Thanksgiving

I was back in Chicago this weekend celebrating Thanksgiving with my family and seeing my 8-month old nephew, Colin. Between spoonfuls of mashed potatoes and dressing, I paused to look around the table (that extended from one end of the dining room to the other end of the living room) at the 4 generations of the Daugherty clan gathered round it. It was good to be home.

Living thousands of miles from family for the past 3 and a half years, I've come to really appreciate today's 'urban families', made up of friends who are also geographically separated from loved ones. I haven't gone home for Thanksgiving in several years, and there have always been groups of friends throwing some kind of potluck food-fest in honor of the holiday. Since so many of my generation live far away from home, friends stand in to fill roles that family has traditionally held. And that can be such a blessing. From sharing holiday meals to taking each other out for birthday dinners, or simply going for a walk after a bad day, my friends have, in so many ways, become something like a family to me.

But as I looked around that table this past week, I realized how irreplaceable family really is. Sure, it's fun to try and replicate Grandma's time-honored dressing recipe and laugh at how poorly it turned out with friends who also can't cook their way out of a paper bag. But there is something about sharing a holiday with people who know you almost better than you know yourself, and who love you in spite of it. As I sat at that table, I thought about all the Thanksgivings before this one that I have spent with the same familiar faces. I remembered the magic of going to visit Grandma's as a kid, and laughed to myself about all the silly things my cousins and I used to do.

You have choices in your friendships, but family, well, they are yours whether you like it not. So this year, what I am most thankful for is that the people I'm stuck with, my family, are the ones I am most grateful to be able to spend time with.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Surf or ski?

I used to be so amazed that, living near San Francisco, you could conceivably divide your weekend between skiing in the Sierras and surfing at Stinson beach. There aren't too many places in this country where you can enjoy summer sports all winter long, while still having access to winter sports nearby.

I am so pleased to report that Boulder is another one of those unique places. We may not have an ocean, but I went cross country skiing in the Rockies yesterday morning and mountain biking in the foothills today. There is a foot of snow 45 minutes away, and it is sunny and almost 60 degrees down here in Boulder. Ahhhh. The body is tired but the Becky is happy. :)

Take 2

And for the same list with a So-Cal twist, see Julie's Top Ten.

Top 10 Reasons I Know I'm not in Berkeley Anymore

10. It snowed last night.
9. I regularly encounter tumbleweed on my way into work.
8. Not everyone knows what Craigslist is.
7. I haven't been in a traffic jam in four months.
6. I almost ran over a herd of prairie dogs on a recent bike ride.
5. Lack of oxygen.
4. I can go days without seeing a homeless person.
3. When I ask if we can BART somewhere, people say, "Who is Bart?"
2. White people work at "ethnic" restaurants.
1. Our governor has never ended a speech with, "I'll be back."

Outstretched arms

I've been re-reading journal entries from 2 and a half years ago, during my first year living in California. I was totally shocked to read something I'd written in May of 2003, about 4 months after I had started going to church at 1st Pres - Berkeley: "I really like this church in Berkeley, but it is hard to be patient about finding friends there. Sometimes I feel like other people don't like me - I don't get it. Why do I feel like such an outsider?"

I can't believe I wrote that about a church that I came to consider my family. We laughed together and cried together. I was challenged in my faith, challenged to step up to lead, and strengthened through amazing friendships. But above all, I was loved. I was loved in a real, palpable, honest, true way. My friends at that church loved me for everything I was and everything I failed to be. I belonged.

But how easily I forget that it wasn't that way from the beginning. I remember Berkeley as a place I plugged into quickly and seamlessly. In my memories, there was always a Becky-shaped hole at that church that I fit right into. But in reality, I was NOT received with outstretched arms. It took time to get to know people, to share in their lives, to allow them to share in mine. But isn't that the beauty of friendships, and of community? I don't think God meant it to be something to take lightly, or to enter into frivolously. Friendships that last require time to nurture, and are grounded in so much more than knowing someone's name and phone number, than sitting next to them at church, or laughing at the same joke.

