Tag: writing

Did you see that girl?

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“Did you see that girl? She’s reading as she walks.” 

It’s a habit of mine as the nights grow longer and the snow disappears. Usually, it goes unnoticed. I walk, absorbed in my pages. Others walk, absorbed in texts and emails.

“Did you see that girl?” The pre-teen girl on the scooter says to her friend, pointing back at me.

And for a second, I’m a teenager again, on the sidelines of the soccer field, subbing out one of the pretty girls who has a boyfriend. “Did you see that girl?” I imagine them saying when they get ice cream later with the other pretty girls.

And then I brush it off because I’m an adult. Besides, my ego says, I’m a girl who’s reading War and Peace. 

I talk with the girl on the couch and the girl over voice messages and the girl in my house and the girl on the hike and I realize how – us girls – we’re all wondering: Did you see me – that girl with the expanding waistline? We’re wondering – did you notice I’ve changed? My forehead is lined. My cheeks are round. My eyes have bags. My hair has grey. Please don’t notice.

But I have been noticing how little we control in this life – and how much we try. Sometimes we talk about our struggle with our skin and loving to live inside it. I say it to her and mostly to myself: “Perhaps this is the most practical way we daily surrender to God?”

And I have been noticing the girls who write beautiful poetry, who cook dinner between babies napping, who play Chopin on the piano, drive the kids to soccer and paint pastoral scenes on blank canvas between loads of laundry. 

“It is a gift to have friends from childhood or university,” we agree as we soak up April sun on the back deck. 

And I think it’s because you get to see those girls across the decades. Filling up with experience and filling out with wisdom. Growing in confidence and gaining the fine lines of her craft. 

You get to see those girls growing all the way to glory. One surrendered day at a time.

Day nineteen of the new year

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Maybe the snow will never melt. It will leave its layers on the street, one week after another, until we can’t get out the front door. 

Maybe we will never be as close as we once were. Have the time we once did.

These are my thoughts in the third week of January, the worst of all weeks.

I HAVE NO FRIENDS, I tell a dear friend. 

I HAVE NO COURAGE, I tell my husband. 

Really I am just forgetful. 

I forget last July, sitting on her front steps long after the stars and the bugs came out – long past our butts going numb against the cement. Reluctant to head inside, to cut a good conversation short. 

I forget that feeling we had waking up in our very first house, that very first Saturday morning. The trip to Home Hardware and the excited discussions about sitting on our patio, cooking hamburgers, unpacking the fine china and serving cocktails to a long line of guests.

But I remember the eight months of house hunting – do I ever – going to listings, making offers, getting outbid. 

I should be studied – the way I forget the good things in the third week of January. 

As if we never had those late nights fishing where he put his hand on my knee and said, “These are the nights we’ll remember.”

But I don’t. Not on day nineteen of the new year. 

I don’t remember I’ve felt this way before, trapped between seasonal depression and hormonal chaos. And the best approach has always been to wait and see. 

Wait and see if the snow melts and the temperature warms and the trees grow green leaves again. Wait and see if we have another late summer night, catching up on the years we haven’t lived close to each other. See if we catch another monster fish – another story to tell our kids someday.

We are people who wait. Wait to see if death will die. Sickness will be a tale we tell about the past. Evil will be outlawed and heaven will be home. 

It feels hard and holy in the third week of January. 

But I will wait and see, with the screen off and the earbuds out. No scrolling to the end. Minute by minute, trusting and hoping that I will taste and see that the Lord is good.

That awkward moment when…

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Are we all just freaks, trying to connect over the latest report on The Weather Network?

Or maybe some of us are more freaky than others?

We’re pumping ourselves up in the bathroom stall at every party, gearing up for some light banter – and hoping it doesn’t show that we might have a touch of social anxiety. 

Sometimes I watch him at social events. He always seems to have something witty to say and I find it fascinating. But I guess he married me because I can bring up the topic of terminal illness while we’re all sipping beer in a hot tub, having a grand old time? It is one of my coolest party tricks.

What was God thinking when He decided to enter into the human experience – attend weddings and go to dinner at other people’s houses – ALL THE TIME? 

Willingly choosing to enter into the misunderstanding of it all.

“Everyone struggles,” he always tells me. 

That’s why we convene on a riverbank in July, sipping beer and eating chips. There’s the person taking the selfie – half of us are not looking. Someone shares something personal and another person interrupts at exactly the wrong time. We are all working through different things in our minds. 

But we come together in misunderstanding. 

I have friends who are twins. One has always been the initiator – inviting people over and planning the big events. The other is the noticer – always aware of people on the fringe and ready to bring them into the conversation.

“I want our house to be a place where people feel they can come anytime,” he says the week after we buy our first place. And I know, he’ll be the initiator. I’ll be the noticer. And both will be necessary. 

I tell her how I’m giving speeches often now – at Toastmasters. I’m hosting events and speaking on panels, even if my hands shake when I hold the microphone. I’m trying, in spite of myself, to be seen.

And to get past my own internal monologue to see others. Enter into misunderstanding. Carry each other’s burdens. Give the clumsy side hug. Offer up a scattered prayer out loud in the parking lot. Really listen and not know what to say. 

And when all else fails, look up from my phone to say hi and talk about the weather.

“If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?” 2 Corinthians 12:17-19

Old boring people potential

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I knew life would never be boring if I married him. It would be filled with many wild ideas I would feel the need to veto. But never boring. 

I knew this early into dating, when we were exploring abandoned buildings and jumping onto moving trains. 

It would be filled with a lot more small talk with strangers and minimal use of the self checkout at the grocery store. 

But never boring. 

Maybe there would be live lobster to cook and that would freak me out. Maybe there would be spontaneous road trips to the Arctic that would give me preemptive nightmares, but there would not be boredom. `

“We have nothing in common,” we often joke. Also: “We make a good team.”

I love to read. He rarely does. He likes to instigate adventure. I like to expand on it. He likes to buy things. I like to save. He likes to chit chat. I like philosophizing. I overthink some things. He overthinks the other things. 

On our two-year anniversary trip, he leans toward me and says, “You just married me to keep life entertaining.” I laugh because it’s partly true.

But I also thought we had old, boring married people potential. The potential for growth. We’d keep the adventure, but cut the drama. Apologize earlier. Forgive easier. 

Sure enough. We’re only two years into marriage, but every Sunday after church, we buy groceries at Costco – those dill pickle salads and a bag of apples. Eggs. Greek yoghurt. Fruit. We are faithful to the weekly list. 

And many nights, after dinner, we go on a 1.82 km walk in the dark. We talk about what houses we like along the edge of the neighbourhood pond – the one on the edge with the big patio. It’s not very exciting at all, but it’s one of my favourite things. 

We still run unplanned half marathons on a Monday and take last minute trips to the Northwest Territories, but we stay home too. We eat the same meals. Watch the same shows. Go to bed at the same time. Assume the best of each other, more often. 

I knew life would never be boring if I married him. But now I know, boring moments make some of the best building blocks. 

“But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs.” 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-11a