Through a Glass, Darkly

I’m currently reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and while I am not yet far enough into it to know whether I can recommend it, I can say that the prose is beautiful. Here’s one of my favorite bits so far (there were several to choose from):

I really can’t tell what’s beautiful anymore. I passed two young fellows on the street the other day. I know who they are, they work at the garage. They’re not churchgoing, either one of them, just decent rascally young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and there they were, propped against the garage wall in the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They’re always so black with grease and so strong with gasoline I don’t know why they don’t catch fire themselves. They were passing remarks back and forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it. I see that in church often enough. So I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you’re done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.

I loved that, both because I think people are beautiful when they laugh and because it made me laugh to think of the times I’ve behaved badly in church. (An aside: If you haven’t read that entry, and you need a laugh, go read it and then read the comments on it. hehe.)

I see a lot of different kinds of people at work, and it catches me sometimes: a genuine laugh, the fear and courage in someone’s eyes when they are asking for information on a disease, the pride on a little boy’s face. Of course spring days and autumn leaves and Christmas tree lights are beautiful, but sometimes I forget how beautiful people are when they are just living their lives, loving and being brave and working hard.

It’s the age-old question: function or fashion?

Yesterday, I chose fashion. And my feet are not pleased with me. I try to dress slightly more professionally when my book group meets, and yesterday that meant my suit and heels. I bought these heels (they aren’t red, by the way . . . I just wanted to use that lyric for the title) specifically to go with the suit, and I made a mistake, because they are a little big. When I have worn them before, I suffered through them slipping off my feet all day and almost falling down the stairs and dying. Yesterday, my genius plan was to stuff the toes with tissue. One word: OW. Another two words: HUGE. MISTAKE. I’m not sure if I just put too much tissue in there or what, but my feet were dying by the end of the day, my toes were all crunched up, and it was painful to put any weight on them at all.

So. Today, in an effort to get my feet to forgive me, I’m wearing these shoes, because Birkenstocks are pretty much as kind as it is possible to be to your feet (and I can’t wear open-toed shoes to work).

I wonder sometimes why I do that - why I wear uncomfortable shoes just to pull off a certain style or outfit. Several people told me how nice I looked yesterday, and while that was very nice of them to say, it doesn’t change the fact that I killed my feet to look a certain way. I do this in other ways, too - always fixing my hair and doing my makeup and wearing “outfits” and just not being a casual person. I want people to think I look pulled-together and competent, because maybe that way they won’t realize how nervous and incompetent I feel inside. Not just about the book discussion, but about life. I told Mike yesterday that I often feel as if there are rules that everyone else knows and that I am out there making a fool of myself, floundering around. And so, I wear the high heels and the pantyhose, hoping that my appearance will make up for at least some of those other failures.

(I’ll take this as another opportunity to plug Glittering Images, because . . . yeah. Pretty much what the whole book was about.)

Remember my apple problem? Well, today, as part of the worst Wal-Mart experience ever (best not rehashed at this point, because my blood has finally stopped boiling), I caused an apple-avalanche (or an applelanche, whichever you prefer). As I was trying to reach those Granny Smith apples, I brought down a good portion of the tray, sending apples bouncing and rolling their merry way across the floor. Will the embarassment never end?

(Luckily, Mike resumes shopping duty next week, as he will be through with classes and have lots of time on his hands. We can hope this is the last embarassing apple story for a while.)

My book club meets today, so I might have time for a longer update later.

Sorry to those of you who have already heard parts of this entry.

Since Mike was gone this weekend, all day on Friday I said things like, “Party at my house!” Sometime in the afternoon, I realized that that didn’t make any sense. Seriously, Mike is only four years older than I am. He is not the “responsible adult” in our house. (I am pretty sure no responsible adults live in our house, but that’s another post for another time.) Regardless, when I got home on Friday, I changed immediately into pajamas, checked my email, and settled into bed with a pan of chocolate cake (no plates for me!) in one hand and In the Company of Cheerful Ladies in the other. I managed to finish the book that night, which was exciting. And I fell asleep by 11:00. hehe.

Saturday at work, I was telling my coworker about my super-exciting night and he was teasing me about how I was able to get to work at all after my “wild night.” Saturday night I went out to dinner with some women from church, and came home and settled into bed with Gaudy Night and a glass of wine. Good thing Mike came home Sunday, because something needed to stop the insane calorie consumption that was going on.

When Mike called Sunday morning, the first thing I asked him was how cold he was. In case I didn’t mention it, they were camping. And where we were, it got down in the 30’s, so I knew it was at least that cold where he was. He said, and I quote, “I’m starting to doubt whether my sleeping bag technique is as effective as I thought.” Which lends itself to a story. When I was in college, I didn’t have a sleeping bag, so I had to borrow Mike’s for retreats. Mike’s roommate’s girlfriend (who was a friend of mine) didn’t have a sleeping bag either, so sometimes we’d both be leaving with sleeping bags on the eve of a retreat. Mike and his roommate claimed that when they went camping, they would sleep in the buff in their sleeping bags, because that was what the sleeping bags were designed for as far as keeping the perfect temperature and circulation. My friend and I thought this was: 1. Gross and 2. Nonsense. Mike says that he didn’t (quite) try to sleep in the buff this weekend, but he was freezing nonetheless. I’m trying not to gloat too much. I’m telling you - you have to wear extra clothes if it’s going to be that cold, sleeping bag or not. (Of course, he also insists that if he had taken my sleeping bag - I had to get my own, obviously - which is of slightly higher quality, he would have proven his point. But he’s wrong.)

