you look good.

07 May 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Clothes, Good, Happiness

Black marker. Dry erase. The mirror’s long, stuck on the wall between door and sink. Sit on the bed, the mirror can’t see you, but you can see it. You see those three words. Italicized print, it would be called. Thick letters traced over and again, emphasizing the message, driving it deep.

you look good.

Read the mirror, she says. You look towards the reflective silver, even though you know what’s already there. It can’t possibly be true, though. Can it? You don’t feel like you look good. You didn’t look good this morning, did you? Standing in front of that mirror, you toss your hair behind you with a careless flick of your hand. It bounces. Flops. Frizzes. That doesn’t look good.

You doubt the mirror. Doubt those words.

You don’t like what you see. Slip jeans off, slide on a skirt. Rummage under a pile on the bed, pull out a scarf. Kick off your sandals, dig in the closet for your flats. Pin hair back. Pull it down again. Curler. Straightener. Hair spray. Pony tail. You change.

The mirror doesn’t change.

It’s there when you march around the room, feeling confident. Jeans fit right, top looks nice, cardigan matches. Mirror saw that. Mirror saw when you squinted hard, too. Unhappy. Dissatisfied. Toothpaste, bed head, eyes brows raised, incredulous. Saw that. The pucker lips face you make when you walk out the door. The way you shrug your shoulders quick when you walk past. Tilt head right, tilt head left. Mirror sees it all.

you look good.

The message hasn’t changed.

You might disagree, but only one can be right. You or the mirror. I’m inclined to agree with the mirror. Have you heard it said that you are your hardest critic? It’s true. You’re the one who sees the way the shirt bunches. The way the eyeliner rubs. The way the shoes fit, the hair falls, the pants sag. You see that. I don’t. We don’t. Your eye is tuned to see and to condemn. To pick and fault. To critique yourself.

I don’t see those things. They don’t, either. We’re too busy noticing everything wrong with ourselves.

The mirror sees, though. Sees, watches, and doesn’t change. The pile of discarded clothes on your bed grows bigger. The time to go to class clicks nearer. Your frustration builds higher, but the mirror doesn’t change at all.

you look good.

You and I, we’re really the same in this. Don’t you think I know what self-conscious is? Don’t you think I throw clothes across the room, kick them under the desk? Don’t you think I change six times some days, whining to myself all the while? I’m no better, no different.

The mirror, though? The mirror knows the truth. you look good. Inside, your unique heart, passionate about what He’s made you to love, growing, fighting a little more every day to be more you; more you in Him. Outside, your hair, your smile, your eyes, your style. you look good.

You really do.

~Natalia

Bed Without Sheets

15 Oct 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Blogging, Clothes, College

It’s been a long weekend since I last logged into WordPress, and the mental blog post I had half written doesn’t seem right anymore. I pulled my computer onto my lap, clicked fingers across the keys, and what I thought I’d write just doesn’t fit.

At least for right now.

The Roommate is home until Wednesday afternoon; her fall break stretches longer and farther than my three-day jaunt half an hour north of school. Her bed is perfectly made and perfectly still and I’m the only one in this room tonight.

And tomorrow night, too.

I guess it’s a good thing that I’m alone in this room tonight; fall break was a break from the schedule and routine of school, schedule and routine that gives order and structure and that soothes my scattered mind with its rhythm. My feet stepped back on campus this afternoon, and at the same time, my mind stepped back into the ordered, check-listed realm of academia. My body settled into a seat in the library, and my mind settled into the swing and pace of this task, this study, this paper, then the next. There’s comfort in getting things done.

And there’s comfort in learning, too.

I’m sitting now on the floor, back against my bed, feet against that of The Roommate. My bed is stripped bare, naked comforter and pillow stacked against the cold wall. I wanted to do laundry last Friday, before I left for the weekend. Stripped my bed, stuffed a large percentage of my wardrobe into the laundry bag, borrowed Ellie’s detergent, and went downstairs.

Every washing machine was full.

I checked back again, twenty minutes later. And again, thirty-five minutes after that. With every laundry-laden trip down to the hot laundry room, my temper spiked higher. I had planned all week to do laundry on Friday afternoon and frustration at this affront to my plan built hot and heavy inside my chest. There was nothing I could do to fix the situation, and even worse, no one I could fault for my anger. I was completely incapable of solving my problem, and just as incapable of taking it out on anyone specific.

Take a deep breath and go back upstairs; God’s kingdom is much bigger than eight washers lined up, all too busy right now.

