"he was poetic, and he dreamed of reigning over a kingdom of words."

don't worry Em, I'm here for summer. I plan to be on a lot. this Blogger thing is regaining popularity with me as well, and I have time again. *contented sigh*


"Are you badly hurt?"
"Hideously," said the king, without sounding injured at all. "My insides may in an instant become my outsides as I stand here before you."
I've realized just how dangerously addicting Meghan Whalen Turner really is. I'm rereading The King of Attolia, now that I've reread the other two. I started it on the way home from Father/Daughter camp, am now about halfway through it, and I have a hunch I will probably finish it tonight. Every time I say 'just to the end of the chapter,' somehow the end of the chapter comes and I just keep ploughing right on through the next, and the next, and the next....



I'm trying to figure out what my "project books" will be for the summer. I'm thinking The Once and Future King, and something Dickens...maybe Martin Chuzzlewit (just because it seems like no one has ever read that one). I don't know what else yet. I'll have to rustle around in the bookcase.



I got to go to the Seattle library on Friday for awhile, and discovered that I could understand between %60 and %70 of the French in the random French book I picked up. then I spent a long time 'reading' Les Mis in French and had to find a chair when I discovered that I was making the security guards uncomfortable by sitting in the middle of the floor.

good grief.



Father/Daughter camp was, as usual, amazing. I wasn't upset with or annoyed by my dad all weekend, which seems to be a rarity these days. I think our personalities are so much the same that we often just clash without knowing why. unfortunately, the same thing seems to happen with my mom. I'm such an erratic blend of the two of them that certain strains seems to make a stronger appearance than others at just the wrong time. but when my dad and I are alone, then I tend to be more like my mom, so we get along better.
we kayaked, and did the high ropes course, and the zipline, and shot soda cans with BB guns, and hurt our fingers using the bows on the archery range, and went swimming (aka do the whirlpool thing and then get out before you freeze), and took long walks, and drank obscene amounts of hot chocolate, and ate too much of the good food and then ate junk food for dessert, and made new friends, and reminisced with old friends, and got incredibly sore, and didn't sleep enough, and split a blackberry milkshake on the way home, and in general took a break from the world for two days with no showers, no technology, and no worries.

the best thing in the world about Father/Daughter camp, I have discovered, is the people. it's a bittersweet flavor these days, since Rod moved on to start his own church, since his daughters grew up, got married, and started lives of their own, since the "big girls" of when I was little have started college and stopped coming, and since many people come in September whom we no longer see in June. but Ed seems to be the anchor for now, and he makes everything seem so simple - out there in the middle of nowhere, with woods and ranch and pastures and sea. there aren't problems. there's just God. and somehow, you know, everything is going to be alright. being 17 isn't as hard as the world makes it out to be.
everything is going to be alright.
I remarked, on one of those long walks, that I felt as if I had grown up there. in some ways I have. I remember learning to drive in my dad's big truck on weekends there. I learned how to ride a horse there too. and shoot a BB gun, and use a bow. I conquered a portion of my fear of heights/fast things, first on the tire swing, and then on the high ropes course and zipline. I learned what a salmonberry looks like when it's ripe. I learned how to canoe and kayak. I learned about the process of wastewater treatment (don't ask). more recently, I've learned about change, and how to handle it the healthy way. I've learned about people moving on, and how to change but stay the same. I've learned so much about knowing God...though there are few specific "lessons" I could put into words. how do you put a relationship with the creator of Infinity into words? I can't even do it with my human friends. I've learned about my dad, and myself, and our relationship with each other and with God. I've learned about mistakes...and how not to make some of them. I've learned about love and dedication, and adoption and more love, and blessings. I've felt that it's ok to be dirty for a few days, and to share your bathroom with a daddy long-legs. I've felt the return to innocence that maybe can't be felt anywhere else by the time you reach 17.

yes, in a way, I grew up there. people I only see once a year have watched me grow up and have loved me through it. and now, here I am, at 17 years of age, watching the next group grow up. but every year, I know that my place of childhood is waiting for me and my dad to return. to search in trees and pastures for wayward rockets. to watch the evolution of a tire swing and a little girl's bravery. to come home.......to a place with no age limit. when we drive off on Sunday afternoon, as I take one last look over the pastures that have never changed even when everything else has, I can hear the camp whispering to me, "I'll always be here for you."