it’s right here.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as brilliance, giant, God, kind, life, plan, sense of wonder, sleeping giant, tip toe, tip toeing, way
I don’t know about you, but well, the stars. How do they do that? How is it that I’ve seen them so many times now–that surely, I must have memorized the way they fan out in the sky above me, but no.
Because there are still nights like this one. When I look up and suddenly it’s as though I’ve never seen them before, their brilliance is so wonderfully shocking to me. And I feel small, the best kind of small; dwarfed by a sense of wonder that reminds me it’s still possible to open my eyes wide.
Maybe even with innocence.
And I don’t know about you, but I think there is a kind of living that feels like a tip-toe, you’re walking so softly, looking so furtively towards the sleeping giant you know is nearby, the one whose name is ambiguously terrible. Bad Things That Might Keep Happening, he calls himself. And it’s like when you watch the kind of movie in which the director realizes that your mind has a way of painting pictures that are powerful. And it’s the kind of power that leaves you breathless, either way, I guess. Bad or good, to be too general about things. And so this director has gotten the idea to leave the very worst parts to your imagination, because what you fear is usually worse than what is.
And I say usually now because I no longer believe that applies to always. At least not for me.
But I don’t want to get to the places I need to go by tip-toeing, afraid of what could be. I think that there is a better way. I think that the giant may or may not be there, but I think that doesn’t really apply to Now anyway.
So I will just dance. And probably jump. And definitely run. And it might even be noticeable and it might even make some noise and it might even wake up a sleeping giant that may or may not be there. But whatever it is I am doing, it will be all in.
Da Vinci said something about how if the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art–and I think that is true about life. And the way we live it can be like art, creating and expressing. Being. Without shame because you’re you. And it’s some kind of masterpiece, I think. Better than what you see in a museum, I know.
And tonight I remembered the day I found out I was officially divorced. It was strange, I am usually the person who can joke about anything, but not this. Not now. I guess I felt more like the joke was on me. And I didn’t know how to reconcile the small girl with blond pig tails I saw in my parents’ framed photos that hang in the kitchen like the best kind of reminder of where I’ve been with the woman who I am now. I didn’t know how to tell her what had happened to her life. I felt like Jo from Little Women, just after finding that her sister had destroyed every one of her essays and stories; the pages and pages of her heart, spelled out in words and punctuation, paragraphs, beginnings, and The End.
I found it very close to impossible to see the difference between what had happened to me and me.
And so I ran into the woods. I walked a very long time and then I found a large and good-natured tree that didn’t seem to mind me crying so hard or the fact that I was using it to sit against. And then I looked down and I saw that I was wearing blue spandex pants and suddenly I was laughing and crying at once; and the tree was probably wondering why he always gets stuck with the crazies. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was considering perhaps not being quite so good natured in the future because that might just make people like me keep walking.
But I was laughing and crying and isn’t that just like life, anyway? Isn’t there the best and the worst and don’t they manage to stand out in the midst of the mundane, just like neon in the eighties but probably a much better idea?
And I think that I got a little glimpse of perspective and more than that, a little glimpse of the fact that some things do not change. Or maybe it’s that they surprise you by embodying whatever it is they are a little more with each year.
Like the stars when you see them and they are the same but even more starlike, if that makes sense.
Like you and me, through the conflict and the resolution and every bridge and chorus in between.
Like God’s plan, too. Getting chiseled away by the days until whoa! it’s right there and how is it that you wondered and stood still, afraid to move because where, God, is the plan in this mess?
It’s right here, he says.
But so are the sleeping giants, you say.
Forget about them, he says; cause, it’s right here–the plan. The stars. Who you are. It’s right here.
sorry about your…
in Funny Stuff, I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as Beatrice, friend, man, miracles of miracles, mom, phone, ping pong tournament, plan, tone of voice, ultimate frisbee, unidentified friend
Oh man, I won two games tonight.
What bliss.
