Little house by the prairie dogs

It is spring! Let's rejoice!

The heat from the sun has made me feel lazy and tired, and I think that's okay. It's good to slow down. Speaking of slow, I went to San Luis Obispo (SLO) on a trip with two of my roommates (and one of their boyfriends, for the tail end of it). This was over spring break. It was SO. Much. Fun.
We stayed with Alissa's family (one of stated roommates) and it was sort of heavenly. This town is laid back like Flagstaff, but has ocean and calm breezes and Jurassic Park to run through and a wonderful climate and rolling green hills. There are vineyards speckling the countryside, a cute downtown with Lord of the Rings font on every sign, myriad coffee shops with creative themes. I want to go back, and I probably will someday. I think it would be so wonderful to bike along the Pacific Coast Highway one year with Jordan, and we would spend a good amount of time in this town. It served as the perfect break from my crazy life. I could slow down and enjoy friends, nature, a corny yet addicting TV series, coffee, wine, and most of all, GOD. I'm so glad I have friends who live there and a reason to visit! I took some ocean-y pictures while we were there which I will edit and post later.

And now instead of trying to make the end of the semester come faster, I'm willing it to slow down. I'm not ready for all of this to be over. To move out of this cute house. To go on a month-long trip to Romania. To graduate. To get married. I want all of those things so badly, but I'm holding on tight to my life right now, trying hold close to me the smells and sights, the memories and every feeling.

The flowers are going to start growing along the road. And just the other day I discovered a village of prairie dogs peeking out of their holes, staring at the train tracks. They may have just come out of hibernation. Maybe I can steal one to live in my backyard. That would be cute.

A list of life.

1. It's hard to do school and plan a wedding.
2. Especially your last semester of school.
3. The only blog writing I've been thinking about lately is food and travel, because it's the focus of one of my capstones. This one will have nothing to do with either.
4. I guess I just lied. I bought cardamom and cooked with it for the first time yesterday. I wonder why it costs over $70 a pound?
5. I love my friends but I don't have time to see them. I wish I could divide myself into three different people on weeknights so I could hang out, get stuff done, and have alone time all at once.
6. I love my roommates.
7. I love my fiance.
8. Flagstaff has been pretty beautiful this winter, with its unexpected warmth and good lighting.
9. Got my bike back, Maude, from the anonymous thief.
10. The other day I was riding home into a strong wind and a homeless man jumped off the bike path and started clapping and cheering me on. This made me ride faster.
11. Today I spent a lot of time thinking and praying, and I feel the most wonderful and rested I've felt in weeks and weeks.
12. Es más difícil leer cuentos en español que pensaba. Más difícil. Y mi profesor es tan intenso. Pero me encanta leer Jorge Borges en su propia lengua. Y Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Tal vez tendré la oportunidad que viajar por un país latinoamericano en el futuro, eso sería maravilloso.

all the time everyone everywhere everything

we all well know
we're gonna reap what we sow
but Grace, we all know,
can take the place of all we owe
so why not let's Forgive
everyone
e v e r y w h e r e
e v e r y t h i n g
a l l t h e t i m e ?

So I may miss the mewithoutYou show on Sunday. It's worth it to me to get my shift covered... I mean, I've never missed a live performance since I started listening to them in the 9th grade. but I also have greater plans for next week that I shall not speak of just yet. I can barely keep it a secret. But someone should congratulate me on how discreet I've been, because the person I'm deceiving doesn't know, and therefore can't feed my ego in such a way.

. . .

Grace took the place of all we owe! I've sowed some very bad seeds. I've done it without telling anyone, just little seeds that I hope no one notices, like tiny drifting thoughts. And sometimes I'm much more obvious than that, looking people in the eye. I've done so many wrong things, I owe so much-- my life-- to get right with God and with everyone and everything, but what I could never accomplish, HE did for me with his blood flowing out of Him, nailed to a deathtrap of wood.
Grace took the place of all we owe! How can you think about that and not get up and dance or jump or shake your head, or do SOMETHING to express what has happened for you to be alive, really alive? Have you thought about it, really thought about it, not just let your eyes glaze over the words, so it sort of washes over the surface of you? Have you let the thought go deep? I often don't because it's so inconvenient. I mean, how can I get anything done if I'm thinking about the enormous act of sacrifice and love that was spent on me.?
How does life have any purpose if I'm not thinking about the enormity of His love for me?

