Wednesday, April 17, 2013

An updated version:


A Week I Didn't Want To Leave
“Well this is shaping up to be a good day,” I mumbled to no one but the sweltering heat that beat down from the cloudless sky. I plopped down on the front steps of the small Episcopal Church we were supposed to be cleaning, pruning and painting. The doors were locked, an obstacle Gretchen, our fearless leader hadn’t considered when setting up the volunteer gig. Ellen plopped down next to me.
            “Oh Yeah, totally glad I came,” she shouted in the direction of the adults, making a rebellious statement of our boredom.
            We talked for a while, about why we came on the mission trip and high school and other small talk. When the heat of the sun got too hot we switched to a small piece of shade provided by a tree in the front lawn. Gretchen paced back and forth talking on the phone, switching from walking to sitting to walking again.
            As I sat in the limited shade provided by the single oak tree decorating the yard, I thought about the night before when the chaperones informed us that we would not be building the house that we had come up north to the White Earth Indian Reservation to build. The very thought of plans changing sent anxiety and adrenaline coarsing through my veins. This trip, for me, was already a giant step out of my comfort zone. The idea of being stuck up north with ten people I didn’t know, no cellphone or computer was a huge trigger for the anxiety problems I had been fighting for the past few years.

Finally a beat up pick-up truck arrived and a middle-aged Native American man stepped out silently unlocking the door to the church and walking back to his truck. Gretchen caught up with him before he drove away, they had words.
We got to work; first, I picked weeds, talking with Ellen, Gretchen and Dennisia about what else but boys. I managed to beat around the bush for the most part excluding names and giving vague details about my last romantic interest.
“So you guys were just friends?”  Asked Dennisia clearly a little confused by the idea.
“Yeah…friends,” I said thinking back once again to the last day of school when I watched Ben walk away from me, down the empty hallway. I shook those thoughts out of my head. “So what about you, any dramatic love stories to tell?”
After the weed picking marathon ended I didn't have much to do which was a relief at first but soon turned into a problem. The painting group didn't need me in the crowded foyer. Daniel and Kayla were weed whacking together and they didn't look like they wanted company. I really didn't trust myself with the power tools; I don't think Chris did either. So I wandered around the church yard sipping water sincerely hoping the rest of the week wouldn't be this boring. For the most part at home I was pretty good at entertaining myself but I didn't have books or TV to distract me up here. I had people. I wasn't good at people.
“You still need something to do?” Asked Gretchen getting off the phone for the first time in an hour.
“Uh, yeah”
“Grab those clippy, sheary things and we’ll work over here on these graves. They need some work.”
I grabbed the “things” and followed Gretchen to the small overgrown graveyard that occupied a corner of the yard.
“So how do you think the trip is going so far?”
I shrugged. The truth was I thought the trip kind of sucked so far but saying so would have been rude and unwarranted.
Gretchen sighed, “I know this isn't what you expected. We didn't expect it either, but we are doing our best to fill our days here and make this trip rewarding for everyone.”
We clipped and cleared the grass covering the grave sites quiet for a few minutes, the silence apparent but not really awkward.
“You know I think you are really the person tying the St. David’s youth together.” Gretchen said out of the blue.
My mouth almost dropped open in surprise. Me? No, surely she had the wrong person. I don’t tie people together; in fact I'm pretty sure I drive people away.
“Thanks,” I mumbled pretty sure that wasn't the appropriate answer.
“No really. I mean next year you’ll be one of the older kids, an upperclassman. You’re brother and all of the other seniors will be gone, and I don’t think any of the older kids your age have the same commitment as you do. People show up because you do.”
“Huh,” I replied once again saying the wrong thing. This was a lot to process. A lot of deep thought for a summer day. My past summers were for the most part filled with mindless TV, sandy beaches and a lot, a lot of books.

