For Momma

On September 20, 2012, my mother passed away after a long night of battling heart attacks and related complications. On September 25, 2012, I delivered the following reflections as part of her Celebration of Life. If anything or anyone could have prepared me for such a thing, it was her. 

I don’t know my mom’s favorite color. 

It was always the color of the dress one of her girls was wearing for a big occasion or the color of the flowers we had picked out for her to plant on Mother’s Day. It was the color of the crayon one of her grandchildren had in hand when they offered to draw her a picture and the color of the first tulips to break through the ground and bloom in the spring. It was the color of the sunset reflected on the lake, the color of red velvet cake prepared for her family, and the color of the words I’d splattered on a page for one task or another.

I don’t know my mom’s favorite color because she was, without a doubt, the most selfless and giving person I knew. The spotlight was never a comfortable place for her, simply because she’d rather be the spotlight shining on another person. Her best work was in bringing out the best in others – students, colleagues, family and friends. She was everyone’s biggest fan and could fill a room with confidence in a matter of minutes.

My mom had a way of making you feel capable and strong no matter the task before you: childbirth and parenting, making a complicated meal from scratch, and overcoming the unthinkable – in whatever form it revealed itself in. Even today, I stand here in awe of her efforts to prepare me for the unthinkable. In her last months, to no one’s surprise, she was planting the seeds of strength I’d need to be able to stand before you.

For years, she’d gifted (and gifted again) a copy of Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance” to everyone in our family, just to make sure we got the message. For Christmas, she gave me a plaque that read, “I can’t promise that I’ll be here for the rest of your life, but I can promise that I’ll love you for the rest of mine.” She taught my friends how to support me, encourage me, and love me. She had designated several people to step up when she knew I would need it the most. And just over a week ago she highlighted my ability to stay strong and stand tall when faced with a challenge, and the ability to speak in high stress situations as a strength I’d call upon for the rest of my life.

My mother’s heartbeat created my own and likely fueled yours at one time or another, and I am fully convinced that the only reason hers stopped was because it had reached its capacity to love. She devoted her life to those she loved most, and I’d like to think each of the heartbeats she sacrificed has found a new home in each of us. She left no love to spare, and for that I will be forever thankful. 

No, I don’t know my mom’s favorite color, but I do know she had delegated each of her roles in our family to one of us: relentless optimism and a talent for decorating Christmas trees to Staci, the ability to speak up when no one else will and a well-trained talent for taste-testing the Thanksgiving turkey stuffing to Sarah, an appreciation for the little, random, and often overlooked simplicities – along with the gift of clutter - to me. And to my dad, inconquerable strength and the strangely admirable ability to exude love, even in bickering. And in all of us is a bit of the Hilltopper pride that sparkled in her, a passion for life and all the people around us, and – let us not forget – a taste for margaritas.

We share compassion, loyalty, and a passion for life. And I can only hope that one day someone will be able to say I was half the woman my mother was and had touched half the people’s lives her sun-spotted hands had, because her legacy is - and always will be - unparalleled.

The sorority I joined in college taught me to “strive for that which is honorable, beautiful, and highest.” Today, standing before you, I realize that was the challenge I’d been gathering the strength to chase since I was born. Today, I am most certain that the sorority command I’d recited for so many recent years might be appropriately restated: “Let me strive for that which my mother was.” 

I will control myself.

Business halts at 12:30 PM on Fridays in the summer. While I have every intention of using some of my afternoon for productivity, I decided long before I locked up the office that my life deserved an inspiration break. 

I sat down at a perched seat in a local coffee shop with no plans, a scenario that is markedly more uncomfortable than it used to be. Rather than being overwhelmed by things worth writing about, moments worth documenting, words worth preserving, my mind's reach was arrested. As is somewhat typical in my wandering thoughts, I immediately blamed this curse called "growing up" with which I've become quite familiar. 

So, I stretched my vision beyond what was right in front of me and toward a favorite website of mine: Found Magazine. They shine a spotlight on "strange, hilarious, and heartbreaking things people have picked up and passed [their] way." Each time I type its web address into my browser, I relate it to buying a box of random stuff (that someone I'll never know deemed important enough to keep around) at an estate sale, upon which you cannot help but impose imagined answers to that relentless question of "Why?" (More about Found Magazine)

At the very bottom of the page:

Almost reflexively, I imagined a child painstakingly copying sentences an old-school schoolmarm demanded. Naturally, this made me wonder what action or behavior inspired such a sentence.*

Did he shout excitedly, but out of line, about the material he was being taught? Did he shake another student alive who had fallen asleep during a riveting lesson?

Probably not.
But we'll never know.  

Which left me thinking: Is this the moment, the one in which the child's behavior were deemed disorderly and out of control, that the kid was hexed with the "growing up" curse? It's as if you can see his subconscious resistance to the effort to keep his sentences aligned - controlled - by forcing his l's into a straight line. I will control myself. I will control myself. I will control...

