a walk before the thunder

This is who I am--
t-shirt, jeans, ponytail
sandals I slip off as soon as I can.
Conscious of my casual divinity.

This is who I am--
eyes welling with the rare and sweeping joy
that only the wind of a coming storm can bring.
Eager for danger and electricity.

This is who I am--
bleeding words, leaking more with every pulse,
a constant purging, a gentle dying.
The only way I know to live.

poem for a spring walk, in three movements

The warm road beneath my bare
And too-long-still feet,
The sunshine on my back so fresh
I can feel the freckles forming,
The way the trees and sky
Create each other bluer, greener--
And the budding,
Steady like a beating heart--
Tells me
Spring is here to stay.

This is my jungle,
This tangle of trees:
Bare trunks reaching up and up,
Then a billion needles arch their backs in the sun.
This, my jungle, is populated by squirrels who cross the road
To dash into shrubs that bloom the color of lemons.
This jungle, mine to wander and be lost in,
Punctuated with mailboxes, cars, and humanity,
Is mine, and mine, alone.

The only way to find the sky here,
Where houses fend for themselves
In acres of piney wilderness, is to stand,
In the middle
Of the road.
Isn't that about right, though?
We must all face our fear of being hit
To look into the face of God.

rise like bread

Find joy in their joy,
Their marital bliss.
It is not an accusation.

Live for now, not then,
Or them--
Those make-believe children
You'd love if you could.

Let the ache for that life just sit,
Not to harden you like concrete
But to rise like bread
Into soft, domestic reality
You'll love, and nurture, and share.

Day 4 your favorite photograph of your best friend(s)

Cindy and I, on one of our long, chilly walks around Rexburg.

I've known Cindy since I moved to North Carolina in fifth grade. The first two years of our acquaintanceship were inconsequential, but after a birthday party of a mutual friend where we didn't really have anyone to talk to but each other, things started to change. We discovered we both loved writing and Harry Potter. Apparently that's all it took. One Saturday afternoon visit turned into two, which turned into a sleepover, which turned into multi-day sleepovers every month or so. By that time, I was completely hooked on Cindy's love for classic literature, Broadway musicals, and long walks through the woods. God knew how badly I needed this beautiful, interesting, fun, smart, talented, spiritual person in my life.

After a little drama on my part (trying to decide what school I was going to,) and a little nervousness on Cindy's part (wondering if we were going to drive each other crazy,) we decided to room together in college. Best. Decision. Ever. Cindy and I enjoyed being English majors, going to concerts on campus, sitting outside on a blanket for entire summers, and just living in the kind of environment that only BYU-Idaho can offer.

We also looked after each other, in a way that only roommates and girls and best friends can. We saw each other through a lot of emotional turmoil, with hard classes, newfound independence, and of course, guys. And yes, there were days when I hurt Cindy's feelings, or she hurt mine, or both, but at the end of the day, we always found reasons to be grateful for each other. It was a wonderful, beautiful thing. I miss those days...I think about Cindy all the time.

About 7 years into our friendship, Cindy met a wonderful man named Mahon, and if you know anything about them, you already know that they're probably the happiest, most loving married couple ever to exist. I was privileged to be Cindy's maid of honor, and loved seeing her so, so happy.

Still do, in fact.

No, Cindy no longer functions as my best friend. I don't tell her all my secrets, or all the funny things that happen during my day, or my silly-or-otherwise plans for the future. But regardless, I treasure what we've had and hope that we will continue to keep a special, deep place in our hearts for each other. She singlehandedly kept me afloat, kept me holding on, in a time in my life when I didn't have anything else. To tell you the truth, I didn't even have me.

I think it's because Cindy helped me stabilize who I am that Tim has helped me to change so much. (I think he's little uncomfortable that he fills this "best friend" role, but he probably should have thought of that before he started spending all of his time with me. :) )

Tim and I, after a lovely night of ballroom dancing - on my birthday, even!

You know, I'd never really thought about how alike Tim and Cindy are before, which is probably why I find it so baffling right now...

