Category Archives: Thoughts About Life

When people die we remember all the meaningful moments we had with them, even if we didn’t know them well, and when beautiful places die we do the same thing.

As the horrible Eagle Creek fire destroys the Columbia River Gorge, I remember the last time I was there, and what I felt, and how meaningful it was. I almost blogged about it at the time, because it was such a beautiful experience, but then it was the end of my very last term of college and blogging fell off the priority list.

At the end of last May I went to my cousin’s wedding in Michigan, and then road-tripped home with my brother Ben and my cousin Derek. We left after lunch on Sunday, drove straight through the night, and arrived home Monday evening.

Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana were pleasant enough, although I must admit I slept through a great deal of it. Scrubby at times, perhaps, but at least the temperature was fine. And then we descended into the desert of eastern Washington. What a ghastly place it was that day. Barren, and a thick blanket of heat that my poor failing air conditioner couldn’t begin to combat. We opened windows, and the hot air moved, but didn’t cool us. I spread newspapers over my lap because they absorbed less heat than my black skirt.

But though we were hot, tired, and travel weary, with un-brushed teeth and rumpled clothing, we held out hope for the gorge. Maybe, when we got to Oregon, it would be cooler.

We got closer and closer, and then, as we crossed the bridge into Oregon, across the Columbia River, I felt it. A cool breeze. A cool breeze drifting over the water and into my soul, just for me. All of the sudden life was, again, something manageable.

We drove along I-84 with our windows down. The hot desert was replaced by trees of all species and sizes, and the blue of the Columbia river, and the cool breezes that drifted into our windows.

There was a car accident on I-84, creating a traffic jam, so we zipped off at the nearest exit and drove along the Columbia River Highway for a while.

The Columbia River Highway was the first road through the gorge I believe, but as it was just a regular little road, Interstate 84 was built parallel to it when more and more people began traveling through. I-84, though it has beautiful views, is very much still an ugly man-made rode. The Columbia River Highway, on the other hand, looks like it grew out of the mountain, with trees growing right up alongside the road, and little stone walls instead of guardrails, with moss growing through the cracks.

There was a traffic jam here, too, but I didn’t care because in the shade of the abundant trees, everything was cool and beautiful. Inching along, we soon began to see that this traffic jam was caused, not by overflow traffic from the I-84 accident, but by the giant crowds of people who had come to Multnomah Falls for Memorial Day. The parking lots were filled and overflowing, and people were parked along the side of the road, narrowing it so much that only one lane of people could drive by at a time.

And when we did get a chance to drive by, it didn’t feel like driving down a road, it felt like driving through someone’s yard while they’re hosting their annual neighborhood BBQ. There were people everywhere, and as we inched through them and tried not to hit anybody, I leaned out my window and watched the tall, tall waterfall and felt like I was part of the same grand party.

Multnomah Falls is a funny place. I’ve gone there countless times, and once I even blogged about going, but sometime between my childhood and now it went from being a pretty place to being a TREnDy place, and now it’s splashed across Instagram and always overcrowded. However, once we were past Multnomah and driving down the road like it was a road, again, we passed waterfall after waterfall that were probably just as beautiful, but no one seemed to know about them.

We twisted and turned around the mountains, past waterfalls, over bridges, always under the deep green canopy. And there were views, always views around this corner or that, of the wide river. And such a cool breeze, after that abysmal heat! A simple concept, but there are no words to describe what it does to your soul.

And I thought that I would treasure this forever. I took a few pictures with my phone, because I wanted to remember. I never edited or Instagrammed them, and they didn’t begin to capture the beauty, but I still get an inch of that feeling back when I look at them.

They say to tell your loved ones that you love them, because in the blink of an eye, they could be gone. It never occurred to me that places could be the same way. That one day, a fire might destroy these trees, and it would never again look quite like it did that day.

I don’t know what the gorge will look like after this fire.

When my friend Esta and her daughter Eden came out to the coast with me for my birthday, I was surprised by how many people commented (both in person and on social media) about how awesome it is that we remain close friends despite the fact that I’m single and she’s married with two children.

I think it struck people because friendships tend to shift and buckle as people move away, gain different interests and values, get married or stay single, have children or don’t, go to college, have a career, and ultimately deal with their own personal issues. Many times, friendships break apart amid the changes, and I think people like to see one that hasn’t.

For me, the hardest thing about friendship in adulthood has been the lack of a close-knit friend group of people like me. Oregon is not just swimming in single college-educated Mennonites in their upper 20s.

And so, I’ve accepted the fact that I can’t be the Rat or the Mole or the Badger or the Toad in any one friendship group, and I’ve chosen to become the Otter in many friendship groups.

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If you’ve ever read The Wind in the Willows you’ll know that it concerns four friends, Mole, Rat, Toad, and Badger, and their various adventures.

