new house. new job. new pant size.

new house

White siding. Just old enough.
It is just
what I wanted
all these years
quiet
old yet and new
friendly somehow
with a gathering curve out front
I sit here in the living room
six windows play frame to
the art of yellow leaves changing.
I wonder at the life
unfolding here
all the leaf changes to come
and snows to fall
and knees to scrape
and Christmas giggles at a present gone
so right
or so wrong.
I will look back
at this kitchen, dining room, sun room
and life overflowing, busting the edges
with people and things we did
and laughs we shared
and messes we made
Now it starts
just walls, just rooms, just stuff.
I'm sitting in a blank canvas
and the paints will come fast and furious
Lord, help me stop and smell the brush strokes.

new job

I bought a lime green lamp.
Somehow that one thing gave me vision.
For the new office of
professor Wusk, not quite yet.
Three classes this fall
three this spring
new faces
new meetings
And I can talk about this from my gut
I fit in the classroom
back home somehow
I shift weight though
in the meetings
wondering how I fit
here in a candyland of words and spinning wheels
yet
thankful for a flexibility
that allows my hope and wondering thoughts
I know this will be my job
the longest job I've ever had
While I've been there awhile, It's like I've only
just put my toe into the waistband of a new pair of jeans.
I wonder at the fit still.
I know this will feel different in a bit.
But for now at least, I like the color, the fade
in this, my place of work.

new pant size

It was only last week when the first
stranger asked if I was expecting.
Yes
I am. Delighted.
Thank you
For noticing.
Anticipation stacked on anticipation
this normal thing
not seeming so normal
when it's your insides
squirming through
these months of changes
uncomfortable and yet more comfortable than ever
the one thing I've always known
myself to want
And yet I wonder, Why?
But when I remember myself--with all my thoughts and foibles--
my beginnings just this way
I can't imagine an excitement
more intense in hue
than this waiting
and wondering
at the slow change that will be the change
from all I've heard.
I want to meet him or her.
And I will never, even for a second, think/feel/know
the immensity of this.
As we walk through it like it's normal
buying a crib
playing the easy escape
owning simply a consumer role
and sometimes for entire days
forgetting just how close we are
to gravity changing.

my mother's face

My mother's face

That simple line

conjures an image packed with tears

and with a fragrance

that stirs my soul

My mother's face

has looked upon me

with fat cheeks and giggles

and said this is my daughter

My mother's face

has sweat, as she wipes her brow

pausing after trudging the tiller through

old-rusty-green-with-missing-paint-speckled tiller

busting through the hard caked mud of the garden

My mother's face

has filled with the angst of a life that had to be

and the joy she wanted to be

in a place that had to be

A place somehow not her home

yet. . . then.

My mother's face

has been

closed tight in prayer

over me

my life

my problems not her own

but somehow hers too

My mother's face

carries wrinkles now

that it never did before

My mother's face mirrors my own

and yet somehow mirrors God's

shines glory out

more than any face I've known.

not mine

my decision

made

a person

and yet

not me wholly

but in part

I see a little man

two and a half

a middle name we planned

realize he wouldn't have been

necessarily

if I moved somehow different. . .

shaking hands

would not have been

if I moved somehow. . .

lost job

would not have been

if I moved. . .

lukemia

would not have been

if I. .

or rather, if I didn't

what if

all were mine?

my son, my patient

my lost job

my loneliness

my prayers

way leads on to way

so

how do I pray?

he's his

a person, on accident?

not quite, I know

but wonder

my decision made

a person

and he's sick today

so I forget how sick this makes me

and pray

for what's not mine

monday after mountaintop

Last week I went on my first-ever mission trip. I don't know what I expected, and even now I'm not sure what happened. But there was movement, and I am sure of one thing; it was good. It was good to get away with kids, it was good to live in community for a week again, it was good to serve.

As I sit at my keyboard on this Monday, everything seems dingy somehow, and yet it is good to be back to the day to day.

This trip was a transition point in my life. Pastor Greg quipped, "Somehow, you'll get on the bus as the leader, and you'll get off the bus she will be the leader." Amy is the new youth director who is just here from Indiana. I have been praying for her since January, not always knowing who she is, but simply knowing that she was needed. I don't know if I thought the transition would be hard or easy, especially since a large part of me didn't really want to leave, but at this point it just is, and God is in the feeling I have when I see her responding to kids' posts on Facebook, or laughing with kids. God is in the comfort I feel in her strong leadership and desire to engage these kids. This is just what I wanted, and yet somehow it feels empty right now. I knew this would come, and God is in that emptiness, and I am glad for the year, glad at the changes in me, glad at the changes in my marriage.

