I don’t know where the colors
go when the sun goes down at
night, or when the finite end will
come to open the spectrum
wide. I’m not a honeybee. I
don’t glow ultraviolet like a
wolf. I’m just me with my eyes
wide brown trying to find you,
trying to ask who you really are
behind all the light. I may
be burned for trying but my
questions burn anyway,
through my life and the evening
and the same instance of
opposites that have always
held my attention. Show me
where the colors go, and take me
there in the morning.
Month / December 2014
Waiting
Waiting is a branch from a
fallen tree, the air in Georgia in
August, a bronze statue of a
dog with his tongue hanging
out. It is silent. It doesn’t sit and
hum in the lobby, feet kicking
back and forth under a seat
that’s too high. It can panic,
but never makes a scene.
Waiting is going for a walk while
tests are being run. It’s talking
with a therapist while it hails out-
side, inside where all the dreams
are, afraid of being killed. It’s
paying $4.27 for a chamomile tea
with soy, because something warm
in February makes everything easier
to bear.
Waiting builds muscles, enhances
communication skills, forces re-
evaluation of all the whos and
whats of identity, plans, and certainties.
It shreds. It strains. It plants it’s feet
or lifts them up, allowing itself to
drift into the wide fog and accept
unknown destinations.
X-Files (because how else does one follow the story of a brother’s death?)
Since the last thing I wrote about was the death of my adopted brother, I wasn’t quite sure where to go with my next entry. It felt a bit strange to say anything without it sounding like, “Well, one of the most important people in my life died a horrific death at a premature age. Now, Happy Holidays!” Weird. So I decided there was really only one thing I could do. I wrote about the X-Files.
When the show “X-Files” first aired in the late 80’s, I wanted no part of watching it. I didn’t want to develop my own mental files full of spooky images and metaphysical freakiness. I was such a little Puritan back then that I didn’t even listen to “secular” music, and my absence of a dating life was, well, fodder for another post.
It took a number of years, but as I grew up I started thinking that if God was threatened by a little Sci-fi he needed to be bigger to be worth my time. I also became a sucker for imaginative, morally complex programs and probably dared to try the show once and got hooked. I admit to being a born nerd.
I still watch the show in syndication. It’s outdated. The computers are antiquated and the effects rely heavily on low light levels. As with any good show, though, it rests on solid characters who are believable and three-dimensional. Dana Scully is young and idealistic. She a doctor who follows the rules and relys on scientific deduction in order to establish her beliefs. She’s also the one with a faith tradition in the Catholic Church, and her cross necklace is intentionally visible in various episodes. As the show progresses she struggles with her faith but it appears to me that over time she becomes the embodiment of a marriage between science and faith.
Fox Mulder has plenty of faith, but sometimes lets his judgment become clouded by his passions. He is the believer avidly pursuing evidence to support his theories of government conspiracies and extra-terrestrial life. Without Scully’s steadying influence he has a tendency to get himself in trouble with vampires or killer cockroaches or some guy whose shadow kills people.
In my early days I thought the show was sort of heretical, God help me. Since then the internal boxes in which I held all life’s answers have become unhinged. Engaging in the mental work of reconciling spiritual mysteries with concrete realities is a struggle from which I’ve emerged thinking that mystery is one of the few realities that are actually dependable. God, if he is any kind of God at all, isn’t afraid of mystery or doubt or the study of science in the world he made.
Real life may not be full of monsters and aliens and toxic bugs, but then again, it’s a damn dangerous place. And the dangers here can be interminably dull when you know there’s no able partner out there, running to your rescue. It’s tempting to give up, to curl into a ball and close out the world. Hope can look stupid.
I’ve been tempted many times to disengage from the process of growing, facing my demons and engaging in relationships with other people. It felt too overwhelming and futile. Thankfully, when I’ve been in that state I’ve had people who’ve extended themselves and offered safe haven to my delicate heart. It’s helped me not to give up. Believe it or not, that’s what X-Files is mostly about for me. They never give up. I want to believe.
