Down By the Bay

One of the great parts of living in my neighborhood is that we’re close to the bay. It’s not like a bay that you’d think of boats and seagulls, but it’s more like an open wetland.

It’s one of my favorite places to go and walk, to run, or sometimes flight. My boyfriend and I go there and walk the trails when we have something to “discuss.” Maybe it’s the open air, or the open sky that make it easier to say what’s really on your mind.

Something about the bay is really relaxing. Maybe it’s because it feels so quiet. I think that we get used to the sound of cars and phones and planes, and the buzz of refrigerators in the background of life. And it’s not that those are bad things, it’s just that I’m always surprised when when those things aren’t there, life is noticeably more quiet.

When I was little, I used to hate going to bed. In fact, I used to sneak down and sit at the bottom the stairs and listen to my parents watch TV after they thought we went to bed. Going to bed made me feel left out when my parents got to stay up and watch things, talk about things, and do things. A lot of the time, I would end up falling asleep on the stairs, because I was really a little girl and I couldn’t make my eyes stay awake any longer.

I remember my mom used to always say to me, “Jenna (I was called Jenna until I started school), what are you doing here? Don’t you want to be in bed?”

It’s funny that twenty years have gone by and I’m still the same person. My roommates love watching Sixteen and Pregnant. I have to admit, I’m shamelessly addicted to that show. This morning, I couldn’t pull myself away from the TV to head out to the bay. I know that I always love walks around the bay, but for some reason I couldn’t shake that 6-year-old feeling, like I was going to miss something if I ducked out from roommate time to spend time in the quiet.

Wind.

One of the things that always gets me about the bay is that when there aren’t cars and neon lights buzzing, you can hear different noises. You can hear birds flitting and singing. And you can hear the wind in the tops of the plants.

There is this story in 2 Samuel that always reminded me of the wind. David is this guy in the bible who God really liked. And for some reason David was always running from armies that were trying to kill him. In this part, David and his army were about to attack some group that was trying to kill David. And as the David’s group lays waiting to attack, the story goes that God says, “As soon as you hear the sound of the wind in the top of the Baslam trees, you should attack because it means that I am with you and going forward for you.”

I always got this picture in my mind of all of these warriors crouching in the forest, with their hearts pounding, waiting for the quiet sound of wind in the trees. It always made me smile when the wind would whir through the trees. It made me feel less small or something.

The funny thing is,  now I don’t think so much about whether or not God is there. But I still like the feeling of letting life be that quiet. Quiet enough where you can hear the birds and the wind.

Waffles and the Artist.

I really love having a dog. I know most people roll their eyes and think I’m that crazy girl who thinks her dog is her child, but she’s really nice to have around. She has this way of being with me that makes me feel like I’m not alone. But it’s not like having to go anywhere, or do anything, or talk to anyone. She can just trot along side, and I can listen to the wind.  I can watch her sniff, and lick dirt, and smile to myself. And for someone who loves being with people, finding time to listen to the wind and watch my dog lick dirt can be a hard thing to make time for. Especially when Sixteen and Pregnant has marathons on Sunday.

Getting a dog also means that you are bound to meet interesting people. Most old people just walk right up to her and pick her up. I mean, she could be a ferocious little dog and just bite them, but old people don’t seem to think of that. They just pick her up and cradle her like she’s an infant or something.

Today, this old old gentleman with bad hair plugs stopped me on the trail. His mom had a Yorkie, and began asking me questions about Waffles. He was wearing chocolate brown pants, with a chocolate brown turtleneck, a faded black jean jacket, and some brand new black boots. He looked like he meant to wear all black but somehow missed.

He looked at me and asked, “Are you by chance an artist?”

“Well, kind of,” I replied. “I’m a writer, but well….” and then I trailed off. Do you tell total strangers about your struggles with life and art?

He smiled. “You look like an artist.”

I blushed.

Chi or Energy or  Feng Shui, or Whatever You Call It.

I told my boyfriend that when we get a house, I want to hire someone to come and check out our energy. He laughed at me.

