Incertus

I’m climbing a ragged staircase that’s in the process of being slowly sucked back into the cliffside from which it was carved. When I reach out to steady myself, I feel the fuzzy heartbeat of the moss nudging my hand like a contented thought. The seagulls fall like snow and rise again with the wind, calling out with voices that remind me of wilderness and playing hide-and-go-seek with anxiety. My wellingtons keep slipping on the loose gravel, and I’m concentrating so hard on the path that I forget to look around and smell the sea. There’s something about fear that sharpens my concentration and changes me from an amateur to a professional, and instead of the little tourist who just wants to splash the crabs and stay out of everybody’s way, I’ve suddenly become a park ranger with responsibilities… and now I have to strain my eyes unless I want to see the same things over and over again.

There was one day when the sky was a sheet of silver and I was keeping my eye on the rhododendron bushes because they kept jostling about in an unnatural sort of way, when someone poked me harshly on the shoulder and asked me the quickest way to town. I blinked twice and began to surreptitiously look for the fire escape. Because there’s something about that town I don’t really fancy… maybe it’s the identical lightening rods on all the apartments or the deserted playground behind the city hall. I always send people the long way back. And I stay out here with the friendly moss and the rocks that steam in the morning. But people are always asking me for directions to leave.

So now I’m climbing a ragged staircase up a wizened precipice, and everyone has left. Maybe I left them. I’m on a quest, see. I don’t really know what I’m looking for, but I’ve always wanted to go questing. When I was little, I used to lie in bed and make up stories that usually involved Ivanhoe. There was one hill in my imagination that I remember very clearly, though I don’t know why. I think we changed horses there once and spied upon the world at our feet before racing into its environs. Now I pull myself up to a narrow ledge that looks like it belongs on the stairs of Cirith Ungol and slowly turn around to face the wind. The muscular beauty of the sea owns the landscape far beneath me, and I can see the pinprick outlines of a few lingering tourists stooping to collect shells as souveniers. Suddenly, I begin to feel very lonely. Maybe there’s still something I need down there. Someday I’ll reach into my backpack, pull out the pieces of canvas and cord I stuffed inside, and assemble them with shivering hands. Then I’ll throw off my heavy coat, reach into my pocket for a little extra courage, and jump on the wind’s back (and away we will go). And maybe I’ll find in flight what I was looking for on foot. Maybe, suspended among the seagulls, grasping my hang-glider with reddened hands, I’ll know what to wish for when I see the first star at night, and when at last I reach the ground and roll before coming to a stop, I’ll rise knowing what God expects of me.

my life is a juxtaposition

driving the tractor, pulling fence posts, hauling cedar, making dinner.

sometimes life takes strange paths. I never imagined this.

I’m a country girl……….. with patent leather heels, an extreme sensitivity to the beauty of melancholy music and poetry, an affinity for fairy tales and Europe, and a scholarly mind.

but here I am plunging through brush to yank a fence post out of the ground with my gloved hands, using the steps I learned on the dance floor to avoid tangling my feet in barbed wire, kneeling on thorns as I work rusted nails out of wood (and thinking of new analogies), and holding my 4-year old brother on my lap as I drive the tractor along the fence line.

and the funny thing is… I like it. The high heels can wait. I’ll wear them on Sundays. I’ll write poetry and read aloud to my sister in the evenings. I’ll cherish my shelf and memory full of fairy tales and tell myself stories as I lie awake in bed. I’ll save up to go to Europe someday, and I’ll study history and theology and literature when I can.

but watch for me running across the grazing field with pliers in my pocket, stretching electric fence wire from here to kingdom come, buying new leather gloves and work boots, and being able to do more pushups than most girls. (…not necessarily that last one. =P)

it wouldn’t have been my choice, but life isn’t a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” book. It’s a fairy tale, full of unexpected tasks, surprising romances, and… mostly just miracles. And the funny thing about miracles? we can’t choose them. They choose us.

Quotable 2011

It’s my favourite way to commemorate the year just past. I hope you enjoy the following collection of quotes from 2011.

Dad: Now, this is a narrow street, so watch how I make this U-turn. *makes turn while explaining* Okay, so see how tight that was? Sometimes U-turns are illegal, though, so you know not to make those.
Me: *looking back* Uhhhh… I’m just now realizing that there was an “illegal U-turn” sign back there…..
Dad: Oh, really? Oh. … Yeah, it’s hard to make U-turns on tight streets like that. They put those no U-turn signs up for people who don’t know how to make turns like that. Thankfully, I know how to do it safely. SO it doesn’t really apply to me.
Us: *laughing*

Anna: Come this way, Alan!
Alan: To Isengard, to Isengard!

