Through a Glass, Darkly

[This is my favorite thing that I wrote in college.]

I would like to share with you an invention I am fairly sure you are not acquainted with. It is a little gadget in my car that I have found to be extremely useful. It’s located on a handle on the left-hand side of my steering wheel along with the driving lights. I believe the name for it is a “turn signal.”

The turn signal is a marvelous thing. It’s quite interesting, really, that the use of it has not caught on. From what I gather from reading my car manual, the signal should be used to alert other drivers when one is changing lanes, passing another car, or, of course, turning. By pushing the handle up or down, you can either signal to the right or the left, and apparently, lights on the front and back of your car flash accordingly. If used properly, each driver on the road will know the intentions of every other driver. Accidents could be avoided and road rage would, in many cases, be greatly diminished.

Unfortunately, every day we are presented wtih examples of people who are not aware of this fantastic device. Why, just today on my way home I counted at least three people who did not properly signal when changing lanes. One of these tragically misinformed people was actually smart enough to use her cellular phone and drive at the same time, a task I would estimate to be much harder than using a turn signal. If this woman and others like her were only aware of their turn signals, they would certainly use them upon every available opportunity. We need to open the miracles of modern technology to drivers like these, capable people who must be simply ignorant of the wonders their vehicles possess. Think of all the misguided drivers who, when turning, simply slow down (usually directly in front of another innocent driver). If they only knew that there was a way to keep other drivers from using their horn and making obscene gestures, they would most certainly take advantage of it.

There are some over-zealous drivers who, upon discovering the turn signal, feel that they should let everyone know of its existence by leaving it on all the time. This, unfortunately, is not the proper use of the turn signal. While not only confusing and distracting other drivers by signaling when there is no intention of turning, it can also be quite annoying for passengers in the said car, as the signal makes a repetitive clicking sound audible within the car until the turn or lane change is completed. Proper turn signal etiquette involves signaling a reasonable distance before turning, preferably before brakes have been used. The generally accepted distance varies depending on the driving speed.

The rules are less strict when it comes to lane changes, but one should always remember that the signal should never be used as an excuse for cutting people off in the desired lane. A signal does not guarantee entry into a lane where there is, in fact, not room for your car. Another important point is to always take care to signal the direction you intend to turn. Again, it can greatly confuse other drivers when you are signaling to the left and turn to the right.

On a personal note, I have heard that North Carolinians are reported to be notorious for not signaling. My fellow statesmen and women, we cannot continue to let others mock us in this way. By simply signaling, we can show them that we are not stupid Southern rednecks, but that we are fully aware of how to properly operate our vehicles, pickup trucks though they may be.

I hope that upon the discovery of this innovative invention, you will join me in championing the turn signal. A national campaign could be very useful in informing people of this device and its marvelous uses. I encourage you to use your turn signal upon every available opportunity, keeping in mind the golden rules of turn signal etiquette outlined for you above. If America wants to stay competitive globally, we need to start taking advantage of our technology. We must, therefore, take this information to the streets, the highways, and the dirt roads of America. Remember, the turn signal is not just a useful item that can save many lives and tempers. Our position as a world leader could depend on it.

Evangelism.

That’s a pretty scary word, and something Mike and I have been talking about more lately. As both of us have been encountering the gospel in new ways recently, we’ve mentioned a few times that we don’t know what grown-up evangelism looks like. My experiences with “evangelism” have been pretty negative overall - the most negative being in college, when I was in a workshop where, in twenty minutes or so, we were supposed to take “our story” and put it in a three minute presentation that ended in a gospel message. Now, in my respectful way, I would like to say that I am sure there is a place for that kind of thing, but I have never personally found what it is. I always thought it ludicrous to assume that anyone’s story, even the Cliffs Notes version, could be reduced to three minutes. The story was supposed to hinge on a “salvation moment,” which is great for those gun-toting drug addicted prostitutes who come to Christ, but not so easy to pinpoint when you’ve gone to church your whole life and you “said the prayer” when you were two. I remember crying as I was asked over and over, “Don’t you have a moment where you realized that it was all true? Didn’t you ever have a rebellious period?” I have seen my faith journey more as moving along a spectrum of knowledge and understanding, and those questions always made me wonder about the validity of my faith, if it was somehow not genuine if I couldn’t think of a turning point. Instead of celebrating my story, which I think is one of the most important aspects of Christianity, my story as I have experienced it was invalidated and disrespected in that setting.

Last night the discussion at church was on evangelism, which I was excited about because I thought that hearing thoughts on evangelism in a multi-generational setting might help me sort out some of my feelings. The discussion was good - I always wonder if I’m copping out by saying that I want evangelism to be most evident in my life, but our pastor pointed out that one of the main keys to evangelism is being authentic and not editing yourself. I think I do an okay job of not editing myself (i.e. saying things about praying or the Bible if that’s really what I’ve been doing or thinking about), but it’s a good challenge to think about.

Pondering these things on the way home, I thought about how skittish I am about inviting people to church. In college, I attended a campus fellowship religiously (so to speak) for all four years, but I never in those four years ever took a friend. I never invited anyone to our old church, and I’ve never invited anyone to our new church. I don’t know if that’s bad or not, but worship, while communal, is also incredibly personal, and it’s hard for me to invite people into that place.

