father

Happy birthday to my earthly father.

Now I'm off to embark on yet another adventure with my Heavenly Father--back to Kenya! Please keep me in your prayers as much and as often as possible.

i tie my hat—i crease my shawl, emily dickinson

I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl— 
Life's little duties do—precisely—
As the very least
Were infinite—to me— 

I put new Blossoms in the Glass— 
And throw the old—away— 
I push a petal from my gown  
That anchored there—I weigh  
The time 'twill be till six o'clock  
I have so much to do— 
And yet—Existence—some way back— 
Stopped—struck—my tickling—through— 
We cannot put Ourself away  
As a completed Man  
Or Woman—When the Errand's done  
We came to Flesh—upon— 
There may be—Miles on Miles of Nought— 
Of Action—sicker far— 
To simulate—is stinging work— 
To cover what we are  
From Science—and from Surgery— 
Too Telescopic Eyes  
To bear on us unshaded— 
For their—sake—not for Ours— 
Twould start them— 
We—could tremble— 
But since we got a Bomb— 
And held it in our Bosom— 
Nay—Hold it—it is calm— 
    
Therefore—we do life's labor— 
Though life's Reward—be done— 
With scrupulous exactness— 
To hold our Senses—on—

God forbid a mere Existence with Miles on Miles of Nought. What a scary thought.

"big idea: God answers prayers in unexpected ways"

That was what was written in caps on the whiteboard yesterday in Sunday School, where I was the "guest teacher" for today (meaning Myron needed someone in order to fulfill the mandatory at-least-two-Sunday-School-teacher rule). We learned about Peter's miraculous escape from prison and that was the Big Idea of the day--unexpected answers to prayers.

It was better than any sermon I could have heard that day--exactly a week after commencement, speaking at Greek Theatre at said commencement, and all whirlwind feelings of graduating blah blah blah.

As I was sitting in a kid's size chair, my eyes roving around the Sunday School room, every single thing was fortifying for my soul--from the banner proclaiming "God gives us wisdom" to the construction paper flowers that said "Prayer grows us." It was fortifying in the most basic of ways, because Jesus calls us to depend on Him as children.

Even if children called me "Mr. Myron's Girlfriend" (to which I scolded them that lying is a sin and to stop immediately). Even if (certain) children forgot to wash their hands after going potty.

Because you know what? Kids are cute. They come up to you and whisper conspiratorially, "I turned six yesterday!" When you ask them what guards in jails do, they say, "Guards guard things." And mostly, they just turn those big orb-like eyes on you and smile toothily and you forget that the little hands that slapped just you a high-five are probably infested with all sorts of bacteria and viruses. But Jesus deals with all sorts of our germs and crap so there you go.

feng shui

My bedroom in my apartment here in Berkeley is nearly empty. The morning right after my graduation, my parents came to drive down many of my things back to LA, and since then I've been packing everything up. It's this huge mental upheaval for me--I've become to so used to the things I've stored up here in Berkeley, so much so that I keep having minor anxiety attacks when I'm gathering all my belongings.

I think I see the understand the value of feng shui now--not for its spiritual benefits, but its mental and psychological. There is a way that furniture dictates our lives on a very latent plane. Furniture orders our surroundings and structures the way we come to understand of our space and how we navigate it. Furniture can afford some sense of stability but it can become so...set. Unmoving.

So now here I am, moving and shifting things around, particularly certain pieces of mental furniture that are leaving scuff marks on the brain as I try to lift them. It's somewhat painful.

A month ago or so, I wrote about eveningtime in Berkeley, feeling full and rich of life and even just the mere yearning for it. I'm glad I captured the moment--surrounded by my furniture, laundry, and all the things I have come to known over the past few years. I'll never have that moment again, and I'm mourning over things that have passed beyond my reach. But I took this Polaroid tonight to remind me of God's promises to me. There was no music, and the air was uncharged. My room was devoid of all things except for a few choice pieces of furniture (bed, chair) and I was a unshowered, unkept mess.

