snow.

I hate the snow. 

I have been accused, many times, of being a "Scrooge" because of this, but let me explain:

- Snow is cold. I hate being cold. It is also wet, which magnifies its cold factor, thus making me that much more miserable.

- I always have to work on snow days. When everyone else gets to play in it, I have to brave the roads and go to work.

- Snow cancels plans. I hate having plans cancelled on me for reasons I can't control.

- My favorite person in the world does not live in the same city I do. Therefore, when it snows, we sometimes don't get to hang out due to road conditions.

- This season especially, I have been counting on the massive number of hours I was scheduled for during the holiday season to make up for the hours I wasn't getting during the fall. Unfortunately, the weather has shut down one of my jobs, and probably will again tomorrow. I am out 12 hours and counting... if we close tomorrow, I will have lose 20 hours of work due to the snow. I cannot afford to lose that much income. Stupid snow.

I think what frustrates me the most is the last part. I work two jobs, and work my ass off at each one while I am there. Yet due to things like the economy, which has cut my hours down to nothing at one job, and the snow, which has closed my second job, I am barely making ends meet. I am furious that the snow will probably cost me almost the equivalent of a week's pay, money that I was counting on to help with things like Christmas presents and wedding stuff. I feel like a slacker because I am not working 40 hour weeks, but I WOULD IF I COULD. 

It bothers me to no end that things beyond my control are making things difficult. Snow, the economy... I can't take it anymore.

There. Now I've let it all out, and maybe I can get on with my life.

albertine

Two posts in one day? Could it be true?

Yes. But only because my last post was long and I didn't want this second, and completely unrelated, post to get lost in the madness (madness. haha. get it, my last blog was on my fear of being seen as crazy... madness... get it? umm....).

Here's a song I've fallen in love with lately. It's by Brooke Fraser, off her CD Albertine, which is the only Christian CD by a female artist I think I have ever bought, and I seriously do not regret my purchase. I could write things about a few of her songs, but this one touches something in me. She wrote it about Rwanda, but her thoughts are so very similar to how I think of West Virginia, and how I know people think about Indonesia, or Ukraine, or India. 

Enough talking, here's the song:

"Albertine"

I am sitting still.

I think of Angelique

Her mother's voice over me

And the bullets in the wall where it fell silent.

And on a thousandth hill, I think of Albertine

There in her eyes what I don't see with my own

Rwanda

Now that I have seen, I am responsible

Faith without deeds is dead

Now that I have held you in my own arms, I cannot let go till you are

I am on a plan across a distant sea

But I carry you with me

and the dust on, the dust on, the dust on my feet

Rwanda

I will tell the world

I will tell them where I've been

I will keep my word

I will tell them, Albertine

unfair, I tell you!

I think of things every day that inspire me to think, "Well, that would make a great blog". Of course I forget them by the time I am sitting in front of my computer at the end of the day, so you never get to experience whatever words of humor and inspiration I have come up with. So just know that somewhere within me is lots of deep wisdom aching to come out... I just tend to forget exactly what that wisdom is.

So here's something that was bothering me the other day. (Isn't that the easy way to start blogs? By ranting about something so ridiculous that no human would ever sit and give you their listening energy to actually hear? Anyway.) So I have just begun the process of applying for grad schools, and part of the application essay is to talk about times when you have struggled with oppression or overcome adversity. I feel like I've faced my share of challenges in my life, as most people have. Problem is, my "adversity" didn't come in the form of someone telling me that I couldn't do something, or growing up significantly lacking in some key element, or having a disease, or struggling with racial or ethnic identity. My struggle has been entirely internal-- and as I've come to find over the past few years, internal struggles, however controlled or in the past they may be, only raise a red flag of "CRAZY!" in many people's minds.

This pisses me off.

