I need a holiday...

I want to go home. 

I need a hug from my brother. 

I need to give our Hansi-dog some lovins. 

I need to sit on our couch with Hansi curled up beside me. 

I need a change of scenery. 

I need to wash dishes.

I need to make supper.

I need a breather. 

I miss Josef like no ones business. Sometimes I forget how much I like spending time with him until I'm not around him and I feel that sharp pang of distance. And time. He's my best friend. I'm sad it took me so long to realize it. 

Hansi hurt himself Saturday somehow. He's just not been acting like himself, no jumping. The weird thing is, I never used to have strong emotions about dogs... but now that we've had a little one, a cute one, I care a lot. But isn't that silly? I mean, when we bought him, we knew that mini-dachshunds are prone to back injuries. I just didn't think the day would come. 

This Christmas break I really resented having to wash all the dishes and make all the food... but now that I'm not, I miss that bit of domesticity. 

"This is just to say..." William Carlos Williams

The sun is shining. The tank is clean... The tank is clean!

Today is a new day. And I already have a few happy things I want to share.

The cleaning lady told me these things this morning while I was brushing my teeth:
"It's a beautiful day already!"
"I'm going to crack the window a little so we can get some natural light in here!"
"You girls should put some plants in here, I think they would do really well. ... On second thought, my cleaners might kill them..."

I love her. She is one of the sweetest ladies, ever.

And a friend of mine that lives "far away" (an hour) has proven to be such a blessing for me to wake up to messages from.

And, it's Friday!

And our window is also open a crack!

So.

Today will be glorious.

"My, oh my, what a beautiful day outside. Hey, yeah, what a beautiful day."
[The Classic Crime, Solar Powered Life]

There is a voice that cries out in the silence...

I don't know what's wrong with me.

Earlier today I felt very excited and I was just in a silly mood. There was no reason for it, except that the sun was shining and it was actually warm. It was starting to feel like spring.

And tonight? I just feel like... crying. But I can't. Because I don't want my roommate to think there's something wrong with me.

There has been a lot going on lately, things I can't go into detail here.

I'm just confused about what I'm supposed to be doing, and where I'm supposed to be going. I thought I had a clear vision for myself...and now I'm not so sure. Where is this doubt coming from? I'm not ready to be grown up... am I?

I'm tired of people trying to put me in a box. "You're not the only one I do ______ for." Obviously. I would never assume that kind of special treatment. I'm actually getting tired of sarcasm. I never thought that day would come.

And I'm a lot more fragile than I ever thought I was. And I don't like this mask I'm putting up; it's not very good anyway. I want to be happy and light-hearted all the time. 

What a start to a new year.

"I'm not talking to you. You just confuse me when you show up." [Thomas Magnum]

Lest I forget...

I went home this last weekend, and I just want to share a few things so I don't forget them. This runs the potential for being a very strange post, but I pray you stick with me. Perhaps something will resonate with you, or you'll catch a glimpse of your own home. Here are a few pieces of my life:

When Josef got home from school (he's a junior) I found out two things:
Earlier in the week he had been knocked down by some dork that was running to get away from some other kid. He fell in the snow, ripped a hole in his jeans and has a gash in his knee. My first question was, "Did you yell at him?" I could feel the protective older sister in me boiling. Nobody messes with my little brother. He said the kid was already far away by the time he got up. I said that I still would have yelled. "Well, that's you Anna, not me." How very true. We aren't the same person, as similar as we are. It was agreed that if it would have happened to me, my arm would have been out to catch the twerp and he would have been down in the snow with me. I wouldn't have hurt him... but I would have put the fear of God in him. Or so I would like to think.... sometimes injury done to me doesn't light nearly as big a fire in me as injury to Josef.
Also, I would like to thank whoever broke into Josef's car. I appreciate that you didn't take anything. Oh, and thanks for the sunglasses you left behind.

A dog got into our yard and dug through the snow into Dad's new grass and landscaping...he was not too happy. "If they come around here tomorrow they'll get lead poisoning." Saturday, our little dog started going crazy, and the next thing I know is Dad is outside with the shotgun. I paced around the inside of the house while I waited for the pop that was sure to come. I watched him as he aimed, which I thought was suspiciously high, and I watched him shoot while I couldn't see the target. I went to the East side of the house and watched two dogs run down the road. He came inside and said one had a collar for sure and he didn't want to shoot anyone's pet.

We went on a Daddy/Daughter date. I talked about my Language and Linguistic class a lot. He said, "I don't really like monarchs..." when I started asking questions about the Kings and Queens of England. They fascinate me. A difference.

Dad taught me how to make spaghetti. When it started splattering Mom said she would find me an apron. "It's okay, it's just my STD shirt."
"Oh, but that shirt is so cool!"
"Tammy, STD, not Sigma Tau Delta."
"Oh.... how did that happen?"
(I have two shirts for the English honors program I'm in, Sigma Tau Delta, it's really kind of unfortunate. The company that made our shirts made a mistake the first time around and put the letters in English, not Greek.)

