Accomplishment. Something that has been achieved successfully. A victory.
Like finishing a book. That feeling you get when you close the cover for the last time, set the book down in your lap, and look up and to the right with a smile on your face. Victory.
Who's victory? Yours, or the book's?
This time, it was the book that triumphed. East of Eden. One of those good books. The kind that stays with you. Not only the memories of the scenes and the images and the emotions. The book, its style and its attitude; they stay too. Everyday scenes as trivial as going to the bathroom or spreading peanut butter on a bagel are laced with that narrative voice in your head, but after the book ends the narrative voice speaks with the voice of the author.
Think about it: Steinbeck's voice in your head. This is the magic of literature. It gets in your head and rules you. It becomes you. That's also why it's so dangerous.
But Steinbeck in my head isn't that dangerous. It's rather nice. I'll take it.
After a good book, a euphoria overtakes me. I am swept away by the book and its goodness and the beauty of reading in general. I am hungry, like you get once you take a bite of really good steak. You get hungry for more. Ravenous, really. I want to pick up my next book and devour it as fast as I am able.
Which is why I make myself wait before picking up my next book. A whole day, maybe even two. Because it's nice to spend a couple of days with Steinbeck in my head before I let Dostoyevsky in. John was kind enough to write that book for me; the least I can do is give him a couple extra days in my head.
I owe it to him. Because at the book-end, we've become old friends. This book is all that's left of you, John, and I'll preserve it (at least for a couple days). I promise you.
"Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts--the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation. And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you. And still the box is not full."
-forward, East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Monday, June 23, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
"anything beyond this comes from the evil one"
Watch people converse from time to time. It's fascinating, especially when you know someone in the conversation real well. Like a close friend whose hobbies and habits and stories and jokes are all well known to you. A person whose thoughts you can guess with great accuracy. Then observe them talk to other people. Don't butt in, just watch.
It's terribly fun. You get to watch their words forming. You know the parts where they cringe (though they may not do so visibly), and you know that that last phrase reminded them of the the banana story from Thanksgiving. You see them make decisions about what trains of thought to pursue and which ones they let die. It's exciting, seeing the cogs turn and the sentences come together.
The more I do this, the more I begin to tease out certain strategies that people use in everyday conversation. Like all the different ways people go about leaving a conversation, or how the strategies people use steer the dialogue away from certain subjects.
One of the most interesting strategies I watch is how people often obliquely dance around what they're after for ages before actually pursuing it.
Like encasing a story of guilt in a plot structure so obscure that you almost forget the speaker is at fault. Or the painful process people use to ask for a favor from someone else. "Hey there, how are you today. Weather looks nice this afternoon, huh? What were you planning on doing this afternoon? Oh me? Well I was planning on moving a couch into my apartment. No, I haven't really asked for help. Oh you would? That's awful nice of you."
It's just annoying. I don't like the round-about method. Why not just ask me for the favor? Are you afraid that if you don't coat the request in insincere fluff you won't get what you want?
It's almost like lying. The interest during the entire buildup to the request is false, merely a bridge to the actual meat of the conversation. All you're after is the request, so why waste the 5 minutes before getting to it?
Sometimes, when people go about asking for things this way, I'll purposefully make it harder for them to ask. My motives aren't good; it's just sheer annoyance (In fact, the only reason I am sitting here on the couch watching the World Cup with my computer open writing a blog post is because the janitor refused to get to his request and I refused to help him). If you're going to be asinine in their communication, I'm not going to bend over backwards to make it any easier for you.
That's one of the reasons I love being Catholic. There's no round-about in Catholicism. It's fairly straight forward. "This is my Body" means what you think it means.
Frank. Direct. I like it.
It's terribly fun. You get to watch their words forming. You know the parts where they cringe (though they may not do so visibly), and you know that that last phrase reminded them of the the banana story from Thanksgiving. You see them make decisions about what trains of thought to pursue and which ones they let die. It's exciting, seeing the cogs turn and the sentences come together.
The more I do this, the more I begin to tease out certain strategies that people use in everyday conversation. Like all the different ways people go about leaving a conversation, or how the strategies people use steer the dialogue away from certain subjects.
One of the most interesting strategies I watch is how people often obliquely dance around what they're after for ages before actually pursuing it.
Like encasing a story of guilt in a plot structure so obscure that you almost forget the speaker is at fault. Or the painful process people use to ask for a favor from someone else. "Hey there, how are you today. Weather looks nice this afternoon, huh? What were you planning on doing this afternoon? Oh me? Well I was planning on moving a couch into my apartment. No, I haven't really asked for help. Oh you would? That's awful nice of you."
It's just annoying. I don't like the round-about method. Why not just ask me for the favor? Are you afraid that if you don't coat the request in insincere fluff you won't get what you want?
It's almost like lying. The interest during the entire buildup to the request is false, merely a bridge to the actual meat of the conversation. All you're after is the request, so why waste the 5 minutes before getting to it?
Sometimes, when people go about asking for things this way, I'll purposefully make it harder for them to ask. My motives aren't good; it's just sheer annoyance (In fact, the only reason I am sitting here on the couch watching the World Cup with my computer open writing a blog post is because the janitor refused to get to his request and I refused to help him). If you're going to be asinine in their communication, I'm not going to bend over backwards to make it any easier for you.
That's one of the reasons I love being Catholic. There's no round-about in Catholicism. It's fairly straight forward. "This is my Body" means what you think it means.
Frank. Direct. I like it.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Royale with Cheese
"Can't you just feel the zen?"
he asked as the path curtains
roses that line the bed of a stream that
apparently only I can see.
He wears a smile, the kind
that one sports when confident that
a joke is well received by the audience;
the kind of joke you wouldn't make
in front of the people it's meant to
offend.
Like me.
But he doesn't know
that I am his target.
He doesn't know that his abhorrent insistence
that we all fall in line with his
party style prayer
is abhorrent to me
and my love of the Truth.
How could he? The man who lives
for the moment when he can interject
himself
into every conversation he cares
to interrupt.
We have arrived. He in his element,
and I in mine.
The labyrinth before us.
His mind races the annals of sarcasm,
while mine attempts a fullstop.
I cross myself and begin.
Twists and turns bring
peace and release.
Before long I am lost to all
except trust.
And before long I arrive
at the center,
to take my place in the
Celestial Rose.
He moves on, while I stay.
He cringes at reverence
in a place where his distaste tastes defeat.
What a pain it must be,
to find that his taste isn't king;
to find opinion o'rlooked
as insignificance.
Despite his attempts,
I am free from his preference,
and all he has left is to sit in the corner and
debate with his tonic,
desperate to prove that his
rice paper spirituality
is anything more than a
Royale with Cheese.
he asked as the path curtains
roses that line the bed of a stream that
apparently only I can see.
He wears a smile, the kind
that one sports when confident that
a joke is well received by the audience;
the kind of joke you wouldn't make
in front of the people it's meant to
offend.
Like me.
But he doesn't know
that I am his target.
He doesn't know that his abhorrent insistence
that we all fall in line with his
party style prayer
is abhorrent to me
and my love of the Truth.
How could he? The man who lives
for the moment when he can interject
himself
into every conversation he cares
to interrupt.
We have arrived. He in his element,
and I in mine.
The labyrinth before us.
His mind races the annals of sarcasm,
while mine attempts a fullstop.
I cross myself and begin.
Twists and turns bring
peace and release.
Before long I am lost to all
except trust.
And before long I arrive
at the center,
to take my place in the
Celestial Rose.
He moves on, while I stay.
He cringes at reverence
in a place where his distaste tastes defeat.
What a pain it must be,
to find that his taste isn't king;
to find opinion o'rlooked
as insignificance.
