Why are you so far from me?

As usual, it's been a while since I last posted and a lot has happened in that time period. I do promise to be more diligent in posting this summer and this next year. I forget how therapeutic blogging can be--and for me, always is.

Instead of going into long details about what has happened, I think a list is in order. This list won't necessarily be in any particular order beside that which they come to me in.

1. I graduated from college with my B.A. in English. I walked across the stage afraid that my cap would tumble off my head, but made it to the president's hand, shook it firmly, and went on my merry way.

2. The Civil Wars have been on repeat since I bought their CD last week. I can't get enough, but wish they had another CD out. There's something about the organic sound and soulful lyrics that speaks to me...

3. My brother graduated from high school. This was huge because his graduation means that my parents could be empty nesters (an idea that I have ruined, but I'll get to that in a bit). I was responsible for the cake at his party, and it was a big success.

4. I did some house sitting for my cousin over this last weekend. She has a new dog (it's actually her boyfriend's, but the basset hound stays are her house), Oliver is a slime monster--cute, but drools a lot. And he's definitely a social eater.

5. I received four rejection letters. And that means that graduate school as not as near as I had hoped. This is why my parents are not going to be empty nesters quite yet. I'm taking the year off and just working, assuming I can find a job in town.

6. There's a possibility that I could be moving to Colorado to live with my brother while he goes to film school and I work. It's a possibility, but also a kind of last option. We'll see what happens.

7. I went on a date (or two). That was exciting, and the highlight of the last two weeks of school. I could go into this, but I think I'll leave it fairly simple. We're keeping in touch, but since we both graduated and are 13 hours from each other we're not "in a relationship." Letter writing is nice.

8. Goodbyes are hard.

9. My God-lesson right now is definitely Trust--and it's written on my wrist as a reminder. Trust. Trust. Trust.

That's about all I've got for an update right now. I'll see you around though, for sure.

"How long will you make me wait? I don't know how much more I can take. I miss you, but I haven't met you. Oh, but I want to. How I do." [The Civil Wars, To Whom It May Concern]

Hope's not giving up....

This is the story of a girl with a large heart. She filled her head with dreams of fairytales--knights in shining armor, rugged heroes, ladies of high esteem. A place where anything you dreamed could be attained if you worked hard enough. 

She put off one dream (the dream of her heart) to pursue her mind's dream. Instead of being content in her place she went to further her knowledge of the fairytale. The time she spent reading and learning was well spent, but occasionally she would get a glimpse of the other dream. It didn't take much--a weekend or a break from her scholastics spent at home was all she needed to awaken the old dream. 

Her arms elbow-deep in hot water, eyes looking out over the harvested fields, she wonders why she ever wanted more. A breeze pushes through the screen of the window as she dries her hands on the white tea-towel and suddenly she's somewhere else. 

She's a pioneer out on the frontier, or a simple maid in a medieval town. And she is not alone. Instead of preparing for her brother's birthday, she's baking for a child's name day and a husband that's been working hard under the sun. Whomever she prepares the table for, it matters little. The table is prepared--the food a blessing. And that is enough. God is good.

Where did this hope come from? This is the story of a girl that had clung so desperately to hope that she didn't realize when she had let it slip through her fingers for her eyes were squeezed tight--scared to face the truth. She knew the words--God provides--but somewhere along the way she let them grow hollow. Trudging on, day after day, she forgot to offer thanks for the blessings. And the trials. And the rejections, though three there be. 

The radio was turned up, louder than it should have been, and the windows rolled down. A song began to play that she had heard a million times--and she loved it all along. Something was different this time around, and words of one of her professors came echoing back, "Read it again, the words won't have changed. But my, you have." How she'd changed, and she didn't even realize it was happening. The song was poignant. Her finger pushed the back button again and again--letting the lyrics be a heavy hammer through the dimness she had been facing. And tears press against her eyes because it's been so long since she's felt anything.

Daylight proved to chase away the darkness and contentment settled in. Peace came over her mind and settled in her heart. Though the days she will face may be difficult, she will not be alone. This is the story of a girl alive with hope. 

