moving on, happy goodbye

Hey readers out there...


It's a new, strange, glorious time of life for us Evans. In light of that, I'm transitioning to a new blog with a new blogging purpose.


It's called The Beanstalk. It's going to be about becoming a family. Guarantee it won't be tidy, but it'll probably be humorous and honest and very, very human.


Thanks for reading this blog for FOUR big years. Honestly, lots of love to you.


Ginny

p.s. The Beanstalk

dear mom and dad,

Dear mom and dad,

Thank you for listening to Billy Joel and James Taylor when we were growing up. Whenever I listen to either it floods me with such warmth and peace that I cannot begin to describe. I think it’s sort of funny that we listened to that rather than children’s music, hymns and Raffi and all that, which is supposed to be developmentally helpful. But I think that good music helped me develop. I will listen to good, soulful music with my children as they grow up because I think that the good music we listened to as little kids gave me a good taste for music as an adult. You also instilled me with a love for classical (mom)—Pachelbel’s Canon, George Winston, and oldies (dad)—all we listened to in the station wagon. I still know most of the oldies that ever come on, though I don’t know their names.

Thank you for having me so soon after you had Hannah. I know that those years when I was just a little thing and Hannah was a kooky toddler and we had no money were probably very stressful at times. You have both said that you made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t really see that looking back. I’m more thankful for her than almost anything, and I’ve loved coming up right behind her. She was a good one to follow. Today she took me to Target to help me register for baby stuff, an event which would have completely unhinged me had I to do it alone, but that she made fun. She has become the best thing—sisterfriend—and it started such a long time ago when you corralled us to become playmates.

Thank you for not making me play sports. A lot of people I know had to play a sport growing up even if they didn’t like it. I understand that that was a way to keep a kid healthy, but I was not athletic or particularly competitive so you just let me sing. I think that’s what kept me healthy really. I felt so proud and beautiful when I sang with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Somehow we were always healthy too, probably because of running around the neighborhood enough to offset the homemade chocolate chip cookies and Breyer’s ice cream we had most nights after dinner.

Thank you for having one more kid, and dad, thanks that he was a boy. I know that at first I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about his presence, but it’s crazy how much I fell in love with my brother. He is the most kind, wonderful, sensitive, kindly disposed person and I love that he got your family’s height, mom. I loved when people thought we were twins in college because he had started swimming again and his hair went blonde. I’m so glad you had a boy, dad, because I think you did such a great job showing him how to be a man.

Thank you for never dieting, for buying one percent milk instead of skim, kielbasa, and hot dogs. Thank you for taking us to Disney World before and after Kyle was born, and then again when I was in college. Thank you for letting my hair grow like wild weeds. Thank you for working for Young Life, to teach us the value of relationships, Jesus and money. Thank you for having big dogs so we were never afraid. Thank you for making Hannah and me share a room. Thank you for letting us play outside until after dark in the summer. Thank you for teaching us how to dive (mom) and change a car tire (dad). Thank you for loving Mark and Josh, our dogs, our kids, born and unborn.

Mostly thank you for the tradition of opening stockings on your bed on Christmas morning, which now includes our husbands.

I love you.

Ginny

operating instructions.

I have this great friend Lauren who is a lot like me in many ways. She was one of my first Winston-Salem friends and her husband was Mark's roommate for a time and they flirted with all sorts of trouble and problems because they were bored and bachelors and living in a house in this dodgy back of town neighborhood with two other bored bachelors. It makes me laugh to think of how Lauren and I became friends, how we volunteered for Young Life for three years together, how we got married and became "couple friends"--which is a different thing entirely.

Lauren had a daughter a year ago now during a painful time for us because we were trying so desperately, so fruitlessly, for our own child. We went to meet Eva the day she was born and I thought it would just crush my spirit, but somehow it didn't. She was so precious, and I was wanting a boy anyway so there was that cushion. Turns out Eva is the sweetest little girl on the planet. I always think it's silly that people think one baby is so much more unique than another, but I'm sure that when Jack is born I'll think he is brilliantly different and unique, that he has the most distinguishable features and hair, that his gums form the most beautiful smile. Anyway, Mark and I fell for Eva hard, but Mark did more. He loves this little one-year-old as if she were his own niece. And she loves him back, just ogles at him and walks up to him and stares imploringly into his face until he picks her up.

When we found out I was pregnant Lauren called me elated to find out how I was feeling, emotionally and physically, and to tell me that she already had a gift. Everyone gives the sweetest little outfits and airplanes and bibs and things, but she said, "It's an Anne Lamott book."

Anne Lamott is a hilarious, irreverent, funky hippie throw-back who writes really odd memoir-type nonfiction including one of my most favorite resources on writing, Bird by Bird.

"It's called Operating Instructions. It's about her first year with her son Sam. It's really crude and spouts the F-word every ten sentences, but I know you'll love it because I LOVED it." She gave it to me last week when we met for pizza and salads at the Loop with Brad, Mark and Eva. I started reading it on my lunch break Wednesday sitting at Chick Fil-a drinking a large lemonade/iced tea and was crying in the first five pages. And then by the eighth page I was laughing so whole-heartedly my entire body was shaking and I've got these relentless sloppy allergies so I was snorting and running from the eyes and nose and I am certain several patrons were getting a huge kick out of the whole thing. I was also wearing a tight shirt, looking quite pregnant, so there's that.

