propaganda

Oh my. I'm already halfway through September. For those who are still interested in my increasingly busy life, I'm a teacher in Durham, NC. It's... well, I'm learning a lot.

I'm going to try and be better about posting here. Not because I think anyone reads this, but because I like doing it.

Until then, here's a video:

adventure

Life is moving fast.

It's moving fast and my fingers are barely holding onto the coattails of opportunity. Maturity beckons and adolescence tugs at my heartstrings. I'm trying to keep up, but as I set out for new grown-up things, I mostly feel like I'm playing dress-up.

Dressing up as a College Graduate.

Dressing up as a Teacher.

Dressing up as a Wedding Guest.

As a Bridesmaid; the Maid of Honor.

I don't feel old enough to be any of those things, but here I am.

Growing up.

I stand at the edge of a vast unknown, praying for the wisdom and maturity I lack; pleading for patience and boldness, for tact and zeal.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time toweep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There is a time to grow up, and I think I'm doing it. I think I'm excited about it too. After all, to quote one of my favorite movies, "To live will be an awfully big adventure."

anteater

Salvador Dali took his on walks.

direction

After a conversation with my friend Anna, who recently began a totally new life in Boston, I feel the need to write.

Now, I am aware that blogging is a fairly narcissistic hobby. Here I am, operating under the assumption that there are people out in cyberspace who actually care about what I have to say. It's pretty ridiculous, but I'm going to write anyway.

I'm going to write anyway because even if no one ever reads this post, sometimes there are thoughts and convictions and emotions worth getting out there. Posting it online is different than writing it in a journal. Somehow the possibility that someone could read this changes how I think about the words I type and my purpose for them.

If you are reading this, it could be that you have never experienced what I am experiencing and today you will learn something new about humanity or, more likely, it could be you are going through exactly what I am. You can read this and know that you are not alone.

I just graduated from college. I feel aimless, purposeless, and quite honestly, very scared. Not like an "I-just-saw-Paranormal-Activity-and-now-I-can't-sleep" scared, but an "I-am-lost-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-my-phone-is-dead-and-I'm-almost-out-of-gas" scared. It's terrifying and, even though I know that I have a ton of support from family and friends, sometimes I can't help but feel incredibly alone. It's a terrible thing to feel so directionless and so clueless about how to get where I'm supposed to be going.

I don't tell myself often enough that there is no one who can guide me better than Christ, the Word. I have also had to remind myself that the Word is what will sustain me during the times that I feel most isolated and insignificant.

It has helped me to read Psalms that were written by David during times that he was desperate and completely alone. In Psalm 13 he writes,

How long, o LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul

and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

He gives an example of faith I want to have. One that does not lie stagnant, but constantly seeks the will of the Lord, even during the darkest moments. Leonard Cohen said, "In the broken places, the light shines through." I desire so much to be like David and put my entire trust in the Lord during a time that I feel very lost.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,

because he has dealt bountifully with me.

When we are weakest, God shows his great Strength. God has been so good and faithful so far; who am I to doubt he will show up now?

hipsters

I'm sort of obsessed with this hipster Disney princess thing.

via themarysue.com

dreaming

Between so many of my friends getting engaged and the royal wedding, I was bound to have a weird dream about marriage soon. I think being sick created the perfect conditions for me to have one of the longest and most vivid dreams I've had in a long time.

Because I'm sure you've seen Inception, we all know that dreams start in the middle of the action, so I'll jump right into it:

• I was in some kind of long-term relationship with a boy—don't ask what boy, because I don't remember. I just know he was great.
• Through some dramatic course of events, this guy broke up with me. I remember being really sad (obviously) and also frantically trying to find someone else to marry. (Apparently it was really important that I got married soon.)

[Okay, now this part is weird, I am trusting that you who are reading this will not judge me for dreaming this next part, after all—it was a dream and therefore not something that I could really control.]

• Somehow I ended up engaged to one of my students. He proposed to me with this insanely huge diamond and I said yes. (I promise I am not planning on dating or marrying any of my students. Ever.)
• So, I said yes to this kid, but I didn't want to marry him. I didn't really even like him at all, but I knew that I needed to get married, so I decided that I would suck it up and stay engaged.

• Fast-forward to some time in the future. I found myself at my Grandma's house (but it wasn't really my Grandma's house,) and I saw my dad. I ran up to him and started crying because I was engaged to a 17-year-old that I did't want to marry and I couldn't do anything to fix it. (As you can see, I am not incredibly rational when I dream.)
• My dad told me that it was going to be alright, and that we should go inside to be with the rest of our family.
• We went inside, and all of the sudden we were in a giant, super cool office/museum. (It's sort of what I imagine the Google offices to be like, but it was for Verizon.)
• My mom had grown her hair out to be longer than mine, which was odd to see.
• My parents, sisters, and I spent the rest of the dream walking through the Verizon office/museum.

