old-ness.

I have mentioned here before my appreciation for the process...of...things. I will not go in to great detail there again. 

That to say, for me, it has always applied to aging as well. 

I have a bag from Korea that says, "Life is Journey."

I love this bag for many reasons. I love that it came from a place I grew, through a process, to love. It was purchased on a wonderful day at a wonderful bookstore while in the company a wonderful friend. But the saying itself, I adore. It's indicative of the Korean culture, and blatantly declares a phrase that tells the truth, and tells it in a way that depicts the beautiful absurdity of life...That a few months out the summer of my twenty-fifth year, I found myself in an Asian country teaching English to lovely Korean children, eating things with tentacles, and getting lost on buses with non-English speaking families. It tells this because whomever made the bag left out the article. Life is "a" journey. Each time I read the phrase, I am reminded of the randomness of my experiences, due to the mistaken use of the English language by my Korean friends. 

And I believe it. Life is journey, which is why I so much appreciate the process of aging. It tells everyone you come in contact with that you have lived through more years, and hopefully...if you have done things right, have more stories to tell. 

I was invited to a "girls night" last week by a spunky and sincere friend that I came to know by making her americano most mornings at Starbucks. (Side note: She once asked me if I was Buddist. I laughed that noticeable, out loud laugh.) The gathering was at her house, and its mission was to celebrate being a woman, with other amazing women. I was stoked to get the invitation, and I was both intrigued and excited to see what the evening would bring. I was not disappointed, and it turned out to be even more wonderful that I had anticipated. But something she said, toward the close of the evening, surprised me. She said she was afraid they would be too old for us...

Absolutely not, I thought. I have much to learn, much wisdom to glean, and also, much to relate to, too (regardless of age!).

I found myself in a room of sisters, and siblings, relating to the stories of childhood, and brotherly torture. I listened to tales of teaching and how the scientific minds have trouble thinking artistically, Thanksgiving dish disasters involving apple cider vinegar and green beens, life-long dreams, and sincere disappointments. I did not feel too young or too fat or too skinny or too anything, I think. I felt grateful to be in a room full of women that weren't about pointing out our differences or pegging our insecurities, but just the opposite. I was thankful to be in a room full of women that had lived, had aged, and that were willing to share aspect of this truth about life with me. 

I received an email from my mom last week. She does that a lot. I have decided that she communicates best via web-based articles. Anytime I have a question, concern, problem? She sends me an article that someone else wrote addressing the issues I hold in question. She wants to share with my valuable financial advice? Internet article. Share with me how she feels about me as a daughter? Yep. The article was about the election, and the fact that the mom and the daughter disagreed as to who would make the next best president of the United States of America...It was from MSNBC, and an excerpt is below:

As for moms, when there’s no understanding their daughter’s political views, it's best to remember that raising an independent woman who thinks for herself is a sign of successful parenting, Kaslow says. Granados admits that she strayed from her own parents’ political views as a teenager. Now she’s sandwiched between her mother and her daughter, two Democrats, and she’s proud of her daughter for being so involved in local campaign efforts and for being so excited.

"We've grown really close this year, and it was because we need each other, we respect each other, even though we disagree," says Granados. "My love for her has nothing to do with our differences; we're family and we're always going to be family."

Granados sighs. "Even if she's in Obama gear head to toe."

My mom went on to point out that what she wanted to say wasn't specifically about our political differences, as they aren't that vast, but it was rather about how thankful she is that she and my father raised an independent daughter. I finished the email, cried, and then I started writing this. Because to me, it all goes back to the journey, and the process of aging. She would not have been able to say that to me sincerely a few years ago. Years pass and we make decisions that shape us into, hopefully, a more true version of ourselves. "Life is Journey", and I am getting older, and consequently, becoming a more independent woman...and in the process, growing closer to the woman that gave me life. 

This will make a daughter cry. It will also make me more appreciative (than ever) of the process of aging. 

the very beginnings.

I have not liked this week. I wasn't ready, in my head, for what awaited me. More early mornings than I am used to, less sleep, and less time to do the things I am accustomed to doing during those previous weeks of my life when I had more sleep and more time. 

Had I not been ushered into it by such a life giving weekend, I may have fared even worse...like a blind chicken being thrown into a pack of starving dogs. I don't really know where that came from. 

