Falling for Autmn

There is something magic about fall. Spokane sprinkled the streets and sidewalk in a crinkly cascade of red and orange fire leaves. I use to shuffle my feet and stray into the gutters to prolong the subdue cacophony beneath my feet. Now, far from Spokane, leaves, and even trees I find that even in Arizona there is still something bewitching about fall.

I love the mornings--crisp and sharp like a perfectly ripe apple. Sometimes I go running and get to watch the sunrise. The air around me is not exactly cold but somehow has a keenly sharp edge to it--fresh and new and untasted. I love the way it stings my lungs the tiniest bit, congratulating my determination for trying to wake up early and helping me finish the job.

I love how pumpkin finds its way into everything. Cookies, smoothies, decorations, fires, cakes, breads, puddings, donuts, casserole, and I even saw a pumpkin lasagna once.

I get excited about a brand new wardrobe--sweaters, hoodies (my personal favorite), jeans (wait no, maybe this is my personal favorite), scarves, hats, and fleece pajama bottoms. The colors and fabrics are exciting because they are familiar while still being fresh. I just finished winterizing my closet and while I have a lot to learn about putting outfits together I enjoy the challenge of trying.

Fall has the best smells--cinnamon, peppermint, mashed potatoes, apple pie, pine, vanilla, camp fires, and... of course... pumpkin spice.

Best of all though, I love the togetherness of everything. Neighbors, families, churches, classmates, friends, and people in general tend to merge and cooperate in a way that just doesn't seem to happen after February. People were made to love each other--that is our ultimate purpose and design. I love how the season brings out the who that we should be in just about everyone.

Happy fall everyone.

Saplings

I have recently discovered that I love things that grow. The magic never dulls to put a small hapless seed into the ground, adding sunlight and water, and watching it become something green and vivid, growing and changing. Each sapling, you know, is unique. I planted pansies in my window box and nine sprouted. Even as saplings they each look different, they grow and change at different rates. And some of them don't grow at all. Even with the risk of failure though, I love to try. I love to watch them twist and change each day. Do plants have personalities? Do they think and feel? Do they have growing pains like we do? Do they crave water and light the same way I crave chocolate and affection? It is a thrill to watch them.

I like things that grow slow. Plants, dreams and aspirations, families, testimonies, dinner rolls, and emotions.

And relationships.

It often takes me a few beats to get use to change--even if it's good. It seems slow growing things all require warmth and nourishment, time and care in order to grow strong and healthy. They grow at their own pace, each one unique. They twist around themselves and change, they surprise me and seem to often catch me off guard.

I have no idea what this one will turn into, how it will look, or if it will ever bear fruit. I suppose that is part of the magic though--the very uncertainty that makes slow growth a risk is what makes it worth trying for, because if you don't even try it will certainly die. Slowly. I don't love uncertainty, I don't love growing pains, and I certainly don't relish the very real possibility that all this could end in a heap of shallow roots and dried up twigs.

But I do love the thrill of slow growth.

The sweet of faded mirrors

I work at a nursing home, and there I am blessed to see what true, unselfish, charitable love looks like. Today I worked with a lady whose husband was so full of unselfish, undimmed love I felt like there was no possible way it could be unrequited, no matter how buried his beautiful bride seemed to be in the progression  of her tragic disease. This is what I imagine she might be thinking even if she can't recognize him.

There is something right in his his eyes--

the way the horn-rims nestle on the bridge of his nose
framing faded gray mirrors and bridge
the sea of reflection into 1001 stories and nights

but Scheherazade forgot, and now I'm tired.

I wake to a grumble like rainy gravel
that smells of Downy, denture cream, and sunrise.
"Are you tired sweetheart? I thought
I heard you whisper" his Polligrip in my ear...

Bing Crosby confuses me, I turn at the wall.

The paisley walls stare back loudly and it hurt my wrists
Crosby (or was it Scheherazade?) pats them into quiet.
My wrists and my eyes want to be still, but
the rivets in his leather extract something from somewhere.

Now my wrists want to pull away. I don't like doctors.

He stands. I want him to sit but my eyes still want still

I want to swim in his horn-rims, to taste his grumble again.
I want his leather on my wrist. There is something,

Something somewhere in the somewhere of nights...

Somewhere sweet in my heart about a creamy sunrise...

Something right in faded gray mirrors.

At an Arm's Distance

I am a simple girl with a simple personal philosophy: I LOVE being happy and avoid anything that interferes with attaining said state. Besides happy, I'm not very good with other emotions because they tend to complicate things. Using logic and carefully calculated goals and sequences I have planned and structured each aspect of my life meticulously to be something that I love that makes me happy--and I am happy.

Tonight however in addition to being happy I am overwhelmed. I am excited and glad and tired and worried and frustrated and anxious and pleased and grumpy, and in every way outmatched by this complicated disaster of tangled emotions all trying to express themselves, each demanding I use my underdeveloped ability to express it at the same time as each of the others. What a mess. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, I can't decide if its something I like or not, and the jury's definitely out on whether or not it's something I can deal with.

