Yesterday I spent a decent part of the day at the community center. Our church was having a craft show and pancake breakfast and Santa came. It was a lot of fun and I had some good conversations with an amazing woman. Her name is Carla. She is extremely artistic and intelligent. And I learned something new about her yesterday.

But first I have to tell you about the community center. It used to be a factoryish building, I think. It is located on the same block as our church. Part of it became the new preschool that a woman from our church teaches. The other part became a gymnasium. A bunch of building codes and laws made finishing the gym so it was legal to use take a very long time. But now it's done, and a really nice place to chill and have a really good time.

Carla and I were talking and the conversation we were having kinda died out. She looked around and said something like "This gym is huge, and it's so beautiful. Your father did a lot of work on it, a lot of people did." And then she just looked up at the ceiling and the walls and took it in. Carla didn't see just a room that took forever to get done. She saw a beautiful thing that people had created. Carla didn't see the paint, she saw the hands that painted. Carla didn't see plain metal beams across the ceiling, she saw the labor and perfection of many hours of planning and work. Carla didn't see a room. She saw artwork.

I want to see things like that.

I looked around the gym after she said that, and I realized how beautiful it really was. I saw all the people who worked, and I was thankful, because they did a fantastic job. I don't think I'll look at buildings as just bricks and stone anymore. And the desks in school are no longer ugly and plain.

I'm really glad I sat next to Carla yesterday.

storytime

So I've already told this story to a couple people. But it's a good story, and I like telling it. Plus, my hands are extremely cold and maybe typing will warm them up.

My mother was leaving for a conference, and she needed small bottles for shampoo and such because of the planes. She uses a decent amount of products in one day, therefore a decent amount of bottles. My mother and father were speaking about this subject and she expressed her lack of time to get these things at the store and do everything else that needed to be done before she left. My father kept trying to convince her that she might already have everything she needed, but my mother was adamant that she didn't. My dad agreed to get the required bottles, but he wasn't thrilled about it.

I could tell he was frustrated. I'm sure my mother knew too, but she was extremely busy, so I assume she just let it go. My mother leads a club at church for elementary-age children, and on the same nights I spend time at our community center getting to know people. When we got home that night, my father gave my mother the bottles he had bought. It was everything she asked for, and even some things she had forgotten, like small toothpaste and deodorant.

It really encouraged me to see my father do that. Even though he wasn't particularly happy with what he had to do, he did the best job ever because he loves my mother. It made me smile and appreciate my parents. It's a helpful story, and it's always in the back of my mind, reminding me of love can look like. My parents aren't perfect, but they share a selfless love that inspires me.

I'm not huge on poetry. But I do like to write and sometimes that's how my thoughts come out. I don't really have favorite poets either. But when I come across something that really catches my attention and makes me ponder it, I never forget it. Annabel Lee did that to me the first time I read it. Edgar Allan Poe was a writing genius, and this is one of may favorite poems by him. Annabel Lee is haunting and romantic and tragic and depressing and inspiring and makes my heart beat fast. I love it. Read it out loud, it's even better that way.

My absolute favorite part is the first five lines of the last stanza. I can't even say why. It's just the feeling that I get when I read that part. The devotion and love it expresses. It gives me something almost like an adrenaline rush. But not the I-can-lift-a-car kind of adrenaline. A different kind. It's just exciting. But not like jumping-up-and-down-exciting. Thrilling is probably a better word. Maybe that's silly. To feel so strongly about words a man wrote over 150 years ago. But I'm alright with that.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; –
And this maiden she lived with no other
thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than
love –
I and my Annabel Lee –
With a love that the wingéd seraphs in Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And the was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away,
To shut her up in a sepulchre,
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me –
Yes! – that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the
love
Of those who were older than we –
Of many far wiser than we –
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: –

For the moon never beams, without bringing me
dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright
eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: –
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling – my darling – my life and my
bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea –
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

– Edgar Allan Poe

My Princess Name

I'm gonna write about this because I feel like it. I really love the imagination that children have. And I try really hard to never forget the silly stuff I did as a kid because it was flippin awesome. A lot of times people tell a five-year-old they can't be a dinosaur, or something like that. That really bothers me. What, besides the laws of nature, is stopping that child from being a dinosaur? And what, compared to imagination, are the laws of nature? We should all pretend to be dinosaurs sometime. I had a princess name as a child. And an imaginary prince. And my basement was a castle. I loved the Disney princesses, and I still do. They are some of my favorite people. My princess name was all the princess names together in a specific order. I would recite it to everyone I met, no matter who they were. I also love the fearlessness that children have. They can be friends with anybody and it doesn't matter what they've done or who they are. I think that's the core of love. It may be blind, but most people are led astray by their eyes anyway. Kids are awesome. My brother loves just playing by himself. Usually, he gets pretty loud and annoying, but I try my hardest to stop myself from getting angry or yelling because I don't want to hinder anyone's imagination. Ever. I think that should be illegal. I guess you could say Hitler had an imagination too, and someone should have hindered his. (yes this is an extreme example) But I don't think there was anything wrong with Hitler's head, it was the way he used his imagination that made it wrong. And I imagine he was influenced by something in his life that made him hate other people without reason. So imagination itself is never wrong or harmful. And I can't seem to find it embodied in many adults, because it's silly or a waste of time, so I look at children, and I envy them for their trust and creativity. And I try to think like a little kid. A lot.

Relatively Short

So this will be relatively short. My youthpaster and his wife decided they would read my blog if I had one. So I made one, because they are pretty awesome people, and because I thought it sounded kinda cool too. I don't have a myspace or a facebook, but I do spend a significant amount of time on my computer, so I think I've found something probably slightly more useful/productive than watching countless YouTube videos in my spare time. (even though they are funny) I guess there are better things to do with ourselves than strive for our own entertainment constantly. And I'm sure the things I choose to entertain myself are never the best options, but that's something I'm working on, just like a lot of the rest of me.