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!”