Clear path

Summer is in the air. I can feel it, as I scramble trying to prepare for next year, next week, tomorrow. This is the first summer in San Francisco when I will have time to breathe, paint, play, prepare. I won't have to look for jobs or peruse the Wall Street Journal or find a new apartment on Craig's List. I won't have to be in an empty school in the middle of a foggy downtown block, trying to make the French words ooze from my mouth as artistically as I want them to. I will be able to spend time with kids, create, travel, serve, and enjoy life before I start school in the fall. Assuming that I figure out how I'm going to make it all work out before then.

Talking to my friend, roommate, and recent care-giver! Rachael today, I realized that I wish there was a clear, defined path. That God would just say to me, "Here, Meg, this is the reason why you are in San Francisco" or in your job, or with this person at this moment. I tend to overanalyze everything, trying to fit together the puzzle pieces myself so that I can unravel the enigma before He reveals it to me.

I had a moment during yoga today when I was trying to visualize a Buddha smile, or happiness. These moments are hard for me, because while happiness is tangible, I don't feel like I can make it so if it isn't really there. I have a hard time visualizing when I was happy, I would rather feel it in the moment and be so full of joy that I'm not trying to remember this particular moment when I am happy. But I've learned that I'm not happy because I live where I do, because I have the friends I do, because I have the opportunities I do. I've strived to attain happiness my whole life, but it will never come from having the next best thing, if...then.

So, do I want a clear path or do I expect one? Is it everyone else's expectations for me that keep getting entangled in my daily web of life? I think it's more of an expectation that I've placed upon myself that keeps me from experiencing the present. Like the good thing about today was not that I figured out my plans for September, but that I literally walked up to the bus stop as the bus was coming (which I would define as being the pinnacle of my happiness most days). Like the good thing about my job, I've gotten to connect with my school's community, fete-ing with parents and teachers in the most unlikely of places.

As I write this, an email from one of these unexpected connections comes, stating "belle de loin mais loin d'etre belle." Sums it all up, coincidentally in an email, "it's beauty from afar but far away to be beautiful." The clear path, it's so far away, that it is beautiful.

The Great Lake Swimmers

Well, I feel like I'm swimming across the Great Lake today. Not literally, figuratively of course. I've swum across the divide of expectation the past few days and come to the conclusion that God still loves me, and other people do to, just sometimes not in the way that I want them to.
He shows me with my roommates waking me up with Blue Bottle, flowers, and scones. Great Steps coffee for crossing the quarter-century divide. He shows me with Chloe's mom picking me up on the way to school, telling me that she mourned her 25th birthday by wearing all black, because things weren't going the way that she expected them to. He shows me with my friends donning their tackiest apparel to come and dance the night away. He shows me with knowing that my friends are planning something for me today, even though I don't know what. He shows me with having the morning to get a pedicure and start the day by taking my time and talking to my mom on the phone. He shows me by letting me have the opportunity to go to another country this summer, serving another population in some way. He shows me by my friends planning an art and coffee, "French day" in my honor, in which I can go to my favorite bakery and art store on them. He shows me by my roommates calling me their friend and sister. By my friends from Europe, my leaders from middle school youth group, the pastor of our church, remembering.
He shows me by the song, "Rocky Spine," which I've already listened to 10 times in the last 20 hours. By having my friend from preschool show up to my birthday party. By my friends on their way to Honduras leaving me a message on their way to the airport. I've gotten to the point where I know that I shouldn't be dependent on others' affirmation of me, but it still feels encouraging to have my cup overflowing with not only God's love today.

ZOO-eh

I got to meet Zooey Deschanel the other night at the film festival screening of her film, 500 Days. Well, I didn’t really get to shake her hand or get a picture taken with her (I would never be that kind of fan), but I did sit in the front row of the Kabuki theater with her 5 feet away. I could see the glistening diamond on her engagement ring to Death Cab lead singer, Ben Gibbard. I could tell that she was a normal human being, she fidgeted, she interrupted, she stumbled over her words. It was a powerful experience for me because there she was, watching the same movie I was on-screen the whole time. And then I got to process through relationships and the expectations that we place on them with Zooey and her co-star, Joey from Third-Rock (my friend Claudia's childhood look-alike), who now is cuter than can be. I got to see the drastic dichotomy between reality and expectations, how we think one thing, especially with relationships, and that thing more often than not does not come true.
My anxiety was subdued that day after seeing a movie where I felt okay with my human-ness, my disillusioned reality. I didn't have to go out dancing to prove myself, I didn't have to be crazy on a Saturday night to know that I was okay. As Zooey said herself, movies can either build you up or tear you down. This one built me up such that I was buoyant, it was refreshing to see the stark, contrasted reality of a relationship budding and crashing, over the course of 500 days.