2017 In Retrospect

Here we are again in that strange limbo space between Christmas and New Year’s.  This is one of the strangest times of year, times in which we look backward and forward, but never seem to see what’s right in front of us.  These days are neither one thing nor the other.  Maybe we need that odd in-between stage to make us appreciate the moments when our feet are more firmly planted.  Looking back on this year, nothing immediately springs to mind that was all that spectacular.  It’s only when we look at the details, when we take a closer look, that life springs up in the cracks.

I started January in a state of anxiety—my boss was going to be out of town for much of the month, and for the first time I would be running things.  I remember I kept telling myself that I was ready, but I still didn’t feel that I fit in on a personal level.  Thankfully the days went quietly without disaster, though it would be some time before I really felt a part of the business.  In another part of my life, however, friendships and kindness opened up to me as I truly began to integrate with my church family.

February and March were peaceful.  I went to see a marvelous play written by my good friend Meredith Levy, “She Made Space,” a one-woman show about finding one’s place in the world and in culture.  If you have the chance to see it, I highly recommend it.  In what is becoming a tradition, I took my sister to the movies for her birthday.  She already has her selection picked out for next year. 

April was full of friendships—breakfast with girlfriends (and a baby!) one day, dinner the next.  We watched Doctor Who together when it reappeared, always a noble pursuit.  There was music this month, too, as I sang Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.  It was an extraordinary opportunity, particularly the performance we gave at Liberty University in their new concert hall.  There is a moment in the fourth movement of the piece, when the orchestra reduces down to the deepest instruments—the upright bass in particular, a dear favorite of mine—playing the main theme as softly as possible, and it was exquisite.  Then, when the choir entered, and the bass voices rang out in triumph to the vaulted ceiling…I can try, but there are no words for how beautiful it was. 

At the end of April, our church broke ground on our new church building, and May saw the beginning of site prep at our property.  I was delighted that the property lies along my route to work, and all this year I have been watching the place that will be a home and a haven to me take shape.  (We have roof panels now!)  May was also a month of graduation for two dear friends, one from her undergrad program, the other from master’s.  I was and am so proud of them both.

I spent a portion of June housesitting for a family I often help in this way.  They have horses, so it’s harder to find someone who can take care of the place.  Would it be called farmsitting, then?  I always enjoy it; it’s like a vacation, in a way.  Then, at the end of the month, I took a long weekend and drove up to Washington, DC and Baltimore.  I took some time in DC to play the tourist and visit with my uncles in Alexandria, which was simply a delight.  After that it was onward to Baltimore, where I spent a few days celebrating the wedding of a friend.  Have you ever noticed that true friendships are the ones you can sink back into, like into a warm bath, and find that nothing has changed?  I am grateful for that.

July, my birthday month, was hot and wonderful.  I was celebrated first with roller coasters at King’s Dominion, then with Taming of the Shrew at the Blackfriars, the Shakespeare theatre in Staunton, VA.  The Blackfriars is one of my very favorite places, and the shows performed there by the American Shakespeare Center are marvelous.  Less marvelous was the moment when I bid farewell to a dear friend of mine, who set off for Boston for a year.  I have missed seeing her regularly as I used to.

Midway through July, a friend talked me into taking a trip out to Utah in August, so with far less planning than I normally put into trips, I flew out with her to Salt Lake City.  The Rocky Mountains are beautiful—I couldn’t take my eyes off them for the whole first day.  We went hiking up one of them to a gorgeous waterfall.  It’s strange how when you have exerted yourself for such a view, it seems more wonderful than it would have if you had driven up to it.  You have earned it, somehow.  We also went to a Shakespeare festival in Cedar City and saw the stark beauty of the red rock canyons on the way back.  Much of the rest of the trip was spent in hanging out with friends, which I think should take up more time on vacations then it usually does.  After all, what is the point of any vacation if you don’t get any rest?  My one regret was that I missed the performance of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  The three of us shared a stomach bug during the week we were there, and that was my day to be sick.  Another time, maybe.

In early September my sister came into town with my mother, and we three went dress shopping for her wedding this spring.  She found a beautiful dress in the first shop we went into, and they even managed to scrounge up a dress for me, as well.  Later in the month I made a (very) humble dinner for a friend’s birthday, and we started watching “Outlander” weekly, which is a brilliant show filled with drama and Scotsmen.

I celebrated Sukkot with friends in October, the festival of waving branches and building Jew forts.  I mean no disrespect, of course—it was a fascinating evening, and the music played there was some of the loveliest I’ve heard.  October was also the month that I selflessly offered to help a friend in her new business, becoming one of her massage clients.  I haven’t regretted it—she is gracious and very good at what she does, and it allows me to keep in touch with her.  At the end of the month the RSO took hold of me again, and I sang with the choir in a concert celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.  Lots of German in that program, and some truly beautiful music.  More music happened in November with the same choir’s performance of selections from Handel’s Messiah, a piece that is truly unique and wonderful.

December, as ever, was devoured by Christmas, although I did everything I could to avoid the music (it took three audiobooks to get me through the season).  Performing Christmas music, of course, is different from hearing it ad nauseum on the radio.  I enjoyed the RSO’s holiday performances very much.  At the yearly Pops performance in the Salem Civic Center, a monster of a concert, the Virginia Tech sousaphone players joined us for a delightful show called “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Hokie.”  Imagine a kickline of people playing instruments about the size of cars.  It was beautiful.  Just as wonderful, though not as well-advertised, was the first performance of my own little children’s choir on the second Sunday in Advent.  It was their idea to sing, not mine, and I was so proud of them for doing it and doing it well.  After that, there was nothing to do but find Christmas presents for my loved ones and celebrate the reason for the season.

Now here I am, gifted and grateful, my heart warm and my toes cold.  In this drafty little house, my home of more than two years now, I am content.  What will come in 2018, I do not know, but I refuse to be afraid of it.  Today was a good day, and I hope for many more to come.  I hope that for you, as well.  See you next year.

Spirited Silence

This is the time of year when everything stands on its head.  Christmas is the only holiday that takes over an entire month—December no longer has any identity separate from Christmas.  Everything that we do and see seems different in the light of Christmas.  Being a Christian, I should approve of this.  I don’t.

This is not to say that I don’t enjoy Christmas.  I do—when it arrives.  But it seems to me it hasn’t gotten here yet, and I don’t quite like the consumer culture dragging it onto center stage before it’s time.  I do what I can to avoid it all until I’m ready to feel the so-called “Christmas spirit”: I get audiobooks for my car to protect me from the all-too-repetitive Christmas music, I try to spread out my Christmas shopping throughout the year, and I leave any decorating until a week or so before the holiday. 

To me, Christmas appears in the silent moments.  That warm and kindly feeling doesn’t come surrounded by colored lights and someone blaring “Winter Wonderland” from a speaker.  To me, Christmas is white lights on a tree in the distance.  It’s that muffled quality of sound coming through falling snow.  It’s the work I put into gifts on my own, imagining the smiles on my loved ones’ faces.

It’s strange that what is usually accomplished for me by music and song should require silence to happen now.  But then, this is Christmastime, and everything is different.  So don’t try to get me into the spirit—I need to get there myself.  Let Christmas come slowly, when the time is right.  Isn’t it worth the wait?

The Price of Justice, and the Gift of Grace

When it comes to books, I’m not all that adventurous.  I don’t like to waste my time on things I don’t think I’ll like, and so I usually stick to genres I’m familiar with—wizards and unicorns, as my father used to say.  But I do also try to educate myself to inform my writing, and sometimes my writing informs my reading.  For example, having been working on a blog from the viewpoint of an angel for over a year now, I’ve started to pick up anything that has to do with angels.  I’ve dug more deeply into the bible, kept pamphlets that Jehovah’s Witnesses push under my door, and found myself reading fluffy articles written by spiritual people on the internet.  And at the library the other day, when I saw a book called The Trial of Fallen Angels, I picked it up.

