Back in 2023 I was in New York City for a long stretch of client meetings. I was working for a booming tech company at the time, pitching product designs to stuffy conference rooms of Ivy League execs. Black pantsuits and FiDi high rises became my norm, scraping up against my daydreams of opening a bakery or writing a silly novelette. My pockets were full, my heart was, well, not.

One evening I skipped yet another highfalutin client dinner to walk the streets of lower Manhattan. It was October in New York City, the sun timed to set around 6:30pm. I was dashing around homebound commuters when I happened upon a green space tucked away in Nolita-Bowery. It’s called Elizabeth Street Gardens. A large laminated sign hung on its wrought iron entrance warning passersby of its impending closing. You know those moments in life when you become instantly (and almost inappropriately) connected to a person, place, or thing? This was one of those moments for me.

As I entered the garden a couple of pebbles snuck their way into my sneakers. I was no longer on city pavement, this was holy ground. To my left were two elderly women exchanging what I believe to be juicy neighborhood gossip. Or maybe they were simply reminiscing on yesteryear. One shall never know! I like it that way. To my right was a group of Gen Z’ers smoking filtered cigarettes and reciting Edgar Allan Poe. Potted vines of all sorts spilled into the main pathway leading to who-knows-where? The garden was small, maybe one city block, but it sure felt infinite.

I traveled back to New York City last month. My first checklist item was paying a visit to Elizabeth Street Gardens in hopes it withstood both the test of time and the big, bad city government. To my delight there hung a sign at its entrance, a new one this time. It read, “The Garden Is Saved!” I shed a few joyous tears, because crying is one of my favorite hobbies, and moseyed my way to an empty chair under a blossoming Japanese maple.

It’s these little moments in life that remind me some things really are worth fighting for. What is that for you? Who is that for you? I have a running list. Whatever you want to call this one— a mini miracle, redemption, a wisp of luck— I am thankful for this wonderful second chance that, for now, remains.

“My Peace I Leave With You”

Confession: Engaging the Bible lately feels more like reading a compendium of lifeless words than drinking from a bottomless well of water. It’s become much easier to simply not engage it. Ironically I work for a company that explains the Bible yet here I find myself. A still, small voice told me God isn’t worried about me slacking on this rhythm to which I responded, “Ummm are you sure?”

I asked God for a spiritual heart transplant and jumped into the book of John. I found myself pondering Jesus’ words to his disciples during the Last Supper, imagining myself right there at the dinner table. Do you know what he talks about just before he departs this wild, crazy place called Earth? Peace. He could have talked about many important matters, but he decided on peace. In John 14:27 he says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

After a short time of meditation, I decided to poll a random audience asking the question, “How would you define peace?” Apologies to the Trader Joe’s cashier who received this question unprompted. This is what I received in response:

• Living in harmony. An absence of conflict. Wars ceasing.

• Inner calm and stillness

• 6am morning light in my bedroom

• Freedom to do what you want, when you want, without worry

• Kissing my spouse at the stove

• Knowing my son will be okay after I die

I was reminded we’re all longing for peace in some form or fashion. Let me just say, if I had a spouse right now, I’d like to kiss him at the stove. Maybe even by a microwave! Listen, I’m not picky. But there’s something I want a lot more than a stove kiss, and it’s everlasting peace, baby.

Peace to me sounds like never living a day without picking up my phone and hearing my mom’s voice on the other end. It sounds like waking up in a tent with someone I love, looking out over a sun-drenched mountain peak in the early hours of dawn. It sounds like my neighbor never again feeling lonely and hopeless. It sounds like riding my bike down an empty street in August. It sounds like never having to hear about another miscarriage. Perhaps it even sounds like infinite stove kisses.

I long for that forever-and-ever-and-ever kinda peace. The version I don’t have to manufacture on my own accord. The one that can’t be shaken by mountains or valleys or death itself. I want to be an oak tree of peace, rooted down, providing shade for those who haven’t been able to find it. Crazy enough Jesus tells me this is possible with him, that He himself is my peace who transcends any circumstance that comes my way. And that someday all bad things will become untrue, and all good things will last forever. My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives…

Selah.