And, to wind up this freezing cold Monday morning, I thought you might want to hear how I felt about the open house yesterday. When I talked to Mom about it on Thursday or Friday, she said, “I think this is really important to Grandma.” “Yeah,” I said, “I noticed.” We pulled into the yard, and Mom immediately started pointing out things she remembered. “He left the old dinner bell,” she said, “and this room used to be where the men came in and cleaned up from working in the fields.” Mom and her sister and one of her brothers gave me the grand tour, pointing out who had lived in each room, and where my old bed (which used to be my great-grandparents’ bed and is now in our guest room) used to be, and marveling at how much smaller the rooms are than they remember. And Mom and my Uncle Bobby and their cousin Betty took me around to the front of the house (which isn’t all done yet) and showed me the rooms there and the old banister they used to slide down and where they had hung a nerf basketball goal. It was funny, because Mom, my Aunt Nancy, and my Uncle Bobby all told me the same stories independently about which room used to be a porch and where there used to be windows and where the stove used to be and where Great-Grandma used to sit and churn butter. I told Bobby I had never been there before, and he looked at me for a long beat before he said levelly, “No, I guess you haven’t.” Grandma was there, of course, and when I signed the guestbook I saw what she had written: “I don’t have the words for how happy I feel.” I gave Uncle Buddy a hug and said, “Did you know I have never been here?” He looked at me, with his eyes so like Grandma’s, full of kindness and gentleness, and said, “What do you think?” I told him I thought it was wonderful, and he told me how much my mom’s brother (who owns a home improvement company) had helped him. On the way home, I thought about his face and his eyes when he looked at me, and I thought about the kind man that he is, and how hard his life has been, and I cried. I cried for how happy Grandma was, and for all the things Mom has said about how hard Buddy’s children had it (I don’t see them very often, and the oldest daughter, Serena, kept calling me “little Carol” because she said I look just like Mom), and for redemption. The fact that the house is coming back together, that Buddy’s children and Ruby’s children and my aunts and uncles could be there yesterday doesn’t change the painful things that have happened in the past, but it helps. It helped Grandma, as she sat there in her Sunday best. It helped Buddy, as he sat there in his John Deere hat and his overalls. And it helped me, even though I haven’t been hurt by the situation. It helped me to see the strength in my family (which, they would be quick to point out, comes from God) and how they have made it through these hard times by sticking together. There’s something about watching my Grandma and being around her that reminds me of God’s faithfulness. And yesterday that was especially clear.

I have new plans for the evening, as In the Company of Cheerful Ladies has just been handed to me with a post-it note featuring my name. This morning I started Gaudy Night (comfort reading at its finest), but I am excited about having this new book instead. Have I ever mentioned my love of post-it notes? I don’t like to write in my books, but I do like to leave post-it notes on my favorite parts sometimes. One time I told Alisa that the swooniest thing Mike could ever do would be to read one of my favorite books and leave comments in it on post-it notes. (A la Jess . . . but I always resented him for writing in Rory’s book. Writing in books is bad.)

I brought my lunch today - just an apple and cheese, as usual - but there was a hot dog sale at one of the other branches. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t realize that was today until it was too late. So then I had to suffer through smelling everyone else’s hot dogs, and I really wanted one. I daydreamed about making a hot dog for myself tonight, or going somewhere to buy one. Well, my coworker forgot and went home for lunch, so she let me have hers when she realized her mistake. Wasn’t that nice? I didn’t even ask. She just offered. And it was very good. For the record, I didn’t used to eat hot dogs! I am growing as a person!

After my comment about wanting to be enjoying life more these days (the only part of the post I think Mike actually read), Mike has made an effort to shake us out of the read, watch TV, and sleep pattern that we seemed to be in. Wednesday night this meant that I was complaining about wanting a milkshake, and he pulled me off the floor and we drove to Wendy’s for frostys (I don’t like McDonald’s chocolate milkshakes. And for all our town’s finer qualities, it doesn’t have a Cookout). We rolled down the windows and listened to David Grey, who, by the way, makes perfect music for driving at night with the windows rolled down. Or any driving at night, really. And I am not a huge David Grey fan, so that is high praise indeed.

Mike says that driving around with no real purpose at night with me always reminds him of this one time that we were having a disagreement and he needed to drive to clear his head, but he let me come with him. And we drove and drove and listened to music, and things seemed easier after that. The frosty run was much like that . . . although we weren’t in a fight, it was a nice change from the routine our lives had been in lately. When we got home, things seemed easier, somehow. Not so dull.

Mike’s going away this weekend, to ride rollercoasters with some guys from church. Tomorrow night, some of the wives who have been left behind (hey, we should write a book about that! Better yet, a whole series!) are having dinner together, but tonight will just be me, some wine, and some ironing (I have gotten way behind in the ironing).

As we drove home last night from dinner with some friends, we talked last night about how our lives take different turns than we expect, and how hard and exciting and scary and disappointing it can be all in one. And we listened to David Grey again, and Waterdeep, and all these songs that make us think of summer. And Mike held my hand and let me cry.

Dear Kari,

Hope you are well and enjoying the beautiful springtime! Grandpa and I are doing OK - for old folks!

Just wanted you to know that we are having an open house/housewarming for your Uncle Buddy on Sunday afternoon, April 24, from 2:00 - 5:00. As you know he has just renovated the old homeplace and is now living in it. We’d like for you and Mike to come if you can. Your mom is bringing a gift from your family, so you won’t need to bring anything. I think you would enjoy seeing how the house is fixed up now. This is the house that I grew up in, and in which Grandpa and I lived with the children for several years. It is part of your heritage!

