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Esta Doutrich

Esta Doutrich

Category Archives: ranting

a worthless race { from my perspective }

11 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by Esta in friends, life dirt, ranting

≈ 52 Comments

The starting gun was shot a long time ago. Probably the day I drew the fridge door wrong on that cardboard box and she told me I had no idea what I was doing.

Don’t you know a fridge door looks like this?

Permanent marker made a black X over my door so hard the tip broke and she showed me the right way.

I cried on my Daddy’s shoulder, in his office beside the boxes of tracts and church planting literature scattered everywhere.

I didn’t know this was a competition. I didn’t know I was loosing until then.

Despite my Daddy’s arms and his assurance that my fridge door was just what it should be, the race had already begun.

My round angles didn’t fit in square holes, which, instead of showing me how silly the striving was, just made me feel like everyone else had a head start.

But round holes or square, we still race, don’t you see?

Even the old ones do it, this comparing of fridge doors. I see it—I’ve done it.

She has a bubbly personality and we wish we could make people laugh like that, but hey, at least I don’t come across like a flirt.

She wears clothes like they are art, every movement grace, and we automatically analyze our outfit and decide she must be a show-off.

Her kids giggle in church and we feel smug because who cares if her house looks like Country Living, at least my kids sit still.

She travels and witnesses as easy as breathing and we feel like spiritual buffoons.

She talks during Sunday school, people tear up, and we spend the next weeks trying to be more “deep”.

We feel either proud, smug, frantic, insecure, or a nasty mix of all four.

We are not safe places.

I feed my hungry insecurities with your talents and you feed yours with mine.

No one ever wins.

Over the last two years, so slowly, so timidly, I’m learning to fall in love with what God says is Esta, and how it’s not a mistake to fight, but a gift to embrace. I still don’t know half of what that means, yet.

But the more I wrestle to find what it is to truly be a woman, the more I hate the lies and what the lies make us do. And the more I see how many of us don’t stop until suddenly we are comparing our grandchildren and the whiteness of our dentures.

I’m pulling out of the race.

I’m pulling out because last week I actually saw what God kept pounding in me the last three months.

How it doesn’t matter.

Esta, would you just listen. Just listen.  It does. not. matter.

How He perfectly places and designs and arranges our hearts to be who we are, and it is HIS doing. Our job—my job—as a woman is only to embrace it and finally move free.

That is all.

Free.

And all the passion can be turned outward and upward, instead of spent on protecting and embellishing and worrying about my identity.

I am not a hidden threat to you—you are not a hidden threat to me.

As I embrace who I am, I am left unencumbered to embrace who you are with passion and abandoned, joy, because you are not a threat, you are a gift.  

We are free and only then do we create a safe place to sit and care for each other.

Your fridge door is beautiful and mine is too.

*This is written from the female half of life. As a guy pointed out to me the other day, guys also do this. I only know this side*

Freak out sessions

05 Saturday Mar 2011

Posted by Esta in 3 am moments, laughter, life dirt, ranting

≈ 3 Comments

 I come home and God and I have freak out sessions late in the night.

Or, I guess I should say, I freak out and God lets me.

Last weekend we sat in leather couches and told of what life means for us now, and how we need prayer.

So in the sunlight I write down the prayer requests and mostly there are words like surrender and unknown, and loss of focus and inside, where they can’t see, I know my selfishness. 

I don’t want to hear about surrender and focus and giving up self.

I don’t want to hear about it because I know all about it in my head, but that hasn’t seemed to make any difference.

Letting go. Opening the hands. Surrender.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It has been a life-long, gory battle, and, frankly I just wanted off.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal if it was just one of those spiritual ideas that you can mull over and nothing in the real life of messy rooms and baloney for lunch would be effected.

 But you can’t laugh at yourself when you are making fists and if you can’t laugh at yourself you are toast. Or at least I am.

So here I am freaking out and trying to pry open fists while packing for three months and taking final exams

and finding one of my best friends is getting married

and I am too opinionated with my family

and don’t mind me, but I think I’ll just go join a convent and sell hippy buses for a living and wear dragon fly anklets.

Agh.

Would someone please tell me a good joke

or kiss me

or throw a glass of cold water on my head.

 

p.s my dear friend Kristin is hosting a lovely giveaway over here!

