moving in with parents...is it all it's cracked up to be?

I was 25 and had estimated that I was getting on in years in the area of wisdom. I was an instructor at a university in China that spit out teachers and spread them around the province of Jiangxi like a knife spreading peanut butter on bread. I was responsible for 200 bright to brilliant students who I secretly feared would discover how much smarter they were than me and incite a coup. It had been 300 students until my American boss-lady convinced my over optimistic (and somewhat reality challenged) department head that I was going to be shipped back to the States on a gurney if he didn't remove one class load. So, 200 didn't seem like a lot of students.

I was teaching future English teachers. It was 1991. The massacre at Tiananmen Square in Beijing was so fresh that none of us, Chinese and non-Chinese alike, dared utter the word "Tiananmen" for fear of putting ourselves or someone else in danger. If I were to sum up the mind and heart of the Chinese it would be best said in the 1000 words of this photo...

To this day my heart swells up in my chest, an audible and involuntary groan escapes up my throat, and I feel sadness, admiration, disgust, and also a profound sense of "I will never ever be that brave!" Look at him! I cry every time.

When I look at that photo I think about the students and friends I knew in those days of silenced, but not dead, hope. None of them got to see this photo. It was one of those pictures that the government would have gone to lethal lengths to keep out of circulation. And they did. Back then it was easy. Not so easy today. Back then it would have been deadly in it's very power to incite hope and also a sense that injustice had been perpetrated. Instead, many of my students and friends were unsure that the Tiananmen massacre of a peaceful student demonstration had even occurred. The denial reminds me of that weird population of people who actually believe that the Holocaust didn't happen either. Only, my Chinese friends were being propagandized and hypnotised by their own government into an uneasy belief that nothing that terrible had come to pass.

I have much much more to say but want to save it for a more rainy day (as opposed to a partly cloudy with showers day). I am tempted to liken my having to move back in with my parents at age 40 to standing bravely in front of a string of weaponized military tanks. But I won't. That would be tacky. But I do want to talk about family.

The Chinese concept of "family" is profoundly different from our American concept of "family". My young students were so homesick. I read it every day in their journals. I would say that 80% of their writing spoke about family and their home.

Back then I was a curiosity of immense proportion, which you could never comprehend unless you had stood at the center of a crowd of Chinese a hundred deep because they all wanted to hear you, take a picture, or get a look at you. My novelty wore off quickly. While walking the streets of any Chinese city I felt curiously like one of those baby girl beauty-pageant princesses. Only I didn't feel like a princess so much as a freak show. People would stare at us to the point of, I kid you not, driving their cars and bicycles off the road. We, my fellow compatriots and I, developed a wicked sense of humor with regards to our freak-like status. I was one of, I think, 17 foreigners, in our city of 2.5 million, the capital of Jiangxi province. Our life was a public life. Our school made an admirable effort to protect our American sesibilities for secrecy and isolation.

So, of course, people in China have different rules of engagement. I was often asked questions considered rude, inappropriate, or generally off limits in America..."How old are you?", or, "How much money do you make?" There were also frequent statements made about my weight which nearly caused me to slap a few people if it were not for the fact that I remembered I was an American IN China. And that would look bad. Since I taught a "Western Cultures" course I had an academic obligation to address and illuminate our cultural differences. I was the "foreign expert" after all. Plus, I had a, as previously explained, oddly procured B.A. in Cultural Anthropology tucked under my belt that needed to be aired out and shown off.

One of my students' favorite curiosities was my relationship with my parents, and at 25 this American girl had oh so many other endeavors and topics in mind. Like world peace, democracy and communism, Jesus, not relying on plagiarism to pass your tests. All subjects that were in varying degrees off limits.

"Okay, my lovely students," for this is how I addressed my lovely students, "today we will begin a series on family and culture. Let's start by writing questions you have about Western concepts regarding family."

I commenced with writing down their expressed topics regarding family. To my disappointment, at first, they all wanted to know about MY family.
"Do you live with your parents?"
"Do you have sisters and brothers?"
"Why aren't you married?"
"How much money does your father make?"
"How will you take care of your parents if you live in another country?"

As the consummate flexible teacher that I was I slaked their voyeuristic curiosity, whilst embracing the opportunity to teach cultural differences and similarities.

So, it went something like this.

"An American woman or man is not dutifully obligated to live with their parents. I would never want to live with my parents...except for maybe a week." To which there were expressions ranging from shock to horror. "Not only do American adults not want to live with their parents, our parents do not want us to move in with them! Our parents raise us so that we become independent, able to live on our own." Gasps.

"But," they say, "isn't it lonely?"

"No. Americans like to be isolated, independent, lonely, and depressed. We prefer to hoard our belongings, and after working for years to own our own home we want it all to ourselves. Then, when we are too old to live in our home, rather than our children returning to take care of us they send us to a home with a hundred other people waiting to die." Shocked silence.

Let me just say, I too was shocked at the responses I gave. Americans sounded really infantile and selfish.

Sadly, I hear, Chinese culture and family are looking more and more like ours to the detriment of much of their inherent stability.

My current situation illustrates that one should never say never. Never. Forced by a situation out of my control I have lived with my parents now for, I think, two years. It could be longer than that, and my not really knowing is encouraging in that it hasn't felt like an eternity. Sometimes I fear I'll never get back on my feet. My parents, I think, secretly hope I'll stay even if I do.