My joy seems somehow more concrete. I can't help thinking that I'm ready for something, but I'm not quite sure what. I just presented at a spirituality conference this Saturday, and I learned things there that I haven't really thought about. Perhaps this is my new frontier in spirituality, one that goes outside the bricks and mortar church to a different kind of temple. Perhaps this will be my walking stick that helps me stand through the throws of going back to "secular" work. Scared and excited all at once, I am in a time of waiting and wondering--a good time for writing dissertation and breathing a little more slowly.

God has provided friends this year, friends that I didn't have before, but who are shaping my identity in new ways. Ashleigh Lang-Peterson, Amy Wagner, Kelly Kingsley, Sara Spohr--all probably don't know the impact they have had on my tiny life.

I am thankful for seasons, and thankful for the small tears that form whenever change comes and we sit around watching slide shows with sappy music. When we look back just briefly before taking that next step. There were multiple times on this trip where I seemed to be sitting in a pool of grace, when answers to prayers were so obvious that I couldn't do anything but dwell in the movement of the spirit. I sat at a concert with two young women and laughed. These two have been a struggle for me all year, and there we were giggling. In our final prayer circle Thursday night, we "dapped," which is a form of prayer (I think made up in our own youth group) where you place one fist on top of the person's fist next to you in a circle. When the prayer gets to you, you can pray aloud or dap by tapping the fist on your right to move it on to the next person. Typically, my out-loud prayers are prolific, and I never pass up a chance to contribute. For the first time I can remember, I dapped after hearing the harmony of prayers from my kids and their new youth director. It was good to be there and good to not be needed somehow.

Following our prayer, I didn't stay up for late night conversations, I skirted back to my room. Light from the round full moon streamed over me as I lay back on my almost empty air mattress. Usually Psalm 23 is the stuff of funerals, but as my fingers turned the gold-edged pages to this comforting "home" in the Bible, I couldn't help knowing that I was not alone, and that change is good, and that some things never change.

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
² He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
³ He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.
⁴ Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,^[a]
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.
⁵ You prepare a feast for me
in the presence of my enemies.
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
My cup overflows with blessings.
⁶ Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
forever.

drowning out gray

"To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance." — Jean Vanier

Your Beauty

The sway of the longest arms, under shirt sleeves rolled up, athletic, tall, yet turned in to everyone he meets, with blue, the friendliest eyes I know - all such a blessing. I love you for inside, but I'm the outside called to me (and calls to me) so loudly, like a magnet. I see you.

Your Worth

Your value is in being Ralph - a man who holds family and friends so heavy, but lifts them up, a man not afraid to just have fun, a man who lights up the people around him, who works at his work with pride and diligence. A man. To me the most valuable of God's creations, the most precious.

Your Importance

I see you, and you were the first to truly see me. Blessing bowls me over, and I am thankful you picked me, even noticed me, that you walk with me. Without you babe it's all gray.

Your Ev

day 2 at the cup

I am here again, this time ready with a cinnamon roll. May God bless the writing that comes today. Amen.

J.R.R. Tolkien

"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish."

Dear Dell,

I found out today that on June 6th we're breaking up. While this isn't the end of the world, somehow I'm miffed. How is it that we got to be so connected? Breakups are rough--I know from experience. This fall when I had to pry myself away from Mac--with all of our shortcuts and personalized settings--I didn't want to go, but knew I had to, and even though I didn't want you at first--after all you weren't him, we've really gotten along swimmingly even after our rocky start. I'm not crazy about you like I was Mac, and yet we seem to co-exist daily in such a way that I didn't realize how attached we've become.

I pray that this will somehow feel okay, that life will go on and that someone new will come to love the curve of my hands, but right now I'm topsy-turvy over it and wondering at writing a dissertation on keys that feel like a poorly tailored dress.

So, here's to us and our short-lived romance. My mantra makes it manageable. All will be well. All manner of things will be well.

begin it

"Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it.Action (boldness) has magic, grace and power in it." - Goethe

sunday afternoon

Yesterday I was laying on the couch reading. Small nudge. . . go outside.

"But. . . it's hot, and I'm so comfy. . .but. . . oh well."

Sat outside, wrote, read.

Found four birds nests under our deck and realized my lilacs have actually grown.

