On Clouds and Hospitals

Hey.  I have so much to tell you.

I guess I'll start with what is the most pressing issue.  One of my brothers is in the hospital right now.  A couple weeks ago when he had his wisdom teeth removed, they discovered that his blood pressure was abnormally high.  A lot of things have happened between then and now, but the short version of the story is that it is very likely that he has some kind of problem with his kidneys that is causing damage to both his kidneys and to his heart.  He is having his kidneys biopsied tomorrow morning.  Please pray for him if you think of him.  Pray for my family too, especially my parents.  They are pretty exhausted and worried about the potential outcome (and so am I).

On a more positive note, I'm on my Christmas break now.  I've frittered my days away so far but that's what I've needed.  I didn't realize how emotionally exhausted I was until school suddenly stopped.  The past term has been tough on me.  Not so much academically, that's been fine.  School is going well and I'm loving my classes (yes, all 9 of them)!  It's pretty great to feel that way.  But I have certainly taken a few personal hits throughout the past couple months.  I have often felt that I've been carrying a heavy load.  Yet I am not discouraged.  I still find myself full of hope.  And that's also a pretty great feeling.  I've always thought that resilience looks good on me.  It's the word I've been wearing so far this year and suspect that I will continue to wear for the upcoming term.

Hm, what else?  My grandpa will be going in for an open heart surgery sometime in January.  He has been feeling very unwell lately and I am worried about him.  Even though the surgery is the best option for him, I am worried about the outcome of that as well.  It isn't a simple operation and the risk of death is fairly high.  I'm praying that he does well.  I've gone with him to some of his appointments now and it's been interesting to see things from more of a patient/family perspective.  Same goes for the stuff with my brother.  I'm not happy about what's going on with either of them, but I am thankful that I have some medical knowledge and for the chance to truly see things from the other side.

Other than the above: I'm still singing (choir performance at the hospital tomorrow), I'm still writing (see below), and I'm still dreaming (and always hoping for, looking for ways to get more out of this life).  If we haven't seen or spoken to each other in a while, please give me a call.  I'd love to reconnect with you.  I'm sorry I have to be gone so often and that I have had to step away from aspects of my old life, but I promise I haven't forgotten about you.


Clouds (12/18/2014)

I have always made a habit of keeping my head up and my eyes open.  Especially at night.  I am convinced there is nothing more beautiful in this world than the sky at night.  Have you ever looked at the stars and suddenly felt like you aren't alone anymore?  Because that's when I feel when I look at them.  When I look up I see old friends that I can talk to about anything.

Last Friday, you caught me stargazing, my face glowing with the orange hue of the city.  I'd like to think that I became a little more dear to you in that moment.  I have often thought it strange, to have the eyes of a young woman and the untarnished spirit of child.  But I wouldn't have it any other way.

After I saw those stars I went home and sat in the pitch of my room.  There's something about being awake in the early hours of the morning that I adore.  If you time it right you can feel like you are the only person awake in the world, the only person alive.  Complete solace.  So I sat there, in the dark.  Alone with my thoughts. Entirely comfortable in the midst of them.  And you, washing over me like waves.

It struck me in that darkness that all nights of clarity have occurred when the sky was clear.  Perfectly fitting for a loner and a lover of the night.  I remember walking in the wilderness in shades of black.  The stars were the clearest I have ever seen.  My mind was the freest it has ever been.  I don't think you know it because you couldn't see me in the darkness, but in that moment something celestial happened in me.  I got this ethereal taste on my tongue again last night and felt completely satisfied.  Satiated with and by my Now.

Riding on these feelings I put on my best dress and let my curls go the next night.  The weather report called for clouds but I went out anyway.  I should have known better to go out when there is cloud cover.  I have never been so full and so empty all within twenty four hours.  Rejection has never been a comfortable companion but I've kept him close anyway because he's reliable and predictable.