Despite his attempts,
I am free from his preference,
and all he has left is to sit in the corner and
debate with his tonic,
desperate to prove that his
rice paper spirituality
is anything more than a
Royale with Cheese.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
A gathering of young men in a bell tower way past our bedtimes.
Sneaking. Sneaking down the stairs. Sneaking out the door. Sneaking into the church. Sneaking up the ladder. Sneaking cigarettes and beer out of our bags. Sneaking smoke and liquid into our gullets.
Boy, we look so cool. Sitting in a bell tower drinking and smoking and arguing about whether or not Catholics will be murdered in the streets by the time we die.
No consensus, btw.
But 10 o'clock approaches, and our time has come. We know the routine. Last bell of the day: it comes at 10, followed by the 10:02 song.
But we sneer at the world because we're prepared.
9:59:30 All rise. Huddle together. And stick your fingers in your ears.
9:59:55 Excited glances left and right.
10:00:15 Tension abounds. Unbearable.
10:01:30 They must have been turned off. But I'm not brave enough to take my fingers out yet, are you?
10:02:30 Sighs of relief and disappointment ring in the air where belltones should have.
A gathering of young men sit back down and nurse our beers. We looked like boys just then. 3 minutes of impressively boyish posture. And it was fantastic.
Never to be talked of again, of course. What real man admits to looking like a boy?
I grow old...I grow old...
When I get decrepit I want to do it right. Like Prufrock, the whiny bastard.
Another year upon the shelf,
Another loop found on my belt.
"How is that belly coming, old sport?" I ask myself in the daily toothbrush interview. Such interviews are the perfect occasions for cliché and hyperbolé because at the end it's all spit into the sink amongst plaque and fluoride.
A life measured in coffee spoons. They tell me the nectar of the coffee bean is unhealthy. A life measured in coffee spoons would necessarily be shorter than one without them. But how can you know for sure, since your measurements are different?
You know how you start thinking about some particular thing and all of a sudden everything you read and hear and see is suddenly alive with the consequences of that thought? Like if you suddenly decide that every emotion in the world is motivated by violence and then suddenly everything you witness seems to be immensely violent and you only began to realize this for the first time after your thoughts decided to coat the world around you with violence?
The beauty of growing old is that as time goes on you get to add more and more of those paradigm-determining-point-of-view-coats to the world before you, and the average shade gets closer and closer to the actual picture.
That's all that wisdom is.
Man, Prufrock just gets me: a curséd poet if I ever saw one.
I look west from my perch in the bell tower and see the sky ablaze. I long to pay homage to the vista by gifting it to someone else. But I know, long before I set my pen to paper, that the result will bring human voices and in them my dream will drown.
And like he with his muses, I look mournfully at the setting sun and sigh, "I do not think that they will sing to me."
Sneaking. Sneaking down the stairs. Sneaking out the door. Sneaking into the church. Sneaking up the ladder. Sneaking cigarettes and beer out of our bags. Sneaking smoke and liquid into our gullets.
Boy, we look so cool. Sitting in a bell tower drinking and smoking and arguing about whether or not Catholics will be murdered in the streets by the time we die.
No consensus, btw.
But 10 o'clock approaches, and our time has come. We know the routine. Last bell of the day: it comes at 10, followed by the 10:02 song.
But we sneer at the world because we're prepared.
9:59:30 All rise. Huddle together. And stick your fingers in your ears.
9:59:55 Excited glances left and right.
10:00:15 Tension abounds. Unbearable.
10:01:30 They must have been turned off. But I'm not brave enough to take my fingers out yet, are you?
10:02:30 Sighs of relief and disappointment ring in the air where belltones should have.
A gathering of young men sit back down and nurse our beers. We looked like boys just then. 3 minutes of impressively boyish posture. And it was fantastic.
Never to be talked of again, of course. What real man admits to looking like a boy?
I grow old...I grow old...
When I get decrepit I want to do it right. Like Prufrock, the whiny bastard.
Another year upon the shelf,
Another loop found on my belt.
"How is that belly coming, old sport?" I ask myself in the daily toothbrush interview. Such interviews are the perfect occasions for cliché and hyperbolé because at the end it's all spit into the sink amongst plaque and fluoride.
A life measured in coffee spoons. They tell me the nectar of the coffee bean is unhealthy. A life measured in coffee spoons would necessarily be shorter than one without them. But how can you know for sure, since your measurements are different?
You know how you start thinking about some particular thing and all of a sudden everything you read and hear and see is suddenly alive with the consequences of that thought? Like if you suddenly decide that every emotion in the world is motivated by violence and then suddenly everything you witness seems to be immensely violent and you only began to realize this for the first time after your thoughts decided to coat the world around you with violence?
The beauty of growing old is that as time goes on you get to add more and more of those paradigm-determining-point-of-view-coats to the world before you, and the average shade gets closer and closer to the actual picture.
That's all that wisdom is.
Man, Prufrock just gets me: a curséd poet if I ever saw one.
I look west from my perch in the bell tower and see the sky ablaze. I long to pay homage to the vista by gifting it to someone else. But I know, long before I set my pen to paper, that the result will bring human voices and in them my dream will drown.
And like he with his muses, I look mournfully at the setting sun and sigh, "I do not think that they will sing to me."
Sunday, June 15, 2014
coerce
I'm rereading a book for the 4th time. I have dubbed it the second most influential book for my life. It is East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. And no, I will not tell you why it is so good.
Honestly that's because I simply don't know why it's so dang important to me. Really, I have no idea, and this drives me absolutely crazy. Reading and rereading and rereading it again and again have yielded almost no concrete details as to why the book seems to redirect my life on an unmistakable path towards truth with a clarity unrivaled by pretty much anything else.
Again and again I read the book and it does this very thing all over again. Steinbeck seems to capture truth so subtly that I can't identify exactly where it is he's capturing truth. It's kinda crazy.
I've been zoning out lately. I get so lost in thought that I'm usually pulled out of my head and back into the room by an annoyed "JOSH!" muttered by the person who had been talking at me. That's part of how I know I'm in a wonderful stage of transition right now, because my thoughts have assumed a potency so powerful that they refuse to let my senses distract from their immediate examination. New beginnings are so frequent and strong that they overpower my attention and I cease to be in the room.
In fact, wandering thoughts isn't even the half of it. My very understanding of how my mind works mind has actually started to change and mature.
Let me explain: have you ever taught yourself something in a dream? When I was a sophomore in high school they tried to teach me trigonometry and I just couldn't get it. At all. Then, in a dream that night I successfully taught myself the principles and rules of sin, cos, and tan. When I woke up the next day I knew it so well that I could help teach it to the girl next to me in class.
Brains are funny things. Dreams are funny things. On May 18 of 2011, I wrote in my journal about dreams and ended the 3 page reflection with the following: "Weird. I guess I'll have to ponder dreams some more. Perhaps for several weeks; maybe longer. I look forward to the conclusion of this pondering, as I can't wait to understand what these are." Oh Younger Josh, what a delightful fool you were...
Last week a dream taught me how my mind works. In the dream I was trying to remember a word for someone, but before long our conversation left the word and shifted to how my brain works. I was able to communicate a clear conception of my mind as a large rotating sphere with a thick outer shell. The sphere was a swirling conglomeration of glowing colors that I knew were my thoughts. The shell is so thick that it muddled the colors of the thoughts and words and feelings inside the sphere with an opaque veil, and the only way to retrieve anything is to squeeze my hand into the sphere and blindly search around until I've found what I'm looking for.
EVERYTHING that happens around me goes into the sphere, and I began learning tricks to retrieving those things. I remembered where certain words were, and where certain emotions would make the sphere light up. And eventually I rummaged around my mind long enough to retrieve the missing word from earlier in the dream: "coerce".
And then I woke up, blessed with new knowledge of myself.
