Can Only Be Good

20 May 2013 3 Comments

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

The Mother

13 May 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Family, Health, Kiddos, Love, Parental, Sleep

6am, I’m the only one awake now. Staying at home for the weekend in order to work at the pool, I share a room with the three little ones. Sisters back to back in their big bed, pink blankets and stuffed animals scattered around them. There’s a toddler bed at the end of their bed; blue sheets, Superman blanket. The little guy’s not in there, though.

He slept there last night. Fell asleep with his Elmo milk cup, dark little hands tucked under his soft cheeks. I heard him when I went to sleep, his breath rattling, shaking. He’s got a cold now, and he coughed and sputtered in his sleep; rubbing his itchy nose in his dreams. I fell asleep in the room, listening to his sleeping breath alternate even, resting, with coughing. But he left the room sometime during the night, and it’s quiet now.

I get up, shuffle across the hall to the bathroom. The old, dark, wooden floor creaks, just in one spot. I hit that spot, accidentally. My backpack, overnight bag, is in the bathroom. I find my pants, step over the creaky floorboard to my closet, flip through dresses, skirts, tops, to my purple work shirt. Brush teeth, hair in a pony tail, bathroom light off.

In the kitchen, I stand against the counter, eat a yogurt. There are five different bottles of vitamins in the cabinet, labeled with black Sharpie. N, mine. G+L, the little girls. T, the mother. I eat two of mine, the gummy ones, in the dim light of the kitchen.

The kitchen window faces a brick wall. Across, offset by two feet, someone’s laundry room looks into our kitchen. Between, there are two cement walkways, a thin strip of green plants between them. It’s the middle of May- spring- even though it’s still chilly, and the sun is rising quickly, casting pale white light onto everything in its path. The flimsy plants glow bland green in the growing light.

My ride will be here soon. I find my pens, shrug into my yellow coat. I’ve only brought flip-flops home, but I’ll be barefoot at the pool, anyway. I step into the living room, past the front door, to glance out the front window. The blinds are closed, though; this couch room, play room, school room, living room has been transformed into a bedroom.

The mother sits in the corner, at the very front of the house, rocking the baby boy. It’s hard to breath lying down when you’re sick, and 3am, she woke up with that little boy, and now they’re both sleeping there in the rocking chair. She’s pulled the special grey blanket- her Christmas present to herself- around them both, and his head is slumped, tired, against her. Sitting up against her, he breathes clear, easy.

Later, in a couple of weeks, the little boy will leave; he’ll return to the mother who gave birth to him. But for now, he sleeps on the blue sheets and he eats out of the Cars bowl in the seat at the end of our table. For now, we love him and teach him and feed him and dress him. And the mother, she gets up at 3am to change him, rock him, love him.

~Natalia

Natalia Could Have Married a Mexican, Part One

16 Apr 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Fear, Food, Humour, Sleep, Spanish, Train, Work

If you’ve been around a little while, you might remember a rather dramatic story that I related to you about a young man stumbling onto campus, telling me I was pretty, and so thoroughly flustering me that I ended up giving him my number on the spot, mostly because I was too unnerved by the entire experience to formulate the word “no”.

It was a great story and a time of my life that I look back on with nostalgia. And also general confusion, because I’m still just not sure why…

Anyway.

I ride the train to work, as I’m sure many of you are aware. An hour there, an hour back; soon my cumulative train time will be measurable in months, or years even. These train rides became, over the past months, a source of rather high stress for me, and as part of my No Fear regimen, I began listening to Chip Ingram sermons in podcast form during my commute. Thus, my time on the train generally looks something like this: Going to work, I listen to Chip in a rather dozy manner for approximately 12 minutes, before completely loosing all consciousness for the next 30 minutes. Then I wake up to a new podcast now playing in my headphones, my neck stiff and my mouth dry from all this sleeping-on-the-train-head-back-mouth-breathing. I am truly at my most attractive while sleeping on the train.

However, least you think I’m wasting my (free) podcast subscription by never actually listening to them while I’m awake, I spend the return trip re-listening to the same sermon. This is because 1) I change trains twice on the way back to school and therefore must remain conscious, and 2) I do truly want to hear these sermons.

