signs: part wednesday

I’ve written before that I believe in signs. Today, the signs were everywhere: I ran into all the right people at all the right times, people I wouldn’t typically see on a Wednesday.

And yet, while I may have seen them, talked to them, and parted ways, I didn’t have the right words yet. I tend to freeze at unexpected encounters.

I can’t get over one though: I was sitting in the living room, writing out bridal shower invitations, when Pickle jumped up and decided she needed to go outside. Usually when she does that, it just means she has to go to the bathroom, but when we got out there, she just wanted to walk around. As we turned the corner, not even a block from our building, there was our Pastor.

I wish I had the right words; I wish I could make the most of a conversation on the street. Instead, I fumbled through some half-hearted sentences.

But somehow, just running into him was an encouragement.

change is yet to come

Art creates a magical bond between creation & viewer. This has become more apparent to me the past few months as I am re-reading a book that I ready last year and didn’t like. This year, I feel drawn to its mystery and feel connected to its words. How much can change in a year.

Sometimes I think it’s funny how all media can affect us at different points in our lives. I think of how songs or albums carry an era with them. I think of the first time I saw Dali’s paintings in-person. I think of visiting The David. They each mean different things to each of us based on our original experience or knowledge of them –that is the era they represent to us.

One example is the band Vampire Weekend. I had only heard a few of their songs, but in preparation for a road trip, I bought their only two albums and listened to them on-repeat during the 28 hour drive to Arizona. From the snowy mountains to the lengthy Californian plains at 5 am, those albums became a symbol to me of independence and adventure. When I heard one of those songs now, I sense a brief glimpse of how it felt to be alone, to witness the colors and the snow, the heat of Joshua Tree, the gasping cold of Bryce Canyon, all in the same trip.

So here I am, re-reading My Bright Abyss, and I don’t even know who I was when I read it the first time. I know that a lot around me has changed since then, but it’s strange to think how much has changed within. So much that I now better appreciate chapters and verses that I did not like or did not understand before.

What does it mean to grow & change around something that is unchanging?

Maybe that is what it means to be in relationship with God. We are always told that he does not change: his ways and promises are constant. It can be so hard to believe, especially when I think about how shifty I am as a person, but I am not God. Far from it. Change as a human is a must: if we do not change, there is no growth. And what purpose is there without growth, learning, challenge? Maybe this is the perspective of my naïve youth; it seems many real adults I talk to are totally content with doing nothing and ending learning and avoiding challenge. Why?

I guess I’ve always been afraid of change, but it’s one thing that I have been learning to jump into because without change, we will never be able to better our situations. Sad? Change something. Maybe not that straight-forward, but it’s the concept here.

In thinking about the book and how much just one year has affected my outlook, it’s mesmerizing to think how different I am since Derek knew me. 99% of the people I see and/or interact with on a daily basis were not in my life 2 years ago. A year ago, I didn’t know this apartment existed; a year and a half ago, I didn’t know a puppy was born that would soon be my sweet puppy; two years ago, I didn’t know this city’s silhouette or that it was a thriving place where I could and would live. I won’t go back to before I moved to Seattle; it’s not necessary. It doesn’t take much time for everything to become the new normal.

If this is truly so, why do I still long for so much of my past? While the new is better than I would have dreamed, I still miss much and often long for the simplicity of the way things were.

And yet, I am glad that going back is not an option. I do not think that God ever intended us to be backward looking people. Believe in what is constant; adjust to what is shaping around us; look ever onward at what is yet to come.

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?

seamless

What does it mean to get to know someone? When I started this online dating thing, I realized that it’s really hard to start from scratch. Getting to know someone takes time and patience and willingness to open up and a lot more energy than you’d think.

It’s exhausting to be happy every time you see the new person, and you have to be happy because you’re not comfortable yet—it’s all still a bit mysterious, and neither of you are committed enough to the beginning friendship to let yourselves go a little, show any other emotion. How do you reach that point? How do you gain that trust?

I decided to think back to how I met some of the people who are my closest friends now. It seemed so seamless, so natural to know them better. How is this different?

Maybe I just remember it as such because of our current comfort. I guess I’ve always been a bit awkward and shy at a first introduction.

And yet, I can’t help but think that it shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t feel forced. It shouldn’t seem like a huge effort. Are there walls up? Am I being shut out? Am I the one putting up walls? I think the online setting naturally creates walls—walls with little peep holes so that you can see parts of the person and make judgments based on those visible areas; the mystery is gone because you’ve already determined who you think the person to be.

So there are a lot more questions than anything here, and I don’t have the answers. But I think I am already giving up on online dating because I’m just not ready to try so hard. No, relationships are never easy, and neither is commitment, but I don’t see a point in making such an effort at relationships when I’m not even ready to commit to dating (which this whole experience has made a bit more apparent). Maybe there is still a chance of someday meeting someone in the living, breathing world around me who will want to know me and will get to know me. Seamlessly.

Ok, Cupid

Lately, I've been thinking about getting a cat. I decided that Pickle must be lonely all day & would enjoy some company.

When I seriously thought about visiting the shelter, I realized that I am by no means ready for a cat. Cats mean litter boxes & grumpiness & another critter that needs to be watched while I'm away, which is something I learned is going to be a bit hectic for the next few months. Hectic, but exciting: at my new job, I get to travel! (only within the States, but still...) Part of the agenda today is to take Pickle for her entrance exam to boarding school. (It sounds less scary when phrased that way, but it has to happen for the few weeks I'll be away between May & July.)

Anyways, so I nixed the cat idea & thought, maybe I'm the lonely one. On the bus that day, I signed up for an online dating site called OkCupid.

My hairdresser recommended the site, said she met her husband on it. While I've been highly opposed to meeting people online in the past, after another failed attempt at meeting people at a bar event, I decided the internet was my best bet. I'm so damn picky too--I just like a wide variety of activities & characteristics; what are the odds of meeting that on the street? Online, you find many details that help you find out if you even want to talk to the person--all of that wonder when staring across a bar & deciding whether or not to approach? Decided in a click.

It's actually really creepy. For starters, it's like online shopping...for people. "Oh, this one would go great with my love of live music!" "But wait, this one has an adorable smile, & we could go to coffee shops together!" Creepy. Then, they rate a match %, but the only people who initiate conversation have match % of like 40, when there's a large population of 80-something%. THEN, those messaging people send you things like "(;" or "What are you doing tonight? (;" or "Your rly cute you sound interesting want to hang out." For those people, I've decided to just start offering advice. I feel bad not answering people, but I also don't want to be a jerk. For the latter message though, I admit my response was, "Sorry; I don't accept bad grammar."

I'm a little nervous to talk about the messages that are going well or the potential for meeting someone (!). This is a totally new realm to me. Some of the questions they ask for your profile are ridiculous--like you're supposed to have your entire life philosophy locked down before meeting someone.

Anyways, that's that. I'm now a part of the population of internet-dating millenials. Here we go.

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.