I'm a firm believer that as children we are all born with a deep intuition. It's a voice of truth. But the world continually discourages us from using it, and thus it slowly dims. But it does not die. So listen to it, intently and close. For listening is like fuel to the intuition.

A drive into "town" to get ice cream. (above)

One day at camp there was a forest fire. Though the flames were miles away, little white flakes of ash snowed on us. The sun looked old and distant. Everything was glowing, the pictures I took are completely unedited. Until that day, the earth had never looked so creepy to me. (below)

Turns out I still like to listen to Underoath, call my best friend and watch Gilmore Girls until 1 in the morning. That's refreshing.

I've definitely posted this picture before but I have to again because I found out our spot from my high school days is closed. Seeing one tiny city block go through so many seasons can really age a heart.

I was buzzing around the grocery store, like I so adore to do, and this older man walked up to me with a very intent look in his eyes. "Are you an actress?" I thought he was going for something along the lines of celebrity so I said, "no, sorry." He stood there. "Oh, darn. I am doing a movie and you'd be perfect for the role." My skepticism and naivete both flared. I told him I was flattered, and thank you, and that I used to act but I haven't in years. "Aha," he said. The whole time I was trying to assess if he was for real or a joke. He handed me a folded casting call and I told him I'd have to talk it over with my husband.

One the train home I skimmed the casting call for some sign. It said a few scenes were already finished but they still needed the lead actress and she must live on X and X streets ... my exact address! I texted all of my real acting friends and asked them for advice. The weird thing is the role was for a woman 30-35 years old. Me? 35? Please. But I wanted to believe it. I wanted to be deemed special.

I closed my eyes and before I could ask God a thing, the word "No" pressed heavy on me. Its presence filled around me.

The truth is, among my other insecurities, I've always been jealous of my theater friends who are studying their craft and performing still. I didn't do the same because I didn't believe I could. I was afraid I'd never reach their caliber, so I never tried. This was my chance to be one of them again. So I toyed with the idea for a long time. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I should walk way from my golden calf.

I think the devil loves flattery. It appeals to our pride. And when someone is beginning ministry work, he'll pull out all the stops to distract her.

Oh yeah, so I graduated two weeks ago. Note to self: If I ever graduate again, pack food! I texted Jake in the audience that I was so hungry and on my way, in line to receive my diploma, he ran up to the rope and handed me a box of carnival popcorn. That was my favorite moment. That, or eating with my family at one of my favorite restaurants. I'd wager not much sounds nicer than the chorus of your family laughing.

He sat on the edge of the couch in our wedding sweet; 8 stories in the air with walls of windows. The navy shades were drawn, the white 5 o'clock light only came in streaks. Elbows on his knees, a letter propped by fingers, and I saw him grow.

To think of it, I don't know how the envelope landed in our possession. I remember all of my other things, gently resting over my plaid suitcase. A veil, a dress and my grandmother's hair piece. But all of our cards were supposed to be in a box in someone's car.

Grandpa's handwriting on notebook paper looked like his voice sounds. My brand new husband sat with his tuxedo unbuttoned, young in skin. The message sweet, the absence sorrowful. And I saw him grow.

Something to remember.

Type

My friend Elspeth started a journal this time last year, at camp. Last week at camp everyone got a daily update of how many pages she had left to fill. She was rather intent on finishing in exactly 365 days.

Normally my journals are narrative at the front and not so in the back. I like to organize my thoughts into lists and I often start those on the end page, working in. So I suggested Elspeth fill some space with a list titled "Things I Currently Know About Myself." After-all, I've done this for years at the back of each journal I begin, I love to. And I never thought about whether or not it's a common practice. Turns out nobody in that room had ever made such a list and they all released a giggle at my idea.

To be honest, I believe in those lists (if they are honest) far more than I believe in a personality test. I haven't been interested in personality tests since I was fourteen. I don't feel like I need them or gain anything from them.

However, for the planning and growth my team hoped to accomplish at camp, we were required to take the Enneagram personality test. And I vouch for this because it doesn't stop at assigning you a type, it also gives suggestions for how to grow and who to learn from.

I read the general assessment of type pairings (couples) in hopes of some cheap marriage counseling. Who doesn't need a little counsel? I tested as a type One. And Jake tested as a Nine. Of course we've got other mixes in us, but I agree that those are our dominant types. I'd say this is almost spot on:

These types understand each other from the inside as it were, and for better or worse, can see many of their own traits in the other. On the positive side, each type brings a certain idealism and desire to change the world to make it a better place. Nines bring a more interpersonal orientation than Ones to their idealism, but both can be self-sacrificial and hard working, and willing to put their personal needs and interests aside for the welfare of others. Both are also able to delay rewards for a long-term good they seek. Ones bring clarity and rationality and the ability to articulate ideals and understandings. They strive to improve themselves and their environment, are conscientious, have high ethical and moral standards, and are fair and consistent. Nines bring a gentle, accepting quality that nurtures and supports others without as much explicit demand for self-improvement. Nines are steady, easy to get along with, feel uncritical and undemanding, and prefer harmony and smooth relations over the pleasure of being right or of having the last word in a situation.

In short, Nines tend to take a bit of the rough edge off of the criticality and seriousness of Ones, while Ones give clarity and direction to Nines. Further, Ones feel that they have a mission in life, and they are able to inspire Nines to become aware of their own purpose and to want to follow it. This can be a highly altruistic couple who balance idealism with humanity. As a couple, they are gracious company, hospitable and generous, but they also need time to be alone with each other as a couple. They have a mutual love of nature and animals that may bring them closer together, as well as their love of their children and family. Nines soothe Ones, while Ones remind Nines to strive for excellence.

I may be willing to admit that my lifelong dreams of self-discovery could be supplemented by personality tests!

In other news, nothing induces sloth quite like 100-degree weather. My goodness, I'm a wreck! And the worst part is I can't seem to handle anything sweet these days. So ice cream is out the window. And a batch of sea salt caramel brownies I finally had to make is sitting unconsumed.

And I think birch trees are majestic.

To me, this fine piece of mesmerizing work means that if our country really wanted to "strengthen" its borders, it would arrest the rich white man who invested in a bus system, which brings undocumented people here, baiting them with a job--not the workers who I can almost guarantee would rather be back in their home land with their family. OR, it would stop endorsing foreign bureaucracies that force imperial displacement and economic instability upon nations, which in turn force market and governmental fugitives to flee to our country in hopes of survival. And I also think this artwork is trying to get across the message that if Arizona doesn't want its high school history classes to be ethnically segregated, then it should stop telling a one-sided story to people who for twelve years have been culturally deprived by its "state educational standards."

yeah. i think so.

i mean, i might be projecting some of my own thoughts on that piece of work, just a little.

but i feel better now. excuse me for taking advantage of our generation's post-modern flair.

(i am sorry to the true creator whose name i didn't see. the truth is i loved the artwork!)

(and to anyone who truly means no harm and honestly believes it would be best for our country to not host undocumented people, i hear you. i hear you.)

I'm going to break some new ground here.

I'm going to talk about

obsessive compulsive disorder.

Namely, mine.

Because I'm at the end of my rope, and

I have a feeling (I hope) blogging will

do me some good. Or, in the chance

someone can commiserate, I really hope

it will do them some good.

I journal about this privately, I talk with

Jake about it and sometimes I share it

with friends. But in those cases, my thought

feels like dusty, old, non-news.

Journalists hate non-news.

So I'm hoping that blogging will air these

used rags out. I'm desperate to approach

it in a new way.

I also have to say I was very inspired by

this fine lady and superb writer, Meg.

She has long been writing about something

like this, her own hurdle.

But are they really so different? Everyone

has a mountain to climb. And some of us

wake up to the same mountain every morning.

I stare mine down daily, in hopes of blazing a

trail with my eyes.

One of the qualities that makes OCD

so hard to decipher is that it's such

an all-encompassing element for me.

OCD often effects (sometimes

determines) how I approach my job,

my priorities and my faith.

It would be wonderful to someday be

able to distinguish between what's

really me and what's imposed on me.

Another thing I question is if recovery

is an actual possibility. I used to think

so. I have experienced great moments

of relief thanks to prayer. But at times,

I can only hope to find a way to live

around this ... or in it but not under it.

It might always be a part of me.

Then, what now?

Oh, my friends, I hope to discover.

This was me. Four years ago. I was seventeen.

I toured Roosevelt, Northwester, Loyola and

Columbia.

Now I often walk past that Wabash parking lot.

Today I still wear the same clothes. And I am

graduating.

Parents and grandparents are here. And I plan

to wear the same dress I wore under my high

school graduation gown. I like bookends.

Mina Bloom

show details 12:03 PM (0 minutes ago)

you know you work at the Chronicle when you hear me randomly singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" multiple times in a day.

ivana susic

show details 12:05 PM (0 minutes ago)

You will be afraid to go on Facebook on Fridays for the rest of your life.

Patrick Smith

show details 11:58 AM (6 minutes ago)

Fridays are your least favorite day of the week

Colin Shively

show details 11:55 AM (9 minutes ago)

your roommates ask if you still live in the apartment.

Lisa Wardle

show details 12:57 PM (1 hour ago)

You know you're a copy editor when you can't help but want to edit your friends' Tweets.

OK, this one's a bit sappy, but it encompasses the home-like feeling of the office:

You know you work at the Chronicle when on a bad day your boss gives you a hug and tells you to go home, even when there's heaps of work to do.

Emi Peters to me

When you spend more time at the Chron Cave than you do at your own home.

Jon Allen

you have nightmares about failed layouts

Stephanie Saviola to me

you know you work the chronicle when you hear [insert kevin's ringtone] going off every ten minutes

{so much celebrating going on right now. i can't wait

to share more pictures. but tonight i'm off for a last

hurrah with my surrogate family, my coworkers.

honestly, i'm soaking it all in. i don't know what i'll

do when i'm no longer surrounded by such creativity,

boldness, intelligence and opportunity. i know it's odd,

but right now THIS song is the voice of my heart. it's

potency has the chance to makeme cry. and i'm not a crier.}

I have to admit something, because I'm feeling pretty guilty.

I do not feel like a graduating senior by any standards.

At least not as far as my life goes this week, because I'm one

of those slinking little students who got all of her work done

days ago, has been sleeping great, is getting paid to do nothing,

hardly has as finals to study for and isn't stressed.

Not to mention the whole marriage thing already started to

make me feel like a grown-up more than graduation has.

So, while I feel like some kind of cheap con, I can at least

say I've done something typical of a graduate; I received

my cap and gown. (By the way, the word gown ... really?)

I went with my friend Lisa and we filled out a really long

exit survey about our entire time at Columbia. It was then

I realized how incredibly special it is to be in college. Then.

Other than that, my mind has been a little

confused about what to do with all this

free time.

My mind has also been thinking about the

following quote ... a lot:

"The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.

It is not our hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency.

Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home."

C.S. Lewis

I'm trying really, super, very, tremendously hard to write right now.

But the rainy, honey, sunlight outside is a heartbreaking siren.

This is my last article ... possibly ever?

Probably not, but I can't control the winds of opportunity.

Like any good American, I Googled eyelid spasms.

The internet diagnosis: stress.

What? No. I'm not stressed.

I mean, I get stressed. But overall, I know everything is underway.

I'm the opposite of a procrastinator, I front-load my work.

The worst kind of stress is the kind that makes you think

that a breath of fresh air is a distraction,

or that listening to a person is too time-consuming.

That kind of stress makes you inhuman.

At this hour, I desire to be packing up from a long day at the

beach with my love. At the golden hour when it gets windy

and you have to put a jacket on over your wet swimsuit and hair.

Until my body realizes that I am actually not stressed anymore,

and until I finish this last project,

here I sit, with my eyelid contractions, soaking up the indoor shadows.

Gilead. Click, read, enjoy.

so this is graduation?

A roughly estimated 10 hours stand between me and my diploma. Insane.
I wish I had some coherent thought to record for myself -- other than the prayers and scrap notions strewn about on napkins and notebook corners.
I'll try.


The bumps in my ears may have gone down but my left eyelid has fluttered side-to-side viciously for three weeks.

Had a great day with Olivia and my sis yesterday, it felt like the weekend. My whole internal clock is wrought. I woke up at 6 this morning, I was confused but it was lovely. Lovely to slip into the shower and have my coffee while watching my husband, best friend and sister all asleep and breathing gently in the studio.

My feet are dirty but I just can't stop wearing my cute new sandals.

Wish I could have gone with my coworker to the biotech conference this week.

Cap and gown on Tuesday.

It's a lot easier to be peaceful and patient knowing this is my last night as a copy editor.

Learned a whole lot about Fidel Castro about an hour ago.

Am now discussing my favorite words to pronounce with my coworkers; brilliant, headquarters, pronounce.

And the etymology of the word headquarters? Lisa's determined it.

Gratefulness abounds.

Great Lake Swimmers and Xavier Rudd soothe me today.

I wrote a sentimental, final column and I'm not too sure about it.

Oh yeah, and tomorrow marks six months of marriage. Well I'll be.

My calendar for May is crazy, but I'm craving stillness and closeness.

If you're anything like us ...

You have a very creative friend who wants to have all

of our writer friends together to read and share. You

make an announcement at church that any and all are

welcome, and the people come. Everyone piles on the

floor of a teeny Chicago studio, leaning on the bed and

walls -- the couch may stay empty. You cut triangles of

gyro bread and heat it, served with spinach dip, herbed

olive oil, on the floor. Everyone digs in. They read and

speak and between filling mason jars with water, you

soak in the tangible creativity that's boiled over.

If you're anything like us, you're a bunch of rather urban,

young people in a city with a lot of cement, but you

dream and write and croon the prarie life. You love folk.

Everything about it. Your church sings old hymns with an

upright bass and a flute. You crowd on the floor of a little

apartment and you share (really) wonderful poems about

honeybees as women, big skies, and stories of a small town

in Texas. Eventually, it's a given, the harmonicas come out.

Your talented friends will improvise the sound of your

remembrance of a place you never lived -- though
they have.

Your friends will astound you.

And then you'll wonder how long it will be until most of

these fine people leave the city for a home with
upturned dirt.

quiero amnestía pa' tu tía y la mía*

English, Spanish, Polish. Did you know Chicago has the second largest population of Polish people in the world, second only to Warsaw?

Galatians 3:28

"There is no longer Jew or Greek,

there is no longer slave or free,

there is no longer male and female;

for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

[Luisa and me. Luisa of writing so funny you'll die laughing.]

* "I want amnesty for your aunt and mine" ... It's funny, but that was what someone got us shouting today. I'm not even that liberal. I'm not even that interested in politics. I am, however, interested in the wellness of human beings. And families. And equality for all. And an intolerance for political bigotry. "Cuando? Ahora. Ahora-hora-hora!"