for nine months October 31, 2008

it lingers heavy in the air

the melancholy thickness

wrapped around

grey and green

that attaches itself to

these reminders

these markers of time.

.

on the outskirts

around the perimeter

and onto the threads

of your old blue sweater

i cling

.

i breathe

and remember

.

but

with my hand moving dirt

into little piles

adjacent to

you

.

i bury it

in this

shallow void

.

the things too hard to feel

but are felt anyway.

the face that is too hard to see

but is seared into my mind’s

eye

.

i look up

through the

cold and empty blur

and wonder

how it is

that i feel

you hold the world,

but not

me.

so a leaf walks into a bar… October 30, 2008

i’m eating raisins again. i don’t know why i like them so much, it just seems that lately, when evening rolls around, and i’m studying, or thinking about studying, or thinking that i should be thinking more about studying, i start craving them.  i’m also using my old peanut butter jar to drink from again. it’s the best glass ever. i highly recommend using old peanut butter jars for glasses….everything- my morning smoothie, water, and even merlot are amazing tasty in my recycled marantatha crunchy and roasted peanut butter jar.  however, much as i’d like to tell you more about my glass (kudos to shlomy and neil for the idea), this blog is not about my crunchy peanut butter jar of merlot… it’s about leaves.

and with that said

i don’t actually have much to say, considering the fact that i’ve been crazy busy with school work the last week… it was insanity. more insane than merlot in a peanut butter jar paired with a handful of raisens. however, no matter how busy my life gets, in the midst of the never ending chemistry equations, and the missing everyone, and the tears, and the highlighters that ran out of ink again, and the flashcards, i have found, that it grounds me and changes my self pitying perspective, when i stop to admire the leaves.

portland in the fall is beautiful.

and now i am lamenting the fact that i lost my camera in London, because every time i see the leaves in the valley, or the leaves on the PSU campus, or the leaves of the maples that line downtown, or the leaves on the tree outside my door, i miss my camera. i wish i could describe to you how beautiful the leaves are…the decidious trees mixed in with all the evergreens and the pink sun-setting sky. it’s unreal. the leaves are yellow, orange, all shades of green, and then there are the bright red leaves. oh the red leaves. i love the red leaves.

but that’s not all, there’s also the crunch. the sound of the leaves beneath my feet. the air is crisp and i can see it when i breathe out, and even though it’s cold, and i don’t like being cold, it doesn’t seem so bad, on account of the leaves.

i was walking through the PSU campus last week, which if you have ever been there you will understand this; in the middle there are trees and green and benches and beauty! so last week, with my stomach in knots, i was approaching the library to meet with my chemistry tutor… but when i made it past the buildings and entered the middle greenery i had to stop. i’m sure i looked quite ridiculous, standing there, then walking slowly looking to the sky, but i couldn’t help myself. everywhere- all around me was beauty and i was so completely captured by it,that i forgot that i was anxious and stressed about balancing molecular equations or remembering how many charges are in Na.

so here is my advice to you. not that i’m minimizing any of the stresses in your life, or any of your pain, or whatever, but i’ll just say it. it is highly doubtful to me, that there are many things worse than chemistry. that said, if stopping to admire the leaves can make school work less daunting, and make me stand in absolute awe of an amazing Creator, then it must be a worthwhile activity.

yes. leaf watching=activity.

retraction…sort of. October 10, 2008

so i’m sitting here eating raisins and drinking water from an old peanut butter jar, and i’m thinking about a movie that i watched a few years ago. this movie that hit theaters was a ‘christian movie’, and let me tell you people, the christians, they ate it up… mostly.

i had a problem with this movie, sketchy acting and accents that i have an aversion to aside, it really upset me how they portrayed christianity. i mean, i know christianity is portrayed poorly all the time in different ways- by him and her and me and you and them, but that’s not the point i’m making. the point is this, they  made it seem as though if you loved God, all of the sudden life would be easy. things would be good. if you couldn’t have babies, instantly you’d become pregnant, and you’d have babies, if your football team sucked big time, you’d start winning trophies.

this makes me sad.

