A Fistful of Quiet

Saturday mornings, learning to think, and mutual silence

2011-02-12T07:49:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I think the most important decision I make on a Saturday is whether to take a shower before breakfast or after. It really makes a difference for what kind of Saturday it is going to be. If I shower before breakfast, the tone that is set is one of get-up-and-go productivity. I didn't do that today. Maybe I should have. But I do love Saturday mornings in which I sit around in my pajamas till lunch. It reminds me of being a kid and watching cartoons with my siblings. Ahh. Good memories.

So here I am, no cartoons, but still sitting around in my pajamas. Pajamas are conducive to self-reflection, I find, so I will attempt some.

This week, I made a concerted effort to be more intellectually engaged in my classes. It is unfortunate, but I often feel as though I am not mentally present in my intellectual work. I do the readings, I think and try to understand what I am reading, but there is still something missing. Real thinking, the kind I have to work to do, is more creative and imaginative. I think that maybe the difference is not even in the thinking itself, but in the emotion behind the thinking. I have to decide to get excited or troubled or whatever by the readings. Otherwise I understand it but don't really apply it. And I am here because I want to apply ideas. I want to apply big ideas to my teaching and my thinking. So, anyway, this week, I prayed about my reading. It felt funny. I must admit that I don't usually think about my academic work as spiritual. Teaching, yes. Friendship, yes. Emotional life related to academics, yes. But reading itself? No, not usually. But I prayed about it this week. I invited God to be present in my learning, not just in a "help me get it done" kind of way, but more a "help me really learn" kind of way. And I think it did change my habits of thought and interaction with ideas. It's funny how I am still, after all these years of living with God, surprised when he intervenes in an aspect of my life. I am thankful for that.

Also, this week, I went to the art museum on campus with a friend. It was interesting. I think I expected it to be a more contemporary and local art collection than it was. The first room we went into was filled with 16th century religious art from Europe. I wonder how that sort of thing happens. What is the history that brings a painting from and Italian church in 1600 to a university in central Pennsylvania in 2011? It's interesting how things (items) persist.

Another thing I was thinking about while wandering through the art museum was mutual silence. Art galleries are not really conducive to conversation. They invite quietness. I rarely feel uncomfortable with being silent in another person's presence. I actually find it peaceful in a way that being silent by oneself is not. I think this might be part of why I find it difficult to maintain friendships over the phone. It's too much about talking. I prefer spending time with friends in mutual activity, often mutual activity that proceeds in mutual silence. When I miss my friends, it's not just missing conversation with them, it's missing mutual presence without conversation. Since moving here, I have had a lot of friendship "first dates." One of the things I tend to rely on as a sign of potentially close friendships is not only the quality of the conversation, but also the quality of the mutual silence.

It's been a good morning. Pajamas an thinking and a little Hulu. Time to commit to being awake though.

My week

2011-01-29T07:55:00.000-08:00

This week I got tired of standing in the cold waiting for the bus. So I walked from the parking lot to my office. It was snowing and cold so I shrugged my chin down into my scarf and kept my eyes half closed to avoid the falling flakes. I thought about things, which is good. I didn't think and just hummed, which is better. I prayed.

This week I went to lunch with a friend. We met at the fishtanks in the HUB and planted ourselves in two armchairs on the second floor to listen to the Friday afternoon concert. The band's name was "Pearl and the Beard." They all wore glasses. The two women both wore bright red lipstick. My friend and I decided that we need to institute a bright red lipstick day.

This week I taught. We were working on thesis statements and creating logical arguments. I realized that what I was teaching was not so much writing as a way of thinking. I wondered if that is okay. I started thinking that maybe all anyone ever really teaches is different ways of thinking.

This week I baked bread; watched a movie; I walked up and down the mint-green-walled institutional staircases of the building where I work. I talked with my brother and my sister. I watched the birds outside of my front window. I went to class and listened. I went to class and talked. I drank tea. I took a nap.

New Semester and New Resolutions

2011-01-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

I am one week into the new semester and still struggling to get my head and my heart to catch up with my body and circumstances. I am reluctant to work. The work will not wait much longer. It's tiring to think about it.

But, I will persevere, and hopefully I will adjust to my new schedule soon and get into a comfortable and productive groove.

As with all new beginnings, this one leaves me wanting to be more diligent about posting here. I will try, but I make no promises.

Waiting for Christmas

2010-11-26T16:08:00.000-08:00

I want to wait for Christmas this year.

I want to celebrate, don't get me wrong. The lights are already up in my front window. The carols are playing right now. I'm not turning into some sort of scrooge here. I want to take the best the season offers, and I intend to. At the same time though, I am sitting here and thinking and feeling the need to cultivate an attitude of expectation in my heart.

I want to want something, to actively, consciously want something this Christmas that no blinky, colored lights or crooning about warm fires and cold snow can satisfy. I want to want, to wait for, the birth of Jesus. Not because it's so cute to imagine the sheep and donkeys looking at the baby in the manger. Not because it makes me feel vaguely hopeful and happy and good-willed. I want to wait. I want to expect, desire, long for, yearn, wish for Christmas because I want to remember how the whole world waited for its creator to come and save them. I want to wait for Jesus' birth.

Click, click, click

2010-09-05T14:23:00.001-07:00

That is the sound of the pieces of my life coming together. It has been a good day. A lot of little and not so little things are snapping into place.

I'm two weeks into school. Classes are interesting and challenging. Teaching is rewarding and challenging. Living in a new place is exciting and challenging.

Something I (apparently) wrote

2010-08-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

While looking through my old journals the other day, I found this and thought it was still interesting. For your reading pleasure. Hopefully.

