Disclaimer: The following blog contains less than encouraging or uplifting news, perspective or information. In fact, in many ways it is my substitute for the personal pity party that I can't afford to throw myself right now (though I may indulge in a pint of ice cream by myself inside the car that I don't actually own later this week).
I want to confess that even as I start this blog I begin with the faint hope that someday I will come back and read it and think "Oh Amanda, why are you so pessimistic? Don't you realize that your life isn't really that difficult? That sometimes things really do work out?" But as I stated, those hopes are faint, like the water color painting of a first-grader who didn't dry her brush between colors and spent more time dipping in the cup of murky water than the paints themselves.
Hope, faith, trust - they've never been my strengths. There may have been a time when I believed that "all things work for good," that "everything happens for a reason," or that "someday it will be your [as in my] turn for good fortune," but that was a while ago. A long while ago. I know people whose lives "work out," who marry the first person they date, live with the same great roommate for six years, find super cheap rent on housing and get job offers handed to them from people they don't even know. I know people who find full-time jobs after looking for less than 2 weeks, win back stage passes to top notch concerts, receive free meals when the go to restaurants and are offered experiences overseas that require little more than filling out an application. I'm just not one of those people.
I'm more often than not a person who gets stuck with "deer in the headlights" syndrome because I'm never quite sure what to do or what I want. This usually results in putting off a decision until the last possible moment - the moment in which I think I finally know what it is that I want. But then after I've made the decision, I realize that I really should have chosen otherwise. Dinner entrees, clothing selections, flight dates, movie seats, ice cream flavours - I never seem to make the best choice. I've learned how to cope with my bad decision making. I have all kinds of justifications that make feel better about what happened. "It was character forming," I tell myself. "I'll know better next time." "It broadened my horizons." "I learned something about myself." Sometimes I even believe these things.
The most recent decision I made was to accept a position as a Youth Intern and come to Kansas City for the summer. Prior to that point I had spent 6 months unexpectedly living with my parents in Lincoln, NE, working in a bakery, desperately applying for employment and failing to secure a job teaching English in Europe (which was the only thing I really, really knew I wanted). It was difficult, discouraging and disheartening. Very disheartening. Living at home doing manual labor and not making much money not only hurt my pride, it hurt my heart. I'd given up grad school (at least for a few years) and a conventional career for the opportunity to teach abroad. I'd sunk $1200 and 120 hours into getting TEFL certification. I had bought the line that there are hundreds of jobs abroad and that everyone wants to learn English. I prepared myself for Europe. And then it didn't happen. And it didn't happen. And it didn't happen. And I lost hope.
It was three or four months before something pulled at my heart again. This time it wasn't a career. It wasn't a place. It was a concept - living in community. And in community with someone who shared many of my thoughts, ideals, interests and insights. This concept is part of what inspired the move to KC in the first place. I bought into this idea. In fact, I think I sold it to myself. I justified a move to KC and started looking for ways to make it happen.
I came across a youth internship. I have a substantial background in youth ministry, and though it doesn't really interest me as a career choice any longer, it is something in which I still take interest. I applied for the internship. I got the internship. (I later learned I was the only applicant). And within two weeks of agreeing to the position I was offered not one, but two jobs in the Czech Republic. I could feasibly go to KC for the summer and then to Czech in the fall, but that would mean yet another move. What if I formed community in KC? What if I got attached? What if I found a job? What if I wanted to stay?
Against my proclivity to move wherever whenever possible, I thought I might do something crazy and opt towards "stability." I told the schools in Czech to find another English instructor. I let go of that dream and embraced the community I would be forming and moving into.
I spent 10-12 weeks doing "youth things," making some use of my college education, but not much. During that time I lived with one of the church families - which was wonderfully generous of them and financially beneficial for me. The internship wasn't great and it wasn't awful. It was what it was - 10 weeks of doing whatever anyone could come up with for me to do. I was slightly discouraged, but not overly. I viewed it as a means of getting my foot in a door that opened to Kansas City.
Sometime in August I began looking for jobs in the area. Writing jobs, tutoring jobs, waitressing jobs, barista jobs, administrative jobs, secretarial work. I applied for anything that sounded remotely interesting and even some jobs that didn't, but none of them came through. August 22 my internship ended and I went back to Lincoln to visit my family and pick up the rest of the things I would need in order to move out of the house and into a shared apartment, which was supposed to happen the following week. All was "go" for community living.
