Ankles

Backstory



Once more with feeling.



5/28/11

Timeframe

I can't imagine doing a triathlon. Not because I don't want to, or because I think it would be too hard, but because I started off this summer wanting to train for both a marathon by December and a 100 mile bike ride by July 9th, and I could not find the time to train for both. There is not enough time in a day. When you work a full time job, need to go out and bike 50 miles in an evening and then hopefully have time to eat, sleep, and have human contact, you literally run out of time. And I think that's how triathletes are born. And any great athlete. It occurred to me while riding the other day that if I only had 2 hours but could only go 35 miles in that time, and I couldn't add anymore hours until the sun went down, I would just have to start biking faster to get more distance in for the time I have. And that's how they do it. There are many great athletes who balance jobs and families. How do they get so good? I'm starting to believe that they are the ones who are willing to push themselves in the time they're given to achieve goals that would normally take more. They're the kind of people who know what it means to want something, define the meaning of dedication, and love the pain. They love to work hard. It's not about sacrificing the balance you need in life so that you can give more time to something else, sometimes it's about using the time you have for one thing to the fullest. When I have time to train I already work hard. And now I need to learn to work harder. Because great people take the time they're given, they set their goals, and they make it happen. I guess that's every moment though. You only have a certain amount of time to sit at a family dinner, to sit down and play monopoly with friends, to walk the path along the creek in the woods, to love another person, to have a conversation, to listen, to learn, to build strength. Milk every moment for what it's worth because each moment has an allotted amount of time and it's not going to wait for you to be finished or feel ready before flitting away.

5/27/11

Intertia

It's not leaving home that's hard, it's uprooting from where you've become familiar and comfortable that is. And maybe it's not just that. When you leave home for an extended period of time, and you leave things behind, it's opportunity that you miss. The guitar you can't take with you but you know you'd like to plunk around with on spare time, the books you won't get a chance to read on a rainy afternoon, the heels in the closet that you'll miss desperately if your friends happen to have a girls night out. It's the what if's and the options coupled with the familiar and sentimental that make uprooting such a shock. Once every week. Four times a month. Twelve times a summer. The last thirteen years. Uprooting is not an event that gets easier with time.

5/26/11

Memory

"Touch me
It's so easy to leave me"

Heard it in the greenhouse while watering flowers. That line stopped me in my tracks. Ironically enough, this song brings back lots of memories.

5/25/11

Inbetween time.

I come home from work every day and I know I should go biking, because I'm training, but I never want to. But I know that the second I start riding it'll be like pulling teeth to make myself turn around to go home. Why is this? I am baffled by how much I love riding but how hard it is to get myself out of the house. What is going on in this inbetween time that is making me not want to go? There is a daily war raging which consists of unmotivation, a desire to be happy, and a desire to find balance in what I want to do with my time. It rages in the inbetween time.

5/24/11

A memory of rain.

I was asked, or possibly I asked, "What is your favorite memory in the rain?" I can remember the feeling of being rained on so hard I felt like I just climbed out of a pool. I can remember the feeling of running through the rain laughing. I know the feeling of mud between my fingers and toes. But I cannot place my finger on a specific memory that I cherish that occurred in the rain. The people I asked about their best memories in the rain had trouble even thinking of any. I find this to be a travesty. As I try to pull out my favorite memories I remember walking nearly a mile in the rain to a lake to go skinny dipping for the first time, I remember biking 110 miles in a freezing chill, I can see the torrential downpour of a Rhode Island storm, I remember my freshman floor sprinting through our campus jumping in puddles. I do remember all of those good times. But I wish I could remember that shining memory made perfect by rain. I want many many memories of the rain.

5/8/11

Never Again

Note to self: next time you tell yourself "Never again," take your own advice and never do it again.

5/7/11

Footage

5/6/11

Keep moving forward.

