Dear Seamus, thank you.

Within the first few weeks I lived in Belfast, I visited the Linen Hall Library, which is beautiful and old and makes you feel that creativity lives all around you and literature is alive and breathing and you, too, are alive and breathing and creative. Seamus Heaney had died not a month before and upstairs, at the top of the flight, was a memorial book. I felt the weight of the moment—of course I want to write in a memorial book for any writer I had ever heard of in the upper hall of a library I was enthralled with. I knew of Seamus from his translation of Beowulf, a book I hated in a class I found no purpose in during undergraduate school. I can’t remember what I wrote—I’m sure it was neither impressive nor meaningful. I didn’t know him.

I know him now.

Each time I teach English II, I teach through his entire Field Work collection with my students. We start small with “Oysters”, and by the time we reach “Ugolino”, my students are fiery and on my level in terms of general obsession for the Northern Irish Troubles and for Seamus Heaney’s heartthrob for his people, for reconciliation, and for the willingness of the divisive groups to listen to one another—if only they would listen to one another.

They move from essential non-knowingness (like I did) to being able to describe the man by his themes, his loves, and his heart. They begin to understand his poetry (very hard for people in general) because they can hear his voice and feel the pull of his motivations.

This is when my class starts to shift. We get political. We get real. We talk through the difficulty of listening, of sorting through the hard stuff when divisiveness and fake news surround us. We talk about how bad people can be good, how good people can be bad, and how God is there, swimming around in all of the midst of it, even when we might not even mean to invoke him.

Seamus Heaney loved his wife and he loved his country. He speaks of wounds from their Troubles as though they were imminent and eternal and yet, he spoke through his pain with hope. Together, we feel the pulse of humanity and take that energy into our next two series before the semester’s end.

Were he alive, were I able to meet him, to thank him, I am not certain I could do so without a gush of hot tears, thankful for someone who could create such beauty and such vulnerability and such accessibility and help snotty teenagers learn to open their hearts and their ears to love and care and feel compassion for a situation they could care nothing for beforehand, since they had no heart in the game.

You made them care. You draw us, one another, in and help us to hear in a way we couldn’t before.

Dear Seamus, you planted goodness and hope where we could only see blood, see walls, see bombs. You helped us dream toward a better tomorrow, of white-washed rooms with elbow room, of the smell of saltwater inthe air, and of young women with baskets of green cabbage, new potatoes, andfresh carrots with mould still on the tops of them.

Into the Fold

I cried at work today.

We were doing our morning devotions, and today, we decided to do a devotional thought over "O Come O Come Emmanuel", which happens to be my favorite Christmas song.

It also happens to correlate with my favorite Bible verse, which had been weighing on me heavily for the past week or so. This is what I shared and what brought me to big tears of remembrance and of thankfulness and humility.

It re-appeared in my heart last Thursday. I was sitting there beside my boyfriend, our mothers, and our fathers, in the Candlelight service at my university.

As I sat there, I marveled at how far removed and redeemed both our families (and us) had been in the past two years. In the past two years, both our parents had been at places where they thought they had lost their children to darkness forever.

We had thought the same about ourselves.

And in the past two years, we have been restored to joy, to God, and to our families. Granted, more work is yet to be done, but God is so good.

My heart felt full to burst, and the words of Psalm 126 pushed their way into my thoughts:

When the people returned to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon, they became as those who dreamed. Their hearts were filled with laughter; their tongues with shouts of praise. The people of Earth said to them, "The Lord has done great things for you." Indeed, the Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

That's the verse I shared this morning after we sang.

I reflected on my own "return from Babylon" two years ago tomorrow.

I was broken. I was ugly. I was beyond all reckoning.

And my parents opened their arms up and loved me. My aunt, my uncle, my cousin, my grandmother. They loved me and took me as I was: broken. ugly. lost.

And yet, and yet!! the Lord has done great things for me. 
Though Decembers cause me to get way too deep in my head and heart and ache with the past woundedness, I know too of the deep joy of restoration to hope and light and life.

The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

In Decembers

In Decembers, I miss God.

I recognize that that's an odd sentiment to share (and to have) but it's the closest way I can think to communicate how I feel.

Belfast and I have reconciled. We are good friends now. My second semester there was beautiful in every way, and even the first semester was necessary.

But in Decembers....I get in my own head. Can't shake it.

Decembers taste like unending, UK-attempted green bean casserole, apples, puzzle dust, cold tea, grief, and vomit. It smells like I need to shower. It sounds like "Merry Christmas, Here's to Many More" and "Dark Horse" and songs I still can't listen to. It feels like darkness crushing into each cell.

Last December, I spent my time with friends at graduation in Belfast, laughing with my housemates, loving and being loved by my handsome boyfriend, holding my family. It was a good time.

This December, I'm so happy at work, at home, in Tulsa. I am so blessed. I am so happy.

and yet.
and yet.

In Decembers...I feel it all. As though nothing present were present.
As though I were still there.

Still alone.
Still dying.

Which, I recognize, seems like an incredibly hyperbolic thing to say. But I never felt as dead-souled as then. In all the other months, I don't think about it, I don't feel about it, I don't write about it. In this month, though, it is around every email, song choice, nap, bend in my drive.