I have been coveting this time I find myself in since Monday. My work schedule informed me that I did not have to be at work until ten (instead of the normal six am), and I knew I would need these extra morning hours, by myself, to process the brunt of my week...I knew I would drive in my car to get to a table at my new favorite coffee spot in Tulsa, where the sun is currently shining on me through the ten feet tall paneless windows and a cup of Costa Rican coffee sits at my right, reminding me of the occasional bouts of warming comfort it will continue to afford me, in between types and pauses in thought. 

And so now, I will tell you a story, the source of the comfort and thankfulness that brought me into Monday. I tell it because one, she is worth writing about, and two, it's a really beautiful story, and each time I tell it, with excitement and sincerity, no one seems to quite grasp whatever it is that I am trying to get out. And so since I think that usually, I express myself better through written word, maybe I can get out what I have been failing to speak...

I think, too, that this will be an ongoing story. To sit and write it all would take many hours in a row. And so my blog will get the bits and pieces, the rough draft paragraphs, that will eventually become a whole. 

Beaulah Edith Harrell, my great-grandmother. 

We cannot control what we are born into. I think often about how what we are born into changes us, and how much different we would be had our situation been different. The circumstances of her childhood helped craft her into a fighter, though I suspect she had some natural fight in her from birth, before we are thrown into the world where we must consciously take care of ourselves. 

Her life began before our state was a state, when it was still Indian Territory. She was orphaned as a little girl, and raised on a farm in the country by "various stepsisters"...

The amazing thing here: What gives people the courage to step out of their circumstances, the life that they were born into, and make a new life for themselves in a foreign place all alone with nothing really going for them?

She moved to Tulsa as a teen, alone, and found a job as a nanny. Through this family, she met Augustus Clarence, a man whom I never met but genuinely owe everything to. This man, my great-grandfather, somehow - captured the heart of this young woman. I suspect he was attracted to her self-sufficiency, and also, obviously, her beauty. And it is this self-sufficiency, this spunk, this strength, that kept her full of life for over a hundred years, that enabled her to raise a healthy and beautiful family with nothing material, and that compels me, her great-granddaughter, someone that never knew her in her prime, to sit down and try, try, try to capture just a portion of the essence of her story.

choosing and picking.

I stir my brownies with a spoon. 

I knead my bread with my hands. 

I built the shelf in my room, instead of buying one. 

I left the world of mass produced convenience coffee for the world of hand tamping and attentive steaming. 

I cut my butter into my flour mixture with a pastry cutter, no food processor around. 

My favorite pair of earrings were assembled with my hands. 

The most enjoyable part of my collegiate endeavor, in relation to my major, was staining the rectangular pieces of wood that would display the digital designs I spent most hours of my day clicking at. I am currently neglecting my major, the source of all that clicking. 

The part of Korea that I long for most? My long walks home, in which I would be passed a few times over by bus three, the one that could have easily and cheaply taken me home. 

I like knowing the why, the backstory, the because, so that I can be more present.

I enjoy the experience, the process, and don't usually cling to an easier, more convenient way to do things. 

I was asked to bring guacamole to a friends' house for dinner a few nights ago, an hour before the dinner was to begin. I thoroughly enjoy making homemade guacamole. I love mashing the avocados, chopping the cilantro. It brings me great joy to dice the tomatoes into just the right squareness...the squeezing of the lime, the tears from the onion. Since it was an impromptu invitation, and therefore an impromptu request, I had little time to prepare. I went to the grocery store, found the isle with the pre-made stuff they try to pass off as guacamole that includes both avocados and monosodium glutamate, and then I just stood there and stared. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't buy it. I couldn't bring it with me, while completely neglecting the produce section, and then expect to sleep well that night. I found some already mashed avocados for too much money, bought a few fresh myself...some cilantro and tomato, and made my way out to the car. When I arrived at my destination, I borrowed a knife and a fork, and threw it together in a tupperware bowl. My heart felt settled. 

So why, I ask myself, a lover of the process of things, do I try at every possible turn, to distract myself from facing the intangible difficulties?  Why do I want to flee when I think about how I might be wasting my potential? Why am I tempted to work myself to death when I think about the possibility of never attaining meaningful things I truly desire? Why is the solution of escaping the general not-quite-enough moments of life moving to another state? Why do I throw my physical and mental capacities into the scrubbing out of the bathtub on an evening alone at home, in hopes that the bleach I am using on the white ceramic surface will also dissolve away the rock of disappointment that is currently resting in my gut?

