You gotta put your behind in the past...

I'd rather waltz than just walk through the forest.

I was driving to work today and listening to Owl City (as if I ever listen to anything else...). I was desperately trying to think about something to write about on Blog Post Friday. The song: "Plant Life" came on and I decided what to write about. This isn't a funny blog.

The past is a beautiful thing. I've got so many beautiful memories. I've collected them over the years and my trunk is full, full of memories I pull out to look at lovingly when times are bad. But I've been looking at them lately when times aren't bad. I just want to look at them and remember what I've had. I've looked at them so much I'm chained to that trunk. The past has become a pair of beautiful shackles.

There's been a lot of change in my life over the past two and a half years. College ended...I studied fastly and furiously for my finals and then I walked across a stage and it was over. Four years with friends who I lived with and loved dearly and then we moved across the country and nothing will ever be the same. Even when I see them, there are new stories and ours are faded. Though it was a long time ago, it was such an abrupt shock. So I settled here and plugged into life. And then a family that I loved dearly, that was central to my life here was forced to leave abruptly. And all of the things that we did became memories added to my stock and no more can be added. I look at their house and it's a ghost's house, full of pain and memory. All of the pain and memory and change has weighed down my shoulders to the ground.

My friend Joe Walls once wrote: "It is very sad - after all, a part of your life is over and you can't live it over again. But isn't there a little pleasure in the pain of losing chapters of your life? It is tragic, strange, and beautiful all at once. Memory evokes a sense of longing - a longing that is more powerful than the thing or the time or the place we desire. That strong feeling, I think, secretly belongs to a more powerful realm. True, it is partially plain old loss in a world that continually forces change - nobody can reasonably deny the poignancy of it - but that feeling is also a hope and a foretaste of something else."

We cannot live in the past. We can remember it, because it was beautiful. But we cannot live for it. Living in the past, we miss out on the present. And when the present is over it becomes another memory and we never truly live. I am blessed to have life and have it from God and I must live it for Him in the present and I will. He will bring more beautiful things again and He will allow them to pass away again. The greatest treasure is that one day I will see His face in heaven. That joy can never be taken away. In that hope I can live in the present, remembering with fondness the past, and hoping for the future.

"Tonight I'm busting out of this old haunted house, 'cause I'm sick of waiting for all those spiderwebs to grow all around me, 'cause I don't feel dead anymore. I'm not afraid anymore." --Plant Life, Owl City

Philippians 3:13
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

Be Sensible

If you've read my blog with even nominal regularity, you may have picked up a theme. In March of 2009, I posted about my acceptance of the fact that my nostrils are larger than your average Jill's. Ever since then, my posts have almost always had something to do with things I smell, have smelled, would like to smell, whatever. My good friend Ben even pointed out to me that in my review for Relevant, I reference the sense of smell in "sniffing bags of green tea." Apparently it's become second nature.

Therefore I was thinking it would really be unfortunate to lose the sense of smell. There are so many good parts of life that I would miss out on without it. Well, I guess there are certain circumstances where I could do without smell, like after it rains and people mash worms on the sidewalk. Not pleasant. But there are other situations, say, Thanksgiving morning when the first thing that greets you in your bed is the smell of baking turkey wafting up the stairs, or the smell of balsam and sedum in a pottery store in Maine. Smell evokes memory for me. Just like hearing a song that you used to love in the 90s and you haven't heard it in a while - when you hear it again it transports you back to riding the bus (the smell of leather seats, sneakers and diesel fuel, anyone?) or riding with your mom to piano lessons (her perfume, Subaru seats, saltine crackers).

I don't think I could pick a sense that would be easiest to live without, but I think I could safely say that smell is the one I would be most devastated to lose. What about you?

I was thinking about all of this on the way into the post Office last week when a strong wind picked up neon orange and yellow leaves and scuttled them around my car. It was cool enough to catch the scent of fall - of dying leaves and crushed acorns and a world on the brink of freezing. The bells from the Presbyterian Church around the corner were ringing in the hour, muffled by distance and cold breezes. The sky was gray, not as ideal as the previous days where it was blue, but what was left of the technicolor leaves punctuated the dull atmosphere. Now I didn't taste anything, but all of the other senses were represented. If I were drinking a pumpkin spice latte, it would have been a package deal.

But there in the moment I realized how specially we're created. One of the major combatants against evolutionary theory for me is the intricacies that are linked with emotion. We are created to experience beauty but not just through sight but through smell, taste, touch, and sound. God cared enough to let His creation experience the pleasures of life in five distinct ways. If He didn't care, our existence wouldn't be nearly so intricate. I'm sure He could've provided us with gray landscape that we see but don't feel, food that we eat to survive but never taste.