You know when you're sick and all you want is your mom?
No matter your age or situation, your mom is your first instinct to call out for. You want her. You need her.

Even though I'm better--wonderful, in fact--that's how I feel. I feel sick. My mom wasn't there, couldn't be there, the first time it happened. The one who took care of me--geez. the only one in that whole stinking country who cared about me, it seemed at the time--was God.

So now, when I feel sick at heart and soul from feel-backs and uncontrollable sentiments, I miss God. We aren't separated, but we aren't together in the same way.

My mom and I talk all the time. We go shopping, we enjoy one another, but our relationship is very different when I'm ill.

It's the same with God. We spend time together, but it just isn't the same kind of need.

Either way, here I am. Feeling. Sick at heart with no reason to be. Missing God, and thankful for my savior. Thankful to have been saved and loved and have my life and my favorite country redeemed.

David and the Golden Finch

The British don't say "You're welcome".

Unless of course they're greeting you as you enter their dinner party or church or unless they've just done you some unfathomably good deed.

In fact, to say "You're welcome" is nearly offensive, as it connotes to a Brit that you are nearly pompous, that what you've done for them is, actually, an unfathomably good deed.

I had a British friend explain to me that even if her mother had cooked an enormous, extravagant feast, she would still not say, "You're welcome".

So when they do say it (and it's not an arrogant fool of a person), you understand something deeper about the character of the person speaking. It shows, through pomp and circumstance of a small phrase, what they value, what's of pristine importance to them.

I have often spoken before of my man David in Belfast.

David the quiet.
David the humble.
David the steadfast and hardworking.
David the kind.

When David spoke to me or showed me something, he had my entire attention, such was the unobtrusiveness of the man. If he requested my focus, it was important.

One day, David was in the kitchen, which had big sweeping windows all along the side wall looking into the front garden, and called me in when he heard me close by.

"See them finches there in the tree there? Them's golden finches. Haven't seen 'em here for ten years near."

"Uh...oh? That's great."

And he told me about the finches. And then he was done telling me about the finches.

I was half out the door back to my books when I remembered to thank him (as one should always do when a non-share-er shares) for showing them to me.

From the kitchen, I heard a quiet, "welcome".
You could have pushed me over with a bird bone.

It was the first time I had ever heard David say that word.
And it was said over finches.

My next text was to my mother, who was equally nonplussed till I told her what he'd said after.

The finches are a big deal.
Nature and creatures and creation is of great value to my master gardener friend.

He notices the living world with acute detail and stores it up.
To be let in to what fills his heart most was a great honor.

I didn't know it was an honor and a privilege until his final word, though.

In an episode of "The Office", Andy Bernard says (in my recollection of the quote), "I wish there were a way to know you were in the golden years when you're in them".

There are moments when the opportunity for connection is right there and we don't realize it. Sometimes, if we jump fast enough, we can catch them. Other times, though, they fly away like finches.

It was a lesson to me to listen, not just to the words but to all the pieces of the context and the speaker I'd gathered before.
Listen with your whole self and mental history. Hear behind the words when your people speak to you. Hear their hearts and values and interests. Hear them.

It's Good to be Smart

It's better to be kind.

The wife of my smallgroup leader, a lady named Heather, was a teeny tiny, quiet woman with a gush of energy inside her, helpful considering she has two boys and now a sweet little girl.

My second semester in Belfast, Heather really took after me, bringing me over for tea, getting me little gifts (like a measuring cup with American conversion rates on it, so I could bake easier), and just showing me kindness.

In small group, she didn't talk a whole lot--I would definitely put her on highly on the introvert scale. But one-on-one, she really connected well with others. I was most thankful for her.

One time, when we were talking about her older son who is wicked smart, she told me that with her boy, she is often drawn to tell him, "It is good to be smart; it is better to be kind."

Being someone who has been born into American competitiveness, a culture where getting ahead by whatever means possible is the only way, this was kind of shocking to me to hear a mother praising her son's braininess but pushing him toward a lifestyle characterized not by wits but by wisdom and gentleness.

In a month, I'll have all 58 of my new students (450 overall oh my goodness) arriving on campus. Some of them I know to be both very smart and very kind. Some are very kind and lack in educational prowess. Others, I know to be intelligent but I have some doubts as to their inter-social tendencies.

I guess as an education facilitator, I'm supposed to cheer on the smart ones. That makes sense. They're the ones who supposedly will do best here.

I was one of those.

But was I kind?

At my core, kindness and gentleness toward others is something very important to me. The manifestation of that, though, is something I have had to work hard to express well.

You see, I can't make myself get on-board with the smarties. Life is more than being smart. University community, not just high data GPAs and test scores, is what makes being at college "the best four years of your life".

Curious, kind students who want to learn and connect beat out brilliance.

Naturally being the best can lead you to believe that you don't need help, that you don't need to connect, that you don't need contribute and respond. And the worst part is, you don't even see that that is hurting you longterm. You see it as a point of pride that you have all that you need tucked inside you.

The thing is, that doesn't stay inside the classroom.
We aren't as compartmentalized as we would like to believe.

Who we are inside BBL_3003 directly relates to who we are at home or church or work.

