How a Flight Over a Particular Desert Four Years Ago Changed My Life: An Unfinished Love Story

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes...and ships...and sealing wax...
Of cabbages...and kings..."

This quote from Lewis Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter has always made me very happy, though I seldom chance to remember the words correctly. I do know this quote is correct, however, because I looked it up just now. It's not terribly relevant, but then, when is Lewis Carroll ever relevant to anything?

I suppose the relevance lies in the fact that it is now time to talk about the journey I'm about to embark upon. A journey that a part of me, deep down, has been waiting to make for four or five years now. To this place:
At least, somewhere near this place, if my calculations by the vague airliner's map were correct. I took this rather prophetic picture on the flight to India several summers ago, while we were flying over some of the "Stan" countries. There was a lot of desert, and then there came this.

Something happened to me on that flight. This area of the world had already been on my mind, but when we flew over it for real, my chest got tight and I cried a little, and something like love that I really didn't understand welled up inside me. It was just the jet-lagged emotion of a seventeen-year-old, maybe, like some kind of crush, but it's stuck with me these past four years, so much so that I've now taken the physical steps to make it real.

But maybe my journal explains it best. I chronicled like mad at that time in my life, and I'm not sure what use it is to me now to know what I puked up the morning we left Yavatmal. Or how many hours I slept on the top bunk on the train ride to Delhi, but I still have those three journals. This is what I wrote impulsively as we flew over an expanse of desert. I lost track of the countries exactly, but like I said, they were "Stan" countries.

"We are over the desert. My heart is crying out! It is Samarkand and Tashkent and Kabul and Dushanbe. Around Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and nearing Afghanistan and Pakistan and then India...But my love is poured out on the desert.

And then there were those barren, creased mountains that met a green, tan, brown quilt-blocked place, an inhabited place. There were cities, orderly cities from this view, in lines and rows and curves of lines and rows and roads. It was a valley, because there were more mountains on the other side.

Out the plane window I could see both mountain ranges with the valley looking like a paved, cobbled road stretching out into the dim, distant horizon, over the rim of the world.

It is beautiful. So beautiful. That kept going over and over and over in my mind. Beautiful to me in its barren way. The man sitting in front of me said that this part of Asia is "the stage of history, the heart of the world." And the world's heart is dry and thirsty.

And on the way home, flying out of El Paso:

"Staring off into the flat earth curving away to the horizon haze, I'm filled with love. I remember what the rest of the world looks like. I remember that desert and I will go back one day. I don't know what that means for my life...for now I'm awed and somewhat surprised. As we took off over El Paso it just flooded back to me from our first flight..."

And so, in less than two weeks, I'll be on a flight over the same patch of beautiful barrenness I first saw four years ago. Only this time I'll be landing. The grandparents are on their knees more than they've ever been before, bless their courageous trembling hearts, and the looks I'm getting from the people I tell about my trip are...different.

(In line for passport photos:

Lady: So, are you going on a cruise?
Me: No, actually, I'm going to Afghanistan.
Lady: Smile vanishes, blankness spreads over the face.
Me: Um, well I won't be in the south...)

Nothing comes out of the TV but bad news, so it's no wonder that people are worried. I understand that things can happen, and do happen, but it's too bad more people don't get to hear the hope stories. I guess that's what I'm after.

Dis-Orientation, or My Dizzying but Blissful Day at Berea Transfer Student Orientation

I really need to go to be because it's really 10:30 here. But my computer and my body both say it's only 9:30 even if it has been a very long day. So I'll blog anyway.

It came at last. Berea orientation. I'm not sure I was terribly oriented by the end of the day; actually I was a little dizzy with all the information and activity. But when I crossed the sunny parking lot behind Presser Hall and found my Dad and little brother again, I was happy because the day had been a success. And because now we could go eat pizza at Papalenos.

This morning I was a little nervous about the whole thing, which was demonstrated in the five or ten extra minutes I spent in front of the hotel mirror, fiddling with my bobby pins. "Come on, Cass," Ethan urged, heading out the door on his way to breakfast. He and Dad were, of course, ready to eat and not concerned about their hair at all. "Just give me a minute," I said. "Girls always want their hair to look perfect when they go somewhere new." In fact, this is the part where you say, "Wow, Cass, you look super amazing today." And then I feel better. And then we get our waffles and orange juice sooner.

