Youthful Manifesto

When I grow up, I want a two-story house with a porch and porch swing. I want hanging flower pots and a garden. I want to grow tomatoes and peppers and lemon balm and squash and okra and Indian corn and I want to plan hours out of my days and weeks to work in the garden. I want my kids to pick tomatoes off the plants, to learn what to look for when looking at growing things, to know how to use what the seeds and the sun and the rain and the earth give us. I want them to have to move the potted plants inside when it threatens to frost and to understand that to grow something, you have to take care of it. I want them to know how to cultivate good things.

When I grow up, I want to have a piano in my house. I want to play it and I want my kids, if they want to, to have the opportunity to play it too. I want there to be music playing while we live in the house and I want to sing along. I want to hum while I clean the kitchen or do laundry and I want to take my Saturday mornings to listen to the radio and reset the house after the week that’s gone by. I want my kids to have chores, because I think responsibility is taught by taking care of the things you own.  I want to have four Sunday dresses and one dress for parties, three pairs of good jeans and one pair of work jeans, ten sets of work clothes and ten sets of leisure clothes, and five pairs of shoes, because I want to enjoy my abundance but not over-use it.

When I grow up, I want a good car that’ll last me twelve years. I want to buy it nearly new and I want to take care of it. I want a notebook where I'll keep the inspection notices, the repair receipts, and a chart of the oil changes and the miles on the tires. I want to keep paper towels in the car, because spills shouldn’t be left to sit on the metal and plastic and upholstery. I want to clean out my car every sleepy Sunday afternoon, my one act of personal reorganization on the Sabbath. I want to teach my sons how to change the tires and I want to let my husband teach my daughters about the engine and all the parts of the car hidden away under the hood, because I think it’s important that my children know that intelligence about any subject is not limited by gender.

When I grow up, I want to be part of a church. I want to cook casseroles for church lunches and caringly serve on committees. I want to be in a Bible study that teaches me new things and I want to have a close group of people to hold me accountable, who I can pray for and who pray for me and my family. I want to sing and move and clap and smile during worship because I’ve never sung nor said a truer word than “O may Thy house be my abode, And all my work be praise.  There would I find a settled rest, While others go and come; No more a stranger, nor a guest, But like a child at home,” and I want my kids to see that. I want them to be rooted in hymns and scripture and tradition but I want them to find their own idea of God in the corners of sanctuaries and the ceilings of bedrooms and the halls of the places they go to learn. I want them to listen to sermons from the pulpit and from the forests and from friends. I want them to hear about the grandeur of God and I want them to be amazed by the size of the mountains, the unseeable breadth of the ocean, the unfathomable distance to the Moon and to the stars so that they have a context in which to place that grandeur. I want them to know about Jesus and to be moved by the Spirit and to join the church in their own right because I want them to see the Church the way I want them see themselves- loved, saved, protected, redeemed imperfection striving to share that same love with the world around them. I want them to understand the meaning of the word blessed and I want them to know that simply by the nature of the land on which we stand, we embody that word.

When I grow up, I want to serve my community. I want to go to PTA meetings and town council meetings and football games and baseball games and festivals and performances. I want to encourage businesses to endeavor to make better people out of the people who work for them now and the people who may work for them in the future. I want to speak out for teachers and schools and education. I want to hold elected officials accountable. I want to learn about the problems facing my neighborhood, my community, my state, and my nation, and I want to take proactive steps to bring those problems to a halt. I want to use the abundance that has been give to me to help others who have fallen or who were born into less to stand up and pull themselves out of those places, because I have seen the problems that we the people wash over and I know that there is something better out there for all of us if we begin to solve those problems. I want to watch in awe as we begin to think of ourselves as citizens not of a nation but of a planet together, because I think that we can and I think that we must, in order to preserve this wonder of a place that has been given to us.

When I grow up, I want to plan my time. I want to wake up with a purpose, eat three meals in a day, and read myself to sleep. I want half an hour in the mornings to be with myself and my God because I know the ways I need to be fed. I want to see my husband in the mornings and in the evenings and at night and I want us to have a night alone each week or as often as we can afford it, because I never want to sleep beside a stranger. He may not forever be the man I married, but he will always be the man I know and love. I want our family to do things together as much as we can and to talk to each other even more. I want to sit through recitals and plays and games and meets and performances and competitions and presentations because I’ve seen the way mothers beam when they watch their kids and I am jealous of the kind of quiet pride that admirable mothers have. But through all of this, I want to take time for myself, to be centered, to write or to read or to practice or to exercise or to learn, because I know that I should only do as much today as will allow me to do the same tomorrow and because I want to teach my kids self-care along with self-sacrifice.

