The Ocean is Calling

I’m home this week in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. I love being near the ocean again. After a long stint in Southern California, my grown-up home is currently Chattanooga, Tennessee, a place with no ocean, but lots of charm, friendly people and a river that does the job for now. Chattanooga is home, but my childhood home will always be the beaches of South Carolina.

My brother, Bobby and I go to the beach in the mornings. He fishes and I surf, while trying to avoid his fishing line!

I love being home not just for the beach, but to hang out with my family; cooking for my mom, taking my niece surfing, and getting cuddles from Benny Boy, the family corgi. It’s part of the reason we left California, to not be quite so far away from family. The older I get the more I realize how much time I want to spend with family. In high school I was pretty much ready to get as far away as possible, and I did for a while, but over the last year I’ve been inching my way back closer to the east coast, at least in driving distance to my parents.

Chattanooga is close enough to Pawleys to drive down on the weekend, and far away enough that we still need a heads up if any family is planning on coming over. At this age, it’s the perfect distance. Who knows, as I get older it may feel too far, just as California started to feel once I hit mid-thirties, but for now, Chattanooga works.

My sister visiting me in Chattanooga! Visits happen more frequently on this side of the country!

I’ve loved getting to hang out with my mom. Her humor is sharper than ever and I can see more and more where I get my sense of humor from. It’s funny how her wit has been in front of me my whole life and it wasn’t until I started doing comedy later in life that I realized just how clever and comedic my mother was.

We’ve spent the days at the beach and the evenings watching Little House on The Prairie. Mom has quite the crush on Pa Ingalls. In last night’s episode, someone was sneaking around in the middle of the night outside of the Ingalls house. Pa ran out in a long nightgown holding a rifle. “There he is, Mom,” I said, “in his nightgown, ooooo!” Mom smiled, “yeaaaa, I wanna get me a nightgown… one with a Pa Ingalls in it!”

I literally laughed out loud… I do a lot with my mom.

For as much as I love coming home, it’s also bittersweet. When my parents divorced nearly 10 years ago they sold the family home and moved into separate condos. The four of us kids divide our time trying to figure out what night to eat dinner where… it’s not the end of the world, it’s a new normal we are fully adjusted to. But sometimes when I’m not trying so hard to be a grown up, it’s still a little hard.

Every time I come back to Pawleys Island, I drive by our old home, the house I grew up in and came home from college to. The house where I celebrated every birthday and Christmas as a kid, had sleepovers in middle school, and brought the boys I loved to meet my parents, as well as dumped the one I didn’t.

I loved that house, I had an entirely purple room… purple walls and purple carpet. I eventually covered the walls with so many Hanson posters, you couldn’t see a spec of purple. Some might have called it a shrine. I called it glorious.

Not a single square inch of wall space was spared.

The house pretty much sits empty now. It serves as a second home to some folks up north who only come down on occasion in the summer. They ripped the shutters off and painted the once beige colored house a dark navy blue. It looks different and yet the same.

I sat in the car and stared at the porch, a place I sat often, whether listening to music, praying to God, or hoping a cute boy would ride by on his bike. It’s weird how life seemed to take so long as a kid, thinking adulthood and relationships and everything I thought I wanted was so far away. At thirty-eight, as I looked at the porch that used to be mine, I realized it all went by in a blip.

The Barrows kids in high school: Bobby, JJ, Bonnie, Betsy, and Biscuit!

No one told me I’d grow up one day. I mean, they did, but they didn’t. It’s an assumed part of life, we all know we’re going to grow up. But I don’t think we really know what that means or what it will look like. We don’t realize that not only will we get older, but we will look old, and we won’t be the cool ones anymore, let alone the young ones. No one told me there would always be people younger than me, reminding me how old I’m getting, calling me ma’am when I check out at the grocery store.

No one told me, I suppose, because they were busy going through it themselves, realizing how fast time goes and how short life is. Each generation adjusting as they go along, entering each new decade they reach for the first time.

As an enneagram 4, I’m prone to dwelling in the land of nostalgia, wishing for things to be the way they were, even if I don’t recall them as being that great… the mere fact that something is a memory often makes it great for me. Perhaps that’s why I drive by the old house, an attempt to remember and relive our family all hanging out together.

