Another August 31 has come, this year bringing my 26th birthday. It's a good day in Seattle - sunny and upper 60s with a light breeze, no major tragedies reported by this morning's Times, a day off work and thus a good solid run under my belt, continuing engagement with the John Nash biography A Beautiful Mind. The stuff of ordinary for sure.
On the other hand, goodbyes for me are more about nostalgic remembrance than ordinary, and so this goodbye August day, there are a few things I miss despite the nice weather and free time well spent in Seattle.
In Kansas in late summer the sunflowers grow wild. They take over the ditches. Their deep, bright, brilliant yellow is the signal of autumn and football and the turn toward winter.
In southwest Missouri in late summer the evenings cicadas sing in the plentiful trees. The evenings are warm enough that a walk in just shorts and a t-shirt is quite pleasant.
In central Tennessee in late summer the trees are full of green leaves. Vanderbilt's campus is an arboretum, and late summer hints at what always promises to be a gorgeous fall. Deciduous trees are everywhere, and so autumn stretches long and colorful on toward Thanksgiving.
Today I can't quite capture in words how much I miss these things. Perhaps late summer in Seattle will someday have its own charm and energy. My hunch is that instead I'll just need to plan a vacation back east for next late summer.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Time for a Change
Last spring one of the professors at the divinity school offered this nugget to a person who was about to go on an interview visit to a congregation. The professor said, "The only question you really need to be asking yourself is, 'Can I love these people?'" It was the simple wisdom, so simple that only an experienced minister could have come up with it. Can I love these people?
It's tempting to respond too quickly - of course I can love everyone. Each person no matter status, culture, or disposition is beautifully and wonderfully created. But that simple question is much deeper than a quick response. The answer only comes with time and intuition. First impressions are not likely enough to fully answer. It takes second and third impressions, or an evening spent in community. It takes knowing oneself, knowing one is not just faking it.
I've been deciding this for a couple weeks now, since about a week into my job. Tonight sealed the deal. Yes, I can love these people. I can love these busy, suburban, good, confident, sometimes sheltered people.
This decision / intuition under way (for it will always be ongoing, I'm sure), I decided also tonight that it's time for a change. Thus, my blog has new colors, almost the colors of the peridot, my birthday month's gemstone. They are lighter shades than the bold black and more comfortable. They are also more suitable should I link this blog to the new church web site, coming soon. It's a small change, but it works.
It's tempting to respond too quickly - of course I can love everyone. Each person no matter status, culture, or disposition is beautifully and wonderfully created. But that simple question is much deeper than a quick response. The answer only comes with time and intuition. First impressions are not likely enough to fully answer. It takes second and third impressions, or an evening spent in community. It takes knowing oneself, knowing one is not just faking it.
I've been deciding this for a couple weeks now, since about a week into my job. Tonight sealed the deal. Yes, I can love these people. I can love these busy, suburban, good, confident, sometimes sheltered people.
This decision / intuition under way (for it will always be ongoing, I'm sure), I decided also tonight that it's time for a change. Thus, my blog has new colors, almost the colors of the peridot, my birthday month's gemstone. They are lighter shades than the bold black and more comfortable. They are also more suitable should I link this blog to the new church web site, coming soon. It's a small change, but it works.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Smells Like Life to Me
I had been waiting for the day when I would run out of free lotion and thus be comfortable purchasing a new bottle of the Suave pump variety. That day arrived last week, and I picked up my 18 fluid ounces at Fred Meyer on Saturday. For three days now I have enjoyed the comforting, subtle aroma of Suave Advanced Therapy Moisturizer. This product is clinically proven to relieve dry skin.
But even better, this product is proven to evoke the memory of the era in which it was last used. My last Suave Advanced Therapy experience was my senior year of college, and so even from here in Seattle, this lotion smells like a college basketball season unleashing into December. It smells like the Pussycat Dolls song "Stickwitu" (Stick With You for those not familiar with such colloquialisms). Even more it smells like that brief window of my life when I used to listen to that kind of music.
Suave Advanced Therapy lotion smells like me and twelve of my closest friends getting ready for a Christmas tournament in Cancun, Mexico. In these aromatic breaths I remember a little less faintly what it feels like to win and lose deeply and to drive around a big town like Springfield, Missouri - before these major cities got ahold of me. It didn't take so long to get out into the open country in those days, up to a small town on Highway 65, or headed west for the farm. There was that triplex I shared with Buzz when rent was less than $200 a piece, and that beloved religious studies department that provided space for me to chase my wildest ideas. There was that beautiful trip down to Silver Dollar City to see the Christmas lights, and heart-to-hearts with my two precious senior teammates in whose eyes I could do no wrong and toward whom I expressed the same loyalty. A lotion is a powerful thing.
And now it's time to make a new smell memory.
Today I was riding home from work. The sun was shining - a perfect northwest day: mid-seventies and blue sky visible. On 1st Avenue's gradual downhill I sped by a small home construction site. The saw was whirring to a stop and the smell of sawdust caught me for a short moment. Suddenly I was there in the basement shop of Grandpa Varden, jig saw, radial arm saw, lathe, and all. I wished I could be there in Moundridge, Kansas, taking a carpentry lesson from the grandest perfectionist I know. Then I thought of the lotion and wished I could be a senior in college again too, the vocational absurdities flying about. The hurts of the world didn't seem so big back then. Then again, neither did the possibilities.
But now it's time to make a new memory. On the way home today I also smelled saltwater as I wound along 15th Ave NW in Shoreline. The sun reflected off the Puget Sound and the mountains stood beyond in the distance. This smell is current, and I often catch it as I ride down into Richmond Beach. It reminds me of the girl I love and her Florida love of this smell. It reminds me of now and this present beauty I would scarcely have imagined the last time Suave Advanced Therapy lotion was current.
And all this leads me to wonder, in four more years when this bottle is long gone and I happen upon my next one, what will I remember? Maybe those months when my job was beginning to feel just a touch more like mine, awkward transition into congregational ministry and all. Maybe I'll remember when I met these brilliant, stubborn, innovative, mysterious, talented youth. Maybe this apartment will come to mind - how small it was but how much like home. Or maybe in four years the lotion will remind me of that time I used to live in Seattle, in that none zone of geographical grandeur that lights my adventurous spirit in ways like nowhere else.
Indeed, it is time to make these new memories.
But even better, this product is proven to evoke the memory of the era in which it was last used. My last Suave Advanced Therapy experience was my senior year of college, and so even from here in Seattle, this lotion smells like a college basketball season unleashing into December. It smells like the Pussycat Dolls song "Stickwitu" (Stick With You for those not familiar with such colloquialisms). Even more it smells like that brief window of my life when I used to listen to that kind of music.
Suave Advanced Therapy lotion smells like me and twelve of my closest friends getting ready for a Christmas tournament in Cancun, Mexico. In these aromatic breaths I remember a little less faintly what it feels like to win and lose deeply and to drive around a big town like Springfield, Missouri - before these major cities got ahold of me. It didn't take so long to get out into the open country in those days, up to a small town on Highway 65, or headed west for the farm. There was that triplex I shared with Buzz when rent was less than $200 a piece, and that beloved religious studies department that provided space for me to chase my wildest ideas. There was that beautiful trip down to Silver Dollar City to see the Christmas lights, and heart-to-hearts with my two precious senior teammates in whose eyes I could do no wrong and toward whom I expressed the same loyalty. A lotion is a powerful thing.
And now it's time to make a new smell memory.
Today I was riding home from work. The sun was shining - a perfect northwest day: mid-seventies and blue sky visible. On 1st Avenue's gradual downhill I sped by a small home construction site. The saw was whirring to a stop and the smell of sawdust caught me for a short moment. Suddenly I was there in the basement shop of Grandpa Varden, jig saw, radial arm saw, lathe, and all. I wished I could be there in Moundridge, Kansas, taking a carpentry lesson from the grandest perfectionist I know. Then I thought of the lotion and wished I could be a senior in college again too, the vocational absurdities flying about. The hurts of the world didn't seem so big back then. Then again, neither did the possibilities.
But now it's time to make a new memory. On the way home today I also smelled saltwater as I wound along 15th Ave NW in Shoreline. The sun reflected off the Puget Sound and the mountains stood beyond in the distance. This smell is current, and I often catch it as I ride down into Richmond Beach. It reminds me of the girl I love and her Florida love of this smell. It reminds me of now and this present beauty I would scarcely have imagined the last time Suave Advanced Therapy lotion was current.
And all this leads me to wonder, in four more years when this bottle is long gone and I happen upon my next one, what will I remember? Maybe those months when my job was beginning to feel just a touch more like mine, awkward transition into congregational ministry and all. Maybe I'll remember when I met these brilliant, stubborn, innovative, mysterious, talented youth. Maybe this apartment will come to mind - how small it was but how much like home. Or maybe in four years the lotion will remind me of that time I used to live in Seattle, in that none zone of geographical grandeur that lights my adventurous spirit in ways like nowhere else.
Indeed, it is time to make these new memories.
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