Author: Lily

Fifty-two Weeks of Adventure # 26: Working That Camera

One of the best decision we made before coming to Korea was the decision to invest in a decent camera. We purchased a Canon Rebel T3i two years ago and it’s been such a great camera for amateurs wanting some higher quality pictures without the desire, time, or money to buy and learn to use professional grade equipment. One thing that’s been true about having our big camera is that while we get to take lots of great pictures of places we go or even of each other, we rarely get a chance to take good pictures together. For one thing, it isn’t easy to get good selfies with a big heavy camera. And it’s a bit harder to ask a random stranger to take a picture for you when in a foreign country, especially since a lot of people get intimidated by big cameras.

When we were back in the US we were so fortunate to have some good friends who are photographers. In fact, two of my roommates from college are now professional wedding and lifestyle photographers, so we had really talented friends who were able to take our engagement photos, wedding photos, and even an anniversary photo session for our second anniversary. (Check them out here and here!) Jonathan and I really wanted to take some updated photos together for our 5th anniversary and also to have some good photos together in Korea that weren’t just snapshots in front of tourist attractions. Luckily for us, one of our best friends here in Korea is (wait for it…) a photographer!

Our awesome friend Laura agreed to do some couples photos for us this weekend so that we could have some updated family photos that were also of us in Korea which will always be a big part of our lives and our story. We headed over to Laura’s side of Daegu for these pictures (about 50 minutes from us by bus) which we took on the campus of Kyungpook National University. Laura’s husband, Josh, agreed to stay home with their (almost) 11-month-old Genevieve so we could catch the late afternoon light.I’m so excited to share the photos with you, but for now, here are just a few teasers.

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Sidenote: Isn’t it totally unfair the way guys always look exactly the same no matter what? Like if they are a handsome guy, (like my hubby ;)), they are just handsome all the time. There’s no special preparation necessary, no deliberation over outfits, no fussing over their hair. Whereas I spent a long time picking a dress and fixing my hair and wearing special makeup, hubby got dressed and shaved his neck. His entire regimen took about 10 minutes. Sigh.

Laura also did a few headshots for me which was so great because the two I tend to use are 4-6 years old and, let’s face it, I really don’t look like I’m 21 anymore. 🙂 I’ll be switching out my bio picture on this site soon!

I’m so thankful to have these photos and to capture these memories of this time in our lives. I’ll share more of the photos once Laura’s finished with them.

If you’re interested in checking out some of Laura’s other work, be sure to visit her website. Josh, Laura, and Gen will be moving back to Kansas in August!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about the hilarious Konglish writing we find everywhere you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Friday Book Chats: What Makes a Book YA and Some YA Books Worth Reading

I recently had a conversation with my husband about what criteria must be satisfied for a book to be classified as Young Adult. While there are obvious answers to this question like, “The protagonist is an adolescent,” this isn’t by itself an accurate answer. There are plenty of books that are not classified as YA literature that feature a child protagonist or even a child narrator. (Off the top of my head Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill a Mockingbird all come to mind).

What makes a book like The Book Thief a YA book while All the Light We Cannot See is a Pulitzer Prize winning adult novel? Both books have child protagonists. Both books are about WWII. Both books have a stylized, literary feel. And yet, they are considered different genres.

I brought this question up with a few different friends who made various suggestions. They postulated that YA books have a sense of immediacy not present in adult literature. They are often written in the first person and sometimes use the present tense.  My husband suggested that there’s a certain simplicity to the language and syntax of YA books that allows for comprehension by a younger audience.

Some scholars and critics have suggested that YA as a genre is solely a construction of the publishing industry. How do you get more teenagers to buy books? By marketing certain books directly to them. And this seems to be working.

While these conversations didn’t provide me with a clear answer to my question, it did make me think about some of my favorite YA books. While publishers may have created a niche market that’s great for selling some of these books, I think they’ve also isolated some of those same books from reaching a wider audience who aren’t as likely to pick them up because they are stamped with that YA label.

Here are some books that (in my opinion) are worth your consideration even if you wouldn’t call yourself a YA fan.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Since I already mentioned it above I’ll just say that yes, it’s as good as it’s hyped up to be. This is a fantastic book that tells the story of a young German girl (with a penchant for stealing books), her adoptive parents, and the Jewish fighter they hide in their basement during the Holocaust, as narrated by the omniscient character, Death. I can’t possibly sum this book up in a few sentences, but it will pretty much wreck you.

