by bcmiller2014

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.

by bcmiller2014

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. 

by bcmiller2014

Purple-Booted Herbivore

I don’t get angry very 
often. It generally doesn’t 
occur to me to be offended.  I
tend to say yes, have grace, give
room for people to feel. Am I
people? Do I matter?  And
why? So many minds smarter,
more talented hands, hearts 
more acclimated to a harsh
environment. I am one
whisper in a yelling world, an
herbivore, a lavender sweater,
a stare-at-my-toes-in-my-new-shoes-
and-fall-off-the-sidewalk kind of
girl. I have trouble crying unless
I don’t and the sob-waves pound
my internal shore as they do
silently whenever anything 
suffers. That’s a lot, you know. 
And look at that. I see my
shoes and they’re sassy, purple
boots with some swagger, after
all. I can feel the groaning of the
earth through the soles of my feet 
and still paint my toenails 
blue. I can stand with my face to
the long wail of industrial 
tyranny and still hold down a
job. My heart can travel in
and out of my chest and still I
keep myself in surgery knowing
you, and her and them and us and
knowing I will be broken forever
just by the love-giving moment when
I no longer own
my self. 
And I’ll do it anyway because I
am strong. 
I am fierce. I have something to
say. Stop yelling a while and
you’ll hear.

by bcmiller2014

Impossible Soup, Part II

I’m grateful to say I’ve been the recipient of an amazing amount of love during my life, and not just from my sweet husband. Although I was loved as a child, it was mixed with a lot of emotional unhealth.  When Keith and I first got married there were a lot of disastrous familial events as well. When I think of being loved, I think of the time since I moved to Seattle. 

When we first came we didn’t know anyone. We’d simply fallen in love with the area while interviewing for work, and decided to go ahead and move.  It was risky but such a good decision, and good timing, too. We got here in August, 2001. Had we waited another month the world would’ve already changed and we’d probably have stayed where we were. 

We found an apartment in a charming part of West Seattle, immediately painted it tangerine and magenta to offset the coming weather, and worked on getting jobs.  In the evenings we found ourselves staring at each other blankly, and outside of deciding we’d overreacted to stories of cloudy Seattle days and should probably repaint, we wondered how to get connected with a community. I was still entrenched in all the “shoulds” and “oughts” of Christianity so finding a church was automatically on our list of things to do. I have to admit, it did provide a means of meeting new people, and we were fortunate to find a faith community in which we seemed to fit.  

The church on which we settled was located in the heart of the University District, which has a slightly ragged vibe and is home to a lot of street kids. In the 60’s it was actually designated as an official area where the homeless could legally hang out.  The church leadership seemed humble and the people down-to-earth, and a lot of genuine, practical care was expressed toward those in the neighborhood. The sanctuary walls were and still are, I am sorry to say, a horrendous shade of peach, and the trim is kelly green with red accents. The building had been used as a Mongolian grill at one point, and there’s never been enough money to redo it.  

After church one Sunday there was a potluck lunch. Now, Seattle has a lot of remarkable qualities, and one of them involves the regional cuisine. We focus on fresh fish, vegetables, lovely gluten and dairy-free options, and plenty of international influences. Our specialties are coffee (of course), teas, chocolate, and artisanal breads. In general it’s quite fabulous. Our church, though, was a quirky little melting pot of hippies, students, professors and international visitors. While a Midwest potluck would consist of half a dozen casseroles, some chickens, part of a cow and the inevitable jello-based salads, we found our own potluck dishes were limited to fried rice, some chips and something that smelled profoundly of garlic and coriander. There wasn’t any soup for my shaky hands to deal with and nothing was exceptionally bad on its own, but it was a strange conglomeration. We’ve never been back to a potluck since. 

