My cousin Christine lives about twenty minutes from my parents. I navigate the Garden State Parkway, Fiona Apple in one ear and my fathers navigation system droning in the other. I sigh as I catch a glimpse of her apartment complex.
When I was a teenager, Christine and her then husband Joe had the most beautiful house I’d ever seen. It was spacious and so beautifully decorated, just a few blocks from the house in Jersey I had grown up in. They had sold it to move into a much, much smaller home (something about a better school for their daughter) and after the divorce this was where Christine ended up.
Christine is 100 percent Jersey. Growing up, Donna and I would stare at her in awe for the AC/DC Whitesnake goddess that she was. We would sneak in her room, use her blue eye shadow and bright pink lipstick and Aqua Net. She had big blonde hair, big blue eyes, big…everything. She was the most popular girl in her school, and she knew it. She had a boyfriend named Danny that we never met but always heard her screaming at or about. I always pictured Danny in a black leather jacket and tight acid washed jeans.
I remember sitting in the kitchen of my aunts house one morning when Christine walked in wearing the same black dress as the night before. My aunt went after her with a wire hanger, Christine screaming at the top of her lungs, “I went out to get the newspaper!” (But recall the Jersey dialect ‘news-pay-puh’)
“Well then where’s the fucking newspaper?” My aunt yelled, batting her with the hanger. Donna and I snuck drags off of Aunt Laura’s cigarette and then went outside to play.
Christine married an Italian guy named Joe who was nice and took her shit pretty well. I visited while she was pregnant and I could not stop laughing at how they spoke to each other. Joe would go to the kitchen for something and Christine would yell,
“Bitch! Make me a sandwhich!”
“Stop being an asshole!” He would holler back. I think if I heard that now it wouldn’t make me laugh. I predicted their baby’s first word would be an expletive.
Aunt Laura killed herself a few days later. I have a memory of someone mentioning to Christine about naming her daughter after Aunt Laura.
“Why would I give my baby a dead woman’s name?” Christine snapped, her blue eyes faded and blood shot.
I went back home and a few months later got a picture of an infant with brown hair and wide blue eyes with the words “Laura Christine Castellano” printed underneath.
I open the door to the front hallway of their duplex. She told me the address was 55, but not whether it was A or B, upstairs apartment or downstairs. I stop, looking from door to door. The upstairs apartment has a pretty sign outside the door, something about friends and family and faith. The door opens and a little girl sticks her head out. I recognize the blue eyes.
“Hi.” I say, climbing the stairs.
“Helllllooooooo.” She responds.
“Is that her?” I hear Christine yell from inside. I reach the front door in time for Christine’s hug. “Look at those shoes! What are you wearing?”
“Yeah, they’re silly.” I have on a pair of periwinkle S.B Dunks that an old boyfriend got me with some skinny jeans and a gray V-Neck. Christine runs her eyes over me and I know she’s not missing anything.
“Laura, do you remember Katie?”
Laura looks me up and down. “Nope.” She grins at me, showing off a missing tooth.
“How long have you had your hair like that?” Christine exclaims, touching the blonde.
“A few years.”
“God, it’s been forever. What have you been doing?” She speaks rapidly. abrasively- but it sounds like family to me.
“Not much, this and that.”
“Have you been ice skating before?”
“Once or twice.” I make a face at Laura, she makes one back. Christine leads me into her apartment.
It's decorated well, a natural gift my cousin has. Cute knick knacks adorn the walls, and the place has a homey feel despite the cramped quarters. A large L shaped couch is against a wall to my left, a large TV in front of it. Pillows are placed decoratively, and I again remember the her previous three story house. I recognize this room as whispers of a palace.
“Come tell me about what Aunt Marleen said.” I follow Christine to the bathroom as she starts putting on make up. “Tell me all
the good stuff I don’t know.”
I smile and rack my brain. Christine is very interested in the good stuff, she asks a million questions and is very blunt. My sex life should be coming up shortly.
“She said that mom liked to argue about politics, she was smart.”
“Of course she was. What else?”
“She said that mom did coke, but she didn’t know whether or not she was an addict. She thinks no.”
“Hmmmm.” Christine puts on mascara and all of a sudden I’m six years old watching a beauty queen.
“She said mom was sensitive and weak.”
“Like me.” Christine says softly, pausing to stare at her reflection. I’m kind of taken aback. Weak is not something I would associate with Christine. She’s a ball breaker. A memory floats to mind.
A few years ago I was in a girls study group. One of the girls mentioned something about me being strong. My good friend Laiza shook her head.
“I don’t think you’re strong at all.” She said gently. “When I think of a strong woman, I think of Kristen.”
Kristen is very plain, very quiet and kind, but I knew immediately what she meant. And I knew she was right. Kristen was very strong, and I was very weak.
Christine puts down the mascara and starts washing her ‘Fridays’ work shirt. She is a waitress there now.
“She said that you and Lisa annoyed the crap out of her-”
“Oh no. Your mother loved me, I was her favorite. When my mother would go to Jersey to visit Louie, back when we were in the Bronx, I would only go if Aunt Kitty went. If she didn’t go I’d stay with her. I was her absolute favorite, until you came along and ruined it.” She grins at me and hangs her shirt in the shower.
I roll my eyes. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, whatever. So what else did Aunt Marleen say? You didn’t find out shit.” Christine is losing patience with my tepid stories.
“She said mom liked to show me off. And that she worried about money. I don’t know, I have the conversation recorded. I want to interview you, too. Later. Maybe after work.” Christine looks impressed.
“You’re really going to baby sit for me tonight?”
“Sure, I don’t mind. I can write and hang out with Laura. Let me get my laptop out of the car.”
