Perspective

It's been a semester and a half now here in Boston. I've learned the hard way about strange grading schemes, hard-to-comprehend teaching fellows, and fishing for quarters to do laundry. I've also met some truly amazing people I wouldn't have found otherwise. People who stretch me, comfort me, and challenge me to be who I am as best I can.

One of my former teachers asked me to come back for her class over spring break to speak with her students. She said it will be an open question/answer format and I can talk about whatever I like, within reason. Which left me with this question: where do I start? What can I possibly say to a bunch of sophomores and some high school juniors about what it's been like to search for colleges, travel across the country, and live in a huge city with thousands of other students?

I'll start with a memory.

Summer, 2008. The horrors of 8th grade at a brand-new middle school were behind me; my parents' fresh divorce was ahead of me. I faced a new high school with practically no friends to meet me there. It was hot. I was bored.

What I had: a church community. A family that loved me. Brothers I wouldn't trade for the world. Books to read. New music to listen to. Friendship I was only beginning to appreciate. And a dream that one day I would return to the New England I loved and pined for. I promised myself I would, that hot summer before my freshman year of high school.

4 years passed and so much changed. I moved from house to house as the divorce settled down. I fell in with different groups at school as I learned who I was. I flirted with joining the military. I bowled as a Rebel. I went to England and Scotland and remembered who my god was. I went to two wonderful proms. I got a car and a job. I took nine AP courses over the course of three years and learned my academic limits. Back in Connecticut, my friends were fighting, falling out, meeting people I had never heard of, growing up apart from me just as I did them. But my dream was the same. My picture of New England, however naive, was the same.

So when the college selection process began, I didn't consider any schools within 500 miles of Franklin. Tennessee, I was sure, was not really home. New England was home. I shot for Ivy; when that didn't work, Boston University stepped up with an incomparable aid package, and before I knew it I was signing my name and my parents were depositing the first check.

My first weekend in college was the wake-up call. So many of my floormates were from the area and already knew people they could hang out with; if not that, they had made friends at orientation and the first-year service project I couldn't attend. I spent a lot of time in my room wondering if my choice was right and realizing the finality of being 1,000 miles away from a place I had grown to love, plus my family and friends.

Since then, I have come to enjoy my time at BU, but it isn't without surprises and struggles. Being one among 16,000 undergraduates makes me feel faceless from time to time, but I need only to remember that the people I care about know me, and I can find comfort. School administration can, at times, seem blind to the needs and problems of the community, but then, theirs is a daunting task, and changes can't happen at the speed of light.

Most importantly, I have learned balance. I know the value of my home better than ever now, and missing it daily only makes it sweeter when I'm back again. I've learned when to work and when to play, even if I don't get it right all the time.

When I made the promise to myself almost 5 years ago, I never thought I would end up where I am today. I have not found the place I left in 2007. It surely disappeared the moment I pulled out of my driveway. Its memory is preserved, but I know better now: a dream doesn't have to age as you do, but in aging you are already changing what the dream will be like when you get it, if you do. It may not be what you expected, but at least you finally made it.

for summer, for (the) fall

It was the turning point, we should have known that. Those final evenings downtown, under the white lights outside our coffee shop, why didn't we feel the sand slipping through the glass? Why didn't we hear the song the cicadas sang, the one of a life briefly lived, briefly lost?

They were prophetic, those ugly prehistoric bugs. The last time I saw them, I was too little to know--and just as soon I was gone to the north, their buzzsaw only a memory. And just so, they heralded another shift in seasons this year, roaring and churning, rising and falling in the devilish heat. This time too I was leaving the south, this time too I was leaving some part of my innocence behind.

Is there any irony in the fact I hate them? Hate the very thing that signaled my departure from home both times? I wish I knew.



My best friends. We all sat there those humid heavy nights, laughing and talking and joking. We breezed through high school together, even if we were only close the final year or two. We waited impatiently and counted down the days until we left for our new "homes," the next step of academia and the gateway to adulthood.

And one by one, we left. Some of us checked out long before our cars had left the driveway. Others claimed reluctance. But we all went. Even those who stayed behind--they're gone now, aren't they? The ones you sat in Algebra with, the ones you clowned around with at lunch. We all left.

And so on the day I stepped onto the plane, I too left. I left behind my family, my town, my sweet tea and beautiful park and church and city. I was excited. I haven't been disappointed. Instead I've been surprised by what I miss. I've been surprised by how much I miss the place I thought I hated, and how much I look forward to going home again. I've been surprised by how reluctant I am to let my faint accent disappear, how much I miss Sonic after a football game or open mic and the Blue Ridge Mountains on the way to visit Chattanooga.


I spent so long waiting for the north again that I forgot what made it so special in the first place: my innocence, my old house, my small town--but most importantly, my family and friends. I'm here again. So many of them are not.



