Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Dance Moves.
This weekend, thanks to the sacred vows taken by my cousin and her new husband, Ryan, I had the opportunity to watch my dad dance. It was a strange yet familiar sight, watching him flail about. Although there were some differences - he doesn't do the fake Irish step dancing or sloppy swing dance moves - he looked remarkably like me. Awkward and dorky, grinning with self-consciousness.
Because of this realization, this apparent sameness between father and daughter, I only took a few photographs of the momentous vision. I hope that he would do the same for me. Our dance moves need not be captured on film. Not all of them.
I'm a public dancer. I dance in public, and not in a smooth, check-out-her-moves sort of way, but a good-God-look-at-that and I-think-she's-sober sort of way. I suspect that when Public Dancer Jill comes out, I'm an embarrassment to those around me.
While I'm not picky about how my dancing looks, I am choosy about where and when it takes place. I dance in the kitchen; I do not dance at clubs. I dance, not when others are dancing, but when I can no longer not dance.
Music has a lot to do with it. There is nothing about hip hop and poppy "take off all your clothes" music that makes a connection with my soul, causing me to be filled with the passion that makes me try to become one with the rhythms, through head bopping, arm flopping and feet stomping. Typically, the lyrics and structure of music that normal people dance to make my insides kind of want to die.
At concerts, I chair dance (which is nothing like pole dancing, mind you). I listen to music and move about within the confines of my seat, wishing that no one was around to prohibit me from jumping up on stage and hopping around like a lunatic. I realize that at the concerts that I go to, concerts filled with incredibly hip people, I do not look cool, nodding along, eyes closed, feeling the bass line - or some version of it - within me. I look the opposite of cool. And, for some strange reason, I'm okay with this. I'm okay with being the girl whose friends step a few feet away from during ballads, guitar and drum solos.
This dancing thing feels very inconsistent with the rest of me. Being secure in myself does not come naturally to me. But every once in awhile, the passion for the things that move me (music, God, love) supersedes my quest to fit in, be well liked, not make a fool of myself.
And when I do choose to leave my bubble of comfort, when I'm alone and vulnerable, the only girl dancing in a room full of ironic indie rockers, the girl writing about her love affair with Objective Truth in a world more comfortable with a sliding scale, that's when I feel most like me. Not ruled by insecurities, but by love.
* * *
My dad's dance moves are, in short, funny. But he's my dad and I love him. And when I look at those photos, it won't be his style that will be apparent, but his smile. And that's all that matters.
This weekend, thanks to the sacred vows taken by my cousin and her new husband, Ryan, I had the opportunity to watch my dad dance. It was a strange yet familiar sight, watching him flail about. Although there were some differences - he doesn't do the fake Irish step dancing or sloppy swing dance moves - he looked remarkably like me. Awkward and dorky, grinning with self-consciousness.
Because of this realization, this apparent sameness between father and daughter, I only took a few photographs of the momentous vision. I hope that he would do the same for me. Our dance moves need not be captured on film. Not all of them.
I'm a public dancer. I dance in public, and not in a smooth, check-out-her-moves sort of way, but a good-God-look-at-that and I-think-she's-sober sort of way. I suspect that when Public Dancer Jill comes out, I'm an embarrassment to those around me.
While I'm not picky about how my dancing looks, I am choosy about where and when it takes place. I dance in the kitchen; I do not dance at clubs. I dance, not when others are dancing, but when I can no longer not dance.
Music has a lot to do with it. There is nothing about hip hop and poppy "take off all your clothes" music that makes a connection with my soul, causing me to be filled with the passion that makes me try to become one with the rhythms, through head bopping, arm flopping and feet stomping. Typically, the lyrics and structure of music that normal people dance to make my insides kind of want to die.
At concerts, I chair dance (which is nothing like pole dancing, mind you). I listen to music and move about within the confines of my seat, wishing that no one was around to prohibit me from jumping up on stage and hopping around like a lunatic. I realize that at the concerts that I go to, concerts filled with incredibly hip people, I do not look cool, nodding along, eyes closed, feeling the bass line - or some version of it - within me. I look the opposite of cool. And, for some strange reason, I'm okay with this. I'm okay with being the girl whose friends step a few feet away from during ballads, guitar and drum solos.
This dancing thing feels very inconsistent with the rest of me. Being secure in myself does not come naturally to me. But every once in awhile, the passion for the things that move me (music, God, love) supersedes my quest to fit in, be well liked, not make a fool of myself.
And when I do choose to leave my bubble of comfort, when I'm alone and vulnerable, the only girl dancing in a room full of ironic indie rockers, the girl writing about her love affair with Objective Truth in a world more comfortable with a sliding scale, that's when I feel most like me. Not ruled by insecurities, but by love.
* * *
My dad's dance moves are, in short, funny. But he's my dad and I love him. And when I look at those photos, it won't be his style that will be apparent, but his smile. And that's all that matters.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Breathing Techniques.
