the run of death

I know this entry is slightly postdated, but that's what happens when you have to work 50 hours a week. Last Saturday, my dad had the brilliant idea that our family needed to bond. Well, not bond, per say, but have a common experience to complain about. So at 8:30 a.m., we were huddled with thousands of other Tri-Citians at the base of the Cable Bridge, waiting our chance to trot over the river and through the non-existent woods to a finish line 5 kilometers away. At first, I was fairly nonchalant about the whole activity. Sure I griped and moaned for an appropriate time, but I was actually sort of excited. I like doing large group sporting activities, plus, I knew I got a sweet free shirt out of the deal. I thought to myself, you were a two-sport varsity athlete and a dancer and a frolicker when the moment struck, this should be a walk in the park. (pardon the pun, though the race was through back roads of Pasco so it doesn't quite fit.)

Then I realized that those days were three years ago, and by the first half mile I was pretty much ready to die.

My sister and I (who, in my defense, was a varsity athlete in a much less distant past) decided to run the first part. Then the combination of our lungs about to burst into little tiny shreds and our legs screaming for asylum slowed us to a walk. We were so beat that we ended up walking the majority of the race, and finished in the last 10% of our age group. To put our patheticness in perspective, an asthmatic dog being dragged by its owner crossed the finish line before us. Needless to say, I'm realizing that this strange thing called fitness doesn't just transfer from your slim and trim high school body to your new and not so improved post freshman-15 self. Bummer.

The week of insanity

I'm finally done with finals for this semester, and my GPA is looking like it's going to come out better than it has thus far at Whitworth. My dad will be happy. Now all I have to do is clean my bathroom and my room and pack to go home for three weeks plus pack for Mexico plus try not to cry again. Flip.

A little bit of courage

I realized this afternoon that I am a writing major, yet I hardly ever share any of my writing. Sure I've had Alyssa look over something or occasionally talked about a project in the works, but I never just put myself out there. Writing is such a personal experience for me. Not because I've had some terrible life situation or I write things that would somehow imply my "soul is a swirling black abyss," (actual comment from a literary journal editor at the national college media convention this fall about student poetry) but because I consider it a piece of myself that is somehow lost, given away, taken from me. But I've also realized that writing for myself is selfish, and impractical as a career option. So here is a short piece I turned in for my creative nonfiction class as part of a writer's notebook. It was written in response to the prompt "pick a place in nature that has meaning to you." And at first I was wholeheartedly against the prompt: transcendentalism nature writing (Emerson and the like) makes vomit a little in my mouth. But I went for it, and was actually pretty excited about where I ended up. So enjoy.

The dock squeaks when the current gets strong. After they open the dams, usually. The railing, chipped like a beat up chunk of plywood, seems to wail and moan with the weight of its memories. It’s the only secluded dock on that stretch of the river. Hidden behind the tall oak tree, a world of possibilities is revealed. A beaver’s lodge is wedged between the edge of the fading wood and the luscious green bank. At dusk you can get lucky and catch a glimpse of his tail as the beaver leaves his haven to explore his limited terrain.

During winter you can try to catch frozen chunks of river as they float by. The hinges on the bridge freeze over. It stops the squeaking, at least. The winter dock smells like desolation; even the ever-present whiffs of geese droppings fade into the arctic island. But during the summer, the smells of freshly-cut grass collide with the stench of river water, invading your senses with the idealism of all things pure. For the dock is not just an old, squeaking platform. It’s a way of life.

I never visited that dock until high school. My family always went to the Park St. end of the long a narrow city park. That’s where all the table and swings were anyway. The Albertson’s fried chicken would leave our fingers too greasy to make it across the monkey bars, so we would take turns wiping our hands off on the other sister’s shirt until the friction was just right. The dock was past our boundaries; it was beyond our experience.

But the dock became my rebellion. The edge of the wood was like the edge of my childhood. I could stand on the threshold, staring into the murky wet freedom just below me. I knew those two girl had drowned; they were different. They jumped in May, not August. The water was swifter then. I would be fine. I had a towel in the backseat of my Nova just to make sure they couldn't find a drop of water on the driver’s seat.

So I jumped. I hit the water of my adolescence and gasped at the frigid waves that flooded over my head. Once I gained by breath back I kicked to the surface and bobbed for a moment. I stared back at that dock, at what I had left behind. And I knew I could never really climb back on.

Mother Nature's menopause

Today's weather was another progression in Mother Nature's fast approaching insanity, at least when it comes to Spokane. As of around 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon, we had at least 4 inches of snow on the ground. It came down hard starting Saturday afternoon and didn't stop all night. That was in addition to the 2 inches or so we got the previous Monday. (It's a tradition here: the first snow always comes the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's slightly eerie.)

As of noon today, the only snow left on the ground is that which was previously packed for a snowman or left by plows in the parking lot. It rained straight from Sunday afternoon until this morning, when I walked outside in a T-shirt and was perfectly content. I just don't get it, sometimes.