For one, they are undeniably intellectual. Cindy and Tim always have such interesting things to say about things they've read, and have figured out so many problems, and explored so many options. Talking to them is, without fail, an enjoyable experience, simply because they have so much brain, and they care deeply about the things they think about. Plus, Tim and Cindy work hard to do the right thing no matter what, demonstrating both diligence and spirituality. The most helpful insights I have ever received have been from these two vastly intelligent people - and they give them to me all the time.

They both struggle with their health, and have for a long time. Cindy and Tim have very different health issues, of course, but the stress of doctors' appointments, insurance, medication, and being "different" and "limited" is a familiar experience to both of them. They invite me to be understanding and nurturing, and their experiences inspire me to appreciate my own wellbeing so much more.

Tim and Cindy are both extroverts, but possibly as a result of problematic health, the intense need for people and fun is quickly followed by an intense need for silence and rest. No matter what extreme they're in, they need physical touch in order to feel loved. Being a little more even keeled myself, I love going along for the ride as they have their highs and lows. And at the end of the day, who doesn't want to sit close to someone you love and watch a well-written, funny TV show? I have many fond memories like that with both Cindy and Tim. And I, too, love physical affection.

They're creative, whether it's art, poetry, dance, whatever. They're predominantly visual people, with an undeniable penchant for music and words. They're also curious. They appreciate adventure, emotions, and the wisdom (and JOY) that comes from experience. While they are certainly more passionate about visual arts, dance, and music than I am, not to mention better at it, I'm completely fascinated by people like them. I'm also fascinated by adventure and words (Does "British Literary Pilgrimage 2010" mean anything to you? :) ) so we're certainly in good company there!

But even with all of these similarities, I don't think that Tim and Cindy could ever really be friends with each other. They simply have very, very different philosophies about life. Cindy favors industry, tangible results, duty, and convention. She plays by the rules, and she's good at it. I can't tell you the number of funny looks I've gotten from her over the years, the number of times she told me to be reasonable, to get to work, to focus on my chosen destination. Because of her, I have deep, conservative roots, and a love and understanding of social norms because of the benefits they have to offer.

But by the fall of 2008, I'd taken this advice too far. I was sadly uptight, yet occasionally a bit flippant - a stellar professional with this inexplicable goofy streak. With Cindy's excellent influence, I'd gotten good at conforming to the system - I just forgot to figure out what made me happy.

That's when I met Tim. Tim encourages me find my own version of happiness, now that "the rules" are securely under my skin. He reminds me that sometimes the "rules" I perceive are really a result of my skewed perspective - so why follow them if they're erroneous AND they make me unhappy? He's the guy who encouraged me to skip class when I was having a hard day, for example, and who tells me it's OK that I talk his ear off sometimes. He thinks it's OK that people are strange, because he knows that finding your certain kind of strangeness in someone else often forges the deepest bonds. He values connection over convention.

Tim is spontaneous. He loves to break from the norm, question the rules, and live in the moment.

"Joy is in the journey," Tim tells me.

...And what a joyful journey it's been.

Integrity and Humility in Résumés

In the name of “marketing ourselves” on our résumés, we are often tempted to present our strengths as greater than they are. We oversimplify the situation and ask “to market?” or “not to market?”, seeking an obvious answer that provides justification for inflating our abilities. But this internal sic et non disregards an essential quandary: will our guiding principle be integrity, or merely persuasiveness?

 When we overlook this question, it is not inevitably because we are morally corrupt people. In reality, we tend to ignore it because we are afraid—afraid that others will notice that our weaknesses exist, afraid that those weaknesses will be perceived as so great that our skills will be discounted. In short, we fear that who we really are is not enough to persuade an employer to hire us. The temptation to disguise and deceive proves most appealing when we do not trust others to witness our shortcomings with a merciful eye. We forget that others, like us, are weak, and assume that they exemplify every strength that we wish we had, except for one: the capacity to forgive.

However, C. S. Lewis suggests in The Screwtape Letters that we ought to give ourselves the same approbation we would give to others for comparable greatness. When we do so, we both recognize our own worth and also see how indispensably others have contributed to it. The opportunities that demonstrate we are valuable people are not of our creation; they are given to us by others. Our power only extends to our ability to collect the courage we need in order to receive the opportunities they offer. When we do so without resisting the forgiveness of others, or concealing our weaknesses, we discover that we are “magnified”. Our weaknesses do not fade into the background, but rather our potential employers can at last see us “up close”, swarming with strengths so potent that few (even ourselves) have ever observed anything like it. In light of these unforeseen abilities, there is essentially nothing to forgive.