He watches over your every breath, and this is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Sometimes I think about how amazing it is that this little mass of tissue inside my ribcage is pumping and pumping and pumping, and if it ever stops the whole system will shut down. And its been pumping every hour, every day, for 20 years, and I'm still alive. I'm a self sustaining, breathing, thinking, emoting, learning being. And if the rest of the world with me weren't being shaped in His hands this very moment it would all fall apart. I prefer to think of it this way. Kierkegaard wrote something I'm sort of in love with:

"If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair? If it were thus, if there were no sacred bond uniting mankind, if one generation rose up after another like the leaves of the forest, if one generation succeeded the other as the songs of birds in the woods, if the human race passed through the world as a ship through the sea or the wind through the desert, a thoughtless and fruitless whim, if an eternal oblivion always lurked hungrily for its prey and there were no power strong enough to wrest it from its clutches -- how empty and devoid of comfort would life be! "

I'll pump my fist to that.

I don't know why I'm writing about such lofty things. I think I need to. I've been apathetic for a while, and it's pretty awful to live in a way that tends to be mechanical and reactive.

. . .

I heard a really great interview with Tom Robbins the other day. It made me want to write, because I haven't for months. He, like me, began writing when he was very young, and even was published in the second grade in the school newspaper.


--a short outline of my history with writing--

A.
The other day I remembered how I was eliminated in the 5th grade spelling bee because the English teacher dictating the words, Mrs. Howe, didn't know how to read. Way to live up to your name and your job, Mrs. Howe.
The English language is a tricky thing. And sometimes its best to not over analyze it and to trust your gut in the usage of words and pronunciation. This is a lesson she should learn. She pronounced my word, posture, in a way she thought was proper: pos-tyure. It sounded like an alien word to me, I had never heard it pronounced that way in my life. I didn't even get it in context.
I don't know how I misspelled it, but it doesn't matter. It's the principle.
I just looked on m-w.com and the robot voice told me it is indeed pronounced "pos-cher". I could hold on to this, but this will be my final word on the matter.

B.
A few hot summers ago in Phoenix I dug my first grade journal out of my closet. And I was surprised to find my first short story I ever wrote in my life. Here is a digital reproduction, holding to the integrity of the original spelling.

--a story by Kayla Smith, six years old--

Once apon a time in 1996 there lived a women and her dagter the womens name was lisa the little girls name was kayla one day it was kayla's birthday she got a soylers [cellular] phone a T.v. a hot air ballone the movi pocahantes the movi toy story a video game a barbi and best of all a red cape.
she ran to the three bears drank the porige nono I mean well lets just say she lived happily ever after like little red riding hod the end
[illustration of a banner reading "happy birthday", presents on the floor, and kayla holding a cape with the word bubble "a cape ! ! !"]

Well not Actchaly but a rrrrokan roll [rock and roll] bear. I mean wolf shure came running up to Kayla.
He actchaly had a gutar.
She'd never seen somthing like this in her hole life. She gave a loooud scream. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh.
That's only two more letters then the hole Alphebet. Lets count
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29.
[illustration of wolf holding guitar and kayla/little red riding hood standing in the forest.]

Once apon like I mm mm mmm liki I mean like I just said well let me just tell you I'll tell you the rest of the story. Ok "not ok"
what you dont want to listen to the rest of the story
"of course not."
Do you mean you do or you don't want to.
"I'm just saying well I don't want to tell you".
So lets just turn the page and find out the rest of the rest of the story and evrey thing else ok
"not ok".
Hey this is my story ok. By.
[illustration of two girls standing in front of a building with a sign reading "I love Home Sweet Home". clouds and birds surround, with a bright sun.]

Well little miss riding hood What well lets just find out the udvenchers of kayla ok on this mornign news. Wait wait turn the chanel hey I make mastakes all the time waiaiaiaiaiait this isn't saposed to haaapen wait. Don't make this point wrong
hey you you I mean the porson ho's readin here hey I ment do'nt watch.
[illustration of a person on a couch next to another person with weird hands, standing, and a girl in front of both of them waving her arms saying "Hey porsen dont watch"]

Whew what a relefe now lets find out wh. "I'm baack"
yooou get out a here ok by chow odios see a latar I like babar.
Nothing's going to stop me now. I said now so chow by. o'k now listen o'k little red ridding kayla or hood say it your way ok
now like i just said kayla sh'e groow she's 19 alredy and she's an artist her's one of her pikchers.
[illustration of a boy wearing a baseball cap throwing coins or something to a girl who is catching them.]

O'K O'K O'K she's not 19 o'k "not o'k".
Hey like I siad Hey this is absalootly posativly not your story its mine.....
mine mine mine o'k don't say not ok
huh "huh" o'k why'd ya say huh
o'k the next page is another story "now that's what I want" realy
"ya realy I wanted that all along" so that's what you wanted "ya so I didnt want to hurt your feeling's" o'k so we figurd it out byby.

(I didn't actually have an alter-ego at 6, it was purely fictional invention. Okay? "Not okay.")