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. Alina Starkov is nobody – an orphaned refugee whose never been noticed. Until her best friend’s life is threatened and a dormant power is awakened in her unlike an the world has ever seen. Alina is immediately taken into the Grisha court to study and train under the most powerful Grisha of all, The Darkling. Together he says they can destroy the Shadow Fold that threatens their country. Together they can remake the world. But nothing is as it seems and Alina must learn to see things that have long been hidden, even the things inside her own heart. This trilogy is masterfully done.

The Lunar Chronicles (series) by Marissa Meyer (The first book, Cinder, is only $2.99 for Kindle right now!) I’ve actually only read the first book in this series so far, but it blew me away. It’s set in a futuristic world where androids are essential to daily life and the moon has been colonized and become the home of a new species known as Lunars. This unique twist on the Cinderella story involves a cyborg/mechanic Cinderella, a handsome prince, and the search for a cure for the plague pandemic that is wiping out Earth’s population. This is not the sort of book I would normally gravitate towards, but it is so fresh and clever and well-done that I couldn’t put it down. I plan to read the rest of the series soon!

The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials Series) by Philip Pullman. In a world where people’s souls exist as Daemon forms who walk beside them, orphaned Lyra Belacqua leaves her home among the scholars of Oxford’s Jordan College sets out on a quest to find her kidnapped friend, Roger. She carries with her an instrument given to her by her uncle, Lord Asriel, an instrument that tells the truth, an instrument that changes everything when she discovers that someone is kidnapping children and running experiments on them – experiments that will separate them from their Daemons. Honestly, these books are better as an adult than they were as an adolescent. As an adolescent you read these and think, “Yeah, down with the Magisterium. Stick it to the man!” As an adult you are fascinated with the implications of what it means to become an adult and the influences of society and religion in that process.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. This book is precious. A love story for the ages, but with real characters in real and difficult situations. Eleanor is the wrong size with the wrong hair and the wrong clothes and most definitely the wrong family. But to Park, she is the magic that holds the sky up. They know it’s destined for disaster. But they also know the real thing when they see it. I was enchanted.

The Fault in Our Stars and other John Green books. I assume I don’t have to tell you much about The Fault in Our Stars, but I will say that it is my favorite Green book. His books are all so compelling because they don’t flinch away from hard truths and big questions. They are serious and sad and funny and beautiful and his characters have something meaningful to offer the world.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants The premise of the magical pants aside, the stories of these four girls wove their way into my heart. There are things I love and identify with about each of them – Wild Bridget, Rebellious Tibby, Quiet Lena, and Dramatic Carmen. These books are portraits of friendship, of family, of growing up, and of what it means to live a meaningful life. There are five books in the series, with the last one, Sisterhood Everlasting, crossing over into adult fiction as it picks up the girls’ lives 10 years later as they are about to turn 30.

What do you think? What makes a book YA? What are your favorite YA books?

Thankful Thursdays Guest Post: The Problem of Good Things

Today’s Thankful Thursdays guest post comes from my friend, Meredith. Meredith is one of the people who most motivates me to keep on writing, who makes me believe that we’re doing something worthwhile here. I’ve had Meredith share here before about her experiences with purity culture, sex, and marriage and I’ve been able to guest post for her as well. It’s always an honor for me to share her words. As someone who also struggles with depression and anxiety myself, I loved this beautiful piece that looks with both honesty and hope about the power of gratitude and joy, even when it does not come easily. 

Flickr Creative Commons: John Lodder

Flickr Creative Commons: John Lodder

The Problem of Good Things

The spring caught me off guard again with its explosions of pink and boughs hung low with purple blossoms. I never remember the way sidewalks can smell like walking through a bath and body works (with the exception of those flowering trees that smell like dead fish, those are the worst).

In a new house, you never quite know what potential flora hibernates in your lawn until the spring comes. The scrappy lawn of our rental house surprised me with lilac bushes in front, a few burnt out tulips struggling through weeds at the side of the house, and even some grape hyacinths like the ones next to the raspberry bushes at my childhood home.

Best of all, a patch of violets grew in our backyard, a wild and wonderful spray of purple flowers large enough to lie in. I imagined a quintessentially hipster moment where I would retire to the violet patch wearing a linen dress with my hair wrapped in a braid around my head. Drew could bring me lemonade with a sprig of lavender and a striped paper straw bobbing in the ice.