"The lamplight bends in the glass and diffuses through the handprints and smudges from hundreds of coffee drinkers and not enough washings in between. The sign across the street, “Latah County Title Co” is likewise bent and framed by the light. Light only travels in straight lines, they tell me, unless there is something in the way to bend it. But when is there not something in the way, I would ask, to bend the light and change it, something to take it and twist it and spread it around and make it less mathematical and more poetic? Specks of dust make the light shimmer, and leaves spread above us turn what is pure and hard into a luminescent glow of green. Even the rising of heat from the earth and from our bodies bends the light so that it wavers like a pool of water. There is always something in the way of light to bend it, to make it something other than what it was, in appearance if not in essence. . . and I am glad.

I am glad that we get to see the light through our own human personalities. I am glad that our eyes bend the light and focus it and make it into something that we can understand. I am grateful that we are not faced day after day with the hard edged reality of light in its purest form. Pure light we can only imagine. That kind of light, I think, would not be gentle with us. I think that it would be like a spear. I think it would fill us and be everywhere at once, glorious and terrifying and inescapable. I think that it is the kind of light we long for in one sense and dread in another."

Reading old journal entries

2010-08-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

I saw a facebook post from a friend recently asking the question, "Is there anything more depressing than reading old journal entries?" For him, seeing where he had been was hard. For me, seeing where I have come is amazing.

Last night, after a kind of homesick day, I picked up a bunch of old notebooks and started rifling through them. It was strange to see how much my heart now connected with my heart then. I was the same, but at the same time I was SO different.

A lot of what I wrote in those old journals were prayers. Reading through all of them again, I was struck by the strong theme of all those prayers. I didn't see it at the time, but now it seems so clear. Over and over, in the midst of all kinds of specific circumstances, I was praying the same prayer. "God, I don't want to be afraid."

I prayed that my relationships would not be ruled by fear of rejection and failure.
I prayed that my future decisions would not be made from a place of fear.
I prayed that my faith in Jesus would be one of confidence, not fear.
I prayed that I would be able to face suffering without anxiety or fear.

I can't claim to be without fear. I'm scared. There is a lot in my life that is unknown and unclear and out of my control and that is scary. Underneath that surface fear, though, I feel that something has changed in my soul. I may feel scared about teaching in a new place. I may feel anxious about my ability to handle the workload of the program. I may feel nervous about meeting all these new people. Underneath that fear, though, I have a new basic level of confidence and trust. God has seen me through so much already. I can trust him for this too.

This confidence is SO not my own doing. It's amazing. After all this time, God is still working on me.

Backyard wildlife

2010-08-09T17:14:00.000-07:00

This morning, I saw a cottontail rabbit in my backyard. When my parents were here, my dad saw a woodchuck which is apparently living under my shed. Since I got here, I have put up two bird feeders--a hummingbird feeder in the back and a songbird feeder in the front. The hummingbirds have found the feeder, but I am still waiting on the songbirds. Last night I dreamed about my songbird feeder. I really want it to attract cardinals.

When I first found out I was moving here, I planned to get a cat. I don't think I am going to actually do that anymore. It is just too big of a responsibility and hassle if I want to go out of town. Watching the animals in my yard is my consolation prize.

Agendaless

2010-08-08T11:09:00.000-07:00

I don't really have much that to say this afternoon. I haven't had any major revelations or insights since yesterday. Still, I am trying to form a habit of blogging so I am here. Here are some things I have been thinking and doing.

I went to church twice in the last 24 hours. There was a service last night and one this morning. Finding a church is hard. I don't like being the new kid. It makes me uncomfortable. It gets easy for me to start judging the churches I visit based on whether they talk to me or not, how easy it is to get involved, music, preaching, overall atmosphere, etc. . . I try to shut that kind of thinking down.

The church I went to this morning might actually be the place I end up staying. Really friendly people. Vibrant ministry. Small and intimate. My only problem is that, as far as I can tell, I am the only unmarried adult in the entire church. Should that really be a problem? I can be in community with married people, obviously. It's just that I am so new here and know so few people. I was hoping that church would be a place where I could not only find spiritual community, but find some friendships and a social life as well. Couples tend to do things with other couples. That's fine, but it does make me feel a little out of place. I'll give it some time.

What else is going on? Well, I cleaned my room and hung up a bunch of pictures yesterday. This afternoon, my roommate and I are going to the movies. Tomorrow I am going to campus to sign my I9. I lead an exciting life.

First impressions and absences making the heart grow fonder

2010-08-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

What's this? Is she really blogging two days in a row? Indeed. Look what happens when I get away from all those distractions like my job and living in a town where I actually know people. Introspection, that's what.

Today, I just want to take a few minutes to jot down some of the things I've noticed about my new home--things I like. So here we go. In list format.

1. Trees. Trees are like weeds here. They grow without anyone's permission. They act like they own the place. The first morning in my new house I stepped out in the backyard to count the trees. Sixteen. Sixteen fully grown oaks and maples. This is a novel landscape for me.

2. Fireflies. I know it's cliche to like fireflies. They are such weird little creatures--insects who basically have a chemical reaction in their backsides that makes their hiney's glow. Weird. But a lot of fun to watch from my front porch in the dusk.

3. Ambient Bird and Insect Noise. I live in a quiet neighborhood, but it is never really silent. The quieter the cars and people get, it seems, the louder the insects and birds get. I think it's the buzz of the cicadas and the unfamiliar bird calls more than anything else that remind me that I'm not just one or two towns over from my old home. I am in a completely different environment.

