Fog

It is cold today, and quiet; the boys are taking a nap, having had a late night last night. I, unable to nap, am enjoying the stillness and a cup of Earl Grey, which smells like England.

I wonder why God built me with such an intense desire to travel when I so rarely am able to do so? I have a friend who would be content to stay home, cocooned in her house in Pipe Creek forever. For her, anything north of the Red River is considered "yankee," and anyone who lives in "yankee territory" is a freak of nature. We have joked often about her having a prejudice for non-Texans, and she has no desire to visit anyplace that isn't small-town Texas. Every so often I ask her, "But don't you want to see Europe? Australia? Ecuador? Oklahoma?" "No thanks," she says. It freaks me out. I am sure she is not well emotionally. She probably needs hypnotherapy. She must have some blocked childhood alien abduction issues or something. She would rather just stay home. The tragedy of it all to me is that she has the financial means and the opportunity to see the world many times over, literally. It simply does not interest her. I cannot fathom such an insular existence. To each his own, right?

I have an intense need to go, to see new things, to breathe in new places and people and flavors and sounds. I crave the British Isles. I must see Australia before I die. I need to go to Belize just once. And oh, how I miss Wyoming! At times I ache so badly for the mountains that I feel that my heart will burst. Last year, when we went to Colorado, I cried at first sight of the Sangre de Christo range. It had been ten years since I had seen real mountains. I don't know how I made it so long without them.

All it takes is a tiny thing, like the smell of Earl Grey tea, to set me off. As I sit at my desk on this cold, damp, cloudy day sipping my tea, I am pining away for Oxford. When I was in college, I took a two-week course over Christmas break with some classmates and my favorite Lit professor, Dr. Smith. On one of our free days, Dr. Smith took some of us on a day trip to Oxford. Dr. Smith and three of us broke off from the group to go exploring. It was Sunday and the town was mostly closed, but we walked around Magdalen College, wandering through courtyards and peeking in windows and talking about C.S. Lewis, in awe that we were walking the very grounds he walked, amazed at the history of it all. Through one of the courtyards, we found a hidden gate, rusty and ancient and wise, and behind it a walking path along the perfectly emerald-green river. It was magical and secret, and utterly peaceful. I remember being impressed with how green the grass was for December, and we watched the mallards idle by in the river and Dr. Smith recited Shelley and Wordsworth and we sighed at the beauty of it all. It was marvelous. I was so full of England and poetry and history and life that it was almost too much. We remained there as long as we could, knowing that this was one of those "moments," and we soaked it in.

Around 3:30, we decided to head back to the city centre for tea. It was getting dark and we had an hour or so before we had to catch the train, so we ducked into a little cafe and ordered our cream tea. It was close to closing time, so the four of us were the only people in the place. We doctored up our tea, laughed at Dr. Smith, who always put exactly two drops of half-and-half in her tea, and thoroughly enjoyed our scones with clotted cream and jam. We were still high from our walk, and as we talked about how amazing and wonderful the day had been, the Eagles came on the radio. We sang "Take It Easy" over scones and tea, laughed at the fact that our Victorian Lit professor who regularly wore Laura Ashley knew every word to an Eagles song, and we were having this classic rock "moment" together in Oxford. It was surreal and yet somehow fitting, and the four of us savored it, knowing that our perfect day was quickly coming to an end.

I grew and learned so much about the world those two weeks in England, developing a fondness for other cultures, an appreciation for history, and a passion for knowledge (not to mention a voracious appetite for books). I discovered how to navigate a huge, foreign city without getting lost, and how not to be the "stupid American." Invaluable life lessons came packaged neatly in a two-week course. My eyes were opened a little more to the world and my life changed dramatically after that.

(Incidentally, it was also on that trip that a painting hanging quietly in the National Gallery rocked my world and became inspiration for a huge part of my life as a musician. That story will be told another time.)