I have created a lifestyle around being able to control and predict everything and race from responsibility to responsibility barely taking time out for eating let alone complicated thought. This new state of disquietude and uncertainty is both exciting and threatening, and I can't figure out quite how to take my hands off the steering wheel and lose control of the wild tempo I have set my life to long enough to try something new, and even if I could figure out how to do, so the wisdom of such an act is questionable.

I have a bad habit of holding the things I want but can't control just far enough away that I can admire them without letting them get close enough to hurt me should they be taken away, keeping myself safe at an arm's length distance. I am better at being lonely than at being vulnerable.

But I think I like this boy. It is true that I am nervous and unsure and trying to figure this all out as I go. It is true that maybe I am in over my head and that I feel vulnerable and anxious and not at all in control of the situation. It is possible that this will hurt at sometime, but it is also possible that I really do like him and I would hate for it to fail just because I'm no good with emotions. Maybe I will have to learn to bend my elbow just a little bit.

When Things Wash Away

On Friday night me and 2 of my roommates drew a sidewalk chalk mural on our driveway in preparation for the return of our third roommie. It wasn't exactly a masterpiece (at least not my contribution sections) but it was kind of a fantastic explosion of colorful (if poorly proportioned) representations of many of the things we love. We were probably out there for about an hour drawing fish, stars, song lyrics, and all sorts of nonsense. It was fun to imagine her excitement as she came home to find the driveway covered in our love and affection.

Then the rain washed it away about an hour and a half after we finished.

Arizona obviously does not have very many big rainstorms so this one, while being unfortunate in its timing, was something fun and different. As I walked barefoot in the warm runoff and let the rain-pellets hit me over and over again I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the situation. I love the rain. I do. I love the feel of it, the smell of it, the taste and sound of it all. And I love the way it makes everything fresh and clean and fantastic. In Texas (and yes, I know people hate when I start sentences this way, but oh well) the rain comes down in buckets to drench everything in fantastic great big Texas style. I miss that. This is my sister when we were dancing in a classic Texas rainstorm.

Still, it was hilariously tragic that the rain washed all of our efforts away.

I feel like this is my life, though. As a single adult building myself and my life and my future I travel from place to place and group to group, spend months and months building fantastic friendships and relationships that I treasure only to move away or stay while others move away or marry and move on until yet again I am left with a blank driveway slate to fill yet again with colorful people and experiences. Maybe this is how everyone feels, married or not, but for me, I feel like my life is in a constant state of construction (kind of like the highways in Utah) with building up and taking out and re-positioning all over the place.

Taken in the abstract, this process is exhausting. Truly it is. To start over again and again and again is not easy, it is usually lonely, and sometimes it's not even fun. Still, constant recreation has its virtues too. I have met dozens of amazing people from all over the country who I love. In interacting with so many people and forcing myself outside of my comfort zone I have learned valuable things about myself that I am both grateful and averse to acknowledge. Being able to paint my life again and again allows me to slowly but steadily do what I can to build myself into the person I want to be instead of just the person I am, even if I end up smudged and misshapen along the way.

Plus, there is something to be said for the experience of painting a mural, even if the rain leaves us with little to show for it. Maybe my returning roommate did not see our work of art but we did. I learned how to draw eyebrows with sidewalk chalk. That is something. We laughed and smiled and squatted and played. That is absolutely something. Loving people, even if they aren't people I can't keep, has a cleansing affect even more powerful than the rain for me. I leave each place, or perhaps more accurately I leave each person less blemished than I was before I came. So even if I end up alone or blank or even a little bit bewildered and lost at the end of each adventure it's alright because I also end up more somehow. I end up someone who can draw an eyebrow. I end up someone who can smile a little easier than I could before. I end up someone with stronger quads from squatting in the driveway.

So let the mural begin again. I will conquer this new fresh slate because I have a Heavenly Father who knows how to paint perfectly, and while my scribbles probably inspire much more amusement than awe, if I allow Him He can paint me into a masterpiece. And yes it will be a little lonely, and of course I will make many mistakes, and certainly sometimes I will look at the chalky mess and wonder what in the world I have done and how could I have possibly messed everything up so thoroughly. But that's alright, because for times like that I can say, thank goodness for a good Texas-style rainstorm!

The Worst Delightful Camping Trip

This entry is an attempted copy of my sister’s style. I am not nearly as creative, talented, or artistic with Microsoft paint as she clearly is but I will do my best. This story really needs illustrations as it is too unbelievably craptastic to be believed any other way. Here we go.

I love camping. We use to do it a lot when I was younger before my dad was called to be so involved in the scouts program that he got tired of camping. Still, as a child I learned to love waking up to the sounds of birds, eating breakfast with the smell of charcoal, looking at skies bursting with stars, and even putting up the tent and sleeping on the ground. So I decided that we needed to go camping with a group of friends. So, on a rather ordinary Friday night we took off, cars packed with gear, arrangements made, for a great fun camping trip in the mountains of Flagstaff.

This is what it was supposed to look like. If only this was my only illustration.