4. Being Anonymous. I am an unknown quantity here. I go out, and I don't run into anyone I know. I'm not un-conflicted about this fact. There are definitely bad sides to it, which I will get to shortly, but I also really enjoy it. It feels like stepping into a clean white room. There is no personality and it may not be very comfortable or lived in, but it is clean. I haven't built up any relational mess or personal clutter here. I like that, but I know that it is a dangerous place to be at the same time. As my friend Josh wisely told me once when I was fed up with some of the relational mess back home and wanted to run away, "You take yourself wherever you go." Being in a new place may make me feel different, but it doesn't make me different. In every good and bad way, I have brought myself to my new home.

5. Meeting New People. Being with old friends makes the world seem small and safe. The past few days of meeting people in my new program have made the world seem very big and myself small. Yesterday I went out to lunch with a group of six other graduate students in my program. My department is very international. In our group of seven people, seven different countries were represented. We are in my home country, but this is not my home town, and I'm new here too. I felt foreign. It was an unsettling feeling for me. It was also unsettling to realize how rarely I have felt out of my native element like that. I felt my personal boarders expanding. I'm excited to see where these friendships go.

I suppose it is only natural that the things I notice and enjoy here make me think of the things that I rarely noticed but now miss from my previous home. I miss a lot of things from that other college town. It's not a sad kind of missing, though. It doesn't feel like bereavement. It feels like being hopeful. It feels like saying "Thank you." It feels like saying "Please."

1. Resonate Community. I miss my church family. Of course I miss the people. They are my friends and I miss them. That should be a given. But I miss more than just my friends. Resonate was my community for the past three and a half years. As my community (or a community of which I was a part), Resonate was more than the sum of its people. Resonate was something special and nothing special. Resonate was a local church--normal and amazing, intimate and transcendent. It's not the only one. It's not God's home. God is here too. God is in his church here too. I know this. If there is one thing Resonate taught me, it is that church is not optional and it's not an obligation. It is an integral part of how we are designed to know God and serve the world. God taught me this. In Resonate. God is teaching me this now. I am looking ahead. I'm praying for a new community. I trust God has a place for me here. Resonate is not the end of my ongoing relationship with the church. I still miss it, though.

2. Being a Local. Back in my other home, I knew my bus drivers. I knew the baristas at the coffee shop by my work. I waved to people on the street. I was a local. Sometimes that made me feel trapped. But it also made me feel known. I miss that.

3. My Family. I didn't live with them before. I didn't go to my parent's house that often. I could, though. Anytime I wanted to, I could blow off a few responsibilities and be there within 3 hours. It's a little harder now. I miss them. I miss being in the same time zone.

4. Dry Heat. My hair is a mess here.

5. Friends. I am starting to miss people. Before, I think I was missing familiarity. I was missing comfort. I was missing a network of human connections that had built itself around me over four years of day in and day out interaction. I still miss that part, but, now, I am starting to miss individuals too. It's missing friends that scares me most. My family is not going anywhere. I know that. I wont loose touch with them. We wont grow apart. My friends, though, at least many of them, are much more tenuous relationships, and despite all my, and their, protestations that we will keep in touch, I know that things are inevitably going to change. I'm trying to fight it and I'm trying to be okay with it. I don't want to lose these people. I pray that I don't, even if I lose the current relationships I have with them.

I didn't intend for this post to get so personal. I'm sitting in a tea and coffee shop called Saints and right now I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I have been so incredibly blessed. I'm not sure when these ramblings turned into a prayer, but they have.

Thank you. Please.

Refinishing floors and the nature of sin

2010-08-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

I spent most of last week on my hands and knees.

After pulling up all the carpet in my house, we found some serious staining on the hardwood floors. Somebody in the 50 year history of this house had a dog. Somebody in that 50 year history did not let his or her dog out often enough. Somebody's dog peed all over the carpet. It sank through to the floors and stained and damaged the boards. There were also patterns of water damage in the traffic patterns all throughout the house. Not as dramatic of an event as the dog version, but over the 50 year history of this house, people walked in and out of the doors with wet shoes. Other people tried to clean up the wet-shoes-on-carpet-mess by steam-cleaning, but only drove the moisture deeper into the carpet, and from there into the wood floor below. It was a mess.

Anyway, as I spent the week on my hands and knees pulling out staples and sanding damaged wood and painting over the damage, I thought about that dog and about those people and I thought about the nature of sin.

The way I see it, some sin is like a dog peeing on a floor. It's an event. It's something that you probably notice. It's obvious and obviously not a good thing. Other sin is more like the traffic patterns. You can't point back to one storm or one day or one set of muddy boots. It just builds up slowly until you can see the tracks over all those areas you habitually travel.

And just like sin, whether the stains came suddenly or gradually, covering it up was not a viable answer. That's what all the people before me in this house did. They saw the mess, and instead of cleaning the floors, they replaced the carpet. They just hid it and hoped nobody would notice.

Let me tell you from personal experience (both with sin and carpet removal): covering it up does not make it go away. Before we pulled up the carpet, the house had a smell. It didn't stink outright, but I'd find myself walking through a door or kneeling down to get something and thinking "What IS that?" There was an odor of decay and mildew. As soon as we pulled up the carpet, it became obvious what it was we had been smelling, but if we hadn't looked underneath, we probably would have just kept opening windows and lighting candles and hoping that we could banish the smell when all along it was coming from under our feet.

The floors are all refinished now: truly beautiful and truly clean. I want them to be a reminder to me--covering it up doesn't get rid of it.