I need to train myself to listen to those nudges.

cold coffee

My grandpa used to drink cold coffee in the afternoon--at least that's what somebody told me. A warm pot in the morning, cold on ice after lunch.

He was a big man in my memory, and I'm not sure how much I'm piecing together from pictures, and how much is real. I was only nine when he died.

But I do remember Key overalls with Kodiak chew in the front pocket. . . and in his lip. His shock white comb-over would blow up like a gusting flag in the breeze and then settle back down all in one piece. When he would come in the house and take off his tall mesh-backed John-Deere hat, his hair would flop out crazy like Doc's on Back to the Future. Grandpa's one-handed quick smooth over assured him it somehow looked better. It didn't, not really.

I wish I could remember more.

One memory has clear colors. It was in the early morning, and stood the bottom of the stairs with a window at my right hand side. I bounced down the stairs that morning never thinking--

Mom said he died the night before. Next I'm sitting on the counter at my grandma's house in town. Dad comes in and hugs me, crying--only one of two times that I can remember. Maybe he has more, but I only know two for sure. I wonder how hard it is to lose your parent. I wonder how you go on when everything has to be so rough-edged. I wonder if Dad thinks he's like his dad. Does he miss him? What were they like together when Dad was little? I wonder. Were they friends, or was it more--I'm the parent, you're the kid. I wonder if Grandpa had the same scarred, thick hands.

I only see glimpses of this man who was my Grandpa. I can't really say I knew him enough to know him now. Once I met an old guy in Auburn who drove an old white pick-up with wood boards in truck bed. He put it together who my grandpa was, and he looked off a little and smiled. "Ole Elmer," he said, "Elmer was a good 'ole boy. He'd come in to town and play cards 'purt near every day. . . Elmer was a good 'ole boy."

I don't know a whole lot about this man, but I like cold coffee too. Ralph and I haven't played cards in awhile. Maybe we should.

room to write

I tried to write in the living room today.

Didn't work.

So I hodge-podged this little nook.

Sure, it's just an old sewing table, a card table, some boxes covered with a table cloth, and old picture from I'm not sure where. But Lucie seems to like it.

Me too.

At least it's a space to write.

birthday of the D

Today my dissertation was born. She's a little thing so far, kinda messy--like scribbly lines adorning a high-lighted page, but I like her. She's taking more form in Word as she is now in an outlined document (Didn't know how to do this before today). While the birthing was slow, and I sat looking at my coffee cup and the ends of the sleeves on my navy Cardigan, overall, once I got in the flow. . .the birthing wasn't painful, it's just that there really is some doing to it.

Whispers from Day 1:

Each day I am terrified, but I move.

Write a true sentence.

Write what you know.

Keep praying.

This feels real.

Coffee, Candle, Pencil.

Thanks for the outline idea.

Encourage the cohorts.

I am not writing for him.

I can't do it all. . . focus.

Save backup at noon and end in two places.

Come up with your own word. Own this.

Write for fun/blog first.

Four hours is quite a bit.

Keep reading. Keep listening. Keep learning.

Although there is doing to be done, writing for me is somehow spiritual. I read in a blog this week, "No one can take away my connection but me." Yes there are going to be harder days than today, but someone once told me at track practice (in his best Tom Hank's impersonation, "If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." Day 1 in the books. Thanks for answered prayers.

so it begins

“Wanting to know where we are going is often how we fail to go anywhere at all.”

Julia Cameron, The Sound of Paper

I have done everything possible to do. . . other than really starting. I have written a blog post, I have done my work, I have pre-writing, I've read, I've researched, I have data. I've written why this topic inspires me. I've even written this.

Now it begins. I don't know where it's going, but I'm trusting the process. I'm trusting Anne Lamont's advice to "get my butt in the writing chair." I'm praying that I might have something to say that is of practical value, but also something that isn't practical at all--but inspiring somehow. I love teaching. I love faith. This is what I know.

My goal is simple, to write the truest sentence I know, and work everything else around it. Lord please bless my efforts and help me to have the confidence needed to do this thing that I know I'm incapable of doing. . . alone. Amen.

spring evening

we grilled kabobs

I cut

he grilled

small pieces, soaked in spice

lined up

blackened edges

withold

squish and crunch

good beer, no breeze, sun

the calendar full

I cringe at the to do's

evenings gone

plans made

until far out

sit the white boxes

I settle smile knowing

skewers weren't listed

blue valentine

Saturday night . . . by myself.

The decision of what to do is heavy for a gal like me who usually skips through social events and dinners by deferring to someone--usually my husband--or anyone who will choose.

