I realize not everyone may be living in the dark ages, by choice, as I do much of the time. I have long preferred a long hand letter (complete with a wax seal), record player, typewriter and paper journals to their counterparts. With that said, I love the Internet and still do not have a land line, currently. I aim for a balance and an act of moderation in our home (including my own time spent online). To be honest, I don't fall on the purest side of the equation but I also don't have any idea how to sync my iPhone. The side of me that tends to fall more on the conservative side of technology has some thoughts on the matter...
I wonder if my young child could (god forbid) call 911 on my cell should the need arise.
I have thought about his little brain--little hands next to the big satellite while he talks or plays on my phone (which totals, maybe 30 minutes per week).
Will my children call me when they are in their later 20's-early 30's? Tweens and teens?
Will my children know how to express emotions other than via emoticons? ;)
Will my children understand privacy? That strangers are dangerous, even behind a screen?
Will my children be isolated via the web? Will they be too busy creating their online selves that they no longer take honest moral inventories on who they really are?
Will my children know that life is not composed of abbrv's or life in a phrase?
You get the idea.
The world is changing. I am trying to keep up.
Technology is great. It teaches our children, and, in moderation and within safe and proper contexts, I think that is a fabulous thing. It even saves lives.
I have long wondered, however, if the Internet, and other tools of technology, have the potential of killing life.
I took a Facebook sabbatical. I deactivated my account for less than a month. I am not even sure if my absence counts as such. Try it. Deactivate your Facebook. I dare you.
Just-point-click-close. Why not? I don't know. But you do...
It is my conviction that the Internet has the potential to create a very dangerous, very false sense of community. Whatever your vice may be, whatever your choice of interaction, reaction, action or relationship...the Internet is two dimensional at best. What we are doing"with" each other--we are actually doing without each other.
Communication is made up of 7% verbal (in this case written) and 93% nonverbal body language.
Now, words are my life. I understand that not all people share the passion of the true sentence, the true word... simply put, I read the 1828 edition of the Noah Webster's Dictionary when I can't sleep.
Words matter. I get it, I really do. But words, I finally resolve, are-not-everything. Words, alone, are not life. Words are not the living. Words are 7%, and I want my children to grow with the knowledge that talking is not just words. I want them to know that true communication is listening, watching, and being present.
According to CNN, better than 90% of kids under the age of two have an online history. By age 5, more than 50% regularly use a device to access the Internet.
Research that studies how the Internet changes life is still in it's early stages, but it shows that regular Internet usage changes the way our brains work. I repeat, frequent use of the Internet shows (both for adults and children) a change in the way our brains function. In some children, this change in brain function, has been linked to: limited attention spans, lower comprehension, poor focus, greater risk for depression, and a diminished long-term memory.
If I am honest with myself, I have probably experienced the same list mentioned above.
Yes, I have a life. And I really do. But I felt left out once I deactivated my Facebook account. I even felt alone at times when I would have--otherwise--been scrolling through the news feed or checking information on group pages. (Don't judge me until you take me up on my dare.) I had to, had to ask myself-who-are-my-friends? BTW (pun intended) you know who you are. I could count on two hands who my friends are in this last 3 weeks but I have hundreds on Facebook.
Have we forgotten what defines friendship on some level? Do we send Valentine's to our mothers? Even email is antiquated these days. I just real life lol. Email is antiquated.
You know what makes me really real life lol? "Facebook security."
Have you googled yourself? Your name that "safely" hovers over your child's pictures, even in a tagged post? LOL. LOL. LOL. Google yourself. It opened my eyes as I read the town in which I live, my parent's names, husband's name, his sister's name and where she lives (and has lived). The real kicker was when I googled her name and got information about her husband's family, sister, brother-in-law...
LOL.
It took 5 clicks to get to my husband's brother's wife's mother's information. And she lives in another state--along with her son and his wife...
For a small monthly fee you could have someone's credit history. Facebook security?
L-O-friggin' ELLLLL.
Who a person is, who a person has always been, is who they are behind closed doors. Who a person is, who a person has always been, is not who they are in Facebook phrases. We see each other in glimpses like passing on the street. I am honest with the things I say in updates (even though cryptic, at times), but what do you know (or care) if I am lying?
I do trust the people in my friends list. Ones that I may not be in regular contact with are still good people. I am not afraid that everyone who did not call me in the last few weeks are the boogey man. But honestly, it may be more accurately stated to say (with many of my 'friends') that I trusted them when I knew them in waking life. But who are they now? The truth is that I have not even so much as run in to many of them in the last 10 years, but I have given them an open window in to my life.
Then. I. Am. Awake.
It is no secret that the media dictates and sets the pace for fashions, trends, even mascara. I may not be one to care about jeans, bags or Ulta...but I am, by choice, a victim of commercialism in many other ways. This post is not to judge anyone who has an intimate affair with life via satellite or a love for Coach. But, is it possible that the bar has now been raised and our ways of communication directed by the waves of the man-in-the-moon himself? Will we all fade in to a background via updates?
Don't get me wrong...I like Facebook. I will continue to use it. I even tweet (lol--ok, I'm done now).
But I have to ask myself if this use of the Internet has dictated what I once would never have dreamed of sharing behind my cloak. Has the Internet encouraged me to share what I wear behind my glasses with--the world? And all because it's "safe?"
For example, sharing pictures of my kids (which I recently stopped posting), thoughts of mine on many things...this blog...
The Internet made me brave, I suppose you could say. Isn't that sad and wonderful? The Internet is it's own cloak. Who are you reading this? I don't know, but you know me. Getting the picture?
According to several news sites (but I have only noted one in the bibliography of this post, since it was so prevalent) the world spends per day per day per day PER DAY on Facebook... 10.5 billion minutes. This average did not include time spent on phones. This is also according to the company of Facebook's IPO filing (10.5 billion minutes) per day.
Now, that seems silly to me. I live in a small town, in a relatively small house, with two small children. So let's make this small. (Like I said, wonder with words, eh?)
Let's just say someone were to spend 5 minutes at a time on Facebook to scroll the news feed, reply to a message, re-read a comment (you know you have) or check for 'likes' (don't even lie).
Let's say that they did this simple thing, for 5 minutes, 10 times in a 24 hour time period. Let's say, they did this 7 days a week, for 4 weeks. That's 1,400 minutes a month.
That-is-twenty-three point three (23.3) hours of life, on average a month, that that person will spend on Facebook.
Some of us "conservative" Internet users may, on average, per month, spend near one day of life on Facebook. Fakebook?
Now point-click-close-and go call your mother.
********************************************************************************
Laird, Sam. "Is Social Media Destroying Real-World Relationships? [INFOGRAPHIC]." Mashable June 14, 2012. 16 December 2012 <http://mashable.com>.
Clinton, Chelsea, Steyer, James P. "Is the Internet hurting Children?" CNN Opinion 21 May 2012. 16 December 2012 <http://www.cnn.com>.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
30 Something Prose
30 Something was a show on television I remember my mother watching when I was young...and she was 30 something. She is now 50 something, and I find myself nearing the 30's.
I keep hearing nothing but wonderful things about 30 something.
Please, don't judge the lack of grammar or correct punctuation, the lack of order in thought or the emotional canvass. I am not trying to impress, which is, in part, a part of the 30's, I hear.
Ironically the only time I have never been self-conscious in a bathing suit was this past summer. I had an almost two-year-old boy and was 8 months pregnant. And for the first time, I really didn't give a hoot about the cover-up. That day was about playing in the pool and being stained by the sun...finally.
For many reasons, the last few months have had my head swimming with the most haunting question, perhaps, that all humans face in their lifetime: "What if?"
I have thought about my childhood friendships and all that they taught me. Becky, on Lafayette, well bless her heart. I taught her how to climb a tree only to leave her there once the street lights came on; and, she was still my friend the next day. I thought about my dog. It made me cry, actually, when I realized he had probably died years and years ago. Our brains rationalize, don't they? Why wouldn't I, at the mature age of almost 30, have realized my dog probably died?
I believe that God let that dog live through being hit by a truck, eating a bag of poison so his blood became so thick it wouldn't even move through his body, and getting stung by an entire wasps nest. I repeat, he lived. And back to my believing...well, I believe that God let that dog live because he was the only thing constant about my childhood. My dog. My dog was, in the end, the only thing that stayed the same...until my parents got rid of him when I was in middle school, which, made sense. Anyway, he died. It made me sad to almost 30 something realize that death is a part of everyone's life.
Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the realization that I am not immortal. Well, I am, but not in the physical sense. I think the realization, the deep-down knowing that I, too, will die, like so many close to me have...well, it makes you wonder what the heck you are doing today.
I know it's just a birthday. I know it's a wonderful birthday. I don't know why, I guess, this one seems like the first, and possibly, the only birthday that should really count for something.
I want my children to know what God taught me in my generation and those that went before them. I want to know why the world is going paperless; and, I want to know why I have a growing passion to remain the woman with a wax seal on my longhand letters, record player and tobacco pipe. I want my children to know that there is one-true-God and that believing that will offend many people. I want them to know that it was not their mother that said so, but rather, Jesus Christ himself.
I want my children to know what their great-grandparents were like, the America they fought for, and the importance of living diligently and sober minded. I want my children to know the importance of working hard and sleeping hard...sometimes with sand on your feet if you get the chance. In fact, sleep with sand on your feet every chance you get.
I don't know...but 30 something feels like a new life both in a daunting and a glorious way.
Perhaps you can relate...
It feels like a crowded street in a rain storm, the way my mind has been reeling the last few weeks. It's as though you recognize every face and recall every story attached to them...but in the end, you can see the aerial view of black umbrellas and you want to be the red one...
Amidst 30 black umbrellas, you want to be the red.
I hope that I am the red umbrella.
I keep hearing nothing but wonderful things about 30 something.
Please, don't judge the lack of grammar or correct punctuation, the lack of order in thought or the emotional canvass. I am not trying to impress, which is, in part, a part of the 30's, I hear.
Ironically the only time I have never been self-conscious in a bathing suit was this past summer. I had an almost two-year-old boy and was 8 months pregnant. And for the first time, I really didn't give a hoot about the cover-up. That day was about playing in the pool and being stained by the sun...finally.
For many reasons, the last few months have had my head swimming with the most haunting question, perhaps, that all humans face in their lifetime: "What if?"
I have thought about my childhood friendships and all that they taught me. Becky, on Lafayette, well bless her heart. I taught her how to climb a tree only to leave her there once the street lights came on; and, she was still my friend the next day. I thought about my dog. It made me cry, actually, when I realized he had probably died years and years ago. Our brains rationalize, don't they? Why wouldn't I, at the mature age of almost 30, have realized my dog probably died?
I believe that God let that dog live through being hit by a truck, eating a bag of poison so his blood became so thick it wouldn't even move through his body, and getting stung by an entire wasps nest. I repeat, he lived. And back to my believing...well, I believe that God let that dog live because he was the only thing constant about my childhood. My dog. My dog was, in the end, the only thing that stayed the same...until my parents got rid of him when I was in middle school, which, made sense. Anyway, he died. It made me sad to almost 30 something realize that death is a part of everyone's life.
Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the realization that I am not immortal. Well, I am, but not in the physical sense. I think the realization, the deep-down knowing that I, too, will die, like so many close to me have...well, it makes you wonder what the heck you are doing today.
I know it's just a birthday. I know it's a wonderful birthday. I don't know why, I guess, this one seems like the first, and possibly, the only birthday that should really count for something.
I want my children to know what God taught me in my generation and those that went before them. I want to know why the world is going paperless; and, I want to know why I have a growing passion to remain the woman with a wax seal on my longhand letters, record player and tobacco pipe. I want my children to know that there is one-true-God and that believing that will offend many people. I want them to know that it was not their mother that said so, but rather, Jesus Christ himself.
I want my children to know what their great-grandparents were like, the America they fought for, and the importance of living diligently and sober minded. I want my children to know the importance of working hard and sleeping hard...sometimes with sand on your feet if you get the chance. In fact, sleep with sand on your feet every chance you get.
I don't know...but 30 something feels like a new life both in a daunting and a glorious way.
Perhaps you can relate...
It feels like a crowded street in a rain storm, the way my mind has been reeling the last few weeks. It's as though you recognize every face and recall every story attached to them...but in the end, you can see the aerial view of black umbrellas and you want to be the red one...
Amidst 30 black umbrellas, you want to be the red.
I hope that I am the red umbrella.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
I Believe
I find it sad and profound that the Christian army is the only army that shoots it's own wounded. If I could recall the genius behind the genius in that concept I would attribute their genius.
