northward.

All my life, I have grown up camping. I think it's actually in my genetics. For my parent's honeymoon, they went camping in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national park - for like a week. That's how much they love it. The next two years in a row they backpacked in the Rockies at up to 14,000 feet. They've been all over the States and Canada, in every condition, and have just three years ago graduated from tenting to a camper (it was a difficult, but necessary decision). They have such a love for the wild and the north and adventure - I can't help but feel it's in my blood.

My first encounter camping was at the tender age of four, and I still can remember bunching my shorts up, stepping out onto the rocks at the north shore of Lake Superior in northern MN and trying not to slip off into the water. I remember sitting in the middle of the canoe with my dog when I was ten as my parents paddled on either side and watching Addie jump out into the river after a squirrel she saw on shore (Don't worry, my dad caught her leash before she permanently floated away). We would canoe through passages of water chock full of waterlilies and surrounded on all sides by tall pine trees. I remember feeling like it was a complete other world, so different from my suburban existence back home.  

Mornings were always coffee and maple cinnamon oatmeal, and I always took great satisfaction in the fact that I could just throw my bowl and spoon into the fire after I finished eating and watch the paper shrivel to nothingness in the heat. No garbage takeout necessary. Showering was usually very low key and occasionally consisted of washing in mildly chilly lakes with biodegradable soap and shampoo. If you've never experienced getting clean in the middle of the wilderness, please put it on your bucket list. I remember riding our bikes everywhere. During the day, we would often go biking on the dirt roads by the fields or to go get ice cream in town where we would usually end up perusing the little shops on the main street for hours. In the evening, we would go up to the main lodge and buy ice and firewood for dinner-making...after a full day outdoors, fire-roasted food always tasted twice as delicious to my tuckered out, sun-baked self. I remember being entirely encased from head to toe in my sleeping bag on chilly nights, covered in plaid blankets and completely relaxed as crickets chirped next to our teal, nylon tent.

I really have countless memories of sitting at picnic tables in the woods, falling asleep to loons, and simply being in the middle of no where. My heart is scattered across each of these places, each mountain, dock, forest, and secret place we children explored. These are places where my family experienced every kind of emotion, every type of conversation. It is so much a part of how I grew up that I really can't separate it from who I am. They've constituted my summers for as long as I can remember.

Anyways, all of this preface is to help express how excited I am for this weekend and how much I look forward to experiencing the north in this way with eight of the dearest of friends.

$30 wiser.

After watching a poignant recording of a conference detailing how to properly and shrewdly handle money, I have decided that I have not been wise in how I've been handling my money, and I want to make a great effort to change these habits. This will done by:
1) Keeping a check register. Everything I buy with my Visa will be written down.
2) Only one coffee a week. Not only is a constant consumption of
    caffeine unhealthy, but $2 every other day adds up quickly.
    That's like $15-$30 a month...just on coffee.

If you see me around, feel free to hold me accountable to this challenge. I am determined.

inkstone came out today.

i haven't been writing much of my own stuff as of late, but i keep coming across all of these beautiful pieces from others. my brain has just been so empty lately; maybe i'm stocking up, and one day all the pent up deliberations will unstack themselves and pour out into blogpost after blogpost. please be patient with my uncreative absence.

yet another feature from one of my favorite poets: my dear friend brianna tongen.

two mornings

morning #1
i wake and it is before dawn or deep winter.
the coffee-timer blinks at 6:12am.
card table, calendar, woolly gray sweater.
if i am alone in this apartment, then i am
alone on this earth.
i want to ask you if we dreamed of each other last night. lightly
gliding the night bridge of continents.
leaving the stairwell, it is still minnesota.
christ, no one wants this to work more than me.


this day in german is called geschichte. 
in hebrew, tanakh.
                          or at least the part with the tower of babel.
the land splits apart as their voices.


morning #2
i wake and it is still winter.
i was dreaming of a toddler. her older siblings stuck a porcupine's
quill into her ear, daring her to keep it there for one minute.
they forgot about it, even though she cried.
in my dream,
she died on the bench of a diner. forty minutes later.
                             do you ever shake your head to knock things out?
                             like a loose bolt in the body of a music box?
i have poured the promise land into my coffee
this morning, i say a prayer of no toddlers dying
ever.
                           every day, the winter gets married.
                           and she slopes her bridal gown over my retaining wall.
it is happening as i am writing it down.


the freezing telephone poles will be the first to tell you
how it feels to die and stand upright forever.


do you ever shake your head to knock things out and realize
you have only knocked them deeper?

the camera.

by Anis Mojgani

The camera could erase all memories the people in front of it shared of one another. The young man in the dark uniform smiled at the young girl beside him.

“Now I won’t have to remember the time we were in the car and I told you I still loved you and you sighed in exasperation. And you wont have to think of the ones before you or of the pictures you found. And we can just ride bicycles to the park. Wipe the crumbs off each others cheeks and lean upon each other without worry of sleep or love or leaving.”

She smiled and nodded, touched his arm.
 The photographer started reading a magazine. The girl suddenly looked perplexed.

“But remember when you taught me to whistle? And the time you came home to your new house and I had already decorated it for you? The basket of stones, the hanging metal airplane? The wooden cowboy painting? Remember when you came to Christmas at my mother’s and while she and my aunt slept down the hall you kissed me for the first time in front of the TV? How we started talking out in the car in that empty bus station parking lot?”

The photographer looked up from his article, "I remember. But remember when you left my place only to sit on the curb around the corner bawling? Remember the ache, the empty?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
He pulled his ear. “Remember the birthday party you threw me? And how you were the one girl that finally got me on a roller coaster?” She laughed. Then stopped.