East of Eden seems a lot like my mind. Maybe that's why I like it. The book seems like this swirling sphere of truths that is covered by a membrane of beautiful prose. You know the sphere is filled with truths and you have a sort of affinity for it, but you can only reach in and remove those truths one at a time. You have to pull them one out and play around with it before putting it back and searching for a different one.
In my opinion, this is a model for good literature. It's so good that you can't just tell someone why it's good. You have to move it around, reaching in and removing one thing at a time. You can't just say, "This book is great because..." because that would be a crime to the book. It's so filled with truth that you can't just bring it to someone whole; it has to be read and appreciated bit by bit.
It's more like actual life, which can really only be appreciated as a whole with tangential sighs of gratitude and almost never with grandiose remarks that "sum everything up".
This is what I understand poetry to be.
At the end of it, a good book coerces you into a new way of thinking. It molds your mind and gives you a new clarity with regards to the beauty that is all around you, and it does it so well that you can't even identify how it happened.
Honestly that's because I simply don't know why it's so dang important to me. Really, I have no idea, and this drives me absolutely crazy. Reading and rereading and rereading it again and again have yielded almost no concrete details as to why the book seems to redirect my life on an unmistakable path towards truth with a clarity unrivaled by pretty much anything else.
Again and again I read the book and it does this very thing all over again. Steinbeck seems to capture truth so subtly that I can't identify exactly where it is he's capturing truth. It's kinda crazy.
I've been zoning out lately. I get so lost in thought that I'm usually pulled out of my head and back into the room by an annoyed "JOSH!" muttered by the person who had been talking at me. That's part of how I know I'm in a wonderful stage of transition right now, because my thoughts have assumed a potency so powerful that they refuse to let my senses distract from their immediate examination. New beginnings are so frequent and strong that they overpower my attention and I cease to be in the room.
In fact, wandering thoughts isn't even the half of it. My very understanding of how my mind works mind has actually started to change and mature.
Let me explain: have you ever taught yourself something in a dream? When I was a sophomore in high school they tried to teach me trigonometry and I just couldn't get it. At all. Then, in a dream that night I successfully taught myself the principles and rules of sin, cos, and tan. When I woke up the next day I knew it so well that I could help teach it to the girl next to me in class.
Brains are funny things. Dreams are funny things. On May 18 of 2011, I wrote in my journal about dreams and ended the 3 page reflection with the following: "Weird. I guess I'll have to ponder dreams some more. Perhaps for several weeks; maybe longer. I look forward to the conclusion of this pondering, as I can't wait to understand what these are." Oh Younger Josh, what a delightful fool you were...
Last week a dream taught me how my mind works. In the dream I was trying to remember a word for someone, but before long our conversation left the word and shifted to how my brain works. I was able to communicate a clear conception of my mind as a large rotating sphere with a thick outer shell. The sphere was a swirling conglomeration of glowing colors that I knew were my thoughts. The shell is so thick that it muddled the colors of the thoughts and words and feelings inside the sphere with an opaque veil, and the only way to retrieve anything is to squeeze my hand into the sphere and blindly search around until I've found what I'm looking for.
EVERYTHING that happens around me goes into the sphere, and I began learning tricks to retrieving those things. I remembered where certain words were, and where certain emotions would make the sphere light up. And eventually I rummaged around my mind long enough to retrieve the missing word from earlier in the dream: "coerce".
And then I woke up, blessed with new knowledge of myself.
East of Eden seems a lot like my mind. Maybe that's why I like it. The book seems like this swirling sphere of truths that is covered by a membrane of beautiful prose. You know the sphere is filled with truths and you have a sort of affinity for it, but you can only reach in and remove those truths one at a time. You have to pull them one out and play around with it before putting it back and searching for a different one.
In my opinion, this is a model for good literature. It's so good that you can't just tell someone why it's good. You have to move it around, reaching in and removing one thing at a time. You can't just say, "This book is great because..." because that would be a crime to the book. It's so filled with truth that you can't just bring it to someone whole; it has to be read and appreciated bit by bit.
It's more like actual life, which can really only be appreciated as a whole with tangential sighs of gratitude and almost never with grandiose remarks that "sum everything up".
This is what I understand poetry to be.
At the end of it, a good book coerces you into a new way of thinking. It molds your mind and gives you a new clarity with regards to the beauty that is all around you, and it does it so well that you can't even identify how it happened.
Friday, June 13, 2014
whispers on sleepless nights
This is an old reflection I wrote a couple years ago. In the interest of collecting all my favorite reflections in one place, I'm posting it here:
Have you ever seen the sun set on the coast right as the tide begins to break? Waves crash against a weary shore, eating away at thousands of years of sand and rock. The relentless assault on the integrity of the beach is overwhelming. Enormous boulders begin to quake and move from their decades-old resting places, and entire sections of sand begin to disappear. The great roar of the ocean heaving its immensity against the land is deafening. But just as one begins to lose hope for the earth; just as one thinks that the sand and rocks and plants will finally succumb to the pressures of the sea, the light begins to dim. The sun creeps behind the trees, fortifying the earth, giving away all of itself as it falls behind the horizon. The sky fumes in protest, shooting fire across the clouds in anguish at its loss.
But as the light fades, the waves lessen their assault. Strengthened by the force of the sun, the earth roars back, a cacophony of night creatures called up from reserve. The waves begin to shrink in fear. The sacrifice of the sun has brought to the earth an internal warmth, allowing it to quiet the sea. The tide rolls out, revealing weather beaten shores, now free from drowning but still bathed in moonlight. The moon, enlightened by the spirit of the sun, now gives the world a soft glow of peace.
Peace.
Peace settles in. The waves now gently roll--a soft and even sound. The smell of salt is no longer caustic. Rather, the wet and heavy sand now breathes with the slight breath of relief.
Look at the example of the sun. The earth rocks in its orbit, straining to escape the warmth of its rays. But the sun forgives, and each year it melts the frozen hatred of a wintery land. The sun burns with a fiery intensity, but never complains of the monotony of the constant need to renew the life of the earth.
And do not forget the sacrifice of the sunset, when the sun descends from its rightful place in the sky, if only to save the world from laying too long in its life-giving rays.
Take heed of the sun's example. As the terrors of the demons press down on you, wearing away at your core and threatening your very integrity, allow the sun to set behind you and sustain you in its fullness. Love the moon and the stars of heaven, basking in the mere reflection of the sun's rays. Forgive even in monotony; silence your complaints in love; accept sacrifice in the depths of your heart. And no matter how dark the night becomes, always remember the hope of the sun's rising.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Have you ever seen the sun set on the coast right as the tide begins to break? Waves crash against a weary shore, eating away at thousands of years of sand and rock. The relentless assault on the integrity of the beach is overwhelming. Enormous boulders begin to quake and move from their decades-old resting places, and entire sections of sand begin to disappear. The great roar of the ocean heaving its immensity against the land is deafening. But just as one begins to lose hope for the earth; just as one thinks that the sand and rocks and plants will finally succumb to the pressures of the sea, the light begins to dim. The sun creeps behind the trees, fortifying the earth, giving away all of itself as it falls behind the horizon. The sky fumes in protest, shooting fire across the clouds in anguish at its loss.
But as the light fades, the waves lessen their assault. Strengthened by the force of the sun, the earth roars back, a cacophony of night creatures called up from reserve. The waves begin to shrink in fear. The sacrifice of the sun has brought to the earth an internal warmth, allowing it to quiet the sea. The tide rolls out, revealing weather beaten shores, now free from drowning but still bathed in moonlight. The moon, enlightened by the spirit of the sun, now gives the world a soft glow of peace.
Peace.
Peace settles in. The waves now gently roll--a soft and even sound. The smell of salt is no longer caustic. Rather, the wet and heavy sand now breathes with the slight breath of relief.