This year I don't have big fine travel plans (except for camp in Colorado with 30 teenagers, but that's more like work than play), and it makes me feel trapped and claustrophobic. I haven't decided yet if this need to always explore is a character flaw or a gift; perhaps a little of both. But I am learning that the landlocked, provincial life in which I currently find myself is okay, it is just a season, and it's not forever. I am learning to be content with where God has me (which is no small task for the Teacher or the student), and in the midst of this, learning to appreciate the little things: that my 40-hour-a-week job involves being surrounded by books (not to mention comic relief due to the occasional freakishness of the public); that despite the craziness of my schedule, the gigs are coming in again and we are once again playing music; that I have rediscovered writing, though I've had to fight for time to do it, but I've never been more inspired.

So when that incredible ache comes over me on a day like today, and I feel that I simply must hop on a plane or I shall surely die, I allow myself to pine a little, and then I whisper in my spirit, "...but not my will, but Yours...." I am learning the art of surrender. I am thankful for the lesson. And I hope "the urge for going" stays prominent in my heart as a reminder to me of where I've been, of where I am, and of what's in store.

Just words

Valentines Day has always been the stalest of holidays for me. I've never really liked it much. Maybe it's all the pink. I've never been a pink person; I've rather always been more of a brown person or an olive drab person or, perhaps, a burnt umber person, but pink makes me feel funny. Uncomfortable. Itchy. Nauseous. I associate it with candy conversation hearts, which I never liked, except for the yellow ones, but ate anyway and went home from school feeling queasy and lonely. I never had boyfriends, and thus never got "good" valentines like all the popular girls like Nikki Burke and Michelle Palmer did: teddy bears and roses and chocolates and all sorts of other lavish items from their football boyfriends. The conversation hearts were never really special, always very standard -- everyone gave and got conversation hearts stuffed inside the little tiny envelopes that held the generic valentines. We only ate them because they were candy and Valentine's Day was the only day past Christmas you could have candy in school. But you knew they were given in an almost obligatory way, given to you by random people who really weren't even your friends, and that added to the pointlessness of it all.

And so the candy hearts were eaten in the same obligatory manner in which they were given, and I would go home with my queasy stomach and dump out all my generic valentines on my bed and read them all.

"To: Sarah
From: Diana"

"To: Sarah
From: Amy"

"To: Shara
From: Chad"

"To: Sahara
From: Jason W."
(the boys always spelled my name wrong)

I had about fifty-seven valentines stuffed in my little bag, none of them expressing any sentiment at all, and I only actually knew about four of the people that gave them to me. And only two of those people were in my clique, but I knew they didn't really like me much. After aimlessly shuffling through the little cards, I would stuff them in a drawer in my desk in my room and forget about them -- I would feel guilty if I threw them away.

When I got to college, I decided that I wouldn't be a victim of Valentine's Day, that I would overcome the staleness with rebellion. I went to a small Southern Baptist school where there was a fair share of girls who wore bows in their hair and had boyfriends that they were going to marry and have a thousand kids with, and the bowheads spent Valentine's Day carrying gigantic balloon bouquets with teddy bears in them from class to class and squealing to their friends about how he must be "The One," and I just couldn't take it. Therefore, "Black Day" was instituted: my friends and I made it tradition to wear all black on Valentine's Day.

My second year in Nashville, Valentine's Day struck back. I had driven out to my friends' Lang and Renee's house for the evening, and on the way back home, it started to snow. It was about 11:30 pm, and as I was coming off the freeway in the worst part of Nashville (read: racial tension and reverse discrimination towards white people like me), my Chevy Celebrity decided to break down. It was freezing. I was dressed up in my black with a thin black overcoat on, and had to walk to the nearest gas station from the freeway. Within seconds of the commencement of my journey, a loud, dented, creepy pickup truck stopped alongside me, and the passenger window rolled down to reveal two men of African-American descent, reeking of booze and Pall Malls, gold teeth glinting in the half-light. The driver, who looked like Flava Flav on crack, said, "Awwww, you need a ride? Hop in, we'll carry you to the gas station!" I muttered, "Umm, nothanksthatsokayI'llbefine" and kept walking. But Flav insisted: "C'mon, it's cool! We're cool! You can't walk all by yourself!" and so I reluctantly agreed to hop into the bed of the truck, reasoning that it was only 3 blocks and I could always jump if things got scary. They "carried" me to the gas station safe and sound and drove off. The attendant at the gas station, a 45-year-old video gamer who probably still lived with his mom, refused to let me in to use the phone (it was after midnight now and the doors were locked, leaving me to communicate my plight through the little mechanical drawer under the window), citing safety concerns (my black poet's shirt must have appeared threatening). I was then forced to walk another four blocks in the snow to another gas station, this time wishing Flav and his gold-toothed friend would come back and fetch me. I finally reached the gas station and called two guy friends back at school for help, and they came and pushed my car all the way back to Belmont in the snow.