However, every once in a while a fifth character appears and has an adventure with one or more of the core four. That character is Otter.

Otter, the 5’th character, is there in the middle at the bottom, popping out of the water.

I don’t know why Otter is not part of the core group, but I assume it’s because, unlike the others, he has a wife and family. Since he’s in a different life stage, he’s sometimes on hand for adventures, but sometimes not.

When it comes to friendship groups, I am Otter.

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Take yesterday, for example. My cousin Stephy, who was one of my closest friends growing up but got married and moved to Ohio, came back to Oregon for a visit. She texted me and said “do you want to go to the coast on Tuesday?”

“Yes,” I said.

But I really did not know anything about who was going along or what would be involved.

This was the group that went:

Shout-out to Shelley for sending me this picture (because I forgot to take any), and to the kind stranger who snapped it for us.

That is Stephy, her husband Chris, her sister Jessie, her sister-in-law Shelley, and eight of her nieces and nephews. And me.

Hanging out meant snotty noses and whining for candy and listening to seven and eight-year-olds philosophically discuss what would have happened if Satan had never disobeyed God. It meant pausing conversations while moms chased down their toddlers.

All next week these people will hang out together, without me, because they are a family and I am the random cousin. I am the otter, popping in for one adventure. But it certainly was a lovely one, with long conversations about friendship (which inspired this blog post), and sunshine, and sand, and endearing children, and people I like to hang out with.

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I wonder if it sounds a little sad and/or pathetic to be the otter.

To be part of a youth group where you’re six to twelve years older than the other members.

To be part of a church ladies’ group, even though they’d much rather talk about giving birth than discussing big theoretical ideas.

To be part of the Christian Grad Fellowship at a college where you no longer attend and were never actually a grad student.

But the glorious upside to such a life is that I’ve learned to be friends with people who are unlike me. And ironically, that’s how I discovered the people who actually are like me, deep down in the places that go beyond demographics.

Like my friend Yasmeen, who’s from an entirely different cultural and religious background, but who shares my deep fascination with cross-cultural nuances.

Or my friend Javen, who came to Oregon last year, barely out of high school, to sing with Gospel Echoes. He looked like the kind of young chap who only ever thinks about spikeball tournaments and keeping his hair just curly enough to impress the girls, but we ended up connecting over our love of writing, literature, and complex ideas.

Or Simone, who is married to my Dad’s first cousin and is a generation older than me, but knows about hard times like no one else I’ve ever met. She understands grief, and depression, and the power of the Holy Spirit, and we can talk for hours. My friendship with her has been extremely healing and beautiful in so many ways.

Of course that’s only scratching the surface of the meaningful friendships in my life, but what I mean to say is, if I only looked for friendships among people who are like me, I wouldn’t have very many friends, and even fewer close friends.

And that would be incredibly sad.

Weird photo just because no reason.

I’m finally traveling again! Tomorrow I’m flying to Michigan with my grandma, where I’ll attend my cousin’s wedding and then road trip home with my brother and cousin.

“And you’ll…just…leave your grandma in Michigan?” asked my friend Matt when I told him this today.

“No, she’s flying home with my parents, who left today, so they’d have time to hang out with my grandpa, my other grandpa, no relation to my grandma, unless it counts as a ‘relation’ if your children are married to each other…”

I quickly realized the impossibility of succinctly explaining our travel plans. Let’s just say that most of my family will end up in Michigan one way or another, and like the Wise Men, most of us are returning home another way.

Grandma will not be stranded in Michigan. (Lord willing).

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I reached 1,000 subscribers! Nifty. Now, one of you dear readers should go like my Facebook page because I currently have 299 “likes” and 300 is a much nicer number.

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I appreciated your insight on my random post about money and blogging. I may re-institute ads someday, but for now my blog will remain free of them, as well as sponsorships and subscriptions and whatever the cool kids do these days to earn money through blogging. I’ll continue to view my blog as a gift to my readers, as well as (maybe someday) a platform to promote my books (which I shall write abundantly in the future, surely) and a place to gain writing practice.

However, I’m toying with the idea of hiding my ancient archives from the public and compiling the best bits to sell as (cheap) e-books. So if you’re feeling stalker-ish and want to know what random things Emily was mulling over in 2011, now is the time to get clicking.

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I think I’ll begin another section with an exclamation point! Just, you know, because I can.

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I’m graduating on June 17. For seven years of my life I have invested nearly all my resources into my own education. I have lots of thoughts about this. (I’d better–how ironic would it be if I invested in education and had no thoughts to show for it?) I haven’t formed them into blog posts. Yet.

My open house is on June 18, from 3pm-5pm, at my house. If you are reading this, consider yourself invited. (At some point I will send out real invitations, with pictures of my face and stuff.)

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I may post updates as I travel. I may not. So long, for now.