Enjoys: long walks on gravel roads

Being home seems at once the right place to be, and at the same time incongruous with the rest of my life. What I mean is this: I came home after graduation, and I fit right in. My bed is still as uncomfortable as ever, I drink three cups of tea a day (it's like a comfort blanket). Shanna still keeps me awake at night, (last night it was recording my name in a gravelly voice on her phone and then playing it back to me, right in my ear.) These are things that fit like a glove.

At the same time, this is just a pit stop. I'm moving to Mexico in two and a half weeks. My clothes don't have a drawer in which to belong, because Shanna has usurped all the space in the room upstairs. My stuff sits in peripatetic piles, piles that I carry from place to place but have no final destination.

I feel comfortable at home, content, yet there is a restless corner inside, because I know I will not be here long. Unsure how the next step will turn out, let alone the step after that, I want to be fully present, here for these next few weeks, and still fully prepared for what happens next. I will keep you updated as to the success of this venture.

Cloverfield

My brother wanted me to watch the thriller Cloverfield, so I put it in one evening. The premise of the movie is a home video, shot to record the going-away party of a twenty-something. The video records much more than people’s farewells – apparently something is attacking the city (how many times has Manhattan been destroyed? By giant gorillas, giant lizards, global warming, asteroids?). You don’t really know what’s happening, what the giant monster wandering through the streets is, wreaking havoc and causing pandemonium. You just follow the youngsters, reveling in their distress, pain, loss. Manhattan looks like a warzone.

Why do we make movies like this for entertainment? There was recently a huge earthquake in southern China. 40,000 people are dead. Burma suffered a tidal wave and subsequent flooding. Tens of thousands gone, there as well. There is chronic war in Iraq, Sudan, multiple places around the world. The events depicted in Cloverfield happen to real people around the world (barring the alien monster, of course). Are we so numb to the pain of the world? To the real loss and suffering elsewhere? We not only transplant that destruction into our own cities (because it’s more exciting when it affects a place that we’ve visited) but we do it for entertainment. For pleasure. For a thrill. I doubt that watching Cloverfield inspires many Americans to care about people around the world who experience tragic events such as earthquakes or war. My guess is that they snuggle deeper into their chair and relish the safety they possess.

When something really does happen in New York City, say, attacks by extremist terrorists, we make that into a movie, too. So we can sit, enjoy buttered popcorn, and watch real events mesh into sensationalized thrillers.

David, my brother, I don’t really like the movie. Sorry.

Wake up

I woke up three times this morning.
At six, Shanna's radio alarm went off. My eyes were heavy, and I couldn't keep them open for long, but the tree outside my window was radiant, showing off its yellow-green leaves and reflecting the blazing east, which was obscured by the turn of the house.

Later, at eight, my phone alarm went off. I woke up, contemplated my life, the sorry state of my messy room, and what I plan to do today. I dozed a little more.

I got up at 8:10, however. Because the dog, who wanted to be let out of the room, kept bounding up on my back then scooting around my head, sticking her nose right into my face. She dropped a tick on the bed, and I felt it tickling my arm. When I decided that the tickle wasn't imaginary, I got up, found it to be parasite, and ground it to death between a rock and a shelf.

Then I got up.

Farsighted

I just opened a new blog, for my time in Mexico. It's address is karen-in-mexico.blogspot.com. I titled it "Farsighted" from a Five Iron Frenzy song. It's about hope and dreaming, and seeing possibilities. You're welcome to check it out, though I still need to fix it up a little bit, and I probably won't be adding much to it for a while still.

Funny, blogging was rather a joke to me not that long ago. I tried it as a gimmick, but have grown to like it. I like having a venue to sharing my thoughts, and it provides me with a space to think through how to express myself. I've always had a little bit of a difficulty formulating my thoughts and articulating them accurately. And now, leaving here to spend at least the next year in Mexico, blogging provides a way to provide updates without inundating those of you who do not wish to be so overwhelmed with the details of my escapades.

My own personal time-machine.

Driving home from Illinois is like going back in time. Well, actually, maybe it's more like pressing the rewind button on a video tape. The leaves on the trees move backward, getting smaller, disappearing back into the branches. The tulips pull their petals in and scoot back toward the earth. Going north in the spring time is friendly, not menacing, because it means I get to experience the blossoming of spring all over again. Going north in the fall, however, is sad and lonely. It's pressing the fast forward button. The leaves have fallen already and you lose the experience.