Tattoos!

Confession #2: I just scheduled an appointment for another tattoo, and I’ve fallen into the horrid habit of cussing on a regular basis. It doesn’t get any more cliché than that, does it? Why did I imagine every saint of old shaking their holy fingers at me as I wrote that first sentence? Why do I have a sinking feeling I’ve squandered any future opportunity to become an outstanding church deaconess? Ugh.

I’m a recovering good-girl Christian, the legalism being stripped away like shedding your clothes after a long day of work (but not too enticing, of course!). Maybe it’s more like a biopsy, a painful extraction of marrow deep in my bones. I previously called moments like this rebellion or “falling away.” Now I think it’s just called living. It turns out God still loves me when I break the rules.

I was the little girl in class who would aggressively hush the kids who interrupted the school teacher. I know, that girl. Ugh, again. In seventh grade a group of boys with raging hormones and low EQs started up a private blog to chat about the hot gossip of Trinity Lutheran. I teetered the line of the popular and nerdy crowds, and by sheer luck and possible divine intervention I received a personal invite to the exclusive portal. Within minutes of logging in, I unearthed a cruel post about a boy in our grade, poking fun at his weight and inability to kick a plastic ball more than 20 feet. The wrath of a wild boar raged inside of me. I commented back with what I still believe a profound piece of justice. Hell hath no fury like a 12-year-old girl with WiFi and a dose of righteous anger.

That little girl still lives in me with a fire just the same. I think she’d be equally proud of and appalled by my new tattoo. The tattoo is my middle name, Grace, in my grandmother’s handwriting. Her parents never gave her a middle name, so she took mine as her own. A generational name adoption in the opposite direction is quite endearing if you ask me! My Nana also happens to be my hero, full of joy and whimsy and faith at 86-years-young. What better way to honor her than with needles and ink?

Here’s to hoping I don’t barrel down a slippery slope of debauchery!

Selah, Selah.

A Haiku

warm asphalt hums by

portland oregon is alive!

i love my new bike

-AG

It’s me, your cliché resident PNW transplant taking up a new outdoor hobby and writing a semi-performative post about it. Can you blame a girl? I’ve decided in my acute time of healing to throw my heart and soul into running, but not just any genre of running. That’s right, trail running. I find it to be the optimal mix of sport and sabbath. The soft, spongey forest floors are exactly what my post-college-basketball- knees are screaming for as of late. The composition of misty rainfall on ferns is a salve to this tender heart of mine.

Yesterday morning I ran 5.2 miles through the northern hills of Portland. The temp read 53 degrees at 9:15am. Winding curves collided with stumpy tree roots and fallen evergreens. My eyes were forced south for the majority of the run, one misstep away from a torn ACL. My mind was stuck in a conversation from the night before, analyzing the tone of a handful of responses from the face across the dinner table.

I stopped halfway through my run to take a sip of water when I heard the rustling of the trees above me. I looked up. My eyes stayed there for awhile.

They say, “Count it all joy, my brothers…”

I think I shall.

Yielding

Years ago I was gifted a postcard-sized piece of artwork from an artist collective out of North Carolina called The Cageless Birds. The print shows a woman extending her arm out, palm to the sky. It sits on my desk at work, often arresting me mid-email with it’s messaging on my life’s ultimate calling to submit to God’s everlasting love. Just another Tuesday in the office!

One of my closest pals, Emily, scribbled a note on the back of the print. At the top she wrote, “What a beautiful thing to yield.” The word yield is rich with many meanings based on the context. To stop resisting. To surrender. To produce or generate. To give way to another.

