Even in a Storm

If the capsizing economy is a sudden nightfall, then today was about seeking out a glow-worm. Several weeks ago, at my grad school's job fair, I was told repeatedly, "We're really not sure if we'll be hiring... We'll take your resume though!" Reports of firings throughout most of the Seattle districts have confirmed that most of those "really not sures" have turned into "really NOTs" and have left me clutching at straws. I asked for this, I guess; I've been praying for a whole lot of closed doors, and one big OPEN one, so that I can be sure next year that I'm right where God wants me. For the first part of that phrase anyway, God is proving Himself to be abundantly faithful.

One of the first school districts I spoke to at the fair-- one which is a two-hour drive and ferry boat away-- mentioned that they MIGHT be expecting openings in Language Arts. The HR woman said, more out of politeness than anything, "Call me if you'd like to come by for a tour!" It was not an open door, nor a ray of light, nor even a fire-fly. But twitchy little glow-worm rumpuses are what I'm chasing after these days, so I made an appointment, arranged to take the day off from student teaching, and hoped for the best.

I had to get up EARLY. Was grumpy, tired, and still glaring at my new hair-cut with a great deal of suspicion. The outfit that I wanted to wear turned out to be dirty. I hadn't looked up ferry schedules. It was POURING outside. I was tempted to just cancel the appointment altogether.

"There's so little point in going, " I told Gramps. "This isn't an interview, this isn't ANYTHING. No one is hiring right now. They'll probably humor me for a half an hour by telling me about their sports teams, and then send me on my way."

"This will end up being one of the best meetings of your LIFE, maybe," Gramps responded.

I stared at the pouring rain out the window. "Maybe I'll miss my ferry and just have to come home."

He laughed. "Well. Maybe you will."

I realized on the freeway that I'd left my cell phone at home. I hadn't been positive of my appointment time-- how was I going to confirm it now? I scowled, and squinted at the freeway signs. Tried to give myself a pep-talk. I would MEET Lori, the HR director of this school district. I would WOW her with my conversational skills and stories of student teaching. I would MAKE an impression, I would GIVE her my resume, and she would MENTION my name once they started looking at potential hirees.

I pulled up to the ferry terminal just as the gate was dropping down. "I don't know if they'll let you on," the ferry man said. "The next one will be in another hour..."
"Oh no!" I said.
He radioed the crew. "Go ahead," he said. "They'll hold it for you."
I raced my car ahead, accidentally blitzing by the ticket-taker man, who waved me down. "Need a pass!" he said, which I thrust at him. "Keep it under 10 mph," he said.
"Okay. Sorry!" I said. "I don't take ferries very often...!"
He grinned in a way that said, "Obviously."

I had told myself that morning, "If nothing else, at least I'll get a ferry ride." Now, I was on the ferry, watching the dock pull away from me in my car's rear-view mirror, and felt sullen. "Maybe I'll just stay in my car," I thought.

Then went upstairs.

There was a young man playing guitar next to one of the windows. I sat a couple seats behind him and watched the undulating water underneath the stormy sky. The window was streaked with rain and was like looking through twisted saran wrap. I relaxed, let the music soothe me, and felt that the world was actually so beautiful after all-- even in a storm.


"At least I got to have a ferry ride," I thought.

I got lost once I'd driven off, on my way to the school-- had to ask directions two different times. Each time I got out of the car, the rain played further tricks on my carefully styled hair. So unkempt. Got to the school finally-- an hour early-- but decided I would check in, confirm my appointment time, and then go to a cafe to journal for the duration of the hour.

The main office sat behind a wall of sliding windows, and one very small door. I peeked at the receptionist through the windows, wondering which one was supposed to slide open for me. She raised her eyebrows and pointed at the door.

So uncool.

"I have an appointment with Lori...?" I said.
"Lori... what?" she asked.
"Um... I left her card in my car, sorry--" I hadn't thought I would need it to just double-check on the appointment. Lori was the HR lady. Wouldn't she just be right there in the office?
"Talk to Ileen," the receptionist said.

