Last weekend all four inhabitants of room 123 made a road trip to Michigan. Let me just say that these three young women mean so much to me. This is what kind of people they are: when they recommend a book to me, I know that I need to read it. Their lives inspire me and encourage me. Their words provoke me to laughter and deep thinking. I am so blessed to live with them.

If that wasn’t enough, they also rock at fishing. Here’s some pictures of us plus our hosting roommate’s boyfriend and her little sister (who caught the biggest fish).

See my Tabblo>

You’ve seen some of these pictures before, but I wanted to make a tabblo. So here you go!

… See my Tabblo>

I listen to cynical music
when hurting makes me doubt.
I listen to let it out,
because pressure brings more pain.
What do you listen to
when you feel the same?

I listen to happy music
when there’s no other way to smile
because I haven’t slept in a while
and there’s only so much one can do.
When you feel like that,
what do you listen to?

I listen to wordless music
when I have to be verbose
because mixing words is gross
if you don’t do it right.
What do you listen to
when you must write all night?

I listen to calming music
when I’m about to explode,
my wires can’t handle the load
and I have too much to lose.
When you feel like that,
what music do you choose?

I listen to happy music
when it’s a happy day,
everything’s okay,
and I feel not a fear.
When you feel that good,
what music must you hear?

I listen to cynical music,
when I feel all is right–
so right that I must spite
all of those for whom it’s not.
When you feel just that proud,
what music’s got you caught?

Cathedrals and catacombs are
nothing like this cinderblock sanctuary
with its sky-like simple ceiling,
though not as blue as some I’ve seen.
My sovereign Lord will hold it all together.

My mind is on my homes and
my heart is with another.
This language is too easy for my tongue.
How can I praise like this?
My sovereign Lord will hold it all together.

Well-rounded, like a puddle spreading
with nothing to contain the hopes I start
excepting space and time
and a desire for shape.
My sovereign Lord will hold it all together.

The smell of autumn drying wind
wets my eyes as I ask:
How will whatever is left be one
once my chaff is weathered away?
My sovereign Lord will hold it all together.

I said I wanted to do something new. I said I wanted the free feeling that comes with an adventure. I said I wanted to go someplace I’d never gone before.

So I finished half my homework for Tuesday on Thursday night.

So much for catching up on sleep this weekend. There’s poetry in my head, and I can’t sleep. Especially when I’ve been praying for some poetry for so long. And now there are words all over the place.

I could blame this sleeplessnes on the chocolate fondue, but I’d rather say it’s everything. Everything. Like when the boy in The Black Stallion answers the question, “What happened to you?” with “Everything.” Sometimes that’s how I feel, except not so dismal.

But not everything has happened to me yet. Sort of like how I still don’t know everything. But I want to learn as much as I can. I guess I’m in a good place.

This is a good place. I like my room because there is enough room to dance, and there are no mice. My laptop has a desk for the first time in eight months, but right now I type between two dressers in the walk-in closet. My black dress is strewn across my stack of plastic tubs. I’ve changed a lot since the last time I lived on this campus, but I’m still not the cleanest… dish in the cupboard? q-tip in the little blue bowl that Mom made in ceramics class?

Lori said it’s kind of like she has to get to know me all over again. She graciously allows me to have changed. Bryna says she feels different. More confident. More grown up. Me too. Spain was good for us.

Was Sol Duc good for me?

Right now
I want to go back into room number seven
and work on that song we were writing.
As I write now,
I want to change all that hell into heaven.
I think of the wrong God is righting.

God, my Only Hope,
can you give me one hope more–
that this season somehow
showed them Who I’m living for.

My roommates could see my love for Ryan. “You two really love each other, don’t you?” Indeed. Was my love for God that obvious? God, I can’t hug you in the hallway! What am I supposed to do? You tell me to trust you. I’ll trust that you will work in soil I can’t break. I want to be weak-kneed with love for my Savior, because your strength is made perfect in my weakness.

There’s a hundred things I would change if I did this summer over again, which is a sign that I am now different than when the summer started. Not yet wise, but wiser. And now I am in another circumstance, but it is not just what’s around me that has changed. I’m glad I’ve changed.

What would happen if I left the country again, this time for longer, this time to somewhere differenter? Would it be ethical to experiment along this question, flying myself all over the world, thrusting myself into culture after culture? Would that get me closer to who God wants me to be? Or would it just get me confused?

And what would happen if I stayed in one place? Would I get lop-sided like a potted plant that is never rotated? Would I stop growing all together? When I was in Camarma, I asked a single teacher who had been with the school for fifteen years how she kept her spiritual walk moving. Because I seem to grow most when I move.

She said that becoming established was the only way that Spaniards would give her the time of day. Completely true. Maybe that’s why I don’t imagine myself living in Europe. Well, not long enough to get established.

Is there a place I could send myself that would change me so that I can see all the good connotations in the word ‘established’?

Maybe I could learn something about that here. I told Bryna the other day, “You know what I just realized? It’s just going to be the four of us. They aren’t going to add any roommates. There will be no surprises. We won’t have to rearrange. I can let down my guard. This is the way it’s going to be, for four whole months!”

“Rebecca,” she replied. “Eight months. We’re going to live here for eight months.”

Woah. When she said that is when I began to make escape plans. But if I have to stay somewhere for eight months, this is a good place.

It’s a good place to splash in the rain
and giggle ’til passers-by think we’re insane
and wade in big puddles that come past our knees,
then run to the dorm before we all freeze.