He was still there, though. And His promises are still good--and I can still yearn and long for more and look beyond my little Berkeley apartment to greater things.

the text of our lives

One week ago, I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in English and Media Studies. I was one of the student speakers at the English department's commencement (they were really desperate for a second student speaker. I'm not kidding or making a paltry attempt to be humble. No one thinks I'm humble). I spoke about reading and writing the text of our lives, and how understanding themes, symbols, etc. etc. in events that have already happened allows us to carve out a future for ourselves.

So let me tell you about the theme of the day I graduated (Mother's Day). I didn't want to give a speech. I know I applied and they picked it yada yada yada, but I honestly, honestly thought they were joking when they told me I was selected. I don't have a huge fear of public speaking (public restrooms, though...let's not talk about that), but that day I felt all sorts of jitters. Jitters because things were changing, but mostly I felt terror at the thought of being seen so by so many people. I didn't want people looking at me, sizing me up because the fact was that I didn't want to be seen at that moment--that moment of moving into the future, commencing with my life, etc. etc. I felt ill-prepared to leave the life I had so painstakingly and lovingly crafted in Berkeley. But I think it was God's way of telling me that He chooses me out of the mass of people and calls me to stand in front of many and to speak my mind with the voice He has given me, whether or not I believed myself ready. And that I believe that is the call for the rest of my life. (Not as a pastor, though the job description does seem to match...).

In any case, it was a happy day. My cap nearly blew off during my speech, the cookies at the reception were awful, but nearly all of my dearest friends were there (gold star to Steph, who was attentive during the entire ceremony, even though she came with backpack and med school materials at hand--everyone else didn't think I could see them from onstage, but I saw everything--including those who were sleeping, playing Words With Friends, or trying to tan themselves) and Lamy made my dreams come true by giving me a bouquet of broccoli.

memory

The other day I was sifting through my mind, trying to figure out what to write for an assignment for my creative writing class--a childhood poem. At the thought of that word--childhood--and, of course, I thought about my mom. I wanted to write a poem about my mother, but I found that I couldn't because--I am not eloquent enough. No words were catching in my head--nothing was right. But memories kept bumping their way into the periphery of my mind, memories I had completely forgotten.

The most visceral one was from the time we went to China. I was seven, and it was the first time I really remembered travelling to China and Hong Kong to visit my mother and father's families, respectively, even though we had gone a good number of times before that particular trip. We were staying my in my great-grandmother's house, but my mom actually went to stay with her surrogate grandmother, the one that actually raised her and took care of her. There was one night--I don't know how I could have forgotten--I woke up screaming and crying from a bad dream. I felt scared beyond comfort--all the foreignness of the big, dark house in China as illusive as the dream I had just stumbled out of. Dad was there, trying to calm me, as was the rest of the household but I only wanted my mother. After more attempts to soothe me, none of which worked--my mother's cousin went to get my mother. She returned and her familiar hands were smoothing my hair back from my face, hot with tears, and I fell back asleep curled up next to her.

I was on BART on my way to interning when this memory suddenly emerged--and it brought tears to my eyes (I really alarmed the disaffected youth sitting across from me with his headphones on). I thought of how when she was by her sick grandmother's side that she had traveled back in time, beyond my reach. She had been a young girl again when she was with her grandmother but I had pulled her back. I thought of my mother, who had flown to my side, brought back to me on her cousin's motorcycle. She was Mother first, granddaughter second.

My mom loves me. I've been thinking a lot lately about the depth of her love for me--how unquestioning and immediate its presence--the sacrifice she made in traveling through the middle of the night, losing not only sleep but her own precious time with her grandmother. She loves me simply because I am her daughter (perhaps she would not like me otherwise)--I need nothing else other than that identity.

That sort of love is very freeing.

the house, sf

Went here with the family for my graduation dinner. It's now my favorite restaurant--so perfectly suited my palette. Asian/American food for an Asian American girl.

death and new life

Today is the last day of the semester. I went to the cemetery to get out of the apartment, to be all symbolic and whatnot to mourn the end of my undergraduate days, and mostly to be myself. Oops. Meant to say be by myself, but--same thing.

The thing about the cemetery is that--(cue comedic pause)--it's quiet. I normally feel peaceful, but today it felt heavy, being there. The concept of death and the end of things seemed to press more forcefully into my spirit. I sat, listening to nothing but the wind blow about, rippling through the grass, but I didn't feel any better. I just felt buffeted about by the wind, deeply unsettled, because in the midst of death, I felt like something of me was also passing away. How did four years run by so fast? How did I come to be a soon-to-be college graduate?