I run down the stairs into the frigid winter cold. I grab my computer bag and run back inside, my teeth chattering.
When I open the door, Laura is crying.
“LAURA!” Christine screams, “Put on your shoes, NOW!”
I must have missed something. Laura pokes her head out of her room, tears streaking her face.
“We’re going to be late!” Christine screams. Before I can glance away I see a look of pure fury on Christine’s face. She storms into Laura’s room. I close my eyes as she begins hitting her, Laura crying, “No! Mommy, stop!” I squeeze my eyes shut.
The last time I saw a parent hit their child was a few years ago. I was driving around with my pastors wife, Christy Tyson, and her young son was screaming about something in the back seat. Christy turned to me and said very calmly,
“I’m sorry, I have to spank my child.”
She turned off to the side of the road, got out, hit Nate’s bottom a few times, and we continued on our way. She took no pleasure in hitting her son, it was just something that had to be done.
But the look on Christine’s face- I remember that look. The frustration and fury, of needing to release something through the force of flying hands on someone elses skin.
When Christine comes out she looks calmer. “She fucking does this all the time.” She mutters. Christine leaves to get the car. I follow the sound of sniffles into Laura’s room.
She’s on her bed, trying to tug on her boots. I hover awkwardly by her door. I’m really no good with kids. I take a deep breath and plunge into the room with a smile.
I reach for her other shoe and help her get it on. “Look at these big feet,’ I say, “you are going to have boats like mine.” She smiles a little. I look up into her very pale face. She has her mothers faded blue eyes, freckles like mine. I wipe away her tears.
“You can’t go out like that. You’ll have icicles on your face.” She giggles at my dumb joke.
Her laugh makes me feel very old. I don’t want kids, I think maybe because I am afraid I would be like my mother, or like Christine in this instant. But as I gaze into her little face, looking now happily into mine, I get the feeling that she is very precious and I don’t think I could. I pull her into a hug and she hugs me back, even though she doesn’t remember me at all. I wasn’t that trusting when I was her age. I hated people touching me. I hated strangers.
“Have you been ice skating before?”
“It’s my first time!”
“Come on!” Christine yells. I hold her hand and lead her out of the room.
“You’ll come skating with me?”
“Of course I will.”
My desire for children is fleeting. Laura is a terrible ice skater. An hour later and I am behind her, holding her upper chest as her feet ineffectively slash at the ice.
“I hate this! I want my mom!” Laura cries.
“You’re not even trying,” I groan. Laura’s little friend, Keirsten, smiles at me sympathetically.
“Go and skate around. I’ll stay with her.” Keirsten bounds off gracefully to join the crowd streaming around us. Laura slumps in my arms and I look like I am hauling around a paraplegic in skates.
“I want to skate on my belly!” Laura declares.
“Fine.” I drop her and she sprawls on her back. She blinks up at me.
“Flip around and skate on your belly.”
People maneuver around us and I suddenly realize that they are wearing knives on their feet. I grab her up quickly.
“Move your feet like mine. Right, then left. Right, then left.”
A few hours later Laura is cute again and cuddled in my lap. We have watched Ice Age 2 twice, broken open a Hannah Montana board game only to have me put my foot down, played hide and seek in the dark (I got scared and we had to stop) and finished the night with a few games of horsey. I fall asleep to the X Games and wake up to Christine banging on the door. I stagger out and open the chain lock.
“Hey! Oh my God! I’m so sorry! That bitch would not cut me!” Christine carries two six packs of beer. “Can you stay for a drink?”
“I don’t think so. I’m really tired, I definitely wouldn’t be able to drive.” I also hate beer, but I’ll leave that out. Bad enough that I don’t eat meat. We make tentative plans for the next day and I’m on my way home.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
remix
Cami growls at anyone who comes near me when I'm sleeping. From her post beside me, with her head on my pillow, my german shephard/lab guards me faithfully. Even when my bestfriend lived with me and would crawl into bed for a late night chat, Cami would growl softly and look to me. There is something about me sleeping, about lying down in my bed that Cami senses is vulnerable. I am weak and so my dog is protective.
And we are so very weak when we sleep.
Our faces are slack, and so the way we set our jaw, narrow our eyes, all the non-verbal signs we give others as warning or invitation- all that is gone when we lay still for 8 hours.
If aliens or angels visited us, they must think us so odd. To be so busy, busy; teeming streets; speeding cars and throbbing malls and then stillness and silence. For half our life, half our day. We crawl onto cotton and leave our defenses to electronics or faith or pets.
Our skin is soft, clad in night clothes or nothing at all. Our sight is darkened, mind ruminating elsewhere, spinning and whirring and shelving memories and experiences of the day. Crud coats our eyes and scum creeps over our tongue and inaction dulls our muscles.
(And what terror, to be asleep in our beds when a stranger walks about our house. Someone {but no, not 'someone' a person, living, breathing, with stories and a past} broke into my home a few weeks ago. I was out of town and my room mate Doireanne was asleep in her bed. A sound woke her up; foreign footsteps and she called the police. Her mind must have been so groggy and terror sharpened her. They heard her voice and dove out the same window they crawled in through. And what separates a person who runs away from one who attacks?)
Sleep. Our heart beats deep and even.
But mine doesn't.
A few nights a week, (last week- every night) my heart wakes me up in the middle of the night, and again in the morning. Rapid, staccato beats that startle me with a gasp, or heavy, slow pounds that echo in my ears.
I open my eyes and sometimes Cami wakes up, too. She senses my fear and growls sleepily, sniffing the room. Sometimes she'll take a tour of the house and whine to be let outside. A lap around the house, a jaunt down the street, and she'll come back, looking at me reproachfully.
