Shoelaces for Josie

- Having a roof over my head.
- Owning a set of wheels that starts every morning.
- Possession of a body that, despite its little quirks, is healthy.
- Having a large, comfy bed to collaspe into at night.
- Ability to walk into a grocery store and buy whatever I need…and want.
- Swiping my debit card without fear of bouncing anything.
- The freedom to openly believe in God.

It is not a conscious thought for me to be thankful for these things. I expect them to be there. I expect to have these abilities and possessions. Instead of recognizing the bounty surrounding me, I choose to focus on peripheral details. Details like…I wish the roof over my head wasn’t a tarp on a trailer. I wish my wheels were not on an unfashionable old lady car. I wish I had tan skin and a voluminous chest. I wish my bed had a fancy log frame. I wish I never had to go grocery shopping again. I wish the church schedule fit with my early-to-rise habit better.

And today, today I am thinking about how my life would be different if I didn’t have those things I take for granted. How different my life would be if I lived in a cardboard box or couldn’t afford anything but ramen noodles. How terrifying it would be to live in a place I couldn’t say that I believe in God without being persecuted. It makes me think about how strong my faith in God really is. After all, even Peter denied Jesus three times. And as many angles as I look at it, I can’t find one where I’m as strong in my faith as Peter was.

But most of all, I wonder how the inside of me would change if the outside of me had a different landscape. Would I be dismal and depressed without a car or a large bed? Would I be angry at the world because I lived in a box?

Or would I appreciate the tiny things in a way I don’t seem to now? Would having nothing make me appreciate everything in a way I didn’t before?

13. Traveling to North Dakota. Twice. In two weeks. It’s not every day you get used in an illustration of getting snockered on jaeger within two minutes of meeting someone. In a business setting. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that 2009 was the only year in my life that ever happens to me.

12. The year I didn’t die from the swine flu. It was everywhere, this swine flu business – the great outbreak of H1N1 – and I survived 2009 without contracting the disease.

11. Gapingvoid.com. This website makes me laugh. Maybe it’s a little ridiculous that a website made my Baker’s Dozen, but I’m a bit of a ridiculous person. It’s three parts funny, seven parts politically incorrect and 18 parts really stinkin’ good. I love it. Even though I discovered it in 2009, I think it’ll still make me laugh in the years to come.

10. Life sans microwave. I don’t have a microwave. Well, I do, but it’s in the box in the center of my living room serving as a coffee table. I don’t have a microwave for the purpose that most people own a microwave. This is by choice. And you know what? I haven’t missed it. Not really. My counter is happier with the extra space. The very nearly buried health bugger dude way down deep inside of me is happy that I’m not eating over-processed, under-nutritional microwaveable food. And I’m happy that I have something to set my glass of water on in the living room, even if it is a microwave. In 2009, I fully came to appreciate the fact that things we view as necessities aren’t really, ya know, necessarily necessary.

9. Driving 28 hours straight. To Iowa. And then making the same 1,700 mile trek back a week later. This would go into the “ugly” category. I never want to drive it like that again. In fact, it’s going to be a few years before I can convince myself to drive it at all. Did you know? I almost turned around once on the drive to Iowa. I was in Lewiston – I’d gone a whole 40 minutes from my house. I wished every five minutes for the next 27 hours that I’d wimped out, but in 2009, White Flash and I outraced a big winter storm halfway across the United States.

8. Student loans DIE. I put together momma dollar and papa dollar and tried to make them have babies. I even gave them baby-making drugs and a nice bed. When that didn’t work, I decided to roll another year with White Flash and push my funds toward paying off my student loan debt. Now I can find something else to go into debt on, but in 2009 the evil money-sucking hair-clogged drain of cruddiness known as student loan debt lost the battle…hold on to your britches as I take my victory lap in White Flash.

