The Safety in the Setting

There are certain events that still exist so close to the surface that to pull them out with words would be akin to itching a dangerous scab. Words work best on scars, not scabs; on the parts already cut and healed and marked, not on those so fresh that to prod them is to open up the bleeding. Scars are set and there is safety in the setting.

Much of 2010 is still scabs, those wounds where I’ve managed to stave off infection but haven't yet dealt with the long-term. All that is to say: I can't quite write about this year, because much too much of it is still too close. There has been progress and for those progressions I am thankful. I've built rich and meaningful friendships in places I didn't expect and have gotten better at my current job and my career. I found a fantastic church body and have relished getting to know it. I became more secure in my faith. But I make no bones: it's been an exhausting twelve months. The quaint, quivering little heartache that started the year seems so comical in light of the thunderous and lead-filled bombs of the summer. They simply can't compare.

I learned that there are as many ways to die as there are to live, and that death changes the core of those left behind. I know it's changed me. I learned that death takes bodies and leaves souls but depression takes the soul and leaves the body and no matter which robbing occurs there are those left to deal with the newly empty space. This year both of those losses found me.

I have a coworker who has been a sort of pen-pal these past few months (he works at another office) and lately we've been discussing the concept of community. He brought up the idea that communities are just like ecosystems: there are those who are consumers and those who are providers, and without a balance the community (and the individual) crumbles. I'm struck dumb by his use of ecological terms to describe one's place. 2010 has been a year where I've been a straight consumer. I haven't given anything to anyone this year, and I usually love to serve. I haven't had the energy to encourage or empathize or work at relationships or pursue friendships, haven't had the emotional capacity to look outside myself and I know that I—and those I love—have suffered from it. (To those who stuck with me this past year I offer my deepest gratitude and love. It didn't go unnoticed.) At the beginning of 2010 I predicted it'd be the year of sweetness. I just didn't know the sweetness wouldn't start to come until the very, very end.

2011: the year of renewal: of the mind, of the spirit, of the soul. Let the transformation begin.

The Following, The Progress

This past weekend my roommate and I had our annual Swanky Christmas party (I wrote about it once). 2010 was my fourth year hosting one (Jane’s sixth) and putting it together has become a familiar process—decorations, lights, furniture movements, purchases and requisite cleaning—so the stress level has decreased dramatically, even as the cost has risen. We had time to reflect a little bit on the purpose of the event. Part of the fun of the party is dressing to the nines and having some of our dearest friends over to get ready together. I rarely dress to impress; it requires way too much time and energy and I don’t care enough about my appearance to do it except in rare instances. But once a year the Swanky party comes around and all is on the table. I love to see the dresses and tuxes that come through the door, as if my friends and I were all bringing our bests together; the Voltron of beauty. Often I feel for first-time attendees who, in the day and age of dress casual, don’t quite get the true concept of elegance attached to the party. They stand out and not in a good way. This year, I went for a dramatic look. I wore the shortest dress I’ve ever worn (or probably ever will wear), dramatic makeup, upswept hair and big eyelashes. In a way, I transformed and I felt abnormally good about it. I didn’t do it for anyone (there wasn’t anyone at the party I particularly wanted to impress or attract) but rather because I could. The experience of transformation was my favorite part; to feel progress as if I got prettier with each step. At the end I felt like I shined, a feeling I haven’t had all year.

(Told you it was short! Blue lips due to a ring pop)

I don’t get to feel progress much.

My essay that got me into Syracuse was about slugs; how when watched closely they seem to make no progress, but how, when left be, the distance they cover is remarkable. This was a year of slugs.

I’m finalizing my annual best and worst list and marveling at the changes that occurred. I’ve lost friendships and habits but gained even more in a way so slight I didn’t feel them occur. In January I hoped that sweetness would follow the darkness that colored much of the year. In December death has not yet let me be. But sweetness has, for the most part, followed.

Investments

I’ve been spending more and more time alone as of late. It’s been by choice. Solitude breeds solitude; my introverted side has shone brighter than my need to be social, as if my world has rotated ever so slightly, just enough to change my season.

My Thanksgiving plans fell through last minute and though my gracious friends offered alternative plans (One including, “Have you ever seen two deaf people get into a fight?”) I decided to spend the holiday alone.

Best decision I’ve made this year.
Thursday morning I slept in, and then made a breakfast sandwich on one of the bagels I’d picked up at Bruegger’s the day before. I fixed a bloody mary (I decided the holiday was the best time to try new recipes) and sat on my couch in the sunlight, reading. I stayed in my pajamas all day, moving from couch to couch, changing only to switch activities from reading to watching to napping. I didn’t talk to another person until my father called at 5pm. I had a dinner of sage crusted pork chops, roasted brussel sprouts and rosemary red potatoes and ended the day at Ian and Tammy’s relaxing in their hot tub and playing the Monty Python version of Fluxx. My Michael Caine accent needs work apparently.

And so the day was lovely. I didn’t deal with the drama, old wounds or latent insecurities that come with all family get-togethers, not just mine. Didn’t have to spend time getting to know people I won’t see again, or telling the tired stories of who I am. I relied on no one, and I loved it.

And yet, I worry. I worry because it came so easily to me, and as I spent almost four full days alone, I came to crave that solitude even more. In my selfishness I became more selfish. I didn’t want to invest in others or settle in a community, didn’t want to share hearts or laughs. My solitude spiraled in on itself and I’m still fighting to get out of it, even as I enjoy it. I know it to be untrue, but right now investing in others sounds like so much work that I don’t care to try.

Every Time I Blink

There was something so odd about walking the beach in November. The shore is empty, save for occasional little clumps of fishermen, their legs covered in rubber waders and their hands full of beer. Without the sounds of the summer beachgoers the ocean was free to be as soothing or as surly as it liked. The first day I walked along an ocean calm, the water the color of oxygenated avocado, the sky a crayola blue. The waves rolled and bounced shells toward shore, the broken bits sounding like shards of glass laughing. I'd never heard that sound.

The second day the ocean looked furious. As far out as I could see was white foam and water the color gray one use to describe old love gone old. The wind whipped everything it could, the sky built gray atop gray, like painting with only two colors. Tumbleweeds of seafoam skipped and rolled down the shore. The fishermen were gone. There was no one. The seashells kept coming but didn't laugh like the day before.

Not surprisingly, I thought of an Ani DiFranco song:

“The sky is gray, the sand is gray, and the ocean is gray
And I feel right at home in this stunning monochrome
Alone in my way
I smoke and I drink and every time I blink I have a tiny dream
And as bad as I am, I'm proud of the fact that I'm worse than I seem.”

I didn't get to write at the beach. I let every sort of distraction get the best of me.

The Conductor

I live with an operatic chorus.
At least it feels that way, and in each moment one of those choir members has stepped out front to sing their solo. They are men and women, this chorus. Some sing so lovely that I stop and listen and savor; others are so jarring I grimace when they start their solo. But they sing louder than the beauty and try as I may to avoid them, I listen.
They are Self-Loathing and Pride; Guilt and Despair, Confidence and Loneliness, Destruction and Hope, Lust and Love and on and on. Somehow their songs make me, and no matter how I try I never seem to know the melody. I don't know where the song is going. Often I don't even know who is singing until they finish. But I'll find myself mouthing the words to an aria that I do not wish to know, or repeating lyrics to songs from too long ago that I cannot forget.
I wish I knew the song of my heart, of my character; wish I could read the music of my bests and worsts and direct them. The people I most admire seem to walk though life with a conductors baton in their hands, waving off the swells and beckoning the sweetness.
Oh to go from audience to conductor.

