Let's Have an Adventure

Because we could all use a reminder that the world is beautiful...especially now.

(Pictures taken with a Canon T2i and Samsung Galaxy SII, at Interlochen Center for the Arts, McDaniel College, Six Flags Baltimore/D.C., Sheraton Hotel at Cuyahoga Falls, OH, and from the backseat of a moving Toyota Sienna.)

(photo credit to Ella)

 

 



(photo credit to Ella)

 

Hold it in...but not this time

I can't, I can't, I can't take it
This is a time to smile, I can't fake it
Please allow me the chance now to break it down
It's not snow, it's rain coming down
And the lights are cool, but they burn out
And I can't pull off the cheer
Not this year, not this year
Not this year
~Aly and AJ, "Not This Year"
 

 When I was a little girl, Christmas was such a big deal in my house. We'd all go and get the tree together--chop it down ourselves, of course; we couldn't just buy one--and decorate it while listening to Christmas music, the most eclectic mix of songs you could possibly imagine--Annie Lennox, Whitney Houston, Tom Petty, Darlene Love, Bruce Springsteen, you name it, we listened to it. We'd bake Christmas cookies, sugar cookies, the kind you get to decorate, and I'd make a gingerbread house. There was almost always snow, and my dad and I would go sledding and then come home and wrap presents together. When I got old enough, I could pick out presents for my parents and other family, and sometimes pay for them--and we'd have little present-wrapping parteis. We even made our own ornaments out of Polymer clay. And on Christmas morning, there would be the most incredible presents under the tree. One year there was a brass bed for my American girl doll (which I'd just gotten for my birthday a month earlier). One year there was a play tea party cart that I'd begged for. One year, a little Hogwarts castle, complete with Polly Pocket-sized Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. One year there was a beautiful bronze-colored electric guitar, just the right size for a short little twelve-year-old. I believed in Santa until I was almost a teenager.

And if you'd told me then that someday I would possess the knowledge that out there, in my country, there was a young man my age who had the capacity to take a handful of deadly weapons, walk into an elementary school, and shoot seven-year-old children, multiple times, at Christmastime, I wouldn't believe you. I wouldn't want to believe you. I wouldn't want to think that anyone had that capacity.

He was my age. That boy was my age. He could, just as easily, have been someone I went to school with. He could have gone to my college, gone to my high school, gone to my boarding school. I could have known him. There is every chance that, right now, at my college, there is a twenty-year-old man who could so easily take a gun, walk into my classroom in the middle of a lecture, shoot my teacher, and then turn on me--cold-faced, no emotion in his eyes, no remorse, no fear--and shoot me, multiple times, in the chest. Watch me die, no regrets, and walk away. I wouldn't be able to do anything about it except bleed.

I can't get that out of my head. I keep seeing, from the point of view of a six-year-old, a man walking into my classroom like that. I keep hearing a little voice saying something that I read in one of the articles about the shooting--"I don't want to die, I just want Christmas, I just want to have Christmas." That would be me. That's always me. I'm the one who always says, "Not yet, not yet, not yet." If I die of old age, God willing, I'll be on my deathbed saying, "Not yet, I want to see the turn of the century." I can't imagine being six years old, in school, just before winter break, and being in the position of saying, "I just want Christmas."

Six years old.

Six. Fucking. Years. Old.

In my lifetime I have seen cruelty. I have seen what I thought was the maximum capacity for human violence. Wars, both started by us and ended by us. The Holocaust. Genocide. My Lai. The picture of the little Vietnamese girl running naked down the street, her body covered in Napalm burns. All of those things they teach you in history class, all those situations where Americans were allegedly the heroes or, if your teacher is honest, the worst villains.

Then, those ones closer to home. The things I watched on the news with my mother. The Columbine massacre. 9/11--I'd been studying World War II, and I was so afraid that day that my father would have to go off to war, just like the men drafted back in the 1940s. The Virginia Tech massacre, the Aurora shooting, which I wrote about a few months ago--I thought, until yesterday, that I'd seen it all.

I was wrong.

I could not have imagined this. But my mind keeps trying to make up for that, making me picture it.

This Christmas, families in Connecticut will take down their Christmas lights, which they put up just for their children. The presents bought for their children will never be opened. Christmas cookies will not be made or eaten. Neighbors will offer sympathy, but it will be useless. Families who took for granted that they'd be able to take their children to their grandparents' house for Christmas dinner will sit in the living room and hold each other, crying, wishing like mad that they could have just one more day with the child they lost.

I can't cry. Not yet. Not about this. Earlier I cried during a fight with my dad. The tiniest little thing set me off--I couldn't think why. Now I know. I want to let this out somehow, but I can't. Writing usually helps. Not now.

