Knowing the Unknowable

Tonight in Bible study, I brought up the fact that sometimes I'm frustrated with "knowing God." I can't ask God what His favorite color is or when His birthday is. I could run off a list of the attributes of God: merciful, just, patient, loving, caring. But God does not have a Facebook profile. God does not call me up on the phone. God does not IM me at 3:34 a.m.

Sometimes I'm also frustrated with the idea that God knows everything about me. Part of the joy of forming new friendships is being able to reveal parts of yourself to someone. In step with feminine ideals, there is something empowering in the knowledge that you are a mystery to a stranger, and there is a thrill in knowing that someone wants to get to know you, someone wants to spend the time to know all your quirks and likes and dislikes.

Where's the thrill in revealing yourself to a God who knows it all?

And though these frustrations come and go like many frustrations I have, I remember driving in my car a few weeks ago. My mom and I had just had a three hour conversation about life, just sitting in the kitchen with Earl Grey in our tea cups. My mom talked about the issues going on with her, and I was able to encourage her. And I talked about issues in my life, and she, as she has done my entire life, listened and spoke truth to me.

I left the house, got into my Chevy, and drove off. As I was driving, I reflected on what had just happened. I had spent three glorious hours with my mother, my mom, my best friend. How was this possible? Only three years ago, I hated this woman, despised her, was jealous of her. This was the same woman who hung up on me mid-phone conversation and had banned me from the house. And as I drove down Mt. Carmel Rd., I began to cry.

And I knew, I knew, I believed that God had answered what I could not pray but felt in my heart. I have prayed for many things and not received them, and yet I have had requests on my heart that have been shrouded with the inability to verbalize what they were, only to see them beautifully and completely fulfilled, only then able to say, "Yes! Yes! That's it! I dreamt this once!"

And it is then that I realize that God is revealing Himself to me by revealing my own heart to myself, that He speaks what I could not say, and He restores what I tore down.

A Rabbit's Death Causes Us to Laugh

I've done a bit of babysitting between yesterday and today, and I have to say, I have the best time doing it.

Last night, I babysat for the Kirk family, hanging out with Davis and Zoe. They are such a joy, such a blast to play with. They love to giggle and laugh. I get such a kick out of them when they get excited about something. They're little ones, one and three years old I think, so today came as a bit of shock.

Today, I babysat a 10 year-old girl who is the daughter of a beloved former poetry teacher of mine. She has the best facial expressions, knows every word to High School Musical 1&2, dances unashamedly with panache, and has the most creative mind I have ever encountered in one so young:
"The Force is strong with this one, Master Kat."

We went to Harris Teeter today to pick up some items to make a Fruit Thingy/Cobbler, which I'm sorry to say, I single-handedly ruined and feel terribly guilty about. As we walked up and down the aisles, we discussed animals. "I asked my dad one time, " she said, "what noise a rabbit makes."
"And what did he say?" I asked.
"He said that rabbits only make one sound, and that is the shriek of pain as they die a painful death."
(I was thoroughly amused. I'll have to remember to use that for my kids one day.)
"My dad's so weird," she said.
"No joke. I knew he was weird, but not that weird. He might be as weird as you," I joked.
"Yeah, whatever. You're like totally weird," she smiled. And then she hiccuped.
And we laughed.

We laughed pretty much the entire time together. I wouldn't have traded that time for anything. There's nothing like a child's laughter that seems to set aright so many things in this world.

Just For the Record

Just for the record,

I love to dance.

Just spinnining in circles with my eyes closed...

Exercises and Bad Language

For the second weekend in a row, my roommate is gone, and I find myself tucked away in my apartment wearing my pajamas, socks on my feet, eating entire containers of food, and watching Bridget Jones (the first one of course) at least two times in a row.

Today for lunch I cooked a box of rice, the Uncle Ben's cheesy broccoli kind, and ate it straight out the pot, cussing as I burned my hand on the not-quite-cooled-down pot.

If my grandfather had not died of lung cancer, I think I would be a smoker. And if I didn't have a fear of headaches or the fear of a potential repeat of a drunk phone call I made a few years ago, I think I would drink a lot more than I do and wake up with terrible hangovers everyday, which would make my time at the Ackland Art Museum much more interesting.

I wrote some poetry this morning as I listened to "Green" by Brendan James. Sometimes I think I will end up like Sylvia Plath, writing emo poetry for a living. Except my poetry won't be as good as Plath's.

