The Winds of Change...oooOOOhhhh

The winds of change are blowing....and what do they bring me?

1) Well, first off, a set of screwed speakers. After spending all of high school studiously knocking them to the floor every time I stood up, and dropping them almost as often here at Wheaton, my already crappy speakers are finally on the way out--as in, shorting out just enough to drive me crazy, but not quite enough for me to order new ones online. I'm waiting for them to spontaneously explode before I go and spend money needlessly...or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  

2) Hard, cold change. Or rather, spare change. The coffee shop life isn't exactly good to me, but I've accumulated a small pile of tips that I occasionally handle when I'm feeling particularly poor. It's one of those, "Well, I may be broke, but at least these quarters sound rich when I clink them and stuff." Pathetic, I know. 

3) A tea shortage. That's right! The hundred pack of blessed Twinings Earl Grey is finally almost gone. Four tea bags left. Four. If my roommate doesn't get more before Thursday, I might have to start drinking English Breakfast Tea. *gasp* 

4) A bunch of paint chips with cool names like "Dangerous" and "Scholar Green" and "Gothic Violet" that I'm trying to something artsy with. Read that as, I've strewn them all over my desk, and every now and again I sigh and say, "I really want to do something artsy with these paint chips." Stay tuned for developments. I'm checking Pinterest next. 

5) A hard-hitting case of cynicism. Well, that isn't exactly new, I think I've been developing it for a while, but lately the eye rolls, brow raises, snarky quips, and condescending grimaces have been coming a little more easily than I'd prefer. I'd like to write it off to the descending cold or the chronic tea shortage, but I've got a feeling that it will take more than heat and Earl Grey to keep the cynicism at bay. 

And so....the winds of change blow on... ooooOOOOOHHhhhh!! And now I'm off to google cheap computer speakers because college students may be broke, but I need me some high(ish) quality music. 

October Today

Today was beautiful, and I wore the fall jacket with the broken buckle that I got from Goodwill before I left for college. The weather changed without warning this week--October hit and suddenly everything was dead leaves and windy days and sweaters.  Not that I'm complaining. I love fall, mostly because it means that I get to wear scarves and drink lots of tea and cuddle up in blankets as often as I want. This year it means I get to drink Butterbeer Lattes, a coffee creation sweeping the campus thanks to the creative genius of my co-worker and I at the coffee shop where I work.

Speaking of work, while I was there this afternoon I got a package from Amazon: the 100 pack of Twinings Earl Grey that my roommate and I decided was actually 100% necessary after visiting England (we tried to make due on Tazo and Bigelow, but it's just not the same). Words cannot describe the excitement that accompanied drinking that beauty for tea time this afternoon. I thought about sharing it with the rest of my floor mates who came to our three-days-a-week customary Tea Time, but in the end decided to selfishly wait. We've just started on our second book this semester, The Magician's Nephew, which my suite mate is reading aloud. I read the last one--The Penderwicks--which we finished yesterday. Tea times are pretty much all that makes a particularly hellish day worth pushing through. Today wasn't exactly hellish, but it was pretty long.

Generally, Fridays are good days, but today was a bit rough due to a sequence of bad decisions made yesterday. The first bad decision was deciding that I could go to the public library, drop off some books, and not get a new one. The second bad decision started at my deciding to get just one book and ended with my checking out five. They barely fit in my purse, but I got them home despite my aching shoulders. Once in the warmth of my little room, I decided to do a bit of reading before I started my homework (the third bad decision). The next thing I knew, it was 2 am, I had finished the book, and none of my homework was done. Needless to say, six hours of sleep is never kind to me.

Which is why I'm on my second cup of Earl Grey (even after drinking someone's neglected latte at work this afternoon). But although today was rather exhausting as far as Fridays go, it's alright because it's October and I can't walk outside without feeling good about life. It feels real outside, like maybe all summer long the air was sleeping or something, and only now it has woken up enough to be sharp and precise and really, wonderfully active. And after spending the evening loudly yelling during spicy UNO and watching creepy TV shows like Over The Garden Wall, I find myself undoubtedly believing that Autumn really is the best season of all. Or at least today it is.

Today, when nothing has really happened at all, except a little mountain of good things and bad things with just enough October wind to blow it all into one big heap that I can sit on to watch the night and the leaves fall. Today, October is the best.

Some Pessimistic Musings

So I've been thinking a lot about family lately--my family in particular, of course. I left last fall in the middle of August and I didn't go home for any substantial amount of time until mid July of this summer. Almost an entire year away from my family, and most of it was spent on at Wheaton and the rest of it was spent in England. Then suddenly I was home again, thrust without ceremony into a mess of children all clamoring to tell me about the frogs they had caught and the pictures they'd drawn and this bunny rabbit they saw in the garden. I was back into the swing of things after just a couple days, sweeping floors and doing dishes and volunteering to do childcare, all the while wondering how on earth my parents had been doing this before I got home.