As a Christian, one of the first things you are taught is to forgive. And usually, I can. Over time, my fury at the Aurora shooter has slowly begun to fade away. I'll never stop thinking what he did was horrible, but I no longer hate him, I'm no longer curious about him--but I'll never stop wishing that people like him didn't exist.

But I will never, ever forgive the man--the man my age, the man who could so easily be my classmate, perhaps even someone in my group of friends--who went into that school, and murdered those children.

This man is a monster. He is not the sci-fi kind, not the beast from 20,000 fathoms, not an alien life form from some far-flung planet. He walks among us. He is us. The man who took a gun into a school and murdered twenty children is human. He is beyond the evil of the antagonist of Psycho. But even Alfred Hitchcock would think twice before making a movie about a man like this.

While I will continue to pray for peace, and pray for the families who were torn apart by this monster, I won't fool myself into thinking that just prayer will be enough. Obama's visit to Newtown won't be enough. Watching the shooter die by a thousand flaming arrows wouldn't be enough. When your child is ripped away from you, nothing is enough--I haven't had children, but I know that if I were to die the way the children in Newtown died, murdering the murderer would not be enough for my mother.

I'm not in the habit of invoking Hell. But in this case, I don't think anything else is worthy of the perpetrator of this crime.

So, Adam Lanza, I do not feel curiosity about you. I am afraid of you. I am afraid that more like you walk the earth, and even more afraid because I know that my fear is justified. I don't want to know more about you. I don't care what made you commit this crime. I don't want you to stand trial. I'm glad you killed yourself, because it means I won't have to read articles about you standing trial and defending your actions. Is that awful of me? Perhaps it is--but I feel my minor crime of being thankful for your elimination pales in comparison to the fact that you took twenty-eight lives, twenty of whom had barely begun to live.

And I'll pray for your victims, I'll pray for their families, I'll pray for their friends and neighbors and loved ones. But the one thing I will not pray for, is for God to have mercy on your soul. For what you did, I think you deserve every punishment He gives you and beyond.

Autumn Magic

I keep thinking that it just can't last. This excitement, this roller coaster ride that has been my life for the last few months. I've lived in a house with six other girls, I've gotten a Little in my sorority, I've been a peer mentor, I've fallen in love. I'm moving out of my house and back into a dorm tomorrow, hoping to combat health issues (and sheer lack of free time). I've been taking photos left, right, and center (but using my camera phone waaay too much--I really need to stop being afraid to take my Canon out of my house), trying to capture the beauty that is my campus in the fall.

And I keep telling myself that I'm out of the honeymoon phase...I must be by now, right? I keep thinking, okay, so I still sleep in the hoodie that I so arfully acquired from her room. Okay, so I still can't shut up about her when I call home. And oh my gosh, I have good reason to not shut up--she's amazing.  She's good, and pure-hearted, and compassionate and kind and absolutely wonderful. She is one of those special people who loves everyone for precisely who they are, flaws and all. (Imagine Miss Honey from Matilda. Then make her even nicer. For once, no, I'm not exaggerating.) I tell my parents this, I tell my friends back home...

And then I realize, okay, maybe I'm still a little dazzled by her.

Here's the thing. I have been in love before. It's actually happened. Twice, to be specific. And both times ended in total disaster. To say that I got hurt would be an understatement. Not that I blame either of the people who hurt me--trust me, I made my share of mistakes too. But when you've been hurt, especially in the manner that I was (death by friendzone in both cases--but one of them was friends-with-benefits-zone, which added a nice dose of Total Freaking Confusion on top of the pain), you tend to start thinking along the lines of, "Well, that's that. I'm going to end up crazy Cat Lady now. No one wants me. No one's ever going to be in love with me. I'm just the Girl Next Door and not a very pretty one at that." And that was how I thought of myself...until she came along.

I don't know how to describe it. Is it even possible to describe love without resorting to cliches anymore? Has everything already been said? Well, in any event, I'll try. All I can say is that she pushes me farther than I've ever pushed myself. Those horror movies I mentioned earlier? Yeah, she was the one who convinced me that I could watch them. Those pants I bought in September? She was the one who convinced me to buy them, and she was also the one who convinced me that it wasn't necessary to wear skirts and makeup every day to, stupid as this sounds, "prove my femininity." (I'll probably talk about that in a later post.)

But it goes beyond that. She doesn't just boost my confidence. She provides a safety net. And that is far more than anyone I've ever been with before has ever done for me.

Story time:

At the end of September, we went to Six Flags with a couple of friends of ours. I was psyched--I'd never been before, and I'd been told that it was awesome. The first part of the day went without a hitch. We had a mini-road trip, stopped at a mall in her hometown, I got to meet her mother. We belted out pop songs and cuddled in the backseat of the car all the way there. The sun was up, I was with three of my favorite people, including the woman I knew I was falling for, and hard--nothing could possibly go wrong, right?