And then I got a phone call. The roommate I was going to move out and in with informed me that she couldn't. Full stop. We'd spoken of this potential move for the past 4 months. I'd taken the internship so we could spend the summer living in the same area. I'd given up teaching in Czech to be a roomie in KC. And now she realizes she can't move out, which leaves me in my current state - without a job, a roommate, a home, or any real reason to go back to Kansas City (aside from all of that stuff I need to move out of the house where I've been staying).
This is just the way things happen - for me. I have no direction, no idea, no possibilities. I start grasping at nothing and by some act of God I create options. I come up with enough reasons to choose one of the options that I created. I make the decision. I get excited about it. I start envisioning the plan I've made for my life. I take an imaginary walk down the path that I've set out for myself. It looks lovely. I walk back to real life and start taking the first steps. And then I fall on my face and discover that things aren't as lovely as I'd pictured.
And it is in this place, on the ground, nursing my wounds, overcome with frustration, failure and fear, that I write this post. I don't write it to solicit your pity, but to admit to myself that I'm tired of falling. I'm tired of failing. I'm tired of trying. And I'm afraid of getting up and continuing on down the road that doesn't look very promising. I have no one to blame but myself. I made these decisions. And here I am...
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Sensuality in the Stairwell
Do you ever feel like life is moving so quickly or that you're trying to do so much at one time that you're never really doing anything, never really experiencing any of it? It could be that you don't make or have the time to just stop and observe what's going on, what the people around you are doing or saying or feeling. Perhaps you're too preoccupied with working and planning and multitasking and getting distracted. Or maybe your work environment with its fluorescent lights, microfiber carpet, mass produced coffee and air-conditioned atmosphere is so artificial that you forget what it means to be a messy, moving, sweating, breathing, living human being.
This is the state in which I found myself after about six straight hours of sitting in front of the computer screen in the youth ministry office, writing Bible studies, creating camping brochures and searching for jobs on craigslist (I succeeded in only one of these endeavors - I'll let you guess which). After a brief debrief with my "over-shepherd" (the ministry pastor with whom I've spoken three times in my entire internship: once during the preliminary phone interview, once just after my arrival, and finally just before my departure), I decided to step outside of my office and (gasp) outside of the building to breathe in the "fresh" (albeit rather thick) Kansas air.
Ten minutes later I got a call telling me that the my '96 Pontiac Grand Am had been repaired, at least to the point where I could drive it to Lincoln to rest in peace with my parents without fearing for my life in the process. Clad in a sleeveless top and summer skirt I began the 15 minute treck to Goodyear at about 3:15 pm. As I walked along the residential street of Lamar an interesting thing happened - I became notably aware of where I was and what was happening around me. I took in varying shades of green that colored the trees, the grass, and the plants lining the fronts of houses. I felt the sun warming my bare arms, neck and shoulders and wondered if the temperature had reached the predicted 94 degrees. I noticed the cracks in the sidewalk, the tree roots burrowing beneath and the sound of my heals clicking on the concrete.
Not long into my walk three upper-grade school kids passed by, and I noticed them too. I'd guess the girl with the attitude holding the hand of the boy with his hat on backwards were something like twelve years old. The boy that trailed about five feet behind them was probably around 10. I passed the disgruntled couple and smiled at the younger boy in the camp shirt, hoping he would make eye contact with me through my sunglasses. I think he noticed.
I got to the auto shop and waited to have my oil changed. The air conditioned waiting space smelled strongly of rubber and I was happy to see the television was off. Twenty minutes and ten reflections from Henri Nouwen later my car was ready to go. I swiped the plastic fantastic. I think it may be in pain.
When I reached the church I pulled my bags out of the car and headed to the back stairwell, the one that requires unlocking three doors and using both of my church keys. I could have gone through the main entrance, but I like the back stairwell, It's hidden and out of the way and leads directly to my office. No one knows when I come in late or when I leave in the middle of the afternoon (not that they'd really have much to say about it anyway), and it's conveniently located right next to the kitchen.
