What's the word for...?

I decided that my life this year could be summed up quite well(though not perfectly) in a series of words and one-line anecdotes. Here goes.


Bliss: New Year's Eve in Rome, eating gnocci in Pisa, and finally meeting my family in Montalenghe.

Vision: Working on Skid Row and realizing that I can make a difference.

Pursuit: Sitting in the squadroom with Tim and Craig, diligently preparing for our IR final (well, and rocking out to the Doobie Brothers and Lucky Boys Confusion...)

Abandon: While I wasn't pursuing academic excellence or something like it, I was playing pretty darn hard with some awesome international kids. Finals week was beautiful.

Relief: Dancing barefoot across the stage and shaking hands with Jon Wallace.

Faith: Trusting God with life after graduation. And life after the summer after graduation.

Teamwork: Swimming the giant log across the Volga with the "men". No one will ever understand how great a moment that was...

Humbleness: Anya, Sasha, and Cola showed me every note I'd written for them last year, and every picture I'd sent, clearly loved and treasured. Anya remembered the very moment we met (I desprately needed to pee but was having a great deal of trouble saying "gdyeh tualyet?" She was one of the dozen wide-eyed faces who eagerly helped me.)

Togetherness: Wandering through Talinn, Estonia till 2 am with my fellow "men", watching the World Cup from the pub, and making memories of which the photos only give glimpes.

Heartache: Kissing my girls goodbye (behind the porta-potty at 4 am...we don't do normal folks), and watching them wave from the fence knowing that I was probably leaving for the last time. And biting back the tears but finding it impossible.

Devotion: The rest of my trip through Germany and Belgium with Bekah, making memories and sharing our lives.

Frustration: 3 days of hell in Seattle, and not having the clarity of mind to make sense of it or the energy to even to make it end. God forgive me for this...

Release: Best described in our all-out, caution-to-the-wind wild night in Vegas with the Kenyans. Power to the girls who party. God forgive me for this too...

Solitude: Sitting on the roof of my parents house till 6:30 am, trying to find peace with all my memories of the summer.

Defiance: Taking naughty pictures in mine (and other's) underwear, always over my clothes but notheless revealing of certain sides of me. No, you may not see them.

Comfort: Living with my favorite females (Allison and Mary) for a month and all the cuddle time and talks, and alcholic beverages we shared... they are amazing women and I will miss them dearly.

Responsibility: Learning to take it, make my own decisions, and have the kind of maturity not to lose my head. We'll see how this goes after I complete the process and move to Chicago.

Gratefulness: Christmas Eve, spending the morning with my thoughts and the day with my family.

Surrender: Understanding that I can't change anyone, but it doesn't have to stop me from loving them, if I can muster the courage and strength.

Dedication: What I hope to have as I begin this new year and new adverture, and always have towards my friends and family near and far on matter what the circumstance may be.

Running to stand still?

I feel like a ran a marathon yesterday. A social marathon. It's been a whole week of that actually. Maybe even a whole month.

It was the best day.

Of course I tried to add just a pinch of "fuck-up" to it the minute I got home, but that's typical and I've decided to stop counting the things I do while I'm half-asleep.

I just realized that I'm preparing to leave like I'm never coming back. I'm trying to steal each and every moment and take from it everything I want, strip it and paste it in my mental photo album. I haven't stopped to say the things to people that I actually need to say -- the difficult things, or the things that require being well thought out in order not to sound contrite.

My life is such a whirlwind. Which is why from the moment I woke up today I decided to stick out my hand and scream "STOP!". And I made the morning wait for me.

But it won't wait forever. This day is waiting to see what I will make of it, and if I will remember to be genuinely grateful.

I feel refreshed.

Heart-stringed symphonies

In love there is too much leaving. In love there are too many contradictions.

I pressed my lips onto one page after another. One more sentence and one more smile until the words find enough air to come alive again. I want the moment to live again because I put a part of me between those pages so now I feel so disconnected from a place I wanted to call home. I loved and I lost and I keep losing. But I keep loving too.