The book has a lot to do, so far, with how this woman processes the reality of having a son as opposed to a daughter, so I've been thinking on that a great deal. I'm thankful, really thankful, for Mark and what a stable, solid, loving, FUN man he is and I know there are a lot of things that will fall to him, since Jack's a boy, and that I (God-willing) will not have to deal with. But now that Jack's going to be here in less than five months, it's reverberating in the front of my mind that I'm going to be a mom of a SON. I'm so excited, I want him to get here because I want to hold him and lay him on top of Sidney and watch Mark stare at him.

Kyle, my brother, says I'll be a good mom of a son because he and I have such a sweet friendship. That makes me feel a little more confident, and I'm starting to dream up this little kid in my head. I can't wait.

to vote.

When I was sixteen, a junior in high school, I took an American History class at Severna Park High School with Mr. Haring. Everyone liked him because he was pretty nice and reasonable about late assignments, but occasionally he would get really fired up because either he felt like we weren't taking him seriously, or because of something socio-political.

I don't think I thought much about the electoral system at sixteen, the inherent importance of the right to vote our leaders and judges into office, or the gravity of living under the umbrella of democracy. It was not an election year and I think it is hard to conceptualize the value of our form of government here in America anyway, especially in high school, having seen so little of what is real nationally and more, spanning the globe. Mr. Haring knows American history like nobody I've ever talked to, and I remember he was talking about the Civil War, the fight for African Americans, among other things, to obtain the right to the vote, and I do not remember if someone made a comment or if the pressure in the air was just right to ignite the spark, but all of a sudden the man was raving. He was mad like we had never seen him mad before, drawing his lips thin and stroking his goatee with his index finger and thumb. He talked about our forefathers, our grandfathers' grandfathers, who died by bullet or bayonet in the Revolutionary War, fighting for sovereignty from Great Britain. He barked forward in history, talking about the war of 1812, and the glorious passion that lays sewn into the first American Stars and Stripes, in the words of Francis Scott Key as he wrote what would become our National Anthem. He talked about the Battle of Gettysburg, and our grandfathers, such a short while ago, fighting across the ocean. It was all for the sake of DEMOCRACY. I'll never forget his face, the frustration. He said that our forefathers, my father's father's father's father's father, gave up everything to protect American Democracy which, he continued, hinges on the individual's right to vote - our right to popularly elect our leaders. He said that in the 2000 election an absurdly low number of the voting population in America had actually showed up at a polling station to place a vote. The percentage was abysmal and Mr. Haring said that he had never been so disappointed with his fellow Americans.

A few weeks ago Mark and I visited a friend in Washington and went to the Museum of American History. There is an exhibit there with the real, war-torn, original American flag from the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1812. It's got pieces missing and it's threadbare, but it lays on a graduated spot-lit platform in an otherwise dark exhibit and it took my breath away. I want to remember the history of this country because it is gorgeously brave and heroic. Though the state of our country now, in many ways, breaks my heart, there is some foundational strength to be found in the fortitude, the intelligence, the wisdom, the grace and the faith of our founding generations. I am proud to be an American.

This morning I heard an interview on NPR Weekend Edition. The reporter was on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Ohio interviewing students about their intentions to vote or not to vote. Most of the students he spoke to said things like I'm probably not going to vote because I don't like either candidate or I don't want to have any part in electing Romney or Obama or I don't care who becomes President this time, neither one is saying anything relevant to me. (That last one really got me). All I could think of was that American History lecture and Mr. Haring ten years ago, how as long as I live I will never sit out an election, how casting my vote on an electronic ballot box in the city courthouse is the way I put my chips in, how I demonstrate my citizenship, how I say thank you to those who fought and died to guarantee that their children's children, myself, would be blessed to live in a democracy.

boys and busted knees.

It is football season all around; college football (which nobody in my house cares about), NFL (which one person in my house cares about an unhealthy amount) and Winston-Salem City Flag Football (which everyone in my house cares about... a lot.) Mark has played in this league for five years, September-December, most Tuesday nights. I love when it's football season because it comes in coordination with cooler weather and boots, wearing socks, cold cold wooden floors, the disagreement about what temperature is the heat threshold. Pumpkins are also a highlight. Anyway, the guys brought in this season with several shut out wins in a row, and they were on track to do it again last Tuesday night. Up by at least twenty points with fewer than three minutes left to play, all of the wives and fiances were cold and ready to go home, happy to take home winners (because when they aren't it's not pretty), and Mark threw a long pass to Kyle Welch, who plays wide receiver. It was a perfect throw, perfect catch, imperfect pivot. Kyle went down hard, crumpled up like trashed manuscript pages, rolled twice and then just layed there. Dana and I booked it over to the ten yard line where he was quite obviously exceptionally injured, groaning, panicked. It was terrible, even the pissed-off opposing players came over to offer At least you caught it, man.

Working for three orthopaedic surgeons does have its advantages, so Mark and I took the non-weightbearing Kyle to the home of the head NP at my office where she wrote him a script for some serious pain meds, put his blown out knee in an immobilizer, and told him to come with me to work the next day where one of the docs would take care of business. Owing to the fact that Kyle doesn't have a wife to deal with these yearly football injuries, it usually falls to Dana (friend and fellow football wife) and myself, so Mark and I brought Kyle to the homestead. Needless to say, it was a rather agonizing night for Kyle, but some day I think he will look back on it with something of appreciation. Mark sort of turned into Kyle's crutches. He all but carried him into the house, fixed him up with take-out food, took off his mud, sweaty socks, and to really put the crumbly topping on the muffin, held him up in the shower so he could wash off all the grime. I sat outside the bathroom door half laughing, cringing at the yelps of agony when Mark tried to get some of the mud off of the busted knee. When they opened the door Kyle said, "Well I don't think either of us will ever forget that."