"Hope, sweet Hope, how much more can she take being our strength when our hearts run out of faith?... Hope is with me in my time of trouble, when it all comes crashing down she will stay by my side digging through the rubble. She's not giving up, not giving up, not giving up..." [Hope, Remedy Drive]

And I know You are everything to me...

So many things I could write about, and yet nothing.

This heart is bursting at the seams with all manners of stories.

It hears those written by others--I do so enjoy reading for pleasure and not having to analyze every detail, but instead allowing the pieces to slip together. These very pieces slip into my dreams.

It hears the story I write, anxious for me to put the pen to the page. There are voices of character so loud, Why do you fight a war that isn't your own! And then there are those that whisper, and pray that I will hear, I just want someone to share this burden with me... So I try to figure out how the pieces go together, unable to simply be passive and let it happen. I must actively pursue the thoughts so they can take form. And yet I cannot shape them into something they are not. These shadows of forms-to-be also permeate my sleep.

It hears also my story, the one I live day to day. The one that makes less sense than anything else in the world. There are many questions that I may never know the answers to. But those silences allow me to let my faith grow. Indeed, I must as actively pursue that growth as any other thing. There are things that take my attention, but nothing should utterly distract me to kill this thing that is trying to grow wings.

And I hear my own voice echo my characters, Have I lost my own voice? I don't even know my own voice anymore. It is a strange thing, to imagine a character that hears voices in her head, because then you must also, and you already have her voice in your mind, and all of her real friends too. But I have not lost myself because I have not lost the most important voice of all.

So many voices. And still, I hear one that cries out in my noise. It cries in a whisper. A still, small Voice. All these stories, and I can still keep my eyes fixed on the One story that means the world--it means everything.

"So many voices in my head. I need You, oh I need You. I'm not going to walk away. You've got to take my hand today. Would You open my eyes. Would You take me by the hand. When I'm running through the storm, I will trust in You." [Inhabited]

God, I want to dream again, take me where I've never been...

I may not have a job yet, hopefully that will come soon, but I've still been keeping busy. In a sense.

I've done a fair amount of reading--surprisingly enough it's all been young adult fiction, a genre I don't generally enjoy. It's not so much that I dislike it... I dislike what it's doing to young readers... but that's a post for another day. (And I know I'll get a lot of grief for it, so it can wait.) What I want to talk about is my independent study, actually.

I can't remember if I have posted about this directly yet or not... I've certainly thought about it a lot. In this independent study I'm required to write an hour a day (at least) and pick an author I would like to emulate. Which is a word I don't particularly like, I've decided. I don't want to be another author, but I do want to learn from them. Ideally, this would be an author that writes a similar genre to what I'm interested in, but do it differently than I do, or better than I do.

So I've been reading Fantasy. The problem with finding a fantasy writer of whom I am going to read all of their works is that they write a lot. Now, naturally the first author that came to mind was Tolkien. (How did you guess? You know me so well.) However, even he was a prolific writer in that he wrote the entire history of Middle Earth. I'm not ready to tackle all of that in a summer. And besides, I just did a study on him, and if I'm going to learn more then I need to pick someone new.

What have I been reading?

Well, I'm just about to finish reading Graceling by Kristin Cashore. And let me tell you, for this being her debut novel, I'm impressed. She has created this fantasy world with skill, and I can tell she has put a lot of thought into it. I feel bad choosing her though because she's only written one book. But it's a good one. I'm excited to see how it ends.

I've also been reading the Hunger Games trilogy. I just need to read Mockingjay. I'm anxious to see how Suzanne Collins is going to wrap this all up--there are so many questions swirling around in my head. I don't think that I would classify these as strictly fantasy, but more as a fantastical dystopia.

In addition to these books (which mostly only take me a day to read) I've been reading The Books of Pellinor by Allison Crogan. (I think that's how you spell her name.) These are intense. I first read The Naming my summer between my Sophomore and Junior year of high school. And I had started The Riddle shortly after. It's been a book I return to off and on. I was determined to finish it this summer, and the rest of the four book series. These books make me happy, and not because they're particularly joyful--they're not. No, it's something else--they're challenging. Even for me, a senior in college. Yet, they're considered to be YA books because the protagonist is a young adult. But the reading is dense, full of detail and creative devices. And intrigue! I'm being surprised all the time, and I love that I can't necessarily predict it! I love that there are young adults out there reading these books and being actively challenged. I'll have to do some research and see if she's written anything else. I also love her mastery of scenery, something I desperately lack.

