there's no place like home for the holidays

I'm back in the great state of Wisconsin. Flying out of Baltimore into Milwaukee, the pilot ended his welcome speech with a pause, then a very mischievous, "Go Bears." I looked around for the big burly man I'd seen earlier, dressed head-to-toe in green and yellow. Luckily we had half the US Army on our flight, so I felt relatively safe. As long as they weren't Green Bay fans. In which case, who would fly the plane once the pilot was dead? So I turned on my iPod and went to sleep. I don't have the energy to worry about these kinds of things.

And who knew Wilmore was so famous in the Louisville airport? Walking through security, the man at the conveyor belt noticed my sweatshirt (it has blaring white letters spelling "ASBURY," made out of the same material as bycicle reflectors, I'm pretty sure) and said, "Ever read A Mighty Rushing Wind?"
What a random question. I'd been thinking about whether or not to take off my shoes and wasn't ready, so I simply answered, "No?" Instead, I wish I would've been more composed so I could've answered, "No. Ever read The Little Red Hen?"
But then he said, "It's about the revival at Asbury in the 70s. Are you familiar with it?"
Why, no! There was a revival at Asbury in the 70s? Instead I simply nodded my head and walked through the laser gate that searched my soul for evil thoughts. I am always terrified of those things, even though I have nothing to hide. I hate being tested. I even hate eye exams when I get my license renewed. I just never want to fail.

But then, the guy on the other side of the soul-reader glanced at my sweatshirt and asked, "Is it true there's no place in Wilmore to get a cigarette?"
WHAT the HECK. The people in the Wal-Mart in Lexington haven't even heard of Asbury. How do these people in the Louisville airport know all about our little university?
I replied, "Um, I don't think I ever tried."
"But you couldn't, if you did, right? And everything's closed on Sundays?"
I just want to put my shoes back on. I smiled and nodded and took my Sketchers to a nearby bench. Then I looked around and noticed I was the only one in line. Poor guys were probably just really bored and lonely. And who doesn't like talking about Wilmore to pass the time?

A picture of my first night home:

Dad and Brother decided to go to a college Christmas concert instead of be home for my first night (Dad tried to make up for it by taping a giant picture of his head in a Santa hat to the passenger seat for when my mom picked me up at the airport, but I was already struggling with abandonment issues), so, to retaliate, I finished Dad's carton of peppermint ice cream. He doesn't know yet.
Then, feeling more full and therefore more generous, I tried to figure out how to wrap Dad's four pounds of Lexington Coffee & Tea coffee so that he couldn't smell it through the wrapping paper. Which is impossible, and my entire room smells like Peruvian coffee beans right now. (One of the most pleasant problems I've ever had.)
Then, I laid down on the couch at eight o'clock while Mom was watching Psych (Mom: "Have you seen this episode before?" Me: "Mom, please." What episode of Psych have I not seen, at least 3 times?) in an attempt to wait for the boys to come home (Me: "It's only seven and I want to go to bed." Mom: "Well it's really eight your time." As if that makes it any less pathetic), and I fell asleep.
Then, Dad and Brother got home, I woke up, told them hello, and then went to bed.
Now they're all at church, and I'm getting ready to put a meatloaf in the oven before I head out to join them.

I want to replace the 1/4 cup milk with eggnog, to show them they can't escape Christmas cheer, or me.

Merry Christmas from Wisconsin.

unbridled spirit

My car is an official Kentuckian. I was going to join him in this identity transfer, but then the car inspector wrote down my Wisconsin driver's license number and talked about how Wisconsin and Florida have the longest license numbers, and then I felt bad going and changing my driver's license after all the work he just put into write down its number. So I'm still a Wisconsin resident for a little bit longer. This makes me feel a little more legitimized when I get excited to watch a Packers game, because, hey, I'm legally a Cheesehead.

And guess what: The Packers are throwing a celebratory game in my honor on Thursday, September 8th, to kick off football season and my 24th year of birth. Just watch and see if Aaron Rodgers doesn't throw a touchdown and then throw his arms up in the air and shout, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER!" Because it's all about me.

