Connecting Cross Country

I’m currently in my Chicago home of the next 4 days, but Lil’ Blue never made it past Kenosha, Wisconsin.  After an evening and morning in Milwaukee, I spent the afternoon in Kenosha–did a little bit of shopping then did a lot of internet work at the library with their very slow internet.  Even got a library card out of the deal.  My plan was to meet my friend Mark north of the city for dinner while he was on his way from Chicago to Milwaukee and I was on my way from Milwaukee to Chicago.  I was filling up with gas, even though I only needed a 1/2 tank because that 1/2 tank would be far cheaper in Wisconsin than in Chicago.  “Should I unplug my GPS while I fill up?” I thought.  “Nah.”

And then the car wouldn’t start.  Wouldn’t even give me the little clicky sounds, actually.  I asked the guy at the pump next to me if he could give me a jump.  He had a body full of tatoos and was driving a mini-van.  It was his mom’s car.  We got the car started, but by the time I put it in drive, it died again and he was on his way.  So I asked another guy, who was hesitant but agreed to help.  But he drove an Audi and when I popped the hood, I couldn’t find a battery, so I gave up and he drove away.  Then I asked another guy, whose battery was so corroded and crusty.  I wondered how his battery worked and my pristine, year-and-a-half old battery did not.  Wally from Wisconsin and Ann from Ann Arbor had a conversation while battery power transferred from his car to mine.  The car eventually started again, but died as soon as he pulled the jumper cables off of his car.

At this point, Mark was driving from our meeting spot to Kenosha, and I called AAA.  Mark’s dad is a mechanic in Milwaukee, so Mark was a good person to have riding in to the rescue.  The AAA guy suspected it was the alternator.  He got the car started, as well, but as soon as he turned on the headlights, the car died.  So I got the car towed to the shop the AAA guy was from.  The mechanics were all gone for the night.  So Mark and I went to the Brat Stop (a famous spot in Kenosha) while we waited for my other save-the-day friend and host in Chicago, Kindra to drive up with her 2-month-old.  My friends are seriously amazing.  It was no small task to empty out from my car what I would need for the next few days, either…..You’d think I had a 2-month old with me. I was hoping to do laundry this weekend, but the dirty clothes are still in the trunk of the car.  I guess it’s a good thing I did a little shopping this afternoon.  And, interestingly enough, I was supposed to meet a friend for drinks and dessert this evening, but she rescheduled this afternoon.  I would have had to cancel even more last minute had she not already rescheduled.  Everything is really working out.  The car could have quit working in the middle of the freeway.  I could have forgotten to renew my AAA.  I could have been in an unsafe spot.  I am grateful.  Of course, I hope it can get fixed quickly and cheaply, but considering the car will hit 170,000 miles in a day or two, this really isn’t so bad.

And I know that had Mark or Kindra not been nearby (well, and they weren’t even really nearby–they were just sacrificial), I could have called Amy who I stayed with in Milwaukee, or Grace who I visited in Madison.  Much of this trip is an experiment in community.  And I am blown away again and again by how beautiful it all is.  And it’s funny.  I had texted Kindra earlier in the day about whether I should get gas in Wisconsin or wait until Chicago.  The price in Wisconsin was clearly cheaper.  When she arrived at the Brat Stop, she was clearly the tired mom of a newborn, but full of love–for the kid and for me.  While we were driving back, she looked at me and said, “Well maybe you should have waited to get gas in Chicago……”

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I headed south from Fargo to Orange City, Iowa, a Dutch enclave in the rural state’s northwest corner, home of Northwestern College (not University), amazing almond pastries, and my friends John and Lynne.  John and Lynne grew up in Orange City, met when they were 8 years old, went on their first date when they were teenagers, and got married when they were 20.  The first time they ever got on an airplane was to move to the small Middle Eastern island country of Bahrain for an internship.  They are also the parents of my college roommate, and John was the pastor of the church I attended in Ann Arbor.

Since my roommate’s family was from Orange City, I had heard a lot about it and had a lot of preconceived notions.  When I was headed into town, my GPS told me I was supposed to turn onto John and Lynne’s street in a 1/2 mile, but I was still driving through a corn field.  So yes, it’s a small town, nestled among farm land and other small towns.  But I have to say, Orange City impressed me.

Sign for Orange City when approaching from the west.

Signs in town that direct you to various attractions.

I arrived into town on Saturday evening, visited with John and Lynne, and then they took me over to John’s mother, Margaret’s, house (my college roommate’s grandma), where I would be staying.  Margaret lost her husband about a year and a half ago, so I think she liked having someone around.  And I liked being around her.  When she and I were having breakfast the next morning, I asked her, “What was it like to have your son get on a plane for the first time and go halfway around the world?”