We lined up behind another couple. The  pair were engaging and affable and the wife was extremely pregnant.  We chose to sit together at a small table, and as we started to chat we began to notice unusual similarities in our stories. Linda and I were both born in small, northern towns in Illinois and majored in music for our undergraduate degrees. Keith and Jason looked like brothers and even wore the same wedding bands. Even more notably, both pairs of us went to Wisconsin on our honeymoons. Who else in the world would do that, on purpose?  I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with Wisconsin, but as far as honeymoon destinations go, it’s somewhere above Detroit but below places where you can’t drink the water.

With each revelation Jason and Keith grew increasingly animated and Linda and I began exchanging glances that said, “Oh my God!  How can there be another man who’s this energetic and expressive?!” 

Strangely enough, for the next month or so we kept seeing each other everywhere.  We’d pass on the highway. We’d bump into each other in a suburb on the other side of Lake Washington. They’d be sitting in a cafe that we’d spontaneously chosen to visit. It got to be ridiculous. It seemed divinity was determined for us to get together. 

After Linda had their first child, a baby girl, she and Jason started feeling isolated, themselves. They no longer could go out and visit with people in the evenings without getting a sitter, so they decided to try bringing visitors to them. They opened their little home to a group of friends, and we were included.  It was through this community with Jason and Linda, that for the first time I began to experience unconditional acceptance. Even when my facade was broken and people could clearly see how fucked up I was, hugs were waiting for me on the other side of our friends’ front door. 

Jason’s hugs were the best. He was always the greeter and every single time he saw my face, he was genuinely glad to see me. His put his whole body into his hugs, and wrapped me up in his acceptance. All I had to do was show up, which was sometimes quite an accomplishment. 

Often I’d be hiding in a corner, making myself as small as possible. Jason would inevitably call me out, and I always had wished someone would. I’d felt invisible and hadn’t liked it, even though I had no idea what to say or do to be different.  When I was with those friends though, I was wanted, and that was everything. I began to learn to let myself be loved, which was crucial on many levels.  It’s hard to love others on an empty tank. 

Those first few years here were some of the most dreadful, soul-shredding, family-building years of my life.  I never would’ve survived on my own, and there I was in a brand new, somewhat introverted city building some of the deepest and most rewarding relationships I’ve ever had. It may have qualified as a miracle. It’s possible that it saved my life. It’s certain that it saved my basic faith.

by bcmiller2014

The Perfect Hat

I love buying and giving gifts. My psychiatrist heard this and told me I must be mental, which made me laugh quite hard. And yet it’s true. My husband gave me a budget this year for getting people presents as part of my own Christmas present. It makes me happy to pop into shops, see things that remind me of friends, and buy them. My plan is that I’ll be able to do this all year round once we get finances all settled after medical expenses die down (crossing my fingers, saying a prayer and finding some rosary beads).  

There are only two things that aren’t fun about buying gifts. One regards money. Sometimes I find the perfect gift and discover it’s out of my budget.  Other times, because I believe in quality, small shops and paying full price as my own meager way of resisting a market built on slave labor in third world countries, I run out of money before I’ve bought something for everyone on my list. 

The other joy-sapping scenario is one in which I feel pressured to buy something for someone whose tastes remain elusive to me. I’m a designer and strongly empathetic, so I can get a pretty good sense for most friends. But every once in a while there’s someone who remains mysterious. This year, my mysterious Christmas gift recipient was a 16 year old boy. 

This particular boy is a person whose mother I know very well, and because of this I’ve heard numerous stories and seen a multitude of pictures. I can tell he’s a confident, somewhat nerdy person with great wit and a lot of expressive energy, and he’s a country boy. He’s a good kid. From all of the above I can tell quite a bit, but still, I’ve got to do more than give him chocolate every year, ice cream doesn’t ship well, he’s not into sports, and he hasn’t seen enough Dr. Who episodes to understand those kinds of references on t-shirts or memorabilia. When I found out my Dr. Who idea wouldn’t work, I got a little worried. 

Today was the day. His mom told me he wanted a warm hat that had some personality. Seattle has plenty of hats with personality, but then I realized, he lives in the country and shops at Walmart. His idea of personality might be quite a bit more restrained than what I can find on the West Coast. 

