sour-patch post

Today was difficult.  Exhaustingly, frustratingly difficult.  The kind of difficult when you close your eyes and try to breathe so that the blood stops rushing to your face but all you can focus on is how the back of your eyelids sting against your corneas.  Difficult for embarassingly stupid, annoying, non-reasons.  Tiny neutral details that shouldn't stir anyone emotionally really, but just. eat. you. up.

So if you're curious, here's what makes me tick:

There was the fact I could not bring myself to get out of bed today to go to daily Mass, even though everything inside of me burned with a desire for nothing else than just that.  So much for willpower.

And realizing I had missed St. Augustine's feast day without saying Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer or Night Prayer or even thinking of him the entire day (this one, in particular, makes little sense to anyone, but please understand that St. Augustine and I are buds. We get each other.  One of my sons will be named August.  This blog is titled after a passage from his Confessions. I listen to what he says.  This is that terrible, disappointed, guilt that makes you flush in shame when you forget to greet your best friend on her birthday. I do not like it, not one bit.)

And being told that my personality was acidic.  Acidic. Corrosive. Harsh. Astringent.  My insides churned as I digested that, almost as if the hydrochloric acid in my stomach was gaining activity after being called upon by name.  I punished its hyperactive persistence by not finishing the Greek yogurt I was snacking on. 

And losing track of time at coffee with one of your friends and rushing home to discover you've missed family dinner.  Perhaps it's because I love everything about mealtime.  There is not a better combination than fellowship and food.  It is sacramental--nourishing your spirit and body and mind, engaging each one of the five senses.  It is the way in which Christ gets to humanity whenever Mass is celebrated.  It has every potential to be beautiful and perfect and more often than not, it is.  So when it isn't, loneliness ensues.  I'd throw tantrums when being left behind at the dinner table as a child.  I was terrifyingly close to throwing one today.

And the way Daddy just passive aggressively stepped over my computer charger a little more loudly than necessary to let me know I'm in his way.  Being annoyed at this, and then realizing I'm being just as passive aggresive by blogging about everything that's gotten on my nerves today.  This is not why I started a blog.  This is why I had not started a blog.  I'm failing y'all, dear readers, and yet I have every intention of hitting that Publish button. 

And other miscellaneous failings and misgivings that are not worth mentioning to the general public.

And thus, the day ends, and it is my task to figure out why I reacted to today. 

Possible Diagnoses:

1. Hormones. Self-explanatory. 
2.  Stagnophobia.  Yes, I just invented a phobia.  Yes, that's ok because every other name for a phobia is invented too.  But here it is--the fear of staying in one place.  Last time there was a lull in adventure, I couldn't take it, and so I started a blog--a cyberadventure, if you will. I thought it would suffice (it did, for two days, before I jetsetted off to Tennessee). I'm now in the middle of a two week adventure lull, waiting for Spanish Semester adventures to begin.  Ridiculously restless.  My wanderlust rapidly approaches status as a vice. Mother would say "Ang kati iyong paa mo." ("Your feet are itchy") and Daddy would again call me "Anak na layas." (Literally, "My child that runs away from home.") I have a problem, I think, and apparentally symptoms of my stagnophobia include irritability, anger, and moodswings. Avoid stagnant Denise as you would avoid stagnant ponds when searching for drinking water. 

But for real.  Deep breath. Put in things in perspective.  Be selfless for like two seconds.

I think it's this:

Pope Benedict XVI describes Christ's agony as "this inability of our hearts to carry within itself simultaneously the love of the most holy Trinity and the love of a world alienated from the Trinity."

There it is. 

I have seen beauty and experienced joy and love.  I am blessed with more than my feeble frame can handle.  I've developed an almost annoyingly facile tendency to see God in maverick places.  And when I fail to see Him--when things are not quite as they should be, when I'm uncertain about a decision I've made, when people say the wrong thing at the wrong time to me, and especially when I'm unreconcilably disappointed in the person I've become--I get angry. Things are not perfectly joyful.  They have not reached my standard, though they once have.  But I love them.  I enjoyed that extra three hours of sleep this morning.  Yesterday, despite St. Augustine being ignored, was still wonderful.  Acidic Denise is still the Denise I've been working hard on fixing.  And the grilled fish with peach salsa followed by a slice of cherry pie was delicious, though grudgingly consumed in solitude. Why. How is it possible that I have multiple standards of happiness that do not even come close to matching up? Am I a real person?