Address the Harms

“I thank God for pain,” said Dr. Paul Brand, “I cannot think of a greater gift I could give my leprosy patients.” Brand is the doctor who first discovered that leprosy does its damage by killing off nerve endings and was a leading expert on the treatment of a disease that still exists and still holds a vicious stigma. The loss of pain receptors means that simple injuries, like a splinter or a blister, become problematic, because the victim doesn't have the ability to feel these injuries and tend to them.

Our ability to feel pain is often the conduit we need to address the injury before more damage is done. Pain saves us; forces us to identify and address the harms facing us. One of the main injuries suffered by lepers is the loss of sight; the nerve endings that remind eyes to blink are destroyed, so dust settles in and causes infection.

My pastor, Amanda, spoke on exile this week, and the story of Jesus healing the lepers (Luke 17 for those who want to reference) and only one came back to thank him. I wonder if the reason only one came back is because of what this healing looked like. Does healing mean that all the sores left and the lepers went away looking brand new, or does it mean their nerve endings grew back? By that I mean, did Jesus blessed them by restoring their ability to feel, even while leaving the sores and infections? To an outsider, no healing would've taken place. But to that leper, it would certainly be known. How overwhelming that would be, to suddenly feel for the first time these wounds that were visible but unfelt. It would be painful, but it would be progress.

I wonder how our pre-defined definitions of what healing looks like limit our understanding of it. Maybe part of the healing process is feeling, for maybe the first time, the wounds we carry, the dust in our eyes.

Danger Takes a Lifetime

Friday night was fun. I met up with several friends at Dirty Jacks and slowly the night turned into a pub crawl that included an a Capella group singing to Emily, a hilariously awkward run-in and the worst game of pool I’ve ever played. I left downtown earlier than I would normally; I haven’t been sleeping well for several months and knew I needed the rest. Jane was out of town so I’d have the house to myself for some necessary quiet.

I pulled into my driveway to see the lights on in the house. I was confused. I hadn’t left lights on. Through the kitchen window I could see the refrigerator door moving, meaning someone was getting something out of it. I was still confused. I walked up to our glass French doors and looked inside. The couch cushions were upturned; the drawers in the kitchen were wide open. I unlocked the door before what was really happening hit me. I dialed 911 and slowly backed out of the house. I had to tell the operator what I was wearing so they wouldn’t arrest me.

There is something so incredibly odd about being the victim of a crime; I’ve heard that it takes a long time for the reality of a situation to catch up with a victim’s thought process, simply because it is so far out of the realm of what their subconscious deems possible. Danger takes a lifetime to register. My realm of possibility didn’t include coming back to a man in my house or seeing cops with guns drawn running through my home while I stood in the driveway alone, not sure if I should be hiding. I wondered what I was supposed to do if I heard a shot. I was almost too confused to be scared.

The cops told me I was lucky the man wasn’t armed; they said I’d probably have been “in trouble” which I don’t want to fully address. Emily picked me up on a very different Friday night than the one we’d been living an hour earlier. I called her after the cops went through the house but before forensics showed up. I stayed at the barn. I had nightmares.

I’m doing better. I still have moments. I’ve developed a fear of the dark; I hope its temporary. The house is almost back together.

Keep Them Somewhere

In college I got involved in the outing club (Called, originally enough, the SU Outing Club, or SUOC). I got involved because I wanted to learn new skills and challenge myself outdoors, I wanted to get over fears.

I learned to cave, because I was fearful of small spaces.
I learned to kayak, because water frightens me. Being underwater frightens me more.
I learned to climb, because I am so acrophobic that I get nervous just seeing heights in movies.

It was a way of controlling the fears I could control, to conquer those few things in life I could conquer. I can’t even count how many times, deep into some very small, wet, rocky, cold cave, squeezing through spaces that just aren’t rational, I’d think, “WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING!?” but then I’d come to see things that I knew very few would ever get to see. Massive underground waterfalls. Cave formations that were 50 feet long, others 3 stories high and white and gleaming. Rooms bigger than football fields. Hibernating bats covered in crystallized dew. I saw wonders.

I've done this several times. This is my friend Benji, but it might as well be me.

As I’ve aged, my terrors and fears have become more specific and less physical. They aren’t fears of the dark, or spaces, or tangible things. My terrors aren’t boogey men; they are internal. They are fears of breaking, of disappointment; fears of loneliness and unwanted isolation, fears of rejection and of love. They are as much fears of the past as they are fears of the present. I try not to think about my fears, keep them somewhere I don’t have to see or address them.

Leslie said something today that forced me to think them.
“The best things in life are terrifying,” she said. “But I imagine the first 30 seconds will be terrifying then you find your voice. And solace. Don’t let fear and exhaustion win your heart. You always have a say in the matter. Always.”

I used to be so keen to face my fears in the most direct way possible. No longer.

Two Months Out

I make no illusions about grief. It has now been almost two months to the day of Natalie's death, and I can't say I've begun to learn this language at all. If anything I'm discovering more words I didn't know I didn't know. Grief comes in such tiny splinters that I don't expect them until they are in me—under my fingernails come tiny shards of a life I so dearly miss and they do their best to double me over in pain. The other week I cried for an hour about an AOL email address. Seriously. I realize it sounds ridiculous but that is the thing with splinters: outside of us they are so tiny, but when they are where they are they are monumental. The night I got back to Virginia from a very hard trip to Canada I went over to Nat and Mike's to try on some of her old clothes (yeah nothing emotional about that endeavor) and in all my mental fortitudes I wasn't prepared for the coats to smell like her.
They smelled like her. Her hands were in the pockets.
I felt them there.
I can't touch those coats now because they feel like a hug and I lose it. They are on a chair.

The trip to Canada was agonizing because I was with men who didn't seem too keen on the business of living. All of them had gone through divorces or rough marriages or wars or other losses, all of them exhibited no signs of zest. At times it felt like I spent the trip trying to convince them to keep living. Maybe I am more sensitive to it right now because of Natalie, but to them life was more a chore to be endured than a gift to be enjoyed. I just watched a woman with a love of life lose it and then to spend 10 days with men who have life and seem so keen to trash it was, in a way, utterly profane. It was offensive. I wanted to scream at them for being so careless with something I know others have fought so hard to keep. I didn't.

There is much to say about the trip to Canada but I don't think this is the place to do it. Coming back I felt like my heart was sunburned, rough, raw, flaking and peeling, hot and sore to the touch. I felt like I left pieces of my heart strewn along the highway, on the shoulders of those I hugged, on pillows where I slept. I picked at it in moments of quiet and regretted it in moments of movement. It was never comfortable.

I realize that living can be unsexy; it is by its very nature., because living is sustained and sexy isn't. Living isn't some big constant adventure, it isn't one high after another, because living is real, and to be real, it needs to be rooted and there is nothing sexy about rooting. Roots aren't pretty. They are dirty, they are unseen, they get no glory. But they endure.
And lord, when roots are true, do they produce some beautiful flowers.

Bird in a Storm

It's a rainy Saturday, which means any motivation that would normally come to the surface is staying underground. It's good to have a rainy September 11th. The weather distances itself from the gorgeous sunniness of that day nine years ago.

The rain has been steady all morning, and I looked out the window to see half a dozen robins hopping around the front yard. It gave me pause; I'm not used to seeing birds voluntarily getting soaked like that. At first it was odd, but then I realized why. When there is a steady rain, the water seeps into the ground and floods the tunnels that worms live in, causing them to come to the surface for air (which is why you see so many worms on the surface after rainstorms). Robins, being worm eaters, have prime opportunity to find easy food before their long flights to warmer climes.

I don't know why it struck me today as so beautiful--that sense of provision, of God being in the rain, of delicate and specific care—I don't think it has to do with the date. Maybe it does.
But in that moment I said a little prayer to ask that I learn to see the worms in the rainstorms.