The violets reminded me of carefree days when yard boundaries weren’t prohibitive, and I came home with grass stains on the knees of jeans and the circle marks of dandelion stems speckling my shirt. Violets made wonderful flower crowns and handfuls could easily form bouquets to hand to mothers or neighbor ladies.

But busyness set in, and every day I’d walk past the violets with a growing sense of anxiety. I feared the lawn mowers of the landscapers, the heat of the sun, and anything else that would take away the violet patch. I stopped enjoying the flowers and started fretting for them. The lilacs in the front bloomed for only a day or two, then stood with bare branches with only a few leftover buds hinting at their former glory.

I developed a sense of cynicism toward the Magnolia and the dogwood trees; I wondered at the worth of planting such things of beauty in your lawn to flower for a week out of the year or less.

Flickr Creative Commons: Kikasz

Flickr Creative Commons: Kikasz

Each day when I came home, I checked the patch of violets, daring them to last another day. No sooner would a bloom appear than I’d be predicting its death, cursing the way good things slipped through my fingers and dropped their blossoms before I had a chance to enjoy them.

I frame many good things in my life this way; I immediately wonder when and how they will disappear. I do this with the love in my marriage, my parents health, and even the small blessings of the day to day.

Living with depression, sometimes there are days of amazing clarity where I feel awake and able. But soon enough, the sun sets, and the spell is broken. With enough of these days of jubilee under my belt, I rarely enjoy them anymore. Their goodness taunts me, and reminds me to fret for a tomorrow when the weight of the world will come back.

Opening myself to joy is risky like placing a big target sign on my back, hit me with your best shot; I’m happy, I’m relaxed, I’m confident, the flowers are blooming. I imagine a set of universal scales that must balance out eventually. If the universe heaps a job promotion and remission for mom’s cancer on the good side, I’m sure the article I submitted will not be published and there will be little chance of my improv show going well.

In her book Daring Greatly, Brene Brown calls this superstitious way of thinking “foreboding joy.” Its the sense that joy is rigged, that something’s gotta give. But shutting out the good based on its predicted transience means not enjoying the wild patch of violets, means leaving the walls of our rental bare, and missing connections with people who pass through my life for an instant.

I don’t want to live this way.

So how do I respond, when joy comes for a minute, for a week, not even long enough to take a picture?

Brene Brown says this, “…the shudder of vulnerability that accompanies joy is an invitation to practice gratitude, to acknowledge how truly grateful we are for the person, the beauty, the connection, or simply the moment before us.”

I am on a mission to bless the temporary, to baptize the instant with significance. I want to seek the Lord where he may be found and dance in the yard while the violets still bloom. I want to plant gardens of risk though I am an exile in this place and to seek out the Joshua Trees, waiting expectantly for their time to blossom.

Flickr Creative Commons: Christopher Michel

Flickr Creative Commons: Christopher Michel

And even when the blossoms fall into carpets of petals, I long to wait with open hands for the beauty of the other seasons, stark cardinals on snowy backgrounds and trees catching fire in the autumn.

Perhaps the transience of the violets makes them even more beautiful. I thought I had learned long ago that I cannot subsist only on a diet of sweet things, but today I am learning again to take on a posture of gratefulness instead of trying to hold the flowers too tightly, crushing them in my clenched fists.

Dith Bazolli small for web-33-2Meredith Bazzoli is a comedian and writer  living just outside Chicago. She spends her days as an instructional assistant on the west side of Chicago and her nights practicing and performing improv. She loves hosting and DIY projects and her tall, dark, and handsome husband Drew. Meredith loves hearing and recording other’s stories, finding glimmers in the mundane, and seeking what it means to love and follow Christ in the everyday. You can find her online at Veryrevealing.com or follow her on Twitter @MeredithBazzoli

Meredith Bazzoli is a comedian and writer  living just outside Chicago. She spends her days as an instructional assistant on the west side of Chicago and her nights practicing and performing improv. She loves hosting and DIY projects and her tall, dark, and handsome husband Drew. Meredith loves hearing and recording other’s stories, finding glimmers in the mundane, and seeking what it means to love and follow Christ in the everyday.

On Getting Married Too Young

When you fall in love at 19, people talk. People think that you’re naïve. That you’re too young to understand love and commitment. And if you choose to marry young then you shouldn’t be surprised when it doesn’t work out.

So we waited. We waited until we were 22. And still, people talked. They said, “When you marry young you still have so much growing to do. You’ll change. He’ll change. You might become totally different people.”