i have known many, and by many, i literally mean many women who have wanted so badly to be pregnant, and these women were lovely, these women loved jesus. so can i just say, that if it were that simple, if there were some spiritual moral code or formula that people could follow so that they could be pregnant, or so they could have success, then we’d have a lot more pregnant and rich people. also competitive sports would go extinct like dinosaurs because no one could loose, they all loved jesus too much.

now, bear with me, because you know me and my details and rambling, i’m getting somewhere… wait i’ think i’m here.

i’m afraid that my last blog came close to being a lot like that movie, which shall remain nameless.

as i pondered what i wrote, it occurred to me that i made having a proper perspective of God sound as if the “attainment” of that equaled having it all together, or like it would be relatively easy to do in the first place. this bothers me, because i don’t think it’s true. i wish it were true, and sometimes it troubles me deeply that it’s not true, but the reality of it is that it’s not.

just because i say i love jesus, and that God scares me (in a reverent way, that is) doesn’t mean that my life is easy. i think that those wonderful things i talked about, finding ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment in having a proper perspective of God, these can happen and they are beautiful things and they are true things. but taken together, they do not equate ‘the easy life’… that is, unless you believe in all that health wealth, and prosperity talk, in which case, you have another blog comin’ to you sista.

i’ll be blatently honest here, last year was one of the crappiest years ever. i felt like i was taken through the ringer over and over again, and when i finally thought i was out, i put a stress fracture in my hip, and then i was in the ringer again… and then when i thought i was out again, some kid on a skateboard made me fall off my bike and made me very very sore, which may sound non-ringer-ish, but trust me, it’s kind of like tetris; all the mismatched pieces just keep piling up and it doesn’t even matter the shape anymore- whether it’s a cube or a twisted piece, every one is bad and every piece just adds to the accumulating pile of crap, that was my life. and this is all said not to complain, because lots of people have way worse things happen then i have, but the point is even when i try to love jesus enough, even when i try to check off all of my morality and goodness boxes, things don’t necessarily get easy… all the pieces don’t start fitting so that the piled up crap just disappears.

and sometimes, no matter how much you love jesus, or how reverent, or afraid, or good you are, when the pieces aren’t fitting together, and everything does start piling up, you blame him. you blame him because the world seems so ugly and lonely, and because you can’t stop crying, and because it’s easier to be mad then it is to be sad.

i don’t like admitting that i blame God, but sometimes i do.

if everything was ideal and everything was easy things wouldn’t be like that, we would never have to blame God because whenever bad things happened, there he’d be holding us tight, answering all our questions, calming our fears, and quieting our doubt. does he do these things? yes! double yes! but every time? i don’t know… do we always feel that security? no.

——-

so this is the real story, not the christian script for the christian movie of life. this is really what it’s like to follow God and to revere him and to fear him and to love him. it can be messy, it can look irreverent when you blame, and it can be scary when you doubt, and there will be tears and there will be “why” and “how” questions that may never be answered.

but this isn’t the whole side of the story either because there is also happiness and laughter, there is security and peace, and in some mysterious way there is ultimate fulfillment, some things are true not because we feel it, but because they are. sometimes all you get are pieces that fit together, and the crap isn’t piling up and you are not being put through the ringer. life is good, birds chirp in the distance, your socks are striped, and you love life and God.

so i had to be clear on the balance, because the more i live life the more i learn that there is always balance in this mystery that is God. so even though it doesn’t seem ideal, it is, because christians have the beautiful securtiy of knowing that even when all the crap piles up, (because it will), at the end, when the “game is over”, we know that it’s actually just beginning.

how to be beautiful even when you look like a total goober. October 9, 2008

“…beauty is vain, but a woman that fears the LORD, she shall be praised.”

