talk about falling

Talk about falling...

Let me just start right off by explaining my long absence...

I fell in love.

But I've landed.

Just as quickly as I fell, I landed. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I still have this strange sense of light headedness and of floating at times.


You'll find the picture of Christina and I here on the blog page. Cute couple, eh? She says, "I like that picture of us. We look happy." I reply, "Honey, that's the ONLY picture we have of us." Christina has an aversion to cameras to the extent that I have an aversion to dresses. Pretty serious.


So, about falling...

Falling is such an overrated event and we --especially in this society-- rate it so highly as if the falling in love part was the very apex of love. When it comes to love relationships falling in love is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure most of you already know that. I'm kind of a novice really. It's like giving a 2 year old a baseball bat and letting her/him loose. The result is a lot of broken things and battered shins & kneecaps.

So why do we say “I’ve fallen in love” with such glee...without even looking at the words we are using to describe such an event? Mostly, I think, it is because lovers are generally young and inexperienced in the ways of icebergs and their tips --all we have to go on is that the Titanic sank because of a sneaky iceberg. We just say dumbly, "What iceberg?" We don't really get it, do we? We aren’t thinking about what it we’re saying partly because the all the blood has left our brains while we are “falling”. Like falling out of an airplane. That kind of height. Not like falling from a tree limb. This is serious momentum!

Here's what I think. Applying the term “falling” to describe a burgeoning love relationship implies death, dismemberment, and at the very least many broken bones and paralysis. The connection is, I believe, not a mistake. Only I’m not so sure most of us are aware of what we are really communicating when we say “I’ve fallen in love”. Do we realize the reality of what we are saying. It is as if you are saying:

"I'm falling and am facing total dismembership and extinction at the end of my fall. I like broken bones and internal injuries. I LOVE IT!"

OR

"I'm falling and the ground is approaching quickly so I ought to prepare myself for the end."

OR

"I'm falling, which is okay because I have a death wish anyway. I like dying."

OR

"Oh _____, this isn't what I expected when I jumped out!"

OR maybe

"I don't mind this. I have a love of danger and I'm ready for whatever comes...as long as I don't die...oh. I'm going to die? okay, um, how do I get out of this! help. someone. please."

Anyway, you get the idea. Love is nothing to take lightly. And "falling" about rightly describes it at first. I suspect whoever came up with the term "falling in love", the first person to say it out loud, knew exactly what he or she was saying. He or she was probably French. The French say things like that. I'll have to look into the etiology of this term. However, I come to that conclusion based on the fact that the French term for orgasm is literally translated into English "little death". Love is risky business, not for the faint of heart, and terribly misrepresented in our culture and through our families.


The most interesting phenomenon I have discovered about falling in love is how many seemingly satisfied and married people warn, caution me, and actually tell me things like, "Don't get used to this feeling." As if they learned their lesson!!! Seems kind of two faced to me.


"I'm sorry," I say, "I thought I heard you say, 'Are you being cautious? You ought to be careful'?"


In my head I say (because saying this out loud would look suspiciously like I am defensive), "Looks like it worked for you."


I've heard mothers explain the process of having multiple children and it sounds an awful lot like a psychiatric condition called a fugue. Amnesia really.


The exact definition of a psychiatric fugue is, "pathological amnesiac condition during which one is apparently conscious of one's actions but has no recollection of them after returning to a normal state. This condition, usually resulting from severe mental stress, may persist for as long as several months."


Or perhaps years in a mother's case. These mother friends of mine are apparently conscious of their actions during a previous birth but upon conception of the next child they have no recollection of that previous pregnancy and birth. They tell me, "If I actually remembered the awful pain of birth and the uncomfortable and completely inconvenient process of pregnancy I would never ever, ever have agreed to a next child." Thank God for fugues then...else we'd be extinct!


I'm trying to say that falling in love is bound to happen...if you actually get to choose your mate --as we generally do here in the U.S. Otherwise no one would marry voluntarily. I mean really. Do you ever hear people say, "Well I don't really love her/him, it just seems like it would be a to our advantage to commit ourselves to one another for the entirety of our lives because it's just a good idea." Yea, kinda weird. Probably a good idea though. Maybe the divorce rate would go down. Marriage of convenience. Haven't heard of it for a while. Not since Hollywood probably.