Look at the example of the sun. The earth rocks in its orbit, straining to escape the warmth of its rays. But the sun forgives, and each year it melts the frozen hatred of a wintery land. The sun burns with a fiery intensity, but never complains of the monotony of the constant need to renew the life of the earth.
And do not forget the sacrifice of the sunset, when the sun descends from its rightful place in the sky, if only to save the world from laying too long in its life-giving rays.
Take heed of the sun's example. As the terrors of the demons press down on you, wearing away at your core and threatening your very integrity, allow the sun to set behind you and sustain you in its fullness. Love the moon and the stars of heaven, basking in the mere reflection of the sun's rays. Forgive even in monotony; silence your complaints in love; accept sacrifice in the depths of your heart. And no matter how dark the night becomes, always remember the hope of the sun's rising.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Thursday, June 12, 2014
they've come to set the Explorer free
My hand comfortably reached for the next branch and my right foot found a strong hold a little higher than the left one. I lifted up a few more inches. My head swung around to gather my new surroundings. To the left the leaves parted enough to see across the whole field and all the way to Ben's backyard. Ben was throwing a baseball with his father. To the right I could see my house and the open garage door and my father standing in front talking to Andrew's mom.
It was my world. I settled in, found a perfect curve in the bark, and sat down. I could sit here for hours, watching the field without worrying about being out of my parents' reach when it was time for dinner. I wanted to sit here. I wanted to stay and be the secret king of the neighborhood, sitting on my throne in the tree.
But my sisters were already moving on. For a kid who always wanted to be alone, I was terrified that someone might leave me by myself. I protested, but Mary had already launched herself the last 10 feet to the ground. Sarah awkwardly swung down behind her and said, "Come oooon!"
I was helplessly pulled towards them. A panicky fear welled up up in my chest. I grumbled and climbed down, a slave to the the group's adventure rather than my own.
They drove a firetruck to school and left it right in the parking lot. The classes took turns during the day going out and sitting in the drivers seat. At the end of each demonstration they'd turn the sirens on. It made us all simultaneously smother our ears with our palms while rolling around with excited cackles.
It was Wednesday, so I stayed for AfterSchoolCare. The firefighters hadn't anticipated the half day and had to wait around till 3, which meant that the AfterSchool Kids got to see the firetruck again before going to the playground.
I stood before the Shiny Red Beast in awe. I wanted to walk all around it, touching all the shiny chrome parts that held in the water and tools and strangely dressed men. I wanted to sit on all the ledges, and climb up the ladder on the back. I wanted to hold one of the hoses and pretend to put out a building. I wanted to sit in the driver's seat again, and I wanted to ask the man if I could reach up and honk the fog horn.
But Tom's dad was a firefighter and he was used to seeing the trucks. He got to play with them in the garage sometimes. So Tom got bored before I had barely started my exploration, and decided it was time to run to the playground. Adam and Sam ran off behind him, and that meant I had to go too. I looked mournfully at the truck, waved goodbye, and turned in pursuit of the other boys.
It took me entirely too long to realize that I could explore the world without the safety of the rest of everybody in the world. Perhaps the group of people around me, no matter how close my friendships might be, isn't quite as interested in the things I'm interested in.
In fact, I only learned this lesson a few years ago. I spent almost 20 years with a tethered field of exploration; I obediently followed the group instead of my own curiosity.
Then, one day it just clicked: I don't have to follow them. When we find a new place, I am free and can wander the paths of my wonder without staying within earshot of the pack. I am free.
So when the group falls out of the car onto a new beach or a southern plantation or a slice of Eden washed up on shore, I don't have to be on a Distance Leash. I wander away freely, talking and laughing to myself and sharing secrets with the wind and the surf and the trees and the piles of bricks.
But this is impossible to do with two people (unless you are traveling with an extraordinary person). I've been here two weeks, just me and the pastor. We go for a walk in the rose garden across the street EVERY NIGHT, which is both incredible and horrible. Incredible because he is delightful and sociable and kind; horrible because he is delightful and sociable and kind. I simply can't peel away and satiate my wanderlust because I have to walk with him and exchange stories of the day and muse on the world.
It's great really, and I'm learning a lot from him. BUT I WANT TO WANDER! I want to roam through the grassy pathways and the lay down under a tree and listen to the wind whisper the scent of roses softly through my nostrils.
But by the weekend, other seminarians will be here. We'll still go for our walks, but other people will be around. It will be more appropriate to break away and reenter my own world of quiet audible laughter and secret conversations with the flowers (yes, I talk to flowers and gardens and oceans. Well, I more talk at them than anything else. Yes, I am insane).
The irony is, the presence of a group will finally allow me the freedom to separate from a group. I thought that this whole situation is hilarious: I need company in order to run away from company. Without my community, I'm going insane because I have no community to escape from.
It was my world. I settled in, found a perfect curve in the bark, and sat down. I could sit here for hours, watching the field without worrying about being out of my parents' reach when it was time for dinner. I wanted to sit here. I wanted to stay and be the secret king of the neighborhood, sitting on my throne in the tree.
But my sisters were already moving on. For a kid who always wanted to be alone, I was terrified that someone might leave me by myself. I protested, but Mary had already launched herself the last 10 feet to the ground. Sarah awkwardly swung down behind her and said, "Come oooon!"
I was helplessly pulled towards them. A panicky fear welled up up in my chest. I grumbled and climbed down, a slave to the the group's adventure rather than my own.
They drove a firetruck to school and left it right in the parking lot. The classes took turns during the day going out and sitting in the drivers seat. At the end of each demonstration they'd turn the sirens on. It made us all simultaneously smother our ears with our palms while rolling around with excited cackles.
It was Wednesday, so I stayed for AfterSchoolCare. The firefighters hadn't anticipated the half day and had to wait around till 3, which meant that the AfterSchool Kids got to see the firetruck again before going to the playground.
I stood before the Shiny Red Beast in awe. I wanted to walk all around it, touching all the shiny chrome parts that held in the water and tools and strangely dressed men. I wanted to sit on all the ledges, and climb up the ladder on the back. I wanted to hold one of the hoses and pretend to put out a building. I wanted to sit in the driver's seat again, and I wanted to ask the man if I could reach up and honk the fog horn.
But Tom's dad was a firefighter and he was used to seeing the trucks. He got to play with them in the garage sometimes. So Tom got bored before I had barely started my exploration, and decided it was time to run to the playground. Adam and Sam ran off behind him, and that meant I had to go too. I looked mournfully at the truck, waved goodbye, and turned in pursuit of the other boys.
It took me entirely too long to realize that I could explore the world without the safety of the rest of everybody in the world. Perhaps the group of people around me, no matter how close my friendships might be, isn't quite as interested in the things I'm interested in.
In fact, I only learned this lesson a few years ago. I spent almost 20 years with a tethered field of exploration; I obediently followed the group instead of my own curiosity.
Then, one day it just clicked: I don't have to follow them. When we find a new place, I am free and can wander the paths of my wonder without staying within earshot of the pack. I am free.
So when the group falls out of the car onto a new beach or a southern plantation or a slice of Eden washed up on shore, I don't have to be on a Distance Leash. I wander away freely, talking and laughing to myself and sharing secrets with the wind and the surf and the trees and the piles of bricks.
But this is impossible to do with two people (unless you are traveling with an extraordinary person). I've been here two weeks, just me and the pastor. We go for a walk in the rose garden across the street EVERY NIGHT, which is both incredible and horrible. Incredible because he is delightful and sociable and kind; horrible because he is delightful and sociable and kind. I simply can't peel away and satiate my wanderlust because I have to walk with him and exchange stories of the day and muse on the world.
It's great really, and I'm learning a lot from him. BUT I WANT TO WANDER! I want to roam through the grassy pathways and the lay down under a tree and listen to the wind whisper the scent of roses softly through my nostrils.