On mother's day when my mother-in-law just couldn't pick a restaurant, I laughed, but shuffled my feet glad I didn't have to choose. Tonight it's just me, so I muster guts and ask myself, "Just what is it that YOU want to do with this evening?"

I could waffle, but I force movement instead. I grab the Wendy's Baja salad I've been wondering about and snuggle into my quilt to rent Blue Valentine, feeling only slightly guilty at the rental charge for just two eyes instead of the usual four, but justifying it knowing the other two eyes would veto this selection.

To write about this film is to come up terribly short, but it chronicles the unwinding of a marriage--so real that I see glimpses of my failed high school relationship and hard times my husband and I have moved through. With scenes this real, the film sits seductive, and only after the slowness of the final scene--him walking away from her with fire crackers exploding in the backlight--do I realize what it's shaken. Two days later I'm still puzzling over it--the mark of a good film--but the puzzling veers my thinking about marriage into thoughts I will not think.

In so many ways this film looms with truth. And yet it's gravity is feelings. Perhaps it's a comment on our generation--everyman and everywoman somehow running after the elusive stay-quality of love butterflies and all that gush. I'm mad at this art statement. I'm mad it makes me wonder if marriage can work. I'm mad that the truth for me--the working at it probably wouldn't make a very good movie.

But the working at it makes good life, and this morning as I groggily force my eyes to open up to twin toothbrushes blue and pink, and I see how the story ends differently. . . for us.

this summer, my sacrifice

This summer I will give up days at the pool, lunches with friends, trips that I should really take. . . Instead I will glue these fingers to this keyboard, I will turn my sails toward sentences and a Word Document--in an uncomfortable marriage. The type of marriage that could never last a lifetime, but for a season somehow possible.

For fifteen weeks, I will write like mad. I will squish words, soak words, and breathe words, until the work is done, until I can stand--perhaps not at perfection but at completion and somehow a bit more road wearied. With each Friday night will come summer and a reward that waits.

I will hate it, and yet somehow I will find immense joy in the struggle, and I will still have a summer. I will still live this summer, and yet in a state of immersion, I will purge myself of this task--this check mark that I must complete for my own sanity and well being. And next summer. . . oh next summer. . . the sacrifice won't seem quite so painful, nothing but a memory.

real day ingredients

The recipe for a real day puzzles me. The recipe is decidedly backward.

On April the 1st Ralph and I went to my first Husker Baseball game. For some reason I kept waiting and waiting to go to the bathroom. I've come to love baseball so much--I didn't want to miss anything. After a quick trip up the stairs, I came back to a grinning husband who had just caught a foul ball. One of the most exciting moments of a baseball fan's life, and I was in the loo. I missed it.

Lovely.

Now that we've told the story a couple of times, I've come to see what fun it is to share how things didn't go right. I've come to love the fun of the conversation that flips everyone's expectations.

This fun works the other way as well.

This weekend we celebrated Easter, and I was bummed that we had nothing fun planned for Saturday afternoon. Ralph and I loaded up and drove all over creation on Saturday getting the new truck nice and messy. This was one of my favorite days. We didn't plan it, but the time together driving around God's country was just so us.

The one thing I did plan out for the weekend was my food contribution - this was going to be fun. This was going to bring happiness. One of my "big plans" to celebrate easter was to make a lemon meringue pie from scratch to share with my parents. We ended up dumping it out on Rohrs Corner after realizing that I had left it sitting in the back of the truck speckling the meringue with dirt and rocks. Somehow telling the story of this mishap was even more fun than enjoying the dessert. After all there was Cherry Delight, and the story was somehow just as tasty.

hello spring. . . how I've missed you

"Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.

Spring in its fullness is not easy to write about. Late spring is so flamboyant that it caricatures itself, which is why it has long been the province of poets with more passion than skill. But perhaps these poets have a point. Perhaps we are meant to yield to its flamboyance, to understand that life is not always to be measured and meted as winter compels us to do but to be spent from time to time in a riot of color and growth." - Parker Palmer

not wasting time

This afternoon was real. I sat in her office laughing as he came in and we sat, talked and giggled all three knowing work was waiting, but the doldrums of Lent ending and Easter coming had us all three feeling well. . . rather unproductive.

So we sat, and laughed.

It was nice.

beads

Before I could do anything today, I knocked a plastic container of beads off my shelf so that they spilled throughout my entire office.

I think people will be finding beads in the crevices of this office for years to come. It was annoying; I didn't have time for this, but as my two co-workers came in and helped me clean up.

