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New Year + New Beginnings

January 6, 2017

Hopeful. Ambitious. Ready.

2017, I pray that you are a year of breakthroughs, laughter, and boundless joy.

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Mattea Gernentz

Mattea Gernentz

A young poet and blogger whose heart belongs to Paris.

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Scotland, UK AdventureMarch 9th, 2020

49 days to go.

@thewhimsicalowl

I’ve been thinking about the cultivation of gratitude recently, in the interim between snows. It is late November, and the Illinois wind has grown ruthless, though the winter sunsets are lavish. Time is flowing by so quickly, and the arc of each day grows blurred. I’ve registered for my last semester of college and wrote four papers within the span of a week. In British Modernism, we alternated reading aloud lines of T.S. Eliot’s “The Four Quartets.” When it was time, I read: “I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you / Which shall be the darkness of God. As in a theatre, / The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed.” Then, “I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope / For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love / For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith / But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.” Wow, God. Those lines are somehow the precise words for this liminal, preparatory season of hoping, praying, and (attempting) waiting amidst a flurry of rapid doing. Be still and know. It has been a little over a month since traveling to San Francisco, and it all still feels like a precious dream. I miss the reckless sunshine and dancing along the beach with dear friends until we grew tired, like children. I am still learning to lean into rest, to lay down my burdens and exchange worry for surrender. I am thankful now, as I write, for the patter of raindrops on the roof above, for the subtle joys of being home, for my cats that creep into my room to watch, transfixed, as scattered ladybugs congregate along the walls. I’ve been listening to Mitski’s “A Burning Hill” over and over lately because it feels so perfectly like tender yearning and letting go, expectation and embracing new chapters. I’ll love some littler things.

Happy Birthday, Ashley! I miss you even more than @kokosicecream (which is a lot)! I’m so thankful for the years of friendship we’ve shared and for all of the marvelous ways that God has brought us nearer to each other and nearer to Him! You are radiant (inside and out), compassionate, and have a tenacity like no one else I’ve ever met. It’s wonderful beyond words to feel completely at home with another soul, and that’s precisely how I feel with you! I am so blessed to have the opportunity to cheer you on and to see all of the (many) ways that you shine! I hope that 22 is your very best year yet — and that it lives up to all the hype of that oft-repeated Taylor Swift song. ✨

I’m so very blessed to be entering B Quad sunkissed and with these delightful adventure partners by my side. From passionately singing Les Misérables at the piano (with @__emjd accompanying on violin) to breathtaking golden hour drives, fending off seagulls, and frolicking in frigid waves, we experienced all that San Francisco had to give and did so with great love and laughter. My heart is overwhelmed with abundance and thoroughly contented after several days of the best kind of busy-rest. California, thank you for sharing your blue sky wonder. #butterpecan #allgatenogolden

I’m still reeling from this unexpected, iconic moment! #wheatoninfrance??? I got to see one of my favorite people in my favorite room on the planet, and it was the truest glimpse of heaven I’ve ever received, celebrating a joyous reunion in the midst of such abundant beauty. Han, you are a dream gal! I can’t even imagine how my freshman year would’ve been without your encouraging presence as my RA, friend, and kindred spirit, always ready for a heartfelt chat over a cup of tea. I’m so grateful that you visited Wheaton last weekend, and I’m excited for our European adventures to come! Who knows what God may have in store? In the meantime, the plot thickens and the blessings continue: Right before my trip, I finished a research proposal on the significance of the female Impressionists — something quite dear to my heart. Then, lo and behold, when my family arrived and began exploring Paris, we discovered that the Musée d’Orsay was hosting a stunning exhibition of Berthe Morisot’s art, one of the groundbreaking women I had JUST gushed about in my writing. It was the very first exhibition of her work curated since her lifetime, and we simply had to go. Morisot was instrumental, alongside figures like Mary Cassatt, in shifting artistic focus to domestic scenes and depictions of mother-daughter bonds. These women were able to authentically portray female spheres, which had beforehand been somewhat ignored by their male counterparts, with breathtaking nobility, dignity, and attentiveness to detail. What a miracle of a trip! ✨

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." -2 Corinthians 12:9-10

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