Can Only Be Good

20 May 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in College, Friends, God, Remember, Sleep

Thursday night. Last night in the dorm, last night living the school life I’ve grown so accustomed to. Many things will be the same in August, when school begins again in
three short months. Mar and The Jen will still be two doors down, The Neighbor still between us. The four lovelies at the end of the hall, Nelle still in the middle. Things will be different, too. The Roommate’s an RA now. Two floors down is not far, but it’s not my room. New roommate, new floormates. New faces, new hearts, new stories. New sisters.

The last night of the school year should be memories, reminiscing, cherishing, we say to each other. But instead, the hallway is lined with boxes and doors slam shut as we rush up and down the crowded hall: it’s Room Check Night. Leaving tomorrow? Room must be spotless tonight. Packed, cleaned, as if you never lived there. But we did live there, and I paid $10 for the chipped paint above my bed, Mar another $10 for the unidentified black spot on her carpet.

10pm, Room Check Time, ticks closer. I throw extra bits of garbage into the near-bursting bag in Mar and Jen’s room. The Neighbor, pushing box after box into the hallway, calls my name. We work together to seal her storage bins: I sit on them, fighting to keep lids down, she work fast, hurriedly taping them closed, both of us praying that they stay shut.

Even at 11pm, when cleaning checklists have been completed and fines have been doled out, still we work. Boxes downstairs, garbage to the dumpster. Then it’s midnight and this last night, four of us sleep in the hallway-end room, on beds, on the floor, on cushions pulled from the lounge couch. Friday morning, I wake up to three alarms, none of them mine. We start awake, then sleep again through Mar’s, then Jen’s. Ellie Rose has the Newsboys as her alarm, and I jump awake, and stay awake this time.

Enthusiastic wake-up call aside, Friday morning feels funny, sluggish almost. I shower, with a borrowed towel because mine’s already at home, and then ride the elevator down to street-level. Yesterday, the elevator was slow, full. It’ll be busy later, too, but this morning, I ride by myself. Outside, the air’s beginning to feel warm, and a man in a flooring company truck yells good morning to me as I wait to cross the street. I’m tired, yet content, and I wave, smile, as the truck drives past.

There is more, of course. Friday afternoon, barely 24 hours after my last final, finds me curled up on a Megabus, off to Michigan for my first adventure of Summer 2013. I’ll tell you about that sometime, I’m sure. Before that, though, there are goodbyes, see you laters, hugs. We stand, four of us, in the hallway, suitcases and bags all around. We are quick, short even, maybe. We’ll see each other in August, we say. We’ll be in touch, we wave our phones at each other meaningfully, smile.

And the school year ends. Slowly, but suddenly. And the classes are no more, even though I find myself, often, thinking back to assignments due, project completed. I begin to remind myself, make a mental note, only to remember that there is no homework right now. I’ve thought, today, that the school life feels like the normal life. Classes, homework in the afternoon, open doors, calling for friends up and down the hall. That’s the life that feels settled, routine, normal.

But the school year’s over, and I’m home now. I’m not unhappy to be here, not discontent. But it’s different, really, and sometimes, I’m not sure what to do, what is my purpose, my rhythm, my routine here at home this summer. I don’t know exactly what I’ll do, where I’ll be, who I’ll be with, talk to, befriend. But a summer is a big thing and God’s even bigger; this summer can only be good.

~Natalia

To Learn

18 May 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in College, Learn, Remember, Writing

I’ve been saving stories, catching beauty and remember this and don’t let this slip away for days, weeks. Maybe the whole semester.

I thought, just now, that maybe I’d like to open my heart, unlatch the fences and gates and swing them open and just let everything escape. I’d let fall every memory, every lesson. Every moment left unprocessed because there was no time, and every time I stored something away in my mind, telling myself I’d come back later. I’d dump out every experience; every happy, every sad, every hurt, every selfish.