I find it ironic that in the age of tolerance, I have seen and witnessed much adversity as a believer in Jesus Christ. I am not simply talking about my own personal life, but also amongst peers. My belief has become one that is-not-tolerated in many social circles. I have spent years trying to escape confrontation, in the hope of never offending someone. Yes, there have been times when I have had a knot in my throat that I could not swallow--and I would speak God's truths. Those times have been somewhat spontaneous...like vomit, actually.
Today, I was reminded that I was promised adversity as a Christian. I do not speak as a martyr, victim or senseless wander lust woman who finally found something that makes me feel safe. I do not speak as one with a gun ready to shoot any who come in to my camp...Christian or otherwise. I really just want to tell you something.
I understand how the notion of a man, who proclaimed to be God's son, and a people who gather and eat crackers and drink grape juice each week in remembrance of a horrific murder...it's friggin' weird. It really is. It's confusing.
Dare I begin to get in to the historical (not the Biblical) man of Jesus?
No.
Not tonight.
I do have a case to prove, but I hope, and hope for all who believe in the saving grace of God through Jesus, that our proof will be in our lives. I hope our proof is in the imperfections of our lives. Grace does not exist without struggle.
I smoke occasionally at nap time. I like TOOL, NIN, and Perfect Circle.
I have had sex out of wedlock. A lot of sex (which I am not glorifying...it broke my heart and made me wish I knew who I was).
And you know what? I have had some really horrible people do some really, really horrible things in my life that changed me.
I have spit in the face of a man that was not even a mirror of an actual man after I beat him. I gave him a sign, my sign, my sins for him to carry on his cross to his death. I gave him my sign to carry and post as a crime he never committed...
"Liar. Cheat. Adulteress. Drunk."
And then I watched him suffocate to death. And then I walked away and stayed silent holding a sign that read, "Truthful witness. Honorable friend. Virgin. Renewed. Redeemed."
And as I glanced back, I saw his sign had changed and read the wrongs of every horrible person and every horrible thing they had ever done...to me.
The horrible men that abused a little girl. The horrible men that abused an adolescent. The horrible man that stole my virginity...
and many other crimes that I can't stomach telling anyone, especially via blog.
Or maybe, not ever.
Now, I realize "another Christian telling how much they love Jesus" may not be the new approach, or the one to create curiosity in a heart; so, I will attempt another...
Let's start at the beginning. God made the world. God made the world in a specific order. Now, I know this is the beginning of controversy, and I, having no left brain, may not be the best person to answer your carbon dating questions. What I do know, is that everything, ever-y-thing has a design. If anyone brought to you a watch would you assume it fashioned itself? We recognize design. Why is that?
I am unable to, perhaps, ask or answer the left brain questions...but let me ask you something...
do you understand the complexity of bacteria flagellum?
God gave the world order. Accidents don't organize themselves. Everything had, has, will have an order because the very world you are living in was stamped with the thumbprint of a Creator--a just Creator. He adores his creation. He adores me. He adores you.
Why did Jesus come in to the world? To testify to the truth (John 18:33-38). What was on trial?
Truth.
To my knowledge, no other man has ever said to me, "You don't have to do anything but believe that I am going to die for you, so you don't have to die. And then, you're saved." Seem too good to be true? If you answer yes to that question, then, perhaps you should wonder if you have been deceived. Perhaps you can ponder if you were the reason Jesus came to testify-to-the-truth.
So, if truth was on trial, it was naturally offering a fight against lies.
The fact that Jesus stood trial fought against lies held in our world-views, our home-views, our social-views...our views on justice.
Carl Sagan (Humanist of the year, 1981) said, "Our future depends on how we understand the cosmos, we will follow the truth no matter where it leads."
I have yet to find a scientific theory that began with a hypothesis, followed by a theory, and finally ended in a law that ended with, "the only conclusion that 'it' all came from somewhere,but we don't know where," where that theory was, in fact, attributed to God. In other words..."follow the truth wherever it leads"...unless it leads to God.
If our universe was really a random chaos, what would be the need to study it? We study it's amazing design.
In my limited understanding of left brain workings, if the data does not match the "law," you then change your hypothesis--and start over.
Mt. Rushmore was not random.
Yet DNA was somehow random? How long did it take for us to evolve so that our brains would get the message we had been cut, so that our blood would clot, so that we would not bleed to death? How did humanity survive, at all, during this time?
Again, I truly have no left brain and boast NOT of any knowledge in this area...I am taking something for it's skin and bones (truly).
In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Darwin wrote letters that he could not be anything but sick when he encountered small details; ie: the peacock feather.
Just the structure of an Amoeba has enough detail to fill over 1,000 Encyclopedia Britannicas.
Now, truly, I back away because I am no source for Molecular Biology, or the fossil record. What my right brain tells me, however, is that any theory lacking evidence simply becomes it's own theory, supported, then, by it's lack of evidence.
I should shut up, because this is really not my strength.
Let me, now, move to more of my right brain (where I will have spelling errors, and ironically, is much shorter).
Let's say you wanted to convince someone, more than anything else you have ever wanted, that you loved them. What would you do to show that love, to prove that love? Anything, correct?
Now, I am not talking about God's love- I am talking about the notion of an enemy that DOES do everything to block us from the TRUTH of a God, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
What would he stop short of in an attempt to deceive you?
Hypocritical Christians is too easy (and widely used).
Ugly hearted Christians (of which I AM one)?
Economic collapse?
Rape?
Incest?
Murder?
Losing your job? Family?
How about all of those starving kids (thank you, Francis Chan for reminding me that while I am asking God 'why are so many people starving,' God is asking me that question).
Storms? War?
You see a just God does not violate his own laws in which he created the world to run. He does not become a puppet master forcing us to follow and obey.
While he does voluntarily limit himself so we are able to experience his presence in this broken world, he does not stop his order...because he is just.
(Parts of this blog have been inspired by 'The Truth Project' and the very wonderful Del Tackett. I wish he was my grandpa.)
I find it ironic that in the age of tolerance, I have seen and witnessed much adversity as a believer in Jesus Christ. I am not simply talking about my own personal life, but also amongst peers. My belief has become one that is-not-tolerated in many social circles. I have spent years trying to escape confrontation, in the hope of never offending someone. Yes, there have been times when I have had a knot in my throat that I could not swallow--and I would speak God's truths. Those times have been somewhat spontaneous...like vomit, actually.
Today, I was reminded that I was promised adversity as a Christian. I do not speak as a martyr, victim or senseless wander lust woman who finally found something that makes me feel safe. I do not speak as one with a gun ready to shoot any who come in to my camp...Christian or otherwise. I really just want to tell you something.
I understand how the notion of a man, who proclaimed to be God's son, and a people who gather and eat crackers and drink grape juice each week in remembrance of a horrific murder...it's friggin' weird. It really is. It's confusing.
Dare I begin to get in to the historical (not the Biblical) man of Jesus?
No.
Not tonight.
I do have a case to prove, but I hope, and hope for all who believe in the saving grace of God through Jesus, that our proof will be in our lives. I hope our proof is in the imperfections of our lives. Grace does not exist without struggle.
I smoke occasionally at nap time. I like TOOL, NIN, and Perfect Circle.
I have had sex out of wedlock. A lot of sex (which I am not glorifying...it broke my heart and made me wish I knew who I was).
And you know what? I have had some really horrible people do some really, really horrible things in my life that changed me.
I have spit in the face of a man that was not even a mirror of an actual man after I beat him. I gave him a sign, my sign, my sins for him to carry on his cross to his death. I gave him my sign to carry and post as a crime he never committed...
"Liar. Cheat. Adulteress. Drunk."
And then I watched him suffocate to death. And then I walked away and stayed silent holding a sign that read, "Truthful witness. Honorable friend. Virgin. Renewed. Redeemed."
And as I glanced back, I saw his sign had changed and read the wrongs of every horrible person and every horrible thing they had ever done...to me.
The horrible men that abused a little girl. The horrible men that abused an adolescent. The horrible man that stole my virginity...
and many other crimes that I can't stomach telling anyone, especially via blog.
Or maybe, not ever.
Now, I realize "another Christian telling how much they love Jesus" may not be the new approach, or the one to create curiosity in a heart; so, I will attempt another...
Let's start at the beginning. God made the world. God made the world in a specific order. Now, I know this is the beginning of controversy, and I, having no left brain, may not be the best person to answer your carbon dating questions. What I do know, is that everything, ever-y-thing has a design. If anyone brought to you a watch would you assume it fashioned itself? We recognize design. Why is that?
I am unable to, perhaps, ask or answer the left brain questions...but let me ask you something...
do you understand the complexity of bacteria flagellum?
God gave the world order. Accidents don't organize themselves. Everything had, has, will have an order because the very world you are living in was stamped with the thumbprint of a Creator--a just Creator. He adores his creation. He adores me. He adores you.
Why did Jesus come in to the world? To testify to the truth (John 18:33-38). What was on trial?
Truth.
To my knowledge, no other man has ever said to me, "You don't have to do anything but believe that I am going to die for you, so you don't have to die. And then, you're saved." Seem too good to be true? If you answer yes to that question, then, perhaps you should wonder if you have been deceived. Perhaps you can ponder if you were the reason Jesus came to testify-to-the-truth.
So, if truth was on trial, it was naturally offering a fight against lies.
The fact that Jesus stood trial fought against lies held in our world-views, our home-views, our social-views...our views on justice.
Carl Sagan (Humanist of the year, 1981) said, "Our future depends on how we understand the cosmos, we will follow the truth no matter where it leads."
I have yet to find a scientific theory that began with a hypothesis, followed by a theory, and finally ended in a law that ended with, "the only conclusion that 'it' all came from somewhere,but we don't know where," where that theory was, in fact, attributed to God. In other words..."follow the truth wherever it leads"...unless it leads to God.
If our universe was really a random chaos, what would be the need to study it? We study it's amazing design.
In my limited understanding of left brain workings, if the data does not match the "law," you then change your hypothesis--and start over.
Mt. Rushmore was not random.
Yet DNA was somehow random? How long did it take for us to evolve so that our brains would get the message we had been cut, so that our blood would clot, so that we would not bleed to death? How did humanity survive, at all, during this time?
Again, I truly have no left brain and boast NOT of any knowledge in this area...I am taking something for it's skin and bones (truly).
In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Darwin wrote letters that he could not be anything but sick when he encountered small details; ie: the peacock feather.
Just the structure of an Amoeba has enough detail to fill over 1,000 Encyclopedia Britannicas.
Now, truly, I back away because I am no source for Molecular Biology, or the fossil record. What my right brain tells me, however, is that any theory lacking evidence simply becomes it's own theory, supported, then, by it's lack of evidence.
I should shut up, because this is really not my strength.
Let me, now, move to more of my right brain (where I will have spelling errors, and ironically, is much shorter).
Let's say you wanted to convince someone, more than anything else you have ever wanted, that you loved them. What would you do to show that love, to prove that love? Anything, correct?
Now, I am not talking about God's love- I am talking about the notion of an enemy that DOES do everything to block us from the TRUTH of a God, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
What would he stop short of in an attempt to deceive you?
Hypocritical Christians is too easy (and widely used).
Ugly hearted Christians (of which I AM one)?
Economic collapse?
Rape?
Incest?
Murder?
Losing your job? Family?
How about all of those starving kids (thank you, Francis Chan for reminding me that while I am asking God 'why are so many people starving,' God is asking me that question).
Storms? War?
You see a just God does not violate his own laws in which he created the world to run. He does not become a puppet master forcing us to follow and obey.
While he does voluntarily limit himself so we are able to experience his presence in this broken world, he does not stop his order...because he is just.
(Parts of this blog have been inspired by 'The Truth Project' and the very wonderful Del Tackett. I wish he was my grandpa.)
Friday, September 7, 2012
chicken scratch--literally
If I'm being honest, and you always should when you write, I am best at prose, these days. Chicken scratch. And writing on photographs. I'll show you if you ask. It's like painting. Well, no, it is painting. It's using words to paint a picture. No, it's using a picture to paint your words...
I realize some people actually want to know how to write. Well, I won't spend your time or mine on grammar or punctuation...but it does matter. Anyway, you-just-write-and-don't care. You will find something in yourself when you do that and it will surprise you what you were thinking.
nostalgia
perplexed? don't fall through
the ice-
i only said hello
i slept in a canopy of howls
and marked the way back
with pieces of bread
crumbs
...and then you can shape it later, if you want to shape it later...
This-is prose. I think it's horrible that Ginsberg had a thing for boys in his basement, and I can't say I stand for all of 'Howl' but it's brilliant. Always been one of my favorites. Read it. Read America. William Carlos Williams- another one. His short stories make me want to write and make sense of something. He will make you want to write like dancing.
