i'm saying. we don't worship zoom. that would be weiwd. it was a special day and i'm still living in the after glow. preparing a talk is so much upheaval of spirit sometimes. katie and i always talk about the wrestle we go through in talk preparation. this time was a little different for me. i didn't have as much of a wrestle. my talk was on prayer and i have been doing a prayer experiment and studying prayer for a week and a half. and as katie says, prayer is my pet topic. but i did feel a lot of doubts and i felt like my ideas and thoughts were all over the place and that i could talk about so many different things when it came to prayer. and i kept telling myself "don't try to wow anyone. don't try to look too special or too spiritual or too all knowing. just say the truth and share your story." so that's what i tried to do. last night when i figured out that i was going to talk about my story then i went to bed. at 8:30. katie who was also preparing a talk thought i was cray cray. but i know this about myself. go to bed early get up early and that early morning time is prime time.
this was probably my best experience of daylight savings change over. i was up at 4:40. i had a good prayer. and the talk came together. i don't write it out. i put points down. like a word or a phrase just to remind me what to talk about. it's like a talk skeleton or outline. i was done by 7:30 i think. it was just starting to get light. i felt calm and peaceful. i felt the glowing ember burn of the spirit.
i had time to beautify. i wore my favourite dress. the red cross over with thin navy stripes. the material is thick and stretchy and comfy and clings in just the right way. i gave myself a pinky red lip and did my eye shadow in a bottom arc of gold, then lilac, then purple in the crease. i settled on the gold leaf earrings that mom and dad bought me when dad was recovering from his bypass surgery and mom was staying with me.
i invited mom to my talk before i fell asleep the night before and i guess she told andrea about it because she wanted to watch which was a nice surprise for me. that gave me the inspiration to invite more people. it was pretty last minute but i felt so good having mom and dad and katie and andrea there. sarah was there too but i didn't know it until after. i only looked at myself and sometimes saw a few other faces from the corner of my eye. that's the weird thing about giving a talk on zoom. also the complete silence.
anyways i gave my talk. i hope it wasn't too personal. katie said it wasn't. then i ditched the rest of my ward's meeting and went to maple ridge's meeting which was where katie was speaking. her talk was so good. she told the story of 'doug' and 'jean' and how the restoration changed their lives and made them happier. that's another plus of church on zoom. so easy to connect and support each other from long distances.
one last thing about my talk. mom asked me to write it out so she could share it with doug who wanted to hear it apparently, but couldn't make it in time. so while i was doing that, i was writing about izzy's foot and i thought that izzy's foot problem was like my foot problem and God was showing me that if he can heal her he can heal me too. and i felt yes, yes he can.
speaking of my foot, heather and i met up yesterday. i picked her up from her house in north van and we went to park royal. heather discovered that zubu, the ramen place we went to in karrisdale last month was also at park royal. so we went there for lunch. this time heather got a rice bowl and i got makesoba which was described as brothless ramen. it was good. we shared tempura brussel sprouts which were really good. they tasted like there was some truffle involvement in their creation. we also shared the cheesecake again. we had to. it's the best cheesecake and our blow torch guy did and excellent job melting the sugar until it lava-ed down the sides. oh my it was so perfect.
after lunch we went shopping. i wanted to go to simons which is a store that alison had told me about and heather wanted to go to winners and purdy's. i knew i couldn't walk around the mall though and just walking from the car to the restaurant to the mall was quite a bit for my lame duck foot. but heather did some investigation before hand and we got a wheel chair from customer service and she wheeled me around. it was a big act of service from my service oriented friend. i'm obviously not light and she's not a very tall human. ya we may have bumped a few things but we maneuvered pretty well and heather patiently brought me to every display my heart had a desire for. i bought some cutey things at simons and a single recycled leather placemat. it is dark green and a wonky irregular shape. the very thing about it that bugged heather, pleased me. "and yet somehow we are still friends" mused heather. i bought 1 yellow oblong plate too. to replace my sandwich plate. there was a super softy silky fluffy faux fur/sheep skin/i don't know mat that i loved to touch and rub and hold and pet. i carred it around for a while but i didn't get it.
in winners heather got a pizza cutter and measuring cups. i didn't find any sheets to love. but i did meet a lady who started walking beside us telling me that she was once like me and that i should ask the dr. about water pills. she was nice but it was awkward and heather took a detour in to the shoes although we had already looked there, just to lose her.
heather went to the dollar store and parked me outside of atmosphere so i could peer in the windows and see if there were sandals of my dreams there. instead some people were peering at me. it was delanie and douglas, tatiana, arabella, mary, gabriel, and eli. they told me, they thought it looked like me, but what was i doing in a wheel chair? who knew i would meet them at park royal mall. i didn't even know they were back from alberta. mary said "i stayed." i told her she couldn't say that when she was standing in front of my eyes unless she was a hologram. we talked a while and i told them to go to zuba and showed them the amazing cheesecake there. i hope they went.
after saying good bye to del and kids we went to atmosphere to look for new sandals. the women's section was very lame. the guy there was like "yah, i don't know why that is, they just send us a lot of men's." i was like "yah because they are sexist." but i said it inside my head and heart. upon leaving there we had to make it up a ramp i helped heather by pulling myself along on the railing and we made it to the top.
we went to purdy's for heather to pick up some chocolates for a friend and when she came out i was one of those friends. she got me a chocolate covered marshmallow bar. and it's gone. i et it. she then huffed and puffed me to the door, i got out and sat outside with the bags waiting for heather to return the chair. the older lady from winners saw me there and came to talk to me some more. she told me in all seriousness that her name was pomegranate falafel. i kind of laughed. "that's your name?" she nodded yes. then she said in persian it was gulnor. she told me more about how she retained water and if you hit your stomach you can hear the water. she said she always has to put her feet up so the water drains out of her feet and back up towards her kidneys, and pointed to her puffy feet. then she said "well you are beautiful and it was nice to meet you" and she left.
after many moons had passed heather came back. it was already after four. our plan was to go to ambleside but we forgot how much time the mall can suck from your life. it was getting late and i wanted to get home and work on my talk. so i dropped heather off at home but first ran in and peed and and then i joined the slow morass of wall to wall cars and inched towards my home. i think it took about an hour and half to get home. if there's no traffic it takes about 40 min to get to h's. but i didn't mind it too much. i listened to talks on prayer while i waited/drove.
and that's it man.
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