Bus Passenger Portraits -- 2, yellow ribbon

2010-03-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

You wouldn't expect it. Or at least I wouldn't expect it. Not of her. She climbs on the bus every morning. Her hair is always curled. Her face is always powdered. Her eyebrows are always plucked and penciled into perfect arcs. Her bleached teeth sparkle.

I wouldn't expect it, not of her, because I am prejudiced against sweatpants and uggs and girls who talk about how trashed they got on the weekend. I wouldn't expect it of her because I too often assume that a polished exterior is a shallow exterior and that a shallow exterior hides a shallow interior.

As we pull into the transfer station, she puts in her pink headphones and opens her designer purse. Her fingers disappear inside as she shifts wallet and keys, searching for something in the bottom. The man next to her looks and smiles. She has found it and pulls it out, disentangling it from the loose threads of the liner.

She holds him between her fingertips. He reclines on his plastic stomach, propped up on his plastic elbows, holding a green plastic rifle in his green plastic hands.
She is singing along to the music now, her lined and glossed lips forming the words silently. Her shadowed eyelids slide half closed and her blue eyes peer past the mascarad curtain of her eyelashes to look out the grimy bus window.

I watched her lips forming the silent words and turning her fingers turning her soldier over and over in her hands like a nun fingering the beads of a rosary.

I wouldn't heave expected it, not of her, but I knew that in her mind and in her heart she was praying for him, whoever he is.

I prayed too.

Bus Passenger Portraits -- 1, the drummer

2010-03-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of enjoyment out of watching people on the bus. This is something I wrote last year about that people watching. My goal for the next week is to really see at least one person on the bus every day and then write about them here.

The Drummer

His face is a picture of concentration, eyes closed tight, thin straight nose, lips moving so slightly together and apart with the down beat. He slaps and pounds his knees and the seat next to him, alternating between palm and finger tips with his left hand. A leather brace impedes his right hand, but still he pounds away, wrist and forearm and palm rendered into one unmoving block.

I am watching from my seat in the back, but he doesn’t notice with his eyes closed tight and his head swinging and bouncing from his curved down neck. He doesn’t notice, so I watch without trying to hide my watching and I am fascinated. I am fascinated with the dirty grey stocking cap pulled down to his eyebrows. I am fascinated with the stains on the fingers of his brace, how they shine with oil and are bent back from the relentless pounding of hand on leg and seat edge. I am fascinated with the concentration and oblivion and joy.

Without opening his eyes, he pulls the cord. The bus’s breaks squeal as it stops. His eyes open and he stands up on the one and swings around the pole and out the door. As the bus pulls away, I watch him disappear behind us, and it is two more stops before I realize that my feet are still tapping to his rhythm.

college boy speak (the fraternity dialect)

2010-03-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

In my Spanish class today, I had an interesting linguistic experience, one that didn't involve Spanish actually. Our teacher, Ambar (who I have a suspicion is younger than me) had us get into groups to review before our midterm. I ended up with three young men. Three young men who are all part of the greek system and speak in abbreviations and inside jokes and nonstandard uses of expletives. It was interesting to be a part of it. They were interesting characters. One of them, a freshman, is blonde and almost pretty. He bears a strong resemblance to Neill Patrick Harris, and has a way of looking at you just a second longer than you would expect when you say something to him. But he is not staring blankly. Just thinking.

Fraternity boy 2 has taken Spanish before, "never studied, and "can talk about anything" in Spanish as long as he is not asked to spell it. He likes to casually show off his Spanish knowledge.

Brother 3 looks like Owen Wilson and wears the biggest cubic zirconia studs that I have ever seen in both of his ears. He talks slowly.

Anyway, I sat there in between Spanish exercises and wondered what they were talking about. It was interesting.

Oh, and my ring turned my finger green today. I always thought people were exaggerating when the said that fake jewelry did that. I stand corrected.

Getting back into it. . .

2010-02-27T11:39:00.000-08:00

So, I have this blog. I created it about two years ago. I never use it. That is about to change.

Up to this point I have had a pretty bad case of blogging anxiety. That is what happens when the people who read your blog are all English majors or intelligent and thoughtful people you are eager to impress with your own intelligence and thoughtfulness. Too much pressure. People who blog are supposed to have an adventurous life or a philosophical turn of mind or some sort of unique hobby that becomes the subject of their musings.

I'm not sure that I have any of these.

What I do have, however, is a looming life and location change. What I have is a group of friends with whom I desperately want to keep in touch. What I have (or sometimes have or hope to have) is a powers of observation and a sense of wonder and a desire to grow into a more thoughtful and self reflective person. As the result of some combination of history and personality and the speed at which my brain and heart process things, all of these traits become more pronounced in me when I am writing than when I am just thinking or even talking to people. So that is why I am, yet again, starting up this blog.

That, and the fact that I really like to talk about myself.

So anyway, if you are reading this, it is probably because I have asked you to. Hello. Don't expect anything too exciting or insightful here because if I set that before myself as a goal I will never update this thing. And I want to make this attempt at self-expression, thinking through typing, or whatever all this is, stick.

So here we go. Blog numero uno.

It is Saturday. There is tea next to me, music in my headphones, and a student sitting at a table near the door of this oh-so-collegiate coffee shop. We are in each others' lines of sight and every once in a while, we glance up at the same time and make eye contact before looking at the edges of our tables or our computer screens like they are what we intended to study all along.

Saturdays are my day off--24 hours in which I refuse to do anything related to my classes. I never (ever, ever) thought I would become the sort of person who had to discipline herself to take a day off, but such is my life these days.

But that is not what I want to talk about right now. What I want to talk about right now is moss.

Yeah, that's right. Moss.