My only complaint is only that love is unfair and time much too cruel a judge of the violations and imperfections of love. As gratefulness that it begun we must graciously accept that it also must end. That we are discontented at its ending is a reminder that we were meant for a life beyond time.

Giving thanks a new meaning....

You're so beautiful. You take my breath away without even opening your eyes. I miss those kisses in the darkness and the way you wrote your name after "I love you". But I hated the way I felt when my hands were empty, and only a thousand accusing eyes met mine as I tried to find an answer, as to why what we had was good enough to break all the rules.

I'm truly thankful for all of it. I'm thankful for the ugliest moments in my life. And I'm thankful for all that you took away. It's a odd thing to say, that one is thankful for shame, emptiness, and agony; and guilt, doubt and suffering. But what would I be without it? Without you? I'd be a girl with eyes on the ground, who never found the courage to stare life down and say what had to be said. For what I am today because of you, that is my reason for not forsaking who I've been. Imperfection needs improvement, undoubtedly...but my imperfection was my motivation. I hope it still is my motivation. Thank you for all I do not have, do not know, and will not ever be.

Let us inspire each other even in our weakness. Finding the edge of everything defines us, and gives us room to grow. I did not treat you the way I should have. I couldn't love the way I wanted too. But hear in my apology a sincere eagerness for a second chance. Maybe we'll even stop pretending and let broken, contrite hearts spin the world.

Paved Paradise

Cowboys want to date me.

"I reckon it's because you're the smartest prettiest thing they've seen around Montrose for quite some time, but don't you worry I got a good shotgun, we'll keep those troublesome boys away."

I love my uncle. And the thought of him chasing my spur-toting prospective suitors down the gravel driveway with a shotgun about doubles me with laughter.

Can I take him home with me to California? Can he bring the shotgun? Ok, I'm not quite that bitter at the male race, really. :)

I need an imaginary boyfriend. My aunt has come up with some pretty great ideas for one.

That's actually not what I wanted to write, but it was the amusing story of the day.


Deep breath. Here goes.


I turned right unto Tessitore Ln. Alpine Bank. Big blue letters. A sparkling new building behind it, with strikingly modern architecture for this little Western town. But as I pulled the truck behind the bank, passing customers pulling out, I saw the big open field left bare with weeds, all the way to the brand new log fence at the edge of the creek.

It's a waste of land, some would say. This only half-used lot bought by some too-big-for-his-britches investment professional from Denver or Dallas who knew he only needed a half-acre, but didn't care because land is dirt cheap out here and he's got plently of money to throw around.

It's a 7-acre lot. I would know. I've walked very inch of it. I can point to a spot - now somewhere about the middle of the parking lot, that used to be the very best garden in the whole state.

To them it's a peice of land and a bank.

To me, it's a garage with butterflies on it, a big green chair, brown-and-orange flowery curtains in the kitchen window, and morning glories that grew up the clothesline.

To me it's a willow tree and a stack of old tin buckets. It's catching snakes in the irrigation ditch and floating leaf boats through it. It's curling up behind that old green chair after coming in from the snow to warm up by the coal furnace, listening to grandpa scraping up more coal down in the basement to make sure we were all warm enough all night long.

It was breaking icicles off the drain pipe over back porch. It was running across the field from Cedar creek past the chicken coups and opening the squeeky gate with the wire-pull latch. It was eating grandma's soup out of her brown china bowls. It was that speckled floor that now matter how much you spilled, always hid the dirt. It was wearing that old red aporn and helping grandma need bread dough. It was trying to sneak past grandpa napping in his chair but secretly hoping he'd reach out with his long arms and pull me up into his lap and tell me a story. It was watching "The Price is Right" every saturday morning.

It's my childhood.

And now it's a bank and a parking lot. With eerily familar surroundings. And a street named after my family.

Things change, I can accept that. I'm not a little girl and my grandparents aren't alive anymore. But I guess until I saw it with my own eyes, I always thought we left the whole world on the front step when grandma called us for dinner, and that tiny little orange house with the butterflies on the garage door was paradise. And it was.