It all comes down to who we believe we are.

If you believe yourself to be someone entirely self-sufficient, when push comes to shove in your relationship, will you not pull away, throw up walls, and cut out your significant other from relating to you, helping you, or making decisions with you? Will you not turn away from God in the rough times because you can fix the problem better yourself? Will you not miss out from good ideas from coworkers when you are working on a new project?

We are build to relate to one another and to fail and to learn together.
It is good for us to be smart, but it is better for us to be kind.

Forge New Roads

Running outside is the worst. Because of allergy season, I've done my couch to 5k training on the indoor track.

Last week, though, I decided it was time to move my long legs to the outdoors.

I left from my office, which connects to both the graveyard and the trail that goes around JBU and Siloam.

It's the same path Noah and I used to circle and circle and circle for 1-6 hours at a time, the same path my sophomore roommate used to make me run every morning from January to March of 2012.

I hated every second of that run. It was so much harder than running on the track! I was out of breath, desperate, and saying more obscenities than my mother would approve of. And it was supposed to have been an easy run schedule that day. As I ran, my head circled with memories of mornings and late nights and I knew how the trail would turn and twist and could anticipate each predictable frustration.

Today, I changed route. Running through the graveyard and into residential zones, I ran places I had never been before with anyone else and had no idea of what to expect. The hills were steeper, the twists were sharper, and cars came from both directions. I didn't know where I was going, but I kept track of my turns.

The run schedule for today was more arduous than last week's, but I found myself energized and capable of doing it without wanting to give up.

Change: I think that's what it takes, sometimes, to find new motivation. Kind of like the saying, "if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always gotten".

I find myself frustrated by people who won't change any of their habits but constantly complain about the outcomes of those habits.

You're overweight but you won't run.

You're broke but you won't give up your iPhone or monthly manicure.

You're friendless but you won't go out to meet new people.

I accuse, but I'm certain I have my own which are blatant to others. 

One of my vices was pointed out last year at this time by a professor I very much admire. When hearing me complain about a recent romantic annoyance, he looked at me and said, "Odom, you're attracted to the wrong people."

What.

But he was right. All my relationships or flings or trysts followed the same trajectory because each person I had shown interest in was basically the same as the last. And I had wondered when they ended why they did.

And that's when he brought me (yes brought me) Julius.

I couldn't have made a list of things I deeply needed in a person because I didn't know until I re-met him. And piece by piece, it became clear that his innate facets fit into mine.

Never would I have chosen a path with him, I had my chance freshman year when we had met the first time.

My road run with him, though, is an easy burden. There's always something new to challenge us and inclines are a thing, but at the end of the day, I'm not exhausted. I feel good. I feel ready for tomorrow.

So whether it's a person, place, or thing, if you've come to a path where the rock always melts just before you reach the summit or the water always drains just as your lips reach its rim, try something new.

I Pick You

My front garden turned from drab to fab, with these giant purple irises.

They're beautiful, but it's difficult to compare when I have a history with flowers loved on and planted by David: see here . 

When I pulled open my door, though, I saw this one, and a memory with David sprang back to life. 

 It was a damp, sunny spring morning in Belfast, and I was running late to school about to miss the bus. Running through the kitchen, I saw a beautiful tulip on the counter waiting for me. 

I lived alone, so it wasn't as though someone had picked a tulip for themselves. 

It was a present for me. From a man who knows I love flowers, a man so proud of his flowers (but so British he would never have been able to say it) that he wanted to give one to somebody he knew would appreciate its beauty as much as he did. 

The flower was lovely, but it was the man that made it precious to me. 

David, my man, hardly spoke at all, pleasantries at most, but there were many days where I felt as though David was my very most dear friend. He took care of me in such a practically compassionate way. 

At Christmas, he brought me out of my darkness to decorate. 

In the spring, he wanted to show me the flowers. 

He put up a shelf in my room. 

He teased me when I would make my entrance to the world at noon or past (and always made sure to be extra quiet if he thought I was asleep). 

He took me to uni when the bus didn't come that late day in April. 

He made pleasantries with me. 

He showed me the golden finches. He loves the golden finches, "First time in ten years they come back here, them". Even said "you're welcome" when I thanked him. Yeah, it was a huge deal to him to share the finches. 

David is gentle and kind, without a bad word to say about anyone. The one who gardens in his pleated trousers with button-down shirt, sweater vest, and loafers. 

Tireless. 

Humble. 

A big fan of tea. 

I ran out of the house to catch my bus that day, and David was hard at work edging the garden. When I called out a thanks, he told me he had found the tulip downed in the garden: "Musta been a nail or somethin' break it...Thought you could talk to it."

An american would have been making fun of me, but not David. 

He had entrusted one of his broken baby flowers into my care. And since I know David's love for his flowers, I felt the love of the gesture. 

Supposed to be Happy

Three times in the past two months, I have felt shame.

It shouldn't count, I know it shouldn't. I should be able to shake it off, shake off my "image" and embrace the reality of who I am and what I have been.

And when you're in the midst of it, sometimes it's easier to embrace it because you are incapable of fabricating another reality for yourself.

When you're out of the middle, you deaden the memory and try to live as though it didn't happen, try to prevent those around you from knowing the full extent of your darkness.