Several months ago, I had a panic attack that lead to me hyperventilating in the parking lot of an office complex, en route to a library function. Unable to breathe, and therefore, drive, I somehow managed to guide myself to pull over, park the car, and make phone calls for help. The horror of not being able to breathe did nothing more than feed more panic into my system, prolonging the terrifying experience into one expensive trip to the emergency room.
My chest tightens, just thinking about it. I close my eyes and take big, calm breaths, rejoicing over the simple fact that I can breathe. It’s calming, this realization. My body tingles with each inhale and exhale, mimicking the feeling of the end of a tough yoga class.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Although it exists and is essential for life, breathing is something that I don’t think about often.
I read somewhere that the main cause of death for people who are crucified is suffocation, a lack of oxygen to the body, an inability to breathe properly. These days, at least in our part of the world, capital punishment is not as cruel as it was in the times of the Romans, who utilized crucifixion as a way to publicly humiliate and bring about a slow death to those who were considered enemies.
There are concepts and words that enter my vocabulary on a regular basis that I just don’t think about, either because they’re uncomfortable, far away, or I just can’t grasp them. Cholesterol, Anti-oxidants, Electrical Engineering, Aviation, Childbirth.
Crucifixion, until recently, was one of those concepts. It’s so far away, so different from things that I experience today. It’s a difficult idea to hold on to, the public hanging of criminals on an olive tree.
Yet, crucifixion, or more specifically, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish carpenter-turned teacher is part of the central feature of my life. Like breathing, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ exists in history; like breathing, it is essential for life; and like breathing, it is something that I don’t think about too often.
I don’t know if, had I been around Jesus of Nazareth, I would have understood his claims that he was God in human form, unless, of course, I had witnessed in person his raising of a child from the dead. Or had known someone who had seen him walk on water. Or had known someone who knew someone… A lot of the people around him, even those who witnessed his miracles, including his closest friends, didn’t quite grasp the concept.
It took his very public death, his suffocation in front of masses, to start to make all the puzzle pieces come together in the minds of those around him. All those parables, those riddles, those words about his being the only way to God… And I wonder if his followers, his friends, were disappointed when he took his final gasp, strangely without panic, and cried, “It is finished.” Did they have the wrong guy? In retrospect, they’d realize that the Old Testament prophesies about Christ were fulfilled, but in the moment, this guy was dead.
We all know the rest, but do we think about it? I don’t. Not often enough. Jewish historians, as well as the gospels, all agree. The tomb was empty. Christ’s adversaries were not able to produce his body. And then he started to appear, in person, to countless people. People who, like Peter, were willing to die a similar death because they had enough evidence to piece together the mystery.
And how soothing the answer, how calming, how freeing. Jesus was God in human form. The same God whose standard - shown over and over again throughout the history of Israel - was perfection, allowed himself to be suffocated so that his creation, mere and fallible humans, could experience his perfect love and forgiveness. Through belief in Christ, we are given eternal life.
It’s so simple, yet so difficult to wrap my mind around. That one crucifixion allows me, worrisome, garrulous, flawed me, to know the Creator of the universe in a personal way. It opens up an entire world to my mind; it allows me to step outside of my anxieties, to look beyond the here and now, to focus my thoughts on eternal truths instead of insecure fallacies.
When I’m not trying so hard, when I stop doing long enough to allow him, I can feel God’s Spirit inside of me, telling me I’m in his hands.
Slow down. Take a break, Jill. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe.
Several months ago, I had a panic attack that lead to me hyperventilating in the parking lot of an office complex, en route to a library function. Unable to breathe, and therefore, drive, I somehow managed to guide myself to pull over, park the car, and make phone calls for help. The horror of not being able to breathe did nothing more than feed more panic into my system, prolonging the terrifying experience into one expensive trip to the emergency room.
My chest tightens, just thinking about it. I close my eyes and take big, calm breaths, rejoicing over the simple fact that I can breathe. It’s calming, this realization. My body tingles with each inhale and exhale, mimicking the feeling of the end of a tough yoga class.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Although it exists and is essential for life, breathing is something that I don’t think about often.
I read somewhere that the main cause of death for people who are crucified is suffocation, a lack of oxygen to the body, an inability to breathe properly. These days, at least in our part of the world, capital punishment is not as cruel as it was in the times of the Romans, who utilized crucifixion as a way to publicly humiliate and bring about a slow death to those who were considered enemies.
There are concepts and words that enter my vocabulary on a regular basis that I just don’t think about, either because they’re uncomfortable, far away, or I just can’t grasp them. Cholesterol, Anti-oxidants, Electrical Engineering, Aviation, Childbirth.
Crucifixion, until recently, was one of those concepts. It’s so far away, so different from things that I experience today. It’s a difficult idea to hold on to, the public hanging of criminals on an olive tree.
Yet, crucifixion, or more specifically, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish carpenter-turned teacher is part of the central feature of my life. Like breathing, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ exists in history; like breathing, it is essential for life; and like breathing, it is something that I don’t think about too often.
