roads to go

We always walked wherever we needed to go--mainly because the only place we went was to Derek's house, but the notion of "see you in five" has swooped back into my adulthood. I feel twelve again--no car, nowhere important to drive to, yet most of my friends are within a ten minute walk in almost any direction, so when we make plans, it's a simple "see you in five" conversation.

 I have mixed feelings about the whole concept--I love the ability to walk out the door and be with people so soon, yet the thought of living in such a small radius when there is a whole world out there frustrates me.

 Tomorrow, I board a plane for Atlanta. I'm going to a conference for work, and while a few months ago, I was excited--excited by thought of "travelling for work", of visiting a new city, of feeling like I'm "going somewhere", as I procrastinate trip prep, I'm rather saddened by the thought of it all: leaving my dog, leaving my friends, leaving at what always feels like the least convenient time, even though there really isn't anything to hold me back.

 Maybe that's what keeps people living in the same place for years and years or going back to the places they grew up. Are we all just bodies in search of "home"? I recognize that some people were born to travel; they live for seeing the world and never settling down in one place. I thought I could be one of them, but the longer I stay in Seattle, the more it seems I'm supposed to really be here, stay here. I could explore this area for the rest of my life and still not see it all, I think.

And yet, does the notion of "putting down roots" mean anything in a world that is so dynamic, in a market that keeps all residents unsure of where they'll call home for the next year or two?

end of day

“The sun rises, & the sun goes down, & it hastens to the place where it rises.” – Ecclesiastes 1:5

When I get into bed each night, the lists try to gobble me up—all of the things I didn’t do; all of the new things to do tomorrow. Like counting sheep, I track on my fingers what I didn’t write down, what I must remember, what has to get done. When I wake up, I do the same. Lists have become my prayers, and they empty me.

When I really do pray, it feels empty—my heart & mind consumed by the jumble of shit yet to happen; it weighs on me & steals my thoughts. I usually stop praying mid-sentence & with, “That’s all I have” or “I just can’t talk anymore”.

Why am I wordless when it comes to God, yet the words do not stop within me?

It’s not just God—I’ve been void of words in general. It has taken a struggling force to get myself to write these days. I feel the pull, yet I cannot get the words out. They are in my head, but they refuse to touch the page.

I wonder if people had so much on their minds when they called it a night in biblical times. I also think of the Amish: rising & lying down with the sun. Are they all so anxious to get to bed and disappear for a while? Does the unending to-do list weigh on them like the hope of one day getting it all done?

I like to imagine that days came to a peaceful close for them: what’s done is done.

Even as a child, my nighttime mind was restless. I’ve probably spent more time tossing & turning over thoughts than I have actually sleeping in my bed—the words, the work, the uncertainty are the single pea under my mattress. All of the “but I didn’t do”s and the “I never got around to”s make my whole self restless.

Yet we are called to work until we return to dust. What are the fruits of my labor?

“Even in the night, his heart does not rest.” – Ecclesiastes 2:23

Literally & figuratively, the heart does not rest, even at night. We are filled. With what? Data, words, questions, doubts, love, empathy, emotion, plans. All of the worry and wonder feels more real once time is up at end of day.

Yet the sun hastens to return, and the lists and concerns will be waiting, & as best said by the Weepies: the world spins madly on.

the five-year plan

My new job has been a challenge. I’ve always been one to accept a challenge, but as I talked with some ladies at church about careers and God and what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives and how that compares with what we are doing, I realized that I have no idea what I’m doing. Actually, that realization hits me in the face every day.

I think it started when one of my friends mentioned that she wanted to look for a job where she felt challenged. My first thought was, “I would like my next job to not be a challenge.” Then I stopped and let that sink in: it isn’t true; I only want to believe it’s true as a mental escape from the current untamable busyness that is my day-to-day. I think that’s an okay place to be.