I couldn't help thinking. . . what a beautiful mess.

rain haiku

shining yesterday

now splashes gray rain

green for tomorrow

from a "good" English student

I was always a good English student.

I have a propensity for language, and my English teachers always looked like what I wanted to be when I grew up. I earned A's in every course I've ever taken in regards to writing. I was the editor of my high school newspaper, the editor of my college student newspaper, I became an English teacher and an adviser of our high school's student newspaper, and blah, blah blah--you get the picture.

I'm an English nerd.

I tell you all of this (with a nagging sense that this is not nearly humble enough language for a farmer's daughter) not to impress you in any way (plus, I'm certain it doesn't anyway), but to show you that by the world's standards--I am a writer, and I know how to write. While on the outside this seems to be the case, I can tell you with honesty that gets at my guts to the point of tears--that I was never under stood much about writing, and I was never truly a writer until participating in the Nebraska Writing Project over the summer of 2010. Sure, I knew about commas and all that stuff--but writing, real writing, I hadn't the foggiest.

I chose to participate in the institute largely because of emphatic encouragement from colleagues. Also, prior to this time, I began work on my doctorate, and in numerous pieces that we read about what "works" in teacher professional development, the writing project was held up again and again as something that actually works. I certainly haven't read everything, but as an erudite who loves to read about education, there is so very little written about things that actually work time and again. As educational researchers we're forever searching for the "magic" concoction that makes the very nuanced human interaction of classroom learning work. I knew it cognitively before the institute, and I have now come to know it through experience: The Writing Project works.

This institute changed the way that I see students, the way I see writing, and the way that I interact with my writing classroom. It made me a better teacher, not in a touchy feely way, but in a pragmatic, rubber-meets-the-road, day to day teaching practice way. I am so thankful that I was able to take part in this month of professional development.

I have to admit something, before I continue to write anything else--I am not a political person. In fact, whenever I see the polarized discussions taking place, especially during election season, I opt to turn toward anything that gets away from polar extremes and resembles honest to goodness conversation.

But. . .

On March second of this year, I learned that President Obama signed a bill eliminating direct federal funding for the National Writing Project.

This makes me think about running for office.

Certainly I'm joking as I have no political background, but I'm sure you hear my point that this is one of the first issues where I truly feel that I need to speak out to my government. My own life experience is directly in opposition to this decision. One of my favorite educational writers, Paulo Frere, talks about the pedagogy of the oppressed, where in some ways the best education is that which creates freedom and gives power to the powerless.

I mean this not as hyperbole, but as a reality I have experienced--the daily conditions of teaching--whether in a great school or a poorly performing school--even if you love it--can in many ways feel oppressive. Of course there are glimpses of light, ah-ha moments that keep us diligently working and striving on, but reality of teaching vastly different students in large quantities is difficult. This is no secret, but I must some how convey this in words. So many teachers experience this difficulty (sadly many of them are too busy with the stuff of teaching to write blog posts such as these). Professional development in many ways is an attempt to free teachers a bit--to give them an ounce of power over their subject areas and classrooms. The National Writing Project freed me--and I know many others--to see my own subject matter clearly enough to teach it. There is a freedom that comes from deep understanding.

Currently, I work with pre-service teachers at the University of Nebraska, and I want to jump up and down to get them to see that writing is so much more when they spout about how their objective is to get their kids to fill in a five paragraph essay organizer. For some reason, even with all that jumping, I cannot get them to see what I see. The only way for them to see is to experience the Writing Project for themselves. For their future students, and for the many teachers who have not yet been a part of a Writing Project, I encourage the Department of Education to continue what they have done for the last twenty years, and support the National Writing Project.

clouds

If only a picture could capture the clouds from today. They were moving; they were electric - just so happy, that I was too.

the task of today

As the sun rises alive

and sets my thoughts

sparkling

my father plants and harvests

green

to

gold

to

white

the trees grow and give

with each turn I must remind myself

of

mortality

of

possibility

and of

the magic giggling just below the surface.

a smattering

Dear Day of Life,

I am forever impressed at how random, deep, boring, and/or exciting you can be. Somtimes you take forever, and other times you run by me like a sprinter. Thank you for being so ripe. - Ev

A smattering of thoughts from the last 24 hours:

