do what you want

we always do what we want. it doesn't matter that I clutched it white-knuckled for a minute, standing in the yellow glow of the bathroom, before I dropped it in the trash. . .I wanted it gone or else I wouldn't have let go. there is not a thing that we do in life that is not ultimately what we want. even the things we hate, the things that wear our teeth down, we don't do against our will. while they might not be what we desire to do in that moment, they support or enable some other desire which is deeper rooted. even with a gun to our head, our desire to live outweighs our desire to disobey. I didn't want to let it go, but I wanted the freedom I knew I would get if I did, more than I wanted to keep it, so ultimately I did what I wanted. if you want to be different than you are, don't just change what you do, figure out how to change what you really want, and your actions will follow suite.

leaf mouse

when I was young I loved thunderstorms (I still do). I would stand looking out the front window, the shadows of the raindrops on the window running down my face, watching the shivering trees and the rush of water against the curb. it happened often during these times that I would see a leaf, scuttled to and fro by the wind. . .something about the way it moved seemed so. . .rodently. I would stare at it, fixated. Maybe. . .maybe, it was. there was something about the way it moved. . .sometimes, standing there, I would be sure it must be some poor creature frantically running through the puddles. sometimes I had this strange feeling, like I knew in my heart that it was a little mouse (what a silly thing to know in your heart). I was so certain I nearly ran out in the rain just to save the drenched thing. for some brief moments I would have bet my life on it. . . and then the rain would blow it flat against the pavement. there are times in life when I am so sure of what I want, of what something is, and where it is going. and after I realize it's just a leaf I do not understand how I had been so sure, but yet I guess it doesn't matter because next time I will bet my life on it being a mouse all over again.

18 things

here are 18 things I feel the world should know. . .

1. the icing that comes with the tube of pillsbury cinnamon rolls tastes the way your hands smell after holding a grasshopper. strangely enough, that's not a bad thing.
2. matching your clothes is overrated.
3. roadtrips are not.
4. commitment is sexy.
5. ripped jeans are only cool if you actually made the rip, and accidentally too.
6. don't kiss people you don't know.
7. ridiculous is spelled with an "i".
8. but I'm not picky, because grammar is an invention.
9. early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. it's made me two of those things (the most logical explanation is of course the fact that I'm not a man).
10. it's dumb to like things just because everyone else does. it's also dumb not to like things just because everyone else does.
11. don't drink PBR.
12. you're never too old for a shirley temple. admit it, they taste fricken good (and everyone likes the cherry).
13. it makes perfect sense that everytime someone says the word "yawn" it reminds me of chocolate chips (and crunching through leaves make me wanna say "baklava").
14. get married young.
15. spinach is good.
16. and so are parents.
17. you didn't really make it if it came in a box or can.
18. you don't know everything.

bitter taste

everyone wants to leave a legacy, but legacy lies, not in the grand things you do, but in the small things, and if not that, even if it does depend upon your larger accomplishments, the "small" things you do are the foundation upon which those accomplishments will either stand or crumble. if you want to leave a legacy, make it a goal to never leave a bitter taste in someone's mouth, whether a total stranger or someone close. life is messy and tricky, and people will not always act as they should, but the only person's actions that you are respsonsible for are your own. it doesn't mean you will never hurt anyone, or that everyone will always like you, but in the end you will still leave them with either a bitter or sweet taste in their mouth depending on your actions. live love, have compassion, be selfless. how good it would be if your legacy was to leave the smell of jesus lingering behind you everywhere you go and upon everything you touch. how good it would be if it could be said of you that the impact you have upon every person you cross paths with in this life is to leave a sweet taste.

o brother

o brother, why’d you let my hand go?
don’t you see
that now it’s growing cold,
lost its memory of your skin.
and brother maybe for a while
our hands were clasped so tight
we crushed our fingers,
so for now it feels just right
to spread them wide.
but soon the numbness fades away
and feeling creeps back in,
and brother, winter’s round the bend,
which means cold palms and fingers.
how I’ll wish to run to warm your hand,
but brother I can see
your mind’s made up.
so maybe I will send you mittens in the mail,
and pray you’ll find someone
who loves you with your secrets, like I do,
someone who will know your hands and heart like me,
and never let your hand grow cold.

solo

I am not a maker of rash decisions. but I woke up saturday morning and looked out the window (which is no longer broken) and said. . .I'm going home today. so I took care of things and packed my shtuff and got in the car and left. three and a half hours of highway and fall colors and coffee and music and my own thoughts. it was an exercise in solitude, in the art of being alone. and I loved it. so I had a weekend full of baby and my own bed and dad's waffles, all the while further learning how to be happy with just me, and the little things I adore. I've found that in a way I've sort of lost touch with myself the way you lose touch with an old friend. and so I love my friends, but I am learning to love being alone as well. people who avoid solitude probably are afraid of what they will find in their own mind if left to really think. it takes a certain maturity to really thrive in solitude, to find joy all by yourself, to be content with just the leaves, your bike, and you. and while happiness is better shared, learning to be happy when alone makes you an even better sharer of happiness in the end. so maybe you should take a roadtip by yourself to remind you of who you really are. let me know if you do.