I have lived here for 4 years now, but I can't ever remember noticing the moss until just a few weeks ago. If you live here, you should start to keep your eyes open for it because there is a lot of it and it is actually a kind of interesting substance.

I walked to this oh-so-collegiate coffee shop this morning and upon leaving my door realized that my ipod had been running on shuffle all night long and was dead. So, Regina Spektorless, I set out with the sounds of cars and my own footsteps.

It's kind of amazing how much space in my head was cleared out by the lack of sound. I felt like I was thinking and noticing more than my usual ear-budded self. (Which is ironic because the very Regina Spektor album I was planning on listening to has a line "You keep in your headphones to drown out your mind. Ironic.) And as I was walking along, I started noticing the moss again. It was growing in individual little green mounds on the edges of the curbs and, even though I can only assume it was all the same species, varied in shades from a deep, dirty olive to glow-stick green. A little farther along I started noticing it on the trees as well -- a bright green spray of it flocking the the northwest side of the trees.

So anyway, I walked downtown and thought about moss. I thought:

It reminds me of coral growing on a shipwreck.
What does it actually eat, growing on concrete like that, and how does it hold on?
What would it look like to decorate an apartment in those moss colors? Would it be cool or overwhelming.
God created moss--thought it up and figured it all out.
Once you notice something once (in this case, moss) you start to notice it all the time.

So that is what I have to say today. Moss. And with this total non-sequiter, you all have a pretty good idea of what to expect from my future posts. So if you like reading about moss, please bookmark this page and come back often. Who knows, you might be treated to a discussion on watching paint dry next time.

Summer

2009-07-06T15:19:00.001-07:00

I think I have finally settled into summer. I've gotten into the routine of it and learned how to moderate my time wasting. It's nice: getting up in the morning and going to work early enough to make some copies and finish up a few odd chores before class. Right now, I am sitting in a coffee shop in Moscow. I came here to work on a proposal for a conference in DC this fall but forgot to bring my thumb drive so I am kind of at a standstill until I get home again.

Speaking of the conference. . . last week I started making some serious steps in the direction of further schooling. I still have absolutely no desire to get a PhD but I am very seriously considering a second Masters degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. It would open up some interesting new teaching opportunties for me outside of universities. I could teach in intensive language programs and community centers and that sort of thing. It sounds interesting. And doable. Can't say that I am totally thrilled at the idea of being a student again--I've just started to get used to not being assessed and evaluated multiple times every day--but at the same time I really do like the idea of getting a foundation for my teaching. The last year and a half have really been enlightening in terms of how much I still need to learn. I teach non-native English speakers, but I don't really have a solid understanding of how to teach them. Scary. I would like to change that.

To that end, last week I . . .

Had a long conversation with the head of the ESL program and got some recommendations for school.
Joined TESOL
Joined WATESOL
Researched programs (U. of Hawaii at Manoa and the Monterey Institute of International Studies are my favorites so far).
Applied (by the end of the day) to the WATESOL conference

Not bad for one week, especially after a year of resolutely refusing to think about anything beyond the next month of my life.

solitude and community

2009-05-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking the last couple of days about solitude and about community and about how hard it is to find the appropriate balance between them.

This weekend, I felt like I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted to be alone curled up in the chair in my bedroom without even music as company or surrounded by people being noisy and silly. One moment I would be happily devouring a book, the next I would be tossing it on my bed, bored and disgusted. One second I would be bantering with friends, the next I would have the strongest urge to stand up, walk out, climb in my car and drive away.

I think I have always had problems being with people. It's not that I don't love it. I really do love being around people. I am a true extrovert. Usually it is exciting and satisfying to meet someone new. So I don't mean to give the impression that I suffer my way through every social gathering. I don't. I just mean that there has always been a little twinge of anxiety along with that excitement. Unless I know people very well, I feel a little exposed spending time with them. So that feeling, that social claustrophobia that makes me want to scamper away to a place of solitude, that feeling is familiar to me. The difficulty with solitude, however, is relatively new to me. Growing up, I was good at being alone. I read a lot. I wrote. I climbed trees. I imagined. Part of my adeptness with solitude was built out of necessity. I went to a private school that had very serious problems with cliques and those mean little, non-physical forms of bullying and exclusion. I didn't choose my solitude in those days and sometimes I chafed against it. Still, overall, I think I took the situation and made the best of it. And what I made of it was good. I think it led to my self-reflective nature. It certainly nurtured imaginative and artistic stores that I might not have excercised without it. I used to be good at being alone. I don't think I'm so good at it now.

Community is great. Finding it is thrilling. I first found it in college. I joined it willingly, but now looking back at it, I don't think I gave myself to it completely. I never let myself need it. When Resonate started, that changed. For the first time, I was being told that community was about more than my own entertainment. That it was more than just my sense of belonging on the line; it was not just social, it was spiritual. The Bible doesn't give community as an option. It is not just one possible way in which you can follow Jesus. It is the only context given for being a follower. We are told to "Bear one anothers burdens, and, in this way, fulfill the law of Christ." Community is about fulfilling the law of Christ and it was going to take more than I had given it before.

I was reading through some of my old journals last night. I found this. I wrote it just after Resonate had its preview service. The newness of this kind of community was obviously on my mind at the time.

"Lord, because you are trustworthy, I will continue to trust those around me. Because you know me fully, I will let myself be known. Because you made yourself vulnerable, I will too. Because you showed me what love is, because you command me to love, I will throw my heart into the fray."