After repeating my request to Ileen-- a woman decked out head to toe in turquoise and parrots-- she asked, "Were you supposed to meet her HERE, or at the district office?"
My eyes opened wide in surprise. "Um... honestly, I'm not sure. I'm a Language Arts teacher, and she had mentioned a tour-- I just assumed I should come to the high-school."
Ileen smiled gently and called the district office. "You said you had an appointment at 10?"
"Yes."
"They're saying it's 10:30."
"Oh-- okay."
"They're actually not sure where you should go either, hon," she said. "Lori's in a meeting that can't be interrupted. Do you have a cell phone that we could reach you at?"
"I don't..." I said, weakly. "I accidentally left it at home."

So incompetent.

I tried to help. "I could just wait here...? I have a book."
"Sure!" she said. "Why don't you do that."

So I read. I read for an hour, until 10:00. Checked in with Ileen. "No calls yet from the office... They know you're here though!"
Read 'til 10:30. Checked with Ileen. "Not yet..."
Read 'til 10:50.

Finally, I was abruptly pulled out of the plot of my book when a woman asked me if I was, "Something-something-something intern?"
Thinking that she was mistaking me for one of the school's student teachers, I said, "No! I don't think so...?"
"You're here to tour the school?"
"Oh! Yes!"

Let the record show that I am not used to seeming like SUCH A SPACE CADET.

The director of the Language Arts program took me back to the lunch room and told me that I would observe several of the teachers. "Okay!" I said brightly, while thinking with a wave of disappointment, "What??" I would not even be MEETING Lori. I would only be observing classes, which I've done countless times already this year. The glow worm, at that point, felt officially squashed.

I went back out through the office to get my lunch from my car. I heard Ileen talking on the phone. She glanced up at me as I passed. "Oh yes-- Mary, our L.A. head, claimed her, so I think we're okay."

Claimed me? Am I a wailing baby in a basket on a door-step?

The classes were fine, but dull. I felt a pang of home-sickness for my own students. "I'm missing their POETRY day," I thought to myself. And for what? To be baby-sat at a school three hours away?

Before leaving, I left my resume with a thank-you not for the L.A. department director, and thanked Ileen on my way out.
"Bye Meredith!" I called to the receptionist who had initially so confused me behind her wall of windows.
"Bye Greta!" she said. "I hope we get to see you around!"
My smile couldn't entirely mask my sigh of futility. "Yeah."

So here I am, in a little cafe, trying not to feel yet more discouragement. This is what I will tell myself:

The locals were darling.
I got to read a big chunk of a good book.
I saw non-alternative-normal-high-school-kids, and they were friendly, and funny, and nice.
I found this little cafe, which gave me delicious coffee, and yummy tomato soup.
This district is NOT firing teachers, which means they might just still be looking for a new Language Arts one.
I dropped off a resume with the Language Arts head, and showed UP. Right? Even if I seemed like an air-head, I showed up and showed my interest?
I experienced, maybe, an answered prayer? Even if this entire day boils down to one more rabbit trail leading to one more closed door: I can still trust in Him and the impassable padlocks He gives me.

And: I got a ferry ride.

If nothing else, there was that. I liked that ferry ride.

Faith in Freedom

The sky is gray, I think it will rain soon
But the clouds are polite
And unassuming
The sun has just about gone down
That shady dusk lingers.

I look at that vast gray ocean
From inside my car
I'm parked at the top of a hill
I've got my window down
And my head is out
And it's resting on my folded arms.

Power lines stretch like
Horizontal prison bars
And they're blocking my view of that ocean
They're blocking my flight
To what is all unbound
Blocking my flight
And I am not unbound

Right now, I've got to have faith in freedom
Right now, I've got to have a little bit of faith
In freedom for me
There's got to be some freedom
From myself,
This life.

When I was a girl, I loved to sink
Into deep water
With my eyes closed
Sink into deep water
With my eyes closed
And every muscle relaxed.

When I released and
Surrendered control
When everything just everything had all been let go
I felt safe
I felt peace.

This is the blog where I tell you about what I did on January 1st.

I wrote that poem a couple years ago, the year I lived in California.

The other day, I told my friend that I felt like driftwood in the ocean. "Like... I bob, and I get tossed back and forth and all over the place... But I'm still AFLOAT, you know? I haven't SUNK yet. And I have no control. The funny thing is though, is that I've always associated the ocean with the idea of God, and of peace--"

My friend made a noise like she'd had a THOUGHT, and said, "You've given up being anchored."

And I thought, "Well."

"That is sort of true."