But by the weekend, other seminarians will be here. We'll still go for our walks, but other people will be around. It will be more appropriate to break away and reenter my own world of quiet audible laughter and secret conversations with the flowers (yes, I talk to flowers and gardens and oceans. Well, I more talk at them than anything else. Yes, I am insane).
The irony is, the presence of a group will finally allow me the freedom to separate from a group. I thought that this whole situation is hilarious: I need company in order to run away from company. Without my community, I'm going insane because I have no community to escape from.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
when shyness saved the day
From the moment I entered the room I knew it was going to be painful. I could hear the laughter through the open porch door. It haunted me; my shoulders shivered.
Don't get me wrong, laughter (especially the laughter of strangers) is a beautiful thing. To walk down a quiet street at dusk and hear chuckles echoing through open windows is like catching the aroma of baking cookies on a breeze; it's an intrusion, but one that invokes an air of mystery that elicits immediate forgiveness.
But when you're forced to penetrate that mystery and become a part of something you were more than content to witness from afar, the majesty is lost. It's sticking your nose into a spoiled rose; there is no more wonder involved.
We stood on the porch and Rosanne appeared behind the screen. She's the type that will latch onto an insignificant phrase or joke in the first five minutes of your acquaintance and will accost you with it for the rest of your life (or hers; whichever comes first...) You know, the kind almost incapable of profound friendship. "Ah, our True Tenor is here!" she announces in the low light of the porch at dusk, while I whisper a prayer of gratitude that eye-rolls aren't audible.
She opens the screen and to admit me. They sit at the table behind the door, their bowls of ice cream reduced to carefully combed fields of Hershey's Syrup. They've been here awhile, already entrenched in their evening of revelry.
And I don't know a single one of them.
I'm ushered to the kitchen where I'm coaxed to fill a bowl with ice cream and why not a little chocolate and maybe you could use some more M&M's. What an ungrateful child I am to bear such a sullen expression while a nice old lady begged me to put more sugar in my mouth
I guess I was just waiting for something to set me off, but when the right phrase came I was still surprised at the amount of self-control it took to pacify my mouth with my spoon.
It was Rosanne who finally said something worth hating. She was talking about her trip to Italy, and lamented that she didn't have time to really witness Italian culture during her THREE WEEK VISIT. "I would have loved to have traveled to some smaller places, but we just had to see the tourist traps. You just can't travel in Rome without stopping at all the important places."
In that moment, she should have feared death. It was mostly shyness that kept me from striking her. I wished to slap her in the face and belittle her foolishness.
When I was younger I hated choose-your-own-adventure books. I only ever read one. You know why? Because they had nothing to do with adventure. Sure, you got to pick whether your next page was 167 or 32, but the whole thing was already determined. It seemed less like an adventure and more like the author couldn't make up his mind. It wasn't an adventure in the same way that connecting the dots isn't drawing.
Just like Rosanne. She wasn't on an adventure, she was connecting the dots. After she finished photographing some monument, she looked at her list at the next destination "they" planned for her. So she returned from Rome with a bunch of pictures and complaints, because her trip to "discover Italy" was really no more profound than opening a coffee-table picture-book.
I hated my time in Rome. I was obligated to visit the important sites, and the obligation threatened to ruin me. I was following orders instead of pilgriming. On the last day I violently threw away my itinerary, set off down a side street, and discovered a secret hidden gelato shop that no one would have ever told me about. Unlike the books, I actually chose my own adventure. I drew outside the lines, and created something magnificent.
I sat there fuming. I had chosen my words, about to lay into poor Rosanne who was just trying to make conversation in her own home. Then Father saved her. "Well, we have to run." I gave her one last look and thought,
Your safe, Rosanne.
This time.
Don't get me wrong, laughter (especially the laughter of strangers) is a beautiful thing. To walk down a quiet street at dusk and hear chuckles echoing through open windows is like catching the aroma of baking cookies on a breeze; it's an intrusion, but one that invokes an air of mystery that elicits immediate forgiveness.
But when you're forced to penetrate that mystery and become a part of something you were more than content to witness from afar, the majesty is lost. It's sticking your nose into a spoiled rose; there is no more wonder involved.
We stood on the porch and Rosanne appeared behind the screen. She's the type that will latch onto an insignificant phrase or joke in the first five minutes of your acquaintance and will accost you with it for the rest of your life (or hers; whichever comes first...) You know, the kind almost incapable of profound friendship. "Ah, our True Tenor is here!" she announces in the low light of the porch at dusk, while I whisper a prayer of gratitude that eye-rolls aren't audible.
She opens the screen and to admit me. They sit at the table behind the door, their bowls of ice cream reduced to carefully combed fields of Hershey's Syrup. They've been here awhile, already entrenched in their evening of revelry.
And I don't know a single one of them.
I'm ushered to the kitchen where I'm coaxed to fill a bowl with ice cream and why not a little chocolate and maybe you could use some more M&M's. What an ungrateful child I am to bear such a sullen expression while a nice old lady begged me to put more sugar in my mouth
I guess I was just waiting for something to set me off, but when the right phrase came I was still surprised at the amount of self-control it took to pacify my mouth with my spoon.
It was Rosanne who finally said something worth hating. She was talking about her trip to Italy, and lamented that she didn't have time to really witness Italian culture during her THREE WEEK VISIT. "I would have loved to have traveled to some smaller places, but we just had to see the tourist traps. You just can't travel in Rome without stopping at all the important places."
In that moment, she should have feared death. It was mostly shyness that kept me from striking her. I wished to slap her in the face and belittle her foolishness.
When I was younger I hated choose-your-own-adventure books. I only ever read one. You know why? Because they had nothing to do with adventure. Sure, you got to pick whether your next page was 167 or 32, but the whole thing was already determined. It seemed less like an adventure and more like the author couldn't make up his mind. It wasn't an adventure in the same way that connecting the dots isn't drawing.
Just like Rosanne. She wasn't on an adventure, she was connecting the dots. After she finished photographing some monument, she looked at her list at the next destination "they" planned for her. So she returned from Rome with a bunch of pictures and complaints, because her trip to "discover Italy" was really no more profound than opening a coffee-table picture-book.
I hated my time in Rome. I was obligated to visit the important sites, and the obligation threatened to ruin me. I was following orders instead of pilgriming. On the last day I violently threw away my itinerary, set off down a side street, and discovered a secret hidden gelato shop that no one would have ever told me about. Unlike the books, I actually chose my own adventure. I drew outside the lines, and created something magnificent.
I sat there fuming. I had chosen my words, about to lay into poor Rosanne who was just trying to make conversation in her own home. Then Father saved her. "Well, we have to run." I gave her one last look and thought,
Your safe, Rosanne.
This time.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Everlasting Autumn (or is it Spring?)
"I am sick and tired of looking at fannies," he said to me.
Really though, the timing was nothing short of miraculous. At the exact moment Jack Basic was explaining to me how young gentlemen need to stop sagging their pants, a group of 20 nude bicyclists passed by us on the road (on their way downtown for the 10,000-person annual Naked Bike Ride [keeping Portland weird is a full time job for its residents]). I honestly thought he was going to faint.
Jack Basic is the kind of name that deserves to be said in its entirety, and it belongs to the 92-year-old man who lives down the street from the parish. He moved into that house when he was 5. Yup, that's right, the man has spent 87 years living in the same home (unless you subtract the year he spent in college 3 miles down the road, which neither he nor I count because he hated it and left as soon as he could).
The very idea of spending 87 years in one place is terrifying to me. Seriously, I am afraid to even think of it. My mind begins to try and form scenarios of myself at his age waking up or getting the mail or cleaning the kitchen and I begin to feel sick with fear at even continuing the daydream. I shut my mind in a frenzied terror at the mere thought of such a life.