I’m nearly two months into my new role, and just today, I had that “aha” moment of how what I do now is different from what I did before. The whole dynamics have changed, and it was a necessary shift in order to effectively do my job. Let’s face it: deep down, I enjoy what I am currently doing, BUT it is hard. Duh. I admit, I’ve had several breakdowns on-the-job where I just caved in to feeling inadequate or overwhelmed. It’s like training for a marathon: you have to start with the short runs, and you’re going to get blisters before you achieve a sustained pace.

Feeling humbled by the “aha” moment, I told my manager about it. She added to my feeling-like-I-am-where-I-belong joy by telling me that I’m getting a career coach—a professional coach who I can ask anything about careers, skills, the corporate world, what’s next: anything. The doors to opportunity are opening; will I be able to step inside?

At work, I tend to be shy and lack confidence. Today, I had my first mentoring session, yet another moment of me realizing just how much I have to learn. I think my first month on the job was me pretending to be totally confident so that I could prove that they hired the right person. My second month is now me realizing that I have so much to grow on and so much to learn, and I need to be open to taking it all in.

It’s much harder than it sounds.

In the session, my mentor explained how to best network within the company. As she spoke, a tiny fear crept up my chest, just thinking about having to talk to strangers. Even though we work on the same team, this was the first real conversation my mentor and I had even had, and we had a pretty awkward elevator ride to the coffee shop. Even then, she talked most of the time. I need to learn to shake the awkward, inverted shyness and become a conversationalist. Maybe that’s something for the career coach.

Every day, I wake up shocked that I work where I do. Blessed but shocked. Also, every day, I realize that I have no idea what I am doing presently and furthermore have no idea what my 5-year plan looks like.

I’ve always had a 5-year plan. Now, I have ideas or speculations, even, of what I’d like to do, but I’m not certain that they are things I want to achieve…plans change…It’s not that I want to leave, it’s just that I’m always planning, but it feels weird because I took this job for the people; I spent months at my last job imagining a new job, now I have it—the dream job, and it’s not where I thought I’d be, but it is what I want right now, but it’s not the long-term solution, so how do I prepare for the future, for what’s next without losing contentment for where I am?

an encouragement to writers (I think)

I get into these moods where I suddenly think that I don’t need sleep because my life should be spent reading and writing and learning instead of sitting idle in bed. I guess it’s more of a season than a mood because it lasts a bit longer and tends to happen after Daylight Savings, when the days get just little longer, and I start to think that I can be everything at once.

I’ll come home from work and explore the outside world: walking the dog, going to the park, watching the dusk, sitting on the rocks watching the shore. And when I come in, I suddenly find that I have a whole evening to spend as I please—read, write, & repeat.

Somehow, I constantly seem to be simultaneously reading 5-8 books at a time. I keep, well, multiple books of poetry on my nightstand as well as a solid novel to trudge through a little at a time. My purse has a Kindle plus a paperback, always. Literary journals are scattered over my apartment—on the windowsill, on the back of the toilet, on the tv stand. As are Bibles. And journals, notebooks, and Post-Its. This sounds very scattered, but I like to think it’s an organized chaos such that a visitor wouldn’t notice how frantic my attempts at intellectuality really are.

The most clutter at my apartment is on my bookshelves, and I like it that way. They are overflowing, yet I never seem to have enough. It’s like how they say when you pull out one hair, three more grow in its place—when I read one book, well, you can finish the rest. Sometimes I scan the shelves for the books I haven’t read and I wonder if I will get to read them all in my life. I think of my Grandpap, who has read all of his books, many multiple times through. I hope I can do the same, though I don’t think I’ll ever catch up. I’m still not through the Classics let alone reading books from present-day.

Then there’s writing. If I spend all of my time reading, when will I write? When will I do things to write about? It’s a very amusing circuit of constant discomfort: not reading enough, not writing enough, not living enough.

I do believe this to simply be the nature of the writer’s life: nothing satisfies. Even when we think it does, like having time to write, the words are all wrong, and we feel just as unsatisfied as if we hadn’t written at all.

I used to be single-minded: one book at a time, one poem at a time, one post at a time. Now I find that I am reading more than I can comprehend, writing such random things that I have half-poems and lost paragraphs in scattered documents on my computer’s desktop (just tonight I’ve started and not nearly made sense of three different pieces), random notes on my phone, computer, and Post-Its that haven’t made it to my notebook, and I am wondering why I ever thought I needed sleep to begin with.