Impossible Soup, Part V
I don’t want to make you wait for part V so I’m posting both parts together. Even so, I must admit I’ve been avoiding writing the end of this story, but it’s real and true and needs to be finished.
Jason, Linda and Michaela left for school in Nebraska, in the summer of 2007. It was a long way, but we were planning to road trip out there as soon as we got a new car that would serve us more safely as we crossed the mountains.
I wasn’t particularly good at getting on the phone. I never have been, actually. They were well acquainted with this fact, though, and Facebook helped a bit. No matter, they were embedded in our hearts as family and we ached for their presence. We deeply grieved their leaving, but knowing they were enjoying their new life, doing things that they loved, was comforting.
Every time we heard from them Jason was ecstatically happy to be back in the world of theater. He wanted to teach because he was the kind of person who wants to share. He wanted to pass along his passion for the stage and help those younger than himself to find their own ways and discover their valuable places in life. He was a giver.
In October of 2009 I woke up to a text message from Jason. It was something about the hospital and ominous tests, but I couldn’t associate it with my vibrant, magnetic brother. I decided it must have to do with another friend. All day though, that text kept interrupting my other thoughts. By evening the air was ominous. Something in me knew that the ground under my feet was shifting. By 9:00 we knew that Jason had been admitted to the hospital in severe pain, and we were waiting for test results.
I spoke with him in the hospital the next day. “I didn’t want to be a wimp if all I had were hemerroids,” he said, and I scolded him and laughed. We talked about the schools where he’d already sent his Curriculum Vita, looking for a teaching job. I was supportive and enthusiastic until he got to one in a city I rather loathe. I was silent for a moment and he roared with his big Jason laugh. We agreed to hope for a different place to go.
Test results started coming in and I got over my phone aversion quickly. I had to know what was happening. The news wasn’t good and we asked if and when they’d like us to arrive in Nebraska to visit. Thanksgiving, we decided, would be a good time. It needed to be soon. Jason had stage four rectal cancer, and a bunch of us started getting back together on Fridays to pray, while Jason was on speakerphone. We took up a collection to get them a juicer, and I started trying to find funny gifts I could send to try to lighten their spirits. Jason got a colostomy. He actually begged for it after a few horrific times in the bathroom. He went to start treatments in New York City, where they had the best specialists. His wonderful family joined him there. His brother, Matt, helped him travel.
The treatments started and he went home to Nebraska. He moved down to the basement because he was so nauseated he couldn’t stand to be jostled in bed. He felt sidelined and alone a lot, despite all the love so many tried to give. His Mom moved in to help for a while.
He was gray when we got there. He tried to hide his suffering but I grew up with someone in chronic pain. I know what it looks like. The spark had gone out of his eyes. I discovered that all I wanted was to be near him then, to soak up his presence as though I could keep it with me in a jar forever. We were still talking as though there was hope, but something in me knew. I just knew he was leaving, but hadn’t yet boarded the train.
We helped with his furnishings in the basement so he could be a little more comfortable and then we had to come home to work. Only a few weeks later, on 01/11/10, he did board the train and left us behind, bereft and longing. And yet, we couldn’t help but notice the exact date of his departure as one final message of hope. Jason was forever seeing repeated digits on the clock. They’d come to be a kind of language between him and God. They were reminders to him that he was right where he should be. I can’t tell you how often I see repeated numbers now, or how I sense his presence in those moments.
I flew to Nebraska immediately with a friend, and Keith followed a couple days later. If there was one good thing to come out of it all, I became connected with Jason’s warm and loving family. We all clung together for days as though we were on a life raft. It didn’t seem possible that a man full of more life than anyone else on earth would be gone at the age of 37. It was immutably wrong. Yet, it was true.
