Down By the Sea

I am sitting under a tree whose leaves are falling all around me.  The sounds of the world around me grow louder as the thoughts in my mind settle down.  I've been at school almost a month now and the entire time since I moved in has been a whirlwind of events.  There have been people to meet, lectures to listen to, boxes to unpack, meals to eat and a hundred other things rushing around like mad.  I have been so desperately searching for a moment of peace amidst the madness and I have finally found it.  

I found it by the side of a canal full of ducks and boats and crew teams, each one making a different size of wave that crashes in front of me.  Those are the things that lie in front of me.  Behind me is a path scattered with various people walking their dogs, going home or perhaps they too are searching for some quiet.  Where I find the most peace, though, is above me in the beautiful blue sky scattered with puffs of white.

The sky is perfect today and I am at peace because I know that those people who I miss are all under this very same sky.  This sky has brought no rain, but instead a lovely sun that casts shadows across the sidewalk and creates a perfect reflection in the beautifully still water.  This sky was an answer to my desperate prayers for a place to pause and be silent.  Unfortunately, I must leave this wonderful place now to finish out the day, but I'll be back.  Yes, I know I'll be back.

It's Good in the Hood

I moved into a dorm two weeks ago and already it feels as though I've been there for an eternity.  There are so many things I enjoy about this new way of living like the feeling it's a sleepover every night or walking into the rooms of people who you barely know and have conversations about nothing of consequence, but what I enjoy most is the community that has been created so quickly.  The theme of our floor is "Welcome to the Neighborhood" and the purpose of this theme is for us to realize the importance of living together in community.  Yes, Fourth Hill has been living like this, but I've noticed so many beautiful moments since I entered "The Neighborhood" and it has always put a keen smile on my face.  

I came home last night (home to my parent's house, that is) and I was downstairs, but as soon as my father touched the keys of the piano that has been with him for 29 years, I ran up the stairs to grab my viola as my sister grabbed the other.  We played together, the three of us, as we always have, but there was something on this night in particular that made it so much more meaningful to me.  It was this music that made me feel like I was really coming home, not the house, not my bedroom, not the dishes, but the music.  As we were playing, I looked out the window and watched the neighbors outside.  Some coming as others were going, greeting each other sometimes with a casual wave, other times with a friendly embrace.  One greeting stood out to me above all others and that was the return of my neighbor who is in college in California.

She left in August and her absence has been very present in our lives as she broke our group of five 66th St. girls into a group of four 66th St. girls.  A month and a half later, I broke it into a group of three 66th St. girls and it felt like I was no longer one of them.  In my prayers the night before I came home, I said a prayer for each of them, myself included, not to lose ourselves as we separate from each other.  It was no mistake that she drove up from Chico on the first weekend that I came home, it was all intended.  She came back while I was watching the neighbors through the window and I saw the neighbors run across the street to her and hugged her as soon as she stepped foot out of the car and it was so beautiful to me.  Fourteen years we've all known each other and it all seemed summed up in this single embrace.

Another moment was while I was riding the bus with some of my floor mates.  An elderly woman got on the bus and a few stops later, another elderly woman walked onto the bus.  They saw each other and instantly I saw each of their faces light up.  They knew each other by the bus and their conversation continued until we got off the bus.  I don't know their story and I'll probably never see them again, but it is so touching to see these connections.  There was also an elderly woman who used to enter a bakery (that I frequent on Saturdays) and she would collect a bag of day old bread to feed to the birds.  A small gesture on the part of the bakery, but for her, it is her life.  Now, she it is hard for her to come in, so she sends someone else to get the bread for her, but we all know it's for her to give to the birds.  Such a small thing, but so meaningful at the same time.

My feelings are embarrassingly yet perfectly captured in the lyrics of an ABBA song called Slipping Through My Fingers and here they are: 

"Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture and save it from the funny tricks of time"

 

That's exactly how I feel about each and every one of these moments.  I wish that I could always see my neighbor in the warm embrace of others, the women meeting on the bus and the lady coming to get her bread, but the picture is not frozen and never will be.  She will go back to college and we'll pick up where we left off.  The women on the bus will have to stop riding the bus eventually and the lady with the bread is already slowly leaving us.  It is hard to move on when we see these beautiful moments and it just seems that it would be so much easier to freeze time in these moments rather than force it all to go on.  That's not the point of the neighborhood, though.  The point of the neighborhood is to form a community and that means supporting each other in the times of joy and sorrow alike.  It's going to be a good year, even if it's hard at times, but that is life and life goes on in the neighborhood.  