There came a time last summer when I decided 5 hours of sleep was plenty for a young woman. I created a pattern of what I would read when and what I would write when. I actually woke up at 5am to read the Bible then force myself into poetry. I was coming out of a long season of not writing a single poem for months on end, and I was desperate to write something. Since winter, I’ve become a bit of a bear, soaking in all the sleep I can with the long dark nights; summer leaves no excuse for sleep.

I do this a lot—force myself into patterns that I pray will become daily rituals but usually whither after a few months. I suppose I’m doing so now with my new-found motivation, but I will always pray that the muses would keep me company even when I don’t feel like thinking let alone putting thought to paper.

Just now, I turned to stare at my bookshelf as I waited for the next sentence, actually more like wondering why I am even writing these (I guess I’m documenting these words as encouragement for when this season ends or returns; I’ll need reminded.)  My bookshelves say: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, no, no, yes…tallying which books I’ve read vs. haven’t. I do this frequently. When I finally decided to “invest” in a second bookshelf, I told my then-roommate that I thought I had finally reached a point where the number of books on my shelf I had read out numbered those I hadn’t. Time for more books, I thought. Got to keep the balance in-flux.

The funny thing is, there are some books I have that I can’t imagine ever reading, but they have sentimental value, and who knows? Maybe someday I will. Like No Latitude for Error by Sir Edmond Hilary. As a sprouting teen, I thought I would, but now I realize that I simply hold onto it because it is the only book I have autographed (I despise autographed things), but this one is different because: 1) of Hilary’s accomplishments 2) because the book was my dad’s dad’s and then my dad’s and now mine. It has its own lineage and lives on the same shelves it has for many years now, shelves my dad built when he was in high school.

I guess it’s all a bit of idolatry. Sometimes I ponder the point of learning if we all end up in the ground anyways. A bit morbid, I know, but with how easy it has become to publish your own books and send them off for no one to read makes me uneasy. Like anyone is a writer now just because they can get published. Not that I don’t think anyone could be a writer. I just think there is a distinction between a writer and an author, and people desperate to get published get those confused and rush into becoming a title on a shelf instead of an impact in the hearts and minds of readers. (At Barnes & Noble, the cashier asked me to sign the receipt; I told him I’d rather be signing a book; he asked if I was an author. No, I said, I’m a writer.) And the people who confuse the two and skip straight to author try to escape what I’m going through right now—the ebbing seasons of the writer’s life: the hypnotic chaos of feeling inadequate, then motivated; accomplished, then purposeless.

An artist does not choose this—it is simply in his blood, his being, his life and work. There is no joy without it and limited joy with it. But there is hope.

1observation:1encounter

It used to take me a long time to write. I would need to set aside three hours to write a one-page journal entry. Now that I have a puppy, I need to set aside five hours for two paragraphs.

On the bus this morning, your average middle-aged man got on and sat next to me. He said thank you, although I hadn’t done anything.

“I like your hair. Beautiful.” Strange because I also hadn’t done anything to my hair.

I mumbled thanks with a small smile and pretended to read something on my phone because, admittedly, I was a little creeped out.

The bus was hot, and I had my sleeves rolled up. As I stood to get off at my stop, the man looked at my arm, disapprovingly, “Are you kidding me?! Tattoos?!”

Seems like as soon as I get to the Eastside, my tattoos make me an outcast, regardless of long sleeves all summer. 

my Charles Wallace

I just finished reading through A Wrinkle in Time Trilogy. As I moved pagepagepage through each book, I found myself hanging on to pieces of the previous. I hung on to the magic in A Wrinkle in Time and the way that it awakened my imagination, poking at the long unused sections of my brain like the soft and gushy meat in the grocery fridge.

(Vegan aside: despite my meat-free diet, I have never been able to help myself when passing the vacuum-sealed meat in the grocery. My mom always told me not to touch, but it was so squishy and unfamiliar--and to think of its source! And how different it looks cooked. And that somewhere inside us, in a different, but similar, form, we are that!)