• Is Rob Bell really as crazy as people are making him out to be?
• Why can't I feel as I look at these pictures of Japan?
• It is so light out! Love this time change!
• Do nuns wash their hair under those habits? (while watching Vision at the Ross)
• How is it that I've never listened to Regina Spektor? Love it.
• My husband is fantastic and creative.
• I will never be able to drive a group of 11 people to Colorado on Monday.
• Perhaps I shouldn't order books three at a time on Amazon. . .
• How did I get blessed with friends like these? (while laughing hysterically)
• This egg roll is entirely too spicy for me.
• How is it that I've just now started reading Parker Palmer?
• I should really get writing on that dissertation.
• How can it feel this early at 7 a.m.? Bah you time change.
• Oh birds, how I've missed you.

the dance of balance

I live in the dance of balance between my complete powerlessness and my sense of power.

perhaps

the better way can weigh heavy

until we slowly set it down

and it

lands with a silent Thud.

blinking through two red, wet eyes

for hope this rough patch builds chrysalis

perhaps my wings await

i like it when

I like it when my milk turns all strawberry after the cereal.

Maybe this is silly,

like a ten-year-old,

but I love it,

even at 27.

for what it's worth. . .

I just spent days organizing something, pouring my life into every little detail. This was an event aligned with what I believe. And, YES! it went well, and I received much positive feedback. This is a win! (I thought) as "I'm walkin on Sunshine" seemed to be playing in the background of my thoughts.

Then today I received an e-mail that said, "For what it's worth, my daughter said she liked last year's event better than this year's."

--Record scratch--For what it's worth? Even after all that positive feedback, this negative sentence is what keeps playing over in my head. It felt like a physical kick in the chest. Even as an adult, words can hurt.

Paul says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up. . . that it may benefit those who listen" (Eph 4:29).

I don't think we realize how powerful our words are. How those things said to us at the poles, extremely positive or extremely negative, get played back in our minds over and over.

When people remember my words, I want them to smile.

I will be a positive voice.

now I become myself

Now I become myself. It's taken

Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people's faces . . .

-Mary Sarton

There is an old quaker saying, "Let your life speak." I met a woman this weekend who's life wasn't just speaking; it was shouting. I looked at her and saw such a joy.

"I'll have what she's having."

I saw this woman with crazy hair, with shorts, with bad fashion sense, who was standing up in front of the crowd saying so boldly--this is who I am--I'm Heather. She said silly things like, "I spend $60 a month to get my hair this way. I have hundreds of pairs of shorts. My leg muscle and my forearm muscle are so strong, I can beat anyone here at armwrestling. I love nail polish. I'm a good listener. I'm loyal." I know this list sounds like quick shots from a gun, but she wove a humerous story of her identity that I can't begin to recount here. While it seemed at first that she would be all fun and giggles, later in her first session, she came to share a darker time when she wasn't so bubbly. She shared painful stories of her ostracism in junior high.

I found myself thinking of pigeon posters on lockers, and wishing we didn't have so much in common.

At first, I thought, I want to be like her. How can I live a more silly way of life? But as she wove her teaching around her life, I came to see that her appeal lies not necessarily in who she is, but in her popping, smiling embrace of her identity.

It made me wonder what would be on a list of things that are decidedly Evi. (Perhaps I should have figured this out by 27.)

Can I say any one thing about myself so loudly and boldly that I might have Heataher's type of glow. Is the glow simply a reflection of God's glory when we truly embrace all that he has made us to be--reflecting all the things he's built us for? Is there a way I can start to own "me" a bit more.

To make him look at me and go. . . "yes, that's it Ev."

I've always sensed he had a plan for me, as many people do--I know I'm not special in this way. It's just this somewhat life-giving, somewhat terribly annoying burning in my heart that I--I would get it right for Him. But I can't even say this sentence without saying that I know I don't have to do anything. He told Jesus before he did anything, "This is my son; with him I am well pleased."

I pray that I might come to really appreciate Your design, to appreciate this corner of Your creation that I inhabit, this me.

To just be comfortable in my skin.

dear God

Students wrote notes to God at Confirmation yesterday. Some made me smile. Some made me cry. These few shall remain anonymous.

Dear God,

How are you? What is it like up there? What do you like, dislike, love? Hope you answer these questions.

Wazzup Lord?

Don't be a hater on the sinners. They maybe deserve it, but they'll (hopefully) straighten out and follow Christ.

Dear God,

At the moment of the test help me become more intelligent.

Dear God,

Please help me go through Confirmation and really understand and feel it. Not just way a bunch of words I know I'm supposed to say.