Truth be told, I think I could live with my parents again. A parents-in-law apartment would be preferable...because, after all, I AM an independent blue-blooded American with tendencies for selfishness, isolation, and hoarding.

(this post is dedicated to my long-suffering, merciful, and good-humored parents)

a little addendum

I'd like to add a clarification on my April 19th post...the "if/then" post.
I realize that not everyone is inside my head (thank goodness...for both of us). I'd want to fill in a tiny gap and let you know that the girl band, the Indigo Girls, were the real impetus for that post. You see, years ago, when I was a brand new Christian, the Indigo Girls became a musical phenom. Two of my good friends who sang beautifully together called themselves the Indigo Squirrels. I speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone in my love for their harmonies. Word was, among the Christian circles, that they were Christians. We certainly combed their lyrics for any sign of Jesus.

One day someone informed me that she thought they were gay women. My response?

"No way! They can't be. They're Christians."

Thus began my long struggle to come to the surface. My post may have sounded as if I was being unkind to inflexible Christians who may believe that one cannot be gay, in love with God, and remain in his will. Or maybe it sounded like I was being unfair to others who believe that if you're a gay Christian it is a betrayal of your very identity as a homosexual because Christianity emboldens and promulgates prejudice and even violence against gays.

But really, I was speaking of me. I am the one who has said "if you're Christian, you can't be gay." I've thought it impossible to be both at once. My perspective began to be altered in 1992 when I first admitted to God that I had fallen madly in love with another woman. My perspective has gradually been changed over time. Like so many things, I have found it impossible to remain rigid and inflexible with regards to oh so many things out of my control.

I thought I'd clear that up. I am intimately acquainted with every possible argument against homosexuality. I'm just saying that no one can argue the point better.

By the way, both girls of the Indigo Girls band are gay. But they are not together as many have surmised. They have become representatives of the gay community. They have several songs that speak powerfully about being gay in our world today...but really, their songs are about life. Now, for your listening entertainment...the Indigo Girls... (can you find Jesus?)

CUTE! (don't tell her I said so)

Grandma at the game (it was so COLD!).

By the way, everyone at Safeco field (the best baseball stadium ever!) treated grandma like a queen. She had so many admirers. Everyone we came across treated her very special...they treated her like they'd known her for years. So sweet. You couldn't wipe the smile off her face!

We went to the stadium an hour early so we could have dinner at the "Hit it Here" cafe, a shatterproof glassed in restaurant on the 200 level in the outfield with a big neon bullseye just above it. The staff brought her a hugenormous piece of chocolate cake and everyone in the restaurant sang Happy Birthday to her.

Just so you know, Richie Sexson's jersey number is 44...the cake was awesome! >>>

sugar pet lover doll

"Hey there Sugar Plum!"

That's the greeting I get when I call or see my grandma. She's my mom's mom. She and my mom are nothing alike. My mom is more like my grandpa, therefore, they totally irritate each other. However, my mom is devoted to my grandma in a way that I will have to live up to in my own time.

Grandma is a funny one. She lives alone since grandpa died in '96. She has a little white poodle. Get any image out of your head of old ladies, poodles, badly applied lipstick, and big hair, stiff with hairspray. That's not my grandma. She used to smoke unfiltered Camel cigarettes, loves a stiff drink, is a retired meat cutter/wrapper, has no qualms giving you the finger, and was raised with 4 boys. Grandma adopted her poodle, Missy-pooh, from her hairdresser. Missy is getting on in years now and can't see a thing. Currently her hair is so long it covers her eyes and when she bumps into things grandma says, "Oh, I need to get her hair cut. She can't see a thing." As if.

Grandma is turning 90 on Sunday. She was born in 1918 and she likes to tell people she was born in "18" so for a minute they think she was born in the 1800's. We took her to a Mariner's baseball game yesterday for her birthday. Grandma LOVES Richie Sexson, the Mariner's first base man. He's really tall and looks like an ostrich when he runs, just not as fast.

I made a huge sign for the game that said, "My grandma loves Richie Sexson more than your grandma." She loved it!

Grandma and grandpa used to go to Mariners games frequently in the day. That would be back in the Weedle on the Needle days (extra points if you know about the Weedle). But grandma hasn't been to a game since, probably, the very early 90's. So when I handed her the tickets the day before the game and said we were taking her, she said, "Oh neat. Neat, neat, neat." About every 5 minutes throughout the rest of the evening she would exclaim, "Oh neat!"

Doing dishes, "Oh, neat."
Playing crib, "Oh, neat."
Taking her pills, "Oh, neat."
Walking down the hallway to her bedroom, "Oh, neat!"

The day of the game we were helping her get ready. We were talking about what she should wear. My dad said, "May, you should get dressed up for Richie." Her response was characteristic of my grandma. She didn't miss a beat. "It wouldn't matter to him what I wear."

In fact, at one point in the game, Richie and half the team were having one of those pow wow's out on the pitcher's mound, so my dad and I held up the sign jumping around like a couple of lunatics yelling, "Hey Richie!! My grandma loves you!" I'm sure he heard us, and hopefully he could read the sign. Grandma thought that was "real neat".