But when it's been a year, things are guaranteed to have changed, and it wasn't long until I began to notice the differences. Some uncharacteristic harshness from Mom, a tired shake of the head from Dad, a swear word from a our new three year old foster child, and suddenly I'm reminded of just how different this family is from the one I remember growing up in. Far away, in Chicago, it was easy to romanticize the difficulties at home, "Yeah, my family does foster care, and it's really hard sometimes, but you know, we all love each other and do our part."

Last spring I wrote a nonfiction piece about my family's experience of adopting my youngest brother. I got a good grade on the paper, but more than that, it really helped me to process some experiences I hadn't thought about--and hadn't thought I needed to think about--for a long time. I guess I was feeling so much better after writing it, that I sorta assumed that things at home had improved as well. Time had passed, hadn't it? And time heals, doesn't it?

Which is why I was so surprised by coming home. I remembered that home was hard, but my mental picture of "hard" doesn't really grasp the exhaustion I see in my family, and I can tell they're tired and beginning to wonder if it will ever get easier. I help as much as I can, but my deadline is come and gone, and now I'm off to live my happy little college life. Sometimes going to college feels like cowardice. What if I'm running away from these responsibilities? Will my college education help my little sister finally make a friend? Will it help our foster child finally find a safe and secure family? Will it help my little brother sift through his traumatic past and curb how he acts out? Will it help my parents make the right choices for their children?

There's so many people in my family who need help, who are halfway to broken and don't know how to deal with their own feelings, and I'm beginning to doubt just how "competent" the rest of us supposedly normal people are. Love can't fix everything, can it? Love can't change the things these children have gone through, love can't heal the exhaustion I know my parents and sisters feel, it won't keep me from going away to college. Love just isn't enough, but it has to be, because I know it's all my family has to give.

I know it's not my fault, I know that college is where I'm supposed to be at this time in my life, that living at home wouldn't actually help that much.  But someone has to do it, right? Someone has to fix all the hurt, someone has to heal all the families desperately hoping that their love for one another will be wide and deep enough to cover all the hurts. Someone has to keep hoping.

I suppose that's what I'll have to do--hope and pray. I need to remember all the laughter and games and inside jokes I've found during my month at home this summer. I need to remember the happy past and look forward to the happy future and be certain not to miss the joy in the now. And rest in the truth that there is One who has love deep enough and wide enough to hold us together. But speaking truth isn't always the same at believing it, and it's certainly not the same as feeling it.

But you can't change your heart on a whim, and I suppose I'll have to cope with the soul I've got, hoping that Someone has enough love to fix what I know I can't but wish I could.

The Morning Show--Now With Tea!

It was one of those plans that you make at 10:30 at night because somebody said something random and then somebody else said, “You know, I’d actually do that” and then the other person said, “Yeah, well, I was actually serious” and then, before you know it, everybody is planning to wake up at 4:30 to catch the 4:50 sunrise. 

It was one of those plans that sounds really great at 10:30 pm, when you're warm, dry and very awake. It was Rachel’s birthday, after all, and the last time she’d tried to get up for the sunrise, it hadn’t worked out—so this was round two of Operation See-A-Sunrise-In-England.

Unfortunately, it was also one of those plans that didn’t sound near as fantastic the next morning when only four of us (out of the original seven) stood sleepy and silent in the self-catering kitchen of the YHA Ambleside as the tea brewed. Rachel (the birthday girl) hadn’t made it out of bed, and it looked cloudy outside, but we grabbed mugs and the tea kettle and made our way outside anyway. It wasn’t really raining, but it was wet, and it seemed like everywhere we looked, the world was just dark, blue, and cold. 

Not good weather for an early morning tea party on the dock.

And it soon became clear that the only dry place even remotely near the dock was a picnic table partially covered by an umbrella—if we sat back to back, two on one side, two on the other with our feet on the benches, there was just enough room for four butts on the tabletop. So we poured our tea, giggling and shivering, and then took our places silently. The wind was sharp and if it blew just right, all the water that had accumulated on the umbrella sprinkled down on top of us. This happened regularly and each time was greeted with little gasps and muffled exclamations. There wasn’t very much conversation, but there was quite a lot of laughter, though I can’t remember what about. We really didn’t do much aside from watch the clouds over the mountains and the boats rocking, occasionally making a comment about the complete lack of sunrise.

It was cold, even with a sweater on, so I drank my tea slowly, holding the cup close to my face so the steam warmed my nose. It wasn’t long before Claire said she was done and went back in to bed, and then it was just Carolyn, Elena, and I. We stayed out until the tea in our mugs was gone, but to our dismay the kettle still had enough for a least two more cups. So when Elena wanted to walk out on the dock before we went inside, I took the pot with and in the spirit of early-morning-etiquette-breaking I took a drink directly from it—it was 5 am, after all, and there was no one to tell me that it’s rude. Carolyn and Elena did the same and then the three of us stood awkwardly at the end of the dock holding our one quarter full pot of Earl Grey tea, not sure what we were supposed to be doing with ourselves. 