I remember someone telling me that if a farmer plants carrots, and is angry when he plants them, then the carrot has angry energy. If that farmer takes the angry carrot and sells it, and it turns up in your salad that you buy for lunch, and you eat it, you now have angry energy. He was telling me that the whole world is connected through energy, that it’s everywhere all around us, and we have to tap into good energy.

This guy sounded crazy to me, but I sometimes get what he’s talking about. I told my boyfriend that when we lived in the Yorktown house, I remember feeling like the whole house was bright, and airy and something about it made me want to cook all the time. The kitchen was warm and inviting, and I loved having people sit down at the bar and chat with me while I concocted something delicious.

Our current house isn’t the same. We have brand new cabinets. Marble counter tops. Expensive tiled floors. But I don’t cook the way I used to. I don’t get the same feeling that I used to when I cooked in the old house. Something about this house is busier, louder, or more chaotic.

I don’t think you can hear the wind in the trees in this house.

I think when I buy a house, I want to make sure my chi is right. That when the wind blows in the trees, it comes through the windows. That the house makes you want to turn on some good music and cook. Or that I don’t get stuck watching TV shows, and I can leave and go to the bay to listen to silence and talk to artist with bad hair plugs.

I know I have been on a writing hiatus for the past six months or so, making it hard to be a big fan of “Jenni Brown Writes” because well, Jenni Brown Does Everything Else But Write.

Well, that’s not completely true, because I have been writing. It’s just that some of the writing has been personal, and I’m not quite ready to put it on the site.

See, I have actually been going through some changes, and to be candid, it’s been really rough. Simply put, my friend Tiffany said to me, “Jenni you’re the person who is tough in the face of the storm, but once it’s over you totally fall apart.”

She nailed it. Last year was a storm. And I wrote. I networked. I went to meetings. I job searched. I went to counseling. I cried. I dried my tears. I ran. I went to countless interviews. I learned pitches. I got denial calls. I didn’t give up. I grew. I grew a lot.

Suddenly one day in mid October, I got a phone call that changed my life. I got my dream job, and suddenly all of the other pieces of life fell into place. It was like I went from so terrible to wonderful in a matter of hours.

Things were great. For about three months. And just when the wonderful feelings of my wonderful life began to settle, it felt like a small crack started creeping through the concrete of my life. I started to crumble. Crumbles turned into shambles, and it was only a matter of weeks before I was completely falling apart. It was as if all of the pain of the last year suddenly became real, and I was feeling and processing an entire year’s worth at once.

It’s been tough to articulate exactly what that looked like. I suppose that’s why I haven’t been writing publicly. At first it felt like anger. Lots of it. Red and raging anger. And then after a while it settled into something softer than that. Maybe it looked like lots of questions. I began deconstructing lots of the foundations of my life, asking how I got there, and looking through things one at a time.

Hippies.

My boyfriend and I took my dog for a long walk yesterday. On our walk, I was telling him how I wanted a house with a garden. I can’t keep anything alive thought, so I told him he’d need to hire me a gardener. Someone would have to harvest those organic vegetables, and it couldn’t be me.  I want goats, and chickens, and a vineyard. I told him how I want to wear canvas pants, and be a hippie.

He laughed at me and asked, “What is your fascination with hippies? You’ve been talking about being a hippie for the past few months. You aren’t going to stop shaving or anything are you?”

“No” I told him, “I think I’ll keep shaving. But there’s something about hippies that I love. It’s like they get to wear flowing skirts, and not care about what they’re doing with their lives or anything. And me, I feel like I’m more of those corporate types who wears a suit and wants my life to all look a certain way. Some professional way, or the ‘right way’…whatever that is. ”

I told him that if I was really brave, I’d one day quit my job, move to a farm and write books. And I’d take up smoking. Maybe a pipe, maybe cigarettes. He hates smoking. I told him I didn’t care because when you’re a hippie, you do what you want and you don’t care.

Dirty Cars.

