Down in Pocatello

I just realized that Pocatello, Idaho is the most southern stop on my journeys this summer. It has been a time of trials and refinement, but there were pleasant things in this time too.

It started out with having ICL (Implantable Collamer Lens) Surgery to correct my vision. The surgery went well and I am now without glasses!! Not only that, but my vision is actually better than when I did have glasses. I can see all sorts of stuff like leaves and stars and grass blades that I never really thought about before.

As a cool reprieve, I did plenty of musical stuff while I was here with 3 groups willing to let a flute player learn to play by ear until she could see. They were understanding and also correcting with love, so now I don't feel so apprehensive about jumping in with any group.

My Dad's birthday was on the day we took family pictures. It was all the chaos you would expect from an extended family picture session, but in the end we got some good pictures worth keeping.

My Last Days in Bozeman (for a time)

So, the long journey toward Newfoundland has begun. Many good friends wished to read about the adventures and see the pictures as I go and stay there. In order to level the playing field between my Facebook friends and my non-Facebook friends, the intended majority of those adventures represented visually will be on this Blog.

I think of my home as Bozeman, Montana  It's the first place I connected with people, it's where I became born-again, and it's where I learned to have a sense of belonging and pride related to where you live. As such, this has been a hard time for me to admit to myself that for 5 months I won't see the sun rise above the Bridgers, feed the ducks on my way to the music building, or hike. drink tea, and talk theology with the close friends I've made here.

Nonetheless, this is a good thing and reminds me forcefully that God's with me wherever I am.

This post is for when I get homesick overseas of some highlights of these last few weeks. Hopefully it will serve as a reminder of the love I've learned here in the mountains of Montana and to share that love with others as my friends have to me. :)

(Any pictures can be viewed larger by clicking on them.)

Memory

Anterograde amnesia.

Imagine what it's like to be introduced to someone for the first time. You hold out your hand and introduce yourself, smiling shyly and expecting much of the same in return. But what if the stranger says, "Oh come on. Don't act as though you don't know me. After all the times we got together and talked plants and life-changing accidents. How's your dog doing?" You then try to remember them and find that you can't. A close friend and you couldn't even say what her name was.

Imagine someone asks you how you met your boyfriend. You open your mouth and find that...you have no idea. You didn't know him in September, but by March you were good friends. Your boyfriend looks at you and tells the story and you listen to it for the first time as if the girl he spoke of was not you.

I wrote a few journals on the subject once I began realizing that I could not seem to remember things that had happened even the week before. Or rather, I realized I could not remember anything from the week before. As if I there was a black hole that began with hitting the pavement and was consuming my mind up to a few day before the current time.

That's what Anterograde amnesia is. You have trouble forming new memories after a severe head injury. Mine lasted for pretty solid months with a couple gaps and gradually less and less fuzzy from January to April.

It's hard. Scary, even. And makes me sad. There are things I know of that I wish so hard I could remember. Like I know that I was in a flute trio with Carol and Emma, but I do not have any memories, any feelings, associated with it except vague confusion and emptiness. I want to know where that flower came from. I want to know how I made it through those hard times. I want to know the friends I made and the lessons I learned. 

I look at every experience now as I always do and wonder at all the little details that I'll never regain. When did Emma become a young woman to me? Before the accident she was a girl, but the next thing I remember, she wasn't. I can't remember my niece's first months. Carol took care of me for 10 days and I have little to no idea what happened for most of it. There's a lot of sadness and regret.

And yet, there was a "newness" or "childlikeness" to the things I wrote. Every day was new. I only wrote of the moments then. For example, here's one from Sunday after I got hit.

                        "God knew what He was doing. One thing was
                        Saturday. I had cabin fever and so Carol 

                        and Charles took me out for a walk around the
                        neighborhood in my wheelchair. We laughed 

                        and teased and everything. Then we saw some
                        trees that had yellow leaves. I bluntly stated 

                        that I wished I could rake some and jump in
                        them. Smiling, Carol walked to the side of the  

                        road, picked up about a dozen yellow leaves
                        and threw them at me from the front, so they'd 

                        land in my lap and I could play with them. It
                        cheered me up so much.

                        Charles helped too. When I said we were going
                        to be home to early if we headed straight 

                        back, he said okay and started spinning me in
                        circles. It was fun."

