Missing Her

I miss Nana now and again. Just been thinking about her lately. I think it may have something to do with the fact that July is approaching and therefore, so it the one year mark since she passed away. I really still can't wrap my brain around it. Death is so bizarre; that's the best way to describe it really.

I'm still in Colorado, in case you didn't know, and I'm loving my graphic design job. Just the other day I got a job redesigning some brochures...so I began reading them. One of the brochures was recounting a story and talking about a woman by the name of Mary Jean...Nana's name. My heart melted a little bit.

I feel like I find little reminders of her everywhere. The other day we went thrift-ing and I bought a Ball mason jar just because it reminded me of the one's we would drink from at Nana and Pop's house. As a perused, I found myself seeking anything that might remind me of home or of her. I'm not really even homesick, but I yearn to remain emotionally close. I yearn for her. I miss her lots.

I'd like to think she'd be really proud of me right now. I want to tell her all about it and how wonderful it's all going. I want her to call by "Baby Doll" again and squeeze my hand with her delicate fingers. Her hands were always cold, but it never bothered me...all the more reason to squeeze them tightly.

Boy, I miss her. Love you, Nana.

Yours truly, Baby Doll

Colorado

Surprise! I'm now writing from beautiful (and I mean really beautiful) Colorado! More on that later...another blog perhaps. We shall see. Just wanted to give that little update. For now, it's bedtime. Goodnight.

A New Chapter

So, I graduated from college last week. Hence the unabashed plug for Shutterfly graduation announcements. Looking forward to seeing how those turn out. Anyway, yeah, I'm a college graduate.

Wow.

Can you believe it?! Neither can I.

It's strange. It hasn't even really hit me yet, you know, that I'm done being an undergraduate. What in the world?! When did that happen?!

Apparently, it's time to turn the page and embark on the next chapter, whatever that is. I assume it has something to do with getting a job (okay, I know it will have something to do with getting a job), then moving out, and becoming financially independent...all that jazz.

There's a lot of stuff that I'm not exactly looking forward to. Take bills, for example. Grown up stuff. I'm also quite frightened of what life will look like not living with my parents. They're are such a huge part of my identity. They're my comfort.

And then there's that little prick of excitement, exhilaration, hope. The future could be brilliant. Not necessarily easy, but vivid.

A few weeks ago I was in the cutest local town. I've lived within a few miles of it my entire life, but never stopped to tour the artsy little hamlet. I was seeking vintage pins for a close friend (which I found in an adorable thrift store) and on my way, I stumbled upon funky little gift shop, where I found these delightful buttons. I selected one for each of the girls in my Bible study and one for myself, though I had the hardest time figuring on which what best suited me. After much deliberation, I chose this for myself:

She most heartily enjoyed pursuing life.

How fitting for the girl terrified of adulthood. It's the perfect reminder that I should pursue this new chapter with joy. I may not necessarily be happy all the time, but I will rejoice in life nonetheless. I will most heartily pursue a life in Him.

It's going to be a fabulous chapter.

Stationery Card

Modern Notebook Aqua Graduation Announcement

Shutterfly graduation party invitations and gift ideas.

View the entire collection of cards.

Mighty Mouse

I am an overly-sentimental person. It's a curse...the makings of a hoarder.

Yikes, hope not.

But really, as I go through the heap of clothes that sits on my bedroom floor, a symptom of a schedule that has just now begun to cool down, I find myself confronted by my own sentimentality.

Perhaps this is obvious; then again, maybe not. It is peculiar to me that the things to which I find myself most sentimentally attached are not pieces of priceless jewelry or family heirlooms, but random items of no consequence to anyone else; t-shirts in particular. Just moments ago, I was sorting through some old clothes, when I found a raggedy Mighty Mouse t-shirt that I've probably had since kindergarten. I can't bear to part with it.

It's way too big for me. I assume it's XXL, but the tag has lost any identifying marks and is now just a plain black tab of fabric. There are rust stains on the collar and Mighty Mouse's bright yellow suit is all faded. The white has lost it's glow and the plastic-y stuff that makes up Mighty Mouse's teeth, ears, and the whites of his eyes, is crackled all over.

I love it so.

We used to live in a house without any sort of neighborhood pool. On summer days, we would visit my grandparents and spend hours swimming in their community pool. My grandparents lived right next door to the public pool, so it was a very short walk there and back. In the evening, we would return to Nana and Pop's for showers and comfy clothes. We once came without anything to change into and so returned home in Nana's too-big t-shirts...dresses for us. She gave me the Mighty Mouse tee and I've had it ever since.

