Like Going Home

Last weekend, I spent the day with a very old friend.

Once upon a time, we were inseparable. We shared school, church, birthdays, and families. It was her African-born parents who introduced me to a much bigger world than I otherwise would have known. My grandparents adopted her, since hers weren't around.

Life does things, though, and until last Sunday, we hadn't seen each other in twelve years.

We talked about meeting when she returned from her summer in Uganda. I knew she'd be in town at some point, because her parents had her dog. I was figuring on a casual coffee house trip, or maybe lunch somewhere. After all, we hadn't seen each other at all in twelve years. We've lost track of each other several times. We haven't been close since we turned ten.

Her dad decided to have a "welcome back" dinner and I was invited. I still knew how to get to the house. The drive there brought with it waves of nostalgia.

Walking into the house was like turning back time. Her parents were exactly as I remembered, complete with the thick East African and subtle French accents that sound like music.

Sometimes you hear about friends who meet or talk for the first time in years, and they just pick up effortlessly. This was one of those times. There was the occasional reminiscing, but the shared history was so long ago that the memories are fairly limited. What is interesting, though, is that after all these years, we might have more in common than we did twenty years ago.

Over the years, I've come to collect a rather extensive adopted family. What I didn't realize is that I've been collected as well. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that these amazing people called me family. And, apparently, there are still friendships that don't come with expiration dates.

First Friends

Friendships start in the strangest ways. My first real friendship, for example was the direct result of naptime on day two of kindergarten.

Miss Murray was going down her list of students, asking each of us a question. The girl immediately after me on the roll sheet was sent to another location on campus, but there was a slight problem. She didn't remember how to get there. I did. Somewhere between leaving and returning, we became friends, and inseparable, at that. She was five days older than me, her family started attending my church, and every year our parents would request that we be placed in the same classroom. We were so inseparable that people who knew better wondered if we were sisters. In a way, I suppose we were.

My first real friend was one of the smartest kids in our class. She was quiet, thoughtful, and friendly. She was one of those kids who the grown-ups respected.

My first real friend is the daughter of a Sudanese refugee and a Norwegian-American who had grown up in Algeria. These two, one of my original sets of other parents, gave me a view of the world that most suburban five-year-olds do not have. It is because of them that I have always paid attention to world news. It is because of them- both of them- that foreign accents ring in my ears as the most glorious music. (I can spot an East African a mile away because of that music.) It was because of what little I knew of Maisha's dad's story that I wanted to eventually go to the eastern reaches of Africa.

She and I went to different schools after fourth grade. Our church collapsed about the same time. Without context, we drifted apart over the years, but somehow, we managed to never fully lose track of each other. Through the wonder that is Facebook, we can keep up fairly easily, even though she's in Pennsylvania and I'm still in our old stomping grounds of Southern California.

Today, I saw a message Maisha had posted on Facebook. It seems she has a blog. Please do visit. She's only in her second month of blogging, but do stop by and see what she's up to.

My first best friend grew up to be a remarkable person, indeed.

Prayer Request

Please pray for Dieter Zander, founding pastor of the Baptist church I recently left. He had a stroke earlier this week.

More info at Paddy's blog, for those who want it.

A Tale of Redemption

Thousands of people descended on Glamis for the Thanksgiving holiday. For most of these, a trip to the sand dunes was probably not life changing. Others will never be the same. Still others, without being present that fateful day, find themselves swept up in the fallout.

I've been told that several crosses mark the tracks where the train hit the ATV. One cross each for Amanda, her brother Jacob, and the other girl, Samantha. They stand in memory of three young lives that were lost in a moment of carelessness. They stand in testimony to two families who came home from the holiday without their children.

The principal of Jacob's school inherited the burden of planning and giving the funeral. This is a man who has walked the school through a long series of tragedies, losing two teachers, three students, and a handful of recent alumni over the last four years. He's no hero, really, and he'll readily admit that, but he has done his best in these hard places.

Bo was at home planning the double funeral and dealing with a plumbing issue a few days ago. (Why does the mundane always rear its ugly head at such times?) The plumber he contacted was one unknown to him, but he figured he'd take what he could get. The plumber thought it best to call home from Bo's house to let his wife know he was running late.

His son answered the phone. Mom can't come to the phone. She's busy looking for a church. The plumber was confused. They were not a church-going family, so why the sudden interest? His wife's answer? They were at Glamis when it happened. She was faced with the reality that tragedy could strike her family at any time. What would they do? Where would they turn? She saw beneath them no foundation, and she realized they would be destroyed by such an event.

The plumber asked Bo if he'd heard about the accident. As a matter of fact...

This could be a string of coincidences. This could be superstition. This could be many things, but I'm looking at this and thinking that this is a case of God showing up and redeeming tragedy. Three kids are gone, but maybe, just maybe, a little beauty can come from these ashes.

