It's gone. I sent it.

      I stuffed it all into a big yellow envelope, drove down to the post office and dropped the dang thing in the box. It's out of my hands and into the Lord's. (Well, first the postman's, but then ultimately the Lord's.) 

     What, you may ask? Why, my college application. The thing that makes the college decide whether or not they want to deal with me for the next two years of my life.

     To assist the admissions board with this very daunting decision, I was required to write two essays, one of them on a topic of my choice that holds personal importance. I could have written about farming or playing music or weedwhacking around the mailbox, but I've written about all those things many times before (jk I've never written about weedwhacking, though  maybe I should think about doing it...). I went for something fresh, something that's become a big part of my life in the last year, which is the volunteer fire department. 

 

     The application called for no more than 650 words - I could literally write an entire book about my first seven months in the fire department, but we'll save that for later. As it was I had to shave down my essay quite a bit, but I'm sharing the un-edited version here on the blog in case it's of interest to anyone.

     So what do you think. Will the college folks like this?

Volunteers

By

 Emma Anderson

      Think of every small town in the US that you’ve ever lived in, seen, or driven through. Where I live, some of them don’t have much. A gas station, a drug store, a car repair shop, maybe a stoplight. Some towns just aren’t big on the glitz and glamor. But tell me something. No matter how tiny, rural, and far-removed from any sizable city, what is one thing that every community in the US has to offer?

      That’s right: the volunteer fire department. 

    I have yet to find a town, or village or hamlet or borough or whistle-stop, that does not have a volunteer fire department. 

    Why is this? It is because we need these people, these public servants, no matter who we are or where we live, whether it’s far out in the boondocks or right in the middle of a thriving suburb. The volunteer fire department is an essential part of any community because of the irreplaceable service and dependability they provide to their citizens.

     Though it is an important part of my life now, the fire service is not something I ever thought I would be a part of. Growing up nextdoor to our town fire station, the most I knew about it was that the whistle went off every Tuesday night around 7:30 when they ran the radio check. As I grew older and got to know firefighters from my own and neighboring departments, I began to get a better picture of what the volunteers actually do. It sounded to me like a great adventure. I had never done any kind of service for my community before. At age eighteen, thinking it was time to remedy this lack of community involvement, I submitted an application and was soon voted in. 

     Even though the station is built on land my grandfather used to own, I am the first of my family to join. I was the first new member the department had seen in a long time, and the only girl. I think I scared them as much as they scared me. 

     I soon found out that the volunteer fire department is a unique entity. It is a branch of civil service, sometimes a social club, but mainly a community of ordinary, everyday citizens who are part of something extraordinary. As an emergency service, it’s not always taken seriously, due to the small number of members in most departments and the lack of training that is often seen in a volunteer situation. As a local resource, however, it’s one of the best things we have.

     A fire department encompasses much more than -- and I quote -- “putting the wet stuff on the red stuff.” We give back to the community in many different ways, with EMS services, auto extrication, water rescue, tech rescue, and of course fire rescue. All of these are responsibilities of the fire department; some more than others, depending on your district and your protocols. But the main goal of the volunteer department is a universal one, and that is to provide help when a disaster strikes. 

     Being an emergency responder, whether it be in fire or EMS or both, is about coming to the aid of someone who is in trouble. A fire department has a contract with their town. They provide a service that they are pledged to uphold. If they don't do that, there is a problem.

     My volunteer department is made up of blue-collar working men, retired state troopers, servicemen, and one eager farmgirl. There are firemen with decades of experience and knowledge, and there’s me, who is learning more all the time. We are small, but when we come together we are mighty. Though it has been less than a year since I joined, already I’ve seen time after time my guys go in there and do their thing, bravely and efficiently, where others didn’t have the training or didn’t have the will. Other times, they have taken hours out of their day to help somebody with the most trivial of problems, like pumping out a basement flooded with two feet of water, or getting up at four in the morning to haul a generator down to the corner stoplight that lost power because of a rainstorm.

     Roughly 70% of firefighters in the US are volunteer. Volunteers are on call all the time, every day, any of the year. They do not receive a dollar for it. Not a paycheck, not a pension, not a tax break. It’s a thankless job at times. Other times, the glory we’re awarded is overwhelming.