Please know I think of you often and love you dearly.

Always, Grandma

When I opened this letter last night, I think I squealed a little bit. I knew that Uncle Buddy (Grandma’s brother) had been working on the old farmhouse, but I didn’t know he was done. (Mom never tells me anything.) Although it is the house where Grandma was born and where Mom grew up, I have never seen the inside of it. I’ve never even been in the yard (at least that I remember). It’s across the street from my grandparents’ house, but that’s as close as I have ever been.

That’s not because Uncle Buddy didn’t want me over there. On the contrary, Uncle Buddy is a very loving man. He’s pretty quiet, so I don’t know him that well, but I have seen him help Grandma out pretty much every day since Grandpa had his stroke four-and-a-half years ago. The reason I have never even been in the yard is because Uncle Buddy’s wife (someone I have never met) was living in the house, and he was living in a trailer in the yard. I don’t know all the details, but I know she is not mentally well (even to the point that he had to send the children away - some lived with Grandma and some lived with Aunt Ruby), but Uncle Buddy never divorced her. Sometime in the past year or so, he convinced her to move to the trailer so he could fix up the house. He hadn’t been inside it in years, and he found that it was in complete shambles. The floor had fallen all the way to the ground in some places, the plumbing didn’t work, there were bugs everywhere . . . it was a complete disaster. And so, he sold one of the fields he had to a neighbor and raised the money to start working on the house.

The story of Uncle Buddy’s wife has always affected me deeply, because one year for Christmas, Grandma filled out one of those “Grandma’s Memories” journals for me, and said things like:

My biggest disappointment is probably not being able to establish a relationship wtih my sister-in-law (my brother’s wife). I had to give up on that a long time ago when I realized it was seemingly impossible. God has been with me through this and given me peace.

I have seen God work in our family by giving Buddy the strength to deal with the almost impossible situation in his home life and by trusting him to give all of us the wisdom and forgiving spirits to deal with the above situation.

I have experienced God’s clear guidance when your grandpa and I decided to build the house we’re living in, even though it meant leaving the house that we loved. I’ll explain this to you sometime if you’d like.

She never did explain it to me, but Mom and her sister Nancy filled in the holes a bit. It’s one of the reasons I admire Uncle Buddy so much, because he tried to do the right thing by not leaving his wife, even though the situation was hard. And he tried to do his best for his children by sending them to live with his sisters. I see my grandma as such a loving person, and it breaks my heart to know how hard the whole thing was for her. I know it was because of her love for her brother and her love for his children - Mom said that her cousins used to come over and ask them for food, because their mom would put them outside all day long and not feed them, not change the baby’s diaper, not take care of them at all. I am sure that Grandma, a fierce protector, had a hard time knowing what to do.

I have heard a bit about the house from Mom as well. She says she remembers that the four rooms on the first floor were all connected, and that she would ride her tricycle around and around and around. Grandma says her earliest memory of the house is:

The large farm kitchen with the open fireplace, the wood stove for cooking, the high ceiling, the oil lamps, and lots of rocking chairs.

I used to ride my bike past the house sometimes and look at it. It was almost as if Boo Radley lived there or something. When I was small, all I knew was that that was where Mom grew up, but that we didn’t talk about it. I am proud of Uncle Buddy for all the hard work he did, and for facing those ghosts. And so, I am really excited to go this weekend and see it. I can see those four rooms my mom talked about, and walk in the yard I’ve heard so much about. I have seen Grandma be so excited about this project over the past year, and I can’t wait to see her (and my mom) there after all this time.

It seems like we’re in a bit of a holding pattern these days. Mike’s busy with school things, and that makes it feel like we’ve got big changes coming up for some reason. I think we do have a lot to look forward to this summer - vacation and a Patty Griffin concert and Harry Potter all come to mind. But I don’t want to be waiting for those things. I want to be enjoying life, too.

At times, I have said that I think my posts are boring when I am not reading (which is usually because I am in the middle of a book I’m not enjoying, so I don’t pick it up). I am wondering lately if my posts are sometimes boring when I read too much. At the beginning of the year, I set a goal for the number of books I would like to read this year, and while it’s not unreasonable, flying through books just to be through with them is not necessarily the best thing. I get caught up, too, in the fact that there are so many books I could be reading. I see books I’d like to read pretty much every single day. I haven’t talked much about books lately, partly because some of the things I have read have really hit home for me, and partly because I’ve been getting through books just to be getting through them. And I wonder if I haven’t been using reading as escapism from the mundane, like I talked about not so long ago.

Regardless, there have been two books lately that I really enjoyed, and would like to recommend. The first is Real Sex by Lauren Winner. I am no good at book reviews, so I’ll just say that I appreciated her discussion of the importance of discussing sex in the Christian community as well as her own vulnerability in talking about these issues. I thought that she had some very good insight. I’ve actually asked Mike if we can read it together this summer, and I would especially recommend it for people working with youth or singles. When I was coming up in youth group and stuff, True Love Waits was all the rage. I signed the card, but that wasn’t what helped me make the right choices. My parents and their commitment to answering any question I had are what helped me make the right choices. Scaring people with STDs isn’t going to keep them from having sex. It can’t be about, “How far can I go?” We have to learn how to convey more than just rules. We have to convey why purity is so important. I don’t think that’s easy, but I think this book is a start. And so, my girl crush continues.