It’s a good place to talk on the couch
about all the things that make our hearts ouch
and all the heart-wishes that push us to heal
and all we will do to make them come real.

It’s a good place to spend Friday night.
Our feet tap to jazz ‘neath our best black and white.
We win best-dressed four in the store’s spinning door.
Watch a flick and fondue ’til we can’t anymore.

It’s a good place to sit on a chair,
lean over a textbook and prove that we care
enough to still study although we want sleep.
There’s a reason we’re here. We’ve a promise to keep.

It’s a good place to crawl into bed,
to rest in the quiet and quiet my head,
to know that I’m loved and to pray for the grace
to love in a way that adds good to this place.

There’s still more poetry (or is it chocolate?) surging inside, but it’s time to try that last verse out for myself. And for the sake of all those who live in this place. It’s kind of hard for me to show love when I don’t sleep.

Goodnight.

I’m settled in and smiling. The room is roomy, the roommates intelligent. One of them has a 4.0, and it’s not me. One’s pre-med, one’s doing her nursing homework while working at the library, and I haven’t been late to class yet. Well, I was, but the professor didn’t show up, so it was okay. At least for me.

My desk is already a mess: postcards from Singapore, a cinnamon bark box filled with céntimos, my vitamins (which I haven’t taken in a week and a half), a parking ticket (oh, strife!), my new water bottle, some financial aid letters that are perhaps significant, the key to Sol Duc employee dorm #4, a list of things to do, and a list of things to buy. And a bouncey, bouncey ball.

Today I had one class that actually occurred. The professor’s articulate English reached into parts of my brain that haven’t been used in quite that way in about… 8 months. In all seriousness, I felt the ache of nerves reconnecting. A good kind of pain, but it made my eyes droop. I have downloaded the audio of Beowulf, so I can start my homework.

There’s so little chaos here. I had to tell you about my desk, because that’s the messiest spot in the suite. This is different than Sol Duc. I’m practically on community overload right now, but I still haven’t gotten sick of the smiles. Have you noticed that if you smile at someone, they’ll smile at you, which makes you happier? And it doesn’t smell like sulphur here.

And this is different than a year ago. The things I was confused about have been made clear. I am full of hope, not dread. And I am not ashamed.

I have some places to add to my list of places I’ve slept. We’ll say that Sol Duc Room #4 was #60. So:

61. Sol Duc Room #2 on the night that there was a drinking game going on in my own room.
62. Tom and Karlene’s house.
63. Nate and Hannah’s.
64. One and a half (actually, half and a one) nights in Ft. Collins.
65. Johnny and Christina’s.
66. Four nights at the hotel in Minneapolis, where all of Ryan’s family stayed for his sister’s wedding.

67. Alumni 123. The best suite ever. That’s what I’ve decided. And I will do everything in my power to make it so. Where will I get that power? The joy of the Lord is my strength.

Plus, I have a boyfriend who prays for me.

I have to start packing, but I know that all my belongings will play one more measure in the rhythm of my life here. So I started by taking down the maps I had masking-taped all around my bunk. The London Tube map, the plan of Sevilla, the print-off of Oxford, the map of our hike through the Pueblos Blancos, the directions to our bungalow in Lisboa, the wrinkled map of attractions in Rome. And more: Mt. Rainier and an accompanying map of Southeast Asia.

I’m trying to find one of those Olympic National Park maps that I’ve seen around so I can add it to my collection before I pack them all in my “to college” pile. I guess that’s the pile that I belong in. But I’m not there yet.

This is my last week. It got off to a great start with a sunny day at the coast and a long walk on the beach with my boyfriend. When we got home, Rachel, my best friend from Spain, was napping on my bed. She had fallen asleep while looking at my maps. While sh was here, we hiked like there was no tomorrow, just like we did last semester, and we talked it all out. Everything from our first memories together to our future plans. I have a lot of hope. And I want to share that hope with the people here. I was able to do that in a couple conversations this week. This sulphury soil is slowly softening.

And I must leave.

When I’m finally ready to minister.

Here goes culture shock all over again.

I’m trying to imagine what life is like at Trinity. It’s hard to think about, so I usually just don’t, but I know I must get mentally prepared. Imagine a place with three rooms for four people instead of one room for six. Imagine not getting toe fungus in the shower. Imagine a grid of roads and traffic everywhere. Imagine doing homework. Imagine having my own designated place in the closet and places in the closet where I am not allowed to sprawl my stuff. Imagine seeing the carpet.

At Trinity, there will be a few hours in the wee of every morning when every girl will be in a girls bed in a girls room on a girls hall and every boy will be in a boys bed in boys room on a boys hall. In fact, even during the day, boys will be afraid of interacting with girls too much, as in, being friendly.

At Trinity, there is a legal drinking age. And I am still twenty. I am twenty? How old is twenty? What kind of jokes are funny to a twenty-year-old Christian girl? What is a twenty-year-old Christian girl supposed to do? What am I not allowed to do? Who am I allowed to spend my time with?

Who am I?

I am a world traveler. But I can still only be in one place at a time.

I am a Christian minister. But I still need to be ministered to.

I am an outdoorswoman. But I still miss my desk.

I am somebody’s darling. But I still have just one comfort: that I belong to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

And that Savior will always be with me. He’s already in my “to college” pile. And my “Ft. Collins” pile, and my “Goodwill” pile. He’s even in my “not sure” pile, although he’s the one thing I’m absolutely sure of.

Alright. I have to keep packing.