As I waited in line at the county clerk's office to register Dule (my car - he's named after Dule Hill, which I don't know if the real Dule Hill would appreciate), I stood sandwiched between a guy who kept turning around and smiling at me, and a girl who looked like she'd share her entire life story with me if I merely made eye-contact with her.

Finally I said, "Great way to spend an afternoon, isn't it?"
The guy started speaking rapidly in a thick Spanish accent, and I, not understanding any of it, smiled and chuckled and then said, "Yeah."

This is always my default position when I don't understand what people are saying. This is going to bite me one day in a very scarring way, I'm sure. Like the time I was at a Mexican restaurant with a friend and, after my friend, let's call him Fred, went to the bathroom, our waiter pounced on me like a hungry leopard.
"Is he your boyfriend or your brother?" He asked.
Oh. Um...."Well, neither."
The waiter, let's call him Manuel, smiled. "He looks like he could be your brother." Translation: You shouldn't consider dating him. DATE ME!
I chuckled. "He does sort of look like my brother."
Here's where the indistinguishable part of our conversation came in, and, not understanding what he just said, I just smiled with closed lips and shook my head.

WHAT POSSESSES ME TO DO THIS? Why do I feel it's okay to answer people when I haven't even heard their question?

Manuel, taking my shaking head to mean that I actually heard his question and was honestly answering him, looked me in the eye and said, "Too bad." Then he walked away.

What do you think he could've asked? Whatever it was, I think I unintentionally led him to believe I was off the market. Which is a blessing, because I didn't particularly feel like going out with my waiter from the Mexican restaurant. But this time I was spared; what if next time I accidentally agree to something?

"Mumble mumble mumble mumble."
"Heh, heh, yeah."
"Really? Okay, pick you up at 8!"
"Wait, what?"
"Bring your castanets!"

Back at the county clerk's office: The clerk who helped me with my paperwork was friendly enough, but she never really made eye contact with me.
She asked, "Which license plate do you want?"
I looked at the two license plates pictured on the window, one that said "Unbridled Spirit" under the picture of the Kentucky horse, and one that said, "In God We Trust." I chose the unbridled spirit one, because, though I trust in God, I think it's a little presumptuous to assume that all of Kentucky does.
I tried to say "Unbridled Spirit" as inspiringly passionate as I could, like William Wallace maybe, but the woman simply smiled accommodatingly and went about her business.
Well, of course I accepted this as a challenge to make her day brighter. I waited in silence for an opportune moment, watching her float from left to right as she grabbed papers, stapled them, ripped others, tossed some, filed those, stamped here, all in one fluid motion. I looked at her in captivated awe.
"Wow," I said. "It's like a dance."
Her face relaxed and she smiled a genuine smile and chuckled.
I'm in! "You've got this down."
"Oh yeah," she said.
When she handed me my papers, she looked me in the eye and smiled. I smiled back. Day brighter.

Then I noticed she put my "Fayette County" sticker on my license plate completely crooked.

After all we'd been through.

operation: fly north

Spring keeps knocking on my door.

"Listen, Spring," I tell it, "I have nothing against you. You have a lot of things going for you. But I just don't love you...like that. Please stop coming."

But it doesn't listen.

It's already gotten inside the minds of the community. Boys playing basketball in their driveways. Girls riding their bikes down the street. Mothers yelling out their doors for their children to find their shoes and come inside for dinner.

They have no resistance!

And I don't know how much longer I can hold out.

Kroger is selling lilies and hyacinths and lilacs and, I would still be okay, but then I saw them.

The daffodils.

Spring is so sneaky! Blast its yellow-petaled tactics, like drops of sweet, syruppy sunlight, smiling, laughing, bobbing their heads under a bright blue sky...so happy....

There's only one option for me: I have to flee.

I tell people it's because I can't find a job (which I can't), or because I'm hoping to go to grad school this fall anyway (which I am), but the real reason I am packing up all of my things and moving back to Wisconsin is because, well,

Winter is still there.