I drove home yesterday and today, and while noticing the changes in the trees, I spent a solid three and half hours of the time listening to a dramatization of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I didn't leave early enough to drive the dawn, plus I was going north and west, not east, but it was still a voyage nonetheless. Eustace makes me laugh, and at times I slapped my knee (yes, I will acknowledge this. I laugh aloud to myself when I'm driving alone.) I can't get over how ridiculous he is. He is on such an amazing adventure and he can't see it! He just wants to find a British Consulate, as if you could find one of those in Narnia. The transformation he undergoes, though, metamorphizing into a dragon, is rather potent. When I heard the lonely dragon cry of Eustace when he realizes what has happened to him, I felt sad with him. Later, when Aslan tells him that he needs help undressing his dragon skin, I heard the growl of the lion as he sunk his teeth deep into the scales and skin enclosing Eustace. I could imagine the terror and the hope Eustace felt, for though the teeth of a lion hurt, he could not rid himself of the dragon skin he so desperately desired gone, and needed someone stronger.

conversation snippets

One of my Aunt Kathryn's classmates (from the class of 1943, here for their 65th college reunion) "We graduated with Billy Graham, and we hear so much about his life, but God has done great things in so many of our lives."

The person a few spaces behind me in line for commencement, "the alphabet is a confusing place to be."

Grandpa, holding my hand, "when your dad was a little boy in church, he would be restless, and I would take his hands and rub his fingertips. Quieted him down. Life is good."

Commencement speaker, Akiko Minato, "We are united in Christ, Galatians 3:28, and we are called to be peacemakers."

Tyler Fulton, "Karen, if I don't see you again, have a nice life."

graduation

I graduated today, summa cum laude with a bachelor's of arts in sociology, minor in Bible/Theology. I am no longer an undergrad and my tassle will always hang on left, at least everytime I wear my tartar board hat from now on.

Rehearsal for graduation consists of a motley group of 500 or so 22 year olds, anxious to be done and annoyed with one last "stand here, walk here, say this, know this." Graduation is a bit of a farce, no? We are taught for years to be an individual and then are given matching robes and caps so that assimilation appears complete. It is during rehearsal that our personalities come forth, through our hairstyles and t-shirts, rather than the actual ceremony. And what about the fact that we do not receive our diploma at Commencement? We are given a nice case, but our diploma is mailed to us later, after verification that we have completed our course requirements. My family traveled 840 miles to see me receive an empty case. Why is graduation so important?
For Baccalaureate I feel odd dressing up in the blue graduation gown, but after I walk to the library, where we line up, I would feel odd if I had chosen instead to wear my regular clothes. The gowns separate us. They take us out of our everyday lives and pronounce that something different is taking place, at least for now.
I could not stop myself from smiling after Baccalaureate. It was a beautiful windblown day, rainy. I won't forget it. We were so dignified in our caps and gowns, and the wind said "don't take yourself too seriously."
Coming of Age ceremonies in many cultures have some things in common. First, in order to acknowledge a change, the initiates are separated from the rest of the group, given specific instructions or a challenge, and then reinserted into the wider community. On Sunday, I was someone different. I was given a physical representation of a less ostentatious change - the gown, the diploma case all represent the academic achievement that I have worked on for the past four years. What if I had chosen not to walk for my graduation? I would have still achieved the same, but there is meaning in this ritual, and that is why my family came, why professors dressed up like watermelon jolly ranchers, and why Dr. Litftin shook 560 hands. I think the bizarre thriller-type organ music we processed to made it even more pregnant with meaning and circumstance.

Quite amazing

If I am ever in charge of a large group of children, or probably any size group, I will not let them loose in a shrub maze. On Friday my roommate Sarah Davis took Natasha and me to the Morton Arboretum, a huge plant park southeast of here. They had a maze garden and we walked through it while dozens of elementary aged kids skirted by us. Most were enjoying themselves, but after running around for a while, I began to see disconcerted looks or even tinges of fear as the kids said "you go that way and I'll go this way," looking for a way out. I don't know which of the leaders had this brilliant idea but I'm sure they enjoyed the arduous process of disentangling the children from the verdant web.

Argument clinic

Kathryn and I seem to be arguing a lot lately. The most current quibble was about jay-walking. Let me set up the situation.

