My Lunch Box

The following exercise is inspired by Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. In the chapter “School Lunches” Lamott tells writers if you don’t know where to start, write about school lunches. The purpose of the exercise is to take a short assignment and yield a shitty first draft of detailed memory…then see where it takes you.

Here is my shitty first draft of My Lunch Box.

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When I was a kid my mom used to make me peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches when I stayed for lunch at school – once a week tops. They were my favourite kind of sandwich because it was like eating a Reese Peanut Butter Cup melted and slathered on bread.

The thing is though, the other kids didn’t seem to have the same excited response as I did to my most amazing meal. They would look at my sandwich in shock, then look back at their own with wilted lettuce and cheese, and ask, “You’re eating that for lunch?!”

At first I didn’t understand what was so wrong with my meal. Hello! It tastes good! My mom wants me to eat my food at lunch, duh!? But after a while I started to wonder if maybe they were jealous of my chocolate bar on a bun. And then I got a little embarrassed.

I’d open up my lunch bag, peer at the contents between two slices of whole wheat (never white!) bread, and exclaim, “Peanut butter and Nutella again!” And then I’d sigh, as though I’d had it up to here with eating roasted hazelnuts and skim milk with smooth and creamy peanut butter. But secretly, inwardly, I’d be filled with glee that my mom packed me my favourite lunch yet again.

Thanks, Mom.

The Impossible – Watch It

Some people know about my love affair with Thailand. I was first introduced to this beautiful country while in London, England in December 2004 when I read an article about sex tourism in Thailand. And just while Thailand was on the forefront of my mind, the tsunami hit South East Asia on December 26. Ever since then I’ve been committed to praying for Thailand.

Now on to movies. To be honest, I don’t really care for movies. I feel that more than anything they are a waste of my time. I come away from 2 hours feeling as though my life was robbed rather than enriched. Rarely does a movie stay with me after the credits have rolled. And more recently I’m noticing how sensitive I am to certain material – how often I find myself thinking, “I know that I can’t shelter my children from this world, but I sure as heck hope they’ll have the discernment to know when something is garbage for their mind and turn it off.” That’s another post.

Now on to The Impossible. Rarely do I endorse movies, because rarely do I enjoy them. But you should watch The Impossible.

The Impossible is a true story of a mom and dad and their 3 boys who were vacationing in Khao Lak, Thailand over Christmas, and who got caught in the destruction of the tsunami. I was crying the moment I saw the first wave, and I’m pretty sure I had a continuous stream of tears falling from my right eye. And I’m on the verge of tears now just thinking about it.

I don’t like movies. Most movies don’t affect me. I think most movies are garbage.

But I think that you should watch The Impossible. Rent it this weekend on iTunes and have your life enriched.

Words Are My Delight

Blogging is an interesting thing. I often feel like I should only draft up a blog and hit “post” when I believe I have something worthwhile to say.

But sometimes I don’t want to write anything revolutionary. Sometimes I just want to write. Because I’m a writer. And I need a place to do that, even if it’s not that exciting. And if you have something that you love to do, and most of the time you do it well, it doesn’t really make sense to keep it to yourself.

I like to remember Jon Acuff when I write my blog. He is presently the best-selling author of Quitter, but when he started writing his first blog, Prodigal Jon, his readership was limited. But that was actually a great thing, because his blog gave him space. It gave him a place to write in one style, and then in another. To change his theme, his tagline, and his platform without having to worry about his audience or a perceived identity crisis. He had a place where he could express his love of writing and even do it poorly sometimes, practicing now what he hoped to produce later.

I’m currently reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I love this woman because she understands the beauty of books exactly the way I do, that out of “…small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world…” She says that most writers come to her workshops and all they care about is being published. “How can I find an agent?” they ask. But they fail to remember that it’s not the publication that changes us (I know because I’ve been published), it’s the act of writing. It’s the feeling you get when words flow from your mind to your fingertips to create something beautiful. And then in days or months or even years to come, you look back at your work and ask with astonishment and delight (and sometimes humiliation), “Did I write that?” Lamott emphasizes that writers need to love writing not for the external benefits (which aren’t that lucrative, even for a best-selling author) but the internal ones.

And for that reason I will keep writing in this blog, even when I have nothing worthwhile to say. Sometimes I might write something inspirational, but other times I’m going to write about what I’m cooking for dinner, or my favourite cleaning products, or the craft I just made that I’m really proud of. And I’ll do it because when I string words together like beads I feel good inside, because I know I’m doing what I was created to do.