What an incredibly bizarre thing to wake up remembering.

puddles

Sometimes I imagine I could dive

head-first

into a puddle

as deep as the ocean,

and grow gills and swim

out into the sea.

Underneath the city,

I'd find my way to a

vast, blue, violent stillness

of uncharted water

and no one would ever be able to find me.

There'd be

lovely loneliness where

no one would hurt,

no one would break,

no one would misspeak;

for no one would be there

but the water,

the fishes,

and me in my mermaid skin.

FOMO

"Fear of Missing Out."

It is a disease.

Symptoms include:

• worrying over whether someone will invite you to hang out tonight.
• staying up extremely late without changing into your PJs or washing off your makeup (just in case someone calls at 2:30am wanting to hang out).
• worrying over whether someone will invite you to hang out the night after tonight.
• worrying over silly things in general.

It is a silly disease. I have it. I am working towards rehabilitation.

days

Recently, time seems to be moving quite slowly for me. I'm not sure what accounts for such a drawn-out passage of days, but I am positive that I don't like waiting.

Certainly, God is teaching me patience.

Still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—
it will not lie.
If it seems slow—wait for it; it will surely come;
it will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3

fat

adj \ˈfat\

a. well filled out : thick, big

b. full in tone and quality : rich

c. well stocked

d. prosperous, wealthy

e. being substantial and impressive

Origin : Middle English, from Old English fæ-tt, past participle of fæ-tan to cram; akin to Old High German feizit fat

My journal has grown fat—

plump from years of use.

Ticket stubs, passed notes, quotes,

remembered dreams, nightmares, goals,

lyrics and limericks and sketches and such.

It is almost full.

constant

I'd like to return to my post series on the life lessons of college. (See housemates and tidiness.)

My family watched LOST from the beginning. It first aired in 2004, my sophomore year of high school, and every Wednesday night at 8:00pm my family would gather together, tune into ABC, and spend the next hour gawking at the TV set.

Some people think that watching TV rots peoples' brains, but because of the thought-provoking conversations I was able to partake in surrounding the titillating subject matter of LOST (and other quality programming like Jersey Shore, That 70's Show, and Hoarders) I would argue that it does not. The best part of watching LOST was the conversation that my family would have at dinner the night after a new episode premiered. We each had so many theories about what the island was and who the others were and why the Dharma initiative existed—looking back, I don't think that any of our theories were even close to right, but it was so much fun to exchange opinions and laugh about all of the ridiculous things that happened on the show. (If you didn't regularly eat dinner with your family, I'm sorry. I suggest you try it out sometime.)

This obviously has nothing to do with my college experience. I'm getting there, I promise.

One of my favorite concepts of LOST was the idea of time travel. During season four, Daniel Faraday, a super brilliant physicist, revealed that the island the survivors of Flight 815 were trapped on was somehow able to exist in a different realm of time than the rest of the world. (Forgive me, all of you non-LOSTies, I'll make this explanation brief.) In one episode this other guy, Desmond, begins having flashes in which he travels back and forth through time. He finds himself living through memories, disoriented and increasingly frustrated that he is being ripped back and forth from one reality to another. In the present, Faraday comes to him and explains that in order to make the flashbacks stop and prevent his brain from turning to mush, he must find a constant—something or someone that he make contact with no matter when or where he is. As soon as he made contact with his contact, who was a pretty girl named Penny, everything was okay.

When I got to college, I thought my constant would be the Salem Street Soda Shop. I thought it would keep me grounded, rooted in Apex. Not in an "I'm never moving out of my parents' house" kind of way—more like an "I'm proud of my hometown" kind of way.

I have so many awesome memories of the SSSS during high school. It had the best orangeade and the best barbecue sandwich, and the best—well, I honestly don't remember what else was served there because I got the same thing to eat every time I went.

It was the place to meet up before going on an adventure. One Halloween, some friends and I decided we were going to drive to a private school about 30 minutes away and see a performance of Macbeth—except we called it Macdaddy and Elizabeth whenever we talked about it. (Yes, I was a theatre geek in high school. And yes, I spell theatre like that.) Anyway, I remember meeting up to caravan to the show; one of the planners of the group handing out a color-coded sheet of directions to all of the drivers as we sucked down sweet, sweet orangeades before hitting the road. The play was terrible. I'll really never forget how awful it was.

