today

"Faith is the art of holding on to things in spite of your changing moods and circumstances.” ― C.S. Lewis

is thems the thoughts of cows?

Since I've been in Germany taking this little break from reality, I've had lots of time to read for fun - something I never did while in school and working. I read something near thirty books (nerd alert) during the cold of this winter, among them, pretty much everything David Sedaris has published. Total literary candy. Once I started reading them, I couldn't help myself from devouring more. I like to think that Sedaris and I have a lot in common - we're both unusually small people who get carried away living out fantasies in our minds. We both seem to have a "let's see where life takes me" (read: impulsive) approach to life. We both take a more experiential (read: lazy) approach to learning language, as evidenced in many of his hilarious memoirs, most notably When You Are Engulfed In Flames and Me Talk Pretty One Day.

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts about his ex-pat attempts at learning French:

“On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From the dog owners I learned "Lie down," "Shut up," and "Who shit on this carpet?" The couple across the road taught me to ask questions correctly, and the grocer taught me to count. Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. "Is thems the thoughts of cows?" I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window. "I want me some lamb chop with handles on 'em.” 

“I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. Why refer to lady crack pipe or good sir dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?” 

“What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard.” 

And, an excerpt from "Jesus Shaves," my favorite story of all. He nice, the Jesus.


Language has never been my strong-suit. It's far too linear to appeal to my mostly right-brain (read: flighty) way of life. I realized this first while suffering through a miserable three years of high school French classes, but that didn't stop me from trying my hand at Spanish in college and then moving to Germany post-grad to see if I could successfully learn a language by sheer force.

Things are going pretty much exactly as I expected, considering my track record. I can understand most of what I hear in day-to-day conversation, but I usually clam up when it's my turn to talk. I probably only have around 150 words committed to memory and I've created a nice little cocoon of English-speaking friends to keep me safe. My one proud accomplishment? I get asked for directions with a surprising frequency, which I've taken to mean is because I look like a local. I'm proud to say that I've successfully provided directions to several people. In English, of course.

meanwhile

Remembering this and listening to this:

Listen - are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

you are here

Nostalgia is one of my favorite pastimes. Whenever I have brain space to myself, my mind usually wanders into what I was doing a year ago, when the weather was the same. I hear a forgotten song and go back to the moment I first heard it, who played it for me, where we were. When I’m in a new place, nostalgia is my anchor, a reminder that I have infinite experiences and people to be grateful for. In springtime, I’m especially nostalgic because, like the rest of the living world, it’s the perfect time to shed all the old parts you’re made of.

Starting new is a tough concept for me – I am fiercely loyal to the people and places I love. I have always thought that any problem can be fixed by enough hard work or optimism or a shift in perspective. I can count all of the things I’ve quit on one hand, and can’t even begin making a list of things I’ve persisted through to the point of exhaustion. I like it when things work. It’s easier that way.

This time last year, I finally came to terms with my first real heartbreak – a slow burn of a failure whose charred remains are still smoking. I’m independent to a fault, but when I commit to anything, I continue to believe in its goodness until it breaks me. Even when everything good has long since dried up. This time last year, I began spiraling into someone I could no longer recognize. I was living in my hometown – a place I love with a proud vengeance, but an immeasurably tough place to be when things aren't going well. I felt like there was a magnifying glass on my failure. An emphasis on what I fucked up. By the Fourth of July I decided to commit to change.

I decided to seek out infinite possibility and it was waiting for me the second I opened my eyes to it. It took me one week to find a job abroad and two days to sign the contract. I booked a plane ticket almost immediately. I decided I was comfortable draining the savings account I’d religiously built up over the years. Best of all, I didn’t have to ask anyone for help. Miraculously, moving to Berlin was byfar the easiest decision I’ve ever made. When I stepped off the plane, I felt awake for the first time in months. I was surrounded by an abundance of space, something I hadn’t seen in the two years I’d been in Nashville. Jetlagged and dry eyed, I heard a steady mantra: “you are here, you are here, you are here.”