The worst part is, unlike drugs and alcohol addiction or eating disorders or the like, depression doesn't look good on a Christian testimony resume.

Depression makes people nervous.

They don't know how to respond.

Partly because it's not something that ends; it's something that becomes managed.
The potential for it to rear back up induces anxiety.

When we speak, we are not seeking for your pity, we are not seeking for you to feel bad for us retrospectively or to "hurt" with us. Not usually. And if we do, it's not to make ourselves feel better but to help you get some perspective as a human being.

Don't look at me like I'm a limping puppy on the side of a highway.

We're speaking the reality of who we are.

Belfast.

You have been my friend and enemy alike.

Students who don't know me want to follow my example and follow me to the Emerald Isle.

And for the fourth time this semester, I have been asked for my advice and to speak on my experience.

The first time, I was in the class I'm auditing. The topic of the day was clinical depression, and the professor (who is a friend of mine) asked me to speak on the "Dark Night of the Soul" and my hole of depression. Of course I spoke, but I was shocked, as I was speaking, how clearly I began to re-feel, though I had shut those emotions down for so long. It was like muscle memory. I spent my night wrecked, absolutely wrecked, near to the point of vomiting with grief. Took me completely off-guard.

The second time, a student who had been there with me asked for my advice.
While there, I had been so cloistered and such a whipping girl, that they did not understand me nor what my experience was like as compared to theirs.
I do not speak to those students.
The person who was their RA is not me. It was this weird depressive alter-ego of me that only existed for a year. I can't face them. I am ashamed.

We met and talked for multiple hours, as I explained to her the different levels of thought she needs to consider before making the same move as I did.
She's seriously dating someone. How serious is she about that? Because you can't make half-baked life decisions that take you across the globe without taking them into consideration or hearing out their opinion. It gets messy.
She's prone to depression. That concerned me. Climate is a HUGE aspect of living there.

You can't just think about the academic program and the "adventure" and the story you'll be able to tell people. Life is not a fairy tale. You have to live it day by day, hour by hour, both with those you love and completely alone.

And, while I tried to remain objective in speaking about the different categories she needed to think about, my own life colored behind the facts, and she looked at me with this face...

The third put me on a panel of other graduated and post graduated English majors (JBU graduates) in front of the English faculty and current English students.

We spoke on the process of applying to postgraduate programs and what they are like to be in.
They were specifically interested in me, the international student.

The moderating professor, who knew me well as a fiery student with enormous plans and enormous love, pushed and pushed and pushed with very specific questions, first to the whole group then to me personally, until finally I had to admit my whys.
Why I had had to come back home for a bit in December/January.
Why I was no longer dating Noah.
Why I was back at JBU and not at Denver Seminary.

And the whys are just so messy, and even without admitting any of the specifics, admitting to people I had been viewed by as so strong and passionate, was shameful.

Then it ended.
Then the looks.
Then the gentle hand on my arm.
Then the car ride to Fayetteville to Bible study and the gush of tears and shadows I couldn't help.

Such pieces of me I want to forget.
Such pieces of me, if forgotten, will recur.

I needed to change, and I needed Jesus so badly to wreck into me.
But there are things too sacred even to remember, especially to admit to people who cannot possibly understand the heart of what you are trying to communicate.

God is good.
and maybe also, Think clearly about enormous life choices. 

That is my message.

You hear:
Depression sucks. Feel so bad for me and my misery. 

The fourth is yet to come. I've just received an email from a student, on referral from her history professor. What am I to say?
Her mere email is enough to bring tears to my eyes, in anticipation for the way it will drag my heart through its own muck.

My mother and boyfriend would chastise me with something to the tune of, "People don't need to know everything, Jamie."
Duh. I'm not some kind of self-named martyr with an agenda to broadcast her past wounds, but I am honest. And I answer questions with honesty.

Sometimes, though, that honesty makes me feel very small. Very very small.

Hadden: Belfast Brought Back

There is an acute release of the soul which comes only when in the presence of one who knows you.

Not someone who has heard your story or your interests or work ethic or habits but someone who is able to discern your character, who is unwilling to misunderstand you.

They are not flippant and they take their time to study, so as to gather the whole picture before making judgments about who you are. Very few in any person’s life can go into this category.

Hadden is one of those people for me.

As the director of studies in Northern Ireland, he was the person who picked me and my team up at the airport during my very first visit (I sat by him the whole van ride to the manor and heard the story of how he fell in love with his wife Betty), and he was the person who was my stable ground when I moved. Though our visits were infrequent, he always approached me with love, with compassion, and with Christ.

There’s something about “old folk” I love and it’s this: they don’t give you no bull crap Christianity. 

Rather, it seems to pour out from a deep and still place and it resonates with truth inside the listener.

I heard a lot of bull during my struggle but never from Hadden, and I think that’s why I love him so. He listened, validated the truth of my words or weeded out the untruth, then redirected me to Christ but also to tea and a hug. It was not indulgent, but it was also not canned.

Hadden saw the ugliest, most pulpous parts of my wreckage, and yet, he trusts me, he loves me, and he always speaks truth over me.

Sometimes I forget who I am.

