reveries

many of my best memories are from grandmommy and granddaddy’s house growing up.

granddaddy died around my birthday five or six years ago.

last year 95-year-old grandmommy sold their house and moved into a old folks’ home.

yesterday i fell asleep on the couch during the afternoon. afternoon naps often prompt vivid and unusual dreams.

i was taken back to their house, and everything was so so real. and i was so so happy.
my roommate came home and woke me from my deep sleep, and it took more than a moment to snap me back into reality.

my dream had been so bittersweet. it was really as if i was back with them…back in the place where i felt most at ease…most covered in affection and love and baked goods. granddaddy was in his chair reading his Bible, as he often did.

the realization hit me that i’d never get to be back at their house, and i’d never get to be with both of them together again. those days have passed.

the tears flowed, but i was terribly happy to have been taken back there for a spell. my heart has felt especially full since i awoke.

Last night was my first ever trip on my own..and it was a “turn.” A turn basically means you fly to a place and then fly straight back to your home base. It was a redeye trip..we departed Houston at 7 pm and returned around 6 am this morning.

On the way back from Seattle we flew over Idaho. The sky was perfectly clear. The cabin was full of sleeping passengers. So still and so silent. I looked out the windows to see the Blue Mountains below. It was like nothing I had seen before. Witnessing this in the midst of a sea of sleeping passengers made it feel as if it was a scene set just for me.

         

peasant dog

this summer i am house-sitting for a family for ten weeks..while they spend the summer at their vacation home in northern michigan.

they have two dogs - jackson and eve. my pup, franklin is living here as well.

franklin has been a little sad lately.

he watches jackson and eve eat fancy, expensive, delicious dog food. he sees them get fed TWICE a day. he sees all their toys and their fancy beds. he sees them run around outside…running freely because they have an “invisible fence” system, and they wear special “invisible fence” collars. he also sees how nice their teeth and gums are because they eat fancy “dental pebbles” every day.

sometimes i catch franklin gazing at jackson and eve..dreaming about what life must be like for them. he eats his dog food without complaining. he sits inside the house and watches them run around outside.

to try to boost his spirits, i bought him a small bag of special “chef michael” filet mignon dog food. but..he still only gets one meal per day.

franklin the peasant dog.

anxiety …and trust.

i get serious anxiety when booking flights. i just bought a ticket from san salvador to dallas for june 16. i triple checked everything, but i always get the feeling that when the day comes to fly, i’ll be met with news that..

my passport is somehow, for some reason, not acceptable..and i’m stuck in central america

i booked the flight for the wrong month..or year..

i booked the flight home to some country i’ve never heard of instead of the US

they’re going to lose my flight information altogether

they’re going to figure out i’m a clueless gringo and take advantage 

anyway, here’s to hoping i get back home in a few weeks. ..but seriously, navigating central america alone for 5 days has me all shades of nervous. i’m usually pretty cool about this stuff. i’ve decided regardless of what happens, i’m just gonna roll with the punches and trust that God’s got me taken care of no matter what comes. 

i’ll be in honduras with friends june 4-11, then my friends will leave and i’ll be in el salvador june 11-17. 

in honduras we will be building two houses, working at a garden, feeding the homeless, visiting children in a hospital, and ministering to a community that lives at the city dump. in el salvador there really isn’t an itinerary. i do know i will be going to CIPI, an orphanage where i spent a few days (on a trip with the youth group at the church where i worked). i am hopeful that the missionary family there in el salvador will be able to keep me busy. 

here is a link to a really well made documentary that a guy from my university made .. on the dump where we will be working in honduras: http://vimeo.com/14121449

my specific prayer requests 

-safety..while in Central America, but also on the flight home. i’m flying with a potentially semi-sketchy airline.
-that my luggage would arrive, as i’ve purchased all kinds of gifts for the children i meet there. i would be so sad to lose the finger puppets and string and bubbles and glow bracelets.
-that i would somehow miraculously run into rocio while in el salvador. i met her last year and she has been heavy on my heart and my mind for the last 365 days. she is no longer in the orphanage where i met her, so i don’t know how i will find her without a miracle.
-that God would use me and stretch me..and that I would die to self every morning I’m away  
-boldness. i am good at blowing bubbles and making bracelets and giving hugs, but i also want to share my faith (verbally) with those i meet. 

today i found the iPod that i bought the week i graduated from high school..may of 2005. iPods were a pretty new thing. it’s kinda crazy how big and bulky it is - it’s a mini..and it feels as if it’s vintage already or something.

miraculously, it still works. which is convenient, because i gave away the iPod i bought in 2008, and the iPhone i bought last year has bitten the dust. geez. so much stuff i just freely buy. i often feel like i’m dirt poor, but i just listed three iPods i’ve bought in the last 6 years..stupid. 

