Dreamy.

There is something holy about dreaming.

Dreaming is a hopeful thing. A thing fit with desire. A thing that bridges the now with the future.

I've been a little dreamy lately. Often times, I'll notice within myself a craving to shop (which is oh-so-sad on a grad school budget). Most of the time it's a result of discontentment and blah blah blah I just know I have to resist. But sometimes, it's because something in me is craving change, growth, newness. And today is one of those days.

I want to decorate something. I want to craft a new outfit. I want to take a picture.

I even want to learn to cook something.

I’ve been mesmerized recently by blogs full of pictures so vivid I feel as if I know their scent. I know my little blog will never be a place like theirs, and that’s okay because … well, it’s just not me. But sometimes, just sometimes … it is.

Especially when I’m dreamy.

Oh, C.S. Lewis, you couldn’t have been more right: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

Especially when I’m dreamy.

Today I’m dreamy for a day I’ll be a big girl with my very own big girl apartment I can decorate and redecorate and rearrange with my girlfriends as many times as I want. I want to fill a space with different textures – wood, wool, brick, steel, copper – and the rich tones they carry as their own. I want to match a scent with the space and slowly allow it to be the smell that conveys “home”. I want to serve pretty foods on pretty place settings that make my ladies feel pretty, too.

I’m dreamy for a new pair of shoes. And I want to make a skirt that matches them perfectly. It would be a mustard yellow skirt (in case you were wondering) and it would go perfectly with my navy tights.

I’m dreamy to make a piece of art. Or maybe just to find a new favorite … I want something that can simply hang on my wall, something I can pass by every day, something that can stare at me from the sidelines of life and yet catch my gaze in a startling way. And when it does, I want there to be a mutual reading between the two of us, in an unexpected tear-jerking way.

I dreamy to craft a palette for life - one that gives rhythm and poise and richness to the spaces and places of everydayness. I want to take delight in dishes and bars of soap and the little stitches that make patters particularly warm. I want to live in a place that mirrors my best thoughts and recites the last verses of the poems I haven't yet finished writing.

I'm dreamy to go somewhere new, unexpected, unexplored. I want to pack my bags and then take half the clothes, twice the cash, and jump on a plane to adventure. I want to hear a language I do not speak and eat foods that set my tongue ablaze. I want to not know when I'm coming back.

Sigh. Dreamy.

The wonderful thing about dreamy days is that eventually you wake up. Please don’t pull me aside and remind me these ideals are unrealistic. I know. And that’s kinda the point.

Because in waking up, I remember reality: I live in an old, aged house with white trim with three of the most fantastically wonderful girls I have ever, ever met. I can’t cook to save my life and have little desire to learn and so I get to eat lots of hummus and hot dogs and easy mac (and I know you’re jealous). I don’t own a single dish that matches and all my clothes are from thrift stores.

This “waking up” makes me laugh and shake my head. Though these pictures are ideal, they are also faint, lofty and distant and I’m so grateful the girls next door aren’t. I’m thrilled to decorate and redecorate this little room with all my thrift-store, garage sale finds. I’ll curl up on the couch with my ladies and watch Gilmore Girls.

And I’ll lay down again tonight and give a grateful sigh.

I’ll recall the holy way of creativity and desire and how our God is the source and fulfillment of both.

And I’ll feel His strong embrace and notice His way of union with me…

Especially when I’m dreamy.

all photos via Pinterest, of course