I'm back in my hometown. Back to my houses, my families, my dogs, my friends, my traditions, my workplace. There are many things about it that feel marvelous. Family and tradition slide gracefully into place, the greenhouse is in full bloom, and I laid down in my bed that first night and a horrible feeling crept over me. Where I expected to find comfort and relief from all the stresses that had been consuming my life for so long, where I expected to find a feeling of belonging, I found a feeling of stagnation. Everything else felt right, but the feeling of being back home in my childhood bed brought forth the idea that I'd been here before many many times, and I was ready for something new. The feeling that who I am now is not who I was before, and who I am now is not the child that came home to mother's house to eat her food and carelessly sleep under her roof, but a woman ready to live an independent life that she simply needs to go out and take hold of. I paved a way for who I am, and it's becoming time for me to pave a way for how my life is going to be lived. I'm trying to live in the past, and it's stale. I'm trying to hold still, and it's like wasting away in a museum. I know that I know that I know: I need to keep moving forward.

5/5/11

Sorting

"Every man is born as many men,
and dies a single one."
NCIS

I happened to have my laptop open while my friend's dad was watching NCIS and the second this was said I typed it up on a sticky note. We have the potential to be many men. We decide who we are. We make decisions each moment that define which man we become. I know who I want to be. Deep down I think it's much like the way the sorting hat in Harry Potter works: you get sorted into the house you belong in based on what house you want to be in. Men are much the same. We are who we want to be, we just need to work at it through our actions to learn to be that person, because before we become a single one, we play the roles of many.

5/4/11

Beauty of love as it was made to be.

"Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.

There is a design, an alignment, a cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be"

Much Mumford & Sons was listened to obsessively on the road trip. Thank God we both adore them because I selfishly wanted to listen to them the whole time, and so did he. When we first listened through their CD, we talked about each songs lyrics after the song and what they meant to us. These lyrics struck me hard when they came on. In many ways I fear that love will betray, dismay, and enslave me, not just because of my imagination and philosophy, but also because of past experiences and failures. But Mumford talks a lot about truth, finds is quite important, and in this he speaks a lot of truth. Love makes you into who you were meant to be. My fear and wariness toward love permeates all of my relationships. This includes the way I approach God.

We drove all night, taking turns as we drove for one person to drive and one person to sleep, and so I drove all night and when on half a tank of gas I asked if we should refuel I was told we’d have enough to make it to the next town and not to worry, so we proceeded in a not so fuel efficient manner. We rolled into town on empty at midnight and went from gas station to gas station finally parking in one and turning off the car in defeat. All of the gas stations were closed, and none of them were self serve. Had our driving all night been for nothing now that we’d have to wait five hours till morning to fill up or tank to keep going? Full hotels and kind but ultimately unable to help people put us in a tough position. We knew that there was a self serve gas station maybe 12 miles down the road. We were told it was downhill the whole way as well. As we sat in the dark cold car at a closed gas station I said, "I'd like to say I have enough faith to pray that we could have enough gas to get to Nugget City, but I don't think I do." My partner in crime turned to me and said, "You know what, I think we're gonna make it. I have faith. Let's do it." We looked at each other uncertainly, but smiling, sent up a prayer and turned on the car. We started to coast down the hill, our head lights only illuminating a short way in front of us. We rejoiced as we put it into neutral...and then quickly swallowed our cheering as the ground evened out. The ground once again sloped down dramatically and singing hallelujah's we went down and down and down. And then we evened out again. And we drove and drove and drove. I waited doubtfully for the car to putter out on the side of a dark scary forest, and tried to make myself have the faith of a mustard seed while promising God I wouldn't feel betrayed or dismayed when we didn't make it: more to convince myself than anything else. But to my surprise a lone lit sign amidst the dark woods shone down on a single self serve pump in the middle of literally nowhere. We had made it, miraculously, and we filled up our car.