Close eyes. Ignore stinging corneas.  Exhale. Inhale.

Phone buzzes. Text message from friend.

"How are you, m'dear?"





Oh. Found Him.

I will now hang my head in shame.

there's a storm coming!

"It had been raining that day from morning to night—the kind of soft, monotonous, misty rain that often falls at that time of year, washing away bit by bit the memories of summer burned into the earth. Coursing down the gutters, all those memories flowed into the sewers and rivers, to be carried to the deep, dark ocean."

— Haruki Murakami

Southern Boy reprimands me for loving this quote, and actually anything from Murakami, or Dostoevsky, or Tolstoy, or anything that I appreciate that was translated from another language for that matter and I see his point, I really do.  Something is lost in translation.  It's why when I was 16 years old I set the lofty life goal of learning enough Russian to read Crime and Punishment in its original language (a goal towards which I have made exactly zero advances).  It would be like seeing this:

and not just an incredible photograph of it.  Breathtaking. Ethereal.  Divine.

 

 

But the world isn't perfect, and for now, I'll settle for Murakimi's description of a late summer rain because right now it is perfect--a perfect description of today.  While Charleston is knee-deep in the water somewhere (King Street, actually) and New Orleans is preparing for the worst, Greenville is warm, grey, and ever so slightly touched by the outskirts of Tropical Storm Isaac.  Washing away those summer memories.  The whir of the electric fan pushing around humid air in my tiny single, small enough to embrace me with its four walls.  The musty smell that took me back to childhood trips to the Philippines.  Subjecting myself to additional heat only among the Grotto candles on Tuesday nights.  The miraculous way I had enough of a voice to cantor every Friday after a long week.  Loving the present in a way I never had before.  Hot, searing, burning into the earth.  To be carried away to the deep, dark ocean.  

Mountain Mama

Today, we went on a family hike.

Ok, well correction: this morning's hike was supposed to be a family event, but conversation with Princess Little Sister went a little something like this:

Me: Hey, guess what we're doing as a family tomorrow morning?
Princess: If you say hiking, I'm not going.
Me: No, but it's not actually an option.
Princess: I'm not going. Anyway, look, the cheerleading squad got new ponpoms, do you like them? I wanted them to be sparkly silver, but that's not technically a school color, which is annoying.

None of this could be made up.

But convincing Daddy that he indeed had enough time to go on a hike with me and Mother that it was cool enough to keep her hot flashes at bay was enough of a challenge.  Suffice it to say I was quite pleased when our little Prius hit Geer Highway this morning.  But let's give you an idea of who exactly Mother is.

Mother: Denise, is the trail paved?
Me: No.  We're going on a hike...
Mother: Oh.

Coaxing this woman whom I love ever so dearly three miles up a moderately steep hike was not easy, friends, and took much of that affirming spirit I've become so adept at because of my summer job.

"You are gorgeous," Daddy says to a frustrated, sweating, fuming Mother. As usual (for both her and me), she scoffs at the compliment.
"I don't feel gorgeous. Not at all."

I get it. Getting older sucks, especially as a woman, what with that whole menopause thang and one day I won't be able to climb up mountains the way I can with my 20-something friends.  But I had to smile at my mom's comment.  Call it strange, call it a rationalization of my laziness, call it a manifestation of closet feminazi sentiments, but I there is something really physically beautiful to me about pushing a human being to the point of exhaustion. I love the way sweat feels after it is well deserved.  I love the rosy blush that tints a face after a long run.  I love the way skin glows with a sebaceous sheen, blood pumping furiously just under the surface.  The rise and fall of an exhausted chest.

Some people feel most alive at the height of physical activity--perhaps, paradoxically, when they are most at risk for not being alive: snowboarding in Utah, sky diving, etc.  I don't, mainly because I think spiritual and mental capabilities define the true greatness of a human being, but there is something to be said about the height of physical capabilities.  I think, then, it is when we are most physically beautiful.  Gorgeous, even.

