we'll follow the Old Man wherever He wants to go

I cried a lot before, during, and after graduation. There are several pictures of me during the ceremony that my brother took across the aisle, where I'm looking despondent and sad. He thought my forlorn expression was funny. I don't remember anything the commencement speaker said, not because he was boring (which he was), but because I was graduating, and I didn't want to be, and no speaker however entertaining would have captivated my attention.

On my way to the playground at camp this summer, a woman from behind me asked if I went to Asbury. The draw-string bag with "ASBURY COLLEGE" written on the back must've given it away. I told her I had just graduated, and she said she graduated in 1991.

"Did you love it?" She asked.

"I did. I was sad to leave."

She looked very serious and somewhat absent as she said, "Yeah, the year after I graduated I was just sort of lost."

I smiled empathetically. "Yeah, I'm afraid nothing will ever be as good as college."

She looked even more absent as she said, "Hmm," and nothing more.

I was not encouraged.

I realized as I sat on my bed (which is on the floor and much closer to the spiders, I realized yesterday (and so did the spider)) that I am lost. People have been asking me, "What are you doing back in Wilmore?" And I truthfully answer them, "I don't know." I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going. I have no goals or ambitions or ideas. I thought about that woman's words at camp and I realized I, too, in the year after graduation, am lost.

At first this realization scared me. As if I was taking a stroll with my head down, watching my feet step one in front of the other, and when I looked up nothing was familiar, and I realized I'd lost my way. And maybe night was falling, and it was getting colder, and the wind made my voice disappear as soon as I opened my mouth. Lost.

Then I started thinking of other times I've gotten lost. The time Courtney and I were in Massachusetts and took a wrong street that ended up leading us to an antique book store where I found an 1868-edition of a Louisa May Alcott novel that matched two others I owned. Or the time five of us traveled on foot in suburban Boston in search of our car, and shared a ride with a sweet old lady and an Arab named Milton on their way home from church. Or when Courtney and I had no idea where the road through the center of Concord led and ended up parking across the street from Old North Bridge, where the Revolutionary War began, and I stood on the very ground I had read about in history class.

The things you most remember about trips are the things you hadn't planned on, the things that went "wrong," the things that forced you to be innovative and creative, and made you realize it's much more fun when things aren't what you expected.

I don't know where I'm going. But I intend to enjoy it as much as I can, because one promising thing about the times I've been lost: I either always arrive home again, or someplace new becomes home to me. Either way, I come home.

“Courtney and I are most at home when we have no idea where we’re going.” – journal entry, 3/21/2009

pardon me while I chug a gallon of orange juice

I'm sick. It's the last week of camp, and I'm sick. The doctor today asked me what my symptoms were, and I was expecting her to coddle me and maybe coo a little, or at least put her arm around me and rub my arm. Instead she shoved a swab down my throat to check for strep. I miss my mom.

"Are you congested?"
"Yes."
"All right, let me take a look." Looking. "Yes, it sounds like you're a little stuffy."

Well, yes, I wouldn't have lied.

"Um, yes, a swordfish severed my spine and is stuck between my third and fourth vertebrae."
"Are you lying?"
"Yes. But do you believe that I'm congested?"

On year ago today, I was here:


Dear Utah,
I miss your luscious green hiking trails, blue-faced mountainsides, cool breezes, icy snow-melted water, fields of wildflowers, Presbyterian churches, frozen yogurt shops, symmetrical street numbering system, and best friend:


This afternoon I ventured out of my bed to dinner after a 2-hour nap (my third one of the day). Someone asked me, "Heather, what does this fall bring for you?" I thought that was probably the most adventuresome, expectant, optimistic question I've ever been asked. I like it a lot better than, "What are you doing after this?" What does this fall bring for you? Who knows? I like adventures.

This is me trying to feel optimistic, while feeling very sore-throated, light-headed, homesick, and a little like Huckleberry Finn might've felt when he discovered he was on a boat with a bunch of murderers. I'd rather be with the Widow Douglas, if I had a choice.