After five years of marriage I can say that they were right.

We are different people and Lord knows I’ve changed. Sometimes I feel guilty that this woman who shares your bed now is not the girl you married. It feels like false advertising. As though I promised you one thing and delivered another.

But then, you’re not the boy I married either. And I love you more because of it.

See, love is not one fixed shape. It’s elastic. It stretches like a balloon or a gum bubble or the belly of a woman around the body of her child. Its parameters are set by the beloved.

Maybe marriage starts with “I love who you are now, today, in this moment,” but it is also, “I will love who you become.”

Marriage means our roots are intertwined. No matter which direction you grow, you can only go so far from me. We are hopelessly tangled. And this is a miracle. This is why we say that marriage is holy. Because it requires an act of God.

I will change and you will change and we may grow in different ways that are impossible for us to imagine. But love will grow as we do. Sometimes it will grow easily and naturally. Sometimes it will require work, like a master gardener prunes and weeds and coaxes a sapling. It might be hard, but hard and bad are not the same thing, Love.

After more than eight years of loving I can see that every change in you is a gift to me. I get to discover a new part of you, and the more I know you, the more I love you. It makes me wonder if the people who grow bored with their relationships are simply the people who stop changing.

Yesterday you asked me for something simple and easy to give and I snapped. I sighed. I exaggerated. I may have even stomped my feet. But after a few minutes I came back. I was embarrassed. I apologized.

And you wrapped your arms around me and lifted my feet from the ground, which always makes me feel small even on a fat day. Then you put one hand behind my head and planted the other on the small of my back and pressed me into your body. We swayed back and forth in our little kitchen without any music and I fell in love for the thousandth time.

Note: The photographer for this picture can now be found at http://www.grainandcompass.com

Fifty-two Weeks of Adventure #25: Adventures in Konglish

When we first arrived in Korea two years ago we were surprised to discover that there is English everywhere here. We were equally surprised to discover that the vast majority of it is grammatically incorrect, misspelled, or complete nonsense. The majority of store names, advertisements, and words on clothing are all written in English, though it’s clear that no one who actually speaks English was involved in their design or manufacture. To give you an analogy for what this is like, imagine if you went to the US (or England or another English-speaking country) and found that all of their stores had Chinese names and the people mostly wore clothes with Chinese characters on them, even though very few people spoke Chinese.

In our first few months we were constantly amused by this and tried to take pictures of especially funny examples when we found them, but if you live with anything for long enough it will start to seem normal. After a while we got used to all of the strange and bad English surrounding us and stopped noticing it as much.

On Sunday we met our friends downtown for lunch and decided to make a point to try to notice the ridiculous English we passed just on our way to the restaurant. Unfortunately some of the best examples are on people’s clothing and that’s much harder to get pictures of without being really rude, but we still found some gems without going out of our way.

Clothing store with this inspirational quote on it.

Clothing store with this inspirational quote on it.

Cafe Lucid

Contact Lens store

Contact Lens store

On the wall in one of our favorite restaurants.

On the wall in one of our favorite restaurants.

In addition to these signs we spotted on the go, I went back through my phone pictures and pulled out some favorites we have collected along the way.

Student's English notebook.

Student’s English notebook.

On the wall in the English Village Learning Center

On the wall in the English Village Learning Center

Coffeeing

Best Coffee Cup of Life

Best Coffee Cup of Life

Im bong

Shirt I almost bought for my friend but resisted.

Shirt I almost bought for my friend but resisted.

body breast face

On a plastic surgery office. I’m hoping those “breasts” are the befores and not the afters….

This is on the wall in my English classroom.

This is on the wall in my English classroom.

And my all-time favorite – this tissue box found by a fellow native English teacher.

tissue box

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Adventures in Konglish. We are trying to remember to take more pictures of these things now that our time here is coming to an end. I know the photos will bring back memories and make us laugh for years to come.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about our 5th anniversary trip to Busan you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Friday Book Chats: “Middle Child” Books (Easily Overlooked)

I’ve been thinking lately about how very hard it must be to be a novelist. Not only is there so much work that goes into writing, and then the pressure of trying to get published and then hoping people buy it and then hoping it gets good reviews, etc. And even if you manage to achieve all of that, the buzz around a particular book only lasts for so long and then you have to do it all over again.

