Reflections – Page 11 – Another Adventure

As My Feet Move…

Written September 25

As my feet move, I am discernible. As my feet move, I shake my head. I’d forgotten what it felt to be barefoot. I’d forgotten how to move.
“Where ya going?” asks neighbor sir with the gardening hat and wheelbarrow in tow.
“To the lake,” I reply, a bit taken aback by his forward, defenseless bonhomie. I’ve been a resident of the south for twelve years now, and it still surprises me when people tip their hats and say ‘hello.’
“I thought you was going to town,” he chuckles.
Town? What town? We live in a subdivision off Highway 302 and I am barefoot with my jeans rolled up, carrying a journal and a book on Confession. Town?
It’s a nice thought. Oddly enough, the last real “town” I had been in was Lambertville, New Jersey, where everyone knew everyone by name and shouted their conversations across the street, which was about six feet wide or less.
Memphis was a place of hostility for me, void of the picture book Southern gentility I had come to expect from shows like Paula Deen’s Home Cooking. Looking back on it now, I suppose it was my own family’s problems, their and my inability to be satisfied with the now, that made life so exhausting.
I used to blame my problems on a self-diagnosed case of Seasonal Affect Disorder, but as I lay here in the ripe green grass under the shade of trees budding with acorns and a sky like the Caribbean sea, I know it’s not that. It’s me. It’s my head. I see things, all possible outcomes, the good, the horrible, the imagined and the impossible. They come and go too fast for me to even get them down on paper.
Even as I close my eyes and feel the breath of God on my cheek, I want to yell: at myself, for not being better. At my parents for not pushing me harder. At God, for not giving me a clearer reason to live.
There are lilac bushes planted on the base of my friend the tree, and they take me back to my first home, on the outskirts of Boston, where lilacs and morning glories bloomed along our fence, and buttercups roamed like fairies. I miss those days. I had my imagination back them.

I see four kids, I’d guess ten, playing in the basin by the lake. I wonder if they’ve been taught to worry yet, or if their parents guarded them against fruitless thought. Do they have a self conscious? If they are just “being kids” what will happen when the time comes to apply to colleges and they have nothing to write on a piece of paper that, whether they like it or not, will make an irreparable impact on their life? Do they know fear?

I’d forgotten what the feel of grass was against my skin. I’d forgotten how the sky looked from down here–vast and blue, like a soft blanket. The sky is always here. Can I spend all my time with the sky and the trees and the grass? I bet they get a lot of wayward wanderers appealing to them for help, or at the very least, comfort. I wish so badly that I lived in a time where people still made “house calls” and borrowed cups of sugar. Now the only thing that sees me more than my own mirror is my car on the way to SuperTarget.

I live a pitiful existence. And yet the grace and the ants disagree. The ants, perfectly content spending the days climbing up and down blades of grass, seem to really get it. Or maybe there’s just not even that much to get. Maybe there just is. Just blades of grass and acorn trees and blanket sky and clouds. Isn’t that nice?

Recipe for Enjoying a Weekday Afternoon, September Style

September is a fickle month in the Mid-South. Mother Nature can’t quite make up her mind whether the season is summer or fall. The air is crisp and clean and definitely open widow friendly, and yet the sun is still hot enough to make you yearn for a swim in your newly closed pool after a short jog.
In the midst of worrying my face off that I’ll never be accepted back in to school, I am learning to read again–for pleasure, for fun, for “staycation” sake.

Afternoon Coffee:

Serves one

One cup (a real cup, not the American oversized bathtub mugs that give you digestion problems) freshly brewed strong coffee (I use Seattle’s Best, level 5)

One or two splashes half and half

One peppermint candy

Combine ingredients in your reasonably sized mug. Serve with a book and a Grannamae cookie. Use as fuel for your newly rediscovered passion for writing:

Always, Always…

Always, always, bliss on paper. A book and a warm mint coffee? Nothing better. It used to be I could not read, I would not read. Reading merely passed time when I was not consciously doing something we like to call “productive.” My eyes would merely skim the words while my brain ran laps, thinking volatility of the tasks I had not yet completed, the people I had not yet impressed, the weight I had not yet lost. Now on temporary leave from school, after an hour of computer time I feel my energy drain away, so I quickly stand up to shake myself. What to do now? My “tasks” can only go so far in one day, so I decide to read for a few hours–outside I go, with my new friend Frances Mayes:

“How to quantify happiness? Any loved house you’ve personally slaved over feels like an extension of yourself. Many people have told me that when they arrived in Italy, they’ve surprised themselves by thinking, I’m home. I, too, had that sensation when I first came here. By now, that feeling has magnified. And, as for a loved one, I have that scarier feeling, I can’t be without you. Meanwhile, the house just stands here, indifferent, facing the changing light and weather.”

I smile, and I can’t stop smiling, because I love reading stories of triumph over self, of succumbing to the natural order of time and space. I love that I know that I am enough to be happy–to exist within the close confines of happiness. I close my eyes and drink in the clear sky above me, the sky I feel was made just for me today. I want to stay with it forever, under the Tuscan sun like Frances. I wish I could. I know I can’t, at least not yet–I am too young. I am ripe, and my duties in this world are numerous. I face years of overcoming challenges, meeting people, moving forward. I have degrees to earn, pictures to take, many tears to shed, cuts to bleed, God willing. And children to foster. That is just fine with me.