I was surprised by her response: “Well, I knew the boy he would be interning under from town here, and there were missionaries our church supported that would come back and speak about their experiences.  I wasn’t thrilled that it was the Middle East, but I felt OK about him going.”  And I found that Margaret’s sentiment was not an isolated anomaly.  Little Orange City, Iowa, population 5500, actually has a pretty global mindset.  Having a college in town helps with that some.  There is also a store on the main street that sells wares from around the world.  The store is staffed by volunteers, and the proceeds go to global charities.  Margaret volunteered there for almost 20 years, long before Ten Thousand Villages stores were around.  It seems that Orange City has people from all around the world coming and going through its square mile expanse.

There are downsides to the small-town mentality, too.  People talk about each other, though not always vindictively.  And there’s a lot of energy spent on keeping up appearances and worrying about what other people think.  In that sense, I appreciated being an impostor, because I don’t think people cared as much about what I thought.  I can imagine it would be difficult to break in if I was new to town and was sticking around, though.  But I experienced some wonderful hospitality and welcome whilst I was there.  In fact, hospitality is something that Orange City and and middle eastern cultures have in common.

John and Lynne lived in the Middle East for a long time. John’s parents even came from Orange City to visit them.  And Lynne’s parents lived there for 6 weeks when Lynne’s dad (also a pastor), filled in for someone on leave.  Mostly, John would be a pastor at churches for people from the international community who were living in these countries.  What I appreciated about John’s perspective in the pulpit was that he could share experiences from the culture the Bible was written in.  There’s a passage in the Bible that talks about life springing up in the desert, and John talked about a time when it rained and all the sand turned green with grass that sprung up that day.  My roommate attended high school in Oman and Bahrain, where they lived at the time.  Needless to say her global perspective was good for my Missouri mind.

John is finishing his doctoral thesis and teaching at Northwestern College.  Lynne is working an administrative job.  I thoroughly enjoy being around them because they are complete opposites.  And they’ve known each other almost 50 years and they’re still cute together.  It was wonderful to have down time in this small town over the weekend.  John, Lynne, Margaret and Lynne’s parents and I all visited over lunch for several hours on Sunday.  Then John and Lynne and I took a walk through town on Sunday afternoon and very few people were out.  It was slow and quiet, which I needed after going at light speed on the road.  I wanted to see all things John and Lynne.  We stopped at the courthouse, the elementary school, the houses each of them grew up in, a house they’re looking at buying.

The courthouse--Orange City is the county seat.

The local government offered tax deductions for anyone who made their storefront look Dutch, so downtown looks like a little Dutch town.

A giant wooden shoe at a park at the center of town.

John and Lynne pose in front of the current elementary school, which also housed the first two years of high school back in their day. So this is where they went to school when they met and went on their first date.

John and Lynne in front of the oldest building on the campus of their alma mater, Northwestern College. The building was completed in 1832 (maybe?). They got married after their sophomore year here. Now John is a professor.

It's a phone booth! Shaped like a windmill!

After going back and forth across the globe, they both seem pretty content to come back home, even to the same block where they grew up.  And I felt like a member of the family for the weekend.  I may even be able to write a few chapters of their family history.  From intellectual and historical and theological conversations with John to having a substitute mom for the weekend in Lynne, to endearing conversations and warm hospitality with Margaret, it was a lovely weekend!

For breakfast on Monday morning, we made omelets in a bag. You put 2 eggs and all the fixins you want in a ziploc bag and boil it for 13 minutes. Lynne even had our names on our bags for us. Less mess to clean up after!

John and Lynne and my new Facebook friend Margaret!

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From Billings, I drove allllllllll the way across North Dakota to Glyndon, Minnesota where Kendra was steam-cleaning the carpet in her newly acquired house.  Along the way, I had a delightful lunch stop in Glendive, Montana at The Coffee Den, a definite small-town cafe, which offers one sandwich, one salad, two soups, and a dessert each day.  But they had wifi!  Western North Dakota boasts Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which had a series of many mounds made of striped rock with red tips.  Joe from Billings said that the landforms were made by bursts of burning coal underground.  I missed taking a picture because I was on the phone with my roommate back in LA.  She said, “It’s probably grassland there.”  And wouldn’t you know, I immediately passed a sign for the “Little Missouri National Grassland.”  That roommate of mine knows her geography and geology!

