The Cold and Broken Hallelujah: Being Thankful for It All

In the past, when writing on Thanksgiving, I've listed things that happened over the past year that I'm thankful for, looking back on fond memories and trying to point my perspective in a more positive direction. But honestly, this has been a tough year--for me, for many of my friends and family, and for much of the world. In fact, calling this year "tough" sounds like an insulting understatement. We need a word with more weight to describe the personal, national, and global tragedies in the 2015 calendar. We've seen explosions of gun violence, races and religions declaring war on each other, and the sudden deaths of loved ones. On a smaller scale, this year has seen financial trouble, lost relationships, and general dissatisfaction with life. I do have reasons for gratitude, like new friends, publications, and my own place to live, but when I try to acknowledge them, they tend to fall under the shadow of this year's more bitter experiences. As the new year approaches, I imagine a lot of us feel like wet dogs staggering through the door of a new house, panting and hoping for a warm fire after surviving the storm of 2015.  

Though it may be harder to find specific things to be thankful for this year, the past eleven months have taught me so much about the act of being thankful itself. It really is a conscious act, not a passive state of being. It's something I have to remember to do, like picking up fallen bits of cereal from my kitchen floor, before they entice the ubiquitous ants in my hundred-year-old house. It's also a decision, a choice. I've been surprised lately by just how supple life can be in the hands of someone who makes decisions instead of just floating along on the currents of circumstance. My therapist once told me that faith itself is a decision.

I've also learned that being thankful is not the same as picking the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms (speaking of cereal!). It's not about looking for particular objects, people, or events in my life that meet my personal standards of happiness and ignoring everything else. What if nothing meets those standards at the moment? At its core, I think true thankfulness is the unconditional embracing of everything that comes our way, good or bad. It's leaning headlong into both joy and misery, instead of pretending one or the other doesn't exist. It's allowing ourselves to feel anything, and rejoicing in our emotional peaks and depths as signs of life intensely lived, like mountains and valleys in a landscape created with passion. I also think true thankfulness is one of the ultimate acts of faith--it requires trusting that not every question needs an answer, and that whatever we experience, good or bad, will somehow sand off our rough edges and give our stories more flavor.  

Once again, Leonard Cohen captures this idea far better than I in this explanation of his most beloved song, "Hallelujah" (in case you were wondering, no, I'll probably never shut up about Leonard Cohen):

"The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say: 'Look, I don't understand a f*****g thing at all--Hallelujah!' That's the only moment that we live here fully as human beings."

I found this on a web page composed entirely of incredible Leonard Cohen quotes, and as you can imagine, this was my response when I first clicked the link:

The particular quote I mentioned rings especially true in a society where nobody can seem to admit they're wrong and so many conflicts seem irreconcilable, a society whose battle cry is "How dare you be human!" This year, it's clear that we're more bent on dehumanizing ourselves and each other than ever. We continue to ignore our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs in favor of increased "productivity" at work and increasingly detached relationships, and it feels like every evil force in the world is showing its face at once--hate, fear, ignorance, dishonesty, you name it. All the little social, political, and personal bombs we've planted over the years are finally blowing up.

Another favorite poet of mine (and Leonard Cohen's) is W.B. Yeats, and according to my father, Yeats believed history was cyclical rather than linear. I haven't done much research to verify that, but it's an interesting thought. If history followed a cycle, I sometimes think it would look something like a pendulum, and that this year would be one of the great downswings. On the bright side, that means it's about to swing upward, which makes me hopeful for next year. Hopefully, a day will come when enough people get so tired of all the warring and hating in the world that they all sit on the pendulum of history and weigh it down, stopping the violent swinging once and for all. Hopefully, my friends and I will step out of the furnace of this year as better and brighter people. But until then, all we can do as we keep struggling to change the world and ourselves is draw enough breath, however ragged, to throw back our heads and say "Hallelujah!"    

                  

End-of-Summer Brain Purge (for lack of a better title)

As you know, I took a long hiatus from this blog over the summer. Though I have done a good deal of creating in these past few months (which flew by with the speed of an unladen African swallow), many things distracted me from writing in this blog, specifically. However, to say that this has simply been a "busy" summer feels so watered down and trivialized that it hurts. This summer, or this whole year, I should say, has been volcanic with change, triumphs and tragedies erupting with almost equal ferocity. It started when I moved from my Carrboro apartment to a room in a lovely historic house in Durham, but that's only the beginning.