These are the questions I am asking myself today, on the sweater worthy, cool and rainy autumn day I have been waiting for. Upon walking into the door of a local coffee establishment in search of a Costa Rican cup of coffee this morning, I was greeted by a beautiful little baby girl, being held gently and attentively by her mother. I sat sipping my cup at a table, looking dazedly out the window, and viewed a wife affectionately grab the butt of her husband as he hugged her, simultaneously unlocking and opening her door. I left the establishment to meet my mother at the house of my one-hundred and three year old great-grandmother, who is currently feeling the physical pain of her long life ending, breathing deeply while the vital organs of her body struggle, with family around and a nurse too, nestled in a hospital bed, in the bedroom of the house that she has lived in for the past fifty years...The house where she loved her husband, who remained the love of her life long after he was gone...Where she raised five kids with little money, but lots of love and humor and wisdom. 

I don't know the answers. I am just gonna try to be present in the process, even when the process involves pain. 

a drive.

Today is one of those gray muggy days that doesn't belong in October. Maybe May. Or the end of June. But it's just a tease when I am here, nearly a month into autumn, waiting for the change. 

At work today, I was in the opposite mood to help people. Kind of ironic, since that's a good portion of my job. But I didn't have it in me. I was looking at people with eyes of something close to disdain as they made their way to the counter. My mind got easily lost in the building of a turkey and swiss panini. The dishes received my full attention, and then some. But people. People were a pain. 

I went on a road trip this past weekend to visit old friends. The trip itself was lovely. Driving there was a bit of a drag, as I left on little sleep and a little too late, which made arriving the best part. Parking in Shaya's driveway was a big portion of the adventure, as the driveway itself could easily be confused with a mountain. The bottom of my faithful little red car was unintentionally scraped clean. The good news is that it was Shaya's birthday. Her twenty-sixth, and it was good to be there on the actual day...er...night. And, to make things about me, her birthday is always a reminder that I, too, will be that age soon. It's a bit sobering. We slept a lot. I took a three and a half hour nap on Friday. I also fell asleep in the middle of one of her stories. This is one of the reasons why we are still friends, the only friend I have kept close, regardless of the distance between us, since high school. I can fall asleep while she is talking to me, and she still likes me. We give each other grace to be, um, human. 

I made the trip from Searcy to Benton, a little community outside of Little Rock, on Saturday morning. Drive two was much better as it was daytime, and one hour as opposed to five, thought thirty minutes into it I got a call from friend #1 notifying me I had left the carrot cake intended for friend #2 in friend #1's refrigerator. I was venturing that way to see Amy, a good friend from college, that is a talented writer, a wife to Kyle, a great source of corny jokes and thoughtfulness, and soon to be, a mother to Owen. We had not spent much time together since college, and it was good to catch up, and good to see, in 3-D, what her life looks like now. 

And outside of the friendliness and catching up and driving around, it was good to just get away. I think that anytime we build roots, whether it be in Seattle or New York or a small town in Iowa, it's ever so easy to get into the rut where possibility is averted, and cast aside, to make room for routine and those things that are most familiar, and often, easiest. Just getting in the car and using directions and the highway system to get me somewhere far away reminds me of the possibilities this life holds. Going to small diners in small towns reminds me that people take risks on investments, and abandoning the mold of 8 to 5 is still done, by all kinds of people people in all kinds of places. 

And in honor of that, I want to say a few words about Frozen Delight, a heck of an establishment somewhere on the outskirts of Searcy Arkansas.  When I asked Shaya if there was anywhere to get ice cream, I had no idea that we were headed for such a wonderful little dive. My first impression was the aroma, a smell from my childhood...of all things fried. The sloping burnt orange booths were topped with the old fashioned plastic ketchup bottles, whose lids look like red witches hats. There were people scattered about, from all sections of life. College students were at the table to our right, and in the booth behind ours sat two couples somewhere near my parents age, enjoying the catfish special. We were there for frozen goodness, and since the ice cream offerings weren't on the wall menu, I walked around a few people in line to get one of the hand-held menus that were, of course, laminated on neon colored paper. I wasn't really thinking of my friends, but rather, of what kind of goodies I wanted in my mix, so I grabbed only one menu, for only me. The tall gray haired man in charge, who was wearing designer jeans and a dingy gray Frozen Delight t-shirt, noticed my carelessness and walked over to us with two other menus, handing them to the friends I had forgotten. In jest, he decided to offer us one of those lovely phrases I don't think I could ever get enough of...he let us know it's something his dad would have said, saying...in reference to my negligence with the menus, "Do those come like dead people? One to a box?". I was already in awe of my experience. This encounter put it over the top. 

