what kind of girl i am.

I just watched Juno.



I am much endeared. Is that a word?

For those of you who are confused, Juno is not a city in Alaska. It is a movie about a girl who becomes pregnant at the age of sixteen. I'm not sure exactly what to say about it except that I am surprised how much I liked it. I had that on-edge feeling that happens when I am so involved in a movie that I get all tied up in knots trying to participate in the story.

So, when Jennifer Garner got tremblingly on her knees to speak to the baby still in Juno's womb, I trembled too.
And when Juno cried by herself on the side of the road, I understood.
And when the gawky, too-thin love of her life laid next to her on a hospital bed, I was completely drawn in.

Because it is a good story, with good people.

And thought the list is long, I'd have to say that one of the things about the story that sank into me the deepest was the conversation between Juno and her daddy. They are sitting in the kitchen after Juno has come in from a day of "losing all faith in humanity." She doesn't know how to believe that two people can love each other forever, really. Her father's response was something along the lines of,
"Find the person who loves you for exactly what you are. Ugly, pretty, good day, bad day, handsome...whatever."

And she said, "I think I've found that person."

And I, in my recliner, felt my heart smiling. I don't really know how to make sense of why yet, but I liked it. I see so much of me in Juno's story, even though there is nothing about her life that looks like mine. Except that she is a girl starting to feel like maybe she has to be a woman soon, and that she is bewildered by the change. She steps through the puddles of her own naïveté and smallness into something that feels way bigger than she can handle. She grows up a little bit, and finds herself to be in love, and there is life in the end. And the collective audience of my generation will sigh: we are growing up, too.


Anyway. Those are just some of my immediate thoughts...maybe I will watch it again, and process more the second time around. If you decide to see it, my disclaimer is that it is rough around the edges. Lots of unabashed sex-talk and teenagers talking like sailors. But if you know me the least bit, you know that I'm not a big fan of junk food and no exercise. There is some yuk in Juno, but it comes with the good stuff, and didn't leave me with that "in need of a soul shower" feeling. It may, however, make you want to fall in love, or have a baby, or get a cool name like Juno. Or write a blog.

I guess we can be glad I choose the latter option.


In other news, today was an extremely productive day. If you hate your life and feel bad about your existence, please read no further. Even I am impressed with me, although that may not be an infrequent occurrence. What God has been telling me, though, is that what I do is not who I am. This morning, I looked out my window while these words ran through my head:

Today I can do whatever I please. Some choices will be better for me, morally, physically, or spiritually, but it will be okay if I do not always do the right thing. What I do does not change what I am, or who God is.

And it's all over the Bible, too. A couple of days ago, I read in Galatians 3:11,
The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you.


Amazing. It is so hard to grasp. So, although today was extremely productive, before I go to sleep, I will need to remind myself that my worth, my value, my real life, none of that ever got any better or worse at any time in this day. I am free to live and free to make mistakes and free to be loved by God because he made it so that I don't get to DO anything. Everything has been done. He loves me just the same, and I am of great value no matter what.

I don't understand it. But it is.


Now, with that said, I did run three miles today for the first time. Running is still a gift to me. So, even though I feel so accomplished, the joy in that is bigger and fuller and brighter when I know that God equips me to live without limits.

As my friend Cory Lebovitz put it,
"...I was made to experience something of fullness and joy in life as I push forward with intense momentum. I was born to run."


On that sweet note,

sweet dreams, world.


P.S. birthday soon!

being where i am.

What do I want to write about?


Photo by Daniela Helfer.

It seems to me that even if I have left Guatemala, Guatemala has not left me.