The other book that I highly recommend is Glittering Images by Susan Howatch. It was recommended to me back in the fall, and I checked it out but never started it. Eventually I returned it, only to see it recommended again by Kristen. I think part of my problem is that the cover here at the library is seriously unappealing. However, the book was very good - it deals with how easy it is to get tied up in projecting the right kind of image, and how we can let those images control us. I honestly wasn’t sure where the story was headed, because some of the things I expected to happen happened early on in the book, which left room for all kinds of other interesting things. I have checked out the second book in the series, Glamorous Powers, and I’m looking forward to it.

I’m currently reading The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. Also on my desk? The aforementioned Glamorous Powers and a copy of Shelf Life.

Sometimes I forget that change comes slowly, and that we can’t expect too much of ourselves. I think sometimes that I am learning about expressing my opinions and being vulnerable, and then something like last night happens, and I realize I haven’t made as much progress as I would want.

Last night at small group, the introduction to our study was the following two questions: “What are some things you find impressive?” and “What are some things that cause you to be saddened?” My first instinct was to say “childbirth” or “a newborn baby” for the first one, but as I was the only woman in the room who hadn’t given birth, I kept my mouth shut. And then the conversation turned a different way - to the Grand Canyon and to Niagara Falls and oceans and mountains and other beautiful things like that. Things that are indeed truly impressive. I had other answers, but they didn’t seem to fit with the conversation.

For the second question, the answers were, of course, things like September 11 and the Oklahoma City bombing (I actually said that one) and the recent tsunami. Several of my friends work with the poor in Greensboro, so I think the issues related to the tsunami hit home for them more than they do for me. It’s not that I don’t care about the poor, just that, for me, those issues aren’t the ones I think about on a daily basis. September 11 greatly saddened me (to the point that I am still writing about and working through my feelings about it), and yet, it didn’t affect me on a daily basis. I don’t know anyone who died. I don’t live or work in New York City. Columbine was another thing that threw me off kilter emotionally (my brother was still in high school and his school received bomb threats, which freaked me out), but, again, I didn’t lose anyone close to me. I wanted to say those things last night, to take it to a more personal level, but I lost my nerve. I was afraid of being inarticulate, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

You want to know the things that impress me? Childbirth and newborn babies. Forgiveness, especially when it’s hard. Love. Courage in the face of extreme situations, either physical or emotional. Marriages that have lasted a long time. You want to know the things that make me sad? Loneliness. When friendships fall apart. When my friends’ marriages fail. When people die young and those of us who are left still feel like we need them. When people I know have miscarriages.

I think I was on a micro level while my friends were on a macro level last night. It’s not that either set of answers is right or wrong . . . it’s just a different way of looking at the world. I think, though, that I missed the opportunity to be vulnerable with my friends, both about the things that are important to me and about the way I see the world. I can’t go back and change the way I responded last night, but I can try to be more forthcoming in the future.

Check out the cover of the most recent issue of Library Journal:

Now Halo is invading my peaceful library world! I can’t get away from it!

(I can hear Mike cackling even now.)

Sometimes my heart feels so full that it’s hard to find words to express myself. I have felt that way a bit lately, like everything I’ve written has been lacking in quality because I don’t know how to say the things that are on my heart.

Yesterday afternoon, Mike worked on some computer issues while I scrapbooked (I think it’s funny that “scrapbooking” is used as a verb these days). I did a couple of pages and then realized that we had been sitting in silence for quite some time. It was a good silence, though, one of companionship and hard work and open windows and spring breezes. I let it continue for a while longer, and then we decided to put in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (which was funnier than I expected - I heard not-so-good things about it). And that was nice, too. My favorite part was when Bridget was in the Thai prison and she was telling the other girls about her “bad boyfriend,” and they started telling her how their boyfriends beat them and stole their money. I said something about how Bridget’s situation wasn’t on the same level at all, and then Bridget said that he abandoned her at a lawyer party and seemed embarassed to be with her. And Mike turned to me and said, “Not to be taking her side, but that is really important.” Obviously it’s not quite the same thing as abuse or theft, but it’s nice to know he understands the importance of the emotional side, too.

This was the weekend of the blue blazer. On Saturday and Sunday, Mike paired Hawaiian shirts with a blue blazer he inherited from my brother, jeans, and his Birkenstocks. He considered wearing his Tilley hat, but decided that was over the top. He wore this to the movies with Charles and Brian on Saturday. He wore it to church and a cookout on Sunday. And, you know, I want him to wear what makes him happy, so I have no comment other than that. My favorite blazer moment? Mike walking up to some of the children at the cookout (kids of people in our Sunday School class) and saying, “Hi, I’m Mr. Blazer.”

I had lunch outside today, and my nose is now a little pink. The weather was wonderful this weekend, I am almost done with a book I enjoyed very much, we had a wonderful time with the Bassetts and the Shearers this weekend, our vacation plans are finally cemented, and Mike and I had a lovely day yesterday. This week is already looking better than last week.

This has been a long week. I woke up yesterday and was horrified to realize it was only Thursday. Others in my department said they felt the same way. I don’t know what’s been so long about it - maybe it was the concert at the library on Tuesday night combined with the fact that I’m doing the final ordering for the fiscal year (math is hard! Just kidding) combined with the stress of trying to coordinate with at least five other people to plan our vacation (and a possible trip to Atlanta and a possible trip to see my brother in Connecticut) combined with the amazing amount of data entry that I had to do on Wednesday (Kari to Alisa: “I never want to see another ISBN number”) that made my shoulders so sore that they hurt all day Thursday until Mike gave me a backrub, homemade salsa, and a glass of wine last night. Which brings us to Friday. Sweet, sweet Friday.