The sad truth of the matter is that there is still a HUGE stigma about "mental illness" and all of its relatives. Just because I spent a large part of my childhood struggling with anxiety in a very serious way does not mean that I am incapable of excelling at a job or academic program. Anyone who knows me can testify to my ability to function in society with intelligence, passion, thoughtfulness, and reponsibility. Yet if I mention my past challenges with anxiety, will the nameless entities reviewing my grad school application become concerned about my mental stability and ability to succeed in a stressful environment?

Of course it would be much easier and safer to leave the whole subject out entirely. But they don't understand-- my struggle with such things in my childhood and teenage years helped make me who I am. It is because I understand how difficult and scary it can be to go through something like that and not know where to turn for help that I want to become a social worker. I learned perseverance, my own strength, the kindness of others. I learned how to challenge what I thought were my limitations. I learned to appreciate the issues that other people face. Wouldn't all these things make me a better social worker? But I fear they won't be able to see past the bright red Crazy flag flying all over my application...

Argh. It isn't like the anxiety was my fault. Yet people see "mental illnesses" as a flaw in someone's character, unlike how physical illnesses are viewed. I guess I'll just have to lose my job, sell all my belongings, walk barefoot across Washington and then write about my time spent in nature with nothing but physical pain to keep me company, just to prove that I'll be a good social worker.

graham cracker mornings

Whenever my phone rings and wakes me from whatever sleep I have managed to obtain in my frigid bedroom, it always takes me a few minutes to convince myself that it is, in fact, a phone call and NOT my alarm and therefore, I should answer it. So once I got that fact straightened out this morning, I heard the voice of one of my coworkers tell me that I needed to go into work and cover for her since her car wouldn't start. I yawned in the early morning darkness-- I swear I could see my breath, by the way-- and told her it would be no problem. Then I hung up the phone and contemplated my new reality of going in to work much earlier than anticipated. And get this... I was EXCITED.

What's not to like about a job where I can stumble in wearing pajamas, if I need to, and eat breakfast while I'm there? Where I get to say "Good Morning!" to kids who I have come to really love and care about? Where I can spend an hour getting beat at Mancala and playing a never-ending game of War, and it's my job? Seriously. If I have ever had a job that I don't mind spending extra unplanned hours at, this is it. As I said goodbye to the kids as they left this morning, adding the "See you after school!" tag (since I will), I felt very mother-ish. It is kind of an interesting responsibility to be the last one a kid sees before they go to school and the first one they see when they are done. It is a realm normally inhabited by parents, and I feel like it fits in a sort of "off" way-- like a jacket with shoulder pads, or something. But I like it, and I like these kids. And no matter how many hours I am NOT getting between my two jobs and how much economic logic dictates I should try to find one FULL time job that provides a more reliable income... I'm not leaving. Not yet. 

So to all of you with your office jobs and nice paychecks and business casual attire, I say this: Have fun with your swivelly desk chairs, and your computer monitors, and your coffee breaks. I'm happy spending my days sitting at a table covered in marker, eating graham crackers while I lose yet another game of Mancala to a nine-year-old.

back again

It's been a while since I have posted anything in here. I often think about posting something, but then the pressure to write something good hits me, and I am afraid that there is no way I can make my day to day activities and thoughts as interesting as everyone else seems to. I mean, I was an English major, right? I should be able to churn out an interesting blog entry every once in a while. Every other SPU English Department alum seems to. Well, anyway. This blog is about my life, not theirs. 

So I'm getting married. About, uh.... 62 years too early, according to the estimation I swore by until a little over a year ago. Sometimes this makes me feel old, like when I talk about cooking in "my kitchen" and look at couches at Crate and Barrel. And sometimes, this makes me feel young, especially when I meet with potential vendors and become acutely aware of how much I resemble a preteen. But both ways, getting married is equally terrifying and amazingly exciting. No one ever talks about how scary being in love is. You've been given something incredible and you can't imagine your life ever being without it again, and suddenly, you've got something to lose. The stakes are higher. But at the same time, it's great. Okay... I'm starting to ramble. My point: being in love is scary but only because of how much the person means to you. Alright.