I expect if we were real English Majors, some dramatic music would have started playing and someone would have said something mildly profound about life as we stared out over the water and the wind whipped our hair. 

But instead we poured out the rest of the tea, washed our dishes, and climbed the four flights of stairs to our rooms without a sunrise or a profound statement--we did, however, have the knowledge that we had joined the elite club of people who've drunk tea from the kettle on the shores of Lake Windermere, and that was just enough to make up for the lack of sleep. 

The View From Grandma's Guest Bed

I'm in Grandma's basement, sitting on the guest bed closest to the nightstand. It's not really late yet, but I'm under the covers anyhow--it's cold down here. On the other guest bed to my left are stacks of folded laundry because we're leaving on Wednesday, so I washed all my clothes today in preparation. This means that my purple suitcase is sitting open and sadly empty. Actually, the whole downstairs in sadly empty. Or perhaps simply nostalgic. Do you know that in all my years of coming to Grandma's house, this basement has never changed? The beds are the same, the sheets are the same, the stuffed animals are arranged the same ways, the same movies and the same little trinkets on the windowsills, the dolls and empty bottles.

Everything is wonderfully constant here.

But I'm not--after all, it's impossible to stay 7, 10, or 15 forever. But sitting here I can see phantom versions of me all over this room and it's like watching my life in fast forward--there I am on the fold out couch, there I am at the puzzle table, here we are watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, there we are hiding in the closet, and now we're building a fort. There I'm reading a book, there I'm playing with stuffed animals, and now I'm arguing over who gets the "good beds." Do you know that these past two weeks have been the first time that I've ever been at Grandma's on my own? Before this, it was always with my cousins or my sisters, following the little chore schedule on the wall, leaving notes on the top of the bookshelf, and trying to convince the older cousins to play hide and seek with us younger girls.

I remember one of the last times, before we all got too old to go to Grandma's house for a week during the summer. It was just two of us that time--my cousin and I and we must have been around fifteen.  In the middle of the night I got terribly frightened and I knew that my cousin was still awake, so I whispered, "Are you scared? Because the light from the window is makes the TV look freaky and I can't sleep."

"Actually, I'm sort of scared too." she confessed, "Want to turn on the lamp?"

So we turned on the lamp and I sat on my bed and she sat on hers and she pulled out this little book of psalms and Bible verses and she read aloud to me. We must have talked and read out loud for a half hour, maybe an hour, and then once I felt at ease, the lights went off again and we fell asleep. At the time, I supposed that she was as frightened as I was, but looking back, maybe she just pretended so that I wouldn't feel bad about being fifteen years old and scared of the dark. It seems like something she would do.

You know, about a month or two ago, while I was still at school, I had this absolutely terrifying dream. I was too unsettled to wake up my roommate, so I got out of bed at 5 in the morning and went to the empty lounge with my bible and my journal. I sat there for a long time, but after a while other people started getting up and moving around, so I finally went back to my room and the thought occurred to me that maybe not so much has changed since fifteen.

It seems like a lot of change, you know. So much change that I get frightened sometimes--am I the same person at all?  But maybe not as much has changed, and maybe, after the lights go out, I'm still fifteen on the inside. Perhaps the dark is the great equalizer, one of only a few things that never change, never grow. The dark is sort of like my grandma's basement--perilously constant, always ready to trip you up with the same things that tripped you years before.

But no matter how much it trips you up, you can always count on it to be the same.

Wheaton in... Wheaton?

When you’re part of a study abroad program called “Wheaton in England,” you assume that you’re actually going to be in England. But you’re not. Or at least I’m not. Not yet, anyhow. They tell me, “Don’t worry, you will be soon! But first, you have two weeks on campus in Wheaton as preparation for your time overseas.” Which sounds legit until I find out that these two weeks of “preparation” are actually a hellish concoction of significant sleep loss mashed up with 400-page books, intensive literary analysis, at least 25 hours of class time a week, plus at least twice that many hours in out-of-class work, and an absurd variation of bagged lunches. 

And I’m paying money to do this.

Thank God they provide the tea (of which I’ve consumed an ungodly number of cups).  

