Makes for a good story, anyway

I was reading in Starbucks, when I overheard the following story from two elderly men sitting at the table next to mine:


Storyteller: "I have a friend who lives in the country, and one night he saw two men breaking into his tool shed. He called the police and asked them to come apprehend the robbers. In response he was told that there weren't enough men at the station to send anyone over at the time. He was hung up on. The man waited a minute or so then called the police station back. He said, 'I just wanted you to know it's okay now, I shot those two men who were breaking in and stealing.' A few minutes later half the police force had arrived at his door. The officers demanded to know where the robbers were. The man pointed outside to the shed. 'There's the two thieves', he replied calmly. The officers said, 'I thought you said you shot them!' The man said, 'I thought you said you didn't have anyone to send over.'
Both men chuckled. The storyteller said, "Makes for a good story anyway."

Orphaned Fear

Rip a little corner off the darkness
Just to shine a light in the middle of it all
 - Matt Kearney, song - 'All I Have'



Fear
slips quietly into the room
You turn around and
BAM
there it is (wearing black)

Maybe you caught a scent of it
maybe you felt a tingle
But once it's there it's hard to banish
It lingers like an unwanted house guest
making you uncomfortable in your own home
in your own skin

It's the fastest of foes
You can't run from it
for there it will be, ever over your shoulder
Instead you have to face it
fight it
take it head on
Make the fear afraid of you

So
I will make orphans of all my fears
None to go before them, and none left behind them
So that they,
on their own,
must all perish
As quietly as they arrived they will quietly cease to be

weight of words

  Sometimes I write things in the poignancy of a moment that make me smile or even laugh when I look back at them later. Such is the case with a poem I just found, written towards the end of December, after a guy named Bryan called and broke things off. We had been dating for a few weeks and I was excited about the relationship, excited about the future, excited about him. Then he called and ended things, before they were even official. I was stunned. But I moved on. A couple of weeks later and I was shrugging my shoulders and saying, 'Oh well. Life goes on. It simply wasn't meant to be.' So it makes me smile to find the poem, written in a quiet frenzy of trying to understand and be at peace, before the peace came (even without any understanding).

Weight Of Words  - 12.20.11 

It’s really amazing
how
one phone call
a few words
can take the luminous joy that has been growing brighter and stronger
and reduce it to the feeble light of a firefly
winking in and out, in and out, in and out.

“I don’t know how to say this …”
An ominous beginning
my heart catching in my throat
before sinking to my soles
(gravity always plays her part and usually has her way).
“I don’t see things working out, going any further.”
A simple, “Oh,” - all that I can muster at the news.

“I’m sorry,” he says.
When he called I was laughing as I ran up the stairs,
kneeling on the floor to plug in my phone before it died.
Now something else has died, and I am left
kneeling on the floor of my room
leaning against a swivel chair
for some sort of tangible support.

“Thank you for your honesty,” I say.
Thank you for hurting me now and not later.
“I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you,
getting to know you.”
“Me too, yes,” he says.
“Alright then. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”

The finality of it, so crushing
a weight of words
falling clumsily around me
Oh, but I still wish him well
Oh, but I too will be well
Oh, but see?
I’ll take these weighty words
and try to craft them into something better.

Camera In My Heart

Sometimes,
I think that there's a camera inside my heart.
Moments come which are so beautiful,
buoyant,
joyous,
and I will myself to remember them always.
That's when I hear the tiny
'click'
and know that there camera has taken a photograph
so that I will not forget.

Other times
something embarrassing or painful happens
and I press my eyes closed and think
No, please.
A heart is made o muscle and tissue and blood.
It is not mechanical.
I can will it to remember and I can will it to forget.
Right?
Yet my heart does not always listen to my mind
and I hear the film advance and feel the tiny
'click'
as it takes a photograph,
so I will not forget.
Because -
it goes both ways.