I had forgotten about my laundry frustration until I came back to school today. Opened my door and took in the view; one perfectly made bed, and one with a bare mattress cover and two teddy bears perched atop a heap of naked blankets and pillows. And there’s a laundry basket near to overflowing behind the closet door.

I liked coming back to campus to school and to learning and accomplishing. But I didn’t like the room that welcomed me back. A room with visible reminders of the all-too-real heart in me. Blanket-less bed flashback to Friday frustration sharp and futile in my chest. Heaped hamper full of dirty clothes, neatly contained in the organized closet that I proudly show on tours of my room.

See the neat closet? See the organized student?

Look at how nicely everything fits into the spacious storage area. Look at how nicely I’ve set up my life and obligations. Don’t look at all the dirty clothes stuffed in the tidy basket. Don’t look at all the selfish, the catty, the self-reliant, I’ve shoved way down deep.

Don’t look at me right now.

It’s been a long weekend and I’m back in my room now. Alone in the room with a bed without sheets and a heart that’s suddenly more exposed than it was minutes ago.

More exposed than when I started writing this post.

~Natalia

Here and Then

02 Oct 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Clothes, College, Food, Friends, God, Grow, Moody Bible Institute

The world,

the world that happens outside of this little square of Chicago

that we call

Moody Bible Institute,

is a little different.

Here in this school,

in this community,

I put on an outfit I’ve never worn before,

standing long in front of the bathroom mirror,

mentally weighing I think this is cute

against I’m not sure about this outfit.

But, I’m just going to lunch, so I might as well wear it.

In this community,

there are kind eyes and sincere smiles waiting at the SDR table,

I’m not looking for compliments,

nor expecting them,

but Mary’s barely seen me when she grins,

sky blue eyes sparkling.

She likes the outfit.

Weaving my way through the kitchen,

I’m balancing water and utensils and plate.

Eye contact with a girl I’ve just barely met

and she’s nodding her greeting,

nodding her approval.

She’s kind and thoughtful and she likes my outfit.

Moody Bible Institute

and in this community,

compliments, words of affirmation,

are easily spoken, meaningfully spoken,

and treasured, too.

Four years of life in this community

can break down walls of self-trust and pride;

words I’ll keep and thoughts I’ll never share.

I’ve been here barely one year,

and Mary again, this time sitting in Nelle’s room,

pauses to look up at me.

She’s noticed a difference in my heart,

in my vulnerability,

and our friendship is growing, expanding, because of it.

There’s challenge and growth

and

opportunity for vulnerability

in this community,

and stepping out in faith, trusting Him with my heart and feelings,

is beginning to look more rewarding than I ever thought.

In this community, this Bible school,

we sit in chapel together;

1600 students in one place,

under one God.

In this community, we learn together,

passing periods a bustle of students walking from one building to another,

from one class to another.

Here

we eat, play, laugh, cry, grow

together.

The world outside Moody is a little different,

but we’re here now,

and God can,

God will,

use here now to prepare our hearts, prepare our minds,

for out there, then.

~Natalia

Rain Falls

16 Jul 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, Clothes, Kiddos, Mexico, Music, Work

It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. The sky overhead is overcast, huge grey clouds filling in the space between white puffs of precipitation.

Down here on the ground, in the long, shallow dip between the grey brown mountains that surround us, we’re busy. Lunch fresh in our bellies, we’re down in the gravel courtyard, finishing the project we started this morning.

Hermana Deisi and Hermana Tere are the heads of this operation. Deisi’s deep in the storage room, directing. These blankets go here. Can you take down this box? Careful, it’s heavy. All the shampoo should go here. Where is the tape? Young ones hurry to help, hurry to move in, hurry to step up.

Hermana Tere’s at the other end of the courtyard, seated on a black swivel chair, a huge pile of brightly colored jackets balanced next to her. She sorts. Takes out. Checks names. Whose is this? We don’t need this anymore. Can you put this with the other pink jackets, please?

The concrete walkway between the two women is a maze of shoes, toys, jackets, and boxes. Tens of pairs of shoes rest neatly against the whitewashed wall. Sitting contentedly with their match, they await their destination. Across from them, a huge garbage bag houses an equal number of shoes without a pair, waiting dejectedly for their match to be discovered.

Cardboard boxes, former houses of eggs, chips, canned food, and other bulk products, have since found a new purpose. A chip box containing yard upon yard of fabric rests neatly on top of a box that used to contain a computer and now holds boys’ socks and underwear.

