outWORD by Matte Downey

I am in serious downsizing mode. In this present house I have four bedroom closets plus a big storage room in which to squirrel away my various clothes, boxes, files, papers, extra chairs and blankets, games and puzzles, camera gear and all those things I think I might eventually find a use for. In the new place, I will have one average size bedroom closet. That's right. One. The smallness of the number smacked me square in the face last week when I was taking a second look at the property. I came home and realised I had to rethink my packing strategy. Careful collecting was soon replaced by ruthless jettisoning . No more room to store the original boxes for every piece of sound gear, small appliance, computer accessory or piece of stereo equipment. No more setting things aside because of sentimental value (just pick one thing to keep and move the rest on to a better home). If I will not use it in the next year, it is gone. I am busy selling unusual items on ebay , including Dean...

Pop. Hiss. For some reason, I woke up at 4:00 am on Sunday just in time to hear these muted sounds. The hissing continued, sounding kind of like the heater fan that goes on in our kitchen, but slightly different. I lay in bed for several minutes, wondering what it was and if I should be concerned. Finally, I got up and followed the sound down the stairs. I stepped into several inches of water in our basement and soon discovered that a pipe connection in our downstairs bathroom had come apart and was spraying water straight up at the ceiling. Dean and I were soon up mopping and drying and spreading every available towel on the floor in an effort to keep the damage to a minimum. Later on that morning at a more civilised hour, we borrowed a water vacuum from friends and gathered the heaters and dehumidifiers to speed up the drying. It is slow going, but things are getting dryer. It deflates me to see all the effort I put into fixing up that basement last summer be chipped away ...

Dean is back on this continent again. Yes! I picked him up from the airport this afternoon and he was in good spirits despite having had very little sleep in the past 5 days due to overnight flights and time zone changes and mondo meetings at his trade show. It was no surprise that after we had a chance to talk and smooch, he grabbed a quick bite to eat and then spent most of the evening on the couch sleeping. A friend of mine just called and asked if we were attending a party a mutual friend of ours was having tonight. I responded in the negative, citing Dean's recent return and his exhaustion. Sigh. I would like to be at the party. Sometimes sacrifice sucks. Really, sacrifice sucks all the time. That's why they call it sacrifice. No one goes, " Woohoo , let's get our sacrifice on!" I have never heard, "I don't have enough sacrifice in my life." Who would ever say, "I would like to pursue a career in sacrifice?" And yet, sacrifice is pa...

I am challenged in certain areas of inter-personal and social skills. Embarrassing sometimes, really. I don't know why talking to certain types of people is so easy for some and so difficult for me. I was asking God about this last night and he reminded me of the pasta man in Cayo Santa Maria. There was a guy who made pasta to your specifications at the buffet in the Cuban resort we were at in February. I decided to have the pasta for lunch one day and noticed that the man was training a young guy for the job. The experienced pasta man stood to the side while I instructed the young fellow on which ingredients to put in my sauce (just pointed at stuff because my Spanish is no good and I didn't know how well he spoke English). While the sauce was simmering, he scooped the spaghetti into a bowl to dump it in boiling water. He took one scoop. Then he took a second scoop. Oh boy, I really didn't need a second scoop. I am not a huge eater and hate wasting food, but I bit my ton...

Saturday night I was talking to a friend of mine; not just an ordinary friend, but one of those rare humans that you can say anything to. No matter what I reveal about myself, she still gazes at me with large, wondrous eyes which somehow always manage to be filled with delight and sheer pleasure at being in my company. She is also astonishingly honest and insightful. I was telling her that I was having trouble relating to someone and I didn't know why. Every time I get around this other person I figuratively and sometimes literally, stand there with my mouth open and shake my head, wondering why they do the things they do. Their behaviour, language and mannerisms just seem so odd to me, and I know the lack of understanding on my part is not helping the relationship any. Sometimes I feel guilty about my thoughts, like they are bordering on judgments. Other times I think I am discerning some issues that might be under the surface. Some of my reactions resemble pettiness and bitternes...

We had a girls' night yesterday and amidst six-minute pizzas and creating silly videos while wearing strange hats and munching on decadent banana chocolate pecan bread, we talked about fantasy. I admitted to having a mind that loves to create scenarios of how things could go, usually perfectly or terribly, best case or worst case scenarios. I imagine details of events, relationships, social or church gatherings, and the occasional stint as a world-famous artist. Some of it is pretty harmless and excellent fuel for fiction writing, but some of it could drag me into a vicious cycle of not dealing well with disappointment. THE CYCLE 1. Disappointment. We all encounter this in life, but what do we do with it? 2. Denial. One way of coping with disappointment is to deny the impact the event had on us. After all, it seems weak and embarrassing and immature to admit that some person's actions or not getting that job made me cry for an hour. So I tell myself it is no big deal. I fail ...

