south dakota, i'm sorry...

It turns out I was premature in saying that South Dakota was boring. Even east of the badlands and Black Hills, it is pretty amazing. There are rolling hills as far as you can see, that turn into valleys and valleys and more valleys. The scenery is breathtaking. Then the fields of corn and sunflowers grow up hopefully in vast plots of land.

Plus there are only two or three McDonalds. You have to appreciate a state that McDonalds can’t colonize.

But the piece of South Dakota that truly grabbed my heart was the slice of Americana that is Wall Drug. Yes, this was better than even the Corn Palace of Mitchell, SD. Wall Drug is the Wild West meets the Prairies. It is a block long of kitsch. Fantastic. I want to mock it, but it was entertaining and fun that I really can't.

The drive through the western part of South Dakota and through Wyoming, when it wasn't snowing, was rolling hills into mountains. What keeps startling me is how few people there are around here. NO ONE lives in the west! There aren't stores, gar stations, signs. It's almost like it was how it should be.

Tonight we are staying at a Day's Inn in Billings, Montana. Tomorrow: Yellowstone. :-)

south dakota

is boring.

but i can appreciate the emptiness of it. and the driving is fast because no one is on the road. we are sitting in the motel 6 at mitchell, and debating who is going to take the first last shower tomorrow.

our excitement today has been the panera in lacross, and the beautiful cross into minnesota over the mississippi river. the time passed much more quickly watching episodes of bones and listening to stories on the moth storytelling podcast. we have traveled about 10 hours, but that still means we have 10 hours again tomorrow. i'm hoping for a starbucks, but it looks unlikely. i may have to settle for the hot chocolate in the machine at the front desk.

i'll try to post pictures when things get a little more interesting. :-)

the stories i didn't tell my parents...

we went out clubbing tonight for my friend's bachelorette party. it was the first time i've been dancing in awhile, and it brought me back to the early years of living in chicago. a lot has changed since the frenetic weekends of loud and drinking and dancing. i unapologetically check in for the night by 10, for example. i don't miss the numbing, i don't miss the pain of that first year, i don't miss the instability of figuring out what it means to be an adult, the feeling of the floor moving from underneath my feet. my shifting into adulthood was far less rebellious than some. i teased the boundaries, i showed more than a few people that a white girl can dance, and i got my fair share of free drinks, but my friends held me safely into place.

i miss that safety net of friends. they are still there, but our lives are much more separate since the weddings the weddings the weddings. and though i love my boyfriend, there was something to the bigger group, the collective community, that is lost in the finding of intimacy with one person.

so anyway, the dress that i wore tonight is one that always gets compliments. i waited for two months for it to be marked down to twenty dollars at anne taylor loft, the recipient of most of my paychecks my first year of teaching. (darn them and their convenient locations just off the el stop! i could purchase a pair of pants before i even got to work.) it is the number one seller on the rachel's clothing exchange for friends.

the most memorable night i wore this dress came one night after a mental breakdown. too many drinks of rum into the night i started screaming at my friends who i had earlier invited into our apartment for a party. sure, the lights were out and the music was on, but a drunk screaming girl is hard to ignore. i don't remember what i was so angry about, other than i knew that on the coldest night of the year, mid february, one of my students was being evicted from my apartment and there was nothing i could do to help or change the situation. he survived. so did i.

the next day my friend had invited me to an event at the chicago history museum. a fundraiser for one of her friends; we got to schmooze with the fancy peeps of the city. my other friends had gone to the viagra triangle to try their luck at a new club. i was planning to meet them there at the conclusion of the historical center gala.

i grabbed a cab and directed it to the place where the old meet the young. the car pulled up to p.s. chicago, an epically unclassy joint. i paid the fare, and got out of the cab. in front of the club, quite a scene was unfolding. an older gentleman, way past his prime clubbing days (we're talking 65) was being attacked by a younger african american woman. she had the hysterical look of someone who is chronically mentally ill. they were fighting their way out of the club. she was yelling at him and he was more or less grunting back. all of a sudden she pulled out a knife and started stabbing him. it wasn't a big knife, but he fell over and she straddled him while screaming. security had already been alerted to the situation and were doing their best to reason with unreasonable people.

i stepped over the man to get in to the club.

seriously.

