Script Frenzy 2012

Remember NaNoWriMo??

Well.

Tomorrow, I'm embarking on Script Frenzy.

My play will be called Vikings vs. Pirates, and I am going to have way too much fun with this.

Because I have an unsuspecting home school group to cater this puppy to..........

This.

 

 

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I. Will always. Love. This. Movie. 

Art Lessons

Forgive me for my appalling lack of posts. I have been too busy and lazy at the same time.

So, ever since February, I've been taking some really amazing art classes at the local college. Here is one of the things I managed to whip up after I was given the assignment of making 'anything I wanted out of wire':

(eyeballs viciously ripped off of ugly stuffed toy....)

Bada-bang.

Pascal. 

Loneliness and Solitude

 

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Loneliness and solitude are two things not to get confused: 

because I spend my solitude with You.

--Therapy, Reliant K

This weekend, I got to go on a really unique and amazing retreat. There were only 8 of us, unlike most retreats I've been to that typically have like 40 to 200 people. It was led by our wonderful priest, Fr. Jeremy, and two of the coolest Sisters in the whole wide world, Sr. Regina Marie and Sr. Magdalena Marie.

Retreats are totally awesome, but they're also really, really hard. They demand that you ask questions you put off for weeks, months...even years. For example...

Who am I? Who is God? What do I want? Why am I here? What does God want from me, and will He ask too much? What if it hurts? What if it's terrifying? What about X, Y, and Z back home? What if I feel nothing? What if I waste the opportunity?

My experience on this retreat contained all that, but one thing that really stood out to me was that I felt lonely. And that happens to me a lot. I just feel so achingly lonely as I watch all the other girls walk together and chat about life back home. I've never had that. I love being with people, but I often end up the loner. No one purposefully excludes me, it just happens.

So I start thinking about friends and family back home, and wish they were around, and wish for conversations and hugs that I'm not experiencing.

A fear that also finds itself nestled in that loneliness is the fear that when I'm alone, I've lost my identity. We let our environment define us more often than we let God.

But, on this retreat, we were encouraged to seek some alone time. We had two or three periods where we were all just sent off on our own to pray any way we felt. As I walked in that same somewhat lonely solitude, praying the Stations of the Cross at our beautiful retreat site, I came to a real understanding about that recurring loneliness I have.

No one can fill it but God. It will always be there, until I give it to God for Him to fill to the brim.

And that makes it something really beautiful.

God bless you : )

Haunting...

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Monday morning, I woke up from a really memorable dream.

I was in it, and I was the 'main character' if you will, but I wasn't me . I was somebody else (I was still named Clare, though). My parents were in it, but the only sibling I still had was Meg, and she hated me. She kept trying to run over this dog with a truck because it liked me better than her.

I also had an older brother!

Most of the dream was the usual run-of-the-mill total strangeness of all my dreams, with dead mice laying everywhere and a baby ostrich that followed me everywhere. You know. The kind of things that are too bizarre to even ponder. But there was one part in that dream that's been haunting me all week. 

As I did, unfortunately, come down with the stomach bug at 2 a.m. today, I've had a lot of time lying in bed nursing my stomach back to equilibrium to mill over it. 

I can't really describe it, because it was more of a feeling that I felt in my dream; an overwhelming sense of love, loss, and forgiveness. 

My character in the dream was, for some reason, estranged from her family, and unable to forgive them, especially her older brother. 

Enter 'the horrible accident' that occasionally pops up in my dreams.

My brother's wife, Natalie, and his newborn baby daughter were in a car accident, and it was uncertain if either of them would live.

It wasn't until then that people were talking about the baby, and I learned her name; Clare. 

My brother fled the room after getting the horrible news, and I followed him. He didn't want me to see him cry, and tried to pull away from me. But I grabbed his hand; "Come here...come here..."

He gave in and wrapped his arms around me tight and hard, like he needed to hold onto me to stay on the ground. 

We held each other and cried and cried. When I could finally speak, I said,

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't even know she had  a baby. I didn't even know her name. I'm sorry. I love you."

He couldn't answer, but held me tight and cried on my shoulder. I felt his fear and his pain.

After crying some more, I asked, "Did you name her after me?

He nodded. 

"Why?" I asked.

He just shook his head. He couldn't answer. 

I don't remember how long that lasted, but it felt like an eternity. It was the most beautiful moment in any dream I can remember. It probably doesn't sound as emotionally touching or wonderful as it felt, but that's part of what's been haunting me so much about it. 

In the end, Natalie and their daughter were alright, but Natalie lost her foot (typical dream thing, right?). 

But there was so much in that one scene of that dream. Before my alarm could wake me from it at 7, I was holding the baby, and I asked my nonexistent older brother,

"So, why did you name her after me?"

I still don't know. He gave an answer, but it didn't make any sense, and I'm not sure I even remember it right.

It was the kind of dream that captivated my imagination. It's the kind of feeling I wish I could express in words. 

I hope someday I'll be able to put this haunting scene in a suitable context, but for now, it's still just a feeling. There are no words. 

~

Dropping like flies...

It started this morning.

I came downstairs and was immediately commisioned to cuddle siblings on the couch as they watched cartoons. My little sister Ella came over and snuggled right up to me.

It was later, as I was eating breakfast, that I learned that Ella had spent the time before I came downstairs puking.

Oh boy.

Ella puked on and off all morning.

Next to fall was Joseph.

Then Isaac.

Then Terese.

And then, my dad got home early, and slumped through the door announcing he had a sick stomach and had to leave work at 3:30.

Now it's just myself, my mother, my sister Meg, and my baby brother Jacob. 

The house is filled with the horrible sounds of people intermittently moaning and puking into ice cream buckets.

The whole place is filled with this awful atmosphere of suffering and fear.

Okay, it's not that bad, but Meg is acting like it's the bubonic plague and we must avoid catching it at all costs. I myself have consumed enough garlic to sicken a lab rat. Raw garlic is the only effective substance to keep one from getting sick. I haven't caught the stomach flu in over two years because of garlic, but you never know. 

Needless to say, my breath could KILL the said lab rat. 

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However, I can think of no better time to be suffering, even if I'm not the one puking, than during Lent. Sometimes you just have to pick up the cross...even when the cross is a puke bucket. 

Hopefully it'll all be over soon, and those of us who are still standing don't get it.

Prayers would be appreciated.