A Life of Revision

It's come to that time whereupon reflection and revision increase as the days remaining on the calendar decrease. As I look back at my goals for 2011, I feel satisfied to have achieved many of them. This has indeed been a year of reading well and getting to know myself. It has proved to be a year where friendships have been not only my saving grace but have also produced such joy and humility. I wrote about investing in friendships with the assumption that I would focus on being a better friend, however, this year I found myself leaning on and depending upon others in ways I had never imagined. For those of you who have comforted me as I cried, listened as I tried to make sense through confusion, and poured out stern advice along with gentle encouragement, thank you. Those two words are not nearly adequate, but with all my heart, thank you. Again I find myself asking What have you learned this year? How will you live differently based on your experiences? Will you look at the world differently? Have your priorities changed at all? Perhaps these questions seem cliche or routine to ask year after year, but I truly believe that "life without revision will silence our souls." So for 2012, here are a few thoughts I hope will guide my year:

2012, a year of enjoying life. A year of seeking peace and making time to rest. A year of living well, in spirit and body. A year of taking walks and soaking in small moments. A year of being honest with others. Continuing to read well and beginning to increase my library. A year of baking - with friends, for friends, for myself. A year of writing. A year of giving my time more generously to family and friends, instead of just fitting them in. A year of planning to make no plans, just enjoying moments and fun. A year of trusting, in myself and that all things will work out for good in their own time. And finally, a year of laughter, because I've had enough tears this past year to last through the next.

I have no idea what 2012 will hold, but I hold onto hope and optimism that the heartache and mistakes of the year past will result in growth that will bring joy and wisdom in the year to come.

Middleness

It's that time of year again. Time for lights and parties and sweaters and food, lots and lots of food. It's the time of year when you can walk into any coffee shop and see every chair, table, and spare corner occupied by students with haggard faces and books sprawled in front of them. It's the only time of year I do not miss being a student. The memories of cramming for finals and staying up until the words blurred on the computer screen as I tried to finish that last paper are still fresh. That familiar knot of anxiety is beginning to tangle even writing about it now. For those of you in these coffee shops now, I feel for you. And I envy you. You are days away from ending a semester. Next year you choose new classes, you have a fresh start. One thing I have had to come to terms with is that I am a starter. I love beginnings. New semesters, new projects, new jobs. I started to notice in college that I was a great motivator and ideas generator, but the struggle for me comes in the middle, in finishing. And that scares me. Beyond college, there are very few fresh starts. There are beginnings to be sure. New jobs, new cities, new relationships. But the freshness is what becomes hard to find. There are no clean slates. There is baggage. There is a past. There are mistakes that follow you no matter where you go. It's this middle place that is hard. If I can't start over then I have to just keep moving even though every part of me wants to drop it all here and try for that fresh start that doesn't exist. Life after college doesn't have semesters. There are seasons, to be sure, but the branches that are broken under winter's ice are still broken in spring. Enjoy this week, students. Enjoy the fresh start after holidays at home. Know that this season is a gift, and gifts of other kinds will find you after this one ends, but know that it will end. This isn't sad. Our broken branches and overlap of seasons past are what build a life. They are what give us a story worth telling. They are the layers of our humanity. I am sure that anyone with a few years more of moving through this middleness has come to realize this already. I'm working it through, pieces of adulthood falling into place, naivety slowly falling away as I resolve myself to keep moving and stop looking to start over.

November

A year later, November is just as I left her. She has waited patiently through cold, and rain, and heat, for the gentle decay of the calendar until she could arrive once again. She came with familiar question, "Is this who you want to be?" And she came with hard decisions. This year when she came, I was in a different place, but it was the same place. November drove me to my knees once again, in thanksgiving and grief and relief. Yet on this hard ground I feel November's heart beating, as if to remind me that with her brokenness comes her grace. November has been my test, my gift, my salvation. Though she comes in cold and barren and with signs of death, she leaves a warmth and hope that keep my soul from abandon. Oh November, you are just as I left you, but I am not as you left me. I'm finding it in myself.

Happiness Lies in Being, Not Having

Neatly tucked inside a book called Oklahoma Boy, sitting on a dusty shelf in an antique store, these words have probably not been aired in many years, yet they jumped off the yellowed page with as much fervor and necessity as they day they were printed.

