Land and Houses

“How does it feel to be a homeowner?” is a question I’ve been asked a lot lately. 

Caleb asked me last night, after we got back to our new place. We’d just spent some time crying at our old place, the sunny rental house with soft, clean carpet and rooms empty of furniture, but full of memories.

I gave him my most honest answer yet, “Meh.” 

“Oh good,” he responded. “You’re feeling the same way I am.”

You can read more about our conflicting feelings about moving here. 

Today, as I wander the yard tending my plants who also endured the move, I look at and try to listen to the land. I pay my tax to the mosquitos who live here, only two bites this time. It sinks in that I am also a landowner. As soon as it sinks in, it makes me laugh. 

Owning land is a strange idea. I think a lot about the history of this slice of the planet I call home. It used to be prairie, part of the plains. It was (and is) near a river. It had softly rolling hills. Animals roamed it, wildflowers and innumerable edible plants grew abundantly. 

The land has been here for hundreds of thousands of years. Our house is close to 70 years old. While we may be the owner on paper, we are really just the dwellers. We inhabit the house and care for the land. This carries a sense of responsibility. We are going to ask our little slice of land to help us do some things, like collect rain water and help us turn our food scraps back into earth. We’ll put up a clothesline and plant food. But the land is also asking something of us. And so, we also listen and try to hear what it’s asking us to do. 

On concerts

I attended my first [popular music] concert at the age of 22.

And ever since then, I have disliked concerts.

If you love concerts, hear me out.

The concert I attended when I was 22 was outside. It was loud and there was lots of cigarette smoke. I hate loud music and cigarette smoke. People throw so many things you can recycle in the trash. You can't bring your own reusable water bottle, thanks to a few people who smuggled in alcohol and ruined it for the people who want to stay hydrated.

If you buy the kind of tickets I have to buy to concerts (the cheapest ones, which are still super expensive), there is usually nowhere that is not gross to sit.

I recently attended a concert inside. It was a small-ish concert, inside a dark bar (dislike) with posters for all the bands who would be coming next. Most bands had grotesque graphics and dark names. The artist I was seeing sang songs about peace, nature, harmony, unity. I watched the bartenders and concert-goers throw away huge amounts of recycling, while an opening act sang about the evils of Monsanto and received loud cheers. I felt confused. There was no cigarette smoke, but there was a different kind of smoke. I learned, from my concert-experienced husband, that you do not mention that it smells like that kind of smoke. Oops. Sorry about that, fellow concert-goers. I also learned from him that you should not wear the shirt of the band or artist you are going to see; and I learned (too late) that you should not spend the whole day listening to that artist in preparation for the show.

We sat (sat!) through an opening act that was fine, a second opening act, which required ear plugs (dislike). Then it was time. Earplugs in place, we got up and pushed our way into the sea of sweaty, swaying bodies. It was about 15 degrees warmer in that part of the room. We found our spot. It was like ten pm. My bedtime.

And then it happened. The artist we had come to see came on the stage. He looked different from the last two times we'd seen him. He started playing. And, despite disliking almost everything else about the whole concert experience, I knew why I had come. The energy that lights up the room, when you are all standing there, swaying and sweating on each other, singing, is beautiful. It lights up the dark place. Maybe that's why bars are so dark... it helps you to see the colors of the music. And so we stayed, dancing as much as you can in a tiny space, singing, cheering, laughing, trying not to be too grossed out when the people around us brushed their sweaty arms against ours. Most importantly, we felt. We felt the magic of the music, the presence of the humans around us, the connection with the songwriter. And I began to feel that I might like concerts. Just a little bit. 

thoughts on the eve before purchasing our first house

I really love this house. Not the one we're buying, though I do like it, and believe that I will grow to love it over time. But I really love the house where we're living now. 

Where we live now is just the right size for us - small enough to deep clean top to bottom in 5 hours by yourself. Small enough that we can hear each other in any part of it. Big enough that when we each need space behind a closed door, we can have it. Big enough to host a friend and they can have their own bedroom. Big enough to host a New Year's Eve party, but small enough that it still feels intimate. I love the way we bump elbows in the bathroom and circulate for mirror space. I love that the kitchen is big enough for dancing, and the living room is big enough for handstands, but neither room is too big. You don't get lost in them when you're there alone. 

Our new house is big. It has an upstairs and a downstairs and a basement. I am glad for the basement, but I loved (in some peculiar way) the way it felt to slide down the ramp to the root cellar during a tornado last month. It was strange and scary and fun somehow. In our new house, there is a living room and a dining room and a family room and two bedrooms all downstairs. Plus more rooms upstairs. What are we going to do with so much space? It feels scary and not cozy. It feels too big, too much. I don't want there to be a whole room just for one couch. It's important to me to have free space, but not too much. 

