The Secret Life of Optimists

Okay, show of hands: how many people here have seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)? I have several friends who hate it, several who adore it, and several who look at me with confused but polite expressions on their faces when I ask if they've seen it.

On a basic level, Walter Mitty is a film about a hard-core day-dreamer in love with a girl at work he's never spoken to, who finds himself saddled with discovering the baffling whereabouts of a vital photograph ("Quintessence") missing from his workplace. We all like to pull for the underdog, especially one with a heart and imagination as endearing as Walter's. But at its core, the film is a celebration of imagination, optimism, friendship, art, adventure...all the things that make up the delightful parts of life.Walter Mitty works at Life Magazine and the company's motto will always inspire me:

"To see the world,
Things dangerous to come to,
To see behind walls,
Draw closer,
To find each other,
And to feel.
That is the purpose of life."

 I suppose the reason I love The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (apart from the stunning and artistic way the film was shot) is because it is a story about a person like me. A person with an imagination that colors his world brighter than usual. A person who has more than once spaced out in a conversation, totally enveloped in What Could Happen. A person who sees possibility everywhere, in everyone. A person who has within his mind, a million outcomes of a million situations and is poised just so, waiting to see which will really come to pass and where it might take him.

This first week of 2015 has been amazing. I am not exactly sure why except that I have lived every day with this glorious sensation of Just Around the River Bend practically sparking out of me. 2015 is, so far, an open year. I don't have many plans. Those I do have are just sketches, waiting to be filled with color by the adventures God lets me stumble across. Exciting things are lurking in the corners. I just know it. I don't have a reason for knowing it, but somehow I do. Seriously, put away your raised eyebrows. There are no secrets here. Just a flush on my cheeks and my heart beating a little smidgen faster than usual because something is coming. The unknown is all around me and there's something in the wind that makes me so terribly excited for this year. And yet, I feel a little like Jane and Michael Banks after Bert has done his rigmarole of: "You think...you...wink, you do a double-blink, you close your eyes and...."

Jane cocks her head, looks at Bert and says:

 "Is something s'posed to happen?"

That's how I feel right now. Is something s'posed to happen? Will it? I have my eye on several situations in friends' lives that could bloom into straight-up, real time fairy-tales or epic-saga adventures. I'm waiting for the next part of the story, conscious that any moment could catapult them (and me, vicariously) into a crazy, practically unheard-of new world. In my own life, things move along as usual. I spend my days doing life in technicolor. The people at the grocery-store are not just people. I mean, they are just people but not just people. I believe in the rich old truth that my life is a story and each component is part of that tale. Therefore, the man behind me in line at the grocery store could turn out to be important. The lady who cuts in front of me in traffic. The bank teller I saw twice in one day. The man in the window of the National Press Club Building. The woman whose package I rescued off the metro who I finally got back in contact with. My brain goes wild with the possibilities. When those people don't give me something memorable, I remedy the situation by doing something creative for them to remember. If I can't meet That Person, I'll be That Person. Call it what you will (fate, destiny, a horse), there's never a dull moment in this brain. I know bad stuff happens in life, but I know good stuff happens too, and it's the good stuff, the grace-moments in life that I wait for. They're there. They're everywhere. Some people just don't look for them or notice.

But living this secret life of brilliant hues has a flip-side: when life does turn out to be normal and the threads running across it seem to be weaving an average graham-colored bit of the tapestry, the heart-racing, flush-cheeked, eyes-sparkling existence begins to feel like a pacing tiger in a cage. I'm ready for the adventure. Where is it? I'm keeping a weather eye out for the next interesting person, the next impossibly beautiful moonrise, the next rose-red leaf silvered with frost, the next place to send an anonymous letter, the next way to secretly give a quiet blessing. It's an odd sort of discontentment, waiting for the peacock blues and currant reds and new-wheat greens in the tapestry of life to cover the graham-colors. When they don't come on their own, I make them myself, content in mixing dyes from the bits of everyday magic around me. I'm content with waiting, with letting wild hopes fly through my fingers each day, for there are always more hopes to be spent tomorrow. It's a luxury that optimists like myself can easily spare. But I will admit that our outlook can be exhausting,  for we spend hope at an extravagant rate and if it's a harsh master who would call it wasteful, our output is certainly tiring. I discussed this topic briefly with a friend this evening:

"Did you know it is slightly exhausting being an imaginative optimist? I mean, what's more tiring and frustrating: waiting for nothing to happen or waiting for anything to happen? In the first case you at least are fairly ready to stay where you are all your life. In the latter, you have the most delicious sense of 'any day now.'"

...or "any person now," or "any moment now," or "any page now," or "any conversation now," or "any query now." I don't believe the hope is poorly spent. I would always far rather be the optimist waiting with shining eyes and a laugh caught in her throat because anything could happen, than the pessimist who pulls on his tan trench-coat and trudges to work through snow whose beauty he can't even see because he can think of nothing but what a mess it'll make of the roads. I would always rather be That Person than a thousand Anyone Elses. I would always rather be a half-short, past-plump girl who makes generous messes in the kitchen than the tall, slender model who can't allow herself a slice of sourdough toast. I would always rather be the girl sleepy-eyed and smiling from an overdose of well-marked books than the frowning, tired-eyed girl who gave up reading because her schedule didn't allow it. I'd always rather wake up believing with my whole heart that impossible things can happen than going to bed each night satisfied that nothing did.