My grandma is cute. She hates when we say she's cute. But she is. She sings to her dog. Actually, she has always sung ditties to people and pets she loves. This is one of her ditties.

"Missy pooh sugar plum, honey pot, bummer pooh, snicker lover doll, Missy dog sugar pot, lover dog..."

And on it goes as she putters around her house. She used to sing to me like this. Used to.

"Kimmer doll, sugar pet, lover doll, snicky pooh."

Now she just sings to her dog.

She also calls me "pet". I have no idea where she got that. Neither does she. Since I was a wee child she has called us "pet". I think it might have something to do with the fact that sometimes she confuses her pet's names with her family member's names.

Grandma's verbal confusion is the source of great mirth in our family. In attempting to say your name she will first say the name of every family member. Including the pets. First, you need to know some family names: Terri, Gordon, Vera, Gerry, Lew, Carole, etc.

And here are some pet names: Kermit, Peetie, Missy, etc.

So when she goes to say my name, it sounds something like this: "Pe..Gor...Car..Ve..Terr..Ker...Miss. Oh, god. Whoever you are, come here."

My grandma used to go to church when she was young. NO, don't go thinking she's religious or anything. She is adamant that you not assume she's religious. She always makes sure you understand that she only went to "that" church because it had a huge swimming pool. Grandma was an avid swimmer. I hear she was fast. I hear she should have gone to the Olympics.

I feel very lucky that I still have my grandma. She's the last of my grandparents. I guess I just wanted to share a little bit of her with you. We will celebrate her 90th birthday this weekend. She'll have a stiff drink or two. Then she'll want a cigarette. She'll sit with her big brother and tell stories. She'll probably say, "Oh, that's neat," throughout the evening. We'll probably give her a crown so she can be queen of everything.

She'll tell us stories that we've all heard before. But that's okay. She'll tell us about how she took a ship over to England when she was 12. She'll tell that she heard about Hitler while she was over there and no one even knew who he was here in North America. Stories about growing up in a household with her mom, two brothers, 3 cousins, and uncle. Her father died in the war on November 13, 1918. She was 5 months old. She only knows him from pictures. Handsome pictures. "Isn't he a handsome devil," she says. My great-grandma's brother-in-law and his 3 children moved in with her and her three children to make ends meet. Grandma was the baby. Probably why she's so cute. They were the blended family of the era grandma grew up in. The survival tactic they employed amazes me. I found a picture recently of the kids sitting on their front porch. That must have been one heck of a household.

Anyway, I love my grandma. And you?

A Rainer Maria Rilke Poem

By the German poet, one of my very favorites, Rilke--

You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing,
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.

You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.

You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.

(written somewhere between 1899-1903)

If you're ________, then you can't be _________ (Christian/Gay alternately)

Logic, the mathematical type, never made much sense to me.

I took a Logic (philosophy) course in college in order to avoid 3 quarters of tedious algebra (even worse). About 2 weeks into the class I couldn't take it anymore. One day, as our Professor, Dr."I'm from Romania (land of philosophers), and I have a chip on my shoulder because I'm stuck teaching morons at a tiny community college" prattled on about whatever, I raised my hand.

"Yes Miss ____?"
"Miller, Miss Miller. Yea, um, I have a silly question. Maybe not so much a question as maybe comment or critique." He lifted his chin in curiosity and I think I saw him cringe slightly.

I went on. "Well, I was wondering, just thinking actually. Trying to figure out how this Logic stuff works, well, because it's logic. Right? I was wondering if it's possible to plug an 'if/then' statement into one of your formulas, an everyday thing such as, 'if I study Logic every day, then I should pass this course'...I was wondering if you could prove it mathematically? I...I was just thinking it would make more sense to spend my time studying this stuff if I knew it was...practical...you know...uh...[I was losing steam as his face was turning the color of a ripe tomato] um...logi...cal."

I have difficulty heeding that little voice inside that cautions me not to say things out loud that could prove inflammatory by the sheer weight of honesty. He just stared at me. Fellow students turned to me with looks one might bestow upon a martyr just before her beheading. He completely ignored me. I took that for a "no" answer.

This is more like my level of logic... Enter, Cookie Monster-


When it comes to academia I might fall in the category of idiot savant. Which, according to Wikipedia (the most unreliable source of information imaginable), connotes "a lower than average general intelligence (IQ) but very high narrow intelligence in one or more fields." That about describes me. But I have many "narrow" fields.

Case in point, I received an F in my undergraduate Statistics course. This connotes that I may be an idiot. However, I was able to convince the professor, with whom I had an adversarial relationship, to give me a C- for my final grade. This connotes pure genius.

Our relationship began the first week of class on the day of our first quiz. I arrived characteristically late. She peered at me from her lofty professorial position and reluctantly handed me my quiz (as if she already knew I didn't deserve it). I sat down, pulled out my pencil, and, glancing at the quiz (written in a type of indecipherable Phoenician language I might add), pulled out my calculator with the conviction of pulling out a water gun at the O.K. Corral.

If you've taken a college Stats course you'll recall the complicated calculator with symbols & functions far more superior than your average checkbook calculator. I had a checkbook calculator. I was really embarrassed. But it was just the beginning of my humiliation.

"Um, Dr. [let's just call her Dr. De' Sade], could I borrow a calculator? I seem to have forgotten to get one of those fancy ones."

