Drowning.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
His mercies never come to an end
They are new every morning
Great is thy faithfulness O Lord.

Lamentations 3:22-24

These last four weeks I've experienced:
Not having a house to live in.
My best friend not having a house to live in.
Being unemployed.
Sadness.
Packing up a beautiful year into cardboard boxes labeled things like "knickknacks".
Insecurity.
Amazing opportunities threatening to fall to pieces.
Tidal waves of schedules, feelings, worry and confusion sweeping me off my feet.

And yet I find myself so far from drowning.

These last four weeks I've experienced:
Being offered a beautiful house to live in - complete with hot tub and wine cellar.
Becoming an art teacher.
Getting an internship with Seattle Metropolitan Magazine.
Being filled with kind of joy that makes one laugh out loud at the littlest things.
Constant reminders that next year will be another beautiful year, with memories just waiting to be made.
So many actions, words, notes and a million moments letting me know how much love I'm doused in.
Life's puzzle pieces falling into place.
Beautiful sunny days.
Those tidal waves always flow out after sweeping in.

And really, they're not tidal waves at all. I'm just a child and they seem so big. And there are always hands to catch me when they go over my head.

I'm just excited now to see how He continues to unravel his perfect plan.

Seabrook.

Last summer, in a weak moment of melodramatic sentimentalism, I rushed out onto the sunny sands of my island shores with an empty coke bottle in my hands and proceeded to fill it up with the kind of golden sand you see in postcards. I packed the bottle away and carted it over several oceans to stand it on my Seattle windowsill to remind me that beaches exist in the world still. Because America has beaches…beautiful beaches even, where the imagination can run wild and the sea spray plays with your hair and clothes…but they’re not beaches-beaches, you know?

And then I went to Seabrook this weekend…and not only were there blue waves and pretty sea cottages, but also miles and miles of the kind of golden sand you see in post cards. Enough to fill a million coke bottles with no additional fear of being blacklisted at customs for bringing illegal foreign materials into the country. And so nostalgia died a sheepish death.

Seabrook, for those who don’t know (and I didn’t until I got there), is a little sea-side village of sorts, on the Washington coast and I got to mill around its picturesque locale with the Bulthuis family for four days.

After the most dramatic and draining house hunt of all time (all’s well that end’s well, fear not), it was a marvelous thing to get away from Seattle for a little while with this wonderful family and put things back in perspective.

We lived in a little house called “I’ll fly away” and I got to be roommates with this little miss:

I learned that reading Noah’s Ark is always more fun in whispers and preferably after 11:00 pm, birds trump anything else in creation and also that mornings are best.

We biked on old-fashioned bicycles and built sand castles, we read and talked and played rounds upon rounds of Dominion (which has maybe become my new favorite game). Calvin has become my new crossword cohort and Jenny and I decided it would be worthwhile to invest a morning in teaching Bjorn and Markus how to play badminton. We even let them win.

The one glitch was the Great Throwup that swept the masses, kind of like the Great Plague except for the part where it didn’t kill people. It spontaneously picked one person at a time to banish to the Realms of Sick for twenty-four hours at a time, during which the said person would suffer the re-tasting of any food he or she chose to consume during the previous twenty-four hours. It was really quite efficient and got through seven people in the course of four days…so far Markus and Peter are the only ones who remain standing strong.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday therefore were spent with fluctuating numbers at any given activity but then Monday – with its beautiful weather and prime beach time – saw everyone well and happy and we spent a perfect day by the sea.

To swim in the ocean again was glorious. There are few things I love better than a romp in the waves - a refreshing one in this case (cold, freezing and/or invigorating are also adjectives of choice depending on ones view on life) - and salty hair and tingly skin.

To the kinds of weekends that get people through the winter.

Updates.

Well dear reader, with the customary 3 month break between posts, it came to my attention that I should probably jot down a bit of an update. I’m writing to you from the sunny terrace of Fremont Coffee Company, iced coffee in hand and post cards written – such is the life inspired by warm weather and freedom.

Today is the 12^th and we will have, thereby, been graduated all of two months. Two months of birthdays and sun and visits to distant shores and change and house drama and rides in the backhoe and cousins and…oh yea…learning how to be a grown up.

No fear, the latter lesson has a long way to go before it can be called a thing. Four weeks of applying for jobs just about had me signing my life away to a future as a Sherpa in the Himalayan foothills…except the definition of Sherpa specifies that they are “renowned for their skill in mountaineering” which may prove to be a stumbling block. But as the Lord would have it, a week ago, I became an employed teacher. A music and art teacher. A music and art teacher that instructs children ages five and under. Perhaps I won’t cross out the Sherpa idea just yet.

Misplaced humor aside, I’m very excited. I’ve always said I want to teach, so this is it! The very beginning! I’m going to get a big-person job also, I think, just for the sake of sanity balance. Today I was informed that after numbers 9, 10, 11, and 12, 40 obviously comes next.

“Really Alisha? 12 then 40?”

“Yup.”

But back to my original thought – graduation. We had a whirlwind of a weekend wrapping up shop. The biggest highlight? My kit and kin who took Seattle by storm. My parents flew in from Sri Lanka and seeing them was the biggest graduation gift I could have asked for…Uncle Ken and Aunty Kathy sped in from Portland…Cousins Kevin and Erin and Jad, Dana and Kyler decided to hop over from Costa Rica…and dear friends Glen, Anna, David and Stephen joined the festivities from across the I5. I learned that “Graduation” just means a lot of ice cream, mimosas, Frisbee, chocolate cake and catching up. Some walking I guess.

Also graduating with this bunch:

There is little I can say about them because they could take up 2 or 6 or 17 blog posts but they are the best and I am so thankful for the quirkiest, warmest, funniest, most passionate group of friends ever.

Besides saying goodbye to life as we once knew it and hello to family from all over the place and picnicking and traipsing all over the country side in what looked like batman’s grandma’s evening attire (probably my favorite part of the whole thing, if I’m honest), me and this kid (refer to picture following) celebrated one year!

How blessed I am by his company. I’ve learned more about relationship this last year than in maybe the last 20 combined, I have seen first hand how much patience and grace God can instill in one human being (him, not me in this case), I have been delighted time and time again by his wonderful balance of humor and realism and comfort in quiet, and I have a vague feeling that this whole thing may even lead to my learning how to think before I speak. Sometimes. Maybe not. Also he got me the world map poster I’ve wanted for years, what’s not to love?

This was all followed by my birthday...cue fulfillment of college-dream of going to Ivor’s Seafood House, beautiful misty walks along the water front and the best rum cake of all time...

...various visits to Trout Lake...

...and the beginning of the said life inspired by warmth and freedom.