Through My Eyes: A Journal

By Liz Root

Contact Liz by emailing her at liz@vagrantcafe.com

Click here for weekly archives

7/20/2002
i don't even know how i'm going to be able to start this...a lot of things going through my mind today. maybe to start off, i'll just go into the boring details of my most-productive morning. i woke up at 8:30, which is early for me, without the alarm or anything. i made coffee, made cinammon rolls, and then went to feed the pastor's dog. i then put gas in my car, and went to "the farm" where i used to live to check on the dogs out there. i then came back and put a load of laundry in. and now i'm online, talking to a good friend, and thinking about a word called "Balance."

Balance. lately balance is the word everyone uses...but really they mean "perfection." i talk with my friends and we say things like, "i just want to find that balance between this thing and that thing." but does it exist? i've fought for it for so long only to be thwarted every time.

but this leads me to other thoughts...that for perhaps the first time in my life, i feel somewhat comfortable and secure with the direction my relationship with God is going. i've spent the last two to three years kind of having to unlearn everything. i'm not saying i'm "there"...in fact, i have probably never been further from it...but i think i'm finally in the right direction. i feel like i've gone back and retraced all my steps to see where i screwed up. it just got the point where i had heard one to many sermons, read one too many christian books, listened to one too many worship cds, and all these voices had too much say in my relationship with God. i had a lot of nice teaching and preaching and songs in my head, but not much of God himself in there, or in my heart. I was the one who knew about him, but didn't know Him. i don't claim to know Him now...but i think i'm finally beginning to get to know him, and I think now he's able to get to know me, too. which i think is just as important.

and i think it's important to know that everyone's relationship with God is different. it doesn't make one bad and one good, one okay or one the best...it just means that God is so infinite that He chooses to express Himself differently to each of us. even within my relationship with Him he likes to change things up a bit. but i'm so glad that it is a relationship..and that it's taking on it's own personality.

so i've quieted down. "for i have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child is my soul within me." i choose my influences carefully now. i decide who i let speak to me, who i listen to. and i'm beginning to realize that most of the influence in my life no longer comes from a pulpit or a position of visible leadership, civil, political, or religious. now it comes from friends, peers, parents, other people's parents, etc. i've had to separate myself from things for awhile, which is a lot of why i think i ended up in this town. i've had to isolate myself from the world awhile to find my purpose. to find my voice. for God to reveal the message he has for me. he's given me much to say, but in his way and his timing. i'll always be inadequate and underqualified, but it seems that's the type He likes to use the most.


- liz r. - 7/20/2002


October

make her a flower in late december
when the sun is not shining on her
write her a love song and play it all day long
to remind her of all that she is worth
never never leave her
take her on long drives for ice cream by seasides
and give her your coat when she is cold
tell her you miss her when you're close enough to kiss her
and that you would walk a thousand miles to tell her so
but never never leave her
take photographs of her on brooklyn street in october
when her nervous smile is slightly curved
somedays when she is down tell her it's okay to frown
it makes you just fall more in love with her
but never never leave her.

-rosie thomas

good morning.


- liz r. - 7/20/2002

7/19/2002
plans failed. drove to a nearby city instead and bought a couple of new cds. rosie thomas being one of them. go buy this cd. why it was in the used section i will never know. one man's trash is another man's treasure?

what does it mean when your home doesn't feel like home? is this what all first time on their own people feel like? i mean, i've lived away from home for a total of almost 2 years now...but it's my first apartment that i'm paying rent for. i'm sharing it and all...but still. maybe it's b/c none of the stuff in it is mine, with the exception of my room. but then it's like...do i really want stuff? not really. i mean, i see stuff in magazines and i think "wow, must be nice to live like that"...but well, those things aren't really my desire, i guess.

anyway...i guess it's like i know this part of my life is only short term. i don't know what's next but i know it will be good. i know it will be better than anything i'd ever imagined. i mean...i really love it here, but i'm not attached to it. at all. jill and i are backpacking europe next fall and i know that will be a hugely defining moment of my life. it will make me decide what i want. not that i don't know...but i've been feeling the pull to europe my whole life and i think this trip will confirm it. just one more year...




- liz r. - 7/19/2002


nothing too profound in my thoughts today...just making plans for this evening. i'm going to a concert about an hour and a half from here, so that should be fun. hopefully i'll run into some people i know. everybody is gone for the weekend but me. so i get the pleasure of feeding the pastor's dog. i've never really been a dog person, so i hope i don't lose the dog or anything. it's still a puppy...a siberian husky i think. so it will be a pretty boring weekend. i think i'll just go rent amelie and dancer in the dark, two movies everybody loves and i haven't seen. and maybe actually get some writing done.