What I Long For

While I lived in Thailand some days I would head to a slum community in the Prawat District outside of Bangkok. I would greet P’Noi at the Ruth Center and she would give me some work to do, like making stencils or cutting pieces of fabric for the Dream Project.

In the afternoon we would walk through the slums, play with the children, and speak with the elderly, many of whom are sick and depressed.

When the day was done I would walk the long, dusty road back to town to catch the bus, to avoid cramming onto a songthaew weighed down with school children.

By the time I got to the bus stop I was drenched in sweat and my calves were caked with dirt, but I never felt so beautiful. By then we had hit rush hour, so it would usually take 1.5 hours to get back into the city. But I didn’t mind. It was time well spent.

There is something about sharing in the sufferings of the poor in spirit that allows you to become one with the Kingdom of God. I can’t say that I have ever experienced the Kingdom to the extent that I did when I was in Thailand. I longed for Jesus more than anything else.

When I came back to Canada I hated the way that we did life here. I hated the materialism. I hated the way our culture told us to want “stuff” and we just listened. And then I hated the way I started wanting stuff too. But then it became normal. And now I have trouble remembering what the Kingdom feels like. And I have trouble longing for Jesus.

The reality is that I don’t have to go back to Thailand to experience it again. I can experience it right here in my own neighbourhood. But first I have to get back to the place where I die to myself, and I die to my own desires, and I die to all those things that I want to own and experience to make my kingdom come, and I learnthat’s when I’ll come alive, and that’s when I’ll get to experience God’s Kingdom here on earth.

Having tasted and seen, I know that there’s nothing better. That’s what I long for.

Redeeming a Day of Hazards

On Thursday I went to work feeling incredibly stressed. Wedding planning has shown me that being a multi-tasker has it’s disadvantages. While I’m able to juggle multiple things at once, I am not able to control the thoughts surrounding these things that shoot around my brain like jumping beans. It’s even worse when you’re at work and just long to scratch something else off of your To Do List.

“Why are you so sad?” my coworker Alex asked me. Clearly anxiety was written all over my face.

“I think I’m stressed.” I told him. I know I’m stressed! I thought.

“Marriage is a good thing!” Alex told me in his Austrian accent. “Your wedding can only be positive.”

“Thank you,” I told him, and returned to my pouty/anxious state of mind.

And then three things happened, and the trickle effect began…

1. I knocked over my coffee.

The coffee was at the cash desk. The coffee spilled on the computer mouse. The mouse stopped working. And then for some strange reason, every time I tried to scan an item for a transaction  it would open up a new tab in the browser.

So Alex came to my rescue and brought me a new mouse from downstairs. But then…

2. I unplugged the wrong cable from the computer.

As in, not the mouse. As in, the entire network system that links and runs Bookmanager, which is the system that runs the store (POS, inventory, purchase orders, receiving, etc., etc., etc…).

After shutting down and rebooting Bookmanager on every computer in the store, we were good to go.

Until…

3. The credit/debit card machine gave me the blank screen of death.

I paged Alex, “Can I get a hand up here?” I asked. He unplugged the machine and plugged it in again. “ATTACK DETECTED” it flashed across the screen. So he called Petra, who called Moneris, the company that runs the machine.

“Did someone drop it?” They asked her. “Or tamper with it?” No. No. “Sometimes it can happen with a power surge.” Oh. Because the machine was old, it didn’t have enough memory to reboot itself after the network was unplugged.

But after an attack has been detected the machine doesn’t work again. Ever. It’s garbage.

Dang.

The point of this story is not to emphasize how incredibly graceful I am (how Simon describes me when I do something clumsy. RE: always) but to show how being so incredibly frazzled took a toll on me that Thursday. My mind was not at work. My mind was on the 1001 things that I believed I had to do. And that made me anxious, fearful, sad, selfish, and incredibly ungrateful. I remember scorning everything and everyone on Thursday.

After my day of hazards I resolved to have gratitude. To stop counting the things that are causing me stress and to count my blessings instead. This might not change how graceful I am on a daily basis, but hopefully it will replace the creases in my forehead and the tension in my neck with the ability to think straight and a nice, big smile…just in time for the wedding!

Thoughts on Facebook

Confession # 1: I admire people who don’t use Facebook.

Confession # 2: I will probably never be one of those people.

I’ve tried. I really have. I’ve deactivated my account on numerous occasions. But I always come crawling back. It’s the thrill of the snoop, the thrill of catching up with old “friends”, and the thrill of projecting the very best image of Natalie that I can.

I admire people who don’t use Facebook for one simple fact: because they don’t need it. I bet if you surveyed a group of non-Facebook users you would come away with one common theme: they are secure enough and satisfied enough in their real life relationships that they don’t try to get affirmation from the online ones.

