Monday, January 22, 2007

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

I always associate Mississippi with a song my younger brother David made up on a trip to the Midwest when we were kids. It has no recognizable tune or logic. It goes, "Miss-sis-ssiiIIIIIiiii-uh-pee. Miss-sis-ssiiIIIIIiiii-uh-pee. Said the lady, I'll beee yer frieeeend... (repeat....repeat....repeat.... repeat....repeat....repeat). He sang it until Chris and I attacked him.

That has nothing to do with the rest of this post.

Okay, so some time at the end of last semester, I agreed to go on a trip to New Orleans to work on houses from Hurricane Katrina. I agreed and then quietly waited to see if the trip would actually materialize. Even though the first time we met as a group was three days before we were to leave, everything came together really well. I bought a sleeping bag, expendable clothing from Goodwill (a DARE t-shirt!), and wrecking gear - which included a "Wrecking Bar", safety goggles, leather work gloves, and a scarf with skulls on it.

I love my wrecking bar. It's like a crowbar on steroids.

Friday afternoon, we loaded up several different cars
and headed over to Mississippi. It felt a little like a youth group trip, and I felt younger. I even spent a few minutes gazing out the window and wondering about where my life was headed. (New Orleans was the only answer I came up with.) The group from my church had a few upperclassmen, but mostly first year students that could have easily been my students. I tried not to play that part of things up in conversation too much.

When we got there late-ish on Friday night, a group of conservative Mennonite youth were playing volleyball and someone broke out an accordian. I spent the whole weekend trying to correct myths about the Mennonites and Amish. The camp where we stayed had been built by Mennonite Disaster Service. The camp at Pass Christian, Mississippi was beyond beautiful. Live Oak trees on the Gulf Coast.

Early Saturday morning, we all had breakfast and split into our respective workgroups. I decided to hop in the car with people I had only briefly met. We had a great time! On the way there, we were listening to music that was popular when I was in high school and they were in elementary school!!! We got lost in New Orleans, only to be rejected by the very confused owner of the house who, I assume, had been waiting for a very long time for help and wasn't really expecting it anymore when it finally came. It made me sick to think about how much people must have been using the storm to try to rip people off, and now they were distrustful. After unsuccessful attempts to go talk to her, we left to join the other group working on a 4-story/level house across town.

Because the house hadn't been touched since Hurricane Katrina, we had to wear safety gear to go anywhere near it. I was really impressed with how hard everyone worked. All day long, we hauled, ripped, crushed, and piled the debris. By the end of the day, we had all of the rooms stripped and only two hadn't been completely cleared out. I'll admit, I lost a little steam about halfway through the day when I found out that the house was actually on the market. It felt much better to think that we might be actually helping people get back into their own house. I decided that it didn't matter - we were there to do a job, and we needed to do it well. Either way, it meant one step closer to the community being revitalized.

By the way, the two neighborhoods we visited were mostly vacant. The first neighborhood where we were rejected, was not nearly as nice as the second neighborhood. Realizing that it took thirty of us an entire day to clean out one house made it seem like New Orleans would never be rebuilt. There is still so much to do, and it felt helpless. As a country, I think we're all still feeling helpless, but we've also moved on and forgotten about how different it is. If I lived in some parts of New Orleans today, I would think that watching television would either be a huge addiction or the most depressing thing in the world. The "reality" of American life showed on tv is so disparate from what it looks like in these untouched areas.

People came by to talk to us and to thank us all day. The guy across the street (with the weird angels hanging from his front porch) told us about how he and his family had to be airlifted off of the roof of their house. One guy out walking his dog told us about how he was really discouraged and depressed and trying to clean out his house when a work group came by and helped him get the whole thing done in a day. He talked about how much that helped him.

By that evening, we were a good kind of exhausted. We gathered around an even bigger fire on the beach that night. I think I was in bed by 11pm?

The trip wasn't anything super-eventful. I had a great time, and it's back to life as usual. Well...as "normal" as life can get when you own a super-duper wrecking bar!




PICTURES:
1) my wrecking bar
2) the first house that we didn't clean
3) the view from the camp, looking to the beach
4) the santa I appointed as the guardian of the trash pile
5) the trash pile at the four story/level house
6) one of the creepy angels that guarded the house across the street
7) It's true - you can't beat Wagner's meat! (When we were lost, we turned around at this convenience store.)

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Girl, Set Yourself Free

Yesterday, I called my grandmother to wish her a happy 80th birthday, and it turned into a long, funny discussion while I wandered aimlessly around Publix in search of dinner. As always, it involved my grandparents asking if there was "anyone special" in my life. I told them there are many very special people in my life.

Finally, I told them that no, there wasn't anyone "special" in the way they meant it.

They told me that every day, they pray that God would continue preparing that special someone for me. They also reminded me about Great Aunt Bertha who "made a life for herself" as a world traveler and missionary yet was never married and was perfectly happy.

Later in the conversation, after Grandma told me about meeting John Dillinger when she was a young Amish girl in Indiana, I lectured Grandpa for letting Grandma fix her own birthday dinner.

"Ach, well, that's alright by me. I'm just happy to have a husband to cook for," she responded.
I came back with, "Yes, Grandma, thanks for rubbing it in my face that I'm still single." We laughed.

Then, today, I was sent this article from The New York Times. Apparently, 51% of women are now living without spouses. I have mixed feelings, and I'd love to know your response.

On one hand, it's encouraging to consider one day living in a culture where people aren't made to feel like they are undesirable or defective because they're single.