I don’t know if, had I been around Jesus of Nazareth, I would have understood his claims that he was God in human form, unless, of course, I had witnessed in person his raising of a child from the dead. Or had known someone who had seen him walk on water. Or had known someone who knew someone… A lot of the people around him, even those who witnessed his miracles, including his closest friends, didn’t quite grasp the concept.
It took his very public death, his suffocation in front of masses, to start to make all the puzzle pieces come together in the minds of those around him. All those parables, those riddles, those words about his being the only way to God… And I wonder if his followers, his friends, were disappointed when he took his final gasp, strangely without panic, and cried, “It is finished.” Did they have the wrong guy? In retrospect, they’d realize that the Old Testament prophesies about Christ were fulfilled, but in the moment, this guy was dead.
We all know the rest, but do we think about it? I don’t. Not often enough. Jewish historians, as well as the gospels, all agree. The tomb was empty. Christ’s adversaries were not able to produce his body. And then he started to appear, in person, to countless people. People who, like Peter, were willing to die a similar death because they had enough evidence to piece together the mystery.
And how soothing the answer, how calming, how freeing. Jesus was God in human form. The same God whose standard - shown over and over again throughout the history of Israel - was perfection, allowed himself to be suffocated so that his creation, mere and fallible humans, could experience his perfect love and forgiveness. Through belief in Christ, we are given eternal life.
It’s so simple, yet so difficult to wrap my mind around. That one crucifixion allows me, worrisome, garrulous, flawed me, to know the Creator of the universe in a personal way. It opens up an entire world to my mind; it allows me to step outside of my anxieties, to look beyond the here and now, to focus my thoughts on eternal truths instead of insecure fallacies.
When I’m not trying so hard, when I stop doing long enough to allow him, I can feel God’s Spirit inside of me, telling me I’m in his hands.
Slow down. Take a break, Jill. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Censor Bar.
I do a lot of editing in my mind before I write a post for this here blog. I try to censor out the emotional stuff, the private stuff, the too-much-information stuff, the make-people-uncomfortable stuff and the no-one-really-cares stuff. Basically, I try to combine all seventeen of my readers' minds into one prototype and try to write stuff that I think that he or she would want to read. And when everything going through my head fits into one of the aforementioned categories, I don't write anything. Or I write about trees.
This is like, the opposite of free speech. But I'm pretty happy that blogging wasn't around back in the late 1990's when I'd freely share my poetry with anyone who'd tolerate it.
I've been reading a lot recently, somehow unintentionally fulfilling my New Year's Resolution. Reading keeps my mind from wandering to the scary places. It keeps my insecurities buried deep where they cannot affect my actions. I struggle with my thought life; this is true. I see a counselor, who kindly breaks it to me every two weeks that I'm normal, that fear and pain and excitement and hope and horrid thoughts are not limited to me.
It's comforting to learn that my struggles and thoughts are not unique to the human race. So comforting, in fact, that I'm willing to invest money twice a month to re-learn this concept. We, of course, discuss other things, but those things fall into the categories of "emotional" and "private" if not "too much information."
So. The reading helps. Some books are spiritual in nature, challenging my mind to expand its perception of God. Some books are memoir-ey, allowing me to see how it is that others successfully tell their stories (and somehow get paid for it). I read essays and literature and non-fiction to learn more about people, how they interact, how others deal with things like fear and pain and excitement and hope and horrid thoughts. And my mind wanders away from the dark places for little while. It's nice.
Is it bad that I edit out so much when I write to you, Dear Reader? I don't know. In some cases, it is. Passion should not be bridled. In others, it's good. A woman should always have an air of mystery about her, and I rarely keep my mouth shut enough to allow that mystery to flourish into something exciting.
Have patience and be thankful for the times of few posts or trivial entries. Otherwise, my friends, I will be forced to put up some of my poetry circa 1996. And that would be painful to all of us.
I do a lot of editing in my mind before I write a post for this here blog. I try to censor out the emotional stuff, the private stuff, the too-much-information stuff, the make-people-uncomfortable stuff and the no-one-really-cares stuff. Basically, I try to combine all seventeen of my readers' minds into one prototype and try to write stuff that I think that he or she would want to read. And when everything going through my head fits into one of the aforementioned categories, I don't write anything. Or I write about trees.
This is like, the opposite of free speech. But I'm pretty happy that blogging wasn't around back in the late 1990's when I'd freely share my poetry with anyone who'd tolerate it.
I've been reading a lot recently, somehow unintentionally fulfilling my New Year's Resolution. Reading keeps my mind from wandering to the scary places. It keeps my insecurities buried deep where they cannot affect my actions. I struggle with my thought life; this is true. I see a counselor, who kindly breaks it to me every two weeks that I'm normal, that fear and pain and excitement and hope and horrid thoughts are not limited to me.