I started writing this post at a bed and breakfast in Tryon, North Carolina, a small town in the foothills where F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. This makes sense because, despite its size, Tryon overflows with stories, strange and grand as the peaks surrounding it. Now, I'll attempt to tell at least part of the story of my summer--and the thoughts that sprang from it--in the following series of random journal entries:

1. The weekend before I moved to Durham at the beginning of June, Raisin, my dog of nine years, unexpectedly passed away. He didn't suffer much, but I can't say the same for myself. I spent the rest of that evening wandering between bars in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, texting my friends and struggling to convince myself that not everyone I loved would be wrenched from my life without warning. I know that sounds like a pretty dramatic reaction, but I've found that in a society where human love can be so painfully conditional, there's a special sadness that comes with losing a dog, who expects so little from you. The loss also struck an acute sense of my own mortality. I've been fortunate to not have a lot of loved ones die in my lifetime so far, but the few times it has happened, it's typically been swift and sudden. It's sharpened my awareness of life's brevity like an arrowhead. For this reason, I can't stand talking about things like how I'm going to save for retirement, or doing draining tasks like filling out tax forms and watching half-hour Youtube videos arguing why this movie is better than that movie, or Facebook (even though I still use it entirely too much). Probably half the things I do are fueled by the fear that I might never get to do those things again in my short lifetime.

Also, Raisin, even though you chewed up half my clothes and put a hole in my living room wall with your head, you were the most affectionate dog I ever knew. You were, and still are, greatly missed.

2. Last month, I bought a Johnny Cash album called "My Mother's Hymn Book." It's a collection of old hymns and gospel songs that literally came from his mother's hymn book, recorded late in Cash's life with only his voice and a single guitar. According to the liner notes, out of all his recorded albums, this one was his personal favorite. His deep, aged voice sounds like a tree with many rings, having weathered storm after storm, but yet, as one song goes, "shall not be moved." My favorite song on the album is "Softly and Tenderly," one of my grandfather's favorite hymns. I could almost imagine him singing it as I nearly fell asleep to it on my porch. I listened to the whole album again as I drove to Pittsboro the next day, and it made me tear up. I wondered if this would be happening had 2015 not been a year so fraught with difficulty. Would these songs sound half as beautiful to me if I hadn't tasted some of the hardship they've carried people through for so long? It made me realize that sometimes, we have to be ripped open for things to touch our hearts.

3. I can't express how much my heart goes out to the loved ones of the two journalists killed in the WDBJ shooting. Both had significant others in their lives, and knowing how difficult it is to find true love, I can't imagine how it feels to lose it like that. Whatever is broken in this world that pushes or enables people to cause tragedies like this, we've got to fix it. Now.

4. I think the secret to writing a story that doesn't insult or belittle a particular group of people, a story that isn't racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, etc., is to simply write well. A story that falls into these categories usually involves either lazy, ignorant writing, or had a malicious agenda to begin with. Good writing, on the other hand, naturally acknowledges the dignity and complexity of its subjects, no matter who they are. The greatest insult to a human being is to deny their complexity. People who are offended by good storytelling are just looking for something to get angry about.

5. This summer, I finally read Steppenwolf, and I really, really wish I could have a beer with Herman Hesse. I'd love to see what it's like to talk to someone whose brain is capable of producing something like the Magic Theater (I guess he'd have to be a madman only--haha). I'll discuss this reading experience in more detail in my next post.

6. Sometimes it feels like happiness, like writing or woodworking, is a craft. It must be practiced and developed, and it can't rely solely on things that can be taken away or disappear without warning. It also requires such intense faith, which has always been a challenge for me. Despite what some people might think, I'm a very physical person. I like things that I can see, hear, and touch, so it's hard to find "the substance of things hoped for," and the "evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1).

7. I've seen a lot of sentimental meme-type things on the Internet lately listing the qualities of an ideal boyfriend, things like "he hugs you from behind" or "gets you ice cream when you're on your period." That's cute and all, but these lists only scratch the surface. These are things anybody could do. However, they did get me thinking about how I would write such a list myself. I think my ideal boyfriend could be summed up in just two qualities: a. He makes me feel like life isn't a constant performance, like I can take off my mask, get off the stage, and just love him while being completely myself, without fear that being myself will drive him away, and b. He sees the "golden track" that runs through life, the thread of beauty and divinity Herman Hesse wrote about that weaves through the surface of every day living. Not only does he see this thread, he grabs it and doesn't let go, unraveling everything that hides it. He sees the light that gets through cracked things, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen's "Anthem." An additional desirable quality would be that he knows all the words to the Powdermilk Biscuit commercial from A Prairie Home Companion, including the part about Norwegian bachelor farmers. Maybe I should just find a nice Norwegian bachelor farmer.

8. Seeing a happy couple that's stayed together for a long time feels like looking at a postcard of the Italian Riviera. That warmth and security seems like such a foreign, yet inviting place, where you can throw off your coat and shoes, take a deep breath, and be human again. It also seems so far away and unattainable at times. Being in that place certainly wouldn't eliminate the troubles of life completely, but I'm sure living would be much easier having all that beauty right in front of you all the time.

9. The city of Durham has incredible character. So many of the buildings, from the Gothic stone castles of Duke's west campus to the churches and old tobacco factories, command the landscapes they inhabit instead of blending in. You can tell that history happened here.

