The Russians Call Me Katia

Napkin Shreds

2011-09-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

There comes a point in every parent’s life that the reality of parenthood finally sets in, as if to say, “The inevitable has happened; you have officially become your mother.” I’ll wager a guess that, for most, it happens as it did for my husband and I: in the middle of the night. It’s a hidden mercy, really; the grogginess helps to drown out the terror. Anyway—

What?

Oh! I know what you’re thinking:
You know for a fact that Chandler and I have hardly been married a month.
You know our wedding was not, in fact, of the shotgun variety.
Nor could we possibly have been able to adopt on such short notice--

Well, now. That’s where you’re wrong.

As I was saying, if (somehow) this reality of parenthood does not set in during the late-night screaming and mid-morning feedings of infanthood, and somehow the toddler years don’t involve significant amounts of bed-wetting or late-night up-hours (Wow. You people either have unusually good children or you need to be more introspective!), it is bound to happen with sitcom-like accuracy when your child is just old enough to wander into the bedroom after midnight and insist upon the absolute necessity of climbing into bed with you. The scenario plays out only at the least convenient hour (for us it was 2am), on the least convenient night’s sleep (which, unlike in sitcoms where this reason is usually romantic, for me was due to my having a cold and struggling to stay asleep while unable to breathe through my nose), and for the least convenient reason (like a high fever, for example).

Parenthood is a form of sanctification. Sanctification is inconvenient.

It’s just after 2am, and I was sleeping soundly just a few short moments ago, when I heard the pitter-patter of little feet. Or, rather, I half-consciously felt the pitter-patter of little feet—very little feet—on my hand.

The scene was in the dark, so I don’t know what it looked like, but it sounded like this:

“CHANDLER!”

“Umph?”

“Did you bring the hamster to bed?”

Confused pause— “Hamster to bed? No?”

“Something is on me! I just felt a mouse! Or a RAT!”

As Chan jumped up (Ok, let’s be honest, Chan doesn’t jump; he calmly crosses rooms) and hit the light switch (in an urgent-ish fashion), we looked down to see that our hamster was, indeed, curiously investigating our burgundy bedspread as if to say:

“Mommy? Daddy? Can I sleep with you?”

Thus, I and PeanutButter (now safely in his hamster cage and apparently very thirsty) are awake in the living room (at now 3 o’clock) while Daddy is back in bed sleeping soundly. You can’t really blame our nocturnal child, though; one of his parents (the sleeping one) left the cage door open last night while seeing what a hamster might do with a few pieces of shredded napkin. (He wads them up and stores them in his puffy little cheeks, of course, and spits them back out again in a more appropriate place. . .like his food pile.) In all fairness, I don’t really mind, since PB gets his nocturnal genes from my side of the family. I’m just thankful he didn’t wander off and get lost in one of my furniture-and-box-filled rooms or down one of the coverless heating vents in this very-much-a-work-in-progress house!

‘Twas the night before Tuesday and all through the house
Stewart Little was wand’ring (at least our version of the mouse).
Yes I have a cold, but my child doesn’t care!
Still I thank him for not being up in my hair. . .

*shudder*

P.S. Married one month today. Wowie zowie.

"Would you be mine; could you be mine. . ."

2011-08-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

It is a perfect Sabbath evening in my neighborhood. The summer swelter has cooled down to a breezy seventy-something, I suppose, and as Chandler left for a few hours of office work, I abandoned a pile of Sunday dinner dishes for a peaceful stroll around the block. Smiling at the array of quaint homes in sea-foam green, baby blue, and the most awful shade of lemon yellow that the ’60s had the nerve to crank out, I admire the well-kept exteriors boasting brightly that all of them were built in 1965, and not one of them seems to mind.

Our neighborhood is most decidedly dated, and I like it that way too. We live on a quiet little pair of streets joined side by side in the shape of a tuning fork. The houses are old, the people are older, and the trees are older still. Anyone who knows me could guess my favorite characters along our street are these ancient trees, and I’d trade an arm or two for a word or two of wisdom from the old fellows. But since trees can’t talk, I’m pleased to see a resemblance in so many of my neighbors and look forward to the stories that come with their years as surely as rings can be counted in trees.