About when the landscape of North Dakota started to get boring, the skies started to get exciting with a series of thunderstorms.  Unfortunately, North Dakota does NOT need the rain.  Even the southern part of the state, where I was traveling, was experiencing flooding.  Two different parts of I-94 were almost shut down.  It was down to one lane in each direction with large barriers holding back water, which probably would have reached about 2 feet deep.  Still, I was fascinated by the clouds in the sky.

The barrier holding water off of Interstate 94, so it was still passable.

Clouds over central North Dakota

When I got in touch with Kendra about visiting, she mentioned that she would be in the midst of moving, which I thought was perfect timing.  I lived in a Ann Arbor, a quintessential college town, for 8 years.  My busiest August, I helped 17 or 18 people move in 30 days.  Moving was a fact of life, and so I got really good at it, and I was excited to be able to help Kendra move into her new home.

I met Kendra my first night in Los Angeles.  She was a fellow intern in the program that brought me to LA.  It was actually Kendra who I spoke to before I even got into town, who helped me with logistics and getting settled in.  At the time, she was only 20, but she was wise beyond her years.  She’d also done the same internship the previous summer, so she was the veteran of the crew, a good person to have around to show you the ropes.  There were a lot of laughs that summer.  She was borrowing a car from a local family that summer that we dubbed “The Humblemobile” because it was so old.  Our accommodations were excruciatingly hot, and then one of the feet of the box fan broke, making it dance around in a circle repeatedly.

Kendra stuck around for a little while after that summer, but eventually moved back to North Dakota where she was from.  Then she moved to Chicago for a bit, and she and I met up when I was visiting there one summer.  We sat down to coffee, and pretty soon she told me some life-changing news: “I’m pregnant.”  It was early enough along that she was still swimming in a lot of confusion.  But I remember her expressing excitement at the prospect of parenting: choosing how to form and shape a human being.  It was cloudy that summer day in Chicago with the kind of midwestern pre-storm suffocation when the pavement radiates heat the the sky weighs heavy with the threat of rain.  But the rain eventually does come and cools the air, sweetens the breeze, and makes the pavement glisten as the sun breaks through the clouds.  On the best of days, there might even be a rainbow.  And it was clear to me even that day in Chicago, that Kendra would persevere and become a fantastic mom, that there would be eventually be some cool relief from the presently stifling pressure.

Kendra and I connected again when she came to Los Angeles for a wedding of our mutual friends.  I got to meet beautiful little Hadley.  And Kendra was glowing.  Much of the storm had passed, and while she still had her struggles, she was much stronger, much steadier, and carried with her even more wisdom than she had before.

A few months ago, I found out through Facebook that Kendra had gotten married.  Her husband Jordan seemed to be great for her and great with Hadley, as much as you can tell that sort of thing from Facebook.  But I remember being so touched by the beauty of it all, the power of their redemptive story.  So I was thrilled to get to see Kendra and Hadley again, meet Jordan, and be a part of getting them all settled into their new life.  Jordan is steady and sure and so incredibly amazing with Hadley.  And he adopted Hadley and it just became final last week.  He’s an engineer, which perfectly counters Kendra’s creativity (she runs a very successful photography business).  And Hadley is verbal and charming.  After the long day of moving, she was a little cranky.  We were getting out of the car and she looked at me and said,”I’m a little bit tired, but I sang a song and that made me happy.”  Awesome.

Hadley being a little bit shy.

And thankfully, in the midst of moving, Kendra and I did get some time to catch up.  I can’t even describe what my connection with her is like.  I even brought it up to her to try to find words, but I couldn’t.  It’s easy and close and we pick up right where we left off and all of that.  But it’s more.  Kendra keeps it real, just about as much as anybody I know.  So we go deep in a heartbeat.  But it’s more.  And I just don’t have words for it.  And maybe that’s OK.  As the sun set over the fields adjacent to their new house, I was bursting with hope and joy for this new family’s new life together.  And knowing what this family trekked through, it’s beautiful.  I think U2 sums up my time in North Dakota best: After the flood, all the colors came out.

Kendra and Hadley on the front porch of their new house (Jordan was at the old place supervising the movers)

Close-up

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Olivia and I have a tradition where I visit her when I’m driving across the country.  It started when I was at home for a few months a couple years ago and drove back to Los Angeles via Denver, where she lived at the time.  It was a few months after we had reconnected at our 10-year reunion.  By the second visit, Olivia had moved to Billings, Montana (go ahead and google map it because you probably don’t know where it is), and Seattle friend Susan and I stopped and stayed with Olivia on our drive.  So, in order to not break with tradition, I headed to Billings from Denver to stay with Olivia once again.  Apparently, I am Olivia’s first house guest to visit Billings twice.  I gladly accept the honor.