10. This summer, I finally got up the courage to go and play guitar at a jam session/singalong by myself. The first time I'd gone, back in January, I'd been with someone, which helped me find the nerve to at least join in the singing. I continued going alone for a while after that when I lived in Carrboro, but I'd only sit and listen. Then, several months later, I came back and brought my guitar. I'd never played with other people before, so of course it was scary at first, but now I live for Saturday afternoons when I can go play and sing with such friendly people. It never ceases to make me feel better, partly because it's so self-affirming. I may go there alone now, but I go as a musician.

   

Crossroads

The month of May, that intersection of spring and summer, always feels like a time for great change. Around this time last year, I was on my way to Charlotte to film a documentary for a few days, the first I'd ever produced for UNC-TV. In college, this month revolved around the last day of classes and graduation. In high school, it was the month of May Fest, which eventually became Senior Day or something like that. It was a day when upperclassmen got to spend the afternoon in the gym playing ping-pong, chatting on the bleachers, and crawling through an inflatable obstacle course (I'd be surprised if nobody lost their virginity in it). It doesn't sound that exciting, but I remember that, despite its usual musk of sweat and wood varnish, the air in the gym sparkled that day with this electric happiness. It could have been a charge from all the impending adulthood in the room. Summer was so close we could taste it, the peach juice and honeysuckle and the sweetness of the phrase "This is my life, and I'll do with it as I please." It could also have been the fact that I was in love. A few days earlier, as part of our studies of British poetry, my twelfth-grade English class wandered around a small field near the front parking lot, hidden by trees. We each had to pick a spot and write a poem of our own, somehow inspired by that spot, in the spirit of "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey." I sat down in the grass and sought inspiration in the cool patches of clover around my legs, running my fingers through them and jotting down disjointed lines about reconnecting with nature, the circle of life, and other cliches. I couldn't concentrate on the ground because I kept looking up at the boy who would become my first boyfriend, wandering between trees with his notebook. If I'd known we wouldn't have to read our poems in class, I might have written something about his contemplative stare, or his cursive handwriting.

My point is that in the past, these crossroads that I've reached in late spring, from decisions about my life and career to new relationships, have generally been enjoyable experiences. However, I'm not sure "enjoyable" is the best word to describe the crossroads of this particular May. I wouldn't call it awful, but I would call it chaotic. It's exciting, but not in the most pleasant way. A few weeks ago, I saw a peony bush in bloom outside the building where I work. For the longest time, the fluffy, white flowers had only been fat buds, but they'd finally burst open that day. If peonies were sentient, I wonder if they'd know what was happening while they were still buds, or if they'd worry that they might always be buds, getting bigger but never flowering. While they waited in the closed darkness of their leaves, would they even be aware of the fact that they're plants, creating such beautiful flowers with only water and sunlight? This illustration of uncertainty basically describes my feelings right now. I like to think that all the considerable setbacks this year has started off with are part of my own personal and artistic budding period, and that plants just handle it a lot more gracefully. I've learned that I'm not as passionate about some of my pursuits as I thought I was, and that I'm very passionate about others that I didn't discover until recently, such as playing and writing songs. This can be both liberating and frightening, since discovering new passions tends to alter current life plans. But, as the saying goes, if you want to make God laugh, make a plan. Basically, I'm not quite as certain about what I want out of life as I was when I first graduated from college, and I'm also learning just how much effort it takes to create your own happiness instead of relying on other people to provide it for you. I'm not talking about material forms of happiness, like food or warm shelter, but a general sense of fulfillment and excitement about life. Forging that sense can be exhausting work.  
 

Another cause of this anxiety is probably my recent adventure with online dating. I tried OkCupid for about two weeks before I started feeling like a nervous little kid in an amusement park--the kind who decides they're finally going to ride a roller coaster, but freaks out and wants off as they're getting strapped in. The immediacy and shallowness of it felt so unnatural. The site expected me to form an attraction to someone only by looking at a few pictures and their answers to two-dimensional, mostly yes or no questions. It felt like wandering around a car dealership with a pushy salesman. With rare exceptions, love is a gradual process for me. Plus, despite the fact that the site is for adults, the OkCupid copywriting staff seems to be composed of thirteen-year-old girls. I'd get emails saying things like "they're totally into you." Most of the compatibility questions, on the other hand, seem to have been written by thirteen-year-old boys. About three quarters of them are variations on "Do you like to be slapped/gagged/bitten/tied up/fish-slapped/drawn and quartered/stuck in a particle accelerator during sex?" The most interesting thing I found, however, is that most of the top matches I found were attractive in some way, but also had a single, crucial flaw that ruined any chance of a relationship. Examples:

1. A cute, wealthy guy who writes a you a sweet message and speaks fluent Russian, but is also probably a racist.
2. A cute guy who loves music and spirituality, but discriminates against people with mental illnesses (he refused to date anyone who took antidepressants). I don't take them myself, but anyone who thinks taking medication for an illness makes you undateable will get nothing from me but a swift kick in the nether regions.
3. A guy who's everything you want emotionally and intellectually, but doesn't attract you physically. This may be the worst case of all. Sometimes I wish I could just make myself be physically attracted to anybody.  