But let me tell you, Jack Basic does it right.
Our acquaintance began out of pity. Yah see, the parish is having a rummage sale. This is a different way to say garage sale, except instead of one garage its every garage in the parish. We've filled the school basement (seriously, the ENTIRE basement) with donated articles, and it's going to be my job to organize, price, and sell these items.
Great.
Organization and salesmanship; these are a few of my least fav'rite things [to be sung in your best Julie Andrews inyourhead voice].
So I'm sitting there waiting for people to drop stuff off, reading a book, when I hear this noise. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. I look around the corner and Jack Basic is hobbling toward me with a suitcase. He hands it to me, and says he has to go back for more. Can I drive you? No, you'd like to walk? Ok, I'll see you soon.
45 minutes later. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Hi jack, another suitcase? Oh, you have more? You have to let me drive you this time. No? Well alright.
25 minutes later, I finally get it in my head to meet him halfway. I set off down the street. 7 blocks down, I find him leaving his house. I intend to take the stuff from him and let him go back inside, but he insists that we walk all the way to the parish.
That's when the naked bikers arrive, and we become instant friends. You can't just share something like a posse of people with bike seats jammed up their bare bottoms without becoming a person's best friend.
Our conversation continues, and somewhere around block 5 he invites me to lunch. Of course I'll come.
Jack Basic is a legend around here. The local grocery store threw him a 90th birthday party in the store. We went by so he could show me off to the ladies there. We pretended that I was his son, cuz you know, EVERYONE has a son that's 70 years his junior.
All-in-all, we spent almost 5 hours together. We chatted about life, he complained to me about teachers he had in school 80 years ago, we traded book suggestions (he told me how committed he was to reading everything worth reading before he dies), he explained why he decided to start learning piano last year, we argued about Chesterton, and of course we got ice cream together. This man is a legend.
92 years. What will I be like if death stays away that long? Will I still read every day? Will I decide to pick up the piano at 91? Will I remember my grade school teachers? Will I still be willing to play tricks on my friends? Will I still walk 7 blocks over and over again because I think someone might want the coffee maker I bought 30 years ago for a party and only used once? Will I be able to befriend a young brat fresh out of college who's still juvenile enough to think he can change the world?
I suspect that Jack Basic still believes he can change the world. After the thought occurred to him somewhere on the streets of northwest Portland all those years ago, the thought never died. So perhaps it's not very juvenile at all. If his time-tested mind still yearns to learn and grow and love as newly and freshly as it did 85 years ago, then perhaps mine can too. Perhaps this is how Jack intends to change the world: by giving a little bit of himself to me.
Whatever it is, I like it, and I like my new friend.
Really though, the timing was nothing short of miraculous. At the exact moment Jack Basic was explaining to me how young gentlemen need to stop sagging their pants, a group of 20 nude bicyclists passed by us on the road (on their way downtown for the 10,000-person annual Naked Bike Ride [keeping Portland weird is a full time job for its residents]). I honestly thought he was going to faint.
Jack Basic is the kind of name that deserves to be said in its entirety, and it belongs to the 92-year-old man who lives down the street from the parish. He moved into that house when he was 5. Yup, that's right, the man has spent 87 years living in the same home (unless you subtract the year he spent in college 3 miles down the road, which neither he nor I count because he hated it and left as soon as he could).
The very idea of spending 87 years in one place is terrifying to me. Seriously, I am afraid to even think of it. My mind begins to try and form scenarios of myself at his age waking up or getting the mail or cleaning the kitchen and I begin to feel sick with fear at even continuing the daydream. I shut my mind in a frenzied terror at the mere thought of such a life.
But let me tell you, Jack Basic does it right.
Our acquaintance began out of pity. Yah see, the parish is having a rummage sale. This is a different way to say garage sale, except instead of one garage its every garage in the parish. We've filled the school basement (seriously, the ENTIRE basement) with donated articles, and it's going to be my job to organize, price, and sell these items.
Great.
Organization and salesmanship; these are a few of my least fav'rite things [to be sung in your best Julie Andrews inyourhead voice].
So I'm sitting there waiting for people to drop stuff off, reading a book, when I hear this noise. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. I look around the corner and Jack Basic is hobbling toward me with a suitcase. He hands it to me, and says he has to go back for more. Can I drive you? No, you'd like to walk? Ok, I'll see you soon.
45 minutes later. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Hi jack, another suitcase? Oh, you have more? You have to let me drive you this time. No? Well alright.
25 minutes later, I finally get it in my head to meet him halfway. I set off down the street. 7 blocks down, I find him leaving his house. I intend to take the stuff from him and let him go back inside, but he insists that we walk all the way to the parish.
That's when the naked bikers arrive, and we become instant friends. You can't just share something like a posse of people with bike seats jammed up their bare bottoms without becoming a person's best friend.
Our conversation continues, and somewhere around block 5 he invites me to lunch. Of course I'll come.
Jack Basic is a legend around here. The local grocery store threw him a 90th birthday party in the store. We went by so he could show me off to the ladies there. We pretended that I was his son, cuz you know, EVERYONE has a son that's 70 years his junior.
All-in-all, we spent almost 5 hours together. We chatted about life, he complained to me about teachers he had in school 80 years ago, we traded book suggestions (he told me how committed he was to reading everything worth reading before he dies), he explained why he decided to start learning piano last year, we argued about Chesterton, and of course we got ice cream together. This man is a legend.
92 years. What will I be like if death stays away that long? Will I still read every day? Will I decide to pick up the piano at 91? Will I remember my grade school teachers? Will I still be willing to play tricks on my friends? Will I still walk 7 blocks over and over again because I think someone might want the coffee maker I bought 30 years ago for a party and only used once? Will I be able to befriend a young brat fresh out of college who's still juvenile enough to think he can change the world?
I suspect that Jack Basic still believes he can change the world. After the thought occurred to him somewhere on the streets of northwest Portland all those years ago, the thought never died. So perhaps it's not very juvenile at all. If his time-tested mind still yearns to learn and grow and love as newly and freshly as it did 85 years ago, then perhaps mine can too. Perhaps this is how Jack intends to change the world: by giving a little bit of himself to me.
Whatever it is, I like it, and I like my new friend.
Friday, June 6, 2014
In Spite of Robert Frost
"A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair."1
I crest the hill at a cool 59 mph with the windows down. I'm going north on Interstate 5, and the city climbs into view.
It's alive.
9:45 on a friday night. I had a glass of wine with dinner; not enough to make the yellow line swerve left and right, but enough to make everything marvelous. As the lights of the city fill up the windshield, DJ Oh So Fresh puts on some Katy Perry.
So you wanna play with magic? Boy you should know what your fallin' for.
I ride onto the top of the Marquam Bridge and am swallowed by color. The sun has descended below the ridges, but still shoots a sharp spectrum of yellow then orange then purple from behind the earth like a child in protest of a premature bedtime. The road is lit before and behind me in little spotlights from the lamps of the other cars. The buildings are lit up in every color. Greens and purples and yellows and whites and reds and it all blends together in the calm waters of the Willamette River.
Baby do you dare to do this? Cause I'm coming at you like a dark horse.
Dark horse: an little known contender that makes an unusually good showing. Thanks Merriam-Webster. What a good way to describe this city. I didn't expect to like it. Honestly, I expected to hate it. Hippies and overthetop Granolas. Yuck.
"It's a seductive city," Phillip said to me this morning as I stared out listlessly over the Willamette.
I guess he was right.
Back to the bridge. I slow down to 50 mph so I can properly enjoy this spectacular moment. The warm evening breeze finds its way in through the windows. The scent of roses is dense in the air. I look to my left and see the Rose Festival on the opposite bank. A massive ferris wheel throws lights up and down its cross sections. The light tickles my eyes while the scent tickles my nose.