In second grade, my grandparents sold their house to my parents and moved three hours away. Second grade was a horrible year for me, but, until recently, I had only ever blamed it on my family moving; I didn't realize that my relationship with my grandparents had changed so dramatically. The days of evening pool runs were over.

It's as if some chapter of my early childhood, long past, is preserved in this silly tee. It's ridiculous, I know, but Mighty Mouse isn't going anywhere for a long, long time.

Marbles

It's been far too long since I last posted. I suppose life will do that to you...snatch your time away. So will my dear old friend, Procrastination, who has brought me here to post rather than work on graphic design or study for Saturday's German exam.

It's officially the week of finals. It is also my last week as an undergraduate. Countdown to Colorado officially began two days ago. Oh yes, and precisely one week from today, I will be graduating.

I think it's safe to say that this is a crazy time for me, though I'm certainly not alone. I'm teetering somewhere on that fine line between whatever this stage is that I am currently in and whatever it is that comes next. Apparently, neither stage is very well-defined. It feels like my life is just about to be flipped upside down. I can see myself scrambling, chasing after the pieces, scattering like marbles.

Marbles seem the perfect metaphor for life. (Marbles also remind me Toodles in one of the greatest movies of my childhood. Brownie points if you know the film.) I imagine myself with a little bag of marbles. The bag is linen or perhaps made of a vintage handkerchief. Why? Because it suits me. The bag is stitched intricately with ocean blue thread and filled with marbles of different sizes and colors. I can imagine each one as it represents some aspect of my life, whether a person or a responsibility or an aspiration.

There are some marbles that I wouldn't mind trading, but others are essential to my collection. Either way, they're all headed for the floor, because someone it about to spill my precious little bag and there's nothing I can do to prevent it. I await that telling moment when I will scurry across the floor, frantically trying to keep my life together.

Things will be lost along the way, rolled into some out-of-reach corner. Things will be discovered as well, beneath some cabinet. The collection will change. I'm just wondering what it will look like.

Five Dollars

This past Sunday we were leaving for church and, as always, I went to kiss Pop goodbye. I'm a little bit of a weirdo, I guess, but I just cannot leave without giving him a squeeze and kissing him on the cheek. Should I go without a proper goodbye, I tend to feel unsettled and have to convince myself that it's going to be alright.

I'm on a tangent.

As I hurriedly kissed him and turned to go, he stuffed five crinkled dollars into my hand. Forty-five minutes later I was sitting in mass, awaiting the arrival of the collection basket, watching as it weaved in and out from pew to pew. Something came over me. I felt like a little kid clinging to some prized possession, buzzing with an eagerness to share it. Though it wasn't even my money, or much money for that matter, I was excited to be sharing in the act of sharing.

It was in that moment that I was taken with a new sense of joy in raising support for the coming summer. I was so excited to place a little piece of myself (or my grandfather) in that basket so that it might bless someone else...so excited that I nearly spilled the entire basket on my mom.

I recall one Christmas, back when Target still allowed bell-ringers from the Salvation Army, we were leaving and we passed by that iconic red bucket. I was probably thirteen and was receiving an allowance of seven dollars once every two or three weeks. I had a five dollar bill in my wallet and the sudden urge to give it away. I slipped it in that little slot. It was exhilarating.

I had forgotten what a joy it is to share in that way. Raising support can seem so burdensome and invasive. Who am I to ask another for the money to pay for my summer? My tendency is to believe that it is wrong to have my trip paid for by the funds of someone else.

It's not about me though, is it? It's about serving Him and serving others through Him. There are certainly perks for me in the process, but it's not about me. It's about Him working. If I don't trust Him to bring support in, then I am stealing the joy of another who wants to experience Him. Contrary to what I tend to believe, I am not stealing by asking for support, I am stealing by neglecting to ask.

And it only cost five dollars to remind me.

Good Friday

It's Good Friday. A day that is somber, yes, and yet we excitedly anticipate what we are to celebrate in less than forty-eight hours. This day is grave and miraculous simultaneously. Christ suffered immensely before passing on the cross, but it is by this that we are granted freedom.

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

It's also Earth Day, which I find somewhat ironic and exceedingly less important. I like the planet, I do, but it's hilarious to me that the motivation behind many an Earth Day activity is the hope that we might save the world.

Think about this with me for a second. Then laugh. It's Good Friday. It is by our acceptance of what this day signifies that the world has true hope for salvation.

Of All Places

I believe that God enjoys inserting Himself into my day in funny, surprising little (and sometimes big) ways. I suppose you could argue that I recognize random things as being of Him because I seek to have it be that way, but I don't know, I really think He places little tidbits in my life purposefully. He's big enough, He can do that.