Dear God,

I haven't really openly talked to you. It's because I want there to be nothing wrong in my life. I know I'm screaming inside for people to notice me, but nobody looks up. Please God. Help me.

on marriage

One of my favorite parts about my husband are the myriad of e-mails that I receive in the course of a given day. Here is today's first message:

I now have a new plan for my facial hair as well. I am going to grow it until Brent's wedding and then have some ridiculous shave job for the rehearsal dinner before shaving the morning of the wedding. I am so excited for this grand plan.

to die is easy to live is hard

I went to a funeral today, and I didn't bring my Kleenex. After all she was just the mother of one of my students; we had no real connection. But as I sat in the pew--on my mother's birthday of all days--I found myself somehow entering his pain. Earlier in the week he had been surprisingly smiling, bouncing around, making funeral arrangements at the church much like an adult. Laughing with his buddy.

When I saw him today, he was a child again even younger than his 12 years. This young man who had put on such a tough face in the last few days--was finally feeling. I was glad to see him letting others be the grown-ups, but his pain soaked over, and I began to wish I had packed my tissues.

The sea of pink at her funeral stood testament to her fight against breast cancer. In her blog, Tracy wrote, "It is easy to die, it is more difficult to live." I am sad today, but yet somehow more alive as I sit here reminded of my mortality, reminded that now is the only reality, the only certainty. Thank you Tracey for coming into my life, even at the end of yours.

Life is a gift. Too often we see it as our right--tomorrow somehow guaranteed.

20 Days Later

I have discovered that I am good at things for short periods of time.

Exercising for a week. . . forgetting to exercise completely the following week.

Blogging for a week. . . forgetting to blog for 20 days.

I like doing both of these things. My new year's resolution (starting today on my mother's birthday) is to develop consistency muscles.

two thumbs up

During our youth group Superbowl party, one of the high school girls leaned over following a commercial and whispered to me with a very straight and concerned face, "What is go-daddy?  Is it porn?"

Two thumbs way up:

1. Thumbs up American advertising.  Only you could take domain hosting and advertise it in a way that causes this type of confusion.
2. Thumbs up cable TV.  Only you could convince a high schooler that it would be perfectly acceptable to advertise porn during the Superbowl.

kinda sexy, kinda ditzy

Friend:  "Hi Evi!  We are doing a community play and there is a part that will be just perfect for you.  We're doing Harvey."

Evi: "Cool" (While thinking) Great, yet another bout of playing the old lady, the drunk, the social outcast.  I shall never be the ingenue.

Friend:  "Oh this play will be fun.  We'll practice about twice a week.  The part you'll play is a nurse.  She is pretty sexy, kind of younger, a flirt, a little ditzy."
Evi: "Sounds like fun." (Thinking) I hope this isn't her version of typecasting.  I need to stop giving off the impression that I am sexy or ditzy or some combination of the two.

*All contrary thoughts aside. . . I'm so excited for magic of being in a play again.  Can't wait for rehearsals.

this stuff

Each Thursday this spring I have been trudging through the slushy snow to co-teach a class to pre-service teachers at UNL. The students are doing a child study in their practicum settings where they are asked to do assessments of one child's literacy skills. Yesterday, my team-teacher and I asked the college students to fill out a form that looks at the whole child. It asked for the child's interests, his or her family background, social/emotional behavior, etc. In short, we asked--what is this kid like outside of literacy stuff. Who is he? How is she unique?

As many dutifully filled in the blanks on their white sheets, I saw one head hunched over, pen tapping, her other fist holding up her head. When I stopped to ask what the trouble was, she rolled her eyes, "I didn't know I was supposed to be paying attention this stuff with Carlos."

How she managed to observe and work with a third-grade child numerous times without even noticing a shred of his humanity made me want to give her shaken college student syndrome and generally forced words into my head that aren't at all professional. Just what the #$%@ were you paying attention to?

Somehow I managed to compose my thoughts.

"Well, maybe when you work with Carlos next time you should try to get to know him a bit."
"Yeah, I could probably do that."

As I trudged back to my car through the slushy snow, exasperated, I finally did smile knowing someone learned something today that mattered. I smiled thinking about her next meeting with Carlos.

Dear Dissertation,

Right now you are in my head. . . somewhere.  Hiding.  Over the next twelve months my mission--should I choose to accept it--is to squish you from my brain to this intimidating, blazingly white Word document screaming in the other window I have open on my laptop.  Right now I must admit, you seem like a bit of a bully.  I keep telling myself that you're not so big and bad; you're not so tough.