I wrote "I miss you" in the sky with a flashlight- from the base of "somewhere over the rainbow" listening to bon iver and thinking about trains. you would understand, i think. and in another life, you may appreciate that. but I don't believe in other lives...just this one.
Main st smells like a big city if you catch it by a donut shop, someone smoking, coffee in hand and the sound of a bus. the city is everywhere. the whole rest of the world is an inch- ONE INCH from the tip of my nose. my porch. the whole-world.
it seems strange to feel trapped when you think of it that way.
i live in a town where I can say i took my dress to francis st and everyone know I am talking about the cleaners.
each step of the walking waking world would make the most incredible song...the-most-incredible song. I don't find myself in a new pair of shoes like some people I know. I don't think it's bad that they do, in fact I am jealous, probably. perhaps I am the dullard. it's like you see your whole life broken in to pieces when you need the big picture, like a daunting landscape of years and vacations and pictures that tell a story you wish you were a part of. i am not the den mother. I am not the voice of reason in the thriller. am i?
sang in my head the entire time was bumpy
i think it rained yesterday
was windy and I was
numb
i told my sister I would write about what I would tell the 17 year old me. surprisingly, i have only a few things for now...if it's possible to even attempt that novel, here is the beginning, I suppose:
play basketball this year. you will still want to kick box in 10 years, and you can--then.
keep playing-the-piano. sing more. sing. sing. sing. don't stop singing your freshman year of college. sing. it wakes your soul up. don't forget that, it will change you temporarily if you forget that.
don't get in the car with 'X'.
don't fall for something later just because it's a really good story. you will realize, all too late, that's all it was--a really good story. and the irony of your life will be that you are the only one who won't buy it.
prose.
I realize some people actually want to know how to write. Well, I won't spend your time or mine on grammar or punctuation...but it does matter. Anyway, you-just-write-and-don't care. You will find something in yourself when you do that and it will surprise you what you were thinking.
nostalgia
perplexed? don't fall through
the ice-
i only said hello
i slept in a canopy of howls
and marked the way back
with pieces of bread
crumbs
...and then you can shape it later, if you want to shape it later...
This-is prose. I think it's horrible that Ginsberg had a thing for boys in his basement, and I can't say I stand for all of 'Howl' but it's brilliant. Always been one of my favorites. Read it. Read America. William Carlos Williams- another one. His short stories make me want to write and make sense of something. He will make you want to write like dancing.
I wrote "I miss you" in the sky with a flashlight- from the base of "somewhere over the rainbow" listening to bon iver and thinking about trains. you would understand, i think. and in another life, you may appreciate that. but I don't believe in other lives...just this one.
Main st smells like a big city if you catch it by a donut shop, someone smoking, coffee in hand and the sound of a bus. the city is everywhere. the whole rest of the world is an inch- ONE INCH from the tip of my nose. my porch. the whole-world.
it seems strange to feel trapped when you think of it that way.
i live in a town where I can say i took my dress to francis st and everyone know I am talking about the cleaners.
each step of the walking waking world would make the most incredible song...the-most-incredible song. I don't find myself in a new pair of shoes like some people I know. I don't think it's bad that they do, in fact I am jealous, probably. perhaps I am the dullard. it's like you see your whole life broken in to pieces when you need the big picture, like a daunting landscape of years and vacations and pictures that tell a story you wish you were a part of. i am not the den mother. I am not the voice of reason in the thriller. am i?
sang in my head the entire time was bumpy
i think it rained yesterday
was windy and I was
numb
i told my sister I would write about what I would tell the 17 year old me. surprisingly, i have only a few things for now...if it's possible to even attempt that novel, here is the beginning, I suppose:
play basketball this year. you will still want to kick box in 10 years, and you can--then.
keep playing-the-piano. sing more. sing. sing. sing. don't stop singing your freshman year of college. sing. it wakes your soul up. don't forget that, it will change you temporarily if you forget that.
don't get in the car with 'X'.
don't fall for something later just because it's a really good story. you will realize, all too late, that's all it was--a really good story. and the irony of your life will be that you are the only one who won't buy it.
prose.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Battleship
Healing from a battle wound is like standing on the shore. There are times the pain calmly laps over your feet and never once does it hinder your ability to walk-to STOMP- all over and inside of it. Then, as the tide rises, it seems to surprise as it swallows you. Covers your head. No up from down. And you are left in a cloud of sand that hides your predators, and you are left with burning, aching lungs. The more you fight this, the less energy you have to fight...this.
While I write from the edges of my heart on this blog, I keep some things cryptic on purpose. Although written to a phantom audience, even some of those ghosts have no business knowing.
Writing heals, and it can also wound. You can easily write yourself in circles until you feel--and welcome--familiar warm arms of apathy to enclose you. In these arms you believe the lie that you have no strength to fight. And you stop.
It's tricky, though.
Once you are consumed in that tidal wave, be it fear or sadness, you incur less injury by being limp. Your predators may leave if they think you already dead. So, how is one to know what to do?
I believe, with all of my heart, that a person's mouth will be their undoing. Words matter matter matter. So, as I write this I'm faced with a choice: do I write about the tide, all be it true, or do I write about the calm with will come?
I will choose the latter.
To follow a dream you must know it exists or you will find yourself chasing the wind. I believe my husband's dream exists. I believe in my dream. My dream is family.
Family is institution. Family is diversity within unity. Family is love. Family is God's heart.
Strong families make a strong nation. I have never fought a war of nations, but I am a soldier. Sometimes, ladies, we need to be silent. When you look at your husband in the eyes like a deer in the headlights, when your inside voice is screaming and beating words up your throat, when your burning lungs in that tidal wave have just enough air to push your very heart past your tongue...we just need to be silent and search our hearts. This makes us soldiers.
This use of 'soldier' is not to be mistaken for being a martyr, as some wives are King of (play on words intentional). It's easy to mutter beneath our breath as we do the dishes, as we pick up clothes (am I the only one who knows where the hamper is?). Or as we submit. I have learned that submission does NOT mean going placidly in the night as pirates devour my gold. This word encompasses a battle of fighting pirates within OURSELVES- and takes incredible force and endurance. And some nights our battle is to walk the halls alone, again, at 2 am, holding our crying babes.
But you see...this is my life. It is no one's job but mine to choose joy in my life.
Some would say that being joyful and trusting God through these tidal waves makes for a controlled and boring life. Still, others ask, "Isn't it a crutch?"
Believing and trusting in the Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the craziest adventure of...well...my life. Boring? Not even for a minute.
Is it also a crutch? Absolutely. And I welcome these limp legs in this wave because then there is rescue. And I need that 'crutch' that is my God because I cannot do this alone.
Can you?
Don't you ever just feel like you just-can't-do-it?
I have a choice in this tidal wave, and I choose to ride these waves with generous dignity. When I can't fight, the Lord God of Israel will fight for me and I need only to be still. And this makes me a soldier.
My battles will be fought and won and great will be my children's peace.
While I write from the edges of my heart on this blog, I keep some things cryptic on purpose. Although written to a phantom audience, even some of those ghosts have no business knowing.
Writing heals, and it can also wound. You can easily write yourself in circles until you feel--and welcome--familiar warm arms of apathy to enclose you. In these arms you believe the lie that you have no strength to fight. And you stop.
It's tricky, though.
Once you are consumed in that tidal wave, be it fear or sadness, you incur less injury by being limp. Your predators may leave if they think you already dead. So, how is one to know what to do?
I believe, with all of my heart, that a person's mouth will be their undoing. Words matter matter matter. So, as I write this I'm faced with a choice: do I write about the tide, all be it true, or do I write about the calm with will come?
I will choose the latter.
To follow a dream you must know it exists or you will find yourself chasing the wind. I believe my husband's dream exists. I believe in my dream. My dream is family.
Family is institution. Family is diversity within unity. Family is love. Family is God's heart.
Strong families make a strong nation. I have never fought a war of nations, but I am a soldier. Sometimes, ladies, we need to be silent. When you look at your husband in the eyes like a deer in the headlights, when your inside voice is screaming and beating words up your throat, when your burning lungs in that tidal wave have just enough air to push your very heart past your tongue...we just need to be silent and search our hearts. This makes us soldiers.
This use of 'soldier' is not to be mistaken for being a martyr, as some wives are King of (play on words intentional). It's easy to mutter beneath our breath as we do the dishes, as we pick up clothes (am I the only one who knows where the hamper is?). Or as we submit. I have learned that submission does NOT mean going placidly in the night as pirates devour my gold. This word encompasses a battle of fighting pirates within OURSELVES- and takes incredible force and endurance. And some nights our battle is to walk the halls alone, again, at 2 am, holding our crying babes.
But you see...this is my life. It is no one's job but mine to choose joy in my life.
Some would say that being joyful and trusting God through these tidal waves makes for a controlled and boring life. Still, others ask, "Isn't it a crutch?"
Believing and trusting in the Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the craziest adventure of...well...my life. Boring? Not even for a minute.
Is it also a crutch? Absolutely. And I welcome these limp legs in this wave because then there is rescue. And I need that 'crutch' that is my God because I cannot do this alone.
Can you?
Don't you ever just feel like you just-can't-do-it?
I have a choice in this tidal wave, and I choose to ride these waves with generous dignity. When I can't fight, the Lord God of Israel will fight for me and I need only to be still. And this makes me a soldier.
My battles will be fought and won and great will be my children's peace.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
a young 80 something
I saw my Uncle Johnny tonight. The last time I saw him was at my Great Uncle Pocco's funeral. The last time I had seen my Uncle Pocco was at Christmas that year. Pueblo.
Pocco (Presley) and I watched football talking about the team that year. We never talked about how he was dying. We never talked about how we was going to die. We hugged goodbye like it was an Easter dinner years past when everyone we both knew and loved was still alive. We hugged like we will see each other again. At Easter.
That's how everyone in the Casack family says goodbye...like we will see each other again. And we will.
I was richly blessed and was adopted in 2nd grade by the man my mother married. I was adopted by my father- the only father ever meant to be mine.
And his family is my family. Of course they are.
But there is something about my mother's family that feels more like home. I don't know how to say it without possibly hurting feelings, which is not my intention. I just mean... I understand something about Pueblo and watering the lawn from my grandfather's porch that no one else could ever understand.
The time in between trips to Pueblo is enough to fill a lifetime, it seems. Time I lived there as a child of a single mother and every weekend until I was 7 and my mom married. Every Friday picked up from school. Every weekend stories and soda in bed with grandma and strawberry grass stains on my knees.
Most of this won't make sense to anyone. I don't care. Most of this won't be grammatically correct. I don't care.
I just have to have somewhere to put what flooded me tonight before it disappears. like i think i will disappear once my grandmother dies. like i think every memory that ever mattered to write down before i had children will disappear once my sweet grams dies and how i never visit her at her nursing home even now that she is here in longmont, finally, and why don't you go see her, ashley rose? why won't you go see rosemary which the flower means remembrance which is more than ironic and lovely and horribly sad because she can't keep her eyes open long enough to even recognize a voice and why can't i go see her?
why can't i go see you? why can't you remember, grams?
it's me. it's pale flower. it's me. you would remember me.
and sometimes i think you are the only one that would. that would really remember me.
i used to tear pages of my journals out and hand them to people in case i died. to be remembered.
feeding you strawberry sundaes, watching your hands shake on the table like you are blowing on a candle like you are whistling...
and it's like our lives are polaroid pictures that sat in an album in the sun and now they are garish orange colors bled all together making some sort of collage of what...was the picture. what was an anniversary. a song. life.
i used to drive for hours just to help you brush your teeth and tuck you in once your life became an 8X10 room with one box of frames and drive back with a pack of cigarettes and smoke every-single-one singing at the top of my heart from the bottom of my lungs like you could hear me and like i was helping you sleep
and i wanted to see you poke your sweet fingers through the blinds again from your mobile home and wave goodbye because you knew i was leaving and because you knew i would see you again and you would see me.
at easter.
aunt margie's laugh you always thought every person checking you out at the grocery store was upset with you the time you had to put the apples back because you didn't have enough money the time you lost your car and walked for hours in the parking lot when you first started to forget the story about the turpentine and how i laughed the moth in the kitchen and grandpa's green robe on the back of the bathroom door the wall of mirrors the room that scared me the crack in the sidewalk were i tripped at the twins' house every time i chased your car down the street when you and grandpa dropped me off back home the steel mill marking the drive home. my mom gave me the rocker and wanted it back to refinish. and it broke my heart.
the pictures riddled on aunt lou's wall with generations of life crawling in to grandpa's lap at age 15--minutes before he walked himself out of his house to go die he knew he would die at that hospital and so did i and i felt his tears in my hair as he held me.
i felt his tears in my hair. no more russian easters. why don't we have russian easter's grams? I can bring the basket and honey...you can bring the host and parsley. and i want to see you at that table. God, i want to see my family at easter.
the dream you had after both of your sons had died. tony and steve. drunk drivers. the way you told the story of the police coming to your door. again. the sirens. the way you knew.
the blocks of bikers around the church that day. grandpa in court giving that man freedom "ruining his life won't bring my son's back."
tony's life after his daddy was killed. prison. kids. drugs. sobriety. i love that brother cousin of mine.
when you drove around the block listening to "the hollies- he ain't heavy" and cried and asked me to be quiet and how i understand that funeral song after i can't tell you anymore. alan parson's project "time."
the gold leaf ring. the ruby ring. the plastic ring. the gap you have in your teeth. me too.
taking you to the bathroom. the role reversal in our lovely relationship...helping you put your shoes on. and tie them.
the morning of grandpa's funeral. you cried because you sat on your glasses. i cried because i got red lipstick on my white dress.
i miss you. grandma I miss you. i miss my family. i miss my family. i miss you.
you would have so much to say to me in this season of my life. i know you would. you knew something all along that we never knew...
and i can't ask you anymore.
and you are sleeping blocks away from me.
blocks!!!! and i have not seen you since your birthday LAST march. Cards i have bought for you...stupid, cheesy, FAKE cards are in my desk drawer like a crime.
