at the other end of the tunnel

thought i’d update. boy, wordpress has changed since i’ve been gone.

i’m going home. or rather, i’m coming home. or something like that. all i know is that on wednesday i’ll travel, and i’ll end up back in my hometown. i am still adjusting to the fact that i am done with finals… so adjusting to the idea that i’m going home? that’s what plane rides are for. that and getting sick:) and i borrowed Brothers Karamazov from a friend so i could read in transit. I am looking forward to spending less time on a laptop and more time with a book.

to my hometown friends, see you soon. to my school friends, merry christmas and i’ll see you in january!

giving notice

my dears, i am discontinuing the blog until further notice. i am increasingly convinced that it is unwise for me at this time to continue posting here until i can better distinguish what exactly i do and do not want to post. i would like to continue blogging, since it is the best way of staying in touch with many of you, but i am taking at least a brief break. meanwhile, you have my cell phone number, my email, and are probably friends with me on f-book.

loving goodbye yet feeling it, too

i’m terribly happy to be in possession of one real live plane ticket.

but you’ve no idea how much i will miss the monday coffee’s with laura, the monday bible-studying with my dear katy and whoever showed up, the spanishing with nate and gib, the short but deep talks i’ve had with the women of this community, the four-month-old baby Sidster with the big smile, and the downtown where you can walk around and soak up the good (and slower) hustle and bustle of a southern city. but missing the city is kind of an afterthought. it’s mostly the people who draw me back to this place.

though the rivers and the leaves and the mountains and the bluegrass do somethin’ crazy on me.

and that coffee shop, the one where life’s problems seem to get better or worse depending on how sweet the tea is? i’ll miss that, too. today i went there and for the first time the barista asked me, now what’s your name again? that felt so good.

it’s been the most unpredictable summer. i thought i would hate it, but saying goodbye leaves a lump in my throat. that, my friends, if you have followed my summer, is an Ebenezer.

so long, verano!

straw and independence

i am staring at the last and final straw. there is no space to breathe in this house. how i wish i had refined the technique of drawing things inward, of going to that place inside where you can somehow breathe. i suppose some people call it going to your happy place. sounds corny. right now, it just sounds a lot more peaceful than the claustrophobia of family.

i am sharing a room again, my sisters are jumping rope with my every last nerve, and even my mom lost it. (it’s times like these that make me feel like it’s better for the family that i not be home, because then it’s one less logistical variable. i hate being a logistical variable.) meanwhile dad and i foolishly believed we could solve my transportation-to-school problems while we were both so tired that we were muttering zombies.

here’s an update: i have no car. i have no plane ticket. i do have a GRE ticket and plans to help freshmen and international students move in…plans which start on monday. God help me, please!

dad and i looked at some prospective cars today. one was a crown victoria ex-police car. i was unsure of whether i really wanted to drive that, but later in the day, i remembered why i want a car… and i never said it had to be a certain color or model. i drove a much uglier version of a crown vic in high school, and people thought it was endearing. they called it the hannahmobile, even. so what’s the problem? oh, i don’t know. one problem was that it creaked a bit, though the owner said it only does that when it rains. mostly it was that my mom pooh-poohed it when i got home. i knew she would, yet i’m not even sure why. sure, this family has had transportation and financial problems, but how many times have we thanked God for that stupid crown vic which has now become the newest modern art fixture in my lawn?

(we hippie-rednecks call such cars modern art, not lawn ornaments. we fervently believe that an ancient rusting car can be reborn into a beautiful trellis for a garden of wildflowers. and by wildflowers we mean weeds.)

i value my independence a lot now. i have goals i never thought i would have, like financial stability and independence. i never thought i was motivated by money… i thought people who were motivated by money were bad, or something. now i realize i am. i do not want to be in this state of living beyond one’s means. perhaps i just hate dependence and interdependence. God above is probably chuckling at how i believe i might truly be self-sufficient some day. God, help me to chuckle, too…

one good thing that has come out of the last days’ search for a transportation solution is that i have gotten to spend some time with my dad. it has been good. he tries, for my sake, to avoid certain subjects like Austrian economics, Georgia, and paper money. (fyi, i do think about those things, and i do care, at least about Georgia, but my dad tends to take the extreme downhill view of those things.) he still gives me detailed explanations of car parts, which i understand for about .2 seconds before they flee my brain. he did, accidentally, refer to me as his “son” when he was telling me about his insurance agent. As in, “just tell her you’re Bill’s son.” and we did go to J&S, where he made faces at babies.