Beyond the shoes, beyond the boxes, lie heaps and piles of items just recently taken out of the dark, dusty storage room. An art easel, piles of sheets, ready to be folded and boxed up once more, a couple more matchless shoes (here, David and Chuy, see if you can find their pairs) and so much more.

It starts to drizzle now, and yet work goes on. Things to sell are put in thin white garbage bags, Hermana Tere’s pile of jackets grows smaller as we roll up the bright garments and tuck them into a bin marked Chamarras. Clothes are sorted, organized, folded.

Inside storage it’s dim, and the constant tread back and forth, in and out, raises brown dust from the cement floor. Outside storage, thin yet persistent raindrops fall on the gravel; the ground is wet. The cars are wet. The garbage is wet.

And in the midst of it all, one young boy plays.

Ten years old, but maybe a little small for his age, his light brown skin and gelled hair shine with rainwater. His wide jeans are cinched tightly around his waist, deep cargo pockets hanging down under his belt. He’s pushed the sleeves of this fleece up, exposing slender forearms and small fingers.

And he’s on a pogo stick.

He’s found an infant’s toy amongst the piles of things, a brightly colored musical toy that spurts the same handful of melodies over and over at the touch of a button, and he’s using one little hand to hold the toy up to his ear.

The other hand holds tightly to the pogo stick handle, gripping and flexing as he bounces up and down, up and down, up and down.

The rain falls. Piles grow smaller and bins begin to fill as we continue to work. Young ones and grown ones alike move back and forth along the corridor, sorting, moving, organizing.

And in the middle of it all, the boy hops around, while baby-ized classical music tweaks away in his ear, and the rain drips off his peaked nose and down his round cheeks.

~Natalia

Automatic Flush is Automatic

18 Jun 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Clothes, Friends, Humour, Travel, Wedding

I landed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at exactly 5:04pm last Thursday afternoon. My travel itinerary stated that the third leg of my flight, from Baltimore to Lancaster, would occur between 4:32 to 5:07pm, and as I pulled my phone out of my purse and saw that we had arrived three minutes ahead of schedule, I felt a little rush of pride, as if I had been solely responsible for our punctuality.

And then a middle-aged man in an orange reflective vest poked his head into the tiny plane door and asked the gathered passengers to refrain from using their phones until we had arrived in the terminal.

Including the pilot, there were seven people on the plane. There was thus a one in seven chance that the comment was directed at me. In fact, given that I was the only of the seven individuals grasping a phone, the likelihood is probably higher than that.

I put my phone away until we arrived in the terminal. Which was approximately a 13-foot walk across faded black tarmac and through a sliding door.

Once in the terminal, I waited with my fellow passengers for our baggage to arrive. Relief to have arrived at my destination mixed with excitement over seeing Mary pooled together with other warm, fuzzy emotions within me, and I began to feel quite happy. Standing next to a small square-cut in the wall, where our baggage would assumedly appear, I chuckled with the others over the amusement of our flight; it’s not every day that you fly over beautiful green Amish land in a plane so small that the pilot rests his arm out the window until just before take off, and they ask you your weight at the gate, so they can seat you accordingly.

Within a minute or two, our baggage arrived at the baggage claim. This process consisted of a second orange-clad gentleman removing our suitcases from where they were stored in the nose of the little plane and placing them on a conveyor belt outside the building. The belt then conveyed the bags through the wall and into the aforementioned hole in the wall. The whole thing struck me as funny; like an oversized grocery store conveyor belt.

Baggage collected, my traveling buddies dispersed quickly, and very soon I was rather alone in the terminal. I sat on the clean, white floor, my suitcase on one side of me, my purse on the other. I plugged my dying phone into the wall and alternately texted people and looked around the airport.

The main attraction of the Lancaster airport is the Italian restaurant that shares an entrance and a parking lot with the airport. From my low vantage point, I could just see the heads of people coming in to dine; a perpetual trickle of hungry Lancaster residents.

The second most popular attraction in the Lancaster airport is the rental car business. I developed a special bond with the rental car workers during my hour-long stay in the tiny airport, as I sat on the floor in front of their desk. When I dropped my bags to the floor and settled in, the rental car people, having been informed that I did not, in fact, need a car, settled with monitoring my behavior. Although this might have had something to do with the fact that I was the only non-rental-person in the terminal.

