ruthless cuts and such.

I left my goggles hanging on my rear-view mirror and the rubber around the eyes melted in the 103 degree heat. When I went to the pool, water seeped in the unsealed side of the right lens and I had to swim like a one-eyed monster, or a pirate the rest of the session.

I'm moving again. But I think it's okay this time. It feels alright so far, anyway. I guess I haven't had to move two work benches, a desk, two couches, a bed and a dinner table yet though...and that might change how I feel about it. I'm most heartbroken about my garden because there are a thousand green tomatoes and I am not a good enough gardener to know if they will be ready by the time I leave. 

I'm going to be living with two other girls--both of them are named Emily, too! Which means, we are going to have to come up with nicknames.  Em, Emmy, Emaline....there are options. I'm leaning towards Emmy or Emaline, but we'll see.

I found a beautiful grizzly bear necklace at the thrift store. He's standing on his heels and raising his arms like the bears on @natgeo do. He is also roaring. It's been funny to watch people's eyes bounce to where the bear hangs around my neck and see their double takes. I think most bears hanging on necklaces are of the teddy kind--not the grizzly.

I'm picking up TaraB from the airport tonight and I'm so excited to get to see her. It's always so nice to be around someone who has known you at so many of your changing phases. We're going to head out to Santa Barbara tomorrow morning early--early enough to miss the traffic if we can. That means five a.m., maybe four. But there is coffee on the beach and we'll come alive there.

I continue to learn so much at work. Lately I feel like journalism is exactly what I want to do. But mostly the kind of journalism that Eve Ensler writes about when she says,

I began to re-perceive the nature of my interviews, the nature of interviews in general. I began to see these encounters as sacred social contracts. I, the interviewer, could not simply take stories, events, and feelings from my subjects. I could not sit there icy and objective, absorbing. I had to be present. I had to be in dialogue. I had to be insecure. I could no longer protect myself, stand outside the stories I was hearing. I had to allow myself to feel the sadness, torture, fear, loss and particularly the courage and strength of the women I was meeting.

I spent last Saturday night working on the final (and what felt like the hundredth) revision of my critical paper for school. Although revision is hard for me, I found that a pressing deadline was great motivation to make "ruthless cuts" as my writing mentor calls them--to take out sentences and paragraphs that I'd somehow gotten attached to during the writing but that weren't good at all.

I guess that's all I have to ramble about. 

Love, Emily

landing.

I was sitting off the wing
of a silver steel bird,
when the sound of her wheels,
of her heels could be heard--
setting down, hitting down,
coming back down to earth.

coming up, coming in.

in the fold.

Peace comes when I rest in the heart of grace.
But where is the heart of grace?
Where can we go to find it?
I think it is there--
in the space between the two arms
that are held out like limbs,
that are open like books.
It is in the space where all things can come
and then be wrapped, included.
All things get folded in.
The heart of Grace is in the fold.

love lost on the tarmac.

"Love is a leap." 

That's what Ansley told me once. And right this very minute she is in Oslo, Norway with a super kind and talented Norwegian photographer eating fancy cheeses and grapes on a blanket by a lake. Kind of makes you want to leap, doesn't it?

"You take risks in every area of your life except this one."

That's what my dad said when as we talked about relationships a while back. He thinks that it's a funny how I would rather hitchhike or trek across all of Africa than be out there in that vulnerable place where love grows. You know that feeling when you leave a cliff and can't control how your body goes anymore? That's the place I'm talking about. That's where love grows.

"It's all about the risk to reward ratio, Emily." 

That's what Fletcher says when he's trying to make decisions. He is much more calculated than me and even by his equations it seems that love is worth the risk; that the deep meaning found in giving and receiving love is greater than the potential pain of love's failure.

When I was in Malawi, the Hayton family told me that there was an AHI position there at Malamulo that needed to be filled. They were trying to convince me to take it and with all the beauty around I was right there, dreaming along with them.

"We just need to find you a man here in Malawi," Sharlene said. "Yeah," I said. "Who do you have in mind?" After a bit of brainstorming, Sharlene said, "Andrew!!! The macadamia nut farmer!" Andrew apparently went to college in South Africa and recently returned to run a large macadamia nut farm near the hospital. "He wants four kids!" she said and then went on about him. About how fun and outdoorsy he is. About how well his business is doing. About his rugged and good-looking features and how much her three little boys love him. I'm telling you...I was completely sold on Andrew and his macadamia nut farm by the end.

