my father's daughter

My dad made me take sips of his coffee while I was growing up, even though I hated it, because he didn't want to be the only person in the family who drank coffee. Now I love it and he doesn't have to drink alone. I think that was the start of his training me to be like him.

He also taught me to play the guitar.
Me: "Dad, I don't always understand what you're trying to tell me."
Dad: "I said augmented, not diminished, stupid."

Any form of ridiculousness I have comes from him.
Mom: "Are the neighbors who took you in when you were locked out, are their names Peggy and Phil?"
Me, remembering being locked out and walking to the neighbor's in my socks: "Yes."
Mom: "They seem nice."
Me, remembering introducing myself and asking them to use their phone and phonebook in my socks: "They are."
Dad: "They have nice grass."

That's not to say we don't have our differences.

For example, he's not always as affectionate as I am.
My thought processes: "Dad, please adjust your comfort level so that I can be as close to you as I possibly can because in my mind I am still small enough to fit in your recliner with you and I want to always be really really close to you."
His thought processes: "I am happy to be in the same room with you; I do not need you to be breathing so close to my face."
My thought processes: "All right, I will sit over here [and try not to feel hurt that you don't want me really really close to you], but some part of me still needs to be touching you so that I can still feel connected to you in some way."
His thought processes: "Your fingers are so cold I can feel them through my shirt sleeve."
My thought processes: "This is nice, isn't it?"

But he's taught me a lot - about excellence, and hanging pictures straight, and how to love Jesus, and loving people, and using duct tape.

My mom told me that one year when we were kids, she wasn't sure how they were going to afford our Christmas presents. Then she found out that all summer my dad had been collecting things from garage sales and cleaning them up to give to us as presents. I treasure that story as a vivid display of my dad's thoughtfulness, provision, and love. I hope I continue to grow to be more like him in the years to come.

1998

2010

How do you show love to those you love?

taking the cannoli, part II

As Man on Center Yellow Line (Holding Pole) taught us earlier, you're not crazy as long as you love what you do. And I realized a few days ago that that is also the moral of The Godfather.

Other possible morals are: 1.) It's okay to murder other people if you're doing it for your familiy; 2.) It's okay to murder your family if you're doing it for other parts of your family; 3.) Love never dies, except when it is murdered - by your family, for your family, or because of your family.

But the one I want to focus on is the first one. You're not crazy as long as you love what you do.

For example, I apparently like to flap my legs and screech like a baby dinosaur. I didn't know this about myself until a few days ago, when I was sitting in Courtney's car and I, indeed, flapped my knees and screeched like a baby dinosaur. Courtney sighed, "You always do that."

Well. I was not aware that I "always" flap and screech like a baby dinosaur. Hopefully I was never sitting in a lecture and randomly began flapping and calling out, "Screeeeee!" But if I did, and my professor looked at me with a concerned and shocked expression, I would calmly have said,

"I love, therefore I'm not crazy."




You're not crazy as long as you love what you do.

the land of if only

Now that she's not here anymore, I miss cooking and baking with my mom. I miss being in her kitchen and feeling like it was my kitchen, too, that it was ours together, with the difference that she had decades of experience and knowledge to pass down to me. I miss learning from her and creating with her.

Now that he's not here anymore, I miss playing my guitar with my dad. I miss hearing him say, "Can I show you something?" and then taking my guitar from me to show me what 45 years of playing can do to my fingers. I miss hearing our guitars play together on Sunday mornings, and feeling proud that he taught me.

I think I can hear my neighbor snoring at night. I'm not sure, but there's a grinding sound that comes through the wall at regular intervals, and I know it's an older couple who lives next door, so I think it's a very likely possibility.

Which adds a nice bass line to the soprano schizophrenic cat that sits exactly below my window and meows, just meows, meows, until I open my window and it scampers off. The other night it growled for about 10 minutes. Just because. I don't know what the voices inside its head are telling it. And I don't know why it has to sit beneath my window while it has these conversations with itself.