When picking a movie to watch, "How's about The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex?"
"Well... I've been in that kind of mood, why not?"
"I didn't think you would actually say yes."
"We could watch Captain Blood instead."
This was after we watched Footsteps in the Dark. If you're an old movie buff you'll understand, or know, that these are all Errol Flynn movies. My dad loves Errol Flynn, he's one of his favorite actors, and probably one of mine as well. The only movie I didn't care for was Elizabeth and Essex. I don't know what it is... possibly the lady that plays Queen Elizabeth... I don't really know. It could be the ending but I won't give that away for you.
And now I have this insatiable desire to watch The Seahawk.

"When will you be home next, Anna boo?"
"Probably four weeks."
I know, Bud Nub, it's a long time....




"It is entirely innocent I am!"
"You must use the right words."
"Oh, words is it? Not guilty."
[Errol Flynn, Captain Blood]

I've got something to say...

There's something beautiful in the brokenness. 


Something in the way we give ourselves completely over to God to put us back together again. 


Something in the way that there is purpose. 


There's something beautiful in the brokenness.


Something beautiful. 






"Please help me remember in darkness the things I believed in light." 
[Starfield, Something to Say]

Let the tears fall down... let them soften this ground

I fell on the ice today and apparently landed on my left side.

My left arm is in quite a lot of pain, and it makes me realize how much I use it.

I called my Daddy right after I got back to my room. And it was almost instant tears. I've never wanted to be home more than in that moment. Because home means knowing. And home means help. And home means being with my mommy, and my daddy, and the best little brother in the world. Home means that I can get out a cherry-pit pack from the freezer and not have to carry around a towel. Home means stronger pain killers than Advil. Home means not having to climb up into bed. Home means someone will kiss it better. Home means not having to walk (on the ice) to get supper. Home means comfort. And that is a beautiful thing.

By the way, today was definitely, "Stop blowing holes in my ship" kind of day.

"Get back up, get back up again." [TobyMac]

So it begins...

The first week of the semester is over, and it's been kind of intense. I have five English classes this semester, and three of them are literature classes, one a reading intensive Language and Linguistics class, it's easy to say that I am going to absolutely love my Poetry Writing class. Poetry is going to be my detox class.

It's funny, with the start of this semester I find a new kind of peace.

Last night I watched Despicable Me with some friends. Afterwards we were all talking and at 11:11 I said, "Make a wish!" Both of the girls with me wished about a boy. And I thought to myself, "I don't have anyone to wish for." And that was okay. As much as I want to be on that path to wife-dom and motherhood, I am at peace with the fact that I am not right now.

Over Christmas break I did a lot of cooking and cleaning, and now I am learning time management--patience. I am learning my "God-lessons" as I like to call them. When I'm in the thick of it, and I'm fighting with God about how well I need to actually learn a lesson, I find myself thinking that he must surely be learning his own "God-lessons." And I know that we will both be better for this wait.

"Some things are certain." [Arwen]

Must be beautiful this time of year, all that long underwear....

Snow
You begged for snow--
For weeks.
Finally first flakes fly--
For days.
Now you pray--
For it to go away,
Back to its heavenly storehouses,
From whence it came.


"Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow" [White Christmas]

Stop blowing holes in my ship!

Sometimes it feels like I'm being attacked from all sides.

Don't get me wrong, today ended up being a great day, even if I had to leave home earlier than I was planning. I haven't felt particularly attacked lately.

What's prompting this thought is the fact that my roommate and I watched the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie tonight. I love it. I've seen it so many times I can generally quote the characters before they speak.

One of my favorite lines is the title of this blog... and then I realized that sometimes I feel like yelling that at the world, at myself, and at God. I can have perfect ideas about the way I want my day, week, month, semester, year and life to go. And in a minute, something big will happen that changes the whole scheme. Sometimes it feels like I get that from all sides: myself, God, family, friends, and the world.

Sometimes I find myself waiting and waiting for the perfect timing... I wonder how many opportunities I let slip by because I just wasn't playing enough attention.

Life's funny that way.

"If you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was it." [Jack Sparrow]

...They have passed, like rain on the mountain.

Sometimes I hold on to strange things. But the reasons are not so strange. There's usually a memory or a thought attached to the things I collect.

I was moving somethings around in my room today (instead of packing) when I looked at something that I hadn't looked at in a long time. It's proudly displayed, I didn't have to dig to find it. I just had to look. Granted, there is a lot of clutter on my desk right now, and there normally is, but it was right there. 

There is a clear vase. I've had it in my room for years, at least 7. Sometimes I wonder if Mom ever misses it. 

There is blue and silver ribbon, once glittery and now dusty, but if blown on you can see the sparkles again. 

There is a bouquet of dried white flowers, now an antiqued tan color. 

I wonder if my cousin knows that I still have the bouquet I carried in her wedding.

It's still beautiful, even when dead. 

I remember tying it to one of the posts of my bed with yarn and hanging it upside down, Laura-Ingalls-Wilder-style. I waited until I thought it had sufficiently dried. Then I stole one of Mom's vases, and put it on my dresser. Now it's on my desk, but I can still look at it and remember my cousin's wedding. 

I wonder if she has her bouquet? Maybe I should ask her sometime. 

