Febrero 2008 Archives

and all of this dreaming
the silver and gold
something to break this
winter so cold.
and these sorrows
i'm crying over
and these sorrows
i'm crying over
we go straight for the thunder
straight for the rain
-PG
the more i think about it, the more it behooves me to research the matter,
the more i think that it doesn't matter who you marry; you will always hurt over the love you let go along the way.
and that is sad for both of us, all of us, even the smallest of us. and it means naming love where it has been and fallen and broken just so we might know where the sad is coming from because somehow that kind of helps, a little tiny bit.

i may have scandazilized my spiritual director.
but, as my good friends used to say, "I'm payin' for it!"
she may call and cancel the rest of the meetings we have scheduled.
but what can you do?
not a wholedamnlot.
but i'm taking suggestions anyway.

sometimes my thoughts are so loud i put on the headphones and then forget to push play, and i don't even realize i've forgotten.

sometimes i am really selfish...
there is a midpoint between thinking only of myself and not knowing who the hell i am, it is a moment when i am not entirely myself, i am just sort of a self: self-ish. and it is still in its experimental stages.
and it is very messy, like when all the little ballerinas would show up with their laces out and their hairdos all fuzzy and falling out and it isn't quite right but it is OK, for a little while at least, because the only alternative is to shellac their baby bangs with hairspray, which is pretty gross on a five year old.

and i have these momentary lapses in judgment.
like telling my friend (who happens to be gay which isn't a huge part of our relationship but it is a huge part of this story) that if my church won't hire me full time i can just stay home and make babies. which turned out to be rubbing his face in it because he would love to do that but he doesn't have the parts. and then i just kept going, i didn't even apply the breaks. I said, "You should be a children and family minister; you'd be great." because he would. and that is that.

i honestly think i have the best job on the planet and if my theory about the importance of children's ministries and his idea about the church of gay would or could or might someday (if i have my way) intersect, then things would be even better.
I told my lovely straight husband (who happens to be straight which IS a huge part of our relationship as well as a huge part of the story) and he said, "people would freak out." and i said, "not all of them." which is also very true.

sometimes people are concerned about their/my qualifications: "if i'm not married can i offer premarital counseling?" "if you don't have kids, do you think you should really be working with families like you do?" (in all honesty, my poetry professor would freak out at me if she heard the details of my life at present "But are you getting your WRITING done?!" she would squeak out at me.)

And then i remember that there is Amy Sedaris who wrote a book about entertaining called I Like You. Now i don't know if Amy's parties are any good but i know that she thinks that when you invite someone to a party it is just her way of saying, "I Like You". And that is how she goes about throwing fabulous, iingenius parties... i guess.

what if my only qualification was that i care. my resume would just be a long list of times when i really liked my students, or times when they tried to make me not like them, but i did anyway. and the educational experience part would be about some poems i wrote about how much i like you.

so how can things get so complicated that such a rare person who really cares about these little kids would freak us out by doing so?

it is just hard to see where my friend's heart breaks and then watch him walk away from that ache because he is too tired or too busy or he thinks he is too fragile or just hasn't figured out how badly we need people like him or whatEVER it is that keeps him from doing what he really wants. Don't get me wrong; i could just be putting words into his mouth and not doing this problem any justice. But that is my prerogative i guess because you don't know him and you might never get to but i think you ought to at least think about this problem.

It is like a sad super hero hanging up his tights because the headlines were full of bad news. And i understand certain kinds of exhaustion but i also understand the power of exhortation.

so you better know that i am sort of sorry for being so self-ish and dragging you back and forth across the desert of your desires by way of exulting my own.
but i'm not that sorry.

because i like you.

wow lent came early this year.
happy valentine's day.

and my birthday will be on good friday this year. maybe we won't have cake.

my 3,4,5 class and i are working our way through the voyage of the dawn treader.
they keep asking really good questions like
"what EXACTLY is going on?!"
they crack me up.
and i got a little lost when prince caspian was retelling the entire journey (that pissed me off, i really didn't get that part) and i told them and they said they were lost too and "could we draw a map?" and "what if i draw a picture of the ship that is actually helpful, could i do that?"
i said, in all honesty, "that would be amazing."

and, not to brag, or anything, but they also built models of church buildings and told us all about them and all the problems their parishioners were having, or not having, because the roof caved in or the walls were too high or there wasn't a wall where one might have been. i sat there with my mouth hanging open the whole time because they understand more about church buildings than most people do and especially because they kept bringing their explanations back to what would be best for the people inside or outside the church buildings because that is what really matters--the people.

in other news
my new year's resolution may have been about not trying to carry in too much stuff from the car so i won't drop things in the snow or mud. that is the way this year is turning out anyway.

so i gave up straining my eyes for lent. which is as much to say that i finally went to the eye doctor
he said this will only sting a little. and then when i complained he said he couldn't very well tell me that it was going to hurt like hell.
he said i am farsighted which means i've been fooling myself by compensating, and that if i would just relax i'd realize that i can't really read the words without a little help.
ouch.
happy valentine's day again.
lurv.