I’d dump it all out, spread it out on the big blue rug, because I’m home now. I’d sit right in the middle, among all these moments and words and lessons and stories, and I’d go through them, one by one. I’d pick them up, weigh them in my hands. Important? Deep? Valuable? Doubtless. I’d look at them, study them. Re-learn them. Learn what I missed the first time, see what I didn’t, feel what I wouldn’t let myself.

And then I’d write it all down.

I’d sort those moments and words and thoughts and feelings and lessons-already-learned and lessons-still-to-be-learned into piles and categories and types, and then I’d write every single one of them down. Because this semester, this school, was valuable in ways I recognize now, and ways that maybe I’ll never know. I can tell you some things that I learned- about myself and my heart and the Bible and the world and life- but I can’t tell you everything I learned yet.

Because I’m still learning.

I suppose this desire, this drive, to write, write, write, and so remember, and so understand, is mostly selfish. I want to see, I want to hold, I want to wrap myself in the good that I learned and saw and heard and experienced. I want to have those things in me, with me, in writing, forever.

But it’s not just to remember. Life is nothing when lived in rewind. Doesn’t go anywhere, either. I didn’t see, live, hear, learn, so that I could write. I saw so that I can see more. I lived so that I can live better. I heard so that I can think better, say better. I learned- I am learning- so that I can grow.

Grow more like Christ.

Less like the me. Human me, fallen me.

Grow to love other people more.

And love my own way less.

Grow to listen to His words more.

So that I can share then with others, and live by them myself.

I still want to empty a semester’s worth- a year’s worth- of life out of my mind, out of my heart, onto the carpet. I still want to sit amongst them, rummage through them, mull and ponder and consider. Remember. I still want to do all those things. But not just to write them; to write, and in doing so, to learn.

~Natalia

Scenes from Spring Break {Yosemite Memories}

15 May 2013 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Family, Photos, Remember, Travel

I wrote an essay today, about Yosemite.
yosemitefalls

I wrote about the mountains and the falls and the valley view.
IMG_2973

And the more I wrote, the more I missed that California Park.
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I didn’t think, before the trip, that I’d find Yosemite quite so wonderful.
DSC_0825

But I absolutely fell in love with it.
DSC_0737

And I’m rather hoping to return again, soon.
DSC_0829

~Natalia

School Home Family

29 Mar 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Family, God, Happiness, Home, Love, Moody Bible Institute, Remember, Target, Train

I’ve written before about my dorm floor at school. I’ve told you about my dorm. I’ve written about The Neighbor and The Roommate and Nelle and Jen and Mar and Ellie Rose, and the collection of other lovelies that live up and down that carpeted hall. I’ve told you how I want to remember these times, these conversations, these friends.

I’ve told you all that and it’s all been true: I love the school I attend, the floor that I live on, the ladies I live with. But recently, these past weeks, a shift that’s been creeping up quiet came slowly into focus, and I realized that my floor really is a home; these girls really are sisters.

It sounds a little bit redundant, probably, or maybe simplistic and obvious. Of course it’s home- I’ve lived there for almost two school years. Of course they’re sisters- aren’t we all family in Christ anyway?

And yes, I have lived on the floor rather a while (and I have every intention of returning to the same room this fall), and yes, we are all children of God, but these past days, I’ve settled into that floor, that home, like never before. God dropped me onto the floor, pushed me right along with That Roommate, 18 months ago, and I can only believe that He’s the One who’s making it home, making us family, now.

It’s a funny feeling, almost. Funny because I didn’t even think about it, didn’t realize it until later, because it all felt so natural, so settled, so peaceful, so right.

Felt like that when Jenny and I dumped backpacks in rooms, and grabbed jackets and purses for a Tuesday afternoon outing to Target. Maybe you remember that my love for Target is deep and wide, and it’s a long and lengthening list of floor sisters who I’ve accompanied on errands to that wonderful red and white store.

