Honey From The Rock

I'm in Michigan. Millersburg, Michigan to be very exact. It's always interesting to me to watch how I change in different locations, especially when its reflected in my clothing or speech. Today I am wearing long johns, jeans which have been carelessly shoved into large brown and black hiking boots, an undershirt, a t-shirt, a black long sleeved shirt, a flannel shirt with only two buttons together and a puffy blue vest. I left my Kenyan scarf and blue wool mittens at home. My hair, the size of my mother's in the 80s, is up in a messy bun (the back is falling down some, I think, I don't actually know). I look like a good old farm girl from the north woods of Michigan, except I'm typing on a pink Macbook and my phone just vibrated from a new text message. And I don't actually belong here, not completely. I am twenty-one years old. And being home (because I would call this home, at least my heart home, the place that means the most to me because of roots, where

Just a couple of pictures of my vacation in Michigan and my last days at home before leaving for school. 

My life since the last post has transitioned into a new season. No more camp or summer shorts, beat-up t-shirts, and head scarfs; no more beautiful seven years olds singing pop songs or coloring for hours. School has begun and I've had to move into a period of organization, arranging my stuff, my time, my attitude. I've set up my dorm room, creating places for clothes, books, posters, movies, old stained couches, and ripped chairs. I've had to place my days into slots, dividing it into my classes, meetings, meals, and homework. My thoughts are just beginning to transition back into this focused, detail-oriented perspective, where I have thousands of little things that I have to make happen, but need to intensely devote myself to one task at a time. When this school mode kicks in, it is easy to forget the world, forget time isn't naturally divided by classes, homework, and friends, forget that people breathe and rest, forget that there is more to life than finishing ever

When I lifeguard, I dream about drownings. I always see the victims from above; they're completely still, lying at the bottom of the pool. Adam, another counselor, the hipster of Camp Pathway with long, curly brown hair, bandanas, skinny jeans, and the kind of band junkie who, when you get close enough, you can hear humming a fast, drum beat, was life guarding. I wasn't in the pool room; I was standing out in the hallway that runs parallel to the pool. People began running past me, paramedics and policemen and other counselors. And then I saw the body from the bird's-eye-view that always accompanies these dreams. The body was long, lean, and tan, a young teenage boy, a volunteer for the week, I think; his name was Cullen. He was pronounced dead. And then, I was at the pool again; this time I must have been guarding. Normally, Isaac, my older brother, wouldn't be swimming at the camp pool, but he was there, wearing exactly what I saw him in last; a white t-shirt and

I just wanted to share the goodness of my evening. It's been my first spent simply at home. I read, blogged, played with the dog, did yoga, and ate good food. Also music, Lorene Scafaria's We Can't Be Friends has been playing itself into my head recently.

From http://www.holidayatthesea.com/?p=4051 I finished my first novel by Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood.  The novel, I think, is about salvation and the absence of grace. The main character, Hazel Motes, is a lost, restless man whose family is dead and whose roots are gone. He moves to a city where he meets strange characters, in particular a phony beggar who masquerades as a self-blinded preacher and Enoch, a half-insane boy whose life's only meaning is not his dead-end job at the zoo but his pulsing blood (intuition, feelings) that dictates his actions. Hazel Motes, obsessed with the reality of Jesus Christ and redemption, rebels against his grandfather's preaching and climbs on the hood of his car to preach "the Church of Christ Without Christ." The novel focuses on Hazel Motes as he desperately tries to find the truth without Christ; as he searches for meaning and salvation, he throws out the idea of a Savior. However, his means of salvation, his denial of g

Earlier this week, I felt good. Handing out ice-packs, tying shoes, answering parents' questions, teaching archery, showing second grade girls how to paddle a canoe, playing with and taking care of my seventeen campers; basically being the best camp counselor ever. And I had a revelation: I'm better than I thought at my job. I realized that I was pulling off all my responsibilities with insight and laughter. I felt so good. (are you ready? I totally just set you guys up for that pride-comes-before-a-fall trick) Yesterday, I had a second revelation: I'm worse than I thought at my job. I yelled like crazy, even stood up on a picnic table and shouted like a maniac in front of the entire camp. Playing it as joke didn't diminish the feeling of relieved tension after I blew up, showing the authenticity of my anger. I also yelled at a group of boys, calling them out, trying to make jokes as I went, softening my rebukes, and every single joke fell flat. I finally just walked

I finished reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion just now. I expected to cry but I didn’t. not until the end did I tear up a little bit. Her grief for her husband was raw, very real, and compelling portrayed. She was able to meld her thoughts on death and her memories of her life with her husband into a unified, interesting reflection on time, change, and meaning.  She left certain things underdeveloped, like the idea of meaning in life; she raised the question but never answered it. But I think that is not what this book was meant to do; perhaps the question was never answered, this loose end never tied, because the book is simply a reflection of her actual life. She doesn’t know the answer to meaning in her life. I found this sad, these loose ends. They were real, raw, and intriguing as a firsthand account of grief, but there was something missing.  The last lines she writes are “You had to go with the change. He told me that. No eye is on the sparrow but he did tel

