This is Summer: Season Six {Episode 25}

Mother and son dance

The most handsome groomsman and

the very best mom

~Natalia

This is Summer: Season Six {Episode 12}

In the bridal room

Drinks, chats, and makeup touch-ups

before the party

~Natalia

This is Summer: Season Six {Episode 10}

She’ll be married next

She’ll wake on that fall morning

They’ll I do that day

~Natalia

This is Summer: Season Six {Episode 9}

Bachelorette Round Two

Evening on Lake Michigan

I’ll always love this

~Natalia

This is Summer: Season Six {Episode 7}

Bachelorette party

our style: water park, Chinese

kick off wedding week!

~Natalia

This is Summer: Season Six {Episode 2}

Picking out cookies

So many wedding details

but I’ll take the joy.

~Natalia

Back and Coming Again

Elementary Education and Bible Secondary Education class of 2015. Photo taken in Hampshire, Illinois, where, unlike the city, the leaves change color in the fall, and it is gorgeous.

Snapped a selfie in the choir room in the moments before our walks down the aisle.

It’s been a handful of days since I was here, I know.

Moody’s Missions Conference began last Tuesday night, kicking off with an evening of multi-cultural and multi-lingual preaching and worship. The night ended with a praise-dance-party, to the soundtrack of cheering, and the organized chaos of hundreds of students moving, worshipping, celebrating.

Wednesday meant saying goodbye to my last Missions Conference as an undergrad student and joining my fellow future teachers for a two-day education conference in the far suburbs. We dressed as teachers, relished time spent together, and learned from teachers, leaders, and professionals whose careers are years beyond our own, and whose wisdom we note on scrap paper, in notebooks, store away in mental notes and memories.

Friday brought a wedding on the horizon, as Kat prepared to so “I Do
with Fred. There was rehearsal, dinner, preparations, conversations, planning, organizing, decorating, and a heavy dose of conversation and catching up with old friends in between.

Saturday, wedding day, brought all the excitement and action you might imagine, and a wonderful reception to boot.

And now it’s Sunday night, nearly 1am, and I’m nodding, fighting sleep, even as I write.

So I will leave for now, but I’m back and I’m here and you’ll hear from me in the coming days, I bet.

~Natalia

This is Summer: Season Three {#14}

A wonderful friend,
Classmate, teammate and blessing;
Amazing wedding.

~Natalia

Cut on my Finger

Romantic relationships, once ended, have a habit of souring. I’m not an expert in this field, of course, but I’ve seen it and I’ve heard it and I’ve lived it, a little bit. I’ll not attempt to explain the intricacies of bitterness, or the line where attraction darkens to resentment. I just know that, good-byes said, possessions returned, relationship status changed, things sometimes get rough.

I’ve lived this, a little bit. No longer connected, no longer relationally attached, I didn’t choose to resent, to look back with a short laugh, with scorn. I just did. It could be a part of moving on, I suppose. Could be caused by culture: of course we come out bitter because so does every star in every media-celebrated celebrity romance. Could spring from sinful nature, my own. Could be anything, really.