Jen and I rode the train, just a short trip deep under the busy Chicago streets, and it felt even shorter because there’s a bond of mutuality from living, studying, being together on that floor, and we talked about everything. We got to the big Target, the Roosevelt one, and pushed the cart up and down Easter aisles, past the school supplies, upstairs to look at mattress pads, and to survey the cute baby clothes, because we had a little time. Walking back down the hill is easier, and I bought a snack, we took turns dipping miniature crackers into the accompanying frosting all the way back to the underground train.

I study and I work, and my calendar is full of little boxes delineating just what there is to be done, but sometimes those things can be done alongside others; I took my computer into Nelle’s room the next day, to study and socialize. But she wasn’t there, even though she said she’d be, and the opportunity couldn’t be passed up. So I slipped right into that space between the wall and the bed, and knees curled to my chest, that’s where I did homework. And soon enough, the door clicked and swung open, and I waited a moment before raising my head, peeking my eyes over the side of the bed, and what a stroke of luck. Nelle was looking my way, and the silent surprise of a head appearing on the side of the bed made her eyes spread wide and her eyebrows shoot high, and in the moment before she could raise her voice against my creeping, we were already laughing.

We do Target and creeping and homework and laughing, but she comes into my room on Monday night, because the door was open, and I’m on the bed, surrounded by homework, doing not a thing. So she sits on my desk chair and I was right there on the bed, we talked about God and boys and sovereignty and fear, and the verse that she put on my wall.

And really, when you think about it, there’s so much that could go wrong, so much that could get off, that when 24 girls come together to make home, it really can only be the work of God.

~Natalia

Happy Thought

08 Mar 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Family, Happiness, Little Sisters, Remember

Maybe it was me, maybe it was the brother, but one of the two was always requesting happy thoughts. We traded bunks, top and bottom, back and forth we switched, and always, someone wanted happy thoughts.

So the parent, whichever was there to talk, to tuck in, to return back to sleep, they gave happy thoughts. Ideas, memories, anticipations. They talked about things already done and things not yet accomplished and things sitting on the toy shelf in the front. Friends, family, fun. They gave us happy thoughts.

And sometime, maybe after the list ended, maybe even as we lay listening to this growing list of blessings and joys, we fell asleep. Those happy thoughts worked.

And tonight I called her Little Taco and she likes tucking into the space between wall and bed, likes the cold wall, she says. But taco or not, she’s not sleeping, she’s not ready, and suddenly, I remember happy thoughts. So I start. First it’s things we have to look forward to: next week, tomorrow, two weeks. And then memories, and then right now: friends, family, ideas, joys. She’s still not convinced, and then we’re talking about the Monterey Bay Aquarium and now I’ve got her.

First the jellyfish. She’s interested now, thinking. And that’s what I want: you’ve got to think to have happy thoughts. And I used to know how jelly fish ate, but I don’t anymore, so I say we’ll look it up tomorrow. Happy thought. And there are penguins, too. Did you know that she sleeps with two penguins? That line of stuffed animals along the pillow, two of them are penguins. How big are penguins? She asks. And the babies? We discuss and she waves the largest of the two plush animals in the dark air for comparison. This big? Happy thought.

She was little then, but she remembers that little pool, where delicate dark fingers stroked a pink starfish. She liked that, and the otters, too. She likes otters, she adds sleepily. Happy thought. And we talk about other things, too. There in that bottom bunk sister bed, while the littlest lies asleep, hands tucked folded under little chin. And there’s a whole bunch of happy thoughts more that I don’t have to mention; she’s starting to get the hang of this now. She doesn’t say the words: I do that. But she’s involved now, inventing, remembering, wondering.

And then finally, I tell her it’s time to close her eyes, because mine are already falling closed anyway, but she has a couple more things to say before then. And then Well, Goodnight! the Little Taco snuggles deeper into her wall-mattress-pillow pocket and it’s quiet.