And with that, I drove to the beach and jumped in the ocean to wash it all off. The ocean reminds me that everything really is okay. And it is, I’m truly, truly grateful for the beautiful life I have. I’m even grateful for the the memories I get to relive even if just for a moment when I drive by my old house.

I’ll head back to my own home in Tennessee soon, a home I’ve been enjoying creating new memories in with my husband, Josh. But for now, the ocean is calling…. my home away from home, my happy place, with or without the big family house.

Better than any house, this is my happy place!

really living

I watched a girl run back and forth from the ocean as it washed up on shore and retracted back. If you were to just see her and her alone you would think she was playing with the ocean’s edge. If you were to zoom out you would see another girl filming her, over and over again, trying to get just the right look for the picture or the video or whatever they were uploading to social media.

I watched them “do over” the picture multiple times, wondering what the caption would say, probably something to the effect of “playing at the ocean’s edge,” or “so happy to be at the beach.” The funny part to me in all of this was that neither seemed to be true. The girl wasn’t playing with the ocean’s edge, she was repeatedly trying to get the perfect looking picture. And I’m not so sure they were happy to be at the beach because they barely noticed it due to looking at their phones the entire time I watched them, even while they were walking. The vastitude of the ocean lay restless beside them and they barely noticed until they wanted it in the picture.

I got frustrated watching them. I got frustrated because they weren’t really living but giving the impression to someone somewhere that they were. I thought about the people who follow them on Instagram or Facebook who see the pictures of them “enjoying” the beach and wondered if those people would be jealous or feel lame for not adventuring out like them. I thought of people being jealous of a false reality and I got frustrated. I got frustrated because I know I’m one of those people who sees other people’s pictures and think I need to do more with my life, now wondering if those people really live out what they post or if they just repetitively try to get the perfect shot to make it look like they are really living.

I got frustrated too because the honest truth is, I have been one of those people who posts a false reality. It’s not malicious or intentional, it’s just too cool of a shot and I want to be admired for it. So perhaps when I got frustrated with those girls, I also got frustrated with myself. There is grace for them and there is grace for me, but I don’t want to abuse that grace by continuing the false reality.

I love capturing life, but it’s easy to get too caught up in capturing it that you begin posing it instead of living it. I want to really live and hopefully capture some memories along the way, not miss out on life happening around me because I’m trying too hard to get the perfect picture.

I went for a walk on the beach and I picked up sea shells. I stared at the water and the shells in my hand. I dug my feet in the sand and wrote words with my toes. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I took a picture in my mind. The water sparkled and I smiled, not because there was a camera but because I was really living.

upcoming art show!

Hi friends, just a friendly video reminder about my art show coming up with RAW ARTISTS at the House of Blues on April 20th. Here’s a sneak peek at a few smaller pieces I am working on to sell at the show. I hope to see you there! If you don’t live in the San Diego area but are interested in sponsoring someone to go, you can do that too! Paying it forward is a great direction to head in life! 😀

You can get tickets at http://www.rawartists.org/jjbarrows

simple wonders

I’ve been gone for three months. My travels have taken me from San Diego to Israel for a time, a stop in West Virginia for a while, as well as Chicago, on to North Carolina before hiding away at my childhood home for the holidays on the beaches of South Carolina. It was a beautiful and chaotic time, but I suppose that’s how traveling can be, beautiful and chaotic… as well as life, life can be like that too.

My extended time away was not premeditated, it just sort of happened and it might have kept happening had it not been for a dear friend who decided to get married on New Years Eve in San Diego. It was her wedding that called me home, and so I packed up my travels, flying halfway across the country, landing in Texas and hopping a ride to drive the rest of the way back to California. It’s safe to say I love to travel. I love being in the act of it, anticipating where you are going, being present where you are, finding the balance between the two and making room for both. Sometimes I take the long way to the grocery store just so I can travel a little bit longer.

Truth be told, I could have passed up going to my friend’s wedding for the sake of travel, but deep down something in me knew that something about this life had more to do with people than it did with how many locations I could get to in one road trip, and so unlike myself, I hurried home.