Over Spring Break, I spent 3 days near Guatemala City, and four days in San Pedro and San Juan. It was such a short time, and I would have stayed willingly, but I cannot imagine the spiritual and emotional impact of even just spending a month in that world. After a week, I came home and had a crisis moment in the kitchen with my parents, wondering what on earth my life is meant for, and what will I be, and should I even go to college? I still feel the frustration of how much we crave and consume, while other cultures have so little and are happier, nonetheless. But overall, I think I have escaped the brunt of "Mission Trip Syndrome"; I'm not breaking up with my boyfriend to pursue visions of missionary work in the deep heart of Alaska anytime soon. I feel fortunate to have such a firm ground beneath me, and such steady hands around me, to keep me from the dangerous extremes my heart sometimes bends towards.

But, in light of all of these thoughts, there are still the tremors of an uprising in my heart, percolating in the wake of the things I saw that I hope I will never forget.

There was a village we visited, I don't recall the name, where a mudslide had entirely buried a large part of their town. You could literally walk across this plain, look down into a hole in the ground, and be looking into a home that had been completely covered in mud. Our guide told us the story of how hundreds of people had not been able to escape from their houses in time, and how there were still bodies unrecovered, somewhere in all that dirt. The whole place was tragic in an overwhelming kind of way, but what captured my heart was the children.
It seemed that everywhere we went in Guatemala, there was a welcoming committee of 10 to 20 children waiting to see us, play with us, ask us for candy. We loved it, and they could not have asked us for anything we would not want to give them. When we got to the ruins, though, it was different. I was not prepared for the poverty in their faces. It wasn't the starving, insect-ridden poster child you've seen on infomercials, but it felt similar in my heart. As soon as they saw us, they asked us for money, and went through my pockets to get to my chapstick. They were so different from anything you would ever see on the streets of suburban America. Some of them had shoes, but many were barefoot and all were dirty. I wanted so badly to hug them until they didn't need anything anymore at all. Something about them just was different. It was hard to leave.

Edit:


This was when I surrendered my chapstick.


I could write so many blogs with all the stories I have to tell...all of this from only a week. A friend of mine has been in Africa for three months and is coming home on Monday. I cannot even imagine.

But we didn't only spend time with poverty-stricken children in Guatemala. We did some of this, too:



That's after having spontaneously determined to go swimming in the beautiful, bacteria-ridden freshwater of Lake Atitlan. As you can see from the looks on all of our faces, we really didn't enjoy it at all. We just had a terrible, terrible time.

I caught an enormously large one of these...


And we all got really impressive t-shirt and long-shorts tans.


Hopefully, if I begin to write more frequently again, there will be more Guatemala stories to come.

For now, here are a few life updates on my part:

1. I have conquered the Mile. For the longest time, I have felt completely incapable and incompetent in the arena of running. I tried, when I was younger, to improve, but I just never enjoyed it, and never really got past running one very winded and unhappy mile. About five weeks ago, my best friend suggested to me that we run the Peachtree Road Race, which is a 55,000 runner, 10k (six miles, for the conversionally challenged) race through urban Atlanta. Please take this time to remind yourself that I had never, ever run more than a mile in my entire life. Still, with this very thing in mind, I said yes, sent in a check, and started running. Since then, although the Road Race still hasn't cashed my check and I have no idea if I'll actually get a number, my life has changed. I can run a mile in eight minutes, eleven seconds, and I can even run two miles in less than twenty minutes! Obviously, I have a while to go before six miles, but I no longer feel incapable. The blister on my right foot tells me that I am working hard to change what once felt unchangeable, and I actually look forward to doing the very thing that used to conquer me. I know that this is something God has done with me, and in me. It feels like a gift when I come panting through the kitchen door, red-faced and sweating, but happy. I am sure there will be more updates on this as time goes on.