Writing to Stay Sane

Amanda died this morning.

On Tuesday night, the school hosted a prayer gathering to pray for Amanda, for Michael, the brother who saw it happen, and for Marco and Lisa, the parents. The place was packed out and then some. I saw a dozen or so of Amanda's classmates. It was hard.

They're going to be having a rough time with this.

I think I am, too.

Update on Amanda

Email just received from the school principal:

There is encouraging news with Amanda. The swelling on her brain is critical for the next several days. However, if she survives that, the doctors believe they can fuse the spinal cord at the base of her skull which will allow her to have full use of her arms and legs. In addition, the brain damage is not as severe as originally thought, and they think she will be fine with some processing limitations.

Meanwhile, I found out earlier tonight that the surviving brother, the sixth grader, witnessed the accident. He watched his brother and sister get hit by a train.

Keep praying.

EDIT: 9:40 pm. There is no spinal cord damage. There is spinal column injury, though. She is still in critical condition, and the swelling is a key issue. Prognosis is good, IF she makes it through the swelling.

Lord Have Mercy

One of my former students is on life support. She's a sophomore in high school. She was from the school where I was librarian and sub for three years. She wasn't a kid I was particularly close to. There are those you connect with and those you don't, and she was one of the latter. Her parents, though... Yeah, they were very involved, and I got to know them. Now their daughter has been declared brain dead. They are in the unenviable position of deciding whether or not to pull the plug.

If that weren't enough, the accident that put her in the hospital killed her younger brother. Four kids in the family. The oldest brother is in Iraq (this could be his ticket home). The youngest brother is gone. Amanda isn't expected to make it. The other brother is in sixth grade.

Please pray for this family.

When Did I Stop Being Invisible???

I seem to be inadvertently collecting boys.

Really, this is not my intent, nor has it ever been. But the fact remains, there are now three guys other than The Boy who have been pretty clear about their interest.

1. Shadow Boy. We've been friends for fifteen years. We sort of, but only sort of, dated for three months. In 1995. Since that time, he dated my cousin and my friend, and he was also briefly interested in another cousin of mine, but other than those brief interludes, he has been, well, my shadow. It hasn't helped that he goes to the church I just left. It also hasn't helped that his whole family has told me they hope that I will one day be daughter- or sister-in-law. They're great, and he's a good guy, but it would totally not work. I'd be so bored.
   
2. Chamber Boy. I met him my third day working here. He's thirty-seven going on sixteen. He knows he's not the sharpest tack, but he has absolutely no problem trying. Again, nice guy, but no.
3. Rockabilly Boy. He just recently joined the club. He's been superpoking me more than normal on Facebook. I didn't catch on. He was at the wedding on Saturday, but he was videographer, so we didn't really interact. However... He left a message on my wall that I must say was incredibly disconcerting. I barely know the guy. We're about the same age, and he's been around the church for a number of years, but we've never really been friends. Casual acquaintances, basically. At least this one's fairly normal.
   

So now I get to figure out how to deal with this, for HELLO, I have a boyfriend. One is plenty, and I'll stick with the one I've got, thanks. It might be less complicated, though, if he weren't so far away!

More Odds & Ends

His grandma had to have surgery. It went fine, but it meant he had to stay. This is, of course, understandable. It sucks, but it's understandable. :)

The paperbackswap books are on their way. Woohoo!

My friend Patrick has his first book available for preorder on Amazon. I ordered it a few days ago. Amazon tells me it should arrive around Halloween. Yay! I'll have to drag him off the mountain sometime so he can sign it for me. :)

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Now playing: Schumann - Der Erlkonig
via FoxyTunes

Who's on First

That year at College in the Cornfields definitely had its Abbott & Costello moments. It really didn't help matters having the three of us answering to Who, What and Why. But that was really just the tip of the iceberg.

My first room assignment at that college was in the basement prayer room of one of the girls' dorms. Overflow housing for those of us who decided late. There were five of us. Kara, Karen, Danielle, me, and one other who moved out as I was moving in. She was my roommate for about an hour.

A week later, I left the basement and moved in with Kimber, the first floor RA of the other dorm. Why and Ampf were in the rooms across the hall, Lori from the group of transfer students was on the other side of the stairs, and Karen from the basement was next door to her.

On October 3rd, Dr. Dobson spoke on campus. The choir was supposed to perform that afternoon, and I was moving again. To Lori's room. (That would be roommate #6, in case you're counting.) It was a crazy stressed-out sort of day, what with trying to move, go to class, and prepare for a concert. Of course, a week later, I was without a roommate, since she moved to the music house. I spent the next week lobbying for Stacey or Sarah to move downstairs, but I ended up with- irony of ironies- that girl who was my roommate for one hour that first day.