And while I’m growing up, I want to travel. I want to live somewhere new to me, with new words for familiar objects, new ways of thinking about familiar ideas, and new accents to learn and decipher. I want to see the other coast of this grand nation, and visit the places around us. I want to take someone back with me to Vienna and Venice and Barcelona and Paris and Rome. I want to go to the cathedral in Dunblane again and see if it kept its sway over me and I want to stand in St. Peter’s Basilica again, long enough to decide how I feel about it. I want to visit a peaceful Jerusalem and Cairo and Baghdad and Tehran. I want to be convinced to take a trip to Tokyo or Seoul or Beijing. I want to stand in places where history has been made and places where history is in the making. I want to think on trains and planes and come back with stories to tell and moments to store up in my heart.

Because I know that I’ll come back. I know that my state has a hold on me and that I can’t be long away from the cardinals and the dogwoods and the pine trees. I know that I will continue to bleed that lighter shade of blue and God help my husband if he can’t understand that. I know that every summer night that I miss watching the fireflies rival the stars is a night for which I’ll mourn. I know I’ll regret being away from the mountains in the fall and the spring, when the leaves turn the world into new colors. I know I’ll long for crisp nights and clear skies, for the miracle of occasional snow powdering cold sidewalks and needed rain bouncing on green leaves, and for the summertime wall of heat and abundant sunshine. This is home. It will always be home. No matter how amazing the other places are or seem, this is where I want to build my life. Here are the people and here is the place I want to love. This is the state that I want to see follow our motto. These are the people that I want to see cared for, brought out of our difficulties, educated, understood, and loved. This is the land I want to see preserved and molded and pushed forward and never lost. Here, in this place, are the problems I want to solve and the goodness I want to celebrate.

Part of me wants never to grow up, to forever enjoy the nostalgia of imagining the future. Part of me wants to grow up this minute, to immediately have that love and create that world and curate that reality. But all of me knows that even now, while I’m waiting to start down the road that’ll take me to the person that I’ll be, I can shape who I am. I don’t have to wait to start taking care of myself. I can pick up discipline and know that discipline, like waking up on time or planning the time to read, to learn something new, to walk, or to write, doesn't mean giving up my freedom- it means freeing myself from the burdensome parts of me that stop me from doing everything I want to do. It means working to be healthy while good health is easy to have because I have seen the abundant liberty inherent in good health. It means working to learn and to educate while I still have the time and the mind for it because I have seen the value of understanding the facts of our complex world. It means learning and being sure of myself, of my needs and wants, and being able to articulate those ideas, those needs and wants, because that will help one day when I embark on that frightening endeavor of sharing my heart and mind with someone else. It means having peace in my heart and an unshakable understanding that even though I have all these wants and plans and values, my path will be guided by a different hand with a greater glory in mind and that that greater glory will serve the world better than my tiny dreams and hopes and goals.

Today, I function in a world of groaning maturity. Tomorrow, I’ll live in a world of understanding quasi-adulthood.

To be, rather than to seem.

Could Be Another Change

So I took this one class in college, my first religious studies class (which also counted as my philosophy credit, which meant that I could drop Philosophy of Physics, which was the last honors course I attempted to take and was the beginning of my downward spiral into average academic achievement, thank goodness), called Heaven and Hell. Now, to be fair, there was both heaven and there was both hell, but we really only spent one week on hell and I’m not even sure that we mentioned Paradise Lost, which I thought would have been required for the understanding of hell. But I digress.

In this class, we had to write three papers about the soul/the afterlife in popular culture. I picked 2 C.S. Lewis books and a movie with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. in it because that’s the kind of person that I was. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And I was really proud of my papers. They were fine papers. But I think this is the beginning of my condescension of my condescending college self, because I know now that there are so many other possibilities out there that would have leant themselves to those papers, things that were outside of my worldview back then. Things like vampires.

Now, feel free to judge away again, because I’m going to dive into Buffy-land. First off, where was this show when I was a teenager and why did it never come across my path until now? Maybe I just had to wait until I was ready for it. Second off, Joss Whedon has no problem killing characters and bringing them back again (something I should be familiar with as a Stargate: SG-1 fan, since killing Daniel Jackson is a recurring theme in that show) so that just screams for investigation into how life and afterlife work in the Buffy universe. And what do you do with the undead who walk around? Are vampires alive? Where do they go when they’re slayed? When people are sent places and brought back, what were those places? How do those places correlate to western theology and how are they different? Why am I interested in this now when I could have had two or three killer papers, which is what life is really all about?