    There is a common mindset I have noticed in the volunteers from my department. When things go wrong, you deal with them the best you can. Whether it’s a fully engulfed house fire, or a car wreck, or a call at three A.M. for a nosebleed, or just the new girl backing the ambulance into the door of the truck bay*, the volunteers take it in stride. It’s what they’re best at.

     At the end of the day it’s not about the fancy helmets or the lights and sirens. Being a volunteer in the fire department is about being ready to step in when you’re needed. It is one of the most honorable services I can think of, and one I am proud to be a part of.

(*I did actually do this.)

dusk & sounds

      My sister and I drove home the other night at dusk, and my window was down and I could hear the peepers screeching. "It's cold," she said. "I know," I replied, but didn't roll up my window. No way sister. The sound of peepers in the late muggy spring is my favorite sound in the whole world.

    So many sounds. Another one is a diesel engine. Man, I used to hang on the tire swing every night at closing, and Saturday nights we watched the trucks go by on their way to Stateline Speedway and fawned over the jacked-up diesel trucks that would make me roll my eyes now. Booking down the road with that rumbling under your seat, you feel like you're on top of the whole dang world.

    And thunder. Especially at night. When the bedroom windows are open and the curtains blow across the dresser, those curtains Grandma made out of the top sheets from my old bed set. So powerful and frightening that it comforts you all over, like a scolding given in love from a Father you don't have to doubt.

     What about bootfalls on pavement, or a garage door opening late at night telling you that everyone's in, or the Dr. Quinn opening music, or the many voices in a crowd before the concert starts, or oil sizzling in a frying pan, or seagulls in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot, or the crackle of a casette tape. At dusk on a summer day the lake calms down and it's so quiet you can hear it.

     Just feeling grateful for my ears tonight. Among a lot of things.

spring break // 2018

People always say this, but I'm going to say it again because no matter how many times you say something it doesn't make it any less true: 

the Lord's plans are not our plans. His timing is not our timing, and His ways are definitely not our ways. They're higher and they will prevail every.single.freaking.time. And sometimes, in our human perception, they suck.

I've heard this all my life, and I still need to remind myself of it before I get too confident on my own high horse and think I've got control of my every move. The truth is I have zero control, and I'm pretty sure the Lord knows that the best way to drill this reality into my head is to let me experience it up-close and personal.

Nearing the middle of this semester at college, I was feeling done. (Done in this instance means any one of frustrated, exhausted, incapable, or starting to hate all my teachers, not literally finished, because unfortunately this is only my first year.) I was holding out until Easter break, when I could forget it all for a little while, and the sun would come out, and we could wear short sleeves and go places and watch movies and make cookies like I didn't have time to. Mike and I had such wonderful plans for break and all the things we could do. My sister Sadie had been sick for a week, but I was still feeling great, and in my proud head, there was no way I was getting sick.

(You see where this is going, don't you?)

I got sick. My mom got sick. Sadie stayed sick (with me, which was really nice of her.) My dad got sick. Molly came home from school, made it through Easter, went back to school and got sick. (Shocker.) So I spent my whole first week of break in bed, I had no voice to sing Easter morning, and had a nasty cough following me for the rest of my second week. Not what I had planned. At all.

Part of me was like, what the heck? Here it is Easter weekend and my whole family feels like literal crap, when we need to be celebrating the Savior! Part of me was a little mad. But I know how I am, and I know how He speaks to me. I kept thinking, Yes, Lord, I get it. I'm not happy about this but I get it.

It's humbling. That you can still worship the Lord when you do feel like literal crap -- and you should. That you can settle for less than your best, because it's not about your strengths and whatever you're capable of. Cause here's the thing, my friends, and you already know this: we are really, really weak. In fact we're useless, without the Savior in us. When we forget He's there, and edge Him out on what should be His control in us...well, He's in control in the end, and He's going to get that across. It might come on like a cool spring breeze, but more than likely it's going to come on more like a sore throat and a headache.