i think i am coming around to a more tempered (balanced?) view of my parents, too, which proves interesting. it’s weird to think how like my dad i am in some ways. how there are things which are true about my dad, such as his sentimentalism/romanticism, which i value in myself and other people.

anyways. so back to the “last and final straw” thing. i am sitting in the laundry room to type this, sandwiched between the deep freeze and the washer/dryer, because there is nowhere else to be. i am in over my head. i think i can do so much…. see this person or that, arrange this or that, study quickly for the GRE (what a joke), drive this or that car 1,000 miles or so. i am anxious about this transition ahead of me. i must remember the good and deal with the bad sternly.

goodnight, dears. i’m off to find an empty couch and sleep.

the grrrrrrrrrre

oh man, so much to write about. i miss processing with my blogging friends! unfortunately, most of this still must wait.

the Olympics are addictive. i mean… it’s almost worth it to swim for 10 years just to be able to truly appreciate that inconceivable, incredible relay anchor by Jason Lezak. i even found a little animosity towards the “Frenchies” that I didn’t know i had. (they said they had come to Beijing to smash us. we didn’t say anything… just said it all, that’s all.) i have always loved the relay, and loved being the anchor. Jason, you have my permission to die happy now…

i’m back home now and… i think i’m going to start packing for school. that and buying a car and studying for the GRE (I like to call it the grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre) and a hundred other things. today church was so good, though i missed the first 20 minutes (and of course my family chooses this sunday to sit in the farthest front row, which faces sideways towards everyone else).

it stinks….i’m finally starting to really connect with people over 30, and now i’m leaving. i am glad i get to spend several months at one church soon. it’s too much to move and keep moving on this much, though i’m thankful for my parents’ church this summer.

some days i’m excited to test myself on the GRE, which is weird, but i’m a good test-taker and i have fun pitting myself against a standardized test; it can be kind of like a really hard game, a code to crack. other days i am not sure what the heck i am doing with my life, so why do i even think that grad school is a possibility? oh, this year will be one of sorting out. every year is, and i’m glad for that. i’m glad even for the tears that i’ve spent at this school, did you know that?

it has been a very long road to being able to love that school, and to treasure the time spent there. to treasure even the tears. this is one big fat Ebenezer for me, people.

i had a conversation with an awesome person today, someone who reminded me that no matter where you are in life and the background you come from, everyone has strengths and weaknesses…. which they bring to what God has for them in the church, and which they bring to relationships. it feels good to remember that. i think too often i identify myself as one big great ball of weaknesses, and i feel more comfortable using my weaknesses to relate to people, rather than my strengths. who am i to deny that God has equipped me with good gifts to serve him? now, just… what exactly are they? and how?

quick note

i’m coming back, no te preoccupes! i am keeping a list of things i want to write about. in the meantime, i must go take better care of myself.

chocolate with chocolate

do you ever find something so ordinary to be so very sad? today i bought my parents an anniversary cake, chocolate with chocolate of course, and a card. the card was the hard part. perhaps it’s the supermarket’s fault, but all the cards were either too tender or mushy or bizarre to me, in the context of my parents’ marriage. why don’t they have cards that say “we four sisters love you so much and here’s hoping that you two struggling wonderful people will have a marriage that only grows richer in love and more delightful to you both as time goes by”. but of course i would never send that card: though it isn’t passive aggressive, it might be interpreted that way.

i ended up buying one that was “humorous,” with two funny looking dogs on the front. the inside says, ‘it’s cute the way couples start to look alike after a while. happy anniversary.’ you know what? if i ever get married, i want anniversary cards to be painfully mushy. i don’t care how embarrassing they are. i just don’t want some humorous card about how the husband sits and watches tv, how the wife is a nagging shopaholic. that’s not funny to me. and yes, love is about the hard bits of life as well, but really? an anniversary is a time to celebrate the good stuff.

speaking of which, buying a card may be ordinary, but being married for 28 years is not, these days. so here’s to you, my struggling, loving, beaten-up parents. keep on truckin’.

In New York you can forget, forget how to sit still*

i’m going to New York! for the weekend. And I want to visit the Strand Bookstore! we shall see. I will think the trip a great success if we sisters are able to get along mostly and love each other and our uncle and if that happens, then heck, i don’t care what else happens. but we will go see two plays, i am excited and i shall dutifully report on them to you.