I was a bit disappointed not to find a Miltonian novel about Lucifer and his followers receiving judgment, but my disappointment did not last long.  Written by James Kimmel, Jr., this book is a story about a woman seeking justice, and finding something else entirely.  At the beginning of the story, Brek Cuttler, a young lawyer and mother, finds herself on the platform of a train station.  She is naked, covere din blook, and though she tries for several chapters to deny it, she is dead.  But her quest is not to find out what has happened.  Rather, she has been charged with the task of representing the dead in the trials that will decide their eternal fate.  Divine justice is not what she expected, and what Brek will have to do is the hardest thing she has ever done, for her very first client is the man who killed her.

Kimmel’s portrayal of life after death is original and imaginative, relying not on any one tradition but instead presenting a new image of beauty and strangeness, of the impossible made possible.  Despite this imagery, it was a bit hard for me to get into the book—I usually don’t have a lot of patience for suspense or withheld information, and there was a fair bit of it.  But Kimmel does an excellent job drawing in his reader, so before you know it you are in the thick of the story.  Each new character introduced in this supernatural courtroom drama has something to add to the story, until you realize that all of them are drawn together into an intricate and complex history, full of family and tragedy and the importance of justice.

It is justice that is the driving force of the book.  Brek herself has always sought justice, from the time of her childhood.  It frustrates her, therefore, that justice in the afterlife seems hurried, careless, blind to aspects of the truth.  She resolves to bring true justice to this place, but instead she learns a deeper truth that cut me to the heart.  Kimmel’s own words are best to describe it:

Terror and murder are the way of justice, not the way of love.  Every war waged, and every harm inflicted, has been for the sake of justice. … He who seeks justice is harmed, not healed, because to obtain justice one must do that which is unjust. … Not to seek justice is to love those who harm us and become victors.  Love is not passive or submissive.  It is the determined application of opposite force to hatred and fear, demanding the highest effort and skill.” (Kimmel 353)

To me, this was one of those passages that make you put down the book and close your eyes to absorb what you’ve just read.  It had never occurred to me before to see justice and love as opposites.  But it’s true that “justice” is the harsh cry that precedes some of the worst things mankind can inflict on one another.  We demand blood, hardship, and cruelty in the name of justice.  Justice calls for punishment, and it leaves no room for love.

In church on Sunday the pastor was talking about debts and how they must be repaid.  He said that when wrong is done, someone has to bear the cost of it.  Even if the debt is forgiven, that doesn’t erase the wrong, and forgiveness means that the one who was harmed bears the cost.  Forgiveness is not justice; it is grace, a gift that we do not deserve.  It is love, pure and simple.

This was one of those books that put into words something I’ve always felt.  This was one of those passages that made me realize something I’ve always known.  I highly recommend this book, whether you are someone who loves easily or someone who has cried out for justice in your life.  It shows you that there are two sides to every story and many sides to every person, and sometimes justice demands that both opponents must suffer.  But in the end, of the book and of our own lives, it is love that must carry the day.

Quiet Nonsense

Today I choose not to fill the silence with music.  Somehow the quiet makes the breeze cooler, the sunlight brighter.  I don’t know why my senses choose to cooperate in this way, but I wish they would always do so.

Today I find peace bound in leather, soft and fragrant over the boards that protect the pages that hold the thoughts I had not so very long ago.  Those thoughts bring to life new ones, and isn’t it strange that I can find satisfaction and accomplishment simply by having new thoughts?

Today the river is calling me, but whenever I answer that call, I am filled with ideas and words that call me right back here, so that I can catch them before they fly away.  

Today I wonder about inspiration, about the way stories progress, about the difference--and the similarity--between story and meaning.  I wonder what meaning is.  I wonder how I can find it, and if I can someday create it.  Sometimes I wonder if I already have.

Today I do not question where I should be, or who I should be, or how I am failing, or how I am succeeding.  I just am, and there is something wonderful in that.

To Make a Hero

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of fantasy books.  My dad used to say that I would never read anything that didn’t have wizards or unicorns in it.  While that’s not strictly accurate—I loved books with dragons and prophecies too—fantasy has been far and away my favorite genre for my entire life.  And being a writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about fantasy tropes and common plot elements.  On my mind today is the typical fantasy hero or heroine, specifically their history or their backstory.  I’ve noticed that often there has to be some form of drama with the protagonist’s family.  Either they are an orphan, or raised by unkind people who are not their parents (or in the case of Harry Potter, both).  Maybe they have lost one parent and the other is incapable of taking care of them, as with Artemis Fowl and Katniss Everdeen.  Maybe their real parents are not who they thought—take Richard Cypher or Prince Cor of Archenland or the wildmage Daine or Lirael of the Clayr (this is a pretty popular form).  Or maybe they never knew who their parents were, or even thought that they had parents, as with Maximum Ride or Septimus Heap.  Maybe their parents or guardians had secrets that are only discovered after their death, as with Jacob Portman or the Baudelaire children.  Whatever the case, it’s nearly a requirement in a fantasy story for the main character to have some shadows in their past.

Archetypes only become archetypes because they work, so what is it that makes this parental mystery so fascinating?  Maybe it’s because we all, in real life, have a fascination with our family history.  Nearly everyone I’ve ever talked to about this has some story about how their parents met, how they came together, what made their relationship unique and interesting.  It’s not just our parents, either.  We look for interesting stories in the past because we feel that those stories reflect well on us.  If we come from somewhere special, that makes us special, too, right?

Of course, there are stories that avoid this.  Only one of the five young heroes of The Dark is Rising series has a mystical background, and Candy Quackenbush could not possibly get more ordinary.  They become special of their own volition, through their responses to the problems that are thrust upon them.  In the end, all of those other heroes I have mentioned do the same.  Often, their magical or mysterious or interesting beginnings are not help but hindrance to them, making them afraid or guarded, or giving them enemies and setting obstacles in their paths.

What I am trying to say is it’s all well and good to be a “chosen one”, to have something mystical or tragic about you from an early age, some destiny that is just waiting to snatch you into an adventure.  But a hero—read, a good, well-rounded, and capable human being—can be raised in an ordinary, loving home, too.  It is not our beginnings that define us, but what we make of what we have been given.  In the end, we must all make our own greatness.  (Dumbledore said something like that at some point, didn’t he?)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go write a story in which someone extraordinary is fascinated by the lives of ordinary people.  Because, in the end, it’s the ordinary things which are the most wonderful.


In order of mention, the books referenced above are: Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce, Lirael by Garth Nix, Maximum Ride by James Patterson, Magyk by Angie Sage, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, and Abarat by Clive Barker.  All are personal favorites of mine, and I highly recommend them.

Once Upon a Happily Ever After

I’ve always been a sucker for a happy ending.  In fact I cannot remember one story that I have loved that didn’t have some kind of a happy ending.  Of course there are marvelous books whose endings could never be called happy, but they don’t live on my shelves.  The books that I own, that I read over and over again, all have some kind of happy at the end—the beginning of healing, a small consolation prize for the main character, or even just a line that indicates that the character will still be able to move on—“Tomorrow’s another day” and all that.

I don’t think I’m the only one.  We all love a good “happily ever after.”  So much, I think, that we’ve begun to look for them in our own lives.  We’re all trying to get somewhere, to crest the hill from which point we can look out at the sunrise and smile, and the screen can fade neatly to black.  Maybe that destination is a lifestyle you want (be it white picket fence and 2.5 kids, or the day you can retire and get an RV to travel the country).  Maybe it’s that new job that you’ve had our eyes on for years.  Maybe it’s when your book will be published or when you’ll finally meet The One.  Maybe it’s just the end of the year and a fresh start on a new one.  Whatever it may be, we’re all trying to get there, but when we do, often we find that there’s just another hill to climb after that.

