"Living the dream, Kim George."

That’s what my friend Nick Vu says. He has been saying it for some time, and it has seeped into my imagination.

There are lovely moments when I feel like I really am "living the dream," like today when I was kicking leaves and meandering around Harvard Square. I then managed to navigate the 1.5 hour walk back to my home-away-from-home adorable Boston apartment, where I will be living and writing for the next several weeks. I could have taken the subway, but it was a perfect 70 degrees and there were too many things I wanted to notice along the way, like ivy-covered brick buildings and old bridges and, alas, cute men in sweater vests reading along the side of the river.

But tonight, my adrenaline for life has ceased and I just feel those lingering doubts and fears about what it will mean to attempt to get so much written these next few weeks. I have been given an amazing gift—several weeks of space to just plunge into the story of my book. I plan to write in the mornings until early afternoon, and then explore Boston into the late afternoon, looking for the types of beautiful places that make me come alive. But, whenever I go on these writing retreats (and up to this point, they have only been 4 days long), I must transition through all the frustration of self-doubt and loneliness that seem to enter whenever I try to find my voice and really risk on something.

(I will try to do frequent and short updates on my blog, not because anyone needs to care what I am thinking about on a daily basis, but because it feels like I am reaching out to home, and I like that feeling.)

Miss Holly Hibbert

So, the girl who is in every one of these pictures (not including me) is Miss Holly Hibbert. Seattle recently had to surrender Holly back to the east coast. We are all very sad about this unfortunate fact. I spent most of the last half of my summer feeling positively glum about Holly's departure to her homeland (New York). Holly was the first person I met upon my return to Seattle 4 years ago, when my life felt turned upside down and I needed a kindred spirit. I really credit her with reintroducing me to so many good things in life. 

Over the years, Holly and I were in numerous "groups" together. The top pic is West Wing (that's where we meet every 2 weeks to review our big picture life goals). The second pic is the dance group that Holly led for 3 years. Holly opened up to me my world of dance; I cannot imagine my life without my love of dance. We also partnered together to work at the homeless shelter at our church, our task being simply to pray for the women who sleep on the floor in our church basement. Holly has also been one of the crazy people who meet at my house every Wednesday at 7 a.m. to read aloud straight through the Bible (yes, we are reading it through from cover to cover, trying to experience the text as oral tradition). Holly also introduced me to Mars Hill Graduate School, a school I attended for 2 years.  This list could really just keep going...I cannot think of a more influential friend—a friend whose life has been so interwoven with mine. 

Holly taught me so much: interdependence (like how to ask your friends to take you to the airport at 5 a.m), how to dance with freedom, cook with more precision (still working on that), stop and cry when I need to cry; unabashedly delight in my own gifts; be honest about my own pain;  enter the pain of others; pray from a place more true; and love with just a bit more courage.

She is too far away and I have moments of panic when I remember the distance between Seattle and New York. But, I have been absolutely wealthy with her presence in my life, and I am happy to learn to share...I am sure her family and friends in New York are so happy to have her back. Holly, I miss you!

Rafter Boy, and Other Happenings to Report From the Dance Floor

He would later sheepishly tell me he was just trying out a dance move.

But when I initially looked up and saw Andy was upside down, swinging from the rafters, I momentarily wondered if I should help him to his feet. But I quickly decided that somehow Andy can get away with such ape-like maneuvers.

He and I, and a lovely batch of dear old high school friends, helped our friends Ryan and Sarah celebrate their nuptials this Sunday night. The dancing after the ceremony was on a boat on the Puget Sound, with the Seattle skyline glittering in the distance. I was in heaven. I twirled with abandon and felt the joy of old friendships rekindled. I did not, like Andy, take the liberty to somersault, but I felt just as high on life. And I have to say, that when I looked out onto that dance floor and saw the life stories in front of me, I realized this was not just a group of people who knew how to celebrate, but this also was a group of people who had accomplished some pretty beautiful things in the last decade. So many of these individuals are intent on bringing hope and change to this world, but they have not forgotten how to occupy a dance floor, either.

I woke up the next morning with that sweet sadness that comes when beautiful moments have too soon slipped into memories. The community and celebration of the night awakened something in me—I realized again I have gotten too serious. I need more dance parties. I need to take the time to be in touch with old friends. I need to be committed to the daily practice of living (as Andy pens it!) which means taking seriously the things I love. And I love the moments of my life when I step away from thinking, writing, laboring, planning, trying to change the world with my grandiose notions, and otherwise working hard…and I just let myself play and love and feel and twirl and be.

