God doesn't count us, he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus.
He didn't smell good. The odor was like an amalgamation of sweat, weed and Bounce dryer sheets. He was in my office for substance use counseling. Heroin. He couldn't make eye contact and he jiggled his leg so forcefully I thought he might fall out of the chair. I felt uncomfortable too. I wanted to get up and run. I longed to open my drawer and spray some Febreeze into the anxiety-packed atmosphere. But as is true with almost anyone, they often just want someone to sit with them. To let them be where they are. I fell still and began to ask short, open-ended questions. "What do you want in life?" "What do you like?" I forgot all the blank lines I needed to fill in for the paperwork.
He told me he used to be thin (couldn't believe he'd gotten to 300 pounds). "Girls liked me," he said. "I even had a really beautiful girlfriend once, and I was in college." Then he said, "I went missing, though, when I got into heroin--it was like the drug was my girlfriend instead of a real woman." Then he said, "That's what I want. I want to find myself again--I want a real life and a family."
At some point he looked at me, and I noted he had expressive, dark brown eyes. Long lashes. His skin was smooth--olive. His hair thick, black as night. I could almost imagine him that thinner version of himself posing in some fashion magazine, hands in a pair of shredded-at-the-knees jeans and giving the camera an edgy look. He told me that he liked You Tube and taught himself myriad skills watching how-to videos. "Oh, yeah, I also want to go back to college--that's really a key for me. I had a four point before I dropped out and began using."
I envisioned that our time together was like him bringing in a envelope of a prized photograph of himself that had been torn to bits. He courageously laid out the fragments, and together we might work on gluing them back.
At the end of our session, this man told me that in his Asian culture, his name means "Happy." I asked him if he knew how his parents had decided on his name. "My dad told me when he saw me as a baby, I was the happiest little person he'd ever seen." There was a pause, and then he smiled. That smile of his. I almost cried. I didn't notice the smell. His teeth white. A radiance.
After he left, I did spray the Febreeze. I prayed too. "God let me remember that people are not just a number, but they are named and precious and deserve to find every piece of their best self."
A friend told me recently she'd learned to hula hoop--a pink hula hoop she'd taken to her back porch and practiced until she was able to keep it from clattering to the ground. "What possessed you?" I was thoroughly intrigued. I'd tried to learn years ago, but had given up. She answered, "It's about letting your body lean into the motion of the hoop." "Buy why now?" I asked. "Well," she said, "My life is chaotic. I'm not entirely happy, and there was just something so inviting about that large, bright, pink hoop in the Rite Aid that seemed fun. I bought it on a whim, and now I hula hoop every night."
I liked her spirit. The way of a child. I thought back to my childhood. I rode my purple Schwinn Sting Ray with the banana seat everywhere. I periodically decorated it. I decked out the handle grips with streamers and placed crepe paper in the spokes. The decorations didn't last long, but for a while they looked festive. I wondered if I could apply that same thinking to my marriage relationship. That relationship is chaotic, not always happy. Recently I wrote in my journal: Marriage is confusing to me in some ways. Disappointing. Hard. Not what I expected. Not what he expected. Feeling misunderstood. Being judged unfairly. Judging unfairly. Pride unleashed--both of us. Wonderful, memorable trips. Tender moments--many. Boredom. Good sex. No sex. Lovely food. Beautiful man--loving his hands, his skin, his eyes. Eclectic mix. Love.
I began to think that often marriage is something like decking out your bike--placing a big bouquet of roses on the handle bars--translated hiding a letter in my husband's luggage before a trip, sending him a love text unexpectedly, or telling him a joke at dinner and laughing and laughing and laughing together, his eyes crinkling into green slivers. That's the spirit! I'm standing up on my pedals, sailing down the hill, the crepe paper in the bike spokes whistling. The streamers flapping in the breeze.
Pink hula hoops and bikes festooned with roses make things better--much better.
As a child I remember playing "Musical Chairs." The music began and everyone marched around a grouping of chairs.Only there was not a chair for every child. When the music stopped, one child was left standing. Out. No seating for her. One more chair was removed, and the whole process began again. Eventually there would be only one chair and one child--the crowned winner and lone survivor.