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
but in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself
                   - The Weepies

I think that last part is baloney, because I don't think I would be able to take many steps by myself. But it's true that wherever I am I seem to want to be somewhere else, only to look over my shoulder and wish I was back where I came from.

I don't want to do this anymore.

New Year's resolution (2 weeks late): I want to have eyes that look for the good things I have in my life, wherever I am. I want to recognize the blessings I have and give thanks for them. I want to not want so much.

"Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?" - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I, 65, take you, Heather....

I cried as I said goodbye to my family yesterday. At first it was because I was leaving home and people I love. But then I started thinking about all the soldiers who have left their families and homes and I started crying even harder. Outer Me: "Bye, Mom." Inner Me: "All those men in World War II lost their lives!"

I've been watching a lot of WWII documentaries and movies recently.

On my drive, I hit traffic just on the other side of Chicago. Then I saw a sign - you know, the kind that look like giant Lite-Brites - that said,

CRASH
I-65 CLOSED
USE ALTERNATE ROUTE

I thought maybe it was overreacting, so I continued to I-65. There were a bunch of people driving the same direction, so I conveniently forgot the warning sign and based my actions on what everyone else was doing (a wise way to live life).

Then I saw another Lite-Brite, and when I looked in my rear view mirror, there were absolutely no cars behind me. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie and either zombies were coming to get me, or I was a zombie, or the rapture had happened. So I decided to do what I always do in time of crisis: I called my mother. She looked up an alternate route (and told me the rapture had not occurred), and I got off somewhere in Indiana. I reached for the GPS my father had named Betty and had given to me because he got a better one, and programmed in my route. Betty kept trying to get me back on I-65, and I kept telling her No, moron, I'm trying to avoid I-65!

Mom told me to take 2 to 231 and rejoin I-65 in 40 miles. Seems simple enough, doesn't it? It did until my dyslexic mind somehow translated 231 to 321, and I traveled a couple of miles in some direction hoping to see a sign. I looked over at the GPS and the little blue triangle that was supposed to be my car just spun in circles while flashing, **OFF ROAD**. I just shook my head and sighed, "Oh, Betty."

Luckily I had just created a playlist before leaving home entitled, "It's Okay That It's 2011," because I was sad to put away all my Christmas music. Doris Day and Frank Sinatra could make getting lost in Mordor a desired experience.

Doris: It's a lovely day today, so if you're going to be destroying a Ring, I'd be so happy to be doing it with you....

At one point as I sat at a red light and opened up a Reese's peanut butter cup, a mac truck turned onto my road and nearly clobbered my car. I actually had the thought, "At least I would have died eating a Reese's peanut butter cup." I would've wanted that as my epitaph.

And at a Flying J somewhere on 231, I discovered my mom had snuck a gift card to Panera into my wallet. Oh boy! I will always remember you, Flying J in Indiana, for that special moment. For the cleanliness of your bathrooms, however, not so much.

When I finally took the ramp to get back on the interstate, I wimpered, "65, I've missed you so much!" I rejoined just in time to drive through the stretch I like to call Whither the Windmill, and they waved goodbye to me as if they knew I was leaving for good.

My car (whom I named Dule, after Dule Hill, from Psych, of course), does not have cruise control. After it had gotten dark and I was only a couple hours from my destination, I passed a cop sitting on the side of the road and glanced at my speed to see I was going 15 over the speed limit. I assure you, this was completely accidental, and must have just developed, because I was very careful to maintain a proper speed the entire way. I resigned myself to getting pulled over, and imagined how the conversation would go:

Policeman Paul ('cause once when my mom thought someone was breaking into our house at 2 a.m., she called the cops and one of the officers that came had a nameplate that said P. Thomas, and he was very attractive, so I decided as I sat in my pajamas while he looked through our house that his name was Paul, and if I had to get pulled over, I would want it to be by him): Do you know how fast you were going, Ma'am?
Me: Yes, sir.
Policeman Paul: Could I see your license and registration, please?
At this point I would start crying, because

a.) the car wasn't registered in my name yet, since I had just bought it and didn't have the chance to change it,
b.) I don't even know where the registration is!
c.) my leg was aching after driving for 8 hours, and I'm scared of getting a blood clot,
d.) I've just left home for the first time, and
e.) so many men died in WWII.