I'm still hanging on A Wind in the Door. Charles Wallace is to Meg what Derek is to me. My brother. We could kythe (a form of telepathy in the book) and understand each other in ways that others couldn't. We knew each other's needs without saying them out loud. In this second book in the series, Charles Wallace becomes quite ill, his lungs weakening, the farandola failing to "deepen". All along, all that I wanted was to become Meg, to be taken under the literal wing of a cherubim and delve into Derek's being and encourage his muscle cells to keep fighting the Echthroi, convince them to deepen.

Part of me wanted Charles Wallace to die in the book. I wanted there to be some realism to the fantasy. I wanted to know that even if I could have done the impossible, things would have still happened this way.



On Friday, I fell asleep on the bus. I had gotten up at 4:30am to go to work early, which ended up being much earlier than I anticipated because as I got ready, I soon realized that getting up at 4:30 was ridiculously unnecessary to catch the bus. I arrived promptly at 6:40, and counted down the hours until I could go back to bed.

At 3:30, I made my way home. I sat, book in lap, trying to finish A Wind in the Door when I nodded off. I awoke suddenly. A few seats over, a man was staring at me. I tried to shake off the sleep but couldn't keep my head up. At each stop, my eyes jumped out the window to catch the name of the bus station. I managed to not miss my transfer, and rejuvinated after my nap, my eyes were locked in that lefttoright repeating line like a typewriter's paper roll--so locked in that I was entirely oblivious on my second bus.

There was a sudden turn and sharp incline. I've ridden this bus plenty and don't remember this road... "Next stop, Newell Street". Not one I remembered. I waited one more stop and noticed that we were on 9th avenue. My stop is several stopped prior along 10th.

"Did you already stop at Halladay?" I asked the driver. I was the last person on the bus.

"Yes."

I laughed and stepped down to the sidewalk. Can't be too many blocks. Surely it wasn't, and the sun was unusually bright, especially for my way home from work; I've become so used to leaving in the dark and coming home in the dark. I passed children walking home from school with their parents, and I thought how funny it is to be a child. A little girl cried to her mother about the mean kids at school. That used to be me--how I would cry and whine. What shamefully funny beings we are as children. I thought of Meg in Book 1 and how she would stamp her foot as if she were younger. But we all are that--strange little learners with a developing sense of emotion and very little grasp on why we're thrown into it all.

The wind has been particularly strong. As I walked, my hair tossed across my face, and I squinted my eyes to avoid the chill burn. It was an autumn wind--the late afternoon kind that brings a cold front and fallen leaves.

The only thing on my mind was A Wind in the Door. Why that title? Why Charles Wallace? Why Derek?

The past year, wind has represented a voice. At Derek's funeral, I first learned of the offering of wind chimes to the deceased's family as a token to hear that person through untranslatable tingdings and clinktinks. Dawnna and I would sit on the porch and cry because sometimes, the wind chimes sung without a breeze.

This wind is audible with chimes. It whooos and whooshes like a washing machine. It's the kind of wind that pushes you forward and slams the door behind you.

It's the kind of wind that embraces your tired bones when you're walking, silent, home from work and wondering why Meg can save Charles Wallace but you cannot.

gogogo

Even the Sweethearts Candy understands.

ticktick

I really don't know where to begin, but I'm exhausted.

Exhausted in the sense that trying to feel full will only leave you feeling more empty, more aware of all that is not filling the gaps. Like the poems that haven't been written. The music that hasn't been played. The blog that hasn't been written. 

I sit here with a glass of wine and tired, heavy eyes wondering what I am chasing. 

I get up and gogogo. I come home and gogogo. Constantly going: the complete opposite of my life not too long ago. I never have been very good at the whole balance thing.

I've been caught up in everything at once. I want to be, to do, to act, to think, to know, to learn, to believe it all. There is so much that I want and so much of that is intangible--I cannot hold faith intertwined with my fingers and think that it will not slip through like sand. I cannot grasp it at all. 