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…”

Memory Eternal

I’m not quite sure where to start today, though I know I want to share my thoughts, so I will just start writing, as is the purpose of this blog.

I was ten years old on September 11, 2001. I’m ashamed to admit that as of September 10, 2001, I had no never heard of the World Trade Centers (though I had seen them briefly, blurred with the rest of the New York City skyline, three years earlier in a car). Even as a ten year old, I lived a bubble, a place that I like to remain from time to time. So when my fifth grade teacher announced to us that the Twin Towers had been hit, I gasped because my classmates gasped. I can’t even remember what happened prior to that announcement, but shortly after, I was with my sister in the breezeway, waiting for our father to come and take us home. I do remember we had to pull over on the way home, because we were having car trouble.

I don’t think I really ever fully grasped the horror of that day. We had family up north, but none in Manhattan. My grandparents, former Brooklynites, now resided in Bal Harbor, Florida–though that Christmas when we visited, I noticed the memorial statues and framed newspaper clippings. My grandfather, a retired military man and metal worker, spent many years working on those buildings.

The memory of that time that is most vivid to me, however, is the first time we went to church after the Attacks–it may have even been that night, though I cannot be sure. Whatever day it was, we stood far in the back because the pews were so full. The feeling that had pervaded me since that Tuesday was a fear so intense and frustrating, because “how could God allow this to happen?” No one knew why. But, gazing out over a sea of bowed heads, I knew I was not alone.

The weeks and months that followed are hazy, like many of my childhood memories are becoming. We started selling red, white, and blue bracelets; there were American flags in every classroom and in front of every house. We wrote letters to the firefighters and police officers. We sent teddy bears to the children of victims of the Attacks. I learned new words, like “terrorist” and “suicide bomber”–words that a ten year old should never have to comprehend.

September 11 became “Patriot Day.” Each year we dressed in red, white, and blue, took moments of silence throughout the school day, and shared memories. Gradually, the nation began to heal. People who had banded together with such conviction went back to being strangers, churches trickled down in size, and daily niceties became inconvenient once more. I stopped going to church. Like so many other foreword thinkers, God became an inconvenience.

I am certainly the last person to ask about religion, and would sooner be struck by lightning before I could preach to others about how to live a Christian life, but, whether by serendipity or by grace, I was in Church this morning, and I heard some things that I really needed to hear. The priest shared his memories of that day, recalling how, in the midst of a secular workplace, he suddenly found himself praying with hundreds of strangers, now brothers and sisters in a time of turmoil . “Churches were packed” he said, as he looked out at the empty row of chairs in front of him. There was no judgement in his eyes (I used to think Christianity was all about judgement), but there was a sadness to his sermon, a sadness at the state of things now, ten years later, and how much of that pain and suffering is forgotten. Not among the victims of that day, or those who gave their lives; they are heros and saints, and may their memories always remain. But the pain and suffering of those of us who lived past September 11, 2001 is quickly becoming a distant memory. The current state of our government, divided and petty, resonates harshly with the state of our collective consciousness, focused on greed, salary, social status, material wealth and degradation of others (reality TV, much?) I strongly doubt that anyone on this day ten years ago would have stolen a cab, hit a friend, sold someone out for personal gain, et cetera et cetera. Because on this day ten years ago, through the gravest phenomenon, we were all reminded how to live in this world. We were jolted by the reality of death, and all of a sudden holding open a door or giving up a bus seat seemed so much more important than holding our own place in line. And we found the time to talk to God. I know what it is like to feel that God has abandoned you, but oddly enough, on that day, and this morning in Church, he seemed closer to me than he has in years.

It’s a big stretch, but I’ll risk and say it: what if His plan was to shock us? If it hadn’t have happened, would we have gotten the message? It took an earth swelling flood to reach us the first time, and it took a crucifixion to reach us the second. Like I said, I cannot preach, and I mean not to, but if we only turn to God when terror triumphs, surely he must be around to see us all the other days, even when we don’t acknowledge him.

Just a thought.

God Bless America
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/11/flag-unfurled-at-pentagon-as-nation-marks-10-years-since-11/

Lessons in English

#1: Food often looks like less in a container than it is in your stomach. Remember that. I’m talking to myself.

#2: There’s nothing that warm sun, a good book, and a pool of azure water can’t fix. Remember that, too. I’m talking to you.

#3: As fun as hyperbole is in writing, it can be exhausting in thought. Case in point: I spend a lot of time these days staring at the sky, half expecting an answer, half expecting it to fall down on top of me and crush me into dust.

#4: It’s been five days since I’ve been on Facebook. I’ve been tempted, when I find myself looking for an escape from my current task, or entertainment, or something stimulating (which Facebook is not). Keeping in touch with old friends? Great. Keeping in contact with job networks? Great. Running my life? Not so great. I’d rather spend my time outside with the real people. Ironically, I’ve spend most of my time in novels with other fake people. But these people I haven’t met yet.
Welcome to my head.

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new cookbook, my shouldn’t’ve-but-I-did gift to myself for no reason in particular, other than I’m a freak when it comes to food. (See item number one). So I make lunch and eat while reading the newspaper, and in turn, eat too much.
I love baking in the sun like a tomato, but it dries out my skin.

What’s a girl to do?

My solution:

Love and Death: Woody Allen, 1975

Enjoy.
Incidentally, the whole film is available on YouTube. But this movie is worth whatever means necessary to watch it (remember the phenomenon of renting?)