On both of these streets the houses are small. You know, large enough to comfortably contain a family with one car, but without all those superfluous basements, extra baths, and bonus rooms. Moving here from Williamson County, Tennessee gives me a great appreciation for the smallness of the houses and people. Inside the oddly colored walls of these houses are a couple of young families, a handful of middle-aged marrieds, and a wealth of wise, wrinkled faces. We are all pinching pennies and doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Nobody here is anybody, including myself, but we like being neighbors.

The day we pulled into the drive a heavy, middle-aged woman came running across the, sweat dripping and covered in grass clippings, to hug me and say how excited everyone was to have us “back.” They love my husband because he is their neighbor, and so they love me too.

A retired policeman patrols the street with a camera, Chan says. If he sees anything suspicious, he takes a picture. In the afternoon I see him driving from yard to yard on his “favorite toy” helping his neighbors keep their lawns mowed. He helped with ours while we were away.

Mrs. Prusse (pronounced “proose”) was married in ’25 and lost her husband in ’56. She had lost her mother young, when she was 18, and so she says she’s spent most of her life alone. She sits in a lawn chair on her front porch—which is precisely wide enough for exactly one lawn chair—and she says it’s been a lot of lonely years.

Bill & Doreen are right next door. They will be my resident grandparents, I believe, but they will NOT come to dinner. I’ve already invited them, and they’ve already said no. They say they are seventy-six; they don’t go out much. I hope it isn’t true about teaching old dogs new tricks. Meanwhile, I wave to Bill as he busies himself on his front lawn or in his tomato garden, and I stop in to hug Doreen and chat with her about progress in my little house, all of which impresses her, because she enjoys being impressed, I think.

It’s in community like this that I see a commonly unrecognized truth revealed: dependency is a good thing. Try selling that in Hollywood, right? But God created people with an inability to fulfill all of their own needs. We need Him, for example. But we also need each other.
Some of the first people I met here were the ones who helped my then-fiancé re-roof his house this spring in preparation for his bride-to-be. Others have loaned him everything from can-openers to the ramps he needed yesterday when he changed my oil. The guy who loaned Chan the ramps even wandered by while he was working and offered him a cold beer. Chandler said no thanks because he doesn’t like beer, but the guy left it dripping condensation beside the tire anyway. So if you ever see me get misty-eyed looking at the lonely Budweiser in our refrigerator door, it is because three neighbors on our street alone lost their jobs last month, and we don’t have much here, but what we’ve got we’ll share.

God seems to have designed community, the sharing of a common bond, as a means of producing joy. This is true even—maybe especially—if we are bound together by poverty. In affluent towns like the wealthy one I left, people take good care of the “Needy” but miss out on the sweet knowledge that they, too, are in need. They “want to give” to people in need because they “want to help” them. They do not see the distance between themselves and their community. They do not know that, as one author put it, there is no “them,” there are only varying degrees of “us,” and we’re all we’ve got.

So this colony of strangely-colored houses is the neighborhood in which God has placed me, and I am rather happy that my house is only a pale shade of grey, but I love every home on this street. Because these people I don’t know yet are the people with whom I will share community, and some of their city-people ways are strange to a shy Tennessee girl. Maybe they’ll think me strange, too, for the way I adore their trees. We won’t have everything in common. But these are my neighbors, and I don’t know many of them yet, but I thank God for every last one of them.

Peeves (Pet, Or Otherwise)

2010-12-25T18:23:00.000-08:00

I recently had a text-ersation with my friend "D" in which he said:

"I'm in Oklahoma for a visit, but let's get together when I get back!"

I responded with an inquiry:

"Oh! Where in Oklahoma? I have a best friend in Bartlesville."

In answer, "D" assured me of the following information:

"Oh, my mom's side of the fam lives here, so we're visiting for Xmas."

You can plainly see the question/answer relationship, of course; I asked a question with the word Oklahoma in it, thus anything related to Oklahoma was apparently sufficient response. From now on, when I want to know something, I will simply send a key word or, better yet, a completely blank text. Then *insert recipient* can simply respond with whatever information he is interested in sharing, which will spare me the unnecessary effort of formulating a specific question in the first place.

Dude.

If I'm not worth the time to read a text, why even respond?

"If Only You Would Hide Me In The Grave"

2010-12-11T17:01:00.001-08:00

Have you ever watched someone you love

destroying someone you love?

The ache.
The smarting reminders of past experience, like searing irons to the brain, hold teeth to tongue lest love for one appear a betrayal of the other.
And it does.
Every time.