Scribe or Scribble

I started a blog post. It was very, very serious, as they have tended to be lately.

Then I saw a link to the new Google Labs program, Google Scribe. It is designed to finish sentences for you. It isn’t very good at the task.
Here are some examples of Scribe's genius. I started with a famous sentence/lyric and then just saw what happened.

Ain't nuthing but a G Thang baby bodysuits come with a bit of anxiety about their own lives.

Somewhere over the rainbow so high that they are not therefore to be understood that these embodiments are provided.

There once was a man from Nantucket town of the same name as their own controls and were not included in the study of these two types of information.

Every good boy deserves fine and then it was allowed to warm to room temperature and then washed with PBS and incubated with the indicated concentrations of these compounds in their sweaty hands.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to use anything else to do it in their own right and do not want to be related to their particular field or industry in which they are attached to their respective owners.

Shall I compare thee to a winters day in Cape Town and then phoned me to say that they are not therefore to be understood that these embodiments are provided solely by this site are property of their respective owners and are strictly for viewing and printing of these books?

You are out of your element, Donny Osmond and Kym Johnson win Season 9 of American Idol and Reality TV fansite for the shower and then I'll bet your life on the road today and they are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients.

Here's the story of a man named Brady who was also analyzed by the method of the present invention.

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name Iron Maiden Rarely does anyone got any ideas on how to use them in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the Site?

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind with the two other groups of people who have been involved in these processes.

And the token Lady Gaga lyric:
He ate my heart, he ate and drank and drank until they were used to determine their own future.

Commodious

I haven’t done a post about a weekend in a while, and this past one was one that deserves to be recorded for posterity.

It started with a dive-in movie on Friday night at Dan and Haydin’s. A dive-in movie is much like a drive-in movie, in that it involves a movie projected outside on a screen, but that is the extent of the similarities. A dive-in movie is set up around a swimming pool. The event was to start at 7 but due to disorganization, shirking of responsibilities and general technical difficulties, it didn’t actually start until closer to 10:30. Ugh. Annoying. But “The Big Lebowski” is a favorite and it was fun to sit around a pool and watch it on a big screen. It started to drizzle half-way through and I took that as my cue to leave. Ena’s birthday party was early on Saturday and I wanted to get some sleep.

Ena loves cowboys, trains, horses and being naked. She’s two, so all of those things are quite splendid. I dressed up as cowgirl, partially for the fun of it and partially because I thought she’d like it. When I saw Nathan at the Dive-in on Friday night I told him my plan and he announced he’d dress up as well, so Saturday morning it was just the two of us in costumes (we were also some of the only ones who didn’t have small children with them). Ena and her friends were in their birthday suits for most of the party and it was a beautiful day for a birthday party. I love that little girl so much it hurts.

Saturday evening there was discussion of a roller skating adventure that got nixed at the last minute, so Betsy and I headed downtown to go to the last Shindig on the Green of the year. I forget how amazing those things are. We ended up in the entrance of City Hall, listening to a bluegrass band; one man was so old he had a wheelchair/walker combo and would stand up to smile and sing along. I loved him immediately.

Sunday I met up with Betsy and Emily downtown for the Kovacs and the Polar Bear show (see above) that kicked off the Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival, the hands-down best people watching event in a city full of people-watching opportunities. The day was bright (and HOT), and someone had plastered mustaches all over the festival area. Everywhere. Parking meters, shop windows, newspaper boxes; once one was spotted the sheer volume of them appeared. I found out from one friend that it was part of “Mustacheville” a quirky sort of prank on a city that loves pranks. Emily, Betsy and I found mustaches to our liking and stuck them to our faces. We wore them the rest of the afternoon. No one looked at us strangely.

Labor day was chores around the house, until around 330 when I got a text from my old friend Ammons. “Sunny afternoon cocktails?” it read. I responded, “I could be convinced.” He replied, “I don’t know what else to say: Sunny. Afternoon. Cocktails.” So I went and sat outside with Ammons, catching up and drinking the amazing cocktails that Sazarac makes (before the ache of the bill arrives!). We then wandered up to Packs Square to catch part of the free show by the Asheville Symphony. The sky was the blue that only comes in early fall, the sun was just enough set to leave a crisp in the air and I was warm with company, sound, place and spirit.

In ten days I’ll attend Tegan and Sara, live jamming bluegrass, the Symphony and Erin McKeown. I love this town.

Back in Boland

I have dreams that have story lines. They don’t typically jump around—they follow the standard pattern of storytelling, they have clear conflict and resolutions. People do things in character.

The dream I had this weekend was based around a science experiment. In the dream, when I had moved into my dorm my freshman year of college I had signed paperwork agreeing to be part of a study on personal space. Our living on that dorm floor was conditional on us moving back into the same room with the same people 11 years later, when we were 29, and staying there for two weeks. Two weeks back in my freshman dorm room, with my freshman roommate. We had to take freshman classes. We were only allowed the same things we had when we moved in 10 years prior—if we didn’t have a cell phone then, we couldn’t have one now, if we didn’t have a car then, we couldn’t have one now—and we filled out surveys and had interviews talking about the experience. I think it was a study on perceptions of personal space, but I fully don’t recall. In the dream I was realizing how fascinating it truly was.

I hope the Woodchuck 32oz bottles come back too! Oh wait.

Now I can’t stop thinking about it. What would that be like? Would friendships rekindle or would we be insular after the years?And dear god, would we still buy Hooch?

Poppin' Pills

I was briefly back at my father’s house the other week, between the business trip in DC and Natalie’s memorial service in Loudoun, and within twenty minutes of arriving I was out on the back deck with my dad and a BB pistol. We didn’t have any cans to shoot but we did have some old prescription pill bottles which we subsequently massacred.


Sometimes my memoirs write themselves.

Further Up, Further In

On my way to Canada with my father and company. I'm hoping it will be a time to meditate, to grieve, to relax and to love on my dad. As I type this, we are skirting the western edge of the Adirondack Park. It is a place of beauty, quiet, light and iron-jawed toughness, a place I've loved my whole life. Next week, Natalie's husband is spreading her ashes in these mountains. Today I'm spreading my goodbyes. Traveling mercies.

May the Mind

May the mind of Christ, my Savior,
Live in me from day to day,
By His love and power controlling
All I do and say.

Natalie’s memorial service was lovely. Michelle and Dave did a great job organizing it, and, in deference to Natalie’s ever-present faith, the service was God-filled. No one there was surprised that it was a service about her faith. The second song sung was a hymn I didn’t know, but its words captured so well the life and prayer of such a dear woman.

May the Word of God dwell richly
In my heart from hour to hour,
So that all may see I triumph
Only through His power.

The words spoken about her were true and imperfect, stories of cancer and remission and cancer again. There had to be 300 people there on a mild and bright Saturday afternoon. I sat between Erin and Megan, two friends who have loved me wisely and well throughout the years. I know Erin because of Natalie; I was so thankful for their hands and hearts. We all needed to touch each other, to keep moored. Grief was pounding.

May the peace of God my Father
Rule my life in everything,
That I may be calm to comfort
Sick and sorrowing.

I was the last to speak. I didn’t know what I wanted to say except that she taught me irrational and unconditional love, that she was my hero and mentor, and that I am who I am because of what she gave. Her investment in me is my daily breath. I don’t remember what I said. I hope that my thoughts came out. Words can't capture the biggest gratitudes.

May the love of Jesus fill me
As the waters fill the sea;
Him exalting, self abasing,
This is victory.

I cried. Lord did I cry. I haven’t stopped crying. I have no strength or energy to care about much else. I want so badly to be a good representation of who she was, to honor her, but thinking of her is suffocating. I am bone tired from carrying weight. She would tell me that I was loved far beyond her own capacity to love, and that that love endures. Her steadfast reminders I will miss.

