Ruminating

My Grandpa and Grandma traveled all over the world when they were younger. As a result, their house is full of fascinating knick-knacks and tools and pictures and things. In Gramps' living room, there is this little glass fish in a little glass fish-bowl:


It looks sizable when you look at it from the side, but look at it from above:


Way smaller, huh? The glass must somehow magnify it. Don't know how. The little glass fish in the little glass fishbowl is very heavy-- but it's that imperial sort of weight which lends importance and esteem to the subject.

I remember once last winter, when I was still working at my boring desk job, and Annie had just embarked on her Big Trip, I sat in the living room, staring sullenly at this glass fish.

It was immobile. Stuck. Frozen. The three tiny air-bubbles that had been carefully contrived by the artist remained paralyzed in their glass encasement. A pretty little red fish, with nowhere to go, and no room for breathing.

Then I looked out the window and saw birds swooping past: heading south for the winter.


I thought of myself, and thought of my job: Fish.

I thought of Annie, who I imagined that moment to be racing down some long interstate at 75mph, her life packed away in her car, her stereo cranked, and her Tomorrow uncharted: Bird.

That image is perhaps not as relevant this year: being in grad school gives my life a decided feeling of momentum, and I no longer feel stuck. And, as this blog entry suggests, the last 7 months have been much more about trying to catch my balance in a state of upheaval-- not feeling stuck in the mud.

But with that pulling up of the anchor, I look ahead to next year and find it entirely uncharted. I have NO idea where I'll be, come September. I need to find a teaching job-- but Seattle's offerings are few and far-between. At least three different districts that I know of are in hiring freezes. I could try around other areas of Washington, but that sounds less appealing. Move to a brand new city, where I know no one? Where I have no interest, and no connections? In considering options of where this brutal economy might be able to offer up a classroom, I started mentally casting the net wide. Maybe I could go to Scotland? Love those Scots. Maybe I could go to Korea? They supposedly pay teachers really well over there. Maybe I could live in Nashville? How fun would it be to live near Annie again, and enjoy the music of that town!

This last week provided a chance to give the city another look. I flew into Nashville on the 13th, and stayed through the 18th. I LOVED it. I roomed with Annie in her Princess Tower bedroom, bonded with her roommates, was utterly charmed by her guy friends, ran (then walked) with her Running Group, went to church, went to her church small group, and soaked in fantastic music at several different shows. We wined-and-cheesed; we tried on different outfits for different events; we Valentined; we imbibed; we walked and had long talks; we side-by-side facebooked; we ran errands together and ate samples at Whole Foods. There were delightfully ridiculous moments too: on the run, my walking buddy, Cara, and I got hopelessly lost and kept returning to the same heart-covered Valentine's mailbox, trying to get our bearings. We hollered at the mailbox, and hollered at the street signs, and hollered out the names of the running crew, and giggled with one another, and marveled at our bewilderment with elated solidarity. The first night out, that Friday, Annie got her car towed (ugh.) But pleading with the ancient tow-truck man provided a silver lining: our melodramatic beseeching (which, incidentally, occurred next to a snoring, scratching, pot-bellied man on the adjacent couch) completely un-phased the wizened old man, but left us turning our faces in silent, eruptive laughter. The last night found Annie and I at the Pennsylvania boys' house, helping them prepare dinner. My main contribution consisted of reading aloud a children's book about "How Babies Get Made" in a Mary Poppins accent. And even though I was sniffling, sneezing, coughing, and hoarse the whole week, I felt completely at ease in my company. I felt at home.

As I boarded the plane on Wednesday that would take me back north for the rest of the winter, I thought again of my open-ended September. How much fun would it be to live in Nashville next year?

There are pros, and obvious cons-- not being able to see Gramps every day would be sad, and hard. I would be so far away from my family, and THAT would be sad, and hard. Impracticalities and complex logistics abound, but-- the idea has been planted. And I'm praying about it. And I'm thinking about it.