Love translates to hate. Loyalty to disloyalty.
The children of divorced parents feel this way.
There are only two options: choose sides! or shrivel up and die.

You realize your weakness to choosing sides. . .
And choosing back. . .
And rechoosing. . .

Your pacing of circular paths begins to trample your own soul, rendering option two more palatable, inviting even; the battle is "not against flesh" but is more than your body can bear.

Each day ends at long last.
You bury yourself in blankets.
You say your prayers, a lullaby. . .

. . .and if I die before I wake. . .

Confession:

2010-11-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

I had to google the word "spiel" just now, to check the spelling.

One result was a random blog entitled "my spiel." (Clever.) It said something about a logical approach to the issue of homosexual marriage that reminded me of a Dr. Rapinchuk class, so I clicked. Bad idea. It was from the opposing side, and, while I am not afraid of their arguments, it pains me terribly to read them. I only got about a paragraph in, but this quote struck me because it is sadly, admittedly, true:

In her essay “Against Marriage” Claudia Card asserts that we should “be reluctant to put our activist energy into attaining legal equity with heterosexuals in marriage—not because the existing discrimination against us is in any way justifiable, but because this institution is so deeply flawed that it seems to be unworthy of emulation and reproduction,” (Card, p. 88). . . .Marriage is not a successful institution as it stands. The push to extend the reach of this troubled system seems a problematic ambition. . .

The world should never look to us, as long as we look just like them.

Faith, Hope, and Love

2010-11-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

A cold front is moving through middle Tennessee, replacing last week's unbelievable warmth and sunshine with an equally unfathomable wind that can only be described as "blustering." These fronts are the famous sources for countless Whitehead family pressure headaches, and I have one now.

Stress also gives me headaches. The Whitehead family has an abundance of that, too. Last night was particularly stressful for the sorts of reasons that all of humanity has experienced. I won't go into details, but I was glad to be "tucking in another day" (Chris Rice) when bedtime finally rolled around.

It is a blessing the way the Lord restores one's soul after a full night's sleep. Maybe that's part of what it means that God's mercies are "new every morning." Everything seems new in the morning. I apparently clenched my teeth all night and woke up with a killer headache, mind you, but I woke refreshed in spirit if not in body. After a glass of water, a shower, breakfast, sudafed, tylenol, and coffee, I was far better in body too. Next, I set to work on my state of mind with some morning reading.

I have been studying the book of James for the past few weeks. The first week I read chapter 1 every day, the next chapters 1 & 2, and I have worked my way up to 1-3. (One can't use this method with all books, but I like the reinforcement and James is a short one.) The second half of chapter 2 caught my attention today. The subject is Faith, and I need it right now.

I suppose it is only though the blessing of trials that God's word can be made alive to us. I may have been interested in "having faith" before, but it is when my faith is failing that I am most thankful for the Word's elaboration on the subject. James 2:14-26 discusses the invalidity of faith without works. We've both heard that before, but reading it today brought to mind a conversation in which a dear friend was near despair and said he just didn't know how to "have faith" right now. It occurred to me today that these verses address that very problem.

(I'm young. Bear with me.)

Faith seems to me an abstract thing. I say I want to "have faith" and to "believe," but when I'm really struggling I often note that I "don't know how to have faith right now" or that I "don't know how to believe" what I claim to believe. Maybe these verses are the answer to those dilemmas: Faith IS work. Studying grammar taught me to see a linking verb as an equals sign. Thus, the two are not only linked, they are equivalent. "Having faith" and "believing" are not abstract things, they are tangible actions in the form of works. Just as with Hope and Love, I am discovering that it takes a lot of courage, energy, and effort to "have Faith." In fact, all of those seem to involve a lot more "trying" and a lot less "having." This made me think of our conversation last night, how sometimes we just don't know how to be (and the bible telling us "how to be" sometimes doesn't seem to help as much as point out impossibilities). However, the Word always tells us what to do, and that is something tangible. I am thankful for the occasional tangibles of faith (she stated paradoxically)!

An author once illustrated Christianity with the "say like" game. Do you remember?

"Say like I'm an astronaut and this is my rocket ship."

"Say like I'm the mommy, you're the daddy, & teddy is our baby."

Faith and belief are a game of "say like I'm Jesus." In Lauren F. Winners's memoir, Girl Meets God, she narrates from an obscure British novel a scene in which a believer and a cynic are debating God. "Of course I know you believe in it, the cynic says, what I want to know is do you believe in it the way you believe in Australia?"

