So as to not disappear indefinitely (that’s the word of the month, ps), as I am wont to do, I thought I might should drop in briefly.  How long can I get away with the “I don’t have internet” excuse?”  I suppose not while I’m housesitting, which I am currently.  Oh well.  Deal.

I’ve actually been writing a ton lately, just not here.  I’ve actually been writing fiction.  [I'll give you a second to pick your jaws up off the ground]  It’s true.  To be sure, I never really expected to be writing it.  It just kind of happened.  Fell into my lap.  The characters appeared, and I couldn’t NOT give them life.  I’m only about 15,000 words into it, but as far as I’m aware, it’s not even half over.  I’ve been trying to write regularly, to be disciplined about it–something I’m not good at making myself do, as evidenced by my plethora of hobbies at which my skill level is mediocre–and I’m hoping to finish it before November.

Why November?  Because November is National Novel Writer’s Month.  In other words, thousands of people attempt to write a novel (50,000 words) between midnight November 1 and midnight November 30.  I gave it a shot in 2006, got about 2000 words in, and then my life fell apart.  If only I were joking about that last part.  In any event, last November wasn’t nearly as insane as the one before, but was still pretty ludicrous.  So here I am in 2008, ready to give it another shot!  And this time, I’ve actually written a bit of fiction, so I have a slight clue what I’m doing (ok, I still don’t really, but more so than 2006, right?).  I have some ideas about the novel…I know the characters, though they remain nameless, and have a vague idea of plot, so I suppose that’s a good start, right?  And the best part is, Grand Canyon = minimal social life.  So averaging around 1,700 words a day won’t be a problem in the slightest!

For a quick note, I’m currently in Santa Fe, NM (though I’m heading out of town in about an hour).  It may be the loveliest place I’ve ever visited.  Or, at least, the loveliest city.  To be honest, I don’t particularly want to leave.

The biggest reason that I decided to come up here–it is, after all, about 2 hours out of my way–was the Georgia O’Keefe museum.  I’ve enjoyed her work since we first learned about her in elementary art classes, though I really fell in love with her work during my American Art class sophomore year of college.  I also rather enjoyed Alfred Steiglitz’s work, which I studied again in my Photography class last fall.  After all spending so much time in art museums in Europe, I’ve come to enjoy American art even more.  So of course the O’Keefe museum sounded fantastic.

The truly fantastic part though, which I didn’t know until I got there, was that the current exhibit is “Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities”.  Y’all.  O’Keefe and Adams are my two loves.  Far and away my favorites.  They encapsulate everything that I love about painting and photography.  They are the reasons that I started painting and taking photos.  So the museum was pretty much heaven.  I literally walked around the entire time with a huge goofy grin on my face.  I was in my own little world (though I did notice a number of strange looks being shot my way when my face would light up at particular paintings/photos).  It was awesome.

In any event, there were lovely quotes from both O’Keefe and Adams all over the walls of the museum, mainly about their approaches to art and their love for the Southwest.  And I kinda felt like the two were quoting my soul (never mind that Adams died the year before I was born and O’Keefe died the year after).  There was one in particular from O’Keefe that I felt like really captured what I often have trouble putting into words: “You know, I never feel at home in the East like I do here–and finally feeling in the right place again–I feel like myself–and I like it”.

I’ve realized (yet again) in being out here that this really is where I belong.  I simply don’t feel at home in the East like I do out here.  The East doesn’t speak to me like the Southwest does.  It doesn’t understand me like the Southwest does.  It doesn’t beckon me to stay like the Southwest does.  It’s a wonder to me that I’ve been able to spend as much time in the East as I have.  I keep complaining that at some point I’ll have to go back east to go to div school, because there really aren’t any div schools–or at least of the calliber that I’d like to attend–out west.  But part of me wonders if maybe I’ve bought into the mindset and the lifestyle of the East, if maybe I’d never want to go to that kind of school if I hadn’t grown up and been educated in the East.

Part of me wonders if perhaps I’m out here for good.  And at least for now, nothing would make me happier.

Ok, so perhaps not precisely a myriad, but that sounded much better than “multiple” or “a few”.

For those of you all who hadn’t heard yet, I am no longer living in Memphis.  Actually, that’s not entirely true.  I am in Memphis right now, but only for the next week.  And then I head out to Arizona, where I’m going to work at the Grand Canyon again.  Everyone seems to think I’m exaggerating when I say that I have an ongoing-impossible-to-break-off-no-matter-how-hard-I-try love affair with Arizona…but I’m really not!  I’m more or less going to be out there indefinitely…I have a tentative plan to leave in March/April and move back to Raleigh…but I may not actually do that.  We’ll see where life takes me!

But on to other things. 