I’ve been noodling on this concept of yielding in light of a recent mental health diagnosis. I am still learning what this means for me, but in short— specific thoughts can stay on a constant loop until “resolved.” Yet as we all know, much of life doesn’t neatly resolve, does it? Likely I’ve lived with this all my life, staying dormant in the shadows of, “this is just how everyone’s mind must work.” I liken it to the unique smell of your childhood home. You’re immune to the scent until that fateful day when you make a visit back home from college, and you realize the smell is more profound than you recall. Wait, was this always there?

It’s impossible to ignore the effects of my overactive amygdala giving way to constantly firing neural pathways. On the worst of days this has caused me profound turmoil including sleepless nights, zapped appetite, and overwhelming distrust of self. There are mornings I wake to a flood of thoughts caked in what-ifs and coulda-shoulda-wouldas. The Bible tells us God’s mercies are new every morning. How I long for this to always feel true.

What does it mean to yield a mind to a big, beautiful God? Let alone a whole life?

I don’t have the answers I want, but this I know. My mind holds lies, but it also holds eternity. It holds dreams— of messy mornings wiping kids hands and playing driveway basketball. Of traveling to New York City in the fall, snapping photos of passerby’s in Washington Park. Of conversations with my dad over the glow of a summer bonfire.

My mind holds memories of suffering and visions of redemption. Of my head on Caroline’s chest, minutes before her last earthly breath. Of my next door neighbor Sophie kneeling to the freedom of knowing Jesus as King. Of my mind slowing, the chaos puzzle-piecing back into order.

Maybe yielding means screaming “Yes!” to all I’m tempted to ignore in the name of self-protection. All of the fears and all of the hopes. All of the moments of redemption that haven’t come to pass. To the wild acts of God and the quiet second chances. To what feels too-far-gone. To the swell of the heart for another. To myself, as I am now, and to the dreams of what I will become.

To the Creator of this broken and glorious mind of mine. To it all.

Life by Voice Memo

When I die someday, the people I leave behind will be afforded the special privilege of stitching my life together by voice memo. My iPhone, a virtual diary of sorts, holds the sacred (and not so sacred) moments of the past. I currently have 398 clips saved in my Voice Memos app and have no future plans to scale down.

The memos sent at the cusp of a budding relationship, drenched in childlike giddiness to learn about the voice on the other end

The fuzzy voices of a group sendoff prayer to bless the cross-country move

The ramble-y Tuesday check-in from a best friend

My latest voice memo is from a concert I recently attended at the famous Mississippi Studios here in Portland. I’m the girl sneaking her phone out of her pocket, just unashamed enough to disrupt the sanctity of the moment with a glowy screen. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the nostalgic tone of a bass, the banter of the band, the solo “Woo!” of a super-fan.

The band is Flyte, a boyish British foursome playing tunes of indie rock mixed with a dash of modern folk. The two lead singers ended the concert with this lullaby-esque harmony about Chelsea London and a gal named Chelsea. If you want to transport yourself to an alternate cozy, British universe, I suggest you lie in bed with a cup of tea and press play:

A Haiku

to love is to lose

to love is to open wounds

to love is to choose

xo,

AG

I love fashion. Texture, color, pattern mixing, the unexpected jelly sandal. The thrill of the hunt for the precise shade of red, somewhere between crimson and currant. In another life I would have attended design school. In college I interned for an ethical fashion company in Southern California and quickly garnered major pipe dreams to live in New York City post-grad. Where else but the fashion capital of the US? I crafted my perfect Brooklyn apartment and lived there mentally for a good two years. The good Lord had other plans for my life, so for now, my role in the fashion world is thrifting with urgency and flare.

I’m currently living out this mantra: if at least 3 people don’t suspiciously glare at your outfit, you’re not doing it right! Evidence documented below.

I wish I had something meaningful and thought-provoking to write about the intersection of fashion and the human condition. I don’t. What I can say? I’ve decided my affinity for fashion says less about creating a trendy image and says more about how God created me to seek beauty. Fashion is fun and brings me joy! Lately I’m working on enjoyment without overthinking. Here is my feeble attempt. You can give it a go, too. Cheers.