Needless to say, I ultimately deleted my account, I applaud the people who manage to find love online, but it just isn't for me. Probably the most helpful piece of advice I can offer from my experience is to always perform what I call the "lightbulb test" on someone's dating profile. If you replace the word "man," "woman," "boyfriend," or "girlfriend" wherever it appears, and it makes perfect sense, then the person is probably a jerk. Example: "I'm not looking to replace my current [lightbulb] or obtain a second [lightbulb], but a backup would be swell." Also, on your own profile, please don't describe yourself as a "rad motherf****r."  

The really strange thing is that this personal turmoil has been happening during a major upswing in my TV career. I'm grateful for this, but also puzzled by the contrast between my life at work and my life outside it. Why is it so difficult to achieve success in both at the same time? Lately, my job has had me busier than ever, with more opportunities than ever, and people have complimented me on my achievements. However, this brings me to my second main point, which is that no matter how good other people's lives look on paper, many of us are still freaking out or don't know exactly what we're doing, and the acknowledgement of this shared internal messiness can be wonderfully unifying. I love learning about the struggles of great writers and artists, not because I enjoy other people's misery, but because it reminds me that they're still humans like us, no matter how lofty the heights their work might have set them upon. Frank Capra panicked after winning an Oscar for It Happened One Night. James Joyce's struggles to get Ulysses published and distributed involved battling obscenity charges and sending banned books over the Canadian border stuffed down the front of a guy's pants (is that a literary classic, or are you just glad to see me?). Hopefully I'll never have to resort to such desperate measures to get my own art recognized, but if I did, like many of life's considerable setbacks, at least it would make a good story.


       

Rebirth

The earth lives again, and everything is reproducing. The air sweetens and thickens with pollen, or love dust, as I like to call it. The trees glow green in the sun, tulips explode from the ground, and we throw off our winter coats—and perhaps a few inhibitions with them. I’m trying to be more connected with nature by renewing myself with it, but it’s not easy. Change takes time, and when you see days and years blowing away like March pear blossoms on April wind, it’s easy to wonder what good it does to try to change. Making 2015 a satisfying year of met goals and self-improvement is starting to feel like grabbing handfuls of wind. You can’t hold onto time and make it move at your own pace. However, though I may not be moving as quickly as time, I like to think I've at least caught up with it enough to see its silhouette on the horizon. I finally got a gym membership, I may have an opportunity for a promotion at work, and my latest documentary seems to finally be coming together.

I spent last Saturday morning at Duke Gardens in Durham taking pictures for said documentary, and the experience reminded me of how many people, including myself, seem to be losing touch with the tangible world, the sensory, primal, rooted world, things that exist outside the pretty patterns of light and weightless communication we submit to everyday. So many of us no longer seem to want or have time for real things that we can hold in our hands, feel at our backs, or stand on and trust to support us. I think it's killing us. Just being out in sunlight, sweating and climbing over things to get a good shot made me feel better than I had all week. The click of my camera was the sound of machinery working, not a synthetic sound effect coming from my phone. I thought about something I read recently; I can't remember what it was exactly, but the author basically said that, despite being as evolved as we are, humans still crave the physical movement that comes so naturally to our fellow primates. I also thought about something the writer Allan Gurganus said when he visited my creative writing class: we are angels and animals, bodies with spirits. I had a similar feeling as I spent the rest of the afternoon conversing with friends--not through Facebook or texting, but actually speaking to them face-to-face. Something about being physically present with someone makes communicating a little more satisfying.

My attempts at connecting more with the real world, instead of getting too comfortable with the world in my head, are part of a much larger self-reinvention process. Sometimes it feels like how I imagine giving birth to a child might feel. Creating a new self, a physically and creatively fit, more articulate, more confident, more forgiving self, is so difficult, especially when everything around you is changing too. I envy the azalea bushes in my parents' yard; they make change look so effortless. One minute, they're brown and scraggly, bent over from a winter storm. Then, all of a sudden, they're bursting with flowers and color and bees. It's taken me so much longer to recover from the storms of last winter, both literal and figurative. I wish I could straighten my back and keep growing as easily as those plants. But no one ever got anything in life by wishing. Wishing too much can keep a person from living. There's a biblical verse in Proverbs that reads, "Forsake the foolish, and live, and go in the way of the wise." I think "foolish" can be interpreted as both foolish people and foolish behaviors or habits. I need to stop regretting or fantasizing about what my life could be or could have been, and live. We all do, even when living hurts. If I stretch hard enough toward the sun, maybe I'll flower someday.