May His beauty rest upon me,
As I seek the lost to win,
And may they forget the channel,
Seeing only Him.

"The Compass Rests"

My friend Kari wrote a lovely blog post about those who act as compasses in our life, an entry based on our conversations about the illness and loss of Natalie (here). I am so thankful to have had such a compass through the hurricane of my youth.

Thanks, lovely friend, for the thoughts and words. I'm learning grief isn't a bullet, rather it is buckshot. There isn't one big hole, there are thousands of them. I feel like I find a new fragment almost every moment.

"Love and friendship carry with them great pain sometimes but it is such a comfort to know that the Lord is with us in the midst of our suffering." --Natalie in a email to me, 2007.

Own Tales to Tell

I've had the same email address since 1998, and have saved a file of the email correspondence I shared with Natalie over these 12 years. I started going through them today.

This is an email Natalie sent me in January, 2001. We had gone out for her birthday the night before, and I had sent her an email essentially telling her I was lying about who I was: I was pretending to be the same person I was in high school when I was home but in college I wasn’t like that at all. I was afraid to tell her, because I thought she’d reject me, or tell me I’d let her down, or judge me. Instead, this is the email I got.

Sarah,

As I said earlier, your friendship is a privilege and I am so grateful that you trusted me enough to send that e-mail. You were right, it didn't shock me...I've sensed a lot of what you said but it doesn't change how I feel about you. There are some advantages to "old age", one being that I REALLY know that we are people in process and sometimes the process ain't pretty. I have my own tales to tell--truly. And I trust you enough to share them with you sometime. From where I stand today I am at peace with the knowledge that nothing I've done has shocked God or made Him stop loving or forgiving me, ever. As for you, what matters to me is that you know I love you and will always be here for you. Much of what you are thinking, feeling, living is SO normal for folks your age--Christian or not. Believe me, I was part of the Christian college environment but I think our stories would parallel one another.

You and I have so much in common despite our places in time...I lived for many years trying to reconcile my emotional needs with how I wanted but was unable to live consistently. I don't wish the pain and isolation I experienced on anyone yet God has redeemed those years as only He can. That is just one of my stories.

We deceive ourselves in thinking that we are closer to God than we really are...it is He who stays close to us. You are His child and always will be--with or without your anger, questions and self-doubt.

I treasure your friendship Sarah...I don't know why I've been so blessed but I will never take this gift for granted. Anyone who crosses paths with you is privileged. It is such a joy for me to be part of your life, your adventures, your heartaches...whatever.

I really hope that picture we took at the restaurant turns out well...last night will remain amidst my very special memories.

I'll talk to you soon,
love always,
Nat

The Truck

For the past nine months or so, I’ve been standing in the middle of a road. There was a truck coming; I knew it is coming. There were times when I saw the dust from its tires; I heard the sound of its rumble. It was coming and I could not stop it, could not step out of its path. I tried to prepare for it, tried to steel myself for the collision, to brace for the impact. A truck was coming. I just didn't know when.
The truck hit on Friday night, when Erin called and tearfully said, “Sarah, it’s the call.”

Natalie has died.

She was 53.

I was prepared for the shock of her death. I wasn’t prepared for the grief.

Father Figured

I don’t write about my dad as much as I should.

My dad is a hero of mine, and I say that without a sense of irony or exaggeration. He is entirely human (and thus, flawed) but, in my eyes, the sun rises and sets with him. I unabashedly love my father.

My dad moved out of the house when I was 8. The moment he sat me down to tell me he was leaving is one I will forever hold, not because I want to, but because it was such a benchmark. Likewise, I remember the day we loaded up the moving truck, I remember the smell of the cigars he smoked as we did the drive back and forth from his new house to what was now my mother’s house. I remember the day when I realized he wasn’t coming back home.

But the weekends spent at the farm with him were full of magic and adventure. He taught me to shoot, he converted an old chicken coop into a clubhouse for us, he helped me build the model rockets that we’d launch and chase across the fields. For my 15^th birthday, he bought me my first guitar.
I know that he has tried to be the best father he can be, and for me he has mostly succeeded. Much of what I know and love is because he taught me. Camping, canoeing, books, plants, the Redskins, guitar, music: the stuff of him in me. I carry that with pride.

It is difficult to be so geographically far from him. I moved in with my dad two weeks after I turned 17 and have called his house my home ever since. There were weekends when I’d choose to stay in and hang out with him instead of going out with my friends. His back porch is a sanctuary of sorts. He is my friend.

In a few weeks I’m meeting up with Dad in Virginia and then we are riding together to Canada, where we’ll camp for 8 days on a remote lake with other family members. I haven’t been on vacation with my dad since I was 16. I’m so looking forward to the time spent with him.

This Steady Scenery

I bought a whitewater kayak this past week.
An old one, which in kayaking terms, is 7 years.
How appropriate. 7 years ago is when I was told I wasn't “allowed” to paddle anymore.
I had just finished college and was packing to move to New Hampshire, to work in my friends' kayaking shop on Lake Winnipesaukee. I was to teach flatwater and whitewater paddling for the summer, and possibly extend the work into a permanent position. I'd had back problems for about two years at that point, and finally went to a doctor to get it checked out.
He told me he feared that the problems were structural and that paddling could prolong or even worsen the issues. He told me I shouldn't paddle anymore.
There went my future, my plans and part of my identity.
Since then I've only paddled a handful of times; I haven't attempted to roll a kayak and have stuck to mostly easy runs. Life kept moving while that love in me was left in that moment, as if an anchor had been set while the ship above kept trying to sail. Later I found out that paddling wouldn't cause any more structural damage, rather it would cause blinding, debilitating pain.

I've recently begun a rather aggressive chiropractic treatment for my back. It is a process; some days the pain is dramatically less, others it is just as bad as it has been. What gives me hope is that there are changes; that the pain isn't the maddening hum of years past. There are changes in the steady scenery of pain. Maybe this time I will get better.
But then again, maybe the pain stays.
I bought a boat because I don't care anymore.
If I am in pain, then I will stick to the small kayaking runs.
If I am in pain, I won't paddle much.
But I've let pain keep me from something that brings me life for far too long, and in this, the year of sweetness, I'm willing to try anything. I want to lift that anchor, bring it with me. No matter how little, how infrequent or how minor my paddling ends up being, I'm willing to try. I'm smart enough to know I should.

(Older posts about this: Here, Here, Here, Here)

The Thin String

Recently I’ve read a slew of books that have characters with a sense of place; they come from a culture rooted in some geographic area, a language spoken to their people and understood.

I don’t have that; I’m an American.

Which is to say I am a cultural mutt.

On one side I have relatives arriving in America in 1637. I have a straight line from there to membership in the DAR (should I want it), to a diary from my Civil War veteran ancestor, to census documents from 1890 on up to 2010. It is an easy shot. I am named after one of these ancestors. I know nothing about her.

Yet it is a shot with no identity. In America, we love to say what we are. We are Italian. We are Jewish. We are Cherokee and Mexican and Polish. I believe I am a mix of British, Dutch, Alsatian, Scotch, Irish, Swedish and Iroquois but nothing about me confirms that. My family has no traditions, no meals we share or prayers we say that have passed down from generation to generation like a loving quilt of identity and home. We don’t have those words that tie us to each other. Every holiday is a rudderless experience; they are new each year and thus wide open. Nothing has any sense of sacred.

We have one phrase from my Swedish grandmother. She is the only one of my relatives of any “pure” culture heritage, and thus the only one who has any. What I know in Swedish is a toast she taught my mother, a silly little bar song to celebrate all the pretty girls in the room. That’s it. 9 words. And the grandchildren, me included, are so attached to this, because it is something. It is a clue; it is our family’s secret language that ties us to what we wouldn’t otherwise know.