Cami's process will calm me down a bit, my heart will even out and I'll lie back in bed. 'What is wrong with you?' I ask my heart.
When Cami doesn't wake up, I open my eyes in the dark and pull the covers more tightly around me. Fear presses in around me. But criminals are not crawling through the kitchen, the intruder is myself. I don't know what to say to this heart of mine. 'You are loved, it's okay, it's okay' I repeat to it over and over again. I feel as though I am comforting a small child that has crawled into my bed, murmuring about nightmares and monsters. Or maybe I am trying to lull the monster itself to sleep. Fear is a slave master, exhausting and insatiable.
I think of God, of faith and trust and I show these things to my heart. "You are loved, you are loved,' I say over and over again until I fall asleep.
But then I wake up again and Cami is growling and I get out of bed so she can protect me.
And we are so very weak when we sleep.
Our faces are slack, and so the way we set our jaw, narrow our eyes, all the non-verbal signs we give others as warning or invitation- all that is gone when we lay still for 8 hours.
If aliens or angels visited us, they must think us so odd. To be so busy, busy; teeming streets; speeding cars and throbbing malls and then stillness and silence. For half our life, half our day. We crawl onto cotton and leave our defenses to electronics or faith or pets.
Our skin is soft, clad in night clothes or nothing at all. Our sight is darkened, mind ruminating elsewhere, spinning and whirring and shelving memories and experiences of the day. Crud coats our eyes and scum creeps over our tongue and inaction dulls our muscles.
(And what terror, to be asleep in our beds when a stranger walks about our house. Someone {but no, not 'someone' a person, living, breathing, with stories and a past} broke into my home a few weeks ago. I was out of town and my room mate Doireanne was asleep in her bed. A sound woke her up; foreign footsteps and she called the police. Her mind must have been so groggy and terror sharpened her. They heard her voice and dove out the same window they crawled in through. And what separates a person who runs away from one who attacks?)
Sleep. Our heart beats deep and even.
But mine doesn't.
A few nights a week, (last week- every night) my heart wakes me up in the middle of the night, and again in the morning. Rapid, staccato beats that startle me with a gasp, or heavy, slow pounds that echo in my ears.
I open my eyes and sometimes Cami wakes up, too. She senses my fear and growls sleepily, sniffing the room. Sometimes she'll take a tour of the house and whine to be let outside. A lap around the house, a jaunt down the street, and she'll come back, looking at me reproachfully.
Cami's process will calm me down a bit, my heart will even out and I'll lie back in bed. 'What is wrong with you?' I ask my heart.
When Cami doesn't wake up, I open my eyes in the dark and pull the covers more tightly around me. Fear presses in around me. But criminals are not crawling through the kitchen, the intruder is myself. I don't know what to say to this heart of mine. 'You are loved, it's okay, it's okay' I repeat to it over and over again. I feel as though I am comforting a small child that has crawled into my bed, murmuring about nightmares and monsters. Or maybe I am trying to lull the monster itself to sleep. Fear is a slave master, exhausting and insatiable.
I think of God, of faith and trust and I show these things to my heart. "You are loved, you are loved,' I say over and over again until I fall asleep.
But then I wake up again and Cami is growling and I get out of bed so she can protect me.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
monsters under the heart
My heart wakes me up a few nights a week- rapid, staccato beats that charge me with adrenaline and fear. Or the slow, heavy, rhythmic pounding that echoes in my ears.
God, I don't know what to do with this heart of mine. I don't know how to comfort it, how to speak to it. It's like a small child that runs into my room in the middle of the night, crying about monsters under the bed and nightmares.
"What's wrong with you?" I ask it, and it shows me a picture book of horror; memories; faces; the darkened possibilities of the future: pure dread.
Time spreads out before me and I am immobilized, overcome- all the things I can't control, all the opportunities to hurt and be hurt.
I am painfully aware that other people exist.
That women are chained to beds and raped for mens pleasure, or chained to sewing machines for mine. God- how can it be that children cry under beds, and marriages dissolve, that it's so cold outside and there are human beings shivering on sidewalks, that I am me and they are them and what does that mean?
I am terrified of repeating mistakes, endless ground hog days of selfishness, and more than anything I am afraid of being afraid for the rest of my life, and I just want to be with you in heaven.
But saying I want to be in heaven is a nice Christian way of saying something much darker.
So instead I say 'you are loved, you are loved' over and over again, 'it's going to be okay,' the only picture book I can show my heart is you, God. I can only whisper to it about trust and faith, explain that some pain is good, and that I'll be more responsible with it in the future, I'll guard it better. Christ please help me protect my heart.
Perfect love casts out fear, and my anxiety is a hunger pain for You. It is a physical indicator that something is wrong.
Help me to trust that you have me, to know that fear is pointless, that Christ wills me to change the things that overwhelm me. Help me to treat my heart, my emotions with respect, to not relegate them to the red headed step child of my senses, help me to pay attention to my heart during the day, so it stops waking me crying in the night.
Fix my eyes, so I see redemption and beauty and hope, instead of despair and brokenness.
Things in the world should break my heart, but please keep it from breaking me.
God, you are strong, you are working and moving in this world, you love me, you love them, you love me....
Slowly, slowly, my heart is comforted and reminded, and we both go back to sleep.
God, I don't know what to do with this heart of mine. I don't know how to comfort it, how to speak to it. It's like a small child that runs into my room in the middle of the night, crying about monsters under the bed and nightmares.
"What's wrong with you?" I ask it, and it shows me a picture book of horror; memories; faces; the darkened possibilities of the future: pure dread.