It's funny to realize and to remember how hopeful and scared I was about making that commitment to live in community with others. It seems so natural now--a good deal less scary, but also a good deal less romantic. I had one idea about what the dangers of community would be at the beginning. I know now that the dangers of community are different than I had supposed. Yes, of course there is the danger of people you trust failing you. I've seen it happen. I've had it happen in small (but no less painful for their smallness) ways. What I didn't realize was how living in community could begin to make you need to live in community. It's a little bit like a drug. Once you have it, you begin to need it. That's not a perfect analogy, of course, because living in community is neither as interesting or as damaging as drug use. But it does bring you to a place where you start to expect regular interactions with a group of people on a certain level of intimacy, and when that gets interrupted, for whatever reason, it can be. . . uncomfortable.

Maybe that is why I felt so claustrophobic this week. The claustrophobia around other people is just normal. It's a part of my nature and personality that decided to assert itself this week. It's a natural response. But the claustrophobia I felt by myself, the feeling that I was just so small and that the world was so small and the failure of all my usual standbys for passing time alone to satisfy me, maybe that was a conditioned response. Maybe it is the result of the past two years of consistenly (though certainly not perfectly) choosing to live in community to the extent that I began to not just like (sometimes I don't like it at all) but need that community.

I don't know. Just thoughts.

BB ~ Fanboy Confessions

2008-07-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

I wish I could say that my confidence level is high enough that I feel okay to like whatever I like without apologies. I'm not.

Case in point: I recently moved into a new apartment. In said apartment I have a bookcase in the living room and also a bookcase in my bedroom. How are my books devided between these two bookcases? You guessed it. The books in my room are the ones I don't want every guest to see. Strangely enough, the books in my room are also the ones that are also more personally significant to me. I find "lowbrow" fiction personally significant, apparently.

So when I read this prompt, a list of embarassing but treasured obsessions came easily to mind. I'm going to confess to two of them.

1. StarTrek Voyager

I like several of the incarnations of Startrek. The Next Generation. The original when I'm in the right mood. But I love StarTrek Voyager. I'll try and explain why in a moment.

First, though, a basic plot synopsis for those of you who have never seen the show: the starship Voyager chases a ship involved in a rebellion into a semi-deserted area of space. Both ships get pulled into the "Delta Quadrant" by a powerful alien entity and they get stranded there. The rebel ship is badly damaged and Voyager looses a whole bunch of her crew so they abandon the damaged ship, integrate the two crews, and set course for Earth. ETA 70 years. Adventures ensue.

Maybe you like your TV to have a little more substance or, quite likely given this crowd, you don't like TV at all. To me, though, this is a recipe for great television because what I like in a television show (and sometimes in movies and books too) can be summed up in one word: escape. Keep your substance and realism. Give me campy fun and melodrama instead. STV gave me both. In fact, I first got invested in the show my freshman year of college because the reruns were on every weekday at 4 pm -- just about the time I got back from school. It was my ritual to sit in my parents room and watch it on their TV everyday. A perfect release.

Also, unlike other versions of Star Trek, Voyager has a more consisent cast and a stronger episode to episode arc. I got really invested in their journey. When they finally made it back to Earth on the last episode (sorry to spoil the ending) I cried and then walked around for the rest of the day with a big sloppy grin.

2. The Farseer Series

I wholeheartedly recommend these books but only to select people. They are SO good but they look so, SO bad. They sound bad too if you try and explain the plot so I wont even try. You'd just decide not to read them. I wouldn't have read them either except that my oldest sister recommended them and she has excellent taste in books. I borrowed the first one from my brother (who has still never read them) and was instantly hooked. The books didn't become a sheepish obsession until I went to the store to buy the second book.

You know the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover"? Good saying, but I would also recommend another one. "If you don't want people to judge your books, don't give them covers like this."

Seriously. What were the publishers thinking? I almost didn't buy it, but it was summer and without some reading material I would have been bored out of my mind so I sucked it up and took it to the counter. I figured there would never be any need for me to go back to that store again anyway.

Just so you know, there is now a second edition of the books that are not nearly as mortifying to carry around.

Urban Exploration. . .Sort Of

2008-06-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not very physically adventurous (as opposed to what? mentally adventurous? emotionally adventurous?) by nature. I sometimes pretend otherwise, but the truth is that I prefer a stroll to a hike, I don't like getting dirty, and I am nothing if not civilly obedient. Despite all this, I was determined to give urban exploration a tentative try so I put on my sandals, grabbed my camera, and stepped out of my apartment. I didn't have a specific place to explore already in mind so I decided to walk to the public library (as good a destination as any) and see what I found on the way. To facilitate exploration and avoid arrest I made the following ground rules:

I would try doors, peer through windows, and just generally snoop around any likely buildings I encountered (excluding houses).

I would not break in anywhere or pass posted "no trespassing" signs.

Ground rules in place I started down the hill.

I have only lived in my apartment for a couple of weeks, so I haven't made any habitual walking paths. This time, I decided to take Grand (even though south Grand is possibly the most uninspiring street in town) because I knew there were a couple abandoned buildings and sheds along it. I came to the first of these, an old car-repair shop, and peered in the windows. The street behind me seemed particularly busy and behind all the tinted windows of the cars passing I imagined manicured women and grumpy old men flipping open their cell phones to report a suspicious person poking around an abandoned building. In short, I chickened out and when the front door was locked, I didn't make any serious attempt to find another way in.

I kept walking and soon came to a more promising site. I'm not sure who owns the shed, but from a distance I could see that the door was opened.

When I got closer, however, I noticed the SUV parked in front of the door and saw the man and woman walking in and out. I did not investigate.