God keeps providing the people i need to talk to each day. Coral was the one today. i love her family, i love anna and those boys. i had dinner with them once, just me, and i just ate it up–the food and their familyness, their siblingness that’s so abrupt and peaceful at the same time.

one of the boys, nate, is going to work on a farm for two months, six days a week. i admire anyone who is that smart and can also handle and wants that hard work, good grief! i wonder if i could handle farm life? i pretend to be such a mountain girl, and in some ways i am one, but really i just like vegetables. especially fresh corn on the cob.

when i was small i wanted the life of a movie star or model. i mostly just wanted to be that kind of beautiful, that worshiped, i suppose. now i am so so grateful to live the life i am living right now…. hovering somewhere near middle class, living in the country, anonymity. mostly i’m just glad the street i live on is there and i can go walk on it and pick endangered flowers and look at the greenness and make up stupid songs and roll my eyes at the boys with their trucks that don’t impress me, no para nada!

basically cities like new york freak me out. i could live there for a small amount of time, perhaps a week… but where do relationships start and finish, and how do your shoulders ever relax when always surrounded by people and buildings and concrete and cars? i will love the visit, hate the stay.

*U2.

quite a day

woke up sad and couldn’t figure out why, almost wrecked the car, lost my breakfast into a nice lady’s kitchen sink, slept through the evening…having a bizarre dream about hippies which i told rachel about:

me: i had a dream about living with hippies

it was an awesome dream

Rachel:

WOW

me: more and more people just kept showing up

Rachel: i wanna hear more!

me: i was staying at this house

it had a lot of hammocks

and beds

and all these people lived there

even though i thought like three of them did

then all the others showed up

i don’t know

Rachel: i LOVE this dream already

me: it was just really happy

looking forward, i am going to miss Sydnie the 4 month old, as well as Jackson and Bettis (the dogs), i can’t wait to be a roommate with all six of my roommates (just thinking about Christi laughing and snorting some Sonic drink out her nose gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside), i am going to miss my family, i am scared of the transition, i will miss my disgusting dog and elusive cat, i am excited to hopefully have a car, i will miss my monday coffee dates like nobody’s business, i might die (but probably not) taking 5 literature courses at once, i can’t wait to be back at redeemer, back walking around my college campus, even though it will now be inhabited by a new creature: the freshman who looks like he’s 12 instead of 15, i can’t wait to at least once pollute my lungs with amy lane on our front porch, it’s going to be going to be going to be ok, i need to get a haircut, i can’t believe God provided me with a house-sitting job once i finally got over my griping about my family, i will miss this monday night bible study like CRAZY, by the way i finally can play the B-minor chord on the guitar!, God gave me some more money for school, i wish i could have a dog but i won’t because people say it’s irresponsible of a college student, i wonder who forgot my name while i was gone last semester, i hope seven roommates don’t make brownies all at once this semester, i hope bears don’t eat me while i’m house-sitting, i’m going to have a dinner party!, i can’t wait to give sydnie her new children’s book, i’m afraid of how much spanish i’ve forgotten, i want to go hiking before i leave, i hope we go camping with RUF this semester, i hope i hope i hope i hope!

: )

a white stone

laura (“home or away”) asked me if the title of my blog had anything to do with Revelation 2:17, which says:

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.”

well, laura, i didn’t intend that, but it definitely could have to do with that verse. i like the part about a white stone because i like bringing home rocks from new places I’ve been. and new places can change you. i had a really nice white rock from some Caribbean island with different layers of cream in it.

I didn’t have anything specific in mind in naming my blog, but I suppose i was thinking along these lines:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

also, i really like this verse, I think it is related:

Psalm 40:3a
He put a new song in my mouth,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Mostly, though, it came out of a conversation with Mrs. Callahan about a woman’s identity lying in something completely spiritual, nothing external, not homemaking, not being a career woman, not being anything in particular. but finding rest in Christ and not having to BE any one THING.

I also am (very, very slowly) reading this Christian book (eek!) about women called ‘Ruby Slippers’. It talks about ‘The Prayer of Identity’, the purpose of which is

“to help us remember who we are. It is a discipline for our souls, to begin stripping away the layers of our performance ability. These corsets need to be systematically stripped off, because they have tremendous sticking power. The prayer begins with negative statements designed to remove these layers one by one…

(these are filled out for the author of the book)

I am not a wife, a daughter, a niece, a sister (fill in your relationships)
I am not a philosopher (fill in your training)
I am not a writer (fill in your job)
I am not fun, enthusiastic, motivated, organized, disciplined, creative (fill in your gifts)
I am not bossy, demanding, impatient, stubborn, judgmental (fill in your failures)
I am none of these.
I am a naked soul clothed in the righteousness of Christ.”