I didn't get to travel far and wide while I was on break, but I did learn a few things. I'm blown-away grateful for a guy who will come to my house and spoon-feed me when I look like crap just because he wants to, and for a family who can still make me laugh when we're all in the same rocking boat. 

Sara Groves, in her song called This Cup, sings about our "chasm of need" as humans. I love this phrase so much. Do you know what a chasm is? It's defined as a "deep fissure in the earth, rock, or other surface" or  "a profound difference between people, viewpoints, feelings, ect." I'm going to combine those two and call it a "profound fissure between what we need and what we can provide for ourselves." That's where our Savior comes in. That's why He was sent, worked, died, and came back -- because we have such a huuuuuuuge chasm of need that we can never, ever fill or compensate for. But that chasm is erased, and so I can stand in Christ, and run and dance and sing (even when my throat is swollen and I have no voice!) and be lacking in nothing because my spirit is full, and my need is no more.

See? I'm blown away.

Easter never disappoints. This whole past week I've been thinking about it, and slowly getting back my health, and I have gotten to do some of the things I wanted to over break. Nothing has been a mistake, about my silly little disappointments, down to the serious details of my life. I may not have wanted it that way, but I don't know. His ways are not my ways; His ways are far, far above and better.

***************

1.27.18

The land knows you, even when you are lost.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, 

Braiding Sweetgrass

     My sister Molly turned 22 this past Saturday. My mom, my other sister, and a few various relatives of questionable character made the 2+ hour trip to surprise her at college. I was going to go with the evening before, but as events unfolded I ended up making the drive up the next morning by myself. They told Molly I wasn't coming because I was called in to work at the last minute, so it was a surprise when I showed up the next morning, holding a giant pink troll pillow in front of my face at that. (I would have screamed too, had I been on the receiving end of that situation.)

     Heading out in the early morning by myself, heading eastward on I-86, I was reminded of the weeks last Spring when I drove my neighbor to her therapy appointments. She loved my little truck, and raved on and on about how wonderful it was. We would talk the entire hour it took to get there, and the entire hour back, stopping at the gas station on the Indian reservation to fuel up because at the time it was 30 cents cheaper there than at home.

     I thought of that, and then as I drove further into less familiar territory, through one county after another, I thought of the day two years ago when my sister Sadie and I went to visit my cousin where he goes to school. We took some of the very same back roads I was driving then.

     I flipped through local radio stations, caught some of American Pie on one, the tail end of Hotel California on another. I sped through areas where the speed limit wasn't marked. I was giddy with pleasure, because it was a beautiful morning and I was on the road where I wanted to be.

     When you're on the road, you pick up a little piece of every place you pass through. That's why I like to go the back roads rather than the straight, boring Interstate; you see more of the real world that way. Big farms, double-wide trailers, and pristine Amish houses lined the road at intervals. The poorest county in NY state is also the most beautiful. And maybe this is just me, but when I've been someplace, no matter how long ago it was, if I ever pass there again I'll remember. It's weird, almost like a sixth sense. The sense of direction.

     What is it about the land?

     When I was growing up, and still now (well, I guess I'm still growing up, :) I always had an acute awareness of the land. Maybe because I grew up working with it. People want a nice house, nice car, nice clothes. I want all of that too, of course, but I always wanted land. I wanted to see it and explore it and own it. The beautiful thing, too, is that you don't even have to own it; as long as you have feet, or wheels, anyplace you go to becomes yours. At least that's the way I've always felt about it.

     After being at school all week, and working, and trying to prove things to people that I'm not too sure of myself, it was life-giving to get behind the wheel and just go. The places I've been make me feel welcomed with familiar feelings, and the places I see for the first time offer me something I've never had before.

     It's the little things like this I think the Lord gives us when He knows we need to be reminded. :)

******

     The birthday celebration was very nice. I don't have any pictures to show for it because the storage on my phone is completely full, but it involved our first-ever experience with Air B'nB, shopping for a wedding dress (not for my sister) (for me) (JUST KIDDING), and trading keys and driving other people's cars. I didn't get to see my sister nearly enough but I'm still glad I got to see her at all. :) Mercifully they went to Panera Bread the night before I got there.