I can think of a couple of times where I feel like I really got it right. Not that there is an exact science to evangelism, but there are a few times when I stepped out in faith, trying to do the right thing, and . . . it just worked. I can’t say that any of my friends prayed the sinner’s prayer or anything, but those experiences changed me, at least. One of those times was in college, when my favorite study buddy came out to me sometime during our sophomore year, and during our senior year together I decided that, if she didn’t feel comfortable coming with me to IV, then I was going to go with her to PRIDE. On my first time there, we all sat in a circle and everyone shared their coming out stories. Well, everyone who had one, anyway. hehe. I still remember some of their stories (especially the one from the son of a Baptist minister whose mom had an actual heart attack when he told her), and I remember laughing and crying with those people that I didn’t even know that well. And I remember telling a friend, “You know how Christians will sit around and tell each other their conversion stories? It was just like that.”

With that in mind, I went to a conference my senior year where we talked about some of the basics of Christianity and then broke into small groups to . . . I don’t remember what we did, to be honest. But I do remember that my group went to Fazoli’s together for dinner, and the staffworker assigned to our group said (and I quote), “Why don’t we go around and tell our conversion stories!” My nightmare, right? But I remembered my PRIDE friends, and I tried to be honest. I said that my story didn’t fit into a mold like we had been taught, and that I saw my faith as a journey rather than a story with a turning point. And then I said that I didn’t think any of it would mean anything at all if it all happened ten years ago and that was the last I thought about it. So I told them what I was learning then, the disappointment and hurt I was experiencing because of my in-laws and their lack of involvement in my life, and how God was meeting me in that struggle. And then I cried, right there in the middle of Fazoli’s. In the middle of 8 or 10 people I didn’t really know. It wasn’t like me at all, and yet I was being more myself than I had that whole weekend.

Part of the problem is that in wrapping our story or God’s message into a neat little package is that life’s not like that. It’s not that having Jesus in my life makes my life look any easier . . . I still hurt and struggle and things are still hard. It is easier, though, because God is walking with me, but that’s not something that’s easily articulated. It’s not quantifiable.

On the way home, Sara Groves’ song “All Right Here” that I have quoted many times on this blog came up on my iPod, and I just kept repeating it. I thought about the lines I quoted in the title of this entry, and I realized how I want evangelism in my life to be like that - naturally sharing my heart with the people in my life. I still don’t know what that means as far as sharing my faith with my coworkers, but I am trying to change the way I think about the entire issue, with the hope that some of those details will eventually fall into place.

Every once in a while on a summer night
The sunset glows and I see the light
And when the stars come out it dawns on me
There is holy ground underneath my feet

I really really liked Carolyn Arends for a while when I was in high school, and I still enjoy some of her songs on shuffle on my iPod, honestly. But the above has always been one of my favorite of her lyrics, because I know how that feels. I know she’s from Canada, but for me personally, nothing beats those long hot summer evenings in the South. When we were engaged, Mike and I used to take walks around his apartment complex in the evenings and talk. We don’t really do that anymore, but I always loved it, especially in the summer.

I’m not pining for summer quite yet (spring can never be too long as far as I’m concerned), but I’ve caught glimpses of that reverent that the song is talking about: When Mike and I have read on our porch while drinking margaritas as the sun gets low on the horizon, at the Grasshoppers (oh how it pains me to write that) game on Saturday, when we had Mike’s boss over for dinner a few weeks ago and the house was sparkling and the windows were all open.

Things have been busy lately, and I’ve been feeling a little down, but it’s nice to be reminded that good things are coming - things like homemade ice cream and fireflies and Harry Potter and my birthday. We’re going on vacation in a few weeks, and I am hoping we’ll get some nice walks on the beach and lots of reading in a hammock and good time with our friends and family who will be there. I look forward to those tastes of grace (but not too much - I don’t want my dreams to overshadow reality) because summer seems like such a sacred time, and even though I’m working, I don’t want to forget what that feels like.

On Sunday as we said the Lord’s Prayer at church, I struggled a bit when we said, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” On the way to church I was telling Mike about an area in which I am struggling to forgive and in which I am afraid bitterness is starting to creep in. I thought that it had gotten better, that I was past all this, but I’m not. It blew up in my face, and I’m upset, and I have been thinking about it a lot. First I got so upset that I couldn’t eat (very rare for me), then I got so upset I was eating all the time. My pants would like for this part of the cycle to be over. hehe.

If you scroll through the archives, you can see that forgiveness is a topic I struggle with a lot. I do tend to hold grudges (some might say it’s my “thing”) and I think I’ve gotten better, but I think my friends would agree that I still tend to overreact a bit when I’m hurt. Right now I feel really misunderstood and discouraged and just plain mad. It has helped the past few days to pray the Lord’s Prayer every time I think about this situation. When I get to that line, my heart says, “Hear that, God? That means I need you to help me forgive, because I am not doing such a good job, but I know it’s pretty important.”

I used to think I would get to a certain age and have all this stuff figured out. I thought it would get easier. While I don’t think it’s easier, and I have given up all hopes of having things all figured out, I do feel hopeful that I am becoming the kind of person who finds it easier to forgive. I see glimpses of that more often than I used to.

“In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.” -Madeleine L’Engle

I tried to get Mike to post this, but he’s too busy enjoying his summer vacation. So, here it is - the website currently entertaining our house:

Play twenty questions with Darth Vader. (Yes, it is a Burger King site. I like it when the Burger King himself appears. hee hee.)

Yesterday I reached an important milestone: I realized that I am of the age where my mother doesn’t buy my lunch anymore (even though she is the one who suggested we meet for lunch). This is one of those milestones you never want to reach, but there you go. Mike was horrified in a, “Did you do something to piss her off?” kind of way. Which, I don’t think so. hehe.