In spite of my determination to stay away from the male species that night, I thanked God for Flav, Gold-tooth, and my two friends who ended up becoming my Valentine's dates that night.

At least they didn't give me any conversation hearts.

Even now, as a married woman, having found the love of my life and soulmate, Valentines falls flat. David feels the same way I do, and he's a romantic (far beyond me, in fact). It's the empty sense of mindless obligation that comes with the day that we both despise: because it's Valentine's day, we all have to make reservations, have a "romantic" dinner at an overcrowded restaurant, buy flowers, give a goofy card, etc. It's all so unoriginal. It's a Hallmark holiday. It's stale. So we usually end up playing somewhere (because the cello is so romantic, apparently, and in high demand on such a day), enjoying a nice meal after we've worked, and choose another night that isn't so programmed to go out and enjoy each other. This year is no exception. We are playing at our favorite restaurant in Fredericksburg, so we'll be working. We even decided we wouldn't do any gift-giving because we're trying to save for furniture for our new house. We are merely observers today, which is always fun and interesting.

Maybe I'll wear black for old-times' sake.

What the....?

Fiery Darts

This has certainly been my week for "fiery darts."

First the ugly friend blowup (now resolved, thank God, *sigh*, all better now).

Then yesterday I had a certifiable psycho-woman call me to complain about how one of my employees treated her on Saturday (my employee didn't mistreat her; the woman literally came running into the store screaming that someone needed to call the police because a car was being broken into, yet there was not a soul in the parking lot at the time; it all went downhill from there because she is nuts, as you will see), and after ranting and raving at me on the phone, I calmly said, "Ma'am..." and she screamed, "I can't talk to you with you screaming in my ear like this!" I said (even more calmly and much quieter), "Ma'am, I'm not screaming at you." She said, "YES YOU ARE! YOU HAVE SCREAMED AT ME FOR THE LAST TIME!!!" and I said, "Ma'am, I don't think I've raised my voice at all." She screamed, "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK, IT MATTERS WHAT I THINK BECAUSE I'M THE CUSTOMER!" Wow. It was awesome. She even threatened to call the owner to complain about my "screaming"... after which I had to repeat the Waco store number to her 7 times because she kept interrupting me to yell that she couldn't understand me and that I was breaking up and why was I giving her so many numbers? I finally had to repeat the phone number like this:

"Ma'am, please write down the numbers as I tell you and don't interrupt me. Ready? OK.

"2."

"5."

"4."

"7."

"7."

"2."

"9."

"2."

"2."

"5."

I paused for about 3 whole seconds between each number just to make sure she got it. She must have, because she hung up when I said, "5." She proceeded to call the main store and ask for the owner, who wasn't there, so she was passed of to his "assistant." His "assistant" called me 10 minutes later to say, "Wow, what a psycho." Anyway, yeah, that was fun. Can we do it again?

And then yesterday David and I had another situation upon which I won't elaborate because it's so ridiculous, but it was yet another case of someone not being mature (or loving, or grace-centered) enough to come to us with the problem, but instead choosing to attack us in an underhanded way.

