Just a Little Homesick

I don't have much for today, other than missing the Carolinas. I'm leaning up against the radiator, the warmest I've felt in months, remembering days of insufferable heat and feeling a weird nostalgia for them, listening to the Avett Brothers and leaning into the sound for the first time in months, missing my car and the freedom it gave me, blaring music down deserted mountain roads and coastal highways. If I press up against the radiator close enough, I'll be back on Jockey's Ridge, getting sunburnt flying kites, or on Harbor Island walking across the low tide landscape, or in Charleston listening to In The Curve for the first time, or on the practice field in Chapel Hill in August, or walking to Franklin Street for lunch on an unbearable summer afternoon, or sitting behind the blocks, waiting for my event at the swim team conference meet, eight and tiny and unsure of how to feel about the big wide world in front of me.

It's funny, 'cause I know that I have memories of cold moments, shivering in the tiny church in Hillsborough before the handbell concert or sledding on cardboard sleds or in the parking lot at South Caldwell when my first inherited car died in the parking lot in the snow or in my car on the way to Orange High School when I was student teaching and the heating wouldn't turn on until the coolant temperature was 171 at least. But here, right now, all I want is to be warm and to think of the summers I've had, fireflies dancing a couple of feet above the grass and cicadas singing their songs.

Throwback Wednesday: Churches, Or Something

(I backpacked through Europe for a couple of months after college and I kept a blog the whole way. At the end of a semester in Edinburgh, I figured it'd be interesting to look back and who I was when I was here four years ago. You can find the original post here. Click through the archive for all sorts of pictures of churches and some stories. I recommend Italy and Spain if you're feeling cold.)

On my last night in Edinburgh, I went to go see a comedian with Christine, Kerry, and a couple of people from the hostel. Being of Scottish heritage but born in Canada and currently residing in England, he had a, shall we say, unique perspective on the different societies that he had viewed. He was hilarious and I laughed so hard that I cried throughout much of the show. Just one of the positives of visiting Edinburgh during the Fringe Fest- the place was full of comedy, plays and other performing arts. The comedian remarked that arriving in Edinburgh is much more impressive when one arrived by train in Waverly Station. You get off the train and there are bagpipes and people dressed up for performances and tourists galore and then there's this castle- you're generally a little overwhelmed when you get off the train in Edinburgh.

I loved it there, despite the rain and cold that I will almost incessantly complain about when I talk about the city, having become very homesick for heat that hits you like a wall of boiling air and humidity, and near drought conditions. Neil Gaiman stuck it into my head that Oscar Wilde once said that if this is how the Scots treat their summers, they don't deserve one. I don't know that the Scots must have done to offend summer so, but the entire time I was there it felt more like January of perhaps a cold snap in March than early August.

Still, the hostel I was at was small and full of interesting, friends people. On my second night a group of four came in from London and I spent many of my nights listening to their conversations and easy friendship. As wonderful as it was to find new people to be friends with, that wonderfulness was exceeded by having more familiar faces to enjoy the city with. Christine returned from her visit with her family in Ireland and brought Kerry, a friend of hers and an acquaintance of mine, with her from the independent island off the British coast. Her friend Jesse also came to visit, taking the bus up from London where he had been studying this summer.

Together we took a walking tour of Edinburgh that I highly recommend if you have the means. We listened to the history of Scotland as told through the lens of its capital, walking up and down the Royal Mile, stopping by  the outside of the cathedral, John Knox's grave, the Grassmarket, Greyfriars Kirkyard, home to Greyfriars Bobby, walking past Fringe venues and ending up in the Princes Street Gardens. Did you know that James Clerk Maxwell was a Scotsman? Good, because if you did it would probably be because you learned his equations in E&M and I would fear for your state after enduring the merciless tyranny of physics. But there are plenty of other notable Scotsman besides William Wallace- Robert Burns, Ewan McGregor, Sean Connery, David Hume, Adam Smith, the father of modern economics. JK Rowling has a small castle up there. I have also visited the Elephant Room, the café where she wrote the first three books of Harry Potter. Nerd moment of the trip completed.

I went back to the cathedral on my own for the Sunday morning service, taking communion in a huge circle by passing the loaf of bread and the cup of wine, each eating and drinking on their own before being blessed as a group by the priest. The choir sang an anthem, little bags were passed around for the offering, the priest preached a sermon on a letter of Paul and a gospel lesson about Jesus walking on water and Simon Peter sinking. Later, as I walked around, I noticed the lion and the unicorn protecting a shield as I'm used to seeing in Scotland and thistles in the decorations, proclaiming the national symbol of Scotland. 

