After a long span of much-needed rain, I stood outside, looking up into the damp, grey sky. Breathing was forced in the thick air, yet rain's familiar scent seeped into my lungs, triggering some memory that I couldn't pin-point. As I contemplated the blankness of the grey, a bat flitted aimlessly in odd loops and dips above my head.
I think we are using the same road-map.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
Books
I am determined.
Note: Made from a pocket-sized Moleskine blank notebook and a plethora of "borrowed" library cards, as they are obsolete.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Windows
I close my eyes, and I almost feel like I am home in the woods. I can block out the cars--the street is unusually busy for a Sunday night, though it might have something to do with the fireworks freckling the sky from the practice fields a few blocks away.
I can't help but wonder if I would be sitting in a lawn chair on a moderate July evening--thank God for this first evening where it's been under eighty degrees before eleven o'clock--had things been different. Would I be home taking care of Derek? Would I be preparing to return to WU in the fall? So many things happened so quickly. I know there's no use wondering where I would have been.
There's no reason for me to explain that one.
There's no reason for me to explain that one.
A few weeks ago, sitting around the kitchen table with some of the wonderful women of Waynesburg, we talked about the phrase, "When God closes a door, he opens a window." We said that it didn't make sense. A window?! It's something that I've been really struggling with: people telling me that something good will come from all of the bad. I've taken it so personally, getting upset because I felt like people were telling me that the bad thing happened just so that something better could come from it.
I'm suddenly realizing that's not how it works.
Shit happens. As cliche as it sounds, it is the truest thing I know, aside from a list of other cliche phrases like, "Change is the only constant." But life has fluxes and winding roads, and sometimes you have to pass through some dark alleys to get to the ice cream shop. Sometimes, you have to work through grief to get to wherever the road is leading, be it Seattle or Phoenix.
A year ago, if someone asked me where I would be today, I would say, "At home, taking care of Derek, getting ready to go into my last semester at WU." Clearly, I am as far from that as possible because our plans don't matter.
I really like the idea of God being outside of time. Sure, I have a hard time really grasping it, what, being in-time and all, but I think that knowing that there's someone out there who's got it together and knows what's up is the only real comfort when we don't know how to handle all that we've been given. I keep finding myself saying "This past year," and I've been saying that for months. I'm usually referring to since Derek died, but it hasn't been a year yet. I think I'm too busy pulling on the emergency break, trying to get my life into reverse, that the whole process feels slower. Days pass, one after the next, but as a whole, it's like this big glob of calendar months, and if it really has to flip to August, please, please be 2011.
When I think about "the past year," particularly since February, I'm reminded of how aware I have been of others' struggles. I'm not the only one who has lost a lot this year. During my whole "if things had been different" contemplation, I started wondering what it would be like if Martin hadn't lost his job, if a place where I put my trust, my loyalty, and my dedication hadn't completely turned on most everyone that I cared about there, if the magazine that I wanted to see succeed hadn't been unjustly discontinued due to illogical closed-mindedness and a greater want for money than cultural progress. Phew, it just keeps going. Anyways, a lot of people have been hurt by change.
Ever since I heard that Martin was denied tenure, all that I wanted to do was take it back. I wanted to protect everyone from all of the hateful vibes and sour feelings. I think one of the biggest realizations with that, was learning that even if we could have taken it back, there was still the initial blow, and that was enough such that things would never be the same.
But God's been opening windows like crazy.
Back inside, I sit on the couch for a nightly routine of Sleepytime tea and Frasier. Really getting in the spirit, I use Kim's Seattle mug (my favorite with the thumb-grip is in the wash), and I laugh at my own life, thinking about how in three weeks, I will be in Seattle. Who'd have guessed?
Without air conditioning, it's been pretty hot. We open the windows at night in hopes of it cooling off a bit. As much as I love this place, it's time to leave. I imagine myself literally crawling through a window in search of the next door. I've got a long drive ahead of me.
But the windows are open, and the breeze is not so bad.
Note: In some way, this was indirectly inspired by Wendell Berry's series of "Window Poems," which is why I have included this excerpt:
15.
The sycamore gathers
out of the sky, white
in the glance that looks up to it
through the black crisscross
of the window. But it is not a glance
that it offers itself to.
It is no lightning stroke
caught in the eye. It stays,
an old holding in place.
