yes, sir, that's my baby.

So, I got a car today.

Everyone remember Sesame Street? We're gonna have a walk-down-memory-lane moment in 3, 2, 1,






One of these things is not like the other! One of these things somethingsomethingsomething...uhh.....(memory lane = dead end)


Anyway. So it's a 1995 Buick LeSabre, and not a 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer. I can handle that. It runs, it rolls, it can hug the curves as long as we're not talking about a lengthy embrace, and it's not vomit colored. That was my one stipulation. You know that color you see on a lot of your grandparents's cars? The one that looks like the color wheel ate bad Asian food or something? You know the one. Well. I was praying, hoping, wishing that my first car ever wouldn't be that color. God loves me! It's blue. Deep blue, and shining like the future. Perfect. Or, as close to perfect as I envision myself in the near future. Which, in my opinion, is actually pretty dang close.

I mean honestly, how many seventeen year olds do you know who are just given their first car? As in, their parents don't have the money for it and neither do they, so they pray for it, and God hands it over to them because he is the giver of all good gifts. My grandfather just felt deeply inclined one day to buy his granddaughter a Buick, and I, on the other side of such divine intervention, am intrinsically grateful and undoubtedly happy. My life is full of beautiful, and things like this remind me not to focus so much on the things that generally grab my attention. They will be given as I need them. In my heart, that equation equals hope. If I ask for things I have not yet received, perhaps it is not because I will never receive them. Maybe there is a light in the distance. Maybe rescue is coming.

Even as I type these words, the sky in my front yard is painted proof of the lovingkindness and creativity of the God of the Universe. It inhales the thickness of angst in my heart and exhales delight and wonder. Or, as a dear friend of mine once wrote, "God breathes out some beautiful skies."

I have many things on my mind. So, a list.

Things On My Mind: (an abridged edition)

1. Itch, scratch, and melt. I am sitting outside in the face-melting humidity, breathing underwater, and enduring the torment of a thousandthousand gnats and mosquitos chomping on my extremities. Chiefly, they are feasting on my feet. This is evidence of how deeply atmosphere can matter to me as I write. If it weren't for the beautiful outsideness of my front-porch location, I'd be hiding in the air-conditioned haven of the house.

2. Childrens. I saw what I think was an ice-cream truck truckin' it down the interstate today with the words "WATCH FOR CHILDRENS" stickered endearingly across its rear. If that's not something to smile about, I don't know what is. I also happened to be driving my new/first car and listening to good music. So, that wins.

3. Ache. Erin left. Ashley left. Julisa left, but she's back. And now Sam is gone, too. All vacationing in big cities, amish country, family reunions, or the picturesque mountains of North Carolina. In addition to this, I'm leaving on Wednesday, the day after Sam and Erin get back. If I didn't want/need a vacation so badly, I'd complain. As is, I will simply dwell on the ache of missing them dearly and hoping, hoping, hoping to embrace them soon, soon, soon.

4. Applications. Of every kind! GSC refused me due to my unaccredited home-schooledness, so I'm applying at Oglethorpe. Also, I'm job-searching! I applied at the Braselton Grille and the Peach Pit today, and got an application for Cracker Barrel. And, no, the Peach Pit is not a Pit of Peaches. It's an ice-cream parlor. A Peachy Parlor, if you will.

And, like, fourteen other things.
I want to re-watch some of my favorite movies, if anyone wants to watch them with me.

"Some" means,
The Illusionist, The Village, and Pride&Prejudice.

So, I might go shower. Or eat. Or curse the entire mosquitine population.

Once again, if you want to be on the e-mail list, I'll send you notification of all my updates, so leave your e-mail address in a comment or e-mail me at
annieinfinity@gmail.com.

Thanks.:)

Peace, out.

the secret life of daydreams.

So, I know I was just here last night/this morning, with all my thoughts and my wanderings, but I've got more to say.

When do I not have more to say?

If you feel so inclined, you might consider going back to read last night's entry, as well as the following one.
:) eh, eh?