We marry...by first falling in love. Of course I can't marry Christina "legally" or with the "church" backing. So I get to fall in love with her much longer. ; )


However, if you live somewhere where your parents may arrange your marriage, like India or S. E. Asia, falling in love is not guaranteed. But it happens. It actually happens with more frequency than we Western romantics may believe. Though I don't know the statistics I have been told this story --of an arranged marriage turning into deep love between the stranger spouses-- by two different individuals from different countries. You can find information about this alien phenom and discover it happens fairly regularly.


Divorce stats in our country betray our Christian reputation. We don't have a key to making a marriage work based on how you get to the alter. Getting to the alter is perhaps the least of our worries. Maybe you've heard of the Gottman Institute. They've done a study, a pretty extensive study, on what makes marriages succeed and why marriages end. They found the primary reason why marriages end in divorce is contempt. That doesn't mean contempt always ends the marriage. No, some marriages continue on regardless of rampant contempt. Contempt is deadly.

Check out Gottman's website: http://www.gottman.com/

All I know is that I adore my partner. For the first time in my 20 years as a Christian I don't feel completely inept at actually treating another person as if they were more important than myself (at least some of the time that is). I actively love. I don't look at the I Corinthians passage from the New Testament as a creed or agreement as much as a tool like an axe or a hoe. Don't worry, even if you haven't read a word of the Bible you HAVE heard this verse. It is read aloud, as if casting a spell, with great frequency in wedding ceremonies across America. Not that this is a bad thing, but, in the same way my well meaning married friends like to warn me, I think, "Does this bride & groom really know what they are promising???" Think on these following things:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."


These are some pretty serious activities. They aren't character qualities. They aren't gifts. They aren't inborn. They aren't even automatic add on's that come along with falling in love. They are things done actively at the most inconvenient times. Like loving rain when you are locked out of your house. Like happily drinking the wrong kind of latte after you've already driven through the driveway. And they are like realizing that the other person needs these things --patience, kindness, care, humility, words of kindness, a selfless partner, a cool head when provoked, truth, a tempered memory, protection, belief in the relationship, hope for the relationship, and VERY IMPORTANTLY, perseverance. And she needs them more than you need justification, fairness, and self gratification.

I'm so in love I'll promise anything. I know this is but the beginning. But I'm pretty sure I've got my head screwed on as straight. One would hope so at the ripe age of 42. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

autumn waits patiently

Are you one of those people who asks, for lack of better ice breakers, "What's your favorite season?" I don't like that question. As usual my answer is more complicated than the questioner is generally wanting to hear. I always want to say something like this:

"If it is winter, I like Winter because it drives me inside where there are fireplaces, friends, books to be read that lay in wait over the Summer, and steamy coffee shops. There is also snowshoeing, cabins in the snow if you can get there or afford it, and there is ice skating if you live somewhere that cold. I also like putting on tire chains. I know, I'm such a lesbian.


However, if it is spring, I like Spring because Spring drives me back outside--right about the hour I'm completely fed up with Winter and the claustrophobia that sets in after months of very little sun. I like planting things in spring in hopes of future beauty and bounty.


But if it is summer, then I like Summer best because that means one thing...backpacking & hiking. Those short blissful months, here in the Northwest, of warmth that heats the rocks of the Cascade Mountains so that we can go play above the treeline. Honorable mentions are fresh produce, driving with your windows down, shorts, short skirts, and, of course, blue Slurpee's.


Then there's Autumn which is my favorite season of all when it is Fall. I like Fall because of color, harvest, my birthday, fog, school, mtn. blueberries, and a new season of CSI Las Vegas, Survivor, and Amazing Race.


For years I've tried to wrap my mind around the spiritual and life lessons so prolific in this season. Autumn is the very picture of death and dying...AND YET it is gloriously beautiful!! It is, strangely, beautiful BECAUSE of the dying. Generally we (especially Americans) don't think of death and dying as beautiful. I think it is obvious, God seems to be clearly illustrating something quite applicable for us to ponder in our own lives. Of course all this death we witness around us during the Fall is just temporary. Everything doesn't die. It isn't so much death as hibernation, sleepy time, preservation, survival. Earth's environment is organized so that land above the Tropic of Cancer and below the Tropic of Capricorn will experience some changes in seasons. The organization of nature, as God ordered it (for we cannot un-tilt the Earth or change its revolution around the sun), implies that things have to die in order to live. Hmmm, I think I've heard that one before."


