Written Spring of 2004

To you insane world
But one reply-I refuse.
-Marina Tsvetaeva

Yes. And again I will say it, Yes! Refuse. Keeping kicking and fighting. One of my English professors, Dr. Ahmed said he believed it is the essence of the human spirit to struggle. Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage, Rage against the dying of the light. But there’s the rub Dylan Thomas, we all owe a death. There is no escaping it.
Walker Percy, when asked how he came to have faith responded, “The only answer I can find is that I asked for it; in fact, I demanded it. I took it as an intolerable state of affairs to have found myself in this life and in this age, which is a disaster by calculation, without demanding a gift commensurate with the offese. So I demanded it.” I understand rejection of Christendom as Walker Percy calls it. I understand rejection of the church institution, and rejection of Christians. Rejection of rules, conventions, and conformities. I do not understand rejection of Jesus Christ. I vaguely understand pain and suffering, to the small extent I have experienced them, which pales in comparison to the innumerable atrocities committed daily against humanity by humans, and specifically against the weak, the helpless, the young, the old, the poor, the marginalized. I have small conception of what it means to be alive and a smaller conception of the God of the Universe. After all, I use something like 3% of my brain, and sometimes, I suspect, little more of my heart. I drive a 2002 Passat with leather seats that my father bought for me. I have no pedestal to stand on, no diatribe to speak, but I do have words. Words that I hope are not mine, because as enumerated above I have no authority to speak them, save a beating heart and further evidence of the second by second universal gift of life- I breathe. I have a mind, it is futile. I think therefore I am, says Descartes, but what kind of life is that?



I watched an Albert Brooks film last weekend entitled, Defending Your Life which depicts people going to Judgment City after death where they defend their life in order to pass on to be a part of the Universe or return to Earth in another life in order to have another go at it. The criteria for passing on is to overcome fear. Some take six lives, some over a hundred to overcome fears. That’s the score card: fear.

What score cards might we keep? Do we advocate discovery? Art? Pursuit of knowledge? Wealth? How many people we step over on our way to the top? Or how many people we pick up from the heaps of ashes? Please tell me, who is keeping score, and who determines the grading rubric?

We cannot escape rules and conventions, we are humans and we make them, and then we live with them- in spite of them, in accordance with them. One psychologist stated, “There is no thought apart from culture.” Thousands of cultures over thousands of years and not one has gotten it right. Not even the democratic United States. Eddie Izzard, a sharp transvestite comedian, warns America that we are the new Roman Empire.

My friend Wes once told me something to the effect of “We have to remind ourselves, you and I, that Jesus wasn’t rebellious, he was radical.” Is God a Republican? American conservatives might have you think so, but last time I checked Heaven seems to have a completely open immigration policy, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.” Furthermore Christ’s foreign policy involved talking with Samaritans with whom Jews would not associate, healing lepers who were untouchable, and dining with prostitutes and tax collectors, the despised of the time. His economic policy advises, if someone takes your coat, give him your shirt as well. His idea of homeland security, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword [as the Jews expected a King to take over the government]” but to the individual, “the world will show you hatred, but I bring you my peace that where I am there you may also be.”
What I believe and I believe it with all of my heart that I can muster, with all the futility of my mind occupying a mere 3% of my brain, and with every fiber of my metaphysical being is that I am redeemed from this insane world, by the death of Christ on the cross, and made a new creation by his resurrection from the dead. Furthermore, that I am freed from rules and conventions, freed from self-condemnation, freed from the futility of my mind, freed from the deceit of my very own heart, freed from living as a slave to the ways of the world that do not fulfill me, and freed for freedom, to live life abundantly. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1)

Written sometime in Nashville

What kind of a day is it when you realize you are as happy as you will ever be. The only other way to be happy is to exercise disregard or denial. Or to change your definition of happy. Or to be caught up in the ongoing story of creation and feel the undulations of the waves as they carry you. My happiness has largely been found within mystery and possibilities. However elating this can be at times, it isn’t lived, it relies on what could be. I guess I have mistaken this great romance with mystery to be an indication of what would come, say, when I get married. That’s been the big event I have always pinned it all on. I had the revelation while talking to my dear friend Dan, that the real romance of my life is not to be had with a person, but with God’s mystery, sometimes revealed often elusive… but close enough to chase. It’s almost like a little tinkerbell. I get excited by possibilities and connections, by the hope of redemption and by seeing the way God has intricately woven Everything. Like string theory. Sort of I Heart Huckabees. Everything is connected, everything affects everything else. So the romance of my life is ideas, but the love of my life will be a person, whom I will choose to love and who will choose to love me, and I think we will be chosen to love each other. Even though there might have been another. And there is some romance, but not a lot. Mostly living life.
(Later addition) He is he, and I am I and this is the beauty of our relationship.