It's comforting to learn that my struggles and thoughts are not unique to the human race. So comforting, in fact, that I'm willing to invest money twice a month to re-learn this concept. We, of course, discuss other things, but those things fall into the categories of "emotional" and "private" if not "too much information."
So. The reading helps. Some books are spiritual in nature, challenging my mind to expand its perception of God. Some books are memoir-ey, allowing me to see how it is that others successfully tell their stories (and somehow get paid for it). I read essays and literature and non-fiction to learn more about people, how they interact, how others deal with things like fear and pain and excitement and hope and horrid thoughts. And my mind wanders away from the dark places for little while. It's nice.
Is it bad that I edit out so much when I write to you, Dear Reader? I don't know. In some cases, it is. Passion should not be bridled. In others, it's good. A woman should always have an air of mystery about her, and I rarely keep my mouth shut enough to allow that mystery to flourish into something exciting.
Have patience and be thankful for the times of few posts or trivial entries. Otherwise, my friends, I will be forced to put up some of my poetry circa 1996. And that would be painful to all of us.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Great Deal.
I planted a Japanese cherry blossom stick over the weekend. Several weeks ago, I found a website that sells all sorts of trees. I waited a few days, not wanting to make an impulse buy (because a tree is a serious purchase), and then revisited the site with credit card in tow, ready to commit to my tree for a mere $15 including shipping.
And then I waited. And waited. And waited for my Japanese cherry blossom tree to arrive via the United States Postal Worker that services my neighborhood. Finally, three weeks later, it arrived. A FedEx box with a stick inside. It looked like something that I'd throw on the firepit. But skinnier.
If I didn't kill the stick by allowing it to sit on my front porch in a pilsner glass of water for a week, then in about six years, I may see the beautiful blossoms of an ornamental tree flowering every spring in my front yard.
Meanwhile, I have a stick sitting in the center of my garden.
I think that God is teaching me patience. Or, perhaps, not to be so cheap.
arborday.org
I planted a Japanese cherry blossom stick over the weekend. Several weeks ago, I found a website that sells all sorts of trees. I waited a few days, not wanting to make an impulse buy (because a tree is a serious purchase), and then revisited the site with credit card in tow, ready to commit to my tree for a mere $15 including shipping.
And then I waited. And waited. And waited for my Japanese cherry blossom tree to arrive via the United States Postal Worker that services my neighborhood. Finally, three weeks later, it arrived. A FedEx box with a stick inside. It looked like something that I'd throw on the firepit. But skinnier.
If I didn't kill the stick by allowing it to sit on my front porch in a pilsner glass of water for a week, then in about six years, I may see the beautiful blossoms of an ornamental tree flowering every spring in my front yard.
Meanwhile, I have a stick sitting in the center of my garden.
I think that God is teaching me patience. Or, perhaps, not to be so cheap.
arborday.org
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Some music can be dangerous for the heart. I'm doing well. I am. But then a song comes up on the iTunes. A song, perhaps, that I'd avoided for the past several months, for fear of the emotions that it might bring me.
I picked up Plans at a music shop somewhere in Maine with Maya. We were in a tiny coastal town somewhere south of Bar Harbor. I remember finding a ridiculous cd there - Milli Vanilli - to be presented to Kyle as a prize for the mix cd contest we'd organized before the rainy road trip in coastal Maine. We bantered with the guy behind the counter, and then left town blaring the Milli Vanilli cd as ladies decked out in Lands End looked at us, horrified.
Or maybe they ignored us.
As we drove toward the sunny portion of our vacation, we listened to the Death Cab for Cutie album. Over and over. Analyzing every word. Was it about a breakup? The beginning is happy; the end bitter. Maybe. I remember hating the song, "Someday You Will Be Loved" upon first listen. So many times, I'd heard that, in one way or another at the end of a relationship. I never really believed it, too eager to hold on to the old, dying and unhealthy thing slipping from my grasp.
And then, a few days later, I was in North Carolina. At the beach. With a few hundred people from my church. Every year, during hurricane season, we rent beach houses along the coast of southern North Carolina. Cheap rent. A week to relax. And so I was at the beach, staying in a house with ten other women.
I listened to the new cd non-stop that week. A summer album, it accompanied me on walks on the beach, in the kitchen as I cooked big piles of live crabs, everywhere I went.
And it was that week that things started to happen with him. Just a tiny bit.
See, logically, those summer songs should bring me memories of Maya and Maine. Logically, they should entice memories of my autumn evenings on West Weber Road. These songs are bigger than those few moments shared between he and I - two of hundreds of people around that week on the beach.
Life, in general, is bigger than my connections with it. Sometimes that's a difficult concept to grasp.
Listening to this album again, after putting in on hiatus for a season, I'm not as angry when I listen to the "You Will Be Loved" song.
Because I will. And I am. And there's a big difference between the girl who didn't believe that, and the one who does.
