Through a Glass, Darkly

Last night at church, the discussion veered a little bit into God’s will (a nice, light topic, right?). Mike shared that his parents were big on talking about God’s will, often using it to manipulate him, like when they told him that marrying me was not God’s will for his life. He said, “That’s why we’re not speaking to them,” and I corrected him, saying, “Actually, that’s why they’re not speaking to us.” Semantics at this point, maybe, but I wanted to make the distinction.

At the end of the discussion, but while everyone was still sitting, someone said, “Why didn’t they want you to marry Kari?” And, suddenly, I saw all eyes on us. I tried to get Mike to answer, but he was also caught off guard, and I think he might have said something about how there were just a lot of differences. In an attempt to keep it light, I said, “They didn’t really care for my spiritual heritage, since the majority of my family is Baptist.” Nobody laughed.

Mike clarified that, it’s true, his parents believe that denominations are wrong, only nondenominational churches are right, and that people who go to denominational churches are going to hell. Finally, someone saw the humor in what we were saying, and said, “At least we’re all going together!” People laughed, the group dispersed, and Mike and I went to our cars.

On the way home, I was surprisingly upset - not because we had to answer the question, but because I felt that I, especially, didn’t come off very well. I wasn’t trying to make light of the situation, but neither did I have a soundbyte answer that I could give. Maybe I should have said, “How long do you have?” because the relationship can’t really be boiled down into a sentence, and neither Mike nor I are completely sure if there’s one main issue that we should focus on when we try to explain it to someone. So we crack jokes, because what we have learned is that we laugh to keep from crying. Or being angry.

More than anything, though, I realized how much I view it as something that reflects shamefully on me. I was in a room of people who like me, who have done nothing but be kind and supportive of me, and I was so worried that they thought I was a bad daughter-in-law, that I was insensitive, that my attempt to shift the focus came off as flippancy. These are people who are on my side, and all I could do was deflect them.

Overall, I do okay with the situation. Sure, I have trouble at weddings and at baby showers, but I find I’m more comfortable with the hand I’ve been dealt these days. But last night I realized there are still some ways in which I view it as my dirty little secret.

Before the UNC/George Mason game, they showed the clip of George Mason’s coach saying, “Their fans think they’re Supermen. Our fans KNOW that we’re kryptonite.” I was like, “Haha, shut up.” And then, as Carolina played like crap, the announcers kept repeating it. Deliberately, I believe, to enrage me.

However, while watching George Mason play yesterday, I have decided that I’m a believer. They are kryptonite. But, of course, the coach had to come up with something different to say. The kryptonite thing is so last week. Here are our ideas for what it could have been.

MIKE: Their fans think they’re Wonder Woman. Our fans know we’re the Invisible Jet.

KARI: Or the lasso of truth.

MIKE: Neither of those make any sense.

KARI: Do they have to make sense?

MIKE: It would help.

KARI: I don’t think they need help getting fired up. I think it just needs to be catchy.

MIKE: True.

KARI: Their fans think they are the internet. Our fans know we are a virus!

MIKE: Do they want to be a virus?

KARI: If viruses win basketball games.

MIKE: Their fans think they are Hummers. Our fans know that we are . . .

KARI: Nails on the road!

MIKE: Their fans think they are gods.

KARI: Our fans know we are their Achilles heel?

MIKE: Their fans think they are Al Capone.

KARI: Our fans know we are the IRS.

MIKE: hehehe.

KARI: Their fans think they are Brokeback Mountain, but our fans know we are Crash.

MIKE: The underdog prevails.

KARI: Although their fans probably don’t think they are the gay cowboy movie.

MIKE: Details.

KARI: Their fans think they are Russell Crowe. Our fans know we are Joaquim Phoenix. And we have a knife.

MIKE: Their fans think they’re Russell Crowe. Our fans know that we are the fiesty concierge.

KARI: I guess being Joaquim Phoenix in that instance implies that we are dirty cheaters, which we wouldn’t want.