Other items of interest: I went to apply for my passport yesterday. I wasn’t able to get it yet, because I missed the picture-taking people, but I’ll go back on Thursday morning and get it done. Now I can plan trips out of the country. Where should I go?

The most interesting thing that happened yesterday was that we went to see Revenge of the Sith. I thought the lightsaber duels were good, and the epic battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan lived up to my expectations, but overall it left me kind of cold. Thinking about it today, I wondered if that didn’t at least partly have to do with the fact that the way Anakin was played in Episode II meant that I never understood why Padme fell for his whiny butt. So the whole tragic love story had me shrugging my shoulders. Yoda was awesome, of course, and it was very sad to see everything fall apart (which may be the other reason it left me cold - it was pretty freakin’ sad). And I want to give George Lucas about a million thank-yous for not having as many stupid one-liners for “comedic” relief as he did in the last movie. But, you know, the only thing it did was make me want to watch the original trilogy again. I don’t feel compelled to watch this one again.

After lunch, I helped my mom pick out glasses and then met up with Mike at the theater. When I got there, he had been saving our seats and he needed a bathroom break, so I got settled in while he did that. As soon as I sat down, this kid next to me started talking. “Why do you think George Lucas put out the game that goes with this movie so early? It gave away everything!” In my “Why are you talking to me about this but I know I must be polite” voice, I said that I figured Lucas needed to raise interest in the movie since even the die-hard fans were pretty pissed off after Attack of the Clones. Little did I know that the guy would then think I was his new best friend, telling me all about his PSP and his love of Star Wars video games and so on and so forth. I couldn’t quite figure him out, because if he was a real die-hard geek fan, he would have already been to the movie (and that may have been the case - it didn’t seem like he had been yet and I certainly didn’t want to ask and engage him further), which made me think he was just a little sad, hanging out alone in a movie theater on a Friday afternoon. When Mike came back, the guy tried to engage us in further discussion, including flat-out eavesdropping on our banter about the slides they were showing before the movie and then injecting his thoughts in our discussion. It would have been funnier if it wasn’t so sad.

This week I was talking with a coworker about hyphenated names. She personally hyphenated her name, and I asked her if it was for the same reason as one of my other friends who kept debating what to do but never could decide and just ended up keeping both names by default. She said that was pretty much her thinking, and then she said, “It’s kind of traumatic to change your name.” Which I completely agree with. For a good part of my first year with my new name, I felt as if I was playing a role, and that my “real” identity was my maiden name, which people didn’t know anymore. Even now, almost five years in, I still feel a twinge of nostalgia from time to time about my maiden name. I wanted to have the same name as Mike, and my names weren’t easily hyphenated, so as much as Mike tried to convince me that he should take my name (which he did try) or that we should create an entirely new last name for the two of us (which he also tried), in the end I decided to take his name and keep my maiden name as my middle name.

In the Christian church, hyphenating your name brands you as an uber-feminist type who doesn’t submit to her husband. I am sure that’s true in some cases (although I would venture that there are plenty of women who do change their names who don’t submit to their husbands, but that’s another discussion altogether), but I can understand the urge to want to keep your name. You wonder, “How will old friends be able to find me?” You feel a sense of loss of who you are (which, in some ways isn’t necessarily bad, but I suppose that depends on your view of individuality in marriage, which, again, is another discussion) that men in this country (often the ones insisting the loudest that the woman must change her name in order to be a good Christian woman) never have to face. It was my decision, and Mike let me choose what I wanted to do, and I think I made the right decision . . . and yet I still cried tears over my lost name, the name my parents chose for me because they wanted the name to mean something for me, now gone forever.

I guess all this ranting is just to say: It’s hard. It’s not an easy thing, to change your name, and even though I did the socially/spiritually acceptable thing, it wasn’t an easy transition for me. I hate to see people within the church branding hyphenation or the like as “absurd” or “ridiculous” when, really, it’s between the two people in one couple who have to do what’s best for them. And since there’s not a clear directive that I have ever seen, just societal pressures, I say there’s room for lots of different variations at the table, so please pass the grace.

Last night I was driving home from work, and “The Boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel came on my iPod. I have mentioned my Simon and Garfunkel love before, and this song is one of my favorites of theirs.

I got into Simon and Garfunkel when my friend Kim made me a tape of the record she had containing their greatest hits. I listened to it over and over in my car, often with my brother in the passenger’s seat. My car didn’t have air conditioning, and we’d roll down the windows and turn the music loud and let it envelop us.

Last night I thought about those days, and I rolled down my window and listened to “The Boxer” over and over. It’s a song about loneliness and failure and despair. And those strings come in at the end, getting louder and louder, pushing you until you think your heart will break, but just when you can’t take it anymore, the song gets quiet and goes back to just guitar, feeling almost hopeful again.

I don’t even feel like I completely understand the lyrics to the song, or why it resonates so deeply with me. But I know it’s a song I never skip, partly because of those days when Joseph and I used to listen to that tape over and over and over, and partly because of the way it ends so quietly with the guitar, reminding me that everyone goes through periods when things look terrible and you think you’ve made all the wrong decisions and your heart is completely broken. It’s a song about being human. And I’m going to go listen to it again now.