Also, how did I miss the opportunity to write about zombies? ZOMBIES. Maybe I just wasn’t as into the internet then as I am now. But there are endless possibilities here and I don’t think I had the courage to dream big enough yet at that point in my life. I mean, it’s easy to stand higher up on the hill and say that I had no idea what was going on when I was down there, but there are going to be (hopefully) more years of climbing and looking back down and wondering. I can’t let myself get sucked in too much here either. The internet is a fun place, and watching shows on Netflix is wonderful, but there are loves to be regained. There are books and there is writing and there are minor dreams to be dreamed again.

But it’s good to look back sometimes too, you know? It’s good to look back and know that it wasn’t perfect but it was good enough. Room to grow. Room to grow is good.

Three Pages of a Quick Second and Two Pictures

Let me tell you about my day today for just a quick second.

My alarm went off at 4:45am so I could take a shower before going on a school visit today (I drive a travelling planetarium around the state. Yeah, my job is awesome. Deal with it). I did not get up then. I did the eh-I-can’t-possibly-smell-that-bad-and-I’m-going-to-sweat-anyway roll over to turn off my alarm. Then I woke up in a panic at my next alarm and packed things in my suitcase in record time and nodded in approval at how everything magically fit (I left my shampoo and conditioner in the shower) and rolled my suitcase down to the cul-de-sac and got in the state van and struggled with the GPS (who I like to call Gipus in a loud and often angry/condescending voice) and started my morning drive.

I got to the school and sketchily waited in the darkened office because no one was around but I couldn’t find the light switch and I wasn’t sure where else to look. Then someone came in and found people to help me unload and I set up the planetarium and nodded again in approval because the door was behaving itself (it often doesn’t) and I had been very efficient during setup this morning (this was before I noticed that I forgot to put up the flags). I got the confidence boost that comes with singing along to the musical of the hour and hearing the echo of your voice around a big empty room and being happy with the way it sounds. If you have never had this confidence boost, I recommend burning a CD of songs in your vocal range and singing along in the car where no one can hear you until you’re confident enough to fill up a room where no one can hear you. Then maybe you and I can get together and we can figure out a way for our voices to fill up a room with people in it. It’s a process.

Shows went fine. Kids were funny and oohed and aahed at the appropriate places and generally got edjumacated. I got to take this picture of balloons on the wall:

It was a pretty solid day. Then, as I was packing up, I got the message that my great-aunt had died, so of course I put music on and finished packing up because dealing was not something I was going to do. I mean, I was planning on going home this weekend anyway, so maybe I’d be able to manage things. This, by the way, is the kind of thing my mind does when it can’t deal. It starts to plot out a schedule and a bullet point list of things we’ll need to do in the next couple of hours to deal. This is helpful- remember, I drive a travelling planetarium around the state for a living, so logistics can be difficult. At the same time, it’s just a schedule and logistics. Dealing starts when I actually put the schedule and logistics into action and that doesn’t happen as soon as it should most of the time.

We finish packing up- the guys who helped me load the planetarium back into the van were pros and Gipus manned up and got some directions. Then, as I’m driving to my hotel and singing along to the musical of the hour, I notice that there’s a car pulled off to the side of the road. Actually, that’s not an accurate statement. There’s a Jeep that’s completely rolled off the road on its side in a ditch. I turn around and ask the guy if he’s OK and if he needs a ride. He’s fine, magically, ironically, and there’s a tow shop right down the road, so I drive him down the road. He gets in and he tells me that he just drifted off. I turned down the musical of the hour- there’s more profanity than I want someone to whom I’m giving a road after he just drove his jeep off the road to hear. You know, he was going to turn on the next road and just drifted off the road. He was very adamant that he just drifted off the road. I nod and remark on how lucky it is that there’s a tow shop right down the road, because it’s not like this a super populated area. I think I actually said that it looked pretty sparse out there. Which may have been an unfortunately complex choice in words because as the guy’s sitting there, I think, “What’s that smel- oh.” I have been in enough high school bathrooms to have a guess about the real reason this guy just drifted off the road. Honestly, this is one situation I didn't expect today.

I drop the guy off and wish him well and roll down the windows. I use the moment in the parking lot to check my phone to see if there’s any news and I see a text from my dad asking me to call him, which I do as I pull out of the tow shop. He asks me where I am (I was on the way to Roanoke Rapids, which is so far north in North Carolina that it's almost Virginia) and if I’m driving and you know that “Are you driving?” is the new “Maybe you should sit down.” My grandmother (my great-aunt is her sister) had had a massive heart attack that afternoon and had been taken to the hospital and they hadn’t started her heart back up.

Which I absolutely can’t handle. Like, should-pull-off-on-the-side-of-the-road-because-I-can’t-see can’t handle. Then again, she hasn’t died yet. And she’s in the hospital. Maybe she’ll get better! But you know that sinking feeling you get when you lie to yourself and it’s a pretty obvious lie? That’s the kind of feeling you get when your grandmother has unexpectedly had a massive heart attack and they haven’t started her heart back even though it’s been half an hour. But you lie anyway, because life would be so much better if the lie were true.