My answer is usually No. I don't know if "I believe" God is answering my prayers. I don't know if I "have faith" we can overcome the demons that sometimes indwell this house. But I can ACT as if I do. I can continue trudging along in the actions that are required of me, trusting grace to meet me in the middle. I turn to the golden rule. I begin to discover how King David could delight in the Law, how it ceases to be a task and even becomes a relief to meditate on it day and night. The Word tells me what to do, the work of my faith. One of my psych professors said it this way: We cannot think our way into a better way of living, but we can live our way into a better way of thinking.

All that being said, I must finally reminding the pragmatist in me that this "better way of living" is not to effect some change in the world around me but to fulfill my destiny to become more like Christ. It is likely that the fruits of the latter will take care of the former, but I must trust God's sovereignty and, in obedience, take responsibility for myself alone. And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion. . .soon. (Philippians 1)

Well, that's my spiel. It was a bit of a revelation about faith for me, and a much-needed encouragement.

"I am amazed at the patience of my blessed Master & Teacher, but how I love His school!"

E. Prentiss

Truth:

2010-11-15T08:26:00.000-08:00

It is good to have days I couldn't survive without the Word.

"Q"

2010-11-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

"You can't spell quarantine without"

me, or so I've heard.

And I can't spell paralysis,

without you to define the word

and define my life and enforce the guilt

with a dagger of rust and my name on the hilt.

Yesterdays live forever, a vividly detailed ghost

and links of chain and iron balls and still that unangellic host,

you who can't and never will and couldn't be convinced

(the world be turned, and turned again another thousand since)

of the truth that I've come to confide:

that captives sometimes take your side.

Forgive me or forgive me not,

no argument's writ in this song.

But leave me alone in the bloody mess

that I was always wrong.

Basic Training

2010-11-09T14:05:00.001-08:00

A mother's work is never done.

And if that mother happens to sneeze one night, and if that sneeze happens to throw out her back and render her bedridden, and if you happen to be the twenty-four-year-old voluntary live-in homeschool tutor, cook, and housekeeper. . .you may find that your work is similarly endless (and that your younger siblings have begun referring to you as "the Nazi" behind your back).

Poor Mama. Get well soon (for all our sakes)!

Middle Branches

2010-11-04T11:33:00.001-07:00

Maybe I will be a parent someday, maybe not. My sister, though, in anticipation of her first little one (due December 7th) has been a recent catalyst for endless conversations on the subject. Us? Parents? It's a good thing we've had good role models. We scoff at what certain other parents did wrong--in-laws, relatives, that one set of weird neighbors--commending our parents for getting those things right. Obvious things like being home, having dinner with us, and the ultimate decision of perfect parenting: Home Education (which we home-schoolers know is the magic ticket to raising good children).

Yes, my sister and I nod, we know how real parents parent.

But there are those other things, the ones you don't see for as long as your parents are right "because I said so," the small and hidden secrets you suddenly find have been growing inside you because sometimes, just sometimes, they were wrong. And sometimes they taught you to be wrong too, and no one ever told you 'til you went to meet the world, presenting the beautiful portrait of yourself, anticipating only applause.

And they all said it was ugly. You got it wrong. Start over.

I was talking with my brother last night about whether we're a "normal" family. I assured him that our parents had done well, very well, the best they could possibly do, and that try as he may he would never find a family that came even close. To normal, I mean. There is no such thing. Every family tree has its roots in the dirt.

My siblings and I live under the oppression of hereditary diseases: the one we're all dying from and the other ones that my parents acquired within the quarantines of their diseased childhood homes. As small children, they were trapped in close quarters with illnesses from which they can never escape--and neither can I. They are difficult diseases, the kind with names that are hard to pronounce in public. We have seen the doctors, we have heard the prognosis, and for these there is no cure.

What would those doctors say then, I wonder, if they saw my parents today? They would call it a handful of misdiagnoses. They would ask where we have been for help. They would ask whom we have seen. They, and my parents' parents made the same mistake. They thought that incurable diseases cannot be cured.

My parents, however, do not agree, and neither do I. I watch their healing and wait in hope for the cure to my own incurables. My children will still be born with my diseases, but it is not only illness that passes down from generation to generation.