Me, pop-quizzing the family on vocabulary: ‘Extraneous’. The root is “extra”, which means “out”….
Emily: OUT OF A TRAIN!!! ….um, out of CONTROL! Like, extra “reign” eous.
Mom: Oooh! Extra rainy!

Dad: You’ve been a good boy during devotion tonight so far, Alan!
Alan: I would be happy if you finished.

“Alan, don’t swing the sword around. Just point it at people.” -Dad

“You are being especially clever tonight.” -Emily, to me

Me: (looking at senior photos) I can’t pick one!
Christina: It’s because you’re just too lovely and photogenic.
Me: But you don’t mention those 300 pics you deleted.
Christina: Well… we just won’t talk about those!

“The topic I’ve chosen today is self-worth. Now, judges, *pointing* you’re ugly, you’re fat, and YOU’RE stupid. Now listen up, especially you, the stupid one.” -Luke (*spoofing impromptu*)

Nathan: Grace, are you a yankee?
Owen: Of COURSE she’s not!

“Yay, my cupcake is here! I will kill it!” -Emily (at a rehearsal for the battle scene from Beauty and the Beast)

“Death is only romantic when the SINGLE person dies.” -Alison

Anna: The reason there’s paint all over the floor is because Michael..
Michael: I did NOT make paint angels on the floor, Anna.
Anna: *laughing* No, no, it’s just, (*to me*) Michael kicked the bucket!
Michael: *he and I chuckle* I’m standing right here! Don’t tell lies.
Anna: I’m not! He kicked it! It was an accident!
Michael: Well at least I didn’t do it on purpose! *he and I laugh again*
Anna: *totally confused* …and it spilled everywhere.
Michael: Ugh! Gross!
Me: Hahahaha! Anna, do you know what the phrase, ‘kick the bucket’ means?
Anna: Ummmm…
Me: It means to die.
Anna: …*starts laughing*

“I have a photographic memory. In my mouth.” -Isaac

Nathan: Well, if you have to go, I don’t want to keep you.
Me: You just want to throw me away??
Nathan: How did I know you would say that?!
Me: Because you’re you and I’m me and we get along. =)

Alan: Awww, look at yourself!
Me: Why?
Alan: Because yourself is pretty!

A Girl Who Reads

The Quirks and Benefits of a Girl Who Reads… a paraphrase by Grace Einkauf based off of Rosemarie Urquico’s response to Charles Warnke’s ‘You Should Date an Illiterate Girl’ (confused yet?)

-She spends her money on books instead of clothes.
-She has problems with closet space because she has too many books.
-She has a list of books she wants to read, and has had a library card since she was twelve.
-She will always have an unread book in her bag.
-She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants.
-She can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
-She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already; lost in a world of the author’s making.
-If you sit down beside her, she might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. (A few tips: Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.)
-She’s easy to please: give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Let her know that you understand that words are love.
-A girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. She understands that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not?
-Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
-She’ll be up at 2am clutching a book to her chest and weeping. (Make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you.)
-She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
-She will write the story of her life, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes.
-She will introduce her children to The Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day.
-In the winters of her old age, she will recite Keats under her breath.
-She can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, find a girl who reads. Or better yet, find a girl who writes.

defined by love

“I felt it first when I was younger… a strange connection to the light. I tried to satisfy the hunger; I never got it right. So I climbed a mountain and built an altar… looked out as far as I could see. And everyday I’m getting older. I’m running out of dreams. (I’m running out of dreams.) But Your love, Your love…. The only thing that matters is Your love. Your love is all I have to give. Your love is enough to light up the darkness! It’s your love, Your love. All I ever needed is Your love.” 

Yesterday, I was accosted by my 19th birthday. Amid all the activities, I managed to allow myself some time for reflection, because one shouldn’t simply blow through life without remembering what made life what it is. So, in no particular order, I recalled to memory my preschool years (with bangs and Lamb Chop and playing grocery store in the kitchen and Bambi), my elementary influences (with Jungle Jam and suddenly green eyes and my drama queen t-shirt and patient parents and playing ‘house’ with my cousins at Christmas), middle school turmoil (with choir obsession and fashion realization and The Chronicles of Narnia and questions about Christianity and international student ministries and changing churches), and the combined confusion and clarity of high school (with state-wide singing competitions and The Lord of the Rings and NCFCA and the beauty of sound doctrine and the passions of wonder and love and voracious reading and poetry and discovering what friendship means).