"don't bring me flowers when I am dead."
when were you last outside, rosebud?
when did you last see a tree? a squirrel? i killed one the other day. hit it with my car. i sobbed. man, i hate it when i kill animals.
called you from pay phones growing up. had a dime in my shoe every day for passing period.
i miss your voice. i miss talking to grandpa.
when he died i set my alarm for 15 minutes.
15 minutes.
and i wept. i crawled in to a ball and rocked on my floor and muddled ungodly tones in to my fists and pillow. and then my alarm went off. and i stopped crying.
how do you deal with one of your dads dying?
i could ask you. but i can't.
the music and how "Jesus knew what he was doing to create something so beautiful as that." the scorpion in the sliding glass door. I Love Lucy. Golden Girls. squeeze its. cherries.
fighting with tony at grandpa's feet when he made us play under the dining room table as a reminder...he was there.
when he walked out of his house the last time a moth flew in. and he looked at me and told me i would have to get them myself now. mass. funerals.
the shadow of the fan as it whirled over that statue of mary the last time you could go to mass.
the time you told the woman she looked like a man because you didn't know you were saying that.
the way you still would ask if you get me anything...when you could not go to the bathroom yourself...you just didn't know.
the brown glass always filled with water at grandpa's spot. the way his eyebrows raised when he opened the mail. cigar smoke.
nadia's theme for your 25th.
you hid the chocolate in your underwear drawer. and the alka-seltzer. pushing the veins on your hands. baths in the sink. cyrus.
i learned how to be an adult as a child.
i have a bed time. i have to go to bed. i have two kids these days.
i love you.
pale flower
Pocco (Presley) and I watched football talking about the team that year. We never talked about how he was dying. We never talked about how we was going to die. We hugged goodbye like it was an Easter dinner years past when everyone we both knew and loved was still alive. We hugged like we will see each other again. At Easter.
That's how everyone in the Casack family says goodbye...like we will see each other again. And we will.
I was richly blessed and was adopted in 2nd grade by the man my mother married. I was adopted by my father- the only father ever meant to be mine.
And his family is my family. Of course they are.
But there is something about my mother's family that feels more like home. I don't know how to say it without possibly hurting feelings, which is not my intention. I just mean... I understand something about Pueblo and watering the lawn from my grandfather's porch that no one else could ever understand.
The time in between trips to Pueblo is enough to fill a lifetime, it seems. Time I lived there as a child of a single mother and every weekend until I was 7 and my mom married. Every Friday picked up from school. Every weekend stories and soda in bed with grandma and strawberry grass stains on my knees.
Most of this won't make sense to anyone. I don't care. Most of this won't be grammatically correct. I don't care.
I just have to have somewhere to put what flooded me tonight before it disappears. like i think i will disappear once my grandmother dies. like i think every memory that ever mattered to write down before i had children will disappear once my sweet grams dies and how i never visit her at her nursing home even now that she is here in longmont, finally, and why don't you go see her, ashley rose? why won't you go see rosemary which the flower means remembrance which is more than ironic and lovely and horribly sad because she can't keep her eyes open long enough to even recognize a voice and why can't i go see her?
why can't i go see you? why can't you remember, grams?
it's me. it's pale flower. it's me. you would remember me.
and sometimes i think you are the only one that would. that would really remember me.
i used to tear pages of my journals out and hand them to people in case i died. to be remembered.
feeding you strawberry sundaes, watching your hands shake on the table like you are blowing on a candle like you are whistling...
and it's like our lives are polaroid pictures that sat in an album in the sun and now they are garish orange colors bled all together making some sort of collage of what...was the picture. what was an anniversary. a song. life.
i used to drive for hours just to help you brush your teeth and tuck you in once your life became an 8X10 room with one box of frames and drive back with a pack of cigarettes and smoke every-single-one singing at the top of my heart from the bottom of my lungs like you could hear me and like i was helping you sleep
and i wanted to see you poke your sweet fingers through the blinds again from your mobile home and wave goodbye because you knew i was leaving and because you knew i would see you again and you would see me.
at easter.
aunt margie's laugh you always thought every person checking you out at the grocery store was upset with you the time you had to put the apples back because you didn't have enough money the time you lost your car and walked for hours in the parking lot when you first started to forget the story about the turpentine and how i laughed the moth in the kitchen and grandpa's green robe on the back of the bathroom door the wall of mirrors the room that scared me the crack in the sidewalk were i tripped at the twins' house every time i chased your car down the street when you and grandpa dropped me off back home the steel mill marking the drive home. my mom gave me the rocker and wanted it back to refinish. and it broke my heart.
the pictures riddled on aunt lou's wall with generations of life crawling in to grandpa's lap at age 15--minutes before he walked himself out of his house to go die he knew he would die at that hospital and so did i and i felt his tears in my hair as he held me.
i felt his tears in my hair. no more russian easters. why don't we have russian easter's grams? I can bring the basket and honey...you can bring the host and parsley. and i want to see you at that table. God, i want to see my family at easter.
the dream you had after both of your sons had died. tony and steve. drunk drivers. the way you told the story of the police coming to your door. again. the sirens. the way you knew.
the blocks of bikers around the church that day. grandpa in court giving that man freedom "ruining his life won't bring my son's back."
tony's life after his daddy was killed. prison. kids. drugs. sobriety. i love that brother cousin of mine.
when you drove around the block listening to "the hollies- he ain't heavy" and cried and asked me to be quiet and how i understand that funeral song after i can't tell you anymore. alan parson's project "time."
the gold leaf ring. the ruby ring. the plastic ring. the gap you have in your teeth. me too.
taking you to the bathroom. the role reversal in our lovely relationship...helping you put your shoes on. and tie them.
the morning of grandpa's funeral. you cried because you sat on your glasses. i cried because i got red lipstick on my white dress.
i miss you. grandma I miss you. i miss my family. i miss my family. i miss you.
you would have so much to say to me in this season of my life. i know you would. you knew something all along that we never knew...
and i can't ask you anymore.
and you are sleeping blocks away from me.
blocks!!!! and i have not seen you since your birthday LAST march. Cards i have bought for you...stupid, cheesy, FAKE cards are in my desk drawer like a crime.
"don't bring me flowers when I am dead."
when were you last outside, rosebud?
when did you last see a tree? a squirrel? i killed one the other day. hit it with my car. i sobbed. man, i hate it when i kill animals.
called you from pay phones growing up. had a dime in my shoe every day for passing period.
i miss your voice. i miss talking to grandpa.
when he died i set my alarm for 15 minutes.
15 minutes.
and i wept. i crawled in to a ball and rocked on my floor and muddled ungodly tones in to my fists and pillow. and then my alarm went off. and i stopped crying.
how do you deal with one of your dads dying?
i could ask you. but i can't.
the music and how "Jesus knew what he was doing to create something so beautiful as that." the scorpion in the sliding glass door. I Love Lucy. Golden Girls. squeeze its. cherries.
fighting with tony at grandpa's feet when he made us play under the dining room table as a reminder...he was there.
when he walked out of his house the last time a moth flew in. and he looked at me and told me i would have to get them myself now. mass. funerals.
the shadow of the fan as it whirled over that statue of mary the last time you could go to mass.
the time you told the woman she looked like a man because you didn't know you were saying that.
the way you still would ask if you get me anything...when you could not go to the bathroom yourself...you just didn't know.
the brown glass always filled with water at grandpa's spot. the way his eyebrows raised when he opened the mail. cigar smoke.
nadia's theme for your 25th.
you hid the chocolate in your underwear drawer. and the alka-seltzer. pushing the veins on your hands. baths in the sink. cyrus.
i learned how to be an adult as a child.
i have a bed time. i have to go to bed. i have two kids these days.
i love you.
pale flower
Friday, July 13, 2012
Hope is having confident expectation
I don't know the ways of God. Deep down I am thankful for this. I can't explain the many mysteries of His ways, His will, His timing- but I know He is good. He is always, only good.
The day my daughter was born 2 1/2 weeks early on July 5, we waited in triage to have our procedure done in the OR. We waited as the OB was attending to an emergency. I laughed with my husband about my labor pains probably being some bad fish I ate. I realized I had not eaten all day...not the bad fish, after all.
I thought about the bathrooms still unclean at my house- the fear of the needles about to enter my spine (that did lend to an actual panic attack and me passing out- which, I am already laughing about), and a lot of other thoughts about feeling like I was abandoning my son to have this baby. I felt like I was leaving Isaac behind, like I was left behind...and I was terrified that he could possibly feel that way. I wasn't ready- but I wanted to be. But I wasn't.
Isaac, you are mommy's color red.
Little did I know, until the next day, July 6 that the emergency the OB was attending to was that of a 9 months along pregnant woman (most of you have probably heard this story in the last week and all of the horrible ins and outs)...she had been hit by a drunk driver. Her baby died.
Her baby died and minutes later Hope was born.
And I had been crying about a needle in my spine. I had been a cry baby. I had missed my chance to be thankful and instead I passed out. God doesn't hate me for this, of course, but it made me realize...what ARE you freaking out about, Ashley Rose?
My heart sank to the bottom of my lungs over that story about that little baby and his mother, Heather. Heather, I don't know you but I am praying with grit for you.
Hope, asleep beside me now, has filled my world with pink and glitter and has reminded me of God's mercy. Oh, the great depths of the mercy of my God! I have been given a daughter. A daughter. The healing this has already brought to my life- to see this little girl, blameless, wonderful and precious in every way...God is healing my heart through the birth of a little girl. Maybe, just maybe- I don't have to do anything for him to just love my pink- for him to just love me. I am learning new depths of this concept much lately. Maybe I am blameless in his sight...
Little One- oh my lil Miss Hope,
I will teach you that crying is good. The true meekness of the female heart has been at war with some notion of feminism for years, and I will teach you that you ARE created to be sensitive. That is a beautiful, wonderful thing. If anything outside of the Spirit of God calls your heart to be a warrior- you get the hell away from it, do you hear me?
Be hurt, however. Fight when and where you must. But know this, stay soft or you will disappear.
Be gracious. Remember that where there is no struggle there is no grace. Show mercy. Walk humbly.
Remember it is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.
Remember there are different types of clay. Some, in order to be molded by the potters hand, must be left to dry and harden some before it can be shaped in to the vessel. Some, as your mother is this type, needs to be sifted and rid of the stones and sticks, left to dry, broken again, and sifted...again. Allow yourself to be molded accordingly in each season of your life.
Know your Shepherd's voice. A good Shepherd will eventually break the leg of a wander lust sheep; but, this is out of love in order that he may carry the sheep to where it needs to go. Our Shepherd would leave 99 to find 1. To find you. You belong to the One True God, Hope- and the plans He has for your life will not be thwarted. I believe this and I will not fear for you. I will pray for you with passion and I will trust God.
I will do my very best to protect you from every kind of evil.
I will let you be young.
I will play with dolls with you or G.I. Joe's- whatever your choice...and I will teach you that there is magic in lemon juice on paper. Trust me.
I will teach you that you are precious and honored in God's sight as his daughter. That you have a purpose that has been long preordained for only you.