I’m not saying that the friends you have online aren’t real friends. But I do have to ask, if you didn’t have Facebook, would you even invest in half of those friendships? Do you even invest in half of those friendships? A quarter? A tenth?

I really believe that those who dwell in the realm of no Facebook enjoy rich and meaningful friendships and wonder why they would add the time and hassle to their lives of “connecting” with people that they actually wouldn’t really choose to connect with.

So why do we do it?

I think it’s in part because it gives us a place to share who we are (just like this blog). But this can quickly transform into a place to share who we want to be. The beautiful one. The smart one. The popular one. The one who gets all the chicks. The one who has the most “friends”, or the one who gets the most “likes”. We start to market ourselves on Facebook.

There is difference between shameless self promotion and sharing something that is actually good and beneficial to the public. I used to always post my new blog entries on Facebook, but the truth is,  I can only count a handful of times when I felt the “conviction” to share what I had written with my Facebook “friends.” The reality is that I loved the way it felt to post a new blog and then see how many likes and comments I could get. I was addicted to checking my WordPress stats.

I have shifted to a place where it doesn’t really matter to me who reads my blog anymore.  I write because I love to write. I don’t write because I get busy. And if I don’t feel like writing, well…that’s a problem that I have to fix. And to those who have remained faithful readers – even after I stopped including blog posts in status updates – thank you!

So even though I may never get rid of Facebook entirely, I hope that my attitude towards it will become like this blog: that I’m not trying to impress and that I am true to who Natalie is. And if that happens, then maybe I’ll actually go through my list and remove those people who aren’t really my friends anyway… ;)

“I’m So Bored!”

Those are the words that I long to utter.

I’m not the type of person who fills up my life with so many activities that I have no time left to spare. I hate that feeling, and I hate how I act when life becomes that way. In fact, when I notice that my google calender is filling up fast, I get anxious and re-work my schedule so that I know I’ll have some me-time. I prefer this me-time in the morning, before the world is awake, and all I need is some freshly-brewed coffee, a journal, a pen, and my bible. I treasure this time and am easily irritated when people start talking to me and break my focus.

Anyway, back to being bored. I want to be bored because I want to be creative. In a conversation the other day I learned that creativity often stems from boredom, and the reason people lack creativity is because they’re just so busy. I’ve felt this way a lot lately. All I want to do is get my creative juices flowing once again, but I can’t. I’m stuck.

I think back to when Living with my Parents started, two years ago. I was incredibly bored! I was living out in the sticks and I had no job, and no purpose. After fighting through some resistance I channeled that boredom into writing, and have never enjoyed creating prose as much as I did in those 6 months.

But like I said, my problem isn’t that I’m too busy. My problem is that I don’t know how to rest.

Take for example two weeks ago. It was Friday night and I had no plans. All I wanted to do was come home from work and create. I pulled out some scrap booking paper, I started to print  some photos, and I gathered some old picture frames I had on hand.

And then I noticed the mess.

The absolute clutter in every corner of our apartment. The dishes stacked high. My unwashed laundry. And so I stopped creating and started cleaning. I became obsessed with cleaning and worked well into the evening, finally heading to bed around 11pm.

This happens to me a lot. I’ve forgotten how to just be and I’m constantly bombarded with the message that I must do. But then I’m never satisfied with how I’ve spent my time, and I never end the day feeling as though I’ve somehow enriched my life.

I’m just longing for some boredom (obviously without neglecting responsibilities). I want to stop, breathe, sit in silence, become utterly bored, and wildly imaginative. That’s my goal this next week.

Here’s to boredom!

On Being Burned

I’ve been burned – literally. And here’s what I’ve learned less than 24 hours later:

Lesson # 1: Buy a kettle that shuts off automatically

I was making ginger tea for my roommate Pip, who had a stomach ache. Our kettle is the kind that boils and boils until you unplug it. I forgot about it, and then I neglected to unplug it before I poured the water – at which point I don’t even want to think about how hot it was. It boiled over and spilled onto my stomach and left forearm.

“I’m buying you a new kettle. Consider it a pre-engagement gift.” – Mom

Lesson # 2: Don’t downplay your pain

Pip kept asking how I was doing and I assured her I was fine. So she went to bed, and I took 2 Advil, 2 cold showers, 2 cold baths, and iced my wounds with 2 frozen milk bags before realizing that maybe I wasn’t fine. Then I googled “scalding” and got scared. I had texted my parents, who called to see if I was ok.

“I really don’t want to talk to you right now. There’s nothing you can do for me.” Click!

Sometimes I’m such a snob.