But the thing is, a story never encompasses an entire life.  What book have you ever read that began on the day a person was born and ended the day they died, leaving absolutely nothing out in between?  What book contains all the falling over and bathroom breaks and sick days and staring at the ceiling that we do?  Not to mention all the time we’re asleep (and not dreaming: just drooling into the pillow).  If there were such a book, I guarantee no one would read it all the way through.  It would come across as disjointed, distracting, and just dull.

No, every story has a point, or a moral, or a theme, and whatever is in the story is leading it to that destination.  The happy ending doesn’t just happen; it was constructed by a biased author who picks and chooses what details will help get there.  Trust me, I’ve been there—I spend weeks at a time trying to figure out which sentences and scenes lead to the ending I want.

So when the ending happens depends on what kind of story you’re telling.  If you’re telling a fairy tale, the ending might be a wedding.  If a tragedy, it might well end with your darkest moment, regardless of whether you ever get out of that darkness.  If it’s a story about a journey, then you might have the ending standing beneath the waterfall roaring down from the rocks, or it might be when you’ve caught the stomach bug and miss out on a concert you were looking forward to, or it might end with you sinking back into your easy chair at home.  (All of those things can and have happened on the same vacation.)  

The point to this story (because this is a story, of a sort, and there is a point, to which I’ve carefully led you) is not to worry about whether or not you’ve reached your happy ending.  There are many, many stories in every lifetime, and so at any given moment you are simultaneously living your happily ever after and waiting for the story to begin.  And take it from a writer who hates nothing so much as the middle of a story: both of those positions are good places to be.

More Grand than Heaven

Obligatory statement of embarrassment as to how long it’s been since I posted to this blog.  Great, moving on.

I adore Les Misérables.  As a musical especially, it is a beautiful story, and I nearly always ugly cry at the finale.  Sometimes I forget, however, how very good the book is, as well.  There are reasons for this, of course: it is a massive book, larger even than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or Outlander, some of the more modern fridge-sized literature.  It took me weeks to finish, where I normally can knock out a book in five or six days, and that was including several long passages on the battle of Waterloo or how ships are built that I flipped past.  But it is a classic for a reason.  

“This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the infinite.”

For those of you who have not read it, nor seen the various plays, musicals, and movies based on it, the story (much abridged) is this: a young man, Jean Valjean, steals a loaf of bread in post-revolutionary era France and is imprisoned.  Thanks to harsh criminal law and his several attempts to escape, he serves nineteen miserable years in prison.  This makes him a hardened, cruel person, but he experiences a life-changing event when, upon his release, he is offered incredible kindness by a priest.  Valjean turns his life around, eventually adopting the daughter of an unmarried woman who dies before she can escape poverty.  But throughout his life and Cosette’s growing up, he is hunted by a policeman named Javert, who refuses to believe that a thief could ever redeem himself.

As is often the case, what is important in the story is not what happens but why it happens and how.  Valjean is like a saint, but there is realism in his desperate struggles with his conscience—one of the most beautiful and relatable passages is the night and day that Valjean spends trying to save a man who has been accused in his name.  Throughout all that time, though he is moving to do the right thing, he consistently makes excuses, tries to find a way that he can escape the confession that he knows he has to make.  His anguish makes him very human, and yet he makes countless sacrifices and proves himself a true hero.  Likewise Javert, Valjean’s enemy and foil, shows a darker realism found in humanity.  He is relentless in the face of justice, even cruel, and yet believes himself to be in the right.  When he is finally forced to see that he was wrong about Valjean, he cannot comprehend or accept that truth, and it destroys him.  (I would have mentioned there would be spoilers, but—well, the book has been in print since 1862, so…)

The quote above was speaking of God, and there are chapters and chapters of Christian ideology in this book.  What I found most interesting, however, was not the way the book talks about God, but the way it talks about humanity.  

“There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven.  There is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the inmost recesses of the soul.”  

The story is really about the nature of humanity, that which we all have in common.  Its enormous and varied cast portrays a sampling of human nature.  We see pure, true love in Marius and Cosette, but also love denied and twisted in Fantine and Eponine.  There is selfless parental love in Valjean for Cosette, and opposing it is Madame Thénardier, who allows her sons to grow up on the streets.  Valjean and his benefactor, M. Myriel, show true selflessness, and then there is sly, grasping Thénardier, who always has another plan for his own gain.  Enjolras embodies patriotism and love of his nation, and he dies senselessly for it, while Marius ends up in the fight almost by accident and survives it.  Young and old, rich and poor, good and wicked—all appear in the pages of this text to show a piece of “this infinity which every man bears within him.”

I could write a dozen posts inspired by this book—on war, love, faith, conscience—and I might.  But what makes this book so real and so relevant, even now, is what it has to say about who we are.  Life may be miserable sometimes, but you can always find happiness and hope if you reach for the better parts of yourself.  This, after all, is all part of “the somber march of the human race.”

A Blessing for a New Home

Even as I write this, the earth is moving.

That’s a bit dramatic, I know.  But that’s what I do as a writer: find dramatic ways to state ordinary things.  For example, the beginning of construction on the church building for Christ the King Presbyterian.  Then again, maybe what I’m doing is exposing the drama in moments that are not ordinary at all.

A church is a family—not for nothing are all those metaphors of being adopted into the household of God.  Even leaving God out of it (impossible as that may be), when you bring a crowd of people who are trying to be the best they can be, together into a group every week—it’s inevitable that they begin to care for one another.  All that warmth and kindness of broken people who know how hard it is to live in a broken world is stronger than the ties of blood.

And when any family finds a home, it is a thrilling thing.  A home bears witness to life and love and death, and a church shelters those things, too—baptisms, weddings, funerals, as well as music and worship and fellowship and the things that bring savor to life.  And this place has been anticipated for over a decade, longer than I’ve been around, but I’ve inherited the excitement.

I was driving by a few weeks ago, before the work started, and a splash of red caught the corner of my eye.  The field where we are building now was then coated with red flowers, a brilliant carpet across the land where our church would be built.  I later learned that the flowers were called crimson clover, a type of wildflower.  The scientific name is Trifolium incarnatum, the latter meaning ‘blood red’. 

I was overwhelmed by the symbolism of this.  I thought, it’s such a shame that we will have to destroy all of these flowers before we can build anything.  How long will it be before flowers grow on this land again?  But that is the world we live in—sometimes things have to be broken and the old ways pulled up before we can move on and build something new.  I read also that this kind of clover is used to feed stock animals like sheep.  It made me smile, and it made me hope, for God is faithful and provides for his flock.  The flowers were like a blessing from God, a sign of provision and beauty to represent His approval.

I’ve saved a few of the flowers pressed in my journal, wanting to remember their beauty even after they are gone.  On Earth, beauty my die, but it lasts in the memory of God, which can never fail, and which holds us safe.

Story Snares

I was talking to a friend today, catching up over lunch.  She asked me how my writing was going, as most of my friends do.  I wasn’t quite sure how to answer.  Yes, I have been writing, quite a bit, lately.  The problem is I haven’t been working on anything of my own.  My current project is a spinoff of a show I’ve been watching lately.  It’s less fanfiction than my personal continuation from the end of the series.  I’ve enjoyed working on it very much, but maybe it’s not what I should be spending my time on.

