I recently read Glennon Doyle’s new book, Untamed. It took me a while to read because each chapter brought up spiritual and emotional crescendos that resonated deeply and widely, inward and outward—and then I felt invited to pause. I actually had to pause because by the end of most chapters I found myself crying a river. I always love good cleansing cries that come as a series of rivers! One of my favorite chapters in the book is called Imagine, where I was invited to “conjure up from the depths of my soul the truest, most beautiful life I could imagine.” I was invited to “put it all on paper and consider that the blueprint for my life, allowing my dreams to become my plans.”
I love putting things on paper—after all, I’ve kept a journal since the age of ten. Pieces of the blueprint for that truest, most beautiful life I can imagine are written (and repeatedly written) here and there throughout my journals. I’m imagining a big-picture beautiful life, and I’m imagining the day-to-day details of that life. I’m writing more details and putting the pieces together.
One piece of daily life I can imagine being more beautiful has to do with my mode of transportation. The pandemic and my own pandeepening has shown me that I don’t need to drive a car so much. I don’t need to drive to the store every few days on a whim. I don’t have to burn all that fossil fuel. In fact, at the time of this writing my car hasn’t moved since the pandemic began and I haven’t gone any further than where I can walk on foot these past four months. I dare say I can live without a car. I can imagine something more beautiful … But what does that “more beautiful” mode of transportation look like when we’re past the pandemic and I get to move about more freely? I can’t go back to the old less beautiful ways. I can’t start burning fossil fuel again, because the trees and the air and my heart just couldn’t take that. We need something more beautiful.
I imagine myself on an eBike. Yes, a bright blue electric bicycle. Or better yet, an adult-sized electric tricycle with a pretty woven basket on the front—a basket just big enough to hold my lunch pail and water bottle, a journal, a camera, and a book or two. I imagine riding this beautiful spectacle from my house to Prairiewoods in the morning and back home in the afternoon, hopping on and off the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. I see myself riding in the sunshine, in the rain, in the cold. I wonder if I could put snow tires on for winter? Sure, why not, this is the most beautiful life I can imagine, after all … I imagine myself smiling. I imagine the sky and the trees smiling back. This future scene I’m imagining is way more beautiful than the scene from the olden days.
Piece by piece I’m imagining my most beautiful life. Piece by piece I’m seeing big-picture beautiful coming together. What is the truest, most beautiful life you can imagine? What does your big-picture-beautiful look like? What does one piece of your “truest, most beautiful” life look like? Will you put it all on paper? Will those words become your plans?
—Angie Pierce Jennings, Prairiewoods hosted groups and hospitality coordinator