Here’s the thing. I don’t have any clear lesson to give about God here. I know Jason had a clear and shining faith and I believe he is with God now. He’s doing wonderful things, leading theatrical productions and writing musicals. What I want to avoid though, is even a hint that God allowed it all to happen for a reason, so Jason and all of us would grow and be better people. If that’s true, well, I’m not investing in that God. That’s the mad scientist God I grew up with, and whoever invented that guy can have him back. So I guess I lied. There is a lesson, at least about the God I believe in, after all. It’s a broken planet. There are many, many things that happen here that are fundamentally and excruciatingly wrong. God is with us in that. He teaches us how to love each other so we can survive and have life again, later. He groans with us and collects our tears. He takes us home, in the end. I don’t know why he doesn’t intervene more except for the whole “free will” bit, but I refuse to accept that it’s because we’re in a crucible he designed so we’d be perfect, like some crazy Aryan family. If he is love, that is not okay with me. I can’t reject God altogether, either. He was Jason’s God, and Jason knew stuff. I’ve experienced things of my own. I believe God sent us Jason and his family so I could have my first brother, be seen, hugged, accepted, and nursed in some sense, into accepting life. Jason would be heart-broken if I were to lose all those precious gifts because he’d simply had to shift dimensions. He’d want me to love more, to accept love more, to continue to open my heart to God and health and living my life as deeply as I possibly can, and I try each day to honor that.
Jason was right about one thing. He wasn’t the last brother I would have. I have at least two more, to date. I grew up without much family, and things were messed up with Keith’s family and me, too. Jason opened the door to having adopted family. I can share my life and figure out who the safe people are. And I can look over again at the clock, see 11:11, and know Jason is well, and near.
Impossible Soup Part, IV
One day when we were standing together at church Jason looked me in the eye and said, “I’m not the last brother you’re going to have.” He had that serious look when he said it. And he had the gift of knowing seemingly impossible things, so I believed him even though it made me sad. He’d let us know that he was applying to MFA programs in theater all across the country, and we knew he’d be snatched up if there was anyone smart left in the world. Our time with them living close by was drawing to an end, and I didn’t like it one bit. I couldn’t help but be happy for him, though. He’d sacrificed so much, and his heart so obviously yearned to be involved with work on the stage. Keith and I were both thrilled and heart-broken.
We knew already, I think, that the Friday Friends as such could not survive without them. They were the glue. Jason naturally ran interference between a couple people who cared about each other but weren’t really compatible. Linda was the planner. She gave our little troupe of eccentrics stability and just enough structure so that group events actually happened. They both had a gift for building bridges between people who wouldn’t otherwise get along.
Before they left we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. Keith had vowed to himself that it would be a big deal, because our honeymoon had completely and totally sucked. I’ll leave that for another post. Just think band camp, Wisconsin, car problems, emotional meltdown, canned fruit and Precious Moments figurines. It was all kinds of bad at epic proportions. Anyway, the up side is that Keith splurged on our tenth. Keith’s Dad had been a spy (yes, really) and I claim he inherited the spy gene. He’s profoundly gifted at sneakiness, in the best possible sense.
He created our anniversary as an event that would unfold for me bit by bit. Dinner at a nice restaurant was first and he made sure there were flowers waiting at the table. When it was time for dessert he managed to subtly steer me toward a different cafe. When we went inside he spoke to the hostess and we were magically whisked to the front of the line. As soon as I went through the doorway I saw, sitting there as though they didn’t live 2000 miles away, my childhood pastor and his lovely wife. I think I may have squealed. These were people with whom my family had spent holidays. Tom had married us ten years earlier and had proven himself trustworthy and kind in immeasurable ways. They’d known me since I was eight years old and my heart was already full with the grand surprise when they said they were going to visit Barbara’s brother the next day and would love for us to come along. I was over the moon.