I made it just in time to see my friend walk down the isle. She was every color of beautiful, in part because the colorful tattoos all over her body made the white in her dress shine an extra shade of bright, and in part because you could tell her heart was about to explode with joy as she held her breath to walk towards the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She made her way down the isle, caught a glimpse of me in the audience, and as if to be further surprised by joy, she mouthed “Oh, JJ!” She held back tears and smiled. My heart lept and everything about rushing home was 110% worth it.

“Relationships,” I whispered to myself, “people. There’s something about people that I know this life is about. Even when it doesn’t seem like it matters, it does.”

We danced the night away at her wedding. She shares the same affection I do for 90s hip-hop culture, so between Mariah Carey and Boys to Men, we could have broken the concrete floor with how hard we danced. “Dancing,” I whispered to myself, “there is something eternal about it. I feel too alive when I do it for it not to last forever.”

We sent my friend and her husband off in style, with sparklers and chants and fist pumps to the air, or to God, whichever your preference.

The wedding reception ended with a long night still ahead of us. In eager anticipation of welcoming in a new year, my friend and I wanted to keep dancing, but seeing as how we aren’t as young as we used to be, we get tired earlier in the evening… I’ll speak for myself. Knowing we didn’t feel up to bar hopping but didn’t want to go back home, we drove out to Shelter Island to get the perfect view of the city. The moon hung low over downtown San Diego, nearly touching the tops of the tall buildings.

We made plans to come back out one night and take pictures, which is still sitting patiently on our to-do list. After driving up and down the little island we noticed a hotel still lit up for Christmas with welcoming doors. People were walking in and out, some on smoke breaks, some on cell phones, and figuring it must be some kind of New Years Eve Party, we decided to venture over.

There was an older man sitting out front who noticed us looking in the windows, “just walk in like you own the place, turn to the right, go all the way back and there is a live band with dancing.” Perhaps it was obvious we  wanted to be involved with what was going on but didn’t actually know what was going on. “OH! Thank you!” we said, and with that I adjusted my jacket to make it look like I owned the place, opened the door and walked in.

We crossed through the lobby without anyone saying anything, “it’s working,” I said to myself, almost laughing as I passed the right we were supposed to take and walked straight back to open a door to a private party. I opened the door with an “I own this place” smile on my face and was greeted by a bouncer who responded to my owner’s smile with “do you have a wristband?”

“OH!” I said out loud (and “dang it” to myself). Just as I was about to explain myself, my friend grabs my jacket and tells me we were supposed to go right. “Oh, we were supposed to go right,” I said to the bouncer whose facial expression did not change. We adjusted our route and made our way past a dinning room full of older to elderly overdressed people. It felt very clear that we were outsiders as we kept walking, pretending like we knew where we were going.

Eventually we found the room with the live band and dancing. It had the vibe of a company party, business people letting loose for one night, my friend and I being thirty years younger than everyone in the company. I watched while the band played Stevie Wonder songs and older-to-elderly people got down on the dance floor, “this is gold,” I thought to myself. “We’re totally staying here,” I said to my friend. “Oh, absolutely we are,” she said, and our friendship made sense.

We danced until the ball dropped with perfect strangers imperfectly dancing. We welcomed in the new year with people thirty years our senior, and even though we didn’t know each other, something about the whole thing felt eternal; all of us celebrating together for one cause as if we were family. Perhaps it was the dancing, perhaps it was coming together of different generations, perhaps it was Stevie Wonder.

It was the best New Years I can remember having in a long time. Maybe at some point we all say that. Maybe there’s a point in which some people never say that. I tend to forget that New Years isn’t just some holiday in which I deserve to have a good time. Having fun on New Years Eve isn’t a right, for some people it’s just another night of trying to figure out how they are going to make it through. In those moments of realization I feel helpless, crippled by anxiety over the state of humanity, which is the exact type of thought you’re told to put away on occasions like New Years. After all, you don’t want to be Debbie Downer at the party. I don’t know where the balance is between living your life and keeping aware of the lives of others, but I think it might be somewhere in between gratitude and time and action.