Mumford's lyrics speak truth to me. Especially when it comes to God's love. I try to believe that he loves me because the Bible says so, and in my understanding of the way God loves us and how he is toward us, I understand that miracles exist and that he does in fact work in our lives. But I've felt betrayed and dismayed by God before; I've felt like he just hasn't done anything in a situation where a miracle could have occurred, and in thinking he loves me, I feel that the outcome of his love is betrayal and dismay. But that's not true. There's a calling here in these lyrics to be more like the man you were meant to be: a calling to not look at love as something that betrays and dismays, but as fullfilling in what it really is in all of it's beauty. I feel like God's love will let me down, but there's a bigger truth about what love really is and how it is the opposite of dismaying, betraying, and enslaving. When we have the faith of a mustard seed and simply leap, we gain freedom. Freedom in doing anything imaginable because of God's power. Because he's got our backs. Because he loves.

5/3/11

Cowardly

I left with a friend to road trip from Newberg, Oregon to Alaska, and as we drove we talked and talked and talked. He said something that two weeks later as I strive to catch up on posts, I still remember for this day. We were talking about video games and what ones we liked and what ones we don’t like, and he brought up modern day war games that simulate real life situations in Iraq and war in general. They make them almost completely synonymous with life, if not completely synonymous apart from the TV screen and controllers, and my friend brought up the fact that people sit down in front of their TV’s and fight other real live people in a simulation of the real thing, and derive joy from it, when in real life there are actual men fighting and dying. They're coming home with post traumatic stress disorder and psychological damage. Men that don’t want to die or kill with real fear and real courage coursing through their veins as they do just that, that given the choice would opt to not be there but back home with the families they’ve left behind, and boys back home simulate their situation with joy. The real life situation is full of pain, loss, and terror, and real men with real courage experience and endure that. My friend said, “It’s almost cowardly to play a game about it.” And he’s right. What right do we have?

The subject of being cowardly brings me to another learning experience for this day. I do not like meeting new people. Maybe people that I’ve heard about, or family of people I know, but I am vary wary of whether or not I will get along agreeably with the complete stranger. Which is why as we drove into Seattle to spend the first night with some of my road tripping buddies friends, I threw out the suggestion to drive all night instead of staying too long in Seattle. It was an honest suggestion fueled by our need to get back home at a certain time, hopefully early since I had another trip to leave for soon after we got back, but it was most definitely fueled by my fear of being uncomfortable with the stranger as well. With umph my friend agreed we should keep driving, but we should still stop by and eat dinner with and spend time with his friends. We parked in a vintage and comfortable feeling section of Seattle, hiked up flight upon flight of creaky wooden steps outside to the top floor of their building, and entered into the most original, cute, homey, brilliant apartment I’d ever seen with a copper looking slopping shiny ceiling and view of the city lights. The two sisters who greeted us hugged me and were full of laughter, hospitality, vitality, raw honesty, and joy. I started to regret my suggestion to not stay long. We walked through town, ate delicious food at a Southern style restaurant, watched part of a movie and when they went to sleep we continued on our way through the border.

I learned two lessons about cowardice today. One about not being foolish in emulating real life with imitation and puffing it up to have value, and another about not fearing the stranger and opportunity.

5/2/11

Live Your Life

Today I did. Today I mapped a 4.5 mile run and went for it, I biked to the docks and laid in the sun with a friend, I put my feet in the water, I went to coffee with an acquaintance and was honest, I went to dinner at a Thai restaurant with more acquaintances, I made daisy chains, watched I Love Lucy, I ate cheesecake, made CD’s, and did stuff. I have a very unmotivated disposition that I would not completely blame simple laziness, and often when it comes to making the decision to do something, or do nothing, I do nothing. Or at least very little. But a good friend reminded me today the value of getting out and living life, having adventures, enjoying the small stuff, enjoying the company of those you don’t know well, and taking hold of the day, the moment, and opportunity. When I was sixteen I was in my “Yes Man” phase. I was very happy. I need to remember the value of living and jump in and start experiencing because it is so very worth it.