The educator in me took the reigns of my thoughts at this point. Characteristically, I started dreaming. What if this child had written and re-written a different sentence? Etching a lesson into his mind to become part of his future, disciplined self? 

I will not stop dreaming.

I will do what I love. 

I will chase what I am passionate about.
I will create a better world. 

I will serve others.

I will portray goodwill and understanding.

Idealistic, sure. There is something pragmatic disguised in this thought, though.
What lesson did you learn as a child that still holds you back today? 

*sen-tence (noun) \ˈsen-t^ən(t)s, -t^ənz\

1. one formally pronounced by a court or judge in a criminal proceeding and specifying the punishment to be inflicted upon the conviction
2. a word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pause
3. all all of the above

And know the place for the first time...

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

(T.S. Eliot)

Among the many other reasons I could ramble on and on about, I love words for their ability to preserve moments beautifully, nostalgically. Such is usually my inspiration for writing; I'm typically trying to capture something with a carefully woven net of words that otherwise threatens, with every passing minute, to slip irretrievably through my fingers. T.S. Eliot, though, in the quote above, does something I admire: he epitomizes an otherwise indescribable experience. To me, this is the most incredible feat a writer can accomplish, much like charting undiscovered territory.

I'm an adventurer. That's common knowledge. When people marvel at my always-surprising life from their own perspectives, I fumble over words to describe where my motivation comes from. How does one explain the feeling of possibility at the tipping point of a new beginning? How does one put into words the spectacularly swirling emotions of coming home after a long journey?

T.S. Eliot captures a facet of adventure and homecoming that I've struggled to hammer down. He touches on the notion that exploring beyond one's starting point grants one more wisdom and capacity to understand the place in which one started. Beyond that, I think, is a more novel idea; "to arrive where we started / and know the place for the first time" suggests that one only fully understands the value of leaving and the role leaving plays in the grand narrative of one's life upon the return to the starting point. An awakening, if you will. This, my friends, is where I am today.

After returning from 8 months of life in a suitcase and constant uprooting, I better understand my starting place and, therefore, myself. I'm writing from my favorite corner of the world just as I have for years, but today I have a new perspective than ever before. Because I have pushed my own limits and explored beyond imagined boundaries that I had subconsciously constructed over time, I better understand my beginning. Sometimes it is even as if I am seeing and feeling and understanding things for the first time. I appreciate simplicities of home more than ever, almost as novelties, but I also better understand myself and my values. More than anything, I understand where I come from and I am more thankful than ever for the experiences and opportunities my "home" of places and people granted me, readying me for adventure after adventure.

Now... what adventure is next?

Again and again, and forever again.

I'm certainly an adventurer who appreciates a good dosage of spontaneity, but I also value the personal routines and rituals I've developed over time. They're constantly changing, but my favorites are what I like to call "the bookends."

Each day's first bookend? After my alarm sounds and before I get out of bed to stumble to the shower, I stop to ponder what I am most looking forward to in the day before me. It serves as a bit of a "warm up" for the usually busy agenda that awaits my attention. Sometimes it's a big event that I'm looking forward to, other times it's a meal or a nap. It's always varied, though. It helps me highlight how much there is to look forward to in each day, which propels me through those things I might be dreading.

The last bookend developed pretty organically. I "worked" (let's be honest, I was enjoying my spot as a barista too much to call it work) at Starbucks for quite a while in college. I began asking each and every customer and Starbucks partner I encountered what the best part of their day had been, inspiring them to slow down from the hurry of their lives and consider the rich, vibrant pieces. With time, several regular customers became eager to share their "best part" with me when they saw my car in the parking lot, and many stopped to ask me the same question when it had slipped my mind. This simple interaction became one of the most treasured pieces of my everyday life, and it taught me to appreciate and value each person's unique journey. While living in our sorority house in college, one roommate and I would even "collect" our daily best parts on a poster inside our closet. Today, I keep this ritual alive by asking friends and family members, but also by asking myself for my own answer as a "cool down" for the day as I settle in for bed.

The bigger picture, though, is where I find the most meaning. It astounds me how often my "warm up" and "cool down" rituals do not match up. More often than not, my conclusion about the best part of my day is something so much smaller than I what I was most looking forward to. The littlest opportunities to be happy tend to take command of my entire day if I let them. Today's source of bliss? Ryan Adams sneaking through the speakers while I write. Never fails to make everything else melt away for a moment.

Go ahead. Try it.



"Great opportunities present themselves at the most unexpected moments, in surprisingly unexpected ways. What's most important is being open and being flexible." - LVL, Arizona State University

"Renew thyself completely each day; do it again and again, and forever again." - Henry David Thoreau

There are no mistakes, just learning experiences.