Well. . . you might just be, but I am going to pretend for the next twelve months that you aren't, and on December 16, I will put you on a shelf, have a wheat beer and then proceed to ignore you for five or ten years, but until then our relationship is important.  Please treat me nice--don't be too rough.  I know you're scared too. But rest in this fact, the point isn't whether they like you or dislike you.  The point, my new friend, is the squishing, so come on out and meet the world.  

Helpless

I am now a professional car jump-starter.  It takes some serious practice to earn such a distinction, but  I have jumped my car battery eight times in the last two months.  I think I'm qualified.  I had to jump my Taurus two times yesterday alone.  Each time that I found myself in this helpless situation, a different smiling face took the time to help me out in the biting cold.  I am so grateful for all of their help. . . but I am buying a new battery. . .*today.

*If I can get to the store.

Marriage

When you "sign up" for this marriage stuff, all glittering in a white dress, I don't know if you can ever totally understand what you're entering into.  Don't get me wrong, I highly recommend marriage. . . but at times as a couple you find yourselves helpless.  Like yesterday evening. . .

The day started for me with sterling intentions.  I tried to save some parking moolah by bumming rides to UNL campus, but when I was dropped off last night, keyless--locked out of my own home in the cold, I knew I had to call Ralph.  He was 20 minutes away, warming up for his basketball game, and I had volleyball pretty soon. . . as we sat on the phone in silence, both knowing the only answer, I wished I could undo it somehow.  As his new tires screeched into our driveway, I could tell he was annoyed. . . actually that's putting it lightly.

After getting my volleyball gear, and both of us going to our respective sports games, I was preparing myself for a second round of wrath, but instead he came home smiling--like he does--excited for me to see part of my Valentine's present early.  I've always wanted my 8-bit Nintendo back (he hates it when I call it 8-bit), but I never realized he was listening and seeing me so clearly.

Marriage isn't what I expected, but I love it more all the time.

a boy named grace

Yesterday I taught a lesson to middle schoolers about the holy spirit.  While planning the lesson I started to realize that I didn't even understood this slippery concept.  Teaching this was a lot like explaining to a goldfish how the Internet works, so to start the lesson my co-teacher actually explained the World Wide Web to my new beta fish, Grace.

I am glad to have a fish again.

As I stood at the pet store with screeching birds in the background, I pushed four little containers filled with blue beta fish, to expose one red one.  I could see that he was different.  I like different.  I like Grace.

For July 1

Today I lived a real day.

It hurt. Walking in color.

Not the daily gray that I usually

Step, step through leaving no footprints

or echoes

Today I lived a real day, and emerging

I sit on the totter edge of difference.

My breath has been short, my guts turning

Thoughts bouncing, jumping, squirming

My anxious thread of existence

Taut.

Trying to guess at the text, the dialogue

Of the “conversation” coming

The words, the realities like a Jell-O fluff casserole

That I must push myself through

To emerge here.

In the now.

In the middle of this real day where life sprung

Zesty and sharp.

And on the other side of this huge serving

verbal tennis match

Where I stop---

Realizing the ball is out of my court--

He surprises me with his grace, in soft return.

His humanity

His ability to set emotion aside

And not to hide behind the easy way

Wet in corners his eyes smile,

In a way that make it okay

This horrible thing I’m telling him.

The words punching

Kicking

Scratching

His best intentions and life’s work.

That I wish I could will myself into

Costume me up for our real shared passion

I tick through the words. . . a slow cadence

From a hidden pool, leaked

They’re out—

And I’m naked.

But instead of punching back with his own river

Of words that punch from the azure spring of rage

That’s there if he rides in default

But he shifts gears

Melts grace over me like a warm butter quilt

That’s far too fancy for me.

It’s comfort scratches, but I sit. . . soaking.

Knowing he’s given his best

Though undeserved

It’s given.

Today I lived a real day.

And I’m tears, and I’m wrung out, and I’m alive.

A little broken. . .

Yet thankful.

That dialogues play out creative

Unforeseen, unexpected, unwiched between

All that is predictable.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I shall pray again.

For today’s answer was so beautiful. Real.

Courage was mine. Grace was Yours.

And I give You thanks.

For smiling at me through his eyes.

As the two of us lived a real day today.

Meeting at a faintly lined crossroad

on this Pilgrim Journey.

I throw away my Kleenex

Balled and transparent as

tomorrows line up.

I look past them right at today

And my hope sits

Shiny

Quiet

Listening

In the real day, today.