Sometimes I feel like this is the mindset amongst writers. It can feel like we're all vying for a chair, knowing there is not room for everyone in the maniacal musical chair competition. We can feel threatened by other writers, because they might get a coveted spot, and then we won't have a place to sit.
I was reminded of this metaphor over the weekend. I attended an artist's conference. And it was a Christian conference, no less. The first night felt a bit awkward--a roomful of introverts attempting to ward off the silences with dreaded and inane small talk. I felt relieved when the speaker began her lecture. Near the end of the evening, I timidly approached another writer desiring to make some connection. I perceived she did not want to speak to me. She did not make eye contact and seemed irritated that I asked for her website address. I felt surprised and hurt, honestly. I felt confused that she didn't seem interested in meeting another author. It was as if she thought I might snatch her chair.
I almost didn't go to the second half of the conference. The atmosphere felt so uninviting the night before, I wondered if the next day would be the same. I went, though. Actually, I decided to go, because the best part of the previous evening occurred when a kind man named Joe prayed for me--that I would have discernment and wisdom and understanding about what to write--that I wouldn't give up.
That next day, it seemed as if the environment had flipped to something entirely positive. I sat with a group of brilliant, kind and joyful women. We played a different game. There was a chair for all of us. We were not shoving each other and pushing for a seat amidst the chairs. We expressed feelings of joy in pursuing our calling; we commiserated regarding the rough patches of perservering with artistic pursuits in this ragged and challenging culture. We prayed for each other.
The ache for acceptance is strong. I feel it. I felt it when I wanted the author to look at me and share her work. I am not spotless. I have done my share of exclusion when disdaining authors who write romance or artists who perform country music. It is a horrible attitude. And I won't do it anymore. None of us must do it. Each artist belongs and deserves a chair. The result will not be merely a lone winner left holding her crown, but rather a whole host of winners cheering each other on to artistic victory.
This week I feature an excerpt from my book, On A Clear Blue Day.
The dream came to me, because I asked for it. The evening before the dream I felt miserable. My husband and I were distant--he withdrew into his shell and constantly watched television, the screen like another woman. I was sick of it. And so much of who I am, he didn't get--didn't get that I am a person who believes in answered prayers and divine interventions. So I prayed, "God please. I don't know what to do. Give me a dream." And He did.
That night I found myself floating on my back in warm waters--a blue sea flecked with white caps. When I rose up out of the water I was standing on the edge of a kingdom. A majestic castle stood there just off the shoreline, its turrets splendidly reaching up toward the cerulean, cloudless sky. It was pleasantly warm.
I immediately had the desire to enter the castle. but as is true in dreams, they are not always linear. I don't remember entering through the castle doors, but instead found myself climbing stone steps up a narrow passage into one of the high towers.
After a while I paused on the step and noticed an alcove to my left. A small marble table was set up with benches on either side. On one bench sat my father, wearing a dark suit and red tie. He was young with luminous skin, his eyes bright--the wavy, thick hair of his youth. I was ecstatic to see him as he died in 2000 at age eighty-six.
My father invited me to sit down on the opposite bench. We were in close quarters. I could feel the heat and bony protrusions of his kneecaps pressed up against mine. He was kind, yet simultaneously let me know his time was limited. It was like he had many tasks to complete and the Lord had summoned him to speak to me. I sensed the brevity of our interaction and got right to the point. "Dad, what should I pray for Giovanni?" He replied, "Pray that his heart would be pierced by the love of the Master." I looked ip to see a window cut out of the stone wall. Light filled up the window--the sky of heaven all around the castle.
I asked my dad, "That's all--pray for a pierced heart?" "Yes," he said. "That is my directive."
I awakened. It was about three in the morning. I sat down at the computer and Googled "pierced heart." I found a website in Salt Lake City, Utah called "Piercing Hearts Ministries." The ministry invites people to send prayer requests. I shared my dream and what led me to their website. A few days later I got an email from the pastor of the ministry. He said he and his staff were moved by my story and were praying for my husband. The pastor wrote, "Sometimes we forget that the Master loves them more than we do."
Then about two weeks later after I had the dream, my older sister visited me unexpectedly. We live very far apart, so don't see each other much. She brought me a gift. When I opened the package, a colorful ceramic heart with an arrow pierced through it was in the box. How could she have known? When I told her about the dream, she said she felt God prompted her to buy the gift for me.
