But, my sneakers.
They are my absolute favorites, and I know not where I put them.
How sacreligious of me would it be to now remind you of Mary of Magdalene’s quote, “They have taken away my lord, and I know not where they have laid him!”? Terrible, I know. Because in one breath, I mention sneakers (and the fact that they are my favorite hardly makes it any better, I’m afraid), while in the next breath, I mention Jesus. But that quote from Mary–it’s always been a favorite of mine.

There’s something about the way she’s wanting to ask a question–ultimately, she wants to find him–but she doesn’t voice it that way. She doesn’t have enough to hope to actually ask the question; instead, she just states the obvious: that she doesn’t know where he is, without laying even the foundation for an answer to come her way. And that statement is the defining factor of her life in that moment, for she’s bereft without him.
Just beautiful.
That’s love, I think.

And speaking of missing something, I also miss this:

That band that I’m in.
We used to sing songs together a lot.
And now, at least I haven’t misplaced this one. At least I know exactly where it is–spread out all over the globe, I guess. One half there and one half here and now that sounds weird cause each of us is actually a whole person.
Or at least one of is, and I’m really working on it.
Therapy and stuff, you know.

But something that I don’t really miss–though I do like–is this little green guy:

I enjoyed the time I spent with this chubby little caterpillar, true; but I have to say that it was good we parted when we did. Because between myself, all of the spiders, and the roughly five hundred combined pounds of dog down here in the basement, I just don’t think there’s room for one more critter.

But I liked the way he moved.
And I liked his body rolls too.
Though I didn’t mention them, because I wasn’t sure how sensitive of a little fellow he was. And when in doubt, it’s always better to just not mention the body rolls, is what I always say.

But anything that requires a dance is fine by me.

And I was driving to New Castle, feeling this deep sense of gladness. Oh good, that’s a word. I wasn’t sure, but then I typed it and no red squiggle is telling me that I should have paid better attention in school and what? you’re gonna take your GRE? well, you should at least know what’s a word and what is most definitely not, then!

I hate when the red squiggle says that.

But I rolled the windows down and then Usher came on the radio, singing about how DJ’s got us falling in love. And suddenly I imagined my sister Jenna sitting in the car with me. And I’d ask her in mock seriousness if Usher is referring to DJ Tanner, of Full House fame (since she is a diehard Full House fan), and then I laughed all by myself in my car with the windows rolled down and my legs all wrapped up in denim leggings.

And then the song played this beat, oh it’s a good one, and I couldn’t help it: I had to move. It wasn’t required movement, of the denim legging variety, but it felt almost as necessary. So I bounced a little in my seat and shimmied my shoulders a little too and then I noticed the guy who was also stopped at the red light watching. And I wondered if he could feel all this gladness and I wondered if he knew that was a word and I didn’t care at all if he thought what I was doing was strange.

Because I felt it, you know, deep down, and it was good.

And those are two rules I like to live by: when something is good and when something is feelable (which is not a word, cause now the red squiggle is yelling at me. oh, bother.), then go for it. And it might be dancing in your car or it might be telling your parents that you love them, even if that’s not exactly a vernacular in your family; or it might be coaxing your body to come on and run! because you’re alive and you might as well take advantage of that glorious fact; or it might be turning off the radio, cause it’s time to “put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard,” as Anne Sexton said.

Life, I mean; it really never is.

Not when you walk into your kitchen to find this little guy.

And he thinks he’s in a corner. Just in a corner. Like, end-of-story, in a corner.  But what he doesn’t yet realize is that the door is right there, too. And that I’m about to open it up and then he’s about to go on and fly, little hummingbird; fly like you can!

I wonder what’s beyond my corner.

I think it’s every bit as beautiful as the blue sky.

I hope so, anyway.

I was outside today.

I could hardy help it, the day was so beautiful.

It’s always been a case of “whistle, and I’ll come for you, my lad” when it comes to outside and me. It’s not enough to know it’s there, not enough to see it through a window, I have to go put myself there. I’ve always been that kind of learner, I think. A kinesthetic one. Which is why I hate to listen to someone giving me directions. Well that, and they’re pretty darn boring, too. Perhaps if our highways were called something other than INTERSTATE 95–like maybe, THE ROAD OF UNENDING POSSIBILITIES! Or even, The Naked Mole Rat Road, cause at least that’s interesting, you know?–maybe then, I’d listen.

But, I’ve always done much better when I can feel something, rather than just hear about it. That’s probably why I like to dance so much. You don’t get much closer to feeling something than putting your whole body soul and spirit into movement, I think.

