Dreaming can't protect us anymore

My trip to my mother's hometown held especial significance for me this time. My aunt lives in a house on Third Avenue; obviously, three blocks from Downtown. Downtown consists of one block, ten buildings, and four or five pick-up trucks that constantly linger in the center of Main Street. However, if you turn the corner on Main Street, you will find yourself on Railway Avenue. Walk down Railway Avenue for about ten minutes and the smooth road will suddenly crumble into dusty dirt. This dirt road winds its way along the track, and at the very end of the road, behind a wild spring of bushes that proudly marks the edge of town, is my mom's house.

This trip was the first time I made the walk to their house all alone. I have walked the tracks countless times with my mom, and exclaimed over their little bungalow; the chicken coop my uncle built all on his own; the old water pump that still stands next to the house; Grandma's tiny, grey-washed house. We would tumble down the steep grassy hill to explore the depth of the culvert and discover jewel-like marsh marigolds and wild roses, and then she would trace the path the cows would meander every morning (it had been her job to get them back to the house for milking).

But this trip, I took a walk every evening on my own. I would start geometrically and gradually chop my walk tighter and tighter and I wound towards the center of town. I would march the length of Main Street, admiring the stores. Then I would turn the corner at Railway Avenue and set off towards the end of the road.

There was a feeling that mingled in the air along with the dust and the smell of hay and French lilacs. It was a bittersweet longing to be back when my mom and her family still lived there. Standing on the road across the ditch from Grandma's house, I could see my mom at eight years old, running across the lawn and giggling to her sisters. I could see her when she was eleven, awake at 5:00 AM in order to call the cows back from the pasture. I could hear her footsteps on the road, running to school or to town to go to the library while my baba shopped. And I wanted to be there with her. I wanted to meet her, to be her friend.

I wanted to protect her from all the terrible things I knew were coming her way.

Waves on the beach, out of reach

My mom and I took a road trip this week, driving six hours north to stay with my aunt who has recently moved back to the little town where my mom and her family grew up. This is a familiar, well-worn path for my mom and I - we would trek up there about twice a year, staying in hotels, buying Twinkies and Lipton's Raspberry Iced Tea for me and coffee for her to snack on, lying in the grass beside the river, climbing trees and magic rocks and balancing along the railway tracks that led to their old house... We would do it because there was something so restful about the familiarity and peace of that old town. The drive itself was comforting, but staying there for a few days was pure magic. I travelled back in time through the dust on the dirt roads and the prickle of the long grasses that grew by the tracks.

What they say about small towns is true: everybody knows everybody, and a stranger cannot come to town without it being an event. Our arrival in town could certainly have been classified as an event. A reporter for the Star & Times lives across the street from my aunt, and by nightfall, everyone knew we were there. What they didn't know, however, was why we were there, and that was enough to cause ripples of curiosity and suspicion throughout the town.

I went out for a walk that evening, as I would for every evening during my trip, and as I walked the town, people waved. This is a phenomena we simply do not see in the city. When people passed me on the road, they waved, whether they were out watering their grass, speeding down a dirt road, or talking in front of a shop downtown. I was a newcomer in town, and I therefore commandeered the attention necessary for a wave. When I first received a wave, I was too shocked to do much of anything but stare dumbly and somewhat panicked at the taillights of the retreating car. "Did I know them? Did they know me? Why did they wave? What am I doing wrong?" But as I became somewhat accustomed to small town ways (waves - haha), I began to hesitantly reciprocate. They would wave, and I would throw my hand back more and more enthusiastically in response, unable to hide the ridiculous smile that inevitably blossomed across my face. "They waved! They're waving at me! It happened again!" It was my new favourite game, and the townspeople never disappointed me.

The waves were a tangible form of connection with this town I to whom I was a stranger, though I loved it so dearly. The waves were, in short, a gift.

In the beginning there was the Word

I love the music of Aimee Mann.

It is a love that goes beyond the mere enjoyment of a good cd. Her lyrics not only speak to me, they speak about my life. And that is a rare and good thing.

Don't all go rushing out to buy her cds, now, as amazing as she is. I'm not a fan of bandwagons.

I bought myself a new bible yesterday. I felt funny doing so... a bible seems like something that should be presented to you as an occasion gift - birthdays, graduations, baptisms. It somehow felt odd to simply buy myself one with no particular occasion at hand. And yet it has been something I have wanted for quite awhile now. I really wish I had had it this past year at bible college, for the class lectures I copied out practically word for word in the margins of my old bible from my Pentateuch class. I loved the format of my old bible (single column is the way to go, baby!), but there comes a time where teen-angst-ridden anecdotes that take bible verses completely out of context no longer have any appeal whatsoever.