7. Palouse Falls. I kept thinking I’d made a wrong turn when I was trying to find the Palouse Falls. The prairie looked just as flat as could be. But then a gorge opened up in front of me and what beautiful falls! And I’ve seen Niagra so I’m allowed to say that. I was impressed. Awed even. In 2009, I was struck to silence by the majesty of nature.

6. Hell’s Canyon. Twice – once in February and again in May. Glory be the beauty of that country! I wish I could describe the view looking out over Hell’s Canyon in the early morning sunshine. I wish I could paint a picture of words. I wish…and of course, it was the time of Gus, The Salesman and Carhartt. And, in 2009, I was reminded that sometimes strangers can be friends you just haven’t met yet.

5. Shoelaces moved to its own domain. The year 2009 was the third year Shoelaces had been in existence. It was also the year I decided it deserved its very own home so I bought it a domain and a hosted area on the BIL’s server. It was a move – a move that still isn’t complete since the entire 2008 archive still isn’t housed here, but it’s kind of like buying…shoes. Your feet need a home so you buy them shoes. Sometimes those shoes wear out, and you have to buy them a new pair. So in 2009, I bought Shoelaces a new pair of shoes.

4. Moving back to the country. I found a country rental in the spring of this year. Two weeks later, I moved in. It’s not a mansion. It’s not a textured walls, master bedroom, arched doorways or immaculate siding type of home. But it’s surrounded by fields and the hills. I can hear the birds early in the spring mornings and watch the sun rise over the butte. And the stars – I can throw my head back and watch the stars. I can grab an old quilt and hike up the hill to lie flat and stare at them for hours. This country rental – it is not a mansion, but it is in the country; I wouldn’t trade it for the classiest Victorian on the biggest corner lot. In 2009, I fell in love with the country all over again.

3. Nick’s book. Memorials are important to me. Sort of. They’re important to me when I make them that way, and Nick’s? His was important. So when the box filled with his book, Running with Nick, landed on my doorstep – well – it was a moment memorable enough to make the Baker’s Dozen. The moment I held that book in my hand I knew there couldn’t have been a better way to have such a man remembered; I was deeply honored to be a part of it even though 2009 marked the one year anniversary of his absence.

2. Cousin changed her last name. She put on a white dress, walked down an aisle and *gasp* held hands with a boy. When she walked back up the aisle she had a different last name and a really big smile on her face. And I was there. I carved out pumpkins and made cheesecake and said all the right things in all the right places. In 2009, I supported my best friend and helped her through the door into the next stage of her life.

Finally, I’d wiggle out of bed and tip-toe down the hall to the living room. I’d crouch down near the tree to look at the gifts under it and wonder which were mine. And then I’d check the clock again on the stove. And then I’d look at the calendar to make sure it really was December 25. And then back to the clock.

I loved Christmas as a kid. The excitement. The anticipation. The days off from school. The decoration of the tree. The atmosphere. The warm, fuzzy moments of time when you sigh and everything feels just right.

The funny thing is, Christmas really wasn’t a full-blown affair in my childhood. At least that’s what I’ve discovered as I’ve gotten older and seen and heard so much of other families’ Christmas celebrations.

We had a tree every year, sometimes it was up a week before Christmas but oftentimes it was the night or two before. One cut out of a ditch or one of our pastures. A cedar tree, one of the thousands of volunteers in that part of the country. I never knew you could buy a tree until – well – for a long time. I just thought that’s what a Christmas tree looked like: scraggly, lop-sided, spindly little branches, half-dead. It smelled good though, and to me, it smelled like Christmas.

We weren’t raised to believe in Santa, not because my parents didn’t think gifts were appropriate but because they didn’t see the need to perpetuate the image of a fat man in a red suit. So we gave gifts – each of us kids got a gift from the rest of the siblings and two gifts from the rental unit. Most years anyway. I thought that was normal too. I truly didn’t realize how elaborate the gift-giving was in so many households. It’s not bad…I guess I just don’t understand.