So. I am sitting here listening to the soundtrack to the movie Pride&Prejudice, and thinking about (the inevitable) love. I hope that none of you are deprived enough to be living life without seeing this movie, but just in case, I'll summarize:

There is this family full of girls, all coming of age and looking for husbands. Throughout the stream of events taking place in the film, they are one by one given over to men in marriage. The two eldest daughters are the only ones truly in pursuit of love in their relational dealings, and the story mainly follows their pursuits, specifically the younger of the two, Elizabeth. Lizzie, feisty, young, and lovely, meets a man called Darcy and immediately hates him, and the feeling is evidently mutual. However, over the course of time, it becomes clear that the two are, in fact, in love with one another, and quite unwilling to face the matter. Darcy confronts Elizabeth, confessing his love, and she does not encourage his pursuit of her. Somehow, though, they end up together in the end, blissfully enthralled by their love for one another.

Obviously, they are perfect for each other, all is right with the world, and the credits roll.

But, hey, wait a minute! (my head exclaims, while my heart is sighing.)

Who calls the shots around here? How is it that two people who despise each other on first meeting can truly value one another in the most intimate way, given time? He kisses her face over and over and calls her Mrs. Darcy and our hearts move in a collective swoon, but something in me wants a little more than what I've been given.

What I'm trying to say is, what makes two people "right" for each other? Is it spiritual? Physical? Emotional? Psychological? What defines the edges of this vast decision of someone being the "right" one for you? Can other people tell you this or is it something only you, in the very deepest places of your soul, can know? Is it a moment of clear definition or a process of slowly leaning until you fall?

The terrible and beautiful thing about these questions is that whenever you ask someone who should know the answers, all they do is get this deep look in their eye and say "You'll know, baby. You'll just know."

So, then. The answers are lurking in my future, apparently. But why does everyone else, everyone who really probably doesn't know, keep saying things about love like they know what they're talking about?

People like me.

I guess if nobody was allowed to conjecture or consider or think aloud then, well, life wouldn't be all that thrilling. But, still. When the ones who don't know speak as if they do...then there are problems.

Anyway. These are just half-thoughts. Obviously, I don't have conclusions, or I'd be writing a book or something instead of a blog.

So, to make us all feel more accomplished, I'll make a list.


Things I Would Like To Do In The Near Future:

5. Get a job. Self-explanatory. Job = cash. Cash = buy stuff. Buy stuff = car!

4. See the ocean. I was looking at photographs of Peaks Island, Maine, yesterday, and I felt all of this sadness rushing around inside of me. We usually go and stay as a family with our friends in their house on the island in the summer time. (Prepositional phrases, much?) We're not going this year. I am heartaching.

3. Finish school. I have so little left, it's maddening. It seems like it will never end, and yet the end is so near. I can do this. It's almost over...

2. Finish applying for GSC. Okay, so I don't want to do this one. But I do want to joint-enroll in the Fall. Hopefully, they are home-school friendly.

1. Eat more watermelon. It is a summmer fruit. Every time we buy it, it disappears in like, hours. I am no small contributor to this phenomenon. Need. More. Melon.



That's all, folks.
Sweet dreams, and don't forget to lend me your thoughts! Comment away.



PS. I am considering starting an email list for all those who read but don't get on myspace enough to keep up with my "new post" bulletins. If you're interested in having alerts emailed to your inbox to let you know when I've got a new post up, leave a comment with your email address, or send me an email at annieinfinity@gmail.com. Thanks, guys! Peace.

unwinding.

Good morning.


What is it with me?

I claim to need days and days of sleep after a long night of sleepovering on Wednesday, but here I am, less than days and days afterward, pushing the clock into the early hours again.

I'm time-processing.
Let me a'splain.