     Now it's back to the daily grind.... How was your weekend?

~ Emma

Life and describing it

     Charles Lindbergh said, "Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it, but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance." For a few weeks now I've been trying to come up with a way to write something here - the blog post my mother has been asking me for, the one my writer brain, now much underappreciated, has been begging me to let loose. I wanted to describe life, in all its color and all its freezing-cold December glory. But lately, life transcends description, at least any I can come up with and communicate with my fingers. (Oh, how good it feels to type! And not even something expected to be graded by a teacher! Keyboard, have I missed you or have I missed you?!) My little world is a lot less little than it used to be, for a number of reasons. I can't describe it to you. But I can tell you about it, at least in a small part.

***********

     First of all, how was everyone's Christmas? As a retail worker, I'm happy to report that I survived, though it was close; as a new and very green member of my town's fire department, I was part of a scene that made me very sad but also gave me an even greater respect and admiration for the guys in my department, just when I didn't think a greater respect was even possible; as an Anderson girl I tried to be helpful and somehow, even though it was so snowy half of our family couldn't show up, we had ourselves a fine celebration. It was kind of like that one Christmas episode of The Waltons where everyone is somewhere different: Jason and Daddy are cutting a tree out of the church roof, Grandma and Grandpa are stuck in Charlottesville, John-boy and Mary Ellen are rescuing a little girl from a car accident, and nobody knows where anyone else is. In the end my family was all together in our warm little house and I was so, so grateful for them all.

***********

     In other news... The depreciation of my truck is becoming increasingly apparent. For about a month now I've had trouble with the driver side door, getting it shut and keeping it shut, which sounds like not so big of a deal when you think of other possible mishaps like losing a tire or smashing a headlight. Well, last night leaving work, the latch was frozen together and no matter what I tried with it, the door would. not. shut. I figured I could hold it on the way home. A simple plan...except it's no easy feat to hold your door shut, steer the truck, shift the gears, and operate the windshield wipers, all with only two arms. The bottom dropped out of the thermometer, the temperature was so cold, and I may have forgot to mention this but my defroster is under-functioning (translate: doesn't work for crap). By the time I slid into my driveway last night I had decided I need a new truck. By new, I mean, you know, maybe twenty years old instead of thirty.

    While I was defrosting myself on the hearth, I expressed these concerns to my mother and father. "I want another truck!" I whined. Mama tried to talk me down, offering suggestions, but I was so mad I wouldn't be reasoned with. "I can't drive this in the winter anymore! I need a new one!" I bawled.

     I would never, EVER get rid of my Ranger. Until I have a child I think I could never love anything more. But here's the thing. You need a truck you can rely on. You need your every day driver, and then you have your little Ranger, when the sky is clear and the roads are bare and the temperature is balmy. I tried to explain all this.
 
     "You're absolutely right," my dad said, and that was all he said.

     That is the difference between my mother and my father.

*************

     Before this fall, I had never been hunting. My daddy has never hunted. In the summertime he shoots blackbirds when they eat the sweet corn, but besides that he doesn't get into the whole sport of it. However, my guy hunts, and so I figured I'd better go along and see what it was all about. Besides a little pink Mossy Oak ball cap I bought on a whim once when I was trying to be all cute and 'country,' I don't own any camouflage, but he had a coat and a hat that he let me borrow, as well as an orange vest, so I wouldn't be mistaken for a deer and get shot. (I wouldn't have liked that, and I don't think he would have either.) We sat out in the woods for awhile and talked about things that do not relate to deer-hunting in the slightest. We did see one doe on that excursion, and he took a shot at it, but she got away. We named her Agnes and are still looking for her to this day.

     I guess I like hunting, but I like my guy more.

    **************

     A whole year has passed since...well, since I said that the last time. Some people think 2017 was a garbage fire, but I think it was amazing. (If you have a synonym for 'amazing' that is better, please comment and let me know so I can sound more original.) In the future, I hope I can be more diligent in a lot of things, and one of them is writing. Because ohhhh, does this ol' keyboard feel good under my fingers again. :-)

     Happy New Year friends!! Here's to a good one!

