As I learn that plants I step on daily are edible, pick wildflowers for vases or my hair, feast from mulberry trees that line the street, and just learn to recognize the plants around me, I find myself understanding more and more the riches in the earth, the great provision we are given in nature. And somehow, I know God a little better.

Today was beautiful. At 35 degrees, I found it too warm for wool and happily embarked for work in my spring jacket. I left 30 minutes early to give myself time to enjoy the streets. There was so much to enjoy. Puddles. People looking each other in the eyeballs instead of hiding under scarves. Sunshine. Somehow, the slight warmth in the air defrosted my mind, and small memories surfaced.

I found myself thinking about the little voices that have shaped my life in such big ways. I thought about people like Paul whom I shared eight hours with on an airplane over the ocean. He was so kind, generous, and honest, the whole plane changed when he stepped on board. I thought David with a British accent thick enough to spread on a scone, who I spent 15 hours with on a train. He told me his own wide and wild story of leaving his job fixing roofs in a small town in England to build homes for the homeless Romas in Romania. He made a long, potentially difficult journey for me rich and light. I learned so much from him, the things he said, the way he was.

Its easy for me to close myself up, stay quiet, internal, and safe. I’ve always thought that in the end, it’s just you and God, really. Just you and him all alone. And that’s true. But it’s also true that we matter to each other. It’s true that we can help each other along, and that from our little voices, people’s lives can be changed in unspoke ways. Our hearts were made to be open and honest and alive. Let’s share them with each other. Let’s tell our stories. Let’s warm our hands together. Let’s fold fingers and pray with each other. What do we have to lose?

Have any little voices have shaped your lives? What words have near-strangers said that you’ve never forgotten? Please share. Your words make a difference to me.

I discovered something unexpected, today. I love Valentine’s Day. Really! I do. The holiday gets such bad a rep these days, like its some commercial thing we have to rise above rather than enjoy. But it’s a very old holiday, actually. And what’s so commercial about love and showing affection?

It was interesting to work at a coffee shop on Valentine’s Day. People react to it in such different ways. Most people are pretty apathetic. One man who daily bikes through all this winter snow bought us all a box of incredible chocolates to thank us for brightening his days. One woman, who was long frusterated with romance, had a love/hate relationship with the holiday. Another lady (who is now one of my favourite customers) told me it was her favourite. She handed me a print-out of the holiday’s history and pulled a handful of fallen rose petals she gathered at work from her pocket. She kept them there so she could smell them all day.

And me? I couldn’t stop smiling and wondering about the love stories of people on the street. I loved how the snow began to fall so sweetly in the afternoon. I loved walking through the sparkley, snowy city after work to meet up with Adam. I loved thinking about how God romances us. I looked up at the dark trees on State Street and thought of a small story that went something like this:

Once upon a time, long, long ago, God created the first human. God looked down on him and loved him so much, that right where the man had stood, the first tree twisted its way through the soil and up into the sky. A year later, a wind blew the tree’s seeds, and another tree grew, and then another. And from that one tree, the world soon was covered with leaves and winding branches.

Adam and I went to a poetry reading by my favourite living poet. It was wonderful, not just because it was Li-Young Lee standing there in front of me, but because Adam came along, even though he didn’t feel well and doesn’t care much for poetry. He’s such an incredible husband.  We rode the bus home together and spent the rest of our Valentine’s Day snuggled together on the couch watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and eating salami from the deli bag.

I can hardly think of a more perfect day.

I enjoyed today. I enjoyed waking up early to skip class, make muffins, do yoga, and kiss Adam. Kissing Adam was the best part. I enjoyed the mist and rain and watching people walk by the big windows at work in giant umbrellas. I like working at a coffee shop on cold drizzly days when people wear soft scarves and linger a while longer.

I enjoyed the people I work with. I enjoyed a long break with poems by the fireplace. I enjoyed knowing that beginning tomorrow afternoon, I have a long, lovely weekend to look forward to.

Today at work, Bill and I talked about marraige and what it means to us and why. I spoke, but it was difficult for me. It usually is when I am talking about something very dear to me. It’s hard to explain why I think it’s nice to promise to devote myself to someone forever and put their life above mine. But I do think it’s nice. I think it is rich and good and forges character through the difficult bits.