Then again, I do tend to get caught by stories.  Be it a book or a show or one of my own ideas, good stories get into my head, and until I’ve found a way to resolve the story somehow, at least temporarily, I can’t stop thinking about it.  I’ve spent many a day at work only half-focused on what I am doing, while the rest of my mind guides characters and events along the most logical path.

In fact, I think that is what a story is supposed to do.  Think about the language we writers use when talking about stories.  They talk about a ‘hook’ at the beginning, to lure the reader in as it were.  I think of myself as being ensnared, stuck in the story as if I’m in a trap.  It’s never a bad thing, but it can be inconvenient.

How do I get out?  The easiest way is just to finish the story, of course.  Sometimes I’ll spend hours at a time reading just so I can get through—with television shows, it can take days.  When that’s not an option, as with a book series which is not complete yet, or a show between seasons, I have to fully outline what I would do with the story if I were to continue writing.  This is always good fun, but it can have a downside: if the story comes back, and it’s not as good (in my opinion) as what I come up with, I tend to lose interest.  And of course sometimes a story just stretches out too long.  If I feel like the plot has moved past its natural ending, it loses a part of its hold on me.  I might keep up with it for old times’ sake, but it becomes a toothless trap, one I can slip out of easily.

Despite the inconvenience, I have to appreciate this need to know what happens, to find closure for a story.  It has brought me through a lot of very good story, and I have learned by example.  It is what has helped me to understand how a story takes shape and what not to do with one, and it forces me to practice this on my own.  If not for this, I would never have managed to finish any story of my own.  So I think I will keep working on my little play project, because any day I have spent putting words to paper—no matter what I am writing—is a good day.

In No Particular Order

Here is a list of things that make me sad.

• The birthday party no one attends—whether it’s mine or someone else’s, even someone on television or in a book.  Breaks my heart every time.
• Dead animals at the side of the road.  Even possums.
• ASPCA ads.
• When my cat won’t sit with me.  (This happens often.)
• When I really want something specific to eat like waffles but we are out of a necessary component like syrup.
• When I have finished a stack of exciting new books and have to try and make myself excited about older ones.
• Getting stuck in my writing.
• When someone thinks I am unkind, or prejudiced, or selfish.
• When I hear from an old friend and realize I don’t know them anymore.
• When my friends are sad and I don’t know what to say to make them feel better.

Here is a list of things that make me happy.

• A neat rotation of things that I use—plates, bookmarks, t-shirts—so that none of them get used more often than any of the others.
• Scratching my back, and finally reaching that spot that has been bothering me.
• When my hair has been straightened and it looks nice without my having to do anything but comb it.
• New pens or colored markers or highlighters.
• Crossing things off my to-do list.
• When someone has done something nice for me without my asking for it.
• Adding things to my journal, whether they’re pictures or poems or quotes or new ideas.
• When my cat comes and sits on my lap and purrs.  (A rare privilege.)
• Finding a new book, movie, or show that I really love.  Or re-discovering an old book, movie, or show, and realizing I’d forgotten just how good it was.
• Flowers that smell sweet.
• A cool breeze on a sunny day.
• Pushing through a place where I’ve been stuck in my story.
• When someone tells me that they enjoyed my writing.
• When I hear from an old friend and they are just as loving and wonderful as I remember them.
• When I say something to my friends and it is exactly what they needed to hear.  

Losing the Argument with Myself

I’ve been putting off writing this blog post, which is ironic, because this week’s topic is self-discipline.  I made the decision several hours ago that I would work on a blog post today.  But first I had to mow the lawn (which didn’t get done because it started to rain), and then I had to shower and then I felt I deserved a break, so I watched an episode of a television show—a long episode.  Then I had to feed the cat and do laundry and get some dinner, which meant watching something else, and after all of that I still wasted about thirty minutes on Pinterest.

Why is it so hard to get started on things?  It is the getting started that is the hard part.  I don’t expect this post to take much longer than ten minutes to write.  I have to have plans and organization and goals for myself, and still I don’t always listen when I say to myself that something has to get done.  For me, self-discipline is a constant argument with myself, and it is a difficult one to win, because I have learned to rationalize everything.  I convince myself that my writing is lower quality when I force myself, that after a long day of work I need some time to rest, that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I miss a post this week (although it’s been more than a month since I posted anything).  And just as often, I don’t even bother to have the debate, but simply settle down to what is easy.

The lure of instant gratification is a powerful one.  Logically I know that if I work hard, get my work done, put myself out there, I have a far better chance to be a success—but for tonight, for now, I am tired, and it is so comfortable here in the chair and I don’t want to get up—sound familiar?

I don’t have any magic fix for this, I’m afraid.  As I said above, I spent this very day procrastinating and lazing around.  The only thing that I’ve found to be effective is time, and constant reminders of what needs to get done.  For me, there is a reminder hanging on the wall by my desk of today’s task, be it writing or editing or blogging.  It is clearly visible whenever I look up at the clock or turn to the window, and it always gives me a little pang of guilt if I’m goofing off.  Eventually, I get the work done, just to be able to move it off the wall. 

Sounds silly, but it works, because it means I have set expectations for myself, and if I can’t meet those, I am only letting myself down.  And if I can’t meet my own standards, how can I expect to measure up to anyone else’s?  

Writing This Made My Stomach Hurt

A brief disclaimer: I have never been diagnosed with anything along the lines of anxiety, so I am not trying to speak to a general sentiment here.  This is my attempt to explain my own difficulties with interpersonal relations.

Social anxiety makes everyone into strangers, while simultaneously making strangers safer than friends.  For me, strangers are easy to interact with, particularly in the contexts I usually find myself–when I’m working, or when they are working, it’s easy because I know what to expect from someone who comes in to order food or someone who is processing my requests at the post office or the bank.  It still makes me nervous, but I can prepare myself.  

Once I kind of know someone, however, some of the padding goes away.  Once faces and names are familiar, people expect more of me, and different things, things I can’t predict.  People who come into the store quite regularly start asking me questions about myself, offering information about themselves.  I have no idea how they are going to respond to my responses.  These conversations I find much more awkward, and therefore much more terrifying, than the light small talk exchanged with strangers.

Then there are true acquaintances: people I know from church or from work, who know the general shape of my life and I know theirs.  If I know about their family and they know the name of my cat and my roommate, in some ways it is easier.  But I still have to play the role of the person they know, still have to fit myself into the parameters in which they expect to see me.  And while I no longer have to quite explain myself every other sentence, which is a relief, there is a new fear in the form of defying the expectations they already have.  I have to guard myself to make sure I won’t say something out of character, something that doesn’t fit in the mental picture they already have.  It's not rejection I fear, but lack of understanding--that I will describe something that is so very important to me and receive a blank look in return.  Those awkward "oh, okay"s are horrifying to me in a way that I can't explain.  I am constantly concerned with protecting other people’s comfort level with me.

I’m so grateful for my real, true friends, who have revealed time and again that even if I let down my guard, even if I just be bluntly obvious about myself, they will still find something to admire and love in me.  These, of course, are unicorns, precious and few.  And still even with them, sometimes I can’t ask for what I need.  I love them so much that the idea of burdening them, or even inconveniencing them in any way, terrifies me.  What have I done for them, after all?  What do they really get out of this friendship with me?

Is it any wonder that I haven’t found a significant other yet?  This final level of friendship, this boss fight of human interaction, would mean a person in whose company I am always comfortable, whose love and acceptance of me are beyond doubt.  This someone would have to be someone who had been tested and tried and had proved themselves worthy of seeing my soft, vulnerable self with no shell whatsoever, and who would never be tempted to take advantage of that trust.  Not only am I terrified of the process it would take to get to this level, I am doubtful that anyone could ever actually beat it.  And yet I long for this person, for this one human, this exquisite creature, with whom I could share my least, strangest thought, and know that they understand and resonate with it, with me.