Thankfully, they called back, and at that point in time I was sobbing. “I think I have to go to the hospital.”

“How are you going to get there?” They asked.

I took a cab.

A CAB? I know…

Lesson # 3: Don’t be afraid to ask for help

I really hate asking for help. It’s a pride thing. I am fully aware of this. I didn’t want to be a bother to anyone. I didn’t want to wake up Pip, my amazing roommate, to have her help me get dressed and come with me to the hospital. I didn’t want to call my loving boyfriend close to midnight, waking him from his sleep, when for all I knew the doctors would take one look at my burns and tell me to apply ice. So I called a cab.

While I was waiting in emergency my parents showed up at the hospital, and to be honest, this made a feel a little silly. Despite the pain (and I truly can’t remember the last time I experienced so much pain) I felt small, young, and a little foolish that my parents were meeting me at the hospital. I didn’t want them to come all this way for nothing. I don’t like being a burden. This goes back to pride.

Lesson # 4: Use caution with narcotics

The doctor who treated my burns (second degree – with a nice bubbly blister across my stomach) gave me some narcotics for the pain and then a prescription for 30 more.

Never again.

At least I hope I’m never again in so much pain that I have to take them. I laid in bed until past 3am. My body was sleeping but my mind was fully alert. I decided to go into the living room to get my book, but as I walked down the hallway I nearly fell over, and then I was certain I was going to vomit. I crawled back to my room on my hands and knees and remained in body sleeping/mind awake limbo until about 6am. The fuzziness hasn’t worn off 12 hours later.

Lesson # 5: Be Thankful

As I laid face down in a bath of cold water (which slowly became warm due to my skin) I couldn’t help but think of all the people who experience my pain or worse on a daily basis. I can’t imagine what life is like for a burn victim. I said a prayer for these people, and later in the night when the narcotics made the pain tolerable, all I could do was thank God that it had passed. I may very well have some large scars across my stomach and my arm, but I’m thankful for doctors and nurses and that I have a fully functioning body that will be restored to health.

Lesson # 6: The Sky is Falling! (No, it’s not)

I’m not as important as I think I am. And why do I think I’m so important? Oh yeah, pride. I woke up at 8am after very little sleep and got dressed for work. The bosses are gone for the rest of the week, leaving me in charge. Better go, because they need me. My coworker Alex took a look at me, asked what happened, and sent me home. “We can handle things today Natalie.” Riiiiight….humbled once again.

Lessons Learned

So my goals? To be humble, to ask for help, and to receive. I am not a burden, people care deeply for me, and they want to bless me. And I am certainly blessed!

Quitter! Who, me?

For Christmas I received Jon Acuff’s Quitter. And I loved it.

I can relate to this guy – in 8 years he went through 8 jobs, believing that his next position would finally be the one to satisfy him.

I can’t say that I’ve gone through that many jobs in as many years, but I’ve definitely shared the same mentality as Jon – believing that my job was supposed to fulfill me, and if it didn’t, then there was something wrong.

Jon’s book is all about closing the gap between your day job and your dream job. Here are some of the most helpful points that I took from the book.

1. Be Sober-Minded

You might have dreams of quitting your day job in order to pursue your dream, but dreams cost money. And on top of that they usually don’t pay anything. So now you don’t have a steady income and guess what? You have to go to the dentist. Or buy a plane ticket. Or heck, you just need a new freakin’ bra!

I don’t have regrets. I don’t. When I quit my job in British Columbia I had little regard for the financial risk. Though I saved a rather large chunk of money for a post-grad, I also had little knowledge of what I should be doing with it. And like I learned from those School House Rock commercials as a child – Knowledge is Power! It really is!

And because I had no knowledge I had no power. I quit my job and I took a “dream” job where I earned nothing. (I fund-raised a small portion but covered most of my yearly expenses on my own). Huge risk? Uhh…yes! My bank account dwindled and then when the chance came for me to work in Thailand (the job paid – but not much) I wasn’t positioned well financially to take on such an endeavor. But I did it anyway…because I have little regard for financial risks.

But like I said, I don’t have regrets. I have “it’s my faults”.

What do I mean? I mean it’s my fault that I chose to not be a good steward of my finances and that I am in the position I am at 28 years of age. It’s my fault. I take full responsibility. And while I maintain that it’s my fault it is not – nor will it ever be – my regret.

But there is happy news to report! Due to diligence and hard work (and God’s grace!), I am now debt free and building my savings account up once again. Yes!