I started shopping in Fremont, the self-proclaimed center of the universe. I went to the small stores I thought viable, finding presents for Melissa, Kristen, Chris, Sharon and Nicki. I laughed myself silly reading a little book entitled “All my Friends are Dead” right in the middle of a shop. I found a fair trade nonprofit group that sells incredible Peruvian pillow covers and bags, but no hat.  And right before I realized I’d left my purse at the hippie vegan restaurant where we’d had lunch, I did discover and purchase (with Keith’s help) a solid chocolate dinosaur. 

45 minutes and a heart attack later, we were on our way to Ballard, having found my purse hiding behind a chair. It took me over an hour to find my way down from the anxiety stratosphere, but then I was ready to try some more. 

Just for the record, Ballard is sick. I mean, the shopping is truly epic for someone with my particular tastes. There were twinkle lights everywhere, judging by the clamor in the sports bars the Seahawks were obviously winning their game, and I only had to visit a handful of delightful little shops before finding It – the perfect hat.  Yes, it was on a mannequin’s head but in the wrong color. I was directed to the “hat room” in the back, where the shop cat was sleeping on a blanket on a shelf over a heat lamp. There was one hat left in the appropriate color. It was an epic moment in which I stood triumphant, knowing I had found the hat that had Josiah’s name invisibly written on it in magic ink.  Victory was mine. Hopefully I will retain said victory by getting all the presents wrapped and mailed in time for the actual holiday. 

I’m trying to find a deeper meaning in this. I want my blog to be characterized by depth, sensitivity and charm, as well as a certain air of mysterious abstraction that embodies my weird little spirit. I don’t mind digging a little. Let’s go for depth. 

Why do I love buying gifts?  Am I indeed mental?  It’s not always easy. Am I looking for approval?  I’m sure that may leak into it occasionally. Mostly I think that giving gifts is a way I can express my affection. Real friends won’t care if my selection is a bit off sometimes. They’ll receive in the same way I would from them, grateful that they thought of me. There are so many painful things about life that I can sometimes become overwhelmed with the burden of all the brokenness that I see in the ways we humans treat each other. It’s a comfort to me to take a small moment to express my affection for people I love. There’s a softness about it that knocks out a few edges and makes life easier to bear. I want so badly to make the world a better place and I am so profoundly limited in what I can actually do to create change. Giving some little something away just to make someone smile makes me feel a bit better about walking around on planet earth. It reminds me what my feet are for and that I can do other small things. I can buy a blanket for a homeless person, donate socks, hug a friend who looks sad, listen when someone is hurting. I can call my parents for five minutes from my therapist’s office. I can walk a student to the counseling center and attend a prayer vigil for peace. 

If I can find the perfect hat for a 16 year old boy, I can do almost anything, damn it. It’s not about the hat. It’s about listening for the heart of the potential receiver and responding as accurately and sensitively as possible. We need a lot more listening in our country right now. I think we always will, so I think it’s okay to celebrate the opportunity to give the gift of an open ear, or heart, or pocketbook. In being generous we can forget about ourselves, even if some call us mental for enjoying it. If we’re really lucky, we may even get to guffaw over a silly book in the middle of a crowded room, while searching for the perfect hat.

by bcmiller2014

Invisible Stars

Poetry by its nature requires a great deal of revision before it’s very good. Blogging, however, is sort of like a diary. It’s more of a stream of consciousness kind of genre. I know this, and yet I’m still including poetry here. I don’t claim it’s great. It’s just how my mind works. Sometimes my own mind needs to word things this way so that I can understand myself. If I think it’s worthy I’ll spend more time on it later. If not, it’s just a window into my way of thinking. So here’s the latest thought:

I cannot see the stars from
here in the city
town down from midnight
clouds and buzzing human
thrum. 

I feel the moist in the best
nights, softening the noisy
edges and spreading thick on
my twelfth floor leaves but no,
I cannot hear them. 

They all do their best and I
love them for that. They’re simply
come-over by industry, business 
and thrall. 