    <3 Emma

from me and Henley

Fire and bowling and Friday the 13th

   
     One thing I love about fall is it smells so good.

     By 'it' I mean everything. The air, the soil, the pavement, the trees. Kinda woodsy and smoky...or maybe that's just because I had a fire tonight. I drove the gator down to the barn, in the path of one headlight, loaded the back full of cardboard boxes and miscellaneous pieces of the bunny hutch I tore apart when I was feeling extra angsty, and burned all of it out in the yard underneath the stars, filling the whole neighborhood with smoke right down to the stop sign at the end of the road. (It's good for the environment.)

    I always feel really good when it's all burned down, nothing left but a tiny orange crackle in a pile of coals and ashes. Burning for me has always been a form of therapy, a time to think through life's conundrums, ponder my own failings and abilities, and a chance to smear ashes on my face and feel like Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall.

    Ever just have an off-day? Or an off-couple-of-days?

    It's not necessarily that anything is going wrong; you're just off. Off your game, not killing it like you'd like to be. You drop stuff and forget what you walked into a room for. It started Wednesday, when I forgot Sally's cider and took the wrong exit off the highway. I went to bed thinking, oh well, crap happens but good thing tomorrow won't be a day like this one...then Thursday's not half over when, what do you know, I'm this-close to turning right onto a one-way in town and putting myself, my sister, and my truck in traction. (I forget what else I did that day, but it wasn't good) - then it's Friday, and I neglect to ask about the Honeycrisp apples when I go to pick up a load of produce, which is an elementary mistake that nobody of my caliber should make - or am I really that awesome? Do I have any skills at all? Should anyone trust me? Am I good for anything?!? (And did I really just turn right on red without stopping?)

     ...and on and on.

     Hence the angst, and the tearing apart of the bunny hutch. Sometimes life is just a lot of faded boards and bent nails.

     Needless to say I wasn't feeling too hot about myself. I moaned to my sister a lot, because she knows that's what she's there for. I couldn't figure out why I felt so lousy, except I tend to get like that every once in a while for no obvious reason and it usually goes away. I remembered last year, almost this exact time actually, when I bought my truck and had such an awful hard time learning how to drive it and thought for sure I was the most pathetic person who ever lived. I got over that, so I'd be okay, but I didn't know how many more Jonah days I could take before I did something with actual lasting negative effects. So Sadie and I went to Tractor Supply and that helped, smelling the cedar chips and hearing the country music and making the cute cashier laugh with our sisterly antics.

     I was feeling much better on the drive home, and didn't even think about hitting a deer, and things were looking brighter. Then the real blessing came when we arrived home: while we were gone our mother had taken a phone call, and we had been invited to go bowling. They'd meet us there in a little while. I cried, and Sadie and I, suddenly not hungry for any kind of supper, got in the truck and drove off again into the night.

    See, I really love bowling. It's a long story that started last January in an old-school bowling alley in a little town without a stoplight. I'm freaking terrible at it and I never seem to get any better, but I love bowling. I love my friends more though. And so, bowling with my best people Friday night, there was so much love going on that I stopped being miserable and let go of all the funkiness of the past three days. Even though it was Friday the 13th, for freaking fudge sakes - or maybe because of that - nothing was getting at me.

     I won't tell you my score that night because it was terrible. That's not the point. The point is, if you're having a bad day that turns into two that turns into three, there's a fix. You don't even have to work for it, because the people who love you will see it gets done.

     If you're in the middle of one of those funks right now, you took the wrong exit, or you tried to pay for your groceries with your library card, chin up. It's a beautiful time to be alive. The sky will clear and the sun will come out and shine down on all those gorgeous red and orange trees, and you'll catch a whiff of that smoky-autumn smell and it'll get right down into your soul and you won't be able to help yourself from embracing the hope that's gonna creep in there with it. My advice? Tear out some nails, if you can find them. Go buy yourself something from Tractor Supply, call up your favorite people and see if they want to go bowling. You can deal with whatever junk you've got tomorrow, it'll still be there. Have a bonfire; put on some Eric Church. Thank God for all the things going right, and you'll see just how much room there is between your problems for goodness to fill itself in.