Every pencil stopped scribbling. Every head raised up to look at Dr. De' Sade. Then they slowly turned to look back at me. She stood there for an infinitely long period of time just staring at me. I squirmed in my chair and conjured a smile in an attempt to hide the cold fear that ran up and down my spine. It was like being in suspended animation. Like Willey Coyote just after he's run off the cliff. They all just stared. First at me, then at her, then back at me. Some of them mouthing, "Save yourself", others, "Run while you can."

"Miss _____?
"Miller."

"Miss Miller seems to have 'forgotten' to purchase her calculator," she said to the class, as if she were a sleuth presenting the evidence. "Miss Miller, please, give me a good reason why I should let you borrow my own calculator?"

"Um, because you want me to pass your class?" I wasn't sure.

"Perhaps." She wasn't sure either. Yet, she bequeathed me her calculator. The relief was palpable. Pencils returned to paper in earnest. I returned to my seat with that calculator, holding it as if it were an abacus. My relief was short lived. I was dumbstruck. I willed myself not to throw up. My head spun. I stared at that instrument of death for a good 10 minutes (I do not exaggerate) trying to find the "on" button, and another 5 minutes to muster up the guts to ask her how to turn it on.

"Um, Dr. De' Sade?" I finally said. She slowly looked up from her reading (probably the periodical Collegiate Mathematical Sadism Quarterly).

"Um. Well. Uh..."
"Spit it out Miss Miller."

"I don't know how to turn this thing on?"

Her subsequent grin, oozing with incredulity, turned into a laugh that was more diabolical than light hearted. But we all started laughing. Perhaps out of hysterical relief.

Thus began my love/hate relationship with Dr. De'Sade.

"Miss Miller, you entertain me!" I did indeed. I was a good source of endless entertainment for her. She harassed me with delight and regularity. I learned to return her favor in kind. I quickly began my own campaign of unequivocal character assassination. Our relationship became something of a sport. My classmates swiveling their heads back and forth from one to the other of us as if at a tennis match.

Examples are too many to number, but it usually looked something like this:

"Miss Miller you seem to have fallen asleep in the middle of your last test, for I have no other way to explain why you would have completed only half of the questions." At which point everyone would laugh and turn to me in expectation of my return volley.

"Well, Dr. De' Sade, other than the fact that your questions conjure images of waterboarding (with, I might add, the same goal), I'm sure my falling asleep had a lot to do with the fact that this class is the most boring class I've ever taken. How about you try 'teaching' the material. I hear that helps students learn." Ah, the memories. What fun we had.

Oddly, she is probably one of the safest people I've ever known. Ours was an open relationship. There wasn't much left unsaid.

Our story doesn't end there. Eventually, the inevitable final exam came along. I failed it miserably. I mean a big, fat F kind of failing. Which meant I failed the class. I envisioned having to take the class again and sincerely thought of slitting my wrists. Not because of Dr. De' Sade, but because I hate math with great passion.

So it was with great determination that I entered her office with my exam in hand. She peered up at me in the same way she did the day of the famous calculator debacle -humored by me in some way I'll never quite understand. I plead my case. "I know I suck at math, but I'm good at so many other things. You've got to do something! This is a tragedy of great proportion and I'll slit my wrists before I ever have to take another one of your classes!"

Her response wasn't merciful. It wasn't even compassionate or kind. Yet there was something in her response that was affirming, even egalitarian, and it taught me a great deal about how to procure allies. Her response was simple. "If giving you a passing grade means I'll never have to see your face in my classroom again...then I'm passing you. Let's just your final grade is C- and call it even. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind."

A "thank you" was not appropriate in the context of our relationship. I turned to her at the door and said, "You're a complete pain in the ass, but I really like you." All she said was, "Same goes with you." And that was that. From that day on, anytime I passed her on campus we just smiled at one another as if we belonged to some secret society and no one else was allowed in.
_____________
Why do I tell you these stories?
First, Cookie Monster taught us the fundamentals of critical thinking, deduction, and logic. Sesame Street serves to teach children the fundamentals of life in a format that is developmentally appropriate. You and I should not, at our ages, find it necessary to think about people or issues like we do plates of cookies. However, we all have relationships and issues in our lives where our critical thinking ability actually hasn't moved much beyond the fundamental building block "one of these things is not like the other." If we stay stuck and don't develop as a critical thinker we may find it difficult to allow seemingly incompatible things to exist in the same context together. I think Cookie Monster wants us to move beyond 4 year old thinking.

Still, others of us stay stuck in the fantasy that rigid certainties supersede the real and prevalent ambiguities and the messiness of being human, complex, and emotional. We take this to a new level when we believe that ambiguities and messiness do not exist in monumental proportions in the Bible. It is not wisdom OR logic when we try to plug life and relationship issues into a formula and expect mathematical answers with all the certainties and proof therein.

In the end, my moral is rounded off to the nearest decimal...my relationship with my Statistics Professor. There is more than one way to get a passing grade. Oh, wait. No, that's not it.

Relationships are not determined by "if/then" formulas. If they were, then I'd still be trying to finish my bachelor's degree, and certainly not sitting here with an M.A. under my belt as well. There are more facts and variables. My stats class is only one example of the creativity with which I made it through academia. By thinking outside the box and procuring allies, I was able to concentrate on my many strengths in spite of my glaring limitations.

