Friendship

that summer day had been spent at the beach and both of us could feel the prickle of tension growing between us.

untalked about.

it blew up when I offered Jana some shrimp, which she turned down because the tail of the shrimp were covered in the shell, and she was used to shrimp that was completely de-veined (de-pooped, I call it). I giggled at her, probably blowing myself up a little bit because I was willing to eat shrimp that had not been cleaned, and I called her "cute" which any other time would have been okay if she couldn't taste the sarcasm in my voice.

That is when the crap hit the fan.

I love when the crap hits the fan because at this time friends are given the opportunity to heal or not heal. We healed. It took awhile... an entire summer of fighting over the same guy without ever really discussing what we were doing--he was tall and mysterious and she was bold and would "drop by" to use his toilet and then call me and tell me as I shied off in the distance as I do when I like a guy. It took us going as "best friends" to Bangladesh where we fought about hairspray and tampons and safety pins until we came to a resolution that "sharing" happened between friends-- and it took Jana's engagement to Nathan where I got less of her and struggled with dealing with this sense of loss of her as a friend to bring us to this stage of committing to each other as best friends forever, no matter what, until the end of time. This has been healthy. Even if I go to Africa and am a missionary and grow a beard? you'll still be my best friend? She always says yes. And I don't plan on growing a beard.

Relationships are like this, I have found. uphill, downhill, around the hill and back, but still, none the less, on the hill. there is something freeing in deciding that this is a person you want to stay best friends with-- and no matter what, I want to be best friends with Jana because she shrivels her hands up when she sees little things and uses high-pitched voices and loves old people and laughs a fat laugh and loves spending time with me even if we are bored out of our gorde, which I don't even know how to spell. Jana is my biggest fan, and I am hers because I think she is beautiful and able to sing with the angels and even if she had absolutely no talents which she is convinced she doesn't she would still be this big shining light that takes over every room she enters.

I lived with Jana once, for a semester. I'd get in late and we'd lay there and talk--credit-carding each other, discussing how okay it was if I ate her oatmeal in the morning--talking about boys and problems, crying, not getting enough sleep and crying more. I always wanted a brown friend, and I got one.

All this to say, friendship is so important for people. It's this space of accountability where you can talk about yourself and your feelings and your insecurities and be exposed all the way open and still be seen as this beautiful flower. It's important to see people as beautiful flowers, I think. Encouragement is so necessary, so watering-- in Proverbs it says that if there is no wood put in the fire, the fire goes out. Like our relationship with God, like this friendship--in order to stay close with him we must spend time with him which happens to be radical and weird to the world to need time alone in a room that is completely silent--loud with his presence. I have come to see how much we need people in our lives, or our insides get all dried up--and hot coals don't last long without alittle newspaper. Jana is my newspaper. She fires me up to want to become more--she is my best friend mostly because she is brown and I always wanted a brown friend, but secondly because she adores me and encourages me to be more and proclaim the name of Jesus to everyone I walk into, even if it means doing it without any words.

She can do it without any words.

God'll bring you a best friend like this if you just ask him, but you can't have mine.

growing up, Cdawgs

Used to be that days were spent inside of the woods. They were like a cave, swallowing up our hours. We were kids then, without responsibility-- in fact, if you asked me then I wouldn't have been able to even define the word. Adults used to say it when you'd misplace your school book or fall into the mud after getting dressed for church. They'd say I'd have to learn responsibility someday, and to enjoy youth while I could. I didn't know how else to hold youth in my hand, and so I simply lived it.
I'd watch adults enter bakeries with a glove over the handle so as not to mix their fingerprints with another's, or I'd watch my Mom make piles of notes to herself, so that she could remember all that she had to do and I didn't want this thing called responsibility. It sounded like a disease that climbed onto you when you grew boobs and started wearing heels even in the wintertime. It's what took the color out of your eyes, and made you manipulate the way you laughed in public or put the spoon next to the plate.
I remember the very first time I made a responsible decision. It was also the day I knew the cave of the woods had changed and that swinging on the vines near the pond was not going to be my top priority any longer. My older brother had grown and was now attempting the guitar and singing through his nose, and my neighbors voice was changing and he was not the same boy that used to wake me up at six a.m. when the dawn was still rubbing it's eyes. I'd watch him standing outside from my window, imploring me to join him on the trampoline or the gravelly streets with our bikes -- or more often, find the woods and wake them with shouts or scar the trees with our marks of territory.
The day I grew up was different. It was uncomfortable like wearing the color yellow when you wish you were a part of the wall. That day, he was not looking at the trees and their potential for roofing for out TP or at the ground for its twigs. This time he was looking at me, and his voice was a little shaky and I didn't know if I wanted to be kissed at all. Turning around that day marked growing up. I said something unkind in a cheerful voice so he'd think this wasn't rejection. Now I see him in pictures online with his middle finger extended and a beer in his hands. His face is fatter and he holds these unhappy lazy eyes in his eye sockets. In each picture his arms are stretched around different woman--pages and pages of pictures with the beer, the ladies, that middle finger. And it makes me wonder at growing up. It makes me dislike it so. Disagree with it.
My father used to wrestle with us in the camel colored living room, next to the brown chair that had a very distinguished back to it, the one he was always sitting in. We would all be wearing those footie pajamas that you'd wake up your Mom about in the middle of the night because your feet were sweating. We'd attack him, from behind, the sides, the top. I understand stopping when your back gets old or your shoulders freeze, but, one day it just ended. A silence that I believe we all felt, and still feel. Age is a crafty fellow that I plan on ignoring. Sure, growing up it still holds onto us. Sure, we still wake up one day with a wrinkled face and bad knee joints, but do we let it catch our spirit? Must we fit into the mold of society? Or can we still find the woods as that safe cave and fear age less because our spirit never gets old? Can't we laugh at our bodies as they sag and pull but still have these eyes that are lit? I will not grieve at age. I will not grieve, and I will pray that someday my neighbor reads this and polishes those vacant eyes.

Booger Names

My life as a little girl growing up was kind of bizzare. I have no explanation for my absurd behaviour. Like naming my boogers at the end of my tiny pointer finger. Or peeing on the deck in the back of our house. Let me explain.
We have this beautiful brown wooden deck that my dad built that wraps around part of our house. The deck extends to the garage. For some reason, in the summer, I would play outside all day with my big brother Aaron and I guess I was too lazy to walk in the house and use the toilet. I would go around the corner to the side of our house and pop a squat. I'd do it all the time! One time my dad caught me and he was furious! Sternly he said, "Don't EVER let me catch you doing that again!" Not even a couple days went by and I was doing it again. My dad caught me again and my only explanation was, "You said don't let me catch you!" Sigh.. My dad was careful from then in his choice words of commands.
I rememember another odd habit I caught was not wearing underwear underneath my clothes. What girl doesn't wear her britches? I have no reason that I can remember why I would do that. Just crazy genes I guess..
I loved being little. The summers seem to last forever and all I ever did was play with barbies with my neighbor friend Tressa and play dress up and have tea parties and sing myself to sleep.
To be continued..