"So how am I gonna meet him?" I asked.

Sharlene thought for a second and then said, "Oh rats! He's in South Africa right now and doesn't get back until tomorrow!" I was silently breathing a sigh of relief because I was scheduled to leave in the morning and fly out of Blantyre and back to the states. I get nervous about that kind of thing. About pressurized meetings and such.

Then Shar's eyes lit up and she said, "Wait...he will be arriving on the same plane you are going to leave on!"  I could tell where she was going with this. There is only one flight over the weekend that passes between Blantyre and South Africa. "At the airport, you'll just have to keep an eye out for him as he gets off the plane and then introduce yourself!" Shar pulled up pictures of him on Facebook and we were all laughing at the potential meeting--about the beginning of Andrew's and my future!

I went to sleep in Malawi feeling bright about all of the potential in life, a safety in knowing that jobs in foreign countries exist and that people like Andrew were out there--running their macadamia nut farms, wanting four kids, being handsome and single. Since Andrew and I would probably never meet, Andrew's and my potential for a happy future would remain bright--and yes, unrealized. And yes, always an unknown. But, I thought, at least there was potential. At least it was a possibility. As Eve Ensler writes, "There was a future in waiting." Part of why it sucks to take risks in life is that risking can go two ways and you can't know which it will go until it goes. If you just wait and don't risk, it lets you rest in the safety of the unknown. But the problem is that although you get to keep the potential of the unknown, you don't actually ever step into something real.

At the airport in Blantyre I smiled at the ridiculous thought of "keeping an eye out" for Andrew.

I checked my bags at the gate and navigated through a mass of travelers in the tiny lobby. At the Blantyre Airport you have to check your bags at the desk and then once your plane pulls up you must identify them again to the employees so they will know to put them on your plane. I adjusted my scarf up over my head to keep the sun off my face and then exited the lobby out onto the tarmac where the bags rested in a pile. After identifying my baggage, I looked up to see a steady stream of people filing out of the plane that we were scheduled to board....the plane that had just flown in from South Africa.

A slight breeze was blowing through the tall grasses that lined the back edge of the runway. The plane looked strong and alone out there, shining under the Malawian sun.

I watched the passengers as they descended the steep steps and crossed in front of me into the airport lobby. An ex-politician with an entourage of guards. A woman with two small children. Another woman in a pair of high heels and a black pencil skirt.

Then. There was Andrew.

It was the most surreal thing to watch him walk down the stairs with his red backpack strapped to his back. To see this guy who Shar thought could be a potential match for me--right there! Right in front of me! Close enough to yell to. Close enough to lock eyes with. I just watched him. His brown hair cropped somewhat short. His stride so casual.

I knew in that moment that the opportunity to meet Andrew had presented itself. It required only that I risk a quick run across the tarmac in order to close the last little distance between our paths. Once we talked, I would know something more about him. The unknown would be a little more known. The potential would begin to evolve and become greater or lesser depending on our connection, on his response. He looked like his pictures. He looked fun. He looked kind. He was handsome and looked trustworthy. And just like that, he was gone. Swallowed up by a gate at Blantyre airport.

That really is the end of the story. Disappointing, right? I brought macadamia nuts back to my family and when I told them about Andrew and our almost-meeting they shook their heads and said, "Emily! Are you kidding?!"  My mom was the funniest. She couldn't believe I didn't talk to him. My dad thought I needed to rewrite the ending of the story by writing a letter to Andrew and telling him I saw him in his red backpack at the airport. Other people said they that would come across creepy. Haha.

Part of me is realizing that risk is what deepens every story and it is what shakes off the false comfort and security that lies in the act of waiting. We can wait all our lives and rest in the non-reality of potentials or we can experience some endings as well as some incredible beginnings. Not sure what I should do about Andrew and our future on the macadamia nut farm. But if I ever see him on the tarmac again, I promise you the ending will be much better.

a quiet and secluded place.