Two days later we found out we're going to have a son. Neither of us knew "what" we were expecting, but when we saw that little boy squishing around on the ultrasound we both about fell apart. We knew his name would be Jack Marshall Evans, honoring some precious family members, and we spent Thursday night calling and texting, starting to imagine what life with a son will be like. I couldn't help but think about Tuesday night, the football, the injury, the twenty-eight year old boys that still play sports and take care of each other. I was thinking about a son maybe a little like Mark, maybe even a little like Kyle, and it made me sort of happy and excited for every minute of the future.

Kyle probably tore most of the acronyms in his knee, we'll find out next week. I texted him on Friday.

"By the way, it's a boy. -- Jack Marshall"

"Sweet. That's so awesome. Jack Daniel?"

Ha. Some things might never change.

the beach.

The ritual of the beach is as predictable as the consistent swelling of waves, the rise, the crash on the sand, and the receding back into the body of the ocean. The salty wind off the water, the sound of the tide, the flat, open horizon displaying every movement of the sun and the moon, it's always the same, even if I am not.

In the morning we wake up to the sun, brighter here, coming through the windows, the shades, and filling our room with light. We wander out into the house where there is coffee and burger-sized glazed doughnuts sitting on the counter. I pull on my sports bra, shoes, socks, pull up my wild hair which is taking on a golden yellow color, and go out to run down the street, around, back up the street for a few miles. Returning, everyone is sitting on the porch with steaming cups of coffee and Bibles, quiet, reading and squinting against the glare of the sun that's now higher than the roofs that stand between our house and the beach. We read quietly, together, until the time has shifted and someone speaks, and then it turns to talking and laughing and looking over pictures from the day before. We move about slowly, drink pots of coffee, and eventually move toward inside so we can change into bathing suits. We go down to the beach, I'm always first, with chairs, towels, books, an umbrella these days, for the babies, small coolers for beer and boxes of Cheese-Itz. We sit the rest of the morning, reading, and the guys play a dozen made-up games with the football. We walk and talk, we smear more sunscreen on our sandy legs and backs, mostly we read, and the sun rises up over us like an arch, and we fall asleep. Eventually we eat a sandwich, then back to the beach for more of the same absolute heaven. In the evening an outdoor shower is wholly sublime, and we all grab glasses of wine and bottles of beer and head back down to our endless picnic blanket with the dogs, and we sit on the beach as the sun sets behind us, somewhere over the bay, taking photographs and talking about the last twenty-eight years we have spent in this very same place, possibly on these very same grains of sand.

Here I am happy. This morning I sat with my journal and a cup of coffee and found myself thinking about the fact that my baby is visiting the beach for the first time. I believe that supernaturally he or she absorbs everything I experience, so I prayed that the beach would soak into me this weekend even more than it usually does. And the prayer sort of went synonymously with this prayer, as the Spirit and the beach are so much of the same thing to me, that It would be wide, full, expansive in my heart and soul these next 6 months so that this child would be bathed in Him, as I am bathed in Him. For 6 months I have a completely captivated audience, a helpless feeder, and I want to feed him, along with Doritos and club soda with lime, the Spirit of God. This is what I've been thinking about for a few weeks and I am beginning to feel a fulness in answer to my pleas.

positive.

Tuesday evening after work I met a dear friend to go walking. We walked around the neighborhood admiring the sprawling variety of million dollar homes, then went back and sat around in her mom’s kitchen chatting about a variety of things. At one point she said, You should probably get going, huh? To which I replied, I don’t even know what time it is. To which she replied, It’s 7:20. (Rewind, I’m walking out the door and Mark is sitting on the sofa with his brown work shoes propped up on the coffee table, the dog laying like an expensive hide rug on the hardwood there below, and I say I’ll see you by 6:40). Mark isn’t one to panic, but an hour is a significant discrepancy, so I called as soon as I put the car in reverse.

“I’m on my way, I am so so so so so sorry. Are you mad?”

“No, I was just worried.”

“Oh my gosh, I know. I would have been so worried. I’m so sorry. I didn’t have my phone, totally lost track of time. Oh my gosh, it’s so much later than I thought. You’re not mad.”

“No, I’m not mad. I was just worried. Did you have fun?”

“Yes!”

“Good. Dinner is ready.”

(LOVE)

For two nights in a row Mark has cooked dinner. We’re not just talking grilled cheese, we’re talking an amazing, homemade chicken sausage, zuccini olive and onion spaghetti sauce over linguine with ciabatta last night and his own recipe for honey mustard salmon, some yummy boxed cous cous and salad tonight. Aside from grilling, Mark’s probably only cooked dinner ten times in the three years we’ve been married, which is pretty much purely because I’m a bit of a kitchen dictator, a non-delegator, a master culinary multi-tasker. That said, it’s an uncommon event. But for two nights in a row he has made it happen.

For what reason would I choose to relax my grip of control on the kitchen? Why, for two nights in a row, would I request my husband to come home from work and hunker down in front of the stove when it is something that energizes me, where as it is a chore for him?

Because I can’t tolerate the smell of cooking food. Because if I have to cook it I will certainly not be able to eat it. Because this BABY that’s growing inside my body has turned me upside down and everything feels opposite and inverted. I want to sleep all day. I don’t want to eat. Can’t cook. Want cheese.

That’s right, the baby! (We’ll consider this an official announcement.)

I’m two and half months pregnant, due with our first little family member March 18! We were trying, for a pretty long time actually, fodder for another post another day, and were stupid excited when we found out in early July. (It was 5:30 am. I was up to work out. I jumped on Mark, waking him up, screeching “IT’S POSITIVE THIS TIME!”)