I drove home, cursing the snow I normally praise.  Cursing the clouds from which it came from.  Cursing every cloud that has ever stopped me from seeing the lights when I needed to.  Wondering where God is in our heartbreaks.  In my heartbreaks.  Wondering what it even feels like to break your heart.  I only know about things like acute coronary events and sources of non-cardiac chest pain.  I sense the pain of heartbreak is less physiological but somehow just as threatening to the spirit.  I guess I'll let you know what it's like when I find out.

And here I am.  A week later. Sitting in the dark early in the morning.  Wondering if the sky is clear tonight.  My head isn't, so I suppose it isn't.  Wondering if those stars will be mine again soon and if you'll be there to see them with me.  Hoping something celestial might happen in me, again.

...

E

my thoughts of you are spilling out
like the sea overflows onto the shore
no matter how full or how shallow
it spills--

I spill.

I spill and I can do nothing but spill
my words and the secrets of my feelings.
It's me, my paintbrush, my prose, and you.
my canvas.

I spill subtle mixtures of color all over you in the dark
you are pulling me in your tide and I wonder
what this dance might look like in the light,
how glorious you might look in the light with me

will I still see sixteenth notes dancing on your chest
and will your arms be as strong, as safe
at noon as they are at midnight?
and will there still be salt on my skin?

will I still find myself breathless in the midst of you?
dyspneic but not longing for air
because the storm of you is my calm.
exhausted yet never tired of being submerged in your waters--

for they fill the sea in me
and what is life for a sea but to spill
to tirelessly, recklessly spill
onto its shore.

On Foxes and Love Languages

Hello and happy Sunday!  Hope this post finds you well.  I feel like I am always saying this, but time is flying.  It's hard to believe that we are already in the last week of October (and for me the tenth week of school).  I finished my first major round of exams about two weeks ago and everything went well.  Since then I have been recovering.  Trying to pick the pieces of myself back up after the madness of the past two weeks.  Between weekly teaching, leading a seminar, and serving on a new board of directors life has felt really full.

On Friday night I went out to the bar to celebrate a friend's birthday.  It was okay and I'm glad I went but I can't help but feel like a misfit in situations like that.  On the drive home I saw a baby fox run across the street close to my house.  And it got me thinking: I am like that baby fox, running around in a place I don't belong, looking for my home.  Always looking.  Wondering where the other foxes are.  Pondering where I should make my den in the meantime.

So I left the party that night like I have left so many before.  Wanting more, wanting something deeper.  From friends and from myself.  Wanting conversation and philosophy and prose and meaning.  Wanting to meet foxes.

Despite how it sounds Friday played out, I have been fortunate enough to experience deepening friendships with a few people who are very dear to me.  One new friend (who already feels like an old friend) came over yesterday and we played music together and talked and laughed.  They don't know it, but it was a therapeutic exercise for me.  It was what I was wanting on Friday but couldn't get at between the deafening music and bright lights.  It's nice to have people in your life that know you are not a normal person and even like you for it.

Something that has been helpful to me in developing deeper relationships with people has been Gary Chapman's concept of "love languages."  Chapman suggests that there are five key love languages and that each individual has a primary love language (native tongue, if you will) in which they prefer to "speak."  If you know how a person best feels loved, it is much easier to know how to make them feel valued and loved.  And if you know what your love languages are, you can know in what ways you are fluent in showing love and in what ways you could probably work on to benefit others.  The five love languages are: words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, and giving/receiving gifts.  My primary love languages are quality time and physical touch, in case you were wondering.  You probably know what yours are already too, if you give it a bit of thought.

So, I guess that's a little bit of what's been going on lately.  Years after starting this blog I have finally reached a milestone of 50 posts with this one.  I find that I am always writing but not always posting.  I'm working on learning to do more of the latter.  On learning to unpack my heart.  If you've been reading you know this isn't easy for me.