Our five senses can also be used to experience pain in five significant arenas, which I imagine is a destruction of God's first intention of them but that is a consequence of living in a world that's gone wrong, a world vying for redemption. In the day of redemption, our senses will be redeemed as well. I can't imagine what beauty they'll take in and take in for an eternity.

Psalm 139:14 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

NaNoWriMo 2011

Two random things, then the point:
1. So, apparently somehow I joined my own blog? A little narcisstic it may appear, but it was totally by accident, people.
2. Today I had to run in to the dollar store and mid "running in" I heard a loud "POW!" Of course the first thing I did was check myself for gunshot wounds, but after realizing my organs were still intact I looked around and apparently a soda bottle exploded. Crazy! Just sitting there with a bunch of other soda bottles and exploded right there in the middle of the day with no one touching it.

Point:Next month I'm writing a novel. That's right. Not finishing a novel, not starting a novel, not outlining a novel but writing one. Start to finish. "Once upon a time" to "they lived happily ever after." Am I crazy? Is the idea crazy? Or crazy awesome? (hint - the latter) If you've never heard of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month, check out the webpage here. As stated on their webpage, " The goal [of NaNoWriMo] is to write a 50,000 word novel by 11:59:59 November 30th." You sign up, create a profile and add your word count every day to keep track and keep accountable with other writers in your area.

It seems a little masochistic, but I'm really excited. I can't tell you how many times I've started a major writing project and have not finished it! Currently, I'm over half-way through a rough draft of a book that I've been working on for about two years. And that one I really do hope and pray to finish because it's important (both the book and the ability to finish). Finishing is the absolute hardest part for me and one of the goals of NaNoWriMo is to tell people that you're writing a novel in November so people will bug you about it and keep you accountable. Hence the purpose of this blog.

Bug me about it.

Want to write a novel next month too? It'll be fun! Go to the webpage and look me up. My username is: emholbert.

Currently I am outlining and brainstorming and purchasing coffee.

Peace.

We be livin' in a dreamworld.... (?)

It's really early. I like to rap in the wee hours.
This blog doesn't have much to do with anything. But rarely do my blogs ever have much to do with ...well...anything.

For some reason I was given the gift (I consider it a gift) of dreaming. You know how some people tell you: "I never dream. I don't know why. I  mean, if I dream I don't remember it when I wake up." I am not one of those people. When I dream, there are explosions and car chases and star crossed lovers and mutants and daring rescues. I dream in movie format. Ebert and that other guy tweet their level of thumb approval to me after I wake up. And I love it! I don't know if I eat weird food at weird times or if it's all that crack cocaine (just a joke...). I used to write my dreams down and use them for book ideas. Maybe I'll blog some of them sometime. Yeah that's a good idea, Liz! (pats self on back)

Anyway, the point of this blog (the small and awkward point) is...have you ever had dreams about places that exist around you? I, for years have had reocurring dreams about an old fashioned gas station near my house. It was preserved for historical purposes but no one goes in it or anything. And for as far back as I can remember I've had dreams that someone turns it into a restaurant or a working gas station and I go eat there everyday. Now that may not sound magical to you...not yet. But imagine a place in your waking hours that's routine and everyday and there's nothing special about it. And suddenly in your dreams it becomes alive and new and exciting! Everything's more exciting in dreams. But whenever I drive past the gas station I remember that dream...

The counters were repainted light blue and the meals we're served Steinbeck-ian style - right there on the counter. It was opening day and a friend of mine and I walked down the road to check it out. The place was empty - but the guy tending the counter let us try a sample of his fresh baked cheesecake...just to entice us to come back. The cheesecake was...very good. But who really knows in a dream.

Anyway. Dreams are fun. It's hard to pull my thoughts together this early in the morning.

Good day, sports fans.

Hinge-ing.

Do you ever have those weeks where you think of a word and then you hear it all week over and over again? Last week the word was: "pariah." A neat word. A sad meaning. But after I heard it once and noticed its neat/sadness...I heard it everywhere. Today I was thinking of Jason and the Argonauts, because when Owl City sings "There are beautiful things seen by the astronauts," I replace astronauts with "Argonauts." Why? Don't ask questions. But then I watched Psych and Shawn called someone a "flaxen-haired Argonaut." Why does this happen?

That doesn't have anything to do with this blog, I just thought it was weird. Last week I read Jon Acuff's Quitter and reviewed it for Relevant Magazine (go here to read). One of my favorite elements of the book was when he wrote about "hinge moments" or moments that resonate deeply with you in relation to doing something you love - that make you realize you could spend your whole life doing this. One of his qualifiers was that - if you would do something without having to be paid to do it...it might be a hint that you've discovered your dream.

