Brats and Things.

Yesterday was the super bowl. I'm sure you were aware of that.

Although, I didn't attend the annual canyon super bowl party, I did hear stories. I'd like to share one with you.

Simple and short.

Sonia attended the party. She showered, straightened her hair, and even put on a little make up. Us girls have to get pretty every once in awhile out here, simply to remind ourselves that we can be moderately attractive when we try.

She had a brief encounter with the vertically inclined man from the picture in the previous blog. His name is Tex. Sonia said, "Tex, I like your outfit."

Tex said, "Thanks."

Sonia left the interaction with a grumbling stomach and headed to find food to settle it.

She came back with a brat, not a small inconsolable tantruming child, a brat, short for bratwurst. It was spicy and it was large.

Tex said, "what do you have there?"

Sonia said, "A brat."

Tex proceeded to grab the brat out of her hand, and take a giant bite out of it.

He then said, "That's spicy."

Sonia stood there awkwardly, not really knowing how to react. She took her brat back from him and walked away.

I guess her compliment broke the comfort barrier leading him to believe it was ok to bite her brat.

Enough laughter. Back to deep and thought provoking.

Las night I got this image in my head of an egg. I know, weird. The other day I saw several bird nests hanging out in the tops of trees and I started thinking about birds. Birds and eggs. What do they mean?

Here's my attempt at dissecting what God is trying to teach me through birds and eggs.

Birds build their homes on top of trees. They build their homes in the form of nests. We use the expression "an empty nest" to describe houses where children have grown up and moved away from their parents.

I started thinking about birds and nests because I've been really homesick lately. Sometimes I wish I could fly back to the nest on a whim, whenever my heart aches for Jami's wisdom, or Patric's hugs, or Johnny's studious questions, or Kristina's beautiful singing. But alas, the nest is just too far, and I have toilets to clean, and food to prepare.

So then I started thinking about re-creating my nest. Birds scour the earth ravaging bits and pieces, random shrapnel, to compose their homes. Whatever looks suitable, they will clench in their beaks and bring it back to the coveted nook in the chosen tree, where they will build their home.

Nests get destroyed by catastrophic events of the weathery kind. They fall apart. They wither away. So birds build new ones. Not to say that my nest has withered. It's still very much intact. But I'm getting older and as I continue to grow and mature, I continue to be reminded of my nomadic spirit. How I have to learn what it means to re-create my nest often. Composing my different nests with different tidbits that remind me of the original work of art, the home that fostered my adventurous spirit, the people that loved me through my broken tantruming heartache. The West Nest will always be where I migrate back to, but it's time to start dreaming up how to be happy and comfortable when I can't always be in that nest.

So I'm stepping out. Plummeting out of the old nest and into the freedom of creating new ones. I might build a nest in a nook beneath an overpass with some hippies from Eugene. I might build a nest on a park bench once a week where I meet with a wise old woman who teaches me what it means to be an empowered and confident woman. I might build a nest in a house with a husband and three children with obscure names that they will grow into with bravery and assuredness, knowing that to someone, they mean the world. I might build a nest in the bed of a truck that lands on a different roadside every night. I could build a nest in a library, next to a river, in a valley, on a mountaintop, at the end of a rainbow.

Imagination is endless.

That brings me to eggs.

Eggs are fragile.

I got to thinking about how my body is like an egg. Weird, I know.

The shell is the perfectly crafted casing, that protects the yolk. The yolk is my heart. The gooey clear substance is what keeps my heart from drying out. It nourishes it.

Then I got to thinking about how sometimes, it feels like I have tiny jagged cracks in the fragile casing of my heart. The shell is cracked. The gooey clear stuff is leaking out. The yolk is threatened and losing life quickly.

Weird weird imagery, but relevant nonetheless.

Birds and eggs. Birds magically create eggs. Nests magically comfort hearts.

I miss home.

This is my attempt at coping.