I just went downstairs to wipe down my car, because it’s filthy and it has been driving me crazy for the last several weeks. See, I grew up in a family where you never leave anything in your car. When the car is pulled into the garage, the only thing that stays in the car is some maps in the glove box. And cars are washed at least weekly. They oil is constantly changed, and I believe at one point our family owned custom made sponges to fit into the moldings of past cars that we owned, to ensure that detailing jobs were perfect.

Currently I haven’t washed my car in 6 months. It’s hideous. And when people get into my car I can’t help but apologize for my lack of commitment to clean my car.

My friend Shannon said to me one time when I climbed into her passenger seat, “My car is dirty, don’t judge me.”

I laughed because it was so honest. Somewhere along the lines it seems that having a clean car makes you a better person. Maybe it means that you have your life together, since you have time to make sure that your backseat isn’t filled with tennis rackets and weeks worth of old clothes.  Maybe this is why I want to be a hippie, because it means that I could have a messy car and not care if people judged me. Instead, I’d smoke my pipe. And try to convince my boyfriend not to be mad at me for doing it, because that’s just what hippies do.

The Divorce and the Massage Therapist.

Back in January, seeing that I was totally falling apart, I decided to make a drastic change. I completely chucked the rule book..whatever that is.

I don’t go to church anymore. I don’t pray. In fact, I told God to leave me alone. My close friends refer to it as “The Divorce.” I’m not trying to figure this one out. I don’t want to hash it out. I don’t want to process through it. I don’t want to write deep emotional things about it. And I’m determined not to feel bad about any of those things.

I just couldn’t help but feel like for the last several years, I’ve prayed, I’ve sought God, I’ve fought, I’ve processed, I’ve gone to counseling, I’ve found the silver lining, I’ve showed up, I’ve worked hard. And you know what? I’m ready to stop. I don’t want to follow God, and pray, and strive, and process, and seek, and find where God is in all situations. I’ve done that for years.

Instead, I want to sit in a yurt in the forest and do yoga. I want to blow bubbles. I want to smoke a pipe. I want to meditate. I want to be alone. I want to sleep.

I’m tired. I’m insanely tired.

So instead of going to church and seeking God, and singing songs that I were sometimes hard to sing, and pushing to follow God no matter what, I’ve decided to sleep.

To stop caring. And not in a flippant, angry angst filled way. But in a simple way. In a way that a hippie wouldn’t care. When I climbed in my car to wipe it down, I said out loud, “You know what? Who cares if my car is messy?” And I put away my towel and went back upstairs.

I’ve decided to be ok with not doing life perfectly. To meditate. To smoke a pipe. To tell God, “You know, you might be an ok guy, but I need some space.”

I  have been working with Andy my massage therapist for two years now. He came to give me a massage a few weeks ago, and he says to me “Jenni, this is the first time in years that your muscles feel great! They are normally so tense and you have issues all over you body, but now, they feel spongy and normal. What changed?”

He’s right. I feel great. I know telling God to take a flying leap is a really really big deal. And I’m sure that I’ve most likely offended someone somewhere. I’m sure some of you feel the compulsion to tell me that you are going to pray for me, and invite me back to church or something like that.

It’s not that I don’t think that God is God. And I don’t think that God’s not good. I’m just really tired. And I’m wearing canvas pants. And if you happen to ride in my car, don’t judge me because it’s messy.

Dear Facebook,

I love your application for so many reasons. Not only can I keep in contact with old and new friends, but I can also over-share with new coworkers while broadcasting to the entire world that “Yes, I will go out of my way to step on a crunchy looking leaf.”

Despite your many benefits, I do have to tell you that I have come across a major flaw in your application that needs immediate attention. When connecting with other profiles, you only have one option; you must request friendship. While I can see how this would seem like the perfect way to share profiles and information, but I would like to point out that not everyone in a person’s life sphere can fall under the category of  “Friends.”

Let me give you an example. I just started at a new job 3 months ago. I love my job. LOVE my job. I have started receiving friend requests from people at work to join my Facebook network. At first, I will admit I was slightly hesitant to add co-workers to the inner workings of my life. Pressing “accept” meant that they would know what I was doing after work, what I looked like on the weekends, or worse, if I was playing on Facebook during work hours.

