so empty

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be perpetually hungry. Kate and I have been doing this totally ancient “cleansing” diet (that her family has been doing for years) this week. Just a week! And all I can think about when I collapse on my couch-turned-bed, as my stomach presses hard into my spine, is how you can’t spell diet without the word die.

That, and I also think a lot about brownies with chunky peanut butter. I probably think about that more than anything else.

Mostly- it’s just a lot of fruits and veggies, no salt, no sugar, no FUN. And I burn calories like crazy because I’m just always awake! So there have not been very many times that I’ve felt WEAK from lack of nutrition! I had no idea what I was getting into when Kate asked if I wanted to try it, I said “sure!” And once I start something, I don’t just quit. Even when my co-workers bring donuts into the office 3 out of 5 mornings of the week.

I tried to go on a run one morning and stopped two miles in for fear of not being able to make it all the way back home, cause I would be passed out on the road. And I thought “madre mia! People feel like this all over the world! ALL the time!” Its something I can’t comprehend. Like when I slept in the Brussels train station in December and saw two homeless men redefine what I thought of “freezing to death” while I sat staring at them wrapped in my fancy-pants North Face sleeping bag- and still chilled down to my core.

I’m concerned about this. About my stomach; other people’s stomachs. Because I ate a bell pepper, a million baby carrots, and a ¼ cup of hummus this morning and I FEEL like skin and bones. And there has not been such a terrible feeling as going to sleep knowing you’ll still be hungry the next day. I’m going to be so happy when this is over.

I’m choosing to do this- others don’t choose what they get to eat and when they want to eat it. Which is why I’m so concerned. So worried about all the empty stomachs.

wild animals.

David feeds the wild animals, in Venice.

Kate has been graciously letting me sleep on her living room couch since I got back from California. There isn’t a solid place for me to plant my roots until classes start- so here I am, couch surfing. Its Sabbath morning 10:00 o’clock; I’ve already been to work today. I sat in the studio cross legged and barefoot, drinking my happy cup of coffee, moving audio files around in the complicated automation system, making sure things are running smoothly.

But now I’m back on Kate’s couch, remembering the story my mom tells about the first time David saw an animal in captivity. We were coming back from Africa, the only place David and I had ever really known as home during our extremely short lives. We had a layover in Amsterdam and our parents took us to the zoo, where little 4-year old David walked around with puzzled eyes and asked our dad, “Why are all the animals in cages?”

Africa had been wild. Complicated. Hard. Joyful. A dream my mom had been dreaming since she was in college. And everything about taking your babies to a third world country is hard- people thought she was absolutely out of her mind. But she is a strong, strong woman and she hauled us all over there with next to nothing, my father included, and made it work for two years.

We were free. Like the animals and the people that live there.

This year I’ll graduate from college and I’m a little worried about living in captivity. About graduating, finding a job, settling down, and paying my student loans…ooooh it just makes me cringe! My idea of it is the complete opposite of what I would choose for myself, and I can’t align to it. I know I don't have to live that life. But still...I’m terrified of becoming like the animals, who will die captives, in the Amsterdam Zoo. 

choosing favorites.

Kessler gettin' to the top of Black Butte!

A few months ago, it seemed that a lot of hearts were breaking (aren't they always?), especially the hearts of the girls in my small group. So one evening, my good friend Kessler had us all sit down and create little paper books filled with things that make us happy. "So you can look at it when you're sad and feel happy that joy exists outside your heartbreak!"

A week later I ran out of money for school. And I immediately thought life as I knew it was over. So I took my book out and read it out loud in between sobs, "I love...*sniff*...Barcelona, rock climbing, hipsters, babies, *SNIFF*...Mother Teresa!" and so on. It helped a lot. I asked Kessler to give me her list of things that make her happy:

Sweaters. Puffy white clouds. Origami. Cats. Cuddling. The smell of clean laundry. Book. Bookstores! Lightning and thunder. Getting to the top. Matching bras and underwear. Laughing so hard you cry. Kid's smiles. A good cry. Hugs. Trees. Good music. Hats. Imaginations. Differences. Sleeping outside. Stars. Being warm. And bike rides.

"the scariest hill"

My brother, David, is racing in the World Championships in Calgary next week! & I'm so proud of him!

heartmore.

There are always going to be people who need help. Who need love, compassion, a hug, a home, a family to belong to, someone to vent to. The problem is that I will never be able to hold all of them, get them all jobs, dry each one’s tears, fill each one’s belly. I can’t see how in the span of my short life, I could align with more than a handful of needy people in comparison to the whole world. Putting it lightly- it’s kind of a hopeless situation. 

When a friend came to see me in Spain, we were walking in Valencia and spotted a gypsy asking for money. I walked straight past, ignorant. Oh, the gypsies…most of them are immigrants and come to Spain and France from North Africa and Romania where honestly there isn’t a whole lot of money to make right? Working on the streets makes something for them to send home to their families. You do what you have to. 

But I had seen a lot of gypsies in the past 7 months that I had been there and I had been scammed and cheated and taken advantage of by them. I had learned to just walk past, ignoring their signs asking for money for a starving daughter at home or a brother in the hospital. My friend said we should give him something, and I said that we couldn’t give money to every single gypsy in the city.

“You’re heartless,” is what my friend said and it has resonated with me since. Not in a good way.

