I love impulse. Not materialistic impulse, but adventurous living impulse. It's one of my best friends. Saturday morning, I got a text from a friend who lives in Hood River. She had come up with a plan to get me to and from the Gorge this weekend, without me touching a steering wheel. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity, because I don't think things like this through, I just go. Alright, so I made sure I hadn't made any important committments, which I hadn't, and then I jumped into the car. Got to Hood River around 2pm, jumped in my friends AWD Audi, and went exploring. We spent the entire afternoon and early evening in and out of the car, driving around roads that she had always wanted to see, and finding parks and cliffs along the Columbia, to take pictures for my darkroom photography class. I love the Gorge. I say this all the time. But I do. Our photography instructor asked us to refrain from Mt. Bachelor and Drake Park photos for our landscape and light assignment. This trip worked out perfectly.

There's something different about film photography. It takes patience, manual setting manipulation, and the mindset that what you set out to create, might be entirely different from what comes out of the chemicals. I've never been good at waiting for things. I just told you, I'm insanely impulsive. I don't like to have to plan things out, or be constrained to a schedule. Perhaps we can compare this side of my personality to digital photography. I want to take a picture of this thing, and it doesn't cost me anything, so I'll take the photo, and I get to see it right away. Whereas, film photography is the opposite. Maybe that's why it's a dying art, because we live in an 'I want it right now' society. Hmmmmmmmmmm? Regardless, I'm stoked about film. I think it's going to teach me things.

I'm having to suppress my impulse lately. I'm almost positive that at least half of my winter will be spent in the Mt. Baker/Bellingham area, and I'm very excited about it. In fact, I want to go now now now. But, of course, I can't. I have school, friends, house, obligations here in Bend, and I can't just pack up and leave, no matter how much half of me wants to. I'm going to miss this place when I leave, absolutely. And if I were to leave now, I would probably regret it quite a bit. But there's something exciting about the idea of packing up everything in a Uhaul this afternoon and getting the hell out of town. I'm crazy.

Peace, love and patience

Some of the things I believe are different than you. Can you handle it?

I don't believe that it matters if we know how old stuff is. The earth. Dinosaurs. Does that change the fact that I believe in Jesus and everything he said? No. Was Jesus running around trying to convince people that the earth was so many years old? No. He was running around loving them and caring for them. Now, that being said. I'm gaining an appriciation for science, and scientists. Their work matters, but it shouldn't change your salvation until they prove that Jesus didn't exist.

I don't care if you want to debate anything and everything until the cows come home, it doesn't change my mind about what I believe, simply because you get heated and show me youtube videos and your interpretations of the Bible. I'm stronger in my beliefs then that, even if you think otherwise, because I won't share my thoughts all the time.

I'm not sure that I care if abortion and gay marriage are legal. In fact, I almost think they should be. I don't think that it's the right of a bunch of Christians to impose our morals on an entire nation through laws. Ya'll seem to think that this is a "Christian" nation. It's really not. The founding fathers were not Christians by your standards, so this nation isn't really either. "One nation, under God", doesn't mean as much as people like to think. I think we need to live a certain way and be an example instead. Think abortion is wrong? Don't outlaw it... just don't have one, and be there for those who might be thinking about having one, and don't judge them for it. Provide educating services for other options. Be involved in places like Planned Parenthood as an abortion advocate. And, people are going to be gay whether they can get married or not. Why can't we let them have a civil union? This nation is supposed to be founded on freedom. It's not the Christians job to say what's free and what isn't. Sorry. But if it was, there's quite a few more things that we ought to be dealing with more often. Drinking. Lying. Cheating. Stealing. Yeah.

My Mom said it would be harder to raise my kids in a society where things like abortion and gay marriage are legal... maybe so. But they're already issues, and they're everywhere. I'm going to have to teach my kids what's right and wrong either way, and I think the world is going to do what it pleases. The ways of the world shouldn't change how I raise my children, if I'm teaching them what is right. What is right doesn't change. The amount of wrong in the world does.

I'm not emergent. I'm not religious either. I don't like either of those labels. I'll associate myself with Jesus til I die, absolutely, but the other things? Blah. I think people like Brian McLaren, Jim Henderson, Rob Bell and Donald Miller all have amazing things to say, and I don't care much for people like Rick Warren or Mark Driscoll. The fact that your church is ginormous doesn't impress me. The car you drive and the huge sound systems you have in your eight different campuses don't either. I don't hate these guys, that wouldn't be right. But I sure don't like with the way they run their ministries.

That's all for the soapbox. Sorry if I've offended you, really.

Peace, love and honesty,

I am galavanting. People would call what I am doing a vacation, but I hate the word vacation. Vacation means motorhomes, hotels, planning, tickets, room keys, expensive meals, bars, spending money and being annoyed with the people you're with. So, this is not a vacation. This is galavanting. Wandering. Being irresponsibly responsible.

I left Bend within two hours of deciding I was going somewhere. I didn't really pack anything. I threw some random clothes, makeup and pillows in the car. Called my grandma and told her I was on my way over. Spent the night in Corvallis, went through my grandma's garage, got a bunch of cool stuff for an apartment that I don't yet have. Drove out of town and very irrationally decided that Hood River was a better destination than Bend. I've been staying with friends, packing my house, trying to find a job and afford things, trying to not annoy my friends, and forgetting to be myself in the process. Most of that disappears when I'm in the Gorge.

I don't live here, and I don't know that I ever will for more than a couple months, but it's my favorite place in the Northwest. And maybe it's that way because I don't live here. In some ways, I'm more myself here, than when I'm in Bend, or Seattle, or anywhere else. I can do what I feel like. I can go run around in the woods, at the mountain, play in the rivers. I can go sit at Doppio and read, write, contemplate, and drink a peanut butter mocha smoothie. I can get up at noon, sit around with my best friend, and make phonecalls on her phone, because mine is dead, and I have no desire to recharge it. I don't have to worry about things, and I don't have to be stressed out. I can take care of things through phone calls, and then get over it. It doesn't matter here. I love here. I come here to be this way.

It gets even better when I get away from cars, buildings, restaraunts, stores and busy-ness. Tuesday morning, a friend and I decided that we were going to go camping. We threw all our gear in his truck, took a picture of Google Maps directions, and headed for the middle of nowhere. I've found my favorite middle of nowhere. It's located, by my sense of direction, on the backside of Mount St. Helens, and its absolutely fabulous. Little campground in the boonies, we thought we were lost several times, while driving there, because Google's directions weren't very accurate at all. But we found it, and spent about 20 hours soaking up some pristine cold clear mountain river water, cooking on a Jetboil, arguing about how to correctly cook a marshmallow, and stargazing from an REI halfdome half sheltered by ginormous trees. With no service, and only one person I'd met before, I remembered what I love so much about being in the woods, and why I need to remember it more often. I've been rediscovering who I am, lately, and remembering that there's a reason I'm an outdoor leadership major and a reason that I am who I am, and a reason that so many of my friends in Bend don't know me as well as other ones. I'm a mountain woman at heart, and I don't care if you think otherwise due to some things that I choose to do to keep myself entertained in the high desert. When it comes down to it, my soul belongs in the mountains, and I'm going to do my best to keep it happy.

Peace, love, and sitting underneath 50 foot waterfalls,