The state of things

I am living in the city of Lethbridge, which over the last five years has come to be my home. I can live with, predict, and even appreciate its weather patterns. I see people I know all over the place.

I have no car. Ugh. I'm navigating the transit system easily, but it just takes longer. And waiting at bus stops is a cold burden to bear.

I have a job. Full-time, working with a goofy photographer and his semi-awkward assistant. It's nothing to sniff at or look down on, but the thought of doing something like this - answering phones, booking appointments, writing up invoices - for the next forty years is just short of repulsive. There must be a job out there for me that I will love and look forward to going to every day.

On the bright side, today I put together someone's wedding album and she didn't hate it. Success!

Also how do people work full-time, and still have time for life? There are things I should be doing, like cleaning our house, and things I want to do, like meeting friends for lunch, that I just don't have time for. I've come to have more respect for parents who have full-time jobs and kids and still manage to get those kids to school and soccer and band and feed them while still keeping themselves upright. Amazing.

I live with two really nice girls who are, unfortunately, getting to know more about me than I'd like. For example, how much I dislike even the slightest bit of noise after I've gone to bed, which is ridiculously early. And how much I hate crumbs on the counter. And how territorial I am.

I didn't go to church on Sunday. I didn't have a ride. That's just an excuse.

I moved here planning to study with Tom, my wonderful horn teacher, and look into applying to grad programs in music for next year. So far I might have practiced once. I need to find time to practice and have lessons and research schools. If I wait too long I'll have to wait another year. And then what?

I've been cooking, just from recipes. They're easy to follow, but I know there are people who have difficulty with recipes, so I'm glad it's been working for me. Also groceries are expensive and you think twice about snacking all the time when you were the one who bought the grapes and the peanut butter.

Packing lunches for work is the lamest. I thought I was done with packed lunches when I finished school but I don't think I ever will be. Sandwiches, apples, granola bars. Exciting.

Today I sound bitter about this move. I'm not really bitter, just tired from trying to work all these things out in my mind. I know it isn't a lot. But this is my first experience with real life and adjusting is hard work.

At camp during the summer we would do Pows and Wows, where everyone had to think of one Pow (a negative thing) and one Wow (a positive thing) for the day. The one rule is that you have to end on a Wow. I hate Pows and Wows, but I get the concept. So this has been a lot of Pows, and I should really end with a Wow.

I should really end with a Wow.

Lest we forget

I love Remembrance Day because it isn't about any of us; it's about all of us. There are no cards for Remembrance Day, no special dinners, no special sales, no gifts. There is no selfishness in Remembrance Day. People gather together in town squares, city halls, and sports arenas, their differences laid aside for something much bigger than any of us.

I love the lines of people standing solemnly around war memorials across the country. I love the hymns and prayers that are not protested on this day. I love the millions of plastic poppies left behind when the services have finished; our bright red promise to remember.

One day I'd love to attend a Remembrance Day service on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Until then, I watch it on TV, tearing up during the Last Post and the Piper's Lament.

110 000 Canadians have died in wars since 1899. I have lost no one to war; I live a charmed life in a peaceful country. Remembrance Day is as much for those personally affected by war as for those like me who haven't the slightest clue what war is really like.

War has been represented in many great works of art. I love the poem "In Flanders Fields," and I love that it is as well known in this country as our national anthem. Another poem that's less widely recognized is "For the Fallen" (Laurence Binyon), though it also read at many Remembrance Day services. Two verses:

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Something about fall

My last "here's what I've been up to because I've been pretty awful about updating anyone about my life" post ended on a blindly optimistic note. I had no idea what was coming next, but I was looking forward to it.

Now that the two months that were in the future at that time are now in the past, it strikes me how ridiculous it is that anyone would ever panic about the future. The days roll on at a rate of exactly sixty minutes per hour, and we do things, simply because we can't do nothing. I mean, you can do nothing, you can sit and do nothing, but even that is doing something. Time stops for no one.

At some point after I had written that post, I decided to go back to camp. To be honest, I had decided to spend the fall season at camp as soon as it was suggested to me. But for me, there's the point at which I've inwardly agreed to do something, and then there's the point at which I broadcast it. So when I wrote that post I just hadn't reached the broadcasting part yet.

Spending September and October at camp was great! I was a member of a staff of thirteen very different individuals. When it comes to staff teams, I've seen quite a few. I don't know that I've ever worked with so many completely different people at once, but somehow we made it work. By the end of it, though, I had spent one too many days in the dish pit and about fifteen too many days at the zipline, and I was worn out.

About halfway through October, I had the chance to briefly visit Lethbridge, the city I recently left as our family moved to Kelowna. I loved visiting friends there, seeing the university, and, above all, attending my church there.

That was the point at which I'd inwardly agreed to move back to Lethbridge.

I didn't broadcast it until I signed a rental contract for a little room in the upstairs part of a house shared with two other girls I very vaguely know. It all fell together easily. I felt sure-footed as God guided my steps, dropping things into my lap. A camp friend said, no, things are not falling into your lap, Jesus is whipping them at you!

My new house is disguised as a forest.

I am slowly adjusting to being "moved out" for the first time. I'm navigating the bus system, comparing prices, and even cooking. Yes, it was soup from a can, but the point is that I made it.

Next, I will be looking for a job. I'm not sure yet what it will be, but whether it comes as a fastball-to-the-face or a feather-to-the-sleeve, I'll take it.