And let me reiterate right now, my husband. I can’t stop loving him. He should teach this class to husbands of irritable, nauseas, flakey women: “How to Deal with Your Dragon Wife 400.” He is incredible. Granted, he’s kind of enjoying the fact that the only thing I want to eat is pizza.

Promise the blog won’t become a baby forum. But it’s going to be kind of fun to post pictures of baby and Moose Dog in a few months! I'm smiling.

... our pets heads are falling off

Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock Mark, Sidney and I are going to walk through the front door, lock the deadbolt and drive to Pennsylvania for half a week of Evans-family gathering, thus leaving behind this recent chaos and destruction that seems to be falling upon our heads.

When we walk out the door we'll be shaking ants from our feet coming from a steadily growing colony currently taking up residence in the kitchen. I shiver as I write it. A few days ago there were two itsy bitsy ants on the counter beside the sink. In the morning, more. We called our exterminator Bob, whose cell phone number is programmed into my speed dial, but his number had changed so we were unable to bypass the central office. "We're sorry, Bob is booked up until Wednesday afternoon." Keep in mind, we are leaving tomorrow MORNING. "Bob can spray outside the house while you're gone, and when you return we'll have him come back and spray inside." For what purpose are we spraying OUTSIDE? I don't care if there are ants outside, it's my dishwasher, utensils drawer and pantry that concern me.

We will load up into the Jetta, Mark's car from high school, and not our brand-spanking-new Passat because about two weeks ago the large plate that runs underneath the length of the car... fell? Came undone? Dropped? Dragged the highway for 30 miles. Due to the fact that its repair will cost in the neighborhood of $300.00, Mark climbed underneath the car and zip-tied it up. Solution for the forseeable future.

Once loaded into the car, we will cross the threshold of the driveway, which is now a river because our water meter is leaking. We didn't even realize that the water was actually bubbling forth from the iron plate on the curb by the driveway until this afternoon at 5:45 pm, when we quickly called the city, whose representative promised someone would be out within two hours. They came at 7:45 pm (irony?), took the plate off, stuck a crow bar down into the water-filled hole, and then said, "You need a plumber to look at this." What is your job description? "The city won't be responsible for this issue unless the leak is within five feet of the hole." Dear Lord, let it be within five feet. Mark and I spent the ensuing hour calling plumbers to find out who could come tomorrow in the morning, if they could fix the issue while we were either en route or settled in Western Pennsylvania. When I talked to Vic, he said this: "Hm, that doesn't sound good, but it's fixable. Unless, you don't live in Ardmore do you?" Yes. "Oh damn." Fab-u-lous.

I'm taking deep breaths. We will leave tomorrow morning at eight o'clock and pray that on Sunday when we come home our house is still standing.

outer space and a new baby boy.

I swear lately it feels like I am in outer space. The temperatures have finally broken, but for a while there it was like sun-walking. I do realize it was hot across the continent, but inland NC heat is like walking from air conditioning (if you are so lucky)into one of those heavy, prickly, kind of bendable electric blankets - it's on you, under you, all around you and down your throat. I actually gasped for air when I turned on my car and the AC tried to gust through, then drove to the post office where the thermometer read 107 degrees. This is something other-worldly. I haven't written much or edited much of anything in months, which also makes me feel stagnant and shriveled like a raisin (ironically created by the beating down of the sun), though I have been voraciously devouring literature since the spring. I believe writing and reading literature are two sides of the same coin, and hopefully all of this reading is in some way informing me and forming my writing mentality, style and the purposes I hope to achieve. Something needs to tip me, though, back to the actual craft. However, where I am, in this ocean of stories, also contributes to the outer-space feeling because I am beginning to have trouble distinguishing reality from fiction, especially when I keep falling asleep reading. That makes everything exceptionally weird.

My dear friend just gave birth to her son three months early in pretty desperate circumstances, and I keep feeling like I'm there, with her, in Richmond, even though I'm here. Imagining her in the hospital being rushed around by doctors and nurses, her emergency c-section, her new baby son feels very strange. This can't be real, can it? I suppose it can. I keep dreaming and praying for him, for them, but it seems so out of this world. She is the kind of person who keeps calm and sails on. Her unflappability has always disarmed me because it is so different from the way I am, and I think that's why we are such good friends. When she found out her son would be born with some physical abnormalities a month and a half ago, she took it in stride, practically talking through the implications of having a child with some special needs who might undergo several surgeries in the first few years of his life. She mourned some of her expectations, but had this brilliant attitude, thankful for his life. And then, when she was put on a week of bed rest, followed by a week in the hospital where Tucker was ultimately born, she just maintained that steady faithfulness. Here now I can imagine her peering through the glass windows into NICU to watch his fingers open and close, his little head under the small beanie. It's out of this world.

As time goes by there seem to be an increasing number of circumstances that blind side us and I'm more and more cognizant of the imperfection of this world. HOWever, I also think I am (we are) developing a greater love for life. There is more to fight for, and that perspective, the vigor it fosters, is something to be thankful for.

a few pictures from the ficker family sandbridge trip.

music memory.

In elementary school I learned that our bodies have all kinds of memory systems. We remember some things easily, but other things are only recalled because of a trigger, suddenly we remember a moment, the balloons at our third birthday party, the dog that got out of its pen and tore, barking, down the street at us, the girl that sat in the front corner of the music class. Triggers can be through any of the senses. I remember a lesson on how we have smell-memory and sound and sight-memory.

Music is my emotion-memory trigger. I've been thinking about it a great deal lately because this summer's country offering is pretty strong so I've been tuning into the country station (THE WOLF. Ridiculous name). I'm finding that this summer I feel, eerily, like it's high school. I am 16, driving the gold Honda I shared with my sister, and I do not care about how I look except that I'm tan.