Yes, a detailed, honest view of who we are is frightening to put forward. Unlike fiction, there is no safe place in writing résumés. There are no pseudonyms offering concealment, no images to symbolize lingering emotional aches. All we have is who we are, but on closer inspection, we finally find that this is enough. When we truly understand that we have the capacity to exceed expectations and not just meet them, we have the freedom to be honest regarding our shortcomings. In order to have the courage to be humble, we must first display our inherent power to achieve.

Thicker than Water: A Short Story

For my creative writing class, we're required to meet with our professor 3 times during the semester so that we can receive one-on-one critique on a work of fiction we've written this semester. I met with Brother Harrell today, and I swear, I floated home. He said he really, really enjoyed it, that it was just plain well-written. He was so delighted to hear that it was the 5th draft of the story, because he could TELL I'd put the work into it. His only criticism was that the conclusion was too open-ended, but then as we sat and talked about it, the less he felt like it deserved the criticism. (I added more to it anyway; the expanded version is included below.) He said my writing was "beyond my peers". It was so good to hear that yes, I am good at this, yes, my work does pay off. When he ran out of things to say (which was pretty early on in the appointment!) he started asking me about my plans for the future -- "Are you a creative writing emphasis? Good." "Have you thought about publication? No? Good. It's good to have humility. Publish in the school's literary journal before you graduate, and then in one or two other tiny journals in the next ten years and you'll be doing really well." It was so awesome. 

So without futher ado, here's my magnum opus of Fall semester 2008, a literary-genre short story entitled Thicker than Water.

Her mother’s room smelled like stale cigarette smoke, cats, and dirty clothes. The aroma surrounded Katie in an uncomfortably intimate way, like the arm of a stranger around her shoulders.

“So…this is it.” Katie shifted the position of the box tucked under her arm. The amount of stuff crammed into her mother’s room – under tables, on dressers, piled high on shelves – was incredible. “I guess I’ll start gathering up some things for her then.”

Aunt Jess watched Katie attempt to marshal her fortitude. “Are you sure you’ll be all right here by yourself for a little while?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. I’ll be fine. You go bring her some dinner and I’ll head off to the hospital to meet you as soon as I’m done.”

“Well…if you’re sure. But call me if you need anything, okay sweetie? And – thank you.” Aunt Jess gave Katie a quick hug before she walked back through the tiny front room, spoke for a moment to Cameron’s roommates, and was gone. Katie smiled vaguely at the hug – she’d only opened contact with her aunt in the last four months, but she already felt closer to Jess than she’d felt to her mother for years. That was why she offered to gather things for her mother’s hospital room – to give Aunt Jess a little less to do, and so she wouldn’t have to see her mother, not yet.

Katie reluctantly turned her attention back to the disarray. All of the floor space was taken except for a shuffling path from the door to the bed, which Katie dropped onto. She had no idea where to start. For now, Katie was on her own in an oppressive tangle of puzzles, quilting squares, boxes of who knew what, and glass unicorn figurines.

Katie waded carefully across to the other side of the room and picked up one of those unicorn figurines. It was heavier than she expected. The figure was reared up on its hind legs, front hooves waving in the air. There was something vaguely familiar about it, and as she held it, bittersweet memories began to edge heavily into her mind. She put down the glass unicorn and turned away from it, and from the memories. It had been hers as a child.

Katie stared around the room, wondering again where she should start. She leaned over the side of the bed and extracted a shoe box from the wreckage. In it were a mostly-empty pack of cigarettes and prescription bottles of Lithobid and Symbyax. Holding her mother’s bipolar medication was startling and surreal; it was a tangible symbol of her mother’s mental illness, something that had always been so vague to Katie. Underneath laid a pile of letters, many of them still in their envelopes. Katie pulled one from the box and turned it over. Her own name, in childish scrawl, stared back at her.

She kept my letters.

