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I’d say that’s a fairly accurate reflection of what’s going on inside this head of mine.

Many people have favorite quotations and understandably so, for when printed in the right font and paired with the right picture, they can make one feel as if he or she could change the world from the Wal-Mart greeting card aisle.  Slightly less popular, though, are favorite words, one of mine being

e.phem.er.al:  lasting for a very short time.

Growing up, I was a competitive little girl.  Nowadays, well, I am a competitive young woman.  Ergo when I think of this word and its transient connotations, I take it as a personal challenge–a double-dog dare if you will–me against the inevitability of time.

And so begins the race to fill each 24-hour heat with as much merriment and memory-making as possible while time hovers over me, keeping perfect tempo and snatching my days away as soon as midnight strikes.

Consequently in this mindset, even the most tedious items of life have seemed to take on a new hop, skip, and leap in their passing.  The car in front of me riding its brakes down Barker’s Pass is now another opportunity to admire the panoramic view of the city I have come to adore.  Limited parking downtown is now another opportunity to stroll the streets I have lived so much life on.  And the couple thousand folklórico dance routines at Fiesta are a couple thousand more excuses to sit outside underneath the summer sun and watch the sky change from blue to gold to orange to pink to purple.

For soon enough, I will be forced to move on from this place and time. And  like a little girl stuffing her pockets with Red Hots before Sunday school (which may or may not have been the case in my own childhood), I need to know that I have stuffed my pockets with enough Santa Barbara memories to last me a lifetime.  So although the inevitability of time will eventually gets its way…

Shhh.

You should see my stash.

Today is a writing day, not because I discovered something utterly profound and thought provoking.  No.  Today is a writing day because I actually don’t have anything figured out.

After speaking with a friend, who not only seems to know the will of God for his life but has already articulated it in a six-page Word document, I say, “To each their own story and script.”

Granted, as my story continues to progress, it’s looking more like scribbles on scratch paper than a spiral-bound notebook, and my script contains more interrogative than declarative statements.  Nevertheless, with my one-way ticket receipt still open on my desktop, I am comforted by memories of traveling with my daddy.  Back then, I didn’t worry about itineraries.  I didn’t worry about the will of Stephen Wee for my vacation time.  I didn’t worry, period, and I didn’t have to know everything.  I just followed along, stayed close, and simply enjoyed being with him.

In the end (or the beginning of this exciting adventure), the truth is that today is a writing day because I don’t have anything figured out; however, I know whom I am sticking with and am becoming strangely convinced that for me, for now, this is His will.

It’s like being given a voucher, a ticket for some adventure to be redeemed at the prize table of life.  I don’t know what I will be given.  I don’t know what to expect or if I will even like it at first.  Yet, I am confident of this one thing:  I won’t know what my prize is until I get up and get it.

That’s what it feels like to have people believe in me, to hear them say that my hopes are not too fanciful and my dreams are not too big. For with each dare to be great, I find the strength to take one more step forward when my insecurities seduce me to settle for a life of safety, security, and a “real job.”  And with every word of affirmation, it is like another voucher, another possibility, another gift to be unwrapped, be that my dream job or a running list of careers I realize are not for me.

Thus, amidst this quarter-life crisis, as all talent and uniqueness seemingly dissipate into the blinding light of the grown up world, I can’t say that I know what life will hand me.  Nevertheless, far too many people have given of themselves for me not to find out.

Oh to be seventy, wrinkly, and wondering of an adventure that may have been.

May it never be so.

The audience quieted down.  The lights came up.  The music started.  My heartbeat stopped.  These were the moments I lived for, but how I so desperately wanted to make this one go away.  Enter stage right…and commence the hardest and yet most healing dance of my life.

Oh the happiness and heartache of being home, of being with

FAMILY.

This week’s performance really got me reflecting on all the times my they have annoyed, tormented, pestered, plagued, provoked, worried, badgered, harried, harassed, heckled, peeved, persecuted, irked, irritated, bullyragged, vexed, disquieted, grated, bothered, bedeviled, teased, taunted, tantalized, nettled, upset, disgruntled, and aggravated me.  Nonetheless after all is said, done, and danced, I would have to say that it’s all been worth it for the blessed reality that I don’t have to go through this alone.

I was feeling pretty silly.

No one at the studio (now) knew who he was.

But when I saw the look in Wendy’s eyes as she twirled about in reverie, I saw the heartache of a young woman who had now lost two fathers.  And then as I heard the last piano note  fade into the theatre’s stratosphere of lights, I heard Jeremy whisper in spite of choking back tears , “Beautiful, Steph.  That was absolutely beautiful.”  And in his affirmation, I heard the sincerity of a young man who knew my dad, knows me, and understands the magnitude of this duet.  Then just when I thought my heart couldn’t take anymore, Jos called to tell me how touched she was by the piece; and while she gushed, I felt the most colossal wave of hugs and hope break over me and envelope me and move me.

And I knew for sure I was loved.

So what if this is nothing more than a pretty dance in sparkly costumes for the majority of people on Saturday?  If anything I’m sure it’ll be a refreshing change from the ten million toddlers in tutus.  Ultimately, though, I know that for everyone who matters to me, this dance will matter to them.  And be that countable on two hands out of all three shows, that is more than fine with me.