The invisible stars meet the
silent leaves and shimmer
in the mist. But my love is
too small, too much on
my self. 

I need to be surrounded, and
not with people
(though some are special and 
keep me alive). I need to hear the
wind-singing cellulose,
flying shadows under the
moon with untidy green beneath,
breathing kinetic sculpture into
the ground. 

The invisible stars hum just 
the same. But I am too deaf
to hear them. The dancing toy
trees keep their beat, but 
my heart is too far to
join them.

by bcmiller2014

Impossible Soup, Part I

A while ago I mentioned that I grew up as a fundamentalist evangelical. I did, in fact, but I want to say first that the pastor of my church was a man of great integrity, humility, intelligence and faith. He’s even come forward and admitted his previously held views about women in the church were wrong. It takes a lot of courage to admit something like that and move in a different direction. While there are beliefs that I’ve since questioned, revised or discarded, he has remained a true friend and someone for whom I have great respect and affection.  I want to make that clear.

When I look back on what was truly damaging to me during that time, for the most part it had nothing to do with the actual teachings in my church. There was a strong emphasis on grace and unconditional love. There are a lot of people who came out of that environment as strong, confident individuals who could think for themselves. I think what made the atmosphere so toxic for me was that what I heard and how I saw those teachings lived out at home were completely different, even though the language was the same.  Both the church and my family talked about grace and unconditional love, but at the same time my parents and I were living in constant judgment and what I’d call Christian perfectionism. When I made mistakes, affection was revoked. God began to appear to be an irritable, insatiable scientist attempting to perfect his creations. He put us through tests and torment to make us better people. He dealt with us as though we were rats in a maze. Later, when I was grown and married and going to a different church, I wasn’t emotionally capable of having children.  The looks and comments people threw my way gave the distinct impression that I was not just a rat, but a diseased one.  I was an outsider rat who made all the others feel weird about themselves, or me, or both. In retrospect I’m sure there were people who didn’t look at me that way, but they weren’t in my immediate Christian circles.

Now, just for clarity, I do not actually view Christians as rodents. I suppose at the time I generally viewed all humanity as trapped in a sort of puzzle box, looking for a way out so we could prove we were smart enough to do it. I didn’t think we actually were smart enough to succeed, so the whole thing seemed pointless. Let’s just say it was a melancholy time for me.

I also don’t know why I never dumped the idea of God altogether. I’ve certainly considered it. Who wants to worship a mad scientist?  Well, okay, Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible does deserve a second look, but even he (as the title would suggest) turns quasi-bad in the end. My only solid explanation for why my faith hasn’t died has to do with the people who’ve been in my life, mostly since 2001.  In August of 2001, my husband and I moved away from the mid-south, home to some of the most radically conservative groups in the country, to Seattle, Washington. Seattle is home to the opposite. I have to admit, I felt I’d come home for the first time. When people asked if I had kids and I said “no,” and they followed by asking if we were planning on kids only to receive an “I don’t think so,” they didn’t look at me like I’d grown an extra head. They generally said something like, “Cool,” and looked nonchalant. Simply not having to face that constant judgment was an incredible gift.  Beauty is also something that helps my heart connect with divinity in a non-judgmental way, so it didn’t hurt matters that Seattle is absolutely stunning. The city has mountains on both sides and water everywhere, enormous trees, and wild ferns in the abundant forests. The fact that the average temperature in the summer is 75 was pretty great too, especially after all those miserable summers of lawn-mowing in my youth. Seattle was my Mecca.

