Ruminating
Posted: May 23, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment »I love quotes. Words. Stories confined within a sentence. When I was in college, I wrote my favorites down in a little notebook I carried with me; today, it’s a Word document. Here are a few of my recent favorites (because I’m sure the Internet really wants to know).
“…[she] tried to make peace after the fashion of weak-minded persons, who would cover over the unpleasant sight of a sore, instead of trying to heal it.”
Elizabeth Gaskell
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Why is there such a fury against religion now? Because religion is the one reliable force that stands in the way of the power of the strong over the weak. The one reliable force that forms the foundation of the concept of the rule of law.”
Peter Hitchens
“But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”
George Eliot
Frozen in Time
Posted: May 18, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: East Asia, good byes, simple pleasures 4 Comments »A moment. This morning. Albus sits at my feet, calm (worn and wearied is perhaps more accurate) from an hour of frenzied tussling with the rug and a water bottle. Outside, I see workers below me, building a veranda on a nearby rooftop. The sound of hammering is persistent, the low thud of background noise. It’s cloudy, hazy, cool in the way peculiar to thick and humid days.
I linger over my coffee, trying to discern what is inside my heart. Truth be told, I’m not sure. We head home (what a loaded term that one is for us!) in 10 days, back to our mamas and doctor appointments and siblings and the brightly fierce sunshine of the South. I’m ready. My list of things to wrap up here is long, still. Good-byes to friends who, when school lets out in July, will be scattered across the globe. A party to celebrate the soon-arrival of two sweet babies. Presents for family. Next year’s rent to be paid and visas to be handled and plans for the fall to be set. Worries about our tickets and stress over my own forgetful hastiness in myriad tiny details and one last week of walks and cuddles with the pupster. (We can’t bring him home, but no worries, he’ll be waiting for us the moment we get back.)
Trying, in the midst of that, to just be here for a few more days. To stop, to feel the breeze, to be and not just to do. To remember Who my fortress is, and to rest there. To quiet my soul like a weaned child, to quell the anxious thoughts that rise up in my soul over the most quibbling of matters. Striving, this morning, to go out and accomplish what must be done with a heart that is still.
To let this day be simple and joyous.
“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
L.M. Montgomery
With love and gratitude
Posted: May 13, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: mothers, thankfulness Leave a comment »I’m lucky.
Although I suppose my good fortune has not so much to do with luck as with grace, when it comes down to it. The point remains: I–we–have the best mothers around. (No offense, rest of the world. It’s true.) Beverly/Bebe (Michael’s mom) and my own dear Mama are truly treasures, and I’m beyond thankful to call them family.
My mother-in-law is kind and caring. From the moment that I met her (before Michael and I were officially dating, which helped with the nervousness on my part but perhaps made her a bit uncertain what the deal was), she made me feel at home and that she was so glad to have me in her (and her son’s!) life. She supports and encourages, never judging me for who I am and what I do (or don’t) do. She laughs with me, gently, when I’m ridiculous, in a way that makes me feel a loved member of the family. Much of Michael’s creative artistic and musical talents come directly from his mother. I’m grateful for the way she loves her sons, fiercely, yet is willing to let them fly where they may. Suzanne, one of my sisters-in-law, and I often say that we so admire Bebe for the way she raised her three sons. The prayer and love she poured into them is obvious. We ought to know: we reap the benefits every day. I’m so grateful to call her my mother-in-law.
My own mother is wise, strong, practical, and self-sacrificing. Selflessness, I suppose, is a character trait that comes with the territory of being a mother. I have nowhere seen this lived out as richly as in my own mother, from the years she spent raising the four of us girls to the way she supports our dad to the years she has spent caring for her own parents and aunt when they need her. She is always a listening ear, not just to me but to my sisters. (Heaven knows we don’t listen to her enough.) Whether it’s tiny details about my day, frustration, or heartbreak, she is there. And while she’s there to sympathize, she also tells us the truth that we need to hear to face life directly and honestly. She is the wisest woman I know. My sisters and I are very, very far from perfect, but I am proud of the independent women that we have grown up to be, and our mom is responsible for such a great deal of that. I hope that when I grow up, I am as wise, patient, calm, and most of all, self-forgetful as my mother. She’s just the best.
Happy Mother’s Day.
We love you both, dearly.
