Day 1: wings (London)

(I didn't know the British really dress like this!)

English breakfast

The hostel

Chicken curry

Their elementary school

Nerves. I didn't expect them to hit so hard. I think they were swallowed down by the magic of finishing my first year of teaching, but as I put the last kid in the car, the wave of nerves hit deep and hard in my stomach. I think it hit that I was going 6,000 miles across the world by myself. No one to bail me out if I got lost. No one to pick up the slack. People ask me why I'm nervous. I can't pin point it.

I think we all go in to things with expectations. My expectation was if see the world, learn a lot about God, fall in love with far away places and return home anxious to be there once again. I was ready. I wanted a prayer to constantly have over this trip, so I chose the following. "Above and below me. Before and behind. May every eye that see me, Christ be glorified". I didn't know that all my expectations were about to be turned upside down. 

At about 1am the night before leaving, I realized that I booked the wrong connecting flight. Instead of making a 4 hour layover in London. I had booked a 28 hour layover. The only thing I could do was book a hostel and spend some time exploring London. I was embarrassed to tell the school but, exploring is always a great mistake to make. At about 2, I got an email that my flight was delayed 3 hours. Suddenly, it all made sense. This wasn't a mistake, this was protection. If I had booked the right flight, I would have been scrambling in London to book accommodations for missing a flight at the last second, instead, I can mosey my way to the Heathrow Ambassador hotel, protected.

 

  When I got dropped off in San Diego, the luggage of supplies for the family I was meeting was a few kilo over, but the lady said she would let me slide this time. Protection is a theme already. I bid my last goodbyes and boarded my flight. Ten hours hour later, I step into the land of accents. 

My friends and I grew up mimicking British accents, so to me it felt like a big joke. Everyone sounds brilliant and I couldn't help but giggle. I took the tube into Feltham where I had booked my first hostel. When I find the place, it's the cutest little building tucked away into a rougher neighborhood that once was a city for the rich. You can feel it's shifts and struggles and tensions between the rich and the poor the moment you step off. I was greeted by a British man who took my bags and instantly offers me tea. He gives me my key and my room is called the Hideaway room. I'm in love already. 

That night, I head into town and look for food. Who knew that chicken curry was a staple in England? I guess we aren't the only melting pot. I saunter home and stumble across a fight between a man and woman. I look around and realize I'm not the only one watching and I'm not the only one too scared to step in. This place is more complicated then I thought. When I arrive home, I tell my British friend and he immediately apologiZes for this side of London. Feltham was a beautiful neighborhood that was chosen for housing projects. When the poor move in, the reality is the rich move out. When money is tight, tempers become loose.  He explained that he loved this city and would never leave. He had hopes he said. I loved the way this man didn't give up on a place due to it's complications, yet he saw the beauty in it, opened a hostel, and wanted to share it with others. I was hooked. 

The next morning, he had a traditional English breakfast ready for me along with a warm smile and that brilliant accent. I was so excited that jet lag wasn't a thing in my books. I spent the day gawking at Big Ben, the London bridge, Houses of Parliament and eating the creamy british ice cream. It was time to head to Croatia. London, I'll be back. 

Purposeless wanderings

Today is a day of rest. A random off with no reason for the holiday from school. It's tempting to take those days off and try to shift into overdrive as though we have tricked ourselves into believing that days off are actually days to clear the to do list that looms over each of us. 

This is dangerous I believe. 

This is the way to build passionless, weary, burned out people. 

I was one of those. 

Days off are where you do things for no reason at all. The day where that horse you always see out in that field and you dream of feeding it, you go. You go and buy the largest bag of carrots and drive the fourty minutes with the windows down and you feed that horse. You giggle a lot and you realize later your face hurts from smiling constantly. 

You lie on that bookstore floor and surround yourself in piles of books. You dive into the words of those before you that dared to rest and soak up their world and therefore had the peacefulness to record it so eloquently for generations to indulge in. 

The day you go to the park and find your perfect spot where you can lie on your back and watch the planes land and at a certain point you laugh our loud when it seems as though they are so close, they might land on your belly. The engines roar and rattle every bone in your body. It's good. 

This is the day you decide cliff jumping is the best option. You jump and jump and it never gets old. The waters chill makes you feel so alive. 

This is the day you wander. You love. You leave your agenda at home. These are the days where your soul is being fed. The day that recharges, rebuilds, casts new visions. 

Grab one of these  

Carve these out and cling to them. 

Bring a friend or find the friend in yourself. It's good.  

No matter what just purposeless wandering. Go find it. 

Tattered page

I had a friend once tell me that after a gut wrenching heart break she sat down the next morning in the middle of her classroom after a night of tears and that deep pain that only arrives when the deepest of heart strings have been torn and when you feel it, you know it's in town for a while. She pulled out her green crayola marker and tore a piece of highlighter yellow butcher paper from the rack. She had enough. Enough being the one to keep everything in line. She was tired. She was ready. 

