Montana Sky

"Ya hafta be real quiet. Make your voice quieter than the stream."
The pink sky glowed overtop us on some warm July evening in Montana. The long wild grass rustled with the breeze. I ran my fingertips over it, spinning circles so quickly that the Bridger mountains and Dad and the irrigation tunnel and the farmhouse were just a blur.
"Settle down, Lissey."
I stopped spinning and fell to the ground in dizziness, but the world kept passing by me from right to left.
"Come, I'll show you how ta do this."
Dad's big steady hands looped fishing line through a lure and hook. "We call it a fisher's knot." He continued to wrap the end of the line around and around until he pushed it through all the loops. "Pull." So I pulled and the knot tightened.
"Dad, are the fish here today?"
"That's what we're going to find out."
"Dad, what's the biggest fish you ever caught?"
"It's the one on our livin' room wall."
"Oh." It seemed he had answers for everything.
I plopped down at the edge of the irrigation tunnel and leaned far over to study the soft ripple of the waters. Dad's cowboy boots shifted from time to time next to me. I stretched my pink boots straight out, studied them for a moment, and let them swing back over the tunnel edge.
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"Why not a bobber?"
"Huh?"
"Why aren't you using a bobber?"
He puffed a cigarette as he spoke. "'Cause you only use a bobber in a lake."
"Oh. Are we gonna eat fish tonight?"
"Maybe."
I slapped at mosquitoes and with a stick dug shapes into the dirt.
Suddenly there was a straining sound on Dad's line. One boot moved back, he gave some slack on the line but reeled quickly just after.
"Did ya hook him?"
"We'll see."
He reeled a small trout to the grassy shore and there it flopped and wiggled.
"You got one! You got one!" I ran to see it. Its little mouth opened and closed, trying to breathe, I thought. Dad maneuvered the hook out of it's throat, and soon I saw blood surround his fingers.
"Are you killing it?"
Dad replaced the hook in his tackle box and the fish in a cooler and fished again.
I stayed there by the cooler a while and watched its little mouth open and close, open and close.
I slapped away a swarm of mosquitoes. "They're infesting me!" and again I moved up the bank to the field and turned in a circle. Dad. Stream. Bridgers. Farm house. Dad. Stream. Bridgers. Farm house. My pink boots pounded the dirt, and my arms flailed again slapping the grass as I turned and turned and turned underneath the fading pink Montana sky.

Three cheers to DeMotte: Wait, what am I saying?

Is it possible that I like where I am in life? This very moment? Whoa, no way. Laurissa and contentment? Whaaaaaat?
Right now on a Saturday I'm somewhere in between washing the sheets, reading a bit of a Sarah Dessen novel (assigned to the Book Club students), vacuuming, and of course writing this blog. In another hour or so I'll go for a weekly walk around the neighborhood.
Living. That's what's going on.
Six or seven months ago, I wrote about all the anxieties and pressures of the post-grad life and how time never ceases to keep going. My next step in life was to find a job teaching English somewhere, though I had little idea of where I wanted to be. The goals were simple: find a place to live, buy used furniture, find a few friends, and join a church.
And now I'm there.
When I wrote that last blog somewhere in May I had been student teaching at a middle school in Sioux Falls. My world had changed since leaving Dordt in December. Friends had been whittled down, unlike the gregarious Dordt that had been my life for four years. They are the kind of friends you carry throughout the rest of your life, Lord willing.
At that point in May, I had found some kind of complete separation from the life my family lived and the life I anticipated living, whether that was good or bad, I'm still not sure. At that point in May I knew I would be graduating college, and what an accomplishment! But then again, so what? People have been graduating from college for hundreds of years now, and I was moving along in the milestones of life. It was another step.
I rented a movie called Post Grad. The girl has potential. She graduates second in her class (which I did not), and she attempts to apply for the perfect job. Needless to say she is turned down (where else would our story be if she hadn't been rejected?) she moves back with her parents ( I love you, Mom and Dad, and thank you for raising me, and for rocking me to sleep at age four, and for brushing my hair, and for teaching me to light a fire in the fireplace, but after being away for so long, it would be difficult to come back) and anyway, the girl meets a random good looking older guy in the community who was dealing with issues of his own, and she becomes a suitcase saleswoman. Yeah. The movie instilled a great deal of fear in me, along with Leah Zuidema's "You should probably get those applications in tomorrow." Suddenly everything I did seemed a day too late, and Facebook told me about my 100+ "friends" whose new statuses (stati?) read "Got a job!" But for me Saturday mornings grew to 9am and 10am and 11am before I'd talk myself out of sleeping the day away. Comical and strangely parallel to the Alexis Bledel character, but thoroughly frightening.
People were moving in so many directions, but there was nothing guaranteed about my future. Just completely unknown. So my sister heard a new life goal each day: "I think I'll move up to Alaska." "This morning I'm going for a 3 mile run." "Japan." "South Korea." "I'm going to quit everything and hoof it across America like Alexander Supertramp" ( 2 points if you know who I'm talking about ). Kudos to Kearsen for putting up with my antics. Those poor-me antics.
My great-grandmother and my grandmother had feared this time. I would soon be graduating. No job, of course, but no summer job? And "Still no boyfriend?" and "Not even a little bit of a one?" For them it was high school, work for a little bit until you found a man to support you and then get married. It was simple. And it was the way the world worked. Maybe they weren't so worried that I didn't have a boyfriend, but rather no leads on life. Where to go? What to do? I am one person with a whole life-time to fill.
I wasn't sure about much, but I had God.
And as shady as my personal devotions life was then, I knew my heart was His. First and foremost. "So do not fear for I am with you, declares the Lord. Do not be dismayed for I am your God..." But I worried all the time. I think God had provided me a strange fascination with things like my family ancestry (my polygamist great-great-grandfather), like literature, like getting together with people to laugh and play games and steal style trends and music and to inspire others, and like the simple "I get it" looks that students give. And so even in a time that seemed so dark, God gave me more than glimmers of hope.
It was a time, a whirlwind rather, of discovering downtown Sioux Falls on a bike, Starbucks, Dunn Bros Coffee, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker, Elizabeth, SF URC, my sister's "We're going to have a baby!" and crying pure joy tears, Grandma, She & Him, boots, flats, bills, pictures, hiking-trip planning, Jessie's phone calls, candles, Betho, Monique e-mails, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Tina's interspersed texts, The Office, my brother-in-law Josh who is beyond words cool, the Nyenhuis family and The Bachelorette and ice cream bars.
It wasn't useless. Rather, it shaped me. A lot.
And then.
I skype interviewed to teach at Covenant Christian High school. And I got the job, and I made plans, and I said goodbye to Sioux Falls and posted on Facebook, "I got a job!"
I moved to DeMotte and hated and loved it in increments during the first semester and wanted to run away a lot. Met Tera, Bekah, Heidi, Bethany, and more.