This weekend should be fun - some hanging out with the Shearers and the Bassetts (we’re going to get Joe to admit that Mike is real and not just a Photoshop creation), spring weather, a church cookout . . . only two and a half more hours until relaxation is here.

While doing the summer ordering, I keep coming across A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby.

Every. Single. Time. I see it, I start singing in my head, “Your love is better than ice cream, better than anything else that I’ve tried . . .” This is fine, except that I will still be singing it hours later, and I will think, “Why am I singing this?” And this has happened three days this week so far.

I wonder if I’ll even be able to read the book, or if I’ll get too distracted thinking about Sarah McLachlan and how that song reminds me of my freshman year and that trip I took to Florida and how we used to play it over and over and over and I put it on a mix tape and what in the world does any of this have to do with people who are considering suicide?

So that’s the weird connection my brain has been making lately.

Some people think God is in the details,
but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom. -Anne Lamott

Last Wednesday I was at church, and I got a little nervous about the meeting I was going to (I had never been to Wednesday night meetings before), so I ducked into the bathroom and prayed. While I was there, I thought about how many times over the years I have prayed in church bathrooms, and I thought about the quote above, and I laughed. Well, I laughed in my head, at least, because I didn’t want to suddenly become “the crazy lady laughing in the next stall.”

I think the church bathroom is a good place to pray because bathrooms are usually cool (temperature-wise), there’s a place to sit down, you get privacy, and you can stay there as long as you want. And there’s toilet paper if you feel the need to cry. Our old church had really cold bathrooms, which aren’t great when it means cold toilet seats on a January morning, but are nice when you’ve let stress make you feel overheated. Our current church has two different bathrooms that I alternate between - one with lots of stalls that’s more public (when you don’t want to wallow) and one that’s behind the fellowship hall that has a rockin’ mirror that makes me look tall. (In fact, I am not the only one who uses that bathroom just for the mirror. I often find a crowd in there on Sunday mornings, just admiring.)

Besides all those practical reasons, I find church bathrooms to be one of the best places to pray because they make me stop for a minute and breathe. I sit down and breathe in the cool air and lean over until I can feel my heart pounding against my legs. I pray in the church bathroom because, despite how crazy it sounds, I have found God’s peace there too many times to ignore it. Away from the hustle and bustle of Sunday School and crowded hallways and friendly greetings (which are all good things), I find the silence I sometimes need to work out the things that God is stirring up in me, or to calm the things I’m allowing circumstances to stir up, or just snatch a minute to myself to prepare my heart for worship.

Last week I made a quick dash into the upstairs bathroom, the more public one, because I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and just needed a quick moment of prayer to myself. I sat in the stall, my eyes following the patterns of the tiles on the floor, and I thought, “I have been doing this a long time.” And that gave me courage to go to this meeting, despite the fact that it was new and I’d never done anything like it before.

I feel like I’ve been praying in church bathrooms my whole life. I remember doing it from the time I was very small, when I would lean over and look down at my shiny Mary Janes and ask God for whatever the big thing was in my life at the time. “Bless my family,” or, “Please let my daddy get better,” or, “Let mommy not worry about money.” And I would thank God for listening, because I knew he came everywhere with me, even if the bathroom wasn’t where you’d imagine that he might want to hang out. Even when my faith has been at its most strained and I wasn’t sure it would survive, I’d step into a bathroom and the very act of being there would make me breathe and pray, even if I was just saying, “Help,” and not really expecting an answer. Until last week, I had never thought about how much I depended on those moments in the stall by myself. Or not by myself, since God was there, in the women’s restroom, with me.

Wedding season is about to begin. I always kind of dread it, because weddings are hard on me emotionally. I see all the families there and I tend to get jealous, and I hate that I am getting jealous, and suddenly all I am doing is focusing on myself and why am I not thinking about my friend? I sit there thinking about how nice it is that all the parents showed up and are being polite and how I wish I could have had that. I wish I could have a good relationship with them, but I try not to spend a lot of time thinking about it, because it’s fruitless to worry about a situation that isn’t likely to improve.

(Baby showers are hard, too. Imagining my mother-in-law coming to a baby shower of mine is like imagining an elephant flying on a rainbow through a sky of chocolate clouds. I mean, you can imagine it, but it’s so preposterous and unlikely. But there’s not really a “baby season.”)

Last year I was at a wedding where the families were all behaving nicely and the green monster was rising up inside me, and then I realized that I was seeing things in a much too black-and-white kind of way. Because I had heard the bride talking about her family and the groom’s family, and how hard some of those relationships are. And it was like a lightbulb went on inside my head, and I realized, “Families are hard for everyone! It doesn’t have to be a dramatic estrangement for there to be hard feelings! No one’s family is perfect! Just because they show up, it doesn’t mean that things are any easier relationship-wise!”

Maybe that’s not a revelation for most people. But, as much as I loved our wedding, there’s a part of me that feels ashamed that Mike’s parents weren’t there, that we had to explain it. Maybe it’s thinking of myself as second-class, and maybe it’s just normal to feel a sadness and a bit of shame about the loss of those relationships. Probably it’s a little of both. But as wedding season approaches this year, I’m going to try to keep perspective. Everyone has family troubles. I’m going to try to stop letting the shame and the jealousy paralyze me. No one has a fairytale life, even if they try to project one. I’m going to smile, and breathe, and hold Mike’s hand a little tighter. We’ll get through this wedding season, just like we always do. And maybe this year it will hurt a little less. Maybe this will be the year when I finally learn these lessons.

On Friday, Mike and I helped out with the youth group scavenger hunt. We don’t normally help out with the youth, both because I guard my out of work time ferociously and because, let’s face it, working with youth is scary. But our friend needed some help, so we agreed.