For today’s book chat I wanted to write about some really good books that you may not have heard of, or at least may not have heard about in a while. These aren’t exactly obscure books, but they are what I’d call “Middle Child” books.They are too old to still be hyped up and popular but they aren’t old enough to be classics and most have authors that are  better-known for other works. While none of these books are all-time favorites, they are all books that I rate highly and would recommend.

DeerskinDeerskin by Robin McKinley (1993). McKinley was one of my favorite authors growing up. She was writing young adult fantasy before that genre really existed. While I read and loved every one of her books (highly, highly recommend The Hero and the Crown), I remember being awestruck by this one, perhaps in part because it was one of my first forays out of true children’s books and into something weightier. Princess Lissla Lissar is on the cusp of womanhood, a beauty only equal to her dead mother, but she is forced to flee her kingdom when that likeness sparks her father’s lust and madness. She flees with her loyal dog, Ash, eventually finding a job working in the kennels for another king where the prince becomes captivated by the kennel maid and tells her stories until one day he tells her the story of Lissla Lissar.

Lake of DreamsThe Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards (2011). Edwards is best known for The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, but The Lake of Dreams is worth a read. This beautifully atmospheric book tells the story of Lucy Jarrett who has returned home to a small town in upstate New York after years of living abroad. When Lucy finds a collection of objects inside a window seat, she realizes she has stumbled onto some family secrets. Lucy begins a quest for answers about the objects she’s found and about the unresolved death of her father a decade earlier.

People of the BookPeople of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (2008). Brooks is a Pulitzer-prize winning author (for March in 2006, also a great book) whose books are heavily rooted in real historical events. Inspired by a true story, this book traces the story of a rare illuminated manuscript and the people who loved it and preserved it through centuries of war and exile. When the Sarajevo Haggadah is rescued from Bosnia, Hanna Heath, a rare-book expert, is given a once-in-a-lifetime  chance to study it. This book takes Hanna and the reader on a journey that is both historically fascinating and emotionally evocative. I’ve read reviews of this book from people who didn’t connect with it at all, but I thought it was fascinating.

American WifeAmerican Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (2008). Sittenfeld is probably best known for her debut novel, Prep, which I didn’t love. I was intrigued by this novel because it’s a complete work of fiction whose main character, Alice Blackwell, is heavily modeled after Laura Bush. One of the most interesting elements of this book to me was the exploration of a character who doesn’t hold all of the same political or social views as her husband and is put in position where she has to decide what it looks like to support someone she doesn’t always agree with.

History of LoveThe History of Love by Nicole Krauss (2006). Krauss’ more recent book, Great House, is also well worth reading, but this was the first book of hers I read and I’m attached to it. Until recently she was married to writer Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and I can see some similarities in their work. Leo Gursky is a tired old Polish immigrant who lives a quiet, lonely life, but once upon a time he was young and in love and he wrote a book. 14-year-old Alma was named after a character in that book and she is determined to find her namesake, even though it’s been 60 years since the book was written.

Yiddish Policeman's UnionThe Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon (2007). Chabon is the author of one of my all-time favorite books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which won the Pulitzer in 2000). The thing I love about Chabon is that he strongly believes that a book can be both literary and entertaining. He often experiments with classic genre fiction, and this book is a prime example. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union is a police detective story mixed with a dose of 1940’s noir. A small community of Jewish refugees have made their home in Sitka, Alaska where they were offered temporary asylum after WWII, but now their little world is about to change as their district reverts to Alaskan control. For homicide detective Meyer Landsman, this is just one more part of his life that is falling apart. When Landsman begins to investigate the murder of his neighbor, he receives instructions to drop the case from his supervisor – who is also his estranged wife. Landsman pursues the case anyway with startling results.

Do you have any books you wish more people knew about? Or books you love that don’t seem to get enough credit? Please share in the comments. I’m always looking for new suggestions!

Thankful Thursdays Guest Post: Old Friends are the Best Friends

I’m excited to share today’s guest post from fellow writer Cara Meredith. Cara and I “met” (online) because we run in some of the same circles, blog-wise. I’ve been enjoying her blog, Be, Mama. Be. for quite a while now and was honored to  do a guest post for her last month. Whenever I read Cara’s writing I just want to sit down with her, some big cups of coffee and a cozy couch and talk about all the things. I think you’ll see what I mean.

Old Friends are the Best Friends

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Old Friends are the Best Friends.

Now I’m not knocking those who’ve only been in my life for a year or two, but to me, there’s something powerful about being around people who stake double-digit claim to how long they’ve known you. Suddenly, that which unites current, everyday friends – children who are similar in age or religious beliefs and practices or the city we dwell in – doesn’t seem to hold so much weight.