Then Policeman Paul would let me off with a warning, since I'd never gotten a ticket before, and because he took pity on my poor little emotional self. He'd probably leave me by patting the roof of my car and saying, "Get yourself some help." Then I would drive off sniffling and vowing to buy war bonds.

I checked my rear view mirror for at least 15 minutes to make sure the cop wasn't tailing me to pounce just when I thought I was safe. But he didn't, and I escaped without a ticket. Dule breathed a sigh of relief.

Note to self: When alone in a new place feeling homesick and scared about the future, it is not a good idea to watch a war movie. I don't think war has ever been a suggested cure for anxiety.

more than auld lang syne

I think I only wrote my grandmother two letters while I was in college, but she loved them. She told people who came to visit her that they were beautiful letters. At my grandfather's funeral, one woman I'd never met told me that my grandma was so proud of me.

I wish I had written her more letters.

I realized in her last couple of years that I had wasted so much time I could've spent with her. And I tried to make up for it in the few visits I had with her, sitting at the feet of her recliner and asking her questions about growing up, meeting Grandpa, and the Great Depression.

I wish I had started a lot sooner.

When my grandmother died in 2009, the part of history that was her life was buried next to my grandfather in a cemetery in Ohio. Nobody felt with her heart or saw with her eyes. Nobody experienced the joy, pain, fear, and triumph she experienced, because nobody lived her life but her.

I wish I had gotten to know her better.

I don't know what good writing about history will do. I don't know how it'll help further the kingdom of God, or how it will bring people to Jesus. I struggle with the intense desire I have to write the stories of those in the past - in an attempt to hear a heartbeat that ended before we had the chance to know its rhythm - and the intense desire I have to follow Jesus into the present world of hurting people who need His light and truth.

What do you do with two so completely different desires?

How do you tell people that, while you got your degree in Creative Writing & History, you'd rather go to seminary than write a novel?

And how do you tell yourself the same thing, when suddenly you realize you want both?

So I begin my 23rd new year just as confused as ever about what I'm supposed to do with my life. Though these things I cling to for stability, that the Lord will fulfill His purpose for me (Psalm138:8), and that tomorrow there will be football.

oh, for grace to trust you more

My mom often tells me how very "strong willed" I was as a child. I also got 10 times as many spankings as my brothers. (Once I told my oldest brother to "go to hell" while we built a dam in the creek behind our house. He thought it was funny and couldn't wait to tell my mom. (I confessed before he had the chance to revel in tattling and was punished by doing his share of unloading the dishwasher for a week.))

When I was about six years old, I got a dress that I would probably think was hideous now, but that I adored at the time. It had a black satin slip underneath a sheer, long-sleeved cover with red and rust-colored flowers on it. Um, how does that even sound appealing at all? Except for the fact that it swooshed when I walked.

The only problem was, it was a little too big for me. My mom wouldn't let me wear it to church, and I was angry. I remember putting it on and sitting at the little plastic Play Mate table in my room, in the dark, being angry. Brooding. Wishing I had my way. Wanting something I couldn't have. And all because my will wasn't my own, but my mother's. Not fair.

Today I was thinking about the similarities between my childhood relationship with my mother, and my relationship now with my Lord. The difference now is that I choose to surrender my will to replace it with God's, because He knows when the dress is too big for me to wear (so to speak). But I laughed somewhat pitifully at myself today as I realized how often, in my attitude, I sit at my Play Mate table in the dark, being angry because I'm not getting my way. I realized that here I've been praying "I want what You want," all the while hoping that He wants what I want. It doesn't work that way. The followers who tried to mix their own wills with Jesus' were the ones He told to go away and rethink their devotion. The followers who left their everything to follow Him became His disciples.

What would it be like to be completely and wholly surrendered to the Lord, mind, body, and spirit?

"Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground." - Psalm 143:10