I watched part of a video of John Wimber last night and he said that at one point he realised he was working for God instead of doing the work of God. Those two little words started ruminating in my inner being while I was driving downtown: "for" and "of." FOR is when you thrust part of who you are towards someone, hoping for a response or a change or an interaction or at the very least some acknowledgement. FOR is an attempt to connect, wanting to set things in motion, to make things better for yourself and others. OF is different because it stems from an identity, the essence of someone or something, and the very nature of the person's character makes the action or word an extension of the being - effortless, natural, pure, and part of the whole. The action cannot be separated from the essence; if one IS love then one will naturally love. The action does not change depending on the response. The action happens because it is the very nature of their character....

We arrived home from Cuba at 2 am Tuesday morning. After unpacking and picking up all my messages and emails and reminding the cats they did not own the house, I finally fell asleep after 4 am. The alarm went off at 8:30 the next day and I was amazed I made it through a French class and some office work and a movie without nodding off. Now that I have explained my blog silence and elicited your pity for my sleep deprivation, here are some random thoughts from my time away. 1. Catamaran rides are more fun on a really windy day. Though I loved the calm days for floating in the ocean, everything being calm all the time makes you sleepy and lethargic. Wind and waves get you somewhere. Some turbulence is good and necessary and don't freak out if you get soaked! 2. For some reason, nudists like to stand when at the beach. And read books while standing. 3. Machetes are awesome tools in the hand of an experienced wielder! They can slice open a green coconut at the perfect angle, giving y...

We are leaving for Cuba tomorrow. I have packed almost every stitch of summer clothing I own into a suitcase (it just doesn't take up that much room, you know), eaten most of the food in the refrigerator, told the cats what is expected of them while we are gone (eat and sleep and try not to overfill the litter nor scratch the cat sitter), and picked out four books to savour while sitting in the sun or shade. For a week we will forget about the house issue, the mound of emails piling up at Dean's work, and where to place that pesky French pronoun "en." There are some things it is important to remember, but there are also things that one needs to forget. On Wednesday night at home group one of the guys asked the question, "What are God's conditions for getting into heaven and how can you lose your salvation?" and then timed us as we answered. It was interesting to see how succinctly we could articulate the basics of redemption. Not surprisingly, each one h...

I spoke at church last night about TRUST. It is not an easy or instant thing to trust someone, especially God. You have to get to know them, and as you do, you can trust them more. Last week I felt God challenge me on trusting Him with my time. There are many things I like to do with my time and when someone or something threatens to take those away from me...well, I get protective of my time. And I know that whenever I get frustrated or annoyed or anxious about something being taken away from me, it is probably because I am in some way using it to fill some need instead of going to God - it is an area I have not given over to Him. The bottom line is, whose time is it anyway? Who has given me this life and every breath and every moment on earth? My time truly is His and the more I realise it, the more I will do the right things with my time instead of just the things I selfishly desire to do. Here are a few notes from my talk last night... What happens when I don’t trust God? ...

This is a picture of the moon taken on March 22, 2007 in Cuba. I find the moon very difficult to photograph for two reasons: 1. it is not very bright and somewhat small so unless you have a major zoom lens, most of the picture is black, and 2. I seldom have my tripod when I see a nice moon and my human body cannot hold a camera steady long enough to get a clear shot. However, balconies are great things to lean on and I thank the Blau Costa Verde resort for thoughtfully building some right where I needed them on that night. The shot is not perfectly steady, but the movement works in this case. One of the things I have been learning about in the past few months is the concept of surrender. You think you know what it means and you say yes, my life is surrendered to God, but then I react to a situation in a bad way and see that my life is anything but surrendered - I very much want to have things go my way and I get annoyed when they do not. And so I am retaking the life-course on ...

I do not believe that I managed to get an adequate overview of the whole country of Cuba in my short stay there, especially since most of it was on a resort relatively isolated from the everday life of most of the residents, but here are a few impressions, some light-hearted, some a little bit deeper. 1. There are no windows. Virtually all of the houses that we passed as we drove through the country had no windows. There were only shutters of various kinds and at times, open squares in the wall. Most doors were open as well. 2. Many yards boasted a cactus hedge which kept the desired animals in and the less desirable, out. 3. Despite a lovely tropical climate, the land seemed tired and dry, the foliage and grass brownish instead of lush green. There were, however, some outstanding flowers and cactus that were flourishing because of attentive care. 4. Guards and fences were common sights at most establishments. Our resort had a guard and guardhouse at the beach gate and a 24/7 guard jus...

1. Going from minus 10 to plus 29 degrees in 4 hours! YES! 2. A shallow white sand beach where you can wade in for at least 30 metres and still only be waist deep. 3. Coconut yogurt - yum! 4. The most creative chambermaid named Nivia who makes art out of blankets and towels. Yesterday our blanket sculpture was a swan wearing my sunglasses! haha 5. Dean getting lots of sleep! (very good) 6. Reading a good book with the ocean waves crashing in the background. 7. Watermelon for every meal! 8. A leisurely horseback ride up into the countryside where we saw farms, farmers, animals and a beautiful view from the hillside. 9. Pina coladas by the pool. 10. Wonderful and talented Cuban musicians who all know how to not only keep a beat but mix complex rhythms together AND dance at the same time. Wow! 11. Did I mention watermelon? Oh, and sun, surf, sand, and smoking the competition at rifle shooting! We are known as the most dangerous couple in the resort! haha This is me on the beach at sunset ...