I also had a creepy dream the other night that all my campers were sitting in my room waiting to have devotions, and I thought that I had napped through the whole thing. I think it's time for a break now.

just a few standards for my next relationship

After spending the past nine weeks with two-through-14-year-olds, I have made note of a few qualities in the younger generation of men that I would like in my own future and potential soul mate. In my marriage to come, I would like it if my husband:

1) Responds with a whispered “Yes!” of achievement when discovering that I will be staying with him at the rock wall and not departing with the other kids to the game room. (Translation: Desires to spend quality time with me and enjoys my company.)
2) Gives up his swing on the playground for me when another little boy gigglingly steals the one I was going to use. (Translation: Looks for ways to protect me and sacrifice for me.)
3) Lets me into the “No Wimin” fort made out of chairs in the corner of the classroom, even though I’m definitely a wimin. (Translation: Desires my presence at his football-game-viewings on Sunday afternoons, even though I’m a girl, and for more than just the cookies I will bake him.)
4) Scours the campsite for wood to start a campfire, without being asked. (Translation: Provides for me.)
5) Not only requests to sing Justin Bieber, but is my backup singer while I play it on the guitar. (Translation: Supports my gifting and talents, and is my partner in using them.)
6) Tells me about the times he’s climbed his uncle’s rock wall with only his arms, then proceeds to try 3 different times to climb the rock wall with only his arms, and only when I’m there to coach. (Translation: Is humble, strong, and desires to share his accomplishments and struggles with me.)
7) Buys me a fake, stick-on mustache from the gift shop. (Translation: Surprises me with little things to let me know he thinks about me.)
8) Calls me “Dinosaur Lady.” (Translation: Shares my affinity for Jurassic Park.)

I think I’ve had more 10-year-old crushes this summer than I ever had when I was 10 years old. Sometimes boys under 10 know better how to treat a lady than boys over 20. Then again, sometimes they don’t wear underwear for an entire week and think pooping in the lake is cool. Maybe I'm just turning 23 soon and feeling a little undiscovered....

there once was love

I've rediscovered some loves. Not of Double Stuf Oreos, which I have consumed 8 of while sitting here at my computer. Not of a clean bathroom, which I daydream about every time I shower in my flipflops and try to roll up my pant legs when I put them on so they don't dip in the puddles of sand on the bathroom floor. Not even of those days when sweat isn't dripping off my face and making my thighs stick together when I walk. I never lost or forgot those loves, so I don't need to rediscover them. Here are some loves I have rediscovered, though, and it's like seeing my husband return from a long trip, having forgotten how handsome he was and how much I missed his smell:

+ Creation. Not true: I have never forgotten how much I love God's creation. But I had forgotten how much I love being completely engulfed and consumed by it morning through night. Last week was Backcountry Camp, and amidst the rivers, woods, rainy nights, and campfires, I found myself being filled with beauty like an empty balloon filled with helium, until all it can do is soar into the sky and pop for lack of a better release. Sometimes I forget not only how much God's love is revealed through His creation, but also that I am His created one, as well. It's so easy to look at a perfectly pure river and not wonder why God delights in His creation, but He delights in us as His creation, too, and our voices give Him even more pleasure than the voices of the perfectly pure river.

+ Writing. To save myself from soaring into the sky and popping, I've rediscovered why I write. After years of creative writing classes and assignments, I was pretty sure I'd lost whatever desire to write I'd had when I entered into college. Both my journal pages and my mind grew blank of creativity. But I realized as I sat on a damp rock beneath a waterfall why I write. I don't write because I should or because I'm required to. I write because I want to capture, I want to preserve, I want to remember. I write because I have to, or else my mind and heart will become so full that I either pop, or I spring several leaks and everything seeps out without any record of it. I'd forgotten what it was like to need writing, like needing food or sleep. Writing is a reaction to me. What would the trees do if they couldn't rustle when the wind blew?

+ Reading. Four literature classes and two history classes last semester had me convinced that I was done reading, unless menus at PF Chang and Olive Garden counted. But all summer I've played ball, I've gone swimming, I've hiked, I've climbed, I've jet-skied and tubed and paint-balled...but I haven't gotten completely lost in a lecture or a chapter so that minutes pass and I forget to stop thinking. I miss this. Thanks to miss Laura's blog, I'm now reading A Separate Peace. I love words, and I'd forgotten this until I was surrounded by a lack of them.

me and Bali in the middle of the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.

first week of camp

These are a few things I've learned so far:

1.) Asbury cafeteria food is not that bad. ...I'm serious.
2.) When you find a toilet seat without grass, hay, and/or sand on it, give thanks.
3.) Mosquitoes are little satans that need to be destroyed before Jesus' second coming.
4.) I am terribly, terribly out of shape.
5.) 6:15 comes very, very early.
6.) Sometimes 11-year-olds know more about what it looks like to be like Jesus than 21, 51, or 91-year-olds.
7.) When there are huge waves in the lake, do not go tubing if you want to keep your teeth, your nose, and/or your arms.
8.) Going #2 is a luxury that not everyone can afford.
9.) Sonic lemonade slushies with real strawberries and lemons. I have learned these and I am thankful.
10.) When you pray, God hears and answers. Thank you, God.
11.) I'm not kidding about the Asbury cafeteria food.

Week one, almost complete. Chug, chug, chug chug chug....