eastward wind

After reading several recently-acclaimed books in the past few months (you know, books an English major is supposed to read to, like, broaden her mind more), I found myself staring at my bookshelf. Now, my bookshelf at my parent's house - where most of my things still live - is super full of all kinds of good stuff to read. I only brought a smattering of my collection with me and it's interesting to muse over my choices four months after packing them up to bring all the way out here.

The Great Gatsby
Snow Falling on Cedars
several installments of both the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket series
my favorite Donald Miller books
Gone with the Wind (natch)
(French Rosetta Stone CDS - technically not books but sitting on that shelf nonetheless)

Add to them my recent finds from a local book fair:

Under the Tuscan Sun
The Joy Luck Club
Memoirs of a Geisha
an introductory French textbook

You know, stuff I'm supposed to read.

I don't know if it was the warm weather that got into me or my ever-present desire to escape, but I picked up Bergdorf Blondes, a bood about Park Avenue princesses. And I don't even want to admit how many Sex and the City reruns I've been watching.

Today I got called a "white girl from the northeast." As a rule, I am against labels and putting people - including myself - in boxes. But that is one box I will always fit. As people start to ask me what I'm going to do next year, I don't know what to tell them. I like it here. I never know what I want to do next in terms of jobs, but I like it here and I just got here, so I plan to stay for at least a little bit.

But I'm a white girl from the northeast, and it's hard to make real, satisfactory substitutions for everything the northeast offers. So will I stay here in the end or migrate back east? Or end up somewhere completely different for a little while, and then move on from there too? We shall see. The grand adventure of my life is not so far along - let's find what's in store.

One Year Ago

May 23, 2010 was a pretty big day in The Life of Amy Joy. I had spent the previous year completing all requirements for my Master’s degree, and on May 23 I got to walk across the stage in John Paul Jones Arena and take my diploma (largest diplomas in the Commonwealth of Virginia, what?). I said see-you-later to a lot of wonderful people I had gotten to know during my Charlottesville stint. I was getting ready to head to Haiti the next week, a trip I knew would change me but I did not know how much.

But let’s be honest. Something way more important than these things happened on May 23, 2010.

It was the series finale of LOST.

Yes, I am one of “those” people. Yes, I am writing about LOST a year later. Accept it and move on! I know that some people were not too happy with the show’s ending. Upon my first viewing, I too was in shock. At 11:30pm that night, the TV screen turned to white and there was no more Jack, Kate, Sawyer, or anyone else, and I thought, “What the h*** just happened?” I didn’t hate it or love it at first. The jury was very much still out because I didn’t know what to think.

Then I ruminated. I read some online commentaries. And I watched it again.

And I loved it.

The moral of the LOST story? That it’s not about what you do in your life that makes it so important. Sure, the setting is this magical, moving island and there are all these mysterious people trying to save the world by protecting whatever that light thing was in the center of the island. In my interpretation of the ending, the setting was simply a mechanism. The setting could have been anywhere and anything because it doesn’t matter what you do in life. What matters is the people with whom you spend your time. It’s the relationships that make a life mean something.

I could not agree more.

After leaving grad school and spending the month of June 2010 in a third world country, I had had it with the rat race. I cannot express the amount of relief I felt that I didn’t have a job to get to once returning from the Caribbean. That I had the option to take an “unreal” (as opposed to "real") job in a coffee shop and be able to spend the fall with my sister and new brother-in-law helping to plan their wedding was huge. That I could move to Missouri on blind faith and know that everything would be fine because I knew that the community here would be incredible is nothing short of the best thing ever.

It’s not about what I’m doing in life, it’s about the people I’m living life with.

If you’re reading this, that means you’re one of my people. Thank you for being so incredible and for being a blessing in my life. I appreciate it more than you will ever know. So when the world goes white just like the end of LOST, please know that whatever God wanted me to see or know about this life, He showed me through you.