The heat of the August day lingered on my skin as I unlocked the door and breathed in the cooled air. I walked halfway up the stairs when I remembered the fudgecicles I'd seen in the kitchen freezer. They were probably left over from a children's event or had been forgotten by last week's VBS parents. I walked back down, snuck into the kitchen and grabbed one of the frozen, chocolately treats. I returned to the stairwell and there I savored every icy, sloppy, delicious lick. The warmth of my tongue melted the bar, which slid down my throat, appeasing my longing. Every once in a while I bit off a chunk of chocolate, sending a shock through the sensitive nerves in my teeth. Slowly and happily, I consumed every bit of it, right down to the last few drips of chocolate running along the small, wooden stick. I crumpled the wrapper into my hand and unlocked the door at the top of the stairs.
As I walked down the hallway that leads to my office I felt strangely sheepish about my indulgence, as if I were a high school student who had just come back from making out with my boyfriend under the bleachers. Eating a fudgecicle isn't nearly so scandalous, but it is an experience I believe that I fully enjoyed.
Not long into my walk three upper-grade school kids passed by, and I noticed them too. I'd guess the girl with the attitude holding the hand of the boy with his hat on backwards were something like twelve years old. The boy that trailed about five feet behind them was probably around 10. I passed the disgruntled couple and smiled at the younger boy in the camp shirt, hoping he would make eye contact with me through my sunglasses. I think he noticed.
I got to the auto shop and waited to have my oil changed. The air conditioned waiting space smelled strongly of rubber and I was happy to see the television was off. Twenty minutes and ten reflections from Henri Nouwen later my car was ready to go. I swiped the plastic fantastic. I think it may be in pain.
When I reached the church I pulled my bags out of the car and headed to the back stairwell, the one that requires unlocking three doors and using both of my church keys. I could have gone through the main entrance, but I like the back stairwell, It's hidden and out of the way and leads directly to my office. No one knows when I come in late or when I leave in the middle of the afternoon (not that they'd really have much to say about it anyway), and it's conveniently located right next to the kitchen.
The heat of the August day lingered on my skin as I unlocked the door and breathed in the cooled air. I walked halfway up the stairs when I remembered the fudgecicles I'd seen in the kitchen freezer. They were probably left over from a children's event or had been forgotten by last week's VBS parents. I walked back down, snuck into the kitchen and grabbed one of the frozen, chocolately treats. I returned to the stairwell and there I savored every icy, sloppy, delicious lick. The warmth of my tongue melted the bar, which slid down my throat, appeasing my longing. Every once in a while I bit off a chunk of chocolate, sending a shock through the sensitive nerves in my teeth. Slowly and happily, I consumed every bit of it, right down to the last few drips of chocolate running along the small, wooden stick. I crumpled the wrapper into my hand and unlocked the door at the top of the stairs.
As I walked down the hallway that leads to my office I felt strangely sheepish about my indulgence, as if I were a high school student who had just come back from making out with my boyfriend under the bleachers. Eating a fudgecicle isn't nearly so scandalous, but it is an experience I believe that I fully enjoyed.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Simplifying
Last week I was working on writing some Bible studies for my youth group when my both of my computers (yes, both of them) reached their "maxed out" point and either started freezing windows or began to process at the speed of a three-legged turtle on sedatives. This was probably my fault for asking them to do and remember so many things at one time. I forget that even the magic machines in front of me have their limits, and on this particular day I had reached them.
As I sat in the maroon swivel chair behind the paper-laden desk that fills the youth office I wondered how I could possibly "work" without a computer. Whatever would I do without Microsoft Word to document what I had done during the day? What sense of accomplishment could I have without a stack of papers or presentation of power point slides? I wouldn't say I began to panic, but I was rather bereft until it hit me that there might be another way to put together a curriuculm. Pen and paper anyone?
For the next hour or so I planned a Wednesday night using a sheet of recycled printer paper, a burgundy "You've Got a Friend at Bethany" pen and a tattered LCMS Youth Gathering Bible. This may seem quite simple and rather unremarkable, but the simplicity of it is what I found so remarkable, and also very freeing. Often when planning lessons I find myself slave to the infinite amount of information on the Internet. I use Google to find ice breakers and games. I open the scripture passage in three different windows (each a different translation) and then attempt to skim a few commentaries. I look for a tie-in Youtube video, wanting to be culturally "in" with my high school students (which I've realized is something I should just stop trying to do). All the while I have a window open playing Pandora, a window open for my online Thesaurus, and a window open to my e-mail. It's a little ridiculous.
