Author: ferylfiles

As languages go, English is a hodge-podgy, linguistic hot mess. And yet, one of my very favorite words doesn’t seem to have the nuanced and layered counterpart in the other languages I’ve studied. House, apartment, hut, cottage, condo, boathouse, ADU–none of these really convey the essence of home. Sure home can be any of these or none of these.

I am thankful for the experience of home because for me home is not necessarily a place. I’ve lived in very nice, expensive houses and crappy apartments and different places in between. To me, home isn’t the most expensive house in a nice neighborhood. Home isn’t page 15 of the Pottery Barn catalog imported into a space. Home isn’t the veneer of respectability and wealth. Home isn’t where you are made to feel like a burden, like an expense on the balance sheet, like a ticking clock with a departure date.

Home is welcome. Home is warmth and hospitality. Home is confidence that your presence is valued, respected, honored, and loved. Home is where you matter. Home is where you are safe. Home is where you can be fully yourself with all the variety, nuance, and complexities of being human and not worrying that those will be the reasons to force your ouster.

I am thankful for those who demonstrated home to me as an example to follow–the Schmiedings, the Robersons, the Crawfords, the Astroms, the Lucas family, my great aunt and uncle, the Froeses, and Bryan and Mary most importantly. Because of their love and model of home, I try to continue in that spirit.

Since this prompt coincides with Thanksgiving day, I wish for you the experience of home, no matter where your find yourself.

I am so thankful for technology, despite its myriad of flat sides. It helps me stay connected to loved ones. It allows me to explore art and creation in ways that would have been expensive and prohibitive. And with it I can practice my writing.

Most of my extended family live in the Pacific Northwest. I lived all but six or seven of my growing up years in Ohio. This made communication challenging. There was a time, young ones, when conversations had to be kept very short. Long distance bills were a very real, cumbersome, EXPENSIVE concern. I remember dreaming of being able to talk at length or by video with the people I missed the most. Flash forward and we have the luxury of video chats and unlimited minutes for domestic long distance. I can send a message to someone in Australia, Hawaii, France, in a second. Technology affords me speedy, efficient, inexpensive ways to stay connected with the dearest people in my world.

I’ve always loved photography and the idea of capturing the quirky, beautiful things I see in real time. The process of getting film developed and seeing a fuzzy, blurry image of what I had envisioned was expensive and discouraging. Add to that the very real longing and lack of knowledge or access to develop my own photos. Now, I have a pocket computer that gives me the ability to take a photo, crop it, add a filter, (“lay down, flip it, and reverse it”) and then send it to any person on my contact list or posting to the wider world. There’s no waiting for crappy versions of a vision. I don’t like it? I delete it. I can invite folks to walk with me for just a moment, to see what I see. That is some next level Star Trek stuff and I am here for it.

Tech also gives me the chance to write and share with a sense of immediacy, too. Maybe something I have to say can help someone else in real time. Or maybe make them think in a new way. Or maybe they can challenge me in a response. I’m thankful for this aspect of technology.

Robocalls, spam, and a constant barrage of overwhelm, well, those maybe not so much. But for now, I’m willing to tolerate a few of the irritants to be able to say I love you, walk beside me, in as many ways as I can.

When I was little, I remember having an argument with my cleverer and wiser older cousins about colors. Still very much in the concrete mode of thinking, I argued that the color black was the presence of all colors, because that’s what it took with a box of 64 to get black if you didn’t have it. Combining all the paint colors in a watercolor tin lid also makes black. No, Becci, black is the absence of color because color is the various elements of light. And of course, how could I possibly be wrong? All the colors put together make black! I had first hand experience. I knew. Then seventh grade science helped me put my foot in my mouth. Thank you Mrs. Helsel and roygbiv.

I’ve mentioned that winter is difficult for me. The lack of light, the Walla Walla inversions, the gray upon gray upon gray sucks the soul right out of a body. At least that’s what it feels like. Sometimes that darkness doesn’t just hit in the winter. It can insidiously unfurl at any time and reach up and try to steal hope and joy. Color is one of my weapons to fight against those dementors.

I have gone to fabric stores many times when I can feel the darkness surrounding in order to simply stare at the wall of color. In the spring and summer, it’s so easy. I get to immerse myself in garden work and all the colors the flowers provide. Winter is the challenge. Before Bryan and I were married, I lived in a cute little cottage over on Otis Street. The kitchen had tile floor. I remember getting fed up with almost two weeks of inversions. I grabbed some paint and a couple of canvases and I knelt on that tile floor covered in drop cloths and painted furiously. I needed ALL the colors I could feast my eyes on to remind myself the gray doesn’t last for ever. These are the two paintings I created that day. I’ve kept them because they are both a reminder to bring light and color to dark places and illustrate that my adult art journey had a distinct beginning.