Are you ready for a perfect storm? Cause once you're mine...
At that moment, it happened. I fell in love with the city. This has only happened twice before. Once in London, and once in Charleston. Both overtook my guard and drew me into a wild love affair of twisting streets and historical markers and late-night lights reflecting off peaceful waters. And it's happened again: Portland has seduced me, and in that moment, on the bridge, I succumbed to her advances.
I am in love with Portland now, and...
...there's no going back.
1. Robert Frost, BBC Interview with Cecil Day Lewis. I usually like Robert Frost, but this post is a reckless attempt to spite him.
I crest the hill at a cool 59 mph with the windows down. I'm going north on Interstate 5, and the city climbs into view.
It's alive.
9:45 on a friday night. I had a glass of wine with dinner; not enough to make the yellow line swerve left and right, but enough to make everything marvelous. As the lights of the city fill up the windshield, DJ Oh So Fresh puts on some Katy Perry.
So you wanna play with magic? Boy you should know what your fallin' for.
I ride onto the top of the Marquam Bridge and am swallowed by color. The sun has descended below the ridges, but still shoots a sharp spectrum of yellow then orange then purple from behind the earth like a child in protest of a premature bedtime. The road is lit before and behind me in little spotlights from the lamps of the other cars. The buildings are lit up in every color. Greens and purples and yellows and whites and reds and it all blends together in the calm waters of the Willamette River.
Baby do you dare to do this? Cause I'm coming at you like a dark horse.
Dark horse: an little known contender that makes an unusually good showing. Thanks Merriam-Webster. What a good way to describe this city. I didn't expect to like it. Honestly, I expected to hate it. Hippies and overthetop Granolas. Yuck.
"It's a seductive city," Phillip said to me this morning as I stared out listlessly over the Willamette.
I guess he was right.
Back to the bridge. I slow down to 50 mph so I can properly enjoy this spectacular moment. The warm evening breeze finds its way in through the windows. The scent of roses is dense in the air. I look to my left and see the Rose Festival on the opposite bank. A massive ferris wheel throws lights up and down its cross sections. The light tickles my eyes while the scent tickles my nose.
Are you ready for a perfect storm? Cause once you're mine...
At that moment, it happened. I fell in love with the city. This has only happened twice before. Once in London, and once in Charleston. Both overtook my guard and drew me into a wild love affair of twisting streets and historical markers and late-night lights reflecting off peaceful waters. And it's happened again: Portland has seduced me, and in that moment, on the bridge, I succumbed to her advances.
I am in love with Portland now, and...
...there's no going back.
1. Robert Frost, BBC Interview with Cecil Day Lewis. I usually like Robert Frost, but this post is a reckless attempt to spite him.
a blog is meant for...
A blog can be a powerful thing, though usually not for the person reading. It's like a diary that's open to the public. Sort of. Usually no one really cares enough to read it, like a diary (let's be honest, you don't really want to read someone's diary. You might say you do, but once you read one or two stories and realize that none of it's about you you're going to get bored and go back to snooping through their dresser). It's usually unrefined, somewhat too personal, and uninteresting, like a diary. It's usually kind of boring, like a diary. In fact, there is really only one difference I can tease out between a diary and a blog: a diary is meant for one person, whereas a blog is meant for all.
Perhaps this is a product of the times, where everyone thinks that what they have to say in their private lives is pertinent to everyone around them. I'm amazed that as the number of people in the world grows larger and larger the number of persons believing themselves to be unanimously relevant to all people skyrockets exponentially (he said in his blog post).
Perhaps that's a little unfair. Some blogs are good. I have this one blog that I just can't stand to part ways with. It's just too good. I greedily race to the page each day to brave a search for new posts amongst the hideous background wallpaper, and I steal away with free minutes to sink my teeth into old posts. This one too. Sure it happens. But like almost never.
What is a blog meant for?
Good question, Josh. Would you believe that it's meant for the blogger? I do. I think that I will bring myself back to this page so often that Google learns that I like it here and sends me here without being asked not because I have anything substantial to say to anyone, but rather because I have things to say to myself.
It's like a diary, remember? But this diary is kept out on the front porch and anyone passing by is free to open it and flip around for a while. Most people won't sit down on the porch swing to read. Perhaps no one will. But I don't mind, this isn't for them.
I'm writing for me. This is a canvas on which the swimming colors and words and sounds that cloud my mind will spill forth and escape my cranium. And since the format is public, I need to do it in an organized manner.
Most diaries are dreadful to read. People drone on and on in ways that would only fly in a book that's tucked away in an underwear drawer. But here, under the great eye of the public, I have to work on my words. I have to let them sit, sink in, and accept my criticism. They have to be honed down so that the occasional passerby isn't accosted by their harsh character. This is a way for me to think clearer, so that when I say things that people will need to hear they'll be thankful that I've had the practice.
So here we go. A wild ride awaits. But don't worry, it's my ride, not yours.
Perhaps this is a product of the times, where everyone thinks that what they have to say in their private lives is pertinent to everyone around them. I'm amazed that as the number of people in the world grows larger and larger the number of persons believing themselves to be unanimously relevant to all people skyrockets exponentially (he said in his blog post).
Perhaps that's a little unfair. Some blogs are good. I have this one blog that I just can't stand to part ways with. It's just too good. I greedily race to the page each day to brave a search for new posts amongst the hideous background wallpaper, and I steal away with free minutes to sink my teeth into old posts. This one too. Sure it happens. But like almost never.
What is a blog meant for?
Good question, Josh. Would you believe that it's meant for the blogger? I do. I think that I will bring myself back to this page so often that Google learns that I like it here and sends me here without being asked not because I have anything substantial to say to anyone, but rather because I have things to say to myself.
It's like a diary, remember? But this diary is kept out on the front porch and anyone passing by is free to open it and flip around for a while. Most people won't sit down on the porch swing to read. Perhaps no one will. But I don't mind, this isn't for them.
I'm writing for me. This is a canvas on which the swimming colors and words and sounds that cloud my mind will spill forth and escape my cranium. And since the format is public, I need to do it in an organized manner.
Most diaries are dreadful to read. People drone on and on in ways that would only fly in a book that's tucked away in an underwear drawer. But here, under the great eye of the public, I have to work on my words. I have to let them sit, sink in, and accept my criticism. They have to be honed down so that the occasional passerby isn't accosted by their harsh character. This is a way for me to think clearer, so that when I say things that people will need to hear they'll be thankful that I've had the practice.
So here we go. A wild ride awaits. But don't worry, it's my ride, not yours.
the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these
"Hugo said that to grow old was to possess all ages and the essence of each one, particularly that of childhood..."1
I reached into my desk in a huff. I hotly pushed markers and folders around until my fingers closed on a notebook. I brought it out: the special one. It was a big notebook that I didn't need for any of my classes. I filled it with doodles of flowers and underground fortresses, scribbles about teachers and friends, and ten pages that were the beginning (and end) of my great novel series called "The Z Men".
I ripped open to the section marked "Journal". I was a boy, so I refused to use the word "diary"; too girly. I angrily rifled the pages until blank looseleaf lay open to the classroom. I tore into my desk for a pencil. In my anger I pressed the graphite to the paper and immediately broke the tip off. This was a job for a pen. I clenched my teeth and ripped off the cap.
"I HATE MRS. KLUCZINKSKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I scrawled across the page, taking up 3/4 of the space. The rage wildly distorted my handwriting. I continued, but my letters quickly began to take a normal size as the exercise calmed my anger.
"Why does she teach us if she hates children!?!?!?! She just doesn't understand us! I will NEVER forget what it is like to be a 5th grader!!!" The bell rang and I glared at her for another second, then hastily packed for Social Studies. By the time I had crossed the hallway the rage was forgotten, and the angry journal entry would remain untouched until the day before I graduated from college.