When I was moving things I noticed that somewhere along these flowers' journey the middle flower had been decapitated. It's head was resting precariously on the pillow ribbon. I wondered if it was even worth it, but I picked up the flower and gently placed it back on its pillow of babies breath. For a moment I contemplated just throwing it away. 

I stood there and stared at it for a minute, trying to decide. 

In the end, I turned the vase a little, so that the ribbon was more proudly displayed and I let it "live" another day. Maybe I'll throw it away someday. 

I doubt I will. 

"What to make of a diminished thing?" [Robert Frost, The Oven Bird]

Why don't we just assume that I can fly?

I'm heading back to campus in a little over 24 hours... at least that was the plan.

My mom is very concerned about the coming snow storm. I find myself very apathetic to the whole thing. I don't care and I'm not worried about it at all. Maybe I should be.

They just sent out an email telling us we could return early if we so choose. I don't know what to do. I'm hesitant to tell my mom what the email said. I want to take every minute I can of being home--milk time dry. I think I will.

I wish that I could fly, I wish it could be assumed that I can fly. If I could fly then I wouldn't have to worry about driving conditions. Actually... I wouldn't really have to worry about a lot of things.

[The title of this post is the quote from an episode of Stargate SG-1, spoken by Lt. Cameron Mitchell]

I'm going to stay home. If I can't drive back tomorrow, I'll give Monday a shot. My professors will be understanding, I'm sure.

"We were born with wings, we were made to fly, we were made to live while we're still alive." [Superchick, Alive]

Lay down your sweet and weary head...

I helped a friend move to Lincoln yesterday. It was hard to leave her after we had gotten all the boxes inside and a good bit of unpacking done.

She was nervous. It is her first time really being out on her own. 

We'll be much closer now when I'm in school... but breaks are going to be weird without her. She's like a sister to me. (She calls us "soul-sisters.")

She told me that her dad wanted to have an official goodbye with her, and that it was weird for him that he wasn't helping her move because of work. She told her mom that she didn't want a "goodbye" she just wanted a "see ya later" and that this plan to move her was better for that purpose.

I understand what she was feeling. There's more finality in a "goodbye" then in a "see ya." I still think I would have wanted my family with me to move.

When I first started college I remember being homesick and crying myself to sleep a couple nights because I had become a "recurring character" in my parents' lives. That didn't mean that my character ceased to exist, it just started existing in a different bubble that sometime overlapped with theirs.

She has now become a recurring character in the lives of almost everyone she knows now. It's time for her to go off and make her own bubble.

Part of me hopes that she didn't cry herself to sleep last night. But, if that helped her release some nerves then I hope she did. 

"I will not say, 'do not weep,' for not all tears are an evil." [Gandalf]

One hundred and eighteenth birthday

Today is the birthday of Professor Tolkien. He would have been 118 today.

You may have heard, but they are doing a birthday toast to him at 9pm all around the world, and I am only too happy to join.





So, I raise my cup of Earl Grey. To the man that first ignited the passion of reading in me.











In the same moment that I drink to him, I think of everything he had accomplished in his life.







I pray that his work and the legacy he left behind will continue to touch the lives of children and adults alike.


"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve...." [Bilbo Baggins]

...each of us must come and go in its telling.

It's a new year. Yadda yadda yadda. It's been posted all over facebook and the news and.... everywhere. We put a lot of emphasis of these things. But why? A new beginning? That can't be it, a new year only means a new semester when you're in school and for the working person it means a new month and maybe a day off work. Yet, we watch the ball drop at midnight and we make toasts and new year resolutions.

Growing up, we always celebrated Christmas with Dad's side of the family on New Year's Eve and Day. And this year we were finally able to reinvent that tradition because for the first time in a long time all of my cousins were in the same place at the same time.

All I could think about while I was sitting there visiting with my cousins was, "I don't really know them any more." And with that realization came a deep sadness. I want to know my family as well as I know my friends. I want to know them as well as I know the characters in my books: those that I write and those that I read. There are pieces of them that I know very well: Charles loves potatoes, Kaitlin loves bread and eats her pie middle first, Kristina likes to smoke after she eats but denies herself that pleasure when with the family. (And then there's my brother who I know better than I know myself somedays.)

My cousins come and go, in and out of my life in cycles. And yet, even though I only see some of them two or three times a month, see some of them once or twice a year,  and some of them once every couple years we are still connected and there are still things that we can find to talk about.

That's one thing that families have that friends don't. If you go extended periods of time without talking to your friends it's going to be hard to pick up the threads. With family, it's natural.

I'm am glad to say goodbye to 2010. There was much hurt. As my dad said, "I think 2011 will be a lot like 2010." So it is with trepidation that I welcomed 2011. I am eager to continue my school work, but I am fearful for my heart.

I have made some choices that cannot be unmade.

Some days I wish I could go back to when my time was not so decidedly claimed by studying.

Still, I welcome 2011, with no false assumptions that I will be able to uphold any resolutions. I will come and go, just like my cousins. I will write, and I will not. I will love, and I will not. I will continue on.

"How do you pick up the pieces of an old life? How do you go on... when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are somethings that time cannot mend... some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold." [Frodo Baggins]