- liz r. - 7/19/2002

7/18/2002
there's a scene in a movie i've been watching recently that really affects me. a young man who used to be an Olympic high-diver goes to speak to an older man who is living on top of a very tall pillar. the diver broke his ankle at the previous Olympics, so since then the diver spends his entire days diving into a lake trying to achieve the perfect dive. the old man had just began his days spent sitting on top of this pillar that he'd placed in the middle of his northern californian estate. the young man is about to dive, sees the old man yonder waving and motioning for him to come talk. the diver climbs up the roped stairs to the top of the pillar. the old man says something like, "you will spend your whole life trying to attain perfection, but it does not exist." the young man says, "i'm not sure what you mean." the old man says, "let me rephrase," and pushes him off the pillar. the young man flails and is obviously frightened, but there are people poised to catch him in a blanket. they carry him in the blanket and throw him in the same lake where he spends his days diving. this time the entrance into the water was far from perfect.

i know i butchered the scene, but it's hard to describe if you hadn't seen the whole movie. so i'm not sure why this scene moves me so much. i think it contains a lot of symbolism. like, maybe the lake is opportunity or our life or our future. and we're spending our time trying to get into it just perfect with the least splash. and it's like, God isn't concerned with how we get in the lake. he just wants us to get in it and stay in it. which is odd that i'm saying all this, because i was writing something last week, or maybe it was this week...anyway, i said something like, "i want to jump into the water of the living, however ungraceful the splash." and i wrote that before i saw this movie. weird.
- liz r. - 7/18/2002

7/17/2002
since most times i try to post when i'm thinking about something halfway interesting/profound/meaningful, i thought i'd post while i'm currently the most bored i've been a long time. so what does the life of the Bored Girl look like? (only boring people get bored someone once told me. well, consider me boring. nothing new.)

the bored girl sits at the computer a lot. hoping for some kind of connection. the bored girl doesn't have much of a job yet, although this will all change very soon. the bored girl listens to a lot of cds. the bored girl gets tired just from being bored and takes a nap. sometimes two. the bored girl thinks about herself too much. the bored girl wishes she had some money so she could at least go to the beach or something. the bored girl tries on a bunch of different outfits for a thing she might go to friday night.

yeah. it's about 7 o'clock right now and i'm staring out the window as usual, listening to a cd, thinking i should probably shave my legs sometime soon, and motivating myself to take that 30 minute walk i've committed to do daily. that's real life right there.


- liz r. - 7/17/2002


in the office where i work, there's a colored pencil drawing that i stare at every day. a dove flying from heaven with a pen in its mouth, the pen touches the great body of water, sending out a great light and a ripple effect.

"Then the man in linen with the writing kit at his side brought back word, saying, "I have done as you commanded." Ezekiel 9:11

"As for me, this is my covenant with them," says the Lord. "My spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from you rmouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of your descendents from this time on and on forever," says the Lord." Isaiah 59:21

"Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kinds to the brightness of your dawn." Isaiah 60:1-3

I don't often post scripture...but these are pretty meaningful to me right now. so i thought i'd share.

i think if i ever move somewhere where nobody knows me, i'm going to change my name to Elle.


- liz r. - 7/17/2002

7/16/2002
yeah, so the pendulum is swinging the other way right now and life is once again hopeful. i shouldn't put so much of myself into circumstances...but oh well. a succession of very cool things that began last night and extended into this morning made the 4 hours of sleep i got worth it.


- liz r. - 7/16/2002

7/15/2002
"i dare you to move, i dare you to move...i dare you to pick yourself up off the floor. i dare you move like today never happened, like today never happened."-switchfoot.

i got ten hours of sleep last night. i didn't really need to sleep until 11 today, but i did. i must have accustomed myself to the noise from the street, because it doesn't wake me up anymore. except for the leafblower man at 5 a.m. that one morning.

i think it's pretty amazing how one can go from such great hope to such great um...lack of hope, so quickly. it's okay...the pendulum is always swinging.


- liz r. - 7/15/2002

7/14/2002
sometimes i just have to admit that i severely screwed up, i broke a promise, and i can't really do much to fix it right now. i'll sit and brood and wish things could be different, or blame myself (which really works when it truly is my fault), and generally throw myself into a depressed frenzy. and then i'll remember that Jesus died on the cross for this stupid thing i've done. with all the sins he took on, this was one of them. he died. DIED. because stupid me can't keep my word. because i can never pay anything on time. because i unintentionally manipulated someone. i forget that jesus forgives sins. i know i sin every day...but this time, it was thrown back in my face...and this time there was no running from it. and i had to do that thing we learn in sunday school. so i prayed, "jesus...you died on the cross for me. you took on my sins. so please forgive me, and please help me. because i can't do it alone." so child-like. so small. but it works. "in the economy of mercy, i am a poor and begging man, in the currency of grace is where my song begins, in the colors of your goodness, the scars that mark your skin, the currency of grace is where my song begins." -switchfoot.

redemption. i keep forgetting.


- liz r. - 7/14/2002