Saturday, September 28, 2013

Misty, Purple Colored Memories

So last Saturday there was the Evansville Jazz and Wine Festival. This was the 6th annual, and of the 6, I have attended five.

Here's a photo history of my wine fest tenure:


So I gathered a sweet group and headed back for year five. This year, we decided not to wait until we got to the festival to start tasting wine and got a couple of bottles to drink on the trip. (Sorry, Mom.) However, we wouldn't let our fearless leader have any until we got there. And then he did this:  

And this: 

When we got to the fest, there may or may not have been two members of our group who were already feeling pretttttty good. So we proceeded to start terrorizing the people at this festival. I feel relatively confident I told more than one winemaker that his 'grape juice' was delicious and said more than once--way too loud-- that certain wines had 'gone bad.' I also feel confident that I can't recall all of the details of the evening, but I do know these facts.

--April left her cell phone in a restaurant bathroom. They were none to happy that we busted in there demanding to use a toilet, because apparently there are 'rules' against that sort of thing.

--In said bathroom, I randomly tied a pink ribbon to April's shoe and told her to keep it forever. And she did. 


--We purchased these sweet redneck wine glasses which I call 'roadies.' (See earlier comment about drinking in the car.)

--Destiny made friends with a bathroom attendant. 


--I accidentally said to a very attractive, yet married man 'on a scale of 1-10, how married are you?' And by accidentally, I mean absolutely on purpose. The wine made me do it.

--He said 7. 

--I spent a ridiculous amount of money buying a ridiculous amount of wine. I won't tell you exactly how much, but I will say I was actually scared to check my bank account the next morning.

--Destiny coined my newest nickname: wine ninja. Because apparently she didn't see me buy a single one of the 16 bottles of wine I purchased. 

--I kept a quote page, and these were only the ones I was sober enough to write down: 

I think he has his dentures in backward. 

Wine milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.  

I smell frosting. What are y'all doing back there?

April to Destiny: It drops 2 degrees and white girls gotta start wearing knee boots 
Casi: Umm I'm wearing knee boots. 

If JessicaBiel and Julia Roberts made a baby, it'd be a f***ing horse. 
...a Shetland pony.

Don't call me a b*tch.
But you called me an MF. (This quote has not been censored. He actually said M.F.) 

Casi to Destiny: How are you gonna try any wine with that full glass? 
Destiny: I'm gonna tell them just to pour it on top. 

If you don't watch sharknado, something is wrong with you. 

Chris: How did you just 'like' the Ellen Degeneras show on Facebook? It just popped up: Casi Clark likes the Ellen Degeneras show 

--Allegedly, I tried to steal a golf cart. I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations. Mostly because I don't remember that part.

--Destiny fell asleep mere minutes into the trip home. But when we got back to Chris and April's, she got her second wind. Which was good because: 

--We had a porch party! We literally had a wine-infused dance party on Chris and April's porch, and Kevin and his friends even came down to dance with us. These poor young soles now think 30 looks like purple teeth and dancing barefoot on a porch to early 90's rap songs. 

All-in-all, it was a historically funny night, and word on the street is that April is already gearing up for next year and searching for other wine festivals that we can attempt to get kicked out of.  I, for one, almost had a golf cart we could've driven around the next wine fest. But, laws. 

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Last Beginnings


A wise fortune cookie fortune once said 'Do not give up, the beginning is always the hardest part.'

While I agree with this sentiment, I also hold the belief that most times, the beginning is the best part.

Think about good beginnings. The beginning of a vacation when your excitement level is immeasurable, and you feel so positive about the days ahead. The beginning of a really good book that once it sucks you in, you can't put it down. The beginning of a friendship when you feel like you've known the person your whole life, but still have so many memories to make. The beginning of a great love when every first--your first date, your first kiss, the first time you realize how much you like him--feels like it could sustain you for a lifetime. Beginnings, to me, while sometimes tough, are always the best part.

A good friend of mine recently shared with me an incredibly wise perspective. My friend Kelsey is this insanely intelligent, driven, beautiful 24 year old woman who is exactly where I was at 24. She is anxious and excited to know where life is taking her. What city, what career, what relationship, and what future lies ahead of her is what excites her, and also makes her a little nervous. But recently when discussing where we both were in our love lives, she said to me, 'but you know what? I'm not really sure I'm ready for my last beginning.'

We share the same love of beginnings, and being at such a transitional time in her life, she has this amazing perspective that if something ends, it just means there's another exciting beginning waiting for her. I was shocked and mesmerized that someone so young could have such an amazingly wise perspective.

