I Love

What I learned over spring break:

• I love life 
• My daughters will be fine. If they can travel with me, they can navigate most of life.
• College is expensive
• Friendships are worth tending to keep us sane, grounded, and amused.
• I love the church in much the same way I love theater
• Adventures in cuisine are necessary to health and happiness
• Inside jokes are fascinating instruments for creating community, but can also exclude others
• Gone with the Wind is a decent movie to watch on a five hour flight. Yes, there's horrible stereotypes and caricatures  but I still get teary when Scarlet's father says, “Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O’Hara, that Tara, that land, doesn’t mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin’ for, worth fightin’ for, worth dyin’ for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.”
• You will die if your seat back is not up on the plane or you don't wear your backpack on one shoulder in the art museum.

Here's where we've been:

Monday, March 20
Depart house at 4:00 am with Cuban taxi driver in Juneau. We had as great of a chat as one can have at 4:00 am.

Flew to Seattle on time and then got to our next gate where it said, "Flight cancelled." But it wasn't actually cancelled, they just decided to fly to Oakland instead of San Francisco and bus us there. That's a first. We had a lovely flight where Sophie affirmed the woman's baptism in front of us when she opened her pressurized water bottle. The spray ricocheted off Sophie's nose onto the ceiling and down on the woman's head. 

We got a little anxious about claiming our luggage (which we might've forgotten if they hadn't reminded us 57 times), taking a 30 minute bus ride, rechecking our stuff, and getting through security in 90 minutes. But we ran and broke two doors in the airport. Sorry San Francisco. We made it to the gate, got on board, and then sat for over an hour while they fixed the plane.

Finally at 12:30 am we made it to New York City and got a cab to my friend's house. The Pakistani cab driver and I had a fantastic chat until he started talking about how the blacks and Hispanics were destroying the city. It's always fascinating to witness the irony of humanity.

So the taxi pulls away. I love my friends, especially my friends who, like me, lack the skill to do details well. It is after 1:00 in the morning and we climb the stairs to my friend's house, but her name isn't on any of the name plates. There was a time before cell phones when we were forced to plan well and be thorough in our details, but phones have definitely allowed us to be lazy. And they help us not panic.

We are standing on the porch at 1:30 am in New York City of a complete stranger. My friend is standing with her door open wide wondering where we are. No worries. We only had to drag our bags three blocks or so to find her house and it made us laugh.

We crashed, but at 3 am, my friend's little boy crawled into bed with Hannah and then scolded her for not being his mom. Another first. More laughter.

Tuesday, March 21

Bonbon tray at the Met

I love the New York Subway; it feels so retro. We walked a bazillion miles around Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum, Rockefeller Center, and Times Square. We ate kabobs and watched pigeons copulate. I love exploring the city with those who have never been. It's like getting to do it again for the first time. The people, the buildings, the food in New York are all a delight. 


We got Cuban food in honor of our first cab driver and then we went to see The Book of Mormon. It's written by the folks who write South Park and is a spoof about Mormon missionaries in Uganda. My father would have clicked his tongue lots, but it was hilarious and a fabulous study of the power of story to shape our lives. 

One of my favorite songs:
I got a feeling,
That you could be feeling,
A whole lot better then you feel today
You say you got a problem,
well that's no problem,
It's super easy not to feel that way!

When you start to get confused because of thoughts in your head,
Don't feel those feelings!
Hold them in instead

Turn it off, like a light switch
just go click!
It's a cool little Mormon trick!
We do it all the time
When you're feeling certain feels that just don't feel right
Treat those pesky feelings like a reading light
and turn em off,
Like a light switch just go bap!
Really whats so hard about that?
Turn it off! (Turn it off!)

Wednesday, March 22
I woke up and popped my head out of my cocoon to see a four year old eating breakfast and watching me. That's a great way to start a morning. If I can't have coffee instantaneously, then laughter is a close second.

We headed into the city to see the 9/11 memorial. I hadn't been back to New York since the towers fell. Hannah was a baby so the exhibit was the first they really saw what happened. I couldn't linger long; too many sad places were opening up, but it seemed important to go. 

I'm so thankful that my girls love exploring churches as much as I do. We went into St. Paul's, one of the oldest churches where Martha and George Washington worshiped at times. Down the street is Trinity Church Wall Street, which is a beautiful space and inspiring worshiping community. 

The wind was blowing and it was burger-honking-freezing-cold, but we did the Statue of Liberty. I'm not the cheap person anymore who takes the Staten Island ferry by the Statue to take pictures. No, I splurged and we went into the pedestal of the statue. 