She took that marker and wrote all the things that she no longer wanted to do...Who she married. What her future held. What was important to her. She wrote out what she earnestly prayed for and left aside those things that didn't matter. She couldn't do it anymore. She was empty. 

As the clock approached the arrival of 22 smiling faces waiting for her love, instruction, and energy she put her marker away and folded her yellow paper with torn corners into her cabinet. She wiped her eyes, took a deep breath and got ready to face the day. She had to be here with them. They needed her. Her heart could wait. 

Fast forward 4 years. She shares her story as I see this yellow crinkled, faded paper framed in her 1912 comforting home. To me, I was confused what a shabby piece of paper was framed for as though it were a family photo. When I asked her she gently smiles and her eyes twinkle some. She looks away as though she forgot herself. She finally shares that four years later, she looks at this daily and sees every prayer answered. From the details of her husband to the healing of things in her life. She holds this here to remind her daily of the time she let it all go and got everything she wanted back. We serve a God who relentlessly pursues our heart. We fight it hard. We think we can. Then we hit the classroom floor, rock bottom where all we have is a tattered paper and a green marker. We have no where to turn but to our father. He doesn't say I told you so. He doesn't give you that look, he just welcomes you in. He wants it all. He doesn't relent until it's all. When he has it all,  He gives us more than we could imagined. 

Don't forget to frame those crinkled moments where we were at rock bottom and he pulled us up. Don't throw away that butcher paper and forget. The next time you're waiting for a breakthrough, look to those to remind you that we have a God who always comes through...that's my God. 

Whimsy

I'm a day dreamer. 

My brain wanders to far off places that are reality of the past or visions of what could come in the future. 

They can be scary. They can make me smile. They can make me laugh at my teenage self and realize how much time has gone by. They can be full of dreams of the future. Ideas for what's next. They can be of clouds or simple nothings. They can be haunting, they can show me how far I've come. They can make me smile and laugh at what is now or what my little student said to me once. 

I'm craving a day where nothing's planned. I wake up and head out. I walk down trails with no intention. I drive until my heart just tells me stop. I do things for no reason at all. I crave a day where my day dreams can over take me and send me into whatever world I'd like it to be that day. 

I crave a day of whimsy.

Cravings

Rain. 

I find myself craving it more and more. I catch myself scrolling through Portland weather and dreaming of their downpours. I think it's unhealthy. 

The gentle rain that mists, tickles your nose, causes you to giggle and look to the clouds, to stop and notice, and maybe even form those frizzy curls at the tips of your hair. The silence during this rain is powerful. It's the silence that hits you down deep in those places we don't know of until we've felt it. It's the silence that reminds you how small you are. The wind seems out of place in it. The stillness. It's the silence that is loud. Have you heard it? Get lost in it. Get lost in those moments. It's magical. 

The shower rain. The more then kissing sprinkles on your cheeks,  but a gentle organized rain. Almost like an orchestra. It falls neatly, it claps loudly, puddles form, it crescendos and decrescendos then without warning it ceases, as though a conductor were actually there directing it's cues, parts, and lines. Dripping is heard for hours from gutters even after the down pour ends. It's aftermath is felt. This is the one I often do not noticed. This is the day to day. The monotony. The daily grind we so call it and get sick of. Do you forget sometimes to see the beauty in it too? Don't lose it. This rain is still good. 

The pour. There's nothing like the pour. You sometimes see the clouds forming. You smell the air changing. But most of the time it comes without warning. It comes when you least expect it.  It's big, in your face stormy rain. You squint your eyes, you're dripping head to toe, sloshed. All you can dream of is that romantic kiss you've seen in movies where everything is perfect as they passionately embrace each other and they no longer even notice the rain.  That warm cup of coffee. That fireplace. A good book. When you run in this rain, you feel Unstoppable. You squint away the rain, but it's as though your body has absorbed the energy of this. You can't get enough. You push forward. Nothing hurts. Nothing is tired. You don't notice anything but your heart racing and your breathing in sync with your steps. But then you stop. When you stop, it's shivers and weight and sticky clothes. It whips you in the face, your hair looks like a fresh shower, and your clothes have never felt heavier. You're chilled deep to the bone and only hot showers can cure this kind of thing. You've had quite the journey and it was good for the soul. It's euphoric. But it's over and it's end is felt even deeper. 

I think to me the rains have it down. They show us how to remember.... From The simple gentle memories. The little things. The kissing sprinkles. To the down pours of love, laughter, joy, happiness, success. Where life just couldn't get any better. The moments we depend on when the orchestra rains flood in and seem to make us feel unimportant or full of doubt. The filler.  Don't ever forget the little rains or downpours even in those days.  Soak them up. smile at them. Create them. Cling to them. 

"What good is the warmth of summer with the cold of winter to give it sweetness" 

   -Mr. Steinbeck