Why have bibles become symbols of life milestones rather than the most practical and valued life tool? Why has it become engrained in our mind that a bible is something to be horded and presented in a showy display, rather than a textbook we study more diligently than any school text we will ever buy? Why did I feel the need to justify to myself why it was alright to buy myself a bible for no occasion other than I feel a desire to study it?

I found the bible I have been wanting for quite some time, and when I brought it up to the cash register, the salesgirl warned me, "You know that that's the TNIV, not the NIV, right?" Today's New International Version versus the New International Version.
Uhhh... yes?
"Well, a lot of people have been returning them because they're offended by what has been changed."
Oh. What exactly is the difference?
"I think the main difference is that they've changed a lot of the hes and hises to theys."
Aha. Gender-neutral?
"Yeah, I guess. A lot of people have been offended."

And this is where I realized I may just deliberately try to shock people. Never to the extreme. I hardly think a case like this could be made into an extreme issue. But I made it quite clear that I wholeheartedly support and quite definately like the idea of some shifts in the gender notations of the bible (oh, wouldn't Louise Cornell be proud). Our language supports so many implied gender inequalities that I am beginning to recognize the importance of making a shift in the way we speak in order that we may be begin to shift the way we think and view the world around us.

What is more, beyond mere sociological issues of gender issues, are theological issues of the way in which I view the bible. I was upset at first to hear that there were some differences in the text. When I flipped to Psalm 23 and saw that the first line was slightly changed, I didn't know if it would mean as much to me anymore. And that's when I realized that I was holding the familiarity of the text over the significance of the words. When I read the bible, do I read it for the comfort of seeing words I've read dozens of times over? Or do I read it seeking new insights into my faith and my walk with Christ? A different translation shouldn't alarm me, shouldn't offend me (if it's done properly). Instead, I should be eager to encounter the words in a different way and from a different perspective.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (John 1:3-5)

Never let it hold you back

Today is a momentous day: the day I stared fear in the face and won.

The fear of baking layer cakes, that is. Ever since a fateful Mother's Day three years earlier, I haven't had the slightest desire to attempt to bake a layer cake. That Mother's Day, I stupidly decided to bake a three-layer strawberry meringue cream cake, despite the fact that it was blazing hot outside with not a breath of air to push the heat into what would vaguely resemble a breeze. No no, a little heat couldn't scare me. So I plowed ahead with my baking plans, and the result was a leaning tower of cream and meringue and sliding strawberries that I attempted to hold upright by means of various forks and chopsticks frantically poked in at various intervals.

Sigh.

Since that day, no layer cakes for me. I didn't even stop to look at their pictures in a cookbook.

But today, that all has changed! Today, I put into motion the steps that will either end in disaster or a three-layer toffee-mocha cream torte. My brother is a special person to prompt this kind of action from me on his birthday. I haven't actually attempted to put the layers together... that bit of fun I am saving for tomorrow morning. Oh joy and delight, I can't wait to see what the morrow holds...

But I do know that it holds a massage at 10:45, so maybe it's not all that bad.

Little darling, it's all right

It's an interesting day outside... strictly weather-speaking. It was gorgeous and sunny when I woke up, one of those days when you smile before you open your eyes and realize that sometime during the night you've comfortably kicked off all your blankets and are covered now by only half of a sheet and a cat (and pajamas, of course...) And it smelt wonderful. To me, summer is here when the smell of apple blossoms, lilacs, fresh-cut grass and line-dried clothes has seeped through the walls of my house and lies curled in every corner, every windowsill, on the step of every staircase, in the smooth lines of my pillowcase.

On such a gorgeous day, I scrounged around for a picnic blanket and an old pillow and made myself a retreat center underneath the sprawling branches of our crabapple tree in the front. It was more shaded than I had liked, but the warm smell of the sun still bathed me, so I was content. Except for the fact that my pillow was not high enough to adequately support my head, so I had to keep flipping around to try and find a somewhat-comfortable position. And for the fact that our front yard is only partially concealed by a fence of bushes, so I was the object of covert, fascinated glimpses for the many junior-high boys who walked past our house on their way home to lunch.

However, the sun decided to play hide-and-seek at around 1:30 in the afternoon, without realizing that I did not feel the need to be entertained by games as I lay out in its company. Once the sun hid, the temperature dropped only slightly, but my aching back did not find it worth it to stay outside. So, in I came, only to write what I now realize is quite a pointless entry. But the very freeing notion of having no commentators is exactly that: I don't care about what comments may come!

Football game tonight (which I was not invited to). Wedding tomorrow (which I was invited to).