I realized as I was writing, though, that neither I nor my students really "need" so many resources. Impressive presentations and memorable video clips are fine and dandy and stimulating and culturally relevant, but my kids don't really want me to impress them, they just want me to love them, to share with them, to tell them stories and ask them questions - most of them anyway. I do have students who just want to play games and make noise and eat ice cream, but that seems to go with the territory.
The other thing I realized while I was writing is that I really like the physical act of writing. I like forming letters and watching as the pen becomes an extention of my hand and together the two produce this script that is capable of conveying in words the thoughts in my head in such a way that the person who reads those words on the page can then share and attempt to comprehend the thoughts that were in my head that are now on the page. Writing amazes me. Ironically I am documenting all of this on a blog that is kept on a computer and never printed (much less hand-written) on a page, but that's the way it goes. Blogging saves trees :)
I go through stints of hand-writing letters. It takes a long time and they aren't always of the highest quality, but they are my attempt to regain a little of my "pre-computer" life. It's strange to me that I can't go back and reread my letters the way I can the messages in my "Sent Items" folder. I can't copy-paste what I'm writing to my friend in Oregon into the letter I'm writing my friend in Wisconsin. I can't stick in links to webpages that remind me of my friends or photos that I took when I went to the park last weekend. I actually have to use words to describe what I feel and see and experience. Tragically, this has become more difficult than it was when I was 15. I am hoping to change that. If you find yourself fortunate enough to receive one of the handwritten letters that I'm currently promising myself I'm going to write, be gentle in your judgements. I'm re-learning how to live away from my laptop.
As I sat in the maroon swivel chair behind the paper-laden desk that fills the youth office I wondered how I could possibly "work" without a computer. Whatever would I do without Microsoft Word to document what I had done during the day? What sense of accomplishment could I have without a stack of papers or presentation of power point slides? I wouldn't say I began to panic, but I was rather bereft until it hit me that there might be another way to put together a curriuculm. Pen and paper anyone?
For the next hour or so I planned a Wednesday night using a sheet of recycled printer paper, a burgundy "You've Got a Friend at Bethany" pen and a tattered LCMS Youth Gathering Bible. This may seem quite simple and rather unremarkable, but the simplicity of it is what I found so remarkable, and also very freeing. Often when planning lessons I find myself slave to the infinite amount of information on the Internet. I use Google to find ice breakers and games. I open the scripture passage in three different windows (each a different translation) and then attempt to skim a few commentaries. I look for a tie-in Youtube video, wanting to be culturally "in" with my high school students (which I've realized is something I should just stop trying to do). All the while I have a window open playing Pandora, a window open for my online Thesaurus, and a window open to my e-mail. It's a little ridiculous.
I realized as I was writing, though, that neither I nor my students really "need" so many resources. Impressive presentations and memorable video clips are fine and dandy and stimulating and culturally relevant, but my kids don't really want me to impress them, they just want me to love them, to share with them, to tell them stories and ask them questions - most of them anyway. I do have students who just want to play games and make noise and eat ice cream, but that seems to go with the territory.
The other thing I realized while I was writing is that I really like the physical act of writing. I like forming letters and watching as the pen becomes an extention of my hand and together the two produce this script that is capable of conveying in words the thoughts in my head in such a way that the person who reads those words on the page can then share and attempt to comprehend the thoughts that were in my head that are now on the page. Writing amazes me. Ironically I am documenting all of this on a blog that is kept on a computer and never printed (much less hand-written) on a page, but that's the way it goes. Blogging saves trees :)
I go through stints of hand-writing letters. It takes a long time and they aren't always of the highest quality, but they are my attempt to regain a little of my "pre-computer" life. It's strange to me that I can't go back and reread my letters the way I can the messages in my "Sent Items" folder. I can't copy-paste what I'm writing to my friend in Oregon into the letter I'm writing my friend in Wisconsin. I can't stick in links to webpages that remind me of my friends or photos that I took when I went to the park last weekend. I actually have to use words to describe what I feel and see and experience. Tragically, this has become more difficult than it was when I was 15. I am hoping to change that. If you find yourself fortunate enough to receive one of the handwritten letters that I'm currently promising myself I'm going to write, be gentle in your judgements. I'm re-learning how to live away from my laptop.