Here's to being up for the challenge,

E

On North and Maps

Hey,

Another Saturday has come and gone.  Today was a productive day.  I was up and working by 7 and managed to meet all my work targets for the week by early afternoon, as well as squeeze in some time for cleaning and a soccer game.  I can't lie to you: eighty hour work weeks are strenuous for me.  And I'm feeling pretty fatigued some days.  But when I find the time for some reflective thinking (usually at night, just before I drift off) I am still feeling thankful.  Happy with how I'm doing, with what I'm learning.  Glad to be on this crazy journey.

I just finished my fifth week of school and it's unbelievable how much more knowledgeable I am already.  Not that I consider myself to be knowledgeable.  But I can see my own progress and I am already susbstantially better than I was several weeks ago.  That's rewarding and exciting.  I have also learned quite a few new words (duodenoduodenotomy is nearing the top of my favourites list, I think).  And you know I love words, so you can understand why I am delighted by these things.

All this being said, there is something aching in me today.  Something that feels unsettled without any known reason. Maybe it's something that wants more.  Out of myself, out of people I care about, I'm not sure.  Maybe my expectations are just too high and that's leaving me wanting.  Maybe you can tell me?

North

you are like a map to me
 you are a map to me
 and I am losing myself
 in your keys, your legend
 your atlas.

you are true north to me
 resilient, strong, evergreen.
 steady and firm. your thoughts:
 sacred and safe with me

and when I go west, finding myself
 alone with the promise of company
 you bring me back
 magnetic, sure.

you are true north to me
 and you know well
 the contour of my spine,
 the curve of my smile

you are a map to me
 and I am losing myself
 in you, for you
 I am losing.


E.

On Words and Means

Lately I have found myself thinking about words.  About how words have this intrinsic and enigmatic property that make them mean what it is that they mean.  About how words come by what they mean truly.  About how we need them.  Lately I have found myself thinking about words.  And about what it is to mean.

I found myself early this morning over Denver, pressing words into my forehead through a crystallized window pane.  Wishing I was better at giving my words to people.  Paper has been a long time friend of mine.  Paper understands.  Paper unconditionally accepts whatever ink or charcoal shapes we give to it.  And the things we can proove with paper are boundless.  I found myself dreaming of equations: mathematical and physical laws of the universe.  About how they bring order and comfort to us.  How they allow us to discourse about phenomena which would be otherwise impossible to explain.

I found myself daydreaming, shivering in the memory of those nights in June.  They were glorious nights wrapped in scientific discussion.  They were beautiful nights--times of being held closer than I have been held in many years. Nights of surrounding myself in those words and equations that scrawled themselves out as a kiss to the forehead, then the nose, then the cheek--

And now I find myself acutely aware of the limitations of our words.  Wondering about how much may be lost or added in well-meaning text.  About how words are everything to me and have been since my infancy.  About how words are not enough.

Yet I want more words.  I need more words.  I find myself at night, soaking the words into my skin.  Thinking that maybe if the compress is closer or if the steam is hotter I will be able to force the words out, through my pores rather than my mouth.

In the same thought-breath, I think about love.  About what it is that makes a person fall in love with someone or something.  About how different this may be from what prompts a person to love.  I know inside of me that falling in love is not the same as living a life of love and this calms some of the thought storms in my mind.

I find myself thinking about how I have much to learn in this life.  But I also find myself, knowing, now: the human soul can excel in bringing love to the world it lives in.  Its thoughts are beautiful and rugged, like wildflowers.  Its words mean.  And it means simply because it exists.

I find myself thinking about how lucky we are that other souls are here with us.  To share in our world, our words.  How wonderful it is that we do not have to be lonely even in times of being left alone.  I have always been curious about the way these souls, our friends, have a way of flitting in and out of our lives at just the right moment.  Somehow they manage to be perfectly on cue in the production that I call my life.  I find myself feeling thankful for those friends who have fallen back into my life, like pretty little snowflakes.  Calm and cool on my eyelashes.  I find myself praying for safety and deeper meaning for those who are somewhere else now.

