twentytwo

Twentytwo.

When will the numbers stop haunting me?

Twentytwo.

The number of years old he was when he died.

The number of years old I will turn this year.

(can I count to twentythree?)

The number of weeks I have attended church in Seattle.

The number of hangnails I have bitten off my thumbs this month.

I’m avoiding it. You know I’m avoiding it.

The number of months since he died.
I have to say it out loud.

I always wonder why the number gets bigger. I used to count days. Then weeks, now only months. I guess I will soon have to resort to years. I can’t decided if it’s harder or easier that the numbers tick up slower the higher it goes: easier that I don’t have to think about counting so much, harder that the ticks mean much much more time has passed.

“I think I might just be the happiest I have ever been in my life,” I told Laura on a blue and sunny Saturday.

Then I paused, What about Derek?

How could I dare to be (happy) in a world where he is not?

I return to this struggle every time that I begin to settle in to my current life. I become comfortable. I begin to feel as if I have always been here: why wouldn’t I have spent my whole life thus far in Seattle? When I watch children play in the park, I cannot relate to them. I was never that: I was always this—a grown woman, always twenty-something, always independent, always in this city.

It’s so easy to think that way, to erase the whole past. I cannot miss what I do not have if it never was what I thought I had.

This is my first summer in the city, my third summer of life being so different.

201(1)- Summer with Derek: summer of “off-roading” in his spare wheelchair as we tromped through the woods of PA; summer of us spending every night watching Golden Girls and Roseanne and Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza and the like, sitting in his room before putting him to bed; summer of Italy and me being away while he was hospitalized again; summer of cold, air-tight hospital rooms and slumber parties in broken recliner chairs; summer that ended, summer he died.

201(2)- Summer in Waynesburg: summer of Chemistry and walking to class with tea in a green mug; summer of weeding and laying down newspapers and arranging stones; summer of a new family, learning my place, learning fellowship; summer of playing with three daughters, dancing in the living room, running in the grass, catching lightning bugs and walking to the honeysuckle bush; summer of running and fresh herbs from the porch, summer of wine; summer of thunderstorms and porch swings; summer of change, summer of the drive; summer to enter Seattle.

201(3)- Summer of the city: summer of plans and bucket lists; summer of adventure, white water rafting and skydiving and renting canoes; summer of frozen yogurt and Pad Thai; summer of church and community and learning god; summer of work; summer of biking; summer of swimming in every nearest body of water; summer of living six train-tracks away from Puget Sound; summer of Pickle; summer of ambition; summer of…

I do not know what happens next. The solstice just crossed a week ago; the whole summer lays ahead.

Can it all be so good?

Joan Didion calls mourning “the act of dealing with grief.”

Can I lay down the mourning to let the good happen? Can mourning and joy happen simultaneously?

I’m done pretending that I can see the “good” in all of this: that I could ever understand that there was a reason that he had to die just then and in that way, that I could ever believe that Providence has some divine plan to use this instance for good in my life.

Since moving here, I have detailed the ways that this is right for me (I still believe so), but I cannot pretend to attribute it to Derek’s death. I cannot know why things happened this way. Is that denying “evidence of God’s grace”? I simply cannot think that I know why.

I’m sure I’ve written this before, but I need it here (I’ll sum):

He told me he didn’t want to go out. His hips hurt. He didn’t want to leave the house, too much effort. I told him he had to go. #1 it was my last night in America for the next two months; we had big plans #2 there would be no pain if he was having fun; didn’t we always go out and do something so great that he forgot that he was even hurting? Yes. We went out. We had fun. He forgot that his hips hurt until he was nearly in bed, and he smiled. No pain + a beautiful evening.

Why is it so easy to force someone else into a good time, to go out, to just forget about the aching and be? Just be without worry or guilt or pain. But I cannot do it to myself.

I try, but that is what creates the moment of pause: he is not here to feed my own words back to me. He is not here for me to toss a smile to at day’s end, for me to say “You were right; I am happy.”

But maybe, even if he were, he would say he knows me better than that—that I would always pause, always worry, always try to fix what I cannot change.

Even after all of this, I cannot help but believe that some of life’s greatest joys can only come after the greatest sorrows: morning after the night. 

testimony

This is why God moved me to the edges of Puget Sound. I needed the waves I never knew existed.