I barely met her in August. I hadn't seen her since that brief introduction. However, she quickly assimilated into the group I had already been a part of, and the others in that group quickly began to ask if Who and I were sisters.

It wasn't that we looked all that similar. We were just so frighteningly alike. We were twin sisters, separated by six months, two timezones, and different sets of parents. We discovered that we had strangely parallel lives. And on one particular night very shortly after we met, it became clear that we were meant to be roommates.

A bunch of us went down to the Baptist church where some boys from school were giving a concert. I don't know exactly how, but Who, who was already having a hard day, disappeared. The rest of us looked for her. Nothing. It was getting darker and colder, and we were worried.

About an hour after she disappeared, we were out looking again, now with jackets and flashlights. Four or five of us wandered through town wondering where she could have gone, and hoping nothing had happened. I could hear thoughts flowing through my mind like ticker-tape. I could see my roommate huddled in a dark corner. There was brick. And I knew the ticker-tape thoughts were hers.

It wasn't all that long before we were back at the Baptist church. At the back of the brick building, near the parking lot, there was a particularly dark, shadowy recessed corner. She was huddled in that corner exactly as I had seen her in my mind. While my friends talked to her, I walked out to the middle of the parking lot and had a chat with God about what on earth was going on and why I knew the things I knew that night.

Back in our room, Who and I had our own chat to process through what had happened. We were both pretty weirded out by the ticker-tape, which had been exactly what she was thinking while she was missing. While nothing quite that extreme happened again, she and I both regularly knew what the other was thinking.

One night, not long after that, we were all at dinner in the Dining Commons (gag), and Who was playing with her food. She created a dinner boy. His name was Henry. Sadly, Henry was not long for this world, and soon after the dinner boy's birth, we were giving eulogies. Ry-ry was sitting next to Who that night. Someone decided that he was Henry's father. He gave a lovely eulogy.

I may not have been the only one whose mind made the jump, but I was the only one who went with it. Ry-ry was my friend. Who was my friend, my roommate, my twin sister six months older from whom I was separated at birth. I looked at her. I looked at him. I looked at her again and said hmm. I looked at him and said hmm. A few of the others caught on and echoed with hmms of their own. Ry-ry and Who both looked at me and said NO.

Before Christmas, they were dating. And, as you already know, for you read the previous post, they got married a few years later.

Eventually, Who and I began calling ourselves God's practical joke on the school. We were so much alike, and we were roommates. Our friends, who knew better, thought we were sisters. And that's exactly what we ended up being.

I haven't seen my twin sister in nine years. I haven't heard from her in two. I missed the wedding. I missed her mom's funeral. I haven't met her daughter Munchmunch, who will be three in two months.

I wish Illinois and SoCal weren't so far apart.

Rae and Ry, blessings to you, my friends, wherever you are.

A Crazy Realization

I've got this friend. Her name is Why, in the same way that my name is What. (In fact, she named me What, and I, in turn, named her Why.)

Why and I will have been friends for ten years September 1st. This is amazing to me. You may ask, Why? You may also ask Why, but that would be silly, since I am about to tell you. ;)

You see, Why is from Indiana, and I am from SoCal. Why lives in Pennsylvania, and I am still in SoCal. We met at a little college in the middle of Illinois cornfields. I wasn't even supposed to be at that college. I got in at the last minute. I didn't know until the end of July that I was moving at the end of August, and I only stayed one year.

Why and I met a few days after I arrived, and when I moved out of temporary housing, I ended up across the hall from her. There were probably thirty girls on that hall. Four of us became good friends- Why, Ampf, Who (she's worthy of a post herself!) and me (What).

There were others in our circle, to be sure. There were also MarciaMarciaMarcia, Numbski, the Walking Soap Opera Girl, Sarah from Wiscænsin, Smarzy (Sarah's triplet), Stacey and her Marine (he wasn't on campus, but we counted him as one of us), Ry-ry, and the Jerk whose nickname is not one I wish to type here.

As I said, I was only at the College in the Cornfields* for one year. The last I saw most of these friends was in May of 1998. The Jerk dropped out of my life completely that November. I lost track of Marcia pretty fast. I've found and lost Smarzy a couple times. Who and Ry-ry ended up married, and they've moved so many times that I no longer know how to reach them. I lost track of Sarah when she finished grad school, because I haven't seen her online since. I have no idea how I lost track of Stacey and her Marine (they also got married). Soap Girl, last I heard, is still herself, and still in Ohio. This leaves Why, Ampf, and Numbski.

I haven't seen Ampf since I left Illinois. This makes me a little sad, because Ampf was a good friend. Unlike so many others, though, Ampf is neither lost nor misplaced. I see her online sometimes, and we've managed to keep in touch, relatively. Numbski was out here a couple years ago, for he has family in SoCal. Actually, he was even at my college graduation, only neither of us knew it until a week or two after the fact. We did get to hang out when he was here in 2005, though, and I got to meet his wife. Yay!