i had forgotten about the story until tonight. nothing happened at near that dramatic a scale. but i find the whole situation a little baffling.

you always wonder what you might do in a crisis situation. will you be the hero that will save the day, that will step up to the plate and make the tough call, say the brave words, do the things others won't? or will you be the passive observer who looks the other way and implicitly allows a crime to be committed before your eyes?

i honestly don't think i could have been helpful in this situation. but the truth of the matter is, i didn't care. i was completely numb to the suffering of another person who was inches from me.

on dirty sexy money, the tv show, there was a line that really struck me. one character says, "do you think he's capable of murder?" and the response he got was, "we're all capable of everything."

i get that. i understand how simple it is to walk over someone's body to get to hang out with my friends. it's true i wasn't in a healthy mental state. it's true i was under an extraordinary amount of stress. it's true that within days of that moment i would be essentially homeless. but the fact is that you don't know how low you can go until you get there. and when you get to that low point, it is a moment of grace to realize how much lower you could have gone.

i think it is true that we are all capable of everything--in the most negative and the most positive ways. i have come a far stretch from that cold february night. i hope to have a far stretch still to come. i am not so naive as to think that that one evening was the lowest point to my life, but it was a reminder of my limitations, my humanity, and my brokenness.

tonight was fun. it was great to be out with the girls and not to think about the creepy men in the club. it was fun to meet new friends and to surprise them with my dancing. it is still a thrill to move move move on the dance floor. but i think my favorite part was getting to remember.

sad

today was frustrating. i was pissy. it started with a new student brought to my door. I had gotten a student the day before that I haven't been able to connect to yet, so one more was frustrating. not to say i won't love her, because i will. but more annoying was the fact that i spent most of yesterday calling the office to get them to bring a desk and chair for my first new student, which they never did, and eventually i had to scrounge one off another teacher.

so when the office secretary brought the new girl to my door, i wasn't exactly polite when i said, "i will not take her in my until you bring a desk and a chair."

i'm rarely if ever rude to people and the secretary didn't know what to do with that. but a desk and chair were brought within the half hour. honestly. to get any favors done for you in our school you have to be rude or showing cleavage to a janitor.

then the day continued with frustrating dead ends when it came to trying to get help for a student i am almost sure is being sexually abused. and honestly, i don't think he is going to get the help he needs until he physically harms another student. an eight year old. why is the system so desperate that we can't do any preventative care for our students?

and then i got frustrated thinking about Joe Wilson and his asinine remarks toward Obama. Which I am CONVINCED he felt he could do because Obama is black. Never ever has a president been under so much scrutiny simply because he had the audacity to want to be president. Obama's record is shockingly clean, and the best that the right can bring against him is inflammatory b.s. about him being a Muslim. i mean, seriously. disagree with his politics, but how dare you disrespect the office of president by yelling in a congressional meeting?

And someone posted on one of my brother's posts about health care. My brother posted a statistic that one person in America dies every fifty minutes due to not having health care. Or something to that effect. The response from one of our mutual friends? Oh, one unborn baby dies every twenty minutes in abortion.

Seriously???? SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!?! i spent most of the ride to school composing responses to that post. ok. abortion is sad. no argument. and health care reform is necessary. why are these at odds with one another? Why can you only choose to care about one? and how many of those babies that are being aborted would even be offered health care? because a lot of the aborted babies are black, and from what i've experience in the past four years or so, not too many people care too much about little black kids. other than to say that their parents are inadequate and it's a shame they can't pull themselves together. i honestly don't think people should be allowed to be pro life unless they are willing to actually care for the needs of the child from the time they are born until the time they die. personally care for those needs. i mean, abortion is hardly even the tip of the ice burg of a pro life platform.

anyway. i'm in a bad mood. i get that. fuel for the fire. but that does feel better than apathy.

13.1

I ran a half marathon. At about mile 11 it occurred to me that most people don't run 11 miles. Even as slowly as I do. Especially as slowly as I do. Anyway, it was a good race. I was excited to finally get to see the results of a lot of training. And the best part was that until mile 9, I felt really strong. The last four miles were horrendous. But I finished. And afterword, I felt powerful.

It's a weird thing to see yourself change looking through the rear view mirror. My body wakes me up at 7 every day, even when I sleep in. I have a pet dog, which means I have a commitment to another creature that lives in my house. And I have set some goals and met them. I guess I have always done that, but often times I feel like I give up before I actually accomplish my goals.