My childhood is triggered by Billy Joel, Simon and Garfunkel and James Taylor primarily. I'm thankful it doesn't take Veggie Tales sing along and Raffi to get that period of my life to the forefront of my mind, so mom and dad, if you have ever felt guilt about the music that was in our house, let that go. The songs of these old artists make my stomach hurt wishing I was spindly and miniscule again, running around until it was dark outside in overalls with wild, whispy hair and dirty feet and my sister and brother. It makes me think of being in the subaru with my dad on Saturday morning driving to the Meineke and Home Depot and Dunkin Doughnuts, how we'd drive with the windows down and I would watch the tiny dust hairs drift around the inside of the car when we were stopped as I waited in the parking lot. These songs make me feel peaceful and safe in a way that I don't think I'll ever, as an adult, feel again. For that reason I want to cry when I hear them. For this reason I smile: I realize, in listening to Carolina in my Mind, Cecilia, and The Entertainer, that I had a sweet, sweet childhood. It's hard to know, objectively, if you had a "healthy childhood." You don't really know how dysfunctional you are, I don't think. But music helps me to believe, to know, to remember, that the process of growing up was happy for me.

Moving forward. Country music, as previously declared, takes me in a rush back to high school. Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, SheDaisy, The Dixie Chicks... when I hear those songs that came out between 2000 and 2004 I get pitched backward in time and there I am again, plopped back into the wonder and joy of growing up. The way I felt like I was a real person, not just a kid. Learning how to drive was the most liberating thing, and the boy I loved and I would drive at night in the summers listening to music pouring out of the windows, just laughing and singing. My friend Megan and I went to a dozen concerts, even met Tim McGraw, and belted out every song at the concert where we sat so far back on the lawn in the middle of July. Those country singers take me back to a state of eagerness, this wild readiness to GO! Embark on life, college, moving away, learning to be independent.

I met Patty Griffin in college and she became the artist of my life. It's interesting, I think she may have become a Christian in the last few years and her newest album, Downtown Church, was a lot of old hymns re-done, lovely. I love it, but I loved her other albums more. Primarily Living with Ghosts, an album which lives with me almost daily. Her music is fabulously beautiful and deeply stirring. She was full of sadness and curiosity and angst and trouble, and those were things with which I became acquainted in college. Her music moved me then, and it moves me now. She understands how my brain work even though she doesn't know me. Now, hearing those songs, I feel a little bit of sadness, but mostly the maximum of my depth. I believe that college teaches us about our true selves more intensely than any other life experience. To me, Patty equates the way I felt in college: fully spent, fully shot, and fully present at the base of myself. Also, her song Heavenly Day was Mark and my first dance on May 2, 2009, and that song makes me stupid, crazy happy. That was the best five minutes of my entire life.

Coldplay and Imogen Heap are the summers I spent in Florida, totally free and easy and unburdened. Sara Groves is the year we were engaged. Frank Sinatra is Kaili with me in Italy. There are thousands more. And here I find myself again, listening to country music after an 8-year hiatus. And do you know, I feel so free and so tan.

owen wilson in winston-salem.

The buzz in Winston-Salem this week is that Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis and Amy Poehler are in town and Mr. Wilson in particular is living it up. "Living it up" in Winston is a bit of an anomaly because it's a very small city with fewer than five good bars, two exciting downtown streets and pretty sparse on live entertainment, but I think what everyone means is that he is here, in fact living on West End Boulevard for a few weeks while filming the movie You Are Here, and that he is not staying sequestered with other famous folk, but that he is choosing to explore our fair city, try our restaurants, chat with our bar tenders and get to know the people here, if only for a little while. It kind of makes me happy, less for us and more for him, that Winston will offer him a little southern hospitality, a probable great distinction from his normal routine. I keep thinking, "I hope he goes to Camino and his diet allows him to try the lemon rosemary cookies," and "I wonder if he has heard of the trampoline park," and "I wonder which house is his on West End and if it's got a great city porch," and "I hope he bumps into someone who tells him to go to the Olive Tree if he likes Greek food, but that he has to have some cash or a checkbook...." and to try the Gimlet at Tate's if he's a gin drinker... and to go see a movie at the indie film theater a/perture on Fourth... and to take a walk up through Reynolda Gardens if it isn't raining because the roses are so fabulous right now... and to have a cup of custard from Wolfie's... It's absurd the amount of thought I've given to Owen Wilson being in Winston-Salem, and I think it's probably because I have developed a certain pride about this place after having lived here for four years and I think the A-listers will find it charming if they give it a chance. I have lived in so many cities I've learned how to adopt a place as my own more quickly, and this one feels like like OURS - Mark's and Sidney's and mine, and that's a first. It feels good and comfortable. It's the THIRD Spring we have watched bloom outside the windows and I knew when the big old gnarly tree out back would be covered with green leaves and the temperature that would kill the impatients if I didn't get serious about watering them. We know the sidewalks of our sprawling neighborhood pretty well, and our neighbor has become quite fond of our dog and we finally decorated our guest room so it's really pretty and inviting. I love to run in this town, and get take-out from the Mexican place near the Indian grocery store, and I love the little second-hand shops and the twenty minutes or less rule that ideally describes every in-Winston trek you might make. This is a good place to live, a really really good place. Owen Wilson, of all people, has me thinking about this all rather idyllicly and I do hope he and his gang can soak it up while they're here. And I hope they order the the Moravian Cookie Crusted Salmon if they hit up Milner's for dinner.

good cause for a manicure.