I used to have this dream. I was in my grandma's basement and I found a door that I had never seen before. It wasn't hidden. It was just sitting there, unnoticed. In the dream, I opened the door and found a spiral staircase that run from the basement to an attic that didn't exist in the real house. It was one of my favorite dreams because it let me feel like I was in on a secret. It let me feel like I had discovered something special.

So far, things weren't going too well. I hadn't really seen anything all that interesting and it was hot and noisy on Grand so I decided to go back a little way up the hill and take the residential streets. I was on my way up the hill when I saw this alley.

I turned down it, grateful to walk in the shade.

When I was about eight my sister took me with her to an audition for A Midsummer Night's Dream at the community college. I read for one of the fairies (Peasblossom I think) and then was entirely ignored while the director tried the adults in various combinations as the four lovers. I slipped out of my seat and wandered to the back of the theater. Nobody noticed. I wandered around the back and found a door in a wall facing the stage. It was cracked open. I eased it open and stepped through. It was the light booth. I looked out of the big window in the front and could see my sister and the others moving around on the stage and hear their voices muffled through the concrete and glass. Next to the door I entered was a spiral staircase that went up through the ceiling and down through the floor. Over the next half hour, I followed it both directions. I went up and tiptoed onto the catwalks that were bolted to the roof to give access to the lights. I went down and wandered through the tunnel that ran under the stage from one side to the other. I explored the open costume shop, running my fingers through the period dresses and trying on the old fashioned hats. No one saw me and no one stopped me.

I think that afternoon was the moment when I first began to fall in love with the theatre. It's funny now to think back on it and realize that my obsession with acting and play production began not with acting or play production but with that intimate and thrilling (largely because I knew it was illicit) knowledge of a space. When you are in a play, you are granted access to a view that is denied to the audience. You see the underside of the play. You stand unseen above the actors. You hear their footsteps above your head. You get to be an insider.

I walked down the alley for a while. On the left I could hear a woman in her backyard scolding her dogs. On the right the hill ran down to the flat roofs of buildings that faced the street below. I walked over and peered down the bank to where the roofs started. Their were stairs that ran down the hill and into back doors in several places. Looking down, I was pretty sure that I could walk down the stairs, climb on the railing, and pull myself up on to the roof. I stood there for a while trying to work up the gumption. I looked up and down the alley and saw no one. I even took a couple of steps toward the stairs before I hesitated and then made a decision. I turned back down the alley and kept walking.

I was disappointed in myself for being such a wimp. I thought about going back and trying it but I knew that I would never really do it. Still, I did see some cool things in the alley like this bench.

and this overgrown hedge rose.

Near the hedge rose I came to a place where on of the roofs came up to almost level with the path I was on. It was literally just a small step from the hill to the roof. I couldn't rationalize not trying this one. I looked around to make sure nobody was watching me and stepped across.

I hurried to the far side of the chimney with some vague hope that it would make me less conspicuous from the alley. I sat down on the ledge and looked out at across the roof. I waited. Anxiously.

My mom is really into natural (and sometimes self-invented) medicine. Here is her cure for an infected finger: microwave a mug of water until it is scalding hot; submerge the infected finger in the water and hold it there until you can't stand it; remove finger until nerve endings stop screaming; repeat. Sitting on that roof was rather like this cure. Oh how I wanted to get off. I was breaking the rules! I would probably be arrested. I would lose my job. I would face public humiliation and disgrace. Boy I was tense, but I stuck it out because even in the midst of my internal prophecy of doom, I believed that sitting on that roof was good for my character. I do things like this to myself from time to time. I force myself to ignore my own anti-social tendencies and go to a party or I will suddenly decide I am becoming to reliant on my routines and make myself change them or I might sense some growing vanity in my heart and make myself forgo makeup for a day. As I said, I'm not a very physically adventurous person but I recognize this (at least on some days) as a character flaw. Being on that roof, I thought, would be good therapy. I would stay there as long as I could stand it.

As long as I could stand it didn't turn out to be very long. I climbed off the roof and hurried out of the alley half expecting to hear police sirens in the distance. The sirens wouldn't have been necessary. Ala Discipline and Punish, I am adept at policing myself.

I came out the alley quite near the library, but also near the community center. I'd never been in there before and so I decided to wander around and see what kind of interesting places I could find my way into. I got in and wandered around the halls but all the interior doors were locked.

I peered in through the locks and saw rooms that would have been ordinary and uninteresting if they were accessible but because they were barred up became tantalizing and inviting.

Even without being able to get into the rooms though, I felt a small stir of excitement. The halls were cool and completely empty. I tiptoed down the halls and through the windows and bulletin boards on the wall I caught glimpses of what this place must be like on a weekday.

At the top of one of the side staircases I found an office. It was full of cabinets and a desk and chair all painted white and the sun was pouring in through the windows so that the whole room glowed. I wanted that office. I wanted it for my very own.

I covet buildings. I want to own them. I want to know all their nooks and crannies. I want to have their keys on my key rings. I think this hunger for ownership of a space in part comes from the restrictions of being a renter. I live in my apartment, but it isn't really mine. I can't paint the walls or tear out the front shrubs or drill holes in the walls (at least not with permission, but even my respect for authority has its limits). Maybe that is why seeing an abandoned or badly maintained building makes me angry. It's like neglecting a child. Well. Okay not really.

On my way down the hill from the community center I had my urban exploration breakthrough.
First I saw this.

Then I saw this.

I crawled underneath the fence and got inside.

It smelled like autumn. Unlike my time on the roof, I didn't have to force myself to stand there and unlike the sunny office I didn't feel any desire to own this little grove that had sprung up between two derelict buildings. I sat against the wall for a while and looked at the sun coming down through the branches.