The atmosphere was calm and relaxing, and my heart continued to bounce up with excitement and general contentment with life. With half an hour left until Mary’s rehearsal dinner (conveniently located in the attached restaurant) I unplugged my phone, gathered my bags, and made my way to the bathroom to change.

I changed into a dress and tucked my plane clothes back into the tightly packed suitcase. Then I pawed around in my purse until I found a plastic baggy containing three colors of nail polish. Camp is rough on the feet, especially if you’re given to walking around barefoot (which I am) and my toes needed a little assistance before I attended a fancy dinner and a wedding.

Holding the nail polish in my hand, I turned around slowly, looking for a suitable place sit in order to paint my nails. The flexible gymnastics of painting one’s toenails are tricky in one’s home, and becomes yet more challenging in a public restroom.

I hemmed and hawed for a moment or two, then shrugged, and sat down on the toilet lid. Perched on the toilet, I carefully held the open polish in one hand and began on my toes. Two toes in, I straightened my back and took a quick breather. Painting one’s nails is, after all, hard work.

My strength and energy regained, I leaned down once more and began on my third toe.

The toilet suddenly flushed, and I very nearly tumbled to the ground in a jumble of nail polish and surprise.

Regaining my composure, I bent and finished the rest of my first foot. I sat up for a second, then bent to continue my painting.

The toilet flushed again and I stood up quickly, smiling at the absurdity of the situation. Resigned, I crouched on the ground and quickly finished painting my nails. Toes shining hot pink, I gathered together my possessions and took my post once more in the terminal, being careful not to smudge my hastily applied nail polish.

The sun shone lazily and comfortably through the window behind me, and I could see brilliant green countryside beyond the runway. I sat with my suitcase and watched life click slowly by in the peace and stillness of the Lancaster airport.

Shortly, Mary arrived and I joined the party for dinner. But for that hour in the Lancaster airport, I was refreshed. Refreshed and amused.

~Natalie

The Night Before Kenya

09 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Clothes, Dance, Friends, God, Travel

I’m sitting on the couch in my living room.

There’s one suitcase in the hall, zipped and ready to go.

The other four suitcases are scattered around the front room, amidst piles of donated t-shirts and sports jerseys, huge bottles of hand sanitizer, and Target bags of snacks.

We are leaving for Kenya tomorrow.

-Half-hour pause wherein the living room becomes a dance floor-

Ahem.

As is sometimes my practice when I’m short on time and long on things to accomplish, I have prepared for you a short list of other Night Befores.

Enjoy!

The Night Before California 2010.

The Night Before Mexico 2011.

The Night Before Paris

The Night After Moody.

The Night Before Thanksgiving 2011.

Tomorrow starts another adventure, and I’m eager to see what God has in store for my team and me. The adventure kicks off at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, when our first flight departs. Stay tuned for more updates!

~Natalia

Laundry Pranked

22 Feb 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Clothes, College, Friends, Humour

It was 4pm on Monday afternoon, and I was on my way to work. Two of my floor-mates, women who I live with, eat with, watch movies with, talk with, were in my room. One lying on my bed, the other on The Roommate’s bed. The friend curled cozily on my bed happened to be perched on two week’s worth of freshly washed laundry.

We had been conversing rather animatedly as I prepared to leave for work, and as I shrugged my coat on and reached for my purse, the girl currently occupying The Roommate’s bed exclaimed, “Don’t go to work! Stay with us!”

We chuckled at her insistence, and I continued buttoning up my coat.

“But, I’ll miss you!” She exclaimed, smiling broadly and mischievously. I grinned back at her, “I’ll be back soon enough.” I said, then waved goodbye to the dear women and stepped out into the hallway.

“I already miss you!” She yelled again, and I could hear her companion giggling softly. “Then fold my laundry! It’ll be like I’m right there with you!” I yelled back as I stepped quickly down the hall towards the elevator.

Four hours later, I was done with work and back on the train, this time heading south towards the city. Towards school. Towards my room. As the train rolled out of the Red Line station, I pulled up Facebook on my phone and was mildly surprised and highly amused to see that the two little mischief makers that I had left lying in my room had taken the liberty of posting a couple harmless and hilarious posts under my name.

Haha.

“YOU ARE SO BUSTED!” I told the pair via the interwebs, still giggling as the train neared school. We exchanged texts and tweets back and forth for the next forty minutes, until I arrived back on campus. The two women were hinting at something, and couldn’t quite figure out what. They were amused and proud of themselves, and I didn’t know why. I practically skipped across the plaza, and hurried my way up to my room. I was excited for dinner. For being inside where it’s warm. For Monday night.