So now things like centerpieces and wedding dresses and favors have entered my life. I have watched enough episodes of Bridezillas to know what not to do, and I think I have a good enough attitude about it being just one day that I won't go all crazy. Still, the wedding industy is a large and tempting monster. Sometimes it looks friendly, but then I back up a little bit and see teeth and saliva and realize I am staring straight down its throat-- and that it has really bad breath. So then I run. So I think I'm okay. 

This is my life now: stalking wedding blogs instead of facebook, watching past seasons of Lost, checking out world music from the library to expose my kids at work to other cultures, and driving from Ballard to Burien. Life is different now than I expected it to be. Not such a bad thing, I think.

hello, my name is

I have underestimated the power of being known. 

I never understood how deeply significant it can be to have someone know my name, or what I order at a certain restaurant, or how I am feeling when I make that face or have that tone of voice or say that certain thing. Being known is a weighty thing, no matter what level it is on. It has the power to validate my existence, reveal the depth of a relationship, exemplify someone's care for me. It makes me feel worthwhile. It makes me feel human.

When I started working at a small cafe/shipping center, I didn't have a clue how much having "regulars" would mean to me. I love that I have customers who come in every day, know my name, and take the time to share a little bit of their lives with me. They know when I normally work; I know their habits and how they like things just so. There is something inherently amazing about having someone recognize who you are and know that you are going to take care of them like you have in the past. It seems a small thing, but even that one thing--someone knowing my name--is incredible. 

I also love that the baristas at work now know what I drink, and how I like my mochas with a little more chocolate and my Italian sodas with less half and half. And then there is how Ryan knows what I order at restaurants we always go to, or Mykell saves the sandwiches she knows that I like at the cafe, or Chris knows what music I'll like. Little things, I know, but they add up to someone paying attention to who I am and what I do every day-- and that means something.

In the past two years I have learned more about relationships than I ever thought possible. I have learned the power of having someone know you for who you are, and how important it is to seek to know others as well. I've begun to learn what it means to truly care about someone, and how much that grows with the more you come to know about that person. I've found people who know me on a deeper level than anyone ever has-- people who know what I need when I am stressed out and people who know how to tell when I am really excited (okay, actually just one person on that one) and people who know my deepest hopes for life. And more than anything, I've felt the grace and love offered to me by those people. They have showed me that it is okay to be who I am.

What is my point in all of this? We cannot forget the power of knowing another person. Even calling someone by name affirms their very existence and worth. In West Virginia, many of the people we worked with were more touched that people remembered that they existed than by the free construction done on their homes. We all want to feel like people see us. We all want to be human. 

And to be honest, even after being with Ryan for a year, it still does something to me when I hear him say my name.

fish and chips, flowers, and clearance sales.

Yesterday was a wonderful day.

Sun-- real, warm sun, not the winter sun that shines but is still cold. 

Shorts and flip-flips for the first time in Seattle this year. 

Hugs.

Driving with windows rolled down.

Sunglasses.

Fish and chips and the pier. (with no fried bread!)

Pike Place.

Beautiful flowers from Pike Place.

Holding hands to shove through crowds.

Attempts to find my favorite kind of tulip I saw at the Tulip Festival.

Carkeek.

Relaxing in the sun and not getting hit by the remote control airplane.

REI clearance sale and new hiking gear.

Not having to sit in the train car at the Spaghetti Factory.

A boy who eats the pistachio out of the spumoni ice cream (because I don't like it) and gives me the rest.

Getting to be with my favorite person.

Not wishing for one second I was in Maui with my roommates :) .

dry

I've been feeling more like a shell lately than a person. My days are blank, just dates on a calendar with hours I am busy and not much else. I am an outline that can't seem to get filled in. I find myself searching every aspect of my life for the hole that has drained the life out of my days, but I can't seem to find it. I push and pull at events and activities and people, trying to squeeze a few more drops of meaning from them, meaning that I know is there but just cannot reach. It eludes me at every turn. And when I do find it, it is not enough. I am not full.