One little catch: It was the first weekend of Fright Fest, the annual Six Flags Halloween celebration. During the day, it was mostly kid-friendly entertainment. But from dusk to close, costumed characters, and by characters I mean zombies, werewolves, clowns, and other monsters, walked around the park with the sole purpose of scaring people. I'm terrified of most Halloween monsters, as Ella knew all too well from my recent meltdown in a Halloween shop, and some of these people were really out to scare the park-goers...but I didn't know that yet.

At first everything was fine. We wandered the park, went on a couple of rides. I wasn't too freaked about costumes...yet...because I didn't realize, if someone after dark was in costume, odds were very, very good that they were hired actors, out to scare people. We had a couple of scares with a mini-zombie invasion (K was on cloud nine; she was wearing a t-shirt that read "Zombie Response Team" and she had a great time chasing the zombie actors) and a weird flying-monkey thing that kind of accidentally snuck up on me (I think the poor guy was as scared as I was when I all but screamed in his face), but I was fairly okay. I didn't exactly enjoy the presence of the creepers, but I could deal with them.

In fact, I managed to do something that I was later extremely proud of myself for doing: I saw a "creepy clown" who just so happened to be wearing awesome boots. Now, I don't even like normal clowns--creepers? Forget it. But I loved this guy's boots, and I just had to say something. So I told my friends, "Give me one sec," walked up to the clown, and told him (with my knees knocking the entire time), "I just wanted to say, I love your boots!" half-expecting him to get in my face and "spook" me. He didn't--he was totally cool. I wish I'd gotten a picture with this guy, because he was awesome. Not "cure my fear of clowns forever" kind of awesome, by any stretch--but he was cool enough to ease my choking fear of the "Fright Fest Creeper Team."

So then, we went to ride one of the roller coasters, and we put our stuff in these lockers under the coaster. When we came back after the ride to collect our stuff from the lockers, a trio of zombie girls walked by, one of whom was wearing bright-pink zebra-print jeggings--the kind you get at Hot Topic. Feeling confident after my encounter with the clown, I called out to her as she passed, "I love your pants!"

Biggest. Mistake. Ever.

The girl got right up in my face, creepy makeup and all, and growled, "What did you say to me?" Did I mention her makeup was really fucking scary? Because it was--it didn't even look like makeup; it looked like a legit zombie mask from a great Halloween store. It was realistic. And she was maybe three inches from my face, so I got a great close-up view.

Forget it--my already-shaky composure shattered into pieces. I burst into tears and fled to the safety of Ella's arms. Fortunately for me, Ella was right behind me. Heart pounding, tears streaming down my face and smearing my makeup onto my glasses, entire body shaking, I buried my face in my girlfriend's chest. Her arms closed around me. She didn't yell at the zombie girl, much to her credit--God knows if our places were reversed, I probably would have told off that chick to within an inch of her life (ha--life; zombie--get it?)--but she also did not provoke her. She did not egg her on. She did not fan the flames. She just held me, let me cry, let me know without saying a word that I had nothing to fear as long as she was there.

The zombie girl, however, did not back down. Even though my fear was practically broadcast to the entire fucking park, she kept it up. "What. Did. You. Say?!?" she demanded, her voice rising with each syllable.

"Stop," I begged her, my face still buried in Ella's chest. "Just please, stop."

"Then leave," the girl growled, and it stung far deeper than she probably intended it to.

Leave.

That, I was convinced in that moment, was exactly what I should do. I had no business being at this park, with these people. K and Bouncy were totally down with the costumed creeps--K even willingly interacted with them--and Ella was barely affected by them at all. It was just me. I was the lone coward in our group of otherwise-brave people. I was the only one who was enough of a scaredy-cat to be driven to tears by a girl who I knew full well was not a real zombie.

For a few moments I was torn between fleeing in terror and clinging to Ella the remainder of my life. Then K and Bouncy came to the rescue with the "Nom Nom" song (don't ask...just google), and Ella continued her comforting hair-stroking and tear-drying until I was calm enough to walk through the park again. But the doubts lingered. I snuck an occasional look at K as we walked through the park--she was totally cool, totally calm. Zombies? Pfft, what zombies? Bouncy was only afraid of the roller coasters, which I could understand, being the girl who refused to even consider going on roller coasters until I was in tenth grade. Ella was my shield, protecting me from any creeper who decided to go after the giant red target I'd painted on myself by hiding my face in her shoulder as we walked. I was the only one who was scared.

It wasn't until we were eating dinner that I managed to confess to Ella how badly I wanted to go home. In fact, if I'd been with my parents, I probably would have gone home by that point. My mom would probably not have any reservations about taking me to the car the minute the Zombie Encounter had reached its conclusion. (I also don't doubt she would have given that girl a piece of her mind...she certainly wouldn't have been as calm about it as Ella was.) But I was with friends, and I couldn't just leave now. I had to face up.