2. Little Yellow Bible. Here is another victory. My counselor, Ellen, is always quoting Scripture to me, or repeating some wonderful thing that God spoke to her through a verse at any given crucial moment in her life. My heart would listen in bitterness and dismay, feeling so distant from the voice that everyone claimed could be heard so clearly in the binding of a book. Eventually, one day, I broke down and explained all of this bitterness, questioning her as to how I could find life in the pages she loves so much. She simplified it, as she always does, and said that I just have to find the right Bible, and that God would certainly talk to me, of course. She read me a verse from the Psalms in the Message version of the Bible, and my heart leapt.
You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers. I'm about to burst with song; I can't keep quiet about you. God, my God, I can't thank you enough.
Psalm 30:11

Tears actually came into my eyes; I knew that I had heard His voice. And so, after too much time spent trying to work with what I had, I eventually decided to look for something new. I found an old New Testament Bible on our shelf in the Message version and began to read. Immediately, and I hardly know how to describe it, God was talking to me through those pages. I was excited about the things I was reading because it was as though I had never seen them before. The only real problem was that my New Testament was enormous, and it was only half the Bible.

Now, here is what I am really excited about. Even in that small gap, where I could have just gone out to buy my own new Bible, God met me with a gift. Miles, the college pastor at 12Stone, caught me with my outrageously large half-Bible one night and remembered that he had a little yellow Message Bible just sitting in a drawer in his house. He promised it to me on the spot. A couple of weeks and a heart-full of gratitude later, I have it here at my finger-tips, and I just want to show everyone and say "Look! Look what God did for me: he wants me to hear his voice, and he gives me such good gifts."

So. I could put a picture up. But, I'd rather show to you so you can see for yourself how sweet it looks. So if you see me around, ask.

3. Two New Pens. There has been a serious pen famine in our home as of late, and I have been scrambling to find satisfactorily functional writing utensils for all of my journaling-type endeavours. When I came home tonight, I found three fresh packs of pens sitting on the counter as if they were only for me. Of course, they weren't, but I did manage to wrangle two of them for my very own. I am overjoyed.

4. Indescribable Joy. I prayed with someone to received salvation a couple of weeks ago. I have never done that before. If you want to know about it, you will have to ask. Just know that it is a really incredible story, and I was truly overwhelmed. "How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is!"


Okay, there is probably more, but it is so late, and I really have to stop myself before daybreak.

Thank you if you read any of this. More soon.

common sense.

I can't stay away any longer.

Writing is like a meter by which I am able to measure the amount of free space in my life. When I have enough space, writing falls into place for me naturally, like a rhythm in my soul. I write journal entries, blogs, poems, lyrics, a little bit of everything in turn. When my life gets disorganized and chaotic-feeling, I somehow end up leaving my pen and paper buried beneath the innumerable disheveled piles of my life. The words I should be writing are left to ferment within me, intoxicating my internal perspective until I feel dizzy with all the observation I am withholding. There is a list, or a file cabinet, or some stack of paperwork in my head that represents "what I'll write about when I have the time."

The secret is that no one ever really just "has time" once they actually start living their life in an adult direction. In the bigger-than-me world, I have to learn to make time. It is the struggle that winds itself around my feet so often while I'm walking through this life. I'll start to feel a little winded, but I'm surviving, so I walk on until suddenly, without knowing why, I'm facedown in the muck and the mess of everything, realizing that I have not made space for me in way too many days. Either this, or I just start to feel quieter and quieter on the inside. All the unwritten sentences pile up until they are blocking every escape route from the inside out, and it starts to feel like the ominous calm of imprisonment, like self-inflicted house arrest. So, to open a window or a door or a hole in the wall, to breathe the outside air, I end up here.

And I have a lot to talk about.


First, I want everyone to know that I have reached the end of something.
An era has been completed, a season of my life which I will always remember with the clarity of fond memory, and the intensity of bitter struggle. Every moment will be treasured, re-visited, stored up. Every good cry, every deep laugh, every homecoming and prom; none of this will be lost. All that I have lost is my friend, the one who has known the depth of my heart in all of these things, the one who received my words with a quiet and an open face, who has been, at times, my only confidant. But this was not meant to last forever, and we both knew that from day one.

I have reached the end...
of my pink pages.