It is a cruel world for stillness.  In society, it has somehow obtained an unwarranted stigma and is thusly thwarted in everyday lives by deadlines, duties, and days that begin and end in exhaustion.

Studying the art of communication, though, has so radically reworked the manner in which I approach moments of stillness.  Instead of something to be avoided, it is has increasingly become something I long to bask and replenish myself in, for it is in these moments that my most imaginative ideas have the opportunity to tiptoe on in.

This is, in large part, what this month at home is for.

For that reason, it is in this place where the contrast between the green mountains and blue Hawaiian sky have become all the more dynamic.  It is in this place where the swirling of the tropical tradewinds have implored me to a greater appreciation of this place that I call home.  It is in this place where I have learned to go to process the many issues at hand.

Brenda Ueland  ( So You Want to Write) pointed out in regards to always being energetic and active, “Your soul gets frightfully sterile and dry because you are so quick, snappy and efficient about doing one thing after another that you have not time for your own ideas to come in and develop and gently shine” (29).That being so, after a year like this past one–heck, after 17 years of formal schooling, I make no apologies and carry no shame for this Sabbath of a summer, for I have learned that stillness is actually and often times more profitable than merely being busy for the sake of busyness.  Before this, I felt the need to always be doing something or going some place and fast.  It was like sprinting a marathon.  Since then, I have learned to welcome water breaks.

“NEXT,” the traffic clerk muttered.

“I hate my job,” the traffic clerk’s body language seemingly muttered.

So began my Santa Barbara Superior Court adventure as the traffic clerk sent me to the Courtroom #7 waiting room.  All eyeballs were down.  All phones were out, fingers fidgety to do anything but, God forbid, stay still.  Invisible property lines between fellow offenders were instinctively adhered to as a tatted-up Mexican sat next to a distinguished businessman who sat next to a sixty-something year old woman in a knit sweater far too thick for mid-May who sat next to me.

It was like a grown-up, government-run principal’s office.

After some time, we were herded into #7 and shown a video not updated since the eighties.  Hearings proceeded immediately after that, and we were called up four at a time as the honorable judge read our violations out loud for all to hear.  Urinating in public, jaywalking, littering…well, I suppose things could always be worst.  I could be paying the same ridiculous amount for something far more wildly foolish than not fully stopping at a blinking red light. STILL…

Traffic tickets: they’re out of control, especially in this sun-shiny state.

“Why, God, why?”  I initially wondered.  “You know I don’t have a secret stockpile of cash to frivolously throw to the wind or to the California government for that matter! ”

You see, there was a moment before when I thought God silly for having me spend His money on a traffic ticket.  “What’s that going to do for Your Kingdom?” I wondered.  “Obviously, the money would have been better utilized via an orphanage or friend’s mission trip fund or some other admirable cause.  Now it’s just going to go into a corrupt politician’s pocketbook or some never-ending highway construction project.”  Then I realized (ding!) that perhaps…I am His investment.  Perhaps this whole money matter was to train my eyes to focus on what is indeed valuable in this life and to loosen my grasp on what is not.  Perhaps, if for no other reason, it was to cultivate in me a greater heart of trust and wonder.

Now I know I am not there yet, but I hear a dwindling dependency upon funds is a great place to start.  Thus, although this traffic violation is an anything-but-preferable way to expend money, this experience was a rather telling assessment of where my security lies and a good reminder of where it should be.

So continues my post-graduate adventure as I write checks to the county that should be going to my landlord and as I learn a little more about this God who doesn’t necessarily work in ways I am  able to predict.

One week.  Seven days.  One hundred sixty-eight hours ago, I was in the midst of finals week. With my favorite BIC pen in hand and the caffeine from my third cup of coffee kicking in right on time, I finished my last final ever.  Well, it wasn’t so much “finished” rather I just ran out of time.  Still, I walked my blue book up to the podium as if in stride to my own theme song I imagined to sound something like “The Circle of Life.”  This was it.  This was my last academic assignment of seventeen years.

Done.

In hindsight, with my hands washed of all papers, exams, and ink smudge marks on the bottom-side of my right pinky, I reflect back on my schooling and am rather pleased with how it turned out and wrapped up.  Sure, I did not graduate with any Greek-sounding phrases attached to my major and am perfectly okay with that.  I love learning.  I care about education, and yet I know the classroom is not primarily where I excel.  I recognize that.  I accept and embrace that; for being at Westmont, although it has made me acutely aware of other people’s gifts, it has also highlighted and helped to hone my own.  The truth is my most ardent passions lie elsewhere and are, relievedly, not defined by letter grades.

Thus, I see it more as my  civil duty to be academically average.  If it weren’t for ordinary students like me, there wouldn’t be any need for terribly elite honor societies and fancy-smancy inductions in secluded dining rooms.  I see it as this: someone’s got to set the bar that others may trump.  So you’re welcome, you summa kappa you people.

Thus, in conclusion of my college education, I propose a toast to the academic average Joe’s of Westmont College.

This one’s for you who hasn’t gotten straight A’s since junior year of high school.  This one’s for you who only has one major and is not even certain about that.  This one’s for you who doesn’t have the next decade mapped out with graduate schools and doting job offers.

This one’s for you, fellow scholar.

It’s been a pleasure.