Olivia and I made our own prom dresses senior year in high school.  We took a beginning clothing class first semester (it fulfilled a requirement I needed to graduate), then we decided to take Advanced Clothing as an independent study course during second semester and make our prom dresses.  Mine was lime green and black and hers was a variety of pastel colors (I wish I had some of my old pictures with me).  Every senior girl’s nightmare was to show up at prom in the same dress as someone else.  That was definitely NOT happening with our creations.

I actually mention Olivia whenever I am tutoring high school students in SAT vocabulary.  We recommend that students use a mnemonic, or memory trick, in addition to the definition because it will stick better in their minds.  Every Friday in high school, every senior would take a vocabulary test.  Both Olivia and I had English class (and therefore the vocab test) during 2nd period.  We had clothing class during 1st period.  So we would always study for vocab together on Fridays.  To this day, I remember Olivia’s mnemonic for the word “purloin,” which means “to steal.”  I remembered it because it was a lyric from the musical “Rent,” which I was obsessed with that year (“They purloined my coat.  Well you missed a sleeve!”).  Olivia would think “to purloin the sirloin.”  She would do this cartoonish walk, hijacking a steak held on an uplifted palm at her shoulder.  Let me tell you people, mnemonics work!  I STILL remember purloining the sirloin to this very day!

Thankfully, we’ve both moved on from vocab tests and prom dresses.  Olivia is delightfully activistic.  She has worked on political campaigns across several elections and states.  Currently she organizes farmers in the Billings area.  Billings has 3 oil refineries in town, so farming takes a back seat.  But Olivia encourages the farmers (and ranchers, too) to advocate for their rights.  She actually supervises the organizers themselves, so she organizes organizers.  I love her fiery passion for the political realm, especially since it is so often met with apathy in our generation.

There was a special treat awaiting me in Billings….a variety show put on by Olivia’s friend who wanted to throw herself a very entertaining going-away party.  I got to meet Olivia’s boyfriend Joe, who had been out of town on my previous pass through Billings, as well as a bunch of their friends, all of whom are progressive and politically involved.  Since Montana is a small state, and Billings is a small town, a person can actually know his or her representative personally.  And if someone is of a particular political leaning, he or she gets connected to this group of people pretty quickly.  It was a great crew, and the show was a lot of fun….I couldn’t stop smiling!  Olivia served as the MC for the evening, and did a great job.  It rained before and after the show, but during, the drops staved off.

Olivia opening up the show when it was still a little bit light out.

A duet of "Burning Down the House."

A west coast swing number.

A sadly blurry poet

A local celebrity/newspaper columnist and his brother perform a duet.

Olivia introduces the Grand Finale!

The Grand Finale farewell dance.

The Grand Finale farewell dance.

I loved getting to meet Joe, too.  He and Olivia are such a great match.  He is just as feisty as she is, and I so appreciate the candor and confidence with which he presents his point of view.  He and I got to talking after Olivia had left for work, and it was just so refreshing to speak openly about opinions on politics and religion.  And just to cover all the things-you-never-talk-about bases, Olivia and I had quite an extensive conversation about finances.  She and Joe are very into a curriculum put out by Dave Ramsey called Financial Peace University.  I have several friends who have benefited from using the curriculum to get their finances in order.  She and I talked about how we wished that someone would have sat us down and crunched the numbers of our monthly finances with us; how it’s difficult to navigate finances and loans and debt with little but the cliche sayings of previous generations.  We also talked about Myers-Briggs personality test–an assessment I was trained to use during grad school and Olivia uses with her team of organizers.  It was fun to discuss the ins and outs of real-life, day-to-day, nitty-gritty issues with someone who otherwise isn’t in my daily life.  At one point she remarked, “You know, not much has changed since I last saw you–I’m in the same job, the same house, and the same relationship, and the stability feels pretty good!”  Here’s to leaving the chaos of the twenties behind.  I know that there will always be good conversation and great hospitality waiting for me wherever Olivia might be….so, until the next cross-country road trip!

Olivia in her MC get up.

Olivia ready to go to work....quite the transformation!

Olivia and Joe and their dog, a perfectly centered shot.