Time spreads out before me and I am immobilized, overcome- all the things I can't control, all the opportunities to hurt and be hurt.
I am painfully aware that other people exist.
That women are chained to beds and raped for mens pleasure, or chained to sewing machines for mine. God- how can it be that children cry under beds, and marriages dissolve, that it's so cold outside and there are human beings shivering on sidewalks, that I am me and they are them and what does that mean?
I am terrified of repeating mistakes, endless ground hog days of selfishness, and more than anything I am afraid of being afraid for the rest of my life, and I just want to be with you in heaven.
But saying I want to be in heaven is a nice Christian way of saying something much darker.
So instead I say 'you are loved, you are loved' over and over again, 'it's going to be okay,' the only picture book I can show my heart is you, God. I can only whisper to it about trust and faith, explain that some pain is good, and that I'll be more responsible with it in the future, I'll guard it better. Christ please help me protect my heart.
Perfect love casts out fear, and my anxiety is a hunger pain for You. It is a physical indicator that something is wrong.
Help me to trust that you have me, to know that fear is pointless, that Christ wills me to change the things that overwhelm me. Help me to treat my heart, my emotions with respect, to not relegate them to the red headed step child of my senses, help me to pay attention to my heart during the day, so it stops waking me crying in the night.
Fix my eyes, so I see redemption and beauty and hope, instead of despair and brokenness.
Things in the world should break my heart, but please keep it from breaking me.
God, you are strong, you are working and moving in this world, you love me, you love them, you love me....
Slowly, slowly, my heart is comforted and reminded, and we both go back to sleep.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Magda
Magda pulled the covers over her face. Jim was up, starting the systematic toiletry routine she had come to know over forty years of marriage.
The sounds: scrape, scrape, scrape of the tooth brush, spit, gargle, spit…silence…whisk, whisk of a razor…silence…the water would turn on for a brief second as he wet his comb, parted his thinning, fine hair to the side.
When they first married Magda would sit and watch him, entertained and awed that she was sharing her life with someone so different, a man that shaved, a man in general. Jim would check himself, make sure the shave was clean; his hair was in place, shirt tucked in and belt buckled.
Magda had friends who would complain of their husbands lounging around in their underwear all day. Jim was dressed within minutes of waking, ‘army training’ he always said lightly.
It made Magda feel lazy and unkempt, for forty years, wanting to stay in bed or go around in something comfortable. Jim had never said that, of course. He had liked to serve her breakfast in bed, or buy her nice robes. But he didn’t have to say it, she knew it was true.
There was a light knock on the door, and Jim opened it. The attendant wheeled in the coffee tray and Jim thanked him quietly. Magda felt the cruise ship dock, she swayed gently in bed.
The sounds of coffee. The gentle clink of the cup, the sound of liquid being poured, the ripping of a sugar packet, the spoon stirring gently.
She should be the one making or serving the coffee. Jim never said that, but she felt it. He worked hard, the wife should serve.
She had served their children, and now she just felt tired. Tired and disappointed and angry.
Magda sat up, and Jim set the coffee beside her on the bed, next to the picture frames.
A few years ago, when she turned 60, Magda had gotten sick and stayed sick for a long time. Not cancer like a lot of her friends, nothing that she could prove or get sympathy for, nothing her friends could call her a ‘fighter’ or a ‘survivor’ for.
Her sister had sent her a few books that year. Magda had never read much, she was always busy raising the children, or helping with Jim’s insurance company. She and Jim decided to hand the reins to their eldest, and ‘enjoy life’, they had said. So Jim learned carpentry, and she started to read. She read fiction and biography. She read the names her children had thrown around in their important college years. Names and books that when brought up, she had learned to nod wisely and look introspective, as though enjoying all the imagery and characters as they returned to her. But the books weighed her down. The tension, the expression, the mournful sentences and lives- it haunted her. Young people, she thought, could read a book and learn lessons, mimic it or avoid it, or assume their lives would be the plot to some existential piece of literature.
But she was old, and her life had been a very boring book. She felt cheated of murders and love affairs and travel. She didn’t want to have an affair, but felt silly for never even thinking about it. She didn’t want to have a bad marriage, or bad kids, or be poor, but felt cheated for never going through the experience. No one in her books seemed very happy, but that wasn’t the point. They had a reason to be unhappy. Magda didn’t have an excuse, other than she was lacking a good, solid reason to be so sad.
Anna Karenina had thrown herself in front of a train, Edna Pontellier swam into the ocean, Edna Michaelson just wanted to sleep.
She stopped reading, started fights with Jim, complained sharply to the children. ‘Empty nest syndrome’, her doctor said. But the children had been gone for a decade at that point. She hadn’t done anything with her life, and now she was old and useless.
When she started staying in bed, her friends speculated on the various possibilities. Cancer, lupus, alzheimers, all the diseases they discussed blithely, as though familiarity would ease the terror of death.
Magda was old and sad, and there was nothing exciting about it. Her friends realized it, and send her church pamphlets, information on yoga and college courses.
One day, she came home from her sisters, and the house was filled with picture frames. Jim had gone through all the old albums, and displayed all the important moments, births and birthdays and vacations.
‘A reminder,’ he said, in his soft, definitive way, ‘of all the better things.’
Magda knew what he had done, what he was trying to do. She cried in his arms for an hour and Jim told her he loved her, always loved her, would do anything to make her happy.
Magda left the picture frames up, but they made it worse. Now she not only had memories of a dull life, but paper and glass proof of it.
Jim brought the pictures on vacation, put them around their hotel rooms and cruise cabins. She would catch him gazing at them, and he had a proud, gentle look on his face.