She slowly pulled the letter out of the envelope and unfolded it with trembling fingers. Dear Mommy, said the letter, dated the year she was ten, I miss you! Daddy says you live near Grandma now that you don’t live with us. Is that fun? Do you play tea party with her like you do with me? I want you to be here to put braids in my hair. Daddy says he needs more practice with ponytails before he does braids. School is good. Miss Shell my teacher is reading my class a story about a mouse who talks and fights with swords. I don’t know what the book is called but the mouse’s name is Martin. I like it a lot. Do you have kitties at your house? I miss you Mommy! I love you. Love, Katie

Katie dug into the box and pulled out another letter at random. Cameron, she had written the year she was sixteen, I haven’t heard from you in months, again, and I don’t know why. You’re supposed to be my mom, and I’m hurt that you won’t even take the time to write me. What do you want from me? That was the year she had given up on her mother.

For the next five years, she made no attempt to contact her mother. Her family moved across the country, she fell in and out of love, she went away to college. Katie didn’t tell her mother any of it. She moved on, learning to forgive her mother, but mostly just to forget. For years, Katie had dreamed she and her mother could be best friends, sharing the same quirky sense of humor and the creative, girly side she only roughly remembered. It had been the great emotional success of her life to finally give up on that dream and accept that her mother’s illness left her with nothing to give to her daughter.

Then, Aunt Jess had found her profile on MySpace. She sent Katie a tentative, hopeful note, asking to initiate a relationship with her grown-up niece. Katie tried to make her reply as encouraging as possible – Jess sounded so nice, and so sad about never making herself a part of Katie’s life – but Katie left no question about how she felt about her mother.

Feel free to update my mother on how I’m doing, Katie remembered writing, but I do not want messages from her relayed to me. I would be happy and eager to hear that she is doing well, etc, but I'm not ready to talk to her just yet. I don't mean that in a mean way, just that I don't want to get my hopes up only to get hurt – again. As a child, I was so hurt by her leaving, by how she’d write pages and pages of letters, and then nothing for months or sometimes years at a time, and then try to step back into my life after all of the hurt she caused. I realize now that that was just part of her cycling through mania and depression, but I can’t do that again.

And yet, just months later, she was here on summer break, visiting Aunt Jess and about to reconnect with her mother.

She pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and hastily punched in the first speed-dial number. Katie sat through two long rings before her father’s voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Hi Daddy…how are you?”

“I’m all right.”  The sounds of the football game in the background quieted as Katie heard him turn down the TV. “How are you?”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m…frustrated. Confused.” Katie imagined him there, sitting in his big recliner in the living room of the house where she grew up. His voice crackled slightly over the phone, and re-realizing that he was a thousand miles away hurt enough to make Katie’s eyes prickle with tears. “Dad, why am I even here?”

He slowly exhaled. “Because you thought it was the right thing to do?”

 “But I haven’t seen my mother in more than ten years. I haven’t written to her in five. It’s like I’m some kind of glutton for punishment.” Katie swallowed hard, and held the phone a little tighter. “There are so many memories here, Dad.” Or, Katie thought, things that should have been memories, if her mother could have stayed. “I know she left us for a good reason,” she continued. “But part of me is still that little girl who doesn’t even know what manic-depression is. All the little-girl part of me knows is that my mommy left.”

“I know, princess. It’s not fair. But think about the part of you that isn’t a little girl any more. It’s not fun being the adult, but now that you’ve accepted she can’t take care of you, you need to remember – you’re the one who decided to be there.”

Katie sighed. “I know. But what else was I supposed to do, though, you know?”

“Yeah…it’s like that country song. ‘Blood is thicker than water’.”

“But ‘love is thicker than blood’.” Katie shook her head. “I’ve loved Jenny like a mom from day one. I don’t need another mom.” Because Katie and Dad were friends, in addition to father and daughter, Katie knew what he would say next. She also knew that deep-down, she couldn’t disagree.

“Jenny is the best step-mom you could ask for, I know. But no matter what, Cameron is still your mother.”

***

When she finished filling the box with pictures and knickknacks and magazines, things to make the hospital room more homey, Katie finally talked herself into driving to the hospital. The smell there was like her mother too, from long ago when she worked nights at Sharp Memorial and would let Katie wear her nurse’s cap. Katie stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the eighth floor. She leaned back against the elevator wall and tried to smile at the other woman there, holding a bunch of get-well balloons.