I picked up Plans at a music shop somewhere in Maine with Maya. We were in a tiny coastal town somewhere south of Bar Harbor. I remember finding a ridiculous cd there - Milli Vanilli - to be presented to Kyle as a prize for the mix cd contest we'd organized before the rainy road trip in coastal Maine. We bantered with the guy behind the counter, and then left town blaring the Milli Vanilli cd as ladies decked out in Lands End looked at us, horrified.
Or maybe they ignored us.
As we drove toward the sunny portion of our vacation, we listened to the Death Cab for Cutie album. Over and over. Analyzing every word. Was it about a breakup? The beginning is happy; the end bitter. Maybe. I remember hating the song, "Someday You Will Be Loved" upon first listen. So many times, I'd heard that, in one way or another at the end of a relationship. I never really believed it, too eager to hold on to the old, dying and unhealthy thing slipping from my grasp.
And then, a few days later, I was in North Carolina. At the beach. With a few hundred people from my church. Every year, during hurricane season, we rent beach houses along the coast of southern North Carolina. Cheap rent. A week to relax. And so I was at the beach, staying in a house with ten other women.
I listened to the new cd non-stop that week. A summer album, it accompanied me on walks on the beach, in the kitchen as I cooked big piles of live crabs, everywhere I went.
And it was that week that things started to happen with him. Just a tiny bit.
See, logically, those summer songs should bring me memories of Maya and Maine. Logically, they should entice memories of my autumn evenings on West Weber Road. These songs are bigger than those few moments shared between he and I - two of hundreds of people around that week on the beach.
Life, in general, is bigger than my connections with it. Sometimes that's a difficult concept to grasp.
Listening to this album again, after putting in on hiatus for a season, I'm not as angry when I listen to the "You Will Be Loved" song.
Because I will. And I am. And there's a big difference between the girl who didn't believe that, and the one who does.
Gross.
I had a dream last night that I had a sideways hitler mustache (about a quarter inch wide) growing between my eyebrows. It was absolutely horrible.
I think that I'm going to go get my eyebrows waxed, just in case.
I had a dream last night that I had a sideways hitler mustache (about a quarter inch wide) growing between my eyebrows. It was absolutely horrible.
I think that I'm going to go get my eyebrows waxed, just in case.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Girlfriends.
Throughout this weekend, I found myself in clusters of women. There's something about when women get together. It all comes out. Whether "it all" is emotion, silliness, or crassness. (Crassness? Crassicity?) Walls come down. I love it.
It started on Friday night, when Susie and I decide to baptize my front stoop with free Killian's. (Not necessarily my favorite beer. Someone once told me, almost a decade ago, "Jill, there are a lot of good beers out there. And none of them are made by Coors." At any rate, I drank it my freshman year of college for the same reason that I drank in on Friday: it was free.) I've never spent much time on the front stoop of my house; I have a nice deck and patio in the back. Nonetheless, our party grew, as friends were called and roommates came home. We soon had a small gaggle of girls chatting it up for all of Clintonville to see.
Saturday evening, I found myself at Ravari Room to see a friend's band. Somehow, the guys gravitated to the bar, while four of us ladies took ownership of the booth. Some of us knew each other very well; others had just met that night. But that didn't stop us from screaming (soberly, I might add) over the music to tell the intimate details of just how often we wash our faces, or clean our sheets. Of what we can get away with in the worlds of hygeine and cleanliness when we think no one is looking. I admitted stuff, in this hour, that I'd never told anyone. Truly disgusting habits. But there's a faith, a trust, in a circle of women. What's said at the table in the bar stays at the table in the bar. Because we've all been there. In one way or another. One of the women is moving away, and I'm sad, because I feel like I'm just beginning to know her. The other, the one that I met for the first time before discussing Toxic Shock Syndrome with her, well... if she's not terrified, I think that TSS is a great starting point for a friendship.
Fast forward to Sunday morning. I have a women's Bible study at my house on Sunday mornings. A laidback and casual affair, we rebel against the idea of matching gloves and hats with floral dresses on Sunday mornings. We roll out of bed, possibly brush our teeth and stagger to the coffeemaker. The women's Bible study is one of my favorite times. Because stuff just comes out. The real stuff. Without dudes around, we have the ability to share with one another. Like the table in the bar, the content is confidential, but it's also fascinating. Around that Sunday morning table, I see lives changed. (I realize that this may sound melodramatic, so I should add that around that table other things surface as well. Such as makeup application strategies, gastroeminoical issues and the like.)
Finally, on Sunday evening, I was out in Sunbury, with the high school kids. We have something like six boys for every girl in our group. Probably due to the ultra-feminine activities the boys take part in, which are not limited to blowing up fish and catapulting them into empty fields. So, the female voice gets lost in the herd of adolescent boys. Until we team up. After last night's teaching, our four girls met in the living room for discussion. And again, it happened. Ideas flowed. Our shy and quiet girls began to open up, to talk about their high school problems, their fears, their favorite teachers and their horrible siblings. I sat back and tried to keep my mouth shut as I watched these four awkward and inward girls spill their guts to one another, trusting one another with the intimacies of their lives. I got to see the beginnings of girlfriends.
