This week’s Five Minute Friday word is nothing, so here goes…well, nothing.

I am not an avid movie watcher.

I like movies; don’t get me wrong.  As someone who loves the written word immeasurably, I’m often just as struck by dialogue and character development as I am in a good book.  But for many years, I found it hard to sit still to watch unless I was in a theater. It drives my friends bats.  They recommend what are likely very good movies or television series and I hem and haw.  If they loan me something, I’ve learned to give them the disclaimer, “I’m REALLY BAD about watching.  I need to be in the “right” mood;  it may be a WHILE.”  Often, I end up sheepishly returning the DVDs without having watched at all because I feel like I’ve borrowed them way beyond the time that is reasonable.

In the past two days, I’ve watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty twice.

I can’t recall if I read James Thurber’s story;  if I haven’t, I likely should.

The gist is that Walter is living a fairly anonymous life but he daydreams of wild adventures, adventures he may have embarked on if circumstances hadn’t derailed his life’s plans early on.  Through the encouragement of his love interest, he embarks on the adventure of a thousand lifetimes in search of something he thinks lost.

Beyond the amazing cast, storyline, and pop culture references, I loved the movie for another reason.  It harkens back to my favorite book, a book I’ve hinted many times over changed my life:  A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.  The premise of the book is what led me to Romania and ultimately to the adventure I’m currently on;  it’ll lead me to my next and more after that, too, I’m certain.  It encouraged me to look at the kind of story I was living.  It was not, by any stretch, a bad one but not one of courage or bravery or, most importantly, change and growth; it was about the fear and comfort and settling. Miller says this of story:

If the point of life is the same as the point of the story, the point of life is character transformation.  If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that, in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed.  He’s a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward in the beginning and brave in the end.  If the character doesn’t change, the story hasn’t happened yet.  And if story is derived from real life, if story is just a condensed version of life then life itself might be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another.  

And isn’t that just what life is about, anyway?  I think so.

I headed back the homeland last weekend for a triple graduation extravaganza.  I was blessed to be able to spend the weekend with my bestie and her family and to top it off with the party, where I got to celebrate three of the most amazing college grads I have the privilege to know and see a lot of folks I hadn’t seen in some time.  

This week, I’m participating in Five Minute Friday, hosted by Lisa-Jo over at Surprised by Motherhood. Each week, Lisa-Jo provides a topic and the goal is to write whatever comes to mind in five minutes:  no overthinking, no editing, and that’s that.  So, here we are…

When I decided to move, I looked at it as a grand adventure.  I felt stuck, overall, in my life and I felt I needed something to jolt me out of that and into the next era.  I was so eager to meet new people, try new things, and have a new life.  Don’t get me wrong – my life was pretty great.  I’m blessed with a wonderful support system of friends and family that I’ve known for years and years and I just assumed that being five plus hours away wouldn’t change that one iota.

Turns out there is something about proximity;  something about being close.

Some of my relationships have changed for the better but some have drifted further afield.  But what I realized is that I really desire that proximity, that closeness.  I posted early on that I didn’t realize that homesickness could be a real, physical ache;  it has been for me, anyway.  There is something about the nearness of those you love, beyond the innate need and desire for hugs and physical contact.  It’s talking to your best friend in 3-D, live and in technicolor.  It’s looking in the eyes of her little guy while he tells you a story.  It’s having a sing-a-long in the car as you travel back from a party together.  You can’t replicate that through a phone call, Facebook, email, or even Facetime or Skype.  There’s just something about being close…

I had a lunch with a new friend from church yesterday.  We were sitting outside, enjoying the warm day and good conversation.  I told him about some of my struggles and how they so interestingly had coincided with Lent and made me frankly consider Lent in a completely different way than I had ever before – and that I was thankful for that.

He asked me how I was processing the theme of reconciliation that our church had be focusing on and I stammered a bit.  Reconciliation, at it’s core, is broad, far-reaching, and hard to quantify.  I mean, it really has to be.  Even in the microcosm of our lives, the minutiae of the every day, reconciliation is not an easy concept to grasp or practice.  As a church, we’ve been wrestling some with what it means from a community perspective, here in this area, here in this town, here in our every day world.  I’m prone to personalizing everything and trying to figure out with whom I need to be reconciled, why, and how…and, honestly, it’s not something I find myself often desiring.  Sometimes distance is easier than dealing. Our conversation focused more on the broader implications of this in our community and we both shared some of the issues and  ideas on which we’d been ruminating.

