growth

there's a tree
inside me
pushing its sharp branches
out my sides.
the more it grows-
the smaller i become.
the faster it crawls towards
the sky, the more
i become the earth.
& there's a tree
inside me-
shredding every inch
of me, apart.
like i am the scattered leaves of fall.
small creatures crawl over me,
taking what's left-- of me.
snow blankets over my tree-bones
& we ride the winter winds.
there's a tree inside me
trying to breathe, trying
to see. growing towards you
& taking over me.

success and failure.

When I was 12 years old, I shook Ben Carson’s hand. This was significant because I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. But maybe more than anything, I just wanted to help people—I was twelve! I memorized the human circulatory system and got A’s on all my science essays when I was in 6th grade. Way before I fully grasped the concept of sticking electric sticks into people’s skulls to fix a confused nerve.
But when I was in high school, I found out you had to take really hard classes and go to school for the rest of your life to be a neurosurgeon. That seemed like a pretty big commitment and something I could easily screw up. So I divorced myself from that idea and I study International Communications now.
There’s a lot of room for failure in life. There’s actually an extraordinary amount of things we could fail at- which is why sometimes I feel like I’m standing at the edge of the deep end of a pool filled with all my hopes and dreams wondering, “Where the hell are my floaties?”
Some of us are afraid of failing so much that we never do anything…and then some of us do so much we completely miss the point of what we’re doing, and then it ends up feeling like failure. And sometimes, I want everything to feel like a dream is coming true, full of whimsy and climaxes of hope! I want life to be exponentially more extraordinary than anything I could imagine, and I have BIG moments of BIG inspiration and I think they’re going to carry me through, but then I find that in order for conviction to equal action, there’s a big space in between that needs to be filled with straight up HARD FRICKIN’ WORK. And in life, I have learned that hard frickin’ work, more often than not, is full of wonder in small victories. And you can learn so much from failure- this is how you succeed. And this, in a sort of laaaarge roundabout way, makes me ask myself ‘What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?’



I’ve been on a TED Talk binge for the past week; I have to watch a lot of them for my classes. I came across this one by Natalie Warne, who says this:
“Whatever you want, chase after it with everything that you have, not because of the fame or the fortune, but solely because that’s what you believe in, that’s what makes your heart sing, that’s what your dance is. That’s what is going to define our generation, when we start chasing and fighting after the things that we love and that we want to fight for…Find that thing that inspires you that you love, and just chase after it, and fight for that, cause that’s what’s going to change this world and that is what defines us.”
But okay, the point of this is going to be (which I learned in this TED Talk): It’s the little acts that make us extraordinary. The little moments and the hard work that builds up to those big moments, where a bill is passed or you meet Oprah.

begin.

Victoria is full of blunt wisdom and guidance. I tell her my mind is rolling down a hill, and she puts her metaphorical foot on it and tells it to stop and listen, while she unravels my problems one at a time:

Stop worrying
About how you can’t take your own advice,
Just begin.
Quit procrastinating
Stop being fake and
BE YOU.
You don’t need to know where to start,
You just need to know where to stop.
One step at a time, baby,
One day at a time.
Jesus loves you, so don’t go
Feeling sorry for yourself
--Just do what it is Jesus and you both
Know you need to do.
Conviction = action
You wouldn’t feel like this is you weren’t
Supposed to do something about it

language barrier.

I'm trying to teach my boss, Ernest, how to speak Spanish. I'm doing my best to immerse him in the language. I typed up a cheat sheet for him and taped it to his desk, and the only thing he ever remembers is when I say "tengo una pregunta para ti" because it sounds like I'm saying I'm pregnant, and he thinks that is hilarious. Obviously we're not making much progress. Our conversations always go something like this...
Ernest: "I need you to cover the midday shift today."
Me: "No puedo hacer, jefe! Tengo clase, lo siento!"
Ernest: "Stop it! Why does my phone not translate these things for me??"
Me: "No se, tio! Puedes lo google!"
Ernest: "All that work for a no."

align with Me, abide in Me.

The Spanish sunrise, the top bunk all to myself

I was doing so well! A month and a half ago, I was running on ONE CUP OF COFFEE PER DAY. And going to bed at 10:00pm every night.
Now, the end of week numero dos of Winter quarter, and I’m up. Way up. One POT of coffee per day. If you ask me how I am, I answer is ‘I’m awake.”

I forget when I showered last, I’m running late to everything, I’m chewing my nails down to the bone, blaring Leeland till my very tolerant neighbors bang on the wall. I go to class, go to work, class, work, class, work, go home and throw things around my kitchen…then I go back to work again- all the while knowing that if I really just can’t make it home one night, that the radio station attic is warm and I can take my sleeping bag up there. My laundry is piling up, my hair is tangling, my nose is a little runny, and my circulation is slower than molasses in Alaska.