Let me just say, work has been trying my patience. I won't go into the gory, frustrating details, but today included: one vomiting child, two angry parents, seventeen second-grade girls, one uber-unorganized boss, four "co-counselors," and almost three hours of administrative paperwork and parent-handling. My feet hurt, and yes, to all my avid readers, I felt like cussing. (don't be too shocked...) But the good things, because as I said (in writing!) this blog will also chronicle blessings, are also numerous. To begin with: options. I have options. I have been praying about friendship lately and new avenues to discovering new friends in Macon, Georgia. and God has provided. I have four or five different groups of people I could invest in at the moment. Tonight there were two Bible studies that I was invited to (though I chose instead to rest after this particular Monday). Blessing number two: my mom's cooking. I know food has already come up before in the shor

So I linked up to  Kendi Everyday 's 30 for 30  challenge that starts on June 13. If you're unfamiliar with her 30 for 30, you basically create thirty different outfits using only thirty items of clothing. For me, my wardrobe is extremely limited, and thirty different outfits is a big deal. (Not to mention my daily uniform as a camp counselor is gym shorts and t-shirts). So I'm tweaking the challenge a little. I plan on doing thirty outfits over the rest of the summer (about two months), instead of thirty days, and I'm also including shopping in the challenge (optional for this 30 for 30). Ultimately my goal is to build a wardrobe through creatively using what I already have and then purchasing some other items to round it all out. My hope is that by the fall I'll have a great foundational wardrobe once I go back to college.  Clothes have always been a struggle for me. In high school clothes showed what group you were in, and although I tried to model my outfits

My brother graduated this past weekend, and since it was West Point, they have an entire week of pomp and ceremony, which is really quite cool. I'm uber proud of my big brother; four years have flown by though and I can't believe that West Point is finished for  him and he is now looking forward to his marriage THIS Saturday. Can you believe it? That kid who taught me how to sled, to be brave, to look forward to eternity instead of here, is getting married. Crazy. Crazy.   My family, so obviously quirky and flawed and unusual. I love them a lot and this picture reminds me of  that. Again, quirky. (a nice way to say weird. I swear every family photo we take could make it into that Awkward Family Photos book. At least here we weren't trying to be normal).  We three represented the family at the formal banquet where Michelle Obama spoke. Her speech was actually very good; conservative (probably aware of the majority of the audience: gun-carrying, independent, most-likel

This is my dinner and my pre-dinner reading. I didn’t actually cook this splendid meal; it was my mother.  It was truly amazing. Rice and steak stir-fry with red and yellow peppers on top and cooked cabbage on the side.  I love cabbage. It makes me feel uber-German and reminds me of fogged up windows from dinner simmering on the stove, my dad coming in after work, hungry for dinner and family quiet; my mom in the kitchen cooking; my brothers and I waiting and happy.    A lot of people don’t like cabbage, but they should… 1. It tastes really good; just add salt. 2. “ This food is very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Protein, Thiamin, Calcium, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, Folate, Magnesium, Potassium and Manganese.” That’s a direct quote from http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2376/2 . Yeah, you saw it here. 3. While eating cabbage, you

My friend, who reads, told me that all the great writers say that writing is work; you have to discipline yourself to do it everyday (or something like that). This past semester I have realized that I can't leave writing out of my life; it keeps turning up and I've discovered how much I love it. So I've embraced it, perhaps naively, maybe subconsciously thinking that writing would come easy for me. But this summer I have challenged myself to not only embrace my dream of writing, but embrace the work of writing (because Annie Dillard is probably right about all the work involved). I want to stop simply talking about the act of writing, but get my hands a little dirty and actually write enough to get frustrated with it. When I write academic papers, for some reason I always use the metaphor of churning butter. (weird, I know) I can churn out an academic paper, but creative, descriptive writing is different. It transcends the level of simple communication to the level of aes

I have one achievement of today. I finished Toni Morrison's Beloved , a book I was given by a retiring professor of mine. He had told me that he was cleaning out his bookshelves, and so on a Wednesday morning, after class and between tornado sirens, I waited outside his office with a few other steadfast students. After his meeting ended, we slipped in and ransacked his bookshelves while he leaned back in his desk chair and issued his usual insightful but semi-caustic commentary on our choices. When I left, he laughed and shook his head, saying that my parents would hate him for all the books I was leaving with. But elated, I ended up hauling two bags of books back to my dorm room. Beloved  was gripping, well-written but dark. I could clearly see man's depravity but also the grayness between good and evil in the story. It was gritty and real, shocking and almost overwhelming at points, but good. I like those kind of stories, that see life and face its reality. But the story al

Happy Mother's Day! This is my mom, my brother, and I, in commemoration of what my mom has given me and both of my brothers (and its not just insanely curly hair, either). She's been a blessing, a teacher, a friend, and a beautiful picture of Christ.

Today I am returned from school, and my summer has officially begun. My last two weeks have been strange; home for Easter, back to school only to hide from tornadoes, be evacuated, say goodbye, and drive home for a week with my roommate, A. And then only to come back this weekend for graduation. But now, graduation is over, Allie has returned to Charlotte, I am home and my summer is here. I know summer is here when I sit in silence and don’t notice it. At school there is always something to listen to or something not to listen to. Always noise or an intentional absence of noise. But at home, my family lives with silence. It is part of us. I’m not really sure if this is just a feature of living in a real house, not a dorm, or this is a quirk of my family. I know we (oddly) do not talk when we eat or drive in the car; it’s almost unnatural when we’re all together. Rarely is there natural, easy conversation around meals. I’m not sure if it’s a habit built in from both of my parents grow