So today. I did the whole fall asleep listening to a sermon, wake up with four people staring at me and wonder if I was snoring deal on the way to work. On the way back, I missed the train by roughly 240 seconds, and consoled myself by going into the little convenience store next to the tracks and continuing my semester-long search for a bag of Takis. You know: mexican chips that look a bit like cigarettes and taste like fire and chile. They’re the best. I’ve been craving Takis de Fuego for weeks now, and I was pleased to find a suitable substitute.

So I sat on the first train, ate my mexican fire snack, and listened to Chip tell me all about the book of Revelations.

The second train is where it got good. First, there was a young girl, whose age I estimate to about nine years old, who was entertaining both her family and everyone in our general vicinity by answering the trivia facts that her father proposed. Did you know that the teleprompter stopped working during one of Bill Clinton’s speeches? I had no idea. It was so good, people, that I turned off my podcast. That wonderful preacher, the auditory gold that has gotten me through weeks of train fear: I turned it off.

And then the child got off the train and I sat there and alternately ate my Fake Takis and then decided to have (temporary) self-restraint and put the bag back in my purse, only to open it four minutes later. It was around this time that I truly noticed the individual sitting across from me. I’ll not pain you with the detailed description that I could provide, but suffice to say: He was hispanic.

If you are unaware of my passion-bordering-on-obsession with all things Latin (including men), I encourage you to type the word “Spanish” in the search bar of this blog and peruse the results. Or, if you don’t have time for that, I’ll summarize: I like hispanic guys. The end.

But this guy. So we’re sitting there, and I’m texting a friend or two, but there is no sermon-listening occurring, and him and I wander eyes around the train car, and I look out the window a lot, but I know that he’s there, and I know that he knows that I’m there. So we make eye contact every couple of minutes, which sounds more awkward to write than it was in real life.

And then, oh friends, and then, the door that you’re not supposed to open but someone invariably does; the door that connects the two train cars, opened and a large, highly intoxicated individual stumbled through. My seat being on the opposite side of the car, I could not fully appreciate what was going on, but my hispanic eye contact friend could, and he raised his eye brows and tilted his head towards me, amused smile playing on his lips. I looked over in time to watch the large man spill something on a fellow passenger, who leapt angrily out of his seat, while the drunk one swung unsteadily across the aisle as the train accelerated forward.

{Part Two coming soon!}

~Natalia

Dear You

10 Apr 2013 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Faithful, Feel, God, Sleep, Sovereign, Tired, Trust

Dear you,

You said it last week, sitting there on the couch, and I didn’t say anything then, but your words were so familiar, I haven’t escaped them since. You were discouraged, tired, and your words echoed strong of my own life, just a year ago. I thought about your words this week, about what you had said and what you were feeling, what you were fighting, and then tonight, you said stressed and anxious, and again, I didn’t say anything just then. But I’m saying something now.

I know what it feels like to be sensitive, and to think all the while that it’s dumb to even use the word to describe yourself. Sensitive is for little children with hurt feelings, not college students. But when you hear words that no one meant to be hurtful, but you soak them up and let them rock you hard to the core, it feels sensitive. When you can’t find a seat in chapel, because that’s just the way things work out, and you don’t get the joke at the lunch table, and it suddenly feels like it’s about you, and when no one meant to leave you out, but you weren’t explicitly included either? Sensitive.

I know what it’s like to be tired, so very tired. When every night is a chance to get more sleep, but the homework and the assignments, and the “Things To Do” just don’t end, and you’re just so tired. And it doesn’t seem to get any better because the weekends, those resting days, have events and schedules, too, and when will you ever get a break?

I know the feeling of so, so behind. I know what it feels like to work with everything you have, but every time you feel like maybe you’ve gotten it; maybe this time you’ve finally made it to the green side of the grass, the relief side of life’s whirlwind, that’s the moment that you remember. Remember an assignment due. A meeting made. A future that you can’t do anything about except stress, so you stress. You worry. And things just keep piling up and you’re too exhausted to get back up and keep running to try to keep up with everything.

I know what that’s like. I lived a very similar story my freshman year, and when you said those things, I wanted to scoop up you and every other freshman, every other overwhelmed and anxious and exhausted student, and tell them that I know what that’s like.