I had a rotten day on Friday - nearly got in a car wreck on the way to work, was feeling a little overwhelmed with budget issues, got caught in a rainstorm while trying to add oil to my mom’s car . . . just general yucky stuff. I was feeling a bit ragged by the time I finally got to the house for the scavenger hunt, but I loaded up on caffeine hoping to keep a good attitude. I was also encouraged when I realized we would only have about an hour and fifteen minutes for the hunt. I had had visions of driving around Greensboro until 11:00, and I had to work on Saturday, so I couldn’t stay up that late.

The rules were as follows: We had to find an item for each letter of the alphabet. We could not purchase anything. We could not use anything we already owned. We could only get one thing from each place we went. We’d be divided into teams of two cars (Mike and I each driving one car) and our cars had to stick together. And, the most important rule (by our calculations) was that items went by their name brand. So a box of Froot Loops would be an F, not a C.

Since we still don’t know a whole lot of the youth and their families, it seemed easiest for us to just go somewhere that had lots of different places. So, armed with our cell phones so our two cars could communicate easily, we went to Friendly Center, which is where we got most everything. Here’s our list of items:

A - August Max bag
B - Bear Rock menu
C - Caribou Coffee cup (we got extra points for all the Cs, like Scattegories)
D - dirt
E - Eckerd’s bag
F - a flower
G - Great Outdoor Provision Company bag
H - Harris Teeter bag
I - I Natural bag
J - Jos. A Banks business card
K - Kyoto Fantasy Express menu
L - Lady Foot Locker bag
M - Macaroni Grill menu
N - napkins from Barnes and Noble
O - Old Navy credit card application
P - Palm Avenue credit card application
Q - Qdoba menu
R - Rack Room Shoes bag
S - straw from McDonald’s (or spoon from Coldstone - I think we doubled up accidentally)
T - Trident gum
U - UNCG baseball schedule
V - Victoria’s Secret bag (yes, I sent an 11-year-old girl into Vicky’s. no, I am not allowed to help with youth events ever again)
W - Wachovia envelope
X - X-box advertisement (from EB Games)
Y - Yum Yum’s menu
Z - Zippo lighter borrowed from a friend

That’s right, we got something for every letter. With under ten minutes left, we were desperate to find a Z, and we were close to our friend Danny’s house, so we called him and asked him if he had anything we could borrow that started with Z. Sure enough, he let us borrow his Zippo, and we quickly drove back to the house to return our items. And, since we were the only team who got something for every letter (even though I think some of those are a bit questionable at best), we won! What do the winners get? Well, glory. And we got to eat our ice cream sundaes first. hehe.

Both of us had a lot of fun, and I hope we get to help out at more things like this in the future. Our two cars had middle school kids, and I prefer that age to high schoolers. They’re so awkward, and I remember how hard that was. I enjoyed getting to know the four in my car a bit as we drove around. All in all, I’d say our first venture into youth work went pretty well.

Come, all you who are not satisfied
as ruler in a lone, wallpapered room
full of mute birds, and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!

Come, let us sweep the old streets–like a bride;
sweep out dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as though he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.

We’ll sweep out shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame–and in its place we’ll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing. -Aaron Kramer

I am not a big poetry person, but this was at the beginning of Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer, which I am currently reading for the first time, and the weather and the idea of Spring as the groom we are anxiously waiting for really resonated with me, so I thought I’d share it here.

I have this fantasy in my head that one day we will meet. Not by accident, although my brain isn’t giving me any clues as to how we will know to meet at that particular coffeeshop on that particular day, just that it was arranged and agreed upon. We’re older, at least five years from now, and, since it’s my fantasy, I have fabulous hair. In my mind, we’re somewhere urban, like DC or New York or even Boston, and we sit and have coffee (she never drank coffee, though) and talk like civilized people. An official breakup of sorts, I suppose, though I don’t have a box of things to give back to her, and the only thing I want back is the key to my heart.

In my fantasy, it will go well (where “well” is that there’s no yelling and I don’t cry), and we will part ways at the end and there will be closure. There won’t be any hugs, because our relationship doesn’t warrant that anymore. As we leave the coffeeshop, she’ll turn right and I’ll turn left, and that will be the last we see of each other.

I assumed Jesus wanted me to forgive her, but I also know he loves honesty and transparency. I don’t think he was rolling his eyes impatiently at me while she was in the closet. I don’t think much surprises him: this is how we make important changes — barely, poorly, slowly. And still, he raises his fist in triumph. - Anne Lamott, Plan B

I read Anne Lamott’s new book, and I agree with the reviews that said it’s not quite as good as Traveling Mercies, but I still enjoyed it. There was still plenty of stuff that had me laughing out loud, plenty of things I kept reading to Mike.

I started reading it at lunchtime one day, and when I got to the chapter about her mother, I really lost it. I have a good relationship with my mother, but there are definitely some other people I need to forgive for some very deep hurts. I keep rushing myself, thinking, “It’s been enough time, why am I still struggling with this?” Mike and many of my friends say the fact that I am struggling with it, that I’m not content in my anger and lack of forgiveness is enough for now, that it’s not a science and I can’t expect things to work on timelines. I believe them, I know they are right, and yet none of their encouragement has hit me like the above quote did. I need to be reminded that Jesus isn’t getting impatient with me, and that he understands what a victory things like forgiveness can be for those of us here on earth. That forgiveness is not about something you check off your list or you do out of fear that your own trespasses won’t be forgiven. It’s about healing, because that’s what God wants for us.

