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A Season of Change

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Hello friends, sit back and I’ll tell a tale…

Last Friday morning started well. I grabbed coffee downtown at the Flatiron Woods (no, not some smithy shop in the middle of the forest but rather a local coffee chain) with a friend. I even saw two of my hipster-est acquaintances at this location, which is akin to running into every homeschool Mom you know at my hometown Costco. Then I returned to my car and realized I had shut my keys in the door. Locked out. In a metered 2-hour parking space. This is the girl who had a hold on her college diploma because of unpaid parking tickets. I now avoid them like ze plague. Or like I avoid running into my siblings’ ex girlfriend/boyfriend’s parents (it happens more often than you think).

Thankfully, my sister rescued me during her lunch break and let me chill at her place until my husband got off work (see above selfie in her house). She also locked her keys in her car the previous Wednesday. Then I called to catch up with another friend and learned she’d also locked her keys in her car (well, the trunk) that day also.

If you get locked out of your car make lemonade out of the lemons. Or make almond cookies in your sisters’s kitchen when you’re stuck in it for 5 hours. Then leave funny notes on her fridge.

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Secret Family Recipe.

 

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It was either a picture of this festive holly branch or another selfie.

My husband and I have been in the habit lately of getting misty eyed at cheesy holiday commercials. You know the ones I’m talking about. Army Mom surpises son by being underneath the tree Christmas morning, Dad comforts daughter at all the major stages of her life just to let her go on her wedding day. Macklemore is rapping in Russel Wilson’s pool. You get the idea.

Basically all the feels have hit me (no, I’m not pregnant).  A beautiful song comes on Spotify while I’m babysitting and I think about how babies are so precious and they smell good. I miss my husband at work so I try to make his baggy shirts look retro/hipster/grunge so I can use it as an excuse to wear them (see above selfie) My Dad said he bought Star Wars tickets and I started crying because that was really sweet. Fact is, life is changing all over again. My husband has a new job, my nannying job will probably end soon, and another freaking Star Wars movie.

As much as we’d like Christmas to be about traditions, we have to acknowledge that Jesus coming changed everything.

We are not celebrating a yearly world-wide migration of an old jolly benevolent Saint whose story never changes

Santa is static. Jesus is dynamic.

Our lives are not static either, as we are constantly being propelled out of endings and into new beginnings.

I told my friend Kristi, “People keep asking if I still live in the same place,”

to which she replied,

“I can’t imagine you moving again. That would be crazy with all you’ve been through?!”

It sort of feels like being locked out of the car, you can’t go back to the last year. You can’t regain what’s lost. Do you call someone? Do you walk a little farther?

As much as I want to cling to the past, I know it’s bad for me. I have to say goodbye, a slow retreat away from my past identities. It can’t be rushed but it can’t be paused either.

Make room for the new beginnings. Invite them in, even if you’d rather pass them along to the next inn or your dingy storage shed. The act of saying goodbye, in Christ, implies that a hello will follow.

Stay warm.

-K

 

 

IT ONLY COMES ONCE A YEAR

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The Larson’s Little Tree!

I’ve always loved the Christmas season…mostly because I get attached to inanimate objects, sugar cookies are magical, and dancing in the living room to music is embraced.

Speaking of inanimate objects, I believed as a child that the figurines in the manger scene were not only representations of God’s birth but also leading characters in my Telenovas I made up. I’m not proud, but Mary wanted to get married to a shepherd and her disapproving Dad (Joseph) banned her from running away with him. So then her angel/fairy godmother gave her a magical donkey. I would be more embarrassed, but HAVE YOU READ THE OLD TESTAMENT?? It’s basically one long soap opera. Talking donkeys, illegitimate children, back-stabbing brothers. Logically, the nativity scene needed some inspiration.

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My little brother took out the entire bottom layer of the tree in that BA walker.

 

Let me tell you, growing up in a world obsessed with Santa that was contrasted with the somber glow of the advent candles, this season felt schizophrenic. Be happy!  Be sad! Be thoughtful! Be merry! Candles are holy, but lights are gaudy!

 

I feel the same dichotomy between the sacred and the sparkly this year. But its notes are so much more bittersweet. First Christmas as a married couple. First Christmas without my Mom. Twinkling lights on the tree, and friends popping over to drop off cookies. The reminder that the reason Jesus came is because we are broken. Our hearts are dark places.

