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.