Now. For those of you who are already dialing my number to console me over the break-up, let me clarify: I'm talking about my journal. After nearly two years of confiding, I finally reached the end. What a moment. My last entry was actually written on the backs of twelve brown napkins in the Buford Starbucks a few weeks ago. I transferred some of the words (they wouldn't all fit) into my journal a couple of days after writing them. I wrote part of that last entry with you in mind, and so here is a little bit of those last few pages...



"pg. 1 2/29/08

Last entry. Or maybe, second to last, depending on how long winded I find myself to be. I'm coming to you from a satellite location- brownish, organic-looking napkins, sitting in the Buford Starbucks across from the mall. I knew when I left my house that I'd want my journal for something, but I ignored the instinctive wailing of my inner muse and left without it. There really is nothing wrong with the napkins except that I am left wondering exactly how many pink pages I would be filling if I had them with me to fill. I think, at this point, all I have left it one back-of-a-page and one both-sides. How strange to run out of room in your own home. It is so appropriate to my life right now. Over the course of all the time I have spent giving my words to these pages, I have both adored them and wished for them to be done with. Recently, at the very end, I've been not unhappy but ready



pg. 2 2/29/08

to move on and so looking forward to whatever new binding will hold my life next. It is so very like my present transition from highschool to college. I promise I wrote the last few sentences with my journal in mind only, but when I read them over and think of highschool instead, it's a perfect fit. Every time I look at this journal as of late, I think "it is almost time for something new." Much the same, when I look at my school books, my room, all the common workings of my present life, I think of graduation, of where I will be by August of this year, and I dream. In September or 2007, I said to Erin, "this year is gonna change our lives." I meant the school year, the summer of '08, not just until the end of 2007. I think I can say with confidence that I've been right thus far.
[later in the napkin-journaling] So, I definitely wasn't expecting to fill eleven page-napkins with my



pg. 3 2/29/08

words tonight. I was planning to do some reading while I was here tonight, but I am out of time and if I could stay, I would keep writing still. It feels so good and right when the words just keep coming. I love this feeling. Like some corner of me has been writing these pages for days now and I just now get to know about them. Beautiful...[later] I'm just glad I picked up a pen tonight; I feel opener in my soul...What better reason to always, always write?

'If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.'
Henry Rollins

the end."




So, that's all I really have to say about that. Well, not really. I could say a lot more. But your attention span is probably already passing notes in class, so I'll change the subject for the the sake of the general population. But, know that I have acquired a new spine and binding for my writing. It is red and gold and has an interesting skin; its face, the wide open pages, is just as welcoming and waiting as the pink ones ever were. But it is new, and new can be hard. We will see what comes.


Other than this,
prom was yesterday. Or rather, pictures, dinner, and the after-party were yesterday! The dance got re-scheduled to next weekend due to the storms. More details on all of this later, once pictures are available. It was fun, and that's all that needs to be said right now.

Let's end with saying that I feel different these days. Parts of me are coming alive that have been waiting in the wings for an eternity, it seems. I danced at O2 on Friday night, but that was just a public representation of what is being done privately in my own heart. There is so much to say. Maybe I will write again soon. Maybe you could ask me in person! Either way,

My soul finds rest in God alone.
Psalms.

and,

Praise the Lord, O my soul!
All that is within my praise his holy name!
Psalms.

and,

Wherever the Spirit would go, they would go also, traveling in a straight line, turning neither to the right or to the left.
Ezekiel.


Thank you for reading this.
Goodnight.
:)

cornucopious.

I have a plethora of things in my mind.



What really drew me here, though, were these words from a friend,
"I am learning to just put my thoughts on where I am, instead of going back or worrying forward. To grab what is in front of me right now. The feel of my pillow. Sand under my toes. Stop for the photo. Say the words. Hug the boy. Squeeze the girl. Forgive myself for not being enough and embrace The One Who Is."