Sometimes I wonder if, when I mention a problem or an issue I am dealing with on here, if it’s blatantly obvious to everyone who knows me exactly what I am talking about. That fear has kept me from publicly processing one of the bigger things I have been dealing with over the past few months, which makes me feel like my entries are lackluster since they don’t actually touch on the things I’m pondering.

Since our anniversary is fast approaching, I thought I would recycle some blog entries from my very first (very defunct) blog that I wrote around the time of our first anniversary. Here is a story that is still very close to my heart.

When we moved in our two-bedroom apartment, we put the desk and computer in the second bedroom, but we had no bed for it. My parents generously offered us the use of their old couch bed, so I went to get it. I had some trouble getting it to the apartment (read: it rained on me and I had to pull into a gas station where a very nice man on a motorcycle helped me tie tarps over the couch), but when we finally set it down in the living room, we realized we had a slight problem (besides the fact that couch beds are very very heavy). Our hall is kind of short, and the couch didn’t really fit very well into the hall to get it through the door. Undaunted, we twisted and turned the couch until half it was in the room, half of it was in the hall, and the rest was stuck in the doorway with no sign of moving. Mike and I were on opposite sides of the couch, unable to see each other, and making idiotic comments such as, “I’ll kind of push it this way . . .” “Which way?” “This way!” and getting nowhere. Fortunately after about 10 minutes and some painful bruises, Mike in all his genius realized where it was stuck (I still don’t know what he did), and we got the couch in the room, taking only a very little bit of the door frame with us. I’m sure some paint will cover it up.

Teamwork in action, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much.

The really funny thing (to me) about this story is that we didn’t watch much Friends at that point, and I had never seen the pi-vot episode. If you have seen that, well, that’s a fair approximation of what we looked like. And, you know, we had no trouble whatsoever getting the couch out of the apartment. (I say “we” when I mean “Mike and some strong guys.” So I may have been the weak link.) But just thinking about how much trouble that couch gaves us still gives me the giggles.

Spoilers for all five Harry Potter books are contained within.

Since it’s less than two months until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be in my hands, I thought I should go ahead and start my re-read, just so everything is fresh in my mind. I’m almost done with Philosopher’s Stone, and it made me think about the first time Mike and I read it.

We were at Barnes and Noble for some reason or other, and Mike insisted that we buy the first book in the series. I hadn’t really heard of the books, so I wasn’t all that interested, but he really wanted to read them, so I agreed. Honestly, when we started the first one, I thought, “This is just like James and the Giant Peach [because of the poor orphaned British boy who was mistreated by his relatives]. If I wanted to read Roald Dahl, I’d just read Roald Dahl.” Soon, though, the storytelling sucked me in, and we had to go back and buy the first two books in hardcover so we could have a matching set. (Mike didn’t hear the end of the first book until much later, because he fell asleep as I was reading about Harry, Ron, and Hermione solving all those puzzles to get to the stone. When he saw the movie, he was like, “Um, is this how it really goes?” hehe.) We read the second and third books during a snowstorm, and we read the fourth (which is my personal favorite) on our honeymoon. The fifth was read all over the place, including our front porch, the O. Henry hotel (we went and had tea), and all over our apartment.

It’s funny to think back on that first book - we called Hermione “Lucy” because we didn’t know how to pronounce the name, and for some reason we thought she wasn’t going to be an important character. (Before the second book, I found this handy pronunciation guide so we could finally pronounce everything correctly.) I remember reading the third book and everything was looking so great, and I turned to Mike and said, “There are still 100 pages left, which does not seem good.” And it wasn’t . . . we watched in despair as everything that had been so good fell apart so quickly. I remember when I thought Ron was actually going to die in Goblet of Fire during the underwater task. I remember reading the second half of book four on the nine-hour drive from PEI to Maine, and I remember reading the line where Cedric died and not wanting to read it out loud to Mike. I remember how Sirius’s death was a bit of a relief, since we knew someone was going to die and we had been worrying about everyone the entire book.

Of all the books, Order of the Phoenix is probably my least favorite, partly because of Madame Umbridge and partly because I had read so much speculation that I had figured out that the first prophecy had to do with Harry being some kind of “chosen one.” The twists in that book weren’t as much of a surprise, which meant that it wasn’t as exciting as, say, Goblet of Fire. Goblet of Fire is my favorite both because we read it on our honeymoon and because I never would have seen the Mad Eye Moody/Barty Crouch thing coming. And because of what Dumbledore says at the end (which is on the new trailer for the Goblet of Fire movie), when he tells them that when they have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, that they should think of Cedric.

There is good stuff in Order of the Phoenix, though. It cemented my Neville-love, and I cried and cried after that scene with his mother in the hospital. As much as I don’t look forward to reading about Madame Umbridge, I do love how Ginny and Neville grow up during the book, and Ron and Hermione’s relationship, and rebellious teenage Harry (poor kid needs a hug . . . and some therapy).

I haven’t read any spoilers or speculation on book six, and I plan to keep it that way. I want to be surprised. It finally seems real that it’s going to be here in just a couple of months, and I’m ready (though not as desperate as I was for book five. Man, that was a long wait).

Mike took a Conservation Biology class this semester, and he now brings up conservation-related facts at the drop of a hat. Species going extinct, pollution, recycling . . . yesterday I told him he was excessively dull and I put a ban on conservation facts. He said I couldn’t do that, but I’m pretty sure I can. hehe. (I took that class, so I know all that stuff already anyway!)