And its white is not so pure
as a glance would have it,
but emerges partially,
the tree's renewal of itself,
among the mottled browns
and olives of the old bark.
Its dazzling comes into the sun
a little at a time
as though a god in it
is slowly revealing himself.
How often the man of the window
has studied its motley trunk,
the out-starting of its branches,
its smooth crotches,
its revelations of whiteness,
hoping to see beyond his glances,
the distorting geometry
of preconception and habit,
to know it beyond words.
All he has learned of it
does not add up to it.
There is a bird who nests in it
in the summer and seems to sing of it--
the quick lights among its leaves
--better than he can.
It is not by his imagining
its whiteness comes.
The world is greater than its words.
To speak of it the mind must bend.
From Openings, 1968
I'm suddenly realizing that's not how it works.
Shit happens. As cliche as it sounds, it is the truest thing I know, aside from a list of other cliche phrases like, "Change is the only constant." But life has fluxes and winding roads, and sometimes you have to pass through some dark alleys to get to the ice cream shop. Sometimes, you have to work through grief to get to wherever the road is leading, be it Seattle or Phoenix.
A year ago, if someone asked me where I would be today, I would say, "At home, taking care of Derek, getting ready to go into my last semester at WU." Clearly, I am as far from that as possible because our plans don't matter.
I really like the idea of God being outside of time. Sure, I have a hard time really grasping it, what, being in-time and all, but I think that knowing that there's someone out there who's got it together and knows what's up is the only real comfort when we don't know how to handle all that we've been given. I keep finding myself saying "This past year," and I've been saying that for months. I'm usually referring to since Derek died, but it hasn't been a year yet. I think I'm too busy pulling on the emergency break, trying to get my life into reverse, that the whole process feels slower. Days pass, one after the next, but as a whole, it's like this big glob of calendar months, and if it really has to flip to August, please, please be 2011.
When I think about "the past year," particularly since February, I'm reminded of how aware I have been of others' struggles. I'm not the only one who has lost a lot this year. During my whole "if things had been different" contemplation, I started wondering what it would be like if Martin hadn't lost his job, if a place where I put my trust, my loyalty, and my dedication hadn't completely turned on most everyone that I cared about there, if the magazine that I wanted to see succeed hadn't been unjustly discontinued due to illogical closed-mindedness and a greater want for money than cultural progress. Phew, it just keeps going. Anyways, a lot of people have been hurt by change.
Ever since I heard that Martin was denied tenure, all that I wanted to do was take it back. I wanted to protect everyone from all of the hateful vibes and sour feelings. I think one of the biggest realizations with that, was learning that even if we could have taken it back, there was still the initial blow, and that was enough such that things would never be the same.
But God's been opening windows like crazy.
Back inside, I sit on the couch for a nightly routine of Sleepytime tea and Frasier. Really getting in the spirit, I use Kim's Seattle mug (my favorite with the thumb-grip is in the wash), and I laugh at my own life, thinking about how in three weeks, I will be in Seattle. Who'd have guessed?
Without air conditioning, it's been pretty hot. We open the windows at night in hopes of it cooling off a bit. As much as I love this place, it's time to leave. I imagine myself literally crawling through a window in search of the next door. I've got a long drive ahead of me.
But the windows are open, and the breeze is not so bad.
Note: In some way, this was indirectly inspired by Wendell Berry's series of "Window Poems," which is why I have included this excerpt:
15.
The sycamore gathers
out of the sky, white
in the glance that looks up to it
through the black crisscross
of the window. But it is not a glance
that it offers itself to.
It is no lightning stroke
caught in the eye. It stays,
an old holding in place.
And its white is not so pure
as a glance would have it,
but emerges partially,
the tree's renewal of itself,
among the mottled browns
and olives of the old bark.
Its dazzling comes into the sun
a little at a time
as though a god in it
is slowly revealing himself.
How often the man of the window
has studied its motley trunk,
the out-starting of its branches,
its smooth crotches,
its revelations of whiteness,
hoping to see beyond his glances,
the distorting geometry
of preconception and habit,
to know it beyond words.
All he has learned of it
does not add up to it.
There is a bird who nests in it
in the summer and seems to sing of it--
the quick lights among its leaves
--better than he can.
It is not by his imagining
its whiteness comes.
The world is greater than its words.
To speak of it the mind must bend.