But anyway, I was outside and I was thinking and going back over some conversations I’ve had with my friends. And sometimes I am encouraging them and sometimes they are encouraging me, but the common theme is:

• someone wants to do something
• that someone doesn’t think they are good enough
• because look! that’s what so-and-so does, and I am most definitely (and disappointingly) not so-and-so
• and then someone tells the doubting someone (not to be confused with poor, doubting thomas) that they should go ahead and try to do it anyway; that dreams are beautiful, shy things that need to be encouraged and cared for and nurtured like a tiny baby who’s as beautiful and fragile as they come.

So yes, I’ve had these conversations so many times. We recycle them. Sometimes I play the first someone and sometimes I play the second someone, but always, I hear this conversation around me.

And this is what I thought about today, while I was outside: Everything great that we look at and get both inspired by and intimidated by has been done by a person.

A PERSON.

And what are you? And what am I?

Yes, I do believe it is safe to say that each of us is a person.

And unless your dream is to be the eighth member of a dog sled team in Alaska, than I would say it is also safe to say that the dreams that have been realized around you have been realized by people.

Just like you and just like me.

I know this is so simple, but it struck me today. All of the great books that I read reverently and with such awe have been written by people. All of the songs that move me and spell out what is happening inside my own heart in a way that is downright uncanny have been written by people.

Same with the dances. And the movies. And the businesses. And the healthy, beautiful families.

All of these feats have been done by people, just like us.

So let’s step up and do whatever it is that we want to and realize that it’s not so crazy to do the things that we dream of; it’s simply our turn, is all.

The fact that, while playing worship music for a special meeting at my church tonight, I wanted to rap. True, it was just a small little rhyme, but it was stuck in my head for good. Stuck like lovable, round Pooh trying to get out of Rabbit’s hole (oh that doesn’t sound so good); let’s change that to home, trying to get out of Rabbit’s home (oh, that’s much better)–but what I mean is that the tiniest of raps was stuck inside my head and wanted to be spoken and given a chance, but it didn’t get it’s chance. Not tonight, anyway.

See, I love rap. And I know it would have been just fine for me to start free styling a little, I guess, but man, I gotta work up the guts for that. And I was half afraid that the rest of the people up on stage with me would just stop playing and stare at me, as if to say, Well, what’s gotten into her?

A tiny little rap, that’s what.

But this reminds me of a story my brother Jonathan (I know that, because of the thislifeinwriting.com Hall of Fame (aka the tag cloud), you requested to not be called “brother Jonathan” like that, but what am I to do? You are my brother and you are named Jonathan!) likes to tell.

He was little, maybe ten or something, and we were all worshipping in church, together as a family. He finally worked up the courage to lift his hands while singing, you know, quite an exuberant and bold move–especially for one so young–when my brother Jason (perhaps I should just start referring to you guys as Friars, since that sounds even better than “brother Jason” and “brother Jonathan”) tapped Jonathan on the shoulder and, in total and complete shock, asked him, What are you DOING?! He said it like Jonathan (or rather, Friar Jonathan) had been dangling a cat from his hands, trying to hypnotize himself with the cat’s tail or something.

Jonathan got all embarrassed and his moment of boldness deflated, just like that, as he lowered his hands and went back to doing things the way he’d always done them.

So yeah, Jason wasn’t here tonight, but I would have half expected a tap on the shoulder and a What are you doing?!, had I started rapping during worship. And again, the rap was just a little rhyme, nothing to write home about, nothing to make Kanye jealous or anything.

But maybe someday.

I do, after all, love rap.

Dance History. It was the most difficult academic class that a dancer could take. Everybody knew the buzz around the school: Professor Ninotchka Bennahum was hard on her students.

And she was hard on us, true. Oh, but it was the kind of challenge that reminded me how much more there is to learn, how much harder I can always work. It’s like how, unless you run up some kind of hill, you’re not gonna tap into those muscles that go into over gear-the ones that really take you to that next level. Cause you’re just running on a flat surface. Maybe it’s comfortable, but if you tried that hill, you’d a). get stronger, b). see something new, and c). grow in confidence, cause look–you ran up a hill and d). get stronger, get stronger, get stronger, because I cannot stress that enough.

And there’s this beautiful line I read yesterday, something by Zelda Fitzgerald–”Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” I love that line, and I think the same could be said of the mind, too. And I think that before I had class with Nina Bennahum, I had no idea how much my mind could hold. Or grow. Or grasp. Or wonder.

And she would always say, “You can’t be a great dancer without watching great dance.” So every week, we screened the pieces and dancers that have dropped us off right here, where we are today in terms of dance. We learned about how Balanchine took the Russian ballet training and then fell in love with America–the speed of it, the way that everything has to happen NOW! and how the exclamation point is the American mindset, which is something else I just read, but sorry–I don’t quite remember who said it.

And so then Balanchine’s ballerinas started dancing really fast; everything became extreme, including their bodies, so thin and sinuous and able to do anything that Balanchine demanded of them.