Sometimes I wonder if I am a naive or foolish for thinking that there is more for us in this world than complacency. Sometimes I think I might be. But it doesn’t matter much either way, because it’s worth a shot. And so far, I have found so much more than complacency.

I’ve been (very slowly) reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. I can’t seem to read it quickly, and I can’t seem to put it down. His story entrances me in a patient sort of way. The thing that strikes me most every time is that he was not simpy fighting for the rights of his people, but their human dignity. In jail on Robbin’s Island, the uniforms for the Africans included shorts (viewed as boy’s clothes, not a man’s) rather than pants, which the Coloureds, Indians, and Whites wore. Nelson Manela fought for the right for Africans to wear pants rather than shorts in prison.

Nelson Mandela fought for the right for Africans to wear pants rather than shorts in prison. And I feel like we (and I mean we) take our dignity for granted and sell it for too cheap a price, like it’s worth our dignity to feel sexy or wanted or any number of things. Who is fighting for dignity these days? I know some, but I wish I knew more and I wish I was more like them. I hope I will be. I hope I am.

My love’s hair is autumn hair, there
the sun ripens.

-Li-Young Lee

To An Isle in the Water, by W.B. Yeats

Shy one, shy one
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart

She carries in the dishes
And lays them in a row
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.

She carries in the candles
And lights the curtained room
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;

And shy as a rabbit
Helpful and shy
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.

I found myself reading Yeats again last night, when the flat (crowded with crates and boxes) was dark and quiet like the street. I forgot how much I like him and that certain way he says things.

The best part was that I got to read him from my very own desk in an apartment Adam and I had all to ourselves. The best part was that our food (or lack of food) was in the cupboards, and our shampoos were in the shower, and those were our crates crowding the room.

Adam and I moved into our apartment yesterday, and it feels amazing. It’s not anything special, really. Not yet. But it will be. It will be our home, filled with our days and books and treasures. Last autumn, I would always speed home from work, biking and walking as fast and my little toes could go. It wasn’t because I had something to do, I just wanted to be home in that wonderful, dilapidated, house where I knew Monica would be baking apple pie, and Janelle would be doing dishes, and we’d all eat hot cornbread and apples together, and Adam would join us and kiss me.

I haven’t rushed home like that since sometime in April when Janelle moved out. But at work today, I find my toes feeling fidgety. I can’t wait to go home. I can’t WAIT to go HOME! I might just sprint down the street.

It feels so good. It feels so, so good. I think that “home” must be the most amazing place in the entire world. There have been physical places that have moved me, changed me, and knocked me off my feet. There have been physical places so stunning, I learned more from them about God’s beauty and mystery than anything I read in any book. But to have a place right here on earth that you can bind yourself to and be yourself in, a place that is so tied to the people and moments you love- that is miraculous.

What is the most amazing place in the world? Tell me about your home. What do you like about it?

Me sitting at my desk on my laptop: Adam, do you think people are more shaped by what they hear and see, or do you think the things they hear and see are more shaped by who they are?

Adam sitting on my bed on his laptop: I think the things people hear and see are more shaped by who they are.

I grin, because I like this answer best.

Me: So, you don’t think I’m a cheeseball because I watched too many cheeseball things growing up? You think I like cheeseball things because I was just made a cheeseball?

Adam: Yes, dear. I think you were born a cheeseball, and that’s why you like cheeseball things.

We both grinned, then.

I think this question now and again, not the cheeseball one, but the more general one I asked Adam first. I thought it this particular day, because I was walking home from work and found myself humming (out loud, mind you) “Kindle my Heart” from A Little Princess. And I found myself thinking that it is kind of funny that I’m still infatuated by the same things I was when I was a little girl. I still love A Little Princess (the book and movie). Adam was kind enough to humour me by watching clips of it off You Tube after the cheeseball conversation.

I’m reading The Secret Garden right now. Again. I still love that story very much, and am still quite crazy about Dickon.

I still want to be Pippi Longstockings.

After some serious tomboy years, I find myself once again enjoying dresses and lipstick. I like roses very much, again. I still scrape myself up and stain my shirts and fingers with black raspberries when I visit my family in July. I still love poems and am still frequently scribbling them in my notebooks. I still could look at maps for hours and think about the places in them. I am still always making a mess. I still love “searching for adventures,” “making new friends,” and “playing imagination.”