“Keep Portland Weird”

I live in Portland, Oregon, and yes, the lore is true. It is one strange, wild city. I love it for so many reasons— the towering evergreens, endless Thai restaurants, bikeability, easy access to the ocean and the mountains. The city is the epitome of “laid back,” the typical Saturday morning not starting till 10am. One walks out the front door and solely hears the whoosh-ing of bike tires and the chirps of a few city crows. The seasons are split into two, cloudy and not cloudy. Oh, and yes, the coffee really is that good.

Recently I was at a café near my house and saw a man journaling with a snake around his neck. I continued to order my coffee with little hesitation. When weird slowly becomes less weird to you, what comes of it? Am I more weird after four years in Portland? Am I simply more assimilated to the environment of weird? What does it really mean to be normal? Who am I? Did I mention I’m an overthinker?

Love Is Large

Our sermon on Sunday covered 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Breezing over this passage has become second nature for me. The lovey dovey wedding verses can only stretch so far. Whether it was a sudden spike of inspiration or the Holy Spirit, I decided to look up the classic verses in The Passion Translation. I was struck by the clarity of Paul’s words in a new light:

Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for the other. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.

“Love is not quick to take offense” has been ringing in my ears all week. I’ve recently been swimming through the choppy waters of relationship and feeling wildly misunderstood by someone I love. The phrase of “you just didn’t understand me” on repeat while throwing proverbial darts at the face of past hurt. Pride tells me it’s all a worthy pursuit, Paul seems to be saying something different.

Why is feeling misunderstood so painful? For me, it often traces back to identity. When I am seen as difficult while genuinely trying to be honest and caring, I immediately hear an accusatory voice saying, “You are a difficult person, Anna.” The battle begins, and I begin bargaining with the person in front of me. If only you knew what I really meant! If only you knew who I really was! Why can’t you see me!

God is teaching me little by little— to show unconditional love I must release my desire to be perfectly known, seen, and loved by another human. It is not possible. I must remember I am incapable of the same, as much as I tirelessly strive to be the best friend, girlfriend, sister, and daughter. This is the wildness of God, that He saw the whole of me, and still chose me. In this moment He sees every facet of me and loves every square inch of me. Love is large.

A (Spring) Haiku

blossoms are blooming

is rain going to return?

bike parades galore

xo,

AG

I’ve been taking a spring trip to Los Angeles for the past four years, and I have no intention of discontinuing my favorite annual tradition. When friends, family, or the more curious evangelical from the famed “turn around and greet your neighbor” moment at church ask what I’ll do in LA, I typically respond with, “I’m going to meet with Jesus for a few days.” Immediately, I feel like a member of the 1970s Jesus Revolution, swept up in a wave of freedom-seeking hippies hoping for a radical encounter with the one and only JC. Well, I’m being a bit facetious—my trip south is similar. I am desperate for the love of Jesus to find me this weekend.

My time away is often a combination of slow and go. I’m more of a “where the wind takes you” traveler. This time around, I hope to visit the famous Eames House in Santa Monica, alongside my favorite coffee shop, Granada. If the minimalist-maximalist design of Eames is wrong, I don’t want to be right. I’m elated to experience that genius up close. Granada sits quaintly in the living room of a modern stucco house in the hip neighborhood of Echo Park. It truly feels like you’re at a friend’s house for a cup of joe. This is my preferred version of a spiritual retreat—a mix of culture, art, solitude, and sunshine. If you want to experience the Creator, you must go straight to the source.

Each year, I stay at the same cabin in Laurel Canyon. I wouldn’t call myself a creature of habit, but here it applies. I’m currently sitting on an oversized white couch, listening to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks on a stylish P1 record table. It’s safe to say my favorite little cabin has fallen victim to a bit of Instagram whitewashing, yet its bones still sing of old Hollywood and California cool. I was elated when I first came across the rental years ago, bought by one of my favorite interior designers, Leanne Ford. She breaks every design rule with pizzazz.