*photo credit*

Redneck Hicks

18 Wednesday Aug 2010

Posted by Esta in friends, laughter, outrageous love, ranting

≈ 2 Comments

 That title really has nothing to do with this post, other than the fact I attended the local county fair yesterday and watched their Motocross racing so I was pretty much surrounded by tobacco chewing, American rednecks, walking around with that arrogant swagger that makes their beer bellies jump around under their stained t-shirts. Fascinating  people.

The Motocross was wonderful though. It reminded me of the hick version of a Canadian hockey game—lots of noise, pain, rednecks, and raw emotion.


(my camera flew off the hood of my friends car so no pictures did I take. This photo is credited to motocrossactionmag.com)

I attended the fair because my car broke down on the way to work. It was very traumatizing. I hate sitting in the middle of the road by myself. But the up side of it all was that work let me off for the night, my car got rescued, and my friends invited me to go with them to the county fair instead.

And sitting there on the metal bleachers, watching the races, I started thinking about thrills. I mean, the guys flying through the air on those tiny pieces of mental must really get crazy thrills. I got thrills from just watching them and wincing when they crashed into piles of bike and body. As they loaded one rider into an ambulance, I thought of the young guy with the goatee and the tattoos who had to call me every time he needed to turn over or use a bedpan. I remembered him at that moment because he had ridden a bike too, before it smashed into pieces. I understood what those guys were risking.

Yet, at the same time, as stupid as it seemed, there was a certain element of raw nerve that appealed to me—that fascinated me with its refreshing idiocy. Mostly, I think, because it seems our culture is bent and determined to get the thrills without the guts and blood nowadays. You can buy an energy drink at two bucks a can for goodness sake. It could be argued that is the best route—safe thrills, you know. Why go out and risk life and limb for a rush when you can stay safe at home and play Call of Duty, read a passionate romance novel while munching on chocolate, or watch the football game?

Which makes me wonder whether life was meant to be safe or risky—smart or stupid? There are definitely times in life when we leave reckless immaturity for a deeper pursuit of life. But when do we cross the line from reality to fantasy. In fleeing to safe thrills do we not run out on courage, risk, and determination? Or are we just being smart?

Now, obviously, the risk those bikers were taking was rather senseless. No one was going to benefit from them tearing around the track and busting their brains to smithers.  Yet, is there a chance that cultivating that kind of nerve in ourselves might go a long way in the earthy, damp everyday living of Christ-like lives?

Jesus lived in the very center of storms and angry crowds. He overthrew temples and cast out demons. He took more risk than any human in history.

And we read the latest inspirational bestseller, flirt with the cute guy in the youth group, and feel our dedication rise when we go to Wednesday night prayer meeting.

Our children learn to ride their bikes on the safe side of the road, play safe games, and choose secure occupations.

We are smart, artsy, intellectual, spiritual, funny, witty, and charming, rather than passionate, ruthless, brave, and risky.

We don’t bleed well.
We fight even worse.

And many times our relationships reflect our apathy. Forgiveness takes guts, love takes determination, vulnerability is a risky thrill, and humbleness is like jumping on a raging bull when you’ve never seen a cow.How can I expect to practice any of them if I’m all about being safe?

So if my future son ever gets up from his gameboy long enough to ask me, “Mom can I have a sheet to make a parachute? I want to jump off the shed roof.”, I’ll probably give it to him, and tell him to have fun. And then drag a mattress out to cushion his fall.

Creepy coffee shop men

06 Friday Aug 2010

Posted by Esta in laughter, ranting, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

I meet way too many creepy guys in coffee shops.

 Now, the strange thing about this is I’m not one of those hip, coffee shop stalkers. I think coffee shops are cool places to be, provided that they have good coffee and free WiFi, but  I don’t use them to boost my status quo or define my “hip-ness” . Personally I think coffee shops become completely overrate when they follow terms such as “artsy” and “chic”. As if spending time in them instantly gifts one to write poetry and quote such original sayings as “ I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” without sounding like a complete idiot. A coffee shop loved for its coffee rather than its 5 dollar Triple Truffle Mint Ice Latte and its “artsy décor” is the more genuine of the species. Anybody can scuff furniture to make it look artsy and come up a chic name for a drink that tastes like toothpaste with a shot of old espresso. But quality coffee, now that takes a trained, experienced hand that is becoming a rarity in this generation. Especially, I am finding, in the United States of America. They make good sweet tea, sure, but we still trump them in coffee.

 (insert shameless plug for Canadian Tim Horton’s coffee)

Anyways, back to this whole creepy guy thing.