But it a sadly cliche sentence, they put up a parking lot.

unfinished thoughts

I'm finding answers before I can, or even care to, formulate the questions. They are jumping to catch me, but if I grab them then I don't know where to put them, so I let them go and stare at my hand. And still I ask the questions that the answers posed made me think of, because the truth is difficult. It lives like I do. Jesus lives. It has a personality, you might say. It hides like I do. It avoids being completely known. It slips out of my grasp. God why can't I know you? The reversal of this question, posed from God to me puts it in a different light. Imagine if God asks why He couldn't know me. What would my answer be?

Maybe in humanity knowing and loving fight over the mind's attention, and dangling between them are learning and living. He knows me and loves me, that is the divine miracle. To be Christ-like then is to let truth beat and torment and crucify you, but to conquer it with love.

Paradoxy thrills and enchants and frustrates and agonizes me. In my deepest moments of righteous depression, I find an ironic peace in believing resolutely that this is how it should be.

Jesus gave sight to the blind, but obscured the truth from those who think they see it. Just enough hope to live on, just enough confusion to stay humble. Give us this day Lord, our daily bread.

So which is it? I want my fortune cookie answer so I can go on living the same way with a cuter phrase on the end of my tongue.


Which are you: wise or foolish?
Wise.
Then you are a fool, for you are proud.
No, then foolish.
Then you are a fool. You said so yourself.


Pride presumes and oversteps... making us inconsistent, dishonest...making all that is visible the ugliness of human nature. When I am most sure, I am most vulnerable and likely to fall. But what price to pay to try and step boldly into the world? Can I presume to bring forth anything or will my efforts prove another courageous but pointless stand to disappear into a flash of insignificance? I don't want to know if the world is worthy of my suffering, but if my suffering is worthy enough to take on the world.

My most enchanting thought was also best phrased by Pascal:

"It is superstition to put one's hope in formalities; but it is pride to be unwilling to submit to them." --Pascal

What needs to be changed first Lord? The cruelity and injustice in the world or the way that I preceive it, measure it, and judge it?

These are unfinished thoughts.

meaningful distraction

He tells me that I am beautiful.

Sometimes I don't like it because who the hell cares if I am beautiful when the world is falling apart. But sometimes I close my eyes and let him touch my face, because he really likes that.

And sometimes I say to hell with it all. And I look at him with big eyes. But that isn't love, either.

He's my distraction.

It's the world's distraction...at least this is my theory. If we could love without needing to love, I bet then we could change the world.

At least, it's a nice thought when I am lonely.

nuclear sunrise (when i won't settle for answers)

My eyes adjust to the light breaking over the valley, but my heart burns without a shield. The world I know tries to tear itself apart at the seams, and all I can do is sigh.

I spent most of the night up here - restless, listless, bored, patient...listening. I brought my laptop onto the roof. What kind of freak takes a laptop to a rooftop. I do, my friends, I do.

It's barely pink now, but I can see it growing ruddier, until it will burst into flame.

A world of scheming and incompetence. A world where those who decieve best make it the farthest, and where no one really expects or fights for the truth. The sorry thing is I don't, either.

I feel like I'm in that scene from V for Vendetta where he orchestrates a fantastic array of explosions to bring down the tower of a corrupted government. Except there is no tower on my horizon. And I'm too tired right now to wake up the world. It's sleeping here right now, though far away, beyond the horizon my eyes can see, schemes unfold with busy hands. It's beyond what I can do right now.

As a girl who always thought that God moves actively in the world, I have a lot to question these days. The best family I've ever known struggles with a ugly, horrific disease and their beautiful example of marriage cannot save it from taking him away from her. What merits redemption Lord? Forgive me if I do not clearly understand why punishment and consequence and chance look so much alike.

For the Highest Authority, this world looks so dismal and bleak. Why did you create it only to let it destroy itself? Why when Moses pled with you did you redeem them? You turned your back on Sodom and Gommorrah, and that I can understand...but what is different today? It's a puzzle to me Lord, so if you are working today, I cannot have any idea what you will do next.

You remind me that I do know one way you work...through eagerly, loving hands that reach out to your people in need, through active minds that though they struggle, delve into your word and run with the messages of service and perseverance that you make very clear.

