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.

feeding your inner-introvert

Extroverts are like those huge trees in Florida whose roots lay on top of the ground like monstrous wooded Octopus tentacles, sprawling out for human interaction. The sunshine of people's presences and the mist of retirement communities's sprinkler systems is enough to feed and water them. (I actually know nothing about these trees, so I hope no horticulturalists are reading this, disapprovingly clicking their tongues at me. I can't take disapproving tongue-clicks!) Their roots soak up the environment around them like scaly reptiles in the sun. Sssssssssss.

Introverts, however, are more like trees whose roots are buried deep in the soil. They need gulps of flood water to penetrate the soil, or else the heat of the sun scorches their leaves and leaves them wilted and pitiful.

I am an introverted tree who has been trying to water my roots like a gargantuan Floridian tree, and now my leaves are wilting. I love the sun for its chlorophyll and vitamin D, but without water I'm scorching, and the sprinkler systems of the extroverted world are not enough.

I realized last night that loving people does not mean that I can be around them all the time. All the energy I have I would love to spill onto them, but so many things are taking up my energy that I'm drawing on reserves to give to people until I am slowly being depleted. And this leaves me no time to replenish what I've lost, if every spare moment I'm looking for more ways to BE WITH PEOPLE. It's a balance system I have not mastered, and still don't understand. I hope my future occupation is working with people, so that they can have my energy.

Ways to recover and feed my introvertedness in order to rejuvenate and de-stress:

• My favorite part of the day is walking to class down my street in the mornings. The sky is always so early, unmarred, and glassy, like a cold pool without the ripples of the day in it yet. I need to relish this more and spend it in praise to the God who created it.
• Black Beauty. Ultimate relaxing, everything-will-be-all-right movie. What is more serene than watching butterflies land on pink flowers to the music of Danny Elfman?
• Participating in unimportant - yet not unproductive - things, like watching curling. There is something peaceful about that sport, like golf - except they don't yell at each other in golf ("YUP! YUP!"), and curling is a lot more technical (Team USA: "I'd say you gave it a 7-8. It landed on the button." Me: "Ah, yes, a 7-8. Precisely. You conquered that button").
• Reading, and realizing I'm not missing out on the world by reading. I'm reading The Professor's House for my American Novel class, and for some reason I'm really enjoying it. When I got to class today, Dr. Vincent began it with, "This novel is about someone experiencing a crisis." Oh. Well, maybe that's why.
  
• Spend time with the Lord. Be still, He says. Cease striving, and know that I am God. Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. (Psalm 46:10 NASB & Isaiah 30:15 NLT, respectively.)