All Hail

I’m nearly always late to get excited about trends.  I’m the anti-hipster—I only like things once they’re not cool anymore.  Most of the time it’s because I am reluctant to invest in any story, no matter the medium, unless I’m sure that I will enjoy it.  My time is way too valuable to waste.  While this protects me from some bad works, it also means I miss out on wonderful things unless someone who knows me strong-arms me into the experience.  Oddly enough, it is often Pinterest or Tumblr that convinces me to watch or read something.  Fans will post art or quotes from the story, and these things will persuade me that maybe I should actually check this story out.  This is how I was introduced to Night Vale.

Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast which began airing in mid-2012 and just recently reached its 100^th episode.  It is written in the style of a small-town local radio show, featuring news, weather, traffic, local events, etc.  All of this might not be very interesting except that Night Vale is a place where very strange things happen.  An aircraft appears for a moment in the middle of a baseball stadium, hooded figures wander through the dog park (where under no condition are you to go, nor to take your dog), and various surveillance helicopters fly over the town, occasionally scooping up stray children.  And that’s just the first episode.

The host of the radio show and voice of Night Vale, Cecil, is a man with several mysteries of his own.  He is cheerful, humorous, profound, and inspiring.  Though initially just a voice on the radio, he soon evolves into a character of his own, struggling with imperfect relationships.  What I find most fascinating about him and the way he tells the story is the way he frames what can be a truly nightmarish life.  In Night Vale, surveillance is everywhere, magic and sheer weirdness destroy lives in every episode, and yet Cecil still talks about the goodness in life.  He reacts to horror and pain with humor and wisdom, making the best of the various strange situations and showing love for his home and his town despite its danger.

Night Vale truly does question the notion of what is normal.  There are several points in the series where Cecil wonders if he or the world even exist, or if it is all just an illusion.  Time travel, wars in space, and dark sacrificial rituals are de rigueur, and town-wide disasters happen so often that people tend to get bored of them.  What’s more, though, is Night Vale normalizes some things that still cause controversy in the so-called “real world”.  One of the running plot points for the show involves the development of the relationship between Cecil and the town scientist Carlos.  The show features disabled characters, non-binary characters, and characters with various religions and races, and they are all treated as if these traits are secondary to their value as thinking entities.  Indeed, Cecil offers support and understanding to artificial intelligences and five-headed dragons, so why not?  It is a powerful statement, I think, on how to respect others regardless of their viewpoints or backgrounds.

Most fascinating to me, however, is the beautiful and thought-provoking language, and this, I feel, can only be conveyed in the exact words, so here are a few of my favorite quotes.  Some of them are drawn directly from the podcast, while some come from the associated twitter, @NightValeRadio.

“The universe is unraveling, but how beautiful these moments within the dissolve.”

“Fear is consciousness plus life.  Regret is an attempt to avoid what has already happened.  Toast is bread held under direct heat until crisp.  The present tense of regret is indecision.  The future tense of fear is either tragedy or comedy.  The past tense of toast is toasted.”

“I could teach and preach and shout and explain, but no lesson is as powerful as the lesson learned on one’s own.”

“All the beauty of the world was made within oppressive limitations of time and death and impermanence.”

“Mostly void; partially stars.”

“Today you will meet a beautiful stranger.  Actually hundreds of beautiful strangers.  Everyone is beautiful and you know almost none of them.”

“ ‘Human being’, like ‘men working’ and ‘children playing’, is a sentence with a noun, a verb, and the possibility of an imminent disaster.”

“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.”

I highly recommend this exquisite, humorous, expansive work, still ongoing after five years.  Episodes are released twice monthly and can be found through ITunes or other podcast apps, on YouTube, or via their website, welcometonightvale.com. 

“Close your eyes.  Let my words wash over you.  You are safe now.  Welcome to Night Vale.”

Features Make Me Feel Special

I've been featured as a guest on my friend Yafen's blog!  Such a joy to share influence (such as it is) and readership (such as it is) with a fellow writer.  Check out her blog here!

Speculating on Speculative Fiction

I love being a writer.  I love the feeling of my fingers dancing across the keys, love to watch the words running across the screen, love to let my mind trace the events and ideas I describe on the page.  I am proud of the three novels I have completed, and though they are not yet published, I am confident that someday they will be.  But there is one thing I do not like, and that is when people ask what my books are about. 

Yes, I know that this is a natural question to follow the announcement that am writing a book.  I recognize that this question is a necessary evil.  But if I could tell the story in the time allotted to a casual conversation, I wouldn’t have written an entire book (series) about it.  More than that, though, I feel awkward talking about my work to people, because I have this idea that they will lose interest the moment I answer their question.  You see, I write science fiction and fantasy, and there is something about those genres that reduces the respect people give to the writing.  I have expressed my feelings on this stigma at length in a previous post (“Niche”), so I won’t get into them here. 

I think the reason for this uncertainty is the fact that these genres—collectively with horror called “speculative fiction”—have long been outliers of literature, enjoyed by only a few and not considered by academics to be worthy of analysis.  Even now, when fantasy and science fiction are becoming more firmly established in popular culture—think Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, not to mention Star Wars and Star Trek—still I had trouble finding a professor who had any knowledge about (or indeed, interest in) my chosen genre.  These genres are escapism, a way to get out of the world, and I think most scholars tend to find realistic fiction more relevant.

I disagree (of course).  I think that these genres have a great deal of relevance in today’s culture, that they can teach us much about ourselves and the world we live in.  Maybe people do come to these genres to escape, to stop thinking about the troubles of this world, but I think they find in these stories that even in fantastic and outlandish and impossible worlds and situations, people are still people, still relatable.  Readers of science fiction and fantasy see the best and worst of humanity displayed in ways that we don’t see in our world, and that has real value.

Fantasy is defined by the use of imagination to construct a world unlike our own.  Of course all fiction involves imagination, characters and places that do not actually exist, but to qualify as fantasy, a drastic change has to be made.  Either the story must take place in a different world entirely, or elements of our world are consciously altered.  Magic is a common tool and a clear sign of fantasy, but there are others—divergent histories, for example, in which one finds the world just slightly different than it actually is, because the author imagines what might happen if a certain historical event had not happened or had been changed. 

Early fantasy came out of stories for children, fairy tales in which the rules of the world are not questioned.  Indeed, fantasy relies on suspension of disbelief, a willingness on the part of the reader to accept things as they are presented.  John Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River and George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin are often cited as the earliest examples of fantasy stories, published in 1851 and 1872, respectively.  After them came other works by authors such as William Morris and Lord Dunsany, establishing the genre.  In the early 20^th century, the most popular form of fantasy described various “lost worlds”, feeding off of archaeological discoveries in South America, Egypt, and the Middle East.  More and more fantastical stories appeared throughout the 1920s and 30s, though juvenile fantasy was much more successful than fantasy for adults.  In the 1950s, “sword and sorcery” fantasy, with its fast-paced action, romance, and focus on personal matters was most prevalent.

It was high fantasy, best characterized by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, that brought fantasy into the mainstream.  These stories focus around a single hero or heroine, usually with a special heritage or a mysterious nature.  The story follows the hero as s/he matures, and it often features a mentor figure and a powerful enemy.  The conflict of good vs. evil is central to such stories.  Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia both fall into this subgenre, and so it is this that most people think of when they think of fantasy—sweeping epics in other worlds or in societies set apart from our own world.  There is, however, a subgenre of “low” fantasy, in which the story is set in our own world with the inclusion of magical elements like personified animals or toys (The Indian in the Cupboard), altered physics (The Borrowers), magical powers, or time slips.  These stories are less black and white than their high fantasy equivalents; their heroes and heroines tend to be more cynical and have their own agendas.