Untangling: A Few Thoughts from the Outer Banks

I fear this blog is spiraling into a state of perpetual mourning. My last post, "Personal Damascus," is probably one of the saddest I've
ever written, and part of me regrets writing it, therapeutic as it was. It was the product of an unusually stressful week at work, full of nine and ten hour days (don't get me wrong; I love my job). I also hadn't been sleeping well; changes in my schedule or environment seem to cause this problem. Finally, two of my roommates left for a few days, leaving the apartment somewhat lonely. All of these circumstances combined to form an emotional cluster bomb that I hope to not repeat. In the future, I'm thinking of expanding this blog to include book reviews and perhaps other things, in order to keep it from becoming "Considerable Self-Pity: The Blog Where Laura Rants About How Nobody Loves Her." I was looking back at some of my earlier writing and thought, "Remember when this blog used to be funny? Remember when it had badly drawn yet endearing cartoons?"

To help start this blog's long journey upward, here's some good news: all those long hours at work paid off when I finally finished my first segment for NC Weekend about Fair Game Beverage Company. You can watch it here. Also, my documentary that aired on Our State last year, "Poems for Everyone," is being considered for a NETA award--fingers crossed (NETA=National Educational Telecommunications Association). Another cause for rejoicing is the fact that I'm writing this from an oceanfront condo on Hatteras Island. The sea joins the ranks of romance, religion, and the rest of nature as one of the greatest inspirations for writers. Here are just a few thoughts I've jotted down in the course of my stay here:

--This entire shoreline stands as a monument to the conflict between man's desire for security and nature's desire for constant change. Year after year, wind and surf try to reclaim the island, blowing sand over the roads and washing new inlets in the land, yet we keep building new bridges and clearing the sand away, watching the dunes grow higher and higher.
--Why do people love the ocean so much? For one thing, it entices every one of the senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste through the food it provides (a mouthful of saltwater, on the other hand, is best left unexperienced). I think it also represents everything so many of us want out of jobs, relationships, life itself. It's constant, yet always changing, always moving. It's security without stagnation. We know it won't disappear while we sleep, yet we can never be completely sure what color it will be in the morning, or what shapes its waves will take.
--I've seen just about every color of the ocean this week; it reflects the moody sky. It's a brilliant blue under clear skies, a placid green under clouds, and gunmetal gray in the early evening. Under just the right mix of clouds and sun, it's liquid silver.Under the moon, it's black with a crest of white light, like a path to the other side of the world. The Swedish have their own word for this moon-road: "mangata."
--The sound of the sea is like breath, the rise and fall of waves like inhales and exhales.
--Facebook is terrible. Why do we use it?
--I like to plant my feet in the sand and just stand on the beach in the moonlight, pretending to be a wind-beaten fence post.
--Two men fish by lamp light on the beach tonight, their poles stuck in the sand. One of them tries to untangle their line from some type of seaweed. My mind is like that fishing line. Whenever I try to reel it in, it gets caught in stray thoughts. Maybe this vacation will help me untangle it.
--When the moon shines on bits of seashells, it looks like you're walking on the Milky Way.
--You can see the entire circle of life and death on the beach. I've seen the bodies of sharks strewn on the shore among the empty shells of scallops, gulls pecking at their gills. I've seen young clams tunnel into the sand, digging for a chance at life beyond the sandpiper's beak. With great sadness I report that yesterday, I even found the mangled corpse of Spongebob Squarepants tumbling in the surf.

Knowing Spongebob was gone, I did feel less guilty about eating Mr. Krabs for dinner that night.

I know I'll think of even more lines I could have put in this post once I hit "publish," but such is the nature of writing. For now, I'm going back down to the beach to see how many dogs I can pet (there seem to be a lot out there on this particular day), and hopefully I'll have more good news to follow.
  

Personal Damascus

This past Wednesday, I attended a church service where the preacher discussed the story of Saul and his journey to Damascus. In case you're unfamiliar with this Bible story, Saul is a persecutor of early Christians who lost his sight after an encounter with Jesus. In order to be healed, he has to travel to the city of Damascus while blind. He eventually makes it, is healed, and repents for his crimes, changing his name to Paul and becoming one of the most recognized figures of Christianity.

To be honest, I haven't been too friendly with God lately. At times, I've felt that instead of testing me to make me a better person, God has just been trying to turn me into more and more of a cynic. I know my tendency toward hopeless romanticism can sometimes be my downfall, but is it really necessary to crush every last trace of it? This growing pessimism is definitely becoming a problem regarding romantic relationships. Whenever I meet someone who interests me, a part of me thinks, "this is too good to be true," and every time I've thought this, that part has been right. So far, my fears about relationships have only been justified, and I wonder how many more years I'll have to wait before they're finally disproved. I've been told that each negative experience can be a good thing, that each failed relationship is a lesson learned, and in a sense, I know it's true, but it hurts so much to hear that. I think it's because this advice dehumanizes the person you lost and takes the life out of what you experienced with them, or at least that's what it feels like. You want so much to have a real and lasting connection with a person, to hear and see and feel them next to you, but instead they become just another "lesson learned"--not a person anymore, but a moment, a concept, a page in your life never quite turned. They've dissolved from a living person inhabiting your life into a wisp of wisdom. They still live somewhere in the clouds of your mind, but they've floated far above your fingers.

