Friday, October 03, 2014

52 Author Dates ~ Week 38

Paris in Autumn (Photo source Pinterest) 

Follow Every Impulse You Have...

This post was meant to be my Paris post. 

Earlier this year my Beloved’s calendar included an October visit to Africa via Paris, and I was meant to follow him and stay put in a quaint hotel in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. He was meant to complete his assignment in Cameroon and come back to spend the weekend with me. Oh glorious day! 

But some plans look better on paper. 

And when the Ebola virus threatens, we make new plans. 

There would be no roaming Paris in the Autumn, stopping wherever my nose and taste buds took me for morning coffee. There would be no turning left at this flea market and turning right at that patisserie. No ancient stone paths to explore. No hundred year old rambling roses to adore, heavy with dew covered rose-hips. 

Instead, I followed every impulse here at Crabapple House, far from the romantic notions I held for this challenge. 

Why even indulge my every whim and fancy? Why set aside five hours to do whatever I felt like without reservation?

To consider what’s responsible and what’s not. To contemplate if my characters act reasonably and if perhaps they’re a little too much like me ~ too predictable. 

So what do you do when the Paris dream is lost? I started with a fat long boo-hooey-sleep-in. With no school bells to break the day, I shamelessly slept until I could sleep no more. I fell into that dreamland only mid morning delivers, mixed with odd mashes of life seen in the mix of disjointed nonsensical scenes. By the time I’d untangled myself from the dream and the sheets, I was ready for the real world. 

But what impulse would drive me from bed? I didn’t have to think too long. 

I wanted to bake.

Maybe in salute to my lost croissants and milky morning coffee. Maybe to remedy the weeks where I’ve not baked as much as I care to. Maybe, because I wanted to make up for mama sleeping in when the guilts told me I should have been in the kitchen. 

So I baked. I covered everything on the to-do list in a deep layer of flour and pushed through to whatever took my fancy. I sifted cocoa, cracked eggs and checked the pitted cherries for pips. (There is always one pip in every jar of pitted cherries.) 

I threw a batch of brownies in the oven and prepared two dozen choc chip and cherry muffins. I don’t know what hungry hordes I expected to swoop onto Crabapple House, but I cooked for them anyway.

And when the brownies came out to cool on the bench, and the muffins rose with golden tops, I sat in the sun and roamed Paris, afterall. 

I’ve been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. A meaty, indulgent journey into one woman’s search for true and long lasting joy and thankfulness. I’d set this book aside weeks ago, to ponder what I’d already read... and now, on this green spring morning, I wandered away from the to-do list drawn by the impulse to read until my fingers turned the end page.

To the very last chapter where a trip to Paris unveiled Ann’s journey to intimacy with God. Where this woman, who was where I wanted to be, shared from outside her comfort zone the random twists and turns in Parisian streets which lead her to what she’s never encountered before. 


I may not have tasted my Paris indulgence as planned. But Ann’s journey still plays on my senses and rings in my heart.

God allowed a little of what I craved, through the eyes of someone I’ve never met. Quite like the lessons we glean from well written stories and characters. 

Other people’s risks and impulses add to our experience, until our turn comes. My impulse to read in the sun with Gilbert the cat at my feet took me to where I longed to be in the first place. 

I think that’s kind of awesome of God to allow... Don’t you? 

What would you do if you had five indulgent hours? 
Cook, lose yourself in a book, run away...? 

Blessings for a wonderful weekend,