I'm an art major. I'm honing in on graphic design. In my "field" Christianity isn't exactly in. I've been thinking a lot lately about post-college life, when I will be stripped of my Christian-y group identity and sent out. It's not that I'm going to a Christian school or anything, that's most certainly not the case, but I'm sure good at sticking with Christians. It's safe...and comfy. Well, it occurred to me yesterday, as I meandered about looking at work in one of my design classes, that I am awfully quick to hide my Christian identity when tossed into a "secular" group, for lack of a better term. I've been forewarned that it is frighteningly easy to fall away from your faith once you leave the spiritual sanctuary of a club you've found in college. I've continually thought, in response, that such a thing will never happen to me...no way! Then it occurred to me, I already do that. Yikes.

Not much later, we're in the midst of a discussion. It's always intriguing when we get into the intermingling of morality and graphic design, which we did yesterday. Primarily we discussed where you are morally obligated when it comes to the use of fonts. In case you didn't know, fonts are super expensive...I certainly didn't know that when I picked my major. Anyway, that's not my point. We also discussed whether, as designers, we are responsible for being knowledgeable of other cultures and languages. Should we be designing accordingly? Are we obligated to design intentionally for other people groups beyond our own?

The answer isn't clear. It was argued that it's better to stick with what you know and, should you need or want to stretch beyond that, to really immerse yourself in everything you can about the people you're designing for.

But here's what really caught my attention. My professor contended that, if we wait to design until we have thorough knowledge of everything, we will never design. Our work will never get out there because we're so concerned with what we don't know.

What in the world does this have to do with faith? Here's my thinking: in the big scheme of things, graphic design is nothing; we trump in up to be huge, but it's really nothing. I can never know everything about graphic design and how to be a good designer, but I'm still supposed to design. I'm still supposed to put myself out there, in spite of the fact that I will never be fully equipped.

God is ginormous. I can never know everything about Him. I can try, but let's be honest, it's not going to happen. As a Christian, it is quite literally my job to put myself out there and share Him. So often I don't do that, not only because it's scary and I'm shy, but because I feel ill-equipped. I feel like I don't know enough to be doing my job...but that's not how it works. If I wait until I know all there is to know about God, I will never share Him with anyone else...ever. No one would ever share Him with anyone.

That is truly an epic fail.

And I learned this in graphic design? Yes. I told you, He likes to surprise me.

Uplifted

As we embark on yet another week, I feel I must reflect on the fabulous one I've just had. I'm not even sure I can fully explain how very uplifted I've been feeling. The past week has just been spiritually brimming.

It began Monday, with that mammoth donation from my grandmother and God's elbow poking me in the ribs, figuratively of course.

Thursday morning I got to talk to a dear, dear friend via Skype and it was fabulous. To the creator of Skype, thank you from my core. Again, so uplifting. This girl I talked to, she's a wise one. Her life truly rests in His palms and she inspires me. Needless to say, it was an incredible way to start my Thursday.

I concluded my Thursday fantastically. Bible study and Cru. Let me just say, I love my Bible study. In all honesty, it's small size was, at one point, quite discouraging. Now a cherish it. I love these girls and the fact that we're getting to know each other by getting to know Him. It's always a relief when a study seems to go well...when it seems like the girls are actually engaged and invigorated by the material. It is made all the better when the foursome walks to Cru together only to listen to a talk directly related to the study, which was the case this Thursday. It was just great. I took more notes in my little red Moleskine journal than I have in quite awhile. I'll share with more specificity later.

Two days later I found myself in a room with a bunch of Maryland seniors talking about life after college (a topic that consumes my thoughts 75% of the time), more specifically, Christian life after college. It was good, in spite of my being completely overwhelmed and a tad jittery. I was soaked with information over the course of our eight hours together and left with an anxiousness that I find is proportional to the nearness of adulthood and my heightened awareness of its proximity.

Then came this unanticipated sense of security. I graduate in little over a month and have no plans past August, but I'm getting the sense that it's actually going to be okay. I'm feeling taken care of and it's remarkably reassuring.

I want so much to keep writing about this right now, but to morning is creeping up on me. Goodnight.

Nudging

Big announcement! I'm going to be spending two months of my summer in Colorado on Summer Project!

What's Summer Project? Well, in the most basic terms, it's a mission project with Campus Crusade for Christ. For me, it's a graphic design internship and evangelism project in Colorado. It's fairly exciting...and fairly frightening.

