I’m at a standstill, of sorts. So, for the time being, I’m reading books and doing homework and visiting friends and listening to music and being a part of music and making bathroom cds and drinking coffee and sipping tea and going to church and taking naps and hugging people and eating pineapple and missing my mother and thinking about alaskans and making a general mess of things and checking things off. Day by day.

Current Sounds: In Your Talons -Bowerbirds
Current Words: Autobiography of a Face -Lucy Grealy

Her story was more elaborate: driving to another state, dancing through the night, driving back in the wee hours of the morning. I’ll leave out the details—they’re hers to tell, not mine.

When she ended her story, she paused, then said, it’ll be alright. And you know, she’s right.  Because no matter how far you go, you can always go further. She could have ended her story not knowing how to get to there from here (unfulfilling ending), dancing with beautiful salsa men (exciting ending), driving back in the wee hours of the morning (exhausted ending), almost getting lost in the cornfields at 4 AM (sad ending), or falling to sleep at home after a wonderful adventure with her friends (happily ever after ending). But she didn’t. She ended it normally—there were good parts, there were some not-so-good parts. But all in all, it turned out okay—she turned out okay.

We always do.

Current Sounds: That’s Some Dream -Good Old War
Current Words: What It Is -Lynda Barry

I’m trying to post once a week. Encourage me if I start slacking.

To friends far away. To friends nearby. To learning about trees. To watching the meteor shower. To letters in the mail. To tan lines from friendship bracelets. To bed bug infestations and learning to drive a tractor and shoveling rocks out of gardens. To graphic novels. To laying on quilts on the lawn. To slacklining. To worrying. To going to the Brew. To rain and open windows. To campers and covered mirrors. To writing. To giving up. To holding on. To not being ashamed of what I believe. To singing with others. To pretzels with peanut butter. To getting tired of bathroom mixes. To communal showering. To not knowing what the future holds. To English classes. To discovery. To learning about stars. To tube runs. To coffee. To spending hours looking at pictures. To contact and scramble. To freighting. To Anna and Jacob. To Lydia and Alex. To Yoder 4. To drinking tea. To laughing on Skype. To keeping up relationships with people far away. To telling stories. More importantly, to listening to others’ stories. To comforting. To being comforted. To scarves. To tears. To happiness. To post-it notes left on desks. To everything.

Happy 2011.

Current Sounds: I Should Go/Thinking of You -Good Old War
Current Words: The Horse and His Boy -C.S. Lewis

By definition, the panicky yucks are a mentally-induced condition in which a person feels overwhelmed by bad and/or awful feelings about something/anything/everything for no tangible (or at the very least, no valid) reason. I get this a lot lately, usually when I’m sitting still for too long without anything to distract me well enough.

All that to say, I’m practicing. I’m practicing being still and taking the time to think about my life and what I’m unhappy with and what I wish would change. These aren’t fun thoughts. Especially when my wants are different than others’ wants. But, knowing myself is the first step to being able to communicate well with others–then to understanding their needs, then meeting both of our needs, then to happiness, then to joy. And ultimately, that’s the goal, right? Joy.

I’m working on sitting still. I’m working on finding joy.

Current Sounds: Glory Bound – The Wailin’ Jennys
Current Words: Pathfinder – Orson Scott Card

Prayer
by David Huerta

Lord, save this moment.
There’s nothing outlandish or
miraculous about it, unless it holds
a hint of immortality, a breath
of salvation. It looks like
any number of other moments…
But it’s here now among us:
it casts its yellow light and swells
like the sun or like flaming lemons
- and tastes of the sea, of loved hands
and smells like a street in Paris
where we were happy. Save it
in your memory or deliver it
into the light that sets
on this page,
barely touching it.

You have two of my best friends for the next while. Make sure they see your beautiful mountains, appreciate the weather, watch your sun rise, and watch your sun not rise for that matter. Help them find wonderful people -friends to confide in, adults to befriend them. Help them find something they love to do and let them do it. Make sure they enjoy every moment with you.

Let them find what they’re looking for.
Keep them safe.
Pass on my love to them.

Current Sounds: Strength -Jonathan Elias
Current Words: Telling Stories -Joyce Carol Oates

That idea –that we all need each other- is probably one of the most important (and most primal) things that have concreted themselves in me recently.

Going to camp, I was set on being independent. I wasn’t planning on needing anyone there the way I did with high school friends or college friends. I wasn’t planning on finding adults who loved me or boys who treated me with respect or little kids to adore. I certainly wasn’t planning on making friendships that I cannot now imagine life without.