What's wrong, couldn't you stay awake for one hour? I hear you Lord, but my focus is poor. I am in a place now where I can do good things for the world, but I still feel incapable. What good am I? I fight the self-doubt, struggle to find direction. This struggle may be good for me but I am impatient and feel worthless until I am able to do something good for someone else.

When is it enough? Not enough to make me feel better, not enough to quit...but enough to please you, enough to fulfill the purpose you set for me? Ok, and enough to not be a failure in your eyes, the way I feel in mine.

finding reality in scattered bits

i think i'll write, and write, and write. Write until the jet-lag surrenders to the exhaustion. Write until it's nonsense, write until it can all escape like a sigh from smoke-filled lungs. It won't take long to reach nonsense, for most of it will always be nonsense to the one not holding my hand by the Volga, or the one who didn't watch the midnight sunset from the Tallinn port beside me. Even then, this trip has taught me a comforting loneliness of fully understanding that no one will ever completely understand.

Love is all. A simple line written by my teammate. It keeps coming back into my head as I think about this trip. The whole trip, not just Russia. Patience. Peace. Wisdom. Intelligence. Courage. Simplicity. Charm. Perspective. Horror. Guilt. Oppression. Laziness. So many themes I thought about in the last month. So many things I want to bring home besides the 2 kilos of chocolate and a few hundred digital photos. But nothing without love. Love is all.

It's even harder here in stagnacy. In a world that didn't change much since the day I left it last. The ever changing landscape of my trip is the most foreign thing to them, still plodding along with the best-laid plans or at least a sense of normalicy in chaos, or purposeless existence. I can't expect more out of them, as surely as I will be disappointed in myself some days.

"All thing are working for good." Said the Lebanese woman to me in the airport.
"Peace go with you." My answer was the tears behind my eyes.

They all scream for freedom and something better. I did, too. Isn't that what I set out to find? Instead I found misery, but strangely not my own, but one I wanted to feel - for misery was far better than loneliness, and feeling their pain gives me purpose. Love is never separated from pain. Bliss is never known without first the wish to die (Count of Monte Cristo).

Maybe it's too much to say that I feel their pain, because I cannot. I am, as always, an unfeeling mass of crumbled thoughts that occassionally slips out a tear for those who have touched me. But to reach out and touch, that is what I haven't learned. She touched me. The woman in the airport. The girl by the Volga. They touched me. Their 8-yr-olds waving flags and shouting "Peace for Lebanon!"

I swam in the river. I ran though the forest. I climbed the castle and waded in the sea. It was all beautiful, and it will always welcome me for rest. But my life is here, in the eyes of color, in the sweat and the dirt. In the city, in humanity, and in suffering. I want nothing else. I want what is unwanted, because I've seen everything else, and all it cannot offer, and beauty will not suffice.

If nothing else, I hope I learned to love with my mind, not just with feeble emotions.

There is a time for everything, and now is a time for sleep.

a fork ...

I graduated!

Wow. It's not sinking in yet.

SO much.

I left.

I found a plastic fork in my last few moments on west campus.

I kept it.

I have so many choices.

I'm not leaving because I'm done, but because I'm beginning.

warning: the space between "in" and "sanity" has been removed

11 days, but so much to do. But this is it, the end of this story. The end of four years. I don't know how to process all of this yet. I wonder if it will all flash before my eyes when I walk across the stage.

What do I hope I've learned? I hope I've learned to be faithful. I hope I've learned how to respect. I hope I've learned to pay attention, to examine everything. I hope I've learned to love, better and deeper. I hope I've learned the difference between discernment and judging, insight and insult.

It's an emotional roller coster inside my head right now. The headlines on the news ticker of my brain scream "Finish Well!", "What Does It Matter Anyway?" and "What Next?"

I've been working hard and playing hard. I hope I won't have any regrets. I just rolled with it. That's who I am. Am I satisfied?

To be honest, I don't know.

because everyone needs an emo-graph

it's bliss in tiny droplet-sized doses

heaven sent kisses. they hang in the cool night air waiting to caress the cheek of one who ventures out.

coming inside felt like leaving a lover. at least I got a goodnight kiss.