     "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."   // Philippians 4:6-7

     "But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls."     //Hebrews 10:39


    ~Emma

   

same old stomping ground

My mom asked me the question not long ago. "Why don't you blog anymore?"

She was reading it. Some of my other relatives too, while I was gone to Colorado, were reading it, hoping I'd post from there. I honestly don't know who else read the stuff; but Mama, she wanted to know why I wasn't writing anymore.

"I don't have time," was the evasive answer I gave her. The easy way out.

In reality, that's only the tip of the iceberg. A legitimate reason, it's certainly a factor. What is time these days, anyway? Every morning I get up, I put on the same makeup, I get in my truck and go to work or I go to school and then I come home every night dead exhausted, too tired to do anything but laugh at the things my sister says. I haven't written in months, not like I used to. For awhile I thought it was because I got lazy, but no. It was because life got so big all of a sudden it overpowered the words.

     The truth is, I went away to Colorado for five weeks, I came home, and I have more to say than ever before, but I don't quite know the words to use yet.

     Colorado changed me, for sure, but I think what changed me more was coming back home and seeing everything differently. I found out who I am by playing the part of someone I'm not. I found my swag, and it's not flashy or expensive. More like a ballcap and a helping hand. The two best things I ever heard said about me came from two of the people who know me best - my sister, who periodically tells me I'm hilarious, and my crazy cousin, who says I am bold. If I could be known for two things, that's not a bad deal. I want to be bold, and I live to make people laugh.

     Brantley Gilbert says it the way I wish I could, but only he can because he's the boss:

     The ones that need me got me
     The ones that doubt me can't stop me
     Even the ones that said, forget him
     You can bet they ain't forgot me
     Either wanna hit me or hold me
     The ones that hate me don't know me
     And the ones that don't trust anybody trust me
     Yeah, the ones that like me love me.

    Now I'm as settled as I ever was in this valley, my stomping grounds, where the ones that need me got me. And now I ache like crazy to write again. I thank my Lord for one heck of a summer, and for bringing me right back where He wants me.

    It feels so good to be writing from this space again. There will be more stories coming, I promise you! Thanks for sticking around.

     ~Emma

   

the why of it

     I don't know why chocolate chips taste better frozen.
     I don't know why some people make you angry just being around them.
     I don't know why Ryan Bingham is so unbelievably amazing.
     I don't know why I get so set on one thing and then fall apart when it doesn't happen like I wanted.
     I don't know why it's so hard to drive a stick-shift.
     I don't know why my cat has to go outside for three seconds and then come in again.
     I don't know why Amish men are so much more attractive than regular (um how about English) men. (Oh wait I do know why - it's because they work and use their muscles, duh.)
     I don't know why it's so easy to check Instagram first thing in the morning when my Bible's sitting right there.
     I don't know why I always want what I can't have as soon as I can't have it.
     I don't know why the Flicka soundtrack sounds like National Treasure.
     I don't know why some words are considered bad.
     I don't know why my favorite people live so far away.
     I don't know why Texas is so much cooler (I mean hotter) than any other state.
     I don't know why I have clumsy days.
     I don't know why I have mean thoughts sometimes.
     I don't know why some evenings are so beautiful it physically hurts.
     I don't know why Jesus loves me all that much.

     But I know He does.

     I know why He put you and me together.
     I know why He gave us all different gifts.
     I know why He made it take so long for me to realize some things.
     I know why He made some dreams fall through.
     I know why He made twilight.
     I know why He gives us a day of Rest.
     I know why He put us in families.
     I know why He tests us to our limits.
     I know why He gives us another chance when we least expect it.
     I know why He sends judgement.
     I know why He gives grace.

     I don't understand it, but I know why.

     "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace."  - Romans 6:13

     **********

     YOU GUYS you should really go read Romans and listen to Ryan Bingham's music (but not at the same time).

~Emma <3

stop this train.