If you know me, you know I love a research project. This is true of any and all rental homes I occupy. This snug 700-square-foot cabin was built in the ’20s as a no-frills home for hunters. The property backs up to a canyon with a plethora of desert creatures. It went through a tragic period of drywall, oak cabinets, and forest green paint (no judgment, we all go through an awkward phase at some point) before Leanne got her hands on it. She stripped it down to its bare bones and—voilà—redemption at its finest.

Home Away from Home

You know that haunting sensation of feeling more at home in cities you don’t permanently reside in? Well, in the spirit of my previous statement, I did some research. There is no coined phenomenon for this sickening mix of nostalgia and pleasure, but it is recognized as a profound emotional and psychological experience for many. Part of it is attributed to “identity lightness,” where one can belong without full ownership. Visiting a city removes the weight of responsibility, labels, and history that comes with ordinary, everyday life. This absence of permanence allows you to feel free and at ease, leading to a sense of “belonging without the pressure of ownership.”

This all sounds eerily familiar as someone who is tempted to live in a state of permanent absence. Although most people would describe me as loyal, and I believe this is true, there is still a voice deep down that whispers, “You’re safer with one foot in, one foot out.” For a while, I was scared to marry or commit to one city, to be confined. Scared to lose control of my autonomy. I’ve matured in recent years but I’m far from making a full recovery. The good news is grace can find me here as well. For now, vacations will continue to serve as my non-committal vice.

Astral Weeks & Psalm Fragments

Many of Van’s lyrics in Astral Weeks nod to a kind of metaphysical rebirth, perhaps to escape the harshness of life. If you listen closely, there is acute longing in most of the songs on this album. A reaching for something, someone:

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again

As I’m listening to these lyrics (now, in fact), I’m reminded of a favorite poem by Denise Levertov. It reminds me of her poetry because she seems to be stating the opposite of Van— we are already held. We do not need to reach. Here is an excerpt from “Psalm Fragments” in The Stream and the Sapphire:

Lord, I curl in Thy grey
gossamer hammock
that swings by one
elastic thread to thin
twigs that could, that should
break but don’t.

I do nothing, I give You
nothing. Yet You hold me

minute by minute
from falling.

In my current season of grief, I want to make a home out of these lines of poetry. Oh yes, minute by minute, indeed.

A Haiku

here I come LA

sunshine, hope for renewal

i miss caroline

xo,

AG

One of my best friends died of cancer in early February. Her name is (was?) Caroline. I’m not interested in writing extensively about her death, but I’m quite interested in writing about how her life molded my own. I’m also a Christian, which makes this all feel equally horrible and holy. I told a friend the other day, “I feel ashamed to say this out loud, but I’ve felt more like myself since Caroline passed.” Is it possible I am more myself now than before? Perhaps a shred of the mystery of this strange, awful ordeal? This is certainly not what Paul was alluding to in his New Testament musings on “to die is gain,” but it has me wondering.

Caroline died on a Friday morning at 8:21am. I left the hospital around 9:45am and found myself with one consuming thought— I didn’t eat breakfast. My friend Emily was in the car with me. We typed “Kolaches Houston” into Google and found ourselves at a timeless Texas staple— The Kolache Factory. Oh yes, the room temperature, white bread buns filled with mediocre breakfast staples. Imagine it like a handheld plate of American diner breakfast. Caroline would have despised everything about a kolache. I ate a couple of them anyways. Turns out no one gives you a manual on what to do immediately after your best friend takes her last earthly breath.

Fast forward 6 weeks and it is here, starting a fresh substack, I find myself. I refuse for this all to become an extended obituary for Caroline. Instead, I shall do as many writers do— write for the sheer thrill of doing the thing you feel created to do. This is how Caroline felt when she picked up a camera, and boy, was she made for it. Six years ago she encouraged me to pick my camera back up after a long hiatus, inviting me to second shoot a wedding with her. I haven’t put the camera down since. I hope the same for this pen (well, keyboard) of mine.

Thanks for reading along, friends.

xo,

Anna Grace (you can call me AG for short)