The cathedral was interesting and historical. It was laid out in a Greek cross, the first church I had visited like that, and the altar stood at the intersection of the arms of the cross with the congregation on either side coming together for communion. It's a different kind of space and coming forward for communion made me think about the service back in St. Mary's in Berlin, passing the peace to people whose language I didn't speak. Here, I walked to the heart of the church and circled around the altar and smiled and shook hands with kind Scots and thought about how far I'd been.

The last thing I did in Edinburgh was climb Arthur's Seat. It's a huge hill on the edge of town, a touch of the highlands for which my heart ached. We had climbed it earlier, Christine, Kerry, Jesse and I, and we had stopped by the small ruin of a chapel near the beginning of the climb. 

There's not much left of this chapel, just and entry way, two windows, an arch support and a couple of corners, but the space lends itself to an absolutely mystical quality. You can rebuilt the chapel in your mind and imagine the monks who must have come here, lighting torches or candles for late night vigils. The crag around you minds you of a faerie world where sprites and nymphs could come and infest the stone of a place meant for Someone else, packing the place with a meaning all to different from the one you're accustomed to assume. And if you let your thoughts run wild you can imagine a day when we've all but left these places, these cities and these cathedrals, when the grass will grow again in the wind-deposited dirt and the walls of all of these grand houses of God that I've seen time and again in my months abroad will be reduced to a doorway, two windows and a corner, blackbirds racing each other around the ruins.

I didn't revisit the chapel on my solitary hike up and we didn't stay long as a crew the first climb up. We were beat up the hill by a trio of middle aged men determined to scale the mountain quicker than the college kids in their prime. We stopped often to take pictures and be distracted by a man walking his cat along the heath at the bottom of the valley. We paused just before the final trek up to the rocky peak, collapsing on the oddly-well maintained grass to guess at the shapes hidden in the clouds, watching as the high wind demolished them, leaving us with new patterns. I paused to look out again at the sea the sneaks into Edinburgh when I climbed by myself, but only for the briefest of seconds before picking out another path among the rocks.

The climb up to the top of the seat is up uncovered rock, different from the steep slope of grass that came before. As a group we laughed, first following the chains and posts and then guessing at the easiest climb before stumbling up to the open vista of the crown of the hill. I meandered around when I returned by myself, not pausing at the top but instead selecting a hidden outcropping to sit and think and read. Leaves of Grass lay abandoned in the pocket of my pack. I broke out a collection of stories by Neil Gaiman and immersed myself in a world of wonder, feeling the wind blow my hair around for the last time. When we four had climbed the seat, we had found our way around to the tops of the rocks, laughing and taking pictures and waiting for a group of Spanish-speaking tourists to give up their place on the highest before giving up and climbing up there anyway, crowding around the back of the dulled peak of peaks.

I left the last of my locks on a iron hook up on Arthur's Seat, the hefty one I had bought for five euro in Paris. I hadn't needed it in the hostel and wouldn't need it for our one night in Dublin before flying from there to Chicago to Charlotte. I can remember the jokes the group told as we picked our way down the rocks and flew down the hill before, but as I walked back by myself I turned a corner I hadn't seen before and walked down a stair step of rocks and trickling water. I walked through grass and by thistles, purple and green and perfect as I tugged my jacket closer against the wind.

On our way out of the city the next morning we sat on the top of the double-decker bus to the Edinburgh airport and Kerry cut off the conversation for a few moments so she could say her goodbyes to Edinburgh. I had been woken up that morning by a goodbye- Brooke, the Australian nurse from my room, had left the hostel group early to get on a plane for a night in London, despite the riots, before leaving out on a tour of the continent. We had said multiple goodbyes to the people in the hostel before walking in the rain to the bus station. Through all of this, I had never thought of saying goodbye to the city. Faced with the thought of leaving, I found my mind distracting itself from the idea. I don't do goodbyes. I was glad when Kerry finished hers and Christine and I discussed plans for surprising Pam when we returned to the States for her birthday.

I sat in an aisle seat on the plane. Given a window, I'll stare out at the ground, memorizing the place I've been from the air before it disappears in the clouds. With that moment taken away, I think I'll keep long montage of pictures taken from the upper floors of castles and cathedrals and hills looking over the cities I've seen in my mind as my memorization of Europe. I'll begin in Prague and I'll end at Arthur's Seat and I'll think of all the things I've left. And all the things I've gained.