In the midst of this, we heard a yell and saw a kid dash by, chased by what I took to be a store manager or security person, with another one close on his heels.  We watched, as everyone near by, as they ran and shouted at the kid, closing the gap on him.  Not long after, two motorcycle officers flew up the street with lights and sirens on.

In the excitement of the moment, all I felt was sadness.  My friend and I picked back up with our conversation but I soon interrupted, telling him that I was going to think about that kid all day. My friend wasn’t surprised, probably likely given what he knows of my background and what he is learning about my heart.  I added that I’d guess that my reaction to the scene was likely different than 90% of those around us. Experience tells me that the majority of folks immediately, without any facts, wrote the kid off as a thief, a criminal.  He’d be caught and get what he “deserved.”

I saw a broken kid, who made a bad choice for any of a myriad of reasons.  I saw a kid who wasn’t just running because he was being chased.

I told my friend about my trip to Romania and the impact it had on my life, my passion, and my purpose.  I think I’ve held back on posting about it here in detail for so long because I feel like sharing it in this way, writing it out, might somehow bring it to a conclusion and that’s not at all what I want.  I want what I saw to stay with me always, to remind me of all that I take for granted, to spur me into action in my corner of the world when it’s warranted – and, perhaps, even when it’s not.

I’ll say this for now with a promise to revisit it all soon.  Part of the plan for our time in Romania was to visit an orphanage.  In the weeks leading up to the trip, this was the thing that worried me the most.  I was certain my heart would be shattered.  I was certain I would start crying and never stop.  What I wasn’t sure of was if I could even do it – to go and see what I was most afraid to see.  But when all was said and done on the trip, it wasn’t the orphans who shattered my heart.  It was the kids in the gypsy camps we visited, kids who had parents and other adults present in their lives, yet were unclothed, unfed, dirty, and completely and utterly uncared for.  I left part of my heart with those kids and thinking about it now, a few years past, tears still well in my eyes.

When I got home, I spent a lot of time telling people about the trip and how it went.  I remember visiting friends of mine, one of whom was a former youth pastor and who was then working with the Salvation Army’s foster care unit.  I told them the story, of my surprise, of my inability to let go and leave the images behind.  It was then that he gently reminded me that this story plays out all over the world, not just in Romania, and it was playing out in my own backyard:  children, broken by circumstances beyond their control, let down and hurt in unimaginable and unthinkable ways by those who were supposed to love and care for them.  I knew this academically, of course;  I’d been reading about troubled kids since I was a kid myself.  I’d worked with and then supervised inner city kids for years at my very first paying job.  I was a youth leader, for crying out loud.  But that trip and that gentle reminder from a friend changed my perspective in ways I’m still learning.  It’s what spurred me into becoming a CASA;  it’s what drives me not to let go of my passion to work with teenagers, even when doors aren’t opening in the ways or timing I’d expected and hoped. And it never allows me to just dismiss any child, to write them off, to place a label on them and wash my hands of their memory.  And I hope it never does.

The weather has finally taken a positive turn and we are once again on friendly terms.  I’ve promised to not complain about the inevitable springtime temperature fluctuations and rain showers, and it has agreed to not allow it to rain for more than two days in a row.  Judging by next week’s forecast, I’m fairly certain one of us will soon be breaking our tenuous truce….

I’ve been struggling a bit as of late:  I’ve been busy, exhausted, overwrought, with everything being just too too.  Some times are just like that, really.  In the last few days, however, I feel like I’m finally returning to normal stasis;  I have time to breathe and think and live outside of the chaos that has been my life for the last several weeks.  In a moment of clarity and self-care, I decided that I am going to do my best to walk instead of ride the bus from where I’m required to park to my office and back again each day.

It’s a bit of a meander across the campus, with parts that are alternately very historic, stately, and regal and then altogether typical to academia;  other parts are simply bucolic.  There is a piece early in the walk that takes me over the main street.  There is nothing remarkable about this part of the walk, not in the least.  I cross a cement overpass over a busy road;  athletic fields with chain link fences line one side and boxy, brick dorms greet me on the other.  But as I came across the bridge the other morning, I was struck by the beauty of spring in all her finery on one side of the street below:  trees in vibrant bloom, a little creek glistening in the sunlight, looking clear, clean and refreshing.  I stopped for a moment and took it in, deciding to snap a photo as I’m apt.  I pulled out my phone and adjusted my position to try to capture it all as best I could.