“You know the effort I have given, and You know exactly what it cost. And though my innocence was taken, not everything is lost. (Not everything is lost, no.) You’re the hope in the morning. You’re the light when the night is falling. You’re the song when my heart is singing. It’s Your love! You’re the eyes to the blind man. You’re the feet to the lame man walking. You’re the sound to the people singing. It’s Your love!

Your love is all that I needed. All I ever needed is Your love.” [Brandon Heath]

Captain Jas. Hook

“In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur [storyteller] of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts…. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.”

“Thus Wendy first laid eyes on the dark figure who haunted her stories. She saw the piercing eyes and was not afraid, but entranced.”

finding answers

Ivy clings to the sober walls like a restless sleeper clutching at the sheets. Its stretching tendrils are not the green of  hopeful growth or the green of eager eyes, but the green of long-forgotten memories just barely alive in the crumbling loam.

I sit in the dark, unmoving, and there’s nothing to see, but everything to feel. The wind becomes a symphony, and maybe it’s a lonely voice above my head, or maybe it’s voices together as one, with my voice among them.

I need you to understand that I write because I feel, and I feel so much that it hurts inside, like music caught in my soul. I write to get rid of it, and I write to keep it forever, because words never die. Somehow they make beauty out of uncertainty and passion out of pain, and even my little life starts to look noble.

I write because words are tears and words are laughter; frozen, yet so alive. Words are the miracle I never was.

I need you to understand. I write because… because… because I need you to understand. I need you to recognize the irregular pulse of my soul, and know that beneath the blood that paints its way through my veins, there’s more life than you can see. I don’t know how that life found me here, but it’s making me more than I am, and I write to set it free.

I know you have felt the same way. Maybe you have never felt so at home, and yet so full of longing when you’re capturing emotion with your camera. Or with your paintbrush. Maybe you don’t paint with colours or words, but with raw action and physical exertion. Perhaps you can touch a musical instrument and make it sing the deepest chorus of your heart. There’s something inside you that won’t stay there, and it’s glorious and sad and full of hope and confusion, and you know that it can’t just be yours or you’ll blow into a thousand tiny pieces trying to contain it.

What is it that reveals your soul? What is it that I need to understand about you?

{away}

I took a week off from real life. I wandered up and down the bank of the Frio River like a wanderer come home, stepping on the same ground I visit every year. I remembered a game I made up when I was very young: trying to walk as far as possible without touching anything except cypress tree roots. I spent my childhood here, and somehow I managed never to take it for granted. It’s the simplest place in the world, a combination of peaceful and exciting that I needed so much. When did I turn into a grown-up with a life to escape from?

You would love those sprawling cliffs and the deep water below them. When you swim ten feet above the lazy catfish parties, it’s like you’re alone in an aquamarine mystery, and the mystery is more beautiful than the answer. I don’t think there is an answer, and that’s why it’s beautiful. The breeze turns the stillness into contented energy, and little ripples kiss your upper lip again and again like there’s no tomorrow and all we have is now. The past is gone and the future will never come and no one cares. You just swim into the 4 o’clock sun. You see poetry in everything. And for once, you exult in being alone… but then you’re not alone. Because your little sister and your fabulous cousin come and play seals right next to you, and then you exult in being not-alone. And you swim through the ripples to the diving log and pretend it’s a ship. Sometimes you can feel a fresh-water spring under you and it’s so COLD you scream and everyone thinks you saw a snake and then you laugh at them.

Then it’s eleven in the morning on another day and you’re alone again, down by the rope swing without much sunscreen, building a waterfall and channels for three hours. When you’re finished, it’s a quality establishment, and that sunburn on your back? It hardly matters. And your chipped fingernail polish? It doesn’t matter at all.

There’s a big hill from the upper campground to the lower campground, and it’s perfect for riding your bike with no brakes. People talk about throwing precaution to the wind, but I don’t think that’s what happens. I think the wind whooshes around you so fast that it snatches your precaution away from you, whether you’re holding it tightly or not. And I never hold mine tightly on that hill anymore. I’ve been hurtling down it at top speed ever since I was nine years old.