I have been laughing till it becomes painful with Becky, making baklava, breaking traffic laws, visiting old hangout spots at old cemeteries, putting off important homework to get to know new people, WRITING IN ALL CAPS, putting extra care into my on air shifts at work because I know I should be working like I’m working for God & not for people. I've been not doing my dishes, bundling like a marshmallow riding my bike around campus in this dead winter, sailing down newly paved streets on my rolling couch, watching Ben’s designing process as he's getting ready for his gallery show, and still waiting for my heel to heal. I’ve been re-learning how to do back tucks (a good friend threw me over backwards 16 times last Wednesday night) and flipping around in ways I haven't since high school and I'm not sure if it’s good for me. I always try to sit in the front row of all my classes because I like how Jean Paul the French Professor gets stoked on knowledge and speaks from memory about all he has learned from books, the way Dr. Dickenson tells us that we are not stupid people, and trying desperately to know the difference between criminal libel and seditious libel in Communications Law & Ethics. I so badly want to LEARN and KNOW what they're all TALKING about!

I’m so tired; so WIRED. But the promise of morning keeps me going…

I wake up at around 5:30/6:00am every day. My natural clock ticks like a bomb and at 5:30/6:00ish it exploooooodes! And from somewhere in my mind, a song will start playing, and I say a nice long “good morning” to Jesus for about an hour. I don’t really need to be up so early every day, but I think God wakes me up so I can spend time with Him. Like He’s been lying next to me all night, staring at my face- waiting, waiting, waiting….waiting! for me to wake up so we can get our talk on. I feel like He has so much to say to me right when I open my eyes.

And when I finally pull myself up to my feet, I open my curtain and see the sunrise. And the words to the tune I have been humming for so long now say, “WAKE UP YOU WILD CHILD, BE ALIVE! COME OUTSIDE AND PLAY! I LIKE YOU SO MUCH TODAY! AND WE’LL DO THE SAME TOMORROW AND ALWAYS!”

young clear eyes.

In the wake of the stress and anxiety of finals week and other disasters, I deactivated my Facebook account four weeks ago to focus on other activities without distraction. This week, as college life is starting to warm it's engines back up, I'm feeling the pull to reactivate it so I can be back in the loop.
But I just have no desire to use my Facebook anymore! I see things differently now. I didn't think not having a Facebook to virtually live through would make a difference in the way I interact and get to know people, but it's impact has sunk deep. And I think, "I wasn't even on it everyday!" but it was the channel I turned to when I wanted to know something, learn something, advertise something about myself or someone else.
Now I am forced to be direct. My interpersonal connections have intensified and I see people's faces right in front of me, the lines around their mouths moving and their eyes blinking rather than starring at a static image, & I hear their words spill out instead of reading them in formal lines.
I am beginning to see people with new eyes again.

love is lak de sea

macie fits inside the IKEA shopping bag.
but her love can't be contained
even by shores of the sea.

to the north.

Me: "I hope there's not much snow; I forgot my hiking boots."
Ben: "Nah, there won't be much snow..."

Sandpoint fills my need for nature. Ben Jepson, my gnarliest rugged mountain man friend, lives in Sagle just across the lake from downtown and the road that leads to Schweitzer Mountain. The Jepson house is a log cabin, build by his amazing parents who were married in the spot where the house now stands. It's so cozy; warmed night and day by a wood stove. Last year when I was in Spain, our composition professor asked us to write essays on where we would live if we could live anywhere in the world. She went around the classroom and people were saying exciting places like AUSTRALIA! and NORWAY! or THAILAND!
When she got to me, I said out loud and proud NORTH IDAHO! and she smacked me on top of my head with her notebook.

We hiked in snow that came up to my knee; Ben made deep footprints in front of me, and I jumped into each one like a pouncing fox! The snow poured into my shoes and numbed my ankles. I didn't realize until we were back at the bottom that my shoe was covered in blood where it had worn a section of skin clean off the back of my foot. Worth it! From where we stood at the top we would have been able to see the mountains in Canada, Montana, and Washington if the skies had been clear.

We chilled like the wintry weather all weekend. I chased wild turkeys around the yard till they flew over the house out of view; Ben looked forlornly out the windows going "Where's the snow??" wishing he was backcountry skiing instead of inside teaching me how to play Mancala; Ben also discovered the wonder of real whipped cream which he has never tried before. His New Years Resolution: "Never use Cool Whip again."

We walked out onto the frozen solid Round Lake. I have never walked on ice like that before! I couldn't breathe, but couldn't stop laughing, expecting the ice to suddenly crack and to fall helplessly under the water.
For the past few weeks, it feels like I have been reeling from place to place to place and the slowed momentum of being in Sandpoint brought a calmness into my soul. Like I had been simmering in an oven and finally I'm getting pulled out.