Our first misadvanture happened on the highway. While listening to Hakuna Matata from Disney’s The Lion King soundtrac a terrible thumping noise. We pulled to the side of the road to find that our back driver’s side tire was totally destroyed. Luckily we had a chivalrous boy in our car who took changing the tire on while we did obnoxious dance moves to try and ward the 90-mph careening semis into the other lane to prevent his imminient death while crouched precariously on the shoulder of the road over the devastated remains of the tire. After a sucessful change we continued our journey at a much slower donut-friendly pace. Somewhere along the remaining half-hour or so driving to our campsite destination the other car called to inform us that there were no available camping spots but that they would keep looking. We made it to the parking lot of Discount Tire in Flagstaff and spent the next hour or so fielding calls from the other car who were not finding anything anywhere while we slept in the car. Finally, around midnight we decided we were done and decided to check into the hotel across the way.

The sign advertised these amenities:
1- free wi fi (this one was true)
2- newly remodeled (this one was DEFINITELY not)
3- comfortable beds (debatable)
4- color TV (this part of the sign was the biggest and brightest haha)

While I have stayed at less reputable places this certainly was no welcoming wilderness canopy. Granted, most of us were so tired we just collapsed where we landed (boys on one side and girls on the other, obviously) too tired to really even consider the propriety of our sleeping arrangements. The last thing I remember before slipping into a long-awaited (if oft-interrupted) slumber was the sound of sirens blowing past our hotel and someone saying something about how well that sound fit into our current sleeping arrangements.

After a slightly awkward scene of taking turns in the dinky bathroom morning and a bit of puttering around and getting lost again we found a park to cook breakfast at. While there I decided to grab the business end of a hot pan, burning all of my fingers on my right hand. The friend handing me the pan burned his hand too in a valiant but futile effort to prevent my stupidity. He handled his pain well, but this event left me grumpy and snappish all day and I found that the best way to stave off the throbbing was to wave my hand up in the air.

After breakfast, we went hiking. This picture really is just cause I wanted to use crayons in the computer paint program which is both amazing and ridiculous.

The hike was beautiful and fun, even if the top did look like something from Mordor in the Lord of the Rings. Still, it was a beautiful, cool, fantastic way to spend our day. We kind of broke into 2 groups that flexed and flowed a little. The tire-changing champion was in a hurry to get to an activity back in Phoenix so one group raced down the mountain while the other went at a reasonable pace. Fun story attached to this—when the fast group got to the bottom they found out the keys, phone, and wallet for Mr. Tire Changer were locked in the other car. Luckily he still had a ride back but he had to make it to his appointment without any of his stuff.

Coming down we realized that one member of our party was not with either of the two descending groups. We called his name and looked for him but neither group found him as we descended. Luckily he did make it down the mountain. I was sleeping on a rock when he came down before the second group made it. Unfortunately both of our phones were dead so we just let everyone else worry while we drank the rest of our water supply.

Luckily we all made it back to Phoenix without further incident but this will have to go down as my worst camping trip EVER. Quite possibly THE worst camping trip ever as we didn’t even go camping.  Why I am still smiling as I write about it is beyond me. I guess even utter disaster can be fun and delightful.

God DID Bless America!

Today was my first Independence Day as a real live physical therapist. At work we don't really get holidays off. As one of my co-workers stated, sickness and disease don't really take a vacation, so I suppose it makes sense that we don't either. So today while my family was out on the lake in Oklahoma, my friends were sprinkled from Boston to California, and my roommates were going to visit our injured comrade in Utah I spent the day battling disability and lice at my rehab facility.

There was something exciting and gratifying, though, about serving those who have built the nation I call home. We have several veterans, a few teachers, a smattering of house-wives, accountants, scientists, librarians, a garbage collector, and dozens of parents and grandparents who brought up girls and boys just like me and my siblings. Call me corny, but for just a moment today our crowded gym of the elderly in varying stages of rehabilitation were transformed into a veritable army of fantastically ordinary people who carried the load of America for the fifty-some-odd years before I was ready to pick up my portion of the work.

The Founding Fathers gave their genius, efforts, and in some cases their very lives so that I can live in the best nation on the planet, but so did my grandparents, and their grandparents, and countless generations of unremarkably obscure individuals who built the world I live in just by going about doing their labor, being who they were, living out their dreams and sorrows, and generally doing the very best they could with what they had.

How inspiring.

I think that is truly what makes America the greatest nation. The government, the constitution, the thousands of miles of beautiful land and resources, the parallel oceans that protect us, and the inspiring history of courage and bravery really serve as scaffolding for the wonder that is the anonymity of living the best way you can just because that's what you should do.

So today I honestly don't mind working. I don't mind a grinding 9 hour day of lice and maggots and an achy back and watching the miracle of the human body healing itself. I don't mind because this is what I can do. This is how I can contribute the the greatness of America. It may be small, it is certainly inadequate, but all the same, I will throw in my Mite into the effort and myself into this crazy fray they call life.

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” So, Teddy, I will. Happy Independence Day!