Who I am here, I feel, does not always reflect who I was there.

Perhaps it is because I did feel so lost and forgotten and silenced that I now find myself almost constantly talking, in a way that practically screams, “NOTICE ME NOTICE ME NOTICE ME”.

Do I want to be noticed or do I want to follow Christ?

Because, if I were to be totally honest with myself, when I was fully following the Lord, I was deep and still and quiet and, somehow, I was seen, though I didn't draw overt attention to myself (you know, being that I lived alone and for a long time had no friends). And now, when I am surrounded by others, I often feel more unknown and misunderstood and alone in my true self than I did then.

Part of that is how I have ceased to write. And part of that, as well, is that I am closer to “reality” than I was there. I am closer to the consequences of my own words, good or bad, than when I lived abroad and this nondistance is discomfiting.

Being known to the level which I desire takes a lot more time than my patience feels as though it can handle, which leads to a lot of explaining on my part. That, as you know, can never end well, as words, unlike consistent behavior over time, can bounce all kinds of directions in other people’s perceptions.

To be known is to have a voice without speaking.

And it’s as though I forget to trust that the Lord writes my reputation, not me. What will be will be, and nothing I can do is going to make me get ahead. All I can do is follow.

I’m pretty passive and a very good follower in so so many ways. That is not one of them.

What do I fear?

I fear that reverence to my true nature will lead me back to being alone, deeply alone. And sometimes, in a very human way, I don’t think it’s worth it.

Yeah, sometimes I really miss the immaculate times of tea and tears with God, but other moments, I do not remember those experiences clearly enough to want them over what I have now.

Then comes Hadden to speak in chapel this week. Hadden, whose friendship blossomed during a time when no one could hear me, and I remember how right and pure and exactly good and better than everything else it is to be someone who is known. To be known by man is precious; to be known by God is worth far more.

Life at 23

On my birthday last year, I wrote a post entitled, "The Makings Of"  and gave you a little insight to the tweetables of my last few years, with headings designed after the mix cd titles my best friend Caity made me.

The final year, (as I was counting by school semesters really instead of year to year, which I am now doing) was left inconclusive. So, here's what you've missed, and here's how I got to be where I am today, 23 years in.

Year 22 Fall Semester:
I Guess We Made It, or At Least We Made it this far. 22. 
First semester of my Master's degree was characterized by anxiety, waiting, depression, and the Lord.

-Moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland
-Traveled to Paris, France 
-Fall hard out of love 
-Began writing for a content developing company 
-Gained a second nephew, Samuel Jonathan 

My people: 
Noah Baslé
Leslie Lancaster (penpal)
Kristina Grimes Pugatch (cousin)
Trifecta and Kira/Abby (via text)
Anna (monthly skype friend)
Elaine (housemate)
David Tinsley (gardener)
Hadden Wilson (boss)
My mom

Nobody Likes You When You're 23

Ironically, that just wasn't true for this past January to December. 

No semester/year could have been more different than those first four months in Ireland. 

I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm loved. 

-Made friends

-Second semester of Master's degree 

-Traveled to Prague, Czech Republic

-Traveled to Vienna, Austria

-Traveled to Scotland (and white water canoed into the Loch Ness. Epic) 

-Dyed my hair for the first time ever (dark brown/black) 

-Re-met and subsequently fell for Julius Walt

-Married off my best friend to her best friend 

-Moved to Arkansas into Glenwood Gables 

-Began working for John Brown University as an Admissions Counselor 

-Dyed my hair red 

-Finished writing Master's thesis 

-Traveled to Belfast to graduate from Master's thesis 

-Gained a goddaughter, Fiona

My people: 

-Eli Zuspan and Emily Orf 

-Amy Burnside (Belfast Bff)

-Naomi Deering (BBFF) 

-Lauren, Kiera, and Lynsey (BBFFs) 

-Jo, Amy Finlay, Emma (Master's mates) 

-Megan (BBFF)

-Leslie Lancaster

-Peter Myers

-Adam Howard

-Kristina Grimes Pugatch (cousin)

-Trifecta and Kira/Abby (via text)
-Anna (monthly skype friend)
-Elaine (housemate-belfast)
-David Tinsley (gardener)
-Hadden Wilson (boss)
-Sarah Cowles and Liz Chance (AR housemates)
-Madison Stewart
-Tracy Balzer, Kristi Neerman, Perri Blake (mentors)
-Julius Walt

One Last Day, But It's Not the Same

It's different, very different.
And I love that when I will get to say, "Last December in Belfast" it will not be followed with tears. It will be followed with joy.

David (you absolutely remember David, my sweet, wonderful houseman and groundskeeper)  had stopped by the house twice yesterday to see me, but I'd been away at uni all day.

8am it was! And my reserved, British friend kissed me right on the face. Ha!

I hate that the picture is blurry, but I do enjoy having him in photo form. David will never know or be able to understand the depth to which his practical mercy on me touched my life.
Like the time I came in to see a tulip on the counter and, when I thanked him on my way out the door (he was in the garden), he told me, "Musta been a nail or somethin' break it. Found it on the ground. Thought you could talk to it."

