Day 2

When one goes about telling a mystery story, either through the written word or on screen, the key element is information. The writer or originator of the story must provide all of the clues necessary in order to solve the mystery, though the best storytellers make the details small and seemingly insignificant, yet very essential to the outcome.

These details are combined with timing, in which the most essential essentials are revealed at the height of the climax, often in a large amount as the mystery is beginning to become unraveled. Sometimes a secret or two is revealed, though these too have their clues scattered behind them like scrumptious breadcombs leading the way.

I am a mystery lover. As a child I dabbled in Encyclopedia Brown and a little bit of Agatha Christy; however, these days I indulge (though this is a rather generous term) with evening crime dramas: CSI Miami, NCIS, or Burn Notice. They are not quite the truest of mystery stories and often their clue crumbs are crummy.

But I love the pursuit, the thrive of the chase. I love investigating and hunting out how details are often the beginning of deep truths. This is probably one of my idyosyncrecies--when I do something odd I wonder how it would be analyzed by a crime lab. If, for instance, someone were to examine my friend Shelly's shower nozzle they would discover a brown elastic hairband. It is not a style that Shelly wears and it has been there for five months, placing its arrival in July, a time when Shelly was in the country of Lebanon. Who could have installed this hairband around the nozzle in order to hold up the shower rack? Perhaps flakes from my skin or even a trapped piece of my hair left a trace on the fibers?

If I were to write my final paper on my own personal family for my family therapy course in the form of a mystery, the last page would include a detail that came at almost the last moment. It was a secret that was right under my nose and, while I had all the other data pointing to this truth, it was not until the secret was revealed that I found my hypothesis confirmed. A lady never reveals her secrets so I won't provide details; however, it brings great clarity to the workings of my immediate family.

The proud part of me wants to pat myself on the back for solving the case before evidence was conclusive. But mostly I'm sad. Sad that families have secrets and sad that it took this course for me to start getting to know my family better.

Mysteries have their places, but I prefer mine to be fictional.

Day 1

I have heard that The Twilight Zone is a realm where the environment appears to be reality where all of the pieces are there, yet something feels off. That is how I feel this morning.

It is my hope to write every day in 2010 as part of a way to incorporate writing back into my life on a daily basis. We'll see what you get...

Today is disorienting day. I have been gone from Pasadena for almost three weeks and will be returning tonight. I have not been feeling well for months, which already puts me off-kilter a bit (since I'm fairly intuned with my body) and then these last three weeks I've been doing research on my family and its history for my family therapy course. But when I return I have three courses to complete this quarter, my work at the after-school program, leading my existing life group in Azusa and launching a new one in Pasadena, heading all of the life groups at Oasis, organizing my Vocational Discernment Group, and more.

I feel overwhelmed. Am I ready to return to all of my responsibilities? Am I ready to leave my family? Well, despite being "ready" time marches on. One of the benefits of following Christ is that, in a sense, He follows me--we go together--I am not alone.