I, along with my team, won a game of ultimate frisbee and then I won a ping-pong tournament against someone who will remain nameless. Isn’t that so generous of me to leave him anonymous? I mean, it could really be a blow to his ego if the whole world knew exactly who it was that I beat in ping-pong. Quite soundly, I may add.
But nope, you won’t get a name out of me. Not about this, anyway.
And moving on from my unidentified friend who I beat in ping-pong.
Moving on to a phone call I made earlier.
I had to call AT&T because I awoke to a phone that had been shut off. Now that was not the most abnormal thing for me before my life exploded, I could go back to just the usual four names that I had been given at birth, and I traded a house I hated for a house I love. But now, well now, I am on my mom’s phone plan and she is nothing if not punctual with bills and such. Thus, miracles of miracles, the phone stays good and on.
Until today.
So I called AT&T to make sure that I was firmly on the Latshaw plan and not at all connected with anyone whose last name isn’t Latshaw, if you know what I mean. And so I explained to the lady over the phone that I am recently divorced and that my phone is now shut off and that I need to make sure that I am no longer on the old plan. A
nd after I said this, she just rattled off a sentence in the kind of innocuous tone of voice one uses for telling your friend that you’re sorry to hear her great Aunt Beatrice has bronchitis and you hope it isn’t actually consumption and goodness, but she better sleep with her window shut because the nighttime air cannot be good for a person.
Basically she sounded distant and unconcerned as she told me, I’m sorry to hear about the divorce and your phone being shut off. But actually she said it more like, I’msorrytohearaboutthedivorceandyourphonebeingshutoff without even a breath to give separation or distinction to either of my plights.
As if they are both pretty awful.
And when she said this, I couldn’t help but laugh. Because it’s hilarious. To hear a total stranger offer me condolences on two such separate, end of the spectrum type circumstances in the same thought is just too good.
But I did stop my quiet laughter so I could tell her, Well, I do think one is weightier than the other.
And then we were both laughing.
And it was good.
And then she told me about her story. About the man who had cheated on her and broke her heart in about enough pieces to rival the sand on the beach; how she couldn’t sleep at night and started letting her anger come out towards her poor innocent mom, though she knew her mom was hardly to blame. She told me how, after another failed marriage, this guy begged her back, but knows she is better than that. She told me about her kids and how they are good kids and that even though she’s a single mother, she raised them right and that’s speaks of something good and present, rather than the lack that is so easy to feel.
And she also told me that she is happy. Thrilled, actually. Well, she is now at least. And isn’t it amazing what time can do? How it’s the friend who comes over whether you want them too or not because they know that they can help you. And so you’re laying there helpless and unable to even offer Time a cup of tea, when suddenly you look at the clock and see that it’s later, sure, but more importantly you start to feel.
You feel like putting pants on and maybe even some lip gloss. You decide that the world still has so many things to throw at you; that maybe all those throws will be more like little league and even if it hits you hard it won’t hurt like it’s hurt in the past.
And so this woman and I, we certainly did have a talk. And yes, I told her some of my story–and she was appropriately saddened and appalled. And the cell phone being shut off took quite a backseat to the matter at hand, the matters of the heart. the matter that you try so hard to put your mind over.
And it’s delightful to find that human connection. To know that we are all people and when our journeys intersect-even so slightly–it is good to notice it. To learn from each other as we share our stories, respectively.
But still, Sorry about your divorce and your cell phone being shut off. I mean, whose life is this? I know it’s mine, but it’s a mine that I never anticipated, I have to admit.
my jam plan.
in Funny Stuff, I Lift My Eyes Up, Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
as certificate, Christian, conveyor belt, Delaware River, divorce, grease spots, grilled cheese sandwich, jam, jenna, loose leaves, marriage, Monica, plan, security checkpoint
Unbeknownst to most people, I am now living with one of the world’s leading experts on the show, Friends. Seriously, if there were a university somewhere that allowed one to major in Friends, my sister Jenna would be there on a full ride. She knows each episode inside and out; it’s her bedtime story and [...]