“Visiting someone?” the woman asked.

“My mother.”

She made a sympathetic face. “That’s so hard.”

“In more ways than you can imagine,” Katie sighed. She glanced at the bright balloons in the woman’s hand. “Are you visiting someone too?”

“My daughter had surgery yesterday. I’d bring one of those big obnoxious singing cards, but she’d never forgive me for it.” The woman grinned.

Katie laughed, and watched the elevator doors open. “This is my floor. Nice talking to you.”

“You too. Best to your mom.”

“My mother,” Katie corrected automatically as she slowly walked through the elevator doors. 

My mother, Katie repeated to herself, moving toward the bleak, graying door of the hospital room where Aunt Jess and her mother were waiting. Daddy’s voice replayed in her head – I know it's not fun being the adult. But remember, princess – you're the one who decided to be there.

Katie took the last heavy, hesitant steps toward room 845, the room with Cameron Hendershot printed in sterile letters on a form posted outside. She was here out of obligation to a deeply-rooted idea that what was easy and what was kind weren’t always the same thing.

She is my mother, at least, if not my friend.

Katie knocked softly on the door.

River of Names

I've just finished some emotionally intense reading -- all the more emotionally intense because the story is like the author's reflection. Not quite her life, but then it is.

She's lesbian, poor Southern, sexually abused, so many things that I'm simply not. But I read her and I'm astonished and gut-wrenched and left emotionally gasping. And a part of me says, I want to write like her.

I asked my Creative Writing professor recently if it was possible to write too much from one source of inspiration, namely from one's own experiences. He said no, of course not, but I didn't believe him. But after reading Dorothy Allison's River of Names, it's easier to believe that who I am, who I really AM, without shame and without contempt, can make a compelling story.

Now, I do not come from the kind of families that Allison writes about...no incest, no gory death, nothing like the twisted emotional framework on which her stories rest. My stories don't go to the depths of horror because I've separated myself so much from the terrible things in my life that I can't separate myself from the stories. I have no desire to relive those things, to imagine the things I can't remember, to fill in the details of what I know. I don't want to know just how much those things affected who I am. I just can't write that story, not yet. But maybe someday when, as Allison says, I have a "boring, uncomplicated life [and can] write emotionally intense complicated stories," it will come out.

But I need my life to be boring in that particular aspect, to have closure on my family, the violence, the emotional abuse, the mental illness, the neglect and abandonment and drug abuse, and let it all make sense instead of just being out of sight and out of mind. That's why so much of me hopes and promises to work for a much different kind of family -- so I can make up for the family that I don't have. I think it would make a wonderful Mormon story...I suspect that's the audience that would understand my horror best.

Someday I'll be able to take my own pain out of it, and let the reader decide for themselves how they're going to deal with it. I had to figure it out; why shouldn't they?

Poetry

these days
when the quiet mind is least appreciated
with its whispered questions,
echoes their only answer

I, for once, turn to physical reality
peanut butter
blueberry tea
the perfect pants
(and shirt)
laughter on the phone
bright tissue boxes
the murmer of the radio

I, the thinking girl,
often alone with her thoughts and
rather liking it that way, usually,
Reaches toward these little joys
Forgetting, a little, what the questions were at all

Bucket List

1. Fall in love. Really in love, not "I'm lonely" love, or "I'm bored" love. I want "you are my best friend" love, "we are a team no matter what" love. I want to admire someone deeply as a person, to know I am so blessed to get to spend my time now and forever with them. Anything else just wouldn't be enough.

2. Travel. Gosh, just EVERYWHERE, especially Europe and Central / South America and all over the US though those are by no means the only places. I want to see the things I've only read about, only seen pictures of. I want to see God; the world is so BIG and too many of us experience very little of it. I want to love it all.

3. Learn. I am so blessed to be pursuing my college degree right now, but I by no means plan for that to be the end of it. I want to continue to take classes...pottery, fencing, automotive, lots of things. I want to be certified as a massage therapist, and certified for first aid, and maybe to be a lifeguard, too! And of course, I want to learn more about how I, personally, can be a better, more connected child of God.

