The Best Thanksgiving Ever

On Thanksgiving two years ago, the love of my life asked me to marry him.

I already knew I was going to say “yes”. It wasn’t a hard word to say at all when he asked. When he knelt down in the cold grass on a starry night in the country after reciting to me a poem that he wrote and giving me the most beautiful ring.
Not a hard word at all to say, only three letters and one syllable, but the best and most perfect word I’ve ever said. “Yes”. To the best and most perfect question I’ve ever been asked. Followed by the best champagne I’ve ever tasted though not the most expensive, and the best first kiss. And the best second, third, fourth, fifth...

Let me tell you what else has been the best in the last two years of my life.

The best patience, from a man who comes home from a long day at work to do the dishes and help with dinner when I am tired from lupus.

The best affirmation from a man who says he loves my body even though I have gained a significant amount of weight since marrying him.

The best celebrations from a man who rejoices with me in my little triumphs, like when someone buys a piece of my jewelry from my little Etsy shop.

The best sadness from a man who hurts when I hurt.

The best forgiveness from the most important man in my life, when I manage somehow to hurt him in spite of him being the best thing that I’ve ever had.

The best laughs when we share clever jokes, or the most immature jokes anyone has ever heard.

The best meals I’ve ever had, cooked together with love, fun, and plenty of cayenne pepper.

The best tolerance of my flaws; my shyness and my wildness, my indulgence and my hesitancy. My contradictions; my inconsistencies.

The best broccoli I’ve ever had, sautéed somehow with olive oil and curry powder to the most perfect balance of crunchy and tender (he makes the broccoli).

The best wine, $4-$8 from Trader Joe’s, sipped during good TV shows and finished with good conversation with one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

The best “fights”: low voices, slow sentences, “I” statements and respect for my feelings.

The best cat, rescued by one of the most compassionate men I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.

The best dreams for the future, shared by him.

The best view every day, provided unintentionally by this handsome, handsome man.

The best support and encouragement, offered by him.

The best service, provided for me when I am feeling sick and tired.

The best information, provided by his precision and the way he researches everything.

The best trust, knowing that he always wants what’s best for me.

The best foot rubs.

The best kisses, every time.

The best cuddles.

The best efforts.

The best of everything he has to offer.

The best I ever dared to hope to have.

The best motivation to be a better person, provided just by watching him.

The best love.

The best Thanksgiving ever, November 28, 2013.

Yet somehow, I am sure the best is yet to come.

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Revival

I’ve been needing the autumn; needing a break from the sun stabbing hot and bright into my eyes. I thought that’s what I needed, anyway. I felt that the heat had numbed me and that it was the sweat trickling down my back that subtly irritated my mood. But now I think maybe it’s just me. A few months ago I wrote that I thought I would be a saner person when summer arrived. I was wrong; I stayed the same as I was last winter, if not nestled even further down into the vaguely sour haze I had been hoping to escape. I got my hopes up for fall, too, but nothing’s happening so far. For some reason, every time the season changes I think that I will change too. As if a new view out my window would change my perspective; as if the change of weather would awaken some sense of life and motivation hibernating deep down inside me.

I’ve heard from a couple people now that I’m not who I used to be. I don’t know if they’re really right or not, though I know some things have changed. I’m more tired than I was, and not as easy on the eyes. I guess I don’t create as much as I used to, and I guess I’m a little more raw these days; sensitive. Like the fleshy, vulnerable body of a snail that recoils suddenly into itself at one little poke. And then only very slowly creeps back out of its shell.

I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong; what exactly is making it more difficult for me to do the things that I feel define me. I’m not sure what I need in order to get back to where I was. Who I was.

Maybe I need to shrink. Maybe I need to accept “where I am”. Maybe I need to get out of my head. Maybe I need more space, or natural light. Maybe I need to do more. Maybe I need to do less. Maybe I need balance, or supplements or essential oils or more fiber in my diet or less red meat. Everybody tells me something different.