Or the time just after the team left, my boyfriend left, and my nephew entered the world (it was a big three days) and I was alone and sad, he came and found me and asked if I would like to put up the Christmas decorations. David does not ask anyone to do anything. He does things. You would understand if you knew David, but that was his way of taking care of, giving me something to do, something to feel a part of. David is a very good man.

Another very good man collected me for tea just after--Hadden. :)
He was my boss over in Belfast, coordinating JBU activities there. We talked over programme information and life stuff.
Getting back into his car after dropping me off (not even facing me), he said, "Let that young man of yours know that if he doesn't treat you right...I'll kill him". Then drove off.
And he's from Belfast, so you know he ain't lyin'.

Next came Amy and Matt.
We hung out at Lakeside, went to city centre, went out for lunch at a fun little pub, shopped a bit, roamed the Christmas market, took the party back home again, watched Everything is Illuminated, and just had a really good time.

When Amy left, Lauren appeared. :)

Last cuddles all around.

Home is a place you fight for. Home is a place that knows you, that you feel known in. Home is a place you feel wanted and loved. When I left for Oklahoma last December, Belfast was not my home. What a blessing, what a treasure, that it was when I stepped off the plane just one year later.

Lakeside, Belfast, my friends (and a lot of Starbucks goers) saw my soul stripped naked, saw me broken, and saw the Lord rise me up again.
And for that, for seeing, for staying, for speaking out truth, they became my home.

My Jet Lag a Leettle

Confession: I may or may not go to sleep at 8:30ish back home. Sometimes later. But 8:30 is preferable.

So, when I went to bed at 2:30am here, my body thought it was very normal.

I felt an alarm wasn't necessary to get em up and at em for my 11:30am coffee with some mates.
However, when Matt woke me up at 1pm to make sure I was still going to the movie, I was obviously proved wrong. Yikes. Won't be doing that again.

Made it only a half hour late to our film at the Queen's Film Theatre (second to last item on my Belfast Bucket List).

"Good Vibrations" only cost us 13p each, which was awesome, and the film was so so good.
A punk rock "godfather" from Belfast during the Troubles era. AND the screenplay was written by one of my favorite NI authors, Glenn Patterson, who wrote Number 5. Love him,

Then Boojum and books with Matt (and a tour of the library) then a very long, very wet wait for the bus (the visit wouldn't be the same without it).

Belfast: Where Umbrellas go to die

Lauren greeted me at Lakeside and whisked me away to pick up Kiera and have a girls' night.
The Christmas market for yummy dutch pancakes and nutella then off we went to dinner.
Then, to finish up my BBL, we went and saw the Big Fish (also the title of one of my favorite movies, I will add).

The frozen rain tried to immobilize us, and we may have gotten a wee bit lost on the way, but we found it! And danced and laughed and howled into the night before heading home and chatting till midnight.

a glowing "doll on the ball", the much mocked symbol of peace, placed between the two once very divided parts of the city

the beffers

umbrella: conquered 

We've also decided to make a covenant to see each other once at least once a decade.

Another good, long, wet day had. :) I love loving here.

My Jet Don't Lag

The planes over?
Best ever.

From Tulsa to Chicago it was clear skies and sunshine.
Arrived in the dark windy city 30 minutes early actually.

A short 4 hour layover then it was off to Dublin. Had a whole row to myself on the largest aircraft I've ever been on.
Arrived in the dark windy city a full hour early.

Got through passport security with ease and walked straight up to my bag. The whole thing took 5 minutes start to finish. Unreal.

Then:

She drove all the way from Belfast to lift me, wee pet, on almost no sleep. Gem, that girl is.

When we got into Belfast, we had a super search for parking, then got lunch/killed time before 2

At the cafe, though, I heard my name screamed and Lauren appeared out of nowhere. YES!

Ames and I turned in the hard copy of my thesis (hallelujah chorus) then picked up our regalia (hallelujah chorus) and graduation tickets (which I will give to two strangers and ask them to pose as family).

Then home to the "new me" and old friend at Lakeside (where Matt and I had to break back into because he had accidentally locked himself out. oops)

I had brought him Christmas from his family in Texas, so we opened his presents and chatted until my church mate Megan got here.

 

She took us for ice cream which turned into bonding all together until 2:30am.
Very long first day. Very best first day.

Back to the Island

In three and a half hours, I'm hopping on a plane and heading to Northern Ireland.

Tuesday through Saturday morning, I get to battle jet lag whilst spending time with some of my favorite people.

It's a melt that Naomi has up and moved to Spain and Lynsey is on placement in Paris, but all the rest of my best friends and colleagues are in the planner.

I'm so excited I can hardly sit still--early apologies to my aisle mates on the plane--

Graduation itself is at 2:30pm on Thursday; that's 8:30am for my folks back home in the south.

And, Queen's does this very wonderful livestream, so friends and family who want to tune in for some hoods and beautiful accents can do so here when the time comes. Heresay claims that there's curtsying involved. I truly hope that isn't so.

It is a strange and wonderful feeling to be thrilled at the prospect of returning to Belfast.

The first time I went, in the summer of 2012, I was too unsure of what I had gotten myself into to be properly excited.
The second time, I was too in love and saddened by separation to fully appreciate my move.
The third time, I was determined that it would be a better experience than the second, but that isn't the same as elation.