I've been very thankful for the women in my life over the past few months. I'm thankful for these friendships that I have, for the ability to openly communicate the weird, the serious, the funny. There's a confidence that comes with real relationships with women. A true feeling of value and worth. Of, "no matter what anyone else thinks of you, I'm going to love you despite - or even because - of your flaws."
So. Thanks to my girlfriends, new and old. I'm sorry for those of you who have had to crinkle your face in disgust when I tell you about the time that I [fill in the blank]. Chances are, you'll have to do it again. Probably very soon. But you know that.
Throughout this weekend, I found myself in clusters of women. There's something about when women get together. It all comes out. Whether "it all" is emotion, silliness, or crassness. (Crassness? Crassicity?) Walls come down. I love it.
It started on Friday night, when Susie and I decide to baptize my front stoop with free Killian's. (Not necessarily my favorite beer. Someone once told me, almost a decade ago, "Jill, there are a lot of good beers out there. And none of them are made by Coors." At any rate, I drank it my freshman year of college for the same reason that I drank in on Friday: it was free.) I've never spent much time on the front stoop of my house; I have a nice deck and patio in the back. Nonetheless, our party grew, as friends were called and roommates came home. We soon had a small gaggle of girls chatting it up for all of Clintonville to see.
Saturday evening, I found myself at Ravari Room to see a friend's band. Somehow, the guys gravitated to the bar, while four of us ladies took ownership of the booth. Some of us knew each other very well; others had just met that night. But that didn't stop us from screaming (soberly, I might add) over the music to tell the intimate details of just how often we wash our faces, or clean our sheets. Of what we can get away with in the worlds of hygeine and cleanliness when we think no one is looking. I admitted stuff, in this hour, that I'd never told anyone. Truly disgusting habits. But there's a faith, a trust, in a circle of women. What's said at the table in the bar stays at the table in the bar. Because we've all been there. In one way or another. One of the women is moving away, and I'm sad, because I feel like I'm just beginning to know her. The other, the one that I met for the first time before discussing Toxic Shock Syndrome with her, well... if she's not terrified, I think that TSS is a great starting point for a friendship.
Fast forward to Sunday morning. I have a women's Bible study at my house on Sunday mornings. A laidback and casual affair, we rebel against the idea of matching gloves and hats with floral dresses on Sunday mornings. We roll out of bed, possibly brush our teeth and stagger to the coffeemaker. The women's Bible study is one of my favorite times. Because stuff just comes out. The real stuff. Without dudes around, we have the ability to share with one another. Like the table in the bar, the content is confidential, but it's also fascinating. Around that Sunday morning table, I see lives changed. (I realize that this may sound melodramatic, so I should add that around that table other things surface as well. Such as makeup application strategies, gastroeminoical issues and the like.)
Finally, on Sunday evening, I was out in Sunbury, with the high school kids. We have something like six boys for every girl in our group. Probably due to the ultra-feminine activities the boys take part in, which are not limited to blowing up fish and catapulting them into empty fields. So, the female voice gets lost in the herd of adolescent boys. Until we team up. After last night's teaching, our four girls met in the living room for discussion. And again, it happened. Ideas flowed. Our shy and quiet girls began to open up, to talk about their high school problems, their fears, their favorite teachers and their horrible siblings. I sat back and tried to keep my mouth shut as I watched these four awkward and inward girls spill their guts to one another, trusting one another with the intimacies of their lives. I got to see the beginnings of girlfriends.
I've been very thankful for the women in my life over the past few months. I'm thankful for these friendships that I have, for the ability to openly communicate the weird, the serious, the funny. There's a confidence that comes with real relationships with women. A true feeling of value and worth. Of, "no matter what anyone else thinks of you, I'm going to love you despite - or even because - of your flaws."
So. Thanks to my girlfriends, new and old. I'm sorry for those of you who have had to crinkle your face in disgust when I tell you about the time that I [fill in the blank]. Chances are, you'll have to do it again. Probably very soon. But you know that.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Dream.
"We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
even as we put our hope in you." Psalm 33:20 ff
I was feeling hopeless last night. All day, actually. I had a dream Tuesday night that left me in a day-long state of panic. In my nighttime drama, friends became evil, people that I thought I knew turned out to be strangers, and I was brutally rejected. It was epic, graphic, disturbing.
One should properly be able to distinguish between dream and reality, but yesterday, this was difficult. My nightmare cut into my heart, with too many things a little too real.
I tried to push forward yesterday, to do the things that I love to do. I cooked. I organized. I socialized. But I was still trembling with the evil I encountered in my dream. By the end of the evening, while friends were still downstairs at the close of the potluck, I was in my bed. Weeping.