The next day Keith ran off on some mysterious errand and returned with a friend’s red, Mustang convertible. Then off we went in style, but strangely, when we finally got to Barbara’s brother we only stayed for five minutes and left again. It was somewhat surprising since they lived so far apart, but none of my business. I happily tagged along until I finally realized we weren’t in fact headed toward home. We actually had arrived at the ferry to Orcas Island. The four of us were going to spend the night at one of my favorite places on earth, in a lovely little inn overlooking the east island bay! Heaven! I don’t think I’d ever been so happy. I was happy on our wedding day, of course, but I was too nervous to be what you’d call “giddy.”
After breakfast the following morning we went back to our rooms and Keith pulled out a dress of mine that he’d packed with his things, along with the shoes I’d worn to our wedding. I’d been purging our 600 sq. ft. condo earlier but he’d snagged them out of the bag to Goodwill. Now here they were, transformed by an artist friend to match my dress. It says something about my commitment to yoga pants that he still had to convince me to dress up. I did finally consent and he took me out, across the street to the adorable white clapboard church I’d fallen in love with when we’d been to the island before. And then I recognized it. My pastor’s deep baritone came rumbling a hymn out over the lawn and my knees began to tremble. I made it up the steps and through the front doors, and there were most of my dearest friends, all gathered together to celebrate the two of us as we renewed our vows. There was a full reception following, complete with a professional video message Keith had made to tell our story.
Yes. It was the most romantic thing ever and I felt surrounded by love. Most people wait until later, maybe the 25th anniversary, for a splurge like that. Most couples haven’t overcome all that Keith and I have. Keith also said he felt a certain urgency about it. Jason and Linda were still with us and the Friday Friends were still intact. We didn’t know how much we’d need the memory of that special time, but we did know that life is short. We’ve always wanted to live in the now, and not wait to do everything we dream of at a much later date. So in that time, with all those precious friends, we knew we’d done something important. It wasn’t just fun and romantic, although it was both. It was an alter of sorts in both our lives. We could look back and be reminded of the many great gifts we’d been given.
Unwanted
I never wanted you, you
know, but it wasn’t personal. Maybe
I was made wrong. Maybe when
God was handing out motherhood to
all the baby girls, he missed me.
Maybe I’m just screwed
up, broken in-side-out so what
happens to other girls leaks from
my strange heart-shaped holes before
it can congeal. Or maybe I’m just
me, and it doesn’t matter why, just
like it doesn’t matter who you
would’ve been.
I would’ve messed you up – sure then
unsure, right then left, weak and strong and weak. I’m full of leaks and
familial traits I never wanted to give. I did all the millions of your permutations a favor. I saved you from sending roots down and down until there’s no down left but to go in a different direction. I’m doing that for
you. I’m saying “enough is enough,”
I’m the end of the line, the last of
this particular form of fucked up DNA.
You are safe, never being, never
knowing that family is something
to be survived sometimes, and
breathing is something you
decide to do, and walking is downright heroic. I would’ve loved you. I could’ve poured my every cell into making your brand new person, but your mother would have died and
you’d have been an orphan just like
her, without a grave to visit. We
deserve better. I’m working on
better while you’re in the light,
unformed, where dreams coalesce
and lose their form but are never,
ever ignored. Even though I never
wanted you.
Perhaps I’m Angry
My friends say I am angry
but I don’t feel it. Stupid
really, waste of energy being
offended. You are brilliant,
creative, vibrant (fucking) perfection
nice and far away – okay –
near and inside me breathing in
and out and through. Sure.
You are love.
Here is not. Here is broken, a
confused man on the bus glaring
hate while my eyes fix away, still
knowing because the fury rolls off
him like a fog. Here is cancer and
depression and too often hair-
slicked back on preachers smiling
bright box teeth and selling hell for
a living. Living
here certain of all the whys
and what everyone deserves. I
don’t blame you for this.