The problem is--and God help me--that I don't believe in a future with new life, with even greater promises. I'm just surrounded with all that has passed or is swiftly passing away.

falling off the bone

Ribs at dinner with Myron at ÀCôté. And halibut. And pommes frites. And mussels.

margaret

Her name was Margaret, but she didn't introduce herself the first moment she saw me. She hailed me with a tremulous "Excuse me" and when I turned I didn't catch sight of her immediately, stooped with age as she was. She was the exact type of person you'd expect to see in Goodwill on a Saturday afternoon--an old grandmotherly type. I was there in search of a chunky sweater and a missionary-appropriate, pilgrim-chic skirt for my second foray into Kenya for the summer. She had come to Goodwill out of necessity; I, out of privilege.

I turned and when our eyes found each other's, I asked what she needed. Could I please read the size on the tag for her? The numbers were too small for her to read. Of course, I said, and obliged her. She smiled and thanked me, and I asked if she needed any other help. She declined, saying, No, but that's so nice of you. I nodded--embarrassed at being decreed nice by someone who probably was actually very nice.

I went on my way, picking along the racks and sifting through hangers, but I kept watching her--now over by the shoes, trying to bend even further to reach for a pair just beyond her wrinkled fingers. So what could I do but go over to her and ask again if she needed help? She looked at me again and smiled and said, again, "No thank you, but you are so nice." Then she said, with weight in every word, "God bless you." I smiled and returned, "Oh, you too." This made her smile even more widely and she said sagely, "You must be a Godly woman." To which I responded, "Gee, I hope so." "I know so," she said.

We continued to talk. Margaret is ninety-one years old. When I told her I was twenty-one years old, she laughed outright at me and my pitiful youthfulness. I ended up walking her home to the convalescent home she lives in. I don't think I've walked that slowly in years, but I don't think I've ever been more satisfied to do so.

Bizarre but really great when people in completely two different walks of life or whatever--both with different scales and senses of time--suddenly cross paths. The stuff of movies and all that. Points of alignment/convergence. Just one way God injects serendipity into the mundane.

not many things surprise me

Being "pleasantly surprised" has been a bit of a rare occurrence in my life. Well, there was this Easter Incident but otherwise, I've lived a life un-rife with surprises. No one in my family has bought me a gift (unless I've already pre-approved it) ever since I told my uncle I didn't want the Barbie he bought me for Christmas when I was six. (This was after I thanked him politely, of course).

This past Friday though, I was surprised. No--nothing exceptionally grand. I hosted a Kenyan dinner (meaning I wore my Kenyan woven shirt, yes, the kind only men normally wear and made Kenyan food) to thank my friends and donors for supporting me. Some of my particular (read: special) friends came and helped me cook, even though they all know I'm irritatingly bossy in the kitchen. Pleasant Surprise #1. Then during the dinner, when I was talking about Kenya, I started crying. Pleasant Surprise #2--well, at least for everyone else. I just felt really unattractive. Really though, it was one of the most blessed things ever to be able to speak so candidly about my time in Kenya last summer. Of course that brought tears to my eyes. It was freeing. It was beautiful. It was glorious. Do I need to keep going?

Pleasant Surprise #3 came later that night, after everyone had left, and will not yet be disclosed--at least not until after the fact. So wait for that.

P.S. That Instagrammed thing is courtesy of Josiah. He takes the worst photos. No surprise there.

never give all the heart, w.b. yeats

Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost. What does it cost us to love? Everything. But I do not think I could subsist with a love that wasn't reckless and all-consuming. There's no awe in such love, no reverence. The other day I was by the ocean, and as I have been since I was a child, when I stared out at the horizon, vaguely infinite and fathomless--I felt this strange, wonderful dread. Fear of something so beyond the reach of my physical vision. Something greater than me. And the answer for me, of course, is God--because human love--my own love for others--is bound by mortality and limited by earthliness. He's the only one I've ever truly been able to give all of my heart to. And, oddly enough, He finds that sufficient.