Germaphobes Beware.

I realize that I've returned, but there's still a lot of reflecting to be done - so my apologies, but bear with me. It helps!

This was originally written for my English Content class as part of a larger photo essay project reflecting on our lives as future teachers. This bit of writing went with a picture of one of our children whose hands are covered in yellow and orange paint:

She is my little princess and this is (arguably) my favorite picture from my entire time abroad. The pot belly, the confused expression, the multi-colored hands, the sheer innocence of it all - I mean, what's not to like?

But most of all, I love this picture because it reminds me of the beauty in messiness. Open Arms is chaotic; any piece of paper you put down is likely to have "I love you" scrawled across the top immediately, no matter how important or official it looks. Little hands get into everything. Weird, disgusting things get pulled out of tiny mouths. Organization is flighty and ringworm is rampant.

And yet, you fall in love. You fall in love with the untidiness of the bookshelves and the stains they put on (every one of) your shirts: the nail polish on my favorite sweatpants? A memory from girls night. The blue paint smears across my beloved Oregon sweatshirt? Remnants from the time one of our babies butted up to our freshly painted wall.

Bleached and sanitized memories swirl around only to be cycled out, but yellow and orange hands made imprints on my mind long ago.

I have come to learn that messy thoughts are the only ones that truly stick.