Free will is part of the
contract. We can roll over
this groaning planet and rape
and pillage and kill. Sharp ends
from our dirty means, and a feast for
all the carnivores. So where there
is all your love down low, with the
dogs underneath the table? How do
I find you here, on the bus, carefully ignoring the fury man? I used to think
you’d protect me. Now, I think maybe
you’d just know what a beating
feels like. Love me past my PTSD, in
my weakness see past to who
I really am. I’m uncertain and
I’m okay with that. I don’t want
principles as though we could understand your mind. Send me
a friend to sit next to at the next business dinner so I don’t have
to hide my shaking. Send me some marijuana so I can sleep without my back on fire. I know you could heal it, and that would be cool, but I don’t want to hold you to it. You’re big. I’m small.
I get it. Just please don’t put me in a
box and label me. Talk to me like a
person. See me. Want me. Keep
me even though you’re (fucking)
perfect.
Impossible Soup, Part III
Some of the Friday Friends on the beach at Whidbey Island
It’s a remarkable thing to have a community, like a big extended family full of people who wear you out and fill you up, annoy you and have your back. They hold you with love, acceptance and the perseverance to work through the myriad of things that can be relationally difficult. Coming from a tiny family, just me, my parents and my grandparents who were far away, the gift of community has been profoundly wondrous, occasionally perplexing and sometimes exhausting. But it’s always been worth it. I think the hardest thing about it has been the lesson that things change, and the members of that intimate circle shift in availability. Change is a natural part of life.
While we met with Jason and Linda and the group that formed around them, we met every week on Fridays. We called ourselves the Friday Friends, and determined that our overarching goal was to be family to each other. Different people came almost every week. There were people who were from our church but there were others who Jason had usually met in some way. It may sound trite, but he really was magnetic, and he had a huge heart. Jason was an actor who worked for a non-profit organization focused on providing affordable housing to struggling families. He was great at it, but he always longed for the stage. His love for his wife and daughter meant he needed to spend evenings at home, so he let that go for a while.
Every year we’d all chip in and rent a big house on one of the local islands. We’d hang out and play games, go to the beach, and take long walks. We’d also gather to share the real stuff that was going on in our lives, pray for each other and simply be with each other in hard times. Jason would make traditional Indian chai in the morning. Linda had taught him how, and she’d spent a couple years teaching music in India, so she knew how to make the real stuff. Waking up in a house with so many people in it, I’d be a little overwhelmed until I’d stand next to Jason while he served up the chai. Somehow then I knew I was safe. He was the first man I’d ever felt safe with, besides Keith.
His protective brother-ness helped me out at church, too. We’d always sit in the row in front of the Francai (Francis, but plural), and I knew that with Keith next to me and Jason behind me, nothing was going to hurt me. I suppose that even included God, since I was quite afraid of him. Jason was spiritually gifted in remarkable ways, and since he was okay with me it seemed like he created some kind of bridge that I could stand on and be near God and not be destroyed.
There was a profound sweetness about that time with them, even though I was extraordinarily desperate in other ways. We always knew that Jason and Linda would leave eventually, but we thought they’d end up going back to India and having occasional furloughs back with us. I tried not to think about it, which I think was the best thing to do (or not do). The sharing of one’s heart naturally implies that it will be broken. The only way to prevent this is to live without giving one’s heart away, and that’s no life at all.
Expectancy
I’ve never been pregnant, and I’ve never even wanted to be. I’m not saying that’s good. It’s just true. I have a dear friend who’s having a baby in February though, and for some reason, after all the friends and family members who’ve had babies, this one has gotten me thinking. It’s too late for me and I haven’t changed my mind, but I’ve started thinking about expectancy.
I’ve thought a lot already about expectations. These are almost always uniquely negative things. They tend to be false, unfair, disappointing, and relationship-killing. They place strict boundaries around what we want or think we need from others. They limit another person to being a particular way or doing a certain thing. They don’t leave room for anything other than what is expected.