My first fantasy book was probably The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, and I would often rent the movie adaptation of The Princess and the Goblin.  I went on from there to Tamora Pierce’s Alanna and John Peel’s The Secret of Dragonhome.  I don’t know when it was precisely that I was hooked, but it got to the point that my father would tease me I wouldn’t read anything unless it had wizards and unicorns in it.  High fantasy, low fantasy, I gobbled it all up, and to this day it remains my favorite genre.

Four of my five major writing projects are fantasy, and they feature elements from both high and low fantasy.  While my Snapdragon series has no magic at all and a world following almost all the same rules ours does, I have another series where the culture of the world is defined by a decades-long war with demons.  Both subgenres present different challenges to the development of character and plot, and both offer fascinating explorations of human nature.

“Fantasy is the impossible made probable.  Science fiction is the improbable made possible.”

Rod Serling

Science fiction is equally difficult to define—anything that is considered “speculative” will naturally push any boundaries one tries to set around it.  What one normally finds in science fiction, though, is a story which looks to the future, finds a world that is technically possible, and explores how it might come about and what it might be like if it did.  

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often cited as one of the first science fiction novels.  After her came writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, inspired by the wave of new technologies made available in the early twentieth century.  American pulp magazines sprang up to feature science fiction works, and in the late 1930s, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury brought us some of the most common elements found in science fiction, namely robots, space travel, and new political systems (see I, Robot, The Sentinel, and Fahrenheit 451).  Over time, two different subgenres developed: “hard” science fiction, featuring a focus on the natural sciences and accurate details, and “soft” science fiction, which is less concerned with accuracy and more with speculative culture and society.  Other subgenres include cyperpunk, steampunk, time-travel, dystopian, and apocalyptic.

I’m somewhat of a newcomer to the science fiction genre, having come to it late and somewhat by accident.  When I first started to read Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, I thought that it was fantasy—an agrarian society in a made-up world, a culture led by musicians…fire-breathing dragons?  Of course it was fantasy.  But as I continued to read, all of these elements were explained in a way that would technically be possible, and Pern was revealed to be a distant planet.  From there I went on to McCaffrey’s collaborative works Acorna and Freedom’s Landing, and then to Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness.  As a teenager and young adult, I started to pick up some of the dystopian works trending at the time, like Uglies by Scott Westerfield and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  In my reading I definitely lean towards soft science fiction; I’m more interested in the way possible worlds might affect people’s lives rather than the technologies in their lives. 

My Youngest series I would definitely classify as soft science fiction.  My interest is in the interactions between people—and yes, I do consider Youngest as a person, despite the fact she is an artificial intelligence.  That debate itself is part of the reason I started writing her story.  This kind of question is something that can only be asked in science fiction, and it leads to many fascinating themes—the relative worth of sentient lives, the interaction of human and not-human, the value and the danger of technology, the comparative horror of death and pain—which are deeply relevant to today’s world. 

So mainstream or no, science fiction and fantasy have great value.  The trends in these genres outline the direction of human imagination, bringing life to our hopes and fears for the world.  They give a shape and a voice to things we don’t often think about, to issues that we don’t usually talk about.  I think that’s worthy of some thought, don’t you?

If I’ve convinced you, and you would like some recommendations to start your own exploration into these genres, here are a few in addition to the ones I’ve mentioned above.

Fantasy:

Abarat by Clive Barker

Green Rider by Kristen Britain

Which Witch? by Eve Ibbotson

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Science Fiction:

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Science Fantasy (yes, there is such a thing!  Science fantasy stories feature elements of both science fiction and fantasy)

So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde

The Giver by Lois Lowry

She Made Space

The cords under my feet, the six or seven inches of chair under my hips, smooth dark desk under my arms—I find myself very aware of the physical space I occupy this evening.  Not surprising, as I have just come from viewing a play called “She Made Space”, a new work by Meredith Cope-Levy, a dear friend of mine.  That friendship was the primary attraction for me; I rarely go to live theatre performances, mostly because I am extraordinarily picky about the stories I invest in.  If I don’t know even before diving in that I will enjoy the story, I won’t waste my time.  But I had the privilege of participating, in some small part, with Meredith’s undergraduate thesis project, and from that experience I learned that she truly is a master of her craft.  So off I went up two flights of stairs to sit in the back row of a tiny theatre for a heartwarming and thought-provoking evening.

The play opened with a direct challenge to the fourth wall—“we’re in a theatre,” proclaimed the main and only character, Echo.  She proceeded to explain the premise of the hour-long performance: an exploration of one woman’s place in life, in terms of the spaces she occupies in her own regard and in the regard of others.   This I had learned from the play’s advertisements, but what I hadn’t known was that the play’s narrator and protagonist was an echo in truth, speaking about Meredith’s life and tracing Meredith’s path of revelation and self-discovery.  I watched, entranced, as a window opened into my friend’s mind and heart, etched out in reality on the stage.

Emma Sperka’s performance as Echo brought the story to life as she spoke in many different languages.  She spoke in image, scattering petals as she went back and forth and referring repeatedly to a silk rose, which was pretending just like Echo was.  She spoke in motion, sinking to the floor as “my heart dropped”.  Metaphor, poetry, and theme intertwined as Emma’s husky voice told many stories of many women, loving and hurting and struggling for truth and acceptance.  And I, I gave my heart to Echo and to Meredith from the first moment I realized they were one and the same.

The inspiration for the play was a photograph with two women taking up space outside a café.  One is talking, the other writing—“we are witnessing an exchange,” Echo said.  Later, she asked, “Where are you in this story?”  When the story was lived, I was a passer-by, knowing only the destination and a few stops along the way.  Tonight, however, I was an intimate part of the exchange, writing my thoughts while Meredith’s words spoke to me.  I am so grateful to her for opening her center to me, for the privilege of being welcomed into her space.

Of Our Own Device

Sometimes you just need to take a breath and hit reset.  Sometimes you need a break from normalcy.  I find that this happens to me quite often.  I need a rest from the “fine, and you?”  I need to express how I really am, whether it be floating on the transcendence of an excellent story, or descending slowly into a maddening creative silence. 

Recently I’ve been writing letters to various friends and family.  Letters are the easiest and truest form of communication I’ve found, because they are safe.  Time and distance separate me from the person I am talking to, so I can safely reach down into the core of myself and say what I am really thinking and feeling.  I don’t have to worry about the crease of brow, the twist of mouth that together say how outside of acceptable public expression my words are.  I don’t have to hear those people wondering what I am talking about, when what they mean is why am I talking about something that is not easy, expected, safe, normal.

I wonder sometimes if other people feel this way.  They must.  The human mind is so intricate, so fascinating, so expansive, and yet this small concept of “normal” restrains our lives, our actions, our thoughts, to a tiny area.  We are so afraid of straying outside of those lines that we make prisoners of ourselves.  I think that this is unspeakably tragic.

I hope that I can be brave enough to knock down those mental walls and think precisely the way I want to.  I hope that I can take those words I’ve feared in the past—words like weird and strange and crazy—and wear them with pride.  How can it be a bad thing to think of things that most others never have?  What I am doing is expanding the reach of human consciousness.  Should that not be something that we want? 

I refuse to believe that the human race wants nothing more than to be small, to inhabit the same mental space it always has.  I prefer to have greater faith in us than that.

Walk

I just got back from a walk.  Wanting some uninterrupted time to listen to a new podcast episode (Welcome to Night Vale, if anyone is curious), and maybe a little exercise too, I put in my headphones and set out for the Greenway which is a few blocks away from my house.  This section of the Greenway, which rambles all over my city, runs along the river, making it a very scenic route.