Because we’re all thinking our happy thoughts.

~Natalia

This I Will Write

18 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Bible, College, Food, Friends, Moody Bible Institute, Remember

It’s been awhile since I wrote about this dorm floor. I spend my days in and out of this little room. I shuffle down the hall in the early morning, holding the door handle sideways gentle so it doesn’t pound shut because The Roommate’s asleep and nobody wants to wake up to that. The bathroom down this hallway gets busy as the morning progresses, and Ellie Rose wrote Bible verses in dry erase inside the showers. There are signs on the door and decorations in the lounge and we’ve got our pictures on our doors.

I’ve spent a lot of time rushing around, on and off this floor.

But I went to the library this afternoon and late to dinner, there’s only six guys left at the table by the time I arrived with my bowl full of chunky peanut butter. And after dinner, I went upstairs and I worked on that homework some more. But tonight’s not a night for sitting alone at my desk, and these doors hear everything and I yelled down the hall, and Jen was in her room.

So she sat in the little armchair- they have two: one for her and one for Mary- and I laid on the bed, and the homework got done. And the hours passed, I went back to my room and traded books, grabbed different notebooks, found my planner, then back to the room at the end of the hall. And then slowly, study time faded and I was in the corner of that little bed- Jen’s is down low and Mary’s is high, they copied The Roommate and I- and Mary was near sleeping when Di came in, too. Di scrambled up on the tall bed with Mar and Jen had just come back from calling her sister and The Neighbor heard our racket through the wall.

So we’re five of us in this room down the hall, and it sounds trite to say that we live together and have grown to love each other, too, but it’s true; we have. And Mary’s reading Tweets aloud to us, because sometimes serious conversations need some humor, and Jen’s next to me, and The Neighbor and I think the same things are funny because our humors resemble the one and the other.

And I laid on that bed and we laughed together about a list too long to remember, and I looked at the four faces, the four hearts, and I thought, This I will write. Because I want to remember this.

~Natalia

Eyes on the Train

15 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Remember, Train

Sometimes I wish that I could write about every person that I ride the train with. I step quick over cold, frozen, dirty ground on the way home, on the way back, and I speak low to myself about all the things I’d tell you. I rehearse and I recite and I compose what I’ve seen, what I’d tell.

Sometimes, I wish I could forget everything that happened on the train. Like a memory I’d rather not have, a tidbit I saw that seems so odd now, is taking up space in my mental vault, and I’d be doing everyone involved a favor by erasing the snapshot. Don’t need to remember that, delete that, get rid of that, and now I’ve got more space for what I want to keep around.

But it doesn’t work like that and maybe if I just don’t think about them for long enough, the odd moments, the I’m so confused moments, the I wish I had done something different moments stick with me a while yet.

But there are things I do remember; things I like to have seen, sitting still, sitting watchful on the hard public transportation seat, leaning my head against the cold metal behind me. Those are the things I whisper soft to myself as I press fists deeper into pockets and shrug my shoulders up to keep the walk home air out of my jacket warmth.

There’s a woman, a girl, I suppose you could say, sitting across from me. She by that door, me by this door. Maybe she got on first, but I can’t remember if I’m the stranger stepping into her world, or if I was the first to paint my invisible boundary lines in this long train car. Either way, it’s a halfway full afternoon commute, and we’re opposite one another.

She’s doing homework. Puffy coat partially unzipped our seats are on the heaters after all- one leg crossed over the other, she’s curled herself into the corner of the seat. When I realize their presence, I’m momentarily envious of the ear buds that I can trace snaking their way from the phone in her lap, up buried deep in the sleek brown of her hair. I choose not to listen to music on the train, but sometimes I’d like to hide deep in myself and headphones would make visible invisibility easier.