Miss Betsy wrote that, not even to me or about me or for me or even in close proximity to me. But when I read it, I felt it like the scene in the Wizard of Oz where the Munchkins decide it's safe to come out and greet Dorothy. All the little faces bubbling up from behind vibrantly colored foliage, all the introductions and the music, but first- the quiet timidness of coming out of hiding and into the sunshine. I felt that way, just a little bit.

And I have felt it more and more since yesterday afternoon when I spoke with Ellen.

Ellen is wonderful. She almost always says at least one thing that knocks my soul off its feet and lands me in a pile of questions that lead to "suddenly" moments where I start to understand things and feel peace. God does this to me, through Ellen, all the time. Yesterday, she sort of spiritually took me by the sides of my face, shook me around for a second, and then said, loudly, "You have been sick. You have been working. You have been out of control busy. STOP. Breathe. Do not think. The world is gonna be okay without you for a little while. Stop."

I just sat there while she talked, like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop or something. I still feel that way a little bit. But since yesterday afternoon, I have felt so much clarity and okayness that was absent for weeks, and it's like going from black and white silence to real life.

And the way it happens is just like Miss Betsy said.
"Hug the boy. Squeeze the girl. Forgive myself..."

Yes. Exactly.

And "know that God is not unhappy with me" is a big one for me, too.
Even bigger, "know that I am his priceless treasure."
These are difficult things to remember.

I've been thinking about the lyrics to a song called "A Floating Smile," by Cool Hand Luke. Sam adores this song. When I first heard it, I thought "eh." Since then, however, I have noticed that the lyrics were actually written for me personally, and that the music happens to be on the soundtrack of my life. So, upon second (and third, and fourth, and fifth...) reviews, I love this song. Here are the words that know me so well,

I'm sad that I don't think about You,
'cause I just can't get on without You.
You speak in the funniest things,
glimpses of heaven in dreams.
Lately it seems that it's harder,
for my legs to walk any farther.
I need you, to show me I need you...
and give me the faith to believe you.

One day you'll come back,
soon you will come back,
one day you'll take me home.
We'll fly away, we'll fly away,
we'll fly away, on a
floating smile.

That line, "I need you to show me I need you, and give me the faith to believe you."

How can I even say anything else about it? It speaks so well for itself. In my heart, it says dependence, and trust, and leaning, and the smallness and frailty of the way I am. It says, are these the prayers that God really loves? These are certainly the prayers I find in myself.

Other than this,
today (well, technically yesterday) marks (marked) eight months of dating for Samuel and myself. We went grocery shopping and made homemade pasta sauce with bowtie pasta. We watched Stardust, and we just got to be together and remember why it is fun to date someone. I hardly even had to remind myself not to think too much, I just got to sit and admire the way it is to just sit together. Some nights, it is difficult, grit-your-teeth kind of work to talk about the things that are bold and intense, in place of just having a good time. Others, it is easy to talk and have serious moments of rich conversation while we take up our favorite spaces on the front porch swing. Still other nights, like this one, it is good to just buy groceries and laugh about things and hold hands while we watch a pretty-lame movie. I get to sit and think things like, "hmmm, he is letting his arm go numb just to keep it around my shoulders," and let my heart muse a little bit over such small things as this.

Although, I always feel kind of guilty about his arms. It's not really a fair trade.

Other than this, I am just thinking that I would very much like to write a short story. I keep seeing little dialogue bits happening in my mind's eye. I want them to not escape.

So, this is the end.
I will sleep soon.

Sweet dreams, world.


P.S. this is a good blog written by a person I love much:
Beauty for Ashes: Clarity


there is wisdom in her.

let the fight begin.

Oh, how wonderful it feels to be here again.
It has been too, too long.




Okay, so it's been over a month since I've written here. Let's not dwell on this. If it were up to me to decide how many hours a week I could devote to the written word, it would be probably more reading than you'd ever want to keep up with. And although perhaps the current way of things is less-than-desirable, at least you're always wanting more.

