I kneel in the bathroom with my hair pulled back as the episodes grow more intense and more frequent.  I drop my head and let out a sigh.  My spirit drops lower.  My soul sighs deeper.  “Morning sickness,” they call it.  Frankly, it feels more like morning death.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, brush my teeth, and continue to get dressed.  I try to go on with the day as usual, but everything is harder.  I move slower.  I fatigue easily.  I don’t even desire the foods that I used to love but instead crave some really weird stuff.  Wonderful.  The thought of turning pickles and ice cream into a human being makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.  Truly a miracle, I’d say.

I go in for my ultrasound.  The doctor reassures me of the excellent progress.  Apparently this reoccurring incident of my insides wanting to be on the outside is good thing.  Normal.  Healthy.  Riiight.  He then proceeds to give me a snapshot of my baby and directs my attention to the developing fetus.  That?  Really?  I think it looks like a legume.  Great, all this bloating and peeing and mood swinging (which feels, dangerously, like a pendulum blade)…for a bean.  This is all very encouraging.  Glad I came, Doc.  Glad I got pregnant.

I leave the office wanting to throw up, again.  I leave sore and sensitive and want to drink a can of Cheez Whiz.  All the while, this thing remains inside of me.  It weighs me down and gets in the way of everything.  I think on the present, and I become discouraged.  I can’t go on like this for much longer.

So I think on the future.

…And I begin to feel encouraged.  Hope begins to build inside of me as I imagine stroking my baby’s little cheek and giving it Eskimo kisses, as I imagine watching my baby falling off his skateboard or her balance beam for the first time, as I imagine sending my baby into the world to leave his or her mark on it.  I think on the future.  I fight to remain on it, for although the now I am feeling hurts, the later I know will be worth it.  Whatever he or she may look like or turn out to be, I declare it for and over this growing thing inside of me–worth it.

—–

Pregnancy is a fascinating phenomenon.  Now, I’ve never been through it personally (rest assured, this is all metaphorical), and I can’t say that I know what I am talking about.  I don’t claim to.  Still, I’ve had some pregnant friends in this season of life and it’s undeniably one of the most riveting acts to witness something supernatural happening inside of someone in the natural.  That goes without saying, I do not want to make light of the trials and tribulations and pain that often comes with pregnancy.  Even so, an interesting fact I learned this past week is that the first trimester is always the most difficult.  It’s when the majority of morning sickness episodes happen.  It’s also when the majority of abortions and miscarriages happen.

Therefore, as for me and this growing God-sized dream inside of me, I will not abort it.  I will work hard to take care of and foster and, well, endure it.  For though it is just the size of a bean now, I realize this is just the beginning–the sickening and stomach-churning beginning…of something beautiful.

Goldilocks looked upon the table already set for breakfast.  Her eyes feasted on the three bowls of porridge.  Her tongue began to salivate as she had not eaten in days.

Some time ago now, she had lost her way in the forrest and just minutes earlier had stumbled upon this cottage.  Or was it a facade? an oasis?  an hallucination?  “I must be dreaming?” she muttered to herself, dumbfounded and disbelieving.

That daze lasted only seconds as she snapped out of it and rushed toward and cupped her hands around the first bowl.  It was hot.  Too hot!  Goldilocks winced as the poor nerve endings on her hands went to rest in peace.  Unperturbed, she closed her eyes and relished in the sweet smell of cinnamon and nutmeg that danced the most beautiful pas de deux of aromatic duets.  She picked up the spoon resting to the right of the bowl and swirled the porridge hastily, when all of a sudden, she heard a little voice whisper, “Not this one.”  Pausing, she assured herself, “Nooooo, only crazy people hear voices.”  And so she continued to churn the porridge in a clockwise direction, attempting to cool it down a bit when again she heard, “Not this one.”

“Yup, I’m definitely crazy,” she said aloud, “and now I’m talking to myself.  Wonderful.”