I’m grateful I had such a good New Years, because not everyone gets one, I’m even grateful I allowed myself to have such a good New Years. Had I have sat on my worries about the state of the world, I would have missed out on the people right in front of me, not only my friend who I had the time of my life with, but also the people who’s story I don’t know, who may have had a hard year despite what their expensive dress says.

People are people, rich ones, poor ones, nice ones, mean ones, and sure, I’ll admit some of them are easier to love than others, but people are still people. Loving the poor and treating the rich like dirt is the same heart condition of loving the rich and treating the poor like dirt. People are people, with stories the likes of which we have no idea. I think most people are the way they are because of their stories, and I am increasingly convinced that listening to someone’s story will change the way you see them.

I’m grateful for where I am at in life, I’m trying to be present in the places I find myself spending time, and I want to do something when it is in my ability to do so to help other people, which doesn’t always mean giving someone money (in part because I don’t have any). I’m trying to embrace the life I’ve been given, allow myself to become more of who I was created to be, and in so doing, setting other people free to be them… something I think people need more than money… the freedom to be themselves.

Now that I am back in San Diego with a new year ahead of me, I am excited about what is to come, nervous too, but mostly excited. I set out to go for a walk the other day and less than a minute into my walk I ran into Richard, my seventy (+) year old neighbor. He asked over and over again how I had been and where I had been and said he was worried about me. Three months is a long time and I didn’t get to see him before I left, “I thought something had happened to ya,” he said, “I went down to your coffee shop and asked about ya.” Richard and I visited with each other often. The first time I met him he helped me put air in my bike tires. The second time we went for a bike ride all over the city.

Richard told me he how worried he had been, “I thought something happened to ya,” he said over and over again. “I didn’t know you were leaving… are you glad to be back, it’s good to be back, right?” he asked, almost nervous I might leave again. I felt both happy that Richard was so anxious to see me, and sad that I had not told him I was leaving. Honestly, I didn’t think it mattered, only because I had forgotten that when it comes to people, even when it doesn’t seem like it matters, it does. I didn’t realize what our frequent run-ins meant to him. I felt happy that Richard would care so much about me, and sad that I would be so careless with Richard. “I want to be more intentional with people,” I thought to myself.

Richard invited me in to share some ideas with me. As he asked what my plans for myself were, he said he had an idea. “Can you play a guitar?” He asked. I said I could. “Can you carry a tune?” he asked. I said I could… well enough. “You start practicing everyday, get yourself 25 minutes worth of material, you think you could do that… be in front of people for 25 minutes?” I laughed thinking about where he was going with his idea, “yea, between stories and jokes and singing, I think I could last 25 minutes.” “Good,” he said with excitement, “now you get yourself an act, practice everyday, record a little demo and send it to people. You start driving up the coast in your van and send the demo to people to say you’re coming, then you can perform in places all the way up to Oregon.” He laughed and smiled as he carried on planning my “career” as a performer. “Not everyone can do it,” he says, “but you could, you got the personality, you could do it!”

I noticed a guitar in the corner of Richard’s living room, “do you play?” I asked. He said he did as he laughed and waved his hand, “not so much anymore, but I used to.” I asked if he could teach me a thing or two on the guitar. “You don’t need a teacher,” he said, “if you got the basic skills, which you do, right?” I nodded. “Then all you have to do is practice everyday. So many people want to move on to the next thing and do all this fancy stuff, but they never master the basics, so they never really learn to get better, they just find new tricks.” I thought this to be true to my life in many ways, always anxious to move on to the next bigger and better thing without really taking the time to invest in understanding the basics, like loving people well, sending them thank you cards and letting them know you’re leaving town and won’t be back for a really long time, not to worry.

I asked Richard if he would play his guitar for me one night and he agreed that he would. He went back to talking about my plan to drive up the coast and perform in music venues and coffee houses. “And listen up,” he said, “you get paid to do this… no freebies! People are gonna want you to perform for free, but you say no. I mean, every now and then a freebie is okay, it’s good to give back, but you can’t do all freebies, you gotta get paid.” He smiled and stared off into the distance as if he were reliving a dream, “yea, you could just drive up the coast and play at night, it would be wonderful.” I agreed that it would. “I’d do it myself,” he said, “but I’m too old.” He laughed at the thought. “Think about it,” he said before I left, “you could take your van, plus you’d be good at it, you’d make people laugh.”

