A Green Hope

Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art of using the laws of both heaven and earth to orient living spaces and attain a better life, uses colors to symbolize different emotions and attributes. The color green represents health, growth, vitality, and most importantly, hope. A few weeks ago, I was faced with news that nearly broke my fragile teenage heart. My travel plans for Morocco were getting extremely complicated, due to the fact that I'm under 18 years old. I can't travel unaccompanied, and this could have been worked around just to get me there, but then I found out that in order to maintain a valid visa, I would have to leave the country every three months, accompanied by an adult that had paperwork showing that they were not, in fact, kidnapping me against my will. Not only would this become greatly expensive very quickly, but it would have placed an impossible burden on the family I would be living with. So I have to make the decision not to go to Morocco as planned. I found out while I was at school, and I had to leave Algebra two to go and sob in the restroom, on the phone with my mom. This was my plan, my next year, the first of many incredible travel experiences, the thing that set me apart from my peers, my escape. And it had broken and fallen out from under me in the course of a day. I could have come home from school, but I stayed. I didn't want to be alone with this crushing sadness. I cleaned up my red and puffy face, and as I walked to my next class, a friend asked me how I was, "my dreams died!" I mumbled, and then he gave me a hug, and I nearly lost my composure. When that day was finally over, another friend, who can always tell when I'm feeling awful, came over and asked if I was alright, because by this point I'm pretty sure I looked like the wreck I was. I squeaked out a no, and when he gave me a hug, I broke down all over again and cried as I tried to form coherent sentences and explain myself. My friends proved their kindness to me that day, because they stood with me, and when I was a hideous puddle of falling-apart girl, they wrapped their arms around me and held me together. When God gives us too much to handle, we are forced to put our broken hearts in his hands and say "take it from here," and when we do, we can move past the end of something we thought was best, and into the beginning of something designed by heaven, something we shouldn't even try to understand. So, I will be in Bozeman, working my hind end off and not going to high school, waiting. I have no idea what the future holds, if I'll go to Morocco, or if something I haven't even thought of will make itself known. But back to Feng Shui, get me green paint, because this is a year of hope.     -mads

An Ode To Gramma's House

I have many things I should be writing about, things that should take a higher priority than these ramblings. Things like graduation, summer time, work, and next year. Next year will be a chapter of it's own, because I really do have a lot to tell you about that. But, for the sake of tasty writing and nostalgia, I'm going to write about Minnesota instead. For the past three days I've been hanging out in the suburbs and shopping malls nestled in the lush green jungle that is Minnesota. We (my mother, Walter, and I) are staying with my grandparents, as usual. Unfortunately, this will be the last night I will ever see the house that is so dear to me. My grandparents are moving. They don't want to, but this house really is too big for two people who really shouldn't be using stairs anymore. So I have to soak it in, and remember it forever. And I really will miss it. The doors that mysteriously open when the slightest draft blows through, the super fun laundry shoot, the screened porch lovingly built by my grandpa, the basement with more food than a small grocery store. I will miss playing cards with my cousins on the porch until midnight, and eating popsicles until our teeth stained, the big birch tree in the front yard that we all drew pictures and initials on, and the countless mornings of sugared cereal and cartoons. I will miss The Hoopdidoop very much. The Hoopdidoop is a character invented by my grandpa, Frank, who is similar in terror to the bogey man, and whose territory is limited to the cold caverns of the basement. I will miss everything about that house, and no matter who moves into it when they move out, in my heart and memories, it will always be gramma's house. And lastly, to The Hoopdidoop: Thank you for sparing my life on countless trips to the basement, and though we never met, you will cherished in my memories forever. Happy haunting.      -mads