I've been avoiding packing. Sure, I packed a few things, here and there, things we could live without. But I just like how our things fit so neatly in this space. How, after a few times rearranging, we achieved the perfect flow from our front door to every room in the house. (It's easier when there are only five rooms in the whole place.) But now we are going to be two people swimming in a big house. I don't like it. The real reason I want to put in a door to the garage is because I like being able to stick my head out and see Caleb when he is doing things. I like that this whole house (the current house) is on one level. 

It's hard to make decisions about things like paint and furniture arrangements, and to be honest, I don't want to arrange furniture. I like how it is where I live now. I don't want to think about paint. I like the color of my walls now.

But we can't stay here. We have to move, our landlord told us. 

So I cry just like I cry in conjunction with all the major life events, out of respect for the beauty that has come before them, and recognizing that a time has come to an ending. I cried before I finished 8th grade. I cried on the way to my high school graduation. I cried before I graduated from college. I cried before I got married, also connected to a move. And I cry now, before we buy a house. I accept that this is my way of processing things, of mourning seasons of life. I let myself cry.

And I try to remind myself that after all those other times when I cried, beautiful things happened afterwards. There's a rhythm that's been established.  I will try to let it carry me while bidding farewell to a place I love.

#Blessed

Many months ago, I read this blog called "#Blessed". It was GOOD. Really good. At the time, I was experiencing a lot of stability in my life. Everything seemed "just right" and I took time each day to be grateful for a season of rest, knowing that the kind of equilibrium I was experiencing was fleeting.

But what I noticed was there was not a lot of motivation on my part to pray, meditate, reflect, be still. When everything is going well, there just isn't too much to do except receive, share, and be grateful.

And in a lot of ways, nothing major has changed.

But a few weeks ago, we got home from work to find a note in our mailbox from our landlord. "Due to unexpected circumstances, we will be unable to renew your lease when it ends this fall..."

Caleb, painting in the first place we lived after we got married.

And just like that, I flashed back to the above blog I read:

"[B]lessed does not mean pleased. Blessed does not mean happy. Blessed does not mean fulfilled. It doesn't even mean fed or clothed or housed or healthy...

What it really means is that you are not alone, for God is with you."

I began a process of understanding what I knew the instant I read the words in that note: that coming home to find that in a few months, it won't be your home is, in fact, #blessed. Being reminded of the fine lines between "at home" and "homeless" is a gift. Remembering that "being in control" is an illusion is grace.

Welcome. The world is upside down here.

Ringing in the new year (upside-down, obviously) in the second place we've lived since getting married. 

Many people have said to me, "This could turn out to be a good thing, maybe you will move someplace really amazing!" My dad, who is quite wise, shared with me that this might be one of those things that you don't understand until afterwards, maybe even many years afterwards. That's advice he's given me before, which is some of the best advice I've ever had.

But I actually think that the blessing arrived the first week we learned we'd have to move. When I was sleeplessly tossing and turning and not taking deep breaths. And then in the reorientation that came when I remembered, not just with my mind, but in my body, how to pray.

When moving, it's important to pack flowers. 

*I would like to acknowledge that unexpectedly having to move within the same neighborhood is not what I would consider to be one of the most difficult things in life. But it's still no fun. 

Stay here, and keep watch

When I was 14 or 15, the pastor of my church shared a story during a sermon about sleeping in the sanctuary of the church during a church lock-in. (Sanctuary = the place where the service usually takes place. Lock-in - strange event where the teenagers of the church spend the night in the church building with a few gullible willing adult chaperones/ leaders.)

He asked if anyone had ever slept in the sanctuary of a church before... "It's a powerful experience", he said. "If anyone wants to try it, just let me know."

I am not sure he meant a young, teenage girl, but they have a pretty good track record in the bible. Mary, Ruth, Rebecca, you know.

I told my parents I wanted to do it. They talked to the pastor and that's how it came to be that I slept on a pew in the front of the church. My mom came with me, but she slept on some big, comfy (hopefully) couches in a different room down a hallway.

My pastor had said it was a little spooky... you alone in a big empty room with the Divine. (Though now I wonder - other than the room square footage - isn't this always true?) I didn't have a spooky experience though.

This week, western Christians celebrate Holy Week. Today is called Holy Thursday by some, Maundy Thursday by others. A traditional service today remembers the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples by retelling that story, the story of how Passover started, and might offer foot washing (digression on how much I love getting our bodies involved in worship) or confession (digression on how much I love opportunities for group confession - and absolution - in church. The sacrament of Communion happens (see above digression about bodies).

And then something powerful happens.

The lights are turned out. Everything is cleared off the altar.

And someone either reads or sings Psalm 22 or Psalm 88. Allow me a few excerpts:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?... O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent."... "My soul is full of trouble... Why O Lord do you reject me and hide your face from me?... the darkness is my closest friend."