If I assumed that my professor really hated me because I was mathematically inept, then I would never have learned another lesson in the thousand ways to love. If I had believed that my professor was indeed diabolical, then I never would have believed that she would give me a grade that, by all means and purposes, I did not deserve. That I received that grade is incompatible with the way things should be done. One should work for what they receive, right? One of those things does not look like the other. Logic fails.

Here's my non-linear summary. It just isn't logical to believe that two seemingly incompatible things cannot exist at once in a person. Look at Jesus for example.

Here's my point, two things that many people believe are completely incompatible in a person are homosexuality and God's active Will and Holy Spirit. I have no idea how to explain that they DO indeed coexist. I don't know how to explain why I know I'm gay. I also don't have the language of logic to explain how it is that the Holy Spirit is in me in the first place. Nothing that doesn't sound absurd. Jesus, the cross, rising from the dead. It is all senseless. Crazy.

God can, does, and will continue to work for, with, and through gay people who love God back. Don't ask me for a formula that proves the statement. I just know it. I know it the same way I know a lot of things. I know it in the same way I knew that Dr. De' Sade really actually liked me. That she was an ally despite the evidence to the contrary.

I can't say the same for professor Romania. But I did apologize to him for my pointing out the foolishness of his field in front of his entire class.

I'm glad you asked

I was an odd child. I am an only child. People ask me, "What was it like growing up an only child?" Um. I sat in my room and created little books. Books of puzzles, books of stories, and coffee table books with pictures from the pages of National Geographic onto which I typed captions and dialog. My favorite is the picture of a giraffe and an African guy standing nearby. In the dialog bubble above the giraffe's head I typed, "What? I can't hear you. Could you speak up, please?" Get it? Speak UP!

I spent a lot of hours alone being that clever. So when I'm asked what it was like growing up as an only child, I say it fostered in me the desire to one day publish. It also fostered in me a desire to badger my parents on a fairly continuous basis to produce a baby brother for me. My preference for a brother was very likely due to the fact that, when it came to play, I preferred my Tonka truck over Barbie, baseball over house, and building forts over hanging out at the street corner with nothing better to do than pretend like you hated all the boys you really liked.

A brother would have solved a lot of my social problems. He would have become, first and foremost, my favorite project. I would have dressed him. I would have packed his lunches for school. I would have taught him how important it was to protect me because one day he would grow much bigger than me. But, alas, my parents did not heed my advice to produce another tax deductible dependent.

So, this is what an only child does. I entertained myself. For example. My parents and I took many long road trips. My poor parents. I was like the pint sized philosopher from hell.
"Look mom! The wheat field runs like it has legs." (next time you're driving next to a furrowed field you'll see what I mean)
"How does the moon follow us?"
"When I stick my legs up like this it makes my stomach feel funny and I can touch your head too."
"Can you hear me when I stick my head out of the window like this...and scream?!"
"My lips are tingly."

When I wasn't prattling off profound statements, I was begging them to entertain me.
"Let's play 'Who Am I'?" (for the 21st time)
"I spy with my little eye something...red." (probably my mother's hair)
"If you guys would just have a little brother for me this would be a lot easier on you!"

I was one of those kids you see in the car just in front of you, waving his hands and sticking his tongue out at you. I used to press my face against the window as a car passed by and mouth the words "HELP ME" (I don't know if my parents know that). What's sad is that no one did!

When I got really, really bored my parents could appease me by allowing the unthinkable these days. I loved to get on my knees on the space just behind and between the two front seats, and drape my arms around each of my parents' shoulders. It was always a treat. I loved touching them in this way. I always begged and begged until they would finally give in. I don't know if it was as enjoyable for my parents. I remember playing with my mom's hair. I remember her getting irritated that I kept "pulling" her hair. I remember feeling pretty happy there between them. I remember the feeling of my heart. It was similar to the feeling in my stomach when we would crest a bump in the road. It would make me giggle. Then the time would come when they would tire of my jabbering away in their ears and being fidgety and I would once again be banished to my backseat solitude.

What was it like growing up as an only child? I don't know. I learned not to be afraid of anything mechanical because my father didn't have a son to take into the garage instead. I learned that being alone on a rainy day isn't lonely. I preferred the company of adults over the company of friends my own size and intellect. I was sure I had every adult convinced that I was their intellectual equal. That must have been very entertaining for the adults who knew me. Or irritating. I learned that if you don't talk a whole lot at home because you irritate your parents, you can save it all up for when the teacher is talking in the classroom the next day. I didn't learn how to be part of a team. I am terrible at that. I think well when I'm alone, after I've had the input of everyone around me. Alone is where I gain perspective.

My mom says I talked about God a lot. I didn't grow up in the church. We didn't talk about God too much. But apparently I did. When I came out as a Christian to my mom and dad in the late 80's, my mom eventually said, "I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of meeting God all of sudden. You used to talk about God all the time when you were little." It was a revelation. I don't know about you, but I forgot what it was like when I was a kid. Sure, I can bring to mind bits and pieces, but in general we don't remember how the kid felt except through the adult memory. And that is never quite as clear as we wish. Generally it's clouded by a little thing called puberty and adolescence.