Sitting on my bed in the quietness of the evening, hearing only the faint sounds of leftover rain finally finding its way from the leaves to the ground, I could do nothing but stare. Nothing felt satisfying. I am so numb that even sleep is not appealing, since even temporary unconsciousness cannot refill what I have lost somewhere. Eyes wandering around my room, they stopped a moment on my copy of Eugene Peterson's "The Message".

It has been a long time since I opened this book. In college, frustrated with the way that the modern church seems to find it necessary to dumb down the Bible to reach the mass market, I chose to prefer the translations that didn't make Bible passages so cut-and-dried. Yet once upon a time I bought this book for a reason. Sometimes wading through the language of the Bible obscures the simple truths that lie in its passages, and occasionally I need a reminder of what is at the core of this Story I am a part of. Tonight was such a night.

Flipping through Psalms, I landed on The Message translation of Psalm 42:

"A white-tailed deer drinks

from the creek;

I want to drink God,

deep draughts of God.

I'm thirsty for God-alive."

a few verses later, it continues:

"These are the things I go over and over, 

emptying out the pockets of my life.

I was always at the head of the worshiping crowd,

right out in front, 

leading them all,

eager to arrive and worship,

shouting praises, singing thanksgiving--

celebrating, all of us, God's feast!

Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul?

Why are you crying the blues?

Fix my eyes on God--

soon I'll be praising again.

He puts a smile on my face.

He's my God.

When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse

everything I know of you,

From Jordan depths to Hermon heights,

including Mount Mizar.

Chaos calls to chaos,

to the tune of your whitewater rapids.

Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers

crash and crush me.

Then God promises to love me all day, 

sing songs all through the night!

My life is God's prayer."

How long has it been since I "fixed my eyes on God?" I have certainly spent the last few weeks (or even, to be honest, every moment since graduation) fixing my eyes on everything but God. I have tried to find meaning and identity in jobs, in grades, in relationships, in the future. Everything but my Father who has promised to love me unconditionally and never let me go. As my friend Andrew once told me, God won't let me fall off the map. Perhaps my restlessness, my yearning for something, is my soul telling me that it needs to be fed by the One and only, and until I learn to seek that, I truly will never find satisfaction. It isn't emptiness that I am feeling. 

It is thirst.

I want to drink God, deep draughts of God.

I'm thirsty for God-alive.

God of peace, of love, of truth, fill me where I have become empty. Pour your life into my soul so that I may feel alive, so that your love runs in my veins and your truth resounds in my mind. Fill me so full that I have no choice but to burst from the sheer abundance of life. Teach me what it means for my life to be Your prayer.

plummet

I say that I believe all the time.

I believe in God. I believe in forgiveness. I believe that He loves me. I believe that my family loves me. I believe that those I care about really do love me. I believe that everything will be okay. I believe I believe I believe I believe.

But I don't.

It isn't exactly that I don't believe those things, that I don't think of those things as true. More accurately, I don't think that I have committed my entire self to believing those things. I hold part of myself back, just in case it isn't true. There is a portion of my heart that I reserve to always keep a watchful eye out in every situation should one of those beliefs suddenly be disclosed as false and my suspicions confirmed. That allows me to get out while I can without getting too hurt. If I never fully commit to an idea, I will always be able to recover when that idea doesn't work out.

And this nice little plan of mine worked for a while. A long while, in fact. I've been protecting myself in such a fashion for virtually my entire life. But in the past year, two very important series of events have made me realize that I can't go on anymore with one hand always on the doorknob, ready to retreat at a moment's notice. First, I graduated and had every plan and sense of comfort pulled out from under me. And second--and those of you who know me, please forgive me for mentioning something that I normally don't go in depth about, being as afraid of feelings and warm fuzzies as I am-- I fell in love.