I will not self loathe myself or my body in front of the mirror anymore. You are wonderfully and fearfully made and you must know this and reject the lies of anything that tells you what your 'size' should be. I will fight this battle for you and along side you from now on, little girl. Those wolves won't get to you if your mommy has anything to say about it.
I will teach you that keeping guard over your heart does not mean keeping your heart in prison. Love with wisdom.
Know that men are good. Do not fall for the lie that "men are pigs." Even in the animal kingdom, lil Miss, they are the ones that add all color. Do not put men down or make children out of them. Allow a man to be a man and in this only will you ever be satisfied as a woman. Sometimes it will hurt and anger you beyond words or even limits...but you will know you did the right thing when you once again bloom. And you will bloom again.
Do not wear too much blush. Actually, do not wear blush at all. Pinch your cheeks. True beauty is found deep within your soul, Hope. Every choice you make and every shade of color or words you wear comes from deep within your very soul. Ask yourself what those things say about you when you see yourself in the mirror and hear yourself speaking.
Dress modestly. Being classy is not old fashioned, it's classic.
Speak gently but firmly.
Know that God is greater than your heart when your heart condemns you.
Know that your emotions are not your governing power. We were created as women with emotions to protect us, not to dominate us.
Sweet, girl- let a man open the door for you. It's not about "you being able to do things for yourself." It's about you being about to do it for yourself being the point of letting someone else do it for you.
Know that the season to sew is not also the season to reap. Know when to rest and when to wake up.
Trust your intuition. Always, always ALWAYS trust your intuition.
I don't know how to tell you the ways my heart explodes with joy over your ON TIME arrival. Hope, you were born during a storm (quite literally, too, in Colorado's worst fire season ever). You were born in several types of storms actually, and I may just tell you about those some day if they will benefit you. Sometimes the only choice we are given, Hope, is if we will ride out the storms in life with generous dignity or not. You bring to me reminders every day of the confident expectation of what beauty lies ahead.
I love you.
Hope, you are mommy's color pink. I didn't know I had a color pink until I met you. I am eternally grateful to you for that.
The day my daughter was born 2 1/2 weeks early on July 5, we waited in triage to have our procedure done in the OR. We waited as the OB was attending to an emergency. I laughed with my husband about my labor pains probably being some bad fish I ate. I realized I had not eaten all day...not the bad fish, after all.
I thought about the bathrooms still unclean at my house- the fear of the needles about to enter my spine (that did lend to an actual panic attack and me passing out- which, I am already laughing about), and a lot of other thoughts about feeling like I was abandoning my son to have this baby. I felt like I was leaving Isaac behind, like I was left behind...and I was terrified that he could possibly feel that way. I wasn't ready- but I wanted to be. But I wasn't.
Isaac, you are mommy's color red.
Little did I know, until the next day, July 6 that the emergency the OB was attending to was that of a 9 months along pregnant woman (most of you have probably heard this story in the last week and all of the horrible ins and outs)...she had been hit by a drunk driver. Her baby died.
Her baby died and minutes later Hope was born.
And I had been crying about a needle in my spine. I had been a cry baby. I had missed my chance to be thankful and instead I passed out. God doesn't hate me for this, of course, but it made me realize...what ARE you freaking out about, Ashley Rose?
My heart sank to the bottom of my lungs over that story about that little baby and his mother, Heather. Heather, I don't know you but I am praying with grit for you.
Hope, asleep beside me now, has filled my world with pink and glitter and has reminded me of God's mercy. Oh, the great depths of the mercy of my God! I have been given a daughter. A daughter. The healing this has already brought to my life- to see this little girl, blameless, wonderful and precious in every way...God is healing my heart through the birth of a little girl. Maybe, just maybe- I don't have to do anything for him to just love my pink- for him to just love me. I am learning new depths of this concept much lately. Maybe I am blameless in his sight...
Little One- oh my lil Miss Hope,
I will teach you that crying is good. The true meekness of the female heart has been at war with some notion of feminism for years, and I will teach you that you ARE created to be sensitive. That is a beautiful, wonderful thing. If anything outside of the Spirit of God calls your heart to be a warrior- you get the hell away from it, do you hear me?
Be hurt, however. Fight when and where you must. But know this, stay soft or you will disappear.
Be gracious. Remember that where there is no struggle there is no grace. Show mercy. Walk humbly.
Remember it is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.
Remember there are different types of clay. Some, in order to be molded by the potters hand, must be left to dry and harden some before it can be shaped in to the vessel. Some, as your mother is this type, needs to be sifted and rid of the stones and sticks, left to dry, broken again, and sifted...again. Allow yourself to be molded accordingly in each season of your life.
Know your Shepherd's voice. A good Shepherd will eventually break the leg of a wander lust sheep; but, this is out of love in order that he may carry the sheep to where it needs to go. Our Shepherd would leave 99 to find 1. To find you. You belong to the One True God, Hope- and the plans He has for your life will not be thwarted. I believe this and I will not fear for you. I will pray for you with passion and I will trust God.
I will do my very best to protect you from every kind of evil.
I will let you be young.
I will play with dolls with you or G.I. Joe's- whatever your choice...and I will teach you that there is magic in lemon juice on paper. Trust me.
I will teach you that you are precious and honored in God's sight as his daughter. That you have a purpose that has been long preordained for only you.
I will not self loathe myself or my body in front of the mirror anymore. You are wonderfully and fearfully made and you must know this and reject the lies of anything that tells you what your 'size' should be. I will fight this battle for you and along side you from now on, little girl. Those wolves won't get to you if your mommy has anything to say about it.
I will teach you that keeping guard over your heart does not mean keeping your heart in prison. Love with wisdom.
Know that men are good. Do not fall for the lie that "men are pigs." Even in the animal kingdom, lil Miss, they are the ones that add all color. Do not put men down or make children out of them. Allow a man to be a man and in this only will you ever be satisfied as a woman. Sometimes it will hurt and anger you beyond words or even limits...but you will know you did the right thing when you once again bloom. And you will bloom again.
Do not wear too much blush. Actually, do not wear blush at all. Pinch your cheeks. True beauty is found deep within your soul, Hope. Every choice you make and every shade of color or words you wear comes from deep within your very soul. Ask yourself what those things say about you when you see yourself in the mirror and hear yourself speaking.
Dress modestly. Being classy is not old fashioned, it's classic.
Speak gently but firmly.
Know that God is greater than your heart when your heart condemns you.
Know that your emotions are not your governing power. We were created as women with emotions to protect us, not to dominate us.
Sweet, girl- let a man open the door for you. It's not about "you being able to do things for yourself." It's about you being about to do it for yourself being the point of letting someone else do it for you.
Know that the season to sew is not also the season to reap. Know when to rest and when to wake up.
Trust your intuition. Always, always ALWAYS trust your intuition.
I don't know how to tell you the ways my heart explodes with joy over your ON TIME arrival. Hope, you were born during a storm (quite literally, too, in Colorado's worst fire season ever). You were born in several types of storms actually, and I may just tell you about those some day if they will benefit you. Sometimes the only choice we are given, Hope, is if we will ride out the storms in life with generous dignity or not. You bring to me reminders every day of the confident expectation of what beauty lies ahead.
I love you.
Hope, you are mommy's color pink. I didn't know I had a color pink until I met you. I am eternally grateful to you for that.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Up North
I spent some time up north, let's say, for awhile several years ago- as in close to a decade ago. It was there that I learned how to throw the stones that were burdens of mine, in the literal sense. I highly recommend doing this. I still do it.
Choose a stone that looks like what it feels like. For example, there was an event in my life that left me with holes. Lots of holes. So I took hours looking for a rock that had holes pierced and weathered through it. And I put it in a pack I was carrying. I did this with many, many things until I felt the literal weight of what I was carring around. I had my burden and I wore it like a flag. I had carried these things for years. Once I had my stones I walked, thinking about all of them. I let myself be angry. I let myself mourn death, I let myself soak in the realization that I had feared I had misplaced a childhood, that I would be thirty-something someday and only be shadows...I let myself be alive and I was yelling about it in the middle of nowhere...up north.
And then I took them out, one-by-one, and I threw them as far as I could. And I yelled from the bottom of my lungs at the top of my heart to God to take them from me- to take them so I could never get them back. And I could have whispered or said nothing at all and He would have heard me. I knew, in that moment, every time God was on his stomach beside me. And I was grateful.
My spot today is a rock in a river. It's a small walk from a road in the mountains and a big rock in a long river. Sitting there I think anyone could understand the anxiety of always needing to be moving yet constantly in the same place. And I do feel that way- and here it's understood. And when I throw my stones away from me, some of them I carry for weeks, I have to yell above the raging water to hear my voice. There is something amazing hearing yourself call out to God in a place where no one else would know if you stood there naked...
Carry your stones if you must; but, know when it's time to throw them, standing naked in front of God on a mirror of sorts where nothing is hidden- and let-GO. Palms down, let go.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Bones, Pie and some loose Change.
Bones was a homeless man. He was emaciated. I imagine that's where he got his nickname. I didn't ask; I just snuck him extra pieces of pie the weeks I was doing dessert at the Denver Rescue Mission.
The things I learned about God through the eyes of people who had no homes or, in many cases, families- rescued me. Skinny Bones changed my big life.
It becomes easy to make God many things, all of them unloving and condemning. It's simple to dumb God down to a book that was "written thousands of years ago and was a game of telephone; hardly accurate." (Actually, Homer's Iliad was written 500 years post his death and only 643 manuscripts have been found. The New Testament was completed within 25 years post Jesus' death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and there are 24,000 manuscripts and counting found to confirm actual translation, historical landmarks, etc...perhaps a post on things like this later. Historians have written about Jesus too, a man who was crucified, buried and rose from the dead. Josephus is one of them. OK, ya...maybe another post about this later. And he either was God or was not. Something cannot be true and false. Right...maybe another post on this later.)
Well, anyway, it's passive to make God a magic trick because we can pull him out of our little hats and expect the rabbit to dance, we can make him the angry index finger-lightning striking God that resembles a statue because it means we never have to face wrong choices. The consequences of our living become God's fault. Bones didn't have this view. He didn't blame God for the fact that his daughter never called him. He blamed Meth and his choice to smoke it. (Dad, as in the man who adopted me because you were always hand picked to be MY daddy, if you are reading this you can rest assured I no longer talk to Meth addicts when I am alone- but I may still occasionally slip them some pie.)
What emaciated life moments or, in some cases, emaciated people taught me was that God is God. He is not what I say he is. God is who He says he is. God is faithful.
Bones knew he would probably not live a very long life. I wanted his daughter to forgive him, to reach out to him. I wanted Bones, a 60 something man that could not even cast a shadow, to have someone who would smell his shirts when he died and remember him as someone they could have talked with. I didn't care about Bones' shirts because his stuff mattered to him, but because no one else seemed to care about what happened to him at all. When I realized, years ago, that Bones had probably died, it stung me in a place I could not quite put my finger on. It was mostly because I felt injustice. That man was trying and damnit, that should have counted to his daughter. That man was alive; and that should have counted to all of us.
Bones reported excitedly the day he got a job. Three weeks later he walked up to the pie cart and handed me a sweatshirt. Bones handed me a sweatshirt. I had five extra coats, I'm sure, in my car. Bones. Handed. Me. A. Sweatshirt. He had bought me a gift with his first paycheck. A homeless man bought me a present.
I think many homeless people I give change to DO buy alcohol. I really believe that with all of my heart. And I think that the point in me giving them money is that I made eye contact with them. They were people, not pigeons begging for bread in a park. They had a name for that moment. They had someone say, "Keep trying. Just keep trying."
The point in giving them money is not to control how they spend it. The point in giving is to keep MY heart pointed towards rescue, towards people, towards a Bones who maybe wants his daughter to call him back...my quarter will not change anything. My quarter will not change that that woman may still die alone.
My quarter changes my heart.
I'd like to think Bones was able to recover and that he died in his sleep. Yes, maybe that his alarm clock was set for 6:45 that morning, chain of the fan clinking against itself, his dogs asleep as the foot of his bed. And maybe he was asleep with plans to see the Doctor that morning. Maybe his daughter was going to pick him up for that appointment.
Who knows what happened to Bones, or what I did with his sweatshirt or if he even liked the pie...but seeing a man who kept trying with nothing, who was happy about two pieces of pie, about being able to give out of his very little- reminded me that I always have something to give. And Bones didn't care if I kept his sweatshirt and I didn't care if he liked my pie.
And none of that was actually the point, now was it?
And none of that was actually because God was wrong.
And none of that was for nothing.
