perspicacious?

“What I have been thinking is that it is much easier to waste time than to spend it. It is easier to watch than to see, easier to hear than to listen, easier to touch just the surfaces of our emotions, and much more difficult to feel their burning raw edges. Acquaintance and gentle friendship cradle us like so many fur coats; we are pleasant in passing, pleasant in greeting, pleasant in the brevity of our speech. All of this, while love would have us naked and melting in her hands, scorched by her sweetness and frozen by her violence. We avoid the intensity of her stare; it is much easier to exist than to live.”

I wrote that a couple of days ago. I’ve been intending to be here, writing this, for days and weeks. Over the weekend, when I spoke to my mother about this and similar things, she said something like, “Baby, it will always be easier to just keep going, to do the next thing on the list, than to take time for your heart.” And aside from being reminded, again, that my mother is a very quotable person, I was nudged into understanding that life will drown me unless I learn to swim in deep water. 
     But, as I have come to realize very clearly, just because I know something and can comprehend it fully does not mean that the application of it in my life will be immediately successful. I remind myself of St. Augustine who, in the midst of searching his soul in repentance, found himself to be a “most twisted and intricate mass of knots.” I am certain of my convictions in theory, but in practice I fall far short. The experience of college has, so far, inspired a feeling of stretching in my soul, flinging open many of my certainties and making them fly up like autumn leaves. They are beautiful as they fall, but I feel naked and unsure without them. Still, I am willing to believe that new resolve and conviction will grow in me, and I will see God in the framework, keeping me where I need to be.
     Two autumns ago, I co-wrote a song called “The Ending” with my friend Josh. His beautiful piano and vocal melody stirred up lyrics in me, and I spent the whole day at their home scribbling out words onto notebook paper, marvelling as they moved from my heart to my hand with so little hesitation. I wrote from the perspective of a leaf on the brink of falling, but also from my own world. Here are some of the words,

Where I am is all I know,
but I’m lost here, watching.
What you see’s not quite the truth,
empty spaces, small against the sky.
I feel the distance, and how far I could fall.
I don’t know yet, what this will become.

Don’t look down, don’t fall apart
The world’s crumbling, changing.
I don’t know if I can last
I’ve been trying, waiting.
I’ve lost touch with what I used to be,
I don’t know yet what to surrender to. 

Looking out on what will be,
I am shaking, hopeful.
What is grey might soon be green,
am I dreaming, only dreaming?
Something stirs so deep within
I am close to the ending.
Giving up and giving in
the world’s softer, at the ending. 

I loved those words the moment I wrote them; to me it was an enormous gift. Somehow the words and melody intertwined felt exactly the way that my life seemed, giving an audible expression of the colors in my soul. The other day, when I unexpectedly heard the song again for the first time in more than a year, my heart was moved very quickly to tears. It seems that autumn, November in particular, often finds me in similar places of life change and uncertainty. Still, it is my favorite season. Something about the first bitter rushes of cold and rain makes me happy to be alive.

Now, on a more lighthearted note, I have crafted something especially for you. A week or two ago, I made the enlightening discovery that the iSight camera on my MacBook can be easily used to get crappy, low-quality footage of the epic happenings in the lives of Annie and Beth. We have been saying to each other since the semester began, “Oh, if only we had this on film!” We knew that if we could just show the world just how idiosyncratically wonderful life is in Traer 217, we would indubitably have a fan base of insurmountable proportions. So, I have spent much time and laughter putting this next experience together for the viewing enjoyment of all. Please ignore the grainy, unreadable quality of the title text. It didn’t look like that on iMovie.

So there you have it, folks. Quadventures, installment numero uno.

Before I depart, there is just one more thing I would like to share. 

This is the boy I have been dating for almost 18 months.

This is Sam. He is adorable. (Photo by Holly Chong)

Awesome tapas, beautiful atmosphere, very classy.

This is the restaurant he took me to for our surprise date on November 5th.

At this point, I was already impressed, knowing that he had planned this outing for weeks and very much approving of the evening thus far. And of course, I was highly curious to see what would come next. I begged and pleaded but he was the best display of secret-keeping I have ever seen. The best hint I got was “You’ll know in about twenty minutes.” Thus, once we’ve made our way out to the car to go wherever we are going next, he hands me a folded piece of paper and asks me to read the directions. Unfolding, this is what I found inside:

COLDPLAY!

Well, not them exactly. Tickets to go see them play that very night in Philips Arena. Tickets I had been hoping and praying and giving up on for MONTHS. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t find words, and then all I could say was “Really? Are you serious? Are you serious?!” over and over again, and then I just hugged my incredible boyfriend and thought about how I owed my roommate 10$ on the bet I had just lost. I was genuinely surprised.
    Apparently, the story goes that Sam bought the tickets in August, the very first night they went on sale, and managed to tell almost no one of his plan. At some point in late September, he mentioned November 5th sort of in passing. “I have somewhere I want to take you that night… does that work?” Meanwhile, my honest and integrity-filled boyfriend proceeded to sew a network of little white lies in regards to the surprise date, ultimately convincing me completely that there was almost no likelihood whatsoever that we could be going to the most thrilling concert event of 2008. Ultimately, I have found myself filled with forgiveness for my lying boyfriend; this concert is one of two gifts I have received in my life that have both surprised and flabbergasted me. The other was a manuscript of everything I had ever blogged, from my friend Ellie. Could I be any more thoroughly gifted by anyone, ever, than these two? I felt so loved, both times, and by both wonderful people.

And the show was un. believable. They started with Life in Technicolor, played everything good inbetween, and ended with Yellow. During Lovers in Japan they dropped ultraviolet-lit confetti butterflies from the ceiling. Now I have them on my wall. :)

Overall, it was a beautiful night.

So, I think I need to wrap this up and get to work on homework-type things. Thank you for reading, I hope you have enjoyed my words. I will be here again soon.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has said, “keep writing” to me in the last month and a half. Sometimes you are the reason why I do.