Speaking of over the top, they put my ice cream in the cup quite like that. I had to lick the styrofoam sides right as she sat it on the table. I settled for snickers and banana fudge, and it was, most definitely and without question, a frozen delight.

My drive home was more of an evening delight, as I left the area just in time to catch the full spectrum of the sunset, on a breezy fall day, and still make it home before dark. I was into the music, and in my own head, and really, I couldn't think of a better way to spend my evening. I made it home to an old house, with two lovely roommates and all sorts of things to be thankful for. I was especially thankful for the chance to be reminded that we are all different, living in different environments making different choices, and that there isn't a right, a mold, a specific lined out plan to achieve a life of contentment. It's different for all of us, and I went to sleep last night thankful for the choices I have made, and thankful that, despite questions I face, confusions within, and those pesky uncontrollables, contentment abounds. 

four paragraphs+four sentences=all that's there.

It's been a week since I last posted. I have accrued many things to say. 

One, as a human being that has chosen to work in customer service, since I genuinely enjoy helping people, throw your damn trash away. Really, it's yours. You may say to yourself, "I don't need to throw my trash away. It's their job." No, actually it's not. When you pick up a straw, it's yours, not mine. The little paper wrapper that encases your straw to keep it from getting all germy prior to use? That paper wrapper belongs to you as well. The plastic cup that was once filled with a caramel frappuccino? Not mine either. Let me also say that this does not apply to an nice restaurant...or full service diner. But in a coffee shop, whether it be Starbucks or the place on the corner with the really great macchiatos, these places are not full service establishments. Really, all I ask is that, in those moments when you are faced with the option of either throwing your paper cup in one of the sixteen trash cans you pass on your way out or just leaving it on the table, you think about the people behind the counter who are, in fact, people. And remember, as my mother so often told me oh so many times, "Leave things better than how you found them."

Another thing? You may not know this, since it really only applies to me, but this week has officially been deemed "Meredith's Official Tea Week". Or "Tea Week" for short. That's right. This week, each time I am faced with the desire to consume a cup of joe...black magic...liquid caffeine...I am supposed to stop, turn, and make myself a cup-o-tea. I came up with this utterly fantastic idea when rummaging through the many assorted teas we received today at Topeca, the place where I so graciously throw the trash of other people away. Orange spice...darjeeling...black currant...matte...white blossom...these are only a portion of the options I am faced with. And in a moment of honesty, I admitted to myself the fact that, unless I am intentional, I will never make time to give all of these lovely tea options a try. Thus, the coffee fast that will hopefully be the precursor to me, Meredith, tasting the teas. All of them. This week. 

And another thing: This is not meant to be self-deprecating or depressing or anything in that family of negative synonyms. It's something that any haphazard observer of my life would be able to easily deduce. I am, when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex, quite challenged. This is not an easy area for me. I will go further. This area for me is more like a graveyard that has always been. Overgrown, unattended plots and heads stones with etched in dates, reminding one of hope never fulfilled, disappointment prevailing, confusion always, and emptiness, inevitably. I speak plainly about this simply because it is the reality, and I don't ever want to be afraid of what is real, or too scared to face the truth. Upon running into an old friend from any past phase of life, and facing the question, "so, are you dating anyone?" My answer is not only no, but also, actually, I never have. I invited someone to join me for coffee a few weeks ago. This was the first time in my life to have ever done anything remotely close to something that resembles anything like this action. And I say that only to say this: I was experiencing, for the first time at the age of twenty-five, the things that most of my friends were experiencing for the first time when they were ten years my junior.

There have been many emotions associated with this reality throughout the years. Currently, it's confusion. I genuinely just don't get it. I don't understand why it's so difficult for me. Not because I am something amazing, because average people find someone all of the time. Lately, this confusion has made me feel like the contents of my head may cause the bone encasing it to literally EXPLODE. And I realized something today. All of this energy and passion and confusion must be placed somewhere, if I am to keep the head exploding from happening. And so, I am going to try, with intentionality, to put these feelings toward making my life look the way I would like it to with what I have to work with. That's why I run, and also why, at the heart of things, I have labeled this week tea week. Some of that energy will be steered toward drinking, well, more tea. And coming up, some of the passion will be put toward the pursuit of pastry school. In November, I will start my second job that I have taken solely because I want to buy a new bike. And at the end, of the day or the week or the year or even my life, I will be able to say, at least, that I tried. And I will also be able to bake the best cookies EVER, served with a delicious cup of tea.

And now we reach the end of my mellow-dramatic, self-indulgent, trashy post. It's time for some soup.