The fact that I want closure, the fact that I imagine how it will be (and that there’s no yelling) is enough for me right now. I’m getting there.

This was drafted earlier this week, if the timeline seems a bit wonky.

I seem to be doing a lot of things rather badly lately, so I’m sitting here trying to work it out with words, because that’s something that usually helps, an area where I have hope that I won’t completely foul things up.

Last week was just a crummy week, for all kinds of reasons. My car was on the fritz and I wasn’t sleeping well and I felt like I was doing a crappy job at work and we had a lot of people coming in wanting to check out this website that we are pretty sure is a scam (which left us unsure of the best way to help them - we don’t want to help anyone get scammed) and I was just tired all the time and Mike’s sister was coming to visit (a case where you want the house to be spotless, because you want your husband’s family to think you are taking good care of him). And there were some other things going on personally, as well. Mike had a bunch of work (go bug him to tell you about the test he got 103 on) and so I didn’t want to burden him about all of that - he knew I was having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week, but not the extent of it.

Not until today, at least, when I had my specialty - the scene where Kari-breaks-down-and-claims-to-be-a-complete-failure-much-to-the-surprise-and-horror-of-Mike. Complete with waterworks. I won’t claim that it was a perfect conversation, because it took a while for us to be on the same page, but in situations like that, I’m always pleasantly surprised by how similarly Mike and I see things. I just needed to make sure that we were still working together as a team and Mike needed to let me know some ways that he needed more support. (”What should our team name be?” “Team Liger.” *highfive*)

The idea of the two of us as a team has been on my mind a lot lately. We have talked recently about a couple of difficulties we’ve been facing in relationships (not with each other), and come away with ideas on how to tackle those things together, how to work better in tandem. Often I find myself waiting passively for Mike to act, because I think that’s what a wife “should” do. Lately we have talked more about having a plan before awkward relationship situations, so that both of us know what is expected of us. Mike might need more support and more vocalization from me, while I might need for him to set limits and be more vocal about what we will and will not tolerate when it comes to other people’s coarse joking. If we are better about negotiating these expectations beforehand, both of us can deal with the situations better when they arise. When discussing this, Mike said he wasn’t sure that implementation would be any easier with or without a plan, and I can see that. But I told him that having a plan would set me free from stress in a lot of ways. Like, we have decided that we will not tolerate these three things, but these three things we will let slide. So, if something is said in the second group, we let it slide, not because we are passive or afraid to speak or because we are letting others control the conversation, but because that is what we have agreed to do. That makes me feel a lot less powerless, less controlled by external factors.

Some of that seems like common sense, but there was a situation over the weekend where I was afraid to act because I feared certain consequences. Mike, on the other hand, did not expect those same consequences, so he didn’t feel trapped like I did. Both of us were assuming the other felt the same way, when that simply wasn’t the case. Just being able to discuss it and realize that we had different feelings/expectations feels like a huge victory.

I don’t know what it is, but lately we seem to have gotten in a really good groove of working together and communicating. I feel more like a team than ever before - not that we weren’t trying before, but I think becoming “one flesh” takes more than just a marriage ceremony. It takes time and patience and forgiveness and smoothing out the rough edges. But we are getting there. Sometimes I can’t see it, but today I can.

At one of the more stressful points last night, I turned to Mike and said, “I’m sorry. This is all my fault. You wouldn’t care about this game if not for me.” Later on, when things were looking better, I said, “But, you know, I wouldn’t have cared so much when the Panthers lost the Superbowl if not for you. So I guess we’re even.”

Except that Carolina won last night, and we’re still waiting for that Panthers Superbowl victory.

After the game was over, when the teams were cutting down the nets and we were waiting for “One Shining Moment,” we stretched out on the floor, content in the feelings of watching your favorite team win a national championship. “How do you feel?” I asked. “You have never experienced this before.” Mike said he felt good. When I called him to ask him something earlier this morning, he said with wonder in his voice, “My team won the national championship.” It takes a while to sink in.

One thing I realized yesterday is that I always feel like I have to apologize for being a Carolina fan. Not for the team - even when they were 8-20, I was still a fan, and I figured it was probably good for most of the Carolina fans to experience a bad year or two. And I may not like all the punks on the team at any given time, but every team has players like that. No, pulling for Carolina reminds me of middle school, when all the popular kids were NC State fans or bandwagon Duke fans. I stuck by Carolina, even though the only other Carolina fan was one of the least popular girls in the class, and the Carolina shirt that she would wear after the team won had holes in it. I didn’t want to be like her, but I had been raised as a Carolina fan, and I just couldn’t change that. I remember watching my mom and dad cheer for Carolina (this was before my dad defected to Duke) from a very young age. “We are a Carolina family,” my mom told me, despite the fact that three of her four brothers went to NC State. And she told me all about Dean Smith and the Carolina Way of praising the seniors and keeping the freshmen in their place. The way that we never take timeouts but always wait for the TV timeout. Four Corners and Michael Jordan and 1982 (which I am too young to remember). (My dad’s only contribution to my basketball education was this: “Clemson is the armpit of the world.” You can see why I stuck with mom when Dad switched over.)

(Completely off-topic, but you should hear my mom tell the story of how, when she played for her high school basketball team, she made the game-winning free throws in one game. My dad claims that she still makes him kiss the newspaper article that featured the story. I got his sense of humor but none of her athletic ability.)

