Ever feel like the sun has come out, and all of a sudden you can see again? That’s sort of how I feel right now.
January was a really, really tough month for me. The project I was working on at work was in super crunch mode, meaning I worked almost every day in the month of January.
This meant lots and lots of long nights and weekends and testing and bug hunting and interaction design questions and business rules questions and take-out food and trips to the cigar-slash-convenience store downstairs (thanks, Gus!) to restock on snacks and beverages (no, I haven’t taken up smoking cigars) and lots of iTunes playlists and music and prayer and snatches of much-needed sleep to try to keep you going and going and going.
This also meant very little time with my family, very little real devotional or worship time (though it’s amazing how God can sneak up on you right when you need it…almost directly in the middle of the madness came a Sunday service that helped me through the entire next week, and beyond…), basically no music-making, no video-making, no art, not much being outside, not being home, allowing a home improvement project to completely spiral out of control, and a few other things. My dear, long-suffering wife took much of the brunt of it, shuttling our 3 kids here there and everywhere, taking on way too much responsibility, and getting burned out herself. She deserves a really great break and rejuvenation experience herself. I better think of something nice.
But.
Sunday, the project finished. It wasn’t my best finish ever, as I ended up literally falling asleep on the keyboard at 1:00AM in the group chat session we had going, and had to bow out about 90 minutes before the project was officially “launched”.
But still, it was done. Cue the angels singing.
I spent the next day in bed, as the cold I’m recovering from had wiped me out, but even that day of rest, sick as I was, was glorious – I finished re-reading “The Magician’s Nephew” by C.S. Lewis, who often seems to function as the literary equivalent of comfort food for me, and I re-read the entire first book of Lewis’ “Space Trilogy”. I decked the bathtub out in an admittedly girly fashion with candles and the whole bit and relaxed in hot water. I applied liberal amount of Burt’s Beeswax to chapped lips. I spent the evening with my family.
The days since Sunday night’s finish have been great. Yesterday a group of us went to Mexicantown and had lunch at the buffet, then stocked up on incredibly decadent pastry from the Mexican bakery, which truly is the land of plenty as far as baked goods go…a huge variety of awesome flour and butter and sugar creations for 50 or 75 cents each. You stick your tongs in and load up a tray, marvelling all down the line at each new delight. I brought home sugar cookies for my boys, and a honey pastry creation with chocolate that looked like a bear’s claw, and various sweetbreads and things. The family was happy.
Today, I’m working from home on a brand new project. The worries of the last project are mostly gone, and it’s a beautiful winter day outside. Sufjan Stevens and Dert and Sam Prekop and others are on the stereo, and the professional contractors are here, taking care of the home improvement-gone-wrong-but-now-rescued project. I am so grateful for this period of recovery. I can finally see the sunlight again, and its beauty is so comforting.
He wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.