After much debate, I decided I would accept. As I said before, I LOVE my job, and wouldn’t want to do anything to impede my relationships with the people I work with. And we all know that a Facebook denial is like a passive aggressive way of saying “I don’t really like you.”

A funny thing did happen this week however. I got  a friend request from someone I work with. I didn’t immediately recognize their picture. But as I poured over their profile pictures,  I realized that I had indeed met them. In fact, I’d met them several times. They were the unfriendly person in the lunch room. The person I would smile and say, “Good Morning, how are you?” almost every morning while I poured my coffee. And they would return a closed lipped smile, say nothing, turn on their heel and rush off.

So you can imagine I was a bit baffled to find their request for friendship. We aren’t friends. In fact, I don’t know that this person has ever actually spoken to me before. If I was to see them in a dark bar, I wouldn’t be able to decipher whether or not I knew them.

Clearly, accepting a friend request would be a farce. But conversely, choosing denial would be like the kiss of death at work. It would only be a matter of days before other departments would be whispering in the bathroom about how unfriendly I am.

Clearly Facebook, a solution needs to be found. And I can tell you what that solution is. You need to add an “Acquaintance Request.” This would be made for people that you sort of know, but not really. It a good way to tell people “I like you… a lot even. I probably wouldn’t call you on a Friday night to see what you are up to, but I most likely would stop by your desk on Monday to see how your weekend was.”

In addition to the Acquaintance Request, I think you should implement an “I Know of this Person Request.” This would have saved my butt last week. It’s a polite way of saying, “I know who this person is, but I never really talk to them in real life. In fact, if I passed them in the hallway at work I would most likely ignore them even though I totally stalk their profile pictures when I’m cruising Facebook in the evening.”

Facebook, these two small adjustments would make my whole life a lot easier. With the use of these two new features, I would stop feeling guility for having Google people to remember who they are, and what party we talked for  five seconds which apparently constituted us a “Friends.” It would mean that I wouldn’t have to worry that I am going to piss off my co-workers. And even better yet, it would mean that I wouldn’t have to remember to login a week later to delete all of the “friends” I’d accepted in an effort to save face, but I really had no intention of keeping.

Thanks Facebook for your time an attention on this very important issue. Keep up the good work.

Love,

Jenni Brown

ps – can you cut a deal with FarmVille to get me some Mansions? I really want a Mansion on my farm.

Today I got an alert from my phone while I was cleaning my room and painting my nails. It said:

“90 days is over”

When I started my job, and basically my entire life turned on a dime this past fall, I set myself an alert. I gave myself 90 days. 90 days to get acclimated to my new job. 90 days to move into the new apartment. 90 days to recover from being burglarized. 90 days to figure out how to rehabilitate an very neglected, angry, and adorable puppy. 90 days to figure out how to get settled even though in real life, nothing has settled. In fact, the last 90 days have been the most hectic, intrusive, inconvenient, and stressful days of my life.

However, if I  know that one thing in life is true, it is this: it doesn’t stop. Life doesn’t slow down. Burglars still come. The gas company will still turn off your gas right before you’re throwing a huge party. Your puppy will never care that it is 2am and you have a presentation at work in the morning, she will throw a fit and fight with you anyway. That’s just how life works. And we learn to live with it, deal with it, and still make time for the things that matter.

So, what matters to me? This blog. My writing projects. Book ideas that have never gotten onto paper. Picture cook books that have to be completed before my grandma closes her eyes a final time.

A few weeks ago, I read something on CopyBlogger that was talking about the habits of successful people. Interestingly, the author was saying that truely successful people don’t juggle a million things. They have one thing that really matters, and they focus on it, they work it, they put in the hard hours, and they do it well. And that really got me thinking, “what projects matter to me?”

So, thank you phone alarm for notifying me that the break is over. The “break” of the last 90 days was anything but restful, but if this part of my life ever going to grow, then we just must make space for it. Its safe to say that Jenni Brown will be writing again.