These two things, more than anything in my entire life, had made it utterly clear to me that I have a choice to make. I cannot survive a life of continual uncertainty and change-- the life that I know I have to live for at least a few more years-- without surrendering myself completely to the belief that God is in control, He loves me, and no matter how much I screw up He always will. I have to let myself accept that. I just do. And once I do, I can live the life that God has dreamed up for me, but until then I am only holding myself back from throwing myself at His feet in complete faith. And I have to give up rationalizing and the list of flaws that I keep about myself, and realize that love is not about being rational or being perfect but about loving someone for who they are that moment, and allowing them to love you. I can't keep expecting it all to fall out from under my feet at any moment. I have to throw myself in head-first-- do a damn cannonball into the things that I can't measure or prove via logical methods. I can't be scared of the things that I feel and experience just because their nature demands an element of uncertainty. 

So I'm letting go of all of my objections and letting myself-- all of myself-- land in whatever position life and love have for me. And the funny thing is that, while as with all inward transformations this letting go is a slow and gradual process, I feel as if my life feels like more of a plummet than anything at the moment.

fortunes

last Sunday, on a lazy afternoon plagued by desperate hunger and no desire to expend the energy needed to make food, I settled for some good old, slightly questionable Safeway Chinese food. My sweet and sour chicken-- as greasy-good as I remembered it-- was accompanied by the usual nondescript fortune cookie and cheesy fortune.

"you will receive unexpected support over the next week. accept it graciously."

good, I think to myself. my best friend is across the world with no means of communication. I sure could use some support for the next few days. 

and support I got. from my boss, recognizing that I was stressed out and offering to help in any way she could. from conversations with friends in the early morning slowness of the store we work at. from time spent with roommates I had felt I was growing apart from. from family. from bad jokes told by customers. from always patient answers to my never-ending questions at my new jobs. from small children looking for a friend and a lap to sit in. from firemen, even. from all angles imaginable.

looking back on it now, I wonder: did I see all these incredible acts of support, however small, because I was already on the lookout for them?

if my fortune cookie hadn't set my mind on the lookout for types of support, would I have noticed these things or recognized the value in them? had my fortune cookie alerted me to the possible presence of, say, danger, would I have noticed a completely separate set of events from what did stick in my mind this week?

such suggestion is more powerful than we think. if we are prompted to look at things in a certain light, we are naturally going to find it easy to pick out the things that validate that way of looking at it. if we think our lives are boring and miserable, we are going to only notice the things that validate this view-- and if something doesn't, we will warp it so that it does. if we are told from the start that all homeless people are dangerous and just want money to buy alcohol, every situation or behavior in which a homeless person is involved will be evaluated in that light. if we are told that women are less capable and intelligent than men, we will only notice instances where this is true. and on, and on. 

I wonder if any of us even know what we are being told to notice and what ideas are being suggested to us that influence the way we perceive situations. not everything is written so clearly on a tiny piece of paper folded up inside of a cookie.

what is necessary, not what is courageous

this story from msnbc.com is incredible. 

peace is not made by politicians lying to each other over expensive meals, saying anything and doing nothing. this is the real way to wage peace: face to face, door to door, person to person. step by step, leading by example.

waiting

it all looks like it is shaping up so nicely, falling into place so easily. almost as if everything is going to work out.

i'm just waiting for it all to fall apart.

The things our heart does when we aren't watching

I was miserable for two months last summer. I was somewhere far away (well, far for me-- across the country instead of across the world), without the people I loved, living in places that were vastly opposite from the accommodations I was used to, trying to do something that was not comfortable for me with people that I didn't know. I lived in towns where, at best, my dining options consisted of KFC, McDonalds, or Sheetz (the local chain of gas stations which, if you are unfamiliar with, is glorious). Wal-Mart was the height of civilization, not to mention the ultimate goal for employment for many of the people in the areas I visited. I drove a 15 passenger van with no air-conditioner down rural country roads, some of which barely resembled roads at all, and saw more trailer homes and houses on the verge of collapse than I ever imagined existed in the United States. I hated being away from my family and friends, hated the lack of decent fruit, hated not seeing the Seattle skyline, hated missing the 4th of July with my roommates, hated the humidity, and hated the job I was given. Miserable, I longed every minute to be home.