But this time, despite missing an occasional training, we trained for months. There were some really great runs, and some really terrible ones (none worse than the run I did after drinking McDonalds coffee. I am neither a coffee drinker or an advocate of McDonalds) but it was just a run when it was all said and done.

Then yesterday came around and I was amazed at how fast the mile markers would come. (Understand, I only refer to the ones before mile 10!) I remember my first four mile run and how proud I was to finish. Now I've completed a half marathon. And it won't be my last.

I am so impatient. I want instant results. I want easy answers, I want change and I want it immediately. I want my students to be able to read. Tomorrow. I want to lose 10 more pounds. Today. I want to be more organized. Tonight. But life isn't that way.

The magnet on my fridge is just an oval with 13.1 written in black block type. But for me it stands for more. It stands as a reminder that life is a long obedience in the same direction. It is doing the next thing again and again and again. Most days are not exciting. And then you get to a race day that reminds you how far you've actually come.

On the other side 13 miles doesn't seem very far. It's funny how perspective changes everything. Now I know that I can run 13 miles, and I wonder if 26.2 is my next step? Or a faster 13.1? And oddly, either way, it starts with another 3 mile run tomorrow.

happy

i'm happy.

there have been times in my life that i have felt as though i was swimming underwater, and every movement was work.

but even with the school year beginning in only one week, and the pace of life picking up before it ever slowed down (it doesn't slow down unless you make it slow down)

i'm happy.

little lessons have been coming my way. like how very very different men and women are in their expectations and communication. not just my man, either.

or simple things, like how to stop eating when i'm not hungry anymore. even if the food is really really good. how to teach my brain to appreciate what i have, instead of grabbing for more.

or withdrawing spending cash and not using more than that between pay checks.

i'm happy.

my life isn't the extreme roller-coaster highs and lows that it has been in the past. but i don't miss those highs anymore, and i certainly don't miss the lows.

we sat out next to the planetarium last night, watching the city as the sun disappeared behind lake michigan. and i thought about how much i love chicago. and how much i love minnesota. and how much i love being alive. and i wondered how it is possible to love so many people and so many places at once.

i remembered my freshman orientation week, at dinner with jerry root, when he asked a missionary kid about what it was like to live between continents. he asked if it was hard to know where home was. and without much of a pause, jerry said, "Heaven is Home."

i'm happy.

because heaven is my home and heaven is in my heart. which means that i am always home.

and because i have found that it is less and less difficult to talk to people about heaven, or about Jesus. it feels less like a command and more like an extension of who i am.

at membership class at church i looked around and realized that these are the people that are becoming my family. and i've been seeking out that family to guide me and to help me grow.

i'm happy.

i have a job that is recession proof, and i am getting to learn about physics in my classes, and about the universe and the worlds beyond worlds beyond worlds that exist in any direction i can lift my head toward.

my students are excited to be in my room. a room that may even have a smart board this year! im getting over my fear of being seen and noticed. and getting over my perfectionism. so that i can just love my job and love doing my job, without all the strings.

i'm happy.

to be invited to the coming of age ceremony of a dear friend from the youth group. honored to be asked to stand beside her and share the secrets and pain and joy of being a woman. blessed to be in a community that treasures those mysteries.

i'm happy.

with lily, snuggled always beside me. loving me without condition and reminding me of just how rare and precious unconditional love can be.

i'm happy.

what makes me so special?

listening to npr this afternoon, i heard a short interview with ted hilton. he was pushing a proposition he has written for california that would deny tanf benefits to the children of illegal immigrants, even if those children are themselves citizens of the United States.

i don't want to argue over the complicated and divisive issue of immigration, though i'm sure one could guess my opinion. what frustrated me in the interview was the arrogance and entitlement that the man had. what makes him so special that he is entitled to health care? how does one decide that a human being is not worth helping, simply because they don't possess a united states passport?

in the last few days i've been struck by the fact that there is only a fine line between each one of us and becoming the bum on the street, the single mother, being short on a mortgage payment, or without a job. a few bad decisions, one major catastrophy, and the pieces of your life can quickly come apart.

what makes me so special? the fact is that nothing makes me so special. so today i am thankful for the grace each day that wakes me up and sees me through.