Magda envied Jim’s war experience. It was his book, his story that was passionate and interesting. It was why Jim could be so consistent and dull- he always had the background and memories of blood and war. She didn’t chide him in his ways, he deserved to be content. But Magda had no comparisons.
“What would you like to do today?” Jim asked, opening the drapes.
Magda wanted to cry. “Something.” She said.
Jim nodded and picked up a piece of paper. He handed her the excursion list. “I was thinking maybe this one.”
He pointed to ‘parasailing.’ Magda almost choked on her coffee. She read the description of flying 80 feet over the ocean, pulled by a speed boat. It was ridiculous.
“Are you joking?” Magda asked. Jim shook his head.
“Why not?”
Magda nodded slowly.
“Okay. Let’s do that
The sounds: scrape, scrape, scrape of the tooth brush, spit, gargle, spit…silence…whisk, whisk of a razor…silence…the water would turn on for a brief second as he wet his comb, parted his thinning, fine hair to the side.
When they first married Magda would sit and watch him, entertained and awed that she was sharing her life with someone so different, a man that shaved, a man in general. Jim would check himself, make sure the shave was clean; his hair was in place, shirt tucked in and belt buckled.
Magda had friends who would complain of their husbands lounging around in their underwear all day. Jim was dressed within minutes of waking, ‘army training’ he always said lightly.
It made Magda feel lazy and unkempt, for forty years, wanting to stay in bed or go around in something comfortable. Jim had never said that, of course. He had liked to serve her breakfast in bed, or buy her nice robes. But he didn’t have to say it, she knew it was true.
There was a light knock on the door, and Jim opened it. The attendant wheeled in the coffee tray and Jim thanked him quietly. Magda felt the cruise ship dock, she swayed gently in bed.
The sounds of coffee. The gentle clink of the cup, the sound of liquid being poured, the ripping of a sugar packet, the spoon stirring gently.
She should be the one making or serving the coffee. Jim never said that, but she felt it. He worked hard, the wife should serve.
She had served their children, and now she just felt tired. Tired and disappointed and angry.
Magda sat up, and Jim set the coffee beside her on the bed, next to the picture frames.
A few years ago, when she turned 60, Magda had gotten sick and stayed sick for a long time. Not cancer like a lot of her friends, nothing that she could prove or get sympathy for, nothing her friends could call her a ‘fighter’ or a ‘survivor’ for.
Her sister had sent her a few books that year. Magda had never read much, she was always busy raising the children, or helping with Jim’s insurance company. She and Jim decided to hand the reins to their eldest, and ‘enjoy life’, they had said. So Jim learned carpentry, and she started to read. She read fiction and biography. She read the names her children had thrown around in their important college years. Names and books that when brought up, she had learned to nod wisely and look introspective, as though enjoying all the imagery and characters as they returned to her. But the books weighed her down. The tension, the expression, the mournful sentences and lives- it haunted her. Young people, she thought, could read a book and learn lessons, mimic it or avoid it, or assume their lives would be the plot to some existential piece of literature.
But she was old, and her life had been a very boring book. She felt cheated of murders and love affairs and travel. She didn’t want to have an affair, but felt silly for never even thinking about it. She didn’t want to have a bad marriage, or bad kids, or be poor, but felt cheated for never going through the experience. No one in her books seemed very happy, but that wasn’t the point. They had a reason to be unhappy. Magda didn’t have an excuse, other than she was lacking a good, solid reason to be so sad.
Anna Karenina had thrown herself in front of a train, Edna Pontellier swam into the ocean, Edna Michaelson just wanted to sleep.
She stopped reading, started fights with Jim, complained sharply to the children. ‘Empty nest syndrome’, her doctor said. But the children had been gone for a decade at that point. She hadn’t done anything with her life, and now she was old and useless.
When she started staying in bed, her friends speculated on the various possibilities. Cancer, lupus, alzheimers, all the diseases they discussed blithely, as though familiarity would ease the terror of death.
Magda was old and sad, and there was nothing exciting about it. Her friends realized it, and send her church pamphlets, information on yoga and college courses.
One day, she came home from her sisters, and the house was filled with picture frames. Jim had gone through all the old albums, and displayed all the important moments, births and birthdays and vacations.
‘A reminder,’ he said, in his soft, definitive way, ‘of all the better things.’
Magda knew what he had done, what he was trying to do. She cried in his arms for an hour and Jim told her he loved her, always loved her, would do anything to make her happy.
Magda left the picture frames up, but they made it worse. Now she not only had memories of a dull life, but paper and glass proof of it.
Jim brought the pictures on vacation, put them around their hotel rooms and cruise cabins. She would catch him gazing at them, and he had a proud, gentle look on his face.
Magda envied Jim’s war experience. It was his book, his story that was passionate and interesting. It was why Jim could be so consistent and dull- he always had the background and memories of blood and war. She didn’t chide him in his ways, he deserved to be content. But Magda had no comparisons.
“What would you like to do today?” Jim asked, opening the drapes.
Magda wanted to cry. “Something.” She said.
Jim nodded and picked up a piece of paper. He handed her the excursion list. “I was thinking maybe this one.”
He pointed to ‘parasailing.’ Magda almost choked on her coffee. She read the description of flying 80 feet over the ocean, pulled by a speed boat. It was ridiculous.
“Are you joking?” Magda asked. Jim shook his head.
“Why not?”
Magda nodded slowly.
“Okay. Let’s do that
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Ruthy
Ruthy wrapped her cardigan around her, the wind whipping everything on the breezeway. She leaned against the railing of the boat, shivering, sighing.