But in spite of Mother Nature's ploys with my ability to dress weather-appropriate in the morning, I have been forced to examine just what I would define as "ideal weather." My fallback answer is usually just "spring." Granted, this is a season more than a specific climate, but what can you do. I think what appeals to me about spring is its optimism. Spring is a time of new life, new growth, new chances. It's an awakening out of the frozen depression of 4 months of grey winter. I'm not opposed to rain, or snow, or the occasional windstorm. I think all weather has a time and a place, and I love that seasons come and go, bringing a change of pace every 3 months (ideally). So maybe it's not spring that I love, but the idea that the world doesn't have to be stuck in a overcast gloom.

on writing

I sat down last night with my personal essay haunting my every procrastinating move. I've been brooding over the essay for about a month now, and all I managed to squeeze out was 3 spliced pages. (Actually, this was better than I originally hoped for, but still.) The assignment required outside research of some sort, so we could practice creating nonfiction works that were based on more than just a memory of an 8th birthday party.

I read about spiders.

I chose this topic based on a Carly Simon song I used to dance to with my dad. (Yes, my father dances occasionally. And sometimes it even happens in public.) It's called "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and it's essentially the children's song intermixed with a chorus about lost love. I loved that song as a little girl, because I though it meant that my seemingly foolish interests as a kid weren't so foolish because a big bad grown-up was singing the same song.

So I sit down to write this highly symbolic essay using the analogy of my dad being a brown recluse spider. And a strange thing happened: it turned out to be about my mom. I've heard of this happening to writers before, that a story or character drives its own plot whether that's where you wanted it to go or not. I'd sort of viewed this phenomenon as a cop-out for writers who didn't want to talk about the tough themes that emerged from their work. But I get it now. I wanted to write about myself, but I realized that it would turn out to be more of a "feel sorry for my screwed up family" piece than an actual lyrical narrative. So I wrote about my mother instead. Somehow making her the victim doesn't seem as harsh, as self-serving. She has suffered so much more in her 59 years than I have in a meager 20. (God, my mom is getting old.) I still don't know how I feel about where the piece is going. But at least now I understand that it's not always in my control. Writing is art; it's not a formula or some sort of imposition of your values on a reader through a cleverly weaved plot. It has a mind of its own.

rest: an active verb

I meant to write this entry over a week ago, when it was actually applicable to my life. But nevertheless, it's still a valuable chunk of food for thought.

Before reading Anne Lamott, I had never really seen the psychological value in silence. Sure I knew that 8 hours of sleep was important so you didn't pass out in 2nd hour and I knew that taking a 30-second water break in the middle of a race is a generally encouraged resting point. But I had never considered the benefits of rest, of stillness, just because. Anne Lamott (who if you haven't read are missing out possibly the best nonfiction writer of the 21st century) talks a lot about the value of scheduling rest. No TV, no music, just laying flat on your back and breathing in the silence of life. I had always assumed that this sort of rest was synonymous with napping. Well, let the myth be shattered, my friends. Napping leaves you, while slightly rested, usually more groggy than when you started and in my case leaves awkward lines all over one side of my face. But a few Saturdays ago, I had the day free of homework, a boyfriend, and the majority of any other distractions. I layed on my bed, flat on my back, with my eyes closed. I slowly let my brain drain itself of the gunk that I too often let get clogged in the pipes of my mental sanity.

For that 30 minutes or so, I experienced a calm that has been missing from my life for quite some time. It was an act of prayer, without words. I just let myself be. I let the stillness wrap itself around me like an old shawl and I took time to just not take time for anything. And now, as my head gets gunky again and my life starts to spin itself into events rushing at me like bullets from a machine gun, I try to draw on that shawl to protect me from the deadly penetration of being rushed.

Why I worked at summer camp

I realize that it's November, and I finished my summer job almost exactly 3 months ago. Honestly, it felt like a different lifetime. But I haven't ever really talked about camp, in a comprehensive "this is what I did with my summer" sort of way. So here goes.

Deciding to work at Lutherhaven was probably the hardest decision I've ever made, but at the same time the most validating. My family was pretty set against me going. My bank account was pretty much set against me going. I was pretty set against me going. Sure, I've camped before. But I'm not what you call a "nature" person. I enjoy walking through a park or just sitting on a porch and listening to the wind, but I want that porch to be attached to my house with a car parked out front and my cell phone fully charged. I was not excited about living in the dirt in Idaho for three months, let alone doing it with little connection to the real world. But for some reason (and a lot of prodding from Sarah), I made the jump. I took the financial, emotional and personal risk of doing something I'd always wanted to do but never had the courage to.

It was more worth it than I could have ever imagined.

I hadn't realized before what living with a purpose meant. Sure I'd worked in jobs or groups that had goals, and I was passionate about those goals. But there is something transforming about living an entire week for the sole purpose of making the life of someone else a little better. I would get my girls on Sunday afternoon, and usually by Tuesday night I was saying to myself "they aren't getting it," "they think I'm weird," "I'm not the right person for this job." And with the exception of a few girls, by Friday afternoon I could not believe how blessed I was to have the privilege of working with that group for the short time we were together. Whether that blessing came in a huge hug as they left or the simple joy of watching a shy and self-conscious teenager bloom, it was always evident to me that something greater than myself was at work.

I even got to the point that I enjoyed cleaning. I mean, really cleaning, like getting down on my hands and knees with bleach and a sponge for two hours. The satisfaction from pouring yourself into something for no benefit to yourself was motivation enough. Sure I griped all the time about minuscule tasks and a large portion of my co-workers who I thought had no business working with children, but in the end I wouldn't trade it for the larger paychecks and comfortable showers I could have had all summer. Not to mention that I made some of the best friends I've ever had, and miss them all to the point of physical pain sometimes. I know it sounds cliche, but seriously, those women were my salvation.

Not to mention that Glory, the camp cook, made the best 7-layer bar I've ever tasted.