MIKE: Their fans think they are Tyler Durden. But our fans know that we are Tyler Durden.

KARI: Their fans think they are Tom Cruise. Our fans know we are Oprah’s couch.

MIKE: Their fans think they are the Fighting Irish. Our fans know we are the potato famine.

KARI: Their fans think they are weapons of mass destruction. Our fans know no such weapons were ever found.

MIKE: Their fans think they are Royales with Cheese. But our fans know we are the Hamburglar.

KARI: Their fans think they’re Bill Clinton. Our fans know we are Monica Lewinsky.

MIKE: Their fans think they’re The Usual Suspects. Our fans know we’re Keyser Soze.

KARI: Their fans think they are a really great ship, like the Titanic, but not the Titanic since it is a symbol of failure. And our fans know that we are an iceburg.

MIKE: Their fans think that they are Star Wars. Our fans know that we are George Lucas.

KARI: Their fans think they are the Beatles. Our fans know that we are Yoko Ono.

MIKE: Their fans think they are Apollo Creed. Our fans know we are Ivan Drago.

KARI: Their fans think they are the Berlin Wall. Our fans know that we are David Hasselhoff

MIKE: Their fans think they are Snakes on a Plane. But our fans know we are Samuel L. Jackson.

KARI: You win.

I haven’t had any of Sonic’s tots, but the tots that we had, with homemade chili and cheese on top of them, were so delicious. I didn’t expect them to be quite that good. Wow. There was no weak tot action in our house.

It’s been an up-and-down kind of week, and suddenly, at the end of the week, I found myself deliberately taking my time with things, as if declaring to the universe, “I have a say in what happens to me.” I have been reading my book just a few pages at a time, not taking big gulps of it, not carrying it everywhere I go. I drove in silence, rather than listening to my radio or iPod. As much as it was possible, I got in bed early. I lingered over lunch rather than hurrying through it. I feel the need to carve out some time for myself and to make it count, so I’ve been living a different sort of life than I usually do.

I feel a strange sort of pride in the fact that I haven’t finished the book I started a few days ago (and, anyway, it’s not the kind of book one should be rushing through, so it’s the perfect book for this week) and that my iPod has been in my purse. I’m in self-preservation mode, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I do this sometimes - my body knows when I’ve been pushing it too hard, even when I don’t.

Yesterday was a nice respite from all of that. I spent the afternoon with Alisa, we got to hang out with Melissa and Emily and their daughters, and I had dinner and saw Derek and Sandra with some of the .net crew. I assume incriminating pictures of Mike will be available soon.

I hadn’t heard Derek’s new album before the concert, and I had heard that the album was best taken as a whole, so I wasn’t sure whether a show with random songs would make any sense at all. Luckily Derek had planned the concert with me in mind, because he took a few requests and then played Mockingbird straight through. Now that I have finally heard it, I did enjoy it, although my impression is that most of the songs generally sounded the same. I do think, too, that some of the “controversy” seems overrated. I had read the lyrics and a lot of interviews, so maybe that made a difference. Or maybe I just generally agree with what he’s saying. hehe.

Anyway, despite being out entirely too late, work today was fine. Tonight’s tots were good, we’ve been watching basketball, and I’m fading fast.

This may be a shameful thing to admit, but Mike and I crack up every single time we see that Sonic commercial for the chili cheese tater tots. “Don’t you BRING that weak tot action! You go to your mouth STRONG or you don’t go at ALL!” I’m sure a lot of people find it annoying, but we just can’t help ourselves. I think it’s maybe because “tots” make us think of Napoleon Dynamite. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

We love this commercial so much that, when I went to the grocery store this morning, I bought some frozen tater tots. At Mike’s request. For dinner on Saturday night, we’re having chili and tater tots. Mike is in charge of the drop cloth necessary for each time one of us smacks a tot out of the other’s hand.

