open spaces

we drove up from the center of Zacatecas to the Texas/Mexico border yesterday. As the road became wider and the land more open, I felt my soul open up. I hadn't realized how much I had missed the clouds and the wide sky and the green-gold grass on the sides of the highway. I wished that I hadn't already purchased plane tickets but could instead rent a car and keep on driving. I'd drive right through the great plains, through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. what a way to go home. I'd see the seasons rewind, from the harvests already in progress in the south to the still growing and green oceans near my house. I could merge onto Route 281 and stay on it, jumping off right before Canada. Driving 70+ mph, watching the land unroll before me, letting the memories come back, listening and thinking and praying. That's how I'd like to go home.

We're still sitting here, waiting, on the tip of Texas. My flight doesn't leave until tomorrow but we wanted to leave time in case of traveling troubles. I'm not used to the water-saturated, super-heated air and I feel lethargic and annoyed outside. Now a tropical storm is rolling in and the rain comes in gusts and cools the air.

March

I grew up in North Dakota, where the month of March is still tightly gripped in Winter. And yet it's not the same as January or February; the days are getting longer and there's a certain quality on the wind. It's almost like a kiss. A soft, gentle, kiss from Spring even as Winter continues to rule over the northern plains.

I took the kiss on the wind as a promise, that something was about to change, and I began to love March.

So all through high school, which others around me continued as in the midst of winter, I had a secret friendship with the wind and the air and the sun in March. I would read favorite authors and re-read favorite books. I would take long walks in the growing evenings. I liked celebrating the little holidays of the First Day of Spring and St. Patrick's Day. March became my favorite month.

In college, I began to celebrate Lent, and as Ash Wednesday almost always falls in February, and Easter almost always in April, March was almost always caught completely in Lent. And I was caught up in legalistically denying myself. I also missed the so-slow, ever-so-slow turning over of winter to spring. The change was quicker, somehow, in Chicago, and tulips were sometimes already peaking the beginnings of their green leaves through by the end of March.

Now I've moved to Mexico, where there is no early spring and where March is completely buried under Lenten rituals in this Catholic country.

So I find that for the last few years, I miss early Spring. I miss the awakening joy. I miss home.

Doppler

One of the purposes of this blog is to attempt creative writing.
Attempt is the operative word. I'm learning.
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A drive down the highway reveals the change. When the spaces between trees are compressed by the speed, a Doppler effect of color results. The grey branches are quite visibly crayoned in by Spring. The green buds raise their eyebrows suggestively, saying, aren't you glad you waited? Aren't we worth it?
It was at this time last year that the snows came in and said in high piercing laughter, "Just kidding!"
Oh, the leaves came, but it was hard to wait. After the first tantalizing smiles and wake-up yawns, to be slammed back into sleep was almost cruel. For it was a sleep trying to remember a dream and the brow was furrowed by its mental labor.

Helcaraxë

To the north of our townhouse is a "secret pathway" as a friend of mine calls it. We can skirt alongside the car, between one fence and then over another, then walk between a row of trees and a 30 inch high concrete wall. We come out in a college-owned parking lot and the path is a nice shortcut when heading to campus. The parking lot and the ground on the other side of the short wall is a lower spot on campus and recently, when we had a lot of rain last weekend, became a thinly iced pond. The temperature dropped and the water froze. This made for a precarious walk across the parking lot, but what was really interesting was the way the deeper ice in the depression by the wall cracked and broke, with sheets of ice beginning to rise above another like the outcomes of miniature and frozen plate tectonics.

The sparrows keep singing though, and that makes me smile.

Strobe sight

I'm walking on water but it's the slushy kind. The wind's blowing the snow directly in my face. Soft kisses? Or perhaps tiny slaps? The snow induces rapid blinking and the shutters of my eyes open and close several times a second. I can just see enough not to run into another and to recognize familiar shapes and jackets. It's not cold enough to bring on fits of shivering and I can't help but grin as the words "hold your head high! Hold your head high!" play over in my mind. I don't even know the rest of the song.

The snow car

Yesterday after the snowfall our townhouse neighbors decided it would be fun to bury a car. We watched from our window, surmising that they were probably just playing a practical joke on a friend.

This afternoon a young lady was out there pushing all the snow from her car, so we went out to help. She said that she did know the guys but that they didn't know this was her car. Apparently they just chose the smallest car in the lot to turn into a giant snowball.

Natasha has said, previously, that she would like to go over and ask these fellows what goes on in their heads. They have done other unhelpful things like throwing broken furniture on our lawn, being inconsiderately loud late at night, etc. I should like to know as well.

Reading ahead

I really need to pay more attention to what the exact reading assignment is for each day. Twice now I have read information that is not needed for several days while neglecting the immediate assignment. It's all good stuff though; good stuff. I was reading a Catholic theologian talking about the need for racial reconciliation, and his treatment of the subject is quite good. He goes beyond mere insights or principles and seeks after concrete practices we can follow that emphasize, theologically, that we are the chosen people of God and part of that community. There were some aspects of the article that I was confused about and will continue to muse on those. Hopefully the class discussion in several days contributes to the elucidation. In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, Slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.

But now I have no time to read Monday's stuff because it's Groundhog Day, believe it or not, and things are about to get hopping around here. I know everyone is really excited about this day, even though the hog saw his shadow again, of course. But despite the prediction here tonight we will bask in each others warm hearts and hearths.

Career Fest

Today Natasha and I went to a Career Fest, booyah. It was crazy. There were a lot of different employers there, but I was only really interested in the human and social services. It was good experience, definitely, and a couple of the employers seemed interested in my resume, so I guess I've got something going for me.

Mostly it was good experiential knowledge because I've only ever gone through a real interview process once, and that was with Teach For America. It can be a bit daunting to think about stepping out from my nice, sheltered enclave at Wheaton and merging with the work outside of here, so it was nice to feel like perhaps I do have good stuff to offer and can do good, meaningful work after I graduate.

Tomorrow's Groundhog Day, and the rodent will probably see his shadow because the forecast is sunny, but that's okay because we can eat the hog afterwards. ;)

Snow

Generally I like Weather, or at least I can enjoy it for a time, even if I don't like being out in it for long. Today it's started snowing and it blows right in your face. Part of the reason I like Weather is because you can't control it - it will do what it will, and my job is to respond (by the way, I am capitalizing Weather in the vein of C.S. Lewis in That Hideous Strength). My favorite part about the snow is letting the snowflakes land on my glove and then looking at them. I also appreciate the way the freshly fallen snow covers everything, although its stark whiteness doesn't last long in the suburbs. Last night I was looking at the swirling eddies of windblown snow against the wide street and wished I were a poet. They looked like wispy ghosts or like the foaming ocean water against the rocks on the shore.

Today a Rich Mullins song, "Hold Me, Jesus," played on my computer (it was on random). It was a welcome reminder of the assurance I have that God is in control and his plan is best. Yay Rich Mullins!