Beautiful Girlhood

Last night I saw in a roundabout way again that people do grow up.  It takes time, but it happens.  The general consensus of the world is that you don't get to often feel peace when at a middle school dance, but I did feel peaceful last night.  After a full week of seeing students en masse, I got to see them individually.  I chaperoned, which involved collecting money with a student.  We sat together while Justin Bieber's music played in the background and she drank a smoothie and told me about her life. 

A selection of Maui Wowi smoothies,
featured at said dance

This got me excited once again for the trip to D.C. because kids really do share what is real with you and you have all the time in the world for long and winding conversations.  This is a really good time to listen and listen well.  Last night felt like this too.  When in D.C. I will no longer care about their writing skills -  I'll be walking with them down Constitution Avenue!  At the dance, students would come by and stop to tell me their stories and it was a very settling thing to sit back for a while and see what they see. 

Inspiration from 1898

This morning life feels gloomy, and I am working hard to push past it.  When I realized that I had been trying to push past something all week, I took some time to let myself cry.  Still feeling flat, I said it all to God and read Psalm 91.  This is a great promise.  Somehow THAT made me feel like I wanted to listen to the song by Edward Elgar called Nimrod.  (This paragraph sounds a lot like "If You Give a Moose a Muffin").   And that is how I got to this blog.

Though a nimrod is now someone being ridiculous, it also used to be the name of an Old Testament patriarch.  Is that how we get the meaning for the word?  I don't know.  Edward Elgar composed this song to tell the story of a friend who encouraged him at a point when he was low and about to quit writing music. 

Yikes! (Bikes!)...I Just Cut My Hair

Yes, this is true.   As I was doing this, I was thinking to myself, "What are you doing?"  But at the same time, I was thinking, "You're still like this, I see."  Regular old scissors, and this was just an urge I had when I should have just chosen to brush my teeth.  It is half chopped, and half done well.  I think I tried to give myself some layers.  I think I took off an inch.

Rapunzel, Authentic Life, and Flappers

I changed the look of this blog, because the other look didn't look right.   I had done the obvious, and I didn't like it.  Wooden planks?  Bridges?  That's in the title, but the image just wasn't right.  Something unconventional should find its place here....cue Belle's song about the provincial life...and I decided that even though I live and breathe the title Life on the Bridge, I in fact do not have to have a bridge in a background to express a point.

Because this week is very full, I am on a quest for clarity.  I holed up tonight and didn't venture west to Minneapolis and my good friends and Bible study.  I needed to hide away and do something removed from the teacher life.  So I ate popcorn for dinner because I could, and I watched 'Tangled' because I wanted someone to tell me a story. 

My Favorite Switchfoot Song

Now this is a great song.  And it's what is on my mind this morning. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbCv4zvT4bc

P.S.

It seems strange and weird that the last time I wrote something about babies, I didn't include a picture of the MOTHER of the baby....aside from when we all went to Perkins.  Janelle!!!  I was having issues with pictures looking ridiculous, so I took one out.  But it's just plain wrong to not include this very happy picture of Janelle as a new mother.  All of the other mothers are represented.  Janelle was generous enough to let everyone hold her baby whenever they wanted to, but in the end, Ryan is still her baby.

Birthday Cards for Babies

Alyssa, Harper, Katie, Jozef, me

A lot of wonderful people I know were born in April.  I'm finding that, post-2010, this is a sentiment that also rings true for babies.   4 in this week alone!    At this time of the year in 2010, I was having lots of conversations about arrivals. Babies!   

Perkins breakfast! 

Molly and Ryan

We prayed about these babies a lot at Bible study, and this year we are doing this again for Heather and Evan's baby coming soon in August.     


 I have held a LOT of babies in the last year, and I watched my friends become mothers and fathers.  I thought about this tonight when I wrote birthday cards TO these babies.    

Ariane and Ryan


 It's weird to write a birthday card to a baby, but I did it.  I didn't send the card to their parents.  I sent it to the babies.  It's weird because they have no memory of this year, but I sure do. 
 
I thought about their lives a lot when I held them.   So writing the card was really a helpful way for me to remember how they showed up in the world and how happy we are about it.  

Jamie and Ryan

 By the time I was addressing these cards today, I was thinking about how everything feels different compared to what we knew and saw and understood this time last year. 