There are a few rotten limbs near the trunk of my family tree, but the ones nearer me are more alive every day. And I can see the tiniest, topmost branches from here where I reach for the sun; they are young and green and flawless.

Dear Doctors,

Where we have been is on our knees,

and whom we have seen is God.

Sincerely,

When is a good time to die?

2010-07-23T05:36:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I heard of several tragic deaths in the families of "friends of friends."

One friend told me how young man and woman of our age had moved from their hometown to pursue a new life together. Three weeks later, his mother was killed in a flood in Mexico. Knowing the mother had left her family, including four children, 7 years previously, my friend and I wondered what sorts of closure were already sealed and what sorts of regrets would never find closure.

The conversation moved to my friend's cousin, who had spent most of her life in the wake of her mothers various addictions and alcoholism. After a painful and humiliatingly public falling out on Christmas Eve, the grown daughter finally washed her hands of the destruction and began to live her life. She was away on vacation when her mother killed herself three months later. At least, we thought, she had made peace with the separation already. But maybe not.

Another friend of a friend was killed two days ago when his rock-climbing party was struck by lightning in the Tetons. He had recently decided to propose to his now heartbroken girlfriend. His body could not be recovered until the following day, and she was hundreds of miles away. Zero closure.

Some days it's a friend of a friend. A few times it has been a friend. God decides.

If I die on the way to Memphis today, now is a good time to die.

Happy Anniversary

2010-06-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

They still say goodnight, flicking last switches,

the kitchen still warm with italian food.

The coffee is still in the pot.

My toes are still getting cold.

I still sit on the red plaid couch,

still prop my chin on folded towels

to stack in the still silent bathroom upstairs,

where you still don't brush your teeth anymore.

Things to Love On the Rollercoaster Ride - #4 (a.k.a. return of the blogger)

2009-06-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

SPONTANEOUS FRONT LAWN CAMPING

It turns out those little green bridesmaid dresses make comfy nightgowns.

You don't know, because you weren't there with mama and me, camping out on the front lawn that night, dragging a quilt from the couch, and cozying up to the one other Whitehead woman left-- well, not so much "standing," as collapsed from the weight that collects in one's feet following a month of preparation for the wedding that had just concluded as we blew out the last candle and carried in the last table cloth. The ghosts of elegant white tables still haunted the front lawn, but otherwise we were alone at last.

Every morning of those three and a half weeks we rose early to get the household gears turning, breakfast made, children to their tasks, and we stopped--coffee in hand--for a breather and a desperate prayer on the front step.

"Mama."

"Kate."

""We are going to survive this day.""

And if not, there was always Plan B.

The sun would already be hot, bathing our legs as we wriggled our toes in the damp grass and perched on the cool cement steps, gazing into the distant, surrounding hills--wallpaper for a summer wedding. We had three weeks, two, seven days, a few, a couple...

So Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Mikrut ran down the driveway to escape their bubble-blowing fans.

The crowd of guests reduced to stragglers,

reduced to our generous helping neighbors,

reduced to us on the steps again,

a concentration of one month's concentration.

A tired father-of-the-bride had kissed his own bride goodnight and ushered the relatives off to bed with the kiddos.

And we sat listening to the celebratory sounds settle into silence and starshine. God does answer prayer. We basked in the glow of our miracle. We were wriggling our toes in the floor of Jessie's reception hall, and it had been. . .yes. . .and it was over.

Things to Love On the Rollercoaster Ride - #3

2009-06-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

BENADRYL ITCH SPRAY

Because a maid of honor. . .

. . .should not be attacking her poison ivy rash. . .

. . .during the wedding.

Things to Love on the Rollercoaster Ride - #2

2009-06-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

FAMILYQUIRKS

To get a feel for my summer, you really have to get a feel for my family. Every time I come home I realize how weird we all are. But isn't everyone's family? Yes. The answer is yes, and don't think you are exempt.

Each of my family members has some funny quirks that don't always make sense to me, or that maybe made sense to me as a child but now just seem a little bit odd. Henceforth these unusual little eccentricities shall be given the title "FamilyQuirks," which is to be read as one word and can be broken down into categories such as "DaddyQuirks," "BabyBrotherQuirks" and so on...