5/1/11

Selfless Love

The ability to dedicate your life to the pursuits of someone else’s is truly holy. It’s not very often that I forsake the concentrated goals and duties than encompass living as Toni and look at what someone else needs to help them achieve or just be happy. The day I needed to finish packing, load things into a car, and put things in storage was a blessing. I had friends helping me achieve what I needed to get done in my plot line on their breaks from work, in the midst of their duties as RA’s, when they had their own packing to get done, their own lives to lead, their own happiness to consider, and instead of focusing on their own pursuits they looked at my life and did work for it. It makes me wonder how self-absorbed I am. I feel as though it is my first duty to make sure my responsibilities and needs are met before moving onto others. Yet others have demonstrated a much different approach to their own lives by stepping out away from themselves to focus on me. Maybe my mindset is wrong. Maybe we’re not all individuals with our own plot lines running parallel but very much separate from everyone else’s. Maybe it’s more of a ripple effect and maybe we don’t have our own individual plots but are part of one collective plot line in which we all help each other toward one collective goal. At least three people demonstrated to me on this day what it means to love selflessly and graciously. I would love to strive toward that collective goal.

4/30/11

Psycho

My freshman year I spent three days straight packing. It was stressful and horrible. I gave away and threw away a good portion of my stuff. I had 5 boxes jammed full of stuff to put in storage. I had 3 stuffed bags to check home with me. The main problem was too many clothes to get home and too much hoarding of nonessentials. This year I vowed to live minimally. I didn’t take down as much clothing to school, I got rid of the things I didn’t need, didn’t keep knickknacks, and felt pretty good about the amount of stuff I had. Until I had to pack it all once again. And once again my life exploded in a frenzy of disbelief, despair, and frustration. I lived and kept all of my stuff in a closet shared by two other girls, one dresser with three drawers, and a third of the room occupying about a 5X10 area. Who knew there could be so much stuff. Decorations and entertainment in one box, kitchenware in another box. There are bathroom supplies, towels, bedding, lamps, and hangers that need to be left behind. And more than anything this year, there were BOOKS. Many, many, books. Essentially all of the books I’d used for the last three years. They make marvelous references and I refuse to give them up. When I look at it all as a whole, I realize that it’s really not that much in the grand scheme of things. They really are all things I need to keep, or are at least useful, except for my one box of decorations and games.

This year, apart from realizing once again that I need to live minimally, I realized that simply, people need a lot of stuff. Not to survive of course. I do not need that much clothing, bathroom supplies, cooking supplies, bedding, or the like to stay alive. But I’m not hiking through the wild living out of a backpack. I’m putting down roots, as temporary as they may be, and cooking my meals in a kitchen, showering in a bathroom, sleeping in a bedroom, having books and supplies for studying and working, having hobbies, and decorating with stories from mine and others pasts, which means having and needing stuff. My mindset is beginning to change. Living minimally to me no longer means only having enough stuff to fit in one duffel bag. It means being modest in the situation you live in and gracious with what you own, but putting down roots means your possessions will grow in abundance. There’s no sin in that.

4/29/11

Grace Under Pressure

On this day, I took my Chemistry final. I found it almost encouraging how many I knew in the beginning, and had I studied, how many I would have known. But by this time it was hopeless, and failure was eminent, so I filled in bubbles randomly and waited for a handful of people to turn their finals in first so the other students wouldn’t suspect. I had studied hard, known the material with at least a C to low B knowledge, and failed almost every single test, if not every test, of the semester. Circumstances beyond my control had piled up, and I didn’t feel so bad honestly knowing that I had given it an honest effort and kept trying until the end. I never had it in me to give up.