My faith is the tide with seasons of high and low—belief and unbelief. I find that I am the conch on the shore, listening to the echoing within and thinking the waves are my own doing, not reflective of the real waves without. My childhood baptism was a mist: the leftover spray of the water after a steep splash against the true, strong rocks before me.

I am no one. I am not set on solid ground but am sinking and rising in the bubbling sand, pushed and nudged by crabs in low tide. The ticking of their pointed arms, the empty timelessness of dry periods: no god in sight.

But the tide always comes back. Before long, I again find myself in the search. I begin to doubt that I may be the sole source of the whooshing waves. Slowly, the water tickles the edges of the shell in brief breaths of salty wet. I seek. I seek the next breath, the next stain of salt, until finally, it inundates me in high tide, the water rolling over me in full glee. Sometimes it lasts, twirling me about in its flow, sending me deeper in the pull.

It may stay. It may hold me in the depths, or even a shallow tide pool, for weeks, months. I can feel it, the pale softening of my hard exterior, the search becoming a change; the change becoming my life.

Yet it never seems to fully last. My faith in the tides, that they will come again, is just true to the former: surely, they will sink back into the sea. I only wonder: once my shell is eroded all to sand, will I be the sun-burnt beach, wishing for the tide, or will I be the ocean floor, spinning in the cool light of the sun’s reflection on the water’s life?

identity

An excerpt from my memoir in-progress:

I’ve spent so much time defining myself through other people—my sister, ex-boyfriends, and most recently, Derek. After the funeral, Derek’s step-brother whispered to his wife, “How can you look at Natalie and not see Derek?” I want to know how to look at Natalie and see Natalie at all.

This segment has been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve been redefining my life here in Seattle. Particularly, though, it came to mind on Sunday. I was talking with one of the church deacons about, oh you know, light stuff like heaven and hell. He said, “When you die, what would you say to God as to why you should go to heaven?” I said I didn’t know. He told me about how it’s not by any merit of our own but that Jesus is reflected in our lives—God sees Jesus in us, and we can say I’m with him.

It’s rather beautiful because were it up to me, I would never make it. If only I could find a way to actually believe, but I kind of feel like nothing is up to me at this point.

I keep reaching moments, moments driven by emotion, where all I can think is I could believe right now! Then I put it into perspective: it’s not endurance; it’s a peak that won’t last. When I leave church or the park or wherever I am feeling so close to God, my life will go back to long doubts and endless questioning.

And I can’t help but think of the snake-handlers when I feel that way, like sure, I could pick up a snake right now, wooohooooo! but in a moment, it will see that I am not all in all the time, and it will bite.

Mostly, I have some sense that it’s not right or I’m not ready (we’re back on faith; no more snakes). I’m kind of afraid of commitment. We talk a lot about the endurance of faith, and I’m still just trying to endure through my lack of faith in hopes of one day reaching faith.

“…no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:3

If Seattle were Florence

As I walked into my apartment today, an Italian man on the street said to me, “I like your tattoo. I like your green sandals. I like your sexy feet. I like it all.” I rolled my eyes, said “Grazie” and gave a nonchalant wave. –blog, July 9, 2011

The streets smelt of Italy today. I could sense it in the breeze and the crooked alleys with cobblestones and the drinking fountains. I could breathe it in the humidity and the sun. Florence.

But it’s just Seattle. We had a fun ladies’ afternoon: out for lunch after church, then adventures at the Goodwill Outlet. Are you ready for this? Pay per pound of items. They just have giant bins and you dig through and take what you want, weigh it, and you’re good to go with an armful of gems and only a slightly lighter pocketbook. I managed to get 3 tops, a pair of shorts, a dress for work, a sweatshirt with a cow on it (which I will turn into a pillow), a faux-leather hipster backpack, and a wine rack for $9. No joke.

Regardless, my gems were much harder to find. The ladies I went with are all small and beautiful and thin. They fit into everything and made even the crazy sweaters look like a piece of art, whereas on me, it would look like a lump. I sat and watched after I tried on my few, watching them sort through the dresses and pants. (I go crazy when people get upset because something is too big, but I tried to smile through it.) Regardless, I supported them in their cute fashions, and we were on our way.