I think at 30, I've experienced a lot of my last big beginnings. I think I'm surrounded by most of the friends who will be my friends for life. Those friends who will make up all of the supporting roles in the story of Casi and be there through it all. So when it comes to friendships, there may not be a lot of beginnings left for me. I work in a job that I love so much, they'll have to force me to leave kicking and screaming. So on the career front, I may very well have had my last beginning. I feel mostly confident that I live where I need to live and live a life that I was destined for. So that doesn't leave a lot of room for new beginnings.

But then there's love. I've experienced more than my fair share of great beginnings in love. I've been swept off my feet, I've had friendships that turned into love, and I've felt the slow burn of gradual love. While all unique and special in their own way, each of those loves has ended, been taken, or faded away. But one thing is for sure, each of those endings has been followed by a new and greater beginning.

I have no idea if I've yet experienced my last beginning in love. I have no idea what my future holds or what God's plan for me is. But I know I'm excited and eager to find out. I know that if I have, in fact, had my last beginning, that there is a lifetime of firsts waiting for me. A lifetime of true and unconditional love where every single day is a new beginning.

But knowing that at the end of everything awaits a new and exciting beginning, how can I not be perfectly happy and at peace knowing that someday when I realize I've experienced my last beginning that there is a lifetime of sharing new beginnings with the very person who was my very last beginning?

Sunday, September 22, 2013

A Peace of Paradise

Recently while vacationing, I felt something I'm not sure I've ever felt before. There were several times throughout the week that I started feeling this strange sense of being uncomfortable. I was in paradise, I was surrounded by incredibly generous and hilarious people, I didn't have to work or clean my house or talk about college or worry about stressors looming over me. And yet, I was uncomfortable. Finally, I spent one quiet day at the beach reflecting on what was making me feel this way and one philosophical conversation with a friend brought it all to light.

I was feeling at peace on this vacation. I wasn't worried or stressed or over thinking or overcommitted or exhausted. I was so at peace, in fact, that it made me uncomfortable. It was this indescribable feeling that I was exactly where I needed to be in each moment and doing exactly what I needed to do. I was grateful and connected and centered and happy to a point where it was almost a foreign feeling. Life was just perfect, and I wasn't used to that. What was wrong was that there was absolutely nothing wrong. And once I realized that, I started to really like it.

I knew when I returned home that I wouldn't be able to maintain this peacefulness every second of every day. Things will stress me out, upset me, wear me down. But knowing that this indescribable level of peace exists and can be achieved gives me hope that I can bring some of it home with me into my every day life. And maintaining the realization that in life I am exactly where I'm supposed to be may make all the difference.

Home isn't paradise. And some things at home use up my energy more than they give me energy. There is stress and hurt and anxiety and worry at times. But maybe I can bring home a little of the peace of paradise. Maybe this feeling of complete weightlessness can exist during moments of real life too. But knowing that somewhere out there exists a level of peace beyond your understanding and comfortability is enough to make you want to feel it every single day.

Marble Jar Friends


I have been reading the book Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. If you haven't heard of her, do yourself a favor and look up her work. It will change your life.

In this book, she references a very good lesson her young daughter learned about betrayal and how she related it to a classroom incentive her daughter's teacher implemented.

The teacher had a marble jar on her desk and as the class made collectively good decisions, she added marbles to the jar. If they were making poor choices, she removed marbles from the jar. When and if the marbles reached the top of the jar, the students were rewarded.

After an experience of betrayal, the author related the marble jar activity to friends and had her daughter recite friends who, in life, added marbles to her jar while other friends might be the ones to take out the marbles.

After reading this anecdote , I stopped to think on my marble jar for a moment. In life, I've been really really blessed to have so many friends who fill my marble jar. The friends who keep your secrets, the friends who love and support without judgement, the friends who were there when things fell apart, the friends who helped put me back together.

Of course, I've had a few friends who have removed marbles from my jar. Either they were friends who took more than they gave or felt entitled to rewrite the stories I was living, or generally really great friends who stumbled, judged, acted selfishly or handled things poorly. But luckily, despite those people or those moments, my marble jar stays full, and every day I am rewarded with these generous and loving people in my life.

I hope to be a friend who adds marbles to the jars of people in my life. I hope that I return the favor of being someone who can be confided in and trusted to love without abandon. I aspire to be the friend who each of my friends can go to when they need a shoulder, a new perspective, or a stiff drink. And if there's a day when I act selfishly or handle something poorly, I hope my friends can tell me I'm taking marbles from their jar, allow me to apologize, and replace the marbles. I want to be a marble jar friend. Because if life has blessed me with so many and filled my jar so fully, the least I can do is give of my marbles freely and without expectation. After all, these marble jar friends, so many times, have been the ones to keep me from losing all of my marbles.


People who fill my marble jar: