Past Becomes Future

Mother

Jenna — Sun, 09 May 2010 19:45:43 +0000

Here’s a thank you to all the mothers out there.
Mothers who become mothers via the traditional and non-traditional routes alike.
Mothers who are near and mothers who are far.
Mothers who are involved and mothers who are not.
Mothers who meet expectations and mothers who fail miserably (by their own fault or not.)
Mothers who have loved and lost.
Mothers who have gained and lost.
Mothers who have lost and won.
Mothers who have won no matter….
Mothers who are proud and mothers who are frightened.
Mothers who pray and mothers who have lost faith.
Mothers who never knew us and mothers we never knew…no matter their physical location.
Mothers who understand us more than we understand ourselves.
Mothers who baked cookies and packed lunches.
Mothers who gave us lunch money and keys to the front door for afterschool.
Mothers who worked one, two, three jobs.
Mothers who stayed home but still made us do our own laundry.
Mothers who nurtured us and mothers who trained us, and mothers who taughts us…
to love, be strong, believe, know, care, speak out, speak up, and be quiet.
Thanks to all the mothers who ever, how ever, where ever, when ever, why ever they may be or were.
Thanks to all the mothers who have been mothers and will be mothers.
Thanks.

On Preschool and Proposals

Jenna — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:42:16 +0000

Michael is a red headed boy. If you ask him how old he is he’ll say, “five and one twelfth!” But it will sound like, five and one twelf because his speech is kind of slurpy. He doesn’t have a speech impediment, just an inordinate excess of spit bubbles. If you ask him when we met he’ll happily shout, “when I was free!” He’s not bound now, except maybe by the confines of the no potty talk rule at school. He might find that more difficult to handle than any physical prison cell.
I met this little man back when he was barely three years old and could hardly wield a crayon let alone build teetering brick fortresses for Spiderman action figures. Over the years he’s really come into his own in several areas of life including social skills. He’s built some excellent friendships and I suppose it shouldn’t be shocking that such a man of the world is ready now for marriage. He announced his intentions today at the lunch table while I was pouring milk. “I’m going to marry Camp ‘cause he’s my betht fwiend!” To which Camp promptly but not unkindly responded, “Boys don’t marry boys in this state.” Camp is five and two quarters so has a bit of an edge on Michael in the sophistication department.
“But why?” asked Michael, bewildered. “I want to marry you. We’re betht fwiends!”
“I can’t marry you Michael. I’m going to marry Violet.” Responded Camp with authority.
“What?” exclaimed Violet, nearly spitting her half chewed Orange chunk across the table. Obviously her upcoming nuptials were news to her. And Michael looked about ready to cry. So I put the milk jug down and squatted to the level of their truncated table. “Here’s how the whole marriage thing works guys,” I could almost feel them lean in closer.
“First you find someone you enjoy spending time with and who enjoys spending time with you. You find someone who makes you laugh ….”
“Camp makes me laugh till milk comes out my nostril!”
“That’s important. You find someone who hears you and someone who you can fight with. You find someone who likes some of the same things you like.”
“Like Bakugan?”
“Yes. Like Bakugan. And someone who you like to listen to a lot and who you like to be next to a lot.”
“Mia always wants to sit by me and listen to knock knock jokes. “
“Yes, its very important to find someone who likes your jokes. So when you find this person and you think you’d like to promise to do all these things with them for a very long time…forever…then you ask them if they feel the same way. Do they want to promise all the same things you want to promise? The asking part is VERY important.”
“It’s good manners,” added Violet with a decisive nod.
“Yes, much better than telling. The asking is important but not as important as hearing the answer. If you ask someone to make you all these promises and they don’t want to or don’t think they can make them then you have to listen to them. You have to hear that they said, “No thank you.”
“But I want them to say yes!”
“And maybe they will say yes. You have to hear whatever they say. For now though we should all just be friends till we’ve met a few more people and know better what kinds of people we are willing to make so many important promises to. There are a lot more people in the world than just the twelve people at this table.”
“Camp, promise to marry me, please,” Michael pleaded.
“No thank you.”
“But I said please!”
“No thank you Michael.”
“Awwww…I guess I’ll marry Violet then.”
“Rude! ASK me.”
“Will you promise to marry me Violet?”
“No thanks Michael. I’m going to marry Camp and Paul. Elia will you marry Michael?”
“No thanks. I’m going to marry potato chips.”
“Nobody wants to married me!”
“ Michael, there will be other girls. You haven’t’ met everyone yet. Why don’t you wait a while and see who else you meet in the future.”
“Ok,” he sighed heavily. “Maybe in kindergarten.”
Stifling a nearly uncontrollable giggle, I resumed pouring milk. The kids dropped the subject and Michael went about pretending to burp to great applause throughout the remainder of the meal; a testament to his bachelorhood.

My world is…

Jenna — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 01:46:39 +0000

so happy today. Happy, and hopeful and inspired. Thank you friend. And thank you Lord.

Where We Dwell

Jenna — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:46:44 +0000

Dwelling in memories like houses-
Every new addition to life now connected to all that passed before.
Are we spinning the web or caught in it?
Creator and destoryer or destroyed creature?
Its all in where we dwell-

“Memories live in the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. After that, the entire question of how memory works is up for grabs.” (from an article by Bruce Duffy in the April 2009 edition of Wired Magazine)

I just finished reading…

Jenna — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:05:21 +0000

What I Talk ABout When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. And I think you should read it too. It’s about running, writing, being human, being machine, and simply being. I’ve never really read anything like it before but that doesn’t surprise me coming from Murakami.

A friend has suggested reading a different title by Murakami which wasn’t available at the library yet so I grabbed this one, which I’d never even heard of. A small, unobtrusive yellow book of few pages. Reading felt like having a conversation with someone very wise, well-meaning and no non-sense. It felt like having a conversation with someone’s grandmother…if their grandmother knew a whole lot of first hand information about long distance running.