Winter and I have had a very long love affair that goes through months of turmoil every year. People often shake their fists at the wintry sky and ask, "Why must you snow?" But, you see, Winter and I, we understand one another. I understand why it must snow. And, in the same way, it understands why I want it to snow. But we can't explain it to you. You wouldn't understand.

I wonder if it knows how much I'm struggling right now.

And I have to hurry, because now tulips are beginning to grow right outside my front door.

Spring.

Curse you and your cheerfulness.

my funny valentine

Wisconsin, I think it's time I told you.

I love you.

I know we haven't known each other that long.

I know we aren't always the same.

I know that sometimes the novelty of this feeling wears off,
and we can't remember how exactly it felt in the beginning,
and all that's left is this vague, shadowy idea of what we thought it was going to be,
but isn't.
And our eyes grow dull to one another.
And all we see is the bitterness and the dryness and the cracking skin.

But that won't happen with us.

I know this because I miss you when I'm not with you.
And I think about you, even when I'm in other parts of the world,
and I only want to be here,
with you.

So wrap me in your rosy pink arms when the setting sun reflects off the silos.
Capture me with puffs of breath that disappear over white fields.
Send me snowflakes through the air like storms of lacy love letters.
Sing me the echoing song of frozen trees popping in the wind.
Leave me deep red kisses on my cheeks from the unabashed breezes. 
Write me poems the color of the sky when it looks like ice in the mornings.

Promise me you won't forget me when my footprints melt away.

Because, Wisconsin, I love you.

And if you give me a chance, I think we could be great friends for a long time.

And I've felt like this for a while, but I didn't know how to tell you.

So I just did.

And now I feel better.

hail to thee, Mayberry

I remember being a little girl and walking into the living room while my brothers were watching football. I asked them, "Who are the bad guys?" Translation: Which team are we wanting to win? My brothers less-than-patiently (supposedly I asked this question more than once) told me that "there are no bad guys." That's just how my little mind, fed on Disney movies, interpreted things. Good guys, bad guys. Aladdin, Jafar. We want the good guys to win, to ride away on a magic carpet with a woman wearing a very fluttery pant-suit made of sheer Arabian fabric. Just tell me who the good guys are so I can appropriately pray for them to succeed. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it! Amen and amen.

Since then I've learned a tad bit more about football (though there are still bad guys...at least, that's how my mind, still fed on Disney movies, interprets things). I also pretend to know more than I do. I'll teach you a good strategy: The less you say, the more it appears you know. Maybe even keep a notepad near you during the game, so when you have comments to make, you can jot them down and read them over later to yourself, and either agree or disagree with them. That way it seems like you're having a conversation with somebody, but it's really just yourself. And that way nobody else really has to know that you still don't really understand the differences in neutral zone infraction, encroachment, and off-sides, but you like the first one the best because it sounds more technical and complicated.

"Ohhhh neutral zone infraction! That's because his neutral zone has been infracted. Don't infract his neutral zone, buddy!" (These are the kinds of things you will write in your notepad.)

I still love football, for all I do understand. And for the first time, I got to be in the state whose team went to the Super Bowl.

the G stands for Greatness

My Monday morning breakfast prayer (featuring Dad):
"Dear God, thank you for Mom for making these pancakes--"
"Mm-hmm."
"--thanks that I got to be home for a little while--"
"Mm-hmm."
"--please provide me with a job--"
"Mm-hmm."
"--andthankyouthatthePackerswontheSuperBowlamen."
"MMMMMMMMMMM."

And it just so happens I had scraps of fabric in green and yellow lying around:

this G stands for Gosh this took me a long time

This pillow says, "I watched Sports Center in between A Little Princess and The Secret Garden." Which I did.

Congrats, Super Bowl XLV champs.

Oh Sunday afternoons, how will I spend thee now?

sock day

Today Wigwam had a sock sale in Sheboygan.

Apparently this is a biannual event that all of eastern Wisconsin knows about. My parents got in on this tradition two years ago and I ended up stealing most of my mom's socks to claim them for my own. They are warm and beautiful and comfortable and my feet toast champagne in celebration whenever I put them on.