And we saw how Martha Graham wanted to speak truth, wasn’t just interested in the fairy tales that ballet had so long been feeding its audiences, and so she began making movement that people considered ugly. But see, LIFE was sometimes ugly, so why not have art reflect life? Aren’t the two inseparable anyway? And so she would writhe on the ground, barefoot, and contracting her body and the audience was at once a little horrified and a lot mesmerized.

And then there was Alvin Ailey and the way that he incorporated spirituals and gospels and stories that led back to the African American slave and his dances told those stories. His dancers would move from this place deep inside; it was both sad and glorious, victorious while reminding you of that poem, I know why the caged bird sings.

Anyway, I would watch these pieces and I would be so very inspired to go take a Graham class and contract and remember how Martha said that “the body never tells a lie;” that we can lie with our words all we want, I guess, but our body language has a way of betraying the truth.

And I think that, in the same way, you can’t really be a good writer without reading books. Good books, great books. The kinds of books that get into your soul and plant a little garden there that feeds you long after the winter has come and the pickins have become slim to none.

But look at these statistics that Don Miller cites on his blog:

According to Para Publishing, 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. And 42% of college graduates follow suit. 70% of U.S. adults have not stepped into a bookstore in the last 7 years and 80% of American families did not purchase or read a book last year.

What? How is this possible? And how very sad. I think that I first fell in love with books by way of L.M. Montgomery and the worlds she opened up to me with Anne Shirley. And there was also her heroine, Emily Starr, who is less known, but no less beloved by me. And there was the Chronic (what?! for any SNL fans)les of Narnia. That was a world that I didn’t mind jumping into over and over and over again. And also, Barbara Kinsolver with The Poisonwood Bible. And Stephen Lawhead’s, The Silver Hand trilogy. And dear Ann Lamott, with her way of speaking so honestly and telling her story and making you laugh and making you wonder and making you cry and then making you laugh some more right before you think about God and the way that he thinks about you even more.

But really, I have so many more books to go. I don’t think that I can ever finish all of the reading I have to do–that I want to do. Right now I am reading three books–and actually, I shimmied a fourth right in the middle of them all, upon Darby’s recommendation–and I am hoping to finish at least one of the three soon.

Don Miller also stresses that readers are leaders, something that has probably been seen upon the hallways of elementary schools since someone first realized that the words readers and leaders rhymed. But, it’s true. Also, I read somewhere that the two most powerful things on this earth are money and words. And I think that the road to acquiring either can be great, but that the road to acquiring words is far less dangerous.

Boy, that was a mouthful.

And with all that said, I wonder: what are you reading? what do you want to be reading? do you read as much as you’d like?

And you’re standing there in the dark, clutching a fist full of rocks you’ve scooped from underneath your feet; you’re not wanting to get close enough to whatever it is that’s terrifying you to actually throw them, but at least you’re armed now, and if not dangerous, well–you’re no longer just an innocuous girl. You’re not waiting to be a victim, legs and arms exposed because you were running and wearing shorts and a tank top and you never did expect to be so scared and vulnerable.

Not tonight, anyway.

But then your brother laughs just a little. “It’s just the sprinklers going off!” he says. And you laugh at yourself too and you let go of those rocks and they hit the ground with a thud, respectively, until you’re no longer feeling so weighed down by the weapons you clutched while you were fearing the worst.

Sprinklers, that’s what they were.

And now when you pass those sprinklers, you laugh a little inside your head. And you remember that what you feared so badly was something that couldn’t hurt you, after all.

So you don’t need to walk around with rocks in your hand; you don’t need to run away so fast; you don’t need to fear that every sound you hear is the worst.

Because sometimes the monsters you fear really are just sprinklers.

Okay, good.

And now go!

I’m just gonna write…and see what happens, maybe not even edit so much, though just saying that makes me feel all weak inside. And not in a sweet and swoony kind of way. More like in a but-I-want-it-to-be-perfect! kind of way.

Okay, so I just got to sing some songs for some people and how is it so very powerful? How does it effect my very psyche the way it does? My good friend Betsy says that performing is like being in love, and I have to say, it is.

You know that feeling of finally connecting with him? Maybe you’ve missed each other for a while, not really caught any signals of love that he has been throwing your way, and suddenly it lands. And your heart gets all relaxed and you feel like you, only the better version. The one who isn’t scared or jumpy inside; the one who remembers that life is best lived just being yourself. And with that kind of love that he gives you–just you!–well, you wouldn’t wanna be anyone else. Not ever.

And that’s what I feel like when I get to perform. It’s like there’s a mirror thrown up in front of me and it’s the kindest mirror there is. Too kind, probably. But it leaves me feeling content in my own skin. And full, too. My whole heart and mind and spirit are just full.