On the other hand, I'm a little concerned that, for some, being single is considered to be so much more liberating that marriage ends up with a really bad rap. I don't know what it's like to be married, and maybe that's natural, but I have to hope that it isn't. Marriage isn't a magical solution for any kind of loneliness nor is it a requirement for adulthood (that's why we have health insurance, taxes, and mortgages - and I've got two out of three)...but now I'm especially curious about the ways we've perhaps built up a mythology of marriage that leaves so many people empty and lost? And I have to think that marriage isn't the only culprit in this little identity-theft (or voluntary-surrendering) scheme; what about careers or other overwhelming responsibilities?

I'm sure that a good marriage teaches you to be more selfless, and this article seems to outline certain selfish pleasures that these women especially enjoy...is selfishness a prerequisite for our understanding of pleasure, then? No, that just cannot be right. Have we confused basic self-care (education, exercise, good food) with selfishness??

I especially like the last line of the article.

Once you go through something you think will kill you and it doesn’t,”
she said, “every day is like a present.”


Que Verdad.

(This is on the heels of watching The Last Kiss last night. I was sobbing and disillusioned for 4/5 of the movie. The last few scenes almost saved the movie for me, but they just made Mims mad.)

I'm sick of thinking about the marriage stuff for now, so this will be my last post on that matter. Just got inspired. Yesterday, I spent five hours straight working on my thesis. Tonight, I'll finally make it to the gym.

Life's good. I got no complaints.*

*Except for the frustrating people of the world - but we won't talk about that on here.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Measure of My Days

Lately, I’ve been noticing that I spend most of my time doing things that don’t really matter. The things I want to do, I don’t do. The things I don’t want to do, I do. (Thank you, The Apostle Paul.) A very wise friend of mine once said that if you don’t do the small things now when time is tight– such as making time for relationships and reading and rest – then you never will. There will always be something more pressing. Another wise friend has been explaining how connected every aspect of our lives are – my inadequacies in one area can affect my relationships or performance in another area.

I’ve been doing a lot of mulling in the new year…

[Cue Baz “Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen”?...

record scrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaatch]

Maybe not.

I have decided to stop discussing my romantic relationships on this thing – unless something significant happens. We’ll see how long I hold out. If I can help it, I don’t want to hurt people.

I’ve also spent way too much time working. I had an especially stressful week right before Christmas. I was working myself gloomy. I bought an elf hat with ears to help get me in the Christmas mood, but it didn’t work. I felt overwhelmed and tired. When I was volunteered to edit 100 pages of a colleague’s dissertation (on psychometrics) the same week I had to proof and electronically edit two manuals by myself, I reached a breaking point. I was working too much, and I had nothing to show for it.

This semester, I’m doing things a little smarter. I cut back my hours at work, signed up for some empty hours at school (to get Sallie Mae off of my back, and to get student insurance). I put most of my Ph.D. applications in the mail this afternoon. When I met with one of my professors, he asked where I went last semester. I was here. I was here, and no one saw me because I hid.

No mas!

By the way, can you tell how much older and wiser I am now? Or, at least, older. I aged over the break – had my 26th on the 26th. I’m almost 30. I spent quality time with the family and listened to the pitterpatter of little feet – namely, David and Casey’s cats Dan and Ann. I also discovered Taco Boy with Edie, did some good catching-up with my high school friends. I ate. It was largely uneventful, but I was surprised with a big, beautiful digital SLR camera for Christmas/birthday. It was useful when I packed up my bags a few days later and rode into the Texas sunset to watch my good friend Heather get married. I love Texas. It’s the Southiest of the South – warts and all.

I hid behind my camera most of the weekend, and I vacillated between feeling beautiful and connected to the people around me, to feeling awkward and unwanted. I think the latter comes mostly from a feeling I don’t want to have – that I hate myself for even having. And even after I returned to Tallahassee, to my lovely roommate and to several refreshing days with my Laurie, the feeling persisted...

I think it’s probably normal right now, but when all of your ex-boyfriends (and a few almost-boyfriends or small crushes) are engaged or married, when your youngest brother’s friends are all getting married…it can make you start to ask some painful questions.

I know the advice. And I don’t want to be the girl who wants to get married. (That girl gets on my nerves!) Besides that, weddings make me tired. Dysfunctional marriages make me tired.

I keep telling myself that this is liberating. Every direction I thought my life was going to go – it isn’t. I get to rethink everything. But I still mourn a little, pay my proper respects, to the life I maybe secretly was hoping I would have.

When I start feeling this way, I like to stretch out wide so I take up most of my bed. Then, I put my arms behind my head and think about sleep. I don’t want to miss out on having a bed that’s just for me. (…because you know how crowded a bed can get once you get too many cats!)

***
In other news, if you have been waiting anxiously on an update on the packaging video I was agonizing over for work – the one where I wanted to have the F-Cat with the moving arm? Well, the wait is over. It’s here! It features a persnickety flamingo and a stern but easily ruffled narrator. (I can hardly take credit for it now. While I got together the chunk of ice, it was another gal at work who carved out the sculpture. I got to put in a joke here or there, but we’re calling it her baby now.) So, please, enjoy the thrilling adventure of packaging test administration materials. (There are a few jokes that make me laugh, but mostly it’s d-r-y. For what it is, it’s decent…)

Enjoy.

And ssssttrreeettccch...

My next update will discuss my trip this weekend to Pass Christian, Mississippi with a group to do (still much-needed) Hurricane Katrina relief. We're gutting houses. I had to buy safety gear. "Safety First!"

(Note: A group of Mennonites built the camp where we're staying. Some kids who went before were talking about how they got to hang out with the Amish, and how it was wedding season, which is like mating season for them, and that all the women just sit around and wait for some guy they barely know to come up and propose, and then they're married! My thought was, "No, that's a small Baptist college - not the Amish!" Ka-chigga!)