Maybe what I need is a big white tent in the sun, folding chairs dodging cow patties set up on the flattened grass in front of the plywood stage and wobbling podium. Styrofoam plates slippery with the bottled barbecue sauce dripping out the backs white bread buns and smeared on the chubby cheeks of children dressed in their wrinkled Sunday best; potato salad sweating like the red-faced preacher with the New King James Bible in his hand. Maybe I need to put on a calico dress and an ill-fitting bra and join the fat ladies belting out Amazing Grace. Should I sway and clap (just ahead of the beat), or raise my hands toward the meeting of the tent poles? I should close my eyes, of course, and throw out an occasional contribution to the waves of scattered “Amens” that briefly swell after every utterance of Jesus’ name, Amen. Maybe then the faith will come trickling back in like water, with the hymns and pleas to the sinners to repent; with the lukewarm grape juice and broken water crackers and the offering plate overflowing with flapping paper bills weighted down in the middle by the only kind of change that can be produced in an instant; counted out to be worth something quantitative. The only kind of change I can muster. Maybe I need the charismatic congregation; the unquestioning belief that that fleeting feeling in my chest is the Holy Spirit who lives in my heart, wandering my arteries and making my ventricles a resting place. Maybe after the preacher asks everyone to fold up their chairs and stack them at the front, I need him to clasp my hand in both of his and say to me “God bless you” as the a cappella choir sings the most exuberant worship song in its repertoire and everyone mingles while they exit the tent, filled with new resolve and hope as if it will last; filled with passion and eager to spread the Good News.

Maybe I need to join them; maybe I need to get swept up.

Maybe I need a revival.

That’s really all I can think of, at this point.

But I’m still open to suggestions.

Gravity is a Bitch

When I was a young child, I thought that all consciousnesses started out the same. All just waiting together somewhere like so many tiny glowing balls, primitive and barely-flickering, and when a creature was born—a human, a lion, an ant, anything—God would pick up one of the consciousnesses and put it into the brain of the thing that was born. Then I thought that the brain of the thing shaped the consciousness into whatever awareness was appropriate for the creature. So we’d all end up different, because of our different brains; one human is smarter than another, and humans are smarter than dolphins, which are smarter than dogs, and so on; but we all started out the same and it was by chance that I ended up being myself. My consciousness, my experience of life, could have been that of someone in a third world country, or of the president, or my cat, or a dinosaur from millions of years ago. God just happened to pluck it up when one particular baby was born and that baby became me. And I always wondered what it would have been like, to be someone or something different. To have that completely different experience of thought and life.

These days I mostly wonder what it was like to be my old self. No weights, no shame, no limitations, no reason to be angry, no wanting to be small. Smaller than a germ, than an atom, a quark; smaller than the smallest thing and wanting to burrow down through the carpet and the foundation of the apartment building and down, down, down through the earth to its core. And maybe there, in the scorching burning hot lava center—the point of origin—the weight would stop. The weight, the pull; the pull that makes me feel so heavy, like I am magnetized not only to the ground but through it and I am only so lucky that the earth is strong enough to hold me. Otherwise I would be swallowed up; sucked down swiftly, silently into the darkness and with a whoosh of air, gone. I feel it pulling at my bones, but the earth hasn’t broken yet.

Some might call it gravity but its pull on me seems stronger, or maybe I am just less capable of resistance.

Some might call it gravity but does gravity work on the neurons in your brain, the chemicals that shoot back and forth; the sparks? Does it work sometimes more than others? Do its effects increase with age?

Some might call it gravity but I seem to hit the ground a bit harder than others of a similar mass and density. My footprints are deep, it is hard to step out of them; hard to move forward.

Some might call it gravity; well then gravity’s a bitch.