I'm going to go back to being cheap. It was a bunch of stairs for a view up her dress with fifty gazillion mile per hour winds. We went to Ellis Island. I could have spent way more time there and actually read the signs, but we had places to go. I did learn that immigration has always been tricky business and we've all been migrating for a long time.

A highlight for me was getting to see one of my favorite professors. True teachers never stop engaging, challenging, and delighting in life with you. I realized on this trip the gift of the wonderful friends and teachers who have shaped me.

Shopping in Times Square. Enough said. I suffered through. That's how much I love my daughters.

Emily took us back to one of the funkiest Indian restaurants I've ever been in. It's tiny, you have to bring your own beer, but it's got spirit. Then off for dessert with our new best friends at the Greek bakery. 

Thursday, March 23
We hung out with my friend and her kiddos before getting some amazing yumminess at the restaurant across the street from her place. She had never been there and decided she needed to go more often.

New York Subway has no elevators or escalators so we dragged our luggage (mine was 49 pounds) up and down stairs to Penn Station. Then, we rode the train for five hours. Train travel is a delight when it is working right. We got to simply read books through New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and into Fredericksburg, VA. 

I went to undergrad in Fredericksburg. I can love Virginia since I never had to survive a summer. We went back to my favorite restaurant where the owner still remembered me after almost 25 years and my favorite pizza. It was just as fabulous as I remember. Then we went to my favorite ice cream place and it wasn't as fabulous, but nostalgia is like that. 

Friday, March 24
We participated in our first college tour for Hannah (and Sophia). I figured they should see the best before exploring any others. The college is now a university and hall phones and typewriters are things of the past, but it's still a charming place. Except for the new state of the art student center. I felt like I was in the Jetsons. It's hard to believe soon my kiddos will head out on this adventure soon just when they were really getting fun.




Then we went to high tea at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond with my roommate from college and her lovely momma. I love high tea, but I really love that Sophie pounded on the bathroom door trying to bug me in this super fancy hotel. I was in a different bathroom and it was a good chunk of time before a woman told Sophie she was not her mother. We're pretty sure it was the woman off the plane she soaked.

Korean for dinner and exhaustion.

Saturday, March 25
Richmond is a lovely city. I love Arthur Ashe and the fact that he has a statue on Monument Avenue next to Lee and Jefferson Davis, but I probably wouldn't have included the children screaming in fear of his tennis racket. 

We wandered the urban wilderness where the Civil War remnants seem so fresh. I think that's the first we started missing home. We're not used to sharing our wilderness with so many people. We played and shopped before having Vietnamese for late lunch. 

Krispy Kreme donuts are available by special order in Juneau for $15 a dozen. We ate hot donuts. The whole dozen. Best day ever.

My roommate and her momma showed us Southern hospitality with sweet tea, plenty of pork, and cloth napkins with all the utensils. Don't ever expect to get more than a fork at our house unless I'm serving soup. 

It was warm and the blossoms were beautiful. Finally, life felt like spring.

Sunday, March 26

We headed up to DC to play for the day and get ready to fly out the next day. My girls were not impressed by the National Gallery of Art. Van Gogh and Matisse did not excite them. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom so everything looked lovely. We explored the FDR and Martin Luther King Jr. memorials. They were fascinating and inspiring. 

Hannah is obsessed with Hamilton right now so that was a running commentary. We had Spanish tapas at one of our favorite places with a flight of Sangrias. Now that's a brilliant idea. The Metro trip back to the hotel was just long enough to make us all realize how tired we were.

No fights, no trots, and lots of giggles. That's a good trip even with all the bumps and weariness. 

Thief in the Night

Today was my final day of grand jury. After nearly three months, I've learned many things that I cannot share with you because they're secret. 

These are some hypothetical lessons.

If you break into a house when there is fresh snow on the ground and the police can follow your footprints, then it's a good idea not to go through the duffle bag of stolen goods at the end of the trail. 

I will also suggest not posting a picture of yourself with stolen goods on Facebook or with your arm around the person who you swore to the police you didn't know.

Hopefully those lessons will see you through most major life decisions.

There's actually lots of heavy heart stuff involved that wore me out. 

-Everyone is someone's kid. There are times it's obvious when parenting traumatizes a child and impedes their ability to make good choices as they grow up, but lots of parents do the best they can and kids don't turn out the way they imagine. 

-Addictions are equal opportunity devourers. Often those with more resources can hide or shield their loved one a little better, but families across the demographics are devastated by all kinds of enslavements. That might be a more helpful word because it is like the substance enslaves the brain and holds it hostage.