You would love the annual catfish-fry… sitting on rocks with fishing poles all day long, baiting with hot-dogs, naming the fish you catch, and throwing away the “stanleys”. And then at the end of the day, you haul your stringer back up to the cabin and your dad tries to show you how to clean the fish and it’s disgusting but now you’ll be able to survive in the wild. If you had a knife. And matches or flint. And cornmeal and Lowry’s salt and oil to coat the fish with. I fried them this year, and it took forever.

Oh, and then when you feel like it, you can walk up to the office and charge any number of ice-creams to your family’s account.

It was a week of enchantment and detachment. When being alone didn’t ever feel lonely. A week of painted rocks and curious fish and family and hardly any other campers to bring my mind back to the present. I don’t think I took a week off from real life, really. I think I took a week of visiting it. Maybe paradise is what’s really real, and everything else is simply the contrast material.

Scratch the maybe.

Ah, but the contrast material always seems so very contrasting when I come home. When I was a kid, I used to be sad to come home because home wasn’t as fun. But now I’m sad to come home because home is so much less home. It’s so much more complicated. Here is where I have to think about the future and figure out how to deal with the past. Here is where alone always feels lonely. But I tell myself to get a grip and wear a smile, because even while I miss that carefree river, a River of Life is flowing inside of me and I only have to look to the Source to realize that I will never despair and I will never let go. Even when all I want is to fade, there’s colour holding onto me that won’t let me give up. I can’t stay in paradise, but I can carry it with me always. And I will.

What He Must Be

With all the books and babble floating around about marriage, the issue of qualifications for a potential husband or wife appears to be pertinent. I’ve seen a lot of writing on the subject: some from informed and thoughtful authors, and some from people who have no idea what they’re talking about but that hasn’t prevented them from having an opinion!

So since I obviously fall into the latter category, here is my list of the top 10 qualifications for my future man.

#10. He must take me to New Zealand where we will skydive, bungee-jump and HANG-GLIDE while pretending we’re in Middle Earth. “Tell me, where is Gandalf? For I much desire to speak with him.”

#9. He must never feel ashamed of me for my inability to do more than 15 pushups.

#8. He must be superior to me in that he is able to park the ideal distance from the Sonic drive-in order button: neither too close, nicking the rear-view mirror, or too far, because leaning way out of the window is never attractive and sometimes your clothes get dirty when you rub them against the outside of the car door.

#7. He must be able to speak with at least one accent.

#6. He must let me buy him clothes.

#5. He must wear the clothes I buy him. (in other words, he must trust me.)

#4. He must be my fearless and shining champion against caterpillars. Methods of killing do not interest me, as long as none are left alive.

#3. He must build me bookshelves. Please, my multiple translations of Cyrano de Bergerac and Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis cannot be left lying on the ground. Also, empty bookshelves obviously scream to be filled, which I will do gladly and my happiness will be greatly enriched.

#2. “He must be swift as the coursing river… with all the force of the great typhoon… with all the strength of the raging fire… mysterious as the dark side of the moon!”

#1. He must be able to open tightly-closed jars. Because I can’t, and I don’t like the thought of starving or eating my burgers without pickles.

Thank you. That is all. =P

simple seeking

Tonight, Alan was looking through a “Search and Find” (think I-SPY) book with me.

“I found a hole. Oh wait, no, that’s a puddle.”

“That’s a giraffe. It’s supposed to be at the zoo. But it’s not. I wonder how we can get it to the zoo?”

“Why is that girl standing up?”

“I found a guy who looks like Dumbledore!”

“There’s a snowman in the sky. The snowman has a truck right about down here. It has to stay on the logs and try to make a mess. But… he doesn’t need to make a mess.”

“There’s the fork! *pointing to a ghost*”

“That girl has a present. For that puppy. *(on the opposite side of the page)* But the puppy lost his present. And now she can’t remember how to get up there!”

“A fire hydrant! Oh! Where’s the fire truck?”

“There’s a letter! Where’s the mailbox?”

“The light blue lost his eye.”

“Grace, where did the Dumbledore guy go?”

“Can you find a hot air balloon? It’s right over there. *points*”

“Can you find this? *points*”

Don’t grow up, baby. Don’t you ever grow up.