Empty
Lately, I have been asked – or commanded, rather, in that polite way God will often try once or twice or a dozen times before He gets fed up with your stubbornness and has you swallowed by a giant fish, or turns you into a pillar of salt – to give up a lot of things. I’ve found the strength and the courage to let go of some of them willingly. (Read: I’ve managed to make it look like I was willing, as opposed to sullen and resentful.) There are other things I continue to hold penuriously to my chest, childlike in my obstinacy, counting down the last moments of comfort before I lose them…
And I will lose them.
I feel like I know, at the edges of my consciousness, what’s coming. Each day feels like another resigned step toward the inevitable… but I also know that the misery will pass, like so many other things, and that I can’t wait for it here. I just have to keep searching for the sun.
I looked my demons in the eye
Laid bare my chest, said
Do your best – destroy me.
You see, I’ve been to hell
And back so many times,
I must admit, you kind of bore me…
Hard Work
Sometimes, when people have gone through the photo album on my phone, they’ll look at me strangely and ask, “Do you actually do any work at your job?”
I don’t always have a good answer for them…
From “19 Varieties of Gazelle”
“Arabic”
The man with laughing eyes stopped smiling
to say, “Until you speak Arabic,
you will not understand pain.”
Something to do with the back of the head,
an Arab carries sorrow in the back of the head
that only language cracks, the thrum of stones
weeping, grating hinge on an old metal gate.
“Once you know,” he whispered, “you can
enter the room
whenever you need to. Music heard
from a distance,
the slapped drum of a stranger’s wedding,
wells up inside your skin, inside rain, a thousand
pulsing tongues. You are changed.”
Outside, the snow had finally stopped.
In a land where snow rarely falls,
we had felt our days grow white and still.
I thought pain had no tongue. Or every tongue
at once, supreme translator, sieve. I admit my
shame. To live on the brink of Arabic, tugging
its rich threads without understanding
how to weave the rug… I have no gift.
The sound, but not the sense.
I kept looking over his shoulder for someone else
to talk to, recalling my dying friend
who only scrawled
I can’t write. What good would any grammar
have been
to her then? I touched his arm, held it hard,
which sometimes you don’t do in the Middle East,
and said, I’ll work on it, feeling sad
for his good strict heart, but later in the slick street
hailed a taxi by shouting Pain! and it stopped
in every language and opened its doors.
(Naomi Shihab Nye)
An Exercise in Self-Discipline
In my linguistics class, there is this girl.
And believe me – there is always one of these girls.
I tried so hard. I bit my tongue. I told myself that her awkwardness, her loudness, her persistent obliviousness to the fact that everyone in the class was tittering maliciously at every ignorant thing that came out of her mouth; all of these things were part of the way God made her. I didn’t even make so much as a peep when we were discussing the sad statistic that, on average, one language becomes extinct every two weeks, and she raised her hand to inflict impart this particular gem:
“But couldn’t it also be considered a good thing when a language goes extinct? I mean, it just means that they’ve found a better way to communicate, and their language just isn’t useful anymore. Why keep using a dying language when they’ve realized that everyone speaks English because it’s more useful, so they should just learn English so they can talk to everyone else?”
I didn’t argue, I didn’t mutter anything rude under my breath, and I didn’t even make that derisive little scoffing noise that drives everyone nuts and takes so much stupid effort to reign in. (I didn’t manage to harness my internal monologue quite as well, but I can only work on so many things at once.)
Finally, praise Jesus, I made it through every agonizing, stupid-comment-filled minute of the period and hauled hiney to my next class, which is a general literature survey that starts fifteen minutes later in another building. As you can probably guess, I had barely chosen a seat and settled into it before she walked in…
This semester will give me stomach ulcers. I just know it.
Language Jokes
Last week, I was explaining the concept of the Muslim shahada to my best friend and his family. I recited it for them in Arabic, and Michael – with his typical deadpan, unexpected humor – asked, “Do you speak Arabic with a French accent?”
I braced myself. “No. Why?”
“Because I’m pretty sure you just said wa Muhammad ras-ooh la la!”
Gratitude
Lately, I’ve tried to practice being grateful for the little things.
Sunsets, kisses, beaches, flowers, good inkpens, bandanas, fishing, unbroken bones, clean water, crochet hooks, laughter, late-night conversations, pumpkin pie, “The Lion King”, good books, music…
…little tree frogs in unexpected places…
…and best friends.
It’s true that if you thank God for every good thing, no matter how small, it will become easier and more natural to thank Him even for the bad things.
You’ll also find that those “little things” you take for granted and sometimes forget to be thankful for are, in fact, not so little at all; and as you consciously draw your attention to them and to the patient, generous God who put them into your life, you realize that they are the joy of your heart and the very things which make that life worth living.