Recessive genes
I am currently working at a church. Attached to the church is a K-8 school. Classes began yesterday. Why the state of Kansas thinks it's necessary to stick children in a classroom when there are still weeks of "good" summer weather left I don't know, but I think it has something to do with finishing the semester before Christmas. I live with the 3rd grade teacher and her husband (one of the pastors of the church), and I've been watching as she and the other teachers get their classrooms ready and prepare for the start of another year. I observed as they wrote on nametags, covered bulletine boards, organized bookshelves and filed lesson plans for Reading (why did they not offer this as a major at Northwestern?), Spelling, Math, Religion, Science, and Social Studies.
Social Studies. Hmm.
When I was in grade school Social Studies was a class in which I learned about maps, directions, Christopher Columbus, neighborhoods, state capitols, the Native Americans, and a brief overview of ancient Greece. I didn't question it at the time, but studying "social things" - all of the components and structures that make up a society - is really quite a mindful for a grade school student. In fourth grade Social Studies was replaced by (or morphed into) Nebraska History. At the age of 10 I assumed everyone spent an entire year learning about the Bugeaters, the Great Plains, the Dustbowl, Heritage School, Laura Ingalls Wilder, William Jennings Bryan and Willa Cather. Apparently I was wrong.
At one point in the year we diverged from our diligent studies of the great state of Nebraska (whose birthday happens to be March 1st, state flower is goldenrod and state bird is the meadowlark), to explore our family history. We made family trees, brought in "pieces of heritage" (mine was a German Bible), wrote stories and interviewed living grandparents (my great grandmother told me a story about a dancing black bear in Scottsbluff, NE). I shared with the class what I'd always known - that I come from a long line of German Lutherans, that a number of my relatives were or still are farmers, and that if I go just a few generations back on either side of my family I can trace when great great grandparents immigrated through Ellis Island before settling in the Midwest. There's something very warm and safe and comforting about having roots in an agrarian family. It seems very secure and grounding to read about the farm that was passed down and passed down and passed down, to know that my ancestors were born and married in the same houses in which they raised their own children. I like being German. I like claiming a piece of our family farm and imagining my grandmother chasing geese and milking cows and baking bread before she met my grandfather while skating at someone's birthday part or a church social. It's all very sweet and quaint and comforting. But sometimes I wish my family history was a little more...exotic. A little less warm and safe and stable, in part because I am not warm and safe and stable.
And then I think of my mom's dad, the grandfather I never met but have heard so much about. I'm not really sure where the family records went, but I've never been able to trace his lineage. With the last name Carroll we think he may have had some Irish in him, though the man was dark-haired with olive skin that beautifull browned in the sun. The muddle of marriages on that branch of the family tree give no definite answer. My mom once told me she thinks there could be some Native American blood somewhere in the mix - a proposition that has resurfaced from the swirling depths of my memory. My schema for tribal people is quite the contrast to the farm-raised German Lutherans with whom I've always associated. Though I'm no kind of expert on Native American history, grade school Social Studies taught me that Native American tribes were horse-riding, arrow-shooting, teepee-dwelling nomads.
Nomad - that's something I can relate to. "Roaming about from place to place aimlessly, frequently, or without a fixed pattern of movement" (according to Webster) - that's my life right now. That's been my life for the past five years, certainly for the past two. In the past two years I've moved five times and traveled to four countries. I've spent more long weekends away from a temporary home than I can count. And to be honest, I've enjoyed a lot of it. I like experiencing new places. I like meeting new people. I lack any kind of emotional, physical, financial or occupational stability, but I'm starting to think some of that is okay. That it's alright to wander for a while.
