Sand Castles

Laughter like an explosion.

Instant, involuntary, all-consuming hilarity.

A yell-laugh that surprises and sometimes scares people.

This is my mother.

Things that might make someone else smile or maybe even chuckle quietly, send my mom into giant fits of cackling that she is incapable of stopping. Her laughter starts unexpectedly and usually continues for three times as long as is necessary. When she realizes she's been laughing too long, it embarrasses her and causes her to laugh even harder! Once I received a voicemail from her with no words, only laughing. It was four minutes long.

My mother's laughter was the bane of my existence for many years of my childhood. No matter where we went, from movie theaters to supermarkets, my mom would find something funny and yell-laugh for ten minutes. As her extremely shy and unassuming daughter, I often found myself mortified.

Within the last month, Zach and I have had two visits. One from our friends Jurgen, Cory, and Brett and the other from my brother Evan. Both times I found myself in public places with them when something funny was said and I laughed my mother's laugh! This giant boisterous laugh spewed out of me while everyone around me looked startled. This made me laugh even harder, which made me think of my mom when she laughs, and all was lost at that point. In the end, I found myself in happy tears over something not even that funny. What has my mother done to me?!

That episode was like a chugging a giant glass of perspective. Sometimes the most embarrassing things about our parents or ourselves, turn out to be the things we love the most. I called my mom today to apologize for ever being embarrassed of her beautiful laughter.

This morning Zach and I went to a coffee shop to read, write, and think. I read a passage from "The Prophet" by: Kahlil Gibran.

"All things move within your being in constant half embrace,

the desired and the dreaded,

the repugnant and the cherished,

the pursued and that which you would escape.

These things move within you

as lights and shadows

in pairs that cling.

And when the shadow fades and is no more,

the light that lingers becomes shadow to another light."

That thing which I used to find so offensive, I now cherish. How amazing that understandings constantly evolve. All my thoughts and feelings, all my truth, are castles made of sand. Time swirls the ocean up around my walls and they crumble, change, become one with the beach.

I hope I never take myself too seriously.

My Six Siblings

I have six siblings.

Three brothers.

Three sisters.

One of my brothers

just got baptized

into the Mormon church.

I feel so happy for him!

He has found a community where he belongs

and a truth that gives him hope.

How beautiful!

One of my sisters

has a family

and likes to smoke weed.

I love that!

Her life is filled with sippy cups and diapers

and an alternative method of relaxing.

How interesting!

One of my brothers

nurses others' ailments

and gives his money away.

What a good man!

He spends hours doing things he doesn't enjoy

to earn the freedom to be generous.

How admirable!

One of my sisters

constantly weighs her options

for changing the world.

This blows my mind!

She spends hours thinking, plotting, and planning

Some people never think about this once.

How inspiring!

One of my brothers

owns a business

shoeing horses and building fences.

Tell me more!

He has a thousands skills I will never have

and even competes in national rodeos.

How fascinating!

One of my sisters

has wild orange hair

and transforms into a cat when she's embarrassed.

I can't get enough of her!

Her hands are busy practicing cursive and playing video games

and her world is built with blankets.

How blissful!

I have six siblings.

Three brothers.

Three sisters.

This is family:

Deciding to love

despite the differences

or maybe because of them.

Broke the Cage

I used to be caged by my fear, specifically the fear of telling people that I don't believe in God. I think it's because I didn't want to be attacked. The years I spent struggling over faith and religion were excruciating for me. I don't need to be thrown back into that fire by people judging me, trying to convert me back, or saying hurtful things.

Anyway, I thought that fear was gone from my life last summer, but it returned when I moved here. When people asked where Zach and I came from, we told them about our transition from Oregon, to Iowa for school, then to Buffalo for a year. Almost always they asked why we went to Buffalo and the answer to that query is that Zach got a job as a youth minister there. People then made a lot of incorrect assumptions about us. I've never had so many invitations to church before. All those invitations and assumptions caged me in again. I felt afraid to share the deeper parts of myself, like what I really think and believe.

Thankfully I broke through. After living here a month, I shared with my colleagues that I'm probably more Buddhist than anything. Freedom! I can't even explain how good it felt to not have that part of myself as a secret anymore.

I struggled again when it came to the student staff here in the building I'm in charge of. Most of them are actively Christian. I don't want to threaten them with my alternative beliefs but I also want to be sincere. When you work in Residence Life, it's different than sitting next to people in cubicles. My job is to support my staff, through personal and academic issues, and aid them in supporting their residents in whatever issues they have. It gets personal and there's no way around that. I wouldn't want to go around it anyway. I think being personal is what's real. I don't want imaginary brick walls around each person that sensor what's safe and acceptable to share with others.

I've realized that this is a year of listening. It's not about telling my stories and explaining what I believe. I want to be a quiet creek that people can sing their life songs to, without some boombox sitting on a rock, blaring, and competing for sound space.

Buried Alive

This week I felt like I was actively being buried alive. Every morning, I woke up and more fresh scoops of dirt had been piled on top of me. All day I spent clawing to the surface, trying to dig myself free, but each time I got near, it felt like a wheelbarrow full of soil landed on top of me.

One of my former selves worked obsessively. Her sense of self worth came almost directly from doing, doing, doing. She ran from class to work to class to meeting to whatever, only sleeping four hours a night, always needing to do a thousand things with each minute. This lasted two years until at some point, I realized this wasn't the best option for a healthy and happy existence.

This week, a shadow of that former self haunted me. I worked constantly and spent over 12 hours a day in my office. Once I finally sat at home on my couch, I brainstormed, made more lists, and planned things. My to-do list grew hands and seemed to strangle me each time I thought about relaxing. This is not what I want!

I know my job will not always be this way, that's why I'm still sane. Three hundred emails and a pile of deadlines all came at the same time. These aren't the things I love about my job. The things I do love could fill a notebook, cover to cover.

In other breaking news, we sold our car! The Honda Element that zipped us all over Buffalo last year now belongs to someone else. It's sort of an experiment. The socially normal and obviously convenient thing is to own a car. Well, what if we don't? It would be better for the environment and better on our wallets if we could survive without one, so we're trying it.

We've made some pretty good friends here in Kirksville and one reminds me of myself in college. I used to always leave my car doors unlocked with the key under the seat. About ten car-less people knew this and would use it when they needed to. It worked out nicely. When our friend Max heard that we didn't have a car, he gave us the spare key to his Jeep. I like that. It reminds me that when you try to do something good, there are always people waiting on the edge of their seats to help you.