That's the hope, anyway.

Although, sometimes I feel like when people are facebooking me with words like, "hey, write a blog," it is more for my sake than for the general audience's. It's like, my heart is telling me always, "write, write! every day and always! write!" But when someone who is not my heart tells me this, it is not only encouraging, it's like an out-loud confirmation of what my insides are saying at all times. And when I ignore both the external and the internal prompts for more than a couple of days, I get into trouble. My interior landscape becomes like an unkempt college dorm- too small, piled high with papers and information, and buried in weeks-old laundry. This is an undoubtedly bad way to be.

This is how I am beginning to feel.

And so, I come gasping back to the place where I can breathe again. I volunteer to lay both hands firmly on the squalid mess and begin to bring order to the space in my heart.


It's just that there is so much else to do.

And it is difficult to be intentional about resting. More difficult than almost anything else, really. I lean so heavily toward filling up every moment to its greatest point of efficiency, and it is difficult to view sleeping in or journaling as an efficient or necessary tasks. Anyway. Here I am.

This past weekend I went to Oglethorpe University to compete for their two full-ride scholarship programs, James Edward Oglethorpe and Civic Engagement. I had a wonderful, wonderful time! The competing part was repetitive, fast-paced, and slightly nerve-wracking, but the staying-all-weekend-with-friends-on-campus was lovely. I did not sleep enough to compensate for all of the people-meeting, essay-writing, self-promoting, interviewing, and campus-touring that I took part in, but I managed to make it through just fine. I met so, so many people, and it seemed like I asked the same questions at least a thousand times- "So, what do you want to major in?" and "Do you think you'll end up at OU?" and, of course, the ever-present, "Where are you from?"

But in that process, I made the kinds of friends that are perfect for weekends at colleges; the non-committal acquaintances that keep you company during long lectures from panels of people you have to smile at all day long. There is really nothing like the overall experience, and I actually liked it very much.

Now, for the scholarship.

I find out the results in about three weeks. Until then, I hope and pray.

I have been thinking a lot about the actual moving out, moving in process of going to college. The whole concept of packing my world into boxes and bringing it to a new place is both thrilling and saddening in my head. I wonder if I will be as alone as I feel I will be. I wonder if I can take anyone with me when I jump into university-styled living, if I can keep my best friends and my boyfriend or if they will be surrendered as the cost of such great change. At first you think, "of course you can keep them, Annie girl, don't be silly." But then factor in the no-cell-service-on-campus thing, and the Atlanta rush hour traffic thing, and the time spent becoming acclimated to dorm life thing and suddenly it seems less black and white. I guess I'm not expecting everyone to drop off the planet altogether or anything, but I will have to make new best friends eventually, and they'll be taking up new spaces in my heart that could overwhelm and overshadow the places where my current friends sit. Maybe that's not how it works. What do I know?

At least I'd be in Atlanta...there is a reason I am staying close to home.

Anyway, this is all pending a giant wad of cash handed to me by the school itself so...we'll see.

The picture at the beginning of this post is a poster that is on the wall in Stephanie's room at Oglethorpe. It captivated me the moment I peered around the door to see it. I am compelled by everything about it. It would be a great going away present for me when I do move into a dorm...I could look at it all day and still love it, I believe.

This is the end of it for tonight. Thank you for being here.


I'll see you soon.


EDIT:

Here is a poem I wrote during the splendid Georgia snowstorm of 2008 (last week).
I was driving home through the thick of it when these words dropped into my head. I felt they were worth scribbling down.

if only the sunshine would come down
with all the forcefulness and fury
of the snow.
which, touching the
corners of our eyes
and our widening mouths
buries us into our houses,
where we sit close
to keep warm.
with its quietest silence,
the snow stops us from
where we are walking,
to fall on our lashes
and make us remember
the colors of each other's eyes.
it compels us to move
slowly, and to
pay attention.

annie morning. 2008.