Get Home Strong

As soft and light as that floral scene.

Most of the time I don't know how to be thankful for something because I'm used to having it. And most of the time I only bother to be obviously thankful when a day on the calendar tells me to be. This year we stayed with my Nana and Papa in Nashville to have Thanksgiving with all the Tennessee Turners.

I like to see them but sometimes I get weary about staying with/spending time with family for a few days after having not seen them in a year or two. I feel obligated to play catch up with their lives, which I want to do, but hope to do without being awkward. Isn't it weird that you can feel awkward even around your own family? I think it's because your family loves you and knows you the best, and that's a raw knowledge. A stranger just gets the surface, so there's no need to feel pressure about being exposed, because you never will be. Family doesn't go anywhere, if you're lucky.

I realized what a difference there is between youth and old age. I think I learned this week that someone who is pushing 80 is probably going to tend to reminisce a whole lot more than the middle agers and young adults. They have already had their time of waiting for the future. But they have a whole life behind them, that's why. We're just starting everything. This is something that causes a strange tension in our family. The youth of this generation can never really relate fully to someone who lived generations before them, and vice-versa. It's supposed to be that way. This year I'm thankful for everything in the present. And that there's always something to learn from my elders.

My patience in my youth exists on a very thin string. But look at the life that could be left for me. What a waste to fast forward and plan and wait and rush when everything that's happening today is

SO BEAUTIFUL.

Sodium Benzoate (preservative).

Sometimes i feel very unsatisfied. Or, a lot of the time I feel very unsatisfied with the questions that go unanswered in my head. There are so many people that live on the earth. I don't know if I ever really think about it seriously, and for every one of those people, there is a unique life. When I stop to try to answer all my own questions, i hardly wonder what everyone else must be thinking and asking. Though everyone is unique from everyone, everyone struggles. And everyone is afraid of things, and everyone finds joy in something.

I think that sometimes I find joy in struggling. I'm the kind of person who easily makes things harder than they have to be because I'm dramatic and I take the drama seriously. I think, I cannot possibly be satisfied until this struggle is resolved, and that's mostly with all of my unanswered questions. I am always wondering how "we're just not supposed to know" is supposed to bring me peace. It still doesn't. This can be very uneasy for a Caroline.

But the joy that I get from some of those struggles makes me feel good because it's cathartic. It feels like things are healing when I'm asking and struggling and wondering wondering wondering. Sometimes the same things over and over again. The funniest part is, no matter how sick I am of not quite knowing what I want to, having that CONCRETE answer, there is the dwelling Spirit that makes something about a struggle very peaceful.

Sometimes I think the key to an answer is something as simple as never ceasing to seek. And to love also.

Raindrops on Roses

This picture is a combination of 2 of my favorite things: Tea sandwiches and the piano.

I LOVE TEA SANDWICHES. I could eat 40 tea sandwiches in one sitting. The smartie pants that decided to make these mini taste treats sans crust and with the most bizarre ingredients, like cream cheese and celery, is my imaginary BFF. Chicken salad, pimento, tuna, veggie, whatever. Yours truly will be at your baby/bridal show for the sammies.

And I looooove pianos. The best instrument if you ask me. The coolest and the prettiest. One of my favorite toys.

AND A PIANO MADE OUT OF A TEA SANDWICH?

Glorious. Basically this picture made me happy. It made me hungry and happy.

Princess Sparkle+Captain Oats

Isn't my sister a badass? She took these pictures of me. She took a lot more downtown that night, but these are the 3 we chose for Kyle's anniversary present. They were printed as a series of 3 in this order onto black canvas and it turned out to be pretty sweet. I think he liked it. Thanks for being so good at taking pictures, Ishie.

I like to love someone the way I love Kyle. The first time he told me he loved me I didn't say it back. It was because I didn't yet. But only because I didn't get it. Eventually the formulaic property of how to love becomes very blurry and you discover there really isn't one. I think you just know when you do one day.

The only love formula that makes sense to me is this one:

Multiplying DAYS = Multiplying LOVE

There is always something to learn about love and loving someone else. It's a fun series of discovery.

Woah, Caroline, cheesy post.

Kyle is definitely way more cheesy than me most of the time, though. Like a Seth Cohen kind of cheesy. Go ahead and put the Death Cab record on so we can dance to it in your bedroom, Kyle. (HE LIKES IT). So do I.

Seal-Cat

You know when you look at someone or something and they look like someone or something else for just a split second? I love when that happens. Like today when I looked at Mugsy and she looked like a seal. Yeah, a full-on seal. Or when you look at another human and they look like a random animal or appliance? I don't know really I just think it's cool.

Brains are cool, they way they trick your eyes and perception and stuff. This really isn't supposed to be some iceberg of a post, like with lots of meaning underneath it. I just think the brain is way cool.

Also, maybe it means that everything and everyone is really related to everything and everyone else. That there is some sort of common thread in everybody. I know that humans share the image of God in their very being, but just by looking at someone and then something else--maybe it's never impossible to relate two things. Does that even make sense? I don't know. I just think there is some sort of bond somewhere. There has to be actually. If humans create lifeless and alive things, both, and you can see the mark of the creator in both. Like a baby will almost always look like its parents and an innovative vacuum will always have some sort of indication that it was made by an imperfect somebody. Maybe an imperfect somebody with like really harsh angles and pointy features like his or her vacuum. Maybe I'm also going too far with all of this.

Anyways, isn't this a cool photo?

I have the flu, or something like it, but Regina Spektor is in town tonight, and I WILL GO. Can't stop me. Ellie and I have been waiting for this for a while now. Tonight is the night.

O, Regina, it would be impossible for you to put on a bad show.

Is Supergirl wearing Doc Martens?

There are so many things I want to do/be able to do in my life. Like be a skywalker? HOW cool is that. I don't think I realize, sometimes, how creative humans are. There are nudists, musicians, authors, tattoo artists, gas station attendants and astronauts. And each one of those vocations requires an individual to do their job in a personal and unique way. Opportunities. Abundantly. The job market may be the lowest that it's been since 1983, but amount of creativity in people has not decreased since then. It's true that not everyone will be awarded with a top choice career their first year out of school, or even their 10th. If you're an accounting major and Ernst & Young decides to say, "Sorry, Mac," after seeing your shining application, then remember that there is always a concrete purpose and never a dead end. I have trouble remembering that sometimes. Or really, I torture myself about the future I think I won't have. Thinking that I'm out of options is simply just not giving myself enough credit. Look, I'm not going to be a cardiologist because I don't want to be, but if I wanted to, I'd find a way to make it happen someday. Moxie.

But hey, if this swine flu epidemic gets out of control, and no can can ever work for themselves or leave their homes, here's an option. Those are way cooler than the blue papery masks, right?