Recently, I am finding myself often left at the end of a day feeling as though I still have much unwinding to do before I am ready to relinquish the day from my hands. It's like I have a measure of time inside of me, a certain amount of it, given at the beginnings of all of my days, and meant to be spent exactly down to the drop. So, on days where I should be sleeping, but find myself ranting in semi-coherent blogs instead, I can feel the pouring out of the time inside of me, tumbling toward a pressing desire for sleep.

In other words,
I'm not done yet.
There are still too many words in my head to put them to sleep.

Much of the time, this processing happens on days where Sam comes over to the house and leaves late. All of the thinking, the laughing, the talking, the whatever-we-did-that-day is still presiding over my heart-space, needing to be given time before it will let me sleep. I think, possibly, this is because the concept of having someone over and then letting them go at eleven fifteen instead of keeping them for a sleepover is a new concept for me. Basically,
having a boyfriend is a new concept for me.

So, I watch two episodes of Lost.
I stay up until 1:06AM, writing blogs.
I listen to the acoustic guitar music on Sam's myspace over and over because he has good taste.
I unwind.

And you get to be here, or at least, I'm capturing it for you.
As if it were truly a momentous concept.
Oh well.
It's what's in my head.


Also in my head, a thought.

Thought: What are the movie moments of my life?

You know, the moments that should be on a screen somewhere, but instead are actually taking place inside of your humble existence. I wonder if I notice them. I wonder if anyone does. It's like this,

if someone else tells you to sit down and watch,
to pay close attention,
to someone else's story, and you do,
then you see all the beautiful moments, all the things that make you sigh, or cry, or leave you breathless, and you admire them.

But in your own life, when is there time to just stop and look at how beautiful everything around you is becoming? I mean, not literally. You can usually find a moment to see, if not smell, the roses. But, to really stop time inside of the most wonderful of wonderfuls, and to admire the sweetness of it all...maybe it's almost a skill.

So, in order to help you in your impending quest to stop time, here is a list of some of the more movie-like moments in my life, categorized for index and amusement purposes:

1. The We Are Best Friends Moment.
"I won't drop you!" I promised, with far more certainty than I felt. I shuffled around in anticipation of Julisa's weight on my shoulders as she considered the consequences of lowering herself downward from the branch on which she was stranded. I had helped her up into the tree and tried failingly to climb up after her. Now, as she was dangling, slightly traumatized, from the branch above me, we both knew there was only one way down. Somehow, she made it onto my shoulders and I staggered around without breaking both of our necks. This, I felt, was the simplest form of trust: I'm falling on purpose because you will catch me.

2. The Where's The Camera? Moment.
(I have more of these than anything else. Don't be jealous. Not everyone can fall on their face all the time.)

Sixth grade. Everything matters in sixth grade. Especially at the beach, especially with all your friends and all the college aged interns, and especially when you're home-schooled. Due to all of these things, the leaders of the youth group with which I was traveling saw fit for us scrawny little middle schoolians to play some terrible, awful game involving a lot of teamwork, some paper plates, and a basketball court approximately the temperature of the sun's core. So, we're playing this terrible, awful game of death, and I am bordering on a heat stroke from dehydration, so I decide to jog in the chillest, most attractively cool way possible across the adjacent court to get some water. Unfortunately, the adjacent court is, in fact, a volleyball court, complete with its very own incredibly resilient volleyball net. My unbelievably cool jog turned into an unbelievably horizontal bodyslam onto the sand. Interns and oh-so-cool eighth graders looked on in the briefest display of pity I've ever experienced. It took negative amounts of seconds for the "are you okay?" response to give way to peals of unsympathetic laughter. Somehow, there was not a camera around. This, I believe, is actually kind of tragic.

3. The How Do I Make This Last Longer? Moment.

I've been sitting here for minutes and minutes trying to choose one moment to describe for this category. I'll think of one and then wonder about how to describe it in words for a couple of moments, and then think of another, another, another. In the end, I am finding myself with a panoply of little moments all stacked up together in this category, each one so small and sweet that it seems like describing them all would be like describing each color of the sunset individually. You want to, you probably could, but should you try? Maybe.

