Photo by Martin Fisch, flickr's creative commons

Awake and Asleep: Joy and Discovery

February 7, 2019

You arrange to meet for coffee, to come over and watch a movie, to play games. You are invited to the party and you have a few threads for the person next to you, a few yarns for the whole group, a few revelations to give and receive. You go to the dinner party and you pinch the dumplings closed before shoveling them into your mouth, laughing with three friends across the table, three good friends from across the world.

You page through your journal and realize that these memories are underrepresented, that more painful ones take top billing, that you’ve written about the same hard things over and over again. It was something you needed to do, you admit, but your life this January, this February, holds more than that.

Adventures in OdysseyPhoto by marc thiele on Flickr's creative commons — Adventures in Odyssey Photo by marc thiele on Flickr's creative commons

David Tennant and Saying Goodbye

June 19, 2018

Ten years ago, I thought it would mean everything to see my favorite voice actors on a stage from a distance and in an autograph line for a moment. But that didn’t mean everything. The greatest gift came when they gave their time in hotel lobbies and conference rooms, letting us witness their own reunions with each other, and inviting us into their lives.

And if you know my story with Adventures in Odyssey, you know how the gifts kept piling up: gifts of time, of words, of moments, of remembrance, with these very same voice actors, and with others who work with them, others who love them.

June 17, 2018, wasn’t August 16, 2008, but then again, it couldn’t be.

Running into Story

August 22, 2016

My drive to work is nothing special. It starts with a nondescript road, grey and industrial and mostly quiet except for the semi trucks that sometimes congregate at the stoplight. Only, if I remember to look down when crossing the river, down and to the right, I smile.

It’s my recurring phenomenon across the suburbs, across urban and residential areas, across the very heart of the city.

Some of my Asia people (Photo by Gonzalo Santillan, 2012).

Gratitude & Asia & Colorado

November 24, 2015

I once lived in Asia. I remember the night we arrived, how we all trooped into the first apartment at midnight, how we took in every bright and dusty and unusual detail. How we had a few names and phone numbers, but we didn’t know anyone, not really, and we didn’t know this city.

Three months later, we didn’t just have our favorite restaurants and transportation success stories and the ability to navigate any dish with a pair of chopsticks; we also had friends. We wrote down the names of these people, the ones we spent time with in living rooms and cafeterias and zoos, the people we ate chicken feet and watermelon and birds-on-a-stick with, the people we invited over and out, the people who understood a little of what we said and those who understood a lot. We filled three sheets of paper with their names. We had them, and we had each other.

So much can happen between spring and summer.

So much can happen between one winter and the next.

When You Say Goodbye

January 8, 2015

You hold out your autograph book, the one with the multicolored pages and the dinosaur cover, the one you got when you were a child. You hold it out with pride, not embarrassment, for the decade and a half of memories it carries — of names and notes, of crossed-out words and hard-to-read cursive. You’ve taken this book overseas twice, and you safeguard it in ever-increasing ways after each pen or pencil addition.

I couldn’t be happier, right here...

November 27, 2011

All day, I’ve had “…because happy is what happens, when all your dreams come true” stuck in my head. And after I figured out where it was from (Wicked: "Thank Goodness"), I decided that another line from that song would fit well here, even though I didn't write this blog today or with that song in mind.

One late morning in August, three years ago, my dad and I pulled out of the driveway in my little gray car and headed east. We were Indiana-bound, but we had one important stop to make along the way.

Two days later, we were in Colorado Springs. This was my first time in Colorado. These were three of the best days of my life.

I was in Colorado Springs for the 20th anniversary of Focus on the Family’s much-beloved radio drama, Adventures in Odyssey.

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