Guess Who is Turning 100?

For those who get excited about such things, you might want to know that Anne of Green Gables is turning one-hundred this summer. Lucy Maud Montgomery first published her much-loved story in 1908, and a century later, generations of us still dote on her.

Like many teenage girls, at thirteen I discovered a heroine who had red hair and a fondness for breaking slates over boys’ heads. The adventures of Anne Shirley– all 8 books and 7 hours of VHS footage– became my master narrative of early teenage existence. I dreamed of going to a ball in the world’s puffiest sleeves. I wanted my own Lake of Shining Waters and a gaggle of girls to recite Tennyson with while I sailed away in a broken dory. And of course, I wanted to be rescued by Gilbert Blythe in a fishing hat, while I positioned my nose high in the air. (I am a feminist now, so I do question those “boy rescues damsel in distress” fantasies…but I still LOVE that scene.)

I guess I secretly wanted permission to be that spunky, that romantic, and that incorrigible. Anne Shirley did not edit herself or hold back her adventures, and everyone loved her– except when they thought she was a perfect heathen. It sounded like a fun life. I think for all of us Anne fans, her spirit is really just a portal to feel and love and walk our “ridge-poles” boldly.

This summer in Prince Edward Island a commemorative festival is being held in her honor. (Oh, if I could only go! One day that dream will come true.)

More on Reality, Dreams, and the Space In-Between

I am going to dream for a moment without edits. I am going to pretend I have a full pallete of paint available. I am going to get rather messy with it and cover my hands and fingers, so I can fling it on the canvass rather un-carefully and watch the colors collide. There is something in me that wants to learn to create without reserve, to see what happens when I let go of controlling the substance. I feel that way about words on a page and I feel that way about life and my dreams. Where is the balance of technique and freedom to all of this? How much of a story, a relationship, a dance, a life’s dream ought to be crafted and planned, and how much of it must come by surprise?

This morning, I find myself in the midst of planning the future of my dreams, or at least trying to connect with the dreams gestating in me. With the fall approaching, there are so many decisions to be made about school applications and what I am going to do with my business and where I could potentially see myself living if school takes me away from Seattle.

As I think about my next steps in life and where I might possibly be a year from now, I am stuck between several thoughts: the practicalities (money, primarily), how much I appreciate my life here in Seattle and the people with whom I am journeying, and the need to allow myself to enter the expanse of my heart’s desires. There is so much to consider as I come to these next steps. I can’t throw out either practical needs or the depth of my connection to Seattle, but I also can’t shut out the quickening of desires.

I think that when we speak the words that are true of our desires, we help actualize those desires. So what do I want? It has been nearly two years since I quite a job that actually gave me health benefits, a regular schedule, and a good-sized salary. I journeyed through a grad program that gave me invaluable gifts, but ultimately was not a program I wanted to finish. I started writing a book, which is leading me deeper into the practice and struggles of the craft of writing. I find myself in the midst of this demanding book project, but I am also realizing I am in the midst of something quite larger than a book: I am trying to figure out what my writing will mean to me. How has it become the rhythm of my days? Sometimes, I have to check in with myself. Am I just obsessed and that is why I work so hard and prioritize so much of my life around writing? Or have a found a path that is truly part of my life’s most significant work, and I need to allow myself the freedom to keep plunging into it?

This morning, I have been researching MFA programs, which is a rather significant shift in thought from pursuing PhD programs in interdisciplinary studies. I am torn between the two, but for a time this morning I let myself skip around in MFA websites. I don’t have conclusions, but I did experience a clarity of desire:

I want a program with diverse faculty and staff. I want to talk with writers from other cultures and parts of the world.

I want a program where I get to travel. I want to be able to write in settings that inspire rest, contemplation, and risk-taking. I miss England and quaint cottages and ivy-laced buildings.

I want a program where I get to study and learn and practice teaching. Apart from writing, my other truest passion is teaching, and I want to be in a place with freedom to explore different approaches to pedagogy.