“Remember when you came over only to end up fighting with one another and afterward we lay next to one another all night like yardsticks and decided to stop seeing each other?”

“Yes but remember how we both felt like such crap the next day over how unhappy we suddenly were that we decided that was silly and got back together?” She paused. “Remember Hawaii?” He smiled. And looked up. She brushed something from his brow. The sun crept through the window. The photographer decided to put some coffee on.

“The winter we first met was so cold. I had no heat, hardly any furniture. You sat next to me on that old, fold-out couch, under blankets you gave to me.” He paused. And continued.
“We would sit there, you would touch my arm, carefully. You thought I was sleeping. I never was. I was always waiting for it to happen. I dont want to forget that.”

He didn't want to cry in front of her, so he put his chin down. She put her arm around him and said, “Rub my hands. Pretend we are sitting on that curb right now, and I can’t get warm. You remember how to do that right?”

He nodded and pulled her close in the photo studio. She sighed. While the two of them sat there, the photographer went to get some milk. The man moved his fingers over the back of the girl's hand, moving them across it like drunken dragonflies, slow dancing with the stillness. The girl curled against him, head to neck, like a dream and a child, and fell asleep like that.

The photographer returned, took a sip from his cup, and turned the page. This always happened.

[edited]

raison d'être.

"you know what's a really pretty expression?" he said, "'raison d'être. it means reason for being. isn't that great? God es mi raison d'être."

"that is beautiful. who told you that?"

"i read it in a book. a little boy says it about the things that he loves." 

"how wonderful," she answered.

"yeah. that's all. i just wanted to share that with you."

there were streetlights in the pond last night.

and the conclusion of the trio.

after an entire week consumed with physiological psychology, i must just say that i am now....free. it was a dramatic and sluggish and somewhat unsatisfying last few days

so was this.

i got the smoked ham for lunch today
          which i would never normally do,
                    and bent my fork trying to cut it. but it was good.
i had to make a really big decision today
          so i went into a little room where they store tables and chairs,
and prayed. then i received peace.
i set two alarms this morning for 6,
          slept straight through both of them,
                    and woke up on my own at about 7. wasn't even late.
sometimes i think im a little crazy with things.
          look at me, making a pattern here as i write my doings.
oh well, its satisfying my want for order.
apparently, dark chocolate has moved up,
          the food pyramid fully supports it
                    and claims it has as many antioxidants as dark vegetables.
i can't lie, i'm extremely pleased with this news
          dark chocolate is probably close to my favorite food.
just thought id take more lines to gush about that.

this was written in january.

didn't make the original cut and has been cleverly hiding in my drafts for a while. 

today was a beautiful and horrible day.
moods really can change you're whole outlook on life. so can people. i must say, earthly bodies are so frustrating sometimes. well yeah so it's been one of those days...lovely in many ways but filled with time constraints, difficult conversations, overheated coffeeshops (we were sweating...my jeans were literally sticking to my legs), previous engagements, persistent dispositions, and a general discontentment.

but as i was walking down to maranatha to set the stage for Working, the Lord had some words for me. the woods were empty and beautiful to my left, and the sky was coherent and simple. 

"See my creation?" the Lord was saying, "Don't let the things of this world affect how you conduct yourself or how you love life."

and that's all He said. 
it felt like the pent-up, tension sort that i had been all day was melting into the sidewalk as i walked.

fire pages.

i will read ashes for you, if you ask me.
i will look on the fire and tell you from the gray lashes
and out of the red and black tongues and stripes,
i will tell how fire comes
and how fire runs far as the sea.

[carl sandburg]

all i can see is the green and the streetlights.

you smell like last year.

lustvanity.

This is legit. 

In my worldviews class today, my professor revealed the most profound facet of immorality to me. At the beginning of the hour, he passed out blue sheets for the men and pink sheets for the women which stated:

The greatest sin that men struggle with is: _____________________
The greatest sin that women struggle with is: _____________________

We handed them all back in anonymously and he read each paper off out loud to the class. We all decided on a generalized, median word for each group. The tally stood:

Men  => (according to) Men: lust
Men => Women: lust
Women => Women: vanity 
Women => Men: ? 

Without a doubt, most everyone wrote down some sort of sexual sin or lust for men. Women for women wrote down all different forms of vanity: gossip, comparison, slander (which is really to put someone down in order to bring yourself up), and skewed visions of body image. Men for women stated an entire range of sins...everything from honesty to lust to contempt to being catty. The class decided to state that it was pretty clear that men have a hard time pinpointing a specific sin on the female gender.

We discussed the logistics of the results...the professor kept the discussion open-ended about why it is commonly assumed that men struggle with lust and it is a bit harder to understand what women struggle with. He wasn't by any means saying that men are more sinful than women, simply that it was puzzling why men's most common sin is blatantly blown up before the church and women's most common sin is not. 

And then there was the disclosure that absolutely floored me. Somehow it had just been a disconnect in my mind:

Neither of these two deeds was originally created to be a sin...

Lust and vanity are deformed, immoral versions of two beautiful characteristics that are mainstays for marriage.

You see, within the context of marriage, the desire for sex and a need to take care of yourself & try to look your best is essential. The Lord made us that way. Without a man pursuing this kind of intimacy and without a woman taking delight that her beauty is being pursued, these weighty ingredients of marriage would be obsolete and possibly cause much harm. We weren't created for for lust and vanity. We were created for the original atlas of marriage that the Lord laid out. Love instead of lust, humility instead of vanity. It's as if these glorious images were stenciled, punched out, and xeroxed into grotesque and disfigured shapes. And we've gone so far as to assume that these clashing elements are similar to each other. Love is not lust...they cannot compare.

It would make sense that Satan would want to take these amazing notions and twist them into ugly, tangled things.