The irony is that when Old Friends step into the picture again, we can seem to hold little in common: staunch Republican, left-wing Democrat; traditional evangelical Christian, meditative Buddhist yogi; married with four children, single and still ready to mingle.  If you’d asked me ten years ago if I thought I could stay in relationship with those who hadn’t moved and grown along with me (and like me, I might add), I’d have likely mumbled a pithy reply.  I’d have shaken my head in solemn understanding of the sadness of my own plight.  I’d have said my good-byes, at least in my mind, no sooner than burning old letters and dreaming of Friendship’s Funeral.

We share great memories, I would have said to you, but memories can’t sustain a friendship in the present. 

Or can it?

I’m beginning to realize I was wrong.

Maybe wisdom is starting to grab hold of me.  Maybe I’m learning that life isn’t as narrow and compartmentalized as I make it out to be, at least when I’m hurting and sad and missing the people who make me whole.  And maybe I’m also realizing that life is merely and solely and wholly made up of relationships.  Life is made up of people, of lovely, messy humans who are mine – and who, the grand scheme of This One Beautiful and Precious Life matter to me.

To say that I’m thankful for Old Friends is an understatement. Because gratitude burgeons deep in my insides when their faces come to mind, while affection for the stories we share mercilessly stirs the waters of my soul.

Because the books I own, they don’t matter.  The writing I do, it too doesn’t matter.  The house we love, the television we watch, the baseball games we attend – don’t matter, don’t matter, don’t matter.

But the people – oh, the people, they do matter.

For me, I’m beginning to sprinkle a bit more grace into my relationships.  My standard for friendship used to be high, even though I wouldn’t have classified it as such – but for me, you were a good friend, we were good friends if you pursued me and sought after me, if you showed me you wanted to be my friend.  And maybe that’s why if and when someone – an Old Friend of sorts – didn’t live up to my standards, like the cardboard I stockpile in our recycle bin, I discarded them easily, carelessly, breezily.

But now I want my cardboard back.

I want and I yearn and I salivate for those Old Friends, for the ones I don’t have to explain myself to, for she who loves me despite my flaky nature.  I want to be around those people – who are, by all accounts My People – even if we don’t dress the same way or eat the same way or worship the same way anymore.  Because there is tenderheartedness toward each other in the stories we’ve shared, as we remember and retell and revisit our histories.

After all, we share us. We share the memories that made us and shaped us and defined us, the adventures we took together when we didn’t have more than $74 to our name, when we thought backpacking was the greatest invention since sliced bread.  We share stories of Europe and Costa Rica, of Santa Cruz and Portland and Seattle, of campfires and barbeques, sleepovers and road trips. We share the growing up we did together, as teenagers and as young adults, and we share the common experience of learning how to be our most raw and real selves, the Real Me hidden inside all along.

Because here’s the truth: joy and gratitude can mingle anywhere. Maybe it’s the optimist in me, but I believe they’re there, waiting for our cue to start the dance party, ready for our eyes to open to what’s already there.  For me, this mingling happened with old friends on Friday night, over wild boar and cheddar sausages and chunky summer salad and coffee mugs filled with chilled Chardonnay. We gathered to visit with our old roommate and friend who’d flown across the Pacific to say hello, but it ended up being so much more than a backyard barbeque.

It ended up being a reunion of Old Friends.

And Old Friends, as you well know by now, are the best friends.

Carabio1About Cara: 
Cara Meredith is a writer, speaker and musician from the greater San Francisco bay area. She is passionate about theology and books, her family, meals around the table, and finding Beauty in the most unlikely of places. A seven on the Enneagram, she also can’t help but try to laugh and smile at the ordinary everyday. You can find her on her blog, Facebook and Twitter. 
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The Art of Rediscovery: Learning to Pay Attention to Things I Used to Love.

A couple of weeks ago hubby and I saw Pitch Perfect 2. As far as movies go, it was mildly entertaining, but the real point of the movie was the singing. Watching this movie (which contains a lot of a cappella mash-ups of pop songs) made me realize that after two years living abroad, I am completely out of touch with popular American music. I’m still rocking the jams of a few years ago. (And by a few I mean, like at least five). To be honest, I was never that hip with the jams. I have been relying entirely on my youngest sister for what I should be listening to for years. I decided to do some homework.