Two Dreams: Turtles And Tigers

On Friday night, I had a vivid dream about pet turtles. I dreamed that I walked into a pet shop and the man behind the counter turned to me with a smile and a turtle sitting on his head. The turtle seemed quite content. His legs flopped down on either side of the man's ears, like a bean bag doll's would. He looked around absently, complacently; a creature from a Dr. Seuss tale.
"How did you train the turtle to sit on your head like that?" I exclaimed.
"Oh it was quite easy!" the man said.
"I love it! Do you have others who do that?" I asked.
"Indeed!" the man replied. He then proceeded to pull out a variety of turtles from behind his glass counter and try them on my head as though they were hats. Finally we found one that seemed just right. I was thrilled.
"He's perfect," I said. "This is wonderful! I can have my pet with me wherever I go."
The man nodded, holding up a leaf so that the turtle on his head could snack on it. In my dream there was a spot of worry about if my roommates would be okay with me having a pet turtle, so I begged the shop keeper to save that turtle for me while I ran home and spoke with them. Then I woke up.


On Sunday night, last night, I dreamed about a tiger. I dreamed that I and some of my family were living in the house that used to belong to my Grandmother. I was in the backyard: there was the tree I used to climb ever day and there was the screened-in back porch. That back yard, porch, and house was a tiny zoo. There were birds and a boa but the only thing I cared about was the tiger. The tiger was my special friend. I would step into the porch and there he'd be. He'd come up to me and I'd stroke him. He'd nuzzle into me and I'd wrap my arms around him. I always had to be gentle, so that he in turn was gentle with me. But then, as I embraced him, the tiger would lift his paws and embrace me back. He'd hold me tight but never roughly and I could fall apart in the wonder of that wild, strong, wordless, loving grip. We'd go for walks together through the park. I can't describe it well enough, but in my dream there was a bond of loyalty between us that was so fierce. There was this power we each had that we could exert over the other but wouldn't. With a swipe of his paws he could destroy me, and with a word I could have him locked up. But we would never, never do that, and we would always be loyal and close. I think that in my dream, that tiger was my best friend; fierce, loyal, loving, understanding. When my alarm went off I hit snooze, then I hit it again, just so I could slip back into that dream for a few more minutes, where a beautiful, terrible-but-tame tiger was my friend, and would put his paws on my shoulders and nuzzle against me and say a hundred things without a single word.

"War Horse": the buoyancy of hope

I saw the movie "War Horse" tonight. Honestly I hadn't been that interested in seeing it: the trailer played such an emphasis on the epic and dramatic that I feared it would be over-done. But because the film has been awarded several Oscar nominations - including Best Picture - I decided that I should see it.

It was a certainly a beautiful movie, well deserving of the Best Cinematography nomination. The colors were all very lush and vivid, giving it more the feel of the novel and play it was based on rather than of something trying to be realistically dramatic. It felt a little long, weaving together a slew of encounters and taking time for sweeping panoramic views or heart-felt close-ups, while the music pulled one along emotionally throughout. There may have been moments when it tried a little too hard to pull on one's heart-strings, almost going into the cliche. Yet overall it was a good movie in that it portrayed the harshness of war coupled with the buoyancy of hope. It came together in a classic sigh-happily-at-the-screen Hollywood ending. Cliche probably, but satisfying.

One scene struck me particularly. I won't give it away: I'll just say that it was a scene which brought two enemies together for a little bit, and as is any moment of peace in the savage muddle of war, it was lovely. As the two men worked together, suspicious and cautious at first, then almost becoming comrades as they began to be bound in a common goal, it made me think how no man ever wants to go to war and kill people. Men go to war because they want peace, not death. They go to war because they want liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, but not because they want another man's blood on their hands. In a fictional scene where two men worked together in the ravaged, bloody field between two armies, I could almost imagine the war dissolving right then. Those two men didn't want to kill each other. The men watching from the trenches didn't want to kill each other. Yet there they were. It makes one wonder: how is it that things can get so bad that men have to make weapons and fight against each other, everything only being called off when one side has finally had too many of their people die?