Now, with a stable mind and body and heart, with friends like family waiting for me at baggage claim (literally), I am overwhelmed with thankfulness and joy.

I'm going home. :)

Courtesy of Lauren Esler. :)

How I Casse-Roll

Thanksgiving food reminds me of Belfast.

Historically, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
The morning is spent watching the Macy's day parade (this year with cuddles from two of my nieces and nephews), then time to clean up before family members start to appear.

My auntie Joyce gets there first.
Every year, that evokes, "Oh gosh, they're here already?!" from my mama Jansie.

Then, as she panics and I kind of putz about the house, everyone else shows up.

Trout, veggies, and other random hors d'oeuvres are consumed and then my family crams themselves around the dining room table (at their assigned seat).

At this point, we grab hands, sing "Father, We Thank Thee" and then my father tries to pray. Tries, because he always ends up choked up, which is very precious.
It doesn't matter if Daddy prays of if one of the boys prays, the Odom men cry when they pray. I like that.

Then we sit and enjoy one another and eat all the random, delicious dishes that we have all contributed. "Oh my gosh! This ______ casserole is so scrumptious! Who made this?!"

And then the rest of the day kind of twiddles about, but all in all, the entire thing is all the fun of Christmas without the presents, which I love.

Why then, with all these warm and bright memories, would Belfast the Cold be my mental trigger?

Last year, right before the fall semester team left, we had a Thanksgiving feast.

There were enough leftovers to make up an entire feast. Like, whole casseroles.



Then they left me.

The woman I lived with was passionate about not having leftovers. Passionate to the point of...extremism. Like, digging thrown-out food out of the trashcans.
She had good intentions.
However, she also experienced a lot of allergy-type reactions to most foods.

Thus, it was up to me to eat everything the team left. It was character building and waistline widening both.

I'm sure you remember post after post after post of things I baked with my 11 pounds of apples (just one example of my mass food eateries). I also had to eat Thanksgiving.

Meal after meal.

It was exciting the first week.

But, like all casseroles, it's day 9 that things start getting rough.

After that, I had to make meal baggies, a heft spoonful of each dish into a ziplock.

Then I'd pull one out, rip off the bag, and microwave it.

Rough times, friends.
Good thing I really like Thanksgiving food.

When I came back from my sojourn to Oklahoma, though, guess what had been thrown out of the freezer.
I can't even remember if I was more sad or more amused by the irony.

A Three Post Day: Birthday Bio

She's been the talk of the blog lately, but today is Leslie Lancaster's birthday.

I think she is great.

Leslie and I became friends three years ago during the summer when we roomed together in Belfast for a trip.

While there, I learned a few things about her:
-Leslie is a very deep human who consciously constructs and conducts herself with others. She doesn't say or do things lightly, which I appreciate. And, if she feels as though she has spoken or behaved rashly, she is quick to communicate a thoughtful apology.
-Leslie secretly likes sneak attack cuddles.
-Leslie appreciates the opportunity to observe before she joins and, though she enjoys feeling included, she does not appreciate when she is added in a way that feels forced.

Since then, I have grown to find in Leslie a friend of unswerving loyalty, of truth, of very good thoughts, of very challenging questions, and of some very odd talents (How many of your friends have whittled you an elephant before?).

Sometimes, the in-person stuff for us is hard. We always like to spend time with one another, but a lot of our friendship is through paper and pen, even when we lived on the same campus.

Through that mode, I have not only had a safe place for myself to process life, but I have had the honor of hearing my private friend sift through her own questions and concerns.

In Leslie, I have found a friend for life, and I am so thankful to celebrate the world keeping her for yet another year.

A Book, A Box, and a Blessing

Gifts are not my favorite.

It makes me anxious to think of people spending money on me, especially if they're doing so after a misplaced sense of obligation: I'M SO HAPPY TO JUST HAVE YOU WITH ME LET'S PLAY JENGA!!! 

But thoughtful gifts stick with me absolutely forever and make me feel warm and sunny inside. 

Until yesterday, two were tied for first place. 

1. When I was a freshman in college, my boyfriend gave me an old copy of Oliver Twist. I actually dislike Dickens. A lot. But our first bonding moment involved me quoting OT and him mistaking it for "Little Orphan Annie". It was a cute thing. He even stole my mom's number, called and asked her if I already had it. Then, remembering I love old books, he went out and found it special for me. It was such a great, tangible moment of, "I know you!!!"

2. A second moment like that was the year after when my best friend of that semester presented me with a small gold-enameled jewelry box. It has daffodils (my favorite flower) engraved into it and it's delicate and beautiful without being too frilly and fussy. She had found it in an antique shop and thought of me. I use it every morning and think of her. It's practical and lovely both.   

Both of these were off the beaten track. Not mass manufactured or easily found and very...deliberate. Not like what I do sometimes and drop in Target to pick up something real fast before heading to the party. 

However, yesterday, something arrived on my desk that now ties for third place. 

On Monday, I got to spend time with my friend Leslie, who has been my penpal and confidante for what...? Three years now? She roomed with me when I went and visited NI for the first time, and we have written each other letters since (despite being on the same campus for one of those years). 