And it’s true: I have ridden an emotional roller coaster much like the one you’d like to get off of right now, and so have many of the students here with us. We’re alike in that way. But that’s not the reason I’m writing to you: I have more to say.

God knows what you’re fighting, friend. Knows what you’re thinking, mourning, celebrating, stressing about. He is real and He knows and He cares. I don’t want to preach at you, because no one needs that, really, and it’s not my place, anyway. But I do want you to know, want to remind you, that God is so, so involved in your life, and in your heart.

It doesn’t feel like that all the time. When your eyes are grainy from lack of sleep, and you’re slogging through another assignment, and you can’t shake the feeling that everyone is out to get you, the presence of God is not exactly oozing out your pricked heart. Oh, but He’s there. He’s there and He cares what you feel, what you think, what you say.

He cares, and He’s said some things about it, too. He’s said that He loves you- really, really loves you. And that He provides for you. And will never forget you. And never break a promise with you. And will never fail to provide you with what you need. He is gentle with hearts that are just too worn out, and He is strong for those who really don’t think they can make it through these days, these weeks. He is power and compassion and kindness and provision, and He is woven into every aspect of your heart, every thing you do: He’s the Creator of the world, and of you and you are so important to Him.

And tomorrow morning, girly, you’ll get up and it’ll probably be raining again and more than likely, that lead-heavy stress will slip down slowly just like today, but before you let discouragement, exhaustion, stress have the final say, remember: Someone much bigger than stress or fear or exhaustion is in control, and He’s got an eye on you, girly.

~Natalia

Beauty Not Forgotten

23 Oct 2012 4 Comments

by nataliaria in Beauty, Chicago, College, Faithful, God, Remember, Sleep, UP

Tuesday afternoon’s a long afternoon; class from 12:30 to 1:45, then again from 2:30 to 5:20. 3pm. 2:30 to 5:20 is a battle, sitting front row in lecture, fighting with everything in me to keep eyes on the prof, eyes on the board, eyes open. Blink, rub my eyes, scrunch my face up and open dry eyes as big as they’ll go. I kick my bare feet under the desk, doodle on my notes, shrug my shoulders.

I’m trying anything, just to stay awake.

But soon, 3pm has passed and we’re pushing 3:30, and I’ve somehow won the battle for consciousness. It’s a hard battle, but it’s not a long one, and I’m wide awake and taking intelligible notes once more, although I can’t for the life of me figure out what the magic formula is to stay awake, to keep my drifting eyes open.

Today, the rest of the class passed quickly, and soon it was 5:20pm and we’ve been assigned next week’s homework, already written into our planners anyway, and are dismissed. But in the moments before we’re dismissed, as the professor’s wrapping up last-minute announcements and just-a-minute questions from students, I turn around.

Three hours I sit every Tuesday in the same class. Sitting in the front row looking forward. Looking at a professor pacing deliberately around the room, looking at a black board that stretches the length of the long room, looking at gray walls illuminated by fluorescent white lights.

But in that end of class moment, I turned around. Turned around in my seat and could barely bring myself to look away.

Three hours I sit in that classroom, facing walls and teacher and lessons and boards. And three hours, the city lives and hums and moves while my back is turned. Behind my back, outside the crystal clear windows that line the wall behind me, layer upon layer of downtown Chicago buildings pack the view.

I turn around, swiveling in my classroom chair, and I’m transfixed. The setting sun is reflecting deep and orange on hundreds of windows, streaking gold across apartment and office building alike. Brick buildings alongside steel and stone edifices all together glow a rich, fiery orange, and I’m looking at a devastatingly beautiful city skyline.

The professor’s still talking, and I pull my eyes away from the captivating scene behind me, turning my attention back to the classroom, which suddenly seems even more dull than before.

But there was more than a breathtaking view in that moment, in that sunset-laden glimpse. In that beautiful look, I got an eyeful, an earful, of God. I’ve thought recently, standing on the train, watching Chicago speed by, that I haven’t seen the beauty recently. I look for it sometimes, scrutinizing what’s passing me, what’s occurring around me. I open my eyes and look UP and wonder when God will show me the beauty that I know is there.

Ask when God will open my eyes to what I know He put there.

And tonight, He did.