I actually ran into this as a major personal issue when I was younger, and I was expected to have a child or two or three within a few years of marriage. Doing that is a great thing for a whole lot of people, but it wasn’t for me. When I failed to meet this expectation, assumptions were made about the reasons for it. Emotional barriers were thrown up by people who did and didn’t know me, because I was unusual in this regard and that made me unpredictable and mysterious. People didn’t know what to think of me. They didn’t know what to expect, and that was an impediment to our relationship. I think it may have made people feel insecure. Sometimes they’d even assume that I must not approve of people who did have children, and that I’d placed judgments on them. I hadn’t at all. For a whole bunch of reasons I just didn’t have the emotional or physical resources to engage in being a mother, myself.
Expectancy is different in that it leaves room for the unexpected. We can be expectant of something good without defining exactly what we think that must be. It’s about waiting for something, and not being quite sure exactly what it is that we’re going to get.
My friends who are expecting a baby boy are absolutely thrilled to meet their son. They get adorably giddy at the thought of getting to know who he is. Therein lies the difference. They haven’t decided who he’s going to be or what he’s going to do. I’m sure they probably have some expectations about parenting that will turn out to be false because they’ve never done it before and they’ve imagined it to be a particular way. Knowing these dear people, they’ll work through that and get back into reality. But right now, in the third trimester of the pregnancy, they’re expecting a son and leaving all the doors and windows of possibility open to him. He’s going to be a remarkable little human and that’s about all anyone knows about him right now. But expectancy is in the air. They’re longing with all their hearts to find out who this little person is going to be, and that leaves room for him to be himself.
Expectations aren’t helpful. They disappoint, distract, and disconnect. Expectancy is different because it is hope that doesn’t try to control outcomes. It may dream a little, but in the end it makes room for whatever is coming to be whatever it is.
As Christmas approaches, I think about the traditional story. I think about the person of Jesus as described in the Bible. He was executed because he did not meet expectations. He didn’t overthrow the Romans. He hung out with crooks and prostitutes and liars. The only people he ever really reamed out were the religious leaders of the day, because they made God inaccessible and placed unbearable burdens on everyday people. He was not who people expected him to be. That didn’t mean he wasn’t good. That didn’t mean that people weren’t onto something when they were hopefully anticipating the coming of the Messiah. He ended up being all about loving God and loving each other. He represented God here on earth, which means God is all about love, too, and that’s something worth getting excited about.
Expectancy waits for revelation and lets go of pre-definition. It releases control and embraces acceptance. It puts us in the role of recipients instead of demigods, insistent on our own ways. At Christmas we’re waiting for a baby to be revealed. If we are wise we’re not waiting for a predefined man to show up and meet our every desire like a Chippendale-Warrior-Santa-Claus, slave to our whims and fantasies. It might be fun at first but we’d tire of him eventually, as we do of anything plastic that runs on batteries. We’d almost certainly muck up what’s good by trampling over others’ needs while trying to meet our own. None of those stories about genies in lamps turn out well in the long run.
I think I’d rather anticipate a baby, and gradually discover everything that is delightful and unexpected about him. I’d rather have a God I can’t control, especially if he’s willing to show up helpless and humble. As he and I take time to get to know each other, he might just turn out to be someone I’d like to know.
Seen but not Heard
Seen but not heard, a
vision of silence again
and again. I think all is
new, fresh as a lime over
ice in the shade where
the dapple obscures
isolation. The quiet
follows regardless of
audience.
I can answer that
question about the poor
tree, falling alone in the
forest. The answer is
yes. Definitively yes.
Without reservation, Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
It doesn’t matter that there
are no ears and all the boles
are closed, barked poles
tightened against the wind,
all sound absorbed in the
evergreen floor.
That wail,
that crack of pain as the roots
heave great chunks of earth
and branches flail a last futile
grab for the sky, is heard
by the one that made it.
The one who’s dying knows
what death sounds like, even
after it sounds like silence.
Not Quiet Any More 