I also remember dashing to a car during my lunch period, cramming into the back of a Ford Taurus, speeding out of the parking lot, and praying that my friends and I would get to the Soda Shop with enough time to order, eat, and pay before the next bell rang. It was probably incredibly reckless to rush as much as we did, but I still think those barbecue sandwiches were worth it.

When I began college, I thought that the SSSS would still be where me and all of my high school buddies would meet to eat, catch up, and reminisce. However, my sophomore year, the Salem Street Soda Shop closed its doors for good. It might be a bit of an exaggeration to say that I was distraught, but only a bit of one. In Apex, it was a big deal.

My constant wasn't so constant.

Tears were shed, facebook groups were formed, and healing began.

Where the Salem Street Soda Shop once was, now sits the Salem Street Pub. They serve great philly cheesesteak sandwiches and a hambuger with peanut butter (it's called something like, "My Wife Said It'd Never Sell;" I still haven't tried it). The orangeade is gone and now they serve Big Boss' Bad Penny.

Over Christmas break I had the chance to spend some time at the Salem Street Pub. I realized as I sat at the bar with one of my best friends from high school—the soda shop isn't my constant—my constants are the people I continue to share memories about it with. Those friends who have remained through the years of my college experience, who have kept in touch, who have visited, they are my constants, and I love them deeply.

music

via peopletoo.ru

theodore

A Valentine's Day poem of sorts:

What do I think of Theodore Pink, that scum-bag who lives right next door?

Well, first off, he's crazy, pretentious and lazy, up-tight and an infinite bore.

Each time that he passes, I put on sunglasses so he will not stay to converse;

For Theodore Pink, who really does stink, smells like a wet dog—but worse.

Some call the boy Teddy; I call him Spaghetti 'cause his hair is a noodle-y mess.

Some say he's a saint, but I say he ain't—that he's wildly evil's my guess.

I hate, hate, hate, hate people saying he's great; it makes me want to shove him.

That Theodore Pink, a detestable fink, I actually think I might love him.

trailer

Blank Street: a project worth your attention.

stew

A strange thing happened, years ago, while waiting for bus One;

an old man turned to me and asked if I'd ever tasted sun.

I replied, "The yellow ball out there, 'round which the world is based?"

Then shook my head and answered him, "I've never had a taste."

And after that I blinked at him, unsure what to do.

Finally I questioned back, "Why do you ask? Have you?"

He said he had. "In fact, my friend, I just made sunshine stew,

with hearty rays of warmer days and drops of morning dew."

I told him I would like to try a bit of that strange dish.

He looked at me quite hard and said, "Perhaps I'll grant your wish.

You must tell me, though," he said, "that you believe it's true

that I went out and collected rays to make my sunshine stew."

"For I have found through many years the stew does but appeal

to those who ask me for a taste trusting it is real—

that I speak truth in my old age, and not that I am crazy.

Belief takes work and so I'll warn, the stew's not for the lazy."

I simply sat a moment there deeply lost in thought,

wondering if I believed in this mysterious sunshine draught.

I decided that it was not real and sent him on his way,

knowing never tasting sun was the price that I would pay.

story

dollhouse

We traveled back by motor boat—

our bellies full of ice cream,

cherishing the last moments of quite a long day

at the beginning of what would be quite a short week.

It was the end of the summer,

and, for us, the end of the summer

might as well have meant the end.

By August, our time together was all we remembered knowing.

Anything before was a blur;

perhaps important to us in some other life,

but irrelevant to this:

our era on the lake—

an era that was quickly coming to a close.

So, we toured the lake.

We held our own sort of private parade

through dimly-lit water where we had spent a season in the sun.

It was dark, but we knew the way

back to the shore of our camp;

we could find it when we needed,

but we didn't need it quite yet.

Instead, we boldly pioneered into coves unfamiliar,

guided by the warm, yellow lights of homes along the shore.

I know that we passed window after window on that last voyage,

but I only recall seeing one.

As we drew near to the house, light from inside illuminated the whole structure—

every chair

and table

and book

and shelf was revealed through

one

wide

pane

of glass,

stretching high above

the head of a man

sitting inside.

This dollhouse,

with walls cut away,

disclosed and betrayed

the private life of its inhabitant—

confessed his secrets to us,

the silent tourists of the lake.

Did the man know he was being watched?

That his dollhouse was on display?

That I, from darkness, stared into his light

while he, from brightness, looked out upon the night?