I came home and pulled up a playlist of the Billboard Top 40 songs of the week. I’d heard a few of them before, but many of them were new to me. I listened straight through, only skipping a few (what can I say, I’m not cool enough for rap).  As I listened I felt like something in me was coming alive after years of lying dormant.

I’d forgotten this about music – the way it can burrow down deep into your bones and make your soul sing, make your hips sway, make your heart beat in a new rhythm. I’d forgotten how your mood could instantly change –how you could feel energized, or in love, or full of longing from one moment to the next.

I’d forgotten how much I love dancing – the way it feels to engage your whole body—neck and shoulders and hips and heels—in movement for the sake of movement. I’d forgotten the pleasure of moving without purpose and without regard for the way my thighs jiggle or my belly creases. I’d forgotten the freedom of moving simply because you can’t make yourself sit still.

There’s something elemental about music, isn’t there? It’s something so present in the background of my life that I’d forgotten what it was like to take the time to enjoy it. I wait in the in-between season, looking ahead at so many new things that it’s easy to forget about old things, about ordinary wonders.

I’ve started to wonder what else I’ve forgotten. What else have I taken for granted? What other simple gifts have I forgotten how to stop and enjoy? Where is God whispering to me, “Stop. Pay attention,” even as I mark off the days on my calendar?

I am on a quest of rediscovery. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I’ll respond to our next adventure, to all the change and all of the newness and it’s suddenly occurred to me, How do you open your heart to something new? Perhaps by fully loving all that you already have.

I’m confident this song isn’t new to anyone except me, but I watched it with the music video recently and just loved it because it’s a great song, plus there’s dancing. I am a terrible dancer, but I love dancing and watching it moves me. Also, Ed Sheeran is everything I adore in a musician from his sound to his look. What can I say? I’ve clearly got a thing for redheads!

PS- How great is that picture of some of our dear friends dancing at our wedding five years ago? That picture makes me all kinds of happy.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 24: Anniversaries and Love Motels

On Saturday my husband and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. I’ve been waiting for years to feel like a grown up. I kept thinking I would feel like one when I moved away from home, when I graduated from college, when I got married, when I got my first “real” job, when I moved across the world. But I have to confess that I’m often amazed that other people seem to think of me as an adult. Cause I just don’t see it most of the time. 🙂 I thought that perhaps a five-year wedding anniversary would be the kind of milestone that made me feel grown up. And I admit that this made me feel a little old. But then I ate nachos for dinner. So not really all that grown up.

Speaking of not grown up...these guys were just chilling on their stilts.

Speaking of not grown up…these guys were just chilling on their stilts.

For our anniversary, we spent the night in Busan, our favorite city in Korea. We stayed in a love motel near Haeundae Beach, one of Busan’s most popular areas. “Love motels” are a very common form of accommodation in Korea. As the name suggests, they are motels specifically marketed as places for couples to tryst. In Korea, most people marry in their late twenties to early thirties and people live with their parents until they get married, which means there aren’t a lot of options for couples to spend time together. Additionally, Korean families often sleep together in the same room, so even a married couple with a few young children might utilize a love motel for some alone time. Actually I’ve heard that a few years ago, there was some sort of law that required businesses to close mid-afternoon one day per week so that people would be encouraged to make more babies. There is something of a population crisis in Korea where the average family has only have one child, two maximum, which means they aren’t replacing themselves and the population is in decline. So the government invented a way to encouraged people to spend more “quality time” with their spouses. As far as I know, this is no longer in effect.

Some motels are themed and have interesting decor and others are essentially just like small mid-range hotels that happen to provide you with condoms. It may sound sketchy, but the love motels are often cleaner and nicer than hostels and are much more affordable than fancy hotels. The one we stayed at this time wasn’t themed, but it did have mirrors all over the place, including the ceiling. It also had a lovely bathtub which was easily my favorite part of the room since we don’t have a tub or even a proper shower in our apartment. (Like many Korean apartments, we simply have a “wet room” where our shower head is attached to the sink and you just stand in the middle of the bathroom to shower with no curtains or anything).

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It was pretty overcast the entire time we were in Busan, so while we spent a bit of time walking along the beach, the views weren’t the best we’ve seen. We did have a nice dinner in a restaurant near the beach that’s known for it’s Western menu where we had BBQ chicken sliders and a giant plate of nachos. Nothing gourmet, but certainly some comfort food.

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We tried so hard to selfie, but we weren't very good at it...