We've been pricing the better end of the deal,
saying, "Here's how the numbers tumble,"
and laying our budgets out flat.
We've been leaving a large margin
and only a little bit of slack and I think
what we lack is a long stall in the mountains
with our hearts open and God in them.
What we need is a reminder.
What we need is to make time, take time.

After riding in a wooden boat on for over 6 hours, I arrived at 2 in the morning in Yuka, Zambia, in a room with no electricity where someone had left me a candle burning by a bucket and spigot in the bathroom. After washing up by the low light, I went into a room where others were sleeping and found a small cot under a mosquito net. I was jazzed and running on adrenaline from the journey and when I could't sleep, I grabbed my Bible from the side pocket of my bag. I pulled out a flashlight, too and pulled the wool blanket over my head like a tent so as not to wake the others. In that silent space with the weight of the blanket pressing down, I read this:

"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace." Matthew 6:6

themes and stories.

PHOTO: GOT A TIME LAPSE OF THIS LITTLE GUY HEADING DOWN THE HOSPITAL CORRIDOR.
I had such a wonderful trip--feel so, so grateful for the opportunity that it was. I felt like a rookie journalist hauling around all that camera equipment, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't lose any of it (if you know me, that is a legitimate concern). I met some incredible people, could picture myself living in some of the places, and am coming away with a better understanding of healthcare in some of these developing countries as well as my own direction and goals.

There are so many things I’d like to write about and often when I sit down to type I have no idea how all of the things that have happened are connected, or if they even are. Perhaps not everything has to mean something (we all have our opinions and beliefs about this), but everything is incredible (if you haven't watched that short film, do!) in some way and usually if I can wrestle with words for enough time—sometimes in prayer, sometimes in writing, the incredible in each thing begins to align with incredible in the others. And I really like it when that happens. I like it when I can find something in the beginning that ends up running full-thickness through until the end—in writing I guess it's called a theme. Identifying themes brings me a lot of satisfaction because themes don’t require resolution. Not all stories resolve—as in wrap up tidy, and when there isn’t resolution, often there can still be a strong theme. That’s been a good life principle for me over the last year or so. It's easy to want resolution and tidiness from the unresolved or puzzling things and yet some of our most essential realizations and most changing experiences arise out of situations that don’t entirely resolve. Often these situations depend on something stronger than resolution....a process redemption and restoration. And seeing themes helps me in that; helps me hold the grays a little better, the stuff that doesn't make sense fully; helps me sort it all, file it all, embrace it all, own it all.

Hindsight is in some ways a difficult place for me personally to write a story from. I’m usually driven by the inspiration of a present awe—by a very visceral, physical understanding of experiences. For example, I did one interview this past week with a female doctor who has been working to establish a women’s center in Malawi. They have identified and treated 67 women who without the center's work, would have almost certainly died of cervical cancer. The interview caused me to tear up, caused my whole body to ache a bit, cause me to sit nodding like a congregation about the things I want so badly for the women of Malawi. But it wasn’t just the facts of what she was saying that moved me—it was the outside chatter drifting in through the doctor's office window, the smell of the small medical space and the way the light travelled through the air in the room. It was the things I've witnessed being reassessed in the context of what she was saying.  It was a whole host of things that moved me. And wow that sounds so sentimental, right?  But does it make sense?  Is it the same for you? We get the message of what someone is saying but then it goes deeper and we receive something bigger, like an impression left by the the collective elements of life, both past and present, in that moment. Once a few days have gone by, it takes some work to get back to those impressions in order to write them out. Sometimes I never get back. I wonder how people write memoirs of their lives, how they get back to the past.

Although I often have trouble getting at the details and emotions of something in hindsight, it is only in hindsight that I can clearly see themes. I usually get an inkling about them early on, but it's only with reflection that I can see exactly which threads run all the way through to the end. 

I like how traveling facilitate this kind of "theme" search. However, I think our everyday lives are full of themes that we rarely think about.

I fell asleep at eight last night--so tired from jet lag. But then I felt like a million bucks at 4:30 this morning! Hope to share more pictures and stories with you in little waves, but until then, here are just a couple more shots. 