Maybe that is it: culture ties us to history, ties us to family and ties us to the sacred. That commonality tells us who we are by telling us where we came from; it serves as the string, collecting the beads of each life and each generation.

Long Have I Known A Glory In It All

Camping brings gusto to life.
I feel most at home in the woods, setting a camp, tending fire. To do lists fade to become the essentials, of food, of water, of warmth and light, of shelter and company. Abstraction abates. This weekend was time away, a few days spent an hour and 2200’ vertically from home.
I organized the trip, not because it was near my birthday (though it was), but because it seemed a good weekend to get away. I’m not big on self-promoting birthdays. I’m ok either having them be small or having others think of something. I believe it is a time for others to love on you should they want to, not a time for you to demand attention from them.
And so it was we found ourselves at the top of Max Patch on Saturday evening. The sky was mottled with hiccups of summer storms that divinely passed us by. Max Patch is a place where it seems as if the divine breathes; where earth and sky are more intimate with each other. The grass was tall and damp and we spent the afternoon barefoot. I feel that being barefoot like that allows some magic from the earth to seep up through me, some ancient affirmation to creep in and whisper.
Ian and Tammy had graciously brought an obscenely large bottle of champagne for a mountain top toast. I love giving toasts; I love public speaking so this should be no surprise. But I was bested.
My dear friends, who love me for reasons I don’t quite understand, gave toasts to me.
They told me they loved me, they affirmed me in ways I so needed but couldn’t express. I am still humbled and shocked by it. I know I am a liked person, but I often forget to realize that those I love also love me. It was the best gift I could have been given, that elusive present of light, life, love, community, sky, joy, grace, breath, food, touch and future, found in the damp grass atop a mountain.
Thank you thank you thank you, dear friends.

[My birthday was amazing—thank you for all the calls and notes and emails!!! And thanks to my dear roommate Katie for the volume 1 soundtrack to Glee and to my dad for my new fly rod and reel. Something very funny about re-spooling a fly reel while listening to the soundtrack to a sugary show about a high school glee club. Then I went out to Thirsty Monk for drinks with Katherine, Robin, Caroline, Tara and Margarita. What gracious and audacious and impressive ladies.]

Gleek

It is all Leslie's fault that I am now a Gleek.
Yes, a "Glee" geek am I, mildly obsessed with that TV dramady that is basically Freaks and Geeks with singing and dancing.
I am finally ready to admit my secret yet undying love for Broadway musicals and Glee club productions, ready to announce that yes, world, I truly love a capella groups and big choreographed events. I been in love for a long, long time, since my childhood obsession with the Fame soundtrack and most certainly since seeing Bernadette Peter's in "Annie Get Your Gun" on Broadway in 1999. I loved the "RENT" soundtrack without ever seeing it live.

Any song that requires soaring strings and arms raising in feeling: I am so there. Maybe irrationally so.

And so, you ten readers, I present to you what I consider a moment from "Glee" that astonishing: Lea Michelle (she of "Spring Awakening") and the ever-lovely Idina Menzel (the originator of Maureen in "RENT" and Ephelba in "Wicked" --I mean how much more iconic can you be) dueting on "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miz.
That sound you heard was my head exploding.



Sidebar: I adore Idina Menzel but also sort of hate her for being married to Taye Diggs. I have an innocent yet irrational crush on Taye Diggs.

The Whats

I have always had an overactive imagination in the sleep realm. I have fantastically entertaining and vivid dreams (one this weekend involved trying to travel with a narcoleptic pet piglet named Kevin. He kept passing out in strange places and I’d yell, “Dammit! Where the hell is Kevin!?” I can’t even make that up).

I promise this whole post isn’t about a dream; it is about an idea from a dream. I don’t want to hear other people’s dreams either, unless they are hilarious.

One dream I had this weekend involved an arcade video game that I was playing with 8 to 10 people. I made a choice for the game and it said, “RESET." With that choice, all those playing were allowed to see four “resets” in their life: we were allowed to pick four watershed moments in our past that we could relive with a different choice. We were able to live each reset for a half-hour.

How fascinating!

I remember three of the resets I chose—what if I hadn’t moved to Asheville? What if I’d gone to a different college? What if I’d stayed with my first love?

These aren’t questions that I think about in my daily life, they aren’t choices that particularly haunt me. I feel I made the right choice in every one of those instances, and in my dream I had the same conclusion after seeing those other versions of me.

But I am young, and I have many more choices ahead of me, each one greater than the last.

What if that was the case—what if when we turned 25, we were given four resets for our entire life and we could use them when we wanted? Would you want to see those resets? What would you reset? Would you want to see those paths knowing you couldn’t choose that life?

In the dream I had several people who came into my life regardless of the reset path.
I found comfort in that tiny tidbit. I like to think that some bonds transcend choices.

Biological Casio

Saturday morning I woke up too early because two very small hands were squeezing my cheeks together and the face attached to those hands was uncomfortably close to mine.

“HIIIII AH-RAH. HIIII! AWWWWWIGHT! YAY BEACH!” was shouted at full volume into my slack face, which translated from 20-month old speak is the best sort of good morning expression. Ena, my quasi-goddaughter (and for the sake of this blog will be called as much) was sitting on my chest, her big green eyes staring at my bleary, sleep filled ones, and she was absolutely thrilled that I was still around in the morning. She kept touching me to make sure I was real. Usually I'm at the house to say goodnight to her but I'm gone when she gets up, but since I'd traveled to the beach with her and her parents, unlike at home we were going to be in the same house for a few days. Ena seemed to think this was the best idea. EVER. I say hello; she climbs down and goes screaming into the next room, on to bigger and better projects that don’t involve waking up a notorious non-morning person. Her morning speed is one I rarely get around to nearing in a day.

Ena's parents are my amazing friends Katherine and Andy (written about here and here and here).

I'm not a kid person; I don't usually like them, don't have a biological clock causing me to desire them...ok maybe I have a biological pocket watch; ever so slight and inconsistently functional. A biological digital calculator watch. A cheap biological Casio or Swatch. Nothing large or accurate to be sure. Ena breaks my baby rules. I pick her up; I hold her hand, wipe her face, run with her and feed her (cardinal sins in my baby book. Usually I'll just poke them and pat their heads). She has opened rooms in my heart full of draped furniture, covered with the dust of neglect and time. I am blessed to see her often.

This weekend at the beach with Ena, coupled with the Mother's Day holiday, caused me to think about loving children. It makes no sense.

Why do we love these little selfish parasites that require attention, fawning, food, care, cleaning and coaxing into the most basic exercises of sleeping and eating? They are extremely irrational, poor communicators with a mean streak and a penchant for destruction. But we love them. We would die for them. One laugh from that girl and I'm up for whatever she has next. I melt like an idiot.

Brennan Manning, he of 'Ragamuffin Gospel' fame, writes,
“Children are our model because they can have no claim on heaven. If they are close to God, it is because they are incompetent, not because they are innocent. If they receive anything it can only be as a gift.”

I do not love Ena because she is innocent; I love her because she is Ena.

I think that might just be what we, in any belief system, should strive for. We are not worth anything because of our abilities or our inabilities, our gifts or our struggles; we are worth much because we are first loved much. I am loved because I am a key component in something much bigger than me. I am loved because I fulfill a promise. I am loved because I am furthering my species. In this culture and society I am trained to do, to measure my success in tangibles.

My list of tangibles I made at 22 is woefully unfulfilled.

Today I am struggling mightily with this.

I want my reasons to be loved to read like a resume. I want love to be bullet points, I want clearly defined boundaries and rules.

It doesn't. It isn't.

And yet.