My general feeling of excitement turned to hilarity when I pushed open my door and stepped into my room. There, at the foot of my bed, lay a pile of neatly folded clothing. And strung in a beautiful chain across the ceiling were… five pairs of unmentionables.

Two more pairs hung neatly on the wall, lined up amidst my family pictures.

On my bed, my teddy bears each sported a pair, and my tiny little stuffed animals had each been neatly tucked into a sock.

On the back wall, more brightly colored unmentionables were affixed to the wall in the shape of a huge smiley face.

Pairs hung from the curtains. My hat hooks. The light fixture. One pair had been taped smack dab in the middle of the window.

I laughed quite a bit. I was impressed with the girls’ ingenuity and quick-thinking, as well as the tongue-in-cheek humor of folding the rest of the clothes, as I had (jokingly) demanded of them. They were smart, funny, and entertaining, and they were as proud of their prank as I was entertained by it.

There’s still panties all over my room. Hanging, taped, stuck. I think I’ll keep them there a while, too. Reminds me how much I enjoy living where I do, with the people that I do. Doing the crazy, silly, difficult, sad, fun things that we do. And loving it all.

~ Natalia

Take Two

03 Jan 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Clothes, Photos

See also: Take One.

~Natalia

Neon Pink Jacket

05 Oct 2011 4 Comments

by nataliaria in Clothes, Happiness, Kiddos, Swimming

One of the little girls on the swim team is exactly that: a little girl. She’s incredibly smart, and yet a tiny child at the same time. She brings her favorite stuffed animal, a little monkey named Mono, to swim practice, where he sits next to her little blue bathrobe during practice.

Her first couple of practices were a little rough. She was overwhelmed but the amount of kids, intimidated by the sounds of the aquatic facility, and chilled by the less-than-hot temperature of the pool. The added fact that her non-prescription goggles do nothing to help her poor eyesight caused her additional anxiety during our 45-minute long practice.

She left her second practice ever due to tears filling her big green eyes and my own inability to make a sniffing, dripping, weeping child do work. She hustled over to the bleachers and was soon snuggled in her father’s lap, enveloped in a huge towel, and both the tears and the shivers were soon a thing of the past.

Minutes later, practice over, I passed the little one and her mother in the locker room.
“I can’t see you!” the child was explaining to her mother, as the woman toweled her off and helped her step into her pants. “I just can’t see where you are!” she exclaimed again.

The next practice, the child and her mother approached my side of the pool. I rose from where I was sitting, and greeted the mother-daughter duo. “We’re trying an experiment today,” the child’s mother explained to me, “She has trouble seeing me in the bleachers from all the way over here, so I’m wearing a bright shirt, and we’ll see if that helps,” she finished as she slipped the girl’s glasses off her little nose and replaced them with pink goggles. The little one grinned, revealing three missing teeth, and accepted my outstretched hand.

Later, I was once again seated at the side of the pool, Mono propped up next to me. A collection of tiny athletes stood at the opposite side of the pool, listening with varying levels of concentration to another coach explain their next drill. My eyes wandered from the group of wet, swim-suit clad little bodies, up to the bleachers behind them, and I suddenly smiled.

Because there, sitting smack in the middle of the bleachers, her eyes trained on the child, was the little one’s mother. She had taken off her black dress coat, and, along with her boots and slacks, was sporting a neon pink jacket. The jacket didn’t quite coordinate with the rest of her outfit, and it was certainly the brightest article of clothing in the bleachers, but there was a chance that her daughter would be able to see her, and she wore it proudly.

When the little one returned to my side of the pool, I squatted down next to her and motioned to the bleachers. “Can you see her?” I asked, looking up at her from my low position. I watched her eyes scan the bleachers, and then stop at the bright pink spot in the middle of the bleachers. A grin slowly spread across the child’s face, and she nodded her head happily.

Because sometimes, a neon pink jacket in the bleachers is exactly what you need to get your confidence up.

~Natalia

Quoted: My Bad

03 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Clothes, Kiddos, Little Sisters, Quoted, Swimming

Glendy (yelling): “Natalie! Where is my swim suit?”
Me: “It’s in the drawer.”
Glendy: “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. My bad.”
Me: “‘My bad’? Since when do you say ‘my bad’?”
Glendy: “That was just my first time.”
Me (chuckling): “Really?”
Glendy: “Yeah, for real.”

~Natalia

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