I've applied for a lot of jobs since coming to Kansas City, but even the ones I'm really interested in I can't imagine staying with for more than a year or two. There are just too many things to do and see and learn. I recognize the danger in thinking "the grass is always greener" and the strain of feeling that I am continually looking for or anticipating "the next great thing" in my life. I don't want to be ruled by that. But I don't feel ready to root myself yet either. I value the freedom to explore and experience. I only wish it didn't seem so irresponsible. There is this inner battle between stability and spontaneity. I imagine my invented nomadic ancestor trying to find level ground with my historic German Lutheran family and I wonder which I would side with. Which is stronger? My sense of wanderlust or sense of duty? My sense of adventure or desire for security? I would like to say there is a balance between the two, a balance that I'm capable of finding and living in, but that has yet to be seen.
Social Studies. Hmm.
When I was in grade school Social Studies was a class in which I learned about maps, directions, Christopher Columbus, neighborhoods, state capitols, the Native Americans, and a brief overview of ancient Greece. I didn't question it at the time, but studying "social things" - all of the components and structures that make up a society - is really quite a mindful for a grade school student. In fourth grade Social Studies was replaced by (or morphed into) Nebraska History. At the age of 10 I assumed everyone spent an entire year learning about the Bugeaters, the Great Plains, the Dustbowl, Heritage School, Laura Ingalls Wilder, William Jennings Bryan and Willa Cather. Apparently I was wrong.
At one point in the year we diverged from our diligent studies of the great state of Nebraska (whose birthday happens to be March 1st, state flower is goldenrod and state bird is the meadowlark), to explore our family history. We made family trees, brought in "pieces of heritage" (mine was a German Bible), wrote stories and interviewed living grandparents (my great grandmother told me a story about a dancing black bear in Scottsbluff, NE). I shared with the class what I'd always known - that I come from a long line of German Lutherans, that a number of my relatives were or still are farmers, and that if I go just a few generations back on either side of my family I can trace when great great grandparents immigrated through Ellis Island before settling in the Midwest. There's something very warm and safe and comforting about having roots in an agrarian family. It seems very secure and grounding to read about the farm that was passed down and passed down and passed down, to know that my ancestors were born and married in the same houses in which they raised their own children. I like being German. I like claiming a piece of our family farm and imagining my grandmother chasing geese and milking cows and baking bread before she met my grandfather while skating at someone's birthday part or a church social. It's all very sweet and quaint and comforting. But sometimes I wish my family history was a little more...exotic. A little less warm and safe and stable, in part because I am not warm and safe and stable.
And then I think of my mom's dad, the grandfather I never met but have heard so much about. I'm not really sure where the family records went, but I've never been able to trace his lineage. With the last name Carroll we think he may have had some Irish in him, though the man was dark-haired with olive skin that beautifull browned in the sun. The muddle of marriages on that branch of the family tree give no definite answer. My mom once told me she thinks there could be some Native American blood somewhere in the mix - a proposition that has resurfaced from the swirling depths of my memory. My schema for tribal people is quite the contrast to the farm-raised German Lutherans with whom I've always associated. Though I'm no kind of expert on Native American history, grade school Social Studies taught me that Native American tribes were horse-riding, arrow-shooting, teepee-dwelling nomads.
Nomad - that's something I can relate to. "Roaming about from place to place aimlessly, frequently, or without a fixed pattern of movement" (according to Webster) - that's my life right now. That's been my life for the past five years, certainly for the past two. In the past two years I've moved five times and traveled to four countries. I've spent more long weekends away from a temporary home than I can count. And to be honest, I've enjoyed a lot of it. I like experiencing new places. I like meeting new people. I lack any kind of emotional, physical, financial or occupational stability, but I'm starting to think some of that is okay. That it's alright to wander for a while.
I've applied for a lot of jobs since coming to Kansas City, but even the ones I'm really interested in I can't imagine staying with for more than a year or two. There are just too many things to do and see and learn. I recognize the danger in thinking "the grass is always greener" and the strain of feeling that I am continually looking for or anticipating "the next great thing" in my life. I don't want to be ruled by that. But I don't feel ready to root myself yet either. I value the freedom to explore and experience. I only wish it didn't seem so irresponsible. There is this inner battle between stability and spontaneity. I imagine my invented nomadic ancestor trying to find level ground with my historic German Lutheran family and I wonder which I would side with. Which is stronger? My sense of wanderlust or sense of duty? My sense of adventure or desire for security? I would like to say there is a balance between the two, a balance that I'm capable of finding and living in, but that has yet to be seen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)