From Openings, 1968
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Family comes first
Every time I may begin to think that I have my life in some sort of order, I get pulled by the ankle and shaken, upside down. Someone out there does not want me to settle for "contentment."
There are so many things that I have been wanting to write about, but I can't seem to find the time or the motivation--Derek's birthday, the entire month of June, my last credits of my undergraduate degree, getting accepted to graduate school, ditching my plans for Arizona to move to Seattle, starting graduate classes, preparing the Cockroft house for sale, preparing my belonging to move cross-country; clearly, the list goes on and on.
So that's it. Just like that, a month passes, and life is completely different. Sometimes I wonder how so many months could have passed where I felt the same; I felt like I had some sort of control over the situations, and I was okay. Now, I can barely get through a week without feeling like everyday is some major life event.
Maybe that's the way that it should be--never boring, always busy. Is this "carpe diem"?
Derek's first tattoo spelled "carpe diem" in a curly font, written inside of a chartreuse ribbon, representing Muscular Dystrophy. He wanted to remind himself and others that we can and should "seize the day" despite the world's best efforts to bring us down--everyone has challenges that weigh on us and keep us from living out loud. For Derek, Muscular Dystrophy was that challenge, and he woke to meet it everyday.
As I was browsing through Barnes and Noble today, I fell into the Poetry section, of course. I was pretty disapointed to have not found it until probably an hour-and-a-half into our trip there, soon before we would be leaving. Regardless, I browsed the meager one shelf of books and found poems by Emerson, Frost, Elliot, Shakespeare--all of the well-knowns. Near the bottom, there was a series of crayon-colored books by Mattie J.T. Stepanek, a young man who died of Muscular Dystrophy very young, in the early 2000s. Derek had one of those Heartsongs books on his shelves.
Katlin, Derek, and I have been talking about getting matching tattoos for years. In August, we finally decided--Katlin and I would each get our own variations of "carpe diem" tattoos with Muscular Dystrophy ribbons to match Derek's; he wasn't feeling up to being inked again, but he wanted to at least be there. Our appointment was for September 2nd. Six days after Derek died, we still showed up for the appointment.
These thoughts are so scattered. Am I living my life to the fullest? I thought I learned in Italy to slow down; don't rush. What does it mean "to the fullest" anyhow? As if there were some capstone of "yes, my life is complete." Maybe that is it--striving for a sense of completeness, a sense of feeling accomplished at the end of the day.
Here I am at the end of yet another of the quickly passing days. This isn't any day though. This is the last night with the family that has really taken me in during the past year in the house that was my refuge this past fall. Though I'll be around for a little while longer, this house is not "home" without them here. Though the guitar still hangs on the wall in the room where we have sung and prayed; though the kitchen still shines in warm orange and yellow; though the bathrooms are freshly furnished with the sinks that we all worked on; though the garden still blooms over fresh mulch and lined with stones that we poured ourselves into; though I have been here for such a short time, it is just a house, and it is not complete without them here. I have learned so well that "family" goes further than blood-relation, further than daily encounters, further than walls. Family is loving the people you are with as though they were always going to be with you.
Tonight, Kim said we needed to break a glass in the leaving of the home. She held it at the stem, with a paper bag around it, and the girls each grasped the wooden spoon, gently beating at the glass like a pinata until we heard the shink of the pieces against one another. Kim said it's a tradition to do this because it shows that family and relationship means more than walls or possessions.
And this is why I need to move on. I can't bear to be near the walls that held Derek and I in for so many years; it's time for me to go--to not be here in Southwestern Pennsylvania where all of these things remind me of everything good and everything bad. I need to move on because I've got everything that I need within me--the spirit of God, the love of friends, the memories of a brother. These things will not go away, no matter how many miles there are between me and the walls that I was raised in.
I thought that was the end, but it's not. I once took part in a wall-raising. We were volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Greensboro, North Carolina. All week, we built walls. Finally, we started assembling. Many people all in a line, pulling and lifting and shifting and placing these walls into what would soon be a family's home. It's not about the walls themselves; it's about the people that raise them, just as when I say "the walls that I was raised in," I mean the people that have raised me. Too often I rush to my bedroom and focus on the walls of home, when really, what I love about it is all of the people there.
Looking through Derek's facebook, I came across a photo of Katlin, Derek, and I on his 20th birthday. One of those survey questions was in the comment box. Derek had answered to, "What does this photo say about you?"