Not too bad
Posted: April 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: asia, beauty! 3 Comments »If you talk to me even semi-regularly, if you read this blog, if you’ve ever live in our part of the world, you’ve heard me (and others) whine about the weather and the pollution.
This is not a post about that.
Earlier this week, Michael and I and some friends took a get-away to another part of our city, one outside and above the smog. Our destination, although only three or four hours away, had blue skies, dry air, and crisp mountain temperatures. It was lovely, and we were thankful to get away for a few days.
This couple was just in front of us along the path for much of the way. Americans, I think, are weird about photos compared to the rest of the world. Because Asians loooove to cheese it up for their close-ups. We’ve see our fair share of Europeans on this side of the world, too, and Asians have nothing on them when it comes to staged photos (hello, awkward SI style beach photo shoots in Thailand!). I just don’t get it. But I guess I don’t have to.
With my friend Cat, who I’m so thankful to have in my life this year!
Some years ago, a kung fu epic was filmed here, so this spot is famous in this part of the world. I mean, I’d make a kung fu movie here–it sure looks the part.
As happens everywhere we go, little Noah attracted quite the crowd. American babies are probably more loved, admired, and photographed than movie stars over here. It’s sweet and kind and says a lot about the value that this culture places on children. It also makes you sympathetic for actual movie stars who have to deal with paparazzi and thronging crowds. Being the center of this much attention is exhausting!
Thankfully, Noah was distracted from his stardom by downing (almost) a whole can of Pringles. Get it!
Requisite family photo!
Some pretty fabulous feet…
…and some pretty fabulous friends! (Excuse my artsiness, I was just really excited about the above photo.)
Thankful for beauty which refreshes my soul.
And thankful for this guy to enjoy it with!
Definitely not PC
Posted: April 23, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment »I mentioned awhile back that, almost beyond belief, we got a movie theater just down the street from our apartment. Michael and I (and most of our American friends, let’s be honest) have been stalking the theater recently, waiting anxiously for Hunger Games to please, please open somewhere in this country. So far, no luck, but Titanic in 3D minus Rose’s nude scene (edited out nationwide! didn’t know they could do that) is sweeping the country. While we were asking (yet again) at the movie theater last week, I finally snapped a few pictures of the promotional posters which line the main hallway.
These actors and actresses seem a bit random. Yes, Audrey Hepburn is one of the greats, but Pierce Brosnan? Who knew he would be one of the elite featured. (The other actors with posters were Asian and I don’t think they are well-known in the States so I left them out.)
Anyway, here they are, with a few highlighted selections from their awesome bios. As always, translation is really complicated and whoever wrote these posters might not have gotten it exactly right, but was doing pretty good already to be able to (somewhat) handle the complicated English language. Heaven knows I wouldn’t want the reverse responsibility.
…The childhood passed in lonely. The life whets makes him permature to start maturely, had one kind of young person who acts old the bearing.
….[Remington] Steele, his mature performing skill and the natural demeanor make the large audience to fall for it.
…But the better self died enables him to have in very long period of time to be unable the normal work, in 2001 had found a tranquil harbor finally, got married with Kelly.
On June 1, 1926 the Marilyn Monroe augherty married, but after soon, because of war, in her 20 years old time finished this section of marriages…
…”The Seven-Year Itch” and so on, establishes her silver screen sexy goddess the image.
…she not only leapt into the first-class star, and has become the Hollywood greatest myth.
…this made her to become famous overnight in Hollywood, and has opened gate of the American for her.
…Her performance plain is rich in the fervor.
….Hepburn last time faced the camera, was “Always” acts one in Steven Spielberg Director to wear the white long gown’s delicate angel.
Unfortunately this picture is blurred. Spielberg’s bio opens:
Steven Spielberg (Steven Alan Spielberg) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jewish descent.
Because that information, friends, is what you really needed to know. Ohhhhhh goodness.
At last
Posted: April 22, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »“ Every spring is the only spring—a perpetual astonishment.”
Ellis Peters
Finally! It’s spring in Asia, and we are grateful. These pictures, mostly, are straight off of Instagram (my new favorite–you should all get it!).
A morning in the old town.
Tulips, my favorite flower, on campus.
Just around and about in the rain and mud. 
Sweet little girl (who looks like she is possibly picking her nose?? missed that!) and her balloons.
Decorating Easter-ish sugar cookies with friends.
Swallowed Up in Victory
Posted: April 9, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Not too many thoughts, deep or otherwise, this Monday afternoon.