I had yet to open the Bible, despite the peace that reading it has given me countless times in my anxious moments. I knew that it would bring me comfort, the book that laughs in the face of evil, the words that give answers to the wounded of heart and the brutally rejected. But I spent the day self-medicating, trying to find answers and peace in a Southwestern Corn Salad and a Boccocini and Tomato Pasta.
"Bag of frozen corn," I ask, "is it possible that the things in the dream could be real?"
The boccocini speaks up. "Dude, you're all sad about a stupid dream when I'm the one getting cut in half!"
Elisa found me in my bed, sad that evil exists, sad that I don't know what's going to happen with my life, sad for the times that I've been rejected, in real life and in my dreams.
"Mi amor, mi amor," she ran to me, with her Argentinian maternal instincts. "You need to cry. Just cry, mi amor. You are normal."
And so I cried and she held my hands, telling me that I'm beautiful and that she wished she could take away my pain, and that she knows how I feel. How many times do we wish we can take away another person's pain? It's impossible.
I finally picked up the tiny Bible that lives on my bedstand, and opened it to the Psalms, a book of verses that I once thought were for the weak and whiny. Somehow I had become the weak and whiny. I had a verse circled, from another anxious time, and my eyes went to it.
We wait in hope for the LORD.
I wait in hope for you, God, I prayed.
he is our help and our shield.
You are my help, my shield. From all things evil. From the anxiety in my heart.
In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.
The thought of you brings joy to my heart. I trust you, you've never led me astray.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
When the world as I know it changes, when painful things are revealed, whether in dreams or reality, when I encounter evil, let me feel your love, God. Because you love me always. And without you, hope would not exist. Thank you for hope.
Peace slowly worked its way into my mind and heart. My stomach loosened from its day-long tight cramp. I spent the rest of the night quieting my mind, an act that does not come easily to me. And I listened, as the truth poured in.
"We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
even as we put our hope in you." Psalm 33:20 ff
I was feeling hopeless last night. All day, actually. I had a dream Tuesday night that left me in a day-long state of panic. In my nighttime drama, friends became evil, people that I thought I knew turned out to be strangers, and I was brutally rejected. It was epic, graphic, disturbing.
One should properly be able to distinguish between dream and reality, but yesterday, this was difficult. My nightmare cut into my heart, with too many things a little too real.
I tried to push forward yesterday, to do the things that I love to do. I cooked. I organized. I socialized. But I was still trembling with the evil I encountered in my dream. By the end of the evening, while friends were still downstairs at the close of the potluck, I was in my bed. Weeping.
I had yet to open the Bible, despite the peace that reading it has given me countless times in my anxious moments. I knew that it would bring me comfort, the book that laughs in the face of evil, the words that give answers to the wounded of heart and the brutally rejected. But I spent the day self-medicating, trying to find answers and peace in a Southwestern Corn Salad and a Boccocini and Tomato Pasta.
"Bag of frozen corn," I ask, "is it possible that the things in the dream could be real?"
The boccocini speaks up. "Dude, you're all sad about a stupid dream when I'm the one getting cut in half!"
Elisa found me in my bed, sad that evil exists, sad that I don't know what's going to happen with my life, sad for the times that I've been rejected, in real life and in my dreams.
"Mi amor, mi amor," she ran to me, with her Argentinian maternal instincts. "You need to cry. Just cry, mi amor. You are normal."
And so I cried and she held my hands, telling me that I'm beautiful and that she wished she could take away my pain, and that she knows how I feel. How many times do we wish we can take away another person's pain? It's impossible.
I finally picked up the tiny Bible that lives on my bedstand, and opened it to the Psalms, a book of verses that I once thought were for the weak and whiny. Somehow I had become the weak and whiny. I had a verse circled, from another anxious time, and my eyes went to it.
We wait in hope for the LORD.
I wait in hope for you, God, I prayed.
he is our help and our shield.
You are my help, my shield. From all things evil. From the anxiety in my heart.
In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.
The thought of you brings joy to my heart. I trust you, you've never led me astray.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
When the world as I know it changes, when painful things are revealed, whether in dreams or reality, when I encounter evil, let me feel your love, God. Because you love me always. And without you, hope would not exist. Thank you for hope.
Peace slowly worked its way into my mind and heart. My stomach loosened from its day-long tight cramp. I spent the rest of the night quieting my mind, an act that does not come easily to me. And I listened, as the truth poured in.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Grown Up.
I feel like Richard Marx has been waiting for me since the mid 1990's. He's definitely one dude with endurance. But I'm just not his type.
I went on some errands yesterday, and saw a glimpse of my reflection on a car in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby. I stopped and looked longer, because I, like the rest of humanity, am perfectly happy looking at myself. What I saw in the side of the Impala or Cadillac or Blazer surprised me.
Usually, when I look at myself, I'm focusing on my hair. Is it too frizzy? Or the bags under my eyes. Are they apparent? Or the outfit that I'm wearing. Is it too clingy? But yesterday, I saw something else.