So I ventured into Sheboygan to find this sock sale, all by myself. Google maps told me where to go, but when I pulled into the parking lot, I stopped the car in front of a giant warehouse and bent my head to peer out the windshield. A steady stream of people exited through a door with no handle on the outside, all of them carrying unmarked brown paper bags. I watched them for a few seconds, to make sure they didn't look like they were brainwashed or zombies or pale (a sure indication that a vampire had just feasted on them). They looked normal enough.

I parked and walked toward the entrance. An old lady, waddling and wearing a fleece jacket with pastel wolves on it, walked in front of me and I used her as a source of comfort, because nobody would attack me or kidnap me or try to suck my blud if I stood close enough to an old lady. (My reasoning is just flawless.)

I walked through the door and down a hallway, where I felt like muttering, "Walkin' the Mile, walkin' the Green Mile," and hoped I did not meet the same end. And when the hallway ended, I stopped and my eyebrows said to my hairline, "I'm coming to meet you." Aisles formed by open boxes filled a large, hallow warehouse, and dozens of people filed up and down the aisles, stopping occasionally to bend at the waist and dig through piles of socks.

I laughed.

And then I dove in.

If you have never dug through a cardboard box full of wool socks, I suggest you do so. It is a humbling yet strangely satisfying experience, much akin to what I assume pigs feel when they hunt for truffles. I've never asked one. But next time I see one, wearing my Wigwam socks, I know we'll exchange glances, and I'll smile, and the pig will nod, and we'll walk away with a bond that anyone who has not dug for socks or truffles will not understand.

At first I was too self conscious to dunk my head in a box, and casually walked down the aisles, surveying the piles from a safe distance. I stopped in front of one, and bent a little to swish some socks around noncommittally. Everyone else had their own individual boxes to fill with socks. And people walked around like chickens trying to decide which coup they wanted to nest in. And when I realized that I couldn't possibly look more ridiculous than the rest of these people, and that the women wearing shirts with cupcakes made from puffy paint weren't going to judge me, I stooped my head into a box and dug with claws of a raptor.

And with my head in a box, I listened to the conversations of the people around me.
"Do you think Tommy would fit into a large?" One lady said.
Another couple walking side-by-side surveyed their box. "I've already got enough for the kids...." Oh, what a happy Christmas those children are going to have.

Dear Santa,
This Christmas I would really like some socks. I will be an extra good boy if you can make them Wigwam. Please give the skateboard and iPod Touch to some other child with less ambition. Sincerely, Johnny

One young lady shuffled through a box of socks and frustratedly said into her cell phone, "Well how is he supposed to keep his job if he forgets to tell people what's wrong with their ears?"

I hope "he" is not a doctor, and that I have never gone to him.

In the end I walked out of the door with no handle on the outside, carrying an unmarked brown paper bag full of socks. I feel like a true Eastern Wisconsinite. And my feet are pouring the bubbly as we speak.

just a day

I'm reading a Donald Miller book, and reading Donald Miller always makes me want to write. Of course, when I write after I read something that makes me want to write, I usually end up writing like whatever it is I've just read. It's like when I listen to Doris Day, I then sing everything like Doris Day.

Today Dad took me for a ride in his blue, '85 convertible. I put my arms up in the air, straight above my head, just because I could. "Isn't this nice?" Dad said. "Just being out in it all?" Then we hit a thick patch of manure-infused Wisconsin air, Dad started coughing, and I laughed.

This afternoon I found myself standing on the deck thinking about absolutely nothing but how the warmth from the deck on my feet met the warmth from the sun on my shoulders somewhere around my middle and made me want to take a nap standing up. I like moments like that.

I like Wisconsin summers. I sometimes start to feel a little sad that I won't be here...until I remember that I like Ohio summers even better. Right now I'm drinking coffee and listening to a tractor across the street. Weeks like this one, frozen in-between times, will be rare from now on. I'm going to cherish this one.