Or is there a metaphysical kind, and it’s that one which pulls my words right back down my throat and into my gut before I spit them out? Keeps the inspiration buried somewhere I can’t get to it? Does it draw smoky lids down over the eyes of my soul so I can no longer see what I need to thrive? So that I bumble about in a haze, grasping at vague shapes that spark something deep in my memory but never quite fit. Maybe that metaphysical gravity is what makes the memories drop; fall out from between the wrinkles in my brain and drift down to the bottom of my skull landing facedown, where I’ll never see them again.

I’m hoping for some sort of micro-evolution; some way for my body and brain to adapt. Like maybe I will flatten out, distribute my weight over a greater expanse so the pull isn’t so strong all in one place. Or maybe my muscles will get stronger, or maybe my bones will go hollow. Maybe I’ll grow gills and take to the water; after all, it’s the next best thing to flying. Or maybe not. Maybe I’m doomed to a slow, sputtering extinction of the will, ill-equipped for the competition of this world. Why not me, Darwin? Why can I not adapt?

Maybe I just don’t fight hard enough.

But gravity is strong.

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Honest Thoughts on Becoming a Curvy Girl

A year ago, I was thin. I weighed just enough to be considered healthy, but little enough to (sort of) measure up to today's cultural standards of beauty (meaning I was just a few pounds above "underweight"). Now I am curvy. Voluptuous. Chubby. Plump. This is something I have never been before, but it is something I am now. Thank you, medication side-effects; thank you, lupus; thank you, seizure that left me house-bound for six months. It is not something I'm happy about, but in spite of my emotional rebellion, my larger body has been teaching me.

I am a slow learner, and resentful, but nonetheless I am learning.

I am learning to enjoy experiences regardless of what I look like. I think that I used to believe, subconsciously, that I had to be beautiful (by our society’s standards) in order to deserve to enjoy life. Maybe I still believe that a little. But I’m learning to recognize it, and to recognize (at least on a cognitive level) that that belief is inaccurate. I'm learning that it is ridiculous to let my size stop me from enjoying anything.

I am learning to find beauty where before I thought there was none. In spite of myself, sometimes these wider hips make me feel like I could take on the world, blowing smoke from my nostrils; these thighs thick and solid pillars holding up a body that the wind will never blow over; that waves break against. Curves like a classic painting, and who’s to say they are any less beautiful than the wispy women on television? Just in a different way.

I’m learning to be less afraid of taking up space, as a person and as a woman. By necessity I am learning not to apologize for the room I occupy; being constantly apologetic is exhausting. And on principle I am learning to be proud of being a woman that, however accidentally, does not conform to our culture’s narrow-minded standards of beauty.

I’m learning that even self-love is an effort you make, not a feeling you feel.

I’m learning that I am not the only one I hurt with my self-loathing.

I am learning that my body is more than an object for the visual pleasure of those around me. That is not my body’s main purpose. In fact, that’s pretty low on the scale of importance regarding the functions it performs.

I’m learning that no matter my size I can still look pretty ok, when I wear clothes that fit me well.

I'm learning that both the secular culture and the church culture alike will make snap judgments about your level of promiscuity or "modesty" based on the size of your boobs and the prominence of your cleavage, regardless of whether or not you can help these things. And I'm learning not to be ashamed of my natural anatomy and the way it presents itself as I gain weight, no matter who gives me either judging or leering looks for it.

I’m learning that the only one human being on this planet that can truly make me feel beautiful is me.

But I am learning that, in order to feel beautiful, I must also feel rebellious and fierce. I must feel like fighting. It takes balls to step out into culture where, for a woman, thin = beautiful and beautiful = valuable. Especially when you do not measure up to the first element of the equation. It takes balls to step out into that and then dare to not pick at yourself and actively—constantly—hate every one of your flaws. And sometimes I’m too tired to nut up like that.

But, like a muscle that needs to be worked over and over, consistently and for a long period of time, slowly I’m learning self-acceptance.

None of these lessons are fully-learned. Most of them are just now breaking through the fog in my brain as I get used to being in this body. It’s a big change (no pun intended), and not one I saw coming. And to be honest, I hope it doesn’t stay this way.

