Eclectic Waters

Archive for 2009

A path has been cleared.

I spent Christmas day, from 5 p.m. to 12 p.m. cleaning and organizing my room.

Everything has a place. All my piles of paper have been banished to the filing cabinet where they sit hugging one another in colorful folders. The floor is clear and most importantly I have created a space to write in.

I have two desks in my room. One is of dark wood and is a tall desk. Michael gave it to me. It is tall like him. The right hand corner has f u c k scrawled into it, but I don’t mind. It seems to connect me to the depravity of life which my dreaming side frequently forgets. This desk sits next to my bed, under a window, and is home to my laptop. Unfortunately, the space around my laptop rarely remains clear. Instead books stack themselves around my computer, and papers fall into messy piles, leaving me no space to write.

My other desk. My recently dubbed writing desk, sits across the wall. It sits facing a blank wall with a window on the left wall, behind my back. If my other desk was made for giants, this one was made for hobbit and the wood, unlike the richness of the tall desk, is pale. But it is perfect.

I am writing.

Tonight as my roomie and I discussed the book we are reading seperately and discussing each week “First, Break All the Rules” about management, I pulled out my notes from my time of being mentored by Bill Farrel. We had been talking about decision making, and Bill had given me a comprehensive and simple way to approach decision making three years ago after Charlie and I broke off our engagement. He and his wife Jessie just had a baby by the way. The baby is beautiful and they seem to be doing well.

I pulled out the notes and as I did, I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for the people God has brought into my life – who have influenced me and helped me grow. These are the names that come to mind:

Helena Boerchers on the Logos II

Ali Wallace my teacher and friend on the Logos II

Beth Ockers at B.F.A.

Billie Whales my mentor at B.F.A. – we shared such sweet times

Pam my counselor in 2003

Billie Jean Wiebe my mentor and friend in college

Ali Cook my mentor and friend in college

Rose my mentor and friend in and after college

Bobbi my mentor in teacher ed

Yadira Gonzalez, the teacher I student taught under in teacher ed – a great mentor, coach and friend
Marie Keckler my mentor and friend in San Diego before and after Charlie
Bill Farrell my mentor after my engagement with Charlie broke off

Diana my counselor in 2008-2009
Sharon Martinez, my current supervisor, mentor and friend

When I think of them, I am overwhelmed and think, “Why me?”

“Why was I blessed with these people who had such a strong and postive influence on me – these people who have shown me the way of wisdom and life – they have taught me how to be, how to live…”

When I think of them, my eyes fill with joyful tears and I am thankful.

I am also expectant -

God with such people as this in my life – surely you are preparing me… for what?

I also feel well prepared for today, for the challenges that may come…

for the adventure of tomorrow that will come as night recedes like mist under the sun

and my path

it is gold

shining in the day’s glow

and I have been and am surrounded by these live witnesses – and by the cloud of witnesses Paul wrote about…

and so I can run with endurance the path set before me

be it gold or be it cold in the chill air of the night

God is with me

He is preparing me

I am HIS

“Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe… Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all.” -Abraham Joshua Heschel

Yesterday on my 15 minute break in the early afternoon, I walked to the back our building where there were patches of sunlight on the concrete. I walked along the line of greenery at the back of the parking lot, stopping every couple of steps to admire a leaf, a brach, or the petals of a flower. When I stop and bring my face close to these things, I am amazed at the intricacy, detail and beauty there. All these things are formed just so, with different textures, colors and shapes.

I examined two different yellow flowers. The first one had petals which were long and slim, shimmering like wet sand. The others petals were shorter and it’s color was warm and solid, very unlike the shimmering of the first.

I think I would like to make more time to simply be in nature and watch and wonder in it.

I have a stack of square papers on my desk. It is the color of gold and in the middle of each paper is a large white star. We have asked our constituents to write the names of their unsaved loved ones in the middle of the star and have committed to pray for their salvation.

It breaks my heart.

I have a stack of 100 on my desk and am praying through them – over them. It breaks my heart that so many do not know God, do now know Christ’s salvation.

They are my favorite band.

I bought the CD on a whim when I was traveling by Greyhound bus from Fresno to Vancouver Canada to visit my extended family in 2001 after my Freshman year of college. As American as I come across, I am Canadian, or at least this is what my passport says. I must have listened to the CD 20 or 30 times straight through, memorizing each line and pause. It was the ideal melancholy music to stare out the window to as the bus wound its way through the towering Rocky Mountains and small towns.

Since then I have bought the rest of their CD’s and their music is perfect for those afternoons when I sit down at my computer to get lost in my thoughts and attempt to put them into writing.

Kate, Rachael and I drove to L.A. Friday afternoon and arrived around 7 p.m. After parking we wandered the area surrounding the Nokia Theater trying to find a place to grab a quick bite to eat, but there were only sit down restaurants with high priced menu’s. We decided to wait to eat until our return back. The doors opened at 7:30 and we were in our seats by 8 p.m. The excitement in the room was palpable, but after waiting for an hour it waned slightly.

At 9 p.m. Griffin House walked on the stage and after a brief pause, stated, “I’m not Delores.” The audience laughed. After a brief introduction, he asked us if we would help him. He knew we weren’t here to see him, but he was going to walk off stage and asked if we help him pretend that we were excited to see him. He walked off stage. When he walked back on the audience went wild.

Picking up his guitar, he smiled, said thank you, and began to sing. He was good. A number of times, it felt as though he reached into my chest, took my heart out and wrung it with the poignancy of his lyrics and the experiences/truth he was communicating. His music expressed laughter, love, sorrow and musings.

He left the stage at 9:30 to raucous applause and the audience was left to wait as the final stage preparations were made for the Cranberries.

Most of the band appeared and took their places amidst whistles and shouting. And then she appeared. Dolores O’Riordan. The voice of the Cranberries. She was not what I expected, although her voice was exactly as it sounds on my CD’s.

She was short and slim. Dark, almost black, hair, cut short, framing the shape of her head. An Eastern looking skirt and a jacket with a large emblem on the back. When she began to dance/step around the stage, I couldn’t help but smile. She looked so normal, dancing as most of us would dance around our houses. Her moves were not choreographed, or if they were, they were not choreographed well. But despite the lack of flair in her outfit and moves, she captured the entire audience with her voice, music and presence. She seemed comfortable in her own skin and genuinely glad to be on stage, sharing her music with us. She had the audience join in a number of the songs, and for the beginning of one song, even lay down on the stage and sang looking up at the ceiling until the song picked up, at which point she picked herself up and began to dance and skip around the stage once more.

I love artists and the way they see the world and then capture it in their art, putting a part of themselves into it. A part that most of us can relate to, whether it be a question, a thought, a feeling or an experience. I found myself inspired by the way she seemed to be herself and to be completely comfortable with who she was. Near the end of the concert she shared a song that has not been recorded yet, written in the last 9 months and I was surprised to hear the same emotion and passion in its lyrics as in her other music.

This gave me hope. Life does not have to take all we have.

We can hold onto passion and intensity and continue to sing with gusto as we grow older, creating things that shine. A song. A poem. A friendship.

Life is an adventure and this was a fun #3 for my 27th year of life.