C.
In the fifth grade Cassi and I used to write stories about dogs who were basically humans. I published two works, one titled "Sammy the Brave Little Puppy" and one "Misty in the Mountains". And I was working on the manuscript of another one, which I never finished.

I've spent the last hour and a half reading my developmental psychology textbook. This past chapter was about me. Emerging Adults, it was titled. It's about being aged 18 to 25, and not wanting to grow up. Sort of like Peter Pan, but with a lot more STDs and drug addiction, apparently. But anyway, the part that was about me is the part that describes putting off adulthood, putting off a "good plan" as far as settling down and being married and getting kids and having a plan for the rest of your life. That used to be normal at the beginning of adulthood, 18 to 22. Now it's not so clear cut as that.


But now I'm wondering, when I feel some deep sort of ache that tells me I don't want to be here the rest of my life, am I a victim of culture? Do I just want to live in another country, and keep moving and learning and helping people and meeting people and not really settling down, because I'm a product of the relatively new developmental stage of "emerging adulthood"? Usually I don't care about this stuff, and I don't care much about psychology in general, but when you see all these statistics you wonder if you're shrinking into part of the equation.

In the end, I make the decision of what's next. And I'm praying that God will show me what that is, what He wants and what kind of life is most beautiful and pleasing to Him. I don't expect a bush to blow up in flames and start talking to me, but there's a way of listening where you are just sort of quiet. Internally quiet, and not thinking about things, or the idea of thinking about things. And that's when you hear this voice, sometimes a very soft Voice, with ideas separate from your own. And it doesn't sound at all like a psychology textbook, thank the good Lord.

Happy St. Nikolas Day.

Sufjan Stevens has some new songs for his BQE film that came out in October. It is very conducive to writing papers and studying for final exams:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6HTGVBXql4


It's going to snow this week, which I'm actually okay with. As long as I don't have to ride my bike anywhere in it. Maude's skinny little roadie tires freak me out a little on questionable surfaces, like packed down snow. I named my bike Maude because she's spunky and incredibly fast and made in 1972; plus she looks like the kind of bike an old woman with skinny legs and one pant leg rolled up would ride. Today is a day in, to write write write write. And listen to music and drink coffee. I am listening to mewithoutYou, which is like inviting an old friend into your house, and you're overwhelmed with all the musty, familiar smells of time (like the smell of an old book), and the rain pattering against the window, and the warm light of a fire. Oh, and the taste of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, which are sitting in a tupperware right now because I made them a couple days ago.

Humble. I always hated that word when I was little, because I thought it sounded ugly, and there was this one Christian song where it's sung about a hundred times and I imagined a bumble bee walking down a dirt path with a knapsack over its shoulder. I think because "humble" sounds like "bumble," but who knows. Now I have such an aversion to the aesthetics of that word. But the meaning is so, so beautiful. It means your eyes are never on yourself, only on other people and on the beauty of God. It means you're just about oblivious to yourself. Humble people probably don't even own mirrors. And they're more beautiful than anyone, but that sweetness takes you by surprise, because when they're around you, what you notice first is the warm, enveloping feeling of being loved and taken care of, and of God's presence. I want to be like that. But thinking about it probably makes me less humble in the first place.

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

micah 6:8

jonah. jonah and the sea monster.

i am reading with some friends through jonah. it is an incredibly condensed story, fascinating if you're of the school of thought that everything in the bible is true, and it seems to leave out so many details i want to know. but it's really good. we discussed a lot about how gentle God was with jonah, His grace, His holiness and how He speaks. and how it was all so perfectly set up, how it must have been planned all along. especially with the imagery of jonah in the suffocating, breathing cavity of the fish's belly for three days and three nights, "sheol", as he described it, and the obvious correlation with christ and his time spent... i'm not going to argue or care about theology right now, but i'll say in 'abraham's bosom'. Jesus made the connection himself.

there was on thing i thought of that i didn't say, because it was kind of a weird thought and i didn't know how it would be received. it's a whole train of thought, so i'll try and remember how it was i got on the train.
i thought about jesus talking to nicodemus one night, recorded by john. they talked in secret and nicodemus asked about being born again. we know from what happens later on that the new birth is only possible because of a death, the death of our savior, and his resurrection from the dead into new life. this is the ultimate imagery of being born again. nicodemus didn't know this part of the story yet, and when you read it he seems so dumb to not understand it, but that's because we've been hearing this story over and over our whole lives, a distant song with words we've memorized, not really thinking about it. so, since the story hadn't actually played out yet, the idea of being born again is something really foreign. (nicodemus even asks a gross question about how he can return to his mother's womb, and jesus said something mysterious back, like always.) it seems like i'm rambling, but as odd a picture as it is, the idea of being in the belly of whale and being spit back out is almost imagery of being born again.