So let the tiger pace; it's striped and tawny and beautiful. Let people pass me by; they'll remember I smiled their direction. Let real photographers buy cameras; I just ask a small, friendly moment to capture the fragile beauties with my (now contentedly outdated) iPhone. Let real artists paint masterpieces; I just want my little, dusty watercolors and a brush not losing too many bristles.

Welcome to The Secret Life of Optimists, in Technicolor, 2015.

Queso with Strangers: How Moe's Made My Day

Today was not an unusual day, except that Moe's Southwest Grill was giving out free queso. And really, any day when something as expensive and addictive as queso is free is most definitely a day to write on the calendar and love thoroughly. I'm a thrifty gal, and of course I couldn't justify driving 25 minutes to the nearest Moe's just to get a free something that isn't exactly good for the waistline.

Thank heaven I remembered I had to lesson-plan and do some grocery shopping.

Sarah (la sister) objected that she had lesson-planned at Moe's last time so we young, aspiring teachers parked in the no-man's bit of the strip mall and popped into Starbucks. Unfortunately Starbucks - which also boasts the qualities of being expensive and addictive - wasn't having a Come Love Us Because We Give You Nice Things For Free day.

Boo-hoo and sob. 

Since I'm not being paid for teaching right now, my wallet was quite literally empty except for a plethora of dimes and quarters; I would like to say paying with change is hipster or preppy, but it's neither: it's penny-pinching college-student at its most honest. (And I'm not even in college. Oh boy.)
    I fumbled with my coins, trying to sift the dimes from the pennies and willing it all to come to $4.22 (Please explain why those divine Raspberry Mochas cost your birthright). Sarah finally took pity on me and handed me a couple quarters to help out. The poor dude behind the counter waited patiently and didn't laugh at my teetering stacks of coinage piled on the counter; he actually told me it was all right that I was holding up the entire joint. (I'm not sure I believed him.) Raspberry mocha in hand, I retreated to the outdoor patio where I was soon buried in the delights of planning how to teach a passion for writing to my young students.
    The sun was warm and jovial, and life was good despite my new position as Queen of Awkward; in fact, I had pretty much decided that it couldn't get any better when a young Asian man wearing sunglasses came from across the parking lot with a bag from Moe's and established himself--queso, burrito, laptop and all--at a table nearby. I chattered to Sarah about this and that (probably in a louder tone than I realized, being the talkative sort.) She answered with a lazy, comfortable monosyllable now and then.

 "Come on," I said, "Just let me know when you're finished so we can go to Moe's and get our free queso." I didn't think anyone was listening--aren't I the only one who notices other peoples' conversations?

The Queen of Awkward was wrong, of course.

Our neighbor turned around with the hugest, friendly grin and raised his cup of queso in the air like Bacchus's horn. "Yeah! You really should go get some.
    I started laughing, which is my way of saying "You totally just made my day right now," and Queso-Man joined in.
  "You know," he said with another dazzling smile, "it's not very crowded over there right now. You should go." And he turned back to his laptop and resumed his lunch, and life should have proceeded as normal.

 Except for me it didn't. For me, it was one of life's lightening-bolt moments. He and I laughed over the oddity of being fellow free-queso-lovers, and in that laughter something transferred; some tiny, fragile, gossamer connection. One slender thread linking perfect strangers together: a moment woven into timelessness.
And now I want to be that person who holds a vat of queso aloft like a champagne flute and butts into a conversation. I want to spend the tiny moments of life like a sociable spider making webs of a thousand infinitesimal connections. People complain of wandering through their lives in aimless solitude; they vow the world is vacant and void - and so it might seem to a webless spider.
  But the guy with the smile and the queso knows different; he knows, as I've learned, that community is not a lumped-together achievement that comes one day and lasts the rest of your life. Community is a thousand threads spun from a thousand moments. It's the thing that keeps us connected in our frail humanness. It's love - the practical love Jesus always had the time for...my queso was the Canaanite woman's jug of water. The spider's web is an intricate thing and it does take work. It's talking to a person you've never met before about the simplest, most silly thing like queso, or the weather, or someone else's electric-yellow platform heels. My partner-in-amusement had no way of telling that I was feeling penniless, awkward, and ashamed of my blood-from-a-stone Raspberry Mocha; all he knew was that he liked queso and so did I, and it was worth the effort of spinning one more thread.

 So here's to smiling at strangers. Here's to outdoor tables, awkward moments, Asian gentlemen, unexpected connections, community, boldness, and the simple, over-looked bits of life.

Here's to free queso.

a great big boizelling day :)

"An adventure is just an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is just an adventure wrongly considered." -G.K. Chesterton

Just a usual day...just the usual run of errands...