First of all, my best friend is an incredible singer/songwriter.  I mean, we’ve been friends for 12 years, and she’s been making music since before we met, and I’m still constantly in awe of her.  What I wouldn’t give to write/sing/play like her!  She recorded an EP this spring called Silver Living.  And it’s awesome.  So go check out her myspace: www.myspace.com/jessicalongsilverlining.  You will not regret it!  I swear! (Also, the song Attic was recorded on her computer after the EP, which is why the sound quality is not so hot…but the song is great!)

Second of all.  I still get some mail at my parents house, which they collect and give me whenever I visit.  I was there earlier in the month, and among other random pieces of mail was a copy of Boundless.  I have no idea where that came from.  I sure as hell didn’t request it (as evidenced by the fact that it was addressed to Katie…and, you know, the fact that it was Boundless!).  But I was bored one evening, so I picked it up and gave it a look through.  It made me want to slit my wrists.  Ok, that might be a bit extreme.  But seriously, it was pretty depressing.

I now understand that it’s a magazine specifically for singles, but the tagline on the cover of the magazine said “a magazine for 20-somethings”.  The entire thing was filled with articles about making the most of being single, being single in your mid-20’s when you thought you’d be married, accepting help from parents on picking a mate, preparing for a solid biblical marriage, etc.  I know I already said this, but it really made me want to hurt myself.

I know that singleness sucks sometimes.  It sucks more for some people than others (like the people who want nothing more than to be married and have kids…I have all kinds of thoughts on those people, but I’ll save that for another day).  But I felt like I was reading about a disease.  One that’s virtually incurable.  One that consumes the every thought of 20-something’s everywhere.

I guess that’s what really bugged me about it.  It claimed to be a magazine for 20-somethings, but it was entirely about relationships—most notably, the lack thereof.  Is that really all that 20-something’s care about?  I know that I, for one, care about quite a bit more than my relationship status.  To be sure, I’d like to get married and have a family someday, and I wouldn’t mind if it were sooner rather than later, but in the meantime I’d prefer to pour myself into other endeavors, things that actually mean something.  Like art, or friendships, or service, or ministry, or writing, or traveling, or just plain being me and being happy with that.  I’d rather not spend every minute of the prime of my life bemoaning my lack of a significant other.  But maybe that’s just me…

So, I know I’ve been horrible about blogging.  But, in my defense, I don’t have internet at my apartment, and my computer’s had all kinds of issues the past month (including quite frequently refusing to turn on and yet another afunctional power cord), so I can’t even write at home to post later.  My most sincere apologies.

I only have but a couple minutes to write, but I thought I’d share an interesting story.  I suppose that I should preface this story by saying that my two best friends and I have said for several years that the three of us need to have a reality show.  Originally, this was decided because we’re pretty hilarious and kinda ridiculous, and the rest of the world would love us.  However, we’ve since realized that the real reason we need a reality show is that the most ridiculous things in the world happen to us; most particularly, to me.  I mean, I do know some people who have more ridiculous things happen to them, but it often has to do with their personalities and the way they interact with people.  Not the case with me.  In general, my ridiculous situations are entirely independent of me–I just happen to witness them (not always the case, but often).

Which brings me to today’s ridiculous story.  From my window at work today, I saw a bear.  But not just any bear.  I saw a bear on a leash, being taken on a walk around the grounds of the church I work at.  A bear.  On a leash.  On a walk.

WHAT?!?

Does that even happen?  I mean, it’s pretty hot these days, so I suppose I could have been hallucinating, but I’m almost entirely sure that I actually saw it.  But…what the heck?  Who does that?  Who takes a bear on a walk?  At a church?

I’ve been going through my old abandoned blogs over the past couple days, trying to get everything moved over here.  It’ll be a bit crazy when I do, seeing as it’ll put all my writing from the past 7 years in one space.  Crazy.  But it’s been really fun to go through and read my old thoughts.  I’ve actually only gotten through my high school material thus far, and I can’t help but shake my head at how overly melodramatic I was then.  Of course it’s to be expected, but I really thought I was a very level headed girl back then.  I guess this is where I say something about hindsight, huh?

Anyway, in the process of going through the blogs, I’ve come across a number of gems.  Some of them are kinda ridiculous, but some of them are just flat out GOOD.  It makes me sad how little confidence I had in my writing back then.  I’ve finally started writing songs again (rather than just once every year and a half or so), and reading everything I wrote back in high school really makes me wish I’d been writing this whole time.  My songs really were not as bad as I thought they were.  Some of them were/are actually pretty darn good, especially considering I wrote them at 15, 16, 17.  I can only hope that I can make up for it these days.