It wasn’t without its challenges, though. My husband and I both had hard times with work. I landed a position in a hospitality firm where the work was fun, but the atmosphere was brutal. Take a whip to me and I do not get stronger, I get lacerated. I was working in this kind of environment when I developed generalized anxiety disorder, acid reflux, and IBS. I’ve since gotten professional help and done my own research, and there is a complex form of PTSD that appears to apply to people like me. Children who grow up in unpredictable environments of emotional abuse*, grow up with a lot of the same symptoms as those who grow up in war zones. The world is perceived as a profoundly dangerous place and there’s no escaping the sense of imminent doom. Perhaps (as in my case) the person learns how to keep up a facade of professionalism in certain, known environments, but can’t contain all the physical symptoms such as shaking hands or the need to keep a giant bottle of antacid at the front of the desk drawer. Then there’s the oppressive fear of having one’s brokenness discovered. Something can sometimes act as a trigger to a full panic attack and knowing that this can happen leads to increased anxiety.  Eventually a person can wind up at a faculty dinner staring at an otherwise harmless bowl of tomato soup knowing it’s physically impossible to get the soup successfully transferred from the bowl to the mouth without looking like an alcoholic coming down from a three month binge.

I believe the seeds for all of these issues were planted a long time before we moved to Seattle. It’s just that moving to Seattle and working for a brutal employer brought a dormant condition into a full-blown crisis. I developed insomnia due to the anxiety. My heart raced as though I were being chased by wild dogs, every single, absolutely otherwise normal day.

Nights were the worst.
“What do you want from me?!” I’d yell into the dark, pounding my fists against a pillow. “I’m sorry!  I repent!  Whatever I’m doing wrong just tell me and I’ll stop doing it!!!”  I knew I “should” have peace. The Bible promises the peace that passes all understanding, and if I didn’t have it, it was obviously my fault. I didn’t get help or go to the doctor for five years. I lived with it, if you could call that living, because if a person had Jesus s/he wasn’t supposed to need therapy.

This is the point at which some amazing people came into my life and loved me. I can’t explain why that happened then and not before, but it did. And these people happened to believe in a God who seemed better and kinder than the one I’d experienced. This is what kept me then, and what has continued to keep me from abandoning my faith altogether. Being surrounded by truly loving people who weren’t freaked out when I felt (and actually was) absolutely mental, was a miracle. It doesn’t happen for everyone. People slip through the cracks all the time. I don’t know why I was the recipient of such kindness, but I’m everlastingly grateful. On more occasions than one, kindness has saved my life.

This has deeply affected who I want to be for other people.  If I err in life, I want it to be on the side of compassion.  My grandfather would’ve curled his lip and called me a bleeding-heart liberal, but all politics aside, I really don’t have a problem with having a bleeding heart as long as I’m not bleeding out.  I want to be emotionally and mentally healthy so I have resources from which I can give.  I never want to be the person who excludes someone else because s/he’s different, or lives in different ways, or loves in different ways.  I know I’ll fail sometimes, but so help me God, I never want to look at another person as though s/he’s grown another head just because something about him or her is beyond my understanding.  I don’t want to look that way if I do understand and just don’t agree.  I don’t think agreement is a pre-requisite to kindness and love, and I don’t think it’s my job to go around correcting people.  For one thing, I can hardly navigate my own life without adding ill-advised attempts to figure out other people’s lives or even my own bookkeeping.  If God is any good at his job at all, he can take care of directing other people while he’s out there finding me a good accountant. There are plenty of people trying to impose their beliefs on other people, with extraordinarily damaging and sometimes horrific consequences.  What I don’t see enough of is the kind of love that can see beyond the surface to the value of another person’s heart.  We’re all in this together.  I want to act like it.

*Too often we view abusers as evil beasts who intend to harm others in horrible, violent ways.  My own experience is different from this.  My parents meant well.  Their parents meant well.  If you follow my lineage back you can find generation upon generation of abusive behavior, on both sides of the family.  We’re taught how to behave as children, and if we don’t have the courage or resources to confront our past, learn, grow, break down, and heal, we just keep the cycle of abuse flowing.  The catch is that just because someone doesn’t intend to abuse you, doesn’t mean they don’t do it.

by bcmiller2014

Two-way

What is a conversation, really?  It must, of necessity involve at least two persons who are speaking. But do they have to be speaking at the same depth?  Can it qualify if one participant dominates?  What if there is something really obvious to be said, and the person who should say it doesn’t say it, and the other person knows it’s useless to bring it up without the other?  Maybe the other couldn’t handle the answer to what should be that important question?  I don’t know. Maybe it’s enough to be kind and as present, on as authentic a level as possible.   I hope so. 

