First page of the romantic notions archive.

in which I use lots of asterisks.

Posted by jessica on Apr 21, 2011 with 4 Comments
in Thoughts and Feelings
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Don Miller is, I believe, a brilliant writer. I used to have a crush on him. When my heart broke I decided that I should probably just marry Don Miller. Or at least follow him on twitter. I guess you could say Don Miller was my rebound. And the guy never even knew about it. I have since moved on from any romantic notions I had for us, but I still love his writing. Which is pretty mature of me. I mean, even though we’re over, it’s not like I don’t have any use for the guy. And seriously, he does have a magical way with words.

He writes about life and God and honest thoughts and the church and Christianity and questions and being single and his friends and having no dad and a million other things, too, but those are the more prominent subject matters.

He lives in Portland (WA). Which is one of my favorite cities–another reason why I was pretty sure we were meant for each other. Duh. He is pretty famous. He is a widely respected Christian author. Which is why I was a little shocked when he wrote on his blog that a lot of what he writes is bull****.

Except he didn’t use any asterisks, if you know what I mean.

SCANDALOUS. I KNOW.

Part of what he meant is that it is a pretty presumptuous thing to write anything and just expect that people will want to read it. Let alone a whole book, he said. And on the flip-side of that, a lot of what he writes is in an effort to impress people, he confessed. It’s tricky stuff, our motives, and he was having a moment of transparency, I guess. And yes, I can see how that can feel presumptuous. Writing. Blogging. Tweeting. Definitely tweeting. Who am I? Is an age-old question that we humans like to recycle, like, all the time. Who am I to say this? Who am I to perform? Who am I to love him? Who am I to try for that? Who am I to hope for this? The list of Who am I’s is really exponential.

And I guess it comes down to just deciding who it is that you are. And let people pay attention or not. If you want to write, then write. If you want to be an x-ray tech, then be an x-ray tech. And maybe some of it ends up being bull****, but I think it’s a worse kind of bull**** to not try at all.

And in the end, there are very few opinions in each of our lives that really matter. Last night I sat across from a person I had known for maybe 45 minutes and listened to him tell me I am wonderful. He used that word. Charming to hear, yes. But is it weighty? No. He doesn’t know if I am wonderful or not. There are very few people who I care whether or not they think that I am wonderful, and believe me–when and even if I hear it from one of them, it is the dawn breaking through a night that I thought would last forever.

Maybe it’s bull**** that it means that much to me, but it does. Because the truth is that I care. I still care. Despite the heartache that entails, I care. Despite how much I know that it hurts to care, I care. Despite how much I’d rather just not sometimes, I care. About people. And I need them, I do. And you know what? That’s okay.

It has to be.

It is.

It doesn’t always feel okay. Actually, it hurts a lot sometimes. This week, in particular. But it is okay. Even necessary. It’s part of what makes us human. Just like writing is part of what makes us human. Sharing our stories and our thoughts and helping each other. It’s good.

Which is why I would like to respectfully submit that your writing–that a lot of writing, actually–is not bull****, Mr. Miller.

Though, I think I know what you meant when you said that.

kneading and needing.

Posted by jessica on May 14, 2010 with 9 Comments
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
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I made some sweet rolls today.

And that’s not much, I guess. Not when compared to the people who come home from their work and write something on their blog, respectively, that sounds more like I made a rocket ship today or I danced for the President today or even I invented that break-away pump thing at gas stations that keeps those tube things from breaking when the driver accidentally drives away because they’re probably spending their thoughts on more romantic notions than gas tube things and how they really should be stowed properly, people!! Although if the guy who invented one of those things was doing the writing, he’d probably sound a lot more sophisticated than that. Tall order, I know, cause does it even get any more sophisticated than the word thing used over and over again ?

But still, making the dough–that’s something. Something that I might have even needed. And I would even argue that it’s one of the productive ways in which we can use our hands, though I am not sure that it made The List that my friend likes to mention every so often. He has a picture on his phone of two people giving each other an exuberant high-five (which is how a high-five should be given, I’d guess), which is just one of the ways listed in this book that I suppose he’s read that reminds us of the good things we can do with our hands.

And kneading dough is definitely one of  them, if you ask me.

It’s all this work and digging in and don’t be shy because, honey, this is gonna be messy and you’ll be picking dough out from under your fingernails for at least a minute, but that’s just it: you make it work. Until it suddenly doesn’t feel like work at all. Not anymore.

And the thing is, you were ready for all that work. The effort. The feeling like this is just plain hard. But really, when you take some inventory, you find out that it’s not so difficult after all; that it’s fun. That you’d rather this kind of work that could result in maybe the best bread you’ve had in a long time than any other.

Cause the work you had been doing turned out to be a production. And you didn’t know it, but other people were acting while you were doing what’s called living and that’s maybe the worst kind of production of all.

And I don’t know when this changed from making bread into talking about life, but it did, and I am in awe. And okay, the sweet rolls were quite delicious, but more than anything else, I am in awe of what May looks like. How it tastes on my tongue. How it feels, like I don’t want to pull back from its touch the way I thought I would, had you asked me almost six months ago to the day.

And I was ready for life to hurt for a very long time. What I wasn’t ready for was this. A feeling that life is good. That it’s meant for the living and, God, but I am glad! glad! glad! to be among them. That I wouldn’t want to miss the way God seems to hold a cup of stars and every once in a while accidentally spills the whole thing out into the night sky until it’s brighter than it is dark. How people are the most fascinating creatures and I can understand why God is so taken with us, I think.

How this is a story that I don’t want to abandon and, as it turns out, I care about very deeply, indeed.

And baking bread is just a small part of this story, but it was something and something counts for, well, something. Something that I liked very much, which was partly the point, I think.