The little glass fish in the little glass fish bowl is a pretty thing to look at-- but a tiresome thing to be. The anchor's already been pulled loose... Next fall, I may just fly south.

Southward

I'm currently in Nashville, visiting one of my favorite people in the world:



For the first several years that I knew ABOUT Annie Parsons, I thought of her in my head as "Cool Annie Parsons." She used to help lead worship at our college church group, and was always SO stylish, SO poised, and so... effortlessly... COOL. She got to know me through our mutual friend Aaron, and apparently decided that she wanted to be my friend when I wore a pair of blue coveralls to church, with big dangly earrings.

(Note to the reading public: if anyone wants to help me bring back coveralls, I would be so down.)

The first time she invited me to hang out, I was starstruck. I remember a new boyfriend asking me to do something with him the same night, and I felt so torn. "But, Nick... I'm sorry, but COOL ANNIE PARSONS wants to hang out with me!" He understood. It was Cool Annie Parsons. You don't turn that down.

Of course you get over being starstruck, and as Annie and I have become better friends, the "celebrity" of her up-front-stylish-singer-persona has worn off. And thank God-- because that's been the best part. Today, Annie and I went on a long, hot, sunny walk through Nashville and we talked about family, and we talked about relationships, and we talked about insecurities, and failings, and God, and weaknesses, and the things that we hoped to one day-- eventually-- triumph over. We were neither chic, impressive women: we were sweating 20-somethings in workout clothes that were throwing up our hands in life-confusion. It was fantastic.

What a gift this friendship has been in my life-- to have someone who accepts all my imperfections, and will listen to my expression of them intently, and sensitively, and to return understanding words. Annie and I have both had weird, rough years-- and my friendship with her has been a life raft when the waves threatened submersion.

On Friday, my first day in Nashville, I walked to Annie's work, and got caught in a torrential downpour. It was supposed to be a lovely, perfect day-- instead, the sky emptied lakes, and lightening, and huge crashes of thunder. The rain lit through my clothes, my shoes, my backpack; it ravaged my hair. It was. The best. Most fun. Most fantastic. Most exhilerating. Most life-awakening walk I've had in I can't remember how long. It was sublime, and I couldn't stop laughing out loud. I got to Annie's immaculate office building, and dripped on the marble floors. So many wry grins and raised eyebrows from the well dressed employees. "Raining out there, is it?" I wanted to laugh again, and give them a rain sodden hug, and make them laugh at the ridiculousness of us both.

Last night, we went to an unbelievable live music show at the Bluebird Cafe. Four artists sat in a circle and shared songs about mistakes, and anger, and relief, and sex, and desire, and of giving up. One song was titled, "Cracked and Broken and Beautiful." Out of their hunger and past pain, these writers had created things that were exquisite and lovely. They were inspiring; they were redemptive.

Today, on our walk, Annie and I saw beautiful stately homes that consistently had messy, ungroomed lawns. In all their elegance, the owners must have chosen to just let the lawns: Go. I don't know why. But I liked the combination. I liked the the perfect houses having a messy, wild side, and of the owners having more important things to do than manicuring their lawns.

The point I'm getting at, I suppose, is that I love the messy imperfections. I love that Annie and I both have holes and gaps, because that's where we're able to meet each other in friendship. Imperfection requires help-- it requires hope, and GRACE, and saving-- from God, from one another. For one another. And I love that, I love the meeting between trenches. That's when life gets to LIVING. Praise the Lord that Annie is not just Cool Annie Parsons-- that she's messier than the poised singer up front of many impressed people. If she was only that, we would have never needed to become friends, and the kind of wisdom and songs and thoughts that she's shared with me and so many others would have never been aired. If Cool Annie Parsons was only that, I don't know that she would have had the patience to walk with me through MY confusion-- but as it is, she does. And thank God that she does.

Anyway. Suffice it to say. I'm really loving Nashville. And Annie Parsons is fos sure one of my most favorite people in the whole world.