Always improvising as kids in the hot summers without a pool.
(I wrote this while listening to “Take Me Back” by Maverick City, I suggest turning it on)
I have never read a journal, magazine that perfectly reflected me. My joke to people is that I wrote this is my personal magazine. My name is in fact Bella Grace. My mom saw the title and had to buy it for me simply because of the name. When my mom wants to communicate she is thinking of me, she'll buy me a copy, typically when I'm about to head off to another adventure like going to West Africa, studying abroad in Ireland, or starting my first job in the mountains.
This journal has felt like a biography rather than a magazine. I was raised on slow cooked meals, in the woods of Kansas, running barefoot through fields, doing math in treehouses, and watching sunsets by the river. My costumes were made with turmeric dyed silk cloth and castles were built with wooden blocks. My siblings were my best friends, and the land was our kingdom. As an adult, I've found myself yearning for my simple, carefree childhood, I've slowed down my days and made things from scratch. I've found beauty and contentment in long breaths in the breeze and have found people who are willing to say no to the temptation of the world drawing us into the seduction of overcommitment and over stimulation. I've found my happy days are slow and err on the side of boring rather than rushed. The draw to a simple life is all consuming, to return to the Eden of my joy-filled and safe childhood. It draws me into a spiral of discontent with my rushed and over stimulated adult life. Though it's often isolating and feels like you are walking upstream, at the end of the day, when the lights are out, the calendar is closed and the phone is plugged into the wall, you have to live with your wandering soul. Bella means beautiful, and Grace means undeserving Bella Grace is undeserved beauty. With a name like that, I am drawn to beauty and order. I fell undeserving of the beautify in my life. The most underserving beauty in my life is the life and grace I receive from the Star Breather, the Breath in my lungs and my "Why". That type of underserving beauty pushes me forward to bring heaven to earth for those around me every day; to restore the whole earth to Eden with the One who created it.
Go check out the Bella Grace Magazine website, or buy one at Barnes and Noble. Seriously they are so beautiful and make you feel so nostalgic. They take writings from the community to fill the magazine, so I sent this one in. I'll let you know if they publish it!
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