In the past, I've rarely complained about being single, despite various romantic misfortunes. In fact, for a time I thought being single was rather fun. I enjoyed the independence and the excitement of going out and meeting people. I'd hear other people bemoan their singleness and think: "What's the big deal? It's not so bad." But now I fully understand how they feel. It's like the line in that Janis Joplin song "Me and Bobby McGee": "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." Why does it hurt so much more than it used to?

Anyway, back to the church service. The preacher, when discussing Saul's transformation from hopeless sinner to model Christian, essentially made the point that God's vision is infinitely vast compared to our own, and that He sees things about us and our future that we could never know. The preacher also emphasized that in order to become the person God wanted him to be, Saul had to undergo a complete and painful transformation: from someone able-bodied and politically powerful, to a sickly, blind man completely reliant on those around him. I do feel like this message spoke to me, but not in the deep, mighty, voice-of-God-like way you might expect. It felt more like a gentle nudge, or a tap on the shoulder. It wasn't life-changing, but felt like it could be the beginning of a long sequence of things that could ultimately be life-changing. I hope so. I want to believe this brokenness is supposed to make me a better person. I guess it already has, in a small way; I've been more creative since my last relationship ended than I've been in months. My job is offering more opportunities, I'm blogging regularly, and I even wrote a song. I just wish I weren't doing all these things to fend off loneliness and regret; it would be nice to always have the motivation to be creative for its own sake.

Tonight, I walked down to the pond near my house and saw the unusually clear sky. Stars glittered over the black water and lacy silhouettes of trees. Sometimes I wish the future were as clear as that sky.  I hope there's a bright horizon up ahead that I'm just not tall enough to see. I hope I'm on the road to my own personal Damascus.                

When Lives Collide

Last Friday, I saw the film Bagdad Cafe (1987) for the first time, sitting with my laptop in the nook under the stairs in my apartment (the roommates call it the "Harry Potter corner," for obvious reasons). It's a wonderfully dark and intimate space for immersing yourself in the world of a movie. With this particular film, I was immersed in the American southwest, far away from the trees and snow of home. I won't describe all the details of Bagdad Cafe, other than the fact that it's a great film and you should see it, but it reminded me of the incredible things that can happen in life through unexpected encounters with strangers.

It's amazing to think about the possibilities that come with meeting someone new. You could be sitting on a bus, going to school or work as usual, or having a cup of coffee in some cafe in the middle of nowhere, when the seat next to you happens to be the only one left. The person who fills that seat might only converse for a moment and leave, but they could also change your life forever. They could lift and drag you to emotional heights and depths you haven't seen in years. They could break the chains on things you've bound, or they could make you question what you've always thought to be true. They could remain a part of your life forever, or they could suddenly vanish and leave you feeling lonely, thankful, or both. You really never know what can happen, and the mystery of it is thrilling and beautiful. I've had such encounters before, and even when they ultimately bring more sadness than joy, I'm still amazed that I could meet someone who would have such a big impact on my life by just being in the right place at the right time. I guess when you have thousands of small universes (aka humans) constantly running, rolling, and drifting down the streets of your town, they're bound to collide and cause incredible reactions. This explains my tendency to try to be in too many places at once--there are nights when I can't stand the idea of sitting at home because there's so much life outside. I love watching and experiencing these human collisions. They're what great stories are made of.

Unfortunately, tonight doesn't seem to be the night for life-altering experiences. You know money's tight when it's Friday night and you're sitting alone in your living room with sleeping guinea pigs and Guy Fieri instead of tearing up the town. On the bright side, I recently had some more writing published. This time, it's a review of the wonderful Clockwork Cabaret podcast. Also, I obviously have guinea pigs now. Not only are they cute and cuddly, but the fact that rodents can have such nuanced personalities is unbelievable. Hopefully I'll have some more exciting adventures as the weekend progresses, but for now I'll settle for watching the tiny lights in the distance from my apartment deck, wondering who or what is out there waiting to change my life.    


      

Snow

I love snow. I know there's a lot to hate about it, especially if you live in Boston right now and have to use a bucket and a hockey stick stuck in a drift for a mailbox. I've also seen snow turn a typical rush hour commute into an exclusive sneak preview of Armageddon, but I still love it.

Snow purifies. It freezes the dirt on your car and melts it away in the sun. The best part is when it first starts to fall, when it cloaks the world with whiteness only nature can seem to achieve--there's a reason the old hymn goes "make me white as snow." With only the softest sound, it loosens the grip of everyday stress and pain for just a moment. Last week, I had to park my car a mile from my house and walk home just as the latest snowfall began, and something loosened in me as I trudged through the woods. The air thick with flakes, and tree limbs like the white legs of ancient spiders, revealed the holiness in everything. It was like watching manna fall from heaven, and it forced us all to slow down and take a breath. 