So I ask my dad when my great-aunt’s funeral is going to be, just to have something to say, but he doesn’t understand me even when I ask the question twice more (probably because I’m in an area with little to no service and I’m leaking out my eyes and nose) so I get angry and tell him I’ll call him back later and toss my phone rather violently into the passenger’s seat, because I needed an expression of my anger. I mean, I feel like my grandfather just died (I also found out he was in the hospital while at work at the planetarium, so clearly, my working at the planetarium isn’t good for my elderly relatives) and my great-aunt did just die and I can’t handle the idea that my grandmother is going to go as well. Oh, also, my old ballet teacher died. So that happened.

I go get pizza because I haven’t eaten since breakfast and because comfort food is called comfort food for a reason. And I drive to my hotel and as I’m checking in my dad calls back. Again, I can’t deal, and I don’t want to be rude to the lady behind the counter (she’s my age. Why would I call her the lady behind the counter? Society, man. Society) so I let it go to voicemail. I drop my key card and pick it up and struggle bus it to the elevator and call my dad back and start crying alligator tears in the hallway because my grandmother’s died. And the logistic panicking happens and the helplessness happens and I’m thankful to no end that no one else rode the elevator up with me because they’d probably awkwardly try to comfort me and that’s on the growing list of things I can’t handle right now.

So I sit on the edge of my hotel bed and sob, not even bothering to check for bed bugs (which I still haven’t done- and don’t call me paranoid, because I’m statistically more likely to run into bed bugs since I travel more than you [probably] and I like my clothes and luggage). Because how much must this suck for my mom and my aunts and my uncle and my cousins and my brothers and my dad? And me! How much must this suck for me! Here I am, hours from home with a travelling planetarium and a full week’s worth of shows and a dead grandmother and alone. All I want to do is go home and hug my mom and tell her not to die without letting me say goodbye, please and thanks, and I surprise myself by wanting to do this, really wanting to be home and not just saying that I want to be home because it’s societally expected of me. I want to be home because home is where my grandmother was and I didn’t get to make it back in time to say goodbye, and regret, you can just take your place in line because you’re an emotion I’ll deal with later.

Then the call to work to try to get people to cover, which was wonderfully, thankfully painless. Then the texts to roommates and friends, cancelling or changing plans. Then how many times do you have to tell someone news? Can’t they just know? Do I have to say this again and again? Because it brings the tears up every time and my face is already puffy. AND ALSO, they put the tissues IN THE BATHROOM COUNTER which is just an added difficulty when I clearly need the tissues on my bed.

On the upside, I could now change out the stuck-in-the-counter tissues if called upon. Life skills. Check.

I cringe a little when I make a joke. I think humor while grieving is appropriate in public, but it sounds crass in a text. But I don’t have anyone here with me to make the joking less crass and I have to deal somehow, so I joke away. And now I have to get my pizza out of the state van and bring the projector up, because I’m in no state to drive and I don’t want the van to retain any of the smells of the day. But I’m mourning, right? I mean, I’m not watching Castle right now, even though I have cable right in front of me. [Insert joke about missing the d00k game.] [Retract joke.] [Struggle to decide how to feel about all of this and the internet, which is still perfectly happy to say funny things that I feel like I can't like right now.]

I also can’t help but think about how differently I’m reacting to this news than I did two years ago. I processed things more easily back then, I think. I don’t think I joked because I don’t think I had switched from the silence shield to the bitter humor shield. I was also perfectly happy to internalize things, but I don’t do that so much anymore. External expressions of internal pain have gotten more real. More real in that I don’t just post them on facebook. I talk to people. And people have offered to do nice things for me. People can be nice.

It’s just that the adult in me can’t handle the third grader in me right now. “People can be nice”? Nice, kid. The adult in me is standing beside the checklist lady in my head, the one who started making plans earlier. The checklist lady is kinda satisfied. I mean, biologically, everyone has two parents who, biologically, have two parents, so you’re going to have four grandparents die, so this is just another check mark completed. It’s all the same to her, whether you make the check mark when you’re in elementary school and don’t really understand death or whether you’re legally an adult and don’t really understand death. I don’t think I let the checklist lady have any soul, so we can’t blame her too much. But I think the adult needs to man up and stop shaking her head at me. This is hard. And I think it’s important that we know that this is hard. I think it’s important that the checklist lady and the analyst lady go home and just let me be me for these moments. Because these moments are going to come again in the future and they’re going to hit harder and I need to learn to deal. I’m growing up and I can’t ignore that fact anymore.