That chapter of the book made me really analyze why I want to write. What were the hinge moments that made writing stand out for me as something that I felt called to do above say, fly fishing, or oil drilling, or doily crocheting? 

This morning I was thinking about all the times I've read something I've written to whoever would listen...my apartment mates, when I'd make them stay up really late at night listening to the latest chapter of a book I'd been working on.  The time when I read my short story to my writing group and they liked it. People who would read my books and respond positively (even with books that were inevitably abandoned) were significant in their ushering me closer to what I love to do. This may sound haughty, but I write because I feel like I have something to say. Like I've been given something to say, and I need to say it. One of my favorite things about writing and reading is how the written word puts feelings into words, where most people can't express or can't find the words to express. When you read it you think: "Hey, I've always thought that too! I thought I was the only one!" That's fun.

The most important thing: I write because I believe in the truth. And by truth I mean Jesus Christ. I don't like Christian fiction. I don't feel that a fiction writer has to have christian characters to write about truth.  I am passionate about the human experience - and what the human experience says about humanity's need for Jesus Christ.

I read a verse this morning that floored me: because it describes exactly what makes me want to write:

"The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly."

 Ecclesiastes 12:10

Boom. That is all.

Post-Apocalyptia

I've recently discovered that I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic lit.

A couple weeks ago, our town (yes our entire town) lost internet access due to someone introducing their car to a pole on a major highway. Hi car. Hi pole. Nice to meet you. BAM no internet. No one was injured...hence the jocularity. People roamed the streets like wild dogs, tearing their clothes, foraging in trash bins for a wifi connection. People sat on curbs, stared at the clouds, mindless, listless...wondering what life would be like without the internet. As amusing as it may seem, it was a little jarring, coming to the realization the utter dependence we have on the world wide web.

Fast a little forward. Hurricane Irene. No power. Hauling water from the pool, from the stream, from whatever just to be able to flush the toilet. People wandering around in PJs, fighting over jugs of water in the store. Roasting park franks over a fire in the rain. Again, it was a little jarring.

These things made me realize again my appreciation for that genre of literature. I guess what I like so much about it is that it forces you to see your life in a new perspective. If you were one of the last left, cut off from civilization, how would you be resourceful with what's around you? I used to work as a cook at a conference center and whenever I'd walk past rows and rows of canned peaches, pudding and four bean salad and into a massive walk-in cooler, I couldn't help but wonder if the world caved in, and we were suddenly I-am-legended, how long could I last on all the food that was in those coolers/pantries/freezers. Would it be a well kept secret or would people from all over town discover it and run me out of there? Would I fight? Would I flee to save my life and live off of berries and tree bark?

Now, I'm a believer in Christ, and a believer in His word...and I trust Him to take care of me, even in the most frightful of circumstances, so I'm really not too concerned about prepping for a post-apocalyptic living arrangement. I just enjoy reading about it and thinking about it sometimes.

Some good post-apocalyptia:
By the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benet
Zombicorns by John Green (this novella was never meant to be a legit, formal novella, per the author but was a prize for a fundraising event. Listen to John Green read the first bit here.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Reading this right now. And loving it.

I'm sure there are probably more that I've read and forgotten.If you can point me in the direction of any other exemplary pieces of post-apocalyptia, I'd gladly accept.

Another one about bathrooms...

The last time I went on vacation I detailed to you the most epic bathroom I've ever been in. This year on vacation, I decided I'd forego the written explanation. Therefore here you have it: A collage of the bathrooms on this trip in descending order from acceptable to horrific.

Okay, so the first one we have here was the restaurant on the way home. It recieved the best grade. Clean, orderly, well stocked, with a charming floral arrangement, sans dust.

Coming in at a close second was the hotel bathroom. Again, clean, neat, marble-esque floors.

Another shot of the hotel bathroom, taken in poor lighting, but just so you get the feel of it, I've included a shot of the lovely wall sconce nestled between the mirrors. A solid second place.

Coming up third and only for  team spirit was the bathroom at PNC park, which boasted team logos on the TP dispenser.

A rough number four. Starting to get ugly. Subway on the road...things are beginning to run amuck here. This bathroom is hanging onto a semblence of orderliniess by a thread.

The moment you've all been waiting for: Number 5. Characteristic epic bathroom. Broken Towel dispenser, orphan TP, Sams club version of hand soap. At least there was hand soap.

Another shot of number five. Is that plant faded? Nope, that's years of compounded dust on that attempt at elegance.

And the thing that really sent this pitstop into the last place:

Yes, it is Sharpie.

Until next time