I thanked Richard and gave him a hug before I left. We planned our next bike ride. I walked to the coffee shop where I used to work and was greeted with hugs and screams of excitement. “YEAAA!!!” my friend yelled, “I’m just so excited I want to pick you up and pace back and forth with you in my arms!” So she did. My heart felt happy and loved. I walked to the bank to pray there’d be money in my account, also to deposit a small check, which was an answer to prayer (a combination of human initiative and divine interaction). I thanked God.

I walked down Newport Avenue, the main street in town, and I took in those fresh feelings of returning home. I took note of everyone I walked past, seeing some familiar faces hidden in the herds of tourists. I high-fived a friend and coffee shop regular coming out of his shop. I felt like I was right where I belonged. I walked to the end of the street that dead ends at the ocean. Everything had it’s place, the seagulls, the buskers singing at the ocean’s edge, the surfers gliding across the water, even the tourists walking aimlessly around taking pictures. Everything seemed to be just as I left it, and everyone seemed to belong, even the tourists.

I took in a deep breath to smell the salt water. I thanked God that I was alive and that I lived in Ocean Beach, California.

Last year was tough, despite what social media suggests, but I’m sure that could be true for many if not most people. In many ways I was nervous to come back to California. I was nervous to have a repeat of last year, and seeing as how that was the last thing I wanted, I almost resorted to not coming back. While it’s always an option to leave when the going gets tough, it’s also a way to miss out on the goodness of life, some of which is so simple you could easily miss it.

Rejoicing at my friend’s wedding, sitting in Richard’s living room, hugging my co-workers, high-fiving my friend on the street, smelling the ocean air are all simple joys I would have missed had I have not come back to California, not to mention prolonging panic mode as I tried to figure out what to do next. I so easily forget that my past experience doesn’t have to define my present one and that while I might have made mistakes before, it doesn’t mean I’m destined to repeat them. Prone to, yes, as humans we are all prone to repeating our mistakes, half the battle is being aware of that, but destined to? Absolutely not.

And so for now, I am home, enjoying my neighbors and living the adventure of doing every day life with the people around me. It is an odd combination of simple and wonderful, but I think that is what the best stories are made up of… the simple wonders that take place when you love the people in front of you.

May 2016 be a year of simple wonders for all of us.

 

richard

My friend Richard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

failing forward

I’m trying new things… or at least trying to try new things.

Often times I let the fear of not being good at a new thing keep me from doing that new thing, but I’m realizing more and more that the fear is less about my capability and more about what other people think. Like with anything in life, when you start something, you probably won’t be excellent at it right off the bat, but it you keep at it, little by little, over time you find that you can do it, and then one day you find you can do it well, and then one day… most excellent.

I’m tired of living my life in fear of what other people think… “is so and so proud of me?” (probably not, they hate tattoos), “am I working the right job?” (probably not, I should make more money), “will I be made fun of?” (most definitely)… but living in the what-ifs of other people’s thoughts is no place to live… it’s not living at all, it’s functioning at best.

At thirty-one years old I’m facing some fears. One of my fears is also one of the things I love the most in life… the ocean. Moving to California and living a block from the ocean, I’ve realized very quickly that you can’t have surfed on your dad’s longboard on the east coast 12 years ago and then come out here and call yourself a surfer. The first day I took a board out to “refresh” my  “skills,” I had my ass handed to me by the ocean. It’s intimidating being out there with people who’ve been at it their whole lives. But I’m tired of living in the wake of other people’s intimidation. And so I go out, as often as possible, and I get my ass kicked, sometimes I even get made fun of, but I know the only way to get better at it is to start being not so good at it, and then keep doing it.