Soon I forget about my hair, finding myself in a little knot of 8:30 in the morning-ish looking people in Presser Hall, with a blue folder, thinking it's too bad that the raspberry danish I just plucked from a platter is going to be entirely wasted. There is no way I can eat at this moment. My goal today is to greet people, meet people, and generally be sociable if it kills me. I notice that the lady I didn't have the gumption to talk to at the hotel continental breakfast (where they had the waffles) is in the corner with a girl my age who must be her daughter. We start talking, and by the end of the day we're both in Appalachian Lit. Then I talk to a few more people. And they are so nice. People are just cheerful here. I like it.

We got a lot of info in a short time. Most of it hasn't sunk in yet. I just pinned down the important bits like when we have to pay for things and what classes I'm taking. I aimed to branch out in my classes, explore Berea's unique offerings.

So I started out with Writing/Critical Thinking, Scientific Knowledge and Inquiry, Human Rights/International Law, Fundamentals of Drawing, and Outdoor Adventure Activites I. But because of schedule and classes filling up, I had to change the last three to Approaches to Ethics, Appalachian Lit., and a basic health class.

I'm so excited about being in a place where they like to learn that, where, where basics are concerned, I'll be happy with pretty much any class I get. If I managed to enjoy college algebra last semester, I figure I can learn something from anything.

I was even going to take Middle Eastern Dance instead of Outdoor Ad. Activities, except that was the wrong time, too. I mean, the worst thing that could happen is that I'd fail, right? Note on transcript next to the gigantic red F: She couldn't move her hips. At all.

Moving right along...I had very pleasant talks with a few folks in the Study Abroad and International Student offices, and then visited the campus job fair downstairs, which was close to closing up but still miraculously had three 10 hr. per week job openings for working with the international center on campus.

That's exactly what I hoped to do when I heard about Berea's labor program, but also when I heard about Berea's labor program, I thought I'd start out doing something more like mopping, which, don't get me wrong, is a noble pursuit in itself, but to tell the truth, I'm pretty experienced in that line of work and I'd love to try my hand at something else. So I applied and...it might just happen!

Wow. The idea of having work and school in the same place is amazing. No car necessary (or allowed, the first year). They actually have these things called sidewalks here, little paved pathways beside the road...they're ingenious. You people from Longview should come check it out; I know you've never seen the likes of this before. Well, not ones that actually go somewhere.

Nah, there are certain things I love about my hometown, but absence of sidewalks and destinations you can reach by sidewalks are not some of them.

So really, I've supplied the juiciest details now and really (I'm starting to use more reallies because I'm really getting really tired and at this point that's really all that really comes to mind. Really.) Umm, Yep, I'll go to bed now...now that you have the story of my orientation at Berea.

You Can Play This at My Funeral...

I must, I must keep blogging. Life has gotten busy, but I don't want to abandon the blog.

I'm in Berea! I love Berea. This cozy Kentucky town is just right for me. It's just as charming in the green summertime as it was in a snow-dusted January. The rolling green farmlands on the trip here were a soothing treat.

Tomorrow is Berea College orientation for transfer students, and I'm both nervous and excited. Mostly excited. It's just, no matter how much I like the town and the school, the thought of starting over where I don't know a soul is a little...oh, daunting. But thrilling too. As you can see, my emotions are mixed.

But no matter what I feel, I want a challenge. And here it is. An adventure, if you will. I hope to meet lots of people tomorrow. Talk with them. Laugh with them. Get comfortable with them, even a little. Maybe I'll find a roommate. Maybe she's right here at this hotel and we'll meet suddenly at the continental breakfast in the morning, in line by the waffle machine.

I honestly have no idea what I want in a roommate. When I think through it, I vacillate wildly between hoping for someone compatible and like-minded and someone vastly different whom I can learn a lot from. The most important thing, when all is said and done, is agreement about lights out. I think I can adjust to any personality as long as there aren't crazy parties going on in my room at 4 in the morning and I can get some kind of sleep.

I have high hopes about Berea. I want to learn all kinds of mind-boggling things, I want to write, engage in conversations. I want to make friends I can share with, laugh with, pray with. The sense I get about the place is that there will be room for me to grow as a person. And I do need that :)

I can't help thinking of our visit here five months ago when I was hoping so hard I'd get accepted, and so uncertain of the future, and here I am, orientating tomorrow! What will come in these next few years, I wonder? God just blessed me so much. For so long I just never thought I'd find a school I liked that would be possible for me to attend. And here I am.

Today Ethan, Dad and I did two tours at Mammoth Cave, about 120 miles from here. So now I can say I've officially eaten lunch in a cave. A boxed lunch. Complete with apple, cookie, and vegetable soup. The soup was necessary, let me tell you. It was damp and 54 degrees. I was prepared this time, however, after the experience Dad and I had two years ago at the same place.