So that's the long answer to the question, "What's your favorite season, winter, spring, summer, or fall?" Essentially, "YES!"


I've observed here in the Northwest that Fall is more glorious some years than others. Some years it just falls and that's it! No spectacular show. However, this year happens to be particularly amazing! Looking at the colors that seem more vibrant than in recent years, I can't help but think again that God has a life lesson built right into the blueprint of nature. I don't know about you but I can forget that life not only ebbs but flows, progresses and falls back, flourishes and wanes, falls flat and rises to the top.


My life is glorious sometimes, like this Fall, but I also experience seasons that are downright anticlimactic. Other seasons seem to be the end of me. Do you ever look at a season of beauty and wonder "Why can't it always be this way?" Well, there you go again...God seems to have given an illustration in the very air we breath. How can we grow if we don't first die? How can we truly flourish unless we first go through the harshness of winter? How can we make it through our winters if it were not for the memory of seasons in the past that did eventually end? Perhaps God gave us season so that we might learn to love whatever the present season has for us.


I'm grateful to be established in the Pacific Northwest. I love having discernible seasons that change one into the other. The progress of seasons gives me hope. I can see that they change. Seasons always change. They don't stay the same all the time. I like that. As someone who is manic depressive, I like that. It is good to know that depression and mania are like seasons. They come for a while but they leave too. I feel like it is God's promise to me when I experience the changing of Earth's seasons. He promises that hard times always change into something else, usually something good.


"Kimberly, I do not change but you will find that your life is filled with change like the seasons of the Earth. But don't be shaken. Every season of your life has a purpose to either prepare you for the future or give you rest from the past seasons. And, it's okay, you can like ALL the seasons...don't ever let anyone make you choose."

Only 14 More Days

OH, so many of us have become hardened and crusty old skeptics. I do not have enough digits to count the number of times I have heard, "It doesn't matter who is elected President, nothing will actually change anyway."

Some of us aren't so much skeptical as "wizened". We say such things as, "Presidents of united states don't really do much of anything anyway...It is just a figurehead."

Several of these folks go on to explain why my bumper sticker, "If you don't vote you don't count", is offensive to them.

Whatever your beliefs, you HAVE to admit that aside from all the media's rabid lathering something WILL change in our country. Indeed. Our country will finally join the ranks of those "underdeveloped" "third world" countries who have enjoyed (or endured) the leadership of women and minorities for decades and even centuries. We will finally be stepping out of the dark ages!

America the Great is finally filling in her training bra. She's finally, perhaps, coming out of the exasperating pre-teen years. She might stop talking back, stomping to her room and slamming the door, assuming she knows everything when she clearly doesn't, and she might just stop being a tyrant and self-appointed social dictatoress in the school halls.

Despite the fact that a few hundred years ago the world changed dramatically under the British rule of Elizabeth I, and her success as a politician, general, and leader are evidenced, Americans have been uneasy, skeptical, and reluctant (to say the least) about placing a woman at the helm of our country. I sometimes like to put my arm over the shoulder of my young country and have a talk about not having sex until she really understands the consequences and ramifications. "Honey, you're just too young to be doing things you don't even understand." Only I think she's been sexually active for some time.

It is amazing to me that we Americans (and I mean ME and almost all the rest of us) have believed strongly that we are a mentor and leader among the nations of the world. We are in a way. Many nations look to us. But tyrant does not equal leader. Really now. Don't you remember hating the big bully in school? Yet the minute he protected you and YOUR interests you felt a kind of uneasy pleasure in it. Let's gain a little perspective on what our role is anyway.

Change will occur! We will finally have either a black/minority President or a woman V.P.

We still have 14 more days until either becomes a reality. Just enough time to learn how to make tools and build fire.

Whether you are a hardened skeptic, an Anarchist, or simply "wizened", if you do vote your voice will be out there. Your positions/people you stand up for on your ballot this election will be counted among the others. Even if you "lose". Your voice will become part of a loud collective...much like a choir. I can sing, but believe me when I say my voice is much more lovely when combined with many other choral voices.

As one hardened skeptic to another, VOTE! You never know what will happen, and how could it hurt.