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Mid windstorm picture of Belligham Bay. Not pictured: me furiously running back to my car to escape the wind.

Church yesterday reminded me that there’s freedom from the idea that the Christmas season is as good as it gets. That the current version of me is as good as it gets. I know this isn’t how I’m supposed to be.

 

I remember the home video from Christmas Eve of 1996 when my Dad dressed up as Santa and all of us kids danced with him in the living room as the radio played Joy to the World. If you’ve heard my Dad preach he’s shown this clip. Why? Because it was a “thin place” as Shauna Niequst says. A place where the world here gave us a glimpse of Heaven.

We all knew Dad wasn’t Santa, and it was commonplace to dance around the living room (or if you were me, to SING and DANCE everywhere). But watching that tape you can catch a glimpse of a time that was pretty special. It was sacred and it was sparkly. My Dad twirls each of us girls across the carpet, and my little brother wanders aimlessly in circles. The angelic voices of a choir permeate the room from the boom box radio perched on top of the TV stand. My Mom laughs, unseen behind the giant camcorder. Then the clip needs to be cut because we all start having pre-Christmas meltdowns by pummeling Santa and have crazed “sugarplum” looks on our faces and we try to use his stuffed belly as a launching pad for karate kicks.

The next day, it snows.

 

– K

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not alright

 

and visions of sugarplums danced in my head

Are the kids alright? Is a frequent question that permeates educational circles. Adults in administration and teachers will say, “but how are the children? We’ve talked test scores, population changes, and building renovations, let’s get to the heart. If a school loses sight of the kids who come everyday a slow sickness can take over where the teachers are tired and the children drag their feet and backpacks down the hall. Or it could be a little too close to Thanksgiving break. When I was student teaching I got so stressed and worn-out before Thanksgiving break I almost puked in the recycling bin (thank goodness for an early release time). A Teacher friend of mine said she tried to wash her face with conditioner. Breaks, like barbecues, are necessary. (Thank you Shauna Neiquist).

 

As I type my father-in-law is grilling steaks and it’s smells like a football win feels. The sweet medicine of well cooked meat. Or quinoa. Quinoa is good.

Taken at Moonlight Beach. Try to not be jealous of that seagull.


I visited my in-laws home church where my father-in-law and brother-in-law (so many hyphens when you get married) serve. The teaching  pastor talked about filling in the blank “I’m not_____ but God is_____”  and I realized I would say “I’m not alright.”

What. A. Relief.

A misguided question that’s been running around my brain has been:

What would I tell people, if given a large platform?

and the unfortunate, wholly inaccurate answer has been:

“I’m alright.”

Some of my blogposts have operated under this assumption. Well, it’s not true.  In my furious desire to prove that I’m coming out of the dark tunnel intact has proven to be completely bogus.

I’m not alright, but God has proven sufficient. Present. There.

God has rescued me both from valleys I’ve chosen and ones life has chosen against my will. And when I’m in the valley all I can see is the dirt underneath my feet. Oftentimes it turns to mud because of my tears.

It’s like when you work so hard to make Thanksgiving perfect and the dog sneaks in while you’re taking the family picture and eats half a chocolate pie. True story. Dog was ok, but the chocolate pie made an encore performance later that night all over the bed spread. Was it a storybook ending to a Holiday? Nope! More like the climax of a sitcom.

But it made me laugh, and it made me think about all the hilarious situations we find ourselves in when we bring family, pets, and a ginormous amount of food all in one house. And amidst all the craziness, to sit and chat about your favorite movies or the passions you have. My favorite moments came this holiday when I was talking with someone and our differences in age, class, education, and location were temporarily put to the side and we could simply say

“I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t alright, I’m still not alright”

And then, in between the cousins gathering slushy snow, and the dog catching the ball, and the winding drive back to the land of the sun…and the waiter whose only been here for three months and has only been sober for 2.

God said  “I am.”

He said, I’ll take your soap opera your sitcom your SNL skit, your life that’s incomplete, and I’ll show you what I can do.

He said it Moses, and he says it again and again. Talk to someone who has faithfully walked with God for many years and see if the burning bush, the moment when we are asked to be brave and trust, was a miraculous act leading to many valleys and mountains, or if they ignored the small but grand gestures of a God who cares. (Exodus three if you dare).

Don’t settle for saying “I’ll be fine.”

 

-K