If I Had it to Do Over...

If I could sit myself down in late July 2016, I would have listened to my very legitimate worries about how to say goodbye, what to pack, and what to do about money. After just listening to all that, December Me would have told July Me the following important information:

1. When it comes to packing, remember, people live there. They either know how to do it or are surviving without doing it. (This apparently does not apply to shoes. Bring ALL your shoes.)

2. Bring a journal from before you left. You were a person quite different then, but still a whole, dignified person. It's good to remember those days when you understood the world around you.

It's also good to see the holes and questions you had before the move. Moving has brought new pain, but it has answered some of your questions, deepened your dreams, changed your life.

3. You don't have to go everywhere and experience everything right away. Reading books is still an acceptable pastime, no matter the continent.

4. You're going to write again. And you're going to love it.

Notebook Exploration

These are from fall of 2007, my one semester at Houghton College.

I found this haiku in the front of my notebook for advanced composition with Dr. Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb:

If at first you

Can't count to five syllables,

You're probably me.

I found this letter to God in the back of my notebook for English literature survey with Dr. Wardwell. That was the best class I have ever taken. During finals, I was pacing the lengths of the bookshelves memorizing slices of poetry and their authors. When I wrote this letter, I had just taken a long look at Gulliver's Travels and was about to move on to The Rape of the Lock. But my mind stopped. So I began:

I want to tell You all about it by a shimmering stream, beneath a cerulean sky. But I have a light brown study carrel with a light that hums next to a window and a heater. And I have a very serious amount of studying to do for my final in two days. But, God, I'm just so SO--! I want to tell You under a starry sky, with the world beneath You and I together. We'd watch each star as it watched us, and You'd tell me a secret and I would make You laugh.

But I have a hundred (or two dozen) goodbyes to make. And who knows for how long it will be? One year? This lifetime? All eternity? Jesus only You could know... I'm just so--! So mad and clueless, expectant and helpless. So scared and tired, excited and weary. And not busy. Like I should be.

Even though I walk the shores, all the mountains, town after town, one city, then another, even though I see Your creation right beside all that of man, I will always listen for Your voice. It always calls me here. To begin again at the beginning, while I'm in the middle of everything busy, getting ready to make a change. I'll start with You. And I'll end with You.

Just Right Now

A soft breeze rustles my blinds. Everyone is quiet. My soul is awake. I carry dreams with my fingers. With so much to do do do, is it possible that it is time to be? And to be. and to be...

It smells like rain. Shut down, oh mind, and retire to the place where worries won't plague you and no one will argue. In the morning grace is brand new, you can get it while it's fresh.

Melange

I just finished Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. I find that it all blends together. There is no separation between my own thoughts, the book, the music I am listening to (David Crowder, Intoxicating); the people I saw this morning (Joella, Jodi, Becky); the conversations I had, my aspirations, and disappointments. They all blend together.

Imagine, a rabid dog sitting on the back of a swimming cow, discussing death and God's purpose for life, to the sound of a twanging guitar; in the sky, a ribbon of possibilities written on a banner, waving behind a light airplane.

I don't know if it's mentally sound that characters in books should become so real to me. I don't know if it's a mark of soundness that conversations should be repeated verbatim (I really think so...) in my mind. Maybe I've been getting too much sleep. Or not enough.