Examples of this kind of moment are
- the first time Sam and I held hands.
- riding in the car with Katie in the spring with the windows down and the music up.
- all of the moments where I feel that sweet silence that does not need words, but does allow for them. You can speak whatever is on your mind, or you can just be silent with whomever you are being silent with, knowing that you both want to be exactly where you are.
- and, seeing my family all laughing together at once, entirely enjoying one another's company, and being exactly who we are.


Well, this is a lot to have written so early in the morning,
and perhaps I should go to bed before I put you to sleep with my wanderings.

Thank you to all who commented.
And to all the noble readers.
You are much appreciated.


Don't forget: Anyone can comment. Go for it. Let me know you're living.



PS. It says that I am posting this at 12:56AM. In actuality, it is 2:05AM. Hopefully, this gives you a more complete scope of my unwinding process. Thank you.

:)

peaches & dreams.

Today, I am quiet on the inside.

I am sitting in the living room drinking a homemade peaches & cream icecreamdrink. If we had not already consumed all of the milk in the house, it would have been a milkshake.

As is, it's blender'd ice cream and peaches.

I'm content.

For the Fathers of the Day:



Okay, moving on.


I feel sugary in my soul. Thank you, peaches.

Thought 1: I think that if there could be an internal landscape to my head and heart today, It would look like a storm coming in off the coast of Maine. Quiet, unsettled, crisp, and willing to welcome in any who would brave the storm. There are little pockets of sadness in my heart today, stemming from different places of my life that are less-than-happy. There aren't many of them, and it isn't an overwhelming sadness. It's a calm, sighing sadness that takes up residence so softly that I am not even tempted to ask it to leave. Not yet. It will find the wind and and float away on its own, I think, if given a little bit of time.

Thought 2: I have been so full of words in these last few weeks. Daily, I am writing journal entries, letters, blogs, notes on bulletins, anything that involves me, a thought, and somewhere to put it. Mainly, I've been journaling. Sam, the esteemed boyfriend, was at my house on Friday and didn't leave until about 11:15 at night. It didn't matter that I was already tired, or that I had spent the day spilling our thoughts and words, I needed more. So, I wrote. A long message to my best friend Erin, who is in Ohio, and a page of considerings in my journal. It's a process of processing. It is the unraveling of my tightly-wound mind and heart, so that I may more easily access myself without the barrier of everything I'm thinking about blocking my view.


Thought 3: Along with words, I have been full of questions. In spending time with Samuel on Friday, I found myself all the time asking him, "What are you thinking?" The impulse to ask would just spring up from the well of musings in my mind and travel through my mouth into the open air, almost without any conscious approval on my part. In addition to this, I found so many more questions inside myself, rushing to the front of my mind in the sweet silences between our conversations. As we'd sit, quietly being happy to be where we were, I'd wonder and ponder and dream. Occasionally, I would speak from my dreams and ask whatever was on my mind. This is something I am doing in more than just one relationship. God, and his hands in my life, fill my heart with questions to wrestle with. Not to wrestle down, or to silence, but to fight with, and for, and about.

Thought 4: I got to talk to three of the closest to my heart last night, all in a row. While I shared my heartmusings with Sam, Julisa called. While I spilled the inner details of my life to Jules, Erin called. And with Erin, I got to laugh about Satan and the center of the earth, and just remember why I love her so very much. I truly think it was a gift from God. He knows what I need. He knows that I struggle to pick up the phone and call someone, even my closest someones, just to tell them about my day, unless they ask. He knows that I so long for close conversation with the ones I call my foundation. He knows, and he provides.

Thought 5: I feel like making lists.

Things I Am Not A Big Fan Of:

I. Mosquito Bites The Size of A Small Galaxy. Especially on my feet, which is where they are currently. Seven that I can count, all from stargazing with that boy on Friday night.

II. That Sugary-Soul Feeling. Usually, it's enough to steer me away from any great amount of sugar for the next couple of days. Le yuk.