2. Hustle!

If I want to fulfill a dream then I need to get off the couch. I need to make lists. I need to have a plan. I need to set goals. I need to stop thinking and start doing. HUSTLE. I’m not very good as hustling. I’m good at getting excited about hustling and thinking of different ways to hustle, but when it comes to actually doing the work, that’s hard!

When it comes to the Art of Hustling, I’m reminded of Don Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. His book is all about writing good stories with your life. Maybe you’re a daydreamer like me, and you can think of a 1001 great stories, but when it comes to bringing those stories into existence, that’s hard.

There’s no answer to this problem other than JUST DO IT.

3. Eliminate Expectations and Take Ownership

You walk into the office at 8:30am, flip on your computer, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and mope. And groan. And secretly check your email. And try to take a nap with no one watching. That was me. How come I’m not satisfied? How come this job isn’t everything I though it would be? Why am I so bored?!?

Well, that’s probably because when I packed my bags and moved across the country to the Mennonite land known as Abbotsford, I thought that was it for me. Surely such a big risk meant such a big reward, right? I mean, this is the job that I hoped and prayed for, so obviously I will feel fulfilled and energized by my work. Especially when my coworkers claim to possess that sentiment.

Wrong.

No job is perfect. There are things that are boring, laborious, annoying, and sometimes, just plain silly. But a magical thing happens when you remove the expectation that your job will fulfill you. You start to fill your life with other things that fulfill you. If you’re a writer, you begin waking up early each morning to pour out your soul into the blog that no one reads anymore. If you’re a cook, you craft up your newest recipe with tender care and serve it to your loved ones. And gradually, you are fulfilled. You arrive at work happy and excited about what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve got going on. And that “calling satisfaction” tank is already pretty full by the time you pour that first cup of coffee!

I wish I would have discovered that back in ’08. I’m embarrassed at the lack of maturity I demonstrated at my job. The way I would slouch in my chair and let out sighs of exasperation because I had to write the same stories over and over and over again. Didn’t they see how it was killing my creative process? I mean, come on!

Now this brings me to present day. And thank God, I can say I’ve changed. I have a job that I am extremely thankful for. I don’t make anything close to what I made at my job in Menno-land. But that’s ok. Because not only am I embracing this position with gratitude and eagerness to learn new things (like accounting!), I’m also realizing that with a good budget, it’s very possible to live on a little. And that’s exciting.

So thank you, Mr. Acuff, for serving up a dose of reality. I think that gap is getting smaller and smaller by the day.

Thoughts on Staying Put

Something strange happened in October…

It started when I made a friend. Her name is Pip.

Pip and I went to a networking event together one Wednesday evening, schmoozing with high profile NGO workers and bonding over a pitcher of St. Ambroise Apricot Ale. The next day we were at her apartment cooking a poor man’s meal of rice, egg, and tuna and polishing our resumes in hopes that we would land our dream job.

Months later, that still hasn’t happen. But what I’ve found in our friendship far exceeds the satisfaction I could ever find in a “dream job”. (Sidenote: I no longer believe you find your dream job, I believe you make your job whatever you want it to be – with diligence and attitude).

Pip and I hit the one month friendship mark and celebrated with Vietnamese food in China Town. We felt mutually blessed and thankful for our friendship. My emotional breakdowns and longings to go back to Thailand were gradually subsiding. Tearful phone calls to my parents were becoming less frequent.

I sent a silly text to Pip one day in mid November: “Will you be my forever friend?” I asked.

It was meant to be funny, but I was completely sincere.

What happened in October was that I started to think about what life would be like if I decided to stay put. I started to think about how the friends I make here could be my friends for the rest of my life. No more having to write letters or keep in contact via Skype or Facebook (all of which I’m thankful for) but growing and living life with a community of people.

A few weeks after I formed this new friendship with Pip my dad told me about a connection he had to a company in Bangkok, encouraging me to contact the Director for possible employment.

Aside from my bewilderment that my dad would propose such a thing (my parents weren’t supportive of me going back to Thailand without trying to invest in life here first) was the physical pain I felt at the thought of leaving Ottawa.

Are you suggesting that I rip my heart out again?

I knew at that point it was time to stay. I was committed to working through my feelings of purposelessness, the lack of employment opportunities, and my tendency to run away when things become difficult.

It felt risky. But it also felt like an investment.

And here I am – 5 months later – and despite my love for Thailand I am so thankful that I decided to stay put in Ottawa. Sometimes I struggle to pay my bills, I still work in retail, and I only recently obtained a full-time job. But the flip side is this: I live close to my family, I’ve made a handful of forever friends, I have an incredible church that is becoming my community, and I’m so excited to see the results of choosing to invest.

Oh yeah, and I’m in love. A lot.

Pretty good trade off if you ask me…