This is a little bit of a song called “Restless Spirit” that I found in one of my very very old blogs, dated January 7, 2002.  Which puts me at 16.  I actually remember writing this song and I remember liking it for a little while, and then soon thinking that it was garbage.  I’m not really sure what happened to the rest of it, I didn’t come across it when my parents moved last year, which means I most likely don’t still have the rest of it.  That makes me all kinds of sad, because I really love it now.

Well I’m a restless spirit lying here at midnight, still awake
And all I really wanna do is get a little sleep.
But the only thing that’s on my mind is how I’m still a slave,
‘Cause I slave to the creation of lyric, verse, and song.
So while everyone else admires, all I seem to do is create,
And beauty becomes so commonplace it’s sometimes hard to see.
So maybe I’m just different and have things I want to say,
But knowing that does nothing for me except keep me awake.

Here’s my 2007 reading list.  I was really hoping to get to 50 this year.  Obviously, I didn’t even get close.  But I also spent 4 months out of the country without access to books that I was interested in reading.  So I figure, if I’d had those 4 months, I would have reached 50.  We’ll set that as a preliminary goal for next year, though I may reevaluate that goal next fall (read: I’ll be out of school and in the middle of nowhere, so I may want a much higher goal!).  In any event, I’m pretty pleased with my list this year.  As I’m such a creature of habit, there are some definite patterns.  Nearly 1/3 of them had something to do with Judaism.  Exactly 1/7 were Christian chick-lit (hey, we all have guilty pleasures!).  There was a late surge of books about fundmentalist mormonism which will most definitely carry into next year.  I read multiple books by C.S. Lewis, Lauren Winner, Chaim Potok, Rob Bell, and Kristin Billerbeck; interestingly enough, I love Winner, Potok, and Billerbeck, whereas I can’t stand Lewis and Bell.  I also chose not to list my school books this year, partially because the list was much more unimpressive than previous years and partially because I never got around to listing them before I sold them back.

1. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
2. Grand Canyon Brides: Four Harvey Girls Work to Tame the Old West Along the Rails by Dianne Christner, Nancy J. Farrier, Darlene Mindrup, and Pamela Kaye Tracy
3. Other People’s Trades by Primo Levi
4. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
5. Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner (twice)
6. Real Sex by Lauren Winner (unfinished)
7. Sex God by Rob Bell
8. The Promise by Chaim Potok
9. Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge
10. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
11. Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner (reread)
12. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard (unfinished)
13. I Am the Grand Canyon: The Story of the Havasupai People by Stephen Hirst
14. Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon by Thomas M. Myers and Michael P. Ghiglieri
15. The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of the Early Days by Frederick Buechner
16. The Gates of November by Chaim Potok
17. Davita’s Harp by Chaim Potok
18. Old Men at Midnight by Chaim Potok
19. Wanderings: The History of the Jews by Chaim Potok (unfinished)
20. Nickel and Dimed : On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrennreich
21. To Own A Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father by Donald Miller and John MacMurray
22. Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne
23. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
24. Calm, Cool, and Adjusted by Kristin Billerbeck
25. She’s All That by Kristin Billerbeck
26. A Girl’s Best Friend by Kristin Billerbeck
27. Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell (unfinished)
28. Escape by Carolyn Jessop and Laura Palmer
29. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott (unfinished)
30. What A Girl Wants by Kristin Billerbeck
31. Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy by Dorothy Allred Solomon (unfinished)
32. Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America by Mike Yankoski
33. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer (unfinished)
34. I Am American (An So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert
35. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs

After our RUF Christmas party a week and a half ago, I went out to Bosco’s for drinks with two other seniors (Ruthanne and Haley), our RUF intern (Casey), and our RUF pastor’s wife (Shelly).  And it was fabulous.  I don’t get to spend near as much time with any of them as I’d like, and I hardly get to see Casey and Shelly at all.

The conversation had been going along pleasantly for a while when Casey asked me if I was excited about going home.  The answer to that question is always no.  Especially this break, when my best friend and I are only going to overlap for about 4 days.  I responded as such with no hestitation, which I think surprised them all a bit.  Casey’s a counselor, so she began asking questions about why, etc.  And I started giving answers, mostly about all the craziness and dysfunctionality that is my family (for the record, I absolutely consider myself just as dysfunctional, albeit in very different ways, as the rest of my family).

Somehow, this conversation led into a discussion on being raised in the PCA.  Oh. My. Lord.  It was incredible.  I can honestly say that I have never before felt so understood while talking about my religious upbringing.  It was fascinating, really.  I grew up PCA.  In fact, until I went off to college, I could count on one hand the number of non-PCA churches I’d ever been to.  Ruthanne started going to PCA churches in high school.  Haley had never heard of reformed theology until midway through college.  Casey and Shelly both became reformed in college, mostly through RUF.  Casey especially is among those who started out as “TR’s” (Totally Reformed…ie, absolutely obsessed with reformed theology, and talking/discussing/arguing/pontificating about it at every possible opportunity).