Most of all, while I'm writing, I'm beginning to realize that I'm afraid of what this could turn into. My instinct is to just pump the story out--finally finish Morning Star so she won't be a burden anymore. But I've wrapped my identity around this book--what if people don't like her? Each of those characters carries a piece of who I am, or who I want to be. Do I really want to release them out to a world that they may be ridiculed? Am I strong enough to handle that possibility?

And then there's the issue of names. The protagonist of Graceling: Katsa. The protagonist of The Hunger Games: Katniss. Thank goodness that The Books of Pellinor don't have a protagonist who's name starts with 'K.' And then there's Morning Star, who contains a character, one who will be fairly influential even if she doesn't get the book title: Katra. It makes me angry that these other books have come out before I could finish mine... mine that has been in the works for at least seven years. I don't want to be just another female writer with a female character who's name starts with a 'K.'

And am I writing for a young adult audience? That would be ironic, after all. Or am I more like Markus Zusak? Not writing for any particular audience, but telling a story I feel must be told. (Granted, my story doesn't carry as much weight as one about Nazis.) More on this when I talk about Young Adult literature I think.

Do you have any author suggestions?

"Forget the fear, it's just a crutch that tries to hold you back and turn your dreams to dust. All you need to do is just dream." [Fireflight]

Why do I do the things I do?

In my Language and Linguistics class we have started talking about grammar. (This is where most people tell me I'm crazy for being and English major. Who likes grammar?) Well, we've been discussing the difference between writing and usage. Most of the time, when someone says, "They have really bad writing skills," they mean the usage, not the writing itself. Someone can be an excellent writer--usually characterized by complete and original thoughts and ideas--but then their usage can be sour--comma use is poor, spelling is bad, sentence structure is lacking, ect.

Now, I've always regarded myself as a decent writer. (Can you see a bit of that confidence coming into play? Really, if you're writing and you think it's worth reading, you have a least a little bit of an ego.) In the middle of class though, I started to have a mental break-down. Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Do my usage skills suck? Should I switch my major? Do all of my colleagues cringed when they read my papers? Did I proof-read that paper for Dr. Ashby very well? What about the one for Dr. Gernant? What would I do if I didn't write? That's the basic idea of what this internal melt-down looked like.

Then I had to go to Poetry Writing. Now, I love that class, it is one of my favorites. I'm normally fairly vocal about my opinions in that class...but yesterday I just couldn't do it. Those feelings of self-doubt, that Ling and Lang instilled in me, were leaking over into my poetry. Now, I did speak a little, but not nearly as much as I normally do...at least it felt like less.

After that I had to work. While I was working I needed to finish a paper for Dr. Thurber, before our meeting. The entire time I was stressing out about how I wasn't using perfect MLA formatting... (I hate formatting, by the way.)

Once I got into his office though, a deep calm seem to rush over me. There's just something about that man that soothes the frayed nerves. We had an excellent conversation about my independent study. He would read to me little bits of what I had written in previous papers and then he would tell me how well I articulated it and would ask me to expound upon what I had said. These are papers I had written at least a month ago, so it was kind of hard to recall exactly I had meant when typing them.

The meeting lasted a half an hour. And when it was all done, Dr. Thurber told me he was very glad to see where I was going with this research into Tolkien's Middle Earth. Deep sigh of relief. I am where I am supposed to be. This is at least part of what I was meant to do. Praise God for gentle reminders.


"If you're a ship and you're lost in the ocean, I'll be the wind in your sails, give you motion. I will guide you home. If you're too far out that you can't see the shore line, I'll be the lighthouse shining in the night time. I will guide you home. I will guide you home. When the night is long, when the storm is strong, I will guide you, I will guide you home." [Remedy Drive]

Dark have been my dreams of late...

What happens when you have influenza? You sleep a lot.
What happens when you have a fever? You have feverish dreams. Yes. That's where I've been.

Well, this is me wanting to share the dream I had Friday night. It might require a little backstory.