Last Thursday, feeling entitled, I went to get a manicure on my lunch break, a luxury for which I spring about once every eighteen months. I went to a place called Dream Nails in a strip on the backside of Harris Teeter and had my fingernails trimmed, conditioned and painted bright pink for $15 (including tip). I was feeling stressed and exhausted, and when I sat down at the little desk and put my fingers (which I had only the night before painted lavender) under the desk lights, the man looked at me and said, you tired. Brother, you ain’t kidding. Here’s why… Three weeks ago I received an e-mail from a friend in town saying that her cousin, a student at the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, was part of a film crew that was in the process of producing a short film. The crew, students at UNC-SA (one of the best film schools in the country, which I didn’t know) was teaming up with a group from NYU to produce this film that would be submitted to film festivals around the country, and would also serve as the writer/director’s senior thesis. COOL. They would be shooting in Winston. COOL. Their location had fallen through. NOT COOL. They were in immediate need of a last minute house. OKAY… And they were looking for something a little older, small, brick, with a front porch, nice but not too nice interior décor, you see where this is going. My friend said, and I told my cousin that I have the perfect house for your film. MARK AND GINNY EVANS’ HOUSE. Not knowing much about anything, really, I of course agreed to this. Why not? Mark and I work full time (the house is inhabited by only the dog for 9 hours a day) and making a film is pretty neat, and I am clearly an extrovert and love to meet new people. Plus, I’ve always kind of felt like the house isn’t REALLY ours anyway, and anybody should really be able to use it… so, YES. Absolutely, you can film your movie in our house. The schedule went like this: Saturday afternoon: Eight crew members come spec the house for an hour and a half. Monday-Friday: 8:00 a.m., van, several cars, twenty-something people pull up at Walker Ave. and unload massive cameras, light fixtures, trash cans full of props, costumes, some sort of scaffolding, wall-sized black standing sheet-wall things, large metal brief cases full of sound equipment, large boxes of food, tables, chairs, shovels, etc. They worked until 8:00 pm every evening, except Friday when they stayed later filming evening scenes. They dug a massive hole in the backyard, moved furniture, took down photographs, filled the fridge with caffeinated beverages, turned the writing room into a producer’s closet of equipment and, in a matter of 60 hours and change, made a movie. And let declare it here, from the bottom of my heart: It was one of the most fun weeks of my life. Every day I came home at lunch to a couple dozen artsy, interesting people who were living in my home, loving HARD on Sidney, smoking cigarettes on the front porch, lounging on the sofa, re-decorating and creating something from scratch. I got to talk with them and learn about acting and making movies and directing and living in New York and trying to make a career out of their craft. I drank wine with one of the actors, and we laughed about the process of turning your art into something – he knows exactly how the whole writing thing goes because it’s in many ways the same as being an actor. They were fun, and kind, and completely endearing, thankful and gracious and mouse-like when they broke a wine glass and when we first saw the depth of the hole in the yard. We came home from being away for the weekend to the house, as it was last Saturday, clean and fresh, as if nobody had ever been here. There was a bottle of red on the table, a blue tennis ball for their best friend Sid, a stack of trashbags to replenish the ones they had used, and a sincere thank you note signed by the whole lot. They kept saying what a gift we were, but what I kept wanting to write back was No, you were the blessing.

nyc.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned a trip Mark and were planning to take to the Big Apple. Well, we got back yesterday and agreed it was the best trip we have ever taken! Absolute bliss. Here are a few photos...
(*note Katelyn Belcher - dear friend from college studying law at NYU, Buvette Gastroteque, a little French gem, the WTC memorial, and at last Cafe Lalo, setting of Joe and Kathleen's meeting in You've Got Mail)

cold, cold morning in february.

Today feels like the bleak winter I've been waiting for since December. It is cold because of the wind, and the precipitation that won't turn to snow because it's one degree too warm. I wore flats this morning, which I knew was a mistake before I even stepped off the front porch, and my toes are still attempting to thaw. Typically I'd bemoan this day, but as we have had a very spring-like winter thus far, I feel it's fair to allow the white season to come into its own a bit. Plus it's nice to hole up in the bungalow for a day, work on my query letter, hang out with the dog, be together without the TV on in the background. I like how the heat in our house is loud like white noise, it pumps all day because the wind blows through the drafty cracks in the house and the sounds make me want to fall asleep.

Yesterday we had nothing to do, so we cleaned a good bit, watched an episode of DOWNTON ABBEY, detailed our cars at the self cleaning station on Peter's Creek Parkway, and then had my sister's family over for dinner. I was reminded in their presence of the truth that to be known and loved is what we really want, thankful for their friendship - how they ask about the things that I really want to have asked even though they hurt, how she helped me clean up my dining room and let my massive moose-dog lick her baby's face without worrying about it, how our husbands stole away for an hour to play basketball (aka cultivate brotherhood), how we sat around in the end, as always, planning our trip to Paris (I have no clue what we'll talk about the day after we actually take this trip - perhaps plan for Istanbul?).

This Thursday Mark and I are flying to NYC for five days. FIVE WHOLE DAYS. We're going to see WICKED on Broadway, visiting the World Trade Center Memorial, walking on the Highline, taking five hundred photographs and having strangers snap a few more, eating a ghastly amount of irregular food, walking miles and miles, staying up late, spending money that we've been saving for this very trip for a year (how do you spell satisfaction?), probably laughing a good amount, sleeping a good amount and imbibing a good amount. After a long, exhausting several months, this trip is shouldering us in like a great big sofa and we can't wait. It was planned appropriately for this time of year, in the doldrums of late winter when the human race needs a shot of adrenaline in the arm to get through to warmer, longer days. Yes, New York will be quite a bit colder, but *I've got my love to keep me warm.