scotch tape

I stick better than scotch tape. . .a whole lot better. it sucks, for me at least. my mother always says "my girls are loyal to a fault. . ." and so apparently we spend half of what should be a good night staring down the street for a car that is never going to come. one minute you're happy indian and the next minute you're crying while you brush your teeth and stroking your own forehead just to try and fall asleep. you continue to defend and believe in those who would rather have forgotten you a long time ago. I'm starting to think that loyalty is hardly a virtue for those who have it. it's like intentionally closing your coat in someone's car door. . .with you still in it. and the people to whom you really wish your loyalty would matter will most likely label it a much baser thing. so it's sort of the virtue of the brokenhearted. maybe someone day it will be good but right now it's just. . .not.

the Truth

it may be that I feel and express a million things, but at the end of the day this is the Truth, regardless of how I feel: I am a worthless, broken, silly girl who is utterly and completely made new in the Person of Jesus Christ. in Him I find all worth, all purpose, all joy (for there is none outside Him). He is the source of all things, the source of all good and the source of all healing. I have no gifts, no accomplishments, no life outside of Him. He is a vivid and beautiful reality which I am absolutely in love with. there is no thing he cannot redeem and he has redeemed me. I owe everything I am to Him. I am never alone, never forgotten, never worthless or purposeless or hopeless because He is in love with me. I am who I am in Christ.

moth

I looked up from my work tonight because a funny muffled noise drew my attention. a dusty little moth was tapping against my window, drawn to the lights strung along the wall. I watched him for a while before looking back down, thinking, don't let the warm lights fool you little guy, you don't want to come in here, this is not a happy place.

thank you for your pretty little face

if people were to send me thank you notes simply for my existence, they would probably look something like this:

dear (but not quite dearest) noel,

thank you for your pretty little face. thank you for your wit and spunk and conversation, your stories and advice, you're nice to have around. you're a charming little being and if you left we'd miss you anytime our thoughts happened upon you. we're perfectly content with you floating on the outskirts of lives, your little smile peeking in once in a while, though you're not a staple, not a focus, nowhere near the center of any one of us. thank you for the lessons that we've learned through you, while moving on we have used them quite a bit. we are glad that you were there in that time of our lives, and if you're gone it will be as though a christmas light upon a string upon a house upon a street went out. and now we really must get going we have many dreadfully important things to do.

fairly sincerely,
us

low expectations

what is the balance between what you would like and what you expect? I know how I wish I was and wish you and they and them were. I know how I wish things were. but I'm not and you're not and they're just. . .not. the reason we're not constantly disappointed by things is because we don't actually expect things to be as we wish they were. things that we are satisifed with dont actually meet our standards, they just dont dip below our expectations. thats why idealists can be rather disappointed people. their standards are their expectations. every thing, every friend, every relationship, girl, boy, book, sermon, class, summer, day falls just a little short. it could or should have been better. they're waiting for perfection, throwing good behind them because they just know there's something better. but maybe happiness is found in low expectations, or maybe better no expectations. keep your standards high, perfect in fact, because that is how things should be. just don't suppose they will be. upon letting go of expectations people will suddenly delight you, things will satisfy you and beauty you could not before see will creep to the surface.

l.o.v.e.

I deliberated for a while today about what I think love is, I thought first of all the things its not before I finally landed on this, at least for a while until I change my mind: love looks like doing what is best for someone, it is a promise, not to succeed (since no one will ever love anyone else perfectly), but to never give up trying. every day you will not love someone as well as you could but love isn't conditional, so it doesn't give up. and its messy too. really messy, and hard. but even if you fail more than you succeed, loves virtue is in its endurance, not its perfection. you cease to love not when you fail to love as well as you could, but when you choose not to try and love at all.

relationships don't exist

I am beginning to understand hermits (not the crabs of course). while I was rattling around on my bike the other day, perched on the seat and rather buried under piles of thought, feeling a little alone, I realized: I am. my life is nothing more than the sum of all my thoughts and memories, and all the people I consider mine are really no more connected to me than before I met them. every conversation is just noise and movement that floats on the air like dust between two people so how do relationships really exist? you can't look at them and pull apart the strands or comment on the color. you can't roll them over in your palm or hold them up to the light. relationships are just. . .memories. . .and memories aren't really real. our brains do interesting things. even two people's perceptions of the same relationship is just that: a perception. for them the realtionship is nothing but the sum of their thoughts and memories, which are not the same as your's. so really, I am just me and I am no less or more alone anywhere I am, and making noise at someone or listening to theirs doesn't change the fact no one else can step inside my brain and that is really where we live anyways, isn't it. and so the hermit on the hill maybe knows a thing or two. he's no more alone, there's just less noise and maybe a prettier view. so everyone should feel alone, or maybe no one should, because its sort of all the same. but really, I guess I dont believe this.

darn single pane windows

darn them. they are food for I-told-you-so-ers (and worrisome mothers). I might have shown my fragile window some less than tender affection. . .and. . .inadvertently punched it out to fall a story to the even less tender driveway. . .and shatter. I laughed. and called my dad (what else do you do when you shatter a window? hope the movies are true and that tears really do contain magical healing powers? I wasn't about to romantically kneel over broken glass) he might as well get paid to be the ace hardware help hotline. my parents hate that I live in the sunroom up here, so the soon to be fixed (hopefully) broken window was fuel enough for a pair of "move back innnn" speeches. I am in. I'm in. out is out and I'm in. and it'll get cold but not hypothermia cold and I have a space heater. so I'm set. set in the sunroom. . .with no curtains. . .and a cardboard window.