Somehow, I still miss West Virginia.

While I was there, I never would have thought that I would long to go back just a few months after I had left. Driving toward the Seattle skyline on my way home from the airport the night I got back, I felt completely at peace and ecstatic to be home again. Eight months later, the relief of home has worn off. My mind is free from the stress of my trip and the joy of return. With my heart relaxed into its normal state, I have discovered that, completely unknowingly, I have left part of it in the hills of West Virginia-- in the very trailers and fields and ramshackle towns that my heart seemed to hate just last summer.

I find myself now longing to see fireflies flitting in and out of the thick darkness of a humid summer night. To see the green of open fields against the blue of a cloudless sky. To have someone tell me to "turn on the only paved road and when you see the boat in the yard you're there." To not be looked at funny when I pronounce "Appalachia" the way my friends there taught me to. To get a swirl cone from the Dairy King. To order my sandwich from the gas pump at Sheetz. To drive across a covered bridge. To see Jan and Ralph and Dougy and Dan and Kim and Kris and Mike. To hear Mike describe how he makes the perfect pepperoni roll. To visit Matt and Betsy, and play with Serena and Mia (oh, my heart misses those girls so deeply...) To watch high schoolers replace a rotted trailer floor. To see my tough Sierra try to act so cool all the time. To hear stories. To see love. To be loved.

How did this happen without me even knowing? And now what do I do?

never-ending ever-changing

I wish my life felt more settled. I want the lack of direction, the constant upheaval, the unpredicatibility of each day to go away. I want to know what is in front of me. I want some sort of sense of comfort back, instead of this feeling of unsettlement that leaves me feeling brittle and hollow. Sometimes, I just want to fast-forward my life to some unknown time where I am content and my life has all fallen into place and I don't have to stress about what the future holds.

I have this idea in my head that such a time exists, but something in me knows that it probably does not. There will probably never be a time where I am completely certain of what life has in store for me. As much as I hate times of transition and uncertainty, I will probably never be free of them. Plans change, people change and come and go, ideas and interests change. There will always be the starting of a job, the leaving of a job, the striving to be better at a job. The birth, death, drama, and joy of family and friends. The transitioning in and out of various and very necessary stages of life. The tension between who I am and who I want to be. 

Comfort is not, and cannot be, a constant in a life of continual learning and growth. Yet to fully experience life, one needs to learn and grow. So how does someone who hates uncertainty and transition so much learn to embrace it simply as a characteristic of living? How do I learn to love being constantly unsettled? Is it possible for me to find beauty in it when it seems that my view of anything has been completely obscured? 

But, maybe, being unable to see what is in front of me forces me to slow down and enjoy everything that is around me. Maybe the key to finding stability in a life of constant change is to find that which is constant and beautiful in every single day.

I don't know. I am far from having any answers. I just know that somehow, I need to get used to not being comfortable and stop wishing for some blissful time that will never come. And right now, I really don't feel strong enough for that. Fortunately though, I have strength that is not my own to take over when mine inevitably succumbs to the stress of life.

Yep.

Once upon a time, I had a blog. It quickly deteriorated into a place where I posted those myspace surveys that I did when I was bored, but never wanted anyone to know that I actually took the time to do them. 

Then life happened. A lot of life happened. And I thought a lot about things... I thought a lot about everything. As it happens, writing helps me think better than just about anything else. So now I have all this stuff that has been rolling around in my head for a while, and nothing to do with it.

Enter the wonders of the blog, once again.

This time, I hope to use it for a more constructive purpose. I think by writing, and that is what you will see here. A lot of thinking. Feel free to share yours with me.