Grati-Tuesday #8: Vanessa

“Humour is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield.”

The first thing I’ll tell about Vanessa is that you’ll feel like the funniest and most interesting person in the world when you hang out with her. Vanessa loves to laugh. Her sense of humour and joy is expansive. How often do people say “I just don’t share the same sense of humour as [insert name]”? I have never heard anyone say that about Vanessa. Of all the people I know, she most ready to laugh, smile, and find joy in any given moment.
Last week, after releasing my album, I was exhausted and frustrated. I had caught some kind of plague after the show and I’d been in bed for a few days. I was restless for some company and to celebrate the milestone that had just occurred. Vanessa and I decided that we would go for pizza and a movie—Jem and the Holograms. We knew that the reviews were terrible, but as children of the eighties we couldn’t NOT see it.
It was AWFUL and also wonderful. Haha. Awful because it was poorly written, full of teenage angst & plot holes, rife with poor character development, and just not faithful to the spirit of the original.
Despite all this, we had a blast. We suspended our “cultivated” taste, revelled in the flashy music performances, eye-rolled at the teen angst and implausibility, snort-laughed at the contrived moments, and genuinely shed a single tear each at the father-daughter closure scene. It was so bad and so good. I think if I had attended that movie with anyone else I would not have enjoyed it half as much—if at all.
This is what life is like with Vanessa around. Anything and everything can be made fun and full of joy. Thank you for your friendship over the past number of years, girrrrl. You make life an absolute joy.
‪#‎heartbeats‬ ‪#‎whenyouranswercomes‬ ‪#‎gratituesday‬

Grati-Tuesday #3

My Grati-Tuesday shout out today goes to my mom.

It’s hard to boil it down to just one or two things my mom has taught me, obviously. However, if I had to pick just one thing, it’s true hospitality. My mom is the one of the most truly hospitable women I know.

Growing up, my family’s house was often full of extra kids beyond just me and my three siblings. Our house had a reputation for being the one where other kids were welcome, where there would be some snacks, and where there would always be proper, solid adult supervision.

(Mom’s logic was that, if all the neighbourhood kids at her house, then she would know where we all were and what we were up to. Haha.)

I’ve learned that hospitality isn’t just having a home to invite people into or food to give them. It’s a way of carrying yourself– A way of being with people that makes them comfortable in their own skin, free to be themselves, and able to rest & re-charge. This kind of hospitality can re-create us. It’s similar to the recharge you get from spending time in nature or sharing a truly gut-busting laugh. It’s the the kind of renewal you get from a hot cup of tea after being out in the cold, or from a home-cooked meal after travelling a long way.

In this sense, a person can be truly hospitable even when they are a guest in someone else’s house.

This hospitality is something I’ve learned from my mom–although I do not yet have her years of practice. I think it has benefitted me greatly as I have travelled with my music over the years. As I meet people and stay in their homes, my mom’s example is always in my brain. It reminds me to ask myself “What is this person’s desire right now?” “What makes them tick?” “What do they want to talk about?” and, most importantly, “How can I pray for them?”

My mom’s example has taught me how to read between the lines with God and realize that the music maybe isn’t my real purpose–the people are.

Thank you mom.
I love your guts.
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