You see, I think in God's faithfulness he allows us to be homeless (some of us figuratively). It is when we have no roof above our heads, at times, that we notice the stars for the first time. And maybe when it feels like I am God's victim, like he is just out to get me...well, maybe I am just lucky enough to be right about that.
The things I learned about God through the eyes of people who had no homes or, in many cases, families- rescued me. Skinny Bones changed my big life.
It becomes easy to make God many things, all of them unloving and condemning. It's simple to dumb God down to a book that was "written thousands of years ago and was a game of telephone; hardly accurate." (Actually, Homer's Iliad was written 500 years post his death and only 643 manuscripts have been found. The New Testament was completed within 25 years post Jesus' death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and there are 24,000 manuscripts and counting found to confirm actual translation, historical landmarks, etc...perhaps a post on things like this later. Historians have written about Jesus too, a man who was crucified, buried and rose from the dead. Josephus is one of them. OK, ya...maybe another post about this later. And he either was God or was not. Something cannot be true and false. Right...maybe another post on this later.)
Well, anyway, it's passive to make God a magic trick because we can pull him out of our little hats and expect the rabbit to dance, we can make him the angry index finger-lightning striking God that resembles a statue because it means we never have to face wrong choices. The consequences of our living become God's fault. Bones didn't have this view. He didn't blame God for the fact that his daughter never called him. He blamed Meth and his choice to smoke it. (Dad, as in the man who adopted me because you were always hand picked to be MY daddy, if you are reading this you can rest assured I no longer talk to Meth addicts when I am alone- but I may still occasionally slip them some pie.)
What emaciated life moments or, in some cases, emaciated people taught me was that God is God. He is not what I say he is. God is who He says he is. God is faithful.
Bones knew he would probably not live a very long life. I wanted his daughter to forgive him, to reach out to him. I wanted Bones, a 60 something man that could not even cast a shadow, to have someone who would smell his shirts when he died and remember him as someone they could have talked with. I didn't care about Bones' shirts because his stuff mattered to him, but because no one else seemed to care about what happened to him at all. When I realized, years ago, that Bones had probably died, it stung me in a place I could not quite put my finger on. It was mostly because I felt injustice. That man was trying and damnit, that should have counted to his daughter. That man was alive; and that should have counted to all of us.
Bones reported excitedly the day he got a job. Three weeks later he walked up to the pie cart and handed me a sweatshirt. Bones handed me a sweatshirt. I had five extra coats, I'm sure, in my car. Bones. Handed. Me. A. Sweatshirt. He had bought me a gift with his first paycheck. A homeless man bought me a present.
I think many homeless people I give change to DO buy alcohol. I really believe that with all of my heart. And I think that the point in me giving them money is that I made eye contact with them. They were people, not pigeons begging for bread in a park. They had a name for that moment. They had someone say, "Keep trying. Just keep trying."
The point in giving them money is not to control how they spend it. The point in giving is to keep MY heart pointed towards rescue, towards people, towards a Bones who maybe wants his daughter to call him back...my quarter will not change anything. My quarter will not change that that woman may still die alone.
My quarter changes my heart.
I'd like to think Bones was able to recover and that he died in his sleep. Yes, maybe that his alarm clock was set for 6:45 that morning, chain of the fan clinking against itself, his dogs asleep as the foot of his bed. And maybe he was asleep with plans to see the Doctor that morning. Maybe his daughter was going to pick him up for that appointment.
Who knows what happened to Bones, or what I did with his sweatshirt or if he even liked the pie...but seeing a man who kept trying with nothing, who was happy about two pieces of pie, about being able to give out of his very little- reminded me that I always have something to give. And Bones didn't care if I kept his sweatshirt and I didn't care if he liked my pie.
And none of that was actually the point, now was it?
And none of that was actually because God was wrong.
And none of that was for nothing.
You see, I think in God's faithfulness he allows us to be homeless (some of us figuratively). It is when we have no roof above our heads, at times, that we notice the stars for the first time. And maybe when it feels like I am God's victim, like he is just out to get me...well, maybe I am just lucky enough to be right about that.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
My name means peaceful meadow; and, I added a few...
(Inspired by a speech I heard given by Dr. David Noebel last week):
What I am for:
I am for America, a kind word; I am for Al-Anon.
I am for books, big hips, baths, bacterial flagellum and all it screams about the complexity of design.
I am for Christianity, children, and Creationism.
I am for Christmas morning.
I am for discipline and discipleship...and
Excellence (not perfection). I am for El Qanna.
I am for faith, friendship, finger paints, family dinner, french fries and femininity.
I am for grassroots, gummy bears, and grandparents.
I am for health, humility, homemade green chili, harmonicas.
I am for the homeless.
I am for imagination, Israel, the innocence of children, justice, and journals.
I am for kites and killing spiders.
I am for laughter in any situation, long-hand letters, memories and music.
I am for modesty, masculinity, and marriage.
I am for the NRA.
I am for naps and I am for orphans.
I am for Pastor Youcef, prayer in schools, passion, and old pictures.
I am for Paley's Argument for Design written as a response to Richard Dawkins' the Blind Watchmaker.
I am for knowing when it's time to quit.
I am for the resurrection, resolution, righteous anger; and, I am for the Rapture.
I am for self-control, silent films, and the smell of rain.
I am for spontaneity and I am for schedules.
I am for Truth, Thanksgiving all year, tithing, trusting, and teachers. I am for trying again, tomorrow, type-writers; and I am for theTrinity.
I am for understanding before seeking to be understood, virtue, vanilla ice cream and Vivaldi.
I am for the Westminster Confession, wax seals, whales, and the 1828 edition of Noah Webster's dictionary.
I am for Xanadu or bust being real.
I am for Yahweh, youth; and I am for zoos.
What I am for:
I am for America, a kind word; I am for Al-Anon.
I am for books, big hips, baths, bacterial flagellum and all it screams about the complexity of design.
I am for Christianity, children, and Creationism.
I am for Christmas morning.
I am for discipline and discipleship...and
Excellence (not perfection). I am for El Qanna.
I am for faith, friendship, finger paints, family dinner, french fries and femininity.
I am for grassroots, gummy bears, and grandparents.
I am for health, humility, homemade green chili, harmonicas.
I am for the homeless.
I am for imagination, Israel, the innocence of children, justice, and journals.
I am for kites and killing spiders.
I am for laughter in any situation, long-hand letters, memories and music.
I am for modesty, masculinity, and marriage.
I am for the NRA.
I am for naps and I am for orphans.
I am for Pastor Youcef, prayer in schools, passion, and old pictures.
I am for Paley's Argument for Design written as a response to Richard Dawkins' the Blind Watchmaker.
I am for knowing when it's time to quit.
I am for the resurrection, resolution, righteous anger; and, I am for the Rapture.
I am for self-control, silent films, and the smell of rain.
I am for spontaneity and I am for schedules.
I am for Truth, Thanksgiving all year, tithing, trusting, and teachers. I am for trying again, tomorrow, type-writers; and I am for theTrinity.
I am for understanding before seeking to be understood, virtue, vanilla ice cream and Vivaldi.
I am for the Westminster Confession, wax seals, whales, and the 1828 edition of Noah Webster's dictionary.
I am for Xanadu or bust being real.
I am for Yahweh, youth; and I am for zoos.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Some things, we keep...
I found a note in my son's Bible today while we were doing his "quiet time"- reading about how God made everything. It was a note I wrote on an envelope to my husband during a church service when we were engaged. It read, "The rainbows remind me of God's promises every time I look at it."
It was a note about the stone in my engagement ring. Every time the light caught it the prisms would bounce back colors like Ivy on the side of an old house.
The last time I saw my wedding ring was May 28 last year. The thought that I have lost my wedding ring hit me so hard this afternoon it brought tears to my eyes. Again.
To the person who found my wedding ring:
I want it back. You will never be in those stores; finally beside someone who says your name like they know you. You will not eagerly wait for it the morning you find a note on your windshield that's damp with dew written about the sunrise. And that day won't be the wrong day.
You didn't have dead flowers in the pots on your porch and you didn't get a kiss on your cheek while you cried over the funeral you had to have over those damn flowers.
You won't be pushed in to a river with snakes- and not be afraid of them for the only time in your life because of who was beside you.
You won't fight at Noodles or on Easter.
You will never have to find yourself the most selfish you have ever been, realizing you just wanted something bigger and prettier- and then GET it and be humbled to your bones.You will never see the look in that man's eyes when he proposed to you. You will never have it put on the wrong hand out of nervousness. You will not give it back to him before the wedding with your cold feet.
You won't make mistakes you are still learning from.
You won't pace with it in your room the night before you get married in Hawaii- calling out to God like a lifeline and see a lighthouse- and then sleep.
You won't choke during communion, and remember Amazing Grace like a 4th of July.
You won't see the war waged over addiction, long-cold nights that could have killed our spirits, the way the cat wanted to go outside or the words you wore like colors on the walls like kids.
You won't forget how to love someone. You won't still be loved even when you forget.
You will not buy your first house with that ring; have your first child.
You will not twist it on your finger while you are bleeding on a towel praying God's very breath over your unborn child on the way the hospital in a snow storm.
You won't hear your son cry first for the first time after 40 hours of labor or sleep on his floor when he is sick with that ring.
You will not ever understand the story of that treasure- even if you now think it's your ring.
And what I am learning over the past year- is that it was never my ring. It's our story. And it's all still there- right where we left it. In the corner of our hearts, still mending at times, still growing. When my finger was bare last spring, it made me realize how much I want the story, not the stone. It breaks my heart deeply not to have such a gift, a banner of love- so-to-speak, anymore.
But I saw that note- and I realized that only God could save a marriage with a lost wedding ring.
The reminder of his promises are still complete.
The only ring I want is the one I am given- and I don't care if it's a piece of glass. It will still be ours.
It was a note about the stone in my engagement ring. Every time the light caught it the prisms would bounce back colors like Ivy on the side of an old house.
The last time I saw my wedding ring was May 28 last year. The thought that I have lost my wedding ring hit me so hard this afternoon it brought tears to my eyes. Again.
To the person who found my wedding ring:
I want it back. You will never be in those stores; finally beside someone who says your name like they know you. You will not eagerly wait for it the morning you find a note on your windshield that's damp with dew written about the sunrise. And that day won't be the wrong day.
You didn't have dead flowers in the pots on your porch and you didn't get a kiss on your cheek while you cried over the funeral you had to have over those damn flowers.
You won't be pushed in to a river with snakes- and not be afraid of them for the only time in your life because of who was beside you.
You won't fight at Noodles or on Easter.
You will never have to find yourself the most selfish you have ever been, realizing you just wanted something bigger and prettier- and then GET it and be humbled to your bones.You will never see the look in that man's eyes when he proposed to you. You will never have it put on the wrong hand out of nervousness. You will not give it back to him before the wedding with your cold feet.
You won't make mistakes you are still learning from.
You won't pace with it in your room the night before you get married in Hawaii- calling out to God like a lifeline and see a lighthouse- and then sleep.
You won't choke during communion, and remember Amazing Grace like a 4th of July.
You won't see the war waged over addiction, long-cold nights that could have killed our spirits, the way the cat wanted to go outside or the words you wore like colors on the walls like kids.
You won't forget how to love someone. You won't still be loved even when you forget.
You will not buy your first house with that ring; have your first child.
You will not twist it on your finger while you are bleeding on a towel praying God's very breath over your unborn child on the way the hospital in a snow storm.
You won't hear your son cry first for the first time after 40 hours of labor or sleep on his floor when he is sick with that ring.
You will not ever understand the story of that treasure- even if you now think it's your ring.
And what I am learning over the past year- is that it was never my ring. It's our story. And it's all still there- right where we left it. In the corner of our hearts, still mending at times, still growing. When my finger was bare last spring, it made me realize how much I want the story, not the stone. It breaks my heart deeply not to have such a gift, a banner of love- so-to-speak, anymore.
But I saw that note- and I realized that only God could save a marriage with a lost wedding ring.
The reminder of his promises are still complete.
The only ring I want is the one I am given- and I don't care if it's a piece of glass. It will still be ours.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
New Introductions
I think to be effective in life we need to let each other know each other.
So, I want to share some things I wrote a long-long time ago. Being vulnerable is very hard, but it's often the only credibility statement we have. I think people want to know that someone else does understand, that we are not ants in a community passing each other all day. I think we want to know that we are not just robots crossing lines and washing our clothes in machines. I think we want to know that we are not machines.
I want people to know that God saved me. That God is love and love is real.
I have a fire in my once dead bones because of Jesus- and that's more than a feeling. This journal entry is part a story about a rescue, a very small window in to what I have been rescued from in the past. It's nothing really romantic, or poetic or grammatically correct- it's just life. My life.