And now life is here.
The Lord has blessed me.
So I sit here, laundry folded, and I'm two chapters in to the Sarah Dessen novel (I needed some breaks from writing this chunk of a blog), plainly saying that I'm thankful. I don't "need to go to Korea" (well, maybe I do, but not for right now). I don't "need to hoof it across the country" (someday I will but for right now I don't need it). I need DeMotte. I need to plant some roots. (Yikes!)
God is doing his work right here for me.
I hope that he is shaping you, too. Right where you are.

**Sorry for all the "I" and "me" words. That is all.

Frosties

Let it be known that Wendy's Frosties are difficult to eat (drink?) with a straw. After so much struggle and after so many inuendos made, a big question remained: Why does the employee hand out spoons AND straws through the drive through window?

I concluded the reason is because somebody was capable of sucking the Frosty through a straw. Somebody with really strong cheek muscles. Somebody who was practiced and skilled in the art. Somebody who thought the spoon was for wussies.

Tera and I are quite a boring duo. She with her love of things like knitting and Disney Channel and I a fascination with things like crocheting and argyle socks, we can make almost anything boring. Normally we have Bekah, a spitfire click-your-boot-heels-on-the-floor-you're-so-excited kind of girl, to balance this dynamically boring duo. But it was just Tera and I.

What I was thinking as we pulled through the drive-thru at Wendy's was that I was driving and would need to drink the Frosty with a straw. How else do you eat (drink?) one with only one hand and while driving?

Upon sucking the chocolate ice-cream texture Frosty about 30% through the straw, I sat back in exhaustion exclaiming, "It's so difficult!"

"Thaaaat's what she said."

My head snapped over to Tera, who was smiling. And then the inuendo's and Michael Scott-isms came full force.

After all the commotion settled down, Tera said, "I really need to watch The Office." (She has never seen it before.)

Pretty impressive moment for a couple of boring girls.

One last thing: sometimes the best way to eat a Frosty through a straw is to wait a little while for it to melt and then suck, cheek muscle force free. That is what I have learned. And spoons are for wussies.

And also, Tera isn't as boring as she thinks.

And you are?

"I'd say, you have to find what you want and then figure out how you're going to get there."

"Those are two very difficult things."

How Do You Know?

Yes, I watched the flop of a romantic comedy last night with Tera and Bekah.

"I didn't even get half of the movie," said Bekah laughing about the whole bizarre theater experience.

We showed up about ten minutes late, which may have been crucial in order that we understand the movie.