Evangelism alone is a fearsome thing, but what is truly consuming me at this moment is the idea of being away for so long. I've lived at home all through college. I've lived at home for...forever. I twenty-three and I've never been away from home for more than nine days or so. Yes, nine days. This is a big deal.

Such a big deal, in fact, that I'm already a tad homesick. Silly, but true. There's a pricking at my heart when I think about being away from my home for that long.

And yet, there's this pounding in my chest and excitement buzzing in my ears. God has this awesome way of reinforcing the idea that this is right. He's surrounded me with people who want this for me (often more than I do). I've clothed myself in fear and hesitation and He's bathed me in encouragement.

You see, I'm supposed to raise my way there. I'm expected to collect over $3000 (more like $4000) of support...and I have yet to send out a single copy of my support letter. I've certainly prayed about it, but this ever-so-carefully composed letter of which I speak of has yet to even leave my computer (or be entirely finished, for that matter). I don't know what it is that is holding me back. Fear perhaps? After all, it is quite a leap of faith to place my heart upon a page, wrap it in an envelope, and send it off to someone, asking that he or she pay for a piece of my summer.

My unwitting resistance has served only to make way for God to work. I've already raised $1600. Just the other day I visited my grandmother with a load of groceries and, without my even bringing up Colorado, she told me she had decided to double her original $500 donation to $1000. I didn't even know what to say. I think I smiled and tried somehow to express my gratitude, but I think mostly I just stared, wide-eyed.

If God has elbows, He's nudging me. He's whispering in my ear. You asked and I am providing. Just imagine what I'll do when you send out those letters.

Okay, God, I hear you.

In Bloom

I feel like I'm speaking into some expansive, dark room...or sending bottled messages out upon a great sea. I have no idea if anyone is listening. Perhaps I'm talking to myself. Assuming with hope that there is someone out there, sitting in the stillness of this room (which is actually quite creepy) or floating about among the waves, I intend to keep writing.

My hope is that my thoughts resonate with someone. I am certainly not alone in thinking that this phase of life is pivotal, and therefore both intimidating and exhilarating. There is a persistent pounding in my chest and a knotting of my stomach. The dreaded adulthood is upon me. I am frightened. I am enlivened.

This past week I got a taste of what I might look like with out the constant identity and security of my family. I was introduced to this girl who is actually sort of wonderful. I like her. She is not so different that I felt a piece of me had been lost, but she is awake. She is funny. She can speak. She is part of something great.

I can feel things shifting. As noted by a friend of mine, I am blossoming.

Pop

There's something I believe deserves acknowledgment. This past Tuesday marked a year since my grandfather, Pop, had quadruple bypass surgery following a heart attack he suffered while caring for Nana. This is a man who, until about this time last year, spent each and every day of the past few years caring for my dying grandmother. As she drifted away, he did all in his power to keep her near, to maintain her lifestyle and her dignity. He refused to put her in a nursing home. When it was suggested that he purchase a hospital bed for his own ease in caring for her, he refused; he wasn't about to stop sleeping next to his wife after sixty years lying side-by-side.

As I write this, I have the end of She's Having a Baby playing in the background. (Seriously, you need to see this movie.) This shouldn't give anything away...I've just come to the part where "This Woman's Work" plays over a montage of the couple's early married years. It makes my heart ache. This is how I imagine my grandparents, except in the 1950s (and I actually think it's pretty close to the first years of my own parents' marriage). I love it.

Anyway, early one morning, Pope woke up to turn Nana, as he did several times each night. He was short of breath, but he got back in bed and went to sleep. We're talking about an eighty-four-year-old man doing all of the labor involved in caring for an adult who could walk...who could not even adjust herself while seated. It was hard, hard work.

But he kept with it. He's loyal. He loved her...he still loves her. And, oh, how he misses her. I think he always thought he'd go first, but he didn't. He's here with us and a new lifestyle is taking shape. This is how I would sum up the past year in a few words:

Fear.

Grief.

Joy.

Love.

Life. So much life.

Wendy Darling

I don't really want to grow up.

It wasn't until this morning that I came upon what might be the reason for my lifelong love of Peter Pan. I'm not sure exactly what had me thinking about it. I watched She's Having a Baby last night as I fell asleep...maybe that's what did it. (If you've never seen that movie, I urge you to check it out. The further into my twenties I get, the more relevant it becomes.)

Maybe it's that I've been sick the past few days. I can recall being a little kid, sick in the middle of the night, sitting in my mom's lap in the den watching Disney's original animated Peter Pan...on VHS. Memories such as these make me feel warm and fuzzy.