Last New Year's Day was about getting back to "me," getting back to center, getting back to Him. This New Year's was not about that. I have me. I have Him. This New Year's was about letting myself be blown blown blown about and rained rained rained upon and tossed tossed tossed around, and saying, "Okay. I can hope. I can believe. I can trust. I can let go. I will be okay. I can keep going."

But I didn't realize that when I woke up on January 1st.

When I woke up on New Year's, I felt the same as the day before. Maybe not quite the same. Maybe an inch different. But not leaps and bounds different. Not transformed, different. Not a whole new calendar different. And I thought, "What. Lame. This is my big new start. What the heck."

And I looked out at the weather and it was AWFUL. It was dark dark dark, like oppressively dark, and COLD, and rainy, and windy. And I thought, "Ew. I don't want My Big New Year's Walk out in that. That will not be a sparkly walk."

So I took a long time eating breakfast, and I took a long time getting dressed, and I took a long time looking out the window, and I took a long time playing my guitar, and I took a long time getting my plan together.

I'm not sure if I want to tell you the plan yet. I might keep what the plan was a secret.

I took a long time, is my point. And finally it was 12:30pm and I knew that if I wanted to make My Big New Year's Walk happen, I needed to get going. The plan this year was to get to Golden Gardens, which-- I would discover-- is about 11 miles away from Grandpa's house. I had already decided that the walk would probably not be as incredible as last year, because last year's walk was just like a zip-line into the land of rainbows and fairy dust and sparkle lollipops and baby sea otters that wink. I couldn't expect that to just replicate itself. So I made the plan more about what I would DO at the final destination.

That part of the plan is what I haven't told you yet. I still don't know if I want to tell you.

I got my backpack together, and bundled up, and left.

I saw people and waited for last year's twinkling to happen. "Happy New Year!" I called. But they did not become my instantaneous friends. They gave me a bemused smile, or a nod of acknowledgment, or a short, "Hello." "What...??" I wondered. "Why are these not fabulous New Year's interactions...?"

I did not see silly men pulling rick-shaws on bicycles, or the ladies in their matching track suits. I ran into no friends at Starbucks, and I gave up taking pictures just out of my neighborhood. The day was just DRAB. I knew it wouldn't be last year, but it was just ESPECIALLY drab. Annie called at one point to ask how it was going and all I could get out was, "Well... It's just not very magical!" And then I cried.

(I know. Silly.)

But I kept walking. And walking. And my legs started getting sore, because I really don't make a habit of being physically active, but I knew the dark day would get ACTUALLY dark at an earlier time than usual, so I picked up the pace and hurried up hills and down hills and up hills and down hills. And finally, I reached Golden Gardens.

Golden Gardens, for those of you unfamiliar with Seattle, is not really a gardeny place at all. It is a beach. It looks like this:

Kind of like a normal beach.

And I made my way out onto rocks that led to where the water was deeper, and I took a glass mason jar out of my back-pack. And I took one more look at the duct taping job to ensure the jar would be water-tight, and I took one more peek through the glass at the letter inside. I thought about what I'd written.

And then I chucked the jar out into the Pacific.

That is the part of the plan I've only decided to tell you about just now.

Environmentalists: forgive me. The romantic notion overrode more realistic musings until the jar was already bobbing away from me. I know that it may very well end up just down the beach. I know it might hit a rock and break and sink. But the throw and the arc and the release of all those soul scrawlings was such a breath-filled feeling. It was a physical representation of letting myself be unanchored. Off I go, and it felt like flying. I don't know where it will end up, nor do I: me. But after years and years of begging for answers, and grasping for control, and clutching at the future: it was such a good feeling to just LET IT GO.

When I was a girl, I loved to sink
Into deep water
With my eyes closed
Sink into deep water
With my eyes closed
And every muscle relaxed.

When I released and
Surrendered control
When everything just everything had all been let go
I felt safe
I felt peace.

I felt faith.
I felt freedom.

The 100 Secret Senses

At school, we're finishing up Amy Tan's, The One Hundred Secret Senses, which I've decided I love. Remember when I made fancy, applicable-to-life conclusions about Gilgamesh? I have fancy, applicable-to-life conclusions about this book too.