I believe I've blogged about it before. After an intense downpour that drenched us on the way into the cave, we spent 2 hours in the 54 degree cavern...in dripping shorts and t-shirts. Brr!! But I definitely have vivid memories of that tour.

Today, Ethan enjoyed his first real caving experience (ok, if you call following a five foot wide, artificially lighted, tour guided path a "real" caving experience). "I think I want to live in here." he announced. "You could have a pet bat," I told him. "They're like little chicken nuggets with wings," a little girl in the group said.

On the way from Bowling Green to Berea, we listened to an older Mark Shultz cd that I'd dug up from a dusty cd case. "Running Just to Catch Myself" is a family favorite and we hadn't heard it in a while. It's an upbeat, funny song about a day of rat-race in the corporate world. Ethan approved. "You can play this at my funeral," he told us. "'Cause I don't want ya'll weeping at me." "And pour coffee on me," he added. "But no roses. Only the girls can put roses on me." I'm glad he's getting all this straightened out now.

Gotta love these little moments.

Blackberry cobbler. That's what I smell. That's what I taste, in the back of my mouth, where a seed or two is still stuck between my molars.

I just pulled the cobbler from the oven. My cousin, Kim, and I made it as a reward for the team berry-picking efforts of the day. Dad rounded up the troops, armed with cut-off milk jugs and dressed in jeans to defer the thorns.

Kim is visiting from Tennessee, where there aren't many fire ants. And according to her, no ant bite like the one she got a few days ago while we were decorating for Connor's graduation party. It swelled to about two inches in diameter and got red and itchy, so naturally she was a little apprehensive about more ant encounters.

"It's no big deal," I told her, "All you have to worry about are a few berry briars, cows, snakes, wild hogs, mosquitoes, thistles, and cow pies." "Remind me why I'm doing this again?" she asked.

We reached the aluminum gate, which we had to climb over, and Ethan said, "Ladies go first, but they're not wearing skirts, so I'll just go." And he did. I only wear skirts twice a week or so, but apparently Ethan sees a difference.

The cows didn't appreciate our intrusion to their sunny pasture. In fact, when we made it down to the lower pasture, they silently followed us, creeping in around us with stealth unnerving in a beast of that size.

But then, I've always found cows unnerving, ever since I was old enough to lay awake listening to their far-off mooing at night when the windows of our old mobile home were open. Very freaky for a three year old, let me tell you. I had cow nightmares. But I've probably already shared that before.

But the creeping cows...they eyed us with contempt but did nothing really menacing. Mostly they disliked the dog, I think, who felt it his duty to chase them off if they got too close to his people.

The best berry spot was a patch of little bramble islands, each one full of dewberries (yes, I've been calling them blackberries, because they're so similar, but they're really dewberries. Just sweeter and closer to the ground.) So it was WWII in Japan all over again, with us hopping from one island to the next. That's a horrible thought, actually.

Nearly every "island" was situated around a thistle, which pricked much worse than a berry bramble. And wouldn't you know that the best berries were tucked right under the thistle leaves. I was down on my knees hunting out the berries, attacking almost, getting a sunburn, smooshing berries into the knees of a decent pair of jeans.

I'm very reluctant to go berry picking, because I know this is how it will be. Once I'm in, I can't seem to stop. I'll be the last to go, but probably the last to come home. Except Dad.

Finally, part of the crew headed back with most of the berries and Dad and I explored another pasture. We weren't going to pick anything, just check to see what there was. But there was that one bush...loaded with shiny berries...and we couldn't just let them rot. There was another patch, and another. But we soon we were wandering back home through the pastures, with me a little disoriented and Dad knowing just where we of course, thank goodness. Glad it wasn't just me and the skulking cows.

Kim and I made the cobbler, with berry patterned aprons on and everything. And seeing as there was that bit of extra crust, and a drizzle of berry juice, and a cookie sheet to bake it just to flaky perfection...we've been have a little preview snack before the real cobbler this evening. Hence the berry seeds behind my teeth. Amen.

Stir and Enjoy...My Life

"Just stir and enjoy."

Those are the words I saw this morning on the peanut butter lid as I was making my toast. It's the all natural kind of peanut butter that comes with an inch of oil on top that you need a concrete mixer to mix. When I use it I usually sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar on my toast just to "help the medicine go down."

But when I saw those words, I got tickled and had a little laugh to myself, as I'm prone to doing more and more lately, because I thought of how true the words seem to be for my life. I envision myself as a little pot of pudding and God as Himself, with a spoon. And every time the pudding seems to be settling and thickening up, he sticks His spoon in, stirs, scrapes the goo up off the bottom, takes a good lick, and...smiles.