I both love and am terrified of surfing. I get out in the water and I sing, I sing and I pray and I find myself having to trust God in a whole new way. I find myself having to choose to believe that He is in fact in control of the ocean and He’s got me. Sometimes I have to wonder if He does got me… west coast waves are different, they’re bigger to say the least, and my noodle arms are not in the habit of pushing and pulling against the ocean. I’ve been tossed and turned and held under for much longer than I am comfortable with. I’ve come up gasping for air only to have the next wave topple over me. My prayers go from “help me!” to “come on, man! give me a break… although not literally!” Ever heard the song Oceans? It’s a good one, look it up. I sing “as your love wave after wave crashes over me, crashes over me,” and it puts a whole new meaning to the song. “Thank you for loving me, God,” I say as I see a wave of love heading my way to crash over me, “could you please love me in a different way right now?” And then I get toppled.

Swirling around in the power of the wave I can only begin to imagine the power of God’s love for us. I’m rendered helpless by the ocean as it overtakes me. I think God’s love is like that. People talk about God’s love as if it’s fluffy and safe, I think it’s powerful and scary and totally unsafe… like a wave. But when you learn how to ride with the wave, you experience the goodness of lining up with something so powerful and scary and unsafe. I think when we truly experience God’s love it does render us helpless, it leaves us shocked that we could ever be loved the way that we are. I think God wants to jolt us into being rendered helpless every now and again, if for no other reason than for us to realize or to remember that there is nothing we can do to earn that love. Even the best surfers in the world get their asses handed to them by the ocean; they could never be could enough to master the ocean because it’s not their ocean, it’s God ocean. And likewise, we could never be good enough to earn God’s love because it’s not our love to earn, it’s His love to give. So we can’t master the ocean, but we can continually keep showing up, get in the water and learn how to line up with the ocean’s power for our good. Unsafe becomes a place of trust and awe and wonder.

I’m still a beginner, so I’m not the best, but I’m trying. I have good days and I have off days and they all matter because they all make up the process of getting to where I want to be. Some days are hard and I’m embarrassed, but much like with life or even my relationship with God, it’s not a reason to throw my hands up and say “I quit!” just because things didn’t go my way. And when I’m most honest, I feel like I don’t even deserve praise for trying as I’m currently experiencing a minor set back. Fear has crept in the last week after getting stuck in a large set and having my board slam down on my head (lesson learned: always cover your head). I’ve slowly crept back to the comfort zone of the shore, and I think that happens in life when things start to get uncomfortable, naturally we want to find what’s comfortable. I’ve spent the last week beating myself up about being in the comfort zone, but that does me no good. What might help is catching my breath in the comfort zone, taking the pressure off to think I even have to master something or do it well enough in a certain amount of time, and find the enjoyment for it again, which ultimately is what will draw me back into the water, the fact that I love it. But if I see it as another task to perform or master, constantly feeling not good enough, I will stay right on the shore lines where I don’t even want to be.

My enjoyment for Jesus is what draws me to Him, not the tasks I think I have to do for Him. And so it is with surfing, and the new things I am trying in life, the approaches I am taking to not live in fear.

Alongside surfing I’ve picked up the ukulele, given to me by the high schoolers I used to work with. I’m not the best at it, but I love it, and that is reason enough to keep doing it. I see videos of other people playing perfectly and it is almost enough to make me wonder “why bother” as I’m just not as good as them. But I do bother because I love it, no matter how good someone else is, and if I spend my time comparing, I become so self-focused that I lose enjoyment for what I love and the ability to appreciate someone else’s talent. Someone else’s success is not my failure, and so I can praise them for how great they are instead of trying to compete with them. When competition is removed you find camaraderie, and where there is camaraderie there is community.

This video was made right where I am at in life… trying. I haven’t mastered anything, but there are enough videos of people who’ve mastered things. I figured maybe just maybe, if the process really is that important, I should be more willing to let people into the process instead of showcasing my gifts once I’ve mastered them. I’m inviting you into the process, not just of my life, but of yours, and encouraging you to share your process with other people, if for no other reason than connecting, relating, and not being so alone. You don’t have to be onstage to be good enough… you are good enough right where you are at, in the process of becoming you were meant to be, which in some weird way is who you are now, but also who you are becoming (I don’t get how it all works, I just know you’re good enough now and God ain’t done with you yet). Don’t give up. And don’t be afraid to fail, I guarantee you it is part of the process.

“Fail forward,” a friend said to me this week and I liked that… and I did.

And I survived.