It's just this MOMENT in the year when we stop and together see our darkness. Our need for grace, forgiveness, second, third, fourth, forever chances. As we move through the readings of the week, we find Jesus in a park, pleading, begging his friends to stay awake with him during his own moment of darkness. "Stay here and keep watch with me," he says over and over, but they sleep. (Prolly the four glasses of wine they had earlier... just saying.)

For some reason, I love this day. There is so much happening. Despite Jesus' cryptic warnings, the day  goes from normal to life-changing-in-a-bad-way real quick for the disciples. Kind of like when tragedy strikes for us.

We need this day. We need a place to bring the feelings of failure, the heavy grief over unwanted surprises, the feelings of jealousy or bitterness or anger that we hold on to all while knowing that they only hurt us.

And this is why, after seeing the altar cleared tonight, I didn't want to leave. I just wanted to dwell for a minute, trying to release all the things that I don't need to carry. It's hard, you know? And I thought back to that time I spent the night in the sanctuary. Of all the nights, this seems like the night to sleep in the sanctuary. To try and keep watch.

To be silent, for once, and think about the mystery of it all.

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This isn't the first time I've reflected about Holy Week. To read past reflections click here and here.
I've also been reflecting on this article.

What I learned from the Spanish women's locker room

When I lived in España several years ago, I belonged to a gym. A gym that was so nice, I will probably never surpass it in all my future gym memberships (if I ever have a gym membership again). I have been thinking about it a lot lately because I've been swimming at a community center.

This gym gave everyone fancy bracelets with a computer chip in them. You scanned them when you entered, the metal bar opened, and your photo popped up on this TV behind the check-in desk. I never liked my photo, but that's beside the point. All the classes were free with your membership, unlike with the community center where I've been going. The building was really modern, with a big open black staircase and classy potted plants; and there was always this calm techno going in the background. This caused me to imagine that this was the kind of exclusive joint where movie stars worked out in LA.

Source - I apparently took no photos while working out, so here is one from the website. It is notable that I never went on this roof.

I took a lot of classes that I had little to no experience with, from belly dancing (which became my jam, btw), to spinning (NOT my jam, btw), to Pilates, yoga, core workouts, water aerobics, hip hop dancing, and even a bulerias  flamenco class. (I was very under-qualified, as I dropped in after they had already learned 2/3 of the dance.)

I mostly felt a little self-conscious all the time that I worked out there, except in three places: belly dancing, swimming, and the locker room.

Here is the major difference about that women's locker room and every other locker room I have ever been in*:

Every woman changed as if there was no one around.

There was no holding the towel over yourself while trying to sneakily put on pants. Nope.

And here is what I learned, even in this fancy gym with an attached spa that did Botox and slimming treatments and sold pants that get rid of cellulite (really?): Women's bodies do not look like they do in the media.

Women have stretch marks and saggy skin and wrinkles and cellulite and are a million different shades of color. Not to sound like a creeper, but I learned in the locker room that even people who appear to look like magazine models when clothed look different when changing. Barely anyone has a flat stomach. I knew one person who did, but what I didn't know is that she was going through a lot of stress. As the year progressed, she put weight back on and told me she was relieved to be healthy again.

I've been thinking about this a lot, mostly because I have started going someplace with a locker room again. And I hope that someday if/when I have a daughter or son, I can help her to understand that her body is awesome because it lets her do all the things she wants. Having a body is the best because you can taste ice cream and feel endorphins after you lift weights, and you can find your breath to quiet down when your mind is racing. And the scars and the stretch marks and the laugh lines and the freckles are all just signs of a life lived fully.

Now, who wants some ice cream?

*The exception being when I was little and would go to water aerobics with my grandma. Afterwards was just like Spain. Except it was Nebraska. Nevermind... you get it, right?

I have something important to say.

I love you all so much that I need to tell you something. And I really want you to hear it, so even though it's important enough to type in all caps, I am not going to do it. Please read this and then tell all your friends that you love. 

There is nothing on your phone that is more important, interesting, or urgent than driving your car. 

Texting while driving gets a lot of air time in the media. But I want to talk about something else - scrolling while driving. All those things on your Facebook/ Twitter feeds... they're still going to be there when you arrive. The web and its sites are not going anywhere. But you are. We are. In cars. At high speeds. 

I could go on about this, but I just don't think there is a need to continue. There is no argument that can win. I have had too many friends (friends who actually never look at their phones) do it just one time, look down for a split second, and that's the moment when it happens. A car accident that causes expensive repair bills, higher insurance, and months of physical therapy if you are lucky enough to only have suffered whiplash. 

Now. The question is, what to do about it? I usually keep my phone on my lap when I'm driving. You know - what if someone calls? But maybe I need to keep it on silent and closed away in the center console. I think we need some positive peer pressure here... what are you going to do?