I have no memory of this, but it touches me to know. And the neat thing is, though there are a lot of crazy things (like letting me perform on a tambourine while singing on crutches or trying to stop me from standing on my good leg on the wheelchair) I'm finding more and more the memories I'm being told are amazing ones. Its true that I want to know everything, but this has given me a new perspective. 

I didn't so fully how much people care for me, how many amazing friends and strangers God sent, until the stories come back as if they are someone else. That is why I am chasing down these memories now. To fill that emptiness that consumed much of my thoughts. To fill that with love from others.  It's a new concept for me, but then again having a memory gap is new territory as well. There's so much still to learn.

Testimonies

Tonight was Bible Study and one of the best I have ever known.

It didn't go as planned, as the best things always are. Tonight when we got to a certain question, the opportunity was opened up to share how we each came to Christ. I asked if we could just go around and say at least the beginning of our journey.

It was soooo incredible!!!! Each person had been uniquely touched by God's love. I'd never heard the stories before like that from Christians. I had heard about 5 stories, but I think that's been it before tonight. And having one right after another, you could see how God touched each personally, how there were so many differences, but also similarities. Like how each person turned away and then reached up to Him. And how each person told of how they felt Him, but never said how it felt. Love's kinda hard to put into words.

It was so fun to hear people talk about God in different ways, but with such...love...like a twitterpated fondness. And I found out Whitney has heard God laugh too. I saw it when she was talking and she looked at me and said, “You know what I mean, don't you Jen?” I laughed and said I sure did and thought of some of the things He's said to me recently. It was nice to be able to share that with someone.

It was fun to see others talk about God the same way people talk about crushes. With sighs and halting and slightly illogical sequences. It was encouraging to hear how others get angry at God too and then to see them choke up as they talk about God coming down and wooing them back so tenderly.

The group of people there was amazing, but what we said didn't say that. Instead I found myself turning to God in wonder at His patience and kindness and love. Oh how He loves!!!

I told how I tried to be an atheist, but there was a God sized gap everywhere I looked. And I had to avoid C.S. Lewis entirely, but no matter how I tried I could not believe in no God. For others it was they hit rock bottom and had no where else to turn. For others it's more of a journey. In all of them we've had ups and downs. And life gets better, but harder when you start knowing God. As Jessica said, "There's an ugliness in there inside of me and if I don't deal with it, God cuts me open to show it and the everyone else gets to see the mess." Jeremy and Jon each said they wanted to grow in Christ, but it seems that life gets harder in order to do that. But each time the hard stuff hits, it brings you so much closer to God.

I felt such a love for each person there and for God. It was so amazing!!

Harp Singing

Sometimes, I've just got to shake my head at myself. For being mature most of the time, sometimes I really can be rather childish.

I have Bronchitis right now. It's not great, but I was doing all right until last night when I tried to sing. I always sing to myself and to God as a way of talking. But last night, I found that my voice was gone. I tried to force it, but crackles and croaks with a little tone were all I could do and even those hurt to make.

I silently pouted on my bed for a while (with bouts of sleeping in between brooding) and was ungraciously ungrateful for my lot. I didn't wonder why it was me, but I sure wished to have my voice back.

Then, as I sat there, I remembered back to the last hip surgery. When everything was wrong and I hurt and could tell meds were affecting me and on top of it all, I couldn't sing with the oxygen tubes. My Dad was there and he asked me what I wanted to make me feel better. I said, "It's too much to ask." He asked me to say it anyway, so I said, "What I really want is to curl up around the harp, be alone, talk to God, and cry. But I doubt the hospital would let a harp in even if you wrapped it up and dragged it here." I fell asleep and when I woke up, Dad was back with my harp, unwrapping it and asking where I wanted it. I don't know if I started crying then, but I felt like doing to from being overwhelmed with emotions. The meds only accented what I felt and since what I felt was love, I was entirely overwhelmed.

I remembered that time as I sat there silently. I didn't remember it until just then. So with some effort, I grabbed the harp and laid it on my chest just like the post-surgery time. It helps me feel like I'm singing to feel the harp resonate with the different bones in my body.