The last time I went to Sonic (heck, it might be the last time I had tater tots, but I won’t swear to that) was when I had mono almost three years ago. I got some kind of fancy beverage and tater tots. And then I went home and threw it all up. You can see why we’re not going to Sonic for our tots, but making them at home instead. Nice try, Sonic. We like your commercial, but not enough to erase the memory of that awful afternoon.

My life is pretty average, I’d say. I don’t think there’s all that much about me that’s out of the ordinary. I live my life like the Average American Citizen, going to work, doing my job, going to church, spending time with friends and family. Sure, sometimes I wish there was something a bit more spectacular about my life, that I had certain talents or skills that made me stand out a little more, but, in general, I’m okay with being Kari the librarian who lives in a small town in the South.

Maybe that’s why the concept of Kevin O’Keefe’s new book, The Average American, caught my attention. In it, he sets out on a quest to find the most average person in America. He decides to let the criteria be formed by people who help him along the way. What’s so interesting is that, in the end, his journey takes him back to his home state, to a community very close to where he grew up. In fact, the man who meets all the criteria is someone who worked at his high school.

I expected to enjoy the statistics part of the book, but what I hadn’t expected was for the book to be so much about Kevin’s personal journey. When the book begins, he doesn’t really value the concept of the Average American, but as he meets good, hardworking people who embrace the title, his opinion shifts. And, by the end, when he ends up being drawn back to the place he grew up, he has a whole new appreciation for the kind of person the Average American is. The image that comes to mind when we think of the Average American is often a mindless, overweight slob on a couch, but his research showed him that’s just not true. The Average American is actually a thoughtful, dedicated individual - it’s just that he or she is probably not an overachiever, like Kevin trained himself to be. I enjoyed reading about Kevin following the signs and softening his views as he came to value the kinds of people you find all over the country. Even though I consider most of my friends and family to be Average right along with me, it gave me new appreciation for who they are and the kind of work they do, the things they value, the hobbies they have. The book closed with Kevin realizing how much of an honor it was for him to spend time with the Average American, and I’ll admit it got me a little choked up. I think it would have been easy for him to write the book without sharing as much of his personal journey, but I’m glad he didn’t take that route.

As far as the statistics go, I enjoyed seeing where I fit in compared to the Average American. Some day, I might fit some of the characteristics, like, say, having lived in my house for at least five years, but the truth is that I will always be too short to be considered Average. hehe.

Good book. I give it a thumbs up.

Yesterday I realized I’m not really a bracket kind of girl. Last year Mike and I filled out brackets, just so we could talk smack to one another. We had a good time, but it didn’t mean a whole lot. This year I printed off brackets and we dutifully filled them out. But then, yesterday, I realized, I don’t like rooting for a team just because I picked them on my brackets. I’d rather just root for the underdog, regardless of what it might mean. (I don’t have any money on this, just competitiveness. Which undoubtedly makes it easier. Though I am a very competitive person.) So I cheered for Winthrop (didn’t pick them, was SICK when that game was over) and UNCW (picked them, was SICK when that game was over) and Xavier (that would have really screwed up my brackets, but I would have been happy to see Gonzaga lose). I can’t get over cheering for the underdog. I’ve decided that’s okay, that it’s more a part of me than the brackets are. And I’m still hoping a #15 will beat a #2. Go Davidson! Go Pennsylvania! hehe.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed this season more than I have in a long time. Maybe it was my lowered expectations (maybe you haven’t heard, but Carolina lost its top seven scorers. And if you haven’t heard, you haven’t watched a Carolina basketball game, because they say it eighteen times per game), maybe it was because we won last year, but every win this year felt like a gift, and the losses weren’t as many as we expected them to be. Plus, we beat Duke in Cameron. On JJ’s senior night. Good times.

So, last weekend, it didn’t bother me so much that we lost to Boston College. I feel so good about the season already, happy that we’re going to the big dance, that those feelings overshadowed the loss. In fact, it was probably really good for me that BC went on to the final game. A few years ago, Boston College knocked Carolina out of the NCAA Tournament in the second round. Since that time, whenever their name was mentioned, I would get a little bit angry. When they were mentioned as possible additions to the ACC, I refused to accept that it could happen. All season, I have been in denial about the fact that they are actually in our conference. And yet, as we watched Carolina play them on Saturday afternoon, I turned to Mike and said, “I would love for Carolina to win, but I’m rooting for the winner of this game regardless.” And I did. So, to sum up, I hated Boston College, I refused to admit they are even in our conference, and yet I cheered for them against Duke without even the slightest hesitation. Truly, To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever. (I can’t wait to read that book.) And now I don’t have any problem accepting them fully into the ACC. I had no problems cheering for them yesterday (and not just because of the bracket, but because I cheer ACC sans Duke). I needed to have to cheer for them in order to get over my past dislike. It has all worked out for the good.

On Sunday, on the way to church, Mike pointed out that before he was with me, he didn’t even know who Dean Smith was. And that he thought that he was supposed to cheer for all North Carolina teams, so he would have cheered for both Carolina and Duke. Clearly, I have brought him into the light, so much so that he stayed up last night to watch the last few games without me.

Today is my day off, so I’ll be watching basketball until I head over to Susan’s this afternoon. Have I mentioned that I love this time of year? Breathe in the sweet smells of spring and basketball. It’ll be over before you know it.

God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain
Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain
Oh sweet Jesus, if you’re listening, keep me ever close to you
As I’m stumblin’, tumblin’, wanderin’, as I’m travelin’ thru -Dolly Parton

The best thing about being on vacation last week was simply the time away from all the things that had been keeping me up at night. It was a peaceful week, which was nice for us, and it gave me some perspective. I thought about all the years that I had been to Florida with Mike, and the ways that things have changed over time. Last year at this time I was just coming out of a dark place, starting to realize that my view of God was all wrong, starting to be able to trust him again. This year, with a little more space between now and then, I could see how confused and sad I was last year, more than I realized. I think last year’s Lent was, as I said at the time, a huge step in the right direction. So, while I didn’t give up something relating to reading this year, I tried to keep last year in mind when selecting books to take with me on vacation, especially since it (as usual) fell during Lent. I have tried to continue to do the things that helped me turn that corner, to be mindful year-round. And I think it’s been good for me.

I’ve been thinking about redemption this week, and it’s mostly Dolly Parton’s fault. Mike put “Travelin’ Thru” on my iPod after we got back, because I enjoyed her performance on the Oscars so much. And I kept trying to figure out why I was tearing up at the line I used in the title. Tearing up at Dolly Parton? Even though I like Dolly Parton, I’m not sure whether that’s allowed. But then I realized that, last year at this time, I couldn’t have said for sure that I believed that “nothing is in vain,” but now . . . I think I could.

I think when something is redeemed, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt anymore. And maybe that’s why the line hits me so hard, because the glimpses of our past years in Florida show me at different stages, struggling with different things, and it’s not as if that pain has gone away. It’s just that now I can see that it meant something. The growth didn’t come like I would have wanted, but I can’t deny the change that it’s brought. Good change, change worth fighting for. It kind of reminds me of the flood last year in our house, and how, in the months afterward, people would say, “With all these improvements, don’t you think it was worth it?” And I thought, “No, I wouldn’t want to belittle how difficult it was by saying that it was all worth it. But I think it’s been redeemed.” Maybe one of the things that concerns me during discussions of redemption is the tendency to downplay the struggle, to focus on the results. But so much of life is the hard part, the learning part. I’m not to the point where I’d say that all my struggles were worth the things I have learned, because I don’t want to forget the difficult way those changes were wrought. If I forget how I really felt, I can’t understand how much better things really are.

I just realized/remembered that this year’s Lenten theme at church is “Redeeming the Miles.” Guess Dolly and I are in good company with all of these thoughts, after all.

Last week, while we were in Florida, we went to church with my aunt and uncle. After the service, Mike asked me what I thought of the church and I said, “I had never . . .” before he cut me off, saying, “Me, either!” I was confused until he said, “I had never been to a church where someone actually answered their cell phone during the service!” I had missed that, but apparently the guy next to him answered his phone early in the service. Heh.

Anyway, what I had intended to say was that I had never realized how much my definition of church has shifted in the past few years. Last week, we went to the service, sang the songs, listened to the sermon, and then we left. It wasn’t their regular church, so we didn’t speak to anyone (except during that “greet the people around you” time). It was a perfectly nice service, don’t get me wrong. But it didn’t feel like we had been to church. And, as we were leaving, I realized that, a few years ago, that wouldn’t have been a big deal to me. At our previous church, Mike and I often went to service and left without doing much more than waving across the sanctuary to people that we knew, partly because the church was so big, partly because our friends didn’t all attend the same service, partly because multiple services meant that they needed to get people out of the sanctuary before the next service started, and partly because of the place Mike and I were emotionally. I’m not blaming the church - it’s just that the size of the church gave us the opportunity to be anti-social, and we did just that.

Now, though, we attend Sunday School, we’re involved in different ministries, we are more invested in worshipping with our friends and church family. The smaller size of the church has given us more accountability and made us feel as if there is a place for us. Gradually, I have become a person who doesn’t go to church just to sing songs and hear a sermon - instead, as my mom said this afternoon, “It’s like a family reunion every week with your church family.” We have grown as people because of the size of the church. We couldn’t get away with some of the things we used to get away with.

Today was our church’s 100-year anniversary, and there was a big celebration during the service and a big meal afterwards. It was fun to hear stories about the people who came before, the people who established many of the traditions that the church still follows. Last week I missed our church - the Lenten traditions, the order of service, our friends and church family. This week we came back just in time for a celebration, which seemed fitting after I spent the week thinking how much this group of people, these traditions have come to mean to me.

(I’m not planning on giving a recount of our vacation, but if you’d really like to know what happened, I’ll sum it up for you: sleep, eat, sun, eat, sun, eat, sleep, sun. And we walked four miles a day.)

For the past, I’d say, week and a half, I’ve been waking up every morning around 3:00 or 4:00 am. Unless I take something to help me sleep. Which I really can’t do every single night. Some mornings I go back to sleep after an hour or so, and some mornings, such as yesterday morning, I don’t. I’ve tried everything I can think of, and still, every night some time between 3:11 and 4:23, I’m awake and the clock is racing toward 6:30 with no rest in sight.

I’ve had a lot on my mind, but it’s still unusual for me to be so wakeful. I’m used to the kind of insomnia that keeps me from falling asleep, not as much the kind where I wake up and can’t fall back to sleep. Mike said it was a mental thing, I had myself believing that I was going to wake up, so of course I did. All I know is that I’ve been sluggish and feeling not very much like myself. I haven’t been able to do the things I wanted to do around the house, I haven’t packed as much as I wanted, I haven’t exercised like I planned. I’ve just been too tired.

I think Wednesday night helped, though. It helped to be with my friends at church, and it helped to go to the service and offer God some of those issues that have been occupying my thoughts. It helped to sit in the darkened sanctuary and say, “I know that holding on to this is wrong, and I want to let it go.” It’s not as if everything is fixed, not by any means. But it feels like some balance has been restored. (No midi-chlorian jokes, please.) Yesterday I felt more peaceful than I had in a while. I worked around the house yesterday evening, even though I was tired, and it felt good. Ironing, cleaning, packing. Last night I was so worn out that I slept straight through until my alarm.

Sometimes I stick with what I’m used to, even if it’s not working, because I don’t really care for change. I often need to hit a really low point before I’m willing to make the effort. That’s been this week in a nutshell.

This post contains spoilers for the Gilmore Girls episode “Bridesmaids Revisited.” Go away, Dawn.

Dear Theresa,

Well, that was something else, wasn’t it. Lane and Zach getting engaged. I was yelling at the TV, “Don’t say yes, don’t say yes!” I liked Zach until this season. Yet another character assassinated. It should be fun to watch them plan a wedding, though. Rory and Logan being kaput. And nobody said, “We were on a break!” How could that have happened? The longest-running Friends joke of all time! You know Logan watches Friends.

I have to admit that I couldn’t find much to be cheery about as far as Luke and Lorelai are concerned. So I went to the TWoP boards hoping to raise my spirits, and almost everyone there seems as down as I am. However, I did find one nugglet (not even a whole nugget, but a nugglet) that might help. Someone suggested that Christopher/Gigi is actually going to be the catalyst to help Luke and Lorelai actually talk about their issues. Perhaps when they talk about GiGi, April will finally come up, and Lorelai will be able to say, “Look, I want to be involved.” It doesn’t seem to be the case that Luke is deliberately keeping April from Lorelai, more that, for whatever reason, he doesn’t think Lorelai wants to be around April. I refuse to believe that Lorelai is somehow going to fall for Chris. So, somehow, Chris is going to help. I believe this. You should, too.

I have to admit, I think I was wrong, and the wedding we get this season is going to be Lane and Zach’s instead of Luke and Lorelai’s. I still think there’s going to be a wedding, though. I do. We must believe it together. On the TWoP board, I got another nugglet of encouragement: If we give up on Luke and Lorelai, the terrorists win. We can’t let the terrorists win. We owe it to our country to keep the faith.

I am not sure how I feel about the episode overall . . . Mike watched it first, and when I got home he said, “You HAVE to watch it tonight.” And I said, “Really, what grade would you give it?” And he graded it a B-minus. B-minus! And yet he wanted me to watch it! Very strange. I didn’t love it. And yet, Sebastian Bach singing “Hollaback Girl” is one of the funniest things the show has ever done, maybe THE funniest thing. I’m not being superlative there. I can’t think of anything funnier.

Now we’re heading into a hiatus, and the show won’t be back until April. I plan on using this time to watch old episodes to remind myself of why I still watch the show. Last week, I watched the breakup/reunion sequence from last season. Mike came downstairs for part of it and said, “If they break up again, that’s just dumb.” See? Mike gets it. It would be dumb if they broke up. Surely that won’t happen. Everything will be fine.

Oy with the poodles,
Kari

PS: How is life?

I’ve been walking around in a bit of a fog lately. I have a lot on my mind, and I’ve been filling Mike’s inbox with paragraph after paragraph of processing. It’s the kind of processing that can’t be done in a public arena, and he knows that just getting the words out there is helpful to me, so he’s been reading and giving advice and letting me work through it in the best way I can. Without the writing, I feel alternately unsettled and . . . almost pregnant with ideas that are way past their gesticulation period. But I don’t know what to do with the ideas and the words right now. I’m just starting to name some of it, to form words to describe what I am feeling, and it’s been a good process, if a difficult one.

It’s always been a tendency of mine to want to work things through right away. I have gotten better about being comfortable with conflict, but long-term conflict is not an easy thing for me to handle. Long-term unrest in my heart makes me feel the same way.

I had a brief respite from all of it at lunch, as I sat in my car and drank water and read A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (which is very good, and more importantly, which is going very quickly). Sometimes just being outside in the sun puts things into perspective.

At first I was kind of disgusted with myself for being so self-centered today, at the beginning of Lent. That’s not what Ash Wednesday is about! What is wrong with me! But then I realized that the reflection I’ve been doing is giving me the courage to brave putting some of this baggage behind me. And that’s exactly what I should be thinking about on Ash Wednesday - a day of repentance, a day to remember that the things of the world pass away. I’ve been in a lot of turmoil about my feelings, been caught up in myself. Learning to let these things go is exactly the repentance I need.