This Semester was a learning experience. In Molecular biology I studied harder than I had for any test all semester and outright failed it. It felt unjust. When the next test snuck up on me and I had less time to study than before, I gave up home and didn’t study at all. I focused on more important things: like Chemistry. That test I walked into class three minutes late, and took the test in twelve minutes flat because I couldn’t answer any of the short answers. I walked to the front of the room and my professor looked up, startled that someone would be turning in a test so soon. I looked him in the eyes, I smiled, and I honestly thanked him. I didn’t slink out, nor did I hurry.

Even after getting off to a rough start with some of my professors, I found that in the end they gave me much grace. Before scolding me for what they could have suspected was a lack of motivation, or talking numbers and percents with me, they looked me in the eyes and asked me how I was doing and what could they do to be there for me. They provided leniency when it was uncharacteristic of them and mercy in grading. I am indebted. I passed Molecular, though I’m not sure how or if it was truly fair. I did not pass Chemistry, though I am particularly proud of my D. It was always characteristic of me to get two letter grades down on a test than what I thought I deserved or what I knew represented my knowledge: I would get D’s when I was sure of B’s and F’s when I was sure of C’s. I got a D in the class. I am therefore rather proud of my B.

Throughout the whole semester of failure and talking to my professors, parents, and friends, I found that I could own my failure and take pride in who I am and what I was learning from my circumstances. I discovered that I could not take 18 credits with 12 being pure science and succeed, that I have limitations, that I am not a science whiz, that I hate general chemistry, that I am not at all interested in cell/molecular biology, that I love marine biology, that honesty will get you places, that you can never back down or quit in the face of failure, that I love plant biology and field ecology, that I cannot live the road toward being a doctor, that a load of science based knowledge is not the same as practical knowledge, and that you need to do what you love and not what you think you should love, because the world needs you with your passions and talents exactly the way you are.

I’ve redefined my definition of a college education and a degree. I’ve learned to look myself in the face and be okay with who I am. I’ve discovered that it wasn’t hard for me to own up to my lack of success because I was proud of what I was learning about myself and why I was not succeeding, and as unjust as it seemed at times, I could never feel guilty that it was a defect in myself that caused me to not get straight A’s.

I am proud of the way I stood within my own failure and I am proud of what I learned. As disappointing as it can be, this setback is leading me in the right direction and I’m right where I should be. There is a lifestyle apart from getting high scores in college that speaks meaning into my life, and I cannot lament in that.

4/28/11

Entrusting trust

It's tricky business being friends. You trust your personality, your comfort zone, and ultimately your vulnerability to someone and it becomes their job to navigate the careful balancing act to not to take advantage of that fact. It's obvious that your trust has been broken when someone spills your secrets to your arch nemesis, cheats on you with the secretary, steals your favorite shirt, or uses you to go to an exclusive party. But what about when someone's just a downright ass? It's not just simply being obnoxious or rude, it's a spitting on the emotional control you've willingly entrusted to them. We trust people to be good to us when we're good to them first, and our internal sense of justice rears its self righteous head when a friend turns around and is insulting and impatient toward us. We put our emotions on a balancing point, and it only takes the rude words of someone we place our happiness in to blow it all to smithereens. When I love, and I don't receive that love back, but instead the opposite, it encourages me to put up a wall toward others. And as much of a truth as that is, I go back to the realization that we can't learn to love someone unless we've learned that that someone will break our trust, and forgive them for that and love past that, coupled with the realization that we will and have already broken their trust already: but this unconditional attitude is only permissible with a promise from both parties to commit to being Good to one another. Am I now saying it's permissible to throw someone away when a relationship becomes unhealthy emotionally or the give outdoes the take? And suddenly it all sounds like a rule book, and I realize the point is just to love, that I will never be able to love unconditionally, and that I am in fact rearing my self righteous head at this very moment. The point of this is that people can break your trust by being rude. That was the point.

