Checking I.D.’s at the door isn’t what I miss about that place though, but it probably contributed to the source of comfort the Dow offered.  Those on campus that didn’t know me from class associated me with the Dow. Many nights while closing at midnight, there were those of us that joked that we ran the place.  I think we just owned a share, but now that I can’t possibly get fired from the job I held for four years, I’ll be open about the fact that I took liberties with my position at the Dow. I never stole so much as a dime, however a group of us used the service rolls as Halloween costumes, I played a fair share of ball during work … sometimes in jeans …  and we had a few late night swims.  One of my favorite people in the world and I also frequently got ready at the Dow after work — we were going out and trying to look good regardless of how late we had to be there.  If we didn’t have time to go home and shower, do our hair, change, eat and take care of other “preparations” ;), we had the locker room.  The Dow also had a never-ending supply of ice; we never had to worry about warm drinks.

That’s not to say the Dow doesn’t harbor it’s fair share of bad memories for me though, but that’s not what I’m craving.

What I’m craving is that sense of a place I belong to that can help fix me.  There were countless nights, I would grab the good ball off the porch, slip on my hoodie, plug my headphones in and slip out the backdoor.  I loved drowning everything in the world out.  I had no interest in talking to anyone, playing with anyone or even any set goals. My soul just needed that respite on the hardwood.  Standing at the top of the key, braid left, braid right, braid left, explosive left and pull.

Do it again.

And again.

Then pick up the speed a bit. There’s a better song on.  You are fine. Things will be fine. Spin to right baseline, drive. Spin to left, drive, get a little backboard.

For an hour. And at this point, you’re the only one there. But that’s fine.  If you go out the backdoor, you’re thirty seconds from home. So you pop a squat, roll the ball towards your belly and just spend a little time thinking everything over and stretching the hammys.

I miss it. I miss it bad. I miss the yellow light. I miss the smell of the gym. I miss the net around the track and the hoop in the southeast corner of the gym. I miss the noise the lights make when the supervisor turns them off. I miss the familiarity of the ball in my hands. On my hip walking home. I miss the confidence.  The best feeling in the world was spandex under Nike hooping shorts that were a little too big. I miss the cutoff shirts with uneven sleeve holes. But mostly I miss the braiding rhythm. From the left, under the right, from the right under the left, from the left under the right.

- Imitation (in reverse) of Brian Arundel’s “Things I’ve Lost”

A driftwood fish for my stone heart

            A white stone shaped like a heart in the Klamdiggity River: near the Sluice Box boating put-in that served as our lunch spot on my first-ever whitewater kayaking experience, in 2009.  A dark-brown-when-wet piece of driftwood that could fit in my pocket the following summer at Opal Creek, Oregon; it had the eyes and mouth of a salmon.  This was my next direction: Keep swimming!  At the same wilderness area, I found a 21-year-old girl who had morphed into an Oregonian: sports bra, wet basketball shorts and Merrell hiking boots that she constantly shed to add another swimming hole to her “been there, touched the bottom” list. I found a white sticker outline of Oregon with a green heart in the middle; I placed it on my lime Nalgene.

A picture of two young children. Both smiling; the blonde sits bareback atop her best (horse) friend Atara, while a round-faced brunette wearing pink stirrup pants and a teal sweater leads her around her grandmother’s barnyard with a blue leadline; she is 13 months and 5 days younger than her older sister that sits aboard the dappled Arabian.

My life thesis: during sophomore year of college in the eyes of a man who stocks shelves at Meijer during a one a.m. trip to view box upon box of food in order to relieve anxiety. I would be good to others. I found truth in the phrase that “everyone carries their own burdens.” I found my 20-year-old self unlocking my 2004 Pontiac Grand Am with tears streaking my face because there is more sadness than in the man at Meijer, and I would never know it. I found I can offer a smile or a thanks, I found that I can help everyone I come in contact with—even if it is only for a moment. I found that by lovingthankingcaringsmiling at others, I helped my own little depressed self unintentionally.

