Scooching

From a journal entry-- 9/25/2010

Just read through the whole first half of this journal... Watched the inside scenery, the emotional terrain shift and slowly melt... like a glacier, making its way down the mountainside. Carefully, gently, surely-- arriving in new places incrementally until the distance has finally grown into miles from where it started.

"You've come a long way, baby."


En route to Montrose, CO

Wishing On

In a field at sunrise, somewhere in Northern Arizona.

Maybe Grace is a bird that takes both of us up to the clouds
And we'll ride on her wings, and we'll soar
And we'll be safe and sound.
She'll fly 'round the earth, keeping pace with the quiet sunrise;
We'll see color and light
And have only awakening eyes.



*

God Bless Maria Von Trapp

This is a story told in cause-and-effect terms:

Yesterday, my friend Betsy from Chamonix and Paris adventures posted a picture of Heidi, her, and me as her Facebook profile picture.

Seeing the picture made me miss Betsy.

Missing Betsy made me think of all the funny things we'd done together in Europe.

Thinking of the funny things we'd done together made me remember specifically when we had listened to "High on a Hill was a Lonely Goatherd," in her tiny Paris apartment, while we inhaled Nutella on crackers.

Thinking of the Lonely Goatherd made me WANT the Lonely Goatherd for my very own.

Wanting the Goatherd prompted me to download the Sound of Music soundtrack off of I-Tunes.

Listening to the Sound of Music soundtrack MADE ME FEEL HAPPIER THAN ANYTHING ALMOST EVER.

I'm listening to it right now, for inspiration for this blog. There are doorbells and rainbows and shnitzel with noodles bounding out of my laptop screen. Packages tied up with string. Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, there is EVERY GOOD THING in the world wafting around my bedroom with bold mountain-top flourishes and sparkling bounces.

I had forgotten how amazing this movie is. THIS MOVIE IS BETTER THAN DISNEYLAND I THINK. I can't believe the magic it works on my mood-- seriously, every time I listen to these songs, I feel like doing pirouettes and skipping and bounding up hillsides. I want to BE Maria. I want to swing my guitar case while skipping and clicking my heels down an Austrian avenue. I want to bounce Gretel on my hip and wink at Kurt after I catch him almost doing something naughty. Oh-- but I also want to be Leisel in the gazebo with Rolf, leaping around the benches and then saying, "Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!" when he finally kisses her. Oh!!!

The Sound of Music is joy incarnate. It IS. What would the world be like if, instead seeing violent video games or overly grown-up shows like Sex and the City, we were all exposed to nothing else but Maria, the Captain, and his curtain-clad children until, like, age 30? I'm convinced we'd all be better singers, number one (Do Re Mi), and we would LOVE nuns, and we would just like nothing better than climbing trees and tipping over in canoes, and everyone would get along. We would learn right from wrong, and we would be kind and happy and we would love climbing every mountain.

Call me a dork, if this makes me a dork, I WILL SO GLADLY ACCEPT THAT TITLE. I love love love these songs, and I'll be renting this movie to watch again, the next chance I get. Julie Andrews: thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Christopher Plummer: way to be. And Gretel: you are as darling as you ever were.

That's my Friday post. Oh-- and as I sit and type about the Sound of Music while listening to Maria trill, "I have confidence in ME!", this is what I'm wearing:


I'm on my way to a 90's party, and the closest thing I had was this neon purple track suit. It's just exactly what my elementary school gym teacher always wore. Don't ask me why I have a neon purple track suit. But isn't it amazing?? And! The short hair wonderfully complied with a French braid: go short hair! I have the tiniest little nubbin ponytail to finish it off.

God bless Maria, and God bless my theme-party-throwing friends. Don't you love being ridiculous??

Dipping Your Feet

Today at church the pastor talked about the parable of the mustard seed, and I was thinking about how sometimes little things can do such great big things, and that made me happy, and I thought of little kiddos, and how we're supposed to "accept the kingdom of God with the heart of a child" (paraphrasing), and that made me happy too.

Sometimes it's helpful for me to think of approaching God in the same way that we might approach the ocean. Some people are at the beach, but they don't acknowledge the ocean, they just face the parking lot. (That's my massive generalization summing up the myriad thoughts that go into choosing atheism or agnosticism; apologies to those saying, "Hey!" right now.) Other people are on the beach and they see the ocean, and they're like, "Yeah, it's there, but I don't really feel like getting sandy or wet, so." So, they keep a fair distance. Other people get their feet wet, maybe some people go so far as heading in and splashing around a little bit. The REALLY invested ones maybe swim out a ways-- maybe a mile even. But no matter how close we get to the ocean, or how much we immerse ourselves, we're never going to be able to see the WHOLE ocean or understand JUST how big it is. We're never going to see the whole thing. We're never going to know about all the weird undiscovered critters down in the deepest parts. It's just too big.

I think little kids maybe get that-- they KNOW they're little, right? There's no question that they need help tying their shoes, or, if we're sticking with the ocean theme, that they need their little aqua socks and floaties. But when we get big, we THINK we're big. We take care of things ourselves, we tie our own shoes, we know how to swim. Sheesh, some of us even know how to surf, hey wooah. But in reality, in comparison to the ocean? The difference in scale between us and our little floatie-clad toddler is pretty miniscule.

My conclusion... is....

That I still need aqua socks and floaties, I suppose?

Haha! Maybe I should leave the parables to Hey-zeus. Happy Sunday, anyway. :)