sea dwellings

Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.

-Robert Browning

getting older

I suppose the best part of a birthday is not double snowshoeing,

breakfasts out,

two delicious cakes made by my roommate (in a sugarless month),

getting tipsy,

or a room-full of good and new friends,

just as the best part of being 23 wasn't singing karaoke,

finally liking tomatoes,

obtaining a new car

(and supporting myself),

or making it through a hell of a year.

In the end, I think, I am so happy to be 24 because I am learning to let go

to receive others

to draw boundaries

to find my identity and value only in Christ

and to walk in freedom and honor like the daughter I am

Yes, all her paths are peace.

Banff Mountain Film Fest 2012

Tuesday. Let's go.

snowshoeing: two days in a row!

new year, happy

and all the lives we ever lived

and all the lives to be

are filled with trees and changing leaves

-Virginia Woolf

A couple of years ago my friend Darrelle started a blog. To introduce us readers to her story, she begins by talking about roots. She shares about her life in Colorado, about what it means to be from a place, and also what it means to leave that place. How we are born in and leave and return to geographical and metaphorical places (and relationships) in our lives.

Roots grow. Leaves change color. Branches must be pruned. A tree becomes unrecognizable from a seedling. And yet without the seedling, there would be no tree.

I am talking about identity. You are older, but you are the same. At any given point in the line, the spiral, the web, the building, you are either becoming more yourself, or less yourself.

For me, being from Washington means so many things.

Familiarity with Salish words and names, the normality of seafood, salmon, and berries, taking ferries regularly, dirty cars and teeming gardens, composting and rain, seasons and driving, Asian food and earthquakes. Mountain houses and evergreen trees.

I think of the island town of my birth and the Upper Columbia of my adolescence, now the vineyards and Blue Mountains of Walla Walla.

Chacos and Birkenstocks, dirty feet and snowshoeing, Indian reservations and long summer nights, the drive-in, bow-hunting and fly-fishing, ground wheat berries and sprouted grains, homemade wine and beekeeping, the Kootenais and the Salmo Priest, Quillisascutt Valley and all the orchards along the river.

And woven into these northwest roots the language of Santa Barbara’s beaches and Westmont, beloved; the self-assurance of San Francisco walking; wide-eyes of London exploration and burly glares of self-protection learned in Tegucigalpa and along Honduran trails.

I think about where I’ve come from and each stage I’ve passed through even while remaining the same. Stretching and growing and expanding but being essentially the same person, the same species of tree.

Each step is a stone of sorts, a stepping-stone. Or how could we get to where we are going? How could we miss steps but keep on with the journey? That would not work. I am grateful for Telford’s class, as it helped prepare me for living in San Francisco. I am grateful for coming back to Santa Barbara after working as a chaplain and wondering what the hell was happening to me, not being able to process anything, struggling to put words to those experiences from General Hospital.

And it is has stuck with me, what he said about not judging or looking down on who you have been, not looking back to think with relief, ‘I’m so much cooler now,’ and sensing your earlier self a stranger. We must learn to be okay with the places we have been, the roads we have walked, the scenes carved into our eyes. And not only okay, but richer and kinder for them.

Where you are now, there will come a day when you also want to write that off. You are not where you will be! And that is okay too. Karen always talked about chronological snobbery, about the need to be patient with others, to remember, as Brad said, that people are rarely where they will end up. Gentleness, gentleness, in all interactions.

Because sometimes the lack of manifest empathy makes me sick to my stomach. But even this must be forgivable, for empathy only comes from walking in the hardness. And some walk flatter, not better or worse, paths.

This 23^rd year was my golden birthday, and to be honest, it has been a painful year, marked with loss. If you know me, you know I love gold—earrings, rings, headbands, scarves, glitter—and this year really has held none of that.

But then maybe that is what it means to become gold—to walk through fire, and come out purified. Well I do not claim purification, though I have seen so many things held dear crumble into ash at my feet. And I will say that of transformation, like alchemy, I know no other way than to walk through flame.

on not giving up

'My grandpa hates carnivals,' one of the more difficult first graders tells me as he eats his breakfast, explaining why he didn't attend the school carnival last night. 'He thinks they're lame.'