I found that my heartbeat slowed and chest released in prayer and found myself having to find that again and again.  I found the make-believe world of Schoon Chapel; I asked a friend to show me because I needed help. I needed a small altar and Christmas lights. I found a place where others wrote about our troubles on the walls. I found myself on my knees at the front of the room, praying for peace, praying for health, praying for help, mostly praying for help.

I’ve found that basketball has made me a talker. I’ve found that I can “put my head down and take it to the hole” so-to-speak in daily life. I realized this in a trivial instance one morning when I began the trek to sit in the weight room at 6:05 a.m. “Just start hoofing it, Dani.”  I’ve found that my last year of basketball, in which I spent the majority of time working my butt off in practice and letting my butt go numb, literally, taught me about business politics. I found my coach offering me Kleenex after Kleenex at 7 a.m. that March morning that I told him I couldn’t do it anymore. I found a bald man I’d feared and resented for the past six months telling me that I was up for captainship next year, that I was one of the most valuable on the team, and that I was making a poor decision.  The next summer, I found that I didn’t have any regrets.  I’ve found that adults of stature aren’t always right; sometimes only you know what is good for you. I have found that my favorite day of the week is Wednesday night when I show ten fifth-grade boys what I know from eleven years of basketball: hustle and head fakes. I found that I never lost basketball, but I’ll work to make a bunch of nine-year-olds confident through it, instead of letting a game put me in a bad mood.

I found a future in 2011 during an interview with a man named Lars in East Lansing, Michigan.  Two weeks later I found myself in a room with a man in possession of a Ph.D. telling me that he thought Oregon’s Environmental Science, Studies and Policy would be a good “idear” for me.  I found a cold sore on my lip the following Monday: Oregon or my home state?  I find myself asking where I’d rather be on the weekends, what will allow me to live out west in the long run, where can I be free to be the youngest Ph.D. student that shakes the department? For once in my life I find that I can’t go wrong.  Either way, I’m doing what I want—saving the trees. I’ve found a place in Doc Brudvig’s lab where I can do good for this piece of heaven we’ve been set on.  I found my dear mother saying “Excuse my language, but holy fuck Weezie, that’s awesome!” on a cell phone call on my way up to coach my boys a few Saturdays ago.

I can’t define it.
I can’t make my life beautiful, however I can live it in a way in a way in which others might find it beautiful, you dig?
I’m struggling with that.

I see beauty in a song that makes me tap my toes in my chair at work.

Adele’s song “Rolling in the Deep” showed up on my Pandora today while I was writing and I literally found myself chair-dancing. The video is beautiful as well. I find myself wishing I had the ability to dance beautifully in order to show my emotion — you know? It’s amazing … and so personal: your body expressing your voice without a sound.

Enjoy.
LOVE

DLF
Senior Seminar
Journal: Week 8

What fundamental beliefs shape your attitudes, commitments, and actions? What kind of faith helps you make sense of the world? What kind of reason?

I have struggled with the “big questions” up until this point. I have frustrated myself with the constant questioning of the beliefs I hold that I assumed I could articulate. I have broken down with the idea that I may not have a purpose. I have driven myself to the brink of our socially-acceptable level of sanity digesting the ideas of reality and free will. I have failed to understand a unifying definition of truth. I have been a coward to admit these moments because so often our society views them as trademarks of the mentally ill. But, the question remains; How am I going to live this life and why?  I am working on my answer and failing miserably in the process, but, in this single moment, this is what I know…

There is one thing I am sure of in the only reality that I can comprehend; it is simple, but it is important to me. Without it, I would fail to truly live this life in the deepest sense.  Without this idea, I would drift along as a void of who I truly am.  I believe in love.  Go ahead, ask: “You believe love what…? Why do you believe love? What does love do for you? What is love to you?” And, know this: I have no singular response.  However, I will attempt to answer the questions proposed by Doc.  My existence in love shapes my attitudes in ways that I can’t quantify.  Ideally, I avoid hurting anyone at any cost because quite often, that is all I can give and all that they can accept.  How does love shape my commitments? I am committed to no set list of rules; instead, I would rather evaluate every single instance in love. In the reality that I have come to know, all I have are these moments or instances.  I am committed to my family even though they may pin me against one another. Why? Because I can’t fix broken relationships. I can’t fix addiction. I can’t fix guilt trips and mental instability. I can’t fix muttered words of hatred.  I’ve brought myself to the bottom, and forced others to help me, trying to mediate these battles and have come to this conclusion: At my best, all I can do is love.  Alone, I am so incredibly, disgustingly far from faultless, but if I love, I feel as if I have a chance at growing and I have new life. Finally, how does love shape my actions? I was put on this planet as a human. Naturally, I mess up so often. Out of love, I repent.  I beat myself up in attempts to learn, avoid hurting others, and stop thinking about myself.  I deserve nothing.  If I am here, I want to be somebody that builds up, not sucks up energy. I have so far to go and am so weak in my humanness.