Our weekend, though, was anything but dull. Here are a few snapshots from our weekend:

Thursday night, Patty Griffin concert: The whole thing was amazing. The Cat’s Cradle is a great venue, and the crowd was full of fans, which is always tons of fun. My favorite moment was when she started to sing “Rain,” which she said they hadn’t been doing on this tour. During the first verse, she started concentrating on the guitar and her vocals got pretty quiet, and to buoy her up, the crowd started singing along more loudly, which made her smile. I love moments like that, where all these different kinds of people (Patty gets diverse crowds!) are singing along to the same song. I noticed on pattygriffin.net that a lot of the hardcore fans hate when people sing along, but I love it and a lot of my favorite concert moments have to do with crowd participation. It keeps music from being a solitary experience and turns it into a communal thing, and the only word I can think of for that is . . . beautiful. If I just wanted to hear the music in its most perfect form, I’d listen to the CD. Anyway, there are so many great Patty songs that of course she didn’t play them all, but we got lots of our favorites, and I enjoyed a lot of the new songs as well. Mike and I had a great time.

Friday, Kari and Alisa’s Day o’ Fun: We had coffee (twice), I admired Alisa’s new screensaver, Alisa met one of my best friends and some of my family, we took lots of pictures, and (of course) we checked out the used bookstore and Alisa found a few things. We also left a note trying to Brian’s old friend Danny to come to GravyCon the next day. (Danny lives three doors down from where I used to live, so it was a blast from the past to be leaving notes on his door. He and I used to leave random haiku back and forth.) It was a busy day, but tons of fun, and we capped it off with pictures at Greensboro’s new stadium, sitting on top of very large baseballs. (Thanks, Jason!) I was tired from the concert the night before, but the coffee helped me make it until that evening, when I crashed while watching About a Boy with Mike.

Saturday night, GravyCon: After working Saturday morning, we got together with a bunch of GravyBoarders at Chili’s. Alisa and Jason and Mike and I don’t know too much about comic books, so we talked about other things instead, like books and Gilmore Girls (apparently Brian and Marty are very put out about the length of the Gilmore Girls thread on the board, hehe) and made very unappreciated plans for GravyBoy’s mode of transportation (”Quick, to the GravyBoat!”). It was a good turnout and a fun time. I hope we can do it again soon.

Sunday morning, Davidson graduation: My brother graduated yesterday, and it was loooooong. What can you say about a graduation, really? I am proud of him for persevering, and it was good to see him now that he’s back from Connecticut. I hope we get to hang out now that he’s in the state again.

Sunday night, Survivor finale: We got together with our friends Emily and John at Emily’s sister’s house to watch last night’s finale. I said I wanted Tom or Ian to win, so of course I was pleased when Tom won, but I guess I wanted Ian to win more than I realized, because I was more than a little disappointed when he stepped down. Overall it was a good episode, and we ate waaaaay too much junk food and laughed a lot.

So, that’s it. That was our whirlwind weekend. We had a great time, even though we are both pretty tired. This week should be more relaxed, although we still have things to look forward to (Gilmore finale tomorrow night, hopefully seeing Star Wars on Friday). I could use a nap. hehe.

So, this week I’ve been reading Glamorous Powers, the second in Susan Howatch’s series on the Anglican clergy. It’s good so far (although I took time off from it to read the third book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series yesterday . . . stop looking at me like that!), and it kind of got me thinking. The main character believes he’s had a vision from God, calling him from his life as a monk to . . . something else, but he’s not sure. Of course, his superior (who is someone he intensely dislikes) questions him on this, and they go several rounds before some of the main character’s real motivations come out. A lot of what happens after that is like reading a train wreck . . . I have to be in the mood to read about someone dealing with deep issues in order to pick it up (hence yesterday’s Traveling Pants). It’s very good, though, and things are about to hit the fan in a really interesting way, so I am sticking with it.

One of the things that really impressed me is that, even though the main character was working against his superior when they began talking through his motivations, he did finally submit and open himself up to this man (never mind that, at the point I am currently at in the book, he’s disregarded all the good advice that he was at one time following. That’s not the point). It reminded me of someone I’ve had problems with in the past, and I know if I was in a position that required me to open up and share some of my most personal struggles, my wounds and my pride would make it very hard to do that with this person. Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. I see things in a very black-and-white manner, and when someone hurts me deeply, I tend to see them as “bad” and myself as “good.” This can make things complicated when mutual friends don’t see it in quite the same way.

This is just me rambling, but I think I’m not always completely sure what forgiveness looks like, especially when it’s someone who has hurt you over a period of years. It’s just not obvious how much you have to continue to open your heart, or if you should, or what the path of wisdom would dictate. And it’s not obvious to me how to keep from getting bitter about it.

The world doesn’t break down into good (people who are my friends) and bad (people who hurt my feelings) like that. And I’m trying to figure out what to do with some of these feelings.

I read Susan’s post about sounds she loves a couple of days ago, and then when I was discussing the upcoming Star Wars movie with Brian, I realized . . . one of the sounds I love is the sound of a movie theater full of people on opening night for a movie like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, just when the movie is starting. You can hear the excitement and the anticipation and the way everyone is taking a deep breath and settling in to let the movie work its magic.

I went to a midnight showing of Attack of the Clones, but I won’t have that experience for Revenge of the Sith. We will probably go to a matinee next weekend, but George Lucas killed our faith in him with those clones, so I won’t get to experience opening night with hundreds of devoted fans like I did last time. But when the lights go down and the old-school 20th Century Fox symbol comes up on the screen, I will settle back in my seat with my popcorn, let my cynicism slide away, and hope for movie magic.