A week ago I moved into a parish for the summer. Since school is still in session, I have been tasked with being a nuisance in the classrooms this week. The principal told me, "Really, just walk around from room to room and meet the kids and sit in on classes."
Yes. Maam.
I've never been so good at my job! And I didn't even want this job. Work in a parish? That's for someone else! Someone much less qualified to teach. No, I will write books and inspire seminars of bright minds to be a little brighter.
And then Sally hugged me. Day one, after school. Madhouse. Children running in every direction. A line of cars snaking in from the street to collect them one by one. Teachers yelling in one direction, then another, then back in the first direction again. I am lost. Then, out of the corner of my eye I see a green streak speeding toward me. A little kindergartner named Sally, dressed in her jumper and collared shirt, Disney backpack hanging from her shoulders, and she screams in like a Kamikaze and collides with my lower half. She wraps her arms around my waist and buries her head in my stomach. A goodbye hug. She lingers until I reach my carefully trained scandal-free left arm around her shoulders to acknowledge her love. Then she disconnects and tears away into the chaos. Not a word was said.
And suddenly I am in love. I'm in love with the whole thing. She has barely any idea who I am. I merely popped my head in her classroom before lunch, introducing myself as the guy who will be a priest like Fr. John, but that was it. It was enough for her. I am huggable.
It's funny how being huggable opens you up to a new world. Suddenly, having tenure seems horrendous. How could I give up something like this? A life inescapably intimate with the people I long to serve.
As time went on, the kids learned my name. And as much more time went on, I learned theirs'. I attended a parish picnic and hung out with the kids because they were the only ones I knew. And they let me tag along. Grace looked at me after I helped her figure out the product of 7 and 80, and she said, "I was friends with the last seminarian that came here; we can be friends too if you want."
When I found that notebook while I was packing up to move out of college, I realized that I have forgotten what it was like to be a 5th grader. I forgot so bad that I couldn't even imagine any more. But I have been filled with comfort to know that spending time with a 5th grader teaches you all over again what it means to be a 5th grader. And I am much better off for learning this lesson.
On our evening walks through the rose garden across the street, I lobbed story after story at the pastor about the kids. He never really responded, just smiled. He smiled knowingly. Suddenly, I knew what the sneaky bastard was up to.
Children are the gateway to a parish. They are simple, trusting, and pure in their love. They love you simply because you're there, and they love you just as much as they love everything else. I learned their names first, then their parents. The kids love it because the little rascals love the attention, and the parents love it because they like someone who's good with their kids (like a natural, built-in babysitter detector).
Then I remember what I wrote in 5th grade, in the brilliant rage that flashes into the eyes of a child recently scolded. "Why does she teach if she hates children?" I've seen it since then: teachers who just seem to hate teaching. No joy leaks out the corners of their eyes when the kids line up at the door. A raised hand is met with a sigh; the beginning of a story with an eye roll.
But this time I ask a second question that's even more important than the first. "How could someone hate children?" My favorite musical is Matilda, and let's face it the show won me over from the very first number. Children are miracles. Little canvases running around with no paint and they proudly show it off. They are hope, running around our legs and screaming in our ears.
Every child is a miracle. Come on, isn't it obvious?
1. Jean Guitton, Journals. I found the quote in the delightful book, Things as They Are by Paul Horgan.
I reached into my desk in a huff. I hotly pushed markers and folders around until my fingers closed on a notebook. I brought it out: the special one. It was a big notebook that I didn't need for any of my classes. I filled it with doodles of flowers and underground fortresses, scribbles about teachers and friends, and ten pages that were the beginning (and end) of my great novel series called "The Z Men".
I ripped open to the section marked "Journal". I was a boy, so I refused to use the word "diary"; too girly. I angrily rifled the pages until blank looseleaf lay open to the classroom. I tore into my desk for a pencil. In my anger I pressed the graphite to the paper and immediately broke the tip off. This was a job for a pen. I clenched my teeth and ripped off the cap.
"I HATE MRS. KLUCZINKSKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I scrawled across the page, taking up 3/4 of the space. The rage wildly distorted my handwriting. I continued, but my letters quickly began to take a normal size as the exercise calmed my anger.
"Why does she teach us if she hates children!?!?!?! She just doesn't understand us! I will NEVER forget what it is like to be a 5th grader!!!" The bell rang and I glared at her for another second, then hastily packed for Social Studies. By the time I had crossed the hallway the rage was forgotten, and the angry journal entry would remain untouched until the day before I graduated from college.
A week ago I moved into a parish for the summer. Since school is still in session, I have been tasked with being a nuisance in the classrooms this week. The principal told me, "Really, just walk around from room to room and meet the kids and sit in on classes."
Yes. Maam.
I've never been so good at my job! And I didn't even want this job. Work in a parish? That's for someone else! Someone much less qualified to teach. No, I will write books and inspire seminars of bright minds to be a little brighter.
And then Sally hugged me. Day one, after school. Madhouse. Children running in every direction. A line of cars snaking in from the street to collect them one by one. Teachers yelling in one direction, then another, then back in the first direction again. I am lost. Then, out of the corner of my eye I see a green streak speeding toward me. A little kindergartner named Sally, dressed in her jumper and collared shirt, Disney backpack hanging from her shoulders, and she screams in like a Kamikaze and collides with my lower half. She wraps her arms around my waist and buries her head in my stomach. A goodbye hug. She lingers until I reach my carefully trained scandal-free left arm around her shoulders to acknowledge her love. Then she disconnects and tears away into the chaos. Not a word was said.
And suddenly I am in love. I'm in love with the whole thing. She has barely any idea who I am. I merely popped my head in her classroom before lunch, introducing myself as the guy who will be a priest like Fr. John, but that was it. It was enough for her. I am huggable.
It's funny how being huggable opens you up to a new world. Suddenly, having tenure seems horrendous. How could I give up something like this? A life inescapably intimate with the people I long to serve.
As time went on, the kids learned my name. And as much more time went on, I learned theirs'. I attended a parish picnic and hung out with the kids because they were the only ones I knew. And they let me tag along. Grace looked at me after I helped her figure out the product of 7 and 80, and she said, "I was friends with the last seminarian that came here; we can be friends too if you want."
When I found that notebook while I was packing up to move out of college, I realized that I have forgotten what it was like to be a 5th grader. I forgot so bad that I couldn't even imagine any more. But I have been filled with comfort to know that spending time with a 5th grader teaches you all over again what it means to be a 5th grader. And I am much better off for learning this lesson.
On our evening walks through the rose garden across the street, I lobbed story after story at the pastor about the kids. He never really responded, just smiled. He smiled knowingly. Suddenly, I knew what the sneaky bastard was up to.
Children are the gateway to a parish. They are simple, trusting, and pure in their love. They love you simply because you're there, and they love you just as much as they love everything else. I learned their names first, then their parents. The kids love it because the little rascals love the attention, and the parents love it because they like someone who's good with their kids (like a natural, built-in babysitter detector).
Then I remember what I wrote in 5th grade, in the brilliant rage that flashes into the eyes of a child recently scolded. "Why does she teach if she hates children?" I've seen it since then: teachers who just seem to hate teaching. No joy leaks out the corners of their eyes when the kids line up at the door. A raised hand is met with a sigh; the beginning of a story with an eye roll.
But this time I ask a second question that's even more important than the first. "How could someone hate children?" My favorite musical is Matilda, and let's face it the show won me over from the very first number. Children are miracles. Little canvases running around with no paint and they proudly show it off. They are hope, running around our legs and screaming in our ears.
Every child is a miracle. Come on, isn't it obvious?
1. Jean Guitton, Journals. I found the quote in the delightful book, Things as They Are by Paul Horgan.
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