This is the same girl who whittled me an elephant with an eerily dead-on note attached. Sometimes, she Charles Wallace-es me. 

Yesterday, atop my desk, appeared two glasses (with lemon slice pictures on the sides) and a pitcher, all three filled to the brim with lemons, and a note stating:

 "Jamie Odom

Found these and thought you might put them to a worthy use.

Abundantly yours, 

Life" 

All day, when people passed my aromatic workspace and asked after my fruit, I'd tell them Life sent them to me. 

It was thoughtful, timely, unexpected, and so very sweet. Brightened my whole day. 

Old Wounds

We've all got them.

Whether it's from those rough ugly years as a fat adolescent, the brutal times when you thought your best friend hated you or hated herself (and she did, on both accounts), or when just plain awful was going down for a good long while. 

Suck eras aren't surprising. 

What I find surprising are the "triggers" you didn't know got left behind after you had been put together post-suck. They come up in the most random of times and places, no? 

For instance, at one point, I lived with someone who had very strict ideas about what should be done with left over food. The chastisement I received when I failed to follow those guidelines was severe, but I soon fell into habit of doing things "correctly." 

Later, when my housemate moved out and another moved in, I saw her throwing something out and started to have a panic attack. It was so strange. Because I had been conditioned to one way of life. Her violation of that rule unearthed serious anxiety in me as I recalled my chastisements of the past. 

It happens. 

The important step when your triggers get tripped (because they will) is how you respond. 

Do you take the time to understand the root cause or to explain to whoever you are with why you flipped out so "unnecessarily" for the given situation? 

Do you sort through what is legitimate and what is illegitimate? 

And do you take the time to pray through those long-ago pains and find peace and security in Jesus? 

It doesn't make you "unhealed" to still have your past in your blood, but it will if you let it have power over your present.  

Look Up, Look Down, Look Out

It seemed a little odd to me momentarily how spotty my postings from this semester have been.

Then, when I consider the fact that, rather than listening to the sound of the life of my mind, I have been listening to the voices of my friends as we live life with one another, I'm no longer confused at all. 

I stopped writing about life because I started to live it. 

When I imagined living in Northern Ireland, this is what I imagined. 

Books and learning, sure.
But this--on the go, travelling, spending time with school friends and church friends and the friends of friends, skyping with loved ones from home, having a clear direction, full of joy and fun and banter--is the stuff of all the things I had ceased to believe were in the books for me here. 

God turned this, the greenest desert of my soul, into an oasis. 

Over and over and over since my February return, God demonstrated to me more unexpected goodness than I had even begun to hope for by handing to me (in exact) the deepest desires of my heart, the ones I dreampt up and wished for but never even considered asking after. 

I had thrown them, my expectations clothed as "hopes", from my mind and gritted my teeth. For good or bad, I told God, I was coming back to NI, just because I knew this was the place he had laid out for me in this time. Unlike last semester, I armed myself and prepared for the blows to start. 

Unlike last semester, they didn't come. 

It is a humbling thing to be loved. 

The God who "destroyed" my life has rebuilt me from the bones out and set my feet in an entirely different direction and equipped me for what is to come. 

I will get distracted and dramatic and a little bit lost. 

I'm human. 

But I can tell you this much: I am irrevocably changed. 

All thanks and praise be to God, my father, my glory and the lifter of my head. 

Lasts

• Last lunch with my MA friends (Boojum and Common Grounds after for coffee and traybakes)
• Last goodbye and house reset for any groups I'll be in charge of (Family and Human Services. We liked them very much). 
• Last bonding time with Heather and Jonny (My smallgroup leaders during the past year, featured here with their kids, Heather's sweet sister Lorna, and some cute kids I was babysitting)
  
• Last trip to the special collections (to look up an old MA dissertation for help on how to structure my own)
• Last coffee in the Starbucks on Botanic (the site of many a public tear shed)
• Last night in my room, St. Patrick (They needed my room for one of the other group's students)
• Last "class" (technically that was a couple weeks ago, but I had to return to meet with my dissertation supervisor) 
• "The Last Supper" with the girls (High Tea with Lynsey, Lauren, and Megan)
• Last Botanic outing (dinner with Steve and Hot Greg)
• Last cuddles with Lauren at midnight (really good surprise)
• Last Sunday morning at Belfast City Vineyard (Happy Pentecost, errybody!)
• Last hugs with Kiera and my other church friends (Held it together dynamically until my final hug with Kiera)
• Last hugs with Megs (she came over to drop by a "Northern Irish Must-Haves" gift. So lovely)
• Last tea with Naomi (where I passed the torch of Mac n Cheese and Kool-Aid off to her, we finished the season of New Girl we started when I got here, and she gave me an "on-flight entertainment" gift, wrapped but I'm assured it's customs approved)
• Last bag packed (It was an ordeal. Don't even want to discuss how much cursing happened)

Now to spend my last night in the place I've called home for almost a year now and will forever be part of my soul. Lynsey told me I'm allowed to claim myself as 1/22 Northern Irish now and would be more legitimate in doing so than nearly every American that claims Irish heritage. It made me laugh. And it's probably true. 

These here are my last goodbyes. Wow.