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College friend Nathan served as my host for my time in Denver.  When he lived in Ann Arbor, Nate lived in a fraternity which had a big house dog: a chocolate lab named Hershey.  Nate lives with a couple guys in a duplex in Denver within walking distance of Washington Park.  And he lives with Rambo:

Hm, I thought.  Living with guys in a house with a big labrador…..not much has changed!  But rather than being in school for engineering, Nathan is working for Lockheed Martin on their Orion program, which will replace the space shuttle.  He explained to me the possible security clearances a civilian can have and the possible ways of acquiring said clearances, something my dad (an aeronautical engineer who has the top level clearance) has tried to explain to no avail.  Nathan was extremely hospitable, and in addition to catching up around the house, we were able to grab some great local microbrews at the nearby but well-hidden Rackhouse Pub the night before I left town.

My memories of Nathan before this visit were more of an impression.  I know he’s extremely active and athletic.  Smart and capable.  A mischievous jokester.  Community service-oriented.  Mostly he was a friend of friends.  But we did both go on a Spring Break service trip to Jackson, Mississippi one year.  His car and my car (both Ford Taurus station wagons rented from the University) were caravanning partners.  And his car spun out right as we got onto the freeway, still in Ann Arbor.  My car was in front and I remember pulling over, getting out and running down the freeway in the snow (Michigan has a wacky schedule where we start Spring Break in February, when there’s still snow in Michigan).  The driver’s side door on the spun-out car was dented such that it made a LOT of wind noise the rest of the 17-hour drive down and the 17 hours back.  The same two cars with many of the same people both got speeding tickets just after entering Illinois on the return trip.  And those were the memorable moments just from the travels, not to mention the hours of labor in the rain-soaked Mississippi mud.

I feel like with our visit, I really got to know Nathan better, or at least see the aspects of his personality in action.  He is definitely active: plays soccer and kickball currently.  Totally jokes around with his roommates (one of whom has a knack for picking up free stuff on the street).  And he has something that is sadly so rare in people today: humility.  It was almost at the end of our time together that he mentioned in an offhanded way that he mentors an at-risk youth, even organized a camping and hiking trip for a bunch of coworkers and their mentees.  He’s the kind of guy that is completely unassuming, but will come up with great ideas and organize them, and all of a sudden, he’s quietly led a group of people into something great.  And where other people would be taking all the credit, Nate wouldn’t really even see himself as a leader.  But he is.  Hey, he’s one of the leaders and best and champions of the west!

Thanks to my Denver host with the most!

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From Sarah’s, I drove a literal 2 miles to have dinner with high school friend Mark and his family at their home on a street where they still have block parties.  In my time in Denver, I had to drive less than 8 miles to see all my friends.  Pretty amazing when you consider how big the metropolitan area is.  Mark and I met in sixth grade when our two different elementary school bands combined for a joint concert.  We both played the French horn.  And we were in band and a lot of the same classes throughout junior high.  I did band in high school and Mark did not; we still had a lot of classes together, but our very large group of junior high friends split into very friendly but differently occupied band and non-band factions.

The last time Mark and I saw each other was actually in Guatemala.  After graduating from college, Mark put off a job with Accenture for two years to work in orphanages in Guatemala and Honduras.  At the time he was in Guatemala, my college roommate was in Honduras, and she and I met in Guatemala and traveled around the country for a week.  We met up with Mark for pizza in Antigua.  Later in the week at Lago (Lake) Atitlan, my roommate and I had dinner with him and his folks, who were also in town at that time.  I think we even bumped into them on the street when they were about to tour a local volcano.

Since that time in Guatemala, Mark eventually started that job at Accenture in Denver and met and married his wife, Jen.  They were both absent from our 10-year reunion because they took a year to travel the entire globe.  Mark documented the journey in photographs, and Jen with words, and they compiled a book, Thirty on a Camel.  I remember looking at the images and stories on their website at the time and being so moved by them and by the idea of the adventure they were undertaking.    On a certain level, the trip they took then was one of several pieces of inspiration for me to take this journey.

The evening was cooling off by the time I arrived at their house, greeted by enthusiastic waves from 17-month-old son Colin.  You can tell this trio is a family–they all have fair complexions and reddish blond hair.  We enjoyed a lovely dinner on the patio as I caught up on life with Mark and got to know Jen, who is awesome.  She taught literacy at the high school level for 10 years.  She’s hard-core awesome.  Now she’s working on the finishing touches of a novel she’s writing.

I guess the theme among my friends in Denver has been persevering through struggles and coming out the other side.  Colin was born with a cleft lip and has had two surgeries.   He will have more.  But to hear Mark and Jen talk about it, they were actually grateful for the cleft lip because it was predicted to have been much, much worse.  Colin did NOT have a cleft palate, nor did he have a variety of other ailments that can sometimes go along with a cleft.  And during those first few months when they practically lived at the doctor’s office, they were surrounded by a community of family and friends.  The trials they went through with Colin deepened their friendships profoundly.  And it is that supportive community that has helped enable Mark and Jen to parent Colin into a curious and joyful little boy.