Favorite Meal

2008-06-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

It's hard to choose a favorite meal. My family celebrates nearly everything with food and in the years since the kids started leaving for college every homecoming is cause for celebration and each trip home is a blur of barbeques and baking and trips to the grocery store to restock the pantry.

But as I was thinking about it, I remembered a particular meal we used to make every year -- a meal I haven't eaten in far too long. It's called "peasandnewpotatoes" and it's not exactly the height of my family's culinary accomplishments. Boiled potatoes and peas in a plain white sauce speckled with black pepper is just about as exciting as it sounds, but it was special because it was a marker of spring coming back and the beginning of a summer full of trips to the farm to harvest sweet corn and climb the grain elevators and ride around in pick-up beds looking for kangaroo rats.

Preparing peas and new potatoes required a trip out of town across the Snake river, past the turn off to Burbank and all the way to red and white sign for Nedrow Farms. Once on the dirt road that crossed under the power lines we would take off our seatbelts (the only time our parents allowed such behavior) and stand up in the suburban lifting our hands off the seats in front of us and standing sideways like surfers bending our knees to absorb the shock of the potholes. We always stopped at the office first to buy a pop from the antiquated vending machine my dad kept stocked with Pepsi cans. I usually chose a Squirt and wiped the grime off the tab before openning and drinking it down in burp inducing gulps.

Then we'd pile back into the car and drive to the pea fields. A pea field, in case you've never visited one, doesn't smell like a potatoe field or an alfalfa field or a field of green wheat. It smells like peas. Green and sweet. I have a sharp memory of sitting on the top edge of plastic five gallon bucket in one of the pea fields. The edge of the bucket presses into my backside and the backs of my thighs as I grab the peas pods off the bushes (they make a satisfying pop when you pull them free) and shelled them into the bucket, snapping off the stem, sliding my fingernail into the seam until I could fit my thumb into the pod and run it down the length of the inside popping the peas free. Occassionally I would shell a pod directly into my hand and toss all the peas into my mouth at once to eat them raw.

After we had enough peas we would take the buckets and put them into the back of the Suburban and drive to the pea field. Mom always grilled Dad about how recently the field had been sprayed and Dad always reassured her (multiple times) that the potatoes were perfectly safe to eat. Dad would take a shovel and we would follow him into the field until we were past the scrawny plants on the edge and into the thick green ones that made up the central part of the circle. Dad dug the shovel in on one side of three or four hills of potatoes and loosened the dirt so that we could use our hands to pull up the vines and sift through the cool soil to find the potatoes. This time of year, the potatoes were small and round, probably no bigger than walnuts or chicken eggs, and the skin on them was so thin that even rubbing the dirt off with the palm of a hand would peel it off the flesh.

At home, my involvement in the process ended. Mom washed the potatoes and put them, skins and all, into a pot to boil. She didn't boil the peas, but made a white sauce and put the raw peas in it while it was on the stove just to warm them up not to cook them. Pour the sauce on the potatoes and eat it all together.

A few years ago, my dad stopped growing peas. They were too expensive and labor intensive. He switched to bluegrass seed. More recently, he put the farm up for sale. I keep expecting to feel some nostalgia for the place, some regret to see it go. So far it hasn't happened. The farm changed for all of us. The longer we stayed in the farming business the more business and less farming it began to feel. Tightening food safety regulations, rising operating costs, and increasingly demanding processors took the fun out of it.

It's been a long time since I had peas and new potatoes. I'm not even sure I want them again.

The Alienation Effect

2008-05-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

One day in the spring of my senior year of college, the professor of my Contemporary American Poetry seminar asked for a show of hands. The question was simple. She wanted to know how many of us felt as though we had a hometown. I was one of two who raised a hand. At the time, I remember feeling old-fashioned. Old-fashioned in a good way -- old-fashioned like sepia toned photographs and main streets and small businesses and county fairs. That conversation, brief as it was, cast a patina of warmth and romance on the very ordinary, industrial city where I grew up.

Then I moved home and realized what I had really known all along. My hometown is boring. I mean it's really dull. Or maybe it's not so much boring as it's not designed for someone like me. People leave when they graduate high school and don't come back until they are ready to return with their young families to buy starter homes and SUVs they can't afford and don't need. Young, single college graduates do not live there. . . if they can help it.

But anyway, there Iwas -- living in my parents' basement, bored out of my mind and looking for something to do that didn't involve overpriced beer gardens or kiddie carnivals and I came up with an idea. My friend from college, Em, had parked her car in my parent's driveway over the summer and she had left the keys. We could take it for a tour. Show it all the hometown sights. Take pictures. At least it was something to do.

So I invited my friend C., also a recent college graduate, and we started driving. We went to the river and walked around the park. We found our way to the train tracks and took artsy photos of our reflections in the broken glass ourside of abandoned airplane hangers by the old airport. And we drove downtown. All my years growing up, downtown had been a sketchy neighboorhood filled with abandoned buildings, struggling restaurants, and condemned apartments. Oh. And the jail.

It was different now. The change that had started when I was in high school had continued while I'd been away. Downtown was vibrant. The buildings were painted bright yellows and greens and pinks. All the signs were in Spanish, but the pictures told us what was in the stores. On 4th street, we passed a butcher's shop and shrieked with excitement. What a mural! We turned the car around, parked it in front of the mural, and snapped this picture. We took a lot of pictures actually, just like a couple of tourists. And for a moment the patina of hometown romance and the malaise of hometown boredom lifted and it was just another place and we were traveling through it, ready to be enchanted by the details.