Moving on to the next bowl, she sat down and with the spoon in her hand, she again, very clearly, heard the same small still voice whisper the same three words she didn’t want to hear.

“YES, this one!  I’m starving!”

“Not this one.”

And with that, she moved on to the next bowl with an excessive urgency.  This time she didn’t even bother to sit down.  She grabbed the spoon in a hurry to shove the porridge in her mouth before she could hear that voice again.  “Not this one,” it calmly repeated.

“What?!  Why?  Why not?”  Her eye let out a tear.  Her mouth, a snivel.  Her tummy, a growl.  Confusion clouded everything.  Frustration and fatigue unleashed a flurry of defeated thoughts.

Feeling far more dejected than hungry at this point, she dragged her aching body and heart up the creaky staircase and down the hallway where she beheld a long and large room with stunning bay windows at the end.  Goldilocks stood in the doorway.  Her eyes rested upon the three beds evenly spaced and each meticulously made.  Feeling like she could easily sleep at least two entire REM cycles in broad daylight, she staggered over to the first bed about to belly flop when she heard, “Not this one.”

“Wha…”

“Not any one of these.”

“Wh…”

“Not yet.”

—–

Dont’ understand it?  Yeah, me too.  At least, not yet.

Another move you can’t help with.  Another apartment you can’t see.  Another neighborhood you can’t go exploring with me.  Another job you can’t visit.  Another year you won’t know.  Another Malia adventure–oh well, here we go.

Miss you.  Always.  

xoxo.

“Rufus.”  That’s what I’ve decided to name my little plaid carry-on.  It has a ring to it, like that of a faithful companion.

Now, Rufus has been back and forth and up and down coasts with me this past summer.  He’s put in scores of hours and miles of travel and has been a trooper through all of the TSA examinations I’ve subjected him too.  I’ve greatly appreciated his company.  There’s no doubt, he’s been good to me.  However, there inevitably comes a point in every young vagabond’s life when she needs a little bit of space from her suitcase.  Or a lot of space.  Closet space, actually.  And that time has come.

Dear Rufus, I’ve had enough.  I can’t do this anymore.  It’s me not you.

Now as I gear up for one more move of what I hope will be the last one for a while, I look back on this last season of constant travel and see another kind of baggage that I’ve been carrying around with me.  This one, though, is not the kind that weighs me down but actually imparts strength back to me.  It’s been the seat to my weary body, the pillow to my heavy-eyed head, the Mary Poppins bag for my every need including ones I didn’t even know that I had.  It’s been and is my support system, and it’s all of the people that I love.

It’s all of the people that love me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.“

And so to the beautiful in my life, the ones whose food I have eaten, couches I have crashed, lives I have interrupted only to leave with my own bags overflowing with encouragement, thank you, thank you, thank you.  I don’t know what else to say, save for the fact that I would not be who I am today had my life not divinely intersected with yours.  You are my blessings.  You are the beautiful I carry around with me, always and gladly, and I have the adventures that I have not because I’m trying to get away from something terrible but because I anchored to something wonderful.

In a season of so much change, your love is my constant.

Thank you again and a million times over.

May the Lord continue to bless you and keep you.  May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.  May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace that you may continue to be a blessing to others.

Remembering the elation of finishing the other house last year, the girl continued to pound away with the increasingly heavy hammer, back and forth and back and forth, to the background noise of the drill  saw and the forthcoming delight of finishing this current house.

She paused.  Straightening out her fatigued back and stretching, she looked around at the other workers and their respective projects.  It all seemed so chaotic, though strikingly beautiful and organic in the entirety of its disarray.  There were frames with no walls, windows with no panes, piles of heaping wood with no labels or indications of what they were to become.  It was all very much like a great jigsaw puzzle of life-size proportions, in which only the contractor could make sense of and approach with such confidence and composure.  To the girl, all she could see was that there was still a lot of work to be done.

