Mammaw...you rock my socks off

I'm at my grandma's house today. This woman has one of the cutest Southern accents you've ever heard, and enough furniture to fill two apartments. She's obsessed with all the cutesy (sometimes creepy...giant stuffed CLOWN with a red CONE HAT...hello...FREAKY) souvenirs she's brought back from far away places. She bakes biscuits whenever there's company, and always finishes dinner with some kind of pie or cake (last night I ate the best brownie I've ever had...topped with homemade buttercream icing, carmel, and pecans...and I don't even LIKE carmel!!). She's extremely opinionated, even more stubborn, and starts every other sentence with "well you wanna know somethin?", however I've found that the strength that resides within her under that perfectly curled auburn hair inspires me every time I'm around it. She has a fighter spirit, and even though you can try to get her down you will fail miserably every time, because survivors are LIVERS and that's just the way it is. Her lungs have not grown wary, she will state her case and STATE IT LOUD if she does not agree. I find myself searching for her within me, because she is so WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR covered in sweetness....only the most dangerous would butter up their prey with marble cake before letting them know they will not be selling that Austrian clown for $5 now. She's super independent, and she'll let you know just how. She doesn't need air conditioning to continue, and what matters most to her is that her kids are happy, not that she has a lot of money (now dressers, that's a different story :) I love her. I strive to be more like her. And what scares me the most is that I will fall in my own doubts for myself without embracing the part of me she's in.

Onlywhere

Today I visited the school I'm going to next year.

It's weird how things are. One minute you're planning your whole life somewhere so far away from everything you ever knew and never really meshed into, the next you're signed up somewhere you never really pictured yourself. But that's the funny thing about life. When we finally do step back and see the picture, it's so much more beautiful and perfect than whatever we dreamed up. I guess I wanted to blaze a trail somewhere else, pawing away at every gesture of help. I'm my own person! I should have my own place! But no place is simply one person's. This place has the potential to be mine in it's own unique way. So today didn't actually suck. I didn't spend the whole time sulking about how California is way better for me because I'm special or whatever...mopedy, mope, mope. Today I saw the charm in the cornfields. I WOKE UP and saw the beauty of the wildflowers growing next to the highway. I actually looked forward to seeing the building next to the lake, because it's already kind of familiar (thank goodness for summer camps). I didn't whine on about snow, and cookie cutters, and Mid-west. Before I got there, sure, I vented. But this time, I saw it. I had patience for this beautiful thing. I got excited about maybe traveling to different areas of adventure and then coming home to a community of people in "the middle of nowhere". Because this community, this collection of incredibly positive, 'let's be the best we can' people, turns this nowhere into a somewhere. Turns it into the onlywhere I was supposed to be, where greatness is inspired and most everyone is happy to see you and glad to know you. And so what if I don't love being a student "in general"? I think I'm gonna love being a student here.

Oh. And listen to him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YXVMCHG-Nk

I think his song is kind of wonderful

s0uL T@Ll%

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like.

Stripped down to my soul. What would I see in the mirror? Walking down the street...

What would I want most? Absent of the need for food, soap + water, shoes, breathing...

I would want every single beautiful moment in my life, again.

I think I would want the people who smile and touch my forehead with theirs to be talking about anything, because in every word they say they touch my heart.

I'd want something soft playing in the background...something with acoustic guitar.

And I would want to feel the sun and not worry for once about skin cancer, any kind of cancer.

I wouldn't have to think about sickness or worry or death or sadness or hate.

I wouldn't have to think about all the reasons why there isn't peace in Israel.

Why there isn't peace in my hands.

Why I can't just touch something and will it to be happy.

Why I can't just see my future now, and get prepared.

For how ever many kids.

Wherever I will live.

If I'll live for something like that.

If I'll live and never see that.

And I think I would just close my eyes and be happy to be just a soul. Because I would feel bad for everyone else who had to worry about MONEY and TIME and NOT HAVING ENOUGH of things they don't really need anyway. I would just try to remember what it felt like to have my hand held because I wouldn't have hands anymore. And I would try to be a thoughtful soul, because there wouldn't be a need for thoughts anymore...or electricity. And I would just sleep in the flowers so I could smell like them, I think. And I would just whisper loudly about how important it is to really see someone for all the good that's inside of them, and wish that someone, preferably someone small, would here me.

If I was just a soul.