We tried so hard to selfie, but we weren’t very good at it…

This guy right here = most wonderful man in the world.

This guy right here = most wonderful man in the world. Also, so handsome!

It’s hard to believe we’ve been married for five years, but when we reflect on all that we’ve done and seen and the ways that we’ve changed and grown we have been amazed. I am beyond blessed to be married to such a kind, patient man who makes me laugh every day. We are as crazy about each other as we were when we were 19 and I never want to take that for granted. I’ve written a bit about my thoughts on marriage and why I think ours works so beautifully well, but I am still overwhelmed by the gift that it is and I’m pretty much fine with owning the fact that I have the most wonderful husband in the world. I am so humbled that he chose me and that he chooses me still, every single day.

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If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about the MERS scare in Korea you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Friday Book Chats: Books and Place

Many people have studied the connection between music and memory – the ability of music to instantly take you back to another time and place that you associate with a particular song or melody. I’ve found that books can have the same effect. There are certain books that I can’t think of without remembering the circumstances surrounding my reading them—where I was or who I was with or what that season of my life was like.

Today’s Book Chat is all about the books that evoke specific memories for me and hold a special place in my heart because of the times and places they remind me of.

Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver. I read this book on my honeymoon. I don’t remember why I chose it, only that I’d read some of Kingsolver’s other books before and this one was available from the library. Since hubby tore a meniscus in his knee just two weeks before our wedding and couldn’t walk without a stabilizing brace, we spent a lot of our honeymoon cruise lying around on the ship and on the beaches and fully embracing our new role as married adults – you know, ordering pb&j sandwiches from room service at all hours of the day. I’ll never be able to think of Taylor Greer and her accidental daughter, Turtle, without thinking about snorkeling in Cozumel.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It’s possible that one of the reasons I love this book so much is simply because of my history with it. I was first introduced to it while on a study abroad trip in England. My friend Bethany read it aloud to me during our time in the Lake District and I fell in love. A few years later, I took a road trip with my best friend from Boston to Pennsylvania with a stop at a wedding in upstate New York. I wanted to read the book to her while she drove, but I’d forgotten to bring it along. We checked the map and found a book store that appeared to be right beside the interstate so we took the exit and went in search of the book. The “bookstore” was at a tiny college bookstore in rural Massachusetts a good twenty minutes from the interstate. Also, they did not have the book. We were stressed out by our detour since we needed to make it to the wedding on time, but it made for a great memory. I love this book that tells the story of Oskar Schell, a precocious nine-year-old who has recently lost in father in the 9/11 attacks on New York City. Oskar finds a key among his father’s possessions and becomes fixated on finding the lock this key fits into.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak. I actually started this book as an audio book which I borrowed from the library in Raleigh and listened to while I was doing long runs for my marathon training. Although I only made it halfway through on the audiobook before I had to return it and later finished reading this the old-fashioned way, I cannot think of it without hearing the narrator’s deep, rumbling voice and imagining the greenways that wind their way around Raleigh’s lakes and streams and woods. This is a fantastic book that tells the story of a young German girl, her adopted parents, and the Jewish fighter they hide in their basement during the Holocaust, as narrated by the omniscient character, Death.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. While the final book of the Harry Potter series would probably have been memorable regardless, this one was especially meaningful to me because it was released while I was in Russia. I had gone to Russia with a team of other girls from college to work with a ministry that was running summer camps for orphans. After just a short time there, there was a salmonella outbreak at our camp and the government shut our camp down, took the children away, and asked us to leave the country. Not only was our trip cut short by a month, but I had horrible food poisoning that left me 15 lbs thinner after just 2 weeks. When we left Russia early I was full of mixed feelings, mostly relief at that point to be going home when I’d been so sick. We flew from Moscow to London. When we landed at Heathrow Airport I high-tailed it to a bookstore and paid an exorbitant 30 quid for  the hardback British edition of HP 7. I read it the whole way home and finished it while struggling through jet lag at 3 am the next day. The HP books are dear to me for lots of reasons, but the memory of how I ended up with this specific copy will always be special.

What books hold special memories for you?

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I stopped putting up links to weekly Kindle deals because it takes me a lot of time and I wasn’t sure anyone was really using them, but there are a few really great books on sale right now that I want to let you know about.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood Rachel Held Evans ($2.99)

Cold Tangerines Shauna Niequist ($2.99)

So Brave, Young, and Handsome Leif Enger author of Peace Like a River. ($1.99)