And Then It Was Autumn

I am sitting at my desk in my new room that I will call home for the next nine months.  It is cozy here and I like it, but it's not quite the same as home.  I am writing this as I hopelessly try to avoid the sociology paper that awaits and I am daydreaming and letting my thoughts drift through the rain that falls outside my window.  Fall is finally upon us and this fall is unlike any other I have ever experienced.

The leaves started to change weeks ago, yet I have only been in school for 10 days.  I now eat waffles and chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast instead of the usual bowl of Rice-Krispies.  At some points, it all feels so perfectly wonderful, but at other points I find myself crying because of all that is changing so fast.  Nobody likes change, even good changes have their own set of struggles.  Even chocolate chip pancake change.  So now, as things become more regular and the rain falls more steadily, I stare into space and wonder what lies ahead.

I wonder what I'll be thinking when the brightly colored leaves are no longer on the tree outside my window.  Will they be thoughts of peace, of excitement, of joy or of uncertainty?  I so often think "God only knows..."but I so wish he would tell me what lies ahead right now because I presently have absolutely no idea.  When people ask me my major, I clench up with fear of the unknown or the fear that what I choose will decide the rest of my life.  Yet I look at my pastor father and his education in architecture and it puts my mind somewhat at ease.  Ease that tells me I can do what I love and that I'll end up doing what I'm meant to do, all in due time.

  

I am confident that I will learn what I am meant to do because my faith in Christ has grown profoundly in the last ten days.  Through the past week, I have prayed to God more times in a day than ever before and this huge adjustment to college has caused me to grow so much deeper in my faith...and it's only been one week.  It is so amazing to be able to go to college and pray before you build a set and discuss the role that Christianity plays in the subject you are studying.  It's refreshing and it is helping me to look at the world differently.  This new feeling towards Christ is helping me so much and I am so excited to see where it will take me.

Sunrise, Sunset

My mom and I were cooking dinner tonight and listening to Fiddler on the Roof.  As she was stir-frying the chicken and I was doing my best to cut up a pineapple the song "Sunrise, Sunset" came on.  The words feel like they're about me.  About my parents.  About our lives and how they are changing.

"Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?  Sunrise, Sunset.  Swiftly go the days.  Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers, blossoming even as we gaze...Swiftly fly the years, one season following another, laden with happiness and tears."

I am moving out on Thursday and my parents will be alone for the first time in nearly 24 years.  How much it seems we've been through together, yet there is still so much ahead of us.  It feels like yesterday that I was starting first grade with a fearful smile and when people ask me if I can believe I'm starting college, I frankly tell them "I'll believe it when it happens."  Even then, it will be hard to believe that I am eighteen and starting this ridiculously big chapter of my life.  In the blink of an eye, highschool was over and in the next four years I'll blink again and I'll be graduating from college.  How does it happen so fast?  How can 18 years be just an instant?  To be honest, I never thought this day would come and there is a nervous feeling inside me telling me it's not actually happening.  

I looked through my memory box recently and found relics of the past.  Drawings for Fathers Day, paper hearts from Valentines Day, elementary school projects, report cards, Sunday school books, programs and awards.  Everything came back into mind so vividly and there were tears and laughter as I went through it all.  Finding funeral programs from too many who died too young.  Finding paintings from the first grade that look just as good as anything I've done lately.  Photographs from my first steps to receiving my diploma.  It's all there, 18 years of memories put into one big, purple, rubbermaid box. 

There have been many seasons of life for me, but they have all looked relatively the same.  I start something new, I fear the change, I find the good in it and I smile.  Repeat.  That has been my life and now I am starting something very new.  Newer than starting high school.  Newer than learning how to tap dance, than learning how to act.  Thanks to those 18 years behind me, the fear is gone.  I am starting something new for the first time with courage rather than uncertainty.  These will be good years, like the songs says, "laden with happiness and tears".

Whatever Way Our Stories End

Song lyrics have started to mean so much more to me lately.  I feel like they are expressing my feelings better than I ever could, so I am sharing them with you. 

"I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn.  And we are led by those who help us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return...It well may be that we may never meet again in this lifetime, so let me say before we part: So much of me is made of what I learned from you...and now whatever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend."

--"For Good", Wicked

I first heard this song on my last day of high school and it was shared with me by my dear stand partner and friend.  She told me that it was a story about me and her, which is true, but it is also the story of me and many others lately.  There are so many people who have been in and out of my life, yet they have all been so important in shaping it.  Without them, I wouldn't be listening to these showtunes and letting them touch my life so deeply.  It is so true to me that people come into our lives for a reason and though that reason is sometimes not seen until those friendships are over, it was still a reason.  So when I have been saying good-bye to my friends as they head off in separate directions, I realize that some of them I may never have the same relationship with them.  Even though those friendships will not be the same, I will still never forget them and they will still be so important to me.  As we head off and our paths become more clear, with a few clouds along the way, we will not forget the things we learned from each other.  No, we will take the lessons with us and we will never forget the impact we had on each other's lives.