I find my time unevenly distributed between work and church and everything else. Like pie charts that we build at work, the last section can optionally be omitted because it's such a small portion that its contribution to the whole goes unrecognized. But some of the most significant side effects reside in that sliver. 

Is that all they are? Side effects? I have settled in to a life of work and sleep and food and a church that I can't wrap my head around and a god that I cannot meet and the rest of who I thought I brought with me when I packed my car and drove West: well, where is all of that? Did I drop a piece on the bus today? Did I lose it on the street? Has the city pulled me in its stopwatch rhythms of the double-time ticktickticktick that makes time feel fluid, coming and going in Puget Sound's constant pulse?

I think I so often search for contentment because of this imbalance. I want my glass to be just to the top--not too much or I will feel overwhelmed as life pours over the sides; not too little or I will feel a constant yearning and hunger. I think right now, I have a glass in each hand. My left is nearly empty, wanting more, wanting words, wanting color and song. My right is overflowing, never pausing, never slowing, never damming the stream of thought and act. 

I want to be a child. I want to sit down at a miniature table and feel like I belong because my toes just touch the floor. I want to grasp one cup with both hands and be glad when the water touches my lips and not the table. I want to not worry beyond the present moment--no fear of future or past.

I'm sure this is a lot to ask. 

I got a swig this weekend. The other side of the Sound feels like going to the unseen home. Woods, moss, and crispest air welcome me and my second family. 

Right away, the two littlest girls tumbled in the soggy fields. Assessing that it wasn't much to fret about, we continued on. Maybe five minutes later, I was running around with the girls when the ground left me, and I, too, found myself flat on my bum. Gosh did I need that.

I spent the day trying not to think about how cold and uncomfortable wet jeans feel. I was lucky that good company and god-made landscape pull away negative thoughts. 

We made our way along the paths, noticing the many sights the woods had to offer. We stopped at a raised, wooden platform overlooking a bog and sipped tea and munched. I have had Kenny Rogers stuck in my head ever since. 

We continued on to the Hood Canal. I know it's cliche, but nothing resounds serenity like water. Rhythm, wet, the echo of our heartbeats--the one thing on earth we can most connect to because we are that. 

We walked along the water, letting our shoes sink into the soggy sand of low tide. We picked our fingers at the critters that swirled in tide pools, poking the underbellies of sand dollars that lay scattered and stacked like church bulletins in a basket. 

As we started walking back towards the path, we walked by a large rock. 

"Alright, just one rock." It hadn't crossed my mind, but as soon as it was suggested, it became a must. 

After the initial rush of sand began to settle, we noticed the tiny crabs sliding sideways up the sand, in search of their familiar shelter. 

We picked them up. At first, I was afraid to. Sure we used to catch crayfish all the time, but I was never really afraid of them pinching. These little buggers seemed more intimidating. The crabs would wriggle their legs as if they could get hold of the air; they'd wave their claws like a symphonic conductor, but the tune was short. They soon gave in and decided to wait out the flight.

I learned so much from these few simple events.

That if you don't slow down, you'll surely fall, and even the bruise on your backside will remind you to take more careful strides.

That if you constantly fight the air, you'll find that you haven't even accomplished as much as walking on a treadmill: you can't always control the settings.

That if you don't accept your surroundings as the place that you call home, you will constantly feel unrest. 

And I'm still learning.

Yesterday I learned that it's really dumb to pour boiling water into a glass, no less a glass that is in your hand. 

Today I learned that even if you run to catch the bus, run to get to Community, run to make dinner, you will still be out of breath when you enter the race. 

So I'm not sure how I got to all of this. I tend to let the broccoli lead the way most days (thank you, Anne Lamott). But I know that I feel like a thousand sighs will not suffice. I know that I'm not sure how the days are supposed to fit together: it's like I've made each square of a quilt, but I don't know how to match them into a whole.

Phew, I also know that my metaphors are getting pretty out-there. 

There's just so much, and I can't seem to fit it all in just 10 hours of daylight or even 14 hours of night.