Ruthy saw the churning waters and the blue horizon, and suddenly realized she was alone. Her husband was in the casino, her kids running around somewhere on the top deck. She had nothing to do. It made her feel uneasy, a little sneaky. Like cutting class in high school with her cousin.
Something strange uncoiled inside her, and she felt something. Like catching a scent that ignites a memory. For a brief second Ruthy remembered the thrill of opening the cold steel door, the wind whipping her cheeks as she ran across the parking lot, the sickening dread and exhilaration.
And then it was gone and she couldn’t conjure it up again. Maybe it was the wind.
A woman about her age and size tottered by, struggling against the wind. Ruthy looked at the woman’s thick ankles, her broad shorts. Being fat only bothered her every once in awhile. Most of the women she knew were fat. But every once in awhile, when getting out of the shower, when passing a magazine cover, or a flock of high school girls, or the disinterested look her husband gave her when she was changing, something shameful and heavy would grow in her heart, making a slow crawl to her stomach. A vague unease that she had failed in something very important.
She shook her head.
The ocean stretched on and she wanted to think it was beautiful but could not. She wondered if they had put the passports in the safe.
The door opened and she turned. A young woman walked out and the wind caught her short blonde hair, her pink sundress. Ruthy was glad her husband wasn’t around.
The woman walked to the railing and leaned against it. She was very young, very beautiful. Ruthy felt ashamed of her frizzy red hair, faded jean capri’s, her breasts and belly.
The wind slid the woman’s dress up small, brown thighs, plastered the fabric against her. She didn’t bother to push it down, just looked at the horizon.
Ruthy looked away, then around, guiltily. An old couple sitting on a bench were staring as well. The man was entranced, his wife looked disgusted. She caught Ruthy’s eye and glared at her. Ruthy looked down at her crocs, maybe it was her imagination.
She looked down the other side of the breezeway, away from the woman. Several people leaned against the bar, enjoying the wind, the water. Every woman wants to be on a boat, the wind fluttering her hair, a beautiful man whispering in her ear. Ruthy saw old women, fat men, Bermuda shorts instead of cocktail gowns, wrinkles. A terrible thing, she thought suddenly, that movies are only about beautiful people.
Ruthy wondered, in a slow, stumbling way, what it would be like to be beautiful. She glanced again at the woman, amazed at the difference in their existence. Ruthy couldn’t imagine another life, couldn’t imagine wearing a little dress, having men stare when she walked into a room. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. Her strange mood, the strange whim of feeling turned into an almost overwhelming despair.
The woman sighed, and Ruthy realized that she looked sad.
Ruthy’s despair turned to disgust. What did she have to be upset about?
The woman finally turned and glanced at Ruthy. She saw the expression on her face and flushed, pushing her dress down. Ruthy changed her expression, tried to smile.
“The wind is so strong out here.” She mumbled in a light Spanish accent, shoving away from the railing.
Once again the anger, the sadness, dissipated like the memory from high school. Ruthy shook her head again, clearing it of strange thoughts and moods. She didn’t like looking at the ocean, maybe she didn’t like cruises. Ruthy went to check on the children.
Ruthy saw the churning waters and the blue horizon, and suddenly realized she was alone. Her husband was in the casino, her kids running around somewhere on the top deck. She had nothing to do. It made her feel uneasy, a little sneaky. Like cutting class in high school with her cousin.
Something strange uncoiled inside her, and she felt something. Like catching a scent that ignites a memory. For a brief second Ruthy remembered the thrill of opening the cold steel door, the wind whipping her cheeks as she ran across the parking lot, the sickening dread and exhilaration.
And then it was gone and she couldn’t conjure it up again. Maybe it was the wind.
A woman about her age and size tottered by, struggling against the wind. Ruthy looked at the woman’s thick ankles, her broad shorts. Being fat only bothered her every once in awhile. Most of the women she knew were fat. But every once in awhile, when getting out of the shower, when passing a magazine cover, or a flock of high school girls, or the disinterested look her husband gave her when she was changing, something shameful and heavy would grow in her heart, making a slow crawl to her stomach. A vague unease that she had failed in something very important.
She shook her head.
The ocean stretched on and she wanted to think it was beautiful but could not. She wondered if they had put the passports in the safe.
The door opened and she turned. A young woman walked out and the wind caught her short blonde hair, her pink sundress. Ruthy was glad her husband wasn’t around.
The woman walked to the railing and leaned against it. She was very young, very beautiful. Ruthy felt ashamed of her frizzy red hair, faded jean capri’s, her breasts and belly.
The wind slid the woman’s dress up small, brown thighs, plastered the fabric against her. She didn’t bother to push it down, just looked at the horizon.
Ruthy looked away, then around, guiltily. An old couple sitting on a bench were staring as well. The man was entranced, his wife looked disgusted. She caught Ruthy’s eye and glared at her. Ruthy looked down at her crocs, maybe it was her imagination.
She looked down the other side of the breezeway, away from the woman. Several people leaned against the bar, enjoying the wind, the water. Every woman wants to be on a boat, the wind fluttering her hair, a beautiful man whispering in her ear. Ruthy saw old women, fat men, Bermuda shorts instead of cocktail gowns, wrinkles. A terrible thing, she thought suddenly, that movies are only about beautiful people.
Ruthy wondered, in a slow, stumbling way, what it would be like to be beautiful. She glanced again at the woman, amazed at the difference in their existence. Ruthy couldn’t imagine another life, couldn’t imagine wearing a little dress, having men stare when she walked into a room. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. Her strange mood, the strange whim of feeling turned into an almost overwhelming despair.