Backstory: I have a "friend" named Mike. Now, I say "friend" because I'm not entirely sure what we are. We sat next to each other in Modern Poetry last semester... and we talked in class. He didn't live on campus though, so I never saw him at meals or outside of class. I wish I had. At the end of last semester he kind of disappeared... I haven't seen him since probably the first week in December. Yeah. I've been a little worried, but I don't have any way to getting a hold of him. Mike is an agnostic/atheist. I never even tried to talk to him about my faith. Yeah. So after Dare 2 Share I was feeling pretty lame about that, and started praying that I would at least get a chance to talk to him again. We'll see if that ever happens. I hope it does.

Okay. I think that's enough backstory. If I think of anything else I'll put it in parentheses. On to the dream.

Dream: My family and I were in Iowa visiting my mom's family. Only, this wasn't the small town in Iowa that I was familiar with, it was most of a suburb. And there was snow. Lots of it. Actually, it kind of reminds me of a suburb in Omaha. Anyways...

We got to this house where my Grandparents were with my cousin and her family (all four kiddos). It was kind of disturbing because Lily, the second oldest who's four, had really short baby-fuzz hair. (In real life she has super long and beautiful blonde hair.) I never did find out what the deal was with that. The newest edition, Jordyn, sure was a beautiful baby though. It made me really want to see her.

Before we even had a chance to get all of our stuff into the house my grandpa announced that he invited Mike to join us at the bowling alley. And almost immediately, Mike walked through the door. (I had once told a friend that if I ever saw him again I may just become overcome by whatever girly emotion I was feeling and just hug him because he was okay.) I didn't jump him right away. At first, I felt incredibly awkward and I was trying to get stuff all squared away. So he was standing in the hallway talking to my family.

Eventually, I did return to the hall and get that hug... which was weird. Because we did this thing where we were still hugging but walking down the hallway to the kitchen, kind of like dancing. My dad was following us, so I laughed and I whispered in Mike's ear that Dad was following. Mike promptly let me go and walked back down the hall. Yeah. Weird. He still hasn't said a word to me at this point.

And then it was suddenly time to go to the bowling alley, apparently, because I was the only one left in the house. I grabbed my coat and purse, and by the time I got outside all the cars were gone. I couldn't even find my car. And then my brother was running towards me on the sidewalk saying, "Anna, we've gotta go!" I said, "I can't find my car! I don't know where it went. I'm the only one with a key, where could it have gone?" Mom and Dad drove up to get us then, so I told them about my car. Mom's response was, "It's probably just blending in with the snow, it is white after all." I think I raised an eyebrow at her and then realized that they were driving my car. I don't know how... Dad's got mad skills.

So we got to this bowling alley, and as it turns out we're celebrating a birthday, I don't know whose. I end up sitting in the lobby with Lily on my lap, Mike is nowhere to be found, not that I had looked particularly hard. He came out of the actually alley and said, "I gonna head out." My grandpa just told him it was good to see him again. I almost had a panic attack.

"Mike! Wait, we haven't even gotten a chance to talk!" I tried to set Lily down on the floor, but she grabbed my ankle. "Mike, wait!" I finally got her to let me go, and ran outside after him.

I got into his truck with him, and he immediately started driving away (!!!) and started saying, "What are we evening doing here? We don't like bowling."

"Well, I like bowling. Wait...we?"

"And the Lord of the Rings. We don't even like those movies."

"What are you talking about? I love those movies. Why do you keep calling us, 'we?'"

"Can we go rent some Stargate?"

"Why would we do that? I own most of it...you like Stargate?" I knew by then that he wasn't going to answer any of my questions.

"I don't even know why I'm here."

"What do you mean "here?" Do you mean, like, in Iowa, or the bowling alley?"

"I mean, here, on this earth and here, in Iowa." He then went on to talk about reinjuring his foot and getting into the karaoke business. Which is apparently how he knew my grandpa.

"Mike, I know why you're here--"

And then I woke up. Yeah. Lame. I was going to tell him that he was there because I had prayed for a second chance with him... and I didn't even get that. sigh


"Then I was weary, very weary; and I walked long in dark thought." [Gandalf, Two Towers]