So maybe it's OK that I still feel like an outsider around here. Maybe I will be sitting in front of a computer, 2 and a half years from now, marveling that I once wondered how my piece would fit into the puzzle here in Boulder. And, who knows, maybe then it will be time to move again. :)

Great quote

"We question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question."

- Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

I love camping! 

Boulder vs. Berkeley - it's no contest

I went to a luncheon in Denver on Wed for a work organization that I was involved with in the Bay Area. Not knowing anyone in the room, I sat down next to a guy who looked about my age, hoping for some interesting conversation. We covered the usual, Where do you work? How long have you been there? What kinds of projects are you working on? questions. All was fine and dandy until we hit the normally inocuous, "Where do you live?". I confessed that I lived in Boulder. From his reaction, you'd think I had said, "I currently live in a nudist colony where we smoke weed and meditate all day. In fact, I think I am only days away from achieving full enlightenment". When I mentioned that I recently moved from the Berkeley area (which I told him that I very much enjoyed), I may as well have said, "In my spare time, I enjoy hurting small, innocent children." I clearly dropped several rungs on his ladder of respect.

I hate to break it to this guy, but compared to Berkeley, Boulder is a pretty conservative city. Which to me, carries with it both good and bad things. The people who live here tend to be upper middle class, white, intellectual, physically fit, and involved in their community. Did I mention that the city is 86% WHITE? This is NOT Berkeley. Sure, the two cities have some similarities. Both have large, liberal universities. Republicans are in the minority. And admittedly, both are so open-minded about new-age philosophies that they tend to be narrow-mind about traditional religions (did you say you're a CHRISTIAN???).

But Boulder is not the hotbed of raging liberalism that the rest of Colorado perceives it to be. Sure, they are alittle weird about their organic food, but I appreciate that they care about the earth. It may be unique that they institute "no waste zones" at their weekly Farmer's Market, composting everything in sight, but I have a hard time looking down at the city for wanting to reduce the size of our landfills.

Though expensive and (I suppose) liberal by Colorado standards, Boulder is a wonderful place to live. I can bike to the Peak to Peak highway from my doorstep, trail run with the sun setting behind the mtns, or hang out with friends and have coffee along the bright, cheerful, outdoor pedestrian mall in the heart of downtown.

Colorado, you can have your hunting, your cowboys, and your right wing conservatism. I'll take the mountains, even if they come with a serving of wheat grass.

Care to dance?

Some friends of mine are heading out salsa dancing tonight, but I'm still limping around with a bruised knee, and opted to sit out the round. But just the mention of salsa brings back memories of Peru. I still can't believe I got personal salsa lessons from Felix and his Peruvian buddies, in some nightclub in Cusco. If only we could have stayed in that magical (though touristy) city alittle longer, maybe I would have figured out how to sway my knees without moving my hips, swing to the beat without looking like I was about to teeter over. Frank, you were a great teacher, but I'm afraid I was a hopeless student.

All dressed up with nowhere to go

I've been hanging out on the couch in front of my computer all night, trying to keep my swollen knee elevated and iced. Sometimes I think my clumsiness is God's way of slowing me down every now and then. It worked tonight, anyway.

I'm finally getting around to revamping my website after almost a decade of infrequent and fairly pathetic updates. After 2 hours of fiddling around on Microsoft Frontpage, I am happy to say that I have gotten just about nowhere. And I can't help but appreciate the irony - my brother is a whiz kid computer engineer while I fumbled my way through CS 101 during my semester in Australia, riding on the coat tails of my hero in nerd-dom, Kelvin Proctor (with a name like that, he was doomed to a life of antisocial genius).

Isn't it amazing how siblings can turn out so vastly different from each other? It's the same two sets of genes combining, but I can't think of anyone who really feels like a genetic match of their sibling. It sure seems to add weight to the 'nature' side in the nurture vs. nature argument.

At any rate, here I am joining the ranks of the Blogger world at Julie's request. So I must not be THAT computer illiterate. There is hope for me yet.