This is all coming together at this point: that these are blessings. I see that God, in his infinite wisdom, knows us and what we need. I'm thankful for that, and for this week, even though I'm tired. I have been wrestling with the command to "Delight yourself in the Lord," because I want the result and I know that the command is good, but I don't think I know HOW to act out this verb. I keep asking Him to HELP ME (the most commonly uttered words out of my mouth and pen), and perhaps existing in the awareness of these small blessings is the action.

happy valentines day.

Double dark chocolate cupcakes for dessert :)

old shoes and new ones

I had this one pair of running shoes, back when I was training for the first half marathon (one of the two—it was a short career). They were black with thin, gold stripes on the side. Asics GT-2130s I believe. Those were the best dang shoes I’ve ever had. I loved that they were black instead of the typical white or gray with a few colorful spots. They looked tough, and I felt tough the first time I ran the 13.1 miles. You don’t even know how much I love those shoes. That was four years ago now that I bought them, and although I have purchased many pairs of running shoes since, I have held onto the black and gold ones. I wear them with sweats or jeans on Saturdays. I wear them when I’m comfortable and dressed down, and they still look awesome. I mean it, they are really cool.

Since the black and gold days, I hadn’t found another pair quite as good. Even though I’ve continued to buy that Asics series, I have not appreciated the changes to the model. UNTIL NOW. A few months ago on a longer Saturday run my knees started to hurt. My knees never hurt. My feet, yes. Toes, ankles sometimes, even my shoulders. But not my knees. I went home, showered, and drove straight to the sports store because I had a coupon and hurting knees can only mean one thing: New shoes required. They had one pair left in my size, and I was pleasantly surprised by the gray color with purple highlights, the soles that were neon green, purple, silver. Not tough, but really cool. I bought them. I brought them home. I ran on Monday. And I was in love, for the second time.

A few weeks ago Mark and I went up to Pennsylvania to visit some old friends. “Old” means that these are friends we made in college, friends that although we have moved on, grown up a bit, gotten hitched, secured relatively stable careers, are still some of our best friends. We had such a wonderful time visiting—laughing at old, ridiculous college memories, like when Mark and Nate dressed up as characters from the Die Hard series for Halloween one year, and when Lu and I used to run through downtown Harrisonburg, the vacation we took together last summer. And we talked about the future too, our hopes for this new year, our mutual cloudiness over what the next few years will hold. It was relaxing, fun, easy, so familiar. These are the old, black and gold friends. Old faithfuls. Even though we can’t run with them every day anymore, they will always be there in the closet, favorites and still perfect for certain times and dates.

We have made a lot of new friends these past few years living in Winston-Salem. When we moved here it was a bit of a gamble, only knowing a few people, but we have been truly astounded at the community that rose up. There is the Young Life community, our remarkable new church community (who would have thought what harvest we would reap when we sowed the seeds of my short part-time career as the youth director of a new church we hadn’t considered before?), and the surprise of new friends through Hannah and Josh, just twenty minutes away. These new friends know us as Mark&Ginny, rather than individually, and I love that, because it is the truth of us now. These are the new shoes, the friends that are now in the everyday of my life.

This has gotten me into thinking about these seasons of life through which we rise and fall, and the reality that the important thing is the people. I am thankful for my old shoes, and my new ones (I love shoes a whole lot), and I am thankful for our old friends and our new ones (I love them a whole lot more.)



(visiting those old friends)

seventeen books.

On January first of 2011 I made a few N.Y. resolutions, including the resolution to read fifteen books in twelve months. Characteristically, I made four or five resolutions and completed two or three, but the resolution to read was more than filled. These are the 17 books I read last year, and my reviews. A few were mentioned in my 25th birthday post back in June, so excuse my redundancy.

1. Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. (****) This is the biography of one of the great theologians of the twentieth century, a German Christian who lived during the first and second World Wars, and spent his life devoted to the active practice and study of the life of Jesus. He was imprisoned by Nazis during World War II after taking part in the assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, and was executed just before the end of the war in April of 1945. Bonhoeffer is an enormous book, physically (at around 1,000 pages), historically, as it offers the rare perspective of a German Christian in opposition to Naziism during that dark time in the world, and literarily, a beautifully written story with a perfect balance of facts, faith and politics.

2. East of Eden by John Stienbeck. (*****) This is my favorite novel of all time, and this was my third time reading it. It is the perfect epic story, with some of the best written characters in all of fiction (Samuel Hamilton, Lee). It is the story of budding America, a coast-to-coast saga of the reprecussions of sin throughout generations, the unique and bizarre relationship of brothers, fathers and sons. The way Stienbeck reaches back to the very dawn of humanity to Adam and Eve and shows the continuity of the human race is perfect. This book is PERFECT.

3. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. (**)Typically I don't choose chick books like this, but Emily Giffin was coming to speak at Wake Forest back in the winter and I always try to attend when published authors speak in town. She was on a pre-movie book tour for this book, along with its bunch of sequels, so I picked it up. It's the story of best friends competing for one man - a great deal of backstabbing, under handedness and treachery, with a somewhat disconcerting while also satisfying ending. It definitely kept me going, but wasn't one I'd read again.