Because I’m not heartless! You’re not heartless! And I’m sure there are heartless people in the world, but I think you can definitely choose to be one or not. Lately, I have been thinking incessantly about what God wants me to do with my life and how He wants me to introduce people to Him. Earlier tonight, I was on the porch of Kate’s house, chatting on the phone with my best friend Chandler. And this kid rides his bike past a couple times, and around the third time he finally stops and goes, “Hey…are you busy?”

Yes I’m busy. I’m obviously on the phone. Who do you think you are, kid? (By the way, I’m Heartless, nice to meet you). But he goes on, “I just thought maybe we could talk.” I’m such a sucker for strangers. So I kind of put the pull the phone away from my ear, totally shocked by this kid’s insistence and his guts to interrupt the phone call of a complete stranger.

Perhaps this guy thought I was a little bit younger than I actually am because he continued to ask me how old I was and where I went to school and if I had a job, then realizing that I probably wasn’t the person he wanted to marry, he sat down on the porch and asked me question after question about the university, my job, my life, if I play sports, what I want to do with my life, how I pay for school, if I have siblings, how my life is going…for a person who wanted to talk, he sure asked a lot of personal questions.

Which I answered most obligingly! I told him pretty much everything I know about Walla Walla University, studying abroad, student missions, what classes to take, what he could major in and about all the events he could come to this next year. “So many of the things you’ve told me about, I have never heard of before,” is what he said to me after I stopped babbling. I have a tendency to fill the awkward silence. So instead of stopping and letting other people internalize and respond, I just…keep talking. I’m socially handicapped.

He asked me if I partied a lot (since I’m old enough to buy alcohol), and I asked him if he did. He said he kind of did, that he had been to JD once and hated it because he got bored after the second day. I couldn’t imagine being in a place like prison- knowing I would never be able to climb mountains or swim in the Columbia by my house or climb in Yosemite again, or make art to hang in the house. I said things out loud as they came into my head, “What would you do if you couldn’t do the things you want and love to do? You have to be careful with your life, Moises, and don’t be afraid to break away from the things that make you feel dead. You should feel alive and passionate about what you’ll do with your life. Because what if you get to the end of it and you look back and wish you had done more, or loved more people, or forgave people? What if you never took advantage of all that is in front you? What would you do?”

These are questions I ask myself, too. Perhaps I wasn’t just talking to Moises. Maybe he was the mechanism God was using to try to get me to face my impending future, the inevitable decisions I will make. Before Moises left, he put my cell phone number in his phone so he would be able to contact me about stuff going on at the university. Afterwards, I called Chandler back and asked him if I should be giving out my number out to underage boys. Didn’t get much of a solid response about that one.

Moises made me nervous. To the point that I almost rejected him; almost put up a defense and told him to get lost. Because I don’t have the resources to help every floundering child in the city.

Heartless.

God’s tendency is to blow your mind. I often hear Jesus’ voice in the back of my mind saying that I don’t just get to choose who I will help. I don’t get to shop for the homeless people and troubled youth that seem like they need me. I do not get to choose to who will help me, either.  God just drops us off in the middle of the pathway of all sorts of people.

And almost always I have found, they are the ones who we will not help, but ones who will help us.

owning it

MiVoden, forever ago.

Getting tested sucks. 

Taking math tests sucks, testing yourself sucks, getting evaluated sucks.

I have worked at the radio station since I was 17 years old and I have always always always hated air checks. Where I have to SIT and listen to the sound of my OWN voice as my Program Director, Ernest, scrutinizes over the way I talk. In fact, over the past couple years, I've done everything except lock Ernest out of the building in order to avoid having an air check. Last year, I successfully had two air checks. Good job, Becka. 

Today, I sat in his office and had my stupid air check. We were about 20 minutes into it and listening to a long talk break I had practice-recorded for him. I was pretty exasperated by then (I always think "I have been here for how long and I still have to do this?!). He listened, making questionable facial expressions and I sat in the chair of shame making equality as unpleasant expressions. Mostly flaring my nostrils. Like a bull. An angry bull. An angry Spanish, fighting-for-my-integrity bull. 

"What could you have done differently there?" I don't know the right answer to this question. Ever. I don't think there is a right answer. 

"I could have made it more concise and taken the first exit and probably talked a little slower," mentioning all my bad habits in a nice run-on sentence that usually answers "the question." But really I don't think I could have changed anything- but every track I listen to, I scour for flaws and imperfections and think so hard about how it could be better. Better and better until it's the best. 

"Yeah...no." What does that mean!? What do you want from me!? And he asks again, "What would you do differently?" And I answer with "NOTHING!!! I wouldn't do anything differently! It was perfect!"

He's laughing and all he says is "Yeah, it was. There wasn't anything wrong with it. You did fine."

FENWIAONSJAKFDJIOFEWNAFASKDNSJA!!!!

I'm so focused on the things that I'm doing wrong that I forget often about what I'm getting right. Today, I read this on an artist's blog: "My favorite verse is 2nd Corinthians 8:12 which says "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have." I go to this verse when I feel inferior or insecure about my calling or purpose in life."

We could all be a little bit easier on ourselves. 

good finds

 Lucky finds from Sunday morning yard sale hunting with Kate Mate:

$10 antique library desk (that will become a dining room table!)
$10 wall tapestry
$4 bookshelf
$10 vintage Schwinn bike (that can become yours!)
$20 old school road bike
$8 four dining room chairs
$5 giant antique mirror
$1 wooden wine box
And approximately $15 spent on 12 shots of coffee for an early start to a crazy good day with my best friend.