I've become somewhat fascinated with this twenty-something stage of life I'm currently navigating... or trying to navigate, at least. Conversations between my once inseparable friends are now separated by miles and office hours, but we stay in touch with text messages and brief phone calls that are usually riddled with the same cyclical topics: I never saw this coming. Did I make the right decision? I want more out of life. Am I on the right path? I miss college. Where do I go from here?

Within my best friend circle, though, there is a resounding emphasis on the Did I make the right decision? dilemma, and I must assume this is the case for plenty of people sitting at the same point in their lives. I know I'm not the only one who has felt a bit paralyzed by uncertainty or regret at one point or another, so I thought I'd share a tidbit I've found extremely helpful.

About a week ago, after becoming fed up with the way my mind was stuck analyzing the same decisions over and over, I started looking at things differently. Intentionally. And I can honestly say it's making me a much happier person. Call it waving the white flag, but I decided to give in to my anxiety about the near and distant past. Who says life is full of rights and wrongs? We're all finding our way through different pathways, and no road map or compass could ever hold all the answers we'd ask for. And let's be honest, there's no way to really know if it was right or wrong, anyway. 

So why not switch it up? Rather than fretting over those seemingly life-changing forks in the road, I've resolved with myself to make the best possible decision in the situation I'm given, then consider it not right nor wrong, but action and experience worth learning from. For someone like me, the action itself is what matters. Complacency, settling, and being stuck in one place without progress seem quite miserable, and actually doing something seems to be the only way to a better experience. 

Take a risk. Allow yourself to reflect. Learn from it.
If you successfully do that, you're inevitably going to end up right where you belong.

"Don't get so overwhelmed about your choices that you become paralyzed. Just take a step forward in any direction and try something out, even if you're scared or unsure of the outcome. That's what this age is all about; there are no mistakes, just learning experiences." --Nerissa G., University of California, Santa Barbara in Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want

"The past is beautiful like the darkness between fireflies..." -Mason Jennings

I miss everything. And that's not an exaggeration.

I am (and will always be) vulnerable to nostalgia. For as long as I can recall, my friends and family have been teasing me about my ongoing "remember when...?" comments. When people ask my biggest fear, my first answer is always "forgetting" and when they ask what I'm afraid to forget, the answer is "everything." I panic when I can't remember something, and that's becoming a growing issue. I use Twitter as virtual sticky notes, quick quips about things worth noting. I even write to remember, which explains why creative nonfiction is my favorite genre and I'm always scribbling lists on scrap pieces of paper: lists of things to do, lists of favorite things, lists of feelings, lists of things to write about, lists of moments to remember. In fact, I've been making lists for years of things to include in the memoir I'd like to write when the chaos of life settles a bit. And it's about my own life.

It's not even that I only miss the good times. I've found that if I wait long enough, I miss the times I thought were rock bottom, too. And since realizing that, I've been able to propel myself through tough times by remembering that I'll look back at those memories with a smile, too... even if it takes a while.

I like to entertain myself by wondering what I'll miss about any given chapter of my life. For this one? The possibilities are endless. Come to think of it, that might be what marries my love for both the brink of new experience and sentimental nostalgia... The "hum of possibility" that surrounds a new experience might be the buzz about what I'll preserve as a memory later.



A few things I miss today (and that I should probably write about at some point):

Being an arm's length away from my best friends at almost all times
Kentucky sunshine on a crisp fall day while the leaves paint Chestnut Street orange
Still learning from an inspirational English teacher long after graduation
Pulling all-nighters to write papers about books I didn't have time to read
Homecoming memories with my favorite people in my favorite place
Riding around with my high school friends, knowing that everything would turn out all right
Caring about nothing but the moment riding bikes around Coldwater, Michigan
Watching the world wake up at 5 am from my favorite corner of the universe: Starbucks
Racing down Smallhouse Road to make it home in time for my high school curfew
Crying my eyes out in a teal room, circa 2007
Learning the ways of the world from my sisters' perspectives
A life-changing professor named Walker Rutledge and his mind-opening lectures

Lessons from a Starbucks drive-thru

When I worked at Starbucks, I dealt with notoriously joyful "regulars" and notoriously grumpy "regulars." For the former, the cup of coffee seemed like an added delight in their days, something they looked forward to. For the latter, the cup of coffee was sustenance, something they needed more than they wanted.

I would always contemplate their differences with another barista. How could one customer be so delightful while the next was such a burden to serve? Our theory: everyone has multiple forks in the road, chances to do something differently. Perhaps those inevitably grumpy people regret their decision and aren't satisfied with the life they're living.

I think about those contrasting customers more often than you'd believe. Now I'm just determined to be the joyful person in the drive-thru window. And I think it's less right-decision vs. wrong-decision and more learn-from-every-decision mixed with a little bit of delight-in-the-simple-things. Like cups of coffee.


But I could be completely wrong.