When I really think about it though, I think I remember God. I think I remember him in the treetops where I sat for hours feeling the wind. I think I remember him in the early morning quiet as I looked out my window thinking simple little girl thoughts. I think I remember God in the backseat of the car at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. I think I saw him following me. I think I remember God in my heart while I knelt on my skinny little kneecaps in between my parents, my hands stroking their necks, feeling completely satisfied because I had them all to myself. That's what it's like being an only child.

Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech on racism

I was unable to upload my downloaded copy of Obama's Philadelphia speech...so I'm providing a link for you. If you have not taken the chance to watch his speech, and even if you do not intend to vote for the man, I highly encourage you to watch it. Not because I think it might change your mind or something along those lines, but because it will, I guarantee it, go down in history and one of the greatest American speeches on racism and American politics.

"...Words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time."


http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords/

Art & Life...Separate?

This is a painting by Michelagnolo Da Caravaggio (1571-1610). “Taking of Christ” 1602. This is one of my favorite pieces. Obviously it is his portrayal of the betrayal of Christ by Judas just outside Gethsemene. I love the detail. The emotionality and the faces, the placement of hands and the gleam of armour. I love his body of work. He was criticised by his contemporaries because his work was too real. He used light in a way that most painters didn't at the time. He scorned the traditional idealization of religious subjects and dared to portray them with a humanity, which ultimately made him one of the most popular artists of his time among the commoners of his culture. The realism seemed to be too much for many of his religious contemporaries and sometimes patrons. He was often criticised and rejected for the humanizing emotionality of many of his paintings.

To see more of his paintings, go to
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/bio/c/caravagg/biograph.html

In 1606 he killed a man named Tomassoni in a dual and fled Rome with a death sentence over his head. He apparently lived brutally. He liked to fight. He appears in court records as a nasty, thuggish character, threatening and attacking people for inane provocations like badly cooked artichokes. He behaved very badly. It seems his murdering Tomassoni was the inevitable conclusion of a destructive lifestyle. In the final 4 years of his life, on the lam, he apparently cranked out increasingly intense paintings (including The Seven Acts of Mercy) many of which illuminated biblical scenes with gripping intensity. He probed the human condition, the suffering of Christ, the spectrum of human interaction with Christ and the divine with greater sympathy than I've witnessed in a series of works by a painter.

How odd that such a scoundrel, murderer, and possibly homosexual could produce some of the most intimate portraits of biblical imagery. Perhaps he had an insight into the brutality that so infuses the biblical text (below The Sacrifice of Isaac 1602). He is not reported to be a religious man, but most definitely a doubting Thomas (above, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas 1601-02). What must he have been thinking in the hours he spent painting this picture of Thomas asking Jesus to prove himself. I wonder if maybe his paintings were his way of trying to really see God rather than portray God. Maybe that is the way we could live. It's an idea.

It is obvious to me that Caravaggio had little ambition to portray any of the biblical characters with the same tiresome lack of humanity and weight as his predecessors and contemporaries. He added anger to the face of Isaac (Sacrifice of Isaac) as an angel stops his father from slitting his throat. I don't know about you, but I've never seen that kind of portrayal. It seems closer to the truth. I've never heard anyone entertain Isaac's possible anger in a sermon. It's usually about how much faith his father had. But I've wondered about Isaac's psyche. I have wondered at how Isaac turned out to be such a sad excuse of a man. Then I think about the fact that he had a father who tried to kill him. I find it hard to believe that any young man could ever erase the image and memory of his father holding a knife to his throat. Maybe forgiveness, maybe, but certainly not the memory.

All in all, Caravaggio isn't the funny subject matter you probably hoped to find in today's blog. But I think his work should be considered. His work cannot be separated -as many religious biographers have tried to do- from his life. If you had seen his work prior to learning what I've told you, you might conclude that he was a devout, theological man. However, the quality of this man's life flies in the face of what necessary character we want to believe produces such beautiful, insightful, and inspiring pieces of art.

Analyze This

If our eyes are the windows into our souls, I’d like to propose that dreams are the independent films of our souls. If you’re familiar with the Indie film movement you’ll know what I mean. They’re usually bizarre and the actors are often people you would never expect to see in the role of a fishnet stocking’d, dog training transvestite. Indie pictures aren't filmed to appeal to the general public. Much like dreams. You know how it is. You tell a friend about a recent indie movie you saw, and it goes something like this, “I loved it. Robert DeNiro was such a natural with those dogs. He’s such a method actor. You could tell by the way he ran after those dogs in such high stiletto heels. But I don’t think you’d like it. It’s different.” At that point you might recommend a mainstream film such as Titanic or Die Hard 1, 2, or 3.

All films, like dreams, attempt to portray human desire, fear, hope, and, yes, dreams (hm). Yet the screenplays of indie films, like dreams, bear little resemblance to the glossy Hollywood films which appeal to a wider audience and may not be as confusing to the average American.

Dreams frequently betray our calm collected exterior. Have you ever woken from a dream and with sudden terror realized that you were kissing your 62 year old bitter middle-school algebra teacher? Me neither. I was just saying.

Anyway, Freud and Jung exhaustively analyzed dreams. Where Jung might ask you to free associate what the algebra teacher meant to you as a child, Freud would be like, "Ah, in dreams such as zis, generally, za symbolizm of za math teacher iz revealing some sexual anxiety wiz regards to your father."