I called my parents today. I said I had five minutes or so, which led to almost ten. I hadn’t spoken with them for a year and three months. The really odd thing was that they seemed to continue on as though nothing had happened. All that worrying I did about not being able to answer their questions was completely wasted. I didn’t really want them to ask questions I couldn’t answer yet, but it was surreal to be so superficial after such a long time. I guess a part of me is always going to yearn for a healthy relationship with them. And yet, I think what I’d better focus on is to have the healthiest relationship possible with people who’ve chosen to remain in the same emotional and cognitive snares they’ve dealt with since childhood. It may sound like I’m being hard on them. As far as I can tell they’ve had opportunities to grow but haven’t taken them, but I don’t know what’s in their hearts. Truly, they both carry deep wounds with them everywhere. It’s just that I’m not responsible for making those wounds feel better. It isn’t my job to make them feel happy and secure. It’s my job to be responsible for myself, my responses, my emotional and mental health. It’s my job to figure out how to draw boundaries and keep them, even if it makes them unhappy. It’s my job to know how much and what I can give without doing damage to myself. 

For now, that means they’re going to receive intermittent 5 minute phone calls on speaker phone from my therapist’s office. After my call today I spent 2-1/2 hours with my chiropractor. My whole back seized up. I’d say that’s all I can do, but doing it was kind. It was considerate of my mother’s upcoming birthday. I was as present as I could be with people who didn’t say anything of consequence, except that they loved me, which I really appreciate. They could’ve been real assholes about it, so oblivious isn’t all that bad, I suppose. My job is me. Their job is them. My job is me. Their job is them. 

Maybe we never get to relate in such a way that I receive as well as give. Maybe this will be until the end. Maybe that’s okay. All right, it sucks, but I have been profoundly blessed by people who truly care about me. I have amazing, two-way people in my life, and we give and receive from each other constantly. It may not be the same as having that relationship with parents, but it’s far from a negligible gift. 

I’m going to let Mom and Dad be Mom and Dad. My needs are met elsewhere. I can give what is healthy for me to give and learn to say “no” to things I legitimately cannot do. That will be the hard part. I’ve always wanted to make them happy, and it’s time for me to give up on that. They haven’t realized I’ve given up on that yet, and that will cause a few internally charged silent moments, I’ll bet. Still. They’re going to have to get used to it. I’ll give them light conversation-ish as I’m able and that will have to be okay. 

by bcmiller2014

Cake

I called you today. Your voice was
a cinnamon fog, so
easy to get lost
in conviviality. Nothing said that
wasn’t icing, resting on top
of the chocolate. And yes,
I’m chocolate, white as fucking
Beaux Arts. I’m vanilla and
chocolate all together and if
you really want to know me you’ll have to dig in and chew. But
then, this cake wasn’t made to
nourish you.
Forgive me
for obfuscating.
I am a warrior who saves worms from wet sidewalks. Mighty
lover that I am, I’ll hug you with
my Beaux-Arts heart and
mean it. If
you want me. But I’m
never cake on a
plate just for you. I’ll surprise us
both by not
crumbling.

by bcmiller2014

Mulch

Well, I’ve spent two days doing absolutely nothing. I brought grading home and it needs to be done, but there it sits on the kitchen counter. I suppose I can give myself some credit for watching television that won’t bring me any nightmares, but I do wonder about the animal welfare oversight in “Milo and Otis.” And in my own defense, I started getting an earache and sore throat, and the best way to fight these things off is to rest. Which brings me to the inevitable question of why I need to defend rest. What is it that makes me feel guilty for being a little self-indulgent for a couple of days. It’s not as though I’m irresponsible and continuously self-absorbed.