I guess some people see my team as being like the Yankees, an evil empire. Since we don’t have tons of national championships, I don’t see it in that same way, although I can’t deny that we consistently perform well. (In fact, to channel Mr. Darcy a bit, I have no wish to deny it. hee.) To me, Duke is more of an evil empire, and being a Duke fan is more akin to being a Yankees fan. Because of those middle school experiences, being a Carolina fan was always more of an underdog thing for me, as crazy as that sounds. I don’t get the hate because I was the one who was ostracized for being a fan, made fun of, instead of the other way around. I don’t say this to rile anyone up, but because these are honestly my experiences, and I think they explain a bit about why I respond to things the way I do.

I have been thinking a lot about my opinions and my preferences the past few days, and the reasons why I often feel like I have to apologize for them. Geof and Trey don’t apologize for being Duke fans. The Hollands don’t apologize for loving Georgia Tech. Scott doesn’t apologize for his Clemson love. And none of those people apologize for hating my team. I admire people who can state their preferences so clearly and without fear of recriminations.

I had a conversation this morning about how I often feel that my thoughts, my opinions, are invalid. I have talked about that here more than once, but I don’t know that I have made a lot of progress until recently. A few things this year, including the studies I did during Lent, are helping me grow a bit in that area, helping me come to value what I believe as well. This morning, the friend said, “You listen to others and make sure their opinons are represented and valued, but you often disrespect your own opinions or seem to consider them less worthy.” I must admit, I do that. So, in the spirit of growth and progress, let me just say: My team won last night. And I am proud to be a fan. I’m never going to be much of a trash talker (except with my dad), but I am not going to apologize anymore.

(That was kind of hard. But I am trying.)

You know who you are.

Be sure and pick up your copy of TV Guide this week. There are two covers - one Rory/Logan, one Luke/Lorelai. I think we all know which one I got. And which one I had to get for Mike. hehehe.

I have discovered the secret to overcoming Daylight Savings Time. If you sleep like crap the week beforehand (as I did), you won’t be on any kind of schedule and your body won’t have such a problem adjusting. This morning it didn’t feel like 5:30 when my alarm went off. It felt like 6:30, because that’s what my clock said. I am glad to share this secret with you so that next year you too will be able to make an easy transition.

One of my favorite times of the year will be drawing to a close tonight. Sure, you might say, it’s easy for you to be a fan, because your team is in the final game. True, but I love watching the tournament regardless. Ask my friend Theresa. We met for a couple of years on Friday afternoons to do Bible study. There was one Friday in March, though, where I insisted that we watch the tournament instead. She was horrified to find out that there were games all afternoon and complained bitterly to all who would listen about my poor treatment of her. (Imagine my surprise and pride when she emailed me to ask me if I’d watched her beloved NC State beat UConn in the tournament, because she was pretty anxious there for a while. My response: “Is this actually Theresa? Because I don’t remember Theresa watching basketball except under extreme duress.” I haven’t heard back yet.) Ask my friends who still think I’m a Maryland fan because I wore red to their 2001 Final Four party (Maryland was playing Duke, what can I say?) and their 2002 Final Four party (I had a hard time deciding which Coach Williams I was rooting for in that game, but ultimately my ACC loyalties won out over my affection for Roy). Ask my dad, who always says, “You’re taking this a little too seriously.” My response? “Put mom on the phone.” hehe.

I am known among my friends for following basketball pretty closely. There was that time early this season when I was in Greensboro and couldn’t find a score for the Carolina/Kentucky game so I called Brian and made him check it on ESPN.com (much to his dismay). He says I have a problem. There’s the frantic call we made from the Atlanta airport a few weeks ago when we were trying to find out whether NC State had been able to pull it out against Duke. There are the grudges I hold against Boston College and Weber State. There’s the funk I was in after the Wake/West Virginia game a few weeks ago. There’s the fact that I get so excited before the tournament that you’d think it was Christmas for me. There’s also that little detail about how I told Mike that if he wanted us to be together, he’d have to learn to like basketball (hey, I learned football for him!) and he would have to be a Carolina fan.

Apparently I am getting to be known that way at work, as well. On Friday afternoon, some of the circulation staff was discussing the Carolina/Michigan State game, and they couldn’t remember what time it was going to be. “Go ask Kari,” they said. “She’ll know.” (I did.) Two of the guys here and I have been discussing our brackets ad nauseum. On Saturdays during basketball season, my coworker and I always set our computers to update with the scores. I’m the one who was updating everyone on the first two days of the NCAA tournament. I’ve already exchanged high fives and cautiously optimistic statements about the game tonight with a couple of coworkers, and everyone is asking me if I’m excited. (Yes.)

On Saturday, just before the second game tipped off, one of my friends and I were talking, and I said, “You know, I consider myself pretty lucky. I’ve calmed down a lot, so it’s not like Carolina losing a game ruins my day like it used to. But at the height of my crazed fandom, when I knew every player’s stats and watched or listened to every game, my team won a national championship. That’s not a bad deal. A lot of people can’t say that.” She said it was much the same for her.

Win or lose tonight, this has been a great season. One that I’ll remember for a long time. And no matter what happens tonight, I’ll be a little sad tomorrow that the season of buzzer-beaters and ACC loyalties, crazed overtime games and basketball from noon until midnight will be over. I like baseball, to be sure, but it’s nothing like basketball for me. On the first day of the tournament, I had the day off, and Mike and I were watching the games all afternoon. I fell asleep on the floor during one game, and woke up to a completely different game. I turned to Mike and grinned, saying, “This is the life. You fall asleep, and basketball is on. You wake up, and it’s still on. This is the best time of the year.”

“I think Billy Packer wants to marry Sean May’s hands. He keeps talking about how great his hands are.”