And they hope to expand their family.  They are in the process of waiting on the final paper work to become foster parents.  Of kids over the age of 12.  I threw my arms up in the air and cheered when they told me.  So cool.  Jen has experience working with older kids from a rougher background from her work in the schools, and Mark worked with older boys at the orphanage in Guatemala.  It was exciting to see how they bring those experiences into an otherwise pretty standard home life.

When I was in Guatemala eating dinner with Mark, I distinctly remember there were moments when I felt 14 years old inside, when I was transported back in time to the old days.  But this time, it was like we met up somewhere on a walking path and walked alongside each other for an evening, each standing on our own two grown-up feet.

Mark confessed that he’s sometimes just feeling his way along, figuring out how to be a husband and a dad.  I always remember Mark as a good guy and a good friend.  Definitely adventurous.  He and another friend started a rock-climbing club our senior year, just for fun.  He still has some of the mannerisms of that 12-year-old boy I knew–his posture and walk are the same.  Still has his sense of humor and will take a good jab atcha when he can.  Has a little less hair (hey–gotta take a jab of my own when I can).  But this is definitely man-Mark.  Dad-Mark.  Husband-Mark.  Mark who knows a lot about business.  Mark who cares about seeing some justice in the world and will do something about it.  In other words, he is more and more solidly and distinctly himself.   And it was a pleasure to walk alongside him and his family for the evening.

I regret not capturing adorable little Colin before bedtime.

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The calm and reflection of my time with Josh and Stephanie was countered by creativity and cookies and a little bit of delightful chaos with Sarah.  Sarah is also a friend from LA.  We met when we both signed up on a team to go to Bangkok, Thailand to work with women coming out of prostitution through an organization called NightLight back in January of 2006.  Actually, another member of the team, Tara, also a Facebook friend, lives in Phoenix, but she and I missed each other in Phoenix because Tara was visiting Sarah in Denver.  Did you catch all that?  It was an amazing, life-changing trip for everyone involved.

The team at NightLight go out to the bars in a certain area of Bangkok twice a week and get to know the women over a period of time to build trust.  Eventually, they invite the women to come out of their life in the bars and to get trained in jewelry-making.  The women earn as much making jewelry as they do in the bars, so it’s an entirely alternative income.  It’s a full-time, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job.  The income is salaried, so it’s not based on how many pieces of jewelry they make or sell.  The program is also quite holistic, offering counseling, financial planning, and English classes.  At the time our team went, there were about a dozen women.  The projection for the end of 2006 was that they would have 30 women making jewelry.  They had 30 women by April and about 80 by the end of the year.  Given the opportunity, these women would choose a life outside of the bars, and would do so in droves.  I jump at every opportunity to give this social justice jewelry as gifts.  Actually, great aunt Mary’s 90th birthday present was a NightLight necklace.  Sharing in the adventure and heartbreak and triumph of this trip together with Sarah and Tara and several other of my Facebook friends has provided a deep and strong understanding and bond.  We witnessed each other on the team being helped and changed in the midst of helping others.

Sarah and her husband Stephen had only been married about 10 weeks when we traipsed across the globe.  They were in Los Angeles for awhile then left for the Portland area a few years ago.  Then they moved to Denver just 6 weeks ago.  And Sarah and Stephen have now become Sarah and Stephen and 4-year-old Noel and 2-year-old Sam.  Given the short amount of time the family has been in Denver, they’ve settled in quite nicely.  Both Stephen and Sarah are incredibly talented and creative.  Sarah is a painter and graphic designer (check out her stuff here), and some of her works already decorate the walls.  Stephen works from home as a graphic designer and animator, and I caught them between nap time and an evening barbecue, and in a small gap in a flurry of hosting out-of-town guests.

Sarah and I sat down to coffee and cookies while the kids played dress-up and Stephen worked downstairs.  I’ve kept up with her loosely through mutual friends that we have, and, of course, from Facebook updates.  But it was great to hear from her of their time in Portland, the move to Denver (including a major car breakdown in the middle of the night in the middle-of-nowhere Oregon), and how sometimes a big transition can shake things up so they settle into place better than they ever were before.  That’s how Denver feels to them.  And they’ve launched into knowing neighbors, joining groups, and hosting groups, so they’re already more integrated in Denver than they ever were in Portland.  Again, it was a conversation coming out on the other side of some struggle.  And it’s amazing what a little sunshine and blooming honeysuckle can do to clear away the clouds of discontent.