So i’m riding down a busy one way street downtown. the sun is out, the birds are chirping somewhere outside the city, and i am smiling…or at least, i’m thinking sunny happy thoughts. all of the sudden out of nowhere, some random kid in a beige beanie on a skateboard turns the corner the wrong way on a one way street and plows right into me. i fly off my bike, literally, and land on my back and head. twice, because yes, i actually bounced.  as i lay there in the middle of the busy street, i must tell you , the moment was very surreal. i turn my head to make sure i’m not about to get run over by oncoming traffic, then i watch my red sigg bottle clink as it begins to roll down the hill. i lay there for a minute, or three longer, catch my breath, think briefly ‘of course’, then check on dangerous skateboarding kid, who is getting up and saying he’s fine. i assess my injuries… jaw- owwwwweird, head, owwwwduh, elbow, ow, rib- ow. some girl helps me up and… leg?? what?! you have got to be kidding me!! stupid dangerous skateboarding kid, it was healing! i want to hate you at this moment, but i offer you a band aid instead and tell you to go to class as you mumble repeated apologies. i then sit on the side walk, let the people disperse, put a band aid on my elbow and think about how even though i’m almost 26, it’d be really nice to call a parent at a time such as this, and complain about the random and dangerous skateboarder who made me instantly sore.

but i can’t do that, so i don’t do that, and instead as i get back on my bike i begin to remember a particular situation this morning that made me suddenly thankful instead of angry, and this is where proverbs comes in. this is where the spiritual, which is interwoven into all our lives, show’s it’s thread. bear with me, i always take so long to get to the point. i talk about the details; the rolling red sigg bottle, or the the color of a beanie. this seems important to me for some reason.

this morning i forgot something in the house, usually my helmet is on after i leave the house, but it was on in the house, and as i walked past a mirror, i caught a glimpse of rachel in a helmet, and i have to say, i laughed out loud. i forgot momentarily about what i needed in the house and stopped to look in the mirror, noting the alarming rate at which my summer Egyptian tan was fading and frowning at my unkempt, dishelved hair poking out from underneath the helmet, i stood there and was vain. it’s not that i sit around thinking i’m beautiful, it’s that i care so much that i’m not, and so the truth of the matter is this; i can be vain. very. it sucks to confess that i think, but also, it’s freeing. so it’s embarrassing and not embarrassing to admit that in my vanity, i  actually thought about how i kind of look like goober (yes, a goober) in a helmet and how i should just take it off. but as i moved my hand towards the strap, i literally said out loud, ‘hm… probably not very wise. owell…” so i left it, and feeling quite dissatisfied with looking slightly gooberish-  i was on my way.

beauty…the thought of the pavement and my unhelmeted head is very scary because the pavement was very hard, and i am not being dramatic by saying if i wasn’t wearing it, i don’t know if i’d be typing this silly blog. and it’s thinking about caring so much about beauty, and my achy jaw, and an elbow that stings, and my head that is still feeling a little dizzy and achy, that made me think about more of the spiritual implications of non spiritual events such as having a crazy immature skateboarders plow into you that make you think more deeply about that weaving thread of spirituality that i mentioned before.

i thought about the ridiculousness of my vanity and how i could have jeopardized my own safety to be what…? less silly looking as if i had to impress commuters on their way to work? i wondered why we care so much, and who it is we’re comparing ourselves to constantly, and even if i looked like model so-an-so if i’d still be vain and insecure with my appearance. probably… and this is a very sad truth to realize.  someday i will have wrinkles, time will catch up with me and not amount of sun screen slathering and good asian genetics will stop the inevitably of being not young. not only this, but i guess i need to ask myself who i am trying to impress and please, because if it’s not god, i’m pretty sure that it’s useless and won’t make me happy anyway.

so when i thought about how that verse was quite apropos for my life, i thought about the second part that seems disconnected, but is actually not.