In this book, Amy Tan creates a world of ghost stories, and premonitions, and past lives, and dual identities. And, like any good story that involves other-worldly elements, she creates rules for how characters see the ghosts, experience the premonitions, relate to the past lives, etc. But for every "rule" in the worlds she creates, she provides an exception. Characters that are blood related turn out to not be blood related, or are semi-blood related. We find out that one character sees ghosts, except for the time that she thinks she does when she actually didn't. Premonitions are real, except for the times when they're not. Characters' past lives predict what must happen in the present ones-- except when they don't. Names are shifting and unreliable. The whole book continually asks WHO these people actually are-- and for the most part, we never really know for sure. Tan leaves us with very few SURE answers.

For me, the book boils down to issues of faith. The main character, Olivia, is trying to figure out who SHE belongs to; who her sister Kwan actually is; what Kwan is actually capable of seeing; whether or not her husband, Simon, really is her soul mate. She's looking for a name that will provide her with a history, an identity, a sense of place. But she doesn't get any conclusive answers. In the end, she must decide for herself. She must collect her answers from what she knows, from what she hopes for, from what she wants, from what she senses. She must take a leap of faith, and say-- without any real proof-- that this is what she chooses to believe.

My faith in God has been met with unwavering closeness from Him-- except... when it hasn't. He has answered my prayers in the ways I have asked Him to-- except... when He hasn't. I have felt resounding strength, and sureness, and confidence in my faith-- except... when those feelings have eluded me.

I don't believe God gives us anything as easy as proof. I think He rarely ever spells it out for us. In the end, we must collect our faith from what we know, what we hope for, what we want, what we sense-- what we BELIEVE.

If you're looking for a good book, read this one. The story-telling is unreal.

Caddywampus Clarity

I think I may have had a thought.

I had counseling tonight. Mondays are counseling. I told my counselor that my trip to California to see Beau went well. (My trip to California to see Beau went so well.) I told her that Thanksgiving was hard. (Thanksgiving was hard.) I told her about my reluctant approach to the holidays. (I am reluctantly approaching the holidays.) And then we talked about need.

And we agreed that it seems I really just don't, do NOT, just don't like the idea of needing people. I wrote a blog about this: if that blog was a flag, we waved the blog flag tonight, that PARTICULAR blog flag. In that blog, I wrote,

"Humans are flawed... Humans, even the best ones, let you down, they LEAVE you, they hurt you, and once you need them, you're doomed. No one, and I mean NO ONE that I had needed... had kept me safe. Only God then. Only ever safe to need Him.

And yet... I look at those words that I've written, and I feel shocked.

Really? IS that the truth? Is it completely wrong and foolish to let yourself need others?

I love people, I've always loved people. I collect warmth from kind interactions with strangers the way other people do in front of a wood-burning fire. Does refusing to need people shut me out from that example of God's love and care-taking?

Or... Is that wisdom?"

Does God call us to need each other? Or does He ask to be our only sustainment? Is it "idol-worship" (to get real "Christiany" on us all) if we feel a need for things other than God?"

As my counselor and I discussed this idea of need, those same questions came up. I drove home still clueless, still wondering, still unsure. Is it right to need others, or does that take us away from God? Is it necessary to need others, or is that an unnecessary risk? Is it foolish to need others, or does avoiding it set us up for permanent loneliness?

Then, under a stoplight, in the rain, to the soundtrack of my wiper blades, watching the world through my blurred non-glasses-wearing vision: the light turned green. And I had a thought.

This is what I wrote in my journal when I got home:

I suppose, the fact that God DOES provide this permanent safety net should give me all the freedom in the world to toss my heart around. After all-- it's not a matter of us holding on to HIM-- HE holds on to US. It's not a matter of us refusing to give our hearts away to anyone else with the attitude that if we DID, we would no longer be connected with God... We ARE His. We just ARE His. That doesn't change. There's nothing we can do to sever that belonging, or to break that hold, or to risk that love, that protection, that closeness, that safety. "Nothing can separate us from the love of God." So, if I let myself need someone: so what? If I do, that doesn't mean God goes AWAY, or that I've swapped Him out for something infinitely less sure. It means I've taken a risk-- I've stepped out in faith. And I think God likes it when we do that. And if the person I've let myself need lets me down-- so what? God is still there. Because HE DOESN'T GO AWAY.

Understanding that God is what makes me whole should, theoretically, give me every reason in the world to offer the pieces to someone else. Because it is Him that swims in the cracks. It is Him that can float the intermingling parts into new formations. It is Him that works in risks and leaps and movements-- not stagnation.

It is HIM that holds on to ME-- no matter how reckless my leaping might be.