"Recently a circular portrayed a family of four with beaming faces and each loaded down with bundles of goods purchased at a department store - with this caption: "You get more out of life the American way!" It went on to say, "The American way is to open a credit account - Do it today and you'll begin to get more out of life...the American way!"

That, of course, is one way. But that is not the whole picture of life. There is love and kindness and poetry and beauty and heroic daring; they too, have meaning. Most people seem to think the primary interests of life are material. "How much did he leave?" we ask when some well-to-do man has died. He left all he had. It is not how much? The question is how true; how good; how beautiful; words which are honest, deeds which are just, purposes which are beautiful; these are the highest satisfactions in life.

You see, satisfaction lies not in having, not even in doing, but in being. Yet the idea of having has gone beyond the wildest dreams, and the idea of being is classed among the lost arts. To get the most out of life the human spirit must be something.

Some of the highest satisfactions in life may be found in creative work. Anyone who has ever entered into creative has found meaning and satisfaction in life for it comes out of work more than from any other thing. All great books, paintings, statues and musical compositions were achieved by those who lost themselves in their labors, and worked primarily for the joy in the work.

Consider the idea of creative sharing: In your day's work, can you spare a kindly word, a friendly greeting, a wave of the hand? These simple actions have magic in them.

Can the idea by the great Idealist, "If you lose your life, you will gain it," possibly be true? Some have tried it and have not been disappointed.

And you get more out of life by adventurous living. The reverence of the heroic has not died among us. There are still opportunities for adventurous living. They are not all confined to the exploits of the sea and the fields and the air.

Emotional agitations, resentment and violence are still to be curbed; criminal and lower temptations have never lost their power; hate is as deadly as before. What do you suppose would happen, if we should whole-heartedly give ourselves to truth, beauty, goodness as the one passion of our souls?"

by R.E. Dreger, printed in the Tulsa World February 16, 1969

Scars

There are some hurts that fall off like scales. There are some that we must carve out like tumors. They invade every vein, every artery, every cell. With precision and gritted teeth,we must painstakingly remove all traces. Of a friend, a lover, a connection that’s woven itself into the fabric of our bodies. There is no anesthesia. The cries of pain from our soul go unmedicated and unanswered, save the placing of a scalpel in our hand. And so we must go to work. Eventually the shock sets in, and instead of pain, we feel numb. The hours of careful cutting leave us utterly exhausted. We get most of it out. What’s left, we let our body try to handle on its own. As we heal, we see the scars raise along our limbs, across our chest; remembrances trailing across our skin. But the only way to be sure it’s all out, is to cut ourselves open again. Each time the pain is fresh, but the scar gets thicker, the tissue builds. Over and over we must open ourselves up to see if the hurt is gone. Sometimes reopening the scar invites the hurt to settle back in. Sometimes reopening the scar, we are surprised to find that it has diminished to only a fraction of what once took over our entire being. Sometimes, we find that it’s not there at all, and we can let the wound heal once and for all. The hardest part is picking up the scalpel. Until we open our veins and see it with our eyes, it’s easy to dismiss. To walk around full of this sickening cancer, this disparaging hurt, as if we are healthy and whole. But once the slice has been made, there is no denying what flows through our veins. And we have no choice but to carve it out.

Waiting for the Axe to Drop

Sometimes I find waiting for a thing to happen is worse than the thing that actually happens.

Waiting for the Axe to Drop

It hovers above me

So far it could be a stream from a plane

But I know what it is

A silver blade, waiting, biding its time

It hangs like an omen, like a cliche

As I walk, it follows me, everywhere

You open your mouth and the blade quivers

It prepares to drop, a free fall, slicing through the open air

But you hesitate and keep our secret a bit longer

And so it waits

And so I wait

Eventually I know you must confess

The axe will drop

Blunt but piercing, the truth will cut through me

It will take all the strength my heart has left to stop the blade

Offering up arteries and vessels and chambers

Catching it just before it kills me completely

Observation

I am watching myself. Like an observer hovering over some experiment with a clipboard and pen at the ready. Did I go too far? Did I tip that scale where stable elements suddenly lose all stability and head towards escape and chaos? I am waiting to see how this will affect me. Too far in one direction and I know I will need to pull back, alter a few elements. No change? Then we will proceed. Although most likely with trepidation. One probably should not experiment with the heart or mind, but I will stand here with my clipboard and wait for the results.