We talked for a while about how unique my generation is, being the first to be raised PCA.  There are a lot of things that my generation is discovering about the denomination, and especially the culture and sociology of the denomination that most older folks don’t know, simply because they weren’t born into the tradition.  We talked about how the PCA pretty much brainwashes its kids, about a variety of things, but does it very very subtly and unintentionally (or, at least, I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that there isn’t a brainwashing committee at GA every year).

The thing that we talked about for a long time is the difference in anxiety between reformed and non-reformed kids.  Haley shared about growing up Southern Baptist and worrying that she wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t good enough for Christ and for heaven.  When she first heard about grace when she started attending a PCA church with Ruthanne, she pretty much thought it was the greatest thing in the world.  She didn’t really understand how there was any anxiety coming from the reformed side, since we’d known about grace all along.  But Ruthanne and I talked about the anxiety to do good because of grace, rather than instead.  In other words, Christ has already taken care of this, but how on earth can I even begin to repay him or show him how grateful I am?  (I think there’s also anxiety stemming from the emphasis on following God’s will and God’s call, and the fear of making decisions against His will…but that goes down a really awkward road of everyone’s favorite topic of argument, so I’m not even opening that gate)

Either way, it’s a losing battle.  One can never do enough good for heaven, and one can never do enough good to repay Christ.  And I think there’s burnout either way.  The Southern Baptist kids weary of their works and discover grace.  The Reformed kids weary of grace and discover redemption, but only after first discovering sin.  Which is probably a broad oversimplification of the issue of burnedout Reformed kids.  And it isn’t to say that Reformed kids didn’t ever sin before.  But I know a whole heck of a lot of Reforme kids, myself included, who stumbled upon very visible lifestyle type patterns of sin (read: excessive overdrinking, drug use, sexual issues, etc).

And I think that tells me more about the human condition than any sociology book ever could.  We’re all so screwed up that, even when we should have all the right answers, we still manage to screw up more, because the right answers are never enough of an answer.

I have the tendancy to create really odd emotional attachments to random objects.  I’ve been this way as long as I can remember.  It’s pretty much the primary reason I’m a pack rat and never throw anything away.  And even if I don’t have an emotional attachment to something I’m about to throw away, I’m able to instantaneously create and keep from getting rid of it.  Roommates and parents love this quality of mine, let me tell you.

 It should be of no surprise to anyone who knows me that I have extreme emotional attachments to two guitar picks.  One of them I borrowed/stole this summer from my friend Peter.  It’s just generally a fun pick, and I used it when we recorded the guitar for Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken.  So it has definite good memories.  And reminders of Peter are good things.  Yay.

 The other one was given to me by an old friend.  And by old friend, I mean someone who used to be a friend, but is no longer.  It’s not particularly a happy story.  And while there are certain parts of our friendship worth remembering, it’s tough to recall the good while ignoring the pain.  So I generally try to downplay the former existence of that friendship.  Except…I love that guitar pick fiercely.  It’s the only remaining physical reminder of that friendship.  And while it did end badly, I so love having a reminder of how wonderful it was.  I don’t often use the pick, mostly because it’s starting to chip, but I see it a lot.  Just about every time I play, I have to consciously choose between that pick and Peter’s pick.  Peter’s generally wins, more out of protection for the other pick than the victory of his.

The thing is, as much as I leave that pick alone…I can’t lose it for the life of me.  I’ve tried.  Many times.  Granted, none of them purposefully.  But I’ve tried none the less.  I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been utterly convinced that I lost it.  And it always makes me die a bit inside.  My heart sinks and I just don’t have the verbal capacity to fully realize what I’ve lost.  But it always shows up again. 

I chose to use it this week to play the double-necked dulcimer that I built for my Physics of Sound and Music class.  And after presenting the project on Friday afternoon, I stuck the pick in the front pocket of my bag, along with my phone, and headed up to the Chaplain’s office.  Along the way, my phone fell out of my bag.  When I got up to the office, I reached in for the pick, and it wasn’t there.  I nearly lost it.  The topic of this former friendship had come up several times over the past week, so all of it was at the forefront of my mind.  But after about half an hour,  I came to terms and accepted the fact that it was gone.  And that it was good to have it out of my life.  I’ve had a hell of a time moving past that friendship, and maybe I just really needed to get rid of that pick.  Maybe getting rid of all reminders of the friendship was what I needed.  Good for me for losing it, because I’d never get rid of it on my own.

And then I found it today.  Despite knowing that it was gone forever.  And I’m not one to read into things as signs from God…actually, scratch that.  I absolutely am.  In any event, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason this pick keeps showing up, after countless instances of having no hope, nor attempting to make it ever show up again.