There Came A Whisper

Friday night I retreated to my own mountain with three friends. We got to the summit of Max Patch just as the sun was setting and we sat in the grass and watched as the sunset took on the hues that only come from done days. It was quiet.
As the light faded we lay on our backs; the stars appeared when they were ready.

The mountain breeze blew sweetly across the summit and we bundled together in the elevated chill. I felt God on my face.

There is a lovely passage in 1 Kings where Elijah is running from the law; he’s a hunted man and it seems everyone wants to kill him. He flees, hides in a cave in a mountain and gives up on life, asking God to kill him and put him out of his misery. God seems to ignore him and says, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."
So Elijah does. He’s not doing anything else except waiting to die. A great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart around him and shattered rocks. But, it says, the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake; the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there came a gentle whisper.

That was God.

I’ve joked previously that sometimes when I pray I feel like I’m talking to God while he’s snacking, and he doesn’t hear certain things because maybe he’s eating loud Fritos or something.

But in this season where grief is surrounding me, I thirst so mightily for that whisper. There is this closeness, an intimacy and a little bit of secrecy to a whisper—it is a conversation between me and God, for no one else but us. He is the breeze that kisses my face. I feel in those moments that I am heard, I am loved, and I am held.

Song Lyrics I Really Don't Believe, Madonna Edition

Time to do another edition of "Song Lyrics I Really Don't Believe" but this time I feel the need to focus on one specific artist, the Material Girl herself Madonna. I found a dearth of little nuggets; here are the first few. There may be more. Enjoy.
(older lists may be found here and here)

“I just think of you and I start to glow…” (Lucky Star)
Really, Madonna? You glow? Do you mean glow as in sweat, because that is fairly disgusting to admit. I'd maybe use "glisten" or "dew". Do you mean glow as a pregnant person glows? Do you just think of someone and you are knocked up? Wow. I'd say cover your eyes. Or do you mean like ET glow, like his creepy red heart in his chest thing? Do you have an uncanny urge to eat Reese’s Pieces and “phone home”? Do you see where this could be an issue, Madonna? None of these sound too appealing. ET might be cute and all but no one wants to sleep with him.

“You can turn this world around
And bring back all of those happy days” (Holiday)
Who the hell are you dating, Madonna? Who is this that can turn the world around, does this mean they can go back in time? Do we all go back in time when he decides to turn the world around? Do you mean “Happy Days” like the show, because by the time it ended we had the phrase “jumped the shark” for a reason, Madge. It sucked. Do you mean he can turn the world around as in make days, because I hate to tell you but he isn’t the one making the earth turn that way. That’s gravity doing all the work and you are a moron.

“Been saving it all for you
'Cause only love can last” (Like a Virgin)
Madge: you have obviously never heard the whole “Twinkies never rot” theory. I hear they can last for a long ass time. Hope the “it” to which you are referring is your massive stash of Twinkies or that guy is gonna be wicked disappointed.

"Yeah, your love thawed out
What was scared and cold" (Like a Virgin)
The words “love” and “thawed” should not go together. Love is not frozen peas, Madonna. You don’t grab a box of love out of the freezer to make a complete meal out of some fish sticks. Nor is love a microwave. Love is not where one puts a frozen breast of chicken to thaw it out. Well I guess they could but that seems to be stretching a vague metaphor a bit.

“Gonna get to know you in a special way
This doesn't happen to me every day” (Into the Groove)
Madonna: I beg to differ….somehow I think it just might happen to you every day. I’d love to see your day scheduler. Wake up, breakfast, shower, getting to know you in a special way, jog, adopt a baby, lunch…

“I hear your voice, it's like an angel sighing” (Like a Prayer)
WTH is an angel sighing for? It sounds like the angel is exasperated, or in a mouthwash commercial. Does this angel have asthma? How does one know how to adequately compare a voice to an angel’s sigh? I looked it up on the Google and I could find no audio. Do you get a lot of angel’s sighing to you, Madge? You might want to get this checked out.

Beauty's where you find it
Not just where you bump and grind it (Vogue)
Is this a revelation to you, Material Girl? Most people say beauty is found out in nature, or in the smile of a child, or, I don’t know, in puppies and kittens and rainbows. You know, at the very least, that it isn’t just where you bump n’ grind it. Well done. In the game of 20 questions about where one can find beauty, you've knocked out one crucial question. I actually believe this point you’ve made, I just want to make fun of you for making it. Progress comes with age, Madge!

"I'd like to express my extreme point-of-view
I'm not a Christian and I'm not a Jew" (American Life)
Just because you are not a Christian or a Jew does not make your point-of-view “extreme”. It makes it pretty common actually. You gotta find more extreme points-of-view. Like if you had mentioned the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Birther movement or something I might say, “Wow that Madge really does have extreme points-of-view,” but no, I don’t think that when you tell me you don’t like the Bible.

"We only got 4 minutes to save the world...." (4 Minutes)
Several questions….first: really? 4 minutes? I didn’t know Armageddon had a snooze button. I didn’t know that when the world ends, we were going to be given a rough estimate of its timing. How long has this been counting down? And you thought when we were four minutes away would be a good time to tell the rest of us? This isn’t New Years Eve, Madge, this is the end of the mutha-loving world. And who told you anyway? Was it supposed to be a big surprise? And Madonna, somehow I don’t think you are the person the world would elect to save us. That Timberlake bloke: maybe. He's cute.

Lines in the Negative

I was one of the lucky few who got tickets for the Gillian Welch and David Rawlings show at the Grey Eagle last night. It was as great of a show as I thought it’d be; the crowd was reverential and Gillian and David seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

As they played their sets, I got distracted by the open rafters in that tiny space. I get distracted easily.

I was standing toward the side of the stage, so when I looked up and across the room I looked at the white rafters in profile; I could see the triangles of form and function. There was tape on the rafters where some wire had once been set and those pieces of tape formed black dashes across the scene, like highway lines in the negative. I started to think about perspective, how views change lines to curves, change great to small and vice versa; how perspective by its very nature is change.

I had the chance to canoe the Everglades a decade ago (GULP) and our last day we made the choice to canoe to a certain island and stop there for lunch. The island was clearly visible and didn’t seem too far off so we thought this idea reasonable. Not too far off ended up being about 4 miles. We had nothing to offer perspective, nothing to tell us what was near and far and so our best guesses ended up horribly off.

Perspective is the reason I keep a journal. I have to be reminded how I felt. I think it is terribly important to have something that acts as a bellwether, that serves as that buoy between the open seas of nostalgia and that narrow channel of truth.

Not What I Would Have You Be

Notes:

* Last night I had a dream in which Natalie drove up to me in her Volvo wagon. We were in Hamilton and she looked happy and healthy and as I was running toward her car I was yelling to the people around to take a photo of me with her, to show the world her happy and healthy face, to have proof of her there with me. It was so vivid. I woke up exhausted.

* I got a new phone the other week, an HTC Droid. I am in love with this device. I was already in a very serious, almost unhealthy relationship with my old phone and now that I've upgraded to Verizon's version of the iPhone I am hopelessly committed to my tiny technology. A few weeks ago I had several friends in town and we did the massive brewery tour known as Ducks & Bears. At the first brewery I got up to get samples and while I was gone, my friends decided to hide my phone and see how long it took for me to notice. Verdict? 120 seconds. Actually it was about 45 seconds, but it took me those extra seconds to ask them about it. See? Possibly unhealthy.

* I'm trying to get better about being honest about how I feel. For a few years I've been trying to be someone who was more relaxed than I actually am, someone who was good with maybes and "let's see where this goes" and know what? I'm not. I'm terrible at that. No mas! I'm embracing my need for definition!

* I know I'm not too funny on my blog, but I swear I'm pretty funny in real life. At least I think I'm funny. I crack myself up every single day. I had a thought about Miami Sound Machine like four days ago that I'm still laughing about.