Composure

I'm a bigger fan of taking random Facebook quizzes than I should be and because I'm ashamed of this fact, I tend to not share the results. I'm not 14. But then this happened:

What I'm most upset about with this is that it nailed on the head what I wanted it to say. I am very happy erring on the side of determination and perfection, with a little more than a dash of altruism. And I want to be "great at solving potential conflicts before they fully develop." It's weirdly specifically about me, or about who I want to be, which is what Facebook is for, right? For presenting the version of ourselves we want others to see? 

Listen, I'm not saying that my perception of myself was changed by the results of a facebook profile analyzing tool. I'm just not not saying it either. 

Hiya! I wanted to take a quick second to say thanks to everyone who came along and read my post about my tattoo- apparently that's how you get more than a hundred people to read your writing. Thank goodness I've got so much skin left to ink! I'll be famous in no time! (Just kidding, Mother.)

Anyway, thanks again, dear readers!

I found this adorable gif here.

A Tattoo Story

I got a new tattoo. People have been asking about it, so I figured I'd explain. It's on my forearm and it looks like this:

I'd have flexed or something, but honestly, this is as attractive as a forearm can be. 

Yes, that's my handwriting. I couldn't find a font that I liked that got the spacing right without weird letter size manipulations and, anyway, if you know the story of the quote, it makes sense that it's handwritten. The tattoo artist asked me if it was something I wrote, actually, and I had to tell him no, it's from V for Vendetta.

Have you seen V for Vendetta? If yes, you can skip this paragraph. If no, either go watch it and come back or read this paragraph and call it day, because I don't want to spoil the movie for you. Basically, there's a character in the movie that could have chosen bitterness and despair but instead focuses on the goodness in life. And I liked that a lot. My tattoo is a reminder to me to believe in goodness. Thanks for reading! I hope you get some goodness in your day today, like getting to pet a puppy, if petting a puppy is a thing you like doing!

gif found here

Okay, now that it's just us movie buffs here, let's talk V. I think V's vendetta hangs on Valerie's story. These scenes are the real turning point of the movie, or at the very least, what leads to it. If it's been a while, Valerie is the actress who was next door to V when V was imprisoned at Larkhill who wrote her life story down on the toilet paper in her cell and passed it over to V. Most of Valerie's story is told in flashback while Evey (Natalie Portman's character) is being fake-imprisoned by V. V has a picture of Valerie and her roses in a kind of shrine at his place that he shows Evey to prove to her that Valerie's story was real.

The full quote comes at the end of Valerie's flashback and goes like this:

It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and apologized to no one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must NEVER let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the worlds turns, and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that, even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you. Valerie. 

So to me, "But for three years I had roses" is acceptance of circumstances outside of one's control wrapped up in an unassailable belief in the goodness in our lives, no matter how small that goodness might seem when the world takes from us. Goodness is the part of the human spirit that endures. These words, the words in my tattoo, they're the words of someone who lost so much and remained capable of love- directionless, unearned love. V might not win the day through patient, nonviolent methods like we'd ostensibly want our heroes to, but the story of a person who could cling to that inch, to the hope for goodness for others and the remembrance of the goodness given to them, that story confirmed a revolution, a fight for freedom, and a trust in people, even the small scared people who let evil grow in the first place. In V's messy fictional world, the thing that brought about change for the better was one person's belief in the existence of goodness.

When I was in high school and college, I used to write grace on my left wrist, right below a freckle I have there, because I liked the idea of needing a reminder of God throughout the day and grace felt like the right reminder. I'm going to say it again: I liked the idea of needing a reminder. I liked the idea of the attention it'd get me, how deep I'd seem, how inspiring it would be that out of all the things I could have picked to put on my body, I picked grace, a concept with, just, so much theological and personal depth. I liked the idea of being that person, the kind of person who needed a reminder, someone with depth and experiences.

Look, I believe that we can see the goodness of creation everywhere, that even though humans fell, the goodness we were given when we were made still finds its way through. We shine and there's only so much life can do to dampen that. We get these ideas in our heads, these thoughts telling us all sorts of things: that we're not worthy, that other people aren't worthy, that our glow is worth more than theirs, that it's worth less, that it's not worth saving. I personally have this idea that if my glow isn't muted enough, I won't be taken seriously and I know that's wrong, but listen, despite everything else that I may think, I believe in love. I believe in goodness. I believe that there's goodness in the world and in my life.

I just need a reminder of that sometimes.

Sometimes daily.

And I've been thinking about this for a while now, about what mantra I needed to have emblazoned onto my skin to remind me of who I want to be and what I want to believe is true. And I've thought about grace, but that no longer has the same appeal. Grace should be evidenced in my actions and my heart, not on my skin. But when I saw this part of V for Vendetta this year, it clicked. It was faith and love and grace and goodness active in a messy world and I knew that this was what I had been looking for. I repeated it to myself through the rest of the movie. It rang in my head for days. It's as true as anything I've ever heard in a sanctuary. Not to say that those sanctuary words aren't true or are less true or anything like that. It's not a negative comparison. It's just that I don't think that God limits God's goodness to church people. It wouldn't get very far if God did.

So yeah, I think that covers it. I got this tattoo so I could remind myself of goodness, human and otherwise.

Maybe I should just start saying that.

Music Videos Part Three

Geeze, life must be busy or something. I must have papers due or maybe I'm just deep into existential crises. Probably, I'll update this section with some kind of information about that. If you're reading this, it means that I just clicked publish without proofing anything so there are probably grammatical errors as well. So fun! Anyway, here are a few more music videos that I think will make your day better.

1. All the Pretty Girls by Fun.

I'm never going to be against some Fun. And I oddly like the balloon thing.

2. Billye Jean by Yoshi Tsujimono

I can't advocate for the adaptation of popular songs enough. And this is fantastic.

3. You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates

It's the 80's. It's absurd. It's fantastic. Come for the ear worm, stay for the horrid, horrid dancing.

4. Running Through Rivers by Carrie Hope Fletcher

YouTube creator content at its best.

5. Riptide by Vance Joy

I can't do surrealist films for long, but I find that this is a perfect three and a half minutes of odd images strung together in a weirdly coherent way.

The Hardest Thing in the World

Today, I got up and I did some reading on Special Relativity and how it changed our perception of time. I did this because I'm taking a class on the philosophy of time, because I think how we count our hours and think about our days makes a difference in how we live. I also did this because it interests me and it's fun and this is the first time in five years that I haven't been bored and I will chase that high until my brain gives out. I did this because I could.

But today, someone else didn't get up. Someone else didn't read, didn't change their mind, didn't think about their place in the world, didn't do something because they could, because they wanted to. Someone else was deprived of their today because a stranger with a gun took it from them. Someone else, who had a family and friends that loved them too, who filled a gap in a community, who made a difference in a whole set of lives just by breathing, that person will never get to do anything again.

I haven't followed the news from San Bernardino because I don't need to. They'll identify the shooters, or they won't, and the families will mourn and the community will try to carry on and the people with the ability to make a change in the status quo will say words but won't do anything. This is our routine, like falling asleep on the couch watching football after eating a huge meal with the people we love. I'm not saying anything you haven't heard before. We know how this story ends.

But what if we didn't?

Listen, I don't know the policy answer to this that both allows responsible gun owners to keep doing what they're doing and prevents people who want to do harm from having guns. I don't know the exact balance point between hurting and helping when it comes to the media. I don't know exactly how money plays into all of this. I don't know how to make people feel safe while keeping them safe while allowing them to be as free as they want to be. I don't know how to redefine our rights or if we should or if there's another way out of this.

What I do know is that we have to take care of each other.

If you pray, when we pray for these families and communities, we should be praying for the strength to care for those who have been harmed by this and who will never feel safe again. We should be praying for ears to hear their cries and hands and feet to move swiftly to answer. We should be praying for the helpers, for the people in these communities who will work tirelessly to heal these wounds.

Then we should pray for ourselves.

We should pray for the strength to do the hardest thing in the world: to live in it. We should pray for eyes to see the people who have been shunted to the edges of society, the ones who keep pain in their hearts, the ones who are driven to inflict that pain again on others they think have harmed them. We should pray for hearts that hurt for the people who feel like they have no community, no support, no one who understands them, no one who listens. We should pray for the courage every day of our lives to reach out to the people who want to hurt others and to love them as Christ loved us.

A gun is a piece of machinery, a tool.

Our job is to cultivate a world in which no one feels like they need to use it as a weapon.

That's not easy. But I'm praying for it, and for the strength to do something about it.

Would you pray with me, please?