That being so, she knelt down once again to her own  project and began pounding away.  She would finish her panel the bossman had asked her to do.  She didn’t know what would become of it or where it would go, but she would finish it.  For she knew that when the whole thing was completed, it would make sense.  Somehow.  Someday.  And soon enough.  And wherever that panel would ultimately lie, on the outside to be seen or on the inside to support, she knew her efforts were and would never be in vain.

And so she continued to work.

Wake up, dejected Body.  Look alive.  Stretch those limbs.  Wiggle those toes.  Warm up that sense of hope and be of good cheer.  A miracle has happened.  And it’s you.  You are the prized possession, the culminating masterpiece of a world (and then some)-renowned Artist who only creates, never duplicates.  Your exquisiteness, therefore, is harbored  in the fact that indeed you are one of a kind.  Now some may call you “different,” but He calls you His “marvelous workmanship.”  May you learn to give credence to the proclamation that He simply calls you His.  So now get up, beautiful and unique and enabled Body.  Look alive.  Because you are.  Rise up, I say, there’s work to be done.

Sometimes I write because I want to believe.  Sometimes I write because I already believe.  Other times I write because the journey from the former to the latter is so overwhelming that I don’t know what else to do.

I’ve had dreams, and I’ve had the proper upbringing along with just enough confidence and/or craziness (call it what you will) to boldly approach them.  I’ve had opportunity whet my artistic appetite, and I’ve also had rejection and a whole slew of other circumstances try to wet my ambitious flame.

But thank you, Lord, that through it all I’ve had the most wonderful family, friends, and mentors who have constantly pushed me to keep pushing on.

So here I stand once again, a little island girl in a bustling city of strangers, as I stick my head back into the huddle I had such a hard time penetrating last year.  Only this time, I find out that the very thing everyone is crowding around is dead.  That’s not to say that everyone sees what I see.  Rather in a weird and sci-fi way, the lens through which I now look at this once “highly-coveted dream” has changed.  Be that blame on the lens or the looker, something’s different, for what I used to desire, I don’t anymore.

It’s all very much like that one New Year’s Eve when I realized that I didn’t actually like apple cider (after how many years and cupfuls?) even though I love apples.  I just always drank cider for novelty’s sake.  Currently with dancing, I have likewise realized that I don’t really desire a career in or a paycheck from the industry.  I just always aimed for that because of supposition’s sake.

Now I believe the following phrase is attributed to Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  I like to take it a bit further (or back…way back, because he’s Gandhi) and say, “Be the party you wish to be at.”  Why not?  Why not have my own dance party full of life and exuberance and not condemnation and critique?  Why not have my own dance party full of self-expression and not rigidity, of beauty and not booty, booty, booty, booty rockin’ everywhere?  Why not dance because it surges throughout my body and soul and not just because it’s what people expect me to do?

Granted, I doubt my tweak on Gandhi will make it onto any bumperstickers or coffee mugs in the near future, but it’s my party and I’ll dance and not serve apple cider if I want to.  I’ll dance if no one’s watching.  I’ll dance if everyone’s watching–and judging.  I’ll dance, so long as God grants me breath, because it simply gives me joy.

Photo Credit: Brad Elliott of Westmont College

I step onto the treadmill.  I press the power-on button and up pops the San Francisco scene as if it were summer 2010 once again.  I begin to walk as I hear the same sounds and see the same sights.  Familiarity enraptures my soul, and with every step forward, I move further back into my past.  I want so badly to sprint on through, but the treadmill only has one speed.  It forces me to walk slowly and steadily as it leads me back to Market and Embarcadero, over to Lyon and Fell, and of course down Mission and Valencia.

I say to myself, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Eventually, I arrive at this season’s last loose ends and am suddenly able to recall the most infinitesimal details of my most intense happiness and heartache.  I spend some time revisiting them all.  In due course, I tie them up with a cry, a kiss, and a “see you later” and thankfully leave the scene with less baggage than when I came.  I continue on with a lighter heart, again hearing the same sounds and seeing the same sights.  Still I feel, I know and am confident that this one thing is different, and that is me.