MamaQuirks story:

Mom gets up at 5:30am every weekday morning to pack my dad's lunch and wave goodbye from the front porch. Then, at 6:00am, as often as we can manage it, she and I put on our tennis shoes and go walking. We live on a long gravel drive that is exactly 1/2 mile long, so if we go down to the stop sign and back again, we always know we've gone a mile. We usually walk two or three miles and it's a lovely way to start the morning if we have the time. Those three miles seemed longer than usual today, however, as it seems my mother has developed a new habit: rescuing EVERY live worm that she sees "suffering" in the hot sun on the gravel drive. We'll be moving briskly along at that speedwalking pace which you might have noticed I inherited in my genetic makeup, when both tennis shoes and conversations will suddenly be cut short so that my mother can bend her sweats-clad self over, scoop up a dust-covered earthworm, and toss it into the grass with a "there ya go buddy!" and well wishes on its next venture (which will, inevitably, be a journey right back into the hot gravel from whence it was "saved.") Never, mind you, did she do this when I was younger, but as she will be turning the big Five-Zero in two short years, I guess the craziness has to start somewhere! *sigh* My mama is going to be a very quirky little old lady.

Personally, I have my own theory about the little wrigglers. Pin it to my psych-minor thinking tendencies, but it seems to me that they're obviously all manic-depressive and have crawled onto the road of their own volition, desperate for the blazing sun to go ahead and put an end to it all. Hey, if you had to burrow through dirt, all day, every day, only to finally be dug up, stabbed with a giant hook and fed to a fish, you'd probably be suicidal too.

Things to Love on the Rollercoaster Ride - #1

2009-06-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

TEN-YEAR-OLD BROTHERS

Mine left for camp on Monday. Mom and I filled his suitcase with letters (folded into the shapes of airplanes, cootie-catchers, etc) the night before to help ward off the homesickness, despite the fact that his fifteen-year-old brother will be along as his camp counselor. What can I say? He's a sensitive little "boy genius"--as one of his t-shirts claims--who looks every bit like he's been kidnapped from a Norman Rockwell painting.

Having both of them gone for a week reminds me of just how awesome little brothers really are, particularly at age ten. Several (among countless other) reasons are as follows:

1. Ten-year-old brothers run on a secret superfuel that only expires at chore time.

2. You can never count on what comes out of the mouth of a ten-year-old brother. For example, upon his offer to make me a necklace out of a shell he "found somewhere" and "some string," I hesitated to accept ONLY because "it might not coordinate with many of my outfits." To this he replied "Oh Shells match EVERYTHING! ...And also purple." (By which he meant NOT that shells also match purple, but that purple also matches everything. He bases this fashion certainty on the objective fact that purple is his favorite color.) Lesson learned.

3. Ten-year-old brothers construct very high-tech cardboard box forts, complete with "refrigerators" (consisting of a vertically turned mini cooler) which was handy when he invited me to have lunch with him inside of his fort yesterday. Of course I accepted, and he was the perfect host, serving cold leftover mac'n'cheese, apple slices with peanut butter, peanut butter crackers (he got a little extravagant with the peanut butter), and iced tea from a thermos. He did forget the forks, but climbed over my lap and out of the fort just to run downstairs and get them, so all was well. After lunch we brainstormed for an official fort title, came up with a secret password (which of course can never be revealed), and he gave me the grand tour of all the peep-holes and secret compartments, one of which held a rubber dagger sheathed in a shoelace-wrapped dish towel. This, he informed me, was kept handy "in case we need to defend ourselves from enemies or foes" like our fifteen-year-old brother, who is far too mature and cool to appreciate the intricate beauty of a cardboard box fort.

Ten-year-old brothers = awesome.

My rollercoaster has the biggest ups and downs. Long as it keeps going 'round it's unbelievable!" -KimyaDawson

2009-06-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

At the end of the school semester I made a decision that instead of moving home for the next few months, I would stay in Missouri, be responsible, and get a job. Ok, I must admit that a small motivating factor was that I will be graduating in December, so I was also hoping to take it easy and enjoy my last ever summer outside of the "real world." I mean, let's be honest, summer breaks don't happen in reality, only in the fairy-tale world of childhood and seasonal academia.

So I reapplied and was rehired at my old place of employment, signed up for some volunteer work, and planned for lots of free time to practice guitar, go to the lake, and catch up on that pleasure reading that somehow evades all English majors. I drove home for a week-long visit with my fam in NashVegas and then headed back to the Ozarks to carry out my plans for the best last summer break ever.