And as we got older – us kids – we started opening gifts later and later in the day. When I was a little redheaded girlie, we opened gifts directly after breakfast. The excitement, you know. And then it was after the kitchen had been cleaned up. And then it was after the yearlings were fed. And then it was after the cow herd was fed. These days, I think they open gifts Christmas night. I don’t really know…I haven’t been with my family on Christmas for three years now.

Somewhere along the line, Christmas faded for me. I know that’s normal. It’s an adult thing, to not anticipate Christmas like we do as children. We get caught up in our lives, our jobs, our daily worries of making life happen. As children, we didn’t have any of those burdens so we could focus solely on all the beautiful things of Christmas. As children, we didn’t have to worry about travel arrangements or the weather. We didn’t have to worry about having enough money or what to have on the Christmas dinner menu. As children, we could just be children.

Really, I just wanted to say that I reread what I wrote and although I was so tired my eyes weren’t open for most of it, the story was all very much true.

Oh, and clarification about that last line about where my jeans and t-shirt were. It was…rhetorical? One of those philosophical questions. It was not a plea for help to find the jeans and t-shirt I’d lost earlier. I didn’t mysteriously lose my clothes. I merely meant that I am not a LBD person. I am a jeans and t-shirt person. And after spending a night in a dress and heels with my hair up, I just really wanted to get back into what I am.

So why am I here? You might be asking yourself that question – actually, I’m quite sure you’re not – but I’m certainly asking myself that question. And I have an answer for myself. College would have been so much easier if I could have been the teacher and student all in one.

The stars. I’m here because of the stars. Those twinkly sprinkly bright lights way up yonder. The stars do things for me. Not like my laundry or the dishes or chauffer me to work – I wish…actually, I don’t wish. If I had a choice of what the stars could do for me, I’d not even blink before choosing what they already accomplish.

Peace. They bring me peace…perhaps not so much bring as…I think they help me slow down. They help me pause. Breathe a little slower. Let go of my tense hold on my silly little minute life. And I smile. I sigh with content and everything feels just a little bit right, even if there happens to be something wrong.

It’s been that way ever since I can remember. A tyke watching the stars through her bedroom window. A short-legged girl coming in late from haying calves. A teen crossing the yard after another track meet. A college girl-woman sitting out nights by the lake trying to figure life out. A redheaded woman sipping a beer and relaxing from a long day…

Maybe that all sounds pretty hokey. I don’t know. Maybe some people feel all complete and warm and fuzzy inside when they’re in a casino or driving through rush hour traffic or cooking steaks in a bar and grill. But just try it. Try it once if you never have. Pick a quiet place, take a few minutes and watch the stars. Really watch them, and let your mind wander wherever it wills. Doesn’t have to be anything deep or substantial. In fact, you don’t have to think at all.

Maybe you won’t feel anything. Maybe you’ll wonder what the heck kinda fool you are to be standing outside with your head thrown way back to stare at a dark sky with some flickering little lights in it. Maybe you’ll think I’m all kinds of screwed up. That’s fine…but I bet if you let yourself be still just long enough, you’ll feel at least one thing.

And my surprise-ment tells me something. It didn’t tell me something yesterday, because I was too busy being surprised. But today? Today, I realized that my surprise-ment was a side effect. When did I turn into the girl who doesn’t believe in good things? Because that’s where the surprise came from. I don’t believe that good things happen anymore. Not like that. Not these fairy tale miracles. Not to me. Not to the people I know. That stuff happens in books and movies and fictional far-out lands. Not life. Not real life. Where did this girl come from? How did she get here?

This girl makes me sad, and I want her to go away. I want to be a person who hopes. I want to be a person who still believes that good things can happen. I want to be a person who is an optimist at 80 years old. I want to be a person who keeps just a touch of child-like wonder in her soul. I want to…I really do want to…but I’m not sure wanting is enough to make it happen.