A Funk

I’m in a funk. I think maybe it was a funk transfer because funks are contagious like yawns. I’m going to my sister’s because our roommates are out of town. On my way out I had some soymilk-vanilla, in my rinsed out tea mug. The flavor was subtle, but tasty, the texture was smooth and just thick enough to want to hold in my mouth. I always forget that I enjoy this about soymilk. I tried to make this subtlety a little moment of surprise- the kind that could step out from around a corner to tap you on the shoulder and say, excuse me- but you seem to have forgotten life is short and jumbly and mysterious so maybe enjoy it? It didn’t make. A girl at work today noticed that we had run out of the normal tea bags that you throw in, flip the switch and then you have brewed tea… and were using gargantuan filters and packages of pekoe tea. She held up the filters for everyone to see their largeness. She showed Betty, the owner’s sister as she came in. She said the large filters made her day. I didn’t believe her. I think she wants to be the kind of simple, caring, attentive person whose day could be made by the absurdity of such an enormous coffee filter. Had she put it on her head like a bonnet and or made some other silly comparison I might have bought it.

Some questions from a while back

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Lord, I want to be an advocate. People speak of callings. You know I disagree. But vocation. Is it a choice? Is it a mandate? Is it in the fabric? In Spanish a lawyer is abogado, an advocate. Should I be a lawyer? A writer is an advocate who gives voice to someone’s story. A songwriter does the same. Who else advocates?

Maybe to be an advocate I must first find out who is being silenced, and hear the stories. Maybe I can make that my mission for the next year, to hear the stories. Is it too big for me? Is there room in my heart and soul to hear the stories?

Intro to a not so good short story

Cappuccino

It’s really Hollywood’s fault. Romance doesn’t happen in real life, only in the movies and in our memories. In a moment that is supposed to be romantic we are reminding ourselves to take it all in, “this is romantic”, “look longer into his eyes”, “feel his hand on your back” -the little things that are supposed to be romantic that we pine for when not in a relationship. In a moment that actually feels romantic, one of our bodies makes a body sound a gurgling of stomach juices, an expelling of gas, something from within the depths. A sound that belies the drunken flood of infatuation hormones in our head to remind us that we are human, even beneath a sexy Yves Saint Laurent silk dress. Romance doesn’t really happen. Laughter happens. sadness happens. and somewhere in between we think love happens.
When you imagine Europe, you imagine sitting at a café, an outdoor table, sipping coffee and watching passerbyers. But cappuccinos are very small when not made at Starbucks and after the first sip they quickly become cold. Espresso is the drink of the Italians. It is made for standing, dump in the sugar if you are faint of heart, and throw it back. Not a sip to savor, not a thought to ponder.

Something I wrote last year

I spoke with my friend Joe tonight, whom I love. Try and tell me about Joe’s faults and I’ll probably agree with you, but you see- as I said before, I love him. It’s a hell of a lot easier to love Joe in spite of his flaws than it is to love myself, and I see a lot of myself in Joe.

I spoke with my friend Blair today, whom I also love. If she was a man I’d marry her and be entertained for the rest of my life. As it is, she is a woman and quite taken by a young man, and I find myself in a similar predicament. So we will settle to retire together in Florida as Blanch and Dorothy from the Golden Girls, shoulder pads, tapered pants, glittery blouses and all if dreams do come true.

I watched Tom Hanks on Inside the Actors Studio tonight. He talked about a man from the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival who said that all the greatest stories are about loneliness. We exist in the kindred company of billions. He said of the business of acting that it is about perseverance and that when one’s greatest prospect is a callback for a Dannon yogurt commercial it is difficult to have to identify that as an expression of your life’s passion.