After sharing delicious coffee smoothies at the Stupe, Kathryn and I walk back to our respective houses. At the corner of University and Howard we pause before we go our separate directions. I will go straight on University a ways before skirting through a parking lot and the secret passage. She will turn North on Howard to where her house sits. Diagonally across from our talking spot is the sidewalk that leads up to the Smith-Traber dormitory, where freshmen and sophomores live, as did Kathryn the previous two years.

Many students find it more convenient to walk diagonally across the intersection instead of making a right angle at the crosswalks. Apparently they’ve taken geometry and know that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. And they’re busy; it shaves a couple of seconds off the total trek time.

I have a tendency to be quite irritated when I think people are being rude or inconsiderate. For instance, when someone interrupts a conversation to talk only with one person in the group without acknowledging the others – though perhaps they recently actually met the other people in the group – I consider that rude and have a hard time letting go of my annoyance, shrugging it off. I’m working on this. So as Kathryn and I stood there, chatting about our computers and wireless cards, I noticed a Traber-type casually walking straight across the intersection, holding up a car that was waiting to go straight. I mentioned to Kathryn how rude it was for students to do that when cars were waiting, and she disagreed with me. She thought that cars could wait – they have a stop sign, the pedestrian has the right of way, it only takes a few more seconds. She said that I had standards that I expected everyone to conform to (funny, Kathryn – my standards happen to be the law!). What I would appreciate is for students to walk diagonally only when there are no cars waiting. When there are vehicles, either walk completely in the crosswalks or let the car go through and then skirt across the intersection. (So I guess my standards aren’t completely based on what is legal, but more on what is pragmatically most useful to all parties…I shall have to muse more on this).

In a preemptive response, let me tell you, my faithful reader, what Kathryn’s rebuttal was so that she cannot skewer me in the comments section: “But you’ve never lived there!” Apparently, walking across that intersection several times a day gets tedious, and it is easier to go straight from point A to point B than to walk in the crosswalks. Her claim is true: I have never lived in either Smith or Traber dormitories, and I do not have the existential experience of having to cross two streets every time I need to go somewhere on campus. Judge between us, my readers: is that sufficient reason to put ourselves and our desires before those of others? Cars can wait, but so can we, the pedestrians. Being rude isn’t the ultimate sin, and sometimes may even be necessary, but I think that being considerate has a lot of parallels with putting one another’s needs before our own and laying down our rights. It’s a place to start.

I do need to stop being ultra critical. People may not realize their rudeness, and I should never assume that they are being so on purpose. And the title of my post is from a Monty Python skit: check it out.

Not a finished product

We had a song on a kids tape when I was growing up, and the words were
"He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took him just a week to make the moon and stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient he must be - he's still working on me."

Five days until graduation! I'll be all shiny and clean and one of 550 other blue-gowned graduates. Like Wheaton is a tube of toothpaste that annually shoots out a big glob of educated young adults. Not finished, in process, a step along the way.

It's an interesting feeling to be graduating and thinking that I should be somewhere I'm not - like I should have squeezed more out of my education. Similar to the feeling that I should be writing incredibly profound and insightful things in my blog - that one day I'll put it in a book that will bring hope and joy to millions.

I leave with you this thought "God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal, 'the Lord knows those who are his.'" 2 Tim 2:19. I do not have to prove myself, I do not have to act like a finished product. He's still working on me, and he knows those who are his. I rest and trust in his work, delighting in the adventure he has set me on.

The first step of the adventure I have some idea about - at least locationally I'll be in Mexico. Step by step, because he's still working on me.

Orion

Two falls ago my sister and I were preparing to leave for college. It was a full day drive - all 13 hours with a short "layover" in Minneapolis. We were leaving early in the morning.

I remember waking up around 4:45 after having slept poorly. I felt resentful, groggy, and sullen. The car had been packed the night before, so I finished a few last minute items and walked out to the car.

I wrote in my journal for that day "I stepped outside and felt refreshed and beloved. There was a delicate crescent moon, waxing, the whole sphere visible by earthshine. Orion and the Seven Sisters. A cool breeze."

Dr. Jerry Root spoke in our last chapel today. He talked about measuring time by Orion. Knowing that when Orion rose in the early evening in late summer, school would be starting soon. And in the spring, when Orion fell behind the sun, knowing that students would disperse like the delicate seeds of a dandelion when a breeze blows through.