if you're born again, you are a being transformed, completely made new and white and pure and beautiful. jonah was given new life in a way, he was given another chance. and he was definitely transformed, because he actually went to nineveh and yelled out to the people there that God was going to overthrow them, which is a terrifying thing to yell at an entire people whose military is oppressing your own nation.
what was it about being in a whale's belly that transformed jonah?
brokenness.
the process that led to his brokennness began with God stirring up a raging storm in the open sea, and was complete after three days inside a fish.

brokenness leads to transformation. this is a beautiful song of scripture, repeated over and over in different ways, with different characters and different imagery and conversations with God. isaiah laid on his face before God's throne, groaning about how unclean he was, completely undone. and a seraph brought a coal to his lips and burned him and he was transformed, ready to be the mouthpiece of God (kind of like Jonah).

oh, may our brokenness lead to this kind of transformation, this kind of action. my roommate said of shakespeare the other night that his plays are supposed to be performed, not read. we decided that's even more true of the bible-- it's supposed to be performed, not read. we read these stories and they are echoes of our own (or is it the other way around?), because we know the same God who never changes.

summer: part I

There are some very nice things about this summer, glittering details that peek up through the mundanity. And those are what I want to remember.

pacific coast
As you step into the ocean, salt water flecks onto your face and floats in the air like a mist. The full body of a wave hits you the wrong way, and you're knocked under it, you are rolling and rolling, backward under the white and blue, eyes opening and stinging and shutting. But you almost savor the stinging salt that coats the back of your throat.
There is something... almost holy in that power. There is longing in reminiscence, when you almost hear the groaning tide again, like putting your ear to a shell.
It reminds you of the hand of God. How relentless His power is, and love. His wild kiss.

salvation mountain
Sometimes what we label naivete is really a guarded treasure, something that very few possess.
It can be boldness. There is a profound connection between childlike innocence and childlike faith.
95 degree heat in the morning, your skin slick with sweat, standing in dead air. But there's a sea of color, imagination and songs to God crafted out of adobe, hay and paint. A mountain in the middle of the desert, half-used paint buckets everywhere, an old man lying still and asleep on a table in a cave of scupltures-- all made from scraps. His face is childlike, even in sleep. This is his life, and he must feel like he has the most important job in the world. The more people that see his mountain, the more people will know that God loves them, that God is love.














park in downtown phoenix
My brother and I sat under a tree to hear the story of a man who had lost everything, house burnt down, friends dead, family gone, clothes stolen from a dark corner of the city. It's a modern day, urban retelling of Job.
But Gavins had so much; he still claimed to have so much. He had a backpack. He also had a Charles Barkely book, which he used to illustrate his notion that "books are incubators of knowledge". He bragged about his speed-reading, which, when attempted out loud, sounded much more like a very rudimentary reading level. Micah and I patiently listened to his broken, word-skipping recitiation of the first chapter. But that wasn't what I really heard; what I heard was the voice of someone who had been swept into head-shaking empathy because of a simple story about a basketball player doing charity. (I guess Charles Barkely meets kids for the Make-A-Wish foundation, and there's a story of him meeting a comatose boy recorded in his autobiography, which Gavins told me 'gave him tears'.) It was a very nice story, and the line that made Gavins look up at me, with wet shining eyes, was about how we take life for granted. A homeless man was teaching me about taking life for granted. He tried to give me his book a few times, but I wasn't able to take it. I wish I could have given him something, but maybe all he wanted was someone to listen to his story.
He cried about that same story over and over. He would cry thinking about the boys and girls Charles Barkely visited who had cancer, who were on their deathbeds. "I don't have much, but at least I have my life, you know?"
He had scripture memorized and buried just beneath the surface in his heart for God to speak through, ancient, perfect words. At one point I started quoting that verse where Jesus says, "just look at the lilies, how they neither toil nor spin," the one that says not to worry about tomorrow, and as I stumbled over a couple words, he completed it with ease. He told me to read Isaiah 55, and I did. Everyone should read Isaiah 55. We were handing out water that day, and Gavins told me to read a chapter that goes to the root of what we were doing, or what it should have been, anyway.
He had survived a rough life on the reservation, an always drunk family, always drunk friends, his best friend stepped in front of a car and was killed, there was a bullet somewhere in his own chest. A medicine man brought him back to life when he was a dead baby.
Some people live out a life illuminated with storytelling, myth forever holding their memories together. But he still knew where all good things come from, tangible or not. He still knew that God is holy, holy, sovereign, loving, everything, Elohim.
"God is taking care of me."
My brother and I walked to the other end of the park, through the drunken heat of Phoenix and in between people sleeping under trees everywhere, stinking and wearing clothes from how long ago only God knows. And on our faces were huge smiles as well as the look of almost-disbelief-but-complete-belief.