All that to say, I had a dream two nights ago in which the president of the United States was totally into me.

I mean flirtatious in an oddly political-lobbying, yet familiar sort of way. We’d be talking politics and I’d be invited to come discuss them personally at the White House the next day. At which point I would suddenly realize the time was 4 p.m. and have to excuse myself because I told my grandma I’d be at her place at 11 a.m. They gave me a lift in one of those bullet proof black Yukon’s the Secret Service drives, hiding the president in one of them like that trick with the ping pong ball and the 3 plastic cups. Then they dropped me off. Well, it was more like I swung out on the opened passenger door as they sped along the freeway and after smiling familiarly at the president, I jumped out, tucked-and-rolled to a stop and swam across a Jordan-river-wide moat to get over to grandma's house. You know how it is.

Please, get the picture of G.W. Bush flirting with me out of your head. That kind of dream would require serious psychoanalysis. Over breakfast I realized I never knew I was so ambitious. Dreams reveal ambition even if we like to pretend we don't have any. I don't think the dream reveals that I want to be The President. Too much responsibility and very little payback as far as I'm concerned. I guess I just want to date the president of the United States. Those of you still weirded out by my sexual orientation may want to avert your eyes at this point. In the progressive mood of this upcoming election, the president with whom I was enjoying the company of, in the fray of secret service agents and advisers running down emptied back stairwells, was a woman approximately the age of Obama. She was pretty cool. She was NOT Hillary. She wore jeans.

So why did I share this dream? Well, partly because when I woke up I giggled to myself all the way through breakfast and brushing my teeth, and so concluded that I must share it. I was quite enjoying myself in the dream. I felt really cool. When we were all hustling down the back staircase of some building --me, the president, secret agents with their com devices held in their ears, and advisers with cell phones up to theirs-- what I really remember is liking the intellect and solid purposefullness of the president. I don't remember lusting for her or being attracted only in a purely physical way. It was her eyes, her candor, her smile, her intellect (because we talked about a lot of things...that I have no recollection of), and, obviously, her involvement in the world at large. All the things I'm realizing, in my waking hours, I like when I see in another woman. I'm meeting women and the ones I gravitate towards are no surprise. Involved, active, bright, smart, cute. There was something about that particular president of the United States that represents qualities I gravitate towards. She was an archetype, Jung would say, of my conscious/unconscious desires.

This gay thing is new to me. Sort of. New in a "oh, look, my dead great grandfather opened a savings account in my name a 100 years ago that now has $2,000,152 in it, and I didn't even know about it until now" kind of way. It's all brand new to me, but it was always there. It's not like I'm all of a sudden having to learn something new. This has always been in me. That's why dreams like this don't surprise me, and in fact make me giddy. The dream revealed a reality of my current life that is new and exciting. I am excited. For the first time, EVER, I know God has someone for me. Maybe not the President (although I did meet a young woman recently who said, "remember my name because I'll be running for president one day"), but someone who I'll be into. Someone who is into me. It is no small matter. I can count on one hand the amount of successive minutes I have ever spent optimistic about my future with regards to marriage & guys. Do with that what you want. I'm happy that I'm not dreaming of faceless male-like figures with ambiguous feelings for me and no definitive character or passion. That's what I dreamt of most exclusively. I thought it was God reserving the right to not disclose my future lover. Really.

Something about a dream like this tells me a lot about how I am experiencing my life. Sometimes dreams tell us we're anxious. Sometimes giddy. Other times, dreams reveal our acceptance of the gifts --and we frequently don't see them until, well, until we do-- that God has for us.

By the way, could you imagine the headlines if I dated the president?
"President dating gay Christian, unites country"

Poetry Slams & Other Dreams

Have you ever had a crisis remind you that there are things you've always wanted to do but in the business of life you voluntarily let seemingly unimportant desires get bumped off this flight for a later flight? A flight that never seems to take off? Of course you have!

I've always said, "If I never get around to doing ________ (insert dream activity, such as performing in an Off Broadway hit for example) I take heart in the thought that I get to do it in heaven." However I have a hard time visualizing what it would look like being an actress and performing in heaven. I mean, who'd the audience be? Everyone whose ever existed? I'm glad I can project really loudly? Of course, God would be there. He's like everywhere after all. How intimidating. But I guess I wouldn't have such inferior feelings in heaven, and, anyway, God would be my biggest fan after all.

My experience in acting thus far, in this second-rate body, includes nausea and major butterflies in the minutes prior to entering the stage. The only time I didn't experience such nausea and butterflies, I got on the stage and half way through the piece completely froze. Total stage fright. I've concluded, therefore, nausea makes for good acting. So I question whether I will be a good actress in heaven since I assume God won't stand for nausea and butterflies if we can't cry either. Then I think, "but what about a good cry?" I love plays that move me to tears. I just don't know. Yet I still cling to the idea that if I never get to ice climb a waterfall, play the cello, or knit really cool hats, I'll get to in heaven.

Over the last 3 years I've experienced knee buckling loss, grief, hopelessness, and helplessness. That's the short list. You know these times. Mine included deep clinical depressions that I somehow survived by grit & determination. When I say survived I mean I didn't take my own life. Two things kept me alive: believing that God really didn't want me with him that badly quite yet, and not being willing to put my parents through the horror of surviving their only child's suicide.