4. Bel Canto by Anne Patchett. (***) I bought this book from the used bookshop down the street purely because the cover is beautiful - turquoise and gold, shadowy and haunting silhouettes of people. It's a very interesting story of a hostage takeover in South America. At a fancy birthday party full of politicians and celebrities a guerrilla gang infiltrates the home of the host looking to kidnap the president. However, when the president is not in attendance, the gang decides to take the entire party hostage. Somehow this situation propels 300 pages of compelling story. The best part of the book is the writing - Patchett's language is precise and lovely - and though I didn't love the outcome of the story, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

5. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. (*****) I have been accused of speaking in hyperbole (WHATEVER) but this is my second favorite book :) WOW, I was absolutely blown over by the story, the eloquent and reachable language and craft of writing, the weaving together of stories to come to the end, the emotion, the drama. Across generations and miles, the story of several different Jewish families, the effects of the Holocaust over decades, and the book that ties them all together. Fantastic and brilliant. I'll read anything she ever writes.

6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. (***) Looking back I realize I read a lot of Jewish or World War II literature this year unintentionally. This book got a lot of press this year - a young Jewish girl's story of escape from the hand of Nazis and her journey back home to find her lost baby brother. I was expecting greatness after what I had heard, but was not as impressed as I'd expected to be. Still a good story, emotionally exhausting.

7. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. (***1/2) The only reason I don't give this one four stars (only three) is because I am not overly captivated by Chinese literature. Set in China in the 1800s, this story is about a young girl growing up - the old Chinese culture for young women, from foot-binding to old sames (arranged best friends) all the way through mother and grandmotherhood. The story is excellent, well-told, well-researched, fascinating.

8. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Juliet Ashton. (***1/2) This was a good summer book, a light, fun, feel-good story of a small island off of the UK, occupied during WWII (I know, we're up to four). It's entirely letters - the whole story is told through the correspondence of several characters. I was skeptical, but ended up really loving it!

9. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. (****1/2) This book was phenomenal, if you are reading this and you haven't read it, don't even rent it from the library. Buy it. The story of a lifetime for twin brothers Marion and Shiva - born in Africa at a mission hospital, the story of their childhood there in Ethiopia, and then into their lives as they grow up. Such fascinating relationships, such beautiful writing. There is a great deal of medical jargon and discussion, as the book is largely based upon their lives around a hospital and then as they grow up and continue in the world of medicine. This book kept me turning and turning, and I think I read the last 100 pages in one sitting. I can't sing the praises of Cutting for Stone highly enough. It was one of the great books of my life.

WHEW, half way there. My feet are FREEZING (it's 65 degrees in here but I don't want to get up and put socks on. I'm sweaty too, from a run this morning, and now I'm all cold and sweat and white toes). TMI? Sorry, okay let's keep going... Now we're moving into the fall.

10. Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay. (****) Perhaps I enjoyed this book so much because it was so unlike everything else I had read by this point. I have also always been very fascinated by Russia, although I don't think I would ever actually choose to go there, I find the history and culture wholly fantastic. It's the story of a Russian ballerina and drama of her life, told from her perspective as an old woman going through her collection of jewelry piece by piece, each artifact symbolizing a time or event in her life. It is unique and ingenious, dark and rich. I really enjoyed it, was sad to turn the last page. In fact, I think I had to read the last five pages twice to make sure I got the ending straight :)

11. Exile by R. N. Patterson. (**) This is strange, but it feels like I read this book two years ago. It is a very lengthy political thriller centered on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It was interesting to me because I have been to Israel and am spiritually invested in that entire saga. However the story was painfully drawn out, and some of the political stuff just got to be too much, too detailed. I think if I were a bit smarter or had read it at a time when I could really focus on it, I may have felt differently, but for me it was just OK.

12-14. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. (****) It took me four weeks to read the entire series, I became so wrapped up in this story. I was amazed by the first book. The story of this futuristic world where the continental US is divided into these districts, controlled by this crazed central dictatorship is so interesting, and the Hunger Games, a sort of gladiator-like fight between children, seems like a really sick idea for a book series, but Collins creates it so masterfully! After the first book I was chomping at the bit for the second, which I liked almost as much. However, I was pretty disappointed with the third. I think she took on too much in the third book, and some of the story sort of fizzled out because there was almost too much to wrap up. However, I'd recommend the series absolutely!

15. State of Wonder by Anne Patchett. (****) LOVED this book. Again, Patchett is brilliant with the English language, description, drama, emotion, people. I'm fascinated by the way she writes and aspire to write as she does. Marina is a research biologist who ends up traveling to the Amazon jungle to find out what happened to her colleague that went missing weeks earlier. Books that teach me something, show me something of a place or thing I can't even fathom, are my favorite, and A.P. painted the Amazon so clearly for me. She had to have gone there. There is one scene in this book that was really the most amazing scene I've ever read in a book - I'll just say it's the "snake scene." Go read it, and tell me that's not the most AMAZING writing. Gosh, I want to read it again for the first time. I loved it.

16. The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. (**) Strangely, this book was disappointing. It was quite long, a strange investigative story about an artist, tortured and misunderstood by the imaginations of his mind, and his psychiatrist's efforts to understand and get to the bottom of his crazed actions. I invested a lot of time in the book, and in the end was not overly impressed by the result. However, I have two friends that read and really enjoyed the book, so maybe it was just me :/

17. Great House by Nicole Krauss. (****) It was great to end the year with Nicole Krauss again, after how much I adored The History of Love. Similar to her other novel, the book weaves the stories of the lives of several Jewish characters together until they meet at one central object: a large, dark writing desk. Her brilliance, the way the characters connect to each other is astounding, really. This story is a darker story than the other, there is no laughter or great happiness, but it's such a satisfying book. This was another one I had to back and re-read a few things to figure out all of the threads between chapters and people, but once I pieced a few last things together I was blown away.

Such a good year of reading! There are a few others I started, and have yet to finish. Maybe in 2012? Hope this list gives you a few reading ideas! Happy New Year,

Ginny