I’m thankful for color because it is a survival tool. And the more I learn from art instruction (thanks Lynn, Todd, Melissa, Emi), and practice, the more I see colors better and in new ways. Even the grayest days have lavender, rust, Payne’s gray, burgundy, gold, peach, violet if I pay attention.

[Tip jar: https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Lubbers-1]

I have had the chance to live in the southeastern sections of two very different states. When I was twelve years old, my dad got a job at Ohio University’s medical school and clinic. Ohio University is located in the gentle, rolling foothills of the Appalachian (app-uh-LATCH-un, NOT appa-lay-shun) mountains. This college town has all four seasons–spring, swamp butt, autumn, and gray-and-miserable with occasional school closings. There is no place prettier than Athens in the fall–red brick buildings, bright leaves, the Hocking (yes that’s it’s name) river winding it’s way through town, the Halloween block party, homecoming, the Marching 110–it’s an experience. Both spring and fall are a reprieve from the humidity that makes Ohio summers an endless parade of sweaty suffering. It was in Athens, Ohio that I was introduced to French existentialists in the middle of winter and fully understood what depression was. The cherry blossoms on the trees near the bike path, the variety of resplendent greens make springtime incredibly lovely.

I’m lucky to get to live in another college town here in Walla Walla, Washington, a valley near the plateau-esque Blue Mountians. While there’s not a big football or marching band program at the college level, the vibe (heavens, yes, I’m discussing the Walla Walla vibe) is unique and wonderful anyway. I moved here to get a job at Whitman College in the fall of 2008. Whitman is a private, residential, liberal arts college. VERY DIFFERENT from a state school. It has a small, picturesque campus and much smaller faculty to student ratio. But it’s also not the only college in the valley. There’s Walla Walla University (my parents alma mater), a Seventh-Day Adventist university. And there’s the community college that is nationally-ranked and has the enology and viticulture program that draws a lot of folks to our valley, too. So the seasons ebb and flow against these school calendars.

This little town has all four seasons, too, and it’s really fun because you can tell which one it is by what people are buying at Klickers (the produce/farm stand, antique shop, gift shop, cheese shop, pumpkin patch, and Christmas tree market). If it’s closed, it’s late winter and early spring. If it’s strawberries, asparagus, and spring onions, it’s late spring/early summer, summer produce is abundant and lasts quite a long time. Then the gourds and pumpkins start coming out. They build a big hay bale slide and pumpkin patch for before Halloween. Then they close for a bit to decorate for Christmas. The interior because a holiday showcase of ornaments and gifts and wreaths and outside it’s the Christmas tree lot. It might seem strange to someone outside of Walla Walla to think of one store in terms of season tracking, but this one really encapsulates how time moves in this valley. Others do so, too, the farmers market, Frog Hollow Farm. But there’s a LOT of history at Klickers. When I was a kid, visiting my great aunt and uncle, strawberry shortcake was made with Klickers strawberries, no exceptions.

I love spring and summer for all of the light and flowers. My garden is my happy place so I will always love those seasons best. Autumn is beautiful with the vibrant colors and gathering with friends and loved ones. Pioneer Park is a breathtaking work of art every time I walk through, most especially so in the fall. Winter is the one I have the hardest time with. I don’t participate in winter sports (not for a lack of trying). The loss of light is devastating to my morale. The amount of effort to keep functioning is monumental. It was great to be married to someone whose favorite season was winter because he buoyed me with his Tigger-like enthusiasm for snow and cold weather. I have a greater appreciation for winter because of him and his friends. Last winter, however, was my hardest…

That’s the part about seasons, literal and metaphorical that I appreciate so much. I get to experience them, learn from them, walk in them for the time that it’s appropriate. But no season is permanent. This means I can cherish the very best and bask in those good memories. When the difficult seasons come, I can do my best to appreciate what is good but rest in the knowledge that this season will end. A new season will always begin again.

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One of things I like best in this life is making people laugh. If it bends, it’s funny. If it breaks, it’s not funny. Dancing along the knife edge of what bends is a rush. I don’t snow ski. I don’t do drugs. But I do love humorous shock and awe. Have I gotten into some trouble for this in my life? Maybe a little. :oP Maybe more than a little on occasion. But as Bryan used to say, “if you’re not over the line early every once in a while, you’ll never win a race.”

I also appreciate the folks who can make me laugh. Appreciate isn’t strong enough of a word. I feel like every joke, each funny story, every time I laugh, it’s a gasp of air above the crashing waves, a life ring launched to keep me afloat.

We have the potential to share lots of things to tie us together in our humanity–music, anger, grief, joy, but laughter, oh laughter, that’s my favorite.

[And of course if you feel like you get anything a little extra out of my writing, you’re welcome to leave a tip in my virtual tip jar: https://venmo.com/u/Rebecca-Lubbers-1]