On perseverance, life’s passion, and small beginnings…
It’s books I love. Not necessarily reading them, just being with them, reading their titles, the names. Would it be a reduction to say it is words I love? Not completely. Words as hints and guesses, to repeat a favorite phrase. Between the leather membrane, the words; woven by the words, the stories. James Lipton asked Tom Hanks what turns him on and he said laughter. Hints and guesses turn me on. The stories…the stories, well those slay me. They cut right through the life I know and live everyday. Even feel good stories can be painful. A soul is a heavy thing you know, fill it with pain and tears, and laughter and it sags and stretches and forces itself to grow. And that’s uncomfortable. My friend’s father, Randy Marshall preached today and I heard this…when we don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that words cannot express. He said we agonize in prayer. I get that. At the end of the service a baby was crying and he said, “yeah that’s the way I feel most of the time too.” I’m confused, I hope, I despair, I laugh, I cry, and sometimes I nothing, just nothing. And from all this I agonize. Mr. Marshall says our agony on it’s own isn’t good, but that our agony plus something (and he said he doesn’t know what that something is) produces good. In the book of Romans Chapter 8, Paul follows the bit about groanings with this, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” I often ask with Jack Nicklaus, “Is this as good as it gets?” Probably not, but until I see signs of clearing skies I’ll take it that the Holy Spirit is busy as a little secretary inside of me, filing away memories and assimilating experiences, sending me memos, making appointments with my therapist etc. And beyond that, God works all things for my good, it’s right here, I don’t have to chase a damn thing.

(Is she still talking?)
I saw Patty Griffin sing at the Granada last night. The woman did not sing a dishonest note. Something I learned in my single, beginning acting class this semester is the importance of honest work. She’s doing it. An incredible community of people gathered in that theater, drawn together by this woman’s honesty, and her honesty in examining herself and her world. She sings- no wails, something like, “I must confess there seems to be more darkness than light, I see it everyday of my life.” I agonize and I can’t pretend that I don’t. I agree with Patty that there seems to be more darkness than light. I went caving last summer and sat inside the cave in pitch black, I could not see my hand in front of my face. A whole lot of darkness, but turn on one flashlight and that dark can’t even hide in a corner. The Psalmist says to God, “even the dark is as light to you.” Another favorite quote of mine, “To every cry from our passion-filled hearts God answers Jesus.” It don’t make sense. The spirit speaks in groans we can’t understand, that don’t make sense either. But it’s good.

Willing the Future

My roommate drove by her ex-boyfriend’s new apartment for the first time the other night to drop off a mutual friend and felt the pain of a decision she had made six months earlier. A decision to end the relationship because she new she wanted a marriage and a family that he didn’t envision. Put simply at least. I picture the window she looked up into from the street, a window covering the entire front of the apartment, six feet high and not broken down into smaller panes. A window like a movie-screen or huge flat panel, showing I don’t know which, the stories of those passing in cars below or the stories of the three young men on the inside. I know this window well because my boyfriend also lives inside. My boyfriend lives with her ex-boyfriend, which is how I know lovely Anna in the first place. I hope that we have a different story unfolding. So far this is true as we have dated for over a year and a half, long distance almost half that time and have never broken up. A bit of my stick-to-it-ness is motivated by something I read in Linda Goodman’s Book of Sun Signs as I lay on his yellow velvet couch in his parent’s stifling hot Texas garage just after we had moved his stuff home from college after graduation. I read that the male Virgo is not showering in his love, but is steady and if love is broken off, he will make himself forget about it and there will be no second chance. Just recently we had a long conversation, few words actually spoken, that might in other relationships have led to a break-up, but instead, I think, has strengthened ours. I just read an article in Vogue about a woman who saw a picture of a coat in Vogue in high school and wanted to buy the coat for the woman it represented she would become. I understand this concept. I have no idea what I will become. I feel like I am dealing with my twenties somewhat passively, figuring it out as one thing haphazardly leads to the next. I have always felt that I will do something big and wonderful, but fear that now I’ve gotten too slow a start. Wonder how it’s happened that I’ve waited tables, now work retail, and volunteered 400 hours in an internship and still didn’t get a job.