Mike’s boss (an interior designer) came over for dinner on Sunday night. I was appropriately intimidated (especially after seeing his house a week earlier), but I tried to keep in mind that I can’t have my home all Better-Homes-and-Gardened up perfectly at the age of 25. And of course, he was kind and complimentary, because he isn’t the kind of person who belittles people in their own homes. (At least in front of their faces. hehe.) He complimented the colors we chose, and the card catalog, and then he said something interesting: “I never use pictures in decorating as much as you have here, but I really love it.”

I told a friend last night - I think sometimes less affluent people use pictures as decoration because they are a fairly inexpensive way to decorate. Not only that, but my interest in photography has grown over the past few years, and I take a lot more pictures than I used to, both for scrapbooking and for decorating. I like that I have pictures of us to display throughout the house, and I have spent a lot of time buying frames and sorting through pictures in order to display our favorites.

A lot of this, I think, comes from pictures not being taken much when I was a kid. Our camera was stolen when our house was broken into, and it simply wasn’t a top-priority replacement item. We had cheap cameras, and we didn’t take a lot of vacations, and no one took very many pictures. And when they did get taken, it could be years before we got them developed, both because of a lack of funds and a lack of interest. When I was in high school, we finally got some pictures developed from some trips we took when I was 11 or 12. I have taken the photography in our house to the other extreme, insisting on photo development the minute we get the film out of the camera.

The real reason, the secret reason no one knows that explains why I decorate with so many photos is that I once read or heard this story about a girl who died in her early twenties. She was held up as a model of, oh, pretty much everything, but especially lack of materialism, because when they went to her house she didn’t have a fancy TV or lots of possessions, but she had photo albums filled with pictures of her friends and family, and pictures displayed throughout her house. The story concluded with the idea that she had stored up her treasures not in the earthly possessions that will fade, but in more valuable things. Like pretty much everyone who lives in America (or the western world), I struggle with materialism, and that story has stayed with me. My pictures are at least in part an effort to say, “Look, I have a nice house but there is more to me than my possessions. I care about my friends and family more than I can say in words, and I want that to be known.”

I think that’s both good and bad, just like most things. It could be considered a facade to try to convince people that I’m not shallow, or it could be a glimpse of what is really important to me. Honestly, it’s probably some of both. (Plus a little of “not being wealthy enough to get the decorations I would really like to have.”) I was glad, though, that the conscious decision that I have made to decorate with pictures was appreciated by our friend, because the shallow part of me really wanted the interior designer’s stamp of approval. hehe.

(The credit for the title quote goes to Ambrose Bierce.)

I personally find that for domestic [library] purposes, the Trivial Pursuit system works better than Dewey. -Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

It surprises people when I tell them that I don’t categorize my books alphabetically or by Dewey Decimal or something. I used to arrange them alphabetically, but I quit doing that because books that I felt should be together would be too far apart. Now I group books kind of randomly according to authors that “go together” in my mind. Tolkien and Rowling and Paolini (if that kid sees this, I bet I just made his day) and Taylor are all on the same shelf (C.S. Lewis would be there as well, except we have paperback copies of his books, so they reside on a different shelf). Anne Lamott and Lauren Winner and Madeleine L’Engle keep close company. Some of my favorite fiction, like The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and the Mary Russell series (new book out June 21!) reside on the other end of that same shelf. In the middle are books that I like that Mike got for me - Evensong and Pride, Prejudice, and Jasmin Field, to name a few. Speaking of which, where’s Jane Austen? The leatherbound copy of her six novels is on the shelf above the fantasy authors with some other hardcover editions of favorite books - Anne of Green Gables, for one.

There aren’t just my books to consider - Mike’s got all his Puzo, and he’s the one who read Eragon and Shadowmancer. We also keep Holes in the living room because he counts it among his favorites. We’ve also got his Far Side set (next to my my Beatles Anthology).

The bottom shelf is the catch-all shelf - children’s books and Cold Mountain and The Jane Austen Bookclub (which, now that I think about it, might like to live next to Jane herself, so I’ll have to remedy that). The other bottom shelf (we have two big bookcases that we bought when we moved - the only “grownup” furniture we bought for the new house) has paperbacks of C.S. Lewis and some other spiritual writings. And I haven’t even touched on the bookshelf in the guest bedroom - the one with all my favorite old paperback copies of Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet and the Lord Peter books and Christy Miller and the entire Anne series and dozens of other books I can’t part with (and don’t have nicer copies of).

I don’t use books as decoration like some people do. We were at Mike’s boss’s house (an interior designer, so you better believe I was looking around for ideas) the other day and he sets piles of books out for decoration. I care more about what’s in the books than how they look, although I am much more careful than I used to be about things like turning down corners and breaking spines. I buy hardcovers now, when I used to buy paperbacks, and I try to take good care of them, but compared to a lot of people, I’m not a big book-buyer anyway. (Mike would disagree, but I contend that the majority of the books I own have been purchased for me or with giftcards. I am not the kind of person who walks in a bookstore and has to come out with something.) In that way, I couldn’t necessarily relate to Mr. Hornby’s constant book-buying (though part of that, no doubt, has to do with the fact that he’s got a heck of a lot more money than I do), but I loved his thoughts on how one book flows into another (I personally took notes on several books he mentioned that I think I should look into).