And despite all of the heartache and confusion I dealt with in that time, these babies were the very nicest thing.  They were buoys of hope in a time when everything felt off kilter.  They helped.  And I still really love that they're here, growing and adding so much to the world.    

   


One of my favorite pictures from 2010!

Who knew mailing birthday cards with caterpillars on them would be so helpful in remembering and piecing together the year? 

        
 


   


 



 

 



Quotes in Pictures that Make Sense to Me

Earlier this year, in the winter I think, I spent time feeling inspired by quotes that people had built into pictures.  I tried to stay away from the rainbows, butterflies, unicorns approach.  You sometimes get that in quotes that inspire people. 

I don't feel that way.  At all. 

If something has depth and width and something beyond in it...that's what I like.  Please read on. 

Every day at school, I put up a quote, and during 3rd quarter I wanted to see what kids would contribute.  I did not anticipate the rainbows, butterflies, and unicorns approach, but that's what I got.  In retrospect, I should have guessed that this is what 13 year old girls finding inspiring.   In the big picture, I love this about them, because it shows me their optimism about the world and that they think most things are very beautiful.  But I will admit that I still twitch a little inside when I have to rifle through this quote box we have and provide a quote for one of my students to write on the board.  This one student I teach has this job, and he loves it.  When he gave me a Christmas present this year, he included a quote on the card that he had thought up on his own.  

And....reason #1,407 why I love 7th grade. 

Birthday Love for my April 15th Friend

I woke up thinking about Arianne Lehn today because it's her birthday.  We have been friends for 5 years, and it was an instant friendship.  I love instant friendships! 


The 'She' book!

What is crazy is that I have an Arianne and an Ariane.  Two different people, two different pronunciations, and two different friendships. 

Another thing that is crazy....the first week of life at Bethel, Ariane and I went to Edgren 3rd floor girls' side to FIND Arianne and her roommate because we heard she lived with a Jessica.  WE thought it was so funny, but surprise - our Ariane and Jessica delivery was not very polished.  Arianne, as usual, was gracious.  Her roommate was really not.

Morning!

Morning living in the spring is one of my favorite times in the entire year.  I love living at the top of a building the sits on the top of a hill in a very hillly Stillwater.  The sunrise is great.  So is my coffee. 


I just finished writing grading comments this morning (the younger procrastinator in me lives on, despite the structured life of Miss Christians at school) and even though I woke up VERY early to get this done, I have loved my time of solitude.  Middle school in the spring is also very FRESH - new love in the hallways (that's why we have hall duty), FRESH attitudes (yay, 8th grade - last week a kid begged me not to give him detention - yeah right), and FRESH ideas about life.  Close friends have heard me talk about the unique stress of this year.  They've heard my snarky Jessica ramblings, and they've been gracious. 


I am choosing gratitude in this new season of spring, and it's really shocking and comforting and beautiful to stop and look around and see what gratitude does to the inside of you.  Jenna was actually the one to put it in front of me again.  She did it in a very gentle way, in a very inspiring e-mail.  It was hands down, the best e-mail I have received so far in 2011.  It was full of Jenna perspective and a 'Hey, catch this, do something about your perspective' kind of an e-mail.  She said it in the best possible way.  Thank you, little sister.  You're one of my favorite people in the entire world AND we happen to be sisters.


So, I told God I wanted to be more grateful about the things He's given me.  And I began to see God again.   

Gratitude for Cold Tangerines

I'm listening to the song called "You're Here" by Francesca Battistelli right now, even though it's a song about Christmas.  The whole Emmanual, God with us promise is appreciated and necessary to think about again tonight too. 


One of the best books I've ever read is called Cold Tangerines.  It's on my mind tonight because the things she says in the book are ricocheting all over inside of me.  I am feeling the truth in the stories. 

Something New

It feels like a nice time to do something new. 

I've always been very aware of books and writers and words.  How people develop stories and what stays with people when they read something good.  I think it's crazy that when you walk into a library and open a good book, you hear something conjured up by another soul in a different time in history.  It's there waiting for you.  

One time in high school a classmate I barely knew told me that the only thing he really remembered about me from middle school was that when we were in the library and I found a book I was looking for, I was so happy that I hugged it.  WHAT?  I now care way less about that than I did in high school, but the story is still true.  Chris Irwin really did see me hugging a book.  And it was the late 90s middle school version of Jessica.  That image definitely includes bangs and tapered leg mom jeans.  Even better.