Which brings me to Why, my closest friend remaining from the original posse. She came to visit in January of 2001. My parents remember her as "that weird girl." And she is. But she's also my friend. And what's crazy is we've been friends for almost ten years and, except for that one week six and a half years ago, that friendship has been successfully maintained by phone, email, and various messaging platforms for nine years.

I guess this is why I have no issues with the idea of online friendships. I've seen how well they can work. You just have to be willing to put some effort into it, but then, that's no less true in person.

Why, my crazy friend, I am glad to be able to call you sister.

*waves to Numbski, who will most likely read this, and to Ampf, who also might*

*College in the Cornfields is not its actual name. This name has been changed to protect the innocent (until proven guilty).

EDIT: Soap Girl left me a message at my myspace, which I never check. Hi to you too!

Disney Day

Pirates of the Salt Lake?



Because we all know llamas ROCK.



And so do wooden shoes. ;)


Be sure to check out Sean's post, too, so you may all know what a wuss I am, falling asleep at 4 pm.

Sparks & Spidey Meet the Cap'n

Yep. Sparks is in SoCal. Today was a comedy of errors, but the drive to LA was uneventful, and lunch with Hugh was terrific. He's really nice. Storyteller, too. It was so cool to finally meet the Pirate King. It's been a good day. :)

And tomorrow, Sparks and I are going to DISNEYLAND!

So, Who's Next?

Yesterday, I almost had to hide from someone. Literally.

I was at the supermarket next door on my lunch break, and I was nearly trampled by a herd of red shirted third graders. Who the heck takes their class on a field trip to the local grocery store? Well, as I soon saw, apparently my second grade teacher does things like this.

Dear God, don't let her see me!

Of all my years of academic nightmares, first and second grades stand out as the worst. Interestingly, Counselor is about to start me (tonight, even) on this technique she just learned that's supposed to help take the sting out of these early formative traumas. Let me just tell you, Mrs. Williams sure contributed a few! To this day, my family refers to her as Old Yeller. Twenty-one years later, I just wanted to be invisible as she walked by. Lucky me, she was fairly oblivious to her surroundings. Including the kids, probably. But she didn't see me, so I was saved from having to deal with the teacher who could have been a Poe villain.

Note to teachers and parents: If your obviously smart student has equally obvious difficulty dealing with school, the correct way of dealing with them is not to call them Speedy Gonzales and offer "rewards" in the form of still more school work. It is also inadvisable to exclude these students from class parties and field trips. Rewards, punishment, and especially mockery and screaming, are not good ways to respond to learning disabilities, k?

Wretched woman. *shudder*

So this morning, shortly after I got to the office after the monthly breakfast, my cell rang. The name on the caller id made me laugh, partly because of yesterday's brief potential teacher drama, and partly because it was just so random. The person on the other end was none other than the 6th grade teacher I talked about in October and had dinner with in November. It seems she recently came across old videos. Videos of the chapels we did my two years in her class.

She told me she stuck them in an envelope and mailed them to the school (not to be confused with The School), addressed to my mom. Sometime soon I will be reliving some of the brighter moments of my time as a student at that school. Then I'll pass it on to a classmate from that era.

In the last 48 hours, I've come across the best and worst of elementary school. These things come in threes, though, so I'm wondering who's next. Could it be the aptly named Mrs. Paine, Nightmare of First Grade? Or perhaps Detention King Math Teacher? Maybe I'll run into Quirky History Teacher who let us play Where in the World is Carmen San Diego and who always told us the tests were "easy if you know the answers." If I have a choice in the matter, I'd like to vote for one of the good ones.

Flashback!

So I was just looking at the Dictionary.com Word of the Day, and it was a fun word- abecedarian- so I clicked.

One of the included examples of use of the word was from a journal article written by my college phonetics & phonology professor.

I have some very interesting memories associated with that man and his class.

To Stephen Minister

I thought I was done. I thought I didn't need our meeting times anymore. I thought the chapter featuring you had ended. But then I got to talk with you for a few minutes a couple weeks ago, and I realized I was missing something. I was missing the chance to have a friend. And it was my own fault.

I've lost friends when groups have sputtered into nonexistence. I've lost friends when people forget to make space for others in their busy worlds. But this time, I was the one who walked off into the sunset. I never looked back. I never intended to. I thought you were a crutch, and in my stubbornness, I insisted to myself that I no longer needed that crutch. And when I walk away, it's for real.

So your email today caught me by surprise. I was starting to wish there was a way back. I was wondering if I had managed to not burn that bridge. And there you were, saying Let's meet. You said you'd get creative to make room. And all I can think is Really? For me? This is certainly an undeserved grace and, at the moment, an overwhelming one. A grace to which the only possible response is gratitude.