But I couldn’t see the screen:  between the bright sunshine and my sunglasses, all I saw was a black screen.

I wanted the photo to remind myself of how beautiful life can be, how breathtaking some moment just are.  I wanted to share it with my friends and family, who would appreciate it simply for what it was.  But because of circumstances, all I could see in that moment was a dark and dirty screen.  But I clicked the button anyway and hoped for the best.  And there it was.

I love to read.

My dad has always been an avid reader;  I truly cannot recall an evening he did not have a book in his hands at some point my entire life.  According to family lore, he tried to read me Moby Dick as a bedtime story when I was small and my mom worked nights.  I’m pretty sure that didn’t end well and I don’t believe I’ve read it to this day. I was much more of a Where The Wild Things Are type of child and remain so today.

Reading has always been a sort of refuge for me, and a strong connector to others.  If you know me in real life, you know that one thing I value over most everything is a great discussion – not a debate, not an argument, for I am most decidedly non-confrontational (unless adequately provoked and therefore on the defense.)  I’m always wildly interested in others viewpoints and ideas, and moreover how they came to have them based on their personal stories and experiences.  That, in itself, is truly what colors our world.  We have no opinions or thoughts or ideas that exist in a void.  They all harken back to some part of our story as a whole.

I’ve mentioned before that one of the greatest things I’ve done since the Big Move was to setup a book club. Through it, I’ve met some really wonderful people, many of whom I already consider dear friends.  The beauty of the book club, what has really resonated with me and hopefully with others, is simply the discussion.  Honestly, some months we discuss the given book more often than others.  But our one and only “rule” of book club is that all are welcome, whether they have read the book or not – because we always have wonderful conversations about books in general.  I cannot count how many times one or another or even several of us have pulled out our phones or notebooks to jot down the name of an author or book title after hearing it praised at book club.  My GoodReads certainly is always longer by the end of the night and for that, I’m always thankful.

I also participate in a little online book club with three of my girlfriends I grew up with.  They, along with my other voracious reader friends, are a wealth of knowledge on what to read and have given me opportunities to try books I’d never have considered on my own.

And so we finally come to the point of this post.  I’ve tossed around the idea of posting book reviews for some time now.  While the idea is appealing, I’ve gone back and forth on it (as I’m apt) more times than I can count.  But here is the bottom line:  I think there is value in it and so I shall.  There won’t be any rhyme or reason to how, when or what I post.  I can’t come up with any kind of fancy alliteration such as Meatless Monday or Taco Tuesday or Whackadoodle Wednesday or some such, and so it shall just be so.  I’ll do my best to refrain from spoilers whenever able and merely provide the basics of the plot.  If it makes you try a new title or seek out an author you’ve never read;  if it makes you, even for a moment, escape out of your busy life into someone else’s; if it just makes you think about something you’d never really thought of before – then it is probably worth it.

And so here we are.  I’ve had Me Before You by JoJo Meyers on my to-read list for some time but lately, I haven’t really been reading.  I’m not sure what that is about, likely a symptom of other things going on in my life.  There’s also been a degree to which I haven’t wanted to read because I’ve been very busy and I know that once I begin a good book, I don’t want to put it down and if I have to, I become somewhat petulant. Anyway, my friend made such a strong case for the book, I downloaded it over the weekend and began it last night around bedtime.  I ended up staying up until my Kindle’s battery went dead – yes, really – and finished the book this morning.  I was almost immediately caught up in the lives of the characters – their personalities, their foibles, their struggles, their authenticity.  Sometimes, characters on the periphery are made out to be simply one dimensional:  good or bad.  Throughout, even they were shown to be multi-faceted and that just added to my enjoyment of the depth of the main characters.

I won’t give much away in terms of plot but will suffice to say this:  it focuses on Louisa Clark, an unassuming girl from an unassuming family who loses her safe and very unassuming job at a cafe after six years.  In her effort to find something else quickly, she ends up being hired on as a companion for a young quadriplegic man for six months.  While they get off to a rocky start, as their relationship grows and develops, it changes both of their lives in unexpected ways.

There was a time in my life when I expected happy endings.  Now, I place more value on a story that is true, that is real, that is honest, regardless of the ultimate outcome.  When a happy ending is the outcome, I’m rarely saddened, don’t get me wrong, but I also know that that isn’t always the way of the world. You’ll have to read this one to see into which category it ultimately falls – and I can assure you, it will keep you guessing until the final pages.

Happy reading!