The kids are delightful–Noel is a spunky diva, the definition of a precocious child.  She and I would have been great friends if I were still 4.  Sam is quieter, and oh so charming.  After we’d been playing for awhile, he asked, “What’s name?”  You would have had to mop up puddle I melted into.  It was easy to enjoin myself into the family for the afternoon.  You can tell how comfortable they are as a family and how they’re used to interacting with people.  We played and read stories.  We worked in the kitchen while Sarah prepared food for the barbecue that evening.  She’s a pretty laid back mom who can easily transition between conversation and parenting.  And knowing her as a newlywed, it was so enjoyable to watch how she’s transitioned and grown into motherhood.  And like many of my visits, it was too short and left me wanting to return very soon.  But what I’ll take away from my time with Sarah is how we’ve each grown a little more into our own skin and learned how to be more comfortable there, inspired and incited by some courageous women on the other side of the globe who were learning to do the same.

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After cheering and crying my way through the spectacular vistas of southwest Colorado and a lunch stop at the Gunnison Brewery in Gunnison, CO, I arrived at Stella’s, a coffee shop in a revamped old house in Denver, on Tuesday evening to meet with Josh and Stephanie.  Josh was in my grad program for the first semester, and Stephanie is his wife.  Josh had many of the same struggles in grad school that I did, and chose to leave the program.  He ended up teaching while Stephanie got her physical therapy degree.  They moved from Los Angeles to Denver.  Josh and Stephanie are both very caring and hospitable people–they would often welcome people into their home in Los Angeles, and I have fond memories of evenings spent with them.  And that hospitality is something they carry with them wherever they go.  I came off the road a little scattered, but as soon as we sat down, their presence made our little table at Stella’s feel a little bit like home.  They were asking me a lot of thoughtful questions about our time since grad school.  There was a depth and a steadiness to them and to our time together–a settledness that comes from walking through a lot of life.

Back in Los Angeles, Josh worked with college students in a mentorship role even before our grad school internship started.  It’s something he’s great at, but he had a quieter way of leadership that may have been perceived as not as effective.  Now, he’s in another internship in Denver where he’s found his niche.  His way of working is not only respected, but lauded.  His voice at the table is welcomed and sought out.  And Stephanie is literally in the first week of a brand new job, learning the paperwork systems and the interpersonal dynamics of inpatient and outpatient geriatric physical therapy.  She has also landed after over a year of bouncing around to different positions.  She had been offered a dream job, which would have meant a move away from Josh’s internship and a lot of the great community they’ve built in Denver.  Had I visited them in the throes of making that decision, I’m sure it would have been a different story, but they decided to stay in Denver and turn down the job, and it really has worked out splendidly.  But when you’re in it, it never feels like it will work out.  But when you’re on the other side looking back, the difficulties can often dissipate.  There’s a song lyric I often bring up in these circumstances: “I’m looking forward to looking back on this day.”

And Josh and Stephanie have come out the other side of a lot of struggle and really seem to be thriving, which was thrilling to see.  There was a lot of redemption in their story–not the “Ha ha ha–take that!” sense but the “Bad things really can turn out for good” sense.  When the very thing that was staring you in the face as a gigantic obstacle becomes the thing you climb on top of to get to a better place, it gives you a different perspective.  Seeing them in that place in their lives was such a joy.  It was a deep breath of fresh mountain air, a cold glass of iced tea after a long, hot day of driving, a little piece of home.

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So there have been some spectacular drives on this journey, especially this past week.  I have been doing in this second week what I set out to do in the reflections from the first week, which is think less and stop more.  The lovely vistas and scenery compelled me to take a moment and breathe it in.  In my haste to share with you the stories of my family and friends, I have neglected to share with you some of the images of beauty that will be etched in my memory (and thankfully, some if my computer’s memory, too).  I’m waiting for someone to invent a device where you can touch somewhere on your temple or forehead, and it would take a picture of exactly what your eyeballs are perceiving.  A little scary, I know, but there have been moments where I wish I could share these images, they have so captured me.

From St. George, Utah to Phoenix, Arizona, I took a two-lane highway rather than the interstate and ended up passing near Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon.  I felt like I was in Star Wars, then Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  You’ll see these pictures first, then a black slide, followed by pictures from Phoenix, Arizona to Durango, CO.  You’ll see the “skyline” of (i.e. mountains above) Flagstaff, Arizona, colorful striped sand mounds, Monument Valley, a town called Red Mesa (see if you can find it), Four Corners (I’m in 4 states at once!) and a drastic change from desert to greenery.  The sunset over the mountain was taken in Durango, and what follows that shot is the journey from Durango to Denver, which is definitely the most spectacular drive I have driven over Red Mountain Pass and down to wide ranches set between snow-capped peaks.