This purifying weather perfectly symbolized the events of last week. I've finally moved into my new apartment, where the lights come on and the water runs because I earn the money that helps pay for them. It brings a wonderful sense of pride, despite the fact that I now see little dollar signs floating away every time I turn on a light. I feel like the master of my own tiny world and all its elements. It is tiny, indeed--perhaps, instead of the master of a small universe, I'm more like a monk in his cell. My mattress won't arrive for another two weeks, and I haven't had time to shop for a desk, so I've abandoned these vain delights and taken to sleeping and writing on the floor. This room really has its own kind of zen, which might be due to my roommates burning incense downstairs. However, it also has the feeling of a secluded tower, with its shape and upper story location. It's a humble, yet artistic space, where the only creature comfort currently allowed is that of self-expression. As the English saying goes, a change is as good as a rest, and hopefully this change will only improve my writing and musical pursuits further; I'm already halfway through writing my very first song, and currently beginning another short story. Maybe, now that I've untethered the balloon of my adult life from my childhood home, I can finally fill it with enough hot words to get it off the ground.     

In Love with Everything

“To sum it all up, if you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish for you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories—science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”--Ray Bradbury

I've been thinking about this quote a lot this Valentine's season, and about love itself. Last week, I wrote about regret as a major motivation for my writing, specifically regret over miscommunication. It's become so clear over the past couple years that this is true. Almost everything I want to do with my life, from directing films to loving someone, requires being an exceptional communicator. So far, I've made incredible improvements in my ability to lead and interact with people effectively, making my thoughts known in a clear, firm manner while also respecting theirs--last year, I managed to produce a documentary that was broadcast to millions of homes, and this year my freelance career is quickly taking off. However, I've also made painful mistakes along the way, some of which have already cost me at least one relationship. 

But Ray Bradbury's blessing for writers, blazing with his usual vitality, reminds me of an even more powerful motivation for making art: being in love with everything, all the time. For a perfect description of this feeling, read Billy Collins' poem "Aimless Love." I know I've felt it before, and I wonder how many other writers and artists have too. It's a blessing to be so easily enamored with everyday things in that you seldom run out of creative material, but it can also be a curse in a number of ways. One is constant distraction--I've lost track of conversations because I was busy observing the movements of a person's eyes, the interesting shape of their nose, or a striking cloud formation behind them. Last night, I sat in a sports bar with over a dozen glaring TV screens, but the pretty swooping motion of car lights through the windows behind them was enough to distract me from whatever game was happening.

Perhaps another problem with being constantly in love with everything is that it makes finding romantic love more difficult. With your love spread over so many things, it makes sense that a person would have to be exceedingly incredible in order to stand out enough to catch your wayward attention. It's harder to find someone who shares what C.S. Lewis called "the same secret road" when your road is narrow and twists in all different directions.

This Valentine's Day, I spent the evening with friends and had a good time, but toward the end of the night, I couldn't help but notice the visual bitterness of my surroundings. I felt like I'd been dropped into a scene from a story someone had written after a breakup. I sat with my companions at an outdoor table with a bulging ash tray (the "butt table," as we fittingly called it), drinking whiskey and pulling my hood up against the cold and wind. Couples walked hand-in-hand to the steakhouse next door, men wearing sport coats and women balancing on spiky heels, the antithesis of my muddy sneakers.

Fortunately, life is starting to look a lot better than a pair of muddy sneakers, slowly but surely. I'm moving into a lovely, quiet new home next weekend with roommates who like Jefferson Airplane and seem to get upset only when they miss King of the Hill. I also just wrapped shooting on my first independently produced NC Weekend feature at the wonderful Fair Game Beverage Company, though much of the credit goes to a great videographer and production assistant. But perhaps most importantly, I'm writing more than I have in months. It feels like pushing a crank wheel on an old machine and watching the rust and dirt flake off. I still haven't had any new publications yet, but for now, it just feels good to be pushing.            

        
        

February: When Bergman Eats Soggy Corn Flakes

I've never seen the point of February. It just feels like a filler month between January and March, a drunk Old Man Winter swinging his fists and cursing the coming spring. Maybe he regrets not quite conjuring enough blizzards this season; North Carolina has yet to see one. Or maybe he's depressed about global warming. Either way, there's an edge of sadness to February wind that leaves me feeling, as Leonard Cohen put it, "cold as a new razor blade."

For me, it's often around late January when things start to go wrong in the new year. It's the month my grandfather passed away, and when my childhood guinea pig went to the great bell pepper patch in the sky. However, at least January has a point; the year has to start somewhere. But by the time February arrives, I'm done with winter, ready for things to warm up and bloom and be hopeful again. I'm also not partial to Valentine's Day, though now that it seems cool to hate it, the contrarian in me almost wishes I liked it. I realized last Friday evening that the only thing I like about this month is a February sunset. Walking up Weaver Street in Carrboro, I saw rose and purple spilling through cracked clouds and spindly trees. It made the sky look raw and honest, and the buildings blush.