  

A Summer About Life

"This is how it works

You're young until you're not

You love until you don't

You try until you can't

You laugh until you cry

You cry until you laugh

And everyone must breathe

Until they're dying breathe

No this is how it works

You peer inside yourself

You take the things you like

And try to love the things you took

And then you take that love you made

And you stick it into some

Someone else's heart"

--Regina Spektor, "On the Radio"

For me, what was meant to be a relaxing summer before the college plunge has proven to be one of the most difficult yet.  It has been a summer of feeble attempts to do everything I can and in turn, has been a summer of the reality that I can't do it all.  I listened to this song and the words seem to jump out at me as a message of how to live my life.  It told me I can't do everything...a crude realization, but an utterly true one.  It told me I can't be friends with everyone, that some friendships will last and others will fall.  It has told me things I desperately don't want to hear, but things that are necessary to hear.  It told me I must go on and spread my love through my world.  Not the whole world, that's what I want to do and can't do.  No, for now, I need to spread love through my world.

There have been beautiful moments this summer and also moments that have made me sad.  If I want to really live life, I must experience both.  I put on a play this summer with 10 friends in six weeks and, exhausting as it was, it was a wonderful way to spend my time.  I have spent many hours in the company of old friends and new friends alike.  There have been evenings spent in tears, tears that show our concern for what lies ahead.  There have also been times of pure laughter, living in the moment and not letting anything get in our way.  It's been a summer unlike any other and as I prepare to go to college, I wonder if there will be more summers like this one.  Summers of joy, but of uncertainty.  Of love and of irritation.  Of the realization that some things will come to an end, whether we want them to or not.  

The next year will be full of the same feelings, but this difficult summer is something for me to be grateful for.  It has taught me things that were important to know before I approached my entirely new world of college.  In the end, though it has been harsh and tearful, this summer was a blessing for me.  Blessings come in many forms and this is one I don't often like to see, but as I grow older, I realize how important it is to hear the painful truth in the times you desperately don't want to.  I am thankful for the tears and the laughter and they will go with me into the next year where there will be even more.

Block Party!

To the cast of my play, I seemed crazy when I asked if we could have an earlier rehearsal so that I could go to my block party. "Why would you want to go to that?" they ask me and I simply responded with "Because I love my neighbors!" There were so many more reasons that I didn't want to explain to them because I wasn't quite sure they would understand how two simple hours of my summer could possibly mean so much to me. For me, the block parties have often been a wonderful time of coming together and getting to know those people who I see every single day. I watch them get into their cars every morning and we all return home around the same time. I know them by their dogs and the house they live in, not by their name. I have lived in the same house for 12 1/2 years and it has been a joy to watch this neighborhood grow up.

I've watched the houses grow higher, the trees grow taller and recently have noticed the children grow up. When I appeared at the caucus a few months back, I scared all my neighbors when they realized that the little five year old who they met is now old enough to vote in this presidential election. Just like me to them, the younger kids on the block are a joy to watch. There are three little kids on our street around the age of four and they were so fun to watch at the block party. They were taking advantage of the street that was closed off and riding their bicycles in it. When the party truly began was when the boy splashed some water on the girl and she retaliated by dumping a huge cup of water all over him...the fight had begun.

They were chasing each other with big red cups in hand and they were a joy for me to watch. Three of the girls who I grew up with on this street were watching too and we were loving it. Not so long ago, we were running around the block party too, but now rather than being the performers, we were the spectators, sitting in lawn chairs in our pretty dresses eating pesto pasta. We were talking about going to college for two of us, trying out for the high school soccer team for the other two. We've grown up since the water fight days, but that "grown-up" facade could only last so long. Hayden and I looked at each other, jumped up and joined in the water fight.

My dress was getting soaked as I was dumping cups full of water all over her head and chasing these two little kids up and down the street. I was getting tired and cold, so after I chased Hayden to the other end of the street, we called a truce and changed into dry clothes. When I went back to join the party, Shannon and Chelsea were now involved and looking even worse than I was. Then the fight turned neighborhood wide and everyone was either wet or holding up their cellphones as a type of shield. It was just so fun to watch the college bound Shannon in running down the street in her soaking wet party dress with mascara running down her cheek. To me, it was a sign that things will not change entirely.

Even though we're going separate directions for school and our lives are completely different, when it comes down to it, we'll always be there for each other. We went to the movie store after the party, picked up the fifth neighborhood girl and piled on to the couch for our final movie night before the big college separation. The five of us have grown up together and have all changed so much and will continue to change as the years go on, but for those few hours, it was as though nothing had changed. And it was beautiful.