 

snaps.

everything is incredible.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Zambia and Malawi for work to write and take pictures! I feel incredibly grateful for this opportunity and every time I've been tempted to complain this past week that my school work isn't done or that I'm stressed out or that I haven't had time to do everything I needed to do, I just stop and think of what a gift this trip is. I'll be visiting an eye clinic in Zambia and then two hospitals in Malawi. I'm taking a GoPro camera as well as work's nice Canon.

Sometimes its easy to get caught up in "how the story will go" or be anxious about finding "a good story" to tell. But this guy in the video below makes me realize that the story is always there because everything is incredible and that the trick is to see it and to tell it. If only I could take on the genuine voice of this disabled Honduran man who has been building a helicopter....ahhhh this video inspires me.

"The problem is that everything is incredible and people don't accept it."

trying to gain perspective.

I have been playing around with the camera from work, trying to learn how it works and how to get the light just right. So I've been shooting some slow minutes of life lately.  Here they are!

i like.

lyrics: write 'em down or lose 'em.

PHOTO: GALAS AND TEMDA.

Bitter is the bottom of the last hollow autumn; we were waiting for winter.

The scent of the sun is meant to be sung by your deep chords in summer.

Believe in the needs, believe in the trees, believe in your enemies.

You sang the words, a song so absurd, your honest heart opening.

Bright was the knowing, the freedom in showing; you held back nothing.

Letters from Him, reminding again, of the places you're going.

visioning in the garden at night.

The other night Kati and Phil dropped in and I thought about my garden and how it needed tending. Already a quarter to ten I asked, "Do you guys wanna weed?" And they were yes people and we ran a lamp out back and placed it on the stump that is the center sun of the garden's design and ran another light up to the roof that would then cast light down.  We tuned Pandora to Trevor Hall who has a thing for India and who Kati has a thing for and then pulled up all the plants that weren't right, didn't belong. We harvested a whole bundle of radishes and I also discovered that the little plants I thought would grow into bulbous Walla Walla Sweet Onions were really just green onions. I'd been waiting for them to be ready and meanwhile their stalks have grown so tall that many of them have fallen over across the rows, too tall to hold themselves up. If you need green onions, please come get summa mine.

When I listen to music and garden at night, it feels dreamy. I get to dreaming again, you know? Evan just left my house just a few minutes ago and we were talking about the importance and power of positive thinking and he added, "Yeah, visioning too." I agree, visioning and placing our visions before God and inviting Him into our visions and asking Him to light us up with vision not only about the future but about the present! What is it I'm missing today? What is it I need to SEE with new eyes today? Do I need to stop complaining? Do I need to stop talking about people in bad light? Do I need a renewed selflessness? Do I need a bike ride today? I believe inspiration is very spiritual, and that God is in the midst of those moments. Preachin! Anyway.

I've started visioning again and kind of letting myself dream with a bit of hope and belief. In fact, I recently followed a bunch of the National Geographic photojournalists on Instagram. Today one of them posted a picture of their team after surfacing from a 10 hour caves exploration in Spain. Another one posted a picture of some roaring river surrounded by these trees that were whipping in the wind and making their own visual current. Part of the reason I think pictures are so beautiful is that someone is behind them, noticing a scene and calling it good! That's how I roll with my music selection sometimes. If Kati shares a song with me I'll probably end up loving it if she tells me why she thinks it's good.

Do you ever feel a blessing arriving in your heart? And by that I mean, do you ever notice when you begin to accept the blessings you've been journeying into, the one's I really do believe God teaches us to recognize and keep in sight our whole lives. Things like peace and a knowledge of His presence. For me, there have been things that have made these blessings hard to see--getting hung up on pride, suffering from the kind of impatience that humans seem extra prone to, or continually circling the same doubtful thoughts. I truly don't believe there is an end to those kinds of barriers on this earth. I see my parents asking questions in their own faith and life and purpose. I see my grandparents doing it, too. And so I know we won't arrive at some place where we have it all together. But still there are these moments when I feel like I somehow get open enough, or ready enough to receive something that has been there all along.

back in a cranny.

I cannot coax a crab to
come out of the cranny
that shields his back
like armor and guns.
The ocean is less caring than love--
with less heart and less intention,
and yet you don't fear it
or run from its waters.
Home is your ocean--
this ocean is yours.
So forward with readiness,
out with love--all fearing
hearts swim in time.

galations 5:something.