As should you. Find your projects. Don’t juggle all one thousand great ideas you have, find the one, and make it work.

Last night I was out with some friends, chatting about new things that are going on in each of our lives. Within the last six months, one of my friends left her design firm and opened her own business. Another friend of mine started a new job at an Interactive Agency five months ago, and just found out last night that she is getting promoted. And of course, I just started a new role a few days ago where I am finding that trial by fire is going to be my course in learning.

The last gal in our group is a mom. She has several kids, the oldest of which is six. She laughed with us and said, “You know girls, it never goes away. You never get that feeling that you know what you are doing.”

She the went on to tell us that a few weeks ago, she wasn’t sure how to discipline her six year old for something he’d done. Feeling frustrated, she grabbed her head and said to him, “I don’t know what to do with a six year old!” Calmly, her son looked back at her and said, “It’s ok Mommy, can’t we look on the internet? We can just Google it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I started my new job yesterday, and I walked out the door at 5 pm with a really interesting feeling. I felt completely legitimate. I felt affirmed that I was a real communications professional. I wasn’t an admin. I wasn’t a minion in HR. I was a real-life-professional-MarCom associate.

It was mostly the little things that proved it. I have a Cicso phone with my name and extension displayed across the top. I have a laptop and two huge flat screen monitors across my desk. I got six meeting notices yesterday (on my first day!), and they had titles like “MarCom Team Brain Storm Shesh” and “PR Update Meeting.” The walls on my cubical are made out of frosted glass and most of the office uses whiteboard marker to doodle, leave each other notes, or brainstorm all over the walls.

Walking out the front door and saying goodnight to the receptionist was such a mind blowing feeling. If I could be this cheesy, it was like I was thinking, “This is real, I’m a creative person, and I have a creative job. I am legit. And I have a Cisco Phone display to prove it.”

Now here is the funny part, quickly on the heels of that realization comes this thought, “Of course you are legitimate Jenni. You always were. And your meeting notices and write-able walls don’t change that.” I mean, I’ve been published before. I’ve even been paid for some of my articles. I’m currently a managing editor on the side for one of my favorite Orange County volunteer story platforms. And those were all things that I did while sitting at my bar, typing into my computer while in my pajamas and drinking coffee.

So why is it that having a card with my name on it feels so rewarding? Oh right, probably the part where I have get a paycheck, and it comes every single week. And maybe it’s the part where I have to get up work in something other than workout pants. That probably helps too.

Now, if I was going to be “that Christian Writer, “this is the part where I make some connection to us being legitimate in Jesus. You know, where I take my experience and connect it to the idea that we don’t always realize who we already were. That we think we need a certain things to define us. That we look  for jobs, or boyfriends, or cars, or bank accounts to remind us of who we are. But in reality, we already were completely legitimate and affirmed, even when we didn’t have any of those things and just sat at the bar in our pajamas.

And then I would challenge you to think of the things in your life that you hold closely, to tell you who you are. To whisper that you are real, and that you are important. I would ask you what your meeting notices say, and how they make you feel.

I would do those things if I was trying to be cheesy, and draw God into this example. But, I’m I think my readers already know that they’re legitimate, and incorporating into this post would feel forced. So, I won’t remind you that your identity is found in Christ. That you are beautiful, accepted, acknowledged, received, recognized, suitable, relevant, invaluable, noble and pleasing.

See this is why I love my readers, because I don’t have to remind them, they already know.

I recently read Rob Bell’s newest book Drops Like Stars for an interview that I’m doing. It is undescribebale. It’s actually a coffee table book, with bold pictures and artistic placement of words, and very real stories from interesting people.

There is a part at the end of the book that really has stuck with me. He’s talking about a sculptor and her love hate relationship with her art. How it’s tumultuous, painful, and agonizing. Yet she is so emotionally connected to her work, it is like its a part of her soul.

And when it is all finished, it is the pain that gives it meaning. It is the struggle for the art to come out of the clay that makes it beautiful. That the parts of the art that are tarnished and ruined are the very parts that make it valid and valuable.