Weekends like these, I find myself listening to a lot of Chaka Khan as I stare into my mirror, making faces, trying out new haristyles, experimenting with purple eyeshadow. My friend Dayna memorized a monologue for an audition in which the speaker speaks to herself in a mirror, "doing her exercises" as she calls it. I do exercises. They go like this:
I am confident.
I am hot.
People are not scary.
People love me.
I have a facebook fan club.
Everyone has insecurities, not just me.

I wish people could hear me when I drive. I have the worst road rage. I'll be on the phone with someone, and then out of the blue, I'll scream, "Move, you f****r!" Most of the time, it happens when I'm on the phone with my mother, who replies, Thank God you're human.

I actually love weekends like these where I cuss like a drunk sailor (with a British accent) at the oven which has burned my bagel. I paint my fingernails black, then take it off and paint them red, and then realize that maybe the fingernail polish remover shouldn't be next to the lit Cinnamon Bark candle.

After I post this, I'm going to vaccuum the carpet. And then, I'm going to do a crossword puzzle.

Thank God I don't live alone.

Bluegreen Thoughts on Saturday Morning

so much inside my head wants to crackle and spark
like a million blue firecrackers exploding in a cold breathing night
so much emotion,
thoughts and questions remain unsaid and unseen,
longing to take shape, embodiment, and explode into dust just to be reformed all over again
like blue firecrackers in their casing in a wooden crate
sitting next to a box of 32 matches

those matches would spark us, move us
toward the realization of the daydream, of the prayer, of the whisper

that day when
when the daydream becomes the truth
the prayer becomes the body
and the whisper becomes the world

firecracker ash digs into the ground
deep into the ground
and springs up new
in the bluegreen grass.

Red White Pink Yellow

Today, a stranger bought me flowers on Franklin St. from the flower lady.

I've not smiled so much in so long. Not to say I've been unhappy. I've been laughing so hard this semester already, telling jokes, laughing at jokes, giggling with friends, laughing at myself sometimes because it's the only way to keep me from crying in embarrassment or despair.

But just to silently smile. To smile because it's the only way your face knows how to react. No sighs, no words but the words of a stranger:

Here. Take them. These are for you.

There is a tree in the Coker Arboretum whose leaves look like hearts.

Soft reminders that I am loved when my love for myself is not enough.
And it never is.
And it was never supposed to be.

Spooning

One night in recent past, in typical girl-fashion, I consumed the entire contents of one Jack's Salsa with a spoon. Having to monitor the amount of sugar I put into my little body, ice cream or icing seemed like a bad idea since I was in the mood to eat endlessly, and the next best thing in the fridge was a full tub of spicy salsa. No chips. Just me, my salsa, and my spoon.

As I sat on the futon with my comforter wrapped around me eating salsa by the spoonful, I reflected on this moment. This was a moment marked by the need to be comforted and consoled, a moment not uncommon to the world. Usually these moments are paired with a self-revelation, such as a revelation that one is not strong enough or that one is a snob or that one has a heart that easily bruises and forgets about those tender spots from time to time...

So, there I was, eating salsa and watching The Return of the Pink Panther, and I was beginning to feel better, tears and sniffles to a minimum except that I was eating some really hot salsa. And I pondered, what is it about all this in this moment that makes me feel better? Am I so easily consoled? I mean a blanket called a "comforter", is it all that great?

And I said, yes, it is. It is a wonderful down comforter. It is soft and warm.

But the salsa? Warm, but in a different way...

Ah. The spoon.

Knives are aggressive, forks are functional, and spoons are comforting. We feed babies with spoons. I mean, come on, there's a reason why we call it "spooning" instead of something else. It's comforting. My high school English teacher used to always say cake should be eaten with a spoon. And it's so true. I only eat cake with a spoon, and there's no going back now.

Eating salsa with a spoon, Peter Sellers, and my down comforter, needless to say, did make me feel better. These things within themselves can not solve the world's problems, can not solve my problems, which are small in comparison. But it is always reassuring to remember that even though it may feel like the world is coming to end, the chances of it doing so are relatively small, and that there is still time to change and grow and change again.

the world begins with a word

i am beginning a new blog. i have to practice writing. writing is:
1. a passion
2. a skill
3. a habit
4. a desire
5. a necessity

i suppose this blog will be like every other blog, addressing life's issues from the small and tedious to the grand and stupefying. then again, what else would there be?

perhaps i will make this blog more of a virtual story time, i recounting the strange and bizarre events that find their way into my life.

i'll throw in some poetry, of course. some sarcasm. a little bit of sweetness.