Photo credit: Dorian Mongel on Unsplash Written by Chavon Barry There’s a cobweb on the light above me. I should grab the broom and brush it off. Later. Refocus. The boxes behind my chair need to be built and packed. We’re moving to a new house, a new rental just down the road. There’s so much to do. I swallow the lump in my throat and stay right here because the blank page scares me too. I worry there’ll always be something more important than putting words on paper. Because really most things are more important. “Oh the places you will go,” Dr. Seuss promises. If only I could start… *** When I was fifteen, I travelled by cargo ship to Long Beach, California. The captain invited my dad, a paper mill shipyard supervisor, and his wife and four kids to take the one-way trip on the Thorseggen. “I’m going to Disneyland by barge!” I told my teachers and friends. Machinery and the crew lifted our ‘97 Dodge Caravan onto the deck and the ship’s first mate showed us the captain’s quarters, our new living space. On the days to follow we turned green with seasickness but still dressed up for three-course meals and ran the narrow corridors, steel staircases, and glistening-white sundecks. It wasn’t quite the Disney cruise my best friend went on the year before but it was mine and I loved it. Yesterday, I started to sort through the storage space beside the hot water tank and found my old travel journal covered in dirt. I brushed it off and read. Inside I chronicle a thirty-day European Impressions Tour my best friend Melissa and I went on in my early twenties. I retell about the train up Jungfrau mountain and how the pressure popped a bag of chips. I detail Venice’s intricate canal systems and the sweet tang of Bellini from a plastic glass aboard a gondola. I relay each city, cathedral and castle. Describe white-water rafting in Austria, the ancient paths and walls of Carcassonne, the leaning tower of Pisa and the view atop the Eiffel Tower. I remember writing at the end of the day from a new hotel or during the long bus ride to it. I’d often turn to Melissa and ask, “Where were we two days ago?” And the answer never came quickly. We moved too fast. With eleven plus countries on the itinerary, we struggled to catch up. Moments were lost but I still filled the pages with mishaps and adventures like a superstar sighting during Cannes’ movie festival, losing each other in Amsterdam and the painful pick-pocketing incident in Spain. It’s fun to read, but, despite their lack of luster, the pages before and after Europe captivate me even more. They are a series of stuttered starts and stops. I guess I didn’t know what to write about then either. There’s a two-page spread outlining my first novel where three characters undergo a journey to transformed faith. It died right there, quickly replaced with my new-hoped-for signature. I graffitied four pages with Chavon Barry, Chavon Barry, Chavon Barry over and over again. Would Joshua ever ask to marry me? I couldn’t control that and so I shifted the notebook’s purpose and mapped out the upper-level english literature classes I’d take. I listed each course's abbreviation and number. I’d change my mind twelve times before registration. Then it was off to Europe and back again but I ended the journal with an out-of-the-blue prayer: God, I want to believe but I can’t move past my doubts. I need someone I can talk to. If you want me to know you, place people in my life (other than my parents). The next day I was introduced to the youth pastor at a church I visited. He mentioned I might like to work with the youth group. I’m not ready, I instantly thought. It was true and I didn’t go back. *** I need to scrub the caked-on-oily dust off the top of my cupboards. It's gross. We’ve lived here eight years and I don't often climb onto my countertops to deep clean this hidden space. No one except my landlord and a new tenant would ever notice. The moving checklist means it's time. If I’m honest, it seems most people are cruising through life, while I’m chugging along by barge. The grandiose moments are few and far between. They happen and they matter but its tough when all your ruminating can’t help you see past a single page. When the cupboards still need washing. But maybe that’s just the way of it. Little starts and stops we push through. There’s something beautiful in the everyday. The young calligrapher would be pleased to know, Josh did ask to marry me and I’ve mastered my signature. I finished two degrees and eventually it led to my first full year teaching in—to my shock—elementary school. This happened after many years: three babies birthed, a decade teaching-on-call and in temporary contracts, and years of running my own daycare. God did send me people. Many people. He listened to my prayer for help and my, I’m not ready. The simple outline, the list, the prayer, and my hope become the journal’s significant story. The real long winding bus tour with thousands of stops. It shaped me more than one more tourist excursion ever could. As I grab a moving box and pull the tape across the bottom seam, I realize it’s pretty tough to predict the future. That change can surprise you and that God doesn’t stop writing your story because you can’t see where it’s going, or to be honest, where you’ve been. As Eugene Peterson translates Paul’s words in Romans, “God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go.” And the next destination may be years in the making but just minutes down the road. First appeared in Collected Magazine. Read the whole issue here.
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Chavon BarryChavon is a new writer from Victoria, British Columbia. She wrestles with simple answers and is learning to listen, to be still with God. Archives
April 2022
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