The woman sighed, and Ruthy realized that she looked sad.
Ruthy’s despair turned to disgust. What did she have to be upset about?
The woman finally turned and glanced at Ruthy. She saw the expression on her face and flushed, pushing her dress down. Ruthy changed her expression, tried to smile.
“The wind is so strong out here.” She mumbled in a light Spanish accent, shoving away from the railing.
Once again the anger, the sadness, dissipated like the memory from high school. Ruthy shook her head again, clearing it of strange thoughts and moods. She didn’t like looking at the ocean, maybe she didn’t like cruises. Ruthy went to check on the children.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
smudged silver
It is 6:45 in the morning and I am singing in my car. Downtown Orlando looks clean and quiet, the sky is blue and pink, the air chilly. I have my windows down, blasting Billy Joels' "Big Shot". Billy Joel is like family, I've grown up under his melancholy and wit. When I was a little girl my father would take me into work with him, we would blast the radio and sing at the top of our lungs- those mornings the city looked angelic, pink and blue tinged sky scrapers. I thought heaven was Manhatten and the choir was Queen.
I park on one of the side streets for Lake Eola, our large, man made lake in the middle of downtown. A few months ago the fountain broke and some of the downtown socialities have been trying to raise money to get it fixed, but everyone has more important things to do. The water is smooth like glass, uninterrupted except for the metal structure of the fountain which has now been reduced to a vogue art piece.
For some reason there is a large, red Chinese pagoda beside the lake. I have no idea why. But I dig it.
Tom, my friend and pastor, is sitting on a bench inside the pagoda, looking like a norseman but shivering, which I am not sure they ever did.
We are meeting together for prayer and scripture reading. When I told my best friend Jenn that I was going at seven in the morning, she laughed at me. Understandable, if I had not woken up at 5:30, I'd probably still be snuggling in bed.
A few others filter in and Rubymel opens us up in prayer. Rubymel is one of the prettiest girls I've ever met; petite, with honey carmel hair, creamy deep tan skin and a huge smile. She has a dozen or two sisters that are all equally gorgeous and I have never met their father but I bet he has premature white hair and a few shotguns. Poor guy.
Rubymel speaks about sanctification- about letting go of the things that hinder us spiritually. We read a few verses and on the matter, and she ends with Malachi 3:3.
::He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver::
"There was a woman in the church," Rubymel says, "and she didn't understand this verse, so she went to an actual silver smith. She didn't say anything, just watched him. He took the silver and put it on an iron, then held it over an exact point of the fire. When she asked him about that, he said that the silver had to be over the hottest point of the fire, so that any impurities in the silver would be burned away completely. Then she asked him when he knew it was done. He told her it was done when he could see his reflection in the silver."
Rubymel said a bit more after that but my mind flew away. I don't think alot of people want to look like God. I think they want other people to think that they want to look like God. They want to say in church and prayer that they want to look like God, but nobody really wants to change how they live. And when I say other people, most of the time I mean 'me'.
The purification process is painful, slow and grinding. There is so much dirt we have accumulated through the years, so many things to be burned away. But it seems all of life is the avoidance of pain- the avoidance of difficult conversations or choosing the better over the easier. No wonder Christ terrifies me. No wonder Christians who never understand the severity of the gospel drown in cheap grace and boredom. And those that do understand that Christianity demands everything, can walk away. At any time we can climb out of the furnace, tell God that we are no longer interested in doing business with him, and be on our way.
But the knowledge that haunts me is this: even If I choose to not be purified by Christ, I will be burned by something. Climbing out of Christ's fire just means going into someone elses. I can take the poker from God and give it to my job; boyfriend; church or fashion. We are going to worship something or someone. We are going to allow situations and people to change us, meld us to something better; worse; different. There is no avoidance of suffering- we can numb ourselves through drugs and lust, church service and alchohol, shopping, we can try to bury ourselves in someone elses heart- and in all these things we are melted and burned and changed.
I am jilted back into reality by the group breaking up to discuss what we are learning. Tom turns to me and I am immediately zoned in. Somewhere in proverbs it says something about wisdom from a wise man being a gift, and I feel gifted by Tom's words.
He begins to tell me how encouraged he is by reading the Gregory Boyd book 'The Myth of a Christian Religion'. In the book, Boyd discusses the story of the widow who gave two coins for the tithe, and how Christ commended her for it. The widow gave out of her poverty- against common sense, whereas the religious elders gave out of extreme wealth, probably not even noticing the amount of feeling the sting. Tom goes on to say that from this story and Christ's joyous reaction to it, that perhaps the only worship or offering that Christ truly accepts is one that costs us something.
It's easy for me to be a Christian when it is already convenient to my presupposed plans. My Christianity consists of reading books- but what do I do out of my poverty? Bonhoeffer wrote something in 'The Cost of Discipleship" that made my head spin, 'those who believe, obey.' Yeah, we get that part. If you believe the ideas of Christianity, then it would be logical for you to obey them. But then he goes on to say 'those who obey, believe.'
Well. That's interesting- but it makes sense. Christianity is not something that can just be thought about- it must be acted out, and in the very action of serving, reading, meditating, praying, it would make sense for the spirit (if there is one) to grow larger by those praxis and for faith to appear.
Football: you can plan and think and plot all day, but how do you know you love the game if you don't actually do it?
I don't want to be smudged silver, I don't want to be a reaction to what other people have done. And that means sitting in the fire. Lately, the fire has been burning away the idea that Christianity can be reduced to abstraction, kept in the realm of moral ambiguity that never has to produce obedience or action. I have little faith in people's words these days- mine or others. Logical or impassioned speeches no longer elicit the hope in me they once did. I am starting to look at how people live their lives, instead of the repetitive conversations they have- and it is a startling experience. I am starting to look at the way I live my life- and that is a startling experience.