anyway, i plugged this old iPod into my computer, and it let me transfer the purchases i had on it into my iTunes..so i’m sitting here listening to songs that bring back memories in a serrrious way. do you ever have a song start playing, and your heart just drops? these songs don’t necessarily take me back to a hard time..they just take me back to a very different time. and to times that feel so far away now.

they transport me to brenn concerts in nashville..times with erica and kate..times when i lived with my sister..and they take me to a time when i was just beginning to explore new genres of music. sia, lovedrug, menomena, jose gonzalez, of montreal..and lots of album leaf and ratatat.

it also takes me back to the time when i listened to the elizabethtown original soundtrack by nancy wilson basically every night. i would gladly travel back to those times. not because i dislike the present, but just because often the past seems so sweet.

i just took a walk in my neighborhood with my dog. i don’t often go on walks around here because it’s fairly dangerous. on just my 30 minute walk i saw so many things i never would have seen in the neighborhood i grew up in. i saw so many things i never would see in the neighborhood i now work in. i intentionally spoke to nearly every person i passed, and many of them spoke back..came closer and gave franklin a rub on the head..or at least pointed to the goofy dog at my side.

getting out my comfort zone..exchanging hellos with people whose lives look very different than my own..receiving stares from people who think i’m crazy to be walking around like i belong.

two nights ago there was a standoff at the house two doors down from me. one of the men in the house boarded himself up inside and refused to come out. police cars created a barricade, keeping anyone in the neighborhood from leaving. officers stood with rifles aimed at the door as they yelled through their megaphones to the man inside. after about half an hour the man came out and was arrested. at the end of my walk i was able to stop and talk with the young kids playing outside the house where the incident occured..

“my name’s johnny boy, this is phillip, and that’s gracie,” the oldest said.

theeeese are the things that breathe life into me.

March 15 -  I journey from Lubbock to Austin.

Tunes like “Glamur” by Amiina and “Low is a Height” by Great Northern feel right as I drive. Franklin’s in the back seat - constantly panting, refusing to lay down and relax.

Less than an hour down the road is Post, Texas. It seems from the parking lot that most of the town (population 4000) has chosen George’s for lunch, so I join them. My little red car sticks out among trucks and trailers. I tie Franklin to a pole and pass a man with a long braid as I step in inside. As expected, I can feel the eyes of customers labeling me “foreigner.” “Wearer of scarf.”

I walk up to a counter: What’s good here?

“Everything.”

…Helpful. The menu holds all the typical small town diner options. Chicken fried steak, burgers, a BLT. But it holds some surprises as well: a lamb gyro?

“Do you suggest I get the chicken sandwich or the lamb gyro?”

“It’s whatever you like.”

Girl’s got sass. She knows she doesn’t have to earn anybody’s business - this is George’s, after all. Ten minutes later I’m out the door with a lamb gyro to go, and Franklin is thankful to be relieved of the hot sun. I try to put the image of a cook munching at the stove out of my mind. Scratch that - I dwell on it. They play by their own rules. The gyro is delicious and fuels me for my drive.

Two or three hours down the road I pass a familiar abandoned house. It’s my favorite, and I’ve snapped pictures many times as I’ve passed it. But this time I decide to take it in a little more. The two lane road is void of cars as far as I can see, and there isn’t another home or business in site. It’s me, the abandoned home, and the dirt fields.

The wind whips my hair as I step out of the car. I don’t have the guts to walk all the way up to the house, but I cross the road, gaze, and snap a self-photo people will later call “artsy.” People love that word these days.

The introversion in me soaks in every ounce of the solitude, and I’m back on the road.

As I near Austin, I recall cousin Raymond raving about a place called Underwood’s in Brownwood. Extending my vacation as long as possible, I pull in, surprised to find a drive-thru. No menu posted…it seems you’re expected to know the routine. I admit to the girl at the window that I’m lost. She couldn’t be more friendly, helpful, welcoming…and she waves her co-worker over to see the big fluffy dog in my backseat. Franklin returns with a low growl. I tell them I’m not too hungry, but I want to try whatever is most popular. For $5 I’m handed a kid’s meal with beef steak, mashed potatoes and cream gravy, green beans, yeast rolls, and apple cobbler. 

It lives up to the hype. Not being a big red meat eater, Franklin helps me finish up the impressively tender beef steak, and I ponder how I’ve lived the past few years without a more frequent consumption of mashed potatoes. Manna for the soul. 

Two cafes down (okay, one was a cafeteria), so many to go. It may take a few trips before I work up the nerve to conversate with locals. Dumb city girls…wearers of scarves…we have to earn the right.