Ride or die.

Bike riding is going on an adventure that my feet could never take me on their own. It sounds too simple and almost childish, but riding my bike has become my favorite. Part of me wants to become one of those people who wear velcro sandals or no shoes at all, have a cloth bag (probably hand-sewn) slung across their shoulder, long hair blowing in the breeze of where I've just been. In and out of sight, they are, always going somewhere but really having no where to be at all. Riding my bike makes me that person. Except for the fact that I don't own those sandals, I don't sew purses anymore, and I cut all make hair off last spring. Sad day, right? But I can still be that person in spirit.

I've always said that it's when I'm outside, usually by myself, in the quiet of nature that I really feel God. And most of the time I always come back inside and have to write about it, ha. I almost feel like with every corner filled and every piece of furniture perfectly placed and our agendas crammed full to the brim, that inside we have left no room for God. Outside, though, nothing can contain him and you have no choice but to see him everywhere. This is the reason that I love it out there so much. This is why I want to move to a state with more mountains, and rivers, and canyons, and lakes. God is so out there, out there. And I know that's he's out here everywhere too but it feels like more of an effort has to be made for us to see that.

God didn't make my bike, and I enjoy riding it. But he did make all the things around me that I get to see when I'm on my bike. And I enjoy that even more. And he also made the person that was responsible for designing my bike, and the one that assembled it. It doesn't matter where we move, how far away we go, whether we are inside or outside, or how much we like to ride a bike. God is everywhere, at the same time, in the same amount, with the same hugeness of his love. How crazy would it be to carry around something that big with you, all the time? I love my bike. And God loves each of us a million bajillion times more.

Recollection.

This afternoon my parents told me that they worried about me when I was little because I was so quiet. My parents thought I was a social recluse. And really, I probably was. I don't know what I did with all my time, alone in my room. I honestly cannot remember. At all. Isn't that weird?

Isn't it strange what things are minds will let us remember, and which ones we really have to dig deep to keep from forgetting? Someone once told me that the human mind is capable of remembering every piece of information and every memory ever given to us. They said that our brains have an insane recording and filing system, but most of the time are feeble minds just aren't capable of retrieving that information. It's there, but we can't find it. It may be on the tip of our tongue for years, but we'll never remember what it is. Isn't that crazy? And if all this stuff really is there in our minds and we do remember it deep in the depths of our brainwaves, but if we can't access that... do those things even exist? I guess one could say that even though the memories are logged up there, since we can't access them or retrieve them, they really aren't even up there at all. How could we prove otherwise?

I've been thinking a lot about these abstract things like old memories; it's graduation season. And this makes me retrospective. I have pictures that tell me things have happened when I was little, but I can't remember them happening. And for a lot of people this all happens again in college--going through things you don't remember to only be told about them later--but that kind of forgetting isn't what I'm talking about.

Sometimes I think we forget why we're living. If you take all your best childhood memories and lock them up in a box, do you know how hard it would be to keep that box closed? Do you know all the joy that those memories contain? I suppose it's different for everyone, but childhood memories (and only the best ones) become a sort of foundation for who we are to grow upon. If I think about me as a child--the social recluse, apparently--and the me I've become today, well... frankly, it's weird. Who knew I would grow up to be this person? Who said a little girl with Elvis-like crazy black hair, a lisp, and no coordination would end up as me right now? There are so many events between my social reclusive days and now that have shaped me into who I am, and some are more pivotal than others. And no matter how long I sat here remembering, I wouldn't be able to tell you even half of them. My brain won't let me access what I want to. It won't let me even get close to trying hard enough.

But everything that has happened up til now and even here long after, God remembers. He sees it, and in his amazing brain (or whatever it is God uses for thinking) he can access it. And he's known all along that I wasn't meant to be such a recluse and he knew it would worry my parents but he built me this way for a reason. I'm still coming out of my shell and I still have those quiet breezy days, but I'm learning who God wants me to be. Sometimes it's better to be still, you know? 

In 10 years, I won't remember writing this. I will remember somewhere inside this hard head, but I won't be able to see it anymore. But God will know. And I'll still have him with me to trust that really, honestly, it's still there.

Outside.

I like feeling the sun on my skin. It's warming. I like everything about being outside. Everything has a place, and yet it doesn't have to stay there. Why did God make trees to grow upward and snakes to grow sideways? Did he make flowers for the bees, or for us to keep in vases and press into books until they're dry? Everything is here for a reason, but they all look beautiful in each their own way. I love everything about outside, and I don't understand any of it. Why does God let me see these things, feel these things, be one with these things? God made man to rule over the birds of the sky, fish of the sea, all the creatures that move along the ground. But really, all this just swallows me up when I go too far outside, and it overtakes me. If I could choose any color to be, I'd be green like the leaves all around and above on the tress, down in the grass. I'd be blue like the cloudless sky on a slightly breezy day, so bright a blue it won't fade. I'd be yellow and shining down like the sun, warm and welcoming and happy. I'd be purple and orange and red and pink and violet and every other color all the flowers are around the entire world. I'd be everything. When I'm outside, I'm every part of it. I'm outside, and I'm swallowed up in God's love.

"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it."

I want to be outside with God's stuff forever.