III. When Drinking Glasses Sweat. I mean, honestly. What do they have to be nervous about? Maybe it's the perpetual state of absolute openness. Or the all-the-time kissing people, thing. Whatever. It's annoying, and it makes weird stains on wooden tables.

IV. Still Not Being Out Of School. I don't even want to talk about it.

And, so we can all smile a little lighter, some happiness.

Things I Like, Absolutely:

A. Stargazing on Fridays. It's worth the bugs.

B. Warm Pavement and Cold Rain. Possibly one of my favorite feelings ever. If it's raining hard enough, you can't even see through the mist of the drops bouncing back off of the ground.

C. Going to Bed Tired. I know now that the reason sleeping used to be harder was because when I said, "I'm not tired!" I meant it. Now that I can wait until sleep sounds like a good idea, my body is much more understanding, usually.


That is all.

See you soon.

Hey, if I don't know you, and you're reading this,
leave a comment.


PS: To dispel any troublesome rumors, please be aware that anybodywithabody can comment on this blog. No signing up necessary. Just click on the "witnesses" link at the end of the entry, type in the required fields, say whatchu got to say! Select "other" if you do not have a gmail account. :)

Peace in the middle east.
See you 'rrround.

exposed, and set free.

I'm home.

So much happened this week. So much and hardly anything at all. It's just like everything else I write about: important because I make it sound important. By this I mean that if my life were a book narrated in any voice but my own, you probably wouldn't read it. Nothing really all that staggering or thrilling happens usually, but I try to write it like I see it. I see so much soul and metaphor in all of these things that happen around me, and I know that someone else must want to know about them, too.

Actually, I don't know that. I hope for it.

And I know I'm not the only one hoping to illuminate the so-called mundane world with splinters of inspiration.
How do I know? Because of you. You're here, aren't you? Reading is as noble as writing, only in a different way. You're committing your time, your eyes, your thoughts, to the exploration of someone else's ideas. You're setting down the other possibilities for this moment in your life and saying, silently, "I want to be a part of Annie Morning's world."

Well, you could say it out loud if you wanted. I don't recommend this.


Anyway. All of that leapt out of my fingers before I knew what else to do with it. I hope it is coherent. I do, however, have a good reason for having so many word tribes warring in my brain. This is all a part of an epic anecdote I shall relate to you....now.

So, camp. The rushiest way to quiet your soul known to man. All week you have this flock of people telling you that you must link yourself to God, you must experience the power of His Spirit, you must cling to His Presence above all else, and yet! They are also constantly telling you to get up before the sun, go to bed way too late, and scream and jump and flail your arms around for the whole day in between.* From experience, I know that these two realities lie in deep and confusing contrast with one another, making the whole camp process much more like doing spiritual algebra than taking any sort of vacation. It goes like this:

If n is equal to quiet times and b is greater than team spirit, how many times can Jimmy the sixth grader do the zipline in one day?

(The answer, of course, is undefined.)

All of this to say that I found it to be undeniably beneficial to my sanity and my spiritual equilibrium to get up early each morning and wander into some quiet gazebo on the lake to spend time alone with my God. These times, truly, were what kept me walking instead of stumbling through the week. One such morning, I was perching in the gazebo nearest to the edge of the lake (the least buggy, from what I could tell, which is why I had exchanged it for my regular spot) when, from nowhere, tragedy struck.

My journal, the physical representation of the last year-or-so of my life, leapt into the lake, and began to raft away.

Gasping, I froze for a fraction of a moment, then streamed out of the gazebo and into the mucky water to retrieve my runaway journal. Having rescued it, I surveyed the damage with unbelieving eyes. I was entirely rigid on the inside during the hundred-year walk back to the lodge. My hearts most intimate murmurings had been violated by the watery, smearing hands of Awanita Valley's lake. Quite truly, I was mortified. I had images of words, irreversibly melting down the pages, dancing around in my heart. I was sobbing on the inside, but with determination and resolve written on my face and in the steadiness of my hands. I was a surgeon. The patient would survive.