"Map out your future, but do it in pencil lines" -JonBonJovi

Unfortunately, it seems my baby sister was not as in-tune with my summer plans as the world clearly ought to be. In fact, she was obliviously caught up this apparently big ordeal of FallingInLoveAndGettingProposedTo. (I know, right?!) Not only that, but she somehow thought it would be a good idea to schedule her wedding for the end of June. This June. Y'know, that month that started a few days after I got back to Missouri? And as we are all well aware, your truly is the designated Maid of Honor.

It would be impossible to explain the chaos that inevitably followed, but, suffice to say, after a few hundred telephone conversations and grovelling for a dozen or so favors, I went in for my first day at work and apologetically informed my manager that I might be quitting. (She was gracious, and basically gave me the month off. After all, I don't know if I mentioned this, but the wedding is at the end of June! So I'll be back soon.) Then I re-packed my recently un-packed belongings, loaded my life back into the trunk (and back seat, and passenger seat) of my little Camry and headed back to the hills of Tennessee. And here I am.

"When God throws a curveball, don't duck. You just might miss something." -Anonymous

I'll be honest: I'm not too good with spontaneity! I had to take a lot of deep breaths. But when it comes down to it, I can think of worse things than a month of hanging with my favorite people in the world, helping my baby sister (who doubles as my best friend) to plan the wedding that she and I have dreamed about our entire lives?

So I'm cutting my losses, counting my blessings, and spending a splendid month on the Whitehead family farm. In the meantime, I'll be keeping a running tab of the things that make life's little moments of chaos totally worthwhile, and I'll probably be a better person for it.

God knows, if we can pull off a wedding by the end of June, we can do anything!

"Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around . . . I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it." -GrandmaBuckman

Without a Helmet

2009-04-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

My best friend in college had a motorcycle. The summer before I left for good, he fastened my helmet and told me to hold tight and he'd teach me how to fly. The next day, when I did leave, I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car behind that very bike. The light changed, and he sped far ahead, clearing me from his rearview mirror. That bike could fly, and I silently swallowed glances at the tires spinning ahead, daring each curve of mountain road to defend itself and vanishing around the next before the last had a chance to reply.

I have noticed that some experiences are so uncommon to the human reality that they can only be described by saying, "it was like I was dreaming." how strange that our dreams and our realities so closely overlap. can something be so real that we are incapable of experiencing it while maintaining consciousness? Dreams, on the other hand, are sometimes far too real to remain in our subconscious. We wake, insisting "it must have been real," and whether it was or was not really doesn't matter anymore. Death and pain are like that. Once you have actually watched someone die, it's all the same.

He flew. I looked up just in time. A sudden tension turned my body rigid, the paralysis of watching one's dearest friend race from a cliff's edge and halt, hanging from an invisible line in midair. My eyes clutched at him, motionless, in the sky, willing him to remain so. The same invisible line held me fast in my seat. My ability to breathe, to remember breathing, failed. Ice-hard lungs turned to empty, broken glass with the effort of suspending time. But gravity would not be restrained, nor the impending pain defied.

He fell. An acid scream rose, shackling my feet, shattering my knees, chasing a boiling-cold sweat to the surface of my arms, and gripping my throat where the suffocating flavor of vomit drowned an unemittable detonation of sound.

Relief did not come upon waking to find myself alone in a dark room, as soaked in sweat and tears as I had been in the pool of his blood. The pain was thicker. No matter that I had leapt from our wrecked car and broken my wrist in an effort to reach his crumpled body. My best friend was dead. I collapsed on the pavement beside his shattered skull and wept until I was not awake or asleep.

***

Funny how it's the most important things that never get said. Maybe we need our dreams to say them for us. It's been another year now, since the night I watched you fall and both our hearts burst on the pavement. Since then I've learned some things that I wish I could tell you.

Funny, how many tears fell because I thought that dream was true, and how many fall now because it wasn't. Maybe I really wept because, the truth is, you're alive, even without me there to catch you.

Funny how, instead, you didn't fall at all; you flew. And maybe if you had, then I would have said goodbye by now. Maybe then I would be moving on.

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." -Leo Tolstoy

2009-04-16T14:57:00.001-07:00

Do What's in Front of You

2009-04-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended the Keeter Center for Character Education's "poverty summit," which concluded a first annual event addressing the issue of poverty relief on a local, national, and global level. This sort of extra-curricular learning opportunity is one of the many things I will mourn upon leaving College of the Ozarks.