4/27/11

Puzzle Pieces

My relationship with God is very much being redefined: we've had to back up and refresh my mindset from scratch in a lot of ways. I'm learning to be right with Him instead of society and it's caused me to live a very unconventional lifestyle indeed. Within the unconventionalness He's provided a gateway for much healing; in ways that I would have rejected seven months ago and i know most of my friends would still reject now. But puzzle pieces have healed my soul and mind and I throw up my hands and tell people to take it up with God.


4/26/11

Of pretty pictures and drunk octopi.

A friend and I share a common love for pretty pictures with clever phrases printed on them. We also love to look through photography. While getting seriously distracted from homework we were looking through this marvelous site: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/A4eBV5/www.polyvore.com/quotes_in_beautiful_pics_oo/collection%3Fid%3D505776 when she came across the above picture. It is now apart of our common vernacular to say "drunk octopus is hungry" or drunk octopus is bored" when talking to each other about ourselves...or other people. Many of us now find all coat hangers cause for hysterical laughter. Enjoy.

4/25/11

I need freedom now.

I had "I need freedom now." written across the index finger side of my middle finger of my left hand on and off for the week before and during finals. Mumford and Sons "The Cave."




'Cause I need freedom now

and I need to know how,
to live my life as it's meant to be.


4/24/11

A song to be stuck on.

4/23/11

Balancing Act

How are you to approach balancing your time between your friends? When presented with multiple options, is it fair to pick the one that you want most? In a battle between getting ice cream with the girls or shopping with an old friend, is there an ethical approach to making a decision? I was recently presented with the claim that I only spend time with people when it's convenient for me. I felt warry about this accusation because in fact, yes, I do plan my time around what is most convenient for me, and what made me most uneasy was the idea that in doing that I had unknowingly been doing something wrong. I know that I've sacrificed my time for others, and decided to do things with people that wouldn't have been my first choice, but it's true that for the vast majority of the time I pick what works out best in my schedule and for me. I want to know what the ethical approach is to balancing being selfish and selfless, because I'm facing the possibility that my balance has been entirely off for entirely too long.

4/22/11

Familyar Niche

Have you ever looked at someone as they do something bizarre or unusual and asked them, "Where do you come from?" We ask that question of people in an offhanded sort of way, but the answer really is something to know. We meet people at a bus stop, in a coffee shop, in the cafeteria, and the impression we get of them is one singularly based on the way they look, act, and speak. But there's no context. What about the why? I've discovered that the best way to understand someone and really know them is to meet their family. I've viewed people as spacey, ignorant, emotional, uptight, angry, and on and on and have given them grace in my mind, knowing that there is a why but not really understanding it, but then I've met their sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, and the whole picture slides into place. Get someone around their family, and nothing really ends up seeming out of place. Everything is explainable, understandable, and forgivable in the context of the way they were raised and the environment in which they were taught to coexist and interact. I look at myself with my family and I begin to understand where my values, faults, and oddities come from, and it gives me a context, an excuse for grace, and a niche to fit into.

4/21/11

Interviews

I've applied for a lot of different positions and jobs for next year, and that's required me to go through quite a few different interviewing processes. Some on the fly with department professors, some with fellow students, some with possible coworkers and spiritual leaders, and the one thing I've never been able to do is sit upright, look someone square in the eyes, and explain why I'm the best fit for a job. I just want to be honest; honest about my faults, my passions, and my experiences-spark discussions involving whether I really am what someone wants for a position and whether or not I'm the best fit. I'm beginning to realize that the more questions people ask me about myself, the better picture I get of who I am and that I'm a very incomplete person. I'm sill becoming who I'm going to be, my beliefs and ideas are still forming. One interview in particular I remember quite clearly being asked lots of questions that I couldn't come up with complete answers for, that I didn't completely know how to answer, and as I walked home down the sidewalk had a clear sense that I was young and not the quintessential businesswoman with a perfect resume and professional charisma, ready to answer any question thrown at her. It was a bit disorienting compared to how I like to view myself, and at the same time refreshing to understand who I am and where I am in life. And later to learn that people identify with that.

4/20/11