I find myself thinking that I cherish you and that I want to tell you so.  But just look how words are not enough!  They will never be enough.  But if you find this insufficient prose, know you are cherished.  Let these words mean what it is they are meant to mean for you.

Mahalo for reading these midnight ramblings,

E.

On Wisdom and Humility

Hi,

I'm up too late again, I know.  But this is when I have been doing my best thinking recently so I'm just going to go with it.  

So, I've had a good week.  Some parts were incredibly boring and some parts were overly full.  I'm left feeling thankful for it though.  It's been nice to be home-ish for a bit.  I realized that I am in this sweet spot of life where I know who I am and also have been able to find a sizable collection of like-minded human beings whom I value greatly as friends and love dearly.  I have seen many of their faces in person this week: over coffees, board games, ice creams, and bike rides.  If you were there, thank you.  If you were not, call me please.

First, a wedding story.  If you know me you likely know that I am somewhat intolerant of weddings and wedding-related things.  It's bad, I know.  I am working on it and think I am less cynical than I have been in the past.  In my defense, it's just empty traditions and extended periods of mingling that I dislike (#introvertthings?).  But I digress.  I was involved in a wedding again this weekend.  And I attended on my own again this weekend (as I nearly always do.  I don't even remember the last time I brought my "plus one").  So I'm there, alone, mingling, catching up on life with people I haven't spoken to much in the past few years.  Some of them start asking me about my doctoring and I am happy to tell them a bit about it.  Then they ask me if I am seeing anyone.  I say no.  They say, "Hm," and give me this weird look that I have had on so many occasions when people find out I am still seeing no one.  It's a look that goes along with a tone that comes into the remainder of the conversation that I can only describe as a "how dare you be happy and feel like you are succeeding in life while you're single."  

I hate sensing this from people.  Some people just say it outright, something like, "you know, you're doing so well for yourself, working so hard, now all you need is a nice man to share it with..."

I think a lot of these people mean well and just want me to find happiness.  But what they don't get is that I already have it.  Yes, I've dared to do this.  Not on my own; I have been far from alone in this process.  But I have done this as a single woman...and I kind of feel like I'm winning at it.  I don't want to feel shamed for feeling good about the things I have accomplished in my singleness.  I am not going to wait to feel triumphant in life until I am coupled to a man.  Sorry.

And it's not that I don't look forward to being in a relationship.  I do, very much.  Some days more than others, I suppose.  So far I could summarize my singleness as being due to choice and lack of choice (interpret that as you will).  This being said, I think I've learned enough about myself that I can say that I am truly ready for romance--if the time and person are right.  That's a good feeling too.  

With school impending in t minus 2 weeks and myself leaving the country in t minus 72 hours I decided this week was the time to do some praying and some goal setting for the year ahead.  "Humility" is a word that has been coming up a lot in my thought life and I've decided it will be the focal point for my year.  Sometimes as a med student you get the impression that you have much to be arrogant about and much to be entitled to.  But I don't want to be this way.  I want to live a quiet, humble, simple life...a life that pleases God.  

The more I think and read about humility, the more I see how intimately it is tied to wisdom.  So, in part, what I am longing for is wisdom in this year.  My intelligence will certainly grow exponentially this year if I complete the tasks laid out in front of me.  A growth in wisdom, however, will not occur unless I personally resolve to invest in learning to live in a more humble manner.

What do I mean by this?  There are many aspects why I am thinking in this way, but the following passage from James provides a good starting point:

"Who is wise and understanding among you?  Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.  Such wisdom does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.  For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.  But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." (James 3:13-18).

Isn't that awesome?  I've already felt God speaking to me about ways in which I can work to be increasingly humble and to bless his heart by being more like him.  Tonight that meant taking some tweens to a movie.  Totally outside of my comfort zone, by the way.  But I was blessed by the fun we had and am glad to (hopefully) be bringing some degree of positive influence to their lives.

So here's to being pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere,

E.