* My cubicle is a serious shitshow. I need to put away some files; it looks like a box of papers vomited all over my desk. That is both truthful and kinda metaphorical.

* Know what is a great damn song? "Alligator" by Tegan and Sara. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love those wonder twins. My current favorite song to play on guitar is "Call it Off" by them; the line "Maybe I would've been something you'd be good at" just kills me. Also: they are wicked funny.

* There is a game on my phone called Drop. Betsy currently has the high score between the two of us. I finally beat her last night but this morning she pulled ahead again. It is slightly embarrassing how badly I want to beat her at this (guess who needs a new hobby).

* Natalie Merchant, yes she of 10,000 Maniacs fame, is back with a new concept album and what I've heard of it I've really enjoyed. She's taken poems from the 19th and early 20th centuries and turned them into song. Check it out.

* I'm exchanging social media classes for free wine. I met the general manager of a local wine bar, talked to her about Twitter and here we are. Best idea ever.

* 29 is coming up quick. What do I do about that?

* Last week I had a speed Scrabble/margarita night with the ladies. These are entirely necessary and should happen as often as possible. I pulled muscles laughing. Please note: jahats is not a word. Ahem.

* Friday night my friend Andrew's band had a show at the Grey Eagle. It was fabulous. I was super impressed with their opening act, Boys of Summer. Reminds me of Hem with a dash of Innocence Mission. Check 'em. Seriously great.

* Saw this quote today from Madeline L'Engle and I love it: "Because you are not what I would have you be, I bind myself to who, in truth, you are." That sounds like what I suspect love is but I don't know.

* My father called me the other day to hear my analysis on the Redskins signing McNabb. I talked for 10 minutes straight about it and he said, "Yup, can always count on you for better analysis than the commentators." Football is a way we connect, a language we both speak, so that was a huge compliment.

* I'm missing people even when they are standing next to me. Is there a name for this?

* This blog is brought to you by the letter N and the number 9.

Fitting

I went to church by myself yesterday.
I am enjoying my new church; it is a strange feeling as I can’t remember a time when I liked church as much as I am right now.
But it was the holiday, and I was there alone. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to church on Easter alone before; in college my church was full of friends and in the years since I’ve either not attended church on Easter or I’ve gone with friends. This was a first.

As I was getting ready to go, my roommate came home. She’d just met her boyfriend’s parents and she walked in with tears in her eyes. My immediate response was to find out who I needed to kill/shun/threaten. She smiled and said, “No one. I just really, really miss my family today.”

I realized that I did too.

It was with this thought that I went to church and took a pew toward the back. Two pews in front of me sat a family: a daughter about my age and her parents. Half-way through the service she smiled at her father and put her arm around her mother to hold his shoulder. He smiled and did the same and they sat there, the three of them together, arms holding each other into this family. It was sincere and shockingly intimate. I couldn’t stop looking at them and could feel this sadness simmering inside me, bringing tears to my eyes. I snuck a photo of them because I knew I’d want to write about it later.

Easter is about redemption, about defeat over darkness, about good news fulfilled. In the midst of a suffocating sense of loss there came hope and life, in the midst of seeming abandonment lay love never before seen. It is fitting it is celebrated in spring; life lives again personified.

I left church with the intense belief that I am loved beyond reason but the sincere desire to share in it with someone. I went home to an empty house, sat on my deck and spent my day in virtual silence, save for the birds. I could hear life as it kept on living.

Circle Round

Last weekend I had a group of 20-some friends from far and wide join me in a brewery tour around Asheville. It was bright and 75 degrees and, since 5 breweries are within walking distance, it was a casual adventure in matching green shirts.
This photo, taken by the incomparable Jane, reminds me that I am surrounded by love.
Such a joy, these people!

The Face of the Journey It Took

Don Miller is one of my favorite authors*.

I like him because he is honest and he somehow makes this honesty beautiful; makes shards look like more than just broken bits of 2 cent pottery. He writes with a lot of grace.

On his blog he is giving away a podcast of a lecture he did on the power of story and I’ve been listening to it in bits and pieces while I work. Today I heard him talk about conflict in story; how conflict can create the beauty and worth of the prize because of the journey it takes to get there.

Don told a story of hiking Machu Picchu. His guide pointed toward one trail and said, “If we took this trail we could get to the lost city Machu Picchu in 5, maybe 6 hours. This afternoon we could arrive. But we are not taking that trail.” And the guide pointed at the trail leading up a 21,000 ft mountain. He said, “For the next two days, we are going to climb 13,000 ft, we are going to have to get our bodies out of the altitude very quickly. We will camp at a low altitude and then climb another 12,000 feet before we do 9 miles of stairs to the lost city. We are going to do this over the next four days. It will be excruciating.”

The reason the Incas make people take the long journey through the mountains is because they want them to value and appreciate the city when they get there; if they didn’t go through pain, through conflict, they wouldn’t respect the city. Machu Picchu is special because it took real work to see it through.

How beautiful and true. I identify with this and I know that at the end of my conflicts the resolution is that much sweeter, in the face of the journey it took to get there. I often want things easily and quickly but value isn’t found in those drive-thru words.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I have a huge crush on Don Miller and do still hold out the hope that one day we will meet and he will fall madly in love with me. Hey, a girl can hope.

Perpetual Spring

For my friend Leslie’s 32nd birthday a few weeks ago she had a few of us join her in a desperate housewives takeover of a local tattoo parlor. She was getting her nose pierced, others were actually getting tattoos.
I don’t have any tattoos; I went to get one back in 2001 and thankfully the shop was closed or I may have gotten something I later regretted. However this recent trip planted the idea in my head of getting some ink. My reasoning goes back to my previous post: “Sweetness Follows”: I know that this season in my life is so beautiful and delicious but also extremely fleeting and wholly temporary. It will end, and end sooner than I’d hope. I see these little seasons passing and some I handle better than others.
Some end because of distance. Some end because the changes that happen are too great to overcome. Some end because expectations diverge. Some end because hearts can’t agree. Some end because of death.
Whatever the reason, the feeling is the same. There is a sense of loss right now but I am reminded of two plants in this instance: the American chestnut and the resurrection fern.
When the chestnut succumbs to the blight, the stem/trunk is killed off, but the roots remain. Those roots will continue to send up new stalks of growth with the constant hope that a few will survive. Often you’ll observe a large, dead stump, sometimes 75 years gone, with dozens of tiny chestnut shoots surrounding it. The roots don’t know when to give up and as long as they stay firmly planted, those new growths will continue.
The resurrection fern shrivels up and appears dead when resources wane and droughts appear, but at the first sign of rain it unfurls in a fit of lush green optimism. It is as if it lives in this perpetual spring of new beginnings. It is proof that life, promises and blessings are new every morning if we choose to let them be.

Laughing

I woke up with this Regina Spektor song in my head. It is one of those songs that is convicting without browbeating. I've been thinking a lot lately about my personal relationship with God--exactly what that looks like, how it manifests itself in my interpersonal relationships--how it changes and what I really do want from it.
I don't know.

Sweetness Follows

It is good to have a theme for a year.

My friends who live in the big blue barn have dubbed it "2010: The Year of Men" which is quite catchy; another friend is calling it "2010: Balls to the Wall". She decided this was going to be the year she said and did what she meant, social norms be damned. I respect her for that.

My theme for the year is Sweetness. I believe that 2010 is the year that brings sweetness; that after the soaring highs and storms and heartbreaks of 2009, 2010 will be the spring breeze. I hold to the confidant expectation that sweetness will follow this.

Sweet is one of the four basic tastes, the others being bitterness, salt and sour. I love the imagery of using those senses to describe our seasons; how every experience has a taste, as if life is on our tongues.