Words from Oswald Chambers that have made themselves at home in the forefront of my mind:
"If, as I recall what God remembers about me, I find he is not what He used to be to me, let it produce shame and humiliation, because that shame will bring the godly sorrow that works repentance."
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope.
romans 5:2-4
I park on one of the side streets for Lake Eola, our large, man made lake in the middle of downtown. A few months ago the fountain broke and some of the downtown socialities have been trying to raise money to get it fixed, but everyone has more important things to do. The water is smooth like glass, uninterrupted except for the metal structure of the fountain which has now been reduced to a vogue art piece.
For some reason there is a large, red Chinese pagoda beside the lake. I have no idea why. But I dig it.
Tom, my friend and pastor, is sitting on a bench inside the pagoda, looking like a norseman but shivering, which I am not sure they ever did.
We are meeting together for prayer and scripture reading. When I told my best friend Jenn that I was going at seven in the morning, she laughed at me. Understandable, if I had not woken up at 5:30, I'd probably still be snuggling in bed.
A few others filter in and Rubymel opens us up in prayer. Rubymel is one of the prettiest girls I've ever met; petite, with honey carmel hair, creamy deep tan skin and a huge smile. She has a dozen or two sisters that are all equally gorgeous and I have never met their father but I bet he has premature white hair and a few shotguns. Poor guy.
Rubymel speaks about sanctification- about letting go of the things that hinder us spiritually. We read a few verses and on the matter, and she ends with Malachi 3:3.
::He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver::
"There was a woman in the church," Rubymel says, "and she didn't understand this verse, so she went to an actual silver smith. She didn't say anything, just watched him. He took the silver and put it on an iron, then held it over an exact point of the fire. When she asked him about that, he said that the silver had to be over the hottest point of the fire, so that any impurities in the silver would be burned away completely. Then she asked him when he knew it was done. He told her it was done when he could see his reflection in the silver."
Rubymel said a bit more after that but my mind flew away. I don't think alot of people want to look like God. I think they want other people to think that they want to look like God. They want to say in church and prayer that they want to look like God, but nobody really wants to change how they live. And when I say other people, most of the time I mean 'me'.
The purification process is painful, slow and grinding. There is so much dirt we have accumulated through the years, so many things to be burned away. But it seems all of life is the avoidance of pain- the avoidance of difficult conversations or choosing the better over the easier. No wonder Christ terrifies me. No wonder Christians who never understand the severity of the gospel drown in cheap grace and boredom. And those that do understand that Christianity demands everything, can walk away. At any time we can climb out of the furnace, tell God that we are no longer interested in doing business with him, and be on our way.
But the knowledge that haunts me is this: even If I choose to not be purified by Christ, I will be burned by something. Climbing out of Christ's fire just means going into someone elses. I can take the poker from God and give it to my job; boyfriend; church or fashion. We are going to worship something or someone. We are going to allow situations and people to change us, meld us to something better; worse; different. There is no avoidance of suffering- we can numb ourselves through drugs and lust, church service and alchohol, shopping, we can try to bury ourselves in someone elses heart- and in all these things we are melted and burned and changed.
I am jilted back into reality by the group breaking up to discuss what we are learning. Tom turns to me and I am immediately zoned in. Somewhere in proverbs it says something about wisdom from a wise man being a gift, and I feel gifted by Tom's words.
He begins to tell me how encouraged he is by reading the Gregory Boyd book 'The Myth of a Christian Religion'. In the book, Boyd discusses the story of the widow who gave two coins for the tithe, and how Christ commended her for it. The widow gave out of her poverty- against common sense, whereas the religious elders gave out of extreme wealth, probably not even noticing the amount of feeling the sting. Tom goes on to say that from this story and Christ's joyous reaction to it, that perhaps the only worship or offering that Christ truly accepts is one that costs us something.
It's easy for me to be a Christian when it is already convenient to my presupposed plans. My Christianity consists of reading books- but what do I do out of my poverty? Bonhoeffer wrote something in 'The Cost of Discipleship" that made my head spin, 'those who believe, obey.' Yeah, we get that part. If you believe the ideas of Christianity, then it would be logical for you to obey them. But then he goes on to say 'those who obey, believe.'
Well. That's interesting- but it makes sense. Christianity is not something that can just be thought about- it must be acted out, and in the very action of serving, reading, meditating, praying, it would make sense for the spirit (if there is one) to grow larger by those praxis and for faith to appear.
Football: you can plan and think and plot all day, but how do you know you love the game if you don't actually do it?
I don't want to be smudged silver, I don't want to be a reaction to what other people have done. And that means sitting in the fire. Lately, the fire has been burning away the idea that Christianity can be reduced to abstraction, kept in the realm of moral ambiguity that never has to produce obedience or action. I have little faith in people's words these days- mine or others. Logical or impassioned speeches no longer elicit the hope in me they once did. I am starting to look at how people live their lives, instead of the repetitive conversations they have- and it is a startling experience. I am starting to look at the way I live my life- and that is a startling experience.
Words from Oswald Chambers that have made themselves at home in the forefront of my mind:
"If, as I recall what God remembers about me, I find he is not what He used to be to me, let it produce shame and humiliation, because that shame will bring the godly sorrow that works repentance."
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope.
romans 5:2-4
Thursday, January 7, 2010
tattoo
The Owl represents wisdom and death.
The black and white symbolizes logic, the color represents emotion.
I am dying and coming alive/logical and emotional/learning from my mistakes.
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