When I was watching Ella and Rowan on Monday, I was wondering if they would be quite a lot like they are now when they are older. Will Ella always be quite good at knowing what she wants and needs? Will she always love playing games and making small, beautiful things? Will she always be a bit competitive when she plays Trouble? Will she always love making people smile so much? Will Rowan always find his own little way to do things? Will he always be so very independent? So stubborn? Will he always be so affectionate to the few who steal his heart? Will Rowan always have a place for the sweet, “coot” creatures he likes so much? Will he always want to be a knight or a pirate?

Do you think people are more shaped by what they hear and see, or do you think the things they hear and see are more shaped by who they are? Are you much like you were when you were young? Are your kids? Do little boys stop wanting to be pirates?

Thanks to Naiv. Super, I’ve come to appreciate lists. I’ve never been a big list writer, at least in the traditional sense. I mean, I’ve always liked to write them. My trouble is in the following through. Take to-do lists for example. I’ve written about a bazillion to-do lists. At least a bazillion-minus-three of them have gotten lost or have been forgotten. I probably lose them because I find no pleasure in checking things off of them. Some people love checking things off. I think that’s cool. It makes sense. I just don’t feel it.
I had a big list of things to do before I die that I started sometime in middle school. I really liked this list and worked diligently towards the little goals I had set for myself. I learned to sail (thanks, Ellen), I learned to play Pachelbel’s Cannon on the piano, and lived a some months in a foreign country. I’m sure I did a few other things as well. But the point is, one day (month? year?) when I was 16 years old I learned that no matter how many things I check off the list, my life would be no more meaningful that it was before. I burned that bloody list. I guess I figured out that our worth isn’t measured by how much cool stuff we do.

I don’t liked those sorts of lists very much.

Lists I don’t like (or at least don’t like to follow):

-to-do lists

-what I want in a spouse/boyfriend/whatever lists

-how many calories consumed lists

-life goal lists (I know a lot of people dig these, but I’m not one of them)

-new years resolution lists

- places to see before I die lists

-boring lists

Truth be told, I’ve never been big on anything task-oriented. But now I’m paddling in a new list-mania. Turns out, you can write lists about things, not just for things. And they are fun and can teach you little things about yourself if you don’t take them too seriously. I like lists that are fun. I like lists that are about reflection, not fulfillment.

Though, I admit it, I love grocery lists.

This week I had a lot on my mind. Here’s a list the things I’ve been wondering on:

-the existence of God

-doubt

-belief

-reality

-gender roles

-goodness

-writing

-school

If you want to know more, feel free to ask or comment.

Do you like lists?  Do you like crossing things off?  Why do you like crossing things off?  Did you know a Norwegian invented the paper clip?

På norsk time we are reading a book called Naiv. Super. by Erlend Loe. It’s a very popular book in Norway, especially with teens. I am enjoying it thoroughly, laughing a lot, enjoying its sjarm.
In a wee section of this book, the main character tells a story about his grandfather. When the grandpa and his wife got their first house, they planted an apple tree in the backyard in the middle of a beautiful garden full of flowers. After several years, this tree began to bear fruit. They picked the fruit and the gramma smooshed it into apple sauce and squeezed it into juice. It was a great tree.

One day, they woke up to find the tree destroyed. The grandfather went out to find who did it; it was three teenage boys who went to the local school. The boys had to pay them back so they could buy a new tree. It was a lot of money at the time, so the boys had to scrimp and save and couldn’t go to the movies or buy girls sodas. They payed a little bit every week for months.

On the day of their last payment, the grandma made vafler and coffee, and for the first time the five of them sat around and enjoyed themselves. They talked about school and where they came from.  At the end, the grandfather went to the cupboard and took out three envelopes. He handed them to the boys. Inside was the money.  He had been planning to give it back to them the whole time.
I like that story.

The narator calls his grandfather a kjernekar. Literally translated, that means “core man” (kjerne=core kar=man). It means that he is a genuinely good man. The narrator then wonders if good men like that exist in his generation.

In class, my professor asked us if we knew any kjernekar. No one answered. I think we were just shy. The truth is, I do know kjernekarer; I know a handful of them. Maybe I’m lucky. Maybe the narrator underestimates this generation. I’m pretty certain he does.

I like that kjernekar means core-man. I like that very very much.

.
Do you know any kjernekarer? Who are they? What are they like?