On screen there was a lawyer (or someone) who had lost his job due to his father's scandalous acts (what the father did, we're not sure). So the guy is pretty low in life. But the main character we follow is Lisa, (I think that's her name?) who is a 31-year-old ex-USA softball player trying to figure out which of the two guys she'd rather have, or whether either is right for her. The other guy, her boyfriend, is a super-jock baseball player who throws out dating realm words like "monogamy" and who writes her a deeply felt apology note after she left him the first time: "I went nuts when you left. I broke a lamp" (that part was funny).

Off screen we spotted a couple testing the waters in PDA. They were diagonally to the left, a spot where no one would see them (yep. nope. we saw them). When Reese Witherspoon cried for two minutes with toothpaste all over her lips (I know) the adolescent couple (we determined they were about 16) guaranteed our entertianment. "Oh my! He is really going at it" we whispered to each other. Then fifteen minutes into the movie they were still going, then twenty minutes, then thirty, forty, and so on until the movie was finished. Thank goodness the arm rests move. For their sake. We assumed their story: both their families were home and they couldn't get the privacy they wanted. So they spent $15 (hopefully he paid) to "watch" a movie. There are so many other options. Just saying.

We left the theater laughing. Laughing. Laughing, then when we were on the curb a man in some vehicle yelled at us to stop laughing.

After a rough week in so many ways, it was good to have Bekah and Tera to be ridiculous with.

And maybe it was the character Lisa (?) in the movie. Her great dilemma. What she said about how the girls who just want to be married and to settle down after their softball careers are lying. They don't know what they want.

And this psychiatrist guy tells her to "figure out what she wants, and then work to get there."

Maybe the writer of the movie had a good idea there. "Figure out something." So I may be making goals today and implementing--get ready for it--a plan. That's a big step for me.

Ramona

“She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting, she had to find out what happened next.”
~Beverly Cleary



How much to I love Beverly Cleary? A lot. Because I think she gave me a best friend.

Fifteen years ago I was lying upside-down on a tattered second-hand couch, toes tapping the wall, my hair falling straight to the ground. My reading position. Not only was I in Ramona's world. I was Ramona.

The Ramona books were my first chapter books. "I can read chapter books!" I remember telling Mom over and over. "And next I'm going to read Henry Higgins."

Kearsen who preferred The Boxcar Children and The Babysitter's Club at age 8-12 may have been my inspiration. She read quickly, flipping pages so fast I pretended to keep up with her. Sometimes I would sit opposite her on the couch with one of Dad's western novels--books that were too advanced for me--in my hands, pretending that I loved reading for long periods of time without looking at pictures.

But then I discovered the only other person in all the world who was exactly like me. Ramona Quimby.

The predicaments! I once slept too long one morning, and upon realizing I would be late, I returned to school with the exact same shirt.

"Is that the same shirt you were wearing yesterday?" Whitney asked In my world, Whitney was Susan, hair so curly all a girl like Ramona and I could do was to yank it.

"No!I just have two shirts that are exactly the same. And I love them. A lot. And sometimes I wear them two days in a row, because that's how much I like them," I retaliated.

"Gee whiz, just asking," and Whitney whipped her blond curly hair back around.

And the beautiful Beezus. I mean Kearsen. So confident and sure but worried about her social life. Her hair was shampooed AND conditioned. Mine was short, chopped, and tangled almost in every strand. And she had boyfriends. Many of them. Not at the same time, though, but she did once kiss the TV screen when Casper turned into Devon Sawa. And there were moments of little-sister-mortifies-older-sister-in-front-of-cute-boy.

Like this one:
The doorbell rang, and I had just changed into my pajamas--an oversized T-shirt, one that Dad had bought at a Flying-J restaurant while on the road. It read "Give me all your chocolate, and nobody gets hurt" and a picture of a gun was pointed at whoever read it.

"Somebody get that!" I yelled. The doorbell rang agian. "Fine!" I said, my bare legs flying down the hall. I flung the door open.

It was some tall boy. "Is Kearsen here?" His name was either Nick or Dan, I was never sure. I was struggling to yank down my oversized T-shirt while hiding the lower half of my body behind the door. He glanced at my skinny bear legs and my hands tugging and stretching my shirt.

"Kearsen! It's a boy!"

When Kearsen came to the front door and saw the backside of my pajamas, she ran for the door, closing it half-way and waving at me with her other arm to go away.

Ramona and I truly thought that some things were too important to overlook. Like having friends over.

"Can Megan come over?"

Megan's mom was on the other line. "Is your mother there?"

She wasn't. She was working at the Flying-J and wouldn't be home until 4. "Ummmmm. Yes."

Megan's mother thought for a minute. "May I speak with her?"

"She's taking a nap." Megan's mother continued to ask me when Mom would be awake and other such questions until she said, "Okay. I'll bring Megan over now. I'll talk to your mother when we get there."