Just a few photos of our Sunday.
Michael and me, outside glamming it up for photos post-brunch.
And while our pupster couldn’t make it down for the photo shoot, we took some pictures upstairs with him on our porch before we headed out. (This photo is really awkward, though… ooops?) Anyone have any thoughts on Albus’s new do? I think it makes him look like a deep South youth group leader. Or a professor at Oxford, which sounds more sophisticated.
I didn’t take many photos at all, but am really grateful for these two friends who came in for Easter. They have been helping me stay (sort of) sane this semester. So thankful for them!
And here’s most of the people we celebrated with. Good looking group if I do say so! (But maybe I can’t really tell what’s “good-looking” anymore and am just blinded because we were all so dressed up? A rare sight, let me tell you.) This is stolen off of Facebook, btw, because I was too lazy to ask someone to use my camera for the shot.
Hope that your Easter was lovely, restful, and most of all, joyous.
P.S. It was fun, but we (por supuesto) missed our families. And these guys, Qingers not least among them. Love to all!
Desperation
Posted: April 7, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: faith 1 Comment »
Do you have moments when you feel like this?
Wide-eyed with desperation, bearing an aching gut and hoping for what you know almost certainly can’t be real, the faint belief that this nightmare is indeed just a nightmare. That “joy comes in the morning,” that the streaming purple and gold light on the horizon really do tell of hope and truth and life, glorious, radiant, unbelievable life.
I recently came across this painting, Eugene Burnand’s “The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection,” for the first time–on my Pinterest, where else?–and this painting has been lodged in my mind ever since. Perhaps it’s Peter’s eyes, wild and scared. Or John’s clasped hands and anxious, leaning body as he hurries to the tomb. All I know is that I so often feel the same way: terrified and uncertain and just barely beginning to hope, a little bit way deep down, that the hope I cling to is real.
I feel this way every year, I think, with the slow and temperamental wearing-out of winter as I ache for spring, for warmth and beauty. I am thankful, this year as every year, for the rhythms of the church calendar which remind me anew each season of the oldest and best story there is. The story spelled out so beautifully in this art: that because of Him, death leads to life and our rancid hurts can bloom beautiful with life. That our deepest fears, even the fears which are real, are not the deepest and most real thing.
The most real thing, that which is stronger even than death, is life which flows from and through the Son.
He is risen!
He is risen indeed.
Of Dogwoods and Daffodils
Posted: March 22, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: asia, spring is in the air Leave a comment »There are days when I miss the south. Hillsides golden with daffodils, like sunshine dappled on the green. Cross-shaped flowers cover stretching trees on every corner, dogwoods budding with the soon-to-come hope of Easter. But sometimes, on those days when I wish for what is not–and yesterday was one–I stop, look around, and realize that this is amazing, too.
In a break between classes, I stepped outside the library (where I meet my teacher) and saw this. Hillsides golden with, not daffodils, but 油菜花，or rapeseed flowers.
It’s not exactly what I was craving. But it’s every bit as beautiful.
Monday as Saturday
Posted: March 19, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »After an unexpectedly eventful weekend, I spent Monday doing as I pleased. Today, that meant crafting.
Our bedroom has been sloooowly making progress since we moved here in August. It’s nothing fancy and I’m a long way from done, but the two teensy elements of time and money have held me back. While last year our bedroom was a light blue color, this year we painted it green. It’s a bit more minty than I had envisioned, but I think my main objective–somewhere calm and soothing to fall asleep–was met.
Here’s my before: an ugly and plain sandy wooden headboard. When we moved in, our landlord promised to provide bed frames and mattresses for us, and they did. Truly, we’re thankful–I just sometimes wish it was a bit more aesthetically pleasing.
So that’s what I did today. I made it pleasing, to me, if no one else. I covered our headboard with fabric and accented with rope.
We live near an art school, so I stopped by our local art supply store and bought the cheapest canvas they had. It looks similar to painter’s drop cloth, but not quite as rough to the touch. Benefit of living in Asia: $6.64 for 3 meters of fabric. The rope: less than $5.
It still looks a bit wrinkled, but I’m really happy with the finished project, slightly sloppy as it may be.
And, although I didn’t do this today, I thought I’d show you our over the bed decor. A quote from a Mumford & Sons song: “Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free.” It only took me six months to get around to this simple project… hopefully the rest of our room will fall in place a bit more quickly.