"Family comes first."
There are so many things that I have been wanting to write about, but I can't seem to find the time or the motivation--Derek's birthday, the entire month of June, my last credits of my undergraduate degree, getting accepted to graduate school, ditching my plans for Arizona to move to Seattle, starting graduate classes, preparing the Cockroft house for sale, preparing my belonging to move cross-country; clearly, the list goes on and on.
So that's it. Just like that, a month passes, and life is completely different. Sometimes I wonder how so many months could have passed where I felt the same; I felt like I had some sort of control over the situations, and I was okay. Now, I can barely get through a week without feeling like everyday is some major life event.
Maybe that's the way that it should be--never boring, always busy. Is this "carpe diem"?
Derek's first tattoo spelled "carpe diem" in a curly font, written inside of a chartreuse ribbon, representing Muscular Dystrophy. He wanted to remind himself and others that we can and should "seize the day" despite the world's best efforts to bring us down--everyone has challenges that weigh on us and keep us from living out loud. For Derek, Muscular Dystrophy was that challenge, and he woke to meet it everyday.
As I was browsing through Barnes and Noble today, I fell into the Poetry section, of course. I was pretty disapointed to have not found it until probably an hour-and-a-half into our trip there, soon before we would be leaving. Regardless, I browsed the meager one shelf of books and found poems by Emerson, Frost, Elliot, Shakespeare--all of the well-knowns. Near the bottom, there was a series of crayon-colored books by Mattie J.T. Stepanek, a young man who died of Muscular Dystrophy very young, in the early 2000s. Derek had one of those Heartsongs books on his shelves.
Katlin, Derek, and I have been talking about getting matching tattoos for years. In August, we finally decided--Katlin and I would each get our own variations of "carpe diem" tattoos with Muscular Dystrophy ribbons to match Derek's; he wasn't feeling up to being inked again, but he wanted to at least be there. Our appointment was for September 2nd. Six days after Derek died, we still showed up for the appointment.
These thoughts are so scattered. Am I living my life to the fullest? I thought I learned in Italy to slow down; don't rush. What does it mean "to the fullest" anyhow? As if there were some capstone of "yes, my life is complete." Maybe that is it--striving for a sense of completeness, a sense of feeling accomplished at the end of the day.
Here I am at the end of yet another of the quickly passing days. This isn't any day though. This is the last night with the family that has really taken me in during the past year in the house that was my refuge this past fall. Though I'll be around for a little while longer, this house is not "home" without them here. Though the guitar still hangs on the wall in the room where we have sung and prayed; though the kitchen still shines in warm orange and yellow; though the bathrooms are freshly furnished with the sinks that we all worked on; though the garden still blooms over fresh mulch and lined with stones that we poured ourselves into; though I have been here for such a short time, it is just a house, and it is not complete without them here. I have learned so well that "family" goes further than blood-relation, further than daily encounters, further than walls. Family is loving the people you are with as though they were always going to be with you.
Tonight, Kim said we needed to break a glass in the leaving of the home. She held it at the stem, with a paper bag around it, and the girls each grasped the wooden spoon, gently beating at the glass like a pinata until we heard the shink of the pieces against one another. Kim said it's a tradition to do this because it shows that family and relationship means more than walls or possessions.
And this is why I need to move on. I can't bear to be near the walls that held Derek and I in for so many years; it's time for me to go--to not be here in Southwestern Pennsylvania where all of these things remind me of everything good and everything bad. I need to move on because I've got everything that I need within me--the spirit of God, the love of friends, the memories of a brother. These things will not go away, no matter how many miles there are between me and the walls that I was raised in.
I thought that was the end, but it's not. I once took part in a wall-raising. We were volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Greensboro, North Carolina. All week, we built walls. Finally, we started assembling. Many people all in a line, pulling and lifting and shifting and placing these walls into what would soon be a family's home. It's not about the walls themselves; it's about the people that raise them, just as when I say "the walls that I was raised in," I mean the people that have raised me. Too often I rush to my bedroom and focus on the walls of home, when really, what I love about it is all of the people there.
Looking through Derek's facebook, I came across a photo of Katlin, Derek, and I on his 20th birthday. One of those survey questions was in the comment box. Derek had answered to, "What does this photo say about you?"
"Family comes first."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)