 So since I’ve been down here I’ve not had internet on a consistent basis. Therefore, I’ve had to resort to chic, artsy coffee shops that have, to their credit, free WiFi. Since I always feel guilty being a parasite, I usually buy something as a token of my appreciation. The other day I got the above triple truffle business and nearly passed out. They could have put shredded dandelions in it and it wouldn’t have tasted worse. If you wonder how I know what shredded dandelions taste like, its because I ordered the White Chocolate Iced Green Tea the other day and it tasted just like that. Ugh. But worse than the drinks and the prices are the guys that hang out in them. I don’t usually go around watching guys in coffee shops—boring hobby if you ask me—but the ones here just force themselves in your face. Quite literally.

More than half of them are of the I-am-in-a-coffee-shop-therefore-I-am-intellectual type and go on and on and on about their BAs and MAs in that slow way that wanna-be intellectuals talk—as if talking to fast is going to overwhelm you and insignificant mind. Harrisonburg being a college/university town seems to spawn them. These kind of men are very annoying. They are generally long winded and loud and if you’ve ever tried to write an email while listening to one of them you will understand why they are most often single and old. They are generally harmless, but creepy in that if-you-are-so-smart-why-are-you-taking-to-me kind of way.

Then there are the wet haired, Converse shoe wearing, smooth voiced dudes with the too strong Old Spice. These kind generally don’t talk to you. They just sit in little clusters and snicker and giggle and carry on like adolescent girls, all the while sipping iced green tea and staring you down. These are the kind that I feel like slapping but never do. They are creeper than the long winded BA’s since they often will talk about you loud enough that you can hear, which is just weird.

And then, finally, there are the just plain out and out creepy guys.

Like the guy on Monday.

He sauntered in the little artsy door five minutes after me and sat in the opposite corner on a chic little stool-table number. Pony tail, old competitive biking suit, and a belt full of odd pouches and loops. Grand chap. There he sat and watched me—for two hours. After the first hour I began to become annoyed and after the second I got mad. Finally he got up and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Only to find that he had simply walked around the building to the outside of the window that I was presently leaning against. He sat there on a  bench right under the window. Right beside my face. Creepy. He sat there for a while and I pretended that I was oblivious to him. I must have put on a pretty good act because he got so fed up with me not noticing him that he started shaking the shade umbrella standing over him. Not even kidding. Like a little kid throwing a tantrum. He shook and he shook and finally I decided that not only was he creepy but completely loony. Then, since the shaking didn’t seem to be getting my attention he got up.  I breathed another sigh of relief.

Only to suck it back in when he came through the doors and walked straight toward me. I stared resolutely at my computer screen. I’ll never make a good secret agent.

“Hey,  have you ever heard of the song Mennonite Surf Party”, Mr    CreepyPonytial inquires.

 (I looked it up online after and couldn’t find any lyrics and just one or two short song samples so I really don’t know if I should be scandalized or not.)

 Anyways, Mr CreepyPonytial said it was fairly indecent but very hysterical.

“Couldn’t you just imagine?” he cackled in my face.

Our conversation consisted of me continuing to study my increasingly fascinating computer screen and muttering answers to his breathy questions with grunts and head motions. By this time I was fairly certain he was just a few peas short of a potluck casserole and therefore calmed my enraged thoughts at his insolence. Finally he went up to the counter to ask for a free water and I saw my chance.

Quick as my short little legs could scuttle I ducked out the door, jumped in my car and, raced away. The poor chap didn’t have a chance on his bike. I felt smug.

End of story.

And in cause your wondering, all the girls seem completely normal. Most of them just sit, draped all over their Converse shoe wearing boyfriends and fan away the Old Spice.

I’m not sure what the moral of this post is, other than to warn my fellow women that your chances of finding a future husband in a coffee shop is around one in five hundred. It would be more productive to search at such places as football games or a nice bible school. At the former you wouldn’t need to worry about the whole “intellectual type”, and at the later only about 95% have gelled hair and reek of Old Spice.

Clarks death and such

29 Tuesday Jun 2010

Posted by Esta in friends, laughter, life dirt, ranting

≈ 3 Comments

Now don’t get me wrong, I am loving Virginia.

Every night as I drive home the mountains seem more beautiful, the stars brighter.

And all the ladies hug you and call you honey and all the men open doors for you and call you darling.

But there are a few things that I simply cannot understand.

 One of them is the way people here run their thermostats.