The heart hangs on my wall, a symbol of the Master's love and His directive for me to pray that my husband's heart would be pierced by His love. And then He summoned people to pray. Can I doubt? I shouldn't. Sometimes I do, though. Then I remember I dreamed of sky through a window.
This week I continue a third excerpt from the book I'm writing, What Lies Between Us ( A Geography of Marriage). I'll end the excerpts here for a time. If you missed the first two entries, you'll find them in What Lies Between Us and The Medieval Prince Bids Farewell. Thank you for allowing this peek of my newest work...
"How wrong we were about each other, and how happy we have been." (From the poem, I Married You, by Linda Pastan)
The closet was one of the most spacious I'd ever had--kind of counterintuitive in such a small house. In fact the entire master bedroom was almost another little house in a house--like those Russian nesting dolls. In the bedroom I got down to the next to last doll, and then that remaining little doll, as tiny as a thimble, was me, my truest self there in that sanctuary of a bedroom--able to rest and read, sleep and think. I decorated the room in soft greens and creams. For Valentine's Day, Giovanni bought me a comforter that had the same greens and creams with understated touches of pink in the design. He brought it to me on that Valentine's night after he got off his shift at the Olive Garden.
"After I got off work, I went over to the mall. I wanted to get you something, and I found this at Sears." I was already in bed, reading. I put my book face-down on the nightstand. Giovanni handed me the bulky comforter package and placed it on my lap.
It was these types of gestures that made me feel again like that first day. That first day our eyes met when we were so young, the familiarity in that glance, the feeling of being home. This man "got me." I could just imagine him wandering the mall, tired after a long shift--after having worked in a restaurant that did not value him--that basically sold frozen Italian dinners--not real food. His expertise and knowledge of food was so beyond this American chain. Yet he worked there, because he couldn't not work. No wonder he wanted to go to New York.
I got up and we removed all the old bed clothes. That sage and ecru comforter set became a sort of metaphorical symbol of tenderness between us, and as I gazed at it that rainy day, I missed him, missed the warmth of his hand on my knee when we'd lie in bed togther, me reading, he on his laptop catching up on news. But I shook off the memory and walked into the closet.
I began pushing the coat hangers down the closet rods. I found a black and white checked suit jacket that I used to wear constantly when I was a size eight. I tried it on. I couldn't button it. The snugness reminded me of my weight gain over the last several years. Size ten was my usual now, and sometimes even a twelve. I felt discouraged, but took the jacket off the hanger and placed it in the Goodwill pile. I was merciless. I decided I wouldn't keep anything that didn't fit me now. I was letting go of ideals. I wasn't going to bank on the fact that I'd lose ten pounds and get back into the size eight. No. That jacket was to be left in the heap.
Then I came to a brown polyester suit with the original coat hanger and plastic protector that read: The Great American Short Story. I wore that suit at my first marriage. I bought it at the store for women 5'3" and under. It was a size six. I did not try it on. I wan't willing to humiliate myself further. The suit, though, stirred my thoughts. My first husband, Mason, and I had eloped. With money that my dad gave us, we both bought wedding attire--me the brown suit, and he a green plaid three-piece that was in fashion at the time, but ultimately really not so attractive. But I'd kept the brown suit, because it was a classic. I'd worn a salmon-colored blouse with it that tied at the neck and had the slightest, subtle polka dot in the weave of the fabric. I wore a small pin in the shape of a cowboy hat, that same peachy, salmon color, on the lapel. I still had the cowboy hat pin in my jewelry box, but I placed the suit in the Goodwill mound and kept the coat hanger, the gold flaking off the capital "S" in "Short."
As I filled up the bundle to take to the Goodwill, I almost pulled the brown suit out. I wasn't at the same place with the divorce--not in that cluster of doubt and sadness--that swamp of ambivalence and shame. But I still second-guessed myself about leaving Mason and felt guilty. And simultaneously, I knew I couldn't go back and make things different. I had to keep marching on. I told myself that perhaps the divorce and subsequent pain was the only "school" where I could learn to be real, remembering that the Velveteen Rabbit is not, of course, a plush, beautiful stuffed animal.