dreams and dreams

c                                              e
                           r

u                     l

                                       e 

                a                                       n

time passes makes 

most things

f      a      d        e

but 

CERULEAN

becomes more

vibrant

more 

vivid in my dreams--

of the Caspian Sea,

blue and blue and blue and blue

sharp

blue

you have not
been

around

and I

have

lived.

Hidden by Naomi Shihab Nye

If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has 
swallowed it.

If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.

No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.

I love traveling. I love the freedom of being detached from everything and everyone familiar.

Anonymity
Purpose

the intimacy of all of us going somewhere. We all have stories, stress, and probably exhaustion. Some of us have back packs, some have uniforms and lanyards. Some of us wear sneakers, some sandals.

The amount of humanity in these places is overwhelming but also beautiful.

Passengers are generally friendly towards each other, if reserved.

It's stressful and makes my digestive system go wonky and I get tired of lugging all my stuff every time I need to pee and you must always be alert and the food is redonkulously over-priced

and I LOVE IT.

Tonight we video-ed with Kristin and laughed so hard I thought Sarah and I would both puke. Shrieking.

It was kind of a hard week

Or rather, the last few days have been kind of hard. Living at home is really, really hard. And by nobody’s fault, social support has been hard to come by. Like, I don’t have it. Which is fine, for this week. Sooner or later, I’m going to move to a foreign country, and though I’ll have a team, I want to be steady. I don’t want to need people every time someone says something I disagree with. I fully believe in talking about problems with friends. But I also fully believe in sustaining on Jesus alone. And this week, these past few days, this has been my reality.

It is hard. I’m not really thriving, but I’m still walking. I’m still running.

"It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.” –Hebrews 11:27

How I deal with the Sadness of the World

Sometimes the world is just too Sad. Sin and evil take the spotlight far too often. And if I take my eyes off of “Behold, I am making all things new” for approximately .0001 seconds, the Sadness takes over and off with my heart. It takes me a few days to realize what is going on, and then this is how I deal with it.

I put on my pink socks. I do not think to myself, “I am putting on my pink socks to vanquish the Sad,” I just think to myself that I want to wear my pink socks today. It is later when I realize their help in vanquishing the Sad in all their joyous boldness.

I walk purposefully down to the park, to the swing set and I become a child. I invite the wind to play with my hair, leaving it down and free and it whirls around my face and up my nose and into my mouth and I laugh. I close my eyes and swing until I am no longer at the park. There are no longer people around. I am no longer attached by a clanking chain of metal to a swing set. I am simply soaring.

And then I climb down to the edge of the river and sit in the dirt and listen and watch the water rush by. I think a lot. I make pretty sentences about the day in my mind but I have left my paper and pen at home, along with my watch. I am here to simply refresh, not to make anything. Not even to remember, if my mind chooses to forget, simply to refresh.

And when I have had my fill, I meander home.

Sometimes this is how I deal with the Sadness of the world.
Sometimes I get really angry.