Once the hard work was done, lunch was eaten, two bottles of water were drunk each, we all sat sweating in the sun, unmoving after a hard day.
“Alright,” said Mary lifting her head from the place it was laying in the grass, “Two truths and a lie, Colin go!”
“Um…” Colin mumbled caught off guard at the abruptness of the attack.
“Okay, okay I’ll go,” I said sitting up and groaning at my sore muscles, “One: when I was three years old my brother,” I pointed at Daniel for reference, “pushed me into our coffee table on New Year’s Eve and I had stitches up my nose. Two: I fell on a nail when I was seven and have had ten stitches on my knee and three: I have never broken a bone in my body.”
“Two”
“One”
“Three,” said Daniel finally ruining the game because of course he knew the lie.
“Yeah three”
“Of course three”
“Yeah you got me.”
                The game continued and we went around the circle truthing and lying learning more about each other each turn. Afterwards packing up all the tools and backpacks and coolers, we headed out, tired and dirty. After weed picking, lawn mowing, and a lot of painting the entire crew was very tired but we all jumped at the opportunity to go swimming.
            A nice woman who lived in a house owned by the tribe as a whole had graciously allowed us to swim in the lake abutting her backyard. We threw on our swimsuits and jumped in the lake and let the cool water wash away the dirt and soreness of what I’m sure was the hardest day of work any of us suburban teenagers had ever done.
            That night we had our second reflection service. The lights turned off and once again the candle light bounced off of faces making everyone seem older and more somber. That night our service was based on a passage of scripture that spoke about the hungry and cold and lonely. We went around the circle giving our answers to the question, “what does this mean?” something different to all of us. So I sat in that circle with a group of people I had known for the whole of two days, and I told them what I thought it meant. I told them about my own times of metaphorical hunger and actual lonliness, of muffled tears when others slept and a parade of doctor’s offices. I told them about the worst time in my life. How painful and hard and miserable that time was, finally ending with; “but that’s the thing isn’t it we all have our hunger and cold and loneliness real or metaphorical everyone in this circle has something to tell. That’s what makes us human. We all have something that makes us need someone else.” A sentence that I still remember, that my new friends that I made that day still reverberate sometimes when the timing is right.
            After the closing prayer Ellen gave me a surprise hug, a warm start to long friendship. Tears were discreetly wiped away and everyone stumbled out into the cool night. We re-entered the house and played cards until way past lights out.  

Saturday, April 6, 2013


Poem 6:
ENTROPY
today was balanced
symmetric
controlled
yesterday chaos
stress inducing chaos
uncontrollable chaos
terrifying chaos
every day is a new day
different
not sure what will become
chaos or balance
entropy in the mix

Poem 5:
THINGS I HATE
discovering a new allergy
tank-tops in the winter (why?)

the claustrophobia of a crowded table
unexplained anger (from friends)
confusing disappearing dreams

a headache on an already bad day
an unexpected test
or quiz
or anything

forgetting my sunglasses
forgetting anything

social paranoia
social anxiety
being social
the inability to be social

Thursday, April 4, 2013


Poem 4:
SPRING IS HERE?
spring is here
or is it?
weather changes
it seems
just to piss me off
sunny cloudless skies
tomorrow rain
snow next Friday
freezing rain on Saturday
no reason
no rhyme
just a cruel disputation
for my wardrobe
light jacket? heavy jacket?
rain jacket?
what shoes do I wear?
in this bipolar season
the answer is unclear
to both questions
so I ask you instead
is spring really here?

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Poem 3:

A WORLD WITHOUT INTERNET

How would we be entertained?
People would read again
Normal average people devouring books like bookworms
Libraries would fill up
Lines out the doors
Iliteracy no longer a problem

Network TV would be watched-
With comercials
Newspapers would be revived
Magazines our only source of celebrity gossip
Kindles and nooks would die a slow and painful death
Their graveyard a dirty trash dump

What would the insomniacs do at three a.m?
Or the early risers at six?
How would the average research paper change
Without wikipedia.

And how would be connect with our friends across seas?
Or book flights?
Or check our bank accounts?