——————————————————————————————–

being overly concerned with temporary superficial things shows a definite insecurity, which is indicative of at least two things: 1. a fear of people 2. looking for fulfillment in the wrong places

When i say a ‘fear of people’ i’m trying to be gender neutral and get more at the concept that christians understand as the christianese phrase ‘fear of man’… it’s this idea that they somehow get to control you, what you do, how you think… that their opinion matters so much that it actually changes you and causes you to loose sight of the things that you value because you are so afraid that they won’t accept you, they won’t validate you, and that they won’t love you. this causes problem number 2 which involves looking for fulfillment in places where you can not find it. it all sounds so cliche… “find your fulfillment in God, blah blah blah,” right? what does that actually mean? what does that actually look like?

to be honest, (you’ll be annoyed at this response) i actually don’t have a good answer, and i think that people think that they have the right answer that looks like a formula that is supposed to fit everyone… these people are off base and out of touch with real life and real people. So i don’t know what it exactly looks like, but i do know what it doesn’t look like, and in knowing what it can’t look like for everyone, helps me to see in little ways what it does look like for me.

it doesn’t look like doing number 1. which i admittedly am so ridiculously bad at. it’s vanity… which is really masked insecurity. i like being validated and adored. but there are problems with trying to have people do that for you. people are selfish and they screw up a lot, so if you base your validity on them, you will keep being disappointed, and you will be depressed and you will never love yourself, because you need other imperfect, vain, insecure people to tell you your worth something. this is how it doesn’t look. it doesn’t look insecure, it doens’t look painful, it doesn’t look disappointing. finding fulfillment in the right place, namely God, doesn’t look anything like that, because He is not vain and insecure, he’s not selfish, and in fact I think He takes great pleasure in validating and making us feel loved and adored. sometimes he does use people, when it happens, it can be good, but he doesn’t exclusively use them… they just get to play a small part of the big picture that is Him… pursuing, and loving. when we fear people we don’t fear God. and not fearing God, puts us in a place where we are so insecure we are left to our own fears that we get from ourselves and that we get from not measuring up to other people. not that fearing God has to do with thinking that He’s angry and waiting in the cosmos to strike me with lightning bolts when i screw up, but fear that carries with it more the sense of a reverence and a love that makes me want to please Him. and i think that when we start living in this way, where we have a proper perspective of God; who He is and what He deserves, we understand His love and it changes us little by little. maybe then we stop fearing man, maybe then we start fearing God, because he is so holy and because He is so mighty and because his love for me is so stubborn and persistent. then maybe when these things happen, we stop looking at mirrors, and grades, and people to tell us that we are beautiful and worth something. because we’ve learned the hard way that that scenario doesn’t actually work. and when we are left to nothing else, when we have exhausted everything the world gives to validate, maybe then we figure out the alternative source, the only real source, actually works.

i am so incredibly imperfect, but i am glad that even though i have the hardest time believing it, there is someone who can look past my paleness, or my bad skin, or frumpy hair, and see and love my heart so much that he makes my goobery self beautiful in ways that can never fade.

free verse prose. October 7, 2008

“my life is real good”

-nacho libre (on not being a luchadore, but rather a priest wannabe cook)

maybe i’m toeing the line of sounding like a complete manic (ie. extreme highs extreme lows), but i think this is normative behavior for pacific northwesterners who live in such a ‘moody’ climate… i’ve been going on and on and on about injured legs and non marathons and watches that don’t tell time and about bookstore avoidance… yet today here i am typing out that sweet quote from one of the most funny, and boring, and quotable jack black movies ever-  here i am in total agreement.

fiest is floating soothingly in the background of this coffee shop, i like her unique voice, and i also like the way this peppermint tea feels in my stomach (extremely hot water with a few peices of ice on the top) i like the sun, even when it’s cold outside… i like the way it shades and brightens all the leaves, and i like the maple trees and how they are everywhere and how they hang over the street and how the random yellow leaves are gently floating and whirling down to the pavement where i bike over them.

i like riding my bike. i like running better. but i like how non injured and nerdy biking makes me feel… jeans rolled up on my right leg-(the non injured one), with orange, brown, and teal striped socks showing underneath. it’s so ridiculously nerdy, that it’s almost cool. almost.  but anyway, that’s how i roll… on my bike.