I have had people tell me that Christianity is a crutch. And you know what? IT IS. And I am so thankful because I know, for myself, those moments of life where I know I cannot do it by myself; and, I didn't.
So, when did I turn from a private hundreds of journals in to an internet junky? I haven't. I am still not sure how I feel about a blog, to be honest. It seems strange and trendy- but if just one person reads and says "me, too" then I was no longer selfish in writing letters to a phantom audience for so many years. Then maybe you became my audience and maybe it helps knowing you and I are not ants. And maybe it's just the two of us.
12 October 2002 3.27 pm
Nothing can or ever will be the same. I can never experience this moment at the Brazil coffee house with vanilla chai and an orange muffin, sample of chicken soup, again. I see it as a loss. And that may be the reason why I feel or even want to die before I am 25. Lately, I have experienced a sort of sadness that even prevents me from crying. It just consumes me and I feel as though beaten and like it's running madly through my veins and am I dying?
I cannot even rock or curl in to the fetal position- I just stare as I am consumed by this. I know it does not have to keep me sick for long. But it is a sickness. It's an iron fist and when it lets loose of my throat I gasp for thick air...and cry heavy tears that soak my shirt.
I must set standards for myself, for my life and career and to make a career out of my life and a living out of my career. So many places I feel I could run to but none of them have any arms. God does not have tangible arms and my faith will grow because of it. I must stay as a mountain building to all who watch me. I don't want to show how hard it is to find another bus stop, another journal, another job. I'm just so tired and mislead in to thinking I understand why people kill themselves- and I think I do.
Maybe I want to change, read, cry in front of someone, find a picture of someone I miss in the center of my Bible and forget what they look like, avoid open space, sleep all day. No matter where I am the entire rest of the world is right in front of my nose. I don't know why I can't just make it go away?
Nowhere I really want to be, go or end up. I don't want to be held, watched or even adjusted to. It all depends on nothing because that is what I have made of all what happened. Even the blind could easily see how it has control over me. In control, in love, at work- is it possible to have spent 5 years and 100 lives?
I can't even say it all outloud on these pages because it will kill me.
There is a cure. There has to be. Church says to pray and honestly, I don't have an excuse not to or why that wouldn't make sense. So, maybe I will pray today. What could it hurt? Nothing. Praying is taking a chance on hurting nothing. It's a place to start, anyway, and that's all I can hope for.
So, I want to share some things I wrote a long-long time ago. Being vulnerable is very hard, but it's often the only credibility statement we have. I think people want to know that someone else does understand, that we are not ants in a community passing each other all day. I think we want to know that we are not just robots crossing lines and washing our clothes in machines. I think we want to know that we are not machines.
I want people to know that God saved me. That God is love and love is real.
I have a fire in my once dead bones because of Jesus- and that's more than a feeling. This journal entry is part a story about a rescue, a very small window in to what I have been rescued from in the past. It's nothing really romantic, or poetic or grammatically correct- it's just life. My life.
I have had people tell me that Christianity is a crutch. And you know what? IT IS. And I am so thankful because I know, for myself, those moments of life where I know I cannot do it by myself; and, I didn't.
So, when did I turn from a private hundreds of journals in to an internet junky? I haven't. I am still not sure how I feel about a blog, to be honest. It seems strange and trendy- but if just one person reads and says "me, too" then I was no longer selfish in writing letters to a phantom audience for so many years. Then maybe you became my audience and maybe it helps knowing you and I are not ants. And maybe it's just the two of us.
12 October 2002 3.27 pm
Nothing can or ever will be the same. I can never experience this moment at the Brazil coffee house with vanilla chai and an orange muffin, sample of chicken soup, again. I see it as a loss. And that may be the reason why I feel or even want to die before I am 25. Lately, I have experienced a sort of sadness that even prevents me from crying. It just consumes me and I feel as though beaten and like it's running madly through my veins and am I dying?
I cannot even rock or curl in to the fetal position- I just stare as I am consumed by this. I know it does not have to keep me sick for long. But it is a sickness. It's an iron fist and when it lets loose of my throat I gasp for thick air...and cry heavy tears that soak my shirt.
I must set standards for myself, for my life and career and to make a career out of my life and a living out of my career. So many places I feel I could run to but none of them have any arms. God does not have tangible arms and my faith will grow because of it. I must stay as a mountain building to all who watch me. I don't want to show how hard it is to find another bus stop, another journal, another job. I'm just so tired and mislead in to thinking I understand why people kill themselves- and I think I do.
Maybe I want to change, read, cry in front of someone, find a picture of someone I miss in the center of my Bible and forget what they look like, avoid open space, sleep all day. No matter where I am the entire rest of the world is right in front of my nose. I don't know why I can't just make it go away?
Nowhere I really want to be, go or end up. I don't want to be held, watched or even adjusted to. It all depends on nothing because that is what I have made of all what happened. Even the blind could easily see how it has control over me. In control, in love, at work- is it possible to have spent 5 years and 100 lives?
I can't even say it all outloud on these pages because it will kill me.
There is a cure. There has to be. Church says to pray and honestly, I don't have an excuse not to or why that wouldn't make sense. So, maybe I will pray today. What could it hurt? Nothing. Praying is taking a chance on hurting nothing. It's a place to start, anyway, and that's all I can hope for.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Some 1926, Some 1970's, Some 2007, Some today.
I'm so glad I went. An evening with my mom's best friends from high school felt restless, just being invited. Daughters just don't say no to things like that. But in 2007 I wanted to.
What I didn't know was that I was being invited into basements from 37 years ago filled with music and unsigned birthday cards. My mom's telling of the time she was in Ken's car on the way to her brother Tony's funeral. His car broke down. She was late to Uncle T's funeral. One of three times she would ever see my grandfather cry, and she was late. I knew the story but the way she said it that night made me want to hug her like a daughter that would have said "yes" to her invitation the day before to this dinner with no hesitation.
Ann T's husband has since left her. She married at 19. She has never been single. She does not know how to balance a checkbook but she knows how to survive breast cancer.
The songs were like security blankets. I understand songs like that.
I drove home thinking about when I was "that age."
19.
New York.
Thing is, everyone there is still the same stranger they were to each other several years ago. Sounds are the same. My uncle asked me, "Won't it be nice to see the side of the city you can only see if you have money in your pocket?" when I went with him years ago.
I'd like to think I knew what he meant. I think, I hope I did.
Truth is- there is a certain part of ANY city you can only see with money in your pocket.
It's the safe streets, the inside of cabs, Broadway musicals and 5 star salads. And there's everything wonderful about those things, honestly.
Apparently what money could not get you was a good homeless friend to share HIS lunch, doormen who will save your life, friends with names you cannot pronounce but will spend hours roaming the streets to play their harmonica next to you, coffee from a street corner that tastes more like home than Starbucks ever could...
and here I was thinking bright lights would save me and give me memories in place of dreams that were bold and BUCK-eyed. Here I was annoyed at my mother's invitation in to her past when she, herself, had her own cock-eyed miracles she had survived.
Small town gave my mother friends that understand sitting on the porch and watering the lawn with their fathers, packs of wild dogs, packs of wild horses, Italian wedding cookies and Russian Easters.
Well, any way, Happy Birthday, Rosebud. I am sorry I did not come to see you. I don't know how to leave you. The nights I used to tuck you in and listen to you talk yourself to sleep...got so quiet once you moved. You don't talk at all anymore. Well, maybe inside you do. I think that...inside you do talk and it's brilliant.
And now I, am selfish, and I don't know how to leave you...and so I don't. And I'm so sorry.
But if I had come today...those are the things I would have said this time. And I would have told you how amazed I always was at your humility...the most beautiful room you ever saw was in a hotel.
And I would have sang Bill Bailey...and on the bench at City Park you would have sang it with me.
I love you.
What I didn't know was that I was being invited into basements from 37 years ago filled with music and unsigned birthday cards. My mom's telling of the time she was in Ken's car on the way to her brother Tony's funeral. His car broke down. She was late to Uncle T's funeral. One of three times she would ever see my grandfather cry, and she was late. I knew the story but the way she said it that night made me want to hug her like a daughter that would have said "yes" to her invitation the day before to this dinner with no hesitation.
Ann T's husband has since left her. She married at 19. She has never been single. She does not know how to balance a checkbook but she knows how to survive breast cancer.
The songs were like security blankets. I understand songs like that.
I drove home thinking about when I was "that age."
19.
New York.
Thing is, everyone there is still the same stranger they were to each other several years ago. Sounds are the same. My uncle asked me, "Won't it be nice to see the side of the city you can only see if you have money in your pocket?" when I went with him years ago.
I'd like to think I knew what he meant. I think, I hope I did.
Truth is- there is a certain part of ANY city you can only see with money in your pocket.
It's the safe streets, the inside of cabs, Broadway musicals and 5 star salads. And there's everything wonderful about those things, honestly.
Apparently what money could not get you was a good homeless friend to share HIS lunch, doormen who will save your life, friends with names you cannot pronounce but will spend hours roaming the streets to play their harmonica next to you, coffee from a street corner that tastes more like home than Starbucks ever could...
and here I was thinking bright lights would save me and give me memories in place of dreams that were bold and BUCK-eyed. Here I was annoyed at my mother's invitation in to her past when she, herself, had her own cock-eyed miracles she had survived.
Small town gave my mother friends that understand sitting on the porch and watering the lawn with their fathers, packs of wild dogs, packs of wild horses, Italian wedding cookies and Russian Easters.
Well, any way, Happy Birthday, Rosebud. I am sorry I did not come to see you. I don't know how to leave you. The nights I used to tuck you in and listen to you talk yourself to sleep...got so quiet once you moved. You don't talk at all anymore. Well, maybe inside you do. I think that...inside you do talk and it's brilliant.
And now I, am selfish, and I don't know how to leave you...and so I don't. And I'm so sorry.
But if I had come today...those are the things I would have said this time. And I would have told you how amazed I always was at your humility...the most beautiful room you ever saw was in a hotel.
And I would have sang Bill Bailey...and on the bench at City Park you would have sang it with me.
I love you.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Joy
Depression can make you want to crawl in to the laps of stone goddesses and it would feel like bed.
It's almost like a museum of sorts--where in an hour you can travel to Greece and then to a room in Frank Lloyd Wright's home and like your legs are always falling asleep...like you have an umbrella open against your thigh in the rain...but only when no one is looking.
It's a hard thing to understand because perhaps it's the most honest a person can be without helping it.
Words act as life preservers; little Styrofoam hearts sending "happy" out.
An incessant rain makes it feel like maybe that's the reason the day is not working, or maybe the reason you are not working...or maybe like the rain is the only thing that is working in the whole entire world.
December, January February...not every day has to be February.
And
Today
Is
March.
In the past few years the winter has not been so daunting, for which I am grateful.
It's not feeling sorry for yourself. You don't feel yourself, at all, actually.
And you can't just turn a mind off that never sleeps. It thinks you.
I find it easiest to judge others when I am...losing to February. But the truth is that my bathroom can be cleaner than the condition of my heart if I'm not sincere about keeping it clean...even in February. Lies come at you from everywhere, in every sense of the word. Once you believe the lie, it becomes your worldview. Once your worldview starts at the dead end lie your thoughts will only reiterate the place where they began...the lie.
"I am alone."
-something happens that feels-
"No one would understand this feeling."
So where are we now? ALONE.
Lame example, but you get the idea.
Sometimes you have to fight for what's true; and, that makes being tired so worth it. Joy is not a feeling. Joy is a gift that comes when you bring a sword for peace, it's a gift that comes with rest.
I learned, the hard way (almost always) that there is never a reason to be unkind. Not. Ever. Not even if "they did it first." Not even if I do not feel good. You see, meekness is power under control.
I also learned that just because something is true does not mean it's necessary to say.
1) Is it true?
2) Is it necessary?
3) Is it kind?
I have learned to be thankful for times of "winter" because it is a time where I am guaranteed to remember I cannot CANNOT do life based on my own merit or strength. I am relieved, more than any other time, that Jesus loves me.
I am not a victim of the cold. In 2002 I looked at the bare trees and it seemed to me they were raising their hands to God for morning, for sun, for tomorrow...and I decided that I should do the same.
Depression does not have to be train travel
from a nowhere land
to a place that
exists even less.
It does not have to claim a song
that stays in your
heart--sad.
It does not have to be weather that is
pounding inside somewhere
like pounding on the
piano
madly
inside of an object that
is pounding
madly inside of you.
You don't have to keep your eyes fixed on that place in the ceiling where it's slightly uneven.