Whatever my degree ends up being, I don’t want to be locked up in academia. One day, I want to walk into a jail or a room of unruly adolescents or a retirement home and work with people on telling their stories and finding their voice. I want to teach at a college, too, but I need to be able to work outside of typical classrooms.

(If you happen to be of the praying type, I would love your prayers and thoughts for these decisions about school and life that seem to be waiting these days on my doorstep.)

Thoughts on Reality

I have been doing a lot of thinking the past year about reality versus dreams. Here’s the problem, the best I can deduce it: if a person just submits to the harsh facts of reality, she does not try to re-create that reality. And yet, if she is always looking at her dreams, she is naïve. When I consider the reality of what I want to accomplish with my writing career, it is rather a dismal picture. Writers need platform and influence these days; publishers want important names. At this point in my 27 years, I have neither. I just have a passionate heart and a devotion to the craft. I also have gumption, says my friend Letha.

When I was 14, I remember my best friend Debbie and I deciding we wanted to live on Lopez Island for part of our summer break. We had fallen in love with this little gem of an island just off the coast of Washington. It is small and quaint and the friendliest island in the San Juans. After having taken a short weekend camping trip there with my mother, we were smitten with its charm: Everyone who passes you on the road waves, even if they just lift two fingers off the steering wheel. I noticed a cat bite actually made the news in the crime section of the Lopez newspaper. The dandelions that line the island roads have the look of dainty wildflowers. The island “dump” has all the hand me down books, furniture, clothes, and old appliances stacked and ordered and available to anyone in need. The bakery is the gathering place in the tiny village and home to the most amazing, fresh baked goods you will find.

After my first trip to Lopez one summer, I was determined to return and stay longer. So as 8th graders, Debbie and I went downtown to the Spokane library and asked the lady at the reference desk for the phone book to the San Juan Islands, which is a book the thickness of my thumb. We proceeded to look up the names of all the businesses on Lopez (I think there were 40) and sent letters in the mail offering our services in exchange for room and board. We eventually heard back from the lady who owns the Lopez Bakery. She did not want us to work; she wanted us to come and play and delight in the island. Which is exactly what we did. The summer before I started high school, my mother drove Debbie and I the 7 hours across the state and then we all took a ferry to the island. After meeting Holly B. (our hostess), my mom confirmed we had indeed found a kindred spirit. My mom left the next day, feeling good about my adventures.

Debbie and I had our own little cabin on Holly’s property. We dug potatoes in the garden, enjoyed her outdoor solar powered shower, ate strawberry scones and cinnamon rolls, rode bikes around the island, made friends with her 3 sons, and learned the pace of island life. It was a dream–the re-creation of reality. We infused reality with our desires and were able to live what we had imagined. And yet, we needed others to help us create it. We needed our mothers to believe in our adventures and we needed Holly’s exuberant hospitality to two strange girls.

I have been thinking that any one person’s dream requires many midwives. I am happy to carry my writing dream, nurture it, and let it gestate. I am grateful for the many people in my life who have offered love and grace to my journey– who have, if even for moments– been midwives to the life inside of me. But I am aware that reality is very stubborn. So, today, I find myself telling reality that I am more patient, more creative, and more persistent than it. I want to discover many “Lopez Islands” in my life– those places where reality gets to participate in my dreams.

A Celebration of Dancing Feet

I am captivated by this 4-minute video.

An ordinary guy from Seattle started traveling around the world doing this silly dance and videotaping himself in different countries. He puts the clips on the internet. He gets semi-famous. A gum company (Strident) then hears about him and decides to pay for him to keep traveling all over the world and videotaping his silly dance, with others joining in. What he created is hard to put to words. It is a stunning piece of art. Trust me. You need to stop whatever you are doing and watch this.

May I recommend that you watch this video in the largest version you can on your computer screen. You'll need to see the human faces from all over the world.

You can get more information about this guy and his travels here.

On an annoyingly comical note, I read on his blog this story of someone who wrote into him (thousands of people write to him) who had this profound insight to share about his adventures:

"My question is what's the point? Has nothing to do with gum except raising the price because they're sending Matt all over the world for no particular reason. What's it have to do with gum? Are you doing anything on these trips? How about spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and saving some souls."

My question is do some people try to be this annoying or does it come naturally?

Geesh.

Can you really watch this video and miss the beauty of God and humanity that is utterly on display here? I think there is more wonder and worship and joy in life here than in many church pews....