The world without internet is a scary one
The entire world once again seperated
A gunshot sounds the beginning of a new technological race
Everyone would work and work to bring it back
Our precious internet
This is a short Nonfiction Memoir I had to write for my Creative Writing Class:


A Week I Didn't Want to Leave

 We're leaving!” shouted my mother from the kitchen, we were about to leave for Trinity church in Excelsior, today was the first day of the Trinity mission trip to White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota.
            Two months ago I committed to a week trip up north to build a house on the reservation for a family in need. I had started to regret this decision.
            This morning I was starting to realize that maybe I had made a mistake, I only knew three other people on the trip and we would be gone for a week in a somewhat dangerous neighborhood without my cell phone.
            “Yeah I'm coming,” I was sitting on my bed staring at my suitcase wondering what the hell I was thinking when I agreed to this. I had made the decision in an attempt to “make friends” and “have fun” and “get out of my box”. I knew my brother, who was also coming along, wouldn’t be a constant companion he had a tendency to leave me to myself.
            I dragged my duffle bag down the hallway and into the kitchen, sighed and said, “Alright let’s go.”
            My heartbeat increased as our moving car approached the church. I breathed deeply and tried to calm myself, my anxiety level increasing along with my heartbeat. I put on a brave face so my parents wouldn’t know that I wanted to back out.
            The church service moved slowly and I looked around at the people wondering which ones I would be spending the next week with. My brother and I nudged each other making whispering jokes and calming our individual anxiety. 
            “Bye,” said my mom and she hugged me, “have fun, be careful, make good choices.”
            “Have fun,” my dad said giving a one armed hug as Daniel and I followed the small crowd of young adults to the meeting room.
            “Okay,” said a women I had never met, “we are going to pack up the vans, eat some lunch and hit the road! Oh by the way I’m Gretchen.”
            The next hour was spent packing four vans with suitcases, sleeping bags, food for twenty people for a week, and building supplies and tools.
            “So I heard the house project was stratched,” a girl who looked like she could have been my age or possibly a little younger.
            “Oh really?”
            “Yeah, I’m Christy by the way.”
            “Frances.”
            We shook hands.
            “So what are we going to do up there?” I asked suddenly very concerned about a week up north with complete strangers, my anexity rising up to my throat.
            “I don’t know,”
            She seemed very unconcerned, the exact opposite of how I felt.
            We waited outside on the sidewalk on the hot July day for the departure introducing ourselves to people we didn’t know. For me that was almost everyone.
            The vans were packed up and I ended up with Christy, a girl named Kayla and a parent I whose name I had not learned. We nervously joked for the first hour, listening to music, reading and writing seperating for the remainder of the five hour trip. Interuppted only once by the stop caused by one of the vans being pulled over and given a ticket, which was promptly laughed at, ridiculed, and then forgiven.
            When we finally reached the White Earth Reservation I looked around at the blatant poverty that surrounded me; broken down houses placed way to close to each other for neighborhoods and neighborhoods, overweight adults and children riding around in broken down golf carts and tractors. We had arrived, my anxiety level rose once again.
            Once the suitcases were brought inside and the cots and air mattresses fought over and chosen, the adults sat us down for a talk.
            “Alright guys,” said Gretchen the one who seemed to be in charge, “I know you were looking forward to building a house this week but unfortunately we won’t be, parts of the project have fallen through and the tribe council have decided that project will not be one we will be participating in.”
            “So what are we going to do?” asked a boy whose name I had already forgotten.
            “Don’t worry, we’ll find something.”
            I was worried. For the most part at home I was pretty good at entertaining myself but I didn’t have books or TV to distract me up here. I had people, I wasn't good at people.
            “Let’s get dinner ready!”  Said the adult I had driven up with, I forgot her name too.
            The groups or “teams” were explained to us, as we sat on the floor of the small church’s sanctuary. I was with; Ellen, who seemed nice but probably a person I wouldn’t be friends with in a normal situation, Colin, a sophomore at my high school, Turner, Christy’s twin and Dennisia, Mary’s step or half or something sister and the two adults; Gretchen, our happy-go-lucky leader, and Michael the adult that was pulled over on the drive up. We were not given dinner duty on the first night, but Daniel’s team was.
            The rest of us went outside to the small yard we were confined to for the next week, we were told not to leave for fear of the “bad” neighborhood we were situated it, to “play”. I swung on the unstable swing set that sat in the edge of the property talking to Mary a girl from my grade that I knew but never talked to before. We were quickly joined by many of the other girls including Ellen, Christy and Jillian, Kayla and Rain the ones excluded because they were a part of the group making dinner.