     The other night I had an urge to look through some of our old pictures. We were little kids, looking for Easter eggs in the old chicken coop that isn't there anymore. We were sitting cross-legged on the floor at Grandma and Grandpa's house playing with the Indian figurines. We were on the haywagon, blowing bubbles in the yard, sleeping in blanket forts with armies of stuffed animals, never realizing we were young and carefree because that was all we'd ever been. Those were the days before we had our drivers' licenses, before we had jobs, before we cared who the president was or what kind of car we were riding in because all we cared about were the popsicles in the freezer and how long we could play outside before our parents dragged us in to get ready to leave.

    Some days it's great. We can drive wherever we want and pay our own way with cold hard cash that we earned ourselves because we're working now. We can do things we only dreamed of doing before.

    But then there are days it's not so great and I'm sad because my grandparents are getting older and time is not kind. I remember when Grandma and us picked blackberries in the tall bushes down by the creek, and she would wear long-sleeved flannel shirts and gloves to keep from getting pricked on the thorns. I thought that was tough as it got, in the middle of burning August. I also remember once, there was an orange that was so rotten even my mom wouldn't eat it, and Grandma put it in her mouth and swallowed it just to show she could. She made a horrible face. I thought that was the ultimate spunk.

    My Grandma, who got married at barely eighteen against her parents' wishes, and walked down the aisle all by herself because her parents wouldn't even attend. My Grandma, who helped her husband run a farm, raised four kids, made clothes, baked pies, and picked blackberries wearing stuffy hot clothes in the middle of the summer.

    She still has spunk, but she doesn't bake pies or pick blackberries anymore. She doesn't do the things she used to. She doesn't have the strength. She does what she can, which isn't much. But she keeps on even when the pain won't seem to go away and there's nothing weak about that.

    We were at their house Sunday afternoon, and she got up and sat with us at the table again. She helped peel apples for applesauce and Grandpa was making jokes like always and I watched them from the kitchen sink where I was washing dishes. For a little while it was the way it used to be. And like always, I didn't want it to end. I wanted to be absolutely sure not to forget it.

     I don't want to forget any of it: eating ice cream out of the container on barefoot summer nights with Sadie, riding bikes on the dirt road in the pitch dark, going to dance class with all the cousins in the big diesel truck. I want to scrap my own selfishness and learn how to love better and do everything I can for all of them while I still can.

    Once again there was a song that came to me when I couldn't find my own words to say what's pounding in my heart:

   
     Once in a while, when it's good
     It'll feel like it should
     When they're all still around
     And you're still safe and sound
     And you don't miss a thing
     Til you cry when you're driving away in the dark,

     Stop this train,
     I wanna get off and go home again
     I can't take the speed it's moving in
     I know I can't
     Cause now I see I'll never stop this train.

     - Lindsay Ell, Stop This Train


     "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understand in unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."      - Isaiah 30:28-31

create

 

      To preface this, I will say that Youtube is a beautiful thing. This afternoon while I was writing a very boring paper for school, listening to one movie theme after another, I realized that my entire homeschooled career would have been 99% less interesting and bearable if it hadn't been for Youtube and its unending musical possibilities. Also, autoplay. You never know what's going to come on next. You discover the most beautiful gems (like this one that's got me walking around with stars in my eyes) (I just want to listen to that song over and over and over).

    Today the music made me think. I write. I don't know why, I just do. I have all my life. I'm really bad at it but once in a while I crank out something really good (I only show the good stuff on this blog, so you all think I'm amazing, but actually...I'm not). I'm terrible and yet I keep trying -- even when I hate it -- even when there doesn't seem to be any point or any reason to keep going.

    So...why do I write? Why do we all have that one thing we love to do that we couldn't live without? I think maybe everyone does, even if they haven't found what it is yet. It's some sort of need to create. Why do we have this crazy urge to make our own form of beauty when everyone else and their second-cousin has already written the book, made the movie, recorded the song, stitched the quilt? It's all there for us to enjoy, but no, that's not enough. We've got to do it ourselves, our own way, and we don't feel complete until we do.

    I believe it's because we are born of a Creator. We are all made in the image of God and we are His beautiful work. He was the first One to create beauty, and He planted that same seed of desire in all of us. Because of Him we have to do this.

    Those are my thoughts. How do you feel about it?

~Emma