I spent the night running game booths and selling .25 cent tickets to families spending $2 or $3 on multiple children; the two unbroken twenties passing through my hands obvious. These things you notice.

I've been thinking how bipolar is a word we use because we want to explain insane behavior (the way I always wished he was an alcoholic: measurable, explainable, blameable--rather than just himself).

NPR did a report on 'How the Northwest Handles Mental Illness' this week, and I can already spot the kids at Blue Ridge--not to negative prophesy, but--the ones who will probably struggle all their lives.

And I cried to the school counselor trying to articulate the hardness of sending some of those precious ones back into adversity each day. Seven hours is such a short time for structure and sanity, and even kindness.

But I still want to sing the song of healing and freedom. I still want to proclaim the Gospel of Peace as it becomes true in my own heart and life. I still want to hope where others have none.

still most loved after all these years

O! Holy night! The stars, their gleams prolonging,
Watch o'er the eve of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error, longing
For His appearance, then the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn...

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.


Read the literal translation from the French here.

vapor drew the lines

there is steam rising up in circles around her face,
touching her brow, her long hair, pulled back,
her spanish cheekbones, her dark french eyes

i am watching her, listening, looking away
hearing the mountain stories, looking west into the deep fog,
the blurry city lights, blinking vaguely
the mountains i can't see for mist, but trust the same

we, the three of us, are deep in this hazed water
relaxing and fearing at once, still and quiet and whispering,
waiting.

and the images, images, images!

the woman, murdered by Crow, in her octogonal wooded home,
the couple bravely headed to alaska,
the girl, hung from rafters, in the garage i was no stranger to
the man, snuck through window, to hurtandhurtandhurt the sister
(she's still alive, you know. she's a lawyer, she lives in denver).

i don't really know how to say things.
i will say it again.
i have said it before.

but here we are, this rainy midnight.
this hot jacuzzi tub.
here we are, clouded, surrounded by fog.
looking through a scanner darkly
a mirror shrouded
believing in beyond the veil,
or trying to believe.

oh january burning! with your stories that cut my life!

[for elle & t.]

i was in a valley called despair,
feeling more alone than i can say
you, you wouldn't have found me there
you were hardly looking anyway

now the setting sun sinks low
and we head out, solitary

oh, but if i had a thousand wildflowers,
i'd throw them at your feet

mountains of sand will disappear
while you keep on singing here
(and who knows if she'll be around?)

what can be done with dead leaves, you ask?
we'll have to burn them all
tie our cloaks in expectancy for the fire to come this fall

with blackened feet we'll run,
our mouths full of salt
we'll reach the highest heights in june,
pitch tents and watch
wait for flame to be put out.

i miss your hands the most.

i just want you to know

that i do still write poems (oh, many), and i will start sharing them again (yes, soon).

and that the One is good, whose name is from ages past, and Love endures.

and, even in homework and overwhelming times like this,

we will make it.

Costa Rica: Pura Vida

hello, 2009

Okay, I promise I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Many a private poem has been written over the past month.

Following finals, the first two weeks of the holiday were spent in Costa Rica with my family. Then it was home to Washington for a week--my town had 4 feet of snow! But now a new semester is starting, and, with it, a new year.

New classes:
New Religious Movements (but I am just auditing this one)
Modern & Contemporary Philosophy (Descarte to Postmodernism)
Imperialism & Independence (the 2nd British Empire, specifically)
International Law & Organizations (we will participate in the model UN in New York, representing Serbia)
Swimming (triathlons, anyone?)
Acting I (woot!)

So that is 17 units + 4 in auditing. And 3 shifts at work. Busy, but interesting. And it's even been in the 70s, which makes me feel terribly guilty, but is still so nice.

far away from the pura vida tropics
back in a pine-smelling village,
four feet of melting snow poured out by the god of the sky

and we are getting so old now, honey
in fact, it can be hard to write about, sometimes

For every Iraqi,

for every Palestinian, for every refugee in Darfur, woman in the Congo, child in Zimbabwe:

“The people walking in a land of deep darkness have seen a great light. They rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, for you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end."

For every American, for every terrorist, for every imperialist, for every dictator,
even from your identity as Oppressor, there is freedom.

The one called Peace is coming.