The relationship between my faith and reason is another association I have been trying to force together like two identical magnetic forces since early September. I am grateful for the opportunity to question my faith critically; however, I don’t want to live a life of doubt in the only thing I claim to believe. I aim to abide by the phrase “There is no such thing as the spiritual life, there is only life.” This is what I have come to: my ability to reason is a set of tools from which I can make decisions based upon my faith in love.  My reason alone will never fully comprehend this world or the Divine. On the other hand, I can seek to reach the ultimate goal in faith, which in my opinion is growth toward knowing love and the drive to never stop questioning and learning. I can fail in reason. In fact, I do fail in reason, repeatedly, but by faith, I can go at this life hard and seek to understand. I don’t have to be a failure in that way.  In faith, I should want to be small so that others can be bigger and at the same time stop tearing myself down.

And you get to the bottom and the water from your goggle-less eyes is streaked back towards your hair.  Nobody’s at the bottom either, but the lifts are running. You don’t jump on immediately though — you don’t even take your binders off — just rock back and lay in the snow.  It might be a little cloudy, and the night lights are creating a little obstruction, but there are stars up there.  The song finally ends. Rocking back up, taking off your right binder and making your way over to the lift, you hit play again and give it another shot.

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Forgiven – Sanctus Real

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Not much excites me anymore, but during Sunday nights at the Gathering  I am completely at home.  It’s about time I start living every second with that feeling again. Because “there’s no such thing as the spiritual life — there’s just life.”

Going into my senior year, I couldn’t be more happy with the choice I made in choosing my undergrad place.

Why?
Because Hope is Love.  Everything about this place just emanates love.
And you find people who are trying to Live.

Abby and I are leading a small group again this year–I hope it’s great. I think this year’s theme for me (personally) is BIG.

Live large.  The thing about living large is that I think it can be done in a very subtle way…maybe I’ve written about it before. Maybe not in a way that’s easy to understand.

Believers- Be live.

I’m in Evolutionary Biology right now–perhaps the single most controversial class at Hope. And I love that in all of our 20-some different perspectives, we are a) respectful, b) thoughtful, and c) daring in our beliefs. It is wonderful and so unique.  In that instance where our fairly new professor (1 year at Hope under the belt) poses the question about religion and evolution as a fact and I choose Holland’s people over Eugene’s any day. With the banner of “conservative” flung upon us, I’m exposed to the thoughtfulness and open-mindedness of my Hope people on day 1. And no, not everyone talked about their belief in Christ.  Some believed in nothing but fact.  A completely different realm.  Faith and Science are different realms. Exclusion can’t occur.  They can raise questions about one another–but that’s a good thing. :)  Faith without adversity could come back to haunt you.  Faith with adversity though…one can only learn.

<3

Lead a quiet life.
Smile to nobody but yourself. 
Be good to everyone.
Love without asking anything in return.
And don’t let anyone get close enough to think that they owe you anything.

Because they don’t.

And maybe it’s all one big illusion. But maybe not.  You can’t live with either.

—

“Anything won’t do.”

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It’s quick. The shock factor takes away from the fact that you’re moving a single foot at a time.  You’re here, then you’re there.  No parachutes.  No indecision.

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You can sleep on a plane and still make progress. You have to think while you’re driving. Have fun.

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Clean break. None of that dirt left on the fender or leaves in the trunk.

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Lord, I pray and plead that this isn’t a repeat.  The beginning of last fall semester was really hard on me.

“It’s just hard to watch all the seasons…”