I feel like this book may have changed my perspective on life in a drastic way and when I closed the book (after reading the final 20 pages or so twice) I wanted to immediately share this change with an expectant world! But then, as now, I don’t have the words to explain the difference. It’s like watching a travel program about some foreign land vs. visiting some foreign land vs. living in some foreign land vs. adopting citizenship in some foreign land and calling it foreign no longer. Something like that…but not quite.

I’ll keep mulling…if I get a cleaner grasp I’ll try to pass it on. You go out and read this book!

Inspiration

Jenna — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:41:26 +0000

Why I Like Facebook

Jenna — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:52:38 +0000

So, I am sure you are on Facebook. Please don’t pretend you aren’t. You know how it works as well as I do. I have nearly 400 friends and I know each and everyone of them with the slight exception of two) in person.

The site has been making several structural changes recently and its causing an uproar. I myself have played fast and loose with threats to leave if they keep altering things making it easier and easier to “stalk” people. However, while jogging today, I was really thinking about the possability of my leaving the site. And I don’t see it happening.

This is why. Facebook gives mea chance to share in all those little pointless comments, jokes, observations and day to day-ities with 400 of my closest friends. I know that sounds silly. Who can have 400 close friends? But the reality, for me anyway, is that I have shared the pointless comments, jokes, observations and day to day-ities in REAL LIFE with all but two people I am friends with on Facebook. My friends fall into groups pertaining to diffrent time periods of my life…diffrent incarnations of the same me…but they were…each and every one…horribly important and present in my life at some point in my past or present.

Facebook, allows that to continue…to restart in many cases without the pressure to be informative that e-mail, letters and phone calls usually present. I mean how many of us see our real wolrd friends and talk about serious or life altering events every time? No one right? That would be INTENSE. No…instead we share a lot of one liners and joke around and refrence silly commonalities. Facebook allows for that. It allows for the heavy stuff to….

That’s why I like Facebook….it keeps me connected to the unimportant things pertaining to the important people in my life.

Sea Song lyrics by Lisa Hannigan

Jenna — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:30:05 +0000

there’s one man, he’s like
the wishful thinking in my life, i see so
and he’s like the wine on the weekend…
and though he is like the sea and it’s right he be so
if i hold tight he’ll wash over me…

there’s one girl I like she’s a smile on a monday
and she’ll fight to stay so…
and she’s like the sun on the weekend
and though she is like the sea and she’s right to be so
still i like that she sails with me…

didn’t we all break down
didn’t we all fake
isn’t it alright now
didn’t we all break out…

there’s one man so bright he blocks the light
and he’ll always be so…
he’s like no sleep on the weekend
and though he is like the sea and he’s right to be so
when i hold tight i sink down deep…

didn’t we all break down
didn’t we all fake
isn’t it alright now
didn’t we all break out…

and though we are like the sea and it’s right we be so
we could chase tails all the years I’ve been given…

Jogging

Jenna — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:42:59 +0000

So, I have taken up jogging.
You know, I always used to love to run as a child.
I don’t really remember when I stopped.
But I did…I totally hated running….
Until about two weeks ago when I decided to go for a jog.
This strange, abrupt and intense desire to pick up that pace has hit me several times, randomly, over the last eight years or so.
But now…I’m working on forming a new habit.
I love it. I look forward to taking to the wet streets of my city and bobbing beneath the cherry blossomed trees.
I like the nod of acknowledgment between the other hundreds of joggers on the street…as if to say, “good on you mate.”
Most of all however, I love when its over and I’ve arrived home. The key pops the lock of the front door open and as I enter my home I am flooded over with creativity. All the answers to the day’s problems seem so clear…and the problems themselves seem to have shrunk in weighty-ness.
Jogging is a new thing in my life that I feel liks has been a part of me for eternity and I am so pleased to be taking part in it.
I don’t want to encourage you to jog, but instead to find that thing that exhausts you in such an invigorating way.

I Am Thankful…

Jenna — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:55:11 +0000

for the scent of turkey filling the house
for the chill temperature in the upper level of my house
for the dog I am dog sitting that keeps running up and down the stairs to check on the turkey for me
for the hot hot shower I didn’t have to speed through this morning
for airplanes that bring important people in and out of whatever town I find myself in
for coffee shops with baristas that know my regular order
for my regular order
for the ability to choose order over chaos
for the ability to revel in the chaos
for the bunny lounging in the dining room and waiting for its thanksgiving banana
for the smiles that come so easily these days
for the people who I love so dearly on nearly every continent
for the internet and cell phones that keep us in contact
for the written word
for the multnomah county library
for the written word and all the writers…even the ones I don’t care for…
for young men’s visions and old men’s dreams
for lyrics
for poetry
for the right to vote
for musicals
for mashed potatos
for lavendar scented freshly folded laundry
for pillowtop mattresses
for India (even when it doesn’t really know what it ought to do)
for the Word made flesh
for peace that passes understanding
for google maps
for the fact that every woman and girl looks beautiful in a Sari
for wall to wall carpeting
for unlimited in txting
for woodfloors
for a memory of sleeping on a heated Korean floor
that I didn’t kill James on that bus in China when I really really wanted to
that I know what it feels like to wake up on a roof top in West Africa because I swallowed a bug
that I don’t hate my job
that we always have Portland
that Portland is not only what it was, but now something very current as well
that there is a guitar in this house
that there are more opportunities than hours in a lifetime to pursue them
that I haven’t been bored in years
that lists exist
that families are expanding all around me
that rain is lightly pelting against my roof
that the people I love have so many things to be thankful for themselves
that I have a lot more than this for which I am thankful.