I don’t necessarily have any specific reasons to believe this sweetness will come, I just hope so. Maybe I’m just getting better at owning my hopes and expectations. It isn't here yet, but I know it is on its way.

I have I’ve found my attitude about things changing; I find I’m looking forward more than before. I’ve had to change some habits (people and actions) which is never easy, but those changes have slowly distilled, have begun to take out the salt, the bitter, the sour. And so I go toward the taste of this season.

“Life goes on; I forget just why.” --E.St.V.M.

To Light, I Gain Power

I’ve been mulling over the Power of Story.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller, and in those rare moments of irrational confidence, I think I’m a pretty good one at that. I love to tell.

There are stories in my life that started as deep wounds. Moments of rejection or loss, embarrassment, pain or fear that, when they happened in real time, weren’t ready to be told because they were too close. They could become secrets or stories.
I find that by telling my stories, by bringing them to light, I gain power over them. They no longer hurt me, no longer reject or embarrass me, no longer act like kudzu around my life. By speaking stories, I beat them. I can choose to make them comical, make them sane or meaningful rather than the very gritty and uncut aspects of totality that experiences are. I cease to relive my stories and I start to witness them.

And so I tell these stories. Because they are mine, because they are part of me, because they are not me.

(I wrote about stories five years ago; here is a bit on memory and story, another bit on storytelling as oral history. I like to talk about stories.)

Every Footprint Left a Mark

It was middle school the first time I went into the house.

The drive to and from home took us down a winding, unmarked paved road. That house sat a few hundred yards off the road, down a lengthy driveway long overgrown and a rusty chain discouraging visitors. The roof and part of the attic were the only visible parts, the window in the attic tiny and shattered, a black scab on the chipped white clapboard exterior. I made up stories about that home for years. Its only neighbor was another ancient farmhouse, home to my friend Althea.

Althea’s house was creepy anyway. It was from the 1920s and had an elevator that ran up its 3 floors. It always had a sense of chilly dampness. One night Althea and I were there alone and we made the mistake of playing the video game “Doom” during a storm with all the lights off. We scared ourselves so badly we slept with the covers over our heads, frightened of every noise.

When we were 13 we decided it was time to see the abandoned house. We crossed the fences that lined the abandoned driveway and walked through the overgrown field, down to the front of the house. It sat on the side of a creek with deep banks, and the ground around it was a marsh. Every footprint left a mark in the mud. It was two stories tall, wooden, with a brick chimney at one end. The front door was broken open and all the windows were smashed.

We went in anyway.

The house was full. There were records in their sleeves in the cabinets, dishes in the sink, a moldy couch in the living room, knickknacks on the shelves. The living room had bright pink paint peeling off the wall. There were photos strewn on the floor; I was scared to look at them. Some of the stairs leading to the second floor were missing so I didn’t try to go upstairs. Althea did. She said it was the same as downstairs: as if a whole life had been left. I felt like I was both spying on a life and being watched.

We got scared and walked around back of the house, where it looked like the trees were slowly marching through the mud toward the house to take it back. I stepped on something soft and it popped up. It was a teddy bear with one eye.

I’ll never forget that teddy bear.

(not the actual house; it was bigger, more wooded and scarier. But very similar feel.)

More Thoughts on the Barn

The time at the Big Blue Barn blessed on many levels.

It reminded me how much I love my friends; how they let me be my nerdy self and just accept it; that they too are nerdy and highly intelligent but still can sing all the words to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” and will willingly spend at least an hour racing along a hardwood floor in socks, seeing who can slide the farthest.

It was carte blanche to temporarily be the Lost Boys from Neverland. We ate what we wanted, didn’t go anywhere, invented games and adventures and knowingly threw ourselves down steep icy hills toward fences and cows. We slept where we fell when we grew too tired to move.

Most of the time, I want to feel more grown up. I want my own place; I want to nest and shop for the week and make dinner for someone I love. I want to be part of a pair (2010 is the year of finally admitting this).

But during that snowstorm I got to live in a little microcosm of community as part of a posse—I wasn’t a single entity on my own—I was standing with loves. It was fleeting but so sweet to me and will be a time I recall fondly for years to come.

(photos stolen from Jenna, who, unlike me, has actually uploaded her photos)

Speak Through the Snow

I’m from Virginia and I learned from an early age that snow was God’s sign you stay home.

No exceptions.

If there is snow, God gave you a bonus Sabbath or two—take the time off, read a book, sled, nap; it’s a gimmie day. Don’t drive, don’t move too quickly; don’t attempt anything that could be construed as chores.

In New York, snow isn’t a sign of anything but a season. God didn’t speak through snow. Life doesn’t slow down, schools don’t close; offices stay open and work keeps happening. My years up there taught me how to drive in snow but made me lose some of my love of the fluffy white stuff. The common things lose their wonder.

This winter has changed and brought a bit of that love back; this past weekend helped.

The snow started on Friday afternoon. There were threats of 8 to 12 inches and the whole area was buzzing with anticipation. Grocery stores were selling out of eggs, milk, bread and beer; liquor stores did business like it was the holidays. I left work at 3, jettisoned home to quickly pack and begin the trek to the Big Blue Barn, a converted barn that is now a beautiful apartment housing three brave friends.

It took me one hour to go 8 miles.

8.
Miles.
GAH.

I was joined at the barn by the usual suspects of Doug, Justin and Tara (who brought her 3-month old puppy, Rooney) and with barn residents Jenna, Betsy and Emily (and a few other characters who popped in and out) and we settled in for our own version of a winter wonderland in a landscape covered in 12” of snow.

We cooked huge meals of spaghetti, pizza and lasagna. We had bacon and eggs and cinnamon rolls and knockoff captain crunch; we ate way too many cookies and chips and dips and we drank leisurely.

We watched movies. Lots of movies. And TV.

We played games like Scattergories and Farkle. We made unreasonable consequences for losing.

We went sledding. A lot. We injured ourselves in the process. We laughed so hard we snorted. We chased the puppy through the house and through the snow and gushed over him when he’d pass out from exhaustion.

Saturday night was the full moon and when it would pop out from behind the clouds the sledding track would be lit as if a spotlight had been shone upon it.

As if God was enjoying the snow right along with us.

Of Light and Color

Last year I changed my religious views on Facebook to say “kaleidoscopic”. I’ve only been asked about this twice and thought I’d explain it, because as I’ve let it sit and simmer, it’s made more sense.

Sir David Brewster, the inventor of the kaleidoscope, called it “the observer of beautiful forms”. The word kaleidoscope comes from the Greek kalos, meaning “beautiful” and eidos, meaning “shapes”. A kaleidoscope is made up of three essential parts: a tube, a few mirrors and small colored beads or objects.

These three things, when left alone, aren’t much. And put together they aren’t much, until light is presented. Then the whole becomes beautiful.

I think of my heart, in terms of spiritual/relational views, like this. God is my light. Without him, the pieces are boring, lifeless and useless. Love is the mirrors. The mirrors turn an arbitrary and banal strewing of pieces into a beautifully symmetric wonderment. They turn what is a mess into loving art. No matter how those pieces fall and swirl and change, those mirrors keep them beautiful, that light keeps it worth anything. It is only when I see my life with the mirrors of love and an eye toward God that I see beauty in my pieces. I don’t see my changes and falls as setbacks but as changes in my understanding of God, of light. I am my pieces, but with God I am new every morning, every moment.

Those patterns of light and color take me to a place of reverence. I think of stained glass and church walls; seeing the falling of dust through the cascade of colors that stream through the windows. When I had the opportunity to sit in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, I was blown away how that place rendered my heart. The north window contains a rosette that is as if one is looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. It was then I knew.

(I do not own the above image)