I'll go home to Franklin someday sooner than I know, I'm sure--the days here slip by faster than I can name them, and it's true I love my school and the people I'm around. But I got what I wanted only to discover that perhaps I was missing the biggest parts of all, and that has been the single most important thing college has taught me so far.

A Short Sermon

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. How many times have we heard those words intoned, seen them written on coffee mugs, wall decorations, maybe even Facebook statuses? So many times, perhaps, that the meaning has been leached from them, that the words have become empty, pretty things, nice to look at or hear but not really meaningful.

Lately I've done a lot of thinking about shepherds. I've thought about the help and comfort they provide, the solace that can be found in a familiar routine and friendly face.

I must admit, I have felt shepherdless many times in my life. We all have. Moving when I was thirteen and being thrust into a new, different place, wandering through high school, facing college decisions and being on my own in a new place again--if those things can't make you feel shepherdless, I don't know what can.

Each time, though, I have found another shepherd to help me through. In high school, I found steady friends to hold em up. In Franklin, the town once so scary to me, I've found the beauty of the rolling hills and the friendliness of their inhabitants. And, most importantly, I found St. Paul's. Here I found my true home, a place to guide me to the greatest shepherd of all, the one who endures despite all else. Here I found a gateway to the full life Jesus promised. I found it on a hilltop on Iona, in a cathedral in Glasgow, a ruined abbey in Dryborough, even in downtown Nashville. Not only did I find life's fullest moments, but I learned how to keep finding them, how to continue finding God moments and places I could feel my true shepherd guiding me forward. Gateways, we called them. Doors. Thin places. They are everywhere if you slow down enough to find them. Everywhere.

In January, things changed for the youth of our church. And I will not deny that I was left feeling unhinged, like one of my gateways had been shut. But I was wrong. We are all members of the same flock. We are all led by the same shepherd. Ministers may come and go, but the shepherd remains the same. And they're only moving through the flock, anyway. We can all find our own gateways into the full life promised by Jesus, if only we pause long enough to find them.

And so, as I get ready to move north to Boston, I'm preparing to meet new members of the flock and I continue looking for gates in the most unlikely of places. I invite all of you to look with me. You might be surprised at what you find.

Where the heart is.

This pipe dream. This impossibility.

Five years--half a decade--five years ago in August. I closed the car door on my past, watched numbly as every passing road sign declared how far away I was going, let the miles dull me to a half-sleep, a waking dream.

I told myself I'd never like the heat, the drawls, the conservatives and their sometimes stifling religiosity. I told myself I wouldn't be southern, I would always be a northerner at heart.

I still don't like those things. Still don't like country music or whiskey or big trucks or hunting. But I like the friendliness. I like my seemingly small town. I like the spring and fall here, even if the winter isn't good enough. I like the mountains and the city I'm near.

And the people. My friends. I love them.



I don't know what I am--north or south. I don't know if it matters.



And now, a choice. Old and new, past and present, a dream and an old promise.

When I went back, it wasn't right. My house had changed--the walls, the floor, my beloved trees gone, the familiar blue clapboard turned an ugly shade of periwinkle. And my friends--they had changed. I had changed. I didn't fit. I had grown.

Unexpectedly, suddenly, I missed Franklin. I missed home. I said it to myself, said home, and then I awoke. Gone were the empty disconcerting rooms of my youth, gone were my old haunts and distorted memories. I awoke, and I was here, in Tennessee, calling it home.



The choice--old and new.

The pipe dream.

Was that all it ever was? Five years of dreaming blown into smoke by a single dream?



Where do I belong after all?


____________

Sometimes

I can stand in the doorway sighing, watching the trees whisper and rush, counting the stars on one hand. I can shove my hands as deep as possible into the faux-silk lining of this worn coat and frown into the night, like I'm trying to recall something once important. I can relish the dark, covet the quiet, mute my phone and let the solitude settle around me, because sometimes

sometimes I don't want to exist
sometimes I feel so much older than I am
sometimes I am tired but sleep won't help
sometimes I like to be alone.


I don't have to try, in the dark, in the quiet. I don't have to be me. I have to breathe. I have to let my heart go on beating. But I can be anywhere, in the dark, in the silence. I can be in the places I have been with the people I used to know. I can be in places I haven't seen yet but I imagine I know. I can relive the days both good and bad and choose what I might change. I can be anyone, anywhere, any time, when I sit alone in the black blanketed silence and breathe and think and feel.

But when the lights come back on, I am me again, and I am not quite alone again, and my worries, my fears, the tick tick ticking of my time here on earth--they creep back in like familiar leering friends, tapping and pulling and nudging me softly in the bright.

Decade

Ten years gone. It was my first winter in the north. I’d never seen so much snow. My hair was a bob, my teeth were a mess, I talked too much and read often.

Today, the sky is the same crumpled faded grey it was there, the snow unsullied beneath it, dusting trees, piled on bushes, covering the dead grass like a shawl, soft and white. It’s a rather unusual sight in Tennessee, even in winter. We drove over wet highways and the signs flicked past: Shoney’s, Grand Ole Opry, Tennessee and Alabama Fireworks. I didn’t see those, though. In my mind they were Foxwoods, Mohegan, Mystic Aquarium.

The snow along the roads made it like we were somewhere else. New York, Massachusetts, anywhere I-95 North snaked, gritty with dirt and salt and sand in the winter months. Years ago, I would have been there. Now I am here, trying to forget why we drove east to begin with, because I hate goodbyes.

The trees skimmed past. The distant, snow-topped hills looked better, their scrawny trees made picturesque by the smattering of white. The grey all around, the sky and ground blending together in the distance, the grime coating the car and windows—it was all familiar, all a reminder. I wondered where I’d be this time next year. If it would look the same as this, covered in snow.

I like the cold. The wind knifed through me. The snow stuck on my eyelashes and in my hair and sprinkled my coat like powdered sugar. I danced around mush puddles and got my jeans wet anyway. My feet were numb. But the winter suits me. My eyes burned, nothing to do with the weather. I leaned into the wind and squinted my eyes. I feel sharper in the cold, like I’m more awake despite the numbness in my toes, fingers, nose. But I miss my boots. My feet felt leaden.

We turned pink from the cold, shivered and walked quicker to get away from it.

We held hands a final time in those too-warm halls, the stifling radiator heat I remember, and the smiles were meant to be reassuring but I knew mine was still sad and stiff anyway. I didn’t want to speak. My throat was tight.

The hugs were tight. Your gaze lingered on mine through the glass door, through the car window. I nodded once. I always do: Go on, it’s okay.

On the way home, the snow darkened as the sky turned blue, but it glowed even in the darkness. I watched out the window and wondered where I wished I was.

Of the Season

In winter, there was a sacredness to everything, whether it was the bold red cardinal flaring against the fine white of a Sunday morning, the pine needles falling all over the red carpet next to the fireplace with a cracked flue, my father’s red hunting hat with the ear flaps hanging next to the door, or the garish nylon snowpants drying in the garage next to carelessly unlaced and kicked away boots. The nights came on quickly and stealthily, and I got off the bus in twilight some days, when the sun hid behind the thick rumpled clouds signaling an oncoming flurry. My brother and I rolled together countless, half-finished forts and scrabbled over the mountain of snow formed by the plow at the end of our driveway, playing king of the hill with shrieks and laughs.

Every evening, my family would flock to the cloth advent calendar, shaped like a tree with golden ornament beads all over it, and hang another small, stuffed ornament on it: a blond girl with a giant yellow 14 on her blue smock dress, a candy cane with a green 3 emblazoned on its center. Every year, we traipsed out, the five of us bundled up tight, to one of the many local tree farms and picked our favorite tree, often lopsided or misshapen because my mom loved the “special” trees. My dad worked the snarling chainsaw himself some years, while I stood back in awe with my hands stubbornly by my sides. We all dressed the tree together every year, marveling at forgotten ornaments, this one from Paris, that one from the glassblower in Mystic. Benton and I always claimed our favorite ones to hang ourselves: A surfer bear with his name on its board, a Santa that jumped when you pulled a string at the bottom, a plaster cast of my hand as a 2 year old. My parents hid the pickle ornament last on the new tree while Benton and I turned our backs, whispering to each other, and then whipped around to scrutinize it, not sure what we were competing for, just that we were competing.

We had a fire every night, had to have one in that house, eternally freezing, and on special nights, if I wheedled for long enough, my dad would sprinkle the magic powder over the fire that made it turn emerald green, vibrant blue, shimmering purple, palest pink, while Benton and I gasped and smiled before it and Dad stood proudly by. And at night, the creaks and groans of an aging house in a harsh season seemed like a lullaby to me, comforting rather than foreboding, like the house was muttering to itself, telling its own stories. There were no ghosts there.

I look back on what seemed so mundane at the time, and it’s only now—now, when I have a plastic tree, snowless Christmas after snowless Christmas, subdivisions everywhere instead of tree farms and white-topped forests, two homes, two deflated Christmas Days, the advent calendar missing all its pieces, the pickle vanished, my favorite ornaments broken or gone, a gas fireplace, the magic and friendliness gone out of my houses—it is only now that I appreciate what I had. Only now do I realize that truly, I was blessed.

And at night, when I lay awake in the glare of the streetlights instead of the light of the white moon, I remember those winter days, the gleaming white country laying out before me, the wonder in the eyes of a girl as she watched the snow fall and felt the warmth of a fire at her back, and I promise that I will be back, one day I will be back, and I can forget the suburbs ever existed.