Oh no! I thought. Megan and her mother would show up and Mom would be nowhere in sight, and they would know I was a liar!

When they arrived I had thought of a whole story. "Mom is gone, but just for a minute. She went to pick up some milk and eggs and ice cream. The milk and eggs were for dinner, and the ice cream was for Megan, because I told mom how much Megan likes ice cream."

Megan's mother nodded. "Okay, well then have your mother call me as soon as she comes home."
When Mom came home, she called Megan's mom and proceeded to apologize for my overactive imagination and my "unacceptable behavior."
But it was important! I had tried explaining to her. Brandy couldn't play and neither could Carly, and I was all alone.

And Howie was Ryan. Ryan was my first love, but first and foremost a best friend. We walked home together every day, kicking leaves or rocks as we went. "You can come over and we can jump on our trampoline," I told him every day after school.

We used to build woodchip piles and forage for worms.

And I was curious.

I biked to the library and checked out books and shuddered at the creepy downstairs where they placed all the children's books. One time I checked out a book where a little girl and a little boy were best friends. The little girl aways wore a scarf around her neck, and the boy wondered why, but never asked her. Then one day she said, "I'll show you why I wear this scarf," and the little girl untied the scarf and her head fell off! I threw down the book, and ran up the stairs, tripping as I hurried. "Have a nice..." the librarian said after me, but I didn't stop. I pedaled so fast I could hardly contain my breath.
That halloween the third grade class was having a costume party. I tied one simple scarf around my neck, and when asked what it was for, I would not say, but secretly I knew that if I untied it then my head would fall off.

And I was an innovator. "Why are you writing 5's instead of capital Z's?" My teacher asked me.

"Because we replaced Q's with 2's! When lowercase letters turn into uppercase cursive letters, some of them turn into numbers."

I am Ramona. Let that be known.

Thank you, Beverly Clearly giving me a friend who was just like me.

The Beautiful Writing I Read

I've traded hours of filing through used bookstores to the evening hours (that sweep away so quickly)it takes to read my students' papers and general assignments.

But all my mannerisms are the same. I file through, looking at their names, though I probably shouldn't because of the bias that's already in my mind. It's no different, really, than judging a book by its cover, and I believe it is our duty as readers to "judge" that book or that student paper in a positive light. We are doing our research and gathering information on the story/paper, and we are exploring the reasons why the words written are developed as they are. As readers, we not only want the story, we want the context. And as a teacher, I must know my writers.

And most of the time I do not desire a grade be placed. They see themselves on a spectrum with other students, like I'm just hanging them on a clothesline in order of dulls to brights. "You're a C+, Son. You're like a soft greeen. In the middle you go."

So I read these papers and I want to enjoy them, appreciate them, give them the full attention of a good audience, and I can never say enough words to express how I understand brilliance within them that I know is just waiting to burst open.

Instead of throwing out a B, I ought to say, "Your paper right now is the supporting actress of the show. [insert relevant critique to the student's paper]. Make it the lead. Placce our attention on your words, not only on the ideas you present."

I can teacher talk for hours, so I'll stop me here.

What I really wanted to talk about was how God seems to replace all our time spent on one activit with time on another activity. For instance, I used to spend my time at coffee shops and with my nose in a book. Now it's a stack of papers on one side and a pile of text books on the other (for planning).

Or maybe what I really wanted to talk about was how I love reading e-mails from friends and family.

The goings-on of everyday life.

Or maybe it's the Facebook posts. All the little messages sent and wall posts and moments in pictures hanging in the air....

Or maybe it's the Psalm I quickly chose before class began. And as I'm reading, I think, "I've never seen that before," and all I want is for them to care and for us all to stop ourselves in our tracks and humble ourselves for the Lord.

Or maybe it's the Ning where my composition students post their thoughts and ideas in blog-like posts, and as a class we comment and interact with their writing. The poems, unedited, the prose, the raw style.

Altogether, maybe it's the fact that I cannot get away from reading and from paying attention to the world around me. The written word is so beautiful, and I have the utmost respect for it. And maybe I love it so much because with it, God inspired the Word into Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Get to.

"You're fine."

"Oh, Laurissa, you'll be alright."

"Can't you see the Lord's hand here?"


Right. People have said these phrases over and over and over, and they are beginning to fine a way into my heart.

When we say we are not ok, are we just complaining? Well for me, yes. Most of the time. Those little tasks I don't want to do, like vacuum or grade an entire stack of papers.

But, how about I look at it this way: I get to. I get to vacuum a floor that I pay rent for, and I get to grade a stack of papers from 27 unique freshmen.

That's it. That's all I have.

Why don't we start saying, "I get to" rather than, "I have to"?

Riddle me that.