In the end, Miss Betsy, a friend/mom/counselor/journal ER nurse, became the heroine of the story. She steadied me with understanding words, and gave me hope that the damage could be limited to only minor scarring if we operated in time. So, we did. Carefully, softly, we laid out every individual page on the floor in the ping-pong room of the girl's lodge. Blow-dryers in hand, we saved the day, and my heart grew more confident with each fragile page made strong again. Now, as the journal sits re-bound in my room, even with new words written on the still-empty pages, I know the crisis was averted because of the love and companionship of someone who understood my pain, silly as it may have seemed.

She even let me cope with the grief of having the pages all scattered and separate by giving me her camera for a "creative ways to photograph an injured journal" photoshoot. It was wonderful. I lured three unsuspecting assistants into tossing the secrets of my soul through the open roof of a nearby gazebo, and smiled on the inside the whole time. My journal has so much more character for having been lifted out into the light of day. My words hold steady under the pressure of water and wind, and they are all pieces of my existence which I cannot bear to part with. Even the entries that made me wince internally, and wish that I could blame someone, anyone else for the fact that I wrote them. I must have all the pieces. One page leads to the next and the next and the next and the next...change one, you change them all. I see so much growth and movement in those words. I am so grateful to the one who helped me rescue them, and to the One who gives them to me to begin with.

Which sort of brings me to the original point which was that the reason I have so much to say is probably because I didn't have anywhere to put all these words for a couple of days. Obviously, I'm making up for it now.

So, this is long, and that's only one story. It's okay. It's a good tidbit of everything that happened. Once again, I could have summarized with "My journal fell in the lake. Miss Betsy helped me save it. I am glad."

But then you wouldn't really know me, would you?




*disclaimer: ok, so we wanted to. that's a minor clause.

thought life.

Welcome to reading my writing.

I didn't find any really relevant pictures to put up with this post.
So, just laugh at these.


and:



It's been a week since I was writing here last.
Everything has changed.


I should be sleeping right now. Tomorrow, I wake early for church, and then I don't come home for a week. Summer camps are so marking. Not always "I found Jesus!" so much as "who I was last time I did this is so different from who I am now." Hopefully, both.

I wish I was more awake, more bloggish, more capable of writeable thoughts.
Truly, I am mostly here to tell you all (whoever you are) that I wish I had written here at least once this past week,
and that I am going away for six days.
Hopefully, the result of those six days will be an outpouring of thoughts, words, and complete sentences.

And okay, not everything.
So much has changed.

Things That Are On My Mind: (If I capitalize all the first letters of the words, it looks more official. It gives the appearance that I have actually planned on writing this list, and that I have it all worked out.)

1. Love. Many waters cannot quench it. It is as strong as death. God is love. I am forming beliefs, convictions, dreams of my own. Love begins to re-define itself, or perhaps, for the first time, to take on a color and a shape all its own. And yet, it has been there all along. Love never fails, but it does grow.

2. Questions. Resurfacing. I guess I never truly realized that I had let them sink to the bottom of my heart. Maybe it is their turn to breathe.

3. Trust. The width, depth, and breadth of it. The many shapes, tastes, and colors of it. How it is entangled with love, hope, faithfulness, and joy. How it is entangled with me.

4. Joy. Remaining in it. Abiding. Allowing Jesus to protect me from the enemy who steals by listening to my Savior's voice. This is hard. It is so easy to get pulled under. It is so easy to drown.

5. Happiness. And fear. And not being afraid of happiness. And not being afraid at all. I am rescued. I am protected. I am guarded, delighted in, hoped for, dreamed of, and rejoiced over. I am happy.


And, I am sleepy.
See how you are loved!
I sit at the lousy, immobile, desktop computer
just to talk about myself,
and demand comments of you,
and be offended should you refuse.

Well, at least I am honest.


Goodnight, goodnight.
See you soon.