I looked down and saw the buttons on my coat hanging on by their worn threads, ready to drop off one by one like failed New Year's resolutions. The thought of failed resolutions led me to think about regret, and what makes it different from plain sadness. I'm beginning to wonder if regret is the most painful emotion in existence. It's one thing to experience sadness or loss, but also rest assured that you did everything you could to prevent it. For instance, it's easier to be rejected when you know you at least had the courage to tell someone you loved them. However, it's another thing when you're always wondering about what you could've done instead, or constantly replaying your mistakes in your mind. Regret is sadness with teeth. It's Ingmar Bergman and Werner Herzog sitting in their underwear, eating soggy corn flakes in an arctic cabin and listening to Nick Cave (I really, really wanted to make a cartoon of this, but my drawing skills just aren't there yet).

In a way, I think my desire to write is partially born of regret. My regrets often involve miscommunication, things I wish I would've said, not said, or said differently. I have a lot of trouble saying what I mean in person, but writing allows me to always articulate exactly what I think and feel, exactly how I want. It's a window to the real me. In fiction, I can create entire worlds with the sole purpose of expressing what I'm trying to say, every scenic detail and character gesture shining a light on my ideas. It makes writing a wonderfully freeing medium, this ability to reveal what so often gets lost in translation between thought and speech. In face-to-face communication, it's so easy for simple statements like "I love you," "I'm angry with you," "You're beautiful," "I appreciate you," or "Help me understand you" to get tangled in missed chances, misunderstandings, and poorly chosen words.

As I finish this post, I notice the world outside has thawed just a little, and small, green promises dot the branches of a few trees in my yard--change is coming. I'm listening to the song "Severance" by Dead Can Dance, and there's a great line in it that goes: "When all the leaves have fallen and turned to dust, will we remain entrenched within our ways?" I pray that, at the end of this new year, the answer is "no."    


   






   

On Rabbits and Romance

Last Saturday, after one week of severe illness, and another week of more emotional upheaval than I've dealt with in years, I had a spiritual experience: I held a rabbit for the first time. It seemed strange that I would be overcome with emotion just by holding a little black fur ball against my chest, but I was. Of course, the rabbit was soft and cute and had beautiful eyes. See for yourself:

The bunny in question.

But there was more to it than that. For a brief moment, my relationship with this rabbit represented what I want so desperately in a romantic relationship, but have never quite found: to be loved simply for loving. I didn't have to change anything about myself to please the rabbit, or constantly worry that it would leap into someone else's arms unless I did whatever it wanted. I also never had to to worry that the rabbit would say one thing and mean another--that it would gaze at me adoringly, tell me it loved the way I petted its ears, and then bite me on the nose (the fact that animals can't talk is one of my favorite qualities of theirs). No, all I had to do to earn this rabbit's love was to hold it securely, touch it gently, speak softly, and not let go. In other words, all I had to do was love it.

I know I'm reading way too much into this, but we all create narratives to comfort ourselves in hard times, so I think I'm only being human when I describe how meaningful it was to feel that rabbit's heartbeat relax and his nervous little body grow still, paws outstretched as if holding onto me. I wish things were that simple with humans and romance--earning another person's affection just by being myself, and treating them with love and respect, seems to be a less and less attainable goal each year. It's always so much more complicated than it needs to be.

Why does finding love require slogging waist-deep through a swamp of anxiety, ulterior motives, and miscommunication? When did honesty become so difficult, both for me and for people I've loved?

Why is being emotionally vulnerable no longer seen as a form of courage?

Why can't sex be something people earn instead of take or buy? Why can't it arise from love and trust, instead of being pressured out of people with guilt and fear? When did it become a status symbol? When did it become a substitute for love, rather than a supplement? When did we start feeling so entitled to each others' bodies?

Why do we take everything sacred, strip it of its beauty, and turn it into a commodity or a way to gain power?

When did mutual sacrifice stop mattering in relationships?

Why does asking these questions, or treating actions as if they have meaning and consequences, get a person labeled as immature, naive, or idealistic? When did acting like an adult become childish?

These are just some of the things I've been asking myself over the past few days. Other people have implied that I believe what I do about love because I'm young and female, and that I'll likely outgrow my opinions. While I can't be sure that all of these opinions won't change with years and life experience, I can say right now that what I believe about love is firmer than ever, and I can prove that it's not just a matter of age or gender with the following quote (though I have many other examples as well):

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”--C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics

C.S. Lewis, as an older man rather than a young woman, pretty much summed up exactly what I believe true love (not just mere attraction) to be in a single, beautiful sentence. Also read The Four Loves for more of his wisdom on the subject. In fact, I'd like to close this post with a wonderful quote from that particular book:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”--C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves