Angel Hair

I am a rather busy girl with a rather busy mind. Busier than average, trust me. There is the comparison of guys having “waffle brains” while girls have "spaghetti brains". Some girls are ziti, some are those pasta pinwheel things, while others are linguine. Me? Angel hair.

Now, I am a non-busy girl with still a rather busy mind which means something has to get released somewhere. It used to be that I could just burst out in song and that would be enough to suffice the grumbling beast of creative expression. But now my hands twitch for a sketch pad, an empty page, a pencil, a piano—something to break the dam when words are not enough.

Maybe you’ll get to reap the fruit grown by the flooded river.

The Notebook

In this day of technology and all that there is to offer with our cell phones and computers, there are still some people who like kickin' it old school... with a pen and paper. There are those people {like me} who are always scattered, a million thoughts a minute, and who crave the feel of ink flowing from their hand, making an indentation, perhaps forever, on something else. Post its, notepads, loose-leaf, an appetite that is never truly satisfied {my apologies to all of my tree-hugging greenitized friends--it's just the way I am}. There are so many reasons why a person like me could be in love with China, but China's love of notebooks is a mutual love that we share. There are so many reasons why notebooks here in China are much more lovable than back in the states.

• They have Chinglish [English with poorly written grammar, often not making any sense, or providing a wonderful sense of entertainment. Here, English is the 'cool' thing to have as long as it's English... doesn't matter what it says]
• They are entertaining [Asian culture is obsessed with anything cute, cuddly, and fluffy]
• They are random [We came across one that said nothing but "giraffe, giraffe, giraffe..." all across the front of it]
• They are cheap [I'm talkin' fifty-cents. Of course, the more entertaining the Chinglish, the more expensive ;)]

Last night, we raided our team leaders room as he was cleaning out years upon years of "stuff" leftover from other teams {at the end of each year, teams traditionally leave decorations and anything else they can't fit in their suitcase for the upcoming team...wish I had known that coming in!} There were shelves of books (quickly grabbed by Lauren), picture frames (snatched by Laura), and some office supplies, (which the men dove for). There was also a notebook up for grabs. Guess who's it is?

So as I was just sitting on my couch about to stain the perfect off-white blanket some small writing in the corner of the page caught my eye. I flipped through and realized that it was printed on every page of the notebook. I began to read through and realized that 

A.) this is actually really well translated and 

B.) this is quite an inspirational 'poem'. So, I thought I would share...

It's a long long journey
And I don't know if I can believe
When shadows fall and block my eyes
I am lost and know that I must hide
It's a long long journey
Till I find my way home to you
Many days I've spent
Drifting on through empty shores
Wondering what's my purpose
Wondering how to make me strong
I know I will falter I know I will cry
I know you'll be standing by my side
It's a long long journey
And I need to be close to you
Sometimes it feels no one understands
I don't even know why
I do the things I do
When pride builds me up till I can't see my soul
Will you break down these walls and pull me through?
Cause It's a long long journey
Till I feel that I am worth the price
You paid for me on calvary
Beneath those stormy skies
When Satan mocks and friends turn to foes
It feels like everything is out to make me lose control
It's a long long journey
Till I find my way home to you

Now, please note that upon further investigation and simply typing line one into the Master of the Internet, Google informed me that these are in fact lyrics to a song called "Journey" by Angela Zhang [who is totes Chinese]. Although there was a momentary sigh of disappointment in realizing that these were in fact copied words {and not solely written for the purpose of this notebook} I realized that they were words, nonetheless, that were meant to tell a story, meant to be shared. In China.

Sunday Sketch

Open Sea

A single speck

of your eye in mine.

An obscure glimmer.

Reason unknown.

I’m curious.

Mystified, mesmerized.

I get lost in your eyes,

drawn to pools of unknown.

And when I return a shard is lodged in me.

Driftwood on an open sea.

Maybe, just maybe

a sliver of me is in you, too.

Eyes are a window to the soul,

so they say.

Your speck of soul, stead fast and secure,

a part of my identity.

Entwined, perhaps forever,

and I am ever so thankful.

Ruined

If I say the word "bars", what automatically pops into your head? Most people my age think of a venue that involves loud music, alcohol, dimmed lighting, and dancing bodies. Fun place to be. Except that for the sake of this blogpost, I'm talking about a different set of bars. Some say "well, he set the bar pretty high", or the automatic mental picture that pops up is the "uneven bars", only televised in the gymnastics portion of the summer Olympics. {i always wanted to do those}

When you think about life, you don't often picture it as a bar. Often it's a path, or a road, or era of time. Bars are just awkward when you are measuring something of distance. But what about quality? What's the purpose of living for 120 years if your quality of life is miserable and depressing?

"Ruined for the ordinary"

A phrase that I have heard every day, often several times a day. I now live in China, and although some would argue that this is detrimental to my quality of health, it certainly is raising the bar as far as my "quality of life." There is something about living in China that just ruins you for an ordinary life. There is something about living abroad or living/partaking in another culture that "upps the annie". Many who have been abroad can agree that they can never be content with an ordinary life ever again. How could you? Then again there are millions of others who have had cross cultural experiences, and lived for long periods of time in many-a-culture and have had no impact on their lives from it whatsoever. Why the two extremes? In my drawing of conclusions {you know, with all of my years of extensive research and abounding doctoral degrees} I've come to the conclusion that one little word makes all the difference: perspective.

But us being who we are, were we ever called to live an ordinary life? Can a Follower ever be called to a truly ordinary life? Because as far as I'm concerned, having Hope makes life a little extraordinary.

Loose Terms

Sometimes I get frustrated with the English language.

Maybe that's not completely true. Maybe it's the fact that I get frustrated with how people use the English language. You see there are all these words that we have, and we use them all the time. But so often people don't grasp the depth of what they truly mean or intend. They're loose terms.

Friend, love, thank-you, what is that?

What does it mean to truly be thankful and to express a deep and heartfelt gratitude? So many times we hear people say  (often with tears in their eyes or a smile on their face)  "oh, thank-you is not enough but it is all I can say." C'mon English, step up to the plate! Is it that our language truly fails us, or is it that we haven't mastered the use of the language we speak?.... I can't decide.

The other term that always bothers me is 'friend'. I'll just put that out there. Go check out facebook, apparently you have 500 {or more} friends. But if you were in a time of need, how many of those people would drop everything they were doing to come to your aid or to assist you? Those are the people I would call my friends, and I can guarantee you that you ain't gunna have 500 people rushin' to your side. I could name you five. But what does that make the other 495 people?...you tell me.

And then there's love, basically the meaning of life, but we throw it around so loosely that it has as little impact as "a", "and", & "the".

"I love this hat"

"I love that show"

"I love Ke$ha" 

(ew...no)

I don't have the mental capacity to trace it back to the three Greek meanings of love (you know, like the root of the word and actual meaning of it from thousands of years ago). Go check it out on Google. I DO know that there was the ability to break up "love" so that when something was really and truly loved, such as a spouse or child that it wasn't deemed with the same word as fully appreciating pizza.

So now what do we do? Theres this built up anger and frusteration with the use of English, but it's simply not practical to make up new words. Or to learn another language. But when we actually want our words to mean something, how do we go about doing that when society is already mentally flooded with noise and words? How do we effectively convey to someone that we are genuine in what we mean and say without contributing to the flood of words and noises they are bombarded with every day?

I really don't have an answer. Sometimes I just think about these things.