Cause see, there is this open mic at a place called the castle in town. And I had been going there to sing with Shane for what feels like forever because I barely remember my life before this past winter. But then Shane left and I got all shy about going to these places where we used to sing together.

Until Michael, kind Michael who runs the open mic, lured me there with promises of a keyboard. And how could I say no? And I am so glad that I went because, right: it was just what I needed.

And apparently I wasn’t the only one, either, because one guy I spoke with on my way out told me that he had had the most effing (but he didn’t say effing, you know) terrible day today and then when he listened to my songs, everything got better.

And that’s really nice. I mean, too nice, or something.

But there’s not a lot like music to lift my eyes up to see past whatever it is that’s making me all scared at the time. Except maybe the one who made music, I guess. Oh and dance. And also words. And people.

Okay, so there’s a few things.

But something that’s not like music at all: the fact that I have to get up in the morning to teach. It’s not the teaching part that’s so bad; it’s the getting up part that kind of gets me.

Ha, it gets me–it gets me UP.

Oh, so funny.

Oh, good night.

And the truth of the matter is that I am not perfect; I never have been, nor will I be. And it is exhausting to try for perfection. Though, to try for kindness–to try for love–this is the kind of trying that turns right back around and fills you up. And you didn’t know it would happen like that, but you’re grateful anyway.

But it bothered me for a second, all this blaming. Maybe even a minute. And then I remembered that the truth is something that doesn’t shift and change. It doesn’t melt when the sun gets too hot and it doesn’t freeze and then float away on the arctic sea.

The truth tells the same story, over and over again–though it is not my job to always tell that story. Only if I want to, I suppose. But I’d rather live the kind of life that tells the same story over and over again. A good story.

Words are powerful, true, but they can be tricky and they often leave us to stand alone, wearing only our actions. And they hang on us like a lasting monument so dear, God, I pray it’s the kind of monument that I’d like to be wearing for a very long time.

So I think that I will not be bothered so much by the blame. I know what has happened; I know what has been done to me; I know the kind of story that I try for; and though it is not perfectly executed, it is still one that I am grateful to live.

It’s one of the few things that I know. That, and how peanut butter makes almost any situation better. Also, there’s the matter of the ocean and how to this day, scientists are discovering new creatures in its depths all the time. So I also know that we don’t know everything.

And all that makes me think of God.

For some reason, the way that the more we know actually reveals how much more we have to learn, makes me believe in him more. I like the weight that meaning gives to my every day and I cannot attribute meaning to life without God.

It’s like the difference between a robot building a structure and a man in love building a home. The robot constructs it with the correct measurements, sure, but there is no soul in the work. No emotion attached to the project, no kind of love that would cause a seven year project to feel only like seven days, he is so greatly anticipating the end result and what that means.

Because, meaning; it’s so weighty.

But the man in love–now, he builds a home. He draws it and dreams it. He falls asleep thinking of the way he can make the windows just so with a view of the ocean through the two in the front. He puts his heart into the project and the time he spends on it is nothing compared to the meaning he takes from it; a home for the one he loves.

And I think of God like that man in love. I’ve never loved robot stories so much, though I have heard very good things about Wall-E, but a love story? Now, that gets inside me. It goes deep and eventually yields the kind of garden that I can live off of for a very long time.

But what I meant to talk about was how plans change.

Like today, for instance. When we were all set to go swim in the 7,000 acres near my house. But then we hear a roll of thunder spread across the sky like dominoes are falling, but judging from the volume, these must be very big dominoes, indeed. And then the rain starts to fall and we already have our bathing suits on, so I tell the brave souls who will listen that it is time to go outside and march in the rain.

We are in our bathing suits anyway, I reason. But there is thunder! exclaims my mom. Shouldn’t you stay safe and inside? But thunder is just noise and I will not stay inside because of noise, though I did mollify her somewhat by promising to stay close to the house, at least.

So we ran outside. Eli, Emmy, Josh, and myself saw the trampoline and it seemed downright lovely to jump about in the storm.

And it was.

If it had been a movie, and had I been with people to who I was not directly related, it would have been a scene in which I fell in love. But I have learned that there is lots of magic left to the world, even when it does not include the business of falling in love, per se.

That isn’t to say that I didn’t exactly not fall in love. There was still the storm and the great leaps we were engaging in; I was definitely in love with all that business.

And my point is that we never did get to go to the 7,000 acres today. But what we did do was quite fetching anyway. And I don’t think I’ve ever written the word fetching before. Perhaps I should also tell Scarlett O’Hara that frankly, my dear, I don’t give a d**n. I mean, since I am saying antiquated things, and all.

But right, plans. They change. And since God is like a man building a home for the one he loves, I think he does something to help make sure it still turns out a masterpiece.

Life, I mean.