I have a 12 year old sister and she is amazing.  All bias aside, she really is.  She reads all the time, so she is incredibly intelligent.  Even though she's in 6th grade, she plays pretend almost everyday, which I think keeps her mentally engaged.  Right now I can hear her singing.  She's singing a song in Italian that she just memorized while listening to Josh Groban.

Another thing about her is her pure honesty.  It's not an honesty that spoken to have an excuse to be blunt with people.  It comes from this naivety in her.  She observes things and just points them out, in a very matter of fact way.  Usually it's sweet, or just funny.  Sometimes it's awkward.

Lately, it's revealed this whole aspect of life that junior highers go through, that though I see it now, I didn't understand when I was that age.  All the issues of image and popularity and style are factors coming into play.  My sister isn't in the "cool" group, and she's been made aware.  I don't think it offends her as it did me when I was her age.  But she knows there's a circle in which she is unwelcome.  She observed the other day that if a guy on the soccer team makes a joke, the cool kids laugh.  But if one of the kids who likes Starwars says something equally as funny in her innocent ears, the cool kids just give looks.

Tonight, I went to take her to a Christmas party.  As she tied her shoes and flipped her long hair over her shoulder, she stated plainly, "I'm a dork".  Not in a joking, "oh I did something stupid" way.  It was a factual observation to her.  It hurt my heart.  She's smart, she likes to read, likes to talk to anybody.  Maybe in the 6th grade that makes you a dork.  But she is georgeous and she is hilarious.  She's not elitist or self-centered.  She can get a little bit out of control and immature.  She doesn't care too much what she wears, though she speaks up if mom picks out a shirt that the "cool kids would make fun of".  I suppose that's what makes the Abercrombie kids elbow her out of the in group.

I don't know what made these comments and perspectives stick out to me.  Maybe I can identify with those fears and those insecurities.  I remember being in 6th grade.  I just have so much hope for her, because she is everything that is phenomonal.  I don't want her to confine herself by these short-sighted categories. 

And man, don't we do that!?!  We short change ourselves because of what we're called, or by what school we go to, or what state we live in, or what our parents did, or our social skills, or our clothes, or our dorm, or our major.  Expectations are almost always inhibbiting.  We can get to this place and become content, and never wonder what else might have transpired.

I hope my little sister does something great.

hm......

I'm surmising that some kids outside my house are playing their music really loud, begging for attention.  I hear just the base, making my window pane shake.  Poor things...

Three week old babies are beautiful.  They personify beauty.  They inspire curiousity, hold your eyes, choke you up, and make you think "there's nothing better than this".

People like dessert.  Making dessert is a good expenditure of time.

"Show me a place where hope is young and a people who are not afraid to love.
This world has nothing for me, and this world has everything.  All that I could want and nothing I need.
This world is making me drunk on the spirits of fear.  So when He says "who will go", I am nowhere near.
And the least of these, look like criminals to me, so I leave Christ on the streets.
But now I'm waking up, now I'm breaking up, now I'm making up for lost time..."     -Aaron Tate

Good words I think.

Football is so great to watch.  I'm convinced that the quarterback sneak is not used nearly enough.

Afraid and Unsafe

I'm a very fearful person.  I wish I wasn't.  There are things I want to do, but I am so afraid.  I don't like being on my own for very long.  At night especially...  It sounds weird to me, like I'm a little kid or something.  But there is so much that paralyzes me in fear.

I can remember being like this as a kid, to a greater extent.  That feeling of wanting to walk around the house, or sleep outside my parents room, but being too scared to even move in my bed.  I've grown out of that in some ways, but I find myself prone to fear.

Now-a-days, my fear manifests itself in a very different way. (Some of the time.)  Seeing the direction of my life, the places my heart is drawn to, and something in me is so afraid that those inclinations will be right.  Maybe I will end up in Africa, where disease runs rampant and violence is an everyday occurence.  Maybe I'll have kids there.  Maybe I'm not strong enough.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not.  I fear that I'm unrealistic with myself, wanting to do things that aren't normal.  I foresee these situations that are precarious and dangerous, and more than anything, I don't want to be there alone.  I'm not blind to reality.  It's all too... real.

But curiousity kills the cat.  And the drive in me to get there and be there, overwhelms.  "There" may be Africa, it may be a situation that is greater than my imagination or understanding... whatever "there" is, it's a place of adventure and a place that is not safe. I was not called to a safe life.  My God is not safe either.  I'm safe in Him, but He is powerful and creative.  The ocean and the jungle were the creations of His breath...  He is not tame.

I'm reckless at times, and I run for that place.  "Thank you God for people who run with me, and push me to run "there" faster... the people that think when I don't."

I came home last night, to my old room.  The pile of mail grows on my desk and there's a stack of John Denver cassette tapes on my book shelf (from my dad), but other than that, not much changes in the months I'm gone.  I hang my scarves in the closet (all 8 of them) and throw the pillow and big, furry blanket (that I take with me everywhere) on my bed.  My hard wood floor is always cold, because dad saves money by keeping the heat way down.  A map of Africa, chopsticks, and some of my feeble attempts at photography hang on the walls.  My mosquito net drapes from the ceiling.  A Jamaican wooden box from my boyfriend, my bridesmaid bouqet from my sister's wedding, and pressed flowers from Uganda are scattered about as well.  This is my room.

Strange how the people that are most important to me and the ambitions that are loudest in my heart find a way to manifest themselves in my room.  Pictures, antique suitcases, books half read, journals half filled, Christmas presents hiding under my bed, and drawings from my little sister...

I hope these details of my habitat, or of any of my surroundings, don't ever escape me.