In those 3 years, despite the encouragement of loved ones, I was certain my life was over. It wasn't drama, it was a reality. So when I started getting better about a year ago I began tentatively picking up things that had fallen apart, things I was incapacitated from doing, and wondered if I could live again. I backpacked and started to feel some of the joy and wonder I used to feel. However, I have had to get used to experiencing wonderous landscapes with less manic enthusiasm since my medications bring me down to, what others encourage me, is the "normal" level of awe. It's kind of boring and anti-climatic really. Colors are less spectacular. Sounds aren't so sensual. Sometimes I sit and look over what I know to be an exquisitely spectacular landscape -mountains, canyons, waterfalls, meadows- and I struggle to overlook that at one time I would have cried with ecstasy over the beauty of it all.

But now things are "normal". I'm not just tolerating normalcy, I think it's alright. And having gone through the last 3 years of "dark night", I find on the other side, possibility. Not manic, over the top, I want it now and I want the best and to be the best, kind of possibility. I've always wanted to be a poet. Not a closeted poet with hopes that when I die someone will come across my profound, dusty verses and in tears proclaim, "Someone must publish these poems!" Kind of like Anne Franke...or maybe not.

I write poetry. I always have. Really bad peotry and lovely poetry. I love poetry. It expresses life at a visceral level. A level that transcends and actually snubs the use of definition, explanation, punctuation, and gross superficial drivel. Yet the poet has to find an audience of people who "get it". Otherwise known as other poets.

That is what I'm getting at. I survived the last 3 years and now I do things like go to poetry reads, poetry slams. Something I always wanted to do and never took the time to do because I was so busy "living". I even read my poetry. I usually get nauseous and have butterflies in my stomach, and I feel really alive. I bumped onto a later flight to the same destination, just with an later ETA. I know God will LOVE poetry slams in heaven!

"Love with its power to charm
so touched my best and worst
that all, even cankered harm,
turned fiber sweet and warm
(being in love immersed).
No wonder resinous fire
leaps sinewy and gay,
as clean to a clean pyre
I burn, I burn away."
-John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Men at Work

You know that when you see a sign like "Men at Work" you are going to have to practice a little patience on the road. I always wonder if those guys out there in their orange vests only work when they have a sign up telling everyone they are working. Or, better yet, if the women wearing their orange vests a tad more stylishly than their male co-workers go home to their family and say, "Cook your own dinner, I'm not at work you know." I know that's chauvinistic, but this is what I think when I'm practicing patience while waiting in road work traffic.

ANYWAY, have patience with me as I learn to blog! Hopefully in the course of this experiment I will find that other people are as interested in what I need to say as I am.

"There's something funny about her"

People have always said to me, "You are so funny." I think I'm funny too. But do they mean the same kind of funny that I mean? Or is it funny like, "I hope she has a day job," funny?

I've always thought it was easier to be funny for others than for myself, and that the true mastery of self awareness and courage is the ability to laugh alone. Lately I've been bent over in stitches. Alone in the car. Sitting in a cafe on my own. Down the shopping aisle. In my bed. I'm a hoot. I've on occasion apologized to strangers lest they think I'm laughing at them and not my private joke which I could never explain anyway. "You had to be there," I said to one lady. She seemed pretty okay with my particular kind of crazy actually.

It's more like the old adage about laughing to keep from crying. Crying might seem to be the more obvious option for me right now. But crying is really tiring, and people are really uncomfortable when you cry in the grocery store or the cafe. The car is okay.

Sometimes I find humor to be the easiest path to people's affections. Say, if I make someone laugh then I believe they like me more. And although I think I'm funny, I also think I'm far too serious! So serious.

When I go to write, for example, I sort of start swirling down the sink drain into morose seriousness. The kind of morbid introspection you might find in the journal entries of 15 year old adolescent girls. It's sort of laughable, for one page, and past that it is completely unpublishable. I'm sure you'll understand that this is simply unacceptable as a writer. I must be funny!

It's not as if I don't have anything funny to talk about. Let's see...I'm gay and a Christian. Okay, that's moderately funny if you set aside things like Focus on the Family, Boys Don't Cry, and the Crusades. Go ahead and make what you want of that. It's a freebee.

Something else that is funny is my mental health. God, I really want to laugh about the fact that my mental health has really sucked. I want to find humor in the fact that I'm in debt up to my eyeballs because I lost my mind 3 years ago. I lost friends. That's kind of funny if you factor in that I moved in with my parents and THAT kind of funny makes up for all kinds of heartache. I also lost my job. Hm, I think that might be funny but I'm going to have to find something funny to say about being "let go" for making a total ass of myself and not having the joy of remembering much of it. Sort of like your friends saying to you, "You were so funny! I've never laughed so hard!" the day after getting so drunk that the last thing you remember is dropping your last quarter in your plastic keg beer cup. Not that I've experienced THAT.

So, my life is rife with funny. I just have to dig for it. Or, maybe I just have to scratch the surface to find funny. No, maybe it's right there on the surface and I just need to see it. No....that's enough.

Thank God for humor. I know it doesn't seem like he has one. I actually can't recall a sitting with my Bible open during which I laughed outloud and it wasn't a case of being slain in the Spirit. Not that I've experienced THAT.