Most of the students in the program are living on campus in apartments, but I’m staying off campus with my grandmother. She goes bed early, so I am often left sitting alone on the couch, papers and books strewn about me, waiting for the sentient lamp to turn off of its own accord as it does every night a little after 10 pm. Sometime before midnight, I creep down to the empty basement and fall asleep on one of the guest beds, tossing my homework on the unused bed beside me. Then the next morning I begin all over again—classes 10:10 to 3:40, with an hour for lunch. There is no time for anticipating adventures in the UK, no time for anything but packing lunches, studying late, speed reading articles, and drinking tea in between classes and trips to the bathroom. There is, at the very least, the entertainment of seeing the same mess of people doing the same things as me day after day—learning the color scheme of their clothes, deciding if their jokes are actually funny or not, and finding out if their taste in books matches mine.

I’m told that our time on campus is busy so that our time in England doesn’t have to be, which makes sense, I suppose. But honestly, I doubt I’ll remember much of this week at all beyond vague memories of a black VW bug and the pristine rows of Blanchard 139. Everyone complains, making bad seventeenth century puns about being so “donne,” but while watching hand after hand go up during class, I suspect that they don’t really mind. 

Heaven knows that I complain to anyone who will listen, but the truth is, I've realized that I enjoy 400-page books, think literary analysis is sort of fun, don’t mind the long hours, and could eat boiled eggs every day for lunch and never tire of them. Of course, I hope that the time in England will be more relaxing than the time here in Wheaton, but as long as the complimentary tea remains complimentary, I have good reason to believe that the remainder of the preparation time will be satisfyingly exhausting in all the ways I love best. And I'm perfectly alright with that. 

Sunday Stupe

The only thing that matters is chicken or beef
and do you want tomatocheeselettuce in
balance with this life this death
smile at every person even the
indecisive ones who hold up the line
because white or wheat bread and
I’m sorry can you speak a little
louder yes sir that was a funny joke one
I’ve never heard before and
do not go gentle into that good
condiments and gluten free yeah we have
some of those although might I
warn you they taste like sawdust you poor sucker
beloved we are always in the
Stupe line and reality is biodegradable boxes that
smell like saving the planet no we don’t do
salads on Sundays and here have my swipe it’s extra and
we have slipped the surly bonds of
Saga and who forgot to cut the buns
is Geoffrey back from break yet I’m doing
fine thanks for asking and the philosophy
paper needs 5 sources due at 10 am
Nature’s first green is
mold on this cheese throw out the pan
hi what can I get for you thanks for
waiting I’m out of ketchup where are the
size medium gloves and smile
night and whirling worlds afar in all encircling
eye contact don’t be sarcastic patience is
poetry is faces I recognize mixing with rhymes
I memorized once upon a shift—
I gave you a burger last Sunday and
you don’t know my name

Wheaton

Beloved, we are always in the wrong

Handling so clumsily our stupid lives

Suffering too little or too long

Too careful even in our selfish loves

--"In Sickness and in Health" by W.H. Auden

So what have I been doing for the last nine months, eh? Reading, of course, and writing essays and serving burgers in Saga and pouring coffee at Sam's and drinking afternoon tea with my friends at 4:00 every day and getting 8 hours of sleep every night because this may be college but I believe in being both coherent and caffeine-free.

Is it a good life? Yes, it is a good life. The bulletin board  in my room is covered with drawing from my younger siblings, and the same beat-up speakers I had at home are sitting on my desk with even more dents than before. 

Or rather, they used to be sitting on desk. It's the last day of finals, though, so my desk is cleared now, and the bulletin board is down and my closet holds nothing but 30 empty hangers. It's pretty depressing, actually, which is why I've spent most of today avoiding my room and sitting in other people's rooms, using their computers to write my blog post.

I'm pretty much a pigheaded idiot, which means it's pretty hard to teach me anything at all, but if I've learned anything at all this year, it's that friendships are really really important and also super complicated. My New Years Resolution was to memorize poetry, and I actually didn't do a half-bad job at it. One of the ones I memorized was a portion from Auden's "In Sickness and in Health" and I think it pretty well sums up how I felt about friendships for much of this year: incapable and inexperienced.

Floundering, desperately trying to figure out how to do everything right and how to not be selfish and still get good grades at the same time. Honestly, I don't know that I did a very good job, but maybe that's one of the best things about good friends--they give you room to make mistakes and don't ditch you simply because you are insensitive and irritating. And I, despite all the odds against me, managed to make some pretty good friends this year. 

You know, they always talk about how in marriage, love is a choice, right? But this year, I think I've learned that friendship is a choice as well. In the past, I've viewed friendship pretty selfishly, like "these are the people who make me laugh" and presto, friends. And I mean, I guess that's how friendships often start for me, but in order to move beyond that, you make a choice. You say, "Okay, these are my people. And I'm going to care about them and let them care about me."  

And maybe sometimes you don't do a very good job or they don't do a very good job, but that's alright because you made a choice. And that means that you've decided to keep caring about them no matter what.

So yes, beloved, we are always in the wrong, but through my failed attempts at being a good friend "comes a voice which utters an absurd command--Rejoice!"

Rejoice. And so I do.