It is then that Bell poses the question, “Was this sculptor really talking about art? Or is this life?”

Right in the Middle

This season has been interesting in that it has been painful. Or maybe I need to knock the words “this season” from my vocabulary, because maybe that’s just life. It’s painful. It asks a lot from us. Good lives do anyway. They’re scary. Art is scary. Doing something worthwhile is terrifying.

But I think Im in a moment where Im on the fence between beautiful and painful. I see both. I feel both. And this is one of the few moments in my life where I wouldn’t change the painful hard parts. They are so integral from this view. Taking them out of the picture would render the whole thing meaningless. The beauty has validity because it was painful. Read the rest of this entry »

As I have grown in my relationship with God, I have become very aware of a mistake that most of us make as Christians. I owe this though in most of its entirety to Patrick Dodson, because I’m pretty sure that he thought of it first and then told it to me.

Most of us view God like He’s our personal drill sergeant. Now, initially you might think that sounds a bit too harsh or not quite right, but how often do you hear your friends or yourself saying things like, “God please just tell me where I should go, what is your will in this situation? I’ll follow you wherever you lead me.”

Sounds like a good christian prayer right?  I’ve heard people say things like this more times than I can count. But when you think about what is really being asked we are saying, “God just give me orders, and I will do exactly what you say.“  I.E., we want to be passive participants in our lives, (”Jesus take the wheel”  …thank you Carrie Underwood) and let God do the ordering and thinking. I can’t help but think that methodology is bit off. Or if it was the right approach, I would understand why so many people think religion is a crutch. Read the rest of this entry »

After yesterday’s post about Christian Hipsters and Hymns, I know that a lot of you walked around for the rest of the day worried. I know you were asking yourself, “Shoot, am I a Christian hipster? I like hymns, but I’m not sure if I classify as a hipster! If only there was a way to find out!”

Look no further my friends, because today in the voice of my dear blogging friend, Jon Acuff of Stuff Christians Like, I have devised a way for you to tell if you are a Christian Hipster or not.

You Might Be a Christian Hipster If:

1. Your church resembles a cross between Ikea and  Urban Outfitters (2 pts). Raw beams are hanging around, it feels like a loft with all of the exposed building interiors, and there are trendy wicker chairs in the lobby. Read the rest of this entry »

I think most cool Christians go through a phase where they really love hymns. You know, the old stuff that they used to sing in churches that had wooden pews. Maybe your church still has wooden pews, but mine has cushy red chairs. There is no wooden shelf in the row ahead to hold a bible and a Hymnal. There is no leader at the front telling us to “turn to page 117” and we can find prayers that were probably written by monks in caves. We assume they’re English because we can understand about half of the words, but the other half we have to guess at, or we can just add -eth to the end to make it fit the vernacular (panteth, shareth, understandeth…see?)

Even still, I think most cool Christians go through a phase where they really love hymns. And I have hesitated writing on it because I think the classic branding of a “Hipster Christian” is if you are wearing dark skinny jeans and telling your friends that God really “touched me to press into him…because you know, I want my soul to pant-eth after him like the deer…”

I don’t wear skinny jeans, and I match my clothes too much to be considered a hipster, so I’ve avoided the topic. But I can’t deny it anymore. I’m sorry if this means you have to re-categorize me in you mind from “real edgy writer” to quintessential  hipster Christians who find deep meaning and beauty in hymns…but I’m joining their team. I’ve had hymns running through my mind for literally 3 weeks on end. Morning, noon and night. I play them on YouTube when I think that no one is watching. Maybe I feel better indulging myself when I think that no one knows that I rock out to music that’s written in New King James-ian speak.

It is Well With My Soul

Ok, as long as we are in confession time, I have to tell you…I’ve loved this song for a long time. A really really long time. You see, a few years ago I’d heard the story with this song. Apparently the man who wrote the song had his entire family tragically killed in a boating accident or something to that effect (it was much more complicated, but did involve a boat and death). One minute he was a happy man, 3 hours later his wife, kids, everything…gone. Read the rest of this entry »