It feels protected, of course. There’s not a lot of vulnerability in rolling your eyes. It feels like power and security and control, a little bit. But there’s a sour taste of anger, of disappointment, of sadness, too. Memories that you know held some good come back stained: only the bad stands out. I know that I had fun, smiled, laughed. But the end came and the bad swallowed the good, and slowly, that’s all that I remember.
~~~~~

June 2012, the end of the month. We were in the middle of summer, and the middle of a relationship, too. It would be over before the calendar hit August, but we didn’t know that, yet. I flew to a wedding from Michigan. Left a missions trip halfway through, two car rides and two plane rides later, landed in the breathtaking beauty of Lancaster, PA. Friday night, Saturday wedding. All day Sunday I rode in the middle seat with four other Moody students for the 10-hour car ride back to Chicago.

He was in Chicago, working. It’d been some days since I’d seen him, and maybe that evening, as I rolled into the city after eight days of travel would be a good time to say hi. He had work, soon. Needed to leave at 6pm. We drove through Pennsylvania, Ohio, into Indiana, then Chicago. I texted him, somewhere in Ohio. He asked where we were, our estimated arrival time. I told him, best I could. I asked if I’d see him, between arrival and work. He must have said yes, I suppose.

Skyscrapers and steel hold heat, and the city was hot and stuffy when we arrived. I was tired from an early wake up, worn in the funny way that sitting in a car wears you out. Suitcase and backpack next to me, I laid on the concrete next to the car. Arms spread to my sides, my car ride companions laughed, shook their heads at my rather dramatic demonstration. Grinning, I got up, left suitcase, shuffled across the Plaza to the bathroom.

He was waiting for me when I returned, his bike already unlocked, ready to go to work. We talked, briefly. Plaid shorts, a black t-shirt. How many times did I see the same shirt that summer? He must have asked questions, I must have answered them. Part conversation, part pre-determined set, the same words we exchanged throughout the summer. I had cut my finger at the wedding, a long, narrow slice from a cake cutter. I held up the bandaged finger, he inspected, approved of my battle wound.

Then it was over. I collected suitcase, headed home. He got on the bike, went to work. Almost exactly a month later, it was over for real, and he walked home and I rode the train home and in the days after, that’s when the good memories began to fade and the bad grew stronger, bolder. But recently, I remembered that June evening after a week of travel. Those five minutes standing in the Plaza. Nothing bad taints, no resentment stains, that memory. Just him and me and a suitcase and a bike and a cut on my finger.

~Natalia

A Life I’m Loving

The Friday night conversation is always the same. The Roommate is in bed before me, she props herself on one arm, reading a book, working on her computer. I shuffle around the room, brushing my teeth, pulling the day’s discarded clothes off my bed, onto my desk chair. Are you sleeping in tomorrow? she asks. It’s generally times when my head is in the sink, toothpaste swirling down the drain, when she asks such things, and I pop up, white fluff on the corners of my mouth. Eh? She repeats the question.

I tell her probably not, which by 9am becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and she nods; I probably am. That’s the conversation, it’s the same every time. She sleeps late, I don’t. Small children have morning curfews, before which they wait eagerly in their rooms, confined to their space until the sacred hour arrives when it is permissible to stir, talk, move, get up. My Saturday morning is a self-imposed morning curfew, and I lie painstakingly still until there is 10:30am yelling in the hallway, then at least it won’t be my noise that wakes The Roommate.

This Saturday Moody’s drama group is doing Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Roommate talks me into buying tickets in the brief span between waking up and lunch time. So I agree and she buys the tickets online and 7pm, we’ve finished dinner and we walk downstairs to that classroom auditorium; the big one. I had forgotten that Shakespeare’s English is a little rusty, or maybe it’s the other way around, and I estimate 30% of my play-watching efforts are spent deciphering this Ancient English.

But people who saw the play Friday say it’s funny, very funny. Two hours are long enough for intermission in between, and it is an entertaining show. And there’s a fairy named Puck, and this small-campus school, of course I’ve seen this girl around. But walking past a stranger in the SDR at lunch is different that watching a girl invent a character onstage, and I’m captivated by her manner. I’m not the only one, either; she’s a strong actress, and the others on stage, too. There’s another dimension of entertainment allowed, when those stepping on stage are classmates and floor-mates and friends from around the school.

We like the play so much, The Roommate and I go back Sunday afternoon to sit in those auditorium seats and watch the second half all over again.

And after that Saturday play, we go right back upstairs, hurrying, because there are things to be accomplished this weekend. I do some of those things, I’m working on more, when they pound and the pound on the door. I say come in just a little, because they’re loud, won’t hear anyway, and eventually, the door opens. Nelle, Mar and Jen stand in the doorway, Nelle holds a small container of popcorn. They’re watching a movie, will we come over, too? But I’ve things to do and I say no, then watch The Roommate follow the three out our door. The second assignment finishes faster than others, and this thing I’m doing now can be done with company. So I unplug the computer, and balance phone on pink keyboard, and down the hall, four girls on the couch, I climb onto Nelle’s bed.

Jen’s sister is in town, an older sister attending a wedding, and she comes in behind me, fancy dress still crisp and bright. She sits on that couch, it fits five and probably more, and I’m working on my computer, but listening, too. They watch the film and then it ends and the five women on the couch talk and chat. This sister, she looks very much like our Jen, and she’s talking about study and Spanish and Latin American children, and my computer screen loses my attention rather quickly. She looks up at me, where I’m sitting on that soft white Nelle bed, You know Spanish, right? And conversation goes, goes, goes; I’ll remember this heart as one devoted to the Lord.

Sunday evening is Open House, the guys came to our floor. But Spring Break comes on Friday, and we’re rather short on time; I made 54 mini-muffins just like last Open House, but there were leftovers tonight. But the guys over or not, us girls, us sisters, we sit in the lounge, in the kitchen, in the bedrooms, and with all the doors open, it seems more like a home now than any day other.

And a million other things happened this weekend, which many I’ll not tell you here. But a snapshot’s a fair shot to get an idea, of the life I’m loving to lead.

~Natalia