I've been dealing with conflict all week (!) but I should probably get used to it... it goes with the job. Being in leadership makes me the prime target for any and all attacks, valid or baseless (most are actually baseless, I'm finding), and I'm learning how to hang in there with it and not let it defeat or demoralize me. I have always been weak in that area; I grew up with a lot of criticism, where nothing I did was ever good enough, and I tend to avoid conflict and tend to be more of a people-pleaser because of that. I think the biggest issue I have in dealing with conflict and criticism is not being given enough credit, not being given the benefit of the doubt. So many issues in friendship, in the church, in life, could be avoided altogether if people would just learn to approach each other in love instead of jumping to conclusions. I know this sounds so obvious and easy, but apparently it's a lost art. Three times in the past week I've been attacked by people who have refused to give me the benefit of the doubt, refused to come to me and give me a little credit, refused to take the time to consider things from another perspective. It's just really getting on my nerves, and I'm just venting here because I'm among friends. And I am learning what James meant when he said, "count it all joy...knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." I am grateful for the lesson and for the thicker skin I'm developing... and in the meantime, I'm trying very hard to to get ghetto on people!

The Art of Losing (or The Anatomy of a Breakup)

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

I think I have mastered the art of losing friends. It seems to be a theme in my life. Sometimes it is by wrongdoing on my part, sometimes it is just time to part ways, then there are those (rare) instances where the breakup hits out of nowhere, sudden and violent, blindsiding me and leaving me trembling in shock and sheer lack of comprehension. Such is the carnage I have experienced this week.

I have a friendship of nearly five years that has been, well, unique. It has been the most demanding friendship I've ever experienced, due to issues upon which I won't elaborate, but the bottom line is that over the past five years I have poured much of myself into my friend -- we're talking blood, sweat, tears, prayer, fasting, sleepless nights, countless hours of counseling her, listening, etc. Used to be that we were inseparable, but our time has been scarce since I've been working full time. As far as I knew, however, everything was fine and dandy.

Last week, however, what started out as (what I thought) a simple misunderstanding turned into a battle of catastrophic proportions. And I'm still scratching my head, incredulous, thinking, "What the heck...?" I literally had no idea there was a problem. I'm still not sure what happened. All I know is that on Sunday, everything was great, and by Tuesday I was the most hated individual on the planet.

After regaining my senses after the initial shock, I realized that my friend had just shown me, in one 3-minute phone call, her true feelings about me and about our friendship. Knowing that I have been stressed to the max, she created a situation for me that not only has now added to my stress, but she has also decided to go out of her way to hurt me deeply in the process. I have always suspected, and others have told me for years, that this friendship was rather one-sided and that I was doing most of the work. It was unhealthy, but my fear of losing the friendship trumped my desire for sanity, so I kept spinning my wheels trying to make it work. On Tuesday, I realized that I had been given the truth in neon lights that I couldn't ignore, and so I made the decision to walk away, cut my losses, learn from it, and move on.

And so now I am left pulling out the shrapnel and readjusting my focus. I've done this before, so it's not quite as horrific as it was the first time, but it is so very much like breaking up with a significant other. I live in a small town. We have the same friends. It's only a matter of time before I run into her at Walmart or HEB. It's only a matter of time before our mutual friends start asking me for my side of the story (and for once, I don't feel the need to give it. I don't need to be justified. I know in my heart and before God that I have done absolutely nothing wrong, which is why this situation is so absurd). It's only a matter of time before casual acquaintances ask me how she's doing. These things are always awkward. They are never easy. I have had that fluttery knot in my stomach and sweaty palms for a week now because I hate conflict and because it's just weird. I find gifts that she's given me over the years and want to smash them to pieces because they seem to mock me now. I find myself muttering "should-have-said-phrases" like George Costanza: "Oh yeah? Well, the jerk store called..." I keep finding myself forgetting that she is gone from my life, and I'll think, "Oh, I need to tell her about that thing I saw today...." and then I realize that I can't. And when do I take her off of my speed dial? When do I erase the text messages? It happened so suddenly -- one minute we were friends and the next we were enemies -- but those old friendship habits and patterns don't immediately die when the friendship does.

I'm okay with it, though, really. Maybe I'm still in shock and I'll shed some tears once reality hits. I don't mean to sound callous. I just think that it was time to move on, time to get healthy, and God allowed this to happen to get me off my butt and get on with it. I feel free and really have peace about it. I wish things could have ended a little more gracefully, but how do you end a friendship gracefully? ("You know, everything seems great between us, and I've had a blast being your friend for five years, but I'm really feeling like it's time to stop being friends now. Thanks for all you've done. I really appreciate it.") Maybe we'll talk at some point and there will be some closure, but I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to having more time to spend on my husband, my other friends, and my writing. Life is good.