When we got home, I took Pickle out for a walk. Fresh air. We walked along the bridge. Right at the peak, a man was walking towards us on the “wrong side” of the bridge. I started crossing to the left (wasn’t up for a game of chicken; maybe it had something to do with the fact that this guy was carrying a bicycle on his shoulders).

The man was shirtless. His pants hung along his low, manly hipbones, exposing those diagonal abdomen lines that men (whose haven’t been gobbled up by beer bellies) apparently love to taunt. I tried not to look and focused on Pickle.

Just as we began to pass him, he said in a very thick accent, “Dat iz a coot dog!” I smiled thank you and kept walking, but just as our backs were towards each other, he quickly added over his shoulder, “Andyourebeautifulaswell,” his accent much less apparent.

Sometimes, when you’re feeling bad about yourself but reminiscing about a place you miss and feeling like if you closed your eyes and took a deep breath you’d be there, just sometimes, the right moment happens, and you get transported back for half a second, just long enough to remember green sandals and sexy feet and just how much some stranger in the world (make that two) “likes it all.” 

Yes, I am that dog person

Puppy celebration: 2 and a half months

Day One

Saturday

Swimming with friends!

 Manymany puppy snoozes

Filtered

Puppy kisses!

Just plain adorable

Don't worry; it's not adorable and snuggly all the time, but that's all we'll talk about for now (:

books and plans and HOPE

“Are we…dead?” I asked Laura as we smoothly rose upwards.

“Because this is ‘heaven’?” she responded.

“I sure hope heaven is a lime green escalator in a giant room of books with sunshine as we rise into clouds,” I mused.

You’ll never guess it—we were in the Seattle Public Library downtown for the first time. After promptly picking up our “Discovery” library cards, we took to the escalators to explore the block-wide building of windows, books, and steel.

 Like teenagers getting their drivers’ licenses for the first time, we giggled and held our new library cards in awe.

We spent the afternoon sitting on the top floor, gazing out of skylights and writing at the tall desks on square stools. Laura dropped her pen, and we both looked down at it. “It’s so far!”

Two letters and two postcards later, we started towards home again, managing not to check out any items with our library cards.

I’ve been thinking a lot about timing—how right it feels to be in Seattle. Even something as simple as going to the library can feel like just what I’m supposed to be doing. Yet I have no plans. Sure, we have events going on this summer to attend. We have the usual cadence of community and DG and all. But I have no plans.

I used to have plans. I used to have it all figured out. At any point in time, I could pull up a Word doc that listed out my five-year plan. In college, it was always, these are the classes I am going to take or these are the clubs I am going to run. I’ve finally reached a point where I have no idea what the next five years will bring.

I used to want things: to get an MFA, to have a boyfriend, to have a designated place that felt like “home,” to travel internationally often…the list goes on. Of course I still want it all. I will never stop aspiring to be all that I can and do all that I can and absorb all that I can.

But I am learning that life comes in seasons. The weather is not in our hands.

By some mystery, I have been pulled to this small (feels so now, anyways) city on the West coast, and I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. Not even my childhood dream, not even Arizona.

When I think about how much I love this city, I start to question: could I ever actually leave here? I can’t say I’ve ever actually wanted to stay in a particular place. I’ve always been gogogo; where to next? (I’m not sure this is entirely accurate, considering I’ve always lived in PA until now, but it feels so in some way.) When I moved here, it was with the intent that I would stay a year and then move on to somewhere else. Since my whole one-year plan was tossed out the window within two or three weeks of moving here, every new step has been a blessed surprise.

So maybe I won’t be going to grad school in Pittsburgh or Missoula or Tucson anytime soon. Maybe I won’t even be leaving Washington in the foreseeable future. Maybe I won’t get to go to Europe or Asia in the coming years. Maybe Pickle & I won’t ever get to spend a year in France.

I’m learning to accept that timing is perfect, and we must go where we are called, even if we don’t know why we are going there or what epiphany may follow a loud boom in the middle of the night on a weekend alone in a big red, creaky house.

So I have no plans because I do not know where I will be called next. And I might not know for sometime. And I might not know until just then, just before I am to go.

Until then, I will live actively and with intention. Until then, I can only have HOPE.