It's almost like a museum of sorts--where in an hour you can travel to Greece and then to a room in Frank Lloyd Wright's home and like your legs are always falling asleep...like you have an umbrella open against your thigh in the rain...but only when no one is looking.
It's a hard thing to understand because perhaps it's the most honest a person can be without helping it.
Words act as life preservers; little Styrofoam hearts sending "happy" out.
An incessant rain makes it feel like maybe that's the reason the day is not working, or maybe the reason you are not working...or maybe like the rain is the only thing that is working in the whole entire world.
December, January February...not every day has to be February.
And
Today
Is
March.
In the past few years the winter has not been so daunting, for which I am grateful.
It's not feeling sorry for yourself. You don't feel yourself, at all, actually.
And you can't just turn a mind off that never sleeps. It thinks you.
I find it easiest to judge others when I am...losing to February. But the truth is that my bathroom can be cleaner than the condition of my heart if I'm not sincere about keeping it clean...even in February. Lies come at you from everywhere, in every sense of the word. Once you believe the lie, it becomes your worldview. Once your worldview starts at the dead end lie your thoughts will only reiterate the place where they began...the lie.
"I am alone."
-something happens that feels-
"No one would understand this feeling."
So where are we now? ALONE.
Lame example, but you get the idea.
Sometimes you have to fight for what's true; and, that makes being tired so worth it. Joy is not a feeling. Joy is a gift that comes when you bring a sword for peace, it's a gift that comes with rest.
I learned, the hard way (almost always) that there is never a reason to be unkind. Not. Ever. Not even if "they did it first." Not even if I do not feel good. You see, meekness is power under control.
I also learned that just because something is true does not mean it's necessary to say.
1) Is it true?
2) Is it necessary?
3) Is it kind?
I have learned to be thankful for times of "winter" because it is a time where I am guaranteed to remember I cannot CANNOT do life based on my own merit or strength. I am relieved, more than any other time, that Jesus loves me.
I am not a victim of the cold. In 2002 I looked at the bare trees and it seemed to me they were raising their hands to God for morning, for sun, for tomorrow...and I decided that I should do the same.
Depression does not have to be train travel
from a nowhere land
to a place that
exists even less.
It does not have to claim a song
that stays in your
heart--sad.
It does not have to be weather that is
pounding inside somewhere
like pounding on the
piano
madly
inside of an object that
is pounding
madly inside of you.
You don't have to keep your eyes fixed on that place in the ceiling where it's slightly uneven.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
For a dear friend who maybe needs to hear this...
I have heard many times that a person's first perspective gained or understood about God goes back to their relationship with their father. After 20 I think it may even turn in to who or what I viewed my boss as.
I thought since I always trusted God was not the boogie man, the man with the green face and black top hat, the men in my childhood through my teens- that I never needed to really think about if I believed that he wanted me. It was it was it was that God loved me. The end.
I don't remember what came up recently that had made me ponder this and realize I, for the first time (I think) was not sure if God liked me or wanted me. It all made sense when you go to the root of abandonment, blah, blah... but that whole thing gets old, doesn't it?
I just knew somewhere deep inside where I hide my pink shoes- where I want to hug God... that I had. I had been left, maybe like you. But I had not been left by God.
I remember the Thanksgiving that I met Ken. I didn't realize what I was doing until I was on that front porch ringing the doorbell. My heart became a sinking cork in my gut. He gave me a doll that said, "Daddy loves his little girl" on a block she was holding. It was pink. It was funny.
I remember asking him how can you love something and never even send a card? He had answers, always did, never the same, never the truth.
I came to realize he was leaving because he was wounded. Who was I to expect something from the wounded?
I think it's easy for us to say that we are the wounded. And we are. But wounds don't have to leave us jaded and dull and angry and bitter and alone with no sense of humor. I will say it again... a pink doll with a pink block that said, "daddy loves his little girl." I was 15. 15.
Anyway...I never hoped for my scars to disappear or to shrink. I think our hearts grow bigger around the gaping holes until the space just doesn't feel as large. But there are some hurts I think that never change shape or size; and I don't think they are always meant to. It's up to me if I allow my heart to grow around them.
So, does God want me? The question was like a wallflower.
I didn't ask it with a victimized heart- I asked it with a heart that realized maybe I should understand why I would ask that question at all.
And so I pictured a man, who let me spit in his face. Who handed me weapons and let me plunder his side. I pictured a man who let me beat all my demons against his chest, inside and against his hands...who saw me on my stomach sick in the middle of my storms in the middle of my nights and all those cruel men who kept me there, and I pictured Ken who can forget his daughter's birthday and who had a horrible taste in dolls (if there is such thing as a good one), and the man that I had bloodied and beaten beyond recognition said, "I want you. You are my beloved. I will not leave you. I have not left you." And he allowed me to hit him- again.
This is Jesus.
He is not the sign on the street corner, he is not the man the left us, he is not ourselves, he is not our emotions, he is not a stranger...
He is not our Ken.
He lives on the floor with us, he wrote our birthdays, he loves us in our darkness, he wants the drunk man on the corner that has probably not even had someone ask him his name in months, the girl who had the abortion, the man that lives in prison, the men that keep girls in a storm on their stomach...he wants all-of-it. He does not cause heartache. No, no, no. After I broke his heart he said to me, "Baby (he calls me that), I still want you. I don't care if you are late, I don't care if you are clean, ashamed, or wrong. I don't care if you are what's left."
I thought since I always trusted God was not the boogie man, the man with the green face and black top hat, the men in my childhood through my teens- that I never needed to really think about if I believed that he wanted me. It was it was it was that God loved me. The end.
I don't remember what came up recently that had made me ponder this and realize I, for the first time (I think) was not sure if God liked me or wanted me. It all made sense when you go to the root of abandonment, blah, blah... but that whole thing gets old, doesn't it?
I just knew somewhere deep inside where I hide my pink shoes- where I want to hug God... that I had. I had been left, maybe like you. But I had not been left by God.
I remember the Thanksgiving that I met Ken. I didn't realize what I was doing until I was on that front porch ringing the doorbell. My heart became a sinking cork in my gut. He gave me a doll that said, "Daddy loves his little girl" on a block she was holding. It was pink. It was funny.
I remember asking him how can you love something and never even send a card? He had answers, always did, never the same, never the truth.
I came to realize he was leaving because he was wounded. Who was I to expect something from the wounded?
I think it's easy for us to say that we are the wounded. And we are. But wounds don't have to leave us jaded and dull and angry and bitter and alone with no sense of humor. I will say it again... a pink doll with a pink block that said, "daddy loves his little girl." I was 15. 15.
Anyway...I never hoped for my scars to disappear or to shrink. I think our hearts grow bigger around the gaping holes until the space just doesn't feel as large. But there are some hurts I think that never change shape or size; and I don't think they are always meant to. It's up to me if I allow my heart to grow around them.
So, does God want me? The question was like a wallflower.
I didn't ask it with a victimized heart- I asked it with a heart that realized maybe I should understand why I would ask that question at all.
And so I pictured a man, who let me spit in his face. Who handed me weapons and let me plunder his side. I pictured a man who let me beat all my demons against his chest, inside and against his hands...who saw me on my stomach sick in the middle of my storms in the middle of my nights and all those cruel men who kept me there, and I pictured Ken who can forget his daughter's birthday and who had a horrible taste in dolls (if there is such thing as a good one), and the man that I had bloodied and beaten beyond recognition said, "I want you. You are my beloved. I will not leave you. I have not left you." And he allowed me to hit him- again.
This is Jesus.
He is not the sign on the street corner, he is not the man the left us, he is not ourselves, he is not our emotions, he is not a stranger...
He is not our Ken.
He lives on the floor with us, he wrote our birthdays, he loves us in our darkness, he wants the drunk man on the corner that has probably not even had someone ask him his name in months, the girl who had the abortion, the man that lives in prison, the men that keep girls in a storm on their stomach...he wants all-of-it. He does not cause heartache. No, no, no. After I broke his heart he said to me, "Baby (he calls me that), I still want you. I don't care if you are late, I don't care if you are clean, ashamed, or wrong. I don't care if you are what's left."
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Thoughts that fill my journals, closets and the skeletons that keep them company...in no particular order
...times when I said God's name like a frustrating epiphany, when being exhausted really was my fault and times when I told myself with all my might that fault was not the point and, "Hell, even a quarter has wings and sleeps on it's stomach." The times I had to take a look at my own reflection in splintered wood were some of the hardest, because I saw myself for what I, maybe, really was... a misunderstanding, a blur, a splintered mess. But I had to own that. I had to own that. You can spend all day blaming blaming blaming and just wanting to feel better- but apathy will kill you every-single-time. I think apathy is probably the only thing gauranteed to squelch a person.
You can't figure some things out in a week. It's been so long since I have just sat down to write myself awake or asleep or alive that it does not seem like I will ever find my one true sentence again, Mr. Hemmingway... or was it Emerson that said that?
Maybe it all has to change anyway, because I am no longer writing just to keep myself company. Why am I writing?
I read in a journal from 2001 "New York will do the trick." It made me laugh to think I ever wrapped that city in to a word that fits a circus. I should have compared it to a Red Roman empire or Christmas, even...Oz.
After I lived there I decided I had old eyes and had never been young.
I still think that.
That's how I know grace is real; because, it cannot exist without failures. Grace does not exist without days where you put your foot down for all of the wrong things and hands up for all of the right ones...
Afterall, I know my skeletons just won't always fit in my luggage. I have a place to put them. And I do. And God knows all the tricks up my sleeve and he doesn't hate me for it.
And that is grace, and that is real, and that is my one-true-sentence.
You can't figure some things out in a week. It's been so long since I have just sat down to write myself awake or asleep or alive that it does not seem like I will ever find my one true sentence again, Mr. Hemmingway... or was it Emerson that said that?
Maybe it all has to change anyway, because I am no longer writing just to keep myself company. Why am I writing?
I read in a journal from 2001 "New York will do the trick." It made me laugh to think I ever wrapped that city in to a word that fits a circus. I should have compared it to a Red Roman empire or Christmas, even...Oz.
After I lived there I decided I had old eyes and had never been young.
I still think that.
That's how I know grace is real; because, it cannot exist without failures. Grace does not exist without days where you put your foot down for all of the wrong things and hands up for all of the right ones...
Afterall, I know my skeletons just won't always fit in my luggage. I have a place to put them. And I do. And God knows all the tricks up my sleeve and he doesn't hate me for it.
And that is grace, and that is real, and that is my one-true-sentence.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
You asked. Thank you. And here...
Life is short, the art is long. Being a mother leaves me with the invading sense that opportunity IS fleeting and experience...elusive. Making judgement on how to spend the hours is increasingly difficult.
In the jumble of motherhood I have lost touch with the importance of keeping in touch with myself. Of course, you feel guilty for admitting this. Shouldn't being a mommy BE who you are. And it is. You just have to figure out how to fit all of it inside all-of-it.
We want to be authentic. We don't want to be gigantic shapes (small joke, for those of us that are preggers)...we want to be fantastic shapes. We want to have our sight set on home. The thing is, with the pressure we put on ourselves we eventually act like all herded things will act: we begin to hurry to escape the pressure, then we break in to a trot to madly find all things to make us "me again", and finally we are in a mad run (watches in our hands)- having no idea where we are going and no time to find out. We can't win against ourselves.
It's like we cross our hearts and hope to fly.
It felt like January when I woke up and like I was sitting on a back porch with cold feet. I just wanted to write something out of my system. My mother used to say, "Sometimes you have to fake it 'til you make it." But what if you make it because you were faking. I have had to release this idea; I welcome the release, actually.
I guess, I am not lost or found.
7.27 pm
23 February 2012
In the jumble of motherhood I have lost touch with the importance of keeping in touch with myself. Of course, you feel guilty for admitting this. Shouldn't being a mommy BE who you are. And it is. You just have to figure out how to fit all of it inside all-of-it.
We want to be authentic. We don't want to be gigantic shapes (small joke, for those of us that are preggers)...we want to be fantastic shapes. We want to have our sight set on home. The thing is, with the pressure we put on ourselves we eventually act like all herded things will act: we begin to hurry to escape the pressure, then we break in to a trot to madly find all things to make us "me again", and finally we are in a mad run (watches in our hands)- having no idea where we are going and no time to find out. We can't win against ourselves.
It's like we cross our hearts and hope to fly.
It felt like January when I woke up and like I was sitting on a back porch with cold feet. I just wanted to write something out of my system. My mother used to say, "Sometimes you have to fake it 'til you make it." But what if you make it because you were faking. I have had to release this idea; I welcome the release, actually.
I guess, I am not lost or found.
7.27 pm
23 February 2012
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