When I was growing up I worked for my dad from the age of 11, mowing lawns after school and on weekends. He pulled me away, crying, from a friend’s birthday party and said, “Do you think I want to work this hard?! No! I taught all day and I’m tired and I’ll have homework to grade when I’m home.”
That came after “If I’d had a boy, he’d do it. But I had a girl, so you’ll have to to do it instead.”

It wasn’t his greatest hour. Now that I’m grown I know he was working three jobs, had an unhappy childhood and was in full avoidance of all his grief about my mother’s unexpected disability. Being buried in work was part of how he coped with emotions he didn’t want to face. His hair trigger temper and general unhappiness were understandable, but I was 11 then, and all I felt was that I didn’t matter. My feelings didn’t matter. My heart didn’t matter. I wanted to please him so badly, to make him look up from his work and smile. I never succeeded, but that was always my goal. So I thought the very least I could do was learn how to work, and work hard. I didn’t want any special treatment because I was a girl. I lifted lawn mowers, hefted bags of clippings and mowed up and down hillsides without complaining.

People always ask if he paid me, as though that made any difference at all when I was 12 and had no say in what I did or didn’t do. For the record, he did pay me. He found it to be a great opportunity to teach me how to handle money and pay my own expenses while being able to write off his payments as business expenses. It was quite clever, really. I learned how to be responsible and hard-working. I learned how to take initiative, keep my head down, and my mouth closed. I learned all about hard work.

Really though, there are plenty of people who have a hard time not feeling guilty about taking time off, who haven’t had the same upbringing. Perhaps it’s something about being American, a sort of “forging west, doing your part, pulling up the old bootstraps” kind of thing. We take fewer vacation days than almost anywhere in Europe. It seems like we feel like better people if we work hard. We don’t want to be slackers, or unmotivated.

Maybe it’s something to do with our sense of impending mortality. We don’t want to waste time. But what ramifications does that have for people like my mother, whose disabilities preclude the possibility of employment? Is her life worthless or meaningless? And what about people like myself, who can work but have emotional and related physical limitations that require them to occasionally stop completely to recharge? Are these necessary down times wasted? I admit I’ve often felt like it.

When I was small, I was a dreamer. I was only ever in trouble at school for looking out the window and dreaming, or getting caught up in natural wonders on my walk to school and being late. It seems like wasting time is almost intrinsic to who I really am. I think and feel deeply, and those dreamy times have sometimes brought a sense of spiritual connection or a momentary release from the pressure of dealing with all the practical burdens of life. This release can sometimes lead to inspiration or creativity. But here again, I feel myself pandering to the need to justify rest.

What if rest justifies itself? Even God has been said to rest, which according to the Judeo-Christian way of thinking means it can’t be bad. What if it’s a gift to have time just to be? We are not, if we admit it, fully defined by what we do. Yes, our actions provide proof of our character, and tangible evidence on which we can base our evaluations of others. It is not, however, everything that we are. I’m not just a professor, or a writer, or a beginning artist. I’m not just a former musician. All of these things are definitions based on things I’ve done. I am something more than all of that in my heart.

What I cannot escape is that this essence of my being, this ephemeral spirituality that exists outside my physical parameters, my innermost “me” requires expression. The other day I sent something I wrote to a friend and said, “It’s as though what I write does not exist unless I share it.” Similarly, it’s as though my self does not exist unless I share it. Sharing requires activity, which is sometimes work. Being and doing seem to be inescapably intertwined. And yet, being and doing exist in time, and nature itself suggests there are seasons for everything, laying the groundwork for new life. For myself at least, being must precede doing if the subsequent actions are to be meaningful. And resting helps me connect with that being, so everything I then do is a more accurate representation of who I really am. Being must be the source of my doing, or else I’m merely engaged in frenetic activity of little depth. So basically, the fact that I’ve been sitting on my ass for two days straight is an action itself of immense importance. It is a form of doing. It’s the mulch of fall leaves and the hibernation of winter. Spring will come soon enough, with plenty to do. Hopefully that doing will be more than me leaning in and keeping my head down. Hopefully it will be an expression of my heart.