Wall of Socks

Right now I am overwhelmed by almost everything in mylife. Some of this is good as I need momentum to get things done. I feel overwhelmed by my schedule working two jobs. I feel overwhelmed by my internship ending and the thought of having to find a nine to fiver. But most of all, I feel overwhelmed by the wall of socks at Patagonia.
I have managed to carve enough of a niche here in Chicago in the past three months that I hardly noticed that I had moved at all; that I had uprooted myself to move a thousand miles from home with no place to live and certainly no job. I’ve realized that having a bed to come home to and a task to do during the day are pretty essential. I have both of these things. I guess I am beyond survival and now have a life.
I am indecisive. This has long been established and almost accepted. Frequently, when asked a question, I immediately become a deer in the headlights. I am crippled by the flood of pros and cons for each option. I also have difficulty with verbal communication, especially when put on the spot. It’s not that I can’t find words, but that I find too many words. The reason I write well is because my hands can’t keep up with my brain so only some of the words make it onto the page. The physical act of writing forces my brain to slow down and come up for air. This has become all too clear to me recently as I have taken a sales job at a retail store. All day long I am asked technical questions as well as for my opinion. The store in which I work sells four thicknesses of long underwear, fifteen different ski jackets, ten different fleeces and about sixteen varieties of socks. This is an overwhelming amount of information to sort through for anyone, but for one such as myself, it can be down right paralyzing. When someone approaches me about a ski jacket my instinct is to find Kathleen or one of the other skiers in the room and ask them to show the customer what they will need for a ski trip. If an informed coworker is not within ear shot, my back up plan is to show the customer the full color, two page ski jacket spread on page eleven of the Fall catalog, page 40 of the Winter. Recently, however, I have decided to take on the challenge myself. It usually begins in fits and starts and proceeds to rambling peppered with mumbling.
One day as I was putting some oatmeal colored lightweight hiking socks, on our wall of socks which, by the way, consists of about 10 rows by nine columns, a man asked me if I worked here. I responded yes and he proceeded to ask me if I could help him find a pair of socks. I panicked, the display before me no longer a collage of colorful wool and cotton, but the glaring beams of a Peterbilt staring me down. I knew next to nothing about our socks and had all but forgotten we sold them. Normally at this point my default strategy would be to just start talking. I would describe one of the product’s features, ask the customer a question about what they were looking for, describe some more of the product’s features and completely confuse the customer. My technique differed only in duration, whether it was a painful five minutes of shuffling around the store desperate to find the product that would explain itself and save me, or whether I ripped the band-aid right off, admitting an early defeat and saying aloud to the customer, “I’ve confused you haven’t I?” This time, however, I looked at the towering wall of socks and noticed that they were arranged by row in descending order of thickness from silkweight to expedition weight. I stammered, preparing to inundate the man with sock features, throwing in bits and pieces as I went along, until I had virtually woven a pair of wool socks before his eyes, but something clicked for me. Instead, I began with, “Well, first we have four thicknesses: silkweight, lightweight, midweight and expedition weight.” “Midweight.” He responded. I was surprised by his quick decision and relieved that he didn’t probe me for further explanations about the thicknesses. “Next we have height- crew, ankle, and ped” I said. “How about crew.” He responded. My confidence grew, as my succinct explanations seemed to provide all the information this man needed to make a choice. “Then we have color and after that size.” “Black, Medium.” The man had a pair of socks in hand. I thanked him for helping me to take on the overwhelming wall of socks, practically crumbling before him as I the weight fell from my shoulders. Maybe if I was able to break down the wall of socks into manageable pieces, I could do that with other areas of my life too.

Monday Morning

Patti Griffin
Testing out my new Patagonia Yoga shirt in my living room that is SUPPOSED to motivate me to go to Yoga.
9:15 a.m., 11:00 a.m.: times of Yoga classes offered at the YMCA on Monday mornings
10:30 a.m.: time it is in my living room
Everything in me resisted going.

I woke up beating myself up about sleeping in. Our Christmas tree is still up, smelling wonderful decorated in all of its glory, one red reindeer hanging from a lone branch that sticks out in front as if he will carry the whole thing away. What is more is that we still have a pumpkin. An orange pumpkin sits on the windowsill in our unheated, uninsulated front room. We’ve had him since before Halloween. Last night I watched the Golden Girls, I love the show. I love the idea of four women living together at retirement age. I like it that they are dating, working, doing things. It sounds easier.