            We talked about menial things for the time it took for dinner to be ready making are way to the kitchen in the basement of the church rejoining the group of boys on the way.
            That first dinner was awkward, bogged down by our own stress and fears and anxiety most of us kept to ourselves. This was sensed by Gretchen who pulled up back into the sanctuary as soon as dinner was ready for our first reflection “service”. The lights were turned off, candle-light bouncing off the faces I had only just learned.
            Gretchen asked us, “What do you fear most about this trip? What do you look forward to? Why did you come?”
            We all took turns speaking as we went around the circle formed by cross-legged teenagers and adults trying to get comfortable. I half paid attention to what my travel mates said and more thought of my own response and how others may respond to it.
            Then it was my turn, “I fear the most about this trip that we won't have enough to keep us occupied, that there will be no reason for us to have come up here, I look forward to getting to know all of you and I can because I thought it would be fun.” My answer only three-fourths true.
            I came because four months ago when my mom asked me if I wanted to go, as my family sat in the sunny porch that had become our meeting room, I wanted to show her that I could get out of my box, that I wasn’t going to waste my summer as I did every year.
            I took a deep breath as the adrenaline that it took to give the answer I had slowly vacated my body.
            That first night was hard, and it took a lot for me to fall asleep. Out of the two rooms set aside for the girls I chose the quiet room along with Ellen, Jillian and Christy, all of us valuing our sleep. Mary, Dennisia, and Kayla chose the other, talking almost every night until the early hours of the morning, sometimes keeping the rest of us awake as well.
             The next morning was a slow start, Gretchen stuck her head down the stairs at seven thirty telling us we had half an hour before breakfast, I slept for another fifteen minutes. Finally dragging myself out of bed with the other girls I put on the first clothes I could find and sluggishly made my way across the yard to the church and silently rejoiced at the sight of coffee.            
            Once sufficient amounts of caffeine were ingested and breakfast was out of the way. The day was laid out to us; we would be going to an Episcopal church on the reservation and cleaning up the grounds and repainting the foyer.
            Once dressed in our work clothes, ripped jeans, t-shirts and old tennis shoes, we were loaded in the vans once again and transported to a church about twenty minutes away.
            There we ran into a problem, the council member who Gretchen had talked to had yet to open the doors to the church, we were stuck with no tools and nothing to do.
            “Well this is shaping up to be a good day,” I mumbled to no one but the sweltering heat that beat down from the cloudless sky. I plopped down on the front steps and Ellen plopped down next to me.
            “Yup, this is totally worth our time.”
            We talked for a while, eventually switching to a small piece of shade provided by a tree in the front lawn. Gretchen paced back and forth talking on the phone, switching from walking to sitting to walking again.
            Finally a beat up pick-up truck arrived and middle-aged Native American man stepped out silently unlocking the door to the church and walking back to his truck, Gretchen caught up with him before he drove away.
            The first day of work was hard especially for a sheltered suburban teenager who had never done an honest day’s work in her life.
            After weed picking, lawn mowing, and a lot of painting the entire crew was very tired but we all jumped at the opportunity to go swimming.
            A nice woman who lived in a house own by the collective tribe had graciously allowed us to swim in the lake abutting her backyard. We threw on our swimsuits and jumped in the lake and let the cool water wash away the dirt.
            After this first day of work we had many days like it, cleaning up graveyards, transporting dirt, painting signs and churches and houses. That second night we had another reflection service this time talking about the crosses we all bear. I learned a lot about my fellow mission-trippers and their hopes and fears and experiences and after that they knew a lot about me as well. After the closing prayer Ellen gave me a hug and we all went back to the house to play card games until lights out.  
            

Tuesday, April 2, 2013


Poem 2:
I AM AMAZING
Sometimes I realize
Little things
About myself
That amaze
Even myself
Social graces I didn't have
Six, five, four months ago
Big things that changed
Ways I have become myself
And individual
No longer a follower
Sometimes I realize
I am amazing 

Monday, April 1, 2013

Poem 1:


EVENTUALLY

“I don’t really want to live this life”
A signing piece of clause that won’t get out of my head
Throughout a serious conversation
Repeating, repeating
Like the word “eventually”
E-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y
Never spoken
But somehow stuck
In my head
Repeating, repeating
Eventually, eventually
Definition
Pronunciation
Spelling
Eventually.