 In Canada, at least from my experience, if the temperature is freezing then the thermostat gets turned up just enough so that if you wear wool socks, leggings, and warm sweater, you can spend a whole day at home without you toes getting frostbite and falling off. In the summer when the temp go up to say 95 (yes it does get that hot up there) then you might turn up the AC just enough so that you don’t leave sweat footprints all over the kitchen floor. You live with the outside temperatures, only adjusting for survival purposes.

Here thermostats are treated with completely different methods.

Here, if the temperature is above the 90s, people grab that thermostat switch and flip it down to around 70. Not even kidding. Every house I’ve been too in the last three days has had their house temp to be about 72 or so. Its ridiculous. Why in the world do you have summer here anyways? Might as well move the whole state up to the north pole for the summer and freeze there.

I’m now taking a sweater with me when I go visit people since I don’t particularly like trying to converse while my teeth are chattering.

So I taking a mental leap by assuming that , come “winter”, when it might actually get down into the 70s outside, people are going to jack their thermostats up to 90, and sit sweltering away their money in heating bills, complaining about the shockingly low economy.

Just saying…..

Oh, and another baffling item.

Say you go visit someone—you walk into the door (being blasted by a rush of icy air) and are warmly welcomed by the hostess of the house. The warmth of the welcome make up for the icicles forming on you eyelashes.

“Ya’ll want something to drink?”

And then before you can reply she shoves a glass of some tan liquid into your hands. You taste it. You think somehow she must have got the syrup bottle mixed up with the juice pitcher. But then you learn that no, it is not to go on your morning pancakes, its called “Sweet tea”.

Yeah, no kidding. Sweet enough to rot all of your teeth in one gulp and send you skittering up the walls until dawn. And they drink it like its glorified water—or some magic potion—by the jugfulls.

Hot? Have some sweet tea? Thirsty? “Here, have some tea” Popped in for a minute? “Have some tea before you go.” Don’t want any? “Here, just have one glass.”

And so on……

But the thing that puzzles me most is what their bodies do with all that sugar. All that white sugar has to be killing something somewhere. And they don’t even have free healthcare to pay for it when it does. Maybe the freezing temperatures they endure all summer help to burn it off, I don’t know.

On another note, Emily murdered Clark.

Emily is my roommate, Clark was one of my best friends. He isn’t totally dead, but he had suffered some extensive wounds from the attack. All three of his arms are missing chunks, and he had become rather vocal in his complaints. But I still love him and I still consider him the best fan I’ve ever had.

We bought him the first Saturday after I moved down. We needed fans to keep our tiny trailer from becoming a supersized sauna and so when we spotted him at a garage sale he caught our attention right away. He originally cost 12 dollars, but Emily bargained and got him for 8. He was the best. Mostly because he is quite large, as fans go, and very powerful. He sat at the back door and blew merrily away hour after hour, creating lovely little breezes and humming a soothing tunes.

Then, last night, Emily attacked him from behind. Coming in through the back door with a load of bedding she tripped over him and sent him shrieking in all directions. His wire cover came off and all his blades have pieced missing. And he now rattles quite horribly. But something else happened to Clark in the accident that is most unusual.

He can now walk.

Something in his innards is messed up in such a way that when you turn him on he slowly scoots across the floor. I set him in front of the door this afternoon and when I can back a few minutes later he had managed to make his way all the way down to my bedroom door and was tugging on his cord. It alarmed me at fist since fans aren’t supposed to be able to move like that and I wondered if someone had come sneaking in while I wasn’t looking. But no, I soon discovered that Clark is now mobile. The only bad this about this new ability is that he is much harder to manage. No matter where you put him you never know where he will end up next and this can cause some very animated arguments between us.

But I always forgive him, since I am so gratefully he still blows, even with all the creaks and groans.

 I’m still working on forgiving Emily though.

And I have poison ivy. I’ve never had poison ivy before and I always had this secret desire to know what is like. Now I do. It’s very itchy. And it is very ugly.  Disappointing really. I just want it to go away now so I don’t have to have people staring at my arm weird-like when I go into town.

And deeper than peeling skin and painful sores, I just want all the ichy and ugly things in my heart to go away too, you know?

He keeps showing me more, and its worse of a mess than I dreamed.

How can we be so immature inside and still have hope?

If camels can go through needles, I guess elephants can too.

I'm Esta

/Canadian nurse living in Oregon/ Occasionally I write about depression, womanhood, faith, and other super abstract ideas, while trying not to take myself too seriously.

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