"War Horse" is an interesting film because it focuses on the one being who had absolutely no choice about war or anything relating to it. Joey, the horse, it thrown about here and there. You don't know what he's thinking except that he wants to be home. So the viewer roots for him, hopes for him. Faith, hope, and love: what else is there in wartime, or anytime? Just those three things. Yet they're enough.

The Bad, The Worse, And The Very Good

Goodbye 2011, hello 2012. Here's to you being a good new year. I that when I look back on 2011, I'll always remember two things: it was a rough year in many ways, but ... I had Scotland. If I had to summarize the whole year, it would look something like this:

January
:: I officially became the bookkeeper for my church, having trained under the old bookkeeper for the last few months before he moved to Scotland temporarily with his wife. It has been challenging in a good way.
:: Having quit my main job at a non-profit a few months I finally found a good part-time job nannying twin girls, only three months old at the time.
:: My car broke down. I had it towed to a shop and borrowed my parent's Camry in the meantime.

February
:: Diagnosis on my car; the water pump broke and timing belt went out, which also messed up the pistons. 

March
:: My debit card was stolen and someone in Chicago started making charges. I canceled the card, filed a police report, and held my breath for a week until the money was debited back into my account.

April
:: Still waiting on my car to be fixed. The mechanic has given me several different cost estimates.
:: I make a wedding cake for a friend. 

May
:: The estimate to fix my car gets higher. It looks as though I won't be able to visit my friends in Scotland like I had very much hoped.
:: A friend gives me money for my car; a generous amount. I am able to buy a plane ticket to Scotland after all.

June
:: For my birthday my family gives me a zoom lens for the Canon camera I bought last year after having saved up for almost a year for it. I had a fun birthday dinner with my family and closest friends.
:: I leave for Scotland! The flight goes from Austin to Houston to Heathrow to Edinburgh.

July
:: Ten days in Scotland. I wander the streets with a map, a camera, and a bus pass. I take a tour of the highlands. I visit castles and museums and memorials. I stay with my friends who know the city and are guides and lodging in one: the chance of a lifetime.
:: I get home and my car is still nowhere near to being finished. I call around and get estimates and have my car towed to a new shop.

August
:: My camera, zoom lens, SD card, camera case and GPS are all stolen from my car (my parent's Camry that I'm still driving). I file the second police report of the year.
:: The front brakes go out on the Camry so I have them replaced. 

September
:: I make a wedding cake for the friend of a friend. 
:: The repair on my car has taken four times longer than the mechanic said it would, and he never calls me when he says he will to let me know what's going on. I begin calling the repair shop every day to see how things are going with my car and getting the new engine put in. Finally it's finished and I get it back!
:: My church celebrates their tenth birthday. It's also the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

October
:: The check engine light keeps coming on and I can't get my car inspected. I take it back to the repair shop again and again but the light keeps coming back on.

November
:: The mechanic keeps promising that he's fixed the problem; instead the car starts making a terrible grinding noise so I take it to a friend, a mechanic whom I trust who doesn't work on my type of car but knows someone who does. Their diagnosis: the wrong type of engine was put in my car.
:: I start dating a guy named Bryan and start to like him more and more.

December
:: I get pictures of all the things that are wrong with the engine and a letter from the new mechanic and send them to a lawyer my Dad knows. I wait for the lawyer to send me a letter for the old mechanic, who put in the wrong engine, which will tell him he has two months to give me my money back.
:: My brother Huck graduates college.
:: Bryan calls the week before Christmas to break things off.
:: Christmas is great. All the family is together. We exchange gifts, play games, watch It's A Wonderful Life, and enjoy plenty of good food.
:: New Year's Eve; half the evening spent with family and half with friends. Ring in 2012!