Now keep in mind, I had apologized to her about ten times per incident at this point, minus the clown compliment incident because that was the only one where I contrived to maintain any modicum of dignity. And every time she replied, "It's okay, it's okay." But it wasn't until Johnny Rocket's, when I finally admitted that I felt like I didn't even deserve to be at the park, that she completed that sentence and said what I desperately needed to hear: "It's okay to be afraid."

Think about that for a minute. All that it took to give me the courage to walk out of the restaurant (one of the few creeper-free places at the park) and face the underpaid actors was that one little moment, where she told me something my parents have been telling me since I was old enough to say "I'm scared."

I could go on and on here about this incident proving my theory that information that you already know takes on a whole new meaning when it comes out of your significant other's mouth...but I don't have to. This speaks for itself.

My first boyfriend, had he been at that park with me, would probably have made a jest out of my fear. I don't doubt that he would've exploited it, waved his arms and pointed at me, shouting "She's here!" to the creepers, or told me to turn around when one was right behind me--all in good fun, of course, because THAT would justify it all. The first boy I fell in love with, assuming a miracle occured and I managed to get him to the park at all, wouldn't have deliberately frightened me, but he wouldn't have protected me, either--at any rate, he wouldn't have let me hold onto him the way Ella let me hold onto her. And the last man I loved would have gotten fed up with me after the first two scares, he wouldn't have had any sympathy left by the time the zombie girl scared me to tears.

In fact, all former significant others aside, I can't think of too many friends who wouldn't have been annoyed with me by that point. Because really, who goes to something called "Fright Fest" not expecting (and anticipating) something scary?

But Ella maintained the patience of a saint the entire evening. She rode the carousel with me twice, let me hide my face in her side as we navigated the creeper-filled park, warned me when someone frightening was in my proximity, danced with me in the nearly-empty club at the end of the night. She shielded me the entire time. She let me shut my eyes as we navigated Zombie Bridge on our way out. To her, my fear was not a mark of shame. It was just another piece of me that she had to accept if she wanted to be with me. To her, my fear of anything costumed was just another thing that made me me, just like my loud laugh, my distaste for tomatoes, or my obsession with A Clockwork Orange. She saw nothing wrong with it.

She told me it was okay to be scared.

I couldn't pinpoint it at the time. But later on I realized: for the first three weeks or so of our relationship, I thought I was falling for her but wasn't quite sure. I knew I had a serious crush, knew I was definitely attracted to her, knew I felt safe with her, knew I admired her--but was I really in love with her? Our night at Six Flags answered that question a thousand times over.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

So, there you have it. The movies always make it out to be so dramatic. It's always some big gesture, like hanging off a ferris wheel or stopping an airplane, that makes someone realize they're in love. But for me, it was five simple words and a protective embrace. The whole experience with the zombie lasted maybe five minutes. The conversation in Johnny Rocket's, maybe ten. There was no slow buildup, no dramatic score, no rolling credits, no stunts, none of that. Just the woman I now know I love, telling me that no matter what, she'll always be there for me.

This is definitely my favorite picture of us--it's the night of the Six Flags date, just after our group split up. Our friends went to zombieland; Ella, knowing there was no way in hell I would go to any place called "zombieland," was kind enough to come ride the carousel with me. The gi-normous smile on my face pretty much says it all...there was nobody I would've preferred to have with me that night.

If my girlfriend were majorly camera-shy, we'd have a problem. As it is, she definitely understands my incessant need for more photographs. (And yet I still think I don't have nearly enough pictures of her.)

She wrote this on the board in the computer lab during an intense editing session one afternoon. Guess who says this all the time? Ella does! As a direct result, guess who also says it all the time? If you guessed Avery, ding ding ding, we have a winner!

It took so many tries for me to capture her smile while I photographed her writing on the board...but it was well worth it when I did. (And yes, she did look that happy the entire time.)

Guess who likes to steal my phone and take pictures when I leave it unattended? ;)

That bloody costume took FOREVER to make--and I ended up not even wearing it on Halloween! This was taken at an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (Ella and I met through IV) party the weekend BEFORE Halloween.

I'd been wanting to dye my hair purple forever...and the weekend we went to see Hairspray, I finally had the chance. These pictures were taken by Ella's housemate moments before the show began.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now for some photos of the campus and the wildness I've been living with. Most of these are from sorority events--the girl holding the duck is my Little, who we've taken to calling Peeta (because, no joke, that is exactly who she reminds me of). The dark-haired girl with the glasses is my Big, Haymitch (long story...let's just say our family LOVES Hunger Games...hence the flame letters, inspired by the Girl on Fire).

The Gamma Sigma Sigma Member-In-Training class of fall 2012--the Alpha Betas--during their induction ceremony.