P.S. You should read the entire book of James.  It's only 5 chapters.  You won't regret it.  Do it now. :)

Current listenings:

Ed Sheeran: x 

Sherwood: A Different Light

Chantal Kreviazuk: In This Life

James Vincent McMorrow: Post Tropical

LOTR Soundtracks

Deas Vail: Birds & Cages

Kari Jobe: Kari Jobe

On Whimsy and Answers

Hi again!  I have stared at this blank box for several hours now on several different occasions.  There are many things I could tell you right now.  Even now as I am typing I am not entirely sure of which words are going to come out, but here we go.

Tonight is my sixth night in my own bed since final exams.  I have been on the road a lot--camping, cabin-ing, concert-ing, etc. and have been enjoying pretty much every second of it.  Honestly enough, I have been having far too much fun this summer.  I am not used to such freedom and flexibility but I'd like to think that I am embracing it well so far.

If you were on my email list you would have received some blog-like updates about my northern experience in Dillon.  I am not going to post what I wrote here for privacy and confidentiality purposes.  But, if you would like a copy of the letters please let me know and I will send them to you.  In summary, I had an excellent time living in Dillon and being a part of the community there.  I was lucky enough to be offered many experiences which I will not soon forget.  And I met so many people whom I will not soon forget.

The thing about living in community is that it really helps you develop a heart for the people you are living with and around.  It is one thing to say you care for the marginalized and that you want to help and it is another to live alongside them, to sit in their homes and be a part of their family, to experience first hand the struggles and triumphs of being a certain person from a certain place.  I still have much to learn but I feel like I'm on my way to getting it.  For myself I have found that living with people leads me to love them and to desire what God desires for them.  I was fortunate enough to find an unsuspecting but true kindred spirit while up north.  We were able to meet up this week and we talked for eight hours straight (which was certainly a feat for both of us).  I don't think either of us realized how much we had missed each other since we parted ways in June (or at least I hadn't)!

I have recently added "whimsy" to my list of favourite words.  A quote from one of my summer reads, Halter and Smay's The Tangible Kingdom will help you understand why:

"For whatever reason, the church at large has theologized the idea of personal holiness to exclude normal interaction with the world.  Many churches we [the authors] work with have an alarming theology of "extraction" that creates a Christian peer pressure to move away from the world in all its forms.  To these people, the world is dirty, dark, intimidating, and evil.  The issue of "How incarnational should an incarnational community be?" is why we must align our theology around the call of mission...the havit of living among, means participating in the natural activities of the culture around you, with whimsical holiness.

The question of whether we "should" be in the world is pretty easy to reconcile.  Christ addressed the issue this way.  He told us in Matthew 5:13 that we were to be "salt and light."  We've heard enough sermons on this to know that salt is a preserving agent, and it also releases flavour.  The metaphor screams for our intimate proximity to those in need of preserving any taste of something great.  In 1 John 2:6, we're confronted with the bottom line: "This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."  Obviously, to walk as Jesus did means we not only have freed to but were commanded to live in the world like Christ did."

Good, yes?  The above paragraphs have impacted my thinking very much.  I know that there are some in the church who may not agree with some of the things I have participated in this summer.  But because of who Christ is in me I have been able to be involved in everything from sweat lodges to square dancing in a way that I believe brings honour and glory to the Lord.  And that's kind of awesome and freeing for me.

Other summer things: there was a question that I asked God last June.  He answered no and I didn't understand why (see previous posts).  Something prompted me to ask Him this question again last week.  He said yes.  So I think something is about to change for me.  I feel like I'm on the brink of something rather beautiful and exciting.  I feel like I am overflowing with joy and happiness about this shifting of tides, this changing of seasons.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Talk soon,

E

Current listenings:

Rivers in the Wasteland: needtobreathe
Prism: Katy Perry
Fading West: Switchfoot
How We Look at Horses: Trent Dabbs
Yes!: Jason Mraz
Chief: Eric Church
Ghost Stories: Coldplay (obviously).