But honestly, I also hope that soon I get to the point where I’d be ok if it did.

Home-Thoughts

I walked a few miles today, a rout I haven’t taken in a year or more but one I grew up using. Gravel roads, out in the country where my parents live and where I used to live, too. I used to walk them with my dog, but he’s too old now. I brought him as far as the neighbor’s gate, where the honeysuckle is all the more fragrant just after being hammered by the afternoon’s rain. He ambled around the mailbox, snuffling flowers, but soon grew tired and I had to help him back to the house.

There were days when he’d run with me for miles out here; I miss those days.

The rest of the walk I took by myself. A year ago I might have been afraid to do that, to walk those isolated roads without at least the illusion of protection that the presence of a big dog brings. But now I miss the country so much that I can’t imagine coming to harm here. I grew up here. This is my place; these are my roads. I know where I am here; who I am. I know these acres; their woods and creeks, paths and shortcuts. I’ve climbed the trees and bled on them, too, swam in the ponds and fished the streams, ridden horses over the hills, burned dead fields and quenched the fires so new life could grow. Who would dare threaten me here?

No, I was not afraid to walk alone. Not here. Not now.

Once I was a lanky girl in cargo pants and long braided pigtails; thoughts mostly of horses and colors and birthdays and adventures, with only a vague dread in the back of my mind of the world’s evils. I come back now a voluptuous woman with tattooed skin and short-cropped hair, all too aware of how the misfortunes of chance can wear one down, making her vulnerable enough for society’s female-flesh-hungry claws to sink themselves in to the soft underbelly of her psyche. Guts stuffed back in and scars healed shut I walked that road again and remembered that I am back and that I am stronger for it all; stronger than the girl with the pigtails. But the scars twinged and I wondered.

I sat down in the middle of the road—you can do that here, on a dead-end gravel road in the country—and just stared across the landscape. Pasture, fences, cows, trees. Lush green grass, emerald canopies, streaks of rich browns and spatters of brightly-colored flowers. And space. So much open space. Nothing cramped, nothing crowded; no concrete or walls or hard edges looming up on either side of me or cars rushing by. Just the land existing, unimposing and serene but somehow peacefully demanding of attention to its natural beauty. I took it in and breathed the air and felt the breeze and experienced such a relief it almost hurt. I hadn’t realized before how much my eyes had been craving distance and space; something far-off to focus on. How much I needed openness in my peripheral, just some time with nothing close by at the corners; nothing closing in. And to breathe the fresh-rain wet-grass air while hearing nothing but the wind in the trees and the soft lowing of cattle instead of car sounds and city noises was like the release of a pressure valve in my head. I sat and I looked and I listed and begged for the song that was playing through my ear buds to be true: There’ll come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears…

Tonight I sleep with the old dog by my bed, in the guest room in my parents’ house. It’s strange to sleep in the guest room of the house you grew up in. I could have slept in my own room—or what used to be my room—but the old dog can’t make it up the stairs anymore and I would rather stay with him. I can hear a train far off in the distance, but other than that only crickets and frogs.
And tonight I have many thoughts.

Sometimes it feels good to love someone just because. Not because they treat you well all the time. But just because you want so badly to love them. And maybe that’s ok. Maybe love them anyway.

Sometimes I feel like I am beautiful not in spite of, but because of, my curves. My golden swells and valleys and this soft enveloping body that holds a long and captivating story, should you be interested to know it. Every line has a reason; every curve, every roll, every scar. Sometimes I feel like I am a beautiful narrative and how dare society tell me that I should be any different? How dare they tell me I should hide it.

But sometimes I feel like I am an ugly failure; the girl who has let herself go.

Sometimes I feel like the human race is a child still learning.

Sometimes I feel like I have some answers; sometimes I feel like I have none.

I know that my eyes are mostly green, if you look closely enough, even though from a distance they look brown.