During orientation week, we as a staff climbed The Wall on the low ropes course. I was the only one who didn’t. I was afraid of looking stupid, of other people having to lift my weight, of failing and not getting over the twenty-foot wall.

I wish so much that I had realized then that it’s okay to depend on others, to need a lift up. Instead, I immediately ostracized myself by refusing to put myself on the line. Even when everyone else did.

It took me until I was a counselor to realize that I couldn’t go through camp alone and that it was not a bad thing to need others. Figuring this out led to a few tears at campfire, and turned what could have been the most difficult weeks of my life into one of the most rewarding. As I figured out how to let others help me, I better knew how to pass along that care.

I am not independent. And it’s a good thing.

Current Songs: Anemone Arms -Snowden
Current Words: The River Why -David James Duncan

This summer working at Camp Friedenswald, I chose to put myself in the same place that Truman was unknowingly thrown into. Cell phone reception at camp was awful –I got two bars if I pressed my phone against the ceiling in my room or if I wanted to walk to the top of the hill by the bell. The internet was slow, snail mail was slower. After two weeks of being at camp, I pretty effectively cut myself off from the real world.

I’ve become wonderful at treasuring mail received and not sending any back. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about seeing missed calls and not returning them. I’m getting used to not responding to Facebook messages. And I’m not proud of any of those things.

But that’s where I needed to be this summer. I needed to try to be independent. I needed to be cut off from who I was comfortable, to fully put myself where I was, to become enveloped by camp, to take time to enjoy being alone. I needed to prove that I am not as reliant on others as I always thought. I needed to figure out for myself whether or not I am an I or an E.

I changed a lot this summer. I know now that independence is overrated –I need to have people around me who I can lean on, hug on, cry on, lay on. Without others, my life would mean nothing, it’s all about the relationships. I need to have people I’m comfortable with, but more and more I’m realizing how comfortable I can become with everyone –I just have to make a conscious effort to take them for who they are, not who I come in expecting them to be. I learned that I need time to be alone, but more than that, I need to find others I can be silent with.  Trusting someone enough to be quiet with them is premium.

From this summer, I proved to myself how reliant on others I am. I needed to figure out whether or not you really mean something to me, and it turns out you do. I need you in my life. I need your presence, your unanswered letters, your unreturned phone calls, your texts that say nothing more than “I miss you.”

I’m sorry for not meeting your needs this summer. I’m sorry I wasn’t around for all the changes you went through. But regardless of how much I’ve missed and how much you’re different and how much I’ve changed, if it’s worth anything, we’ll stay the same.

Current Sounds: A Shot to the Stars -Whitley
Current Words: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society -Shaffer & Barrows

I am anxiously awaiting your arrival. You’ve been a tease of late, you know, and I’d appreciate knowing you still remember us here. The sunburns are bearable, as is the evening sweatshirt, but it’s time to come home now. I miss you a lot.

Love,
Lavonne

I want to live like we live in the summer.

I am ready for shorts and sandal tans, for mosquito bites and dirty summer feet, for those popsicles that come in plastic tubes, for bonfires at the lake.

I am ready for pool time and lake time and read a good book in the sunshine time.

For sunburns, hemp bracelets, not showering.

For Chief ice cream, blackberry lemonade at the Brew, and playing games in basements, singing together, picnics, and going on adventures.

For trampolines, sleepovers, flying kites on windy days, lightning bugs, sunsets, constellations, shooting stars, bridge jumping, pier jumping, dunes.

For ignoring the time and paying attention to weeding the garden.

And paying attention to bugs, and getting up early to watch the news, and crosswords, and driving with the windows down, and sitting on Poppie’s porch, and petting the dog, and looking at birds.

And to spending multiple nights in a row at someone else’s house, and eating strawberry shortcake for dinner, and telling the story behind the bleeding heart flowers, and being grateful for Sunday morning church services because then at least we know what day of the week it is.

——–

(Dear Spring, don’t be offended. I dig you a lot. I like picnics and running down hills and strawberry eating and applesauce and naps outside and being outside late at night and not having to worry about mosquitos. And much as I complain, I like having to change clothes three times a day to fit the weather. So, if you want to stick around in this mostly warm weather, I’d be okay with that, too.)

Current Sounds: Summer Skin -Death Cab For Cutie
Current Words: Psychology textbook!