My first sight on reaching the river was a flock of geese, striding across the path in that particularly unhurried way geese have when they’ve become accustomed to humans.  Most of them were Canada geese, but there was one uglier white one in among them.  There were a few other people out on the path—a man pushing a stroller and walking his dog, a woman jogging who slowed to a walk as she passed me.  I nodded and smiled to them but said nothing to them, busy listening to a man with a deep voice tell me some very strange things. 

A few times along the way, I stopped to look at the water.  I took a few pictures with my phone, trying to capture the twisting colors of the river, brown and incandescent blue-green and black in the shadows and bubbling white.  I stood there as long as I could, just watching, and if I had been confident of remaining unobserved, I might have waded into the water, let it rise up around my knees and soak my jeans.  Maybe not—as I said before, it was cold.

I kept going, collecting images as I went.  The roots of trees extending out over the water, or rippling the pavement with cracks and tiny rises.  A toy gun hung from the branch of a tree.  Two ducks bursting into flight from the surface of the water.  Smooth stones polished to gems by the water—I picked up two, but they’re never quite as beautiful when they’re dry.  The wooden barriers by the path where the slope to the river became steep, inviting me to stop and lean on them and look out.  I did, once.

There’s no moral to this story, no particular reason I’m writing about it.  Just that when I go out like this—out of my house, out of my way, out of my own head—I like to remember it.  I like to think that even something as simple as a walk is something special, because it is.

The Benefit(?) of the Doubt

"Doubt—a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction."  That's Google's definition.  I'd like to add fear, lack of confidence, and the feeling that the ground you are standing on is growing unsteady.  And it’s been on my mind for a while.  Well, it’s always around, but usually I try to ignore it.  Not today.

I like to think of myself as a confident person.  I get away with this because I know for a fact I used to be much less sure of myself than I am now.  Education, maturity, and an improved sense of self-esteem have all given me a lot of faith in myself over the years.  But it is so easy for doubt to creep back in.  I can check twice to make sure the shopping list is in my purse, but if my roommate texts me to ask if I have it, I have to check again.  It’s not just about little things, either, like whether I brushed my teeth or whether I locked the door.  I doubt other people’s intentions and their opinions of me, even when there is no evidence in their actions to give me reason.  For example, a coworker recently offered to cover one of my shifts this weekend, saying that I have been working a lot lately and deserve a day off.  I was very grateful to accept and touched that she had noticed my fatigue, but a little voice in the back of my head just wouldn’t be silent.  It told me that she just needs the money, that she is actually laughing at me with her friends, calling me lazy or foolish—“we don’t want to work with her anyway.”  Never mind that that kind of behavior is immature to the extreme, not to mention illogical.  The doubt is still there.

We live in a world today where danger is not a constant companion.  Yes, I might get hit by a bus or robbed out there, but the likelihood of physical harm is slim in the secure life that I lead.  Instead we find our dangers these days in the social and emotional realms of life.  To survive, to be happy, we need to have a solid position in society, to be seen as strong, to be valued, to be loved.  So we spend much of our time measuring ourselves against others, trying to guess what they think of us, trying to influence their opinions.  We can even do it all on our own, holding ourselves up to high standards that we could never really be expected to meet.  It gets exhausting after a while, and the doubts never really go away.  In fact, I’ve found that the more you feed them, the more they grow.

The solution I’ve found to these pests is a simple one: to kill doubt, you must have faith.  I’m not talking about capital F Faith, though I will say that my religion gives me a great deal of security in my life.  But in this case, it is enough to find something that you know is true and rest in that.  Get in touch with a friend whose actions and words you don’t have to analyze.  Do something that you know you are good at, or else something that doesn’t require you to be the best.  When you have a refuge where you feel safe just being yourself, you’ll find that the doubts do a little less shouting.  

In Memoriam: Frances O'Connor

This week should have been my grandmother’s birthday.  I suppose it still is—January 17^th will always stand out for me, because it was so definitively her day.  But while I will continue to celebrate her every time this day comes around, she is no longer around to be celebrated.

I have written to honor my grandmother before.  A few years ago I posted on this blog about her, and I have worked up a series of poems in her honor.  But when it comes to talking about her now that she is gone, I don’t quite know what to say.  I did not know as much about my grandmother as I would like—by the time I was mature enough to see adults as actual people and not just towers of authority, she was far away from me, both in physical distance and in her mind.  I never got the chance to ask her what it was like going to college in pre-WWII America, or how she felt watching friends and family enlist and disappear overseas.  I never had the chance to hear about the culture shock of moving from her South Carolina birthplace to the Connecticut town where she raised four sons, nor to learn from her an entirely new perspective of my father and my uncles.  I was never brave enough to ask her what she thought of how the world had changed around her, nor how she felt she had changed with it.

What I know of Frances O’Connor is accumulated from impressions collected over the years of visits.  To me, she was Grammy, a hunched, white-haired woman with a faint Southern-belle drawl and a distinctive laugh.  She was a little bit deaf, so I spent much of my childhood shouting at her.  Grammy was a master at the nagging compliment—“You have such a beautiful face, darlin’.  I just wish I could see it,” inevitably followed by a suggestion that I get some barrettes to restrain my curtain of hair.  Another beauty tip I got from her once was “leave your eyebrows alone.  So many girls pluck and wax and all that silly stuff—your eyebrows are beautiful.  Leave ‘em alone.”  I’ve followed this advice, which has saved me a lot of time, irritation, and pain.  Grammy’s wisdom holds true.

Inevitably thoughts of my grandmother bring back memories of her home.  Some people simply live in a house, but Grammy truly did inhabit that place, filling it from wall to wall with her color, her grace, and her style.  It was always impeccably clean—I remember her stooping over with much difficulty to pick up and scowl at an object from her carpet, so small that I hadn’t even noticed it.  Clutter was not permitted in that house; everything had its place.  There was beauty everywhere—carefully crafted china, small replicas of famous artwork, crystal charms and handmade quilts.  For a while the house intimidated me, but as I grew older and less likely to break something, I came to love that house, because it was so clearly a reflection of herself.

I sincerely hope that Grammy knew me better than I knew her.  For the past few years I have been writing letters to her, keeping her updated on my news and my thoughts.  At the beginning of every month, I pulled out a sheet of paper, wrote a page full of silliness and some seriousness, folded it up into a nice card, and dropped it into the mail for her.  Though she wasn’t able to write back, it was a connection that I valued—that even at the distance, even when she was forgetting where she was or what was happening, I still had a place and participation in her life.  That, I think, is the most important thing.  Even when knowledge and understanding of another person are lacking, if one is willing to remain in that person’s life, to be there and to maintain that connection, there can still be love.  And I think that holds true even now, when she is not there to receive my letters.  I will still think of her often, still send her my thoughts, and so I’ll never lose her entirely.  That will be my comfort when I miss her, which will be often.

Happy birthday, Grammy.  See you again someday.

Beer and Bible

For several months now, I have been attending a very unique bible study.  The very phrase “Bible study” summons up some well-furnished living room, warm and comfortable, with some kind of baked goods on the table and a church mom (who are, of course, the best kind of people) leading discussion on the gospels and how to live a godly life. 

That is not Beer and Bible.  B&B is held in the back room of a building in downtown Salem (such as it is) around a massive wooden table pushed against a raw brick wall.  The average age of the attendees is lower than thirty, and the percentage of those attendees who have tattoos is much higher than most people would think a Christian group would have.  That word, Christian, is not necessarily a universal descriptor, either.  This group regularly hosts Mormons, Catholics, and atheists, and there is heavy Jewish influence.  It’s extra Jewey, as our fearless leader has been known to say.

