I don't think I had even begun to have an idea where I was going,
but wherever it was, that was where I wanted to go.
-Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
I started reading Jayber Crow one year ago, and didn't pick it back up until I decided to make time to read before I fall asleep at night--all of three weeks ago. If it takes 30 days to form a habit, I'm almost there, and Wendell Berry has climbed to the top of the list of people I'd give anything to spend a day with.
J. Crow, or Jayber as he comes to be called, ponders the above thought as he is ploughing through cold floodwater with all of his possessions in a cardboard box. He's been a drifter, a rambler, first running away from things familiar and then returning to find his affections renewed for what he left. His realization in returning, for that's what he was doing as he sloshed with his box, is strangely, hauntingly descriptive of this pattern in my life.
One year ago. One year ago I was probably sitting right here, in the same spot on my couch, staring squinty-eyed down the black hanging shelves that keep a varied multitude of kitcheny things. I remember specifically not liking the uneven distribution of kitcheny things and not being able to change the distribution of kitcheny things because part of the shelves extend over the refrigerator, which is completely impractical space to store things used everyday. I now think the uneven distribution of kitcheny things is just the way I like it.
One year ago. One year ago I had just moved to Asheville, just began nesting in my first house after college. While it is true that I moved into a house, a cabin is a more descriptive word for my house. The Staff Cabin, complete with Johnny Roosevelt the Ancient Buck. I hung curtains, arranged vases, displayed magazines, stocked vases with flowers, and nothing masked the sight of that buck head glaring at me. Tradition held him there and I wasn't about to remove him. And I kind of liked the classy woodsy touch, dressed with twinkly lights (less classy, but whatever. I'm not above it).
One year ago. One year and two weeks, actually. September 24th will become one of those dates for which I'll instantly understand the significance, like February 6th or July 15th or the year 1066. September 24th, the day I started my first real job. Tracing it to the beginning always leaves me a little dumbfounded. When I was 12, I decided I wanted to live in the mountains somewhere, at some point in my life. When I was 14, I decided I wanted to spend six weeks working at camp. When I was 17, I dared to dream that I might work at camp as a "real job" someday. When I was 19, I had a semester of college under my belt and the full-grown desire to work in a nonprofit. That desire was planted after my freshman year of high school when we made and sold 'Felipe's Revolutionary Salsa' to benefit a nonprofit working in sub-Saharan Africa; after that I wanted to make and sell salsa for the rest of my life. When I was 21, I drove home on a break from a school I picked partly to be close to camp and these mountains, realizing that these mountains would would always hold part of home for me. Now I am almost 24, and I can see how unswervingly faithful the Lord has been to bring each of these desires together: I work for a nonprofit in the heart of these blue hills, which is the camp where I did so much growing up. He is the Grand Weaver, artful master of something beautiful.
One year ago. One year ago I didn't know many people outside of campland and didn't know how I would meet them. In a few weeks, one year ago I would meet several of the people whom I now call close friends. In fact, I get to live with two of them in a house that is not the Staff Cabin and is in the middle of town. I am happy, so happy, for community in that way.
Life now looks really different from what I imagined it would look like a year ago. I don't know what exactly it is I wanted a year ago, but I wanted to get there. Like Jayber, I wanted to find a home for the restlessness that has characterized my teens and early twenties. I wanted security. This is ironic for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the incredibly consistent threads I can now see woven together. Consistency is not the opposite of restlessness, but it definitely isn't a synonym.
I don't know what exactly it is that I want now, but I have a better idea. Most days, anyway. I know that I want to get there, wherever 'there' is. In a year (and some), I've let go of dreams, found some new ones, walked through seasons of incredible happiness and am coming through the seemingly unbearable grief of the all-at-once kind of loss. It has not been a smooth road. Some days are sunny and I feel light and free. Some days I wake up feeling that kind of "steel magnolia" frailty, the kind that Sally Field so perfectly captured in the movie of the almost-same name. You bend until you feel you might break, and find that you are not breakable.
It is not the way I thought the first year (and some) of my independent twenties should be. But is is, and I think it is a huge mistake to wish that it were not. I have been running from what is in order to arrive at I think should be. I do not want to waste anymore of this beautiful journey in the lane of "if only". I would rather be sloshing through the floodwaters, drawn back home to the only place of security proven trustworthy. The threads are scattered now, but I trust I will one day see the beauty of the piece.
Life now looks really different from what I imagined it would look like a year ago. I don't know what exactly it is I wanted a year ago, but I wanted to get there. Like Jayber, I wanted to find a home for the restlessness that has characterized my teens and early twenties. I wanted security. This is ironic for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the incredibly consistent threads I can now see woven together. Consistency is not the opposite of restlessness, but it definitely isn't a synonym.
I don't know what exactly it is that I want now, but I have a better idea. Most days, anyway. I know that I want to get there, wherever 'there' is. In a year (and some), I've let go of dreams, found some new ones, walked through seasons of incredible happiness and am coming through the seemingly unbearable grief of the all-at-once kind of loss. It has not been a smooth road. Some days are sunny and I feel light and free. Some days I wake up feeling that kind of "steel magnolia" frailty, the kind that Sally Field so perfectly captured in the movie of the almost-same name. You bend until you feel you might break, and find that you are not breakable.
It is not the way I thought the first year (and some) of my independent twenties should be. But is is, and I think it is a huge mistake to wish that it were not. I have been running from what is in order to arrive at I think should be. I do not want to waste anymore of this beautiful journey in the lane of "if only". I would rather be sloshing through the floodwaters, drawn back home to the only place of security proven trustworthy. The threads are scattered now, but I trust I will one day see the beauty of the piece.