She’s ignoring me well, even as my gaze studies on its way by, and what are the odds that I’m looking up, looking across, when we go around a bend and she raises her eyes. She’s looking past me, looking out the window behind me, but the sun splashes in squares across what it can reach, and she’s looking directly into the afternoon brilliance. She’s not looking at me, but I’m looking at her now, and the sunlight in her eyes turns brown eyes to amber and I’m captivated for just a moment.

Look someone in the eye, look forward at what’s there and who’s telling how many colors there are. But I’m not looking at her eyes, the sun’s leading the way straight through her eyes, turning hard, clear brown to watery transparency. Even as they gaze past, gaze out at the city skyline that I know is behind me, her eyes are miles deep, and I can see all the way to the back of them; the sun’s lighting the way.

And then we’re back around a curve and her gaze shifts away, and I suppose that the eyes are still just as deep, but the sun’s not there to turn chocolate to crystal, and I can’t see so very far anymore.

~Natalia

Spicy Ramen

11 Feb 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, Food, Friends, God, Mexico, Remember, Thanksgiving

I bought Ramen tonight,

which is odd because there’s not much appealing about Ramen,

except maybe the price.

But I wanted it, so 97 cents bought me three packs of Just Add Water Ramen.

I microwaved one bowl and took two bites,

but something was missing;

something quite important was missing from my late dinner.

Because it’s two years ago now, Manuel and Tere slept at the orphanage,

and Karen, Manuelito, Ana, little Beki and I?

We stayed home.

The cousins came over and we locked the door tight, like Hermana Tere said,

and we pulled kitchen chairs around to the TV,

and we watched Inception until 3am,

and we ate Ramen.

It’s the same pack, the same styrofoam bowl and Fill to Here water line,

but this is Mexico and we value our flavor,

savor our spice.

And we sat around the TV slurping soggy noodles, red Salsa Valentina swirling together

with packet-flavored chicken broth.

That Ramen was spicy.

And tonight I sat at my desk and picked at noodles that lacked spice,

really lacked spice.

The Roommate was going downstairs, and I followed her there,

still picking my noodles because

I’m hungry.

And down the hall, through the Tunnel, people are eating here,

people are ordering here in the Commons,

and I smelled every single hot sauce they had,

and I ended up dumping Chipotle Tabasco sauce all over my noodles,

which were quickly getting cold.

And that fixed the problem, and I slurped them right down,

and it felt so familiar because my mouth burned and my nose ran,

and it was just like that late night in Mexico.

And a preached this week said God has a purpose in everything,

but sometimes it’s hard to imagine,

hard to comprehend,

that He puts meaning, that He has deep purpose,

in a night spent eating spicy Ramen and watching Inception,

while the dogs across the street barked

and someone, somewhere, set off a firework.

But every time I get close to wondering,

I realize that it’s not my job to question His decisions,

His grace, His gifts.

So I ate my chipotle Ramen, and I thought about Mexico,

and I thanked Him for time

relationships,

lessons,

gifts,

that He’s given me.

~Natalia

Cardboard Testimonies

24 Jan 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in God, Moody Bible Institute, Remember

I got there late, just a little, but there are open seats all the way at the back, and I really didn’t miss much. It’s an event with intention, flavored strong with vulnerability and honesty and the middle, after two courageous hearts share their stories, they did cardboard testimonies.

Campus Crusade Christmas Conference years ago was the first time I saw cardboard testimonies, and I’ve been captivated by the idea ever since. It’s simple really: where you were, who you were, what you were before Christ on one side of a sheet of cardboard, and what you are, who you are now as a redeemed child of God written on the other side. Music plays in the background, the auditorium was spellbound as person after person walked across the stage, wordless, cardboard clutched in hands shaking.

One word, two words, a short phrase. This was a heart, this was a life before Jesus touched it, before hands dripping the blood of the Lamb reached out and wiped sin’s stain clear off. Pause, hold there, we’re sitting in seats, watching as the story of The Gospel Saves unfolds in front of our very eyes. Then the cardboard is flipped, and it’s a different phrase now, a sentence full of grace and hearts are so very turned around, so very changed when Jesus gets a hold of them.

And every time someone does cardboard testimonies, I sit in my seat and I think and I pray and I try to figure out what I would put on a cardboard testimony of my own. Because I know I’ve been saved, and I wear the stamp His etched deep on my heart, but I just don’t know what I’d write.

I can trace the lines of His hand in the unfolding story of my life, and I can pick themes out of seasons because I like to remember what God did, and knowing my story means I see His faithfulness strong in hindsight. But to pick three words, maybe a couple more, to write on two sides of a scrap of cardboard? To sum up His moving in the tapestry of a lifetime of saving me? That’s hard.

Because here’s the thing: nothing’s done yet. There is not a single area of my life, not one place in my heart, that’s been checked off, validated, put on the shelf: accomplished. I’m not finished growing yet. I’ll never be finished growing; not until my eyes on earth close, and professor today said “called home”, because God calls us to live, and someday, He’ll call us to die.

And cardboard testimonies is rich and vibrant, a starkly vulnerable way to show what God has done, what God has redeemed. But the story doesn’t stop there, because I’ve said it before: He saved me once and He’s saving me still. It’s an every day, all day journey to know Him more, become more like Him, love Him, trust Him, accept His grace more, and this journey only ends when I’m at the gates of Heaven, made perfect only through the blood of the One who suffered for me.

There’s more to a life of Christ-follower than eight words on the dismantled side of a box, and the immensity of shuffling the decades-long story of How God is Saving Me into a tiny pile of Sharpie-written words is absolutely daunting. I’m not sure where I’d start, and I certainly don’t know where I’d stop, because Jesus is still working.

It’s a long story as complex as the heart within me, and maybe someday, there’ll be another invitation to cardboard testimonies, and I’ll stand up and I’ll walk across the stage with my own corrugated brown snippet of heart story because I’ll just know what it is that He’s done to change me so.

Maybe someday.

But tonight I don’t have an answer, really. But I’m writing and thinking and Spotify’s on, eight times I’ve heard the same song. Not a worship song, not even a Christian song, but I’ve clicked repeat over and again because song ends, line repeats until the music fades away. I know I’m saved and I know He’s working, and the song’s playing ninth time by now…

Go now you are forgiven.

~Natalia

Long Shot

14 Jan 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in God, Remember, Writing

I’ve told you before that I write to remember. Type page after page so that in five days, seven months, ten years, I can look back and see what happened back then. I write to remember, but that’s not the only reason. I write to understand, too. Thoughts slosh full speed around in my head without shape or definition, unfinished fragments waiting to be dealt with, thought through, considered. Writing pulls vague into defined and changes unclear into maybe I get it now.

I write to remember. I write to understand.

And Flannery O’Connor once said, “I write to discover what I know.”

I type that sentence out, just like I planned, just like I knew I would, and I’m drawn back to a question I’ve mulled over and then stored away so many times. I wonder what I really know. The question flickers just a moment in my mind, and I’m wavering because it’s a big question and for a second I’m not sure what the answer is. What can I say that I really know? Because if knowledge is the possession of information that pertains to reality, and people see reality in all manner of ways, then how am I supposed to know what is reality, much less figure out what I know?

And it’s all very confusing, this life we live. But humans are the finite ones, the small-thinking ones, and God’s the big One, the omnipotent One, the omniscient One. He’s the One who created reality, the very Author of the world we inhabit, and the One who created is the only One who can see reality as it really is, so if I want to have a shot at knowing what I know, it’ll start with knowing God.

I do know Him.

But I want to know Him more. And knowing Him more, I’ll know truth more, and knowing truth more, I’ll see the world as it really is more, but really, it’ll all pale in comparison because I’ll be knowing Him more. And He is more important, more true, more personal, more everything than anything else I’ll ever come across.

By a long shot.

~Natalia

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