Ambassador Tony Hall spoke about his experiences as a Christian serving in the US Congress and his work on Poverty and Hunger during his tenure. It was inspiring to see our conservative (mostly Republican) school joining forces with "a Democrat" to address this important issue.

The man is amazing. Having spent a substantial amount of time investing himself in hunger relief, he first gained real recognition when congress cut funding the hunger relief committee of which he was head. Instead of quitting congress as his conscience nearly compelled him to do, he announced to the press that, he would begin to fast, consuming nothing but water, "until something good happened."

That "something" happened on day 20 of what ended up being a 22-day fast. Taking notice of Ambassador Hall's dedication, the World Bank offered to hold a conference on world hunger awareness, provided that he would speak for them. Little did he know that his agreement would result in a 100 Million Dollar microfinancing grant on behalf of the impoverished.

My first reaction, as yours might be, was that "of course Ambassador Tony Hall has the platform to help the poor. But let's be honest, it wouldn't exactly make the Branson Daily if I fasted for 40 days." Do I not claim to serve a God for whom the rocks would cry out in praise if I did not, and who multiplied a mouthful of bread into a meal for thousands?

I could go on and on about this and other men's life stories, but it's time to make my point.

In another story Tony Hall described walking the streets of Calcutta with Mother Theresa, and seeing poverty surrounding him in the streets. He asked her how it was even possible to make an impact in a world so full of the impoverished. "Do what is in front of you," she told him. "Not everyone can come to Calcutta."

Today, in partnership with Toms Shoes supporters all over the U.S., I am going barefoot to raise awareness on behalf of the millions of impoverished people who must go barefoot every day. That's what's in front of me right now. I can't do much, but I can do that.

In another conversation with Mother Theresa, someone asked her if she ever felt like all these things she did for people ever felt like "just a drop in the bucket."

She said no, "it feels like a drop in the ocean. But if I don't do these things, it is one less drop."

Carpe Diem, my friends.

Do what's in front of you. Do something.

Tree Song

2009-03-28T22:22:00.000-07:00

O Sing to me about the trees
you've climbed, and trunks you hid behind,
and of the leaves that draw you near
to gaze at them, and let me hear
of leafless branches reaching through
the cage of rain to rescue you.
O sing to me of trees you've climbed;
someday I'll search the woods for mine.

We've still got time...

2008-12-13T20:40:00.000-08:00

Would you think me lame if I told you that I'm attempting to make a list of "things to do before I die"? I am. I find, however, that what I want to accomplish in my life falls more clearly under the category of "habits I want to form" than "things I want to do." The former, of course, are far more measurable: done it? *check!* never did? *empty little box*

The latter, much to my chagrin, can be measured only in progress, proof of which is infuriatingly subjective. See my dilemma? There are a couple of ways to look at it really:

If I were my old pessimistic self, I would say I'm in the process of forming an unaccomplishable list of nothing more than numerous sources of guilt. No matter how fluent you are in Russian, you'll never be as natural as the natives. The limbo line just keeps getting lower, and the standards just keep getting higher. You will NEVER check all those little boxes; better to give up now than die, having failed at your own list, right? And we all know I could go any day.

Remember, that was the old me.

One of these great aspirations of mine is to do away with this unrelenting pessimism. That's right, someday--albeit a day hovering, mirage-like, in the vast expanse of the distant future--I will become an optimist if it kills me. (See how optimistic that is?) With this in mind, I've decided to look at that little box as, instead, a series of boxes, each with a level (which I will establish) that I can check off once I attain it. Maybe I will even color-code them--y'know, like the levels of karate--cool. . .

Hey, it's my list; I make the rules. Laugh now, but come see me again when I'm a green-belt in Russian.

Also, I saw a beautiful film Once.

First Post = Midnight Poetry

2008-11-12T21:59:00.001-08:00

In an attempt not to over-analyze the value of the first blog, I shall post the following poem, which I have composed in approximately 4 minutes . . . (inspired by the frame of mind developed pulling never-ending all-nighters alone with one's own brain) . . . and it's not even titled yet. I'm spontaneous like that.

In the early late-ish hours
Of the morning of the night,
One is led to think of right as wrong
Of what is wrong as right.
The edges of the clearest lies
Become the vaguest truth.
Beware of dawning brilliance
In the dark of sleepless youth.

*curtsies*
It's nice to meet you.