i like the way i am done with a lot of my homework for today, and how i don’t feel that stressed (today- ha) because even though i’m taking really hard classes, i’m learning and using the part of my brain that doesn’t like to have to be challenged with numbers and complex biological interactions. i like how sometimes anatomy and physiology clicks the same way that writing about random things does. i hope anatomy and physiology keep clicking. i wish statistics would click, but i can even say that i LIKE that i’m 56% done with the class. this makes me smile almost as much as it does when i think about how i like, nay, love my friends. and even though they live so far away, and i don’t see them very often and i miss them, i like that we get to talk all the time and even though they are 300 or 3000 miles away, we are there for each other… all pixely on the screen or all cell phoney.

okay, i think this wraps it up for my cheesy ‘i like it’ talk. my stomach is telling me to eat something so i’m going to roll up my right pant leg that exposes the mulit-colored striped sock underneath and ride to some buy grape komucha tea and soup- which by the way, i like very much.

the end.

“october 5th sucks,” or “why i don’t get to run the portland marathon.” October 5, 2008

“life is not fair…”

- bill gates

“fo sho.”

- rachel anna

.

see previous, previous, previous blog.

how to pick out a good book… sniff whiff. October 3, 2008

today was a perfect bookstore day… or coffee day…or stay in sweats all day and read and listen to the rain hit the window kind of day that we get to experience here in the beautiful pacific northwest. but, anyways, like i said,  it was one of those perfect coffee sipping, book reading, comfy clothes wearing type of days- and after spending time studying at a coffee shop, i headed to the bookstore to buy flashcards for a class.

it didn’t take long though for me to get distracted and start wandering through the isles to look at the different books- i figured i deserved it after studying so… studiously.

i love to admire the covers- which although it is said that you should never judge a book by it’s cover, i can’t help it- figuratively, yes, but literally, how can you not!?  i mean, when you’re looking at books, you have to really observe the cover (good art, bad art? text? author’s name bigger or equal to font size of the title?  big turn off, put it down! written by a former MTV v-jay/model?! move on, don’t even touch it), then you have to pick it up, you have to touch the book. i’m like a kid in a store who’s touching everything, except it’s a bookstore, and i’m an adult, and i know that it’s very important to touch the book, you know what i mean? you have to pick it up, (flimsy or stiff, heavy or light? this is all very important stuff) and then if you’re really brave, and/or slightly weird you can smell it too. i swear, books smell crazy good, they don’t just smell like paper- they smell like childhood (that is, if you read a lot of books), and they smell summertime at my grandmother’s because we used to read so many books together, and they smell like smartness. (like how i made a word out of ’smart’ that probably isn’t really a word?) after the book has passed the literal see, touch, smell phase… then you can taste, but not literally. DO NOT PUT THE BOOK IN YOUR MOUTH. i mean something like, read the intro people, or the middle, or the chapter before the chapter before the last chapter. this will tell you if you like their writing style. if not: “remove book from mouth, and place back on the table or shelf and proceed to the next eye catching cover.”

so there i was enjoying one of the little pleasures of life that includes bookstores, pretty books, and four of the five senses, and suddenly i’m realizing that i have other “obligations” to fulfill before i can buy yet another teal colored, stiff, summertime smelling book. obligations that look like 1,043 pages of Anatomy and Physiology, Psycho-logical Stats, not to mention The complete Idiot’s Guide to Statistics (Robert Donnelly Jr. you are my non deistic statistics savior) and Chemistry… then there’s Nouwen- (it’s teal, you know it’s good!), and Donald Miller (circus cover, ditto).

then, these guilt laden, i should be reading those books thoughts enter my mind and i wonder to myself if i might actually enjoy my A+P book or my Stats book if they actually smelled good, or if their covers were actually pretty. who wants to stare at a maroon cover with the word BUTLER in cheesy gold letters dead center, or at some obscure statistics equation as if it’s nice, calming, or fun to look at.

not this book peruse-er!!  only 2 1/2 months to go, and then bookstores and guilt will not be in the same thought-sentence. until then, no more borders, no more barnes and nobel, and definitely no more POWELLS*, becasuse not only should i stay away from the distractions, but i don’t have time to get lost in the bookstore…again.

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.

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*powell’s is like the biggest bookstore in the whole entire world!! okay…maybe not the whole world, but they have maps, people, they have maps, and the rooms are color coded. it’s real big.