I know that I live hard.

I know I love decadence; I know I thrive on scarcity. I know I swing between extremes.

I am no one thing. Or two, or three. Nothing is black-and-white. I am devil’s advocate; I am my shoulder angel.

Why don’t we talk about personal things? Why don’t we all write tell-all memoirs?

I feel like we’d all be less ashamed.


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Frankensteining

I used to think I was good at fixing things. But now I’ve figured out what it really is. Really it’s that I’m resourceful, and I use whatever’s around to Frankenstein things back together until they fulfill their function again. And I used to think that meant I fixed them, the things. Now I wonder. Is it really fixing something if it’s just patchwork? If its held together by scraps and glue and wire; if it looks nice from the front but you turn it around and you’ve never seen such a mess? Things aren’t as they were before. Pieces not returned to their proper places; spaces not filled with what really fits.

Sometimes I wonder if anything I ever thought I fixed in myself was just that: just jerry-rigged to work in spite of broken parts; missing pieces. And then I’ve created this whole thing—this ghetto contraption with all these connected patterns—that needs to be dismantled and broken down before the real fixing can begin and maybe I just made it harder for myself to get back to normal.

You know when you take your car in for repairs and the mechanic tells you it’d be cheaper just to get a new car than to get the old one back into shape? Sometimes I wonder if I’m that car.

What is any of it anyway, though—the thoughts, the feelings—with no witnesses? No witnesses but me in my head to the passing feelings of pointlessness, so brief they’re not worth mentioning but so sharp, so penetrating they’re hard to forget. No witnesses to the waves of wonder at the world; no witnesses when the faith runs back in like water, or back out again like a fugitive in the night. No witnesses to the questions of why and how and will I ever? I don’t talk that much, generally, and I don’t write as much as I used to. Sometimes I think it’s just as well; these things are passing, waves on the shore. Some seem insurmountable and frightening, some breathtakingly beautiful, some peaceful and calm. But in the grand scheme of life they all pass away and what were they, anyway?

I think I don’t go through life lightly. I stomp all over it, splash through it, spatter it all around. I puddle jump; sometimes my feet aren’t on the ground at all and sometimes I’m sunk in above my ankles. It gets in my eyes and in my nose and mouth; I can taste it and it’s gritty between my teeth. I wallow in it. I want too much of a good thing; too much of everything that I love (yes, there is such a thing, or so they tell me).

I’m afraid I am not understated; I’m afraid I am not so good at “restraint”. I want more and I want everything; I want to wear a princess dress covered in mud in the middle of the jungle with a machete in one hand diamonds in the other. I want the palace and the ruins, the ocean and the desert, adventure and luxury, to curl up at home and to trek the whole wide world. I want to live off the land and I want to eat the finest cuisine in Paris. I love camping, I love resorts; I love spas with scented oils and I love barns with hay and horses and manure.

I’m almost twenty-five years old and I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up except that I want to do everything and not waste my time fixing broken things. Can’t I just slap on some duct tape and move on? I don’t have time for this.
I am Frankenstein and there’s so much to do; waves to ride and they are passing quickly.

A Revelatory Harmony

I an opposer of the death penalty.
I am a supporter of homosexual marriage.
I am the proud bearer of four (soon to be five) tattoos.
I am a Christian.

When I was younger, I never believed that I would be the first three things, because I was the fourth.
Now, all four seem in harmony to me.

I'm just now coming to terms with all this.

My place is only to love everyone, not to judge those different from me.
My place is only to protect the innocent, not to punish the wicked.
My place is only to heal the broken, not to administer whatever version of violent justice the government is seeing fit to dole out at any given time.
My place is only to be the person God made me to be, and to live in freedom within the convictions He has given me.

I am a human, and I will err.
I choose to err on the side of love.
And I choose to lean into the heart that I believe God gave me: creatively, theologically, physically, verbally, boldly.
At least I'll try.
That's all for tonight.
Sleep tight.
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