Turned me right around in my chair and knocked my speechless, chest squeezing tight in awe, at beauty in a sunset and buildings, beauty in a city and beauty in a Creator. A Creator who opens eyes and softens hearts and whispers, Hello child. I’m still here. Still listening to you. I love you and I care for you and I know you.

I didn’t forget about you.

~Natalia

Life Right Now {#31}

12 Oct 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Life Right Now, Little Sisters, Photos, Sleep

20121013-005136.jpg
It’s Fall Break now

and

I’m home with these little monkeys

and the family

and

some lovelies from school, too!

~Natalia

Life Right Now {#30}

21 Sep 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Beauty, Chicago, Life Right Now, Photos, Sleep, UP

Looking UP out my window this week,

I just woke up from a nap.

I’d sleep all afternoon long,

if this was the beauty that welcomed me awake.

~Natalia

Go Back

16 Sep 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Humour, Sleep

That moment when you wake up

at midnight

with your phone by your hand

and a book next to you

and realize in your groggy state

that you fell asleep reading.

I’m not over tired,

and I’ve been getting good sleep, too.

I guess reading Church History

in bed

at 11pm

just isn’t conducive

to consciousness.

I think I’ll go back

to sleep

now.

~Natalia

Happy I’m Back

05 Jul 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, Family, Friends, Kiddos, Mexico, Sleep, Swimming, Travel

The plane jolts, shaking slightly up and down, and I’m awake. My neck is stiff and my hand is asleep from leaning on it. We’re in the middle of the clouds; my view out the window is white and puffy, as if I woke up just as the plane passed through a gigantic cotton ball.

Leaning back in my seat, I watch the window absently. After what seems like a while, the white fluff on the other side of the double-layer window gives way to blue sky, and leaning forward in my seat, I can make out the green and brown checkerboard below me. A mountainous Mexican landscape peppered with a heavy layer of tan dust.

I’m in line at immigration, clutching my passport and immigration papers in one hand, and fiddling with my shirt with the other. In the pause between airplane sleepiness and pushing 100 pounds of luggage through customs, I’m suddenly nervous. Pressing my hand to my chest in an incredibly futile attempt to stop the pounding, I’m suddenly possessed with the worry that no one is coming to pick me up.

But then I’ve traded my immigration paper for a tiny slip indicating that I can leave the country legally (No te vayas a perder la hoja, ok?) and somehow managed to drag my suitcases through the final sliding door. And two seconds of confusion, and then Manuelito is greeting me and relieving me of one of my 50-pound burdens.

Out to the van and more hugs, more kisses, and how are you, how is the family, how was the flight?

We’ve barely driven out of the airport parking lot when I realize little Beki, sitting in front of me, is wearing a swim shirt and shorts. Going swimming? I ask her, smiling as I wait for her response. A chuckle ripples through the van and Hermana Tere glances back at me in the rearview mirror: Everyone is already at the pool! We’re going straight over!

And then we’re at the house with the pool, and 35 kids are splashing around and I’m hugging beloved people that I haven’t seen in almost exactly six months. And Viri and Samanta climb out of the little kiddy pool and offer wet cheeks for me to kiss, and Lupe is called over to say hello, and Norberto is squirting me in the face with a squirt gun.

And lunch had, I’ve changed into swimming clothes, and we’re jumping in and out and I’m not sure how more than thirty people are functioning so well in this little pool. But there’s buckets, too, and some of the big kids are using them to dump water on Hermana Deysi and Hermana Lulu and Hermana Tere. Then, blink, they’re in the water and the kids are laughing and cheering and so much splashing.

And we’re back at the house, tucked into warm, dry clothes, and it feels just like the home it’s always been. Have some tea, here’s a drawer for your clothes, you need some closet space? Did you get dinner?

And Manuelito, Beki, Ana and Karen, siblings I lived with, played with, worked with, last winter, are sitting around watching a late-night movie, and I’m blogging, and tomorrow will be another day with kids and challenges and fun.

I’m happy to be back.

~Natalia

Bed: LOST

29 Apr 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Photos, Sleep


February 1, 2012


February 29, 2012


April 28, 2012


April 30, 2012

Well, at least we know that I’m not sleeping too much…

~Natalia

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