My People

My friend Hatcher called me on Wednesday night to see how I was doing with the whole breaking up and moving on thing. I was busy trying to decide between cowboy boots or chacos (you know, the more important decisions in life) and she asked me why. “Oh, I'm going on a date,” I said. She laughed and didn't quite believe me. I told her about the strange and hilarious rash of dates I've had recently and her reasoning for it was so fitting. “Well, you are finally with your people. I shouldn't be surprised.” I thought that was a perfect explanation for what I've sought for years: my people. I think we are all searching for our people, those who get us, who we get, who make introductions easy and free flowing. And that really is how I feel about Asheville: it is full of people I understand and those who push me a little bit. I don't have to dress up, dumb down, hide passions or walk the line of decorum—I don't have to hide who I am in order to fit in. I feel like it's freed me up to be much happier, much more tolerant. Feeling home has killed my fight a little bit—my edges aren't quite so sharp, my fists aren't so keenly clenched. And that is good for everyone.

Mr. T Knows...

This one is for you, Jane. and Doug.
Ah-mazing.

The Beauty of Matter

I just pulled up to the grocery store on Friday afternoon when NPR did a little report on the death of Madeline L'Engle, most notably the author of A Wrinkle in Time. I did my shopping, got back in my car and cried a little bit. I confess I never read Wrinkle, but what I have read, and read yearly, is Glimpses of Grace, a daily devotional composed of L'Engle's writings, and through it she became very dear to me. I'm taking this tiny bit of virtual real estate and letting it be a memorial for such a prolific and passionate writer. Some of my favorite quotes:

“It is an extraordinary and beautiful thing that God, in creation, uses precisely the same tools and rules as the artist; he works with the beauty of matter; the reality of things; the discoveries of the senses, all five of them; so that we, in turn, may hear the grass growing; see a face springing to life in love and laughter; feel another human hand or the velvet of a puppy's ear; taste food prepared and offered in love; smell—oh, so many things: food, sewers, each other, flowers, books new-mown grass, dirt...
Here, in the offerings of creation, the oblations of story and song, are our glimpses of truth.”

“If we look at the makeup of the word disaster, dis-aster, we see dis, which means separation, and aster, which means star. So dis-aster is separation from the stars. Such separation is disaster indeed. When we are separated from the stars, the sea, each other, we are in danger of being separated from God...The house of God is not a safe place. It is a cross where time and eternity meet, and where we are—or should be—challenged to live more vulnerably, more interdependently. Where, even with light streaming in rainbow colours through the windows, we can listen to the stars.”

“When we deny our wholeness, when we repress part of ourselves, when we are afraid of our own darkness, then the dark turns against us, turns on us, becomes evil. Just as the intellect when it is not informed by the heart becomes vicious, so the intuition, the subconscious, when it is forcibly held below the surface, becomes wild, and until we look at it and call it by name, our own name, it can devour us.”

“We were bought with a price, and what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.”

“In a world where we're brainwashed by the media into thinking that life should be easy and painless and reasonable, it is not easy or painless or reasonable to be a Christian—that is, to be one who actually dares to believe that the power that created all the galaxies, all the stars in their courses, limited that power to the powerlessness of an ordinary human baby.
That's not reasonable.
It is equally unreasonable to believe that this ordinary baby grew into a man who was totally human and simultaneously totally divine. Who was, as the Athanasian Creed affirms, totally incomprehensible.”

“I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is; I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities; I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the world “Christian” means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thouness. Who, today, can recognize a Christian because of “how those Christians love one another”?”

“Oh I am in awe of the maker of galaxies and geese, stars and starfish, mercury and men (male and female). Sometimes it is rapturous awe; sometimes it is the numinous dread Jacob felt. Sometimes it is the humble awe of knowing that ultimately I belong to God, to the Maker whose thumb print is on each one of us. And that is blessing.”

“The glorious message of Scripture is that we do not have to be perfect for our Maker to love us. All through the great stories, heavenly love is lavished on visibly imperfect people. Scripture asks us to look at Jacob as he really is, to look at ourselves as we really are, and then realize that this is who God loves.”

“Cardinal Suhard says, “To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

“And then there is a time in which to be, simply to be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who he wants us to be. It is then that God can take our emptiness and fill it up with what he wants, and drain away the business with which we inevitably get involved in the dailiness of human living.”

“It is a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet and what is sand. It stops us from taking anything for granted.”

Hands down the best devotional I've ever done. I love to learn though living and not scripture alone. L'Engle had a deep, intimate, profoundly personal and real relationship with God; I hope the same for myself.

What Time is It? MONTAGE Time!

Hey Kids it's MONTAGE TIME! Who doesn't love a montage, really? Anyway, some photos from the past week:
The view from Skybar, as mentioned in the previous post. This is looking west at the Grove Arcade and beyond. Awesome.
Robin being Robin. Who could ask for more, really. And Jane looking as sweet as ever.

Robin's Zack. That's right, he's taken.
For Caroline's 30th we went out to Elaine's Dueling Piano Bar at the Grove Park, which was so bad it was AMAZING. And it was a realtor's convention to boot. I mean, who needs more? Wow. Great group to go with and the people watching was stellar. But next time: bringing the flask and ordering cokes, cuz those dranks are PRICEY.

State of the Union

• Windy Gap offered me an extension so that I won't get and ulcer and I can get a *$(*&# job between now and the end of September. For this Windy Gap gets a big old sloppy kiss. Jenny Moffatt in particular. It's a metaphorical kiss Jenny, don't you worry. *$(*&# job could possibly get a knee to the groin or its own sloppy kiss depending on the outcome. Did you hear that, *$(*&# job? Yeah, the choice is yours.

• For a whole year I've been giggling at the fact that the company that makes the latches on several of the bathroom stalls at WG is called “HINEY HIDERS.” Yeah, you giggled too, didn't you?

• I talked to my sister yesterday, and by talked I mean for 38 minutes I listened to her talk to her three children while I watched my cell minutes rack up. We are so close in age, yet on such completely different planets. I wish we'd be at the same place again; I miss her.

• Today Caroline McGlade turns 30. Don't worry though, as long as she giggles at fart noises and makes up ridiculous songs, she's still a youngin'. With a nick-nack paddy whack.

• Last weekend Beth and Grafton were in town for their first anniversary and I realized the best way to show people Asheville is to have them eat their weight in as many kinds of food as possible. New Asheville slogan: “Weird Town, Now Shut Up and Go Eat There.” Also: Mimosas at Early Girl Eatery: Choice my friend. Choice.

• Speaking of Asheville, for Camden's birthday last week we had a party at the Skybar, a new spot in the Flat Iron building that is basically just martinis on their fire escape but it's on the 8^th floor and they have an elevator operator and a pretty view of the Grove Arcade and the sunset, so well done, Skybar. “This drink is the same price as 10 PBRs.”--Robin, always keeping it in perspective.

• I ran the lake zip yesterday and in two hours I had a total of 5 sets of rides. It was a chance to sit in quiet and pray and I needed it so badly. I love that I needed it; that's a change for me.

• Kelly Willis is coming to the Grey Eagle on September 27th, Erin McKeown is coming October 13th, and “Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me” is coming to the Diane Wortham Theatre on November 15th. Who's in?

• My iPod managed to erase itself randomly and at first I was really annoyed but now I'm sort of enjoying the fresh start of playlists and songs. An unwelcome clean slate but a clean slate nonetheless.

• I'm not sleeping again. I wake up five or six times a night; my mind won't shut up. That or I have to pee, but that's just cuz of my bum prostate.

• Trivia team names: Teen Wolf Blitzer or "Miss South Carolina Geography Squad"