I saw a woman.
There, standing in the parking lot of a suburban craft store, was a woman. Not a girl. A grown woman.
I don't know when it happened. I still remember longing to be a teenager, desperately hoping for things that define a girl in her teens: lots of hair product, nail polish, boobs. When I was a girl, I imagined that as a teenager, I'd have a brass vanity table, with glass bottles of perfume, an oval mirror and one of those magnifying mirrors to examine my pores, or whatever.
I didn't exactly skip those years. Nor did I skip my young adulthood. And I can't say that these periods just "passed me by." I have lived life in a pretty violent manner. Plowing through with passion, dreams, goals. My family thinks of me as the weird one. They admire that. I do, too. I love my uniqueness, as much as I love staring at my reflection in the side of a Honda Civic.
But now I'm a woman. A woman with a career, a home. A woman learning things about herself. Some painful, some nice. A woman whose "go-get-em" attitude is jarring to some of the more quiet types. A woman whose actions can both help people and hurt them. Sometimes both in the same swoop.
I have stories. My own arsenal of Aesop's Fables, with something learned at the end of each. I've been through hardship, pain, death. I've been loved, even when I don't deserve the love. I have gained a little wisdom through the years - enough wisdom to understand that my knowledge of life is minuscule, that the best that I can do is try to glean one or two lessons from my mistakes.
I never dreamed of becoming a woman when I was in the single digit years. Or if I did, it wasn't like this. I never imagined the day that I'd be carrying a purse and wearing prescription sunglasses, roaming through suburban big box stores searching for chalkboards for work.
Maybe I thought of woman in relation to man. Perhaps what I thought was that I'd be a woman when I had a ring on my finger and a baby on my hip.
I raced through my teen years without the aforementioned brass vanity and scary mirror thing, but that doesn't mean that I was never a teenager. Which means that, once again, as proved by my reflection in the Toyota Camry, I may have been wrong.
The leading man in my life died over two thousand years ago. No ring or screaming child from Him. But I'm still a woman. I have been. For quite some time now.
And it's okay. It's fun being a woman. An adult. A grownup. A real life woman, humbly and persistently searching for the chalkboards in the big box store of life.
I feel like Richard Marx has been waiting for me since the mid 1990's. He's definitely one dude with endurance. But I'm just not his type.
I went on some errands yesterday, and saw a glimpse of my reflection on a car in the parking lot of Hobby Lobby. I stopped and looked longer, because I, like the rest of humanity, am perfectly happy looking at myself. What I saw in the side of the Impala or Cadillac or Blazer surprised me.
Usually, when I look at myself, I'm focusing on my hair. Is it too frizzy? Or the bags under my eyes. Are they apparent? Or the outfit that I'm wearing. Is it too clingy? But yesterday, I saw something else.
I saw a woman.
There, standing in the parking lot of a suburban craft store, was a woman. Not a girl. A grown woman.
I don't know when it happened. I still remember longing to be a teenager, desperately hoping for things that define a girl in her teens: lots of hair product, nail polish, boobs. When I was a girl, I imagined that as a teenager, I'd have a brass vanity table, with glass bottles of perfume, an oval mirror and one of those magnifying mirrors to examine my pores, or whatever.
I didn't exactly skip those years. Nor did I skip my young adulthood. And I can't say that these periods just "passed me by." I have lived life in a pretty violent manner. Plowing through with passion, dreams, goals. My family thinks of me as the weird one. They admire that. I do, too. I love my uniqueness, as much as I love staring at my reflection in the side of a Honda Civic.
But now I'm a woman. A woman with a career, a home. A woman learning things about herself. Some painful, some nice. A woman whose "go-get-em" attitude is jarring to some of the more quiet types. A woman whose actions can both help people and hurt them. Sometimes both in the same swoop.
I have stories. My own arsenal of Aesop's Fables, with something learned at the end of each. I've been through hardship, pain, death. I've been loved, even when I don't deserve the love. I have gained a little wisdom through the years - enough wisdom to understand that my knowledge of life is minuscule, that the best that I can do is try to glean one or two lessons from my mistakes.
I never dreamed of becoming a woman when I was in the single digit years. Or if I did, it wasn't like this. I never imagined the day that I'd be carrying a purse and wearing prescription sunglasses, roaming through suburban big box stores searching for chalkboards for work.
Maybe I thought of woman in relation to man. Perhaps what I thought was that I'd be a woman when I had a ring on my finger and a baby on my hip.
I raced through my teen years without the aforementioned brass vanity and scary mirror thing, but that doesn't mean that I was never a teenager. Which means that, once again, as proved by my reflection in the Toyota Camry, I may have been wrong.
The leading man in my life died over two thousand years ago. No ring or screaming child from Him. But I'm still a woman. I have been. For quite some time now.
And it's okay. It's fun being a woman. An adult. A grownup. A real life woman, humbly and persistently searching for the chalkboards in the big box store of life.