-We live in a pretty amazing country. It was hard to find the extra hours every week, but the judicial system at its best honors the integrity of all involved. I've seen it at its worst in this country also, but I found the process in Juneau to be civilizing.

-Throwing strangers into a room together to find consensus is a fascinating social experiment. We were a mix of the population of Juneau locked in a room together to figure out if there was enough evidence to indict. I wonder how church councils would do if we employed this strategy.

There. 

The chickens did whine about the snow

I wrote about something other than the snow. Nobody has really talked about much else in Juneau this past week so it was hard to find something to write about without whining. 
But I'm not whining. 
About shoveling. 
Two feet of snow. 
And the berm. 

Normal

I feel normal tonight. We just finished pizza and we're about ready to curl up and watch a movie. This feels like what normal families do on a Friday night, or at least more normal than having races on hikes about who can multiply double digits faster. 

Okay. That feels normal if you're a nerd.

I think of myself as normal. Normal looks like a mom and a dad, a daughter and a son, a dog and a cat in a little house with two cars in the suburbs. It wasn't until later I realized that looks like normal because it was my life and when we are young with limited experience we define normal by ourselves.

The norm for the world is a 28 year old Han-Chinese man.

I'm feeling a little less normal. So much for that nano-second. 

I'm also feeling grief for those who never feel normal. Those who always living on the margins. This week the case around safety for those who are transgender is weighing on me.

I won't lie. In my normal world, the first transgender person I met did not feel normal at all. She was 6'2" and really hairy. She looked like a dude in a dress and it seemed weird. I know that's not politically correct in any sense, but that experience did not move me to engage the fight for transgender rights.

It wasn't until recently that I had my heart transformed. I can't give many details, but it was through knowing a beautiful little girl who tried hard to be a boy because she was born with a penis. We knew her when she was a boy and he was withdrawn and morose. Then she got to be a girl and wear sparkly skirts and twirl and dance. 

Suddenly I feel the great need to protect this girl who finally felt at home in her skin. The thought of her walking into a jr. high boy's bathroom in her sparkles brings tear to my eyes.

I know what happens in bathrooms and playgrounds. Kids are ruthless. I'll never forget the third grader in Michigan who had meningitis and nearly died. When he returned to school with diminished hearing and some other issues, the other kids, "good" kids, punched and yelled in his ears. The things done to him by kids who normally were good kids has cemented my sense that the vulnerable need protection. 

There is something wicked that happens to humanity when we encounter those we consider weak and weird. Our condemnation and belittling feel justified, especially when the church is echoing a message of vilification. 

How we got to that point following a savior who gathered and loved those on the margins and chastised the self-righteous, I do not know.

And it's not just transgender folks who feel especially vulnerable right now. I don't care what your politics are, but I'm called to live as a follower of Jesus, and that norm is always compassion. If I truly follow him then it is to the margins I have to go and walk with those who are most susceptible to the fear and condemnation of otherwise good folks.

Leather

There are days when I walk and wait for something profound, but all I get is the refrain from Rawhide or East Bounding Down. It was cold walking today and those are my endurance songs. Sorry Jesus, I know it should be something more spiritual. 

The thing that stands out the most today was my husband commenting I could "rock a leather unitard." You probably don't want to know how we got to that point in our conversation but it's not as interesting as one would imagine.

Then he said, "until you tried to move." When I finished laughing hysterically, I asked him what the hell he meant by that. 

His reply, "You'd look great in a leather unitard until you tried to move." 

I went through my possible scenarios for why he would say this, which I won't share, until he finally told me that he didn't think I could manage walking in stiletto heels. 

Oh baby. I am so getting stiletto heels. 

Except I won't. Because he's right.

Coordination is not my gift. I once gave myself two black eyes doing a back roll. I've been known to fall over just standing. And I should be given a wide berth if I'm carrying something hot or sharp.

Those are the warnings on my label.

Sometimes I think we should have warning labels identifying our challenges. I forget that I'm not gifted at lots of things. I'm not saying that to put myself down so don't feel like you need to immediately tell me how good my singing, dancing, or walking in stilettos is.

I am not good at many things. It doesn't keep me from trying them, just ask my softball team, but it does keep me ever dependent on the people around me. The world is only in trouble if I start believing that I'm awesome at everything and I don't need others. 

The world is in trouble when our egos get in the way and our exaggerated sense of self and ability impede healthy community. That's when order breaks down.

Just as a warning - there are many things I should never be in charge of and leather unitards and stiletto heels are definitely on the list.