I'd say "maybe" again, but this is what it probably is. I believe that I've entered what some might call a quarter-life crisis (thank you, John Mayer). It seems I am always thinking about the fact that I am on the verge of a stage of life that is just plain weird. I'm getting ready to graduate from college and it's overwhelming.

This is what I'm anticipating. In an attempt to create my adult, post-college self, I'm going to lose half of the identity I solidified during said college years; I shall bid farewell to all of the structure I've had for 85% of my life; and, oh yeah, an enormous slice of my childhood will be snatched away. Hello, Responsibility, I want my life back.

Let's be honest, most of us aren't really adults in college. We have our mature (responsible) moments, sure, but for many of us, it's still so safe. Maybe I'm wrong, but for me, it's been safe...so safe.

And really good, too. So good.

But it isn't really adulthood.

And that's what's so scary about it all; that's what makes me want to retreat.

So, back to where we began. My knowledge of the tale of Peter Pan is limited by the fact that I've never actually read the book, but here is what I gather from the numerous screen versions I've seen...

Peter Pan was stuck. He's a middle-aged man living in his parents' basement. He's clinging so desperately to his childhood that it's become embarrassing to admit that perhaps growing up wouldn't be so bad after all. And he's missed out, boy, has he missed out.

Yes, Wendy and the Darling boys return home because they miss mom and dad, but they make a compromise in doing so. They have to grow up. The boys are carefree...they have time, but Wendy knows what she faces in returning home. She has to move out of the nursery. She has to become a woman and do womanly things. She can't be a kid anymore...but then I wonder if she really wants to be. My guess is, she doesn't want to get stuck like the boy who won't grow up.

So she grows up, maybe reluctantly, but she does. She has a life...a fictional one, but you get the idea. She makes the most of what she can't actually control. Yes, she waits for Peter's eventual return, but did she really want him to come back? Think about it. Would you?

It might be exciting to revisit to the land of perpetual juvenescence, but, like Wendy, I don't know that I'd go. I'd feel obligated to, of course, that's just part of my personality; I'd hate to let him down. Honestly, though, why go back when you've found something so much better and fuller and richer? Pete's enchanting, sure, but the guy's got no life. He's been so afraid of failing, that he fails; and so afraid of losing, that he's lost.

So, like my fifth Halloween, I'm going to be Wendy Darling.

It's just better this way.

Crumbs

Not much time has passed since I last posted...and with so little to say. Words flow freely in my mind, elegant and witty, pleading to be placed on the page, but when my fingers hit the keys, that which only moments before seemed so eloquent, has vanished. It is quite unfortunate.

I have returned so quickly to offer some explanation for the peculiar title of this blog. It is quite peculiar, is it not?

Let me begin by noting that I seek meaning. I love when seemingly independent elements are found to be woven together, ever so intricately. This is my life right now...seeking the stitches.

All this to say that the title of this blog is not at all random...not in the slightest. And yes, it holds far greater meaning to me than the act of feeding ducks, however deliciously whimsical that very act might be.

My grandmother, Nana, passed away this past summer. It is the strangest sensation to lose someone. It is nearly indescribable. As I work through the mourning process (which seems only to have just begun), I find myself yearning to find remnants of Nana in my life...crumbs.

I sat on my bed this afternoon, legs crossed, having somewhat spontaneously decided to begin a blog, but with absolutely no clue of what to name it (or what to write about). I could not bear the thought of titling it rashly, with no consideration of significance. Surveying my room, I sought something that might yield a meaningful title and found nothing. A "Breakfast at Tiffany's" poster, a jumble of clothes on the floor, a vase of yellow daisies...

Then it came to me; suddenly and for no apparent reason. Nana. A glimpse of a moment we shared when I was only a few feet tall and nearly bald, because my curls hadn't grown in yet. There we stood, in the backyard of my grandparents' beach house, overlooking a narrow canal. Nana was still round then, wearing shorts and a long white t-shirt, chunky gold earrings, and her long, delicate gold chain. We tore slices of bread into beak-sized pieces and threw them to the ducks gathering nearby. (Apparently you aren't supposed to do that anymore, but it made for great memories back when it was entirely innocent.)

I smile when I think of that. I smile when I think of her. Of course, there's always that twinge of pain...that hollow in my chest feels all the more vacant whenever I reminisce. I hear that such wounds heal; that the emptiness fills with the joy of moment once shared.

The joy of feeding crumbs to ducks.

Here we are...

Never before have I written a blog. Ever. And to be entirely honest, I'm not at all sure of where this could possibly be going or why you might be interested in reading it. But it could be great. I suppose you'll just have to wait and see.