The presentation of the lessons is very casual—no one is told how to think or how to interpret the scripture.  And it is scripture, always, both Old and New Testament, with some support from rabbinical sources, but always directly referencing back to the scripture.  The tone is, essentially, “here’s what the Bible says, and here’s what a lot of old people have thought about it, and here’s some funny story about this passage, isn’t that cool?”

It’s a lot of fun: there is a great deal of humor involved, and the group puts a lovingly irreverent twist on everything that makes it accessible and enjoyable.  We have speculated in the past on whether mermaids and centaurs would be kosher, and once we went through a story of a prophet who “rode that ass”.  There have been live demonstrations of how to gird one’s loins and how, exactly, the prophets Elijah and Elisha might have healed sick children (it’s weird).  Tertiary syphilis is apparently not better than primary syphilis, and ‘foot’ was often used as a euphemism for the sex organ—yes, there are penis jokes in the bible (check out 1 Kings 12.10).  Then there are the tangents, which we attempt to confine to a single night once a month, but they rarely stay there.  Some of my favorite quotes, for which I cannot for the life of me remember the context, include “ankle-deep in live snakes” and “I have a glass bottle and one arm: come at me!”

The best part of Beer and Bible, though (aside from the beer, which is never officially provided but always seems to appear on the table), is that any question is allowed.  We dig deep, spending nearly an hour on a single word sometimes, and we make connections that I never would have made alone.  Phrases that I skim right over in my solo reading bring new meaning to the text when read in the light of history and tradition that has been lost over time.  It’s not about who is right and who is wrong about what scripture has to say.  It’s about giving out tools to help us find more meaning in the text, leaving the final decision of what to believe to us.  In the end, I think Jesus would be totally cool with it—and of course, he’s always welcome to come join us.  We’ll save him a beer.              

2016 in Retrospect

Another year means another year to look back upon.  Let’s get started, shall we?

A life goal of mine is to go on a trip abroad once every five years.  That began in 2006 when I went to Spain and France with a group from my high school, and continued in 2011 when I went to study abroad.  Now, in January 2016, I went with my mother on a tour across Spain and Portugal, a two-week trip that I will always remember fondly.  We began in Barcelona, spending three days there touring the city and the surrounding areas (Montserrat and Sagrada Familia were my favorite places there).  Then we went on to Valencia, where we had perfect weather by the sea.  My dad contacted us around this time, and we told him it was twenty-four degrees (Celcius), just about perfect by our standards.  He replied, “Yeah, it’s twenty-four degrees here, too (Fahrenheit).”  Somehow, nice weather while you’re abroad is nicer when they’re having rotten weather back home.  Our last stop in Spain was Seville, where we got lost in the marketplaces, watched a flamenco show, and got way overcharged by gypsies outside of a cathedral.  Then we took the worst sleeper train ever over to Coimbra in central Portugal, where my mother’s dear friend Lou picked us up.  After some much-needed rest in their guest room, we began our exploration of Portugal, visiting two different, marvelous castles and touring through Lisbon.  As the crown on a wonderful trip, Mom and I spent half a day in London on our way back. 

In comparison, February was very quiet, and I found myself disbelieving that anything so exciting had happened at all.  We had one of our monstrous snows, and I visited an old friend for an unhealthy slumber party and some catch-up time, but otherwise my calendar was pretty clear.

In March I picked up an online class series that would last me through to August.  It was a religious studies course offered through Harvard, a beautifully managed course featuring each of the five major world religions: Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism.  I didn’t take the courses for credits, but I learned a lot.  When I wasn’t busy with the class, I was doing things like working, taking my sister to the movies for her birthday, and driving off to Richmond to visit a friend and her new baby.

In April I performed my first non-Christmas concert with the Roanoke Symphony Chorus.  Carmina Burana by Carl Orff was the featured piece, and though I’d been slow to warm up to the strange music, I came to love it by the end.  I also did some housesitting, attended a wedding, and took my kitten to the vet for her Bob Barker treatment.

In May I began to attend a bible study with a very irreverent atmosphere: at Beer and Bible, any question is allowed and encouraged, no matter how strange or wild.  I’ve been attending ever since, and loving it, and maybe a future blog post will feature some of the gems I’ve collected from that crazy group.  In addition, my brother graduated from college, the last of the O’Connor clan to do so.  He’s now working in software development; don’t ask me any more, because I wouldn’t be able to explain it.  I do know that I’m proud of him.

One thing that happened in the spring that I forgot to mention, but that filled most of June, was the initial posting of my angel blog, Tales of Love from the Stolen Earth.  This was a project I had been working on for some time, and finally I decided to share it with the internet at large.  The story line follows the work of an angel, Asa’el, who has just begun his work as a Cupid.  Asa’el, fascinated by the shadowed world of mankind, documents his work and his adventures by way of a blog, just like the humans do.  It’s been a joy to work on, and with any luck the story will continue to grow.

My birthday in July passed quietly, but not unnoticed.  The day before I had the chance to participate in a photo shoot with a friend who made my hair into a rainbow, and the week afterward another friend had a little dinner party for me, which was an absolute delight.  I’d never had anyone do anything like that for me before, and I absolutely loved it.  Later in the month I flew out to Seattle with my family for my cousin’s wedding, which was more like a giant family reunion.  It was so good to see everyone. 

August began auspiciously with attendance at a performance of Twelfth Night at the Blackfriars Theatre in Staunton.  If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it: it is a beautiful space, and home to the American Shakespeare Center, which is such a talented group of performers.  Twelfth Night is one of my favorites, and I so enjoyed the performance.  I also had the chance to bring a dear friend along who was immediately smitten with the space and the performance.  Isn’t that a wonderful warming thing, to share something you love with someone you love, and have them love it, too?  The rest of the month, however, was filled with upheaval, as Ruby Tuesdays decided quite suddenly to close the store at which I was a server.  Come the second week of August, I find all of the shifts I had written into my calendar were whited out.  Thankfully, one of those lucky coincidences happened to me when I was talking to a friend of mine.  She mentioned that she had just begun working for a smoothie shop which was looking for a new manager.  She gave the owner my information, and by the end of the month I was hired and working again.  In the end it all came out for the best—I have a better position with a less stressful atmosphere, and I gained several new friends in the bargain.

September brought with it another trip to Richmond, where a baby’s high fives and his older sister’s perfect curls utterly stole my heart.  I also took on a new project, a little children’s choir at my church.  Though it started off a bit tentatively, the choir is still going on, and I have a handful of dedicated children who love to come every other week to sing with me.  What more could a music lover ask for? 

October was full of nothing special—visits with friends, bible studies, choir rehearsal, a new online class—philosophy this time—dogsitting, and a visit home for my mother’s birthday: all the lovely little things that enrich a life.

November brought a few visits home, including the requisite Thanksgiving celebration.  It also brought the return of Harry Potter movies into my life—no small thing, for a world which has been a part of my life since childhood.  If you haven’t seen Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them yet, please stop depriving yourself.  It was, well, fantastic.

December was exhausting.  Aside from Sunday, I believe I worked every day for the first three weeks, and then I also had multiple choir rehearsals and performances, not to mention a funeral out of town.  My grandmother passed away in the first week, my father’s mother, and the last of my surviving grandparents.  She had been failing for some time, so it wasn’t very unexpected, but very sad all the same.  She was a marvelous woman.  Still, the funeral provided me with an opportunity to visit with my dad’s side of the family, some of whom I haven’t seen in years.  Among them was my cousin’s adopted son, quite possibly the most beautiful six-month-old I have ever met. 

Babies and journeys, new lessons and new endeavors—2016 may have been a rough year for the world, and it may have been for me, too, but with the struggle came many joys and blessings.  I wouldn’t change a thing.  Here’s to an equally exhausting, exhilarating, maddening, delightful 2017.