At least that's what I thought. Sarah and Leah were headed out with Daniel to do lawns. Dad was working another job. Mama and the rest of us needed to cash a check in VB and then do a Walmart & Sam's Club run. Yes, it was a tremendously hot day, but that's nothing unusual come summertime in Virginia.
Mama has been having me do all the driving--lots of practice makes for perfection, right? ;) But today she needed to dictate a grocery list and besides: she had a hunch she ought to drive.

Boy, am I glad she did.

We hadn't been long on the highway when there was a terrific jolt and a heart-clenching CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK!! We held our breath and prayed.Mama limped the van over to the side of the highway. Turns out the belt in our tire had busted and sheared off the entire driver's side step of the van. Yeah. How does that happen?
Six kids and a Mama on the side of the highway in temperatures that would melt the coldest constitution. Surely that's a cause to rouse chivalry? Pity? Okay...at least a stare as you drive by? Nope. Apparently not. Though Dad was on the way after Mama called him, not a single car stopped by (or even slowed down) in the hour and a half that we were sitting on the side of the road.

Not a one.

In an hour and a half.

And we were hardly out of country-territory where the art of gentlemanly-ness is still practiced, albeit with a sweat-stained t-shirt and a can of beer in hand.

I was mentally bemoaning the un-novelism of it all. I mean honestly--here I am, a perfectly single and unattached young lady, and now would have been the ideal time for a mechanical-savvy, charming stranger to stop by and give us a hand. But I guess mechanical-savvy, charming strangers are a little in awe of a big blue van full of kids. Maybe my curse of looking too capable raised its head. Let's face it girls...I just can't pull off The Damsel in Distress, unlike some people. (*glares at Abigail*)
Grace had similar ideas to me, though hers took the shape of something along these lines: "Hey! United Steaks of America Motorcycles--we need help changin' a tire!" (yes--that's what she howled at every motorcyclist passing by.) To add insult to injury, we happened to have pulled off the highway right over top a nest of yellow, biting, creepy horseflies. They invaded the van like an Egyptian plague. Thus, the conversation in the van ran along these lines:

Grace: "It's boizelling hot out here!"
Mama: "Sit down."
Everyone: "There's another one!" *slap!*
Me: "Benjamin--for the last time--get buckled."
Everyone: "And another one!"
Grace: "We're gonna be stuck here till Fourfin-July!"
Mama: "Benjamin--get buckled!"
Benjamin: "I found a bag of apples back here--we forgot to take 'em outta the van last time we shopped...can we eat one?"
Grace: "UNITED STEAKS OF AMERICA MOTORCYCLES--we need help changin' a ti-re!"
Everyone: "Look! There's more coming through the window!" *slap! slap!*
Grace: "Send us some A/C, Lord!"

(Have I mentioned lately that Grace could make a living doing stand-up comedy? Yep. She could.) Eventually Dad came (bearing Gatorade, no less!) to rescue us off the side of the road. We were oodles  happy. :) Then he took us to lunch, and we were oodles happier. But that still didn't change the fact that we hadn't done any of our shopping. But we got to the bank and deposited our checks, and all was very good and tidy...till we got back onto the highway.
Somehow we'd missed the warning that Monsoon Season was happening at exactly 3:30 PM on June 22, 2012 Literally inches and inches and inches of water, punctuated by thunder and lightening piled on top of each-other. We barely got to Walmart and Sam's. When we did, we split. I took Benjamin and Abby and shopped Walmart while faking a British accent. It was epic. Anna and Mama and the youngerest ones did the Sam's Club shopping.
And I had to shop for a bathing suit. You've no idea--or maybe you have--how hard it is to find a bathing suit that fits in all the proper places. (namely la bust) But I got something that'll work for now till I have time to make my own swim-suit. (Which ought to be happening fairly soon. :) Once that happened and we paid for everything, it was time to go. We braved the monsoon (getting soaked) and loaded groceries. We braved the monsoon (getting soaked) and headed home. We braved the monsoon (getting soaked) and unloaded groceries.

Adventurous shopping trip, no? :) 

I loved every minute of it.

Sometimes...

Sometime I wish life wasn't so hectic....and then I recall the times I've had nothing to do and have been bored to death.

Sometimes I wish I had a quiet little study to do my writing in...And then I remember that all these little people running around are what make my characters so alive.

Sometimes I wish there weren't quite so many dishes to wash...And then I recall who I was feeding and how much I love them.

Sometimes I wish I didn't have a cat that knocked things over out of sheer peversity...but then I think of how soft and cuddly she is when she wants to be.

Sometimes I wish I lived in Scotland...but then I think of how dearly I love Virginia and my USA.

Sometimes I wish I was a published author...but then I think of the delights of anticipation.

Sometimes I wish my circumstances were different...but then I think of how much God is teaching me through them.

Sometimes I wish I was filthy-rich...but then I realize how precious frugality will be to me one day.

Sometimes I wish I was prettier...but then I am thankful my inward beauty can shine through all the better because there is not so much to distract people.

Sometimes I wish there wasn't such a thing in the world as sickness...but then we'd never be so grateful for health. :)

Sometimes I wish things moved faster...and then they do and I'm all agog. :D

It's a wonderful life!