While I’ve been driving, I’ve been listening to a lot of music and podcasts.  Katie Herzig has really been moving me, both to fun and joy, reflection and sadness.  I love a good cry at 80 mph!  Also, my favorite band, Over the Rhine, is a mainstay.  Also popping up when I choose to shuffle: Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Soweto Gospel Choir, Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama, James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, and a plethora of others.  So turn on some good tunes, and enjoy thumbing through the images.  Perhaps in so doing, I will pass some of my thinking and reflecting time onto you.  May it be a little quiet moment to ponder your smallness in the great big beautiful world.  Enjoy!

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With all of my effusing about Uncle Neal and Aunt Mary, I neglected to mention the spectacular drive from St. George, UT to Phoenix, AZ.  I decided to forgo the freeway route through Las Vegas and instead took a lot of two-lane highways near Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon.  Twenty minutes into the drive, I knew I’d made the most amazing choice.  I have never in my life seen such colorful and unique landforms.  I felt like I was in Star Wars and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade all in one day.  I’ve also reached a mile-and-a-half high–7,290 feet above sea level–just where the road veers off to go to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

I had a very relaxing weekend in Phoenix with my aunt and uncle.  And I only saw one friend while I was there, my cousin Rachel.  Technically, we’re not related, but we’re family.  Rachel’s mom is the middle of 3 daughters.  The eldest daughter, Lynn, was my mom’s best friend in high school and bridesmaid.  My mom and Rachel’s mom, Jeannie, drove cross-country together back in the 60’s when Jeannie was moving to California to teach.  In more recent years, they would travel together.  And the youngest sister, Mary, lives about 10 minutes away from the house I grew up in.  My mom was the fourth sister. We’ve spent the last several Christmases together, and somewhere in there, we just started calling each other family.  After a roommate debacle a couple years ago, I ended up living with Jeannie for a couple months and Rachel and I got to intersect more frequently, which was great.  She and I are pretty different, which always makes it a lot of fun.

Rachel now lives in Prescott, AZ, but she was coaching in a girls’ high school volleyball tournament at the convention center in Phoenix, so I went down there to watch a few games.  It was the perfect setting to meet up with Rachel because she was so very much in her element.  I’ve watched her at a couple of other tournaments, and even off the court, she is coaching her girls.  She breathes it.  She lives it.  And she is made for it.  Even girls she no longer coaches, she reminds them about college applications, asks them to think about what they’re looking for and make lists accordingly.  Rachel played volleyball at the University of Arizona and has coached in Arizona and California.  There were teams at this tournament from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and even Hawaii.  As I walked around with her, she literally was nodding or waving or stopping and talking to someone every 5 feet.  She is known and respected in this arena.  And even in the midst of a busy day of games, she made sure I was introduced to parents so I had people to talk to.  It was a little overwhelming to walk into that room–there were about 40 simultaneous games of volleyball happening in one giant room.  Teams would switch courts after each game.  I’m pretty good at endearing myself to strangers and asking for information, but Rachel was so at home that she made me feel at home.

Rachel in action

And let me tell you, she’s probably about 5’4″, but she can hold her own with these older, bigger, male coaches.  She’s a David to their Goliath.  And so is her team.  They only had 7 players, compared to other teams with 10 or 12 players.  Since there are 6 players on the court at a time, they only had one person sitting out, and most of the girls played the whole time.  Playing 3 games a day for several days in a row, they were just exhausted.  But Rachel gets them through.  She’s only been coaching this team for 3 weeks and parents and players alike had nothing but the best things to say about her.

My earliest memory of Rachel, she and our other cousin, Marina, came over to our house.  Both of them were wearing dresses.  Marina didn’t want to play too much because she didn’t want to get her dress dirty (she now is a buyer for a fashion company). Rachel, on the other hand, was launching the basketball up at the hoop over and over and over.  I love that memory because already at 3 or 4 years old, these girls were so very much themselves and each has lived it out in her own way.  And 2 years ago at Christmas, Rachel went through all their old family pictures and selected one to print and give to each family member.  And somehow, she found a picture from that day to give to me.  It was a little Christmas miracle.

Rachel and I got very little time together, but we’ll see each other at Marina’s wedding over Labor Day weekend.  That’s the beautiful thing about family.  It doesn’t have to be a lot of time or the best quality time because you know you’ll always connect again.  Until next time, Rachel.

YJ's is the name of her team, Yavapai Juniors, and now I have a shirt, too! Go YJ's!

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