I, to throw in a very different comparison, feel like a wet cat at the stirring, but the thought that God loves me enough not to let me settle into globby old pudding is really a relief. And I feel His enjoyment of me. I am glad because He is glad.

Stir and enjoy.

So, finals are over and I'm very satisfied with them. I'm done with Kilgore college, presumably forever, since I plan to transfer in the fall to Berea. Today was my first unschool day of the summer, and I spent it running, reading, and housecleaning, in that order.

And I thought a lot. Not about what I was doing, unfortunately. I realized that taste-testing is not the brightest way to find out whether the liquid in a spray bottle is water or not. I was 99% sure it was either peroxide or water, and since Mom sometimes uses peroxide as mouth wash, I knew it wouldn't kill me.

After a hasty thoughtless squirt in the mouth, I remembered the 1% possibility of it being some extremely toxic chemical. But of course it was too late and I'm not dead yet. The strange taste, I decided, must be that of stale peroxide. And with an optimistic laugh I applied it liberally to the sink, the toilet, and the tub, and scrubbed away. Just wait. It'll end up being some kind of liquid super-glue, and tomorrow my mouth will be stuck shut and someone will be stranded on the toilet. Ha.

Today I ran for thirty minutes and came home flaming red, having worked up an admirable sweat and stench. The sweat and stench I was proud of. The redness of face I was not. Too much like embarrassment.

Running is stretching me. Not just my legs, but my mind, my heart, my faith, my will. I began sneaking out of the house to run because I was ashamed to let even my family members see me attempt something I've failed at consistently, mostly in the willpower department. And I didn't want them to see me all red and soaked. And I wanted it to be just between me and God at first. Him stirring the pudding and smiling. Me running. And smiling.

I am half way through a seven week plan which, if all continues to go well and I don't get heat stroke, will have me running a modest three miles in somewhere under a modest 30 minutes and, more importantly, confidently grinning at passersby from an unashamed, crimson-hued face.

For the first time I'm liking running, because it seems to be an allegory of life, that I do over and over. I practice living. Practice fighting the good fight. Practice grinning instead of flinching when people drive by. I know they don't care if I'm red or not; it's me learning not to
care.

That guy who just went by in a black PT Cruiser, he doesn't know my story. And you don't know his, a voice whispers. He has no idea how far I've come or how far I'm going, and I don't know anything about him except that he looks middle-aged-ish and I think he's wearing a black suit. And I will never see him again. Phew.

Stir and enjoy, folks, stir and enjoy.

The Room

There is a place of love
Where not even questions go
Behind the stained-glass window of my heart
Into the sanctuary
World-wisdom hesitates
At the door; turns and leaves,
Silenced by a sight of profound intimacy
Doubt enters, only to incinerate
Paranoia passes into recognition
Of the Expert Lover
Sin is laved from me
By the blood of His own heart
The spinning world outside
Knows nothing of this knowing
I, in turn, am for a moment weaned
From its portfolio of counterfeits
In the place of love
Where not even questions go

I find
That You are no stranger to me
That Your LOVE
Has become my nature
That this PLACE
Has become my portion
That YOU
Have become my desire
That my HEART
Will continue to seek You
All
The days
Of my life
And I will dwell
In the House of the Lord
Forever.

I don't know what to think, because this was supposed to be one poem, but it acts like two. Same thought, two different expressions. It starts in hopeful timidity and explanation and crescendos into confident truth. And maybe I'll leave it this way, because I feel that the movement signifies a sudden change that comes over our lives much as it happened in this poem.

A Little Exuberation

Oh happy day! Math class is finally complete. A complete success. A final completed. A successful completion...Oh I'm happy.

I was the last person to leave the room this morning after two solid hours of math final. My concern toward the end was not so much that I couldn't do the work as that I wouldn't finish in time. But it worked out just right. Just as everything about this class miraculously has, even after long travail. It is so satisfying to stand at the top of the hill and gaze over the long trail winding through forests, valleys and morasses and know that I've finished. And not only finished, but finished well, with a sigh of contentment and not of resignation. I've learned what I came here to learn.

Yes, it's just one class. Please bear with me as I exuberate, if that non-Webster approved word can be allowed. All semester, algebra class has been a picture to me of my race on earth, the perseverence, the trust, the everyday miracles. So it's no wonder that the day of the final would feel like heaven. But lest you think I rely on works to get me through, know that working though algebra has in itself been all God's grace! Through faith I kept trying...but I know God was the one "doing!" Even in math.