Hot Range
For the last two summers, every group outing to my de facto sister-in-law’s lakefront property has been accompanied by a .22 rifle and a very persistent boyfriend. To date, I have not fired it. I like to watch, and I like to take pictures, and I like to cheer for the boys while they take turns perforating a jug of water, but I do not participate. It’s not so much (or at all, actually) that I am afraid of the gun; rather, I don’t like being bad at things, which translates into refusing to try a new skill for the very first time while being watched by other people. This stubbornness is particularly annoying to John, who has a fondness both for weapons and cute girls wielding them. It’s a pride thing, I know; I’m working on it.
Yesterday I wrapped my skinny arms around a hi-point .45 ACP carbine, and as I squirmed uncomfortably and whined “I can’t do this!”, I found myself in an unyielding bear hug from behind. John’s grip welded my hands to the gun, and he refused to let me give it back.
“Remember when you posted that photo to your Facebook of some skinny girl with a gun, and the caption said ‘I am compensating for the fact that most violent criminals are bigger and stronger than me’? Well, this is your chance to mean it. This is important for you to know, okay?”
It was almost that precise moment when I realized just how often I catch myself panicking and insisting that I can’t do something, and my resolve wavered. After all, I am probably the most obstinate person I know; not to mention the fact that I would spend my last breath insisting to anybody that he or she could do absolutely anything in the world, and never to believe otherwise.
So I pulled the trigger.
And it felt good.
Extrication Training
There’s nothing quite like taking a pair of hydraulic cutters to the a-post of a wrecked car, baby.
21
Well, here I am. I made it!
Despite the sometimes overwhelming speculation that I would die or be incarcerated before I even managed to reach the legal drinking age – commonly interjected, in tones of woe and lamentation, into my enthusiastic narration of certain reckless exploits – I have, in fact, officially survived to the ripe old age of twenty-one. I know, I know; everyone else is just as surprised.
There were pies and cakes and sticky buns and pumpkin muffins. I got to take a nap. Michael and Kyle and I played with our bubble wands, which were the best WalMart impulse buy ever, before the evening Mass and covered Father Mike’s car with soap rings; and after Mass, my mother treated me to a spectacular ham and cheese grinder.
On a side note, speaking of spectacular things, the love of my life happens to be an impossibly brilliant gift-giver and bought me a ukulele for my birthday. How freaking cool is that? (My high school tech director commented, “I can think of no one more suited to become a ukulele master.” I have no plans to disappoint.)
I also received sidewalk chalk, bass guitar strings, a US military-issue Russian language primer from the 1950s, the three most perfectly-drawn bunnies to exist in the known world, and a particularly talented cover of the Beatles’ “Happy Birthday”, among many other delightful things.
As far as the coveted “first drink” goes, my mother and I had plans to get margaritas (like the girls we are) during my birthday dinner at Applebee’s, but in a mysterious twist of fate, their water main broke and they were closed all of Saturday night. In my opinion, having grinders at Mancino’s with my family and John was much better.
By the end of the night, I had caught my death of cold during an unexpected appearance at a bachelor party (where I was propositioned with a plastic red cup full of dubious alcoholic matter, which I promptly passed off to someone braver than myself), but that is neither here nor there.
I received perhaps the best gift of all on Sunday, when John and Brad and I went to the Sunday traditional Irish music session at McFadden’s. We don’t make it down there very often, but when we do, it’s always an amazing time.
I had my first raspberry mojito and my first uke lesson. Let me tell you, it was pretty comical to be standing in the corner of a fairly well-populated bar, learning to play “You Are My Sunshine” on the ukulele. I was happier, still, to bring my fiddle into the company of such fine musicians and learn everything from them that I could. I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful night; especially when we ended the session with “Be Thou My Vision”.
There are no words to explain the way God has blessed me for these last twenty-one years. I could try – and I have – but it would just sound strained and cheesy. Trust me. Suffice it to say that I have the best friends and family that anyone could ever ask for, and my life has been filled with laughter.
…and this is only the beginning!
Comfort Zone
There’s nothing quite like the adrenaline rush that fills you after an excellent musical performance – especially at Mass, right there in front of God’s true presence and the whole congregation! – but unlike some people, I don’t bear it gracefully. I get flighty and jittery and high on endorphins, and then I go and do stupid things like agreeing to give violin lessons.
She’s only four? Sure! You want her to learn Suzuki method? I have zero experience with Suzuki, but hey, why not? You and your husband work on a heifer farm and can’t afford to pay me any more than gas money to get to the lessons? That’s okay!
You might be able to tell that I’m a little nervous about this. I remember thinking that it was a terrible idea, but something beyond me kept my mouth moving and my head nodding, regardless – and with the tabernacle at my back, I lost any inclination to halt the flow of my words and went on to make arrangements with a sweet, quiet woman to teach her daughter how to play the violin.
It was such a crazy, random happenstance for this particular woman to have even been at St. Charles that day, in the first place, that I couldn’t bring myself to write it off as a chance meeting.
I mean, I’m going to school to be an English teacher. I love to share all kinds of knowledge with other people. I even have a deep desire to homeschool my own kids, someday. This shouldn’t be so scary, but I can’t help it – and even though I feel like it’s all going to be okay, I still have no idea what I’m doing. I’m jumping into this one feet-first. Pray for me!