4. Write. Working on this latest story has gotten me so fired to write, as much as I can. I think it's interesting that the more I love writing for the simple creative act, the more I think about publishing someday. Not even because I want to necessarily share my writing, but just that, I guess, our babies -- all of them -- are meant to go out into the world at some point and stand on their own. So I want to write books and love myself and God a little more because of it.

5. Be beautiful. Now, I want to point out that this actually overlaps with the other ones. I don't just mean "be a size 2 and have amazing skin and hair and the perfect manicure all the time and perfect teeth and lasik surgery." That's looking "beautiful" -- notice the quotes, by the way. I want to BE beautiful, and to me, that's kind of the opposite. I want to be satisfied with who I am as God created me, with the humility to change and the courage to stand firm. I want to be happy with how my life has turned out, where I'm heading, and what I'm doing in the meantime to prepare for that. I want a beautiful life, full of love and adventure (even on just a small scale) and learning and God, and I want that beauty to come out in who I am.

And that, friends, is my bucket list as of today. I expect my dreams and aspirations to expand, to become more detailed, to change. We'll just have to see.

Editing

It breaks my heart when I work so hard on writing something and then it just doesn't work.

I worked on an e-mail at work for maybe 20 minutes, making sure it was clear and complete and not totally boring because, hey, there was a story to tell. And it was a beautiful little e-mail! The unfortuntate thing is that in a workplace environment, if it's longer than 2 sentences and from anyone under the level of president, no one really cares. I could just see it -- the annoyed expressions, the impatient skimming. It may be art, but if no one wants to read it, it doesn't really fill its purpose. I scrapped the whole thing and started over. Short, to the point, no fluff. Welcome to the business world, I guess. Sigh.

What's disgusting is that I work that hard, and in much the same way, with anything I write, including this post. Write it out, edit it as I go, go back and read it, change this, rearrange that, read it again, fix some more things. I want it to be perfect, but as a friend of mine likes to say about scrapbooking, "perfect is pretty but finished is BEAUTIFUL!"

That's why I'm letting myself write things that I don't yet like on Cindy's story. It's not nearly as satisfying as having something beautiful that I think will make it to the final draft, but it does mean the story is out there, the structure is established. It can always be polished later. (And oh, believe me, it will be.)

I can't help but think there's a larger metaphor at work here...that sometimes we have to get out there, make whatever effort we can manage in this moment, and let God ("the author and finisher of our faith") do the editing. Perfect is impossible, but finished truly is beautiful, if we have the patience and humility to gratefully accept His refining. When my heart is breaking because I've worked for so long on something and it just isn't working, sometimes I need to start over. Short, to the point, no fluff: God comes first. Then I can fill my purpose, and find effective ways to both feel and communicate His love.

Dancer, Part Two

"Are you good in school?"

"Um, yeah, pretty good."

"Is the something you aren't good at?"

"Let's see...I'm not a very good dancer."

"Cindy Lynn is a good dancer."

"Yeah, I know."

In my last post, I mentioned that this conversation got my brain going in two directions, and went on to highlight the fact that my best friend is stupendous.

The other direction is kind of hinted at in the first paragraph of my last: that dancing is not important enough for me to suffer through the grueling process of being bad at it, and being bad at it, and being bad and then a little better, but mostly bad for a long time until all of the awfulness spills over into something worthwhile.

Well, I'm learning what is worthwhile. As some of you may have noticed, I've created a writing blog, where I'm trying to post a full 12-point, single-spaced page everyday. The thing about it is that ALL OF IT IS TERRIBLE WRITING. But I want, so badly, to do this well. It's a form of art that feels right to me, in a way I can't describe. It's something that is a part of me, although I've spent a lot of energy over the last several years trying to think otherwise. Someday I'll spout off something, some scene in my head, and instead of just my head it'll be a bit of my soul too.

Not that everything I'm writing now doesn't have a little bit of my heart-of-hearts in it...it's just that mostly it's parts of me that I'm not yet familiar with, or I don't know what to do with it. But I'll learn, and that's so good to know.

The neat thing is that I know as I learn to do this more, other aspects of my life will be affected for the better too. Someday, my words and I will dance too.