rhythms

there is nothing more satisfying than the pound-pound, pound-pound of your sneakers against the pavement after you've managed to pull yourself out of bed for a morning run. the steady rhythm of running is unchanging and solid, no matter the pace, even as your breath skips and drags in syncopated time.

these little rhythms of life are everywhere. i love finding them, hidden, and discovering a new musicality in the everyday and the mundane. it's like some great symphony that we ourselves are playing, only so rarely do we realize it. 

i was babysitting on friday and we spent the whole morning snuggled up in blankets reading and singing together. em had picked out several dr. seuss books. it took me a minute to get back into the swing of reading his rhymes. i tripped over my own tongue more than once before finally finding the rhythm of the words. and as the poetry began to feel like singing, i read faster and with greater pizazz, emphasizing just the right syllables, so that the girls would be lulled by the rhyming lines, able to truly experience the beautiful chaos of dr. seuss. 

and then we really did sing. thank goodness i have a repertoire of Disney princess songs in my arsenal of audition pieces. i can be Belle or Sleeping Beauty or Ariel on command (and with the red tint to my hair,i can just about fancy myself to be Ariel). i'm also starting to introduce them to my other favorite princesses: Eliza and Eponine and Laurie. 

but more beautiful than all of that is one-year-old Sydney's budding version of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

rhythms of sound and lyric are not, of course, the only ones. more important are the rhythms of people, of lives. as the opening of the semester approaches, those familiar patterns and routines of graduate student life creep in: alarms are set, books purchased, lunches packed, highlighters made ready. the manic pace of the past week has foreshadowed the coming onslaught of syllabi, papers, unending pages to read, deadlines to meet, (not to mention) relationships to upkeep, exercise to squeeze in, sleep. it's hectic and insane, and somehow it feels normal and manageable--despite the seeming lack of control, i am still in control. i am the one juggling, the one smoothing the harmony of the different components: class and school work, church internship, student government, babysitting, another potential job on campus, time for me and time for my friends. i'd also love to serve on a worship planning committee for chapel services and get involved with two other school organizations: Sacred Worth and Social Concerns Network. maybe the creation care keepers, too. my approach looks to be: go until you hit tilt. 

but coming back to school doesn't just mean a return to chaos. it also means a return to friends. i love the simple rhythm of an afternoon spent with my girlfriends, conversation easy and light, laughing and singing along to the radio. i love knowing people and trusting them, being myself and sharing life. these are the rhythms, the ones of people, that change so often, that come and go, but run throughout life like a sturdy bass line. these are the rhythms that keep us singing even when we've had a rough week, that come back to us after a long time quiet, that can fill the emptiness and the silence--or rather, remind us of the great beauty that is life. for there is Another to whose beat we dance.