This also made me realize once again that if you lament what you don't have, often you miss something much better. Now that I remember that memory of my Dad taking care of me, I realize that I would trade losing my voice for remembering it once again. And with not being able to sing, I had to sing to my Heavenly Father straight from the heart. Though it's more uncomfortable for me, I think He likes it better anyway.

I just wanted to remember this lesson for later on.

A Few Friendship Lessons

Friendship is a strange beast, all right.

In the past month, I've really been delving into the subject and just like with everything else, knowledge only serves to expound upon how much you don't know. Still, there are some things I think I'll want to read about later.

One problem I've had is that many people call me "friend" where I did not feel the same way about them. One example is this girl in my Physics class. Our beginnings are strange. I apparently met her soon after the accident, during my amnesia time. It was odd for us both when in second semester I sat down and this random girl sat next to me and started talking to me as if I knew her. Only problem was, I didn't remember her at all. Then on Katlyn's side of things, she had a friend and she came back the next semester just to find out that her friend didn't remember her and had a personality change. Over the next year, we backed off, but she still called me friend. I was dubious about reciprocating, though.

Truth be told, that was my own fault for being afraid. I didn't accept it until recently, but I was honestly afraid of having friends. Best friends I was okay with and acquaintances were just fine. But the concept of having a friend is a new one. This semester I'm changing that. I decided to make friends and the results have been incredible.

Turns out Katlyn reciprocates friendship easily and we are learning together. It's been strange, but quite wonderful. Like I've learned how to not run if Katlyn wants to walk and she's learned to pick her battles with our stubbornnesses and I've learned how to wait and say goodbye before leaving and she's learned how to listen when I'm not speaking English very well. Just things I never had to think about before.

Once Katlyn and I started becoming friends, I decided to try this friendship thing again. One day I went up and started asking Lin all the questions I could think of in order to ellicit conversation. Questions such as, "So. What did you think of problem 3a in the Differential equations homework?" and "Do you happen to know what accent doesn't say the r's at the end of words like 'chowda'?"
She admitted what I did was awkward, but highly effective. Since then, Lin and I have started becoming friends. Sometimes I forget how to be a friend, but she reminds me. In fact, just yesterday, Lin and Katlyn each said hi to me and the three of us walked across campus together. (I was skipping the whole time and they bonded in mutual amusement at my antics.) It's a wonderful sort of strange.

On the other side of things, I realized how I went wrong with Carol and I's friendship. I realized that she has been to me many, many things that I needed. Mom, Mentor, Missionary, Friend, Sister, Advisor, Life Coach, Medical Nurse, Consultant...etc. And at the time, I needed each one. She's been great about filling the roles of about 20 people and I appreciate her for doing that for me.

But now, I realized... I don't need those anymore. For example, with the missionary part. When I was first discovering Christianity, I needed to ask lots and lots of questions to someone I trusted. And I needed to ask so many that once a week get togethers were hardly enough. (That's because Carol had to be a whole group of believers to me until I was ready for a group of believers.) Sure, that was great and I'm glad she stepped up to it. But honestly at this stage, I've grown a lot spiritually and no longer need the constant attention. I also have other believers to ask questions of and know how to read and look up stuff on my own. She taught me to lean on God and I learned that, I just forgot to stop leaning on Carol too. The way to say thanks is to show her I can do it. That's how I say “I love you” without saying, “I need you more than anything” because I don't need her like that.

It's just like when I tutor students. My goal is to get them to the point that they don't need me. And I'm thrilled when they do so. It's really annoying when someone keeps checking back with me when they have it because I feel as though my teaching was a failure. That's one of the reasons that Carol (and I, in my right mind) thinks that I'm still too attached to her. I've been holding onto things way past when they were needed, afraid to just move on and become my own woman.

And with that fear of gaining more friendship, I was also afraid to reach out and get other friends because that would diminish Carol and I somehow. But it won't. I can show that I've learned a lot from this friendship and use it on gaining other friends. It shows that I value all the stuff I've been learning as we interact.

And another thing I'm finding is that there's a lot of difference in friendships. So, I learned a lot of lessons from Carol and I'm learning a lot of lessons from Katlyn and I get to use what I learn on the other. It's kind of fun actually.

And with more friendships, I've found that my life has more color. Alone time is great as a good white contrast to reset, but friendships are definitely a really neat set of colors in God's crayon box.