A Picture Share!

We decorated christmas cookies, and I am so *over* Christmas! What? Aliens can celebrate christmas too...

Need For Speed

Well, my house is still standing.

Last night was Punky's birthday party, and we had his school friends and their parents over to our (very small) house for cake and queso and pizza pockets. There were 13 kids all crammed into Punky's room, and the room was literally pulsating with the kinetic mayhem that resulted from sugar, adrenaline, and the delirousness that happens naturally after a week of being cooped up in school. Dana and Elisabeth were jumping up and down. Quintyn and Turner were running and sliding into the walls in their socks, taking full advantage of the hardwood floors. Christian, Dylan, and Brandon played with cars in the corner. Colette and a few others systematically popped every single balloon with tacks. It was great. After much cake and 4 dozen pizza pockets, they all went outside and rode their bikes while the parents gathered around our fire pit and attempted to police the bike carnage. Then the girls left, and the boys were invited to spend the night, 5 boys in all including Punky, because Turner decided to go home after Quintyn hit him on the head with a golf ball.

The slumber party was a milestone. It was Punky's first slumber party, and for several of these boys, the first time they've ever spent the night with someone other than Grandma. I thoroughly enjoyed being a fly on the wall. Their little conversations were priceless:

Punky: Brandon! You broke the hydraulics off of my car! Why'd you do that?
Brandon: I'm sorry... it was a accident. I didn't mean to.

They were silent for a bit while they continued crashing cars, and then:

Brandon: Punky, am I still your best friend in the world, even if I broke your car?
Punky: Of course... how could you even ask that? You're my best friend ever.

Brandon is in the second grade, and Punky is the oldest in the 3rd grade, so there is almost a 2-year age difference between them. Brandon is very small, and is very much like Piglet: meek, cute, fearful. But Punky has always been very kind to younger kids, and is not much of a rough-and-tumble boy like some of the others in his class, so I am sure this is why the two of them get on so well. We laid out pallets for them in the living room and turned off the lights and put "Robotz" in the DVD player, and Brandon snuggled up to Punky like a baby brother and went to sleep. Precious.

I think they went to sleep around 12:30, after lots of giggling and fart noises and butt jokes and other random boy stuff, and then, as if someone flipped a switch, they were all instantly awake and jumping again at 6:30 am. No coffee necessary with these boys. I got up to make my coffee when I heard them, and the moment they saw me, one of them asked, "Can we go outside and ride our bikes?" It was 6:30 am and cold outside and they hadn't been awake 5 minutes. I told them to wait until after pancakes, and at that, I think collectively they ate 6 bites and were dressed and out the door, where they played on their bikes and in the dust with cars, until their parents came at noon.

I am so happy to see Punky outside with friends. We isolated him so much last year, and while he did okay with the homeschool/new church/no friends thing, I always felt lonely for him. He is a very social person, more so than me or David...no, rather, he hasn't yet been scarred for life by the cruelty of his peers, thus causing him to retreat into the hermitlike existence we have come to seek. There is such innocence in his relating to others. It's all out there, take it or leave it, with nothing to hide and no innate need to do so. I am learning from him to come back out of my shell and to be human and to not run from human contact. Typically, I do not want to be friends; Punky craves new friends and will talk to (and accept) anyone he happens to meet. I avoid eye contact unless absolutely necessary. He will walk all the way across Walmart to say hi to a random church member he spots while I am ducking behind the canned goods hoping no one will see me. I'm such a psycho. It's not that I think myself better than anyone, or that I don't like people... I've just gotten so used to hiding, protecting, cocooning, that it's habit.

So these birthday parties are good for me, because it forces me to open my home and my heart to people I really don't know very well, and to spend time with them simply because our kids are friends, and to learn that other people aren't really so scary after all, and that making small talk isn't really that bad. It's good to watch my son with his friends, because it reminds me of my kid self before things went bad, and how playing, dreaming, exploring, and observing in the presence of friends is a really beautiful thing.