For now I’m thrilled to be wandering in the total unknown. My feet always hurt because I walk everywhere. My head is wrapped up in conjugations and new letters I can’t pronounce. My heart feels four years younger. I don’t have an end date or an idea of what’s next, but I do have a new perspective and for the first time in a long time, I know it can fix anything wrong.

a hand in water

(via)

seeking out meaning instead of happiness

Costa Rica, Summer 2010

The next book on my list is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning (thanks to one of my favorite travel bloggers, Taryn Adler's, suggestion via this fantastic Atlantic article.) I definitely should have read this book while writing my undergrad thesis on the effects of positive psychology, but I was probably too busy spending Sundays with my roommates at Hand in Hand to think of it.

Here's an excerpt from the article (you should read it):

"...the book's ethos -- its emphasis on meaning, the value of suffering, and responsibility to something greater than the self -- seems to be at odds with our culture, which is more interested in the pursuit of individual happiness than in the search for meaning. "To the European," Frankl wrote, "it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.'"

I am currently living out THE most selfish phase of my life, which I'm allowing myself for just a little longer. Glad to have this reminder that personal happiness doesn't mean much without people to share it with. Time to get back out of my head.

two things [part II]

I used to (well…still do) spend a lot of time worrying about where I was on the sliding scale of adulthood – school, job, money, love, ability to host a party that people want to go to – hoping to make it to where I’m supposed to be, as soon as I’m supposed to be there, hand-in-hand with my friends, wearing something gorgeous and timeless and reasonably priced.

I spent the first half of the night before my twenty-fourth birthday getting lost on the way to see a band play. I got more lost than I’ve ever been, which is saying a lot for someone who really struggles with the concepts of space and direction and wonders how streets were ever constructed in the first place. I’ve gotten so used to being cold that I didn’t even notice that my toes and fingers were frozen to the bone until twenty minutes after I finally made it inside. I’m on foot, without a map, my phone has one bar of battery left, it’s snowing. I’m wandering aimlessly in a city where I don’t speak the language, profoundly clueless about the neighborhood I’m in, about to turn an age that I had always considered fully grown-up and far away from reality. I thought I was going to miss the show. I thought I might get kidnapped. I thought I was going to have to find a place to pee outside.

I thought about how none of this was how I’d imagined turning twenty-four. I thought I’d be a lot closer to my old idea of grown up – on track and settled. Then I realized how happy I was in that moment. How happy I was that I quit my job in November and am living out a worthwhile gap in my resume. How happy I am to be making a lot less money than I used to and seeing things I never would have seen if I hadn’t taken a huge chance. How I feel righted and joyful and a lot more centered than I was a few months ago. How abundantly lucky I am to be here, getting lost.

I made it just in time.

two things [part I]

When I was considering the decision to come to Berlin, two thoughts stayed in the forefront of my mind, so much so that it felt like they were rooted in the very center of my forehead, blocking my view. I knew that the only way to get things right again was to smack these thoughts out so I could walk straight and see clearly. First of these was an intense need to reestablish myself as myself. The second was that I needed to find an excuse to write. The moment the Berlin opportunity blurred into focus, I knew it was exactly what I needed to smack me back to life.

I spent the night before my twenty-fourth birthday seeing a band I like a lot but honestly may not remember ten years from now. That concert was my first here in Berlin – six weeks after I landed. The moment I saw that they were making a stop here, I bought a ticket and planned on going solo, partly because six weeks is a long, long, long time for a Nashville girl to go without seeing a show and partly because I thought it would be nice to spend time around people who knew all the lyrics to an album I knew all the lyrics to too. I don’t know if it was the music or the people I met or the fact that I get majorly sentimental every time I officially get a little older, but I walked out into the cold air later that night feeling totally righted. So much clearer. Centered. Even after the beer.

Every year on our birthdays, my mom makes a show out of my and my brother's “last night as an XX-year-old” or our “first meal as a XX-year-old” which always strikes me first as cheesy, and immediately after as sweet and thoughtful and so profoundly motherly it usually (surprise!) makes me cry. So, mama, if you’re listening, my first official act as a 24-year-old was writing this on the notes app on my phone on the train ride home that night. I think this is what they call progress.

perceiving these things

Copenhagen sky

"She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring. She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do."

-Zelda Fitzgerald

nighter than day and higher than noon

Listening to this while reading this.