I don’t group my books like he does, by Trivial Pursuit categories. I group them by how they mean something to me. It’s a system that doesn’t make much sense to anyone but me, but if you ask me where a book is, I’m pretty likely to be able to tell you. And I guess that’s what matters.

(Our CDs, for the record, are alphabetized. That’s all Mike’s doing.)

Disclaimer: Mike gave me permission to write this. Actually, he said, “Are you going to blog about this?” When I said that I didn’t want to post it because I figured he wouldn’t like it, he said I should.

Sure, Mike is making good grades. But have you ever thought about the process by which that happens? Here’s a glimpse at four different tests Mike took this semester, all in his Western Civ class.

Test 1: Mike freaks out, claiming he doesn’t know any of the material and that he is going to fail. He gets surprisingly short-tempered when he’s stressed out, which means he was in rare form as he snapped at me. He also tends to back out of plans when he gets stressed about a big test. I remember how stressful testing can be, and I know Mike is still getting the hang of being back in school again, I felt sympathetic, if slightly miffed. I will admit to some hurt feelings. However, when he got his grade back and he made a 90, I was hopeful that he’d be more confident for the next one.

Test 2: Boy, was I wrong. This was definitely the worst study session of the four - the last day for Drop/Add was the day after the test, and Mike again got really snippy and kept claiming to want to drop the class. I said, “Why don’t you take the test first and see how you do, then, if you think you did really poorly, you can drop the class.” He kept going on and on about how he didn’t know the material and what a horrible professor she was and how stressed out he was. And (he reminded me as I was trying to get the facts straight for this entry), he spent more time complaining, looking at the list of other professors who teach the class, and looking up their scores on ratemyprofessor.com than he did studying. Anything I suggested was wrong, and, again, I got a little miffed, got some hurt feelings. After the test the next day, he called and said, “I think I did fine.” My respose? ” . . . ” “I know, I know, I’m sorry.” ” . . . ” “I just got a little freaked out.” “This can’t happen again.” “I know.” Test grade? 90.

Test 3: For this test, my plan was to just ignore him completely. “Kari, I’m going to fail!” would be met with complete silence, because I figured out that no matter what I said, it would be wrong. And, actually, I was cleaning the kitchen or something while he was at the kitchen table studying, and I remembered enough of the material to be able to help from time to time. There was still a bit of freaking out, but nothing like after test 2. And apparently my help paid off, because the final test grade was 103. (Look, I deserve to take credit for it, so don’t argue with me about it.)

Test 4: Somewhere around tests 3 and 4 I realized that part of the problem was that Mike didn’t do the reading until the night before the test, which is why he was so stressed out. “When I was in school, I didn’t do the reading until this one Economics class when I had no idea what anyone was talking about . . . so I did the reading and found all the material in there. I was like, ‘Did you know if you read the book that you can understand the class discussion?’ I now pass my wisdom and information on to you.” Mike didn’t care. I was baking muffins while he was studying, and I tried to help a bit, but he was too freaked out for me to be much use. I went to bed as he was studying (read: “falling asleep”) on the couch. He seemed pretty concerned the next morning, but okay after the test, and the next night, when he got his grade back, he turned to me with a sheepish grin and said, “101.”

Final grade in the class: A
Other pertinent statistics:
Pissed-off wife: 1
Mostly unused textbook: 1
Apologies: 1,000,000
Number of times I claimed that Mike deserved an Oscar nomination for his theatrics: at least 10
The look on Mike’s face when I admitted that so far his GPA is higher than mine: Priceless

I have not really enjoyed this week very much. However, no one wants to read about that. Here, instead, is a list of good things from this week:

-Drinking coffee out of my new mug.

-Trying Vietnamese food for the first time. (Tasty.)

-Seeing pictures of my aunt and uncle’s trip to Ireland (this one is especially for Rhonda).

-Putting together a chair with Emily (before John got home).

-Finishing three books so far this week.

-Reading on the couch with Mike while eating chips and salsa.

-Mike’s good grades (all A’s so far this semester! Only one exam left).

-Scrapbooking tonight with my friends.

-Getting lots of laundry done.

-Mopping while having a fun phone conversation.

-Frozen pizza.

-Our tree not wilting (my dad says this means it should survive the trip from their house to ours).

-Getting the orders done for summer books at work.

-Eating lunch outside (this was earlier in the week, but still very nice).

I could have come up with more, I am sure, but those are just enough to remind me that this week wasn’t quite as crummy as I would like to make it sound.

“Time it was and what a time it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you” -Simon and Garfunkel, “Bookends”

On the last day of Governor’s School, someone played this song and said, “This is how I feel about this summer.” Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits had long been a staple in my car, so of course I knew the song, but it hasn’t been the same for me since that day. I hear it and I remember that last day and how tired I was from staying up late and from crying. I remember that summer, how hard it was and how much fun I had, and how much it changed me. A thousand little memories return - eating pizza in Brooke’s room, playing pool in the basement, sleeping through assemblies (not me, but my friends), my birthday, late-night games and conversation . . . could that all have happened in just six weeks?

If that was the only story I had about this song, that would be enough. And I wish it was, but the problem is that, as it takes me back to those amazing places, it also reminds me of my former best friend, because I met her at Governor’s School, and most of those memories also involve her. I haven’t yet figured out how to look at those memories without letting them be shadowed by what came later. And when I have those eyes, lines like, “A time of innocence/a time of confidences,” feel more bitter and poignant.

That’s not the way I want to remember that summer (”the summer that changed my life,” as I have been wont to say and as cliche as it sounds), so forgiveness in this case also means reclaiming those memories for what they really were, and letting the things that happened later be what they were without letting them take over my whole life.

“As I write I am aware that my memory has made much out of very little.” - Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

I read that, and I thought, “Don’t we all do that?” To me, it seems that so much of what I value in life is small. You can browse the archives here and see that that’s what I write about - in the past couple of weeks I have talked about the beauty of laughter and the joys of late-night frosty runs and praying in the church bathroom. Not the most important things in the world, but parts of life that are important to remember, because without them life is more . . . ordinary. And those are the things we remember, all the way back to childhood. Playing catch in the yard, walks on the beach, board games, sweet tea on a hot day . . . a million little unimportant things that make up the patterns of our lives.

Maybe I write about those things because I don’t want to forget them. I don’t want to lose that wide-eyed wonder at the taste of homemade ice cream, or forget the Sunday afternoons spent reading (and napping) in the sun. Maybe I make much out of very little (as seen sometimes when I ask my dad, “Remember the time . . . ?” and he doesn’t), but I’m okay with that. I think Kathleen Kelly found the truth when she said, “All this nothing means so much more to me than so many somethings.”

This isn’t exactly the same thing, but it reminds me of how much more my quilt meant to me after my mom and Aunt Nancy pointed out the fabric they remembered. And how much it meant to see the house where Grandma was born and where mom grew up. How much the little details I know and remember about Great-Grandma mean to me. How much I enjoy finding out new things about Mike.

Maybe life isn’t in the details, because who wants to believe a cliche? But those details complete the picture, giving it color and vibrancy and focus.

What a weekend.

Friday night, (a very good place to start) Mike’s boss took us and another couple from church to The Melting Pot, which was incredibly fun. I was the designated driver for our car, so I watched as Mike imbibed a Cosmo and a drink we think is called Vanilla Cake Batter. It’s something like that, anyway. Mike tried to convince me he was okay to drive, but I knew better. And on the way home, we passed a DUI checkpoint. If Mike had been driving, he would have tried to make “small talk” with the officer, but when he’s had anything to drink, his small talk comes out kind of . . . large. “Hel-LO officer! How are you this fine evening! There’s nothing to see here!” Since I was driving, we passed through without incident.

Saturday we slept in. Although we’d planned on doing yardwork, it was raining, so Mike worked on a paper and I did some paperwork, which included filling out Mike’s FAFSA and filing an additional tax form, because we forgot to claim some income. I ended up needing Mike’s help on the tax form, but we did it together. And the rest of the morning, I was like, “Hey, we’re awesome! We did that hard tax form!” I said that until Mike refused to give me any more high fives. hehe.

That evening, we used a gift card and went to Chili’s and used some free passes we had to go see a movie we’d been looking forward to for a while: Millions. We both left the theater with full hearts and tears in our eyes. I mentioned one time that I usually love to start talking about a movie right away, but I told Mike, “I loved it so much, I don’t even know what to say.” We eventually found the words to talk about our favorite scenes and the questions we had, but I still find that there aren’t really words to explain how much I loved it. It was funny and scary and heartwarming and sad all at once, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

This morning the sermon was on the passage where Jesus proves who he is to his disciples by showing them his hands and feet. Our pastor said, of course the scars/wounds from the crucifixion were the point, but think how much your hands and feet tell about you. There are three people I could pick out just by their hands - my parents and Mike. Mike doesn’t quite believe me, but I watch his hands sometimes. I know his fingers and his fingernails (that he refuses to trim with clippers and instead just rips off the ends when they get too long) and his poor sad cuticles. I know which parts are rough and that he should use lotion a little more. I know what the skin looks like around his knuckles. And I think I could pick them out of a lineup. My parents, too - I know my dad has that place where the top 25% of his middle finger got cut off and then reattached, and I know my mom’s fingernails look just like mine. And what about my hands? I’ve got a few scars on the back from when we had cats, and one from my cousin’s cat Zelda (crazy cat lived up to her namesake). I’ve got fingernails I don’t know how to take care of, and short fingers, and it’s obvious I don’t do hard work, and I bite the skin beside my fingernails. But they are mine, and no one else’s look quite like them.

(An aside on feet: Our pastor said that feet, since they are often covered up, are a bit more personal. I personally love my feet and think I have very nice-looking ones. It’s my hands I don’t care for.)

After church (and being taken to lunch by some friends - we went out to eat three times this weekend without paying a dime. No wonder I feel full), we began Operation Get Our Neighbors to Like Us Again. By which I mean we went to Lowe’s and got some plants and mulch to start working on our yard. I am not even a yard person and lately I have been ashamed to look our neighbors in the eye. Plus, Mike’s turning 30 this fall, and we want to have a big party, so we want to get things looking pretty nice. Today we planted four azalea bushes, tomato and pepper plants, and a tree. Things are looking much better. Neither Mike nor I are yard people, so we were pretty proud of our hard yard work. I kept waiting for our neighbors to come out and say, “It’s about dang time!” The best part was that we could both see how much better we’ve gotten with communicating, because normally going to Lowe’s and being so out of our element would completely stress us out, which would make us both defensive and start bickering. But we took it slow, trying to figure out what we needed to start with without getting in over our heads and working together, and everything turned out well.

We had a good (if a bit full) weekend, which is good, because I work the next three weekends, then we go to Wilmington for a weekend, then I work a weekend, then we have our vacation. When did it get to be May?