And the view after three miles uphill isn't much to complain about, amiright?

Love me some Table Rock.  Also, look closely to spy Mother.

Without Tiring

Yesterday, I went on a run with my oldest friend, adopted sister, and long time running/ spiritual/ musical guru. As is typical during such runs, diaphragmatic inhales interrupted long bouts of vocal ponderings about our pasts, presents, and futures--all of which, God willing, are intimately intertwined.  Most recently, our conversation centered around the future part.  We find ourselves in the exact center of our college lives.  The next step is, indeed, a career and potentially motherhood--what is known to many as real life.  Oh boy.

As providence would have it (or perhaps, a combination of luck and living in a small city) we passed two girls with whom we attended high school.  Women, rather. Yes, definitely women, and that was what was so striking. Both were pushing children in strollers, and while one clarified that she worked as a nanny for the bubbling light source in her stroller, the other was undoubtedly the mother of the slightly disgruntled one year old boy.  We stopped to chat; small talk was all that was possible between women whose acquaintanceship had eroded nearly to the point of unfamiliarity by three years time and experience.  We flashed them farewell smiles, and jogged on.

On our return loop to the car (which we would soon realize we had unfortunately locked ourselves out of, but that's besides the point), Guru and I again crossed paths with the women.  The mother laughed as we passed. "They're still running!"

Still running.

It is kind of impressive, isn't it? Three years came and went.  There were so many moments in which we--Guru, or Mother, or Mother's Best Friend, or children--could have failed.  We're still alive: breathing and pumping blood and blinking and converting ADP to ATP to power our run. And for some of us--well, one of us--finding it within herself to reach the zenith of selflessness; that is, breathing and pumping blood and blinking and converting ADP to ATP not just for herself but for another.  Perhaps even greater than that, withstanding the judging eye of the Conservative South and the even more Conservative Catholic School community within it to be able to move on. To smile. To laugh while taking a walk with her best friend from high school.  To positively glow while doing it.

Their friendship lasted.  Mine has lasted with Guru, despite my bossy beginnings as a best friend, her frustrated middle school bullying, our difference of interests in high school, and our colleges upwards of 600 miles  away from each other.  Our futures, as we discovered, were spiraling in wildly different directions.  I swell with pride a little bit every time I talk about my friendship with her, because with all of my failings it is truly a miracle that such a fragile connection, so easily severed, could withstand them.  We're still running.  That's kind of cool.

That puts me in mind of...

This image was introduced to me at the beginning of the end of summerconferenceforhighschoolstudents as a remedy to melancholy nostalgia that descended upon most of the mentors our final week.  "Don't hold on to it," we were told. "Our hands must to be cupped open, or we will never receive the water."  

I needed to hear it then.  Joy does come--sometimes more frequently and more powerfully than others, and in those times it can be difficult to move on to a place different from the ecstatic state in which one finds himself.  Many times this summer, I thought to myself, "How can anything be better than right now?" The image helps me to remember to expect joy--it is promised to us at some point, if not today or tomorrow or a year from now, then at the end of everything.  There is more to come. 

I needed to hear it today.  The past few weeks have been new--different--geographically, emotionally, spiritually speaking.  Front porch coffee during a morning thunderstorm with kids I grew up with. Dock talk spent marveling at how the moon's reflection off the water allowed the night to look like the day.  Meteor showers, soundtrack brought to you by the entire coyote population (pups and all) of Middle-of-Nowhere, Tennessee.  Four-wheeler rides in the rain.  Fishing in the dark. Carolina mountain views and waterfalls.  Is this real life?

Yeah. Of course it is.  But that necessarily means that they each of these vignettes had to come to an end.  I couldn't ignore the fact that the air was getting colder, even while they were being played out. Indeed,  fireflies are becoming more scarce.  The peaches now lack the purely luxurious sweetness of nectar rolling over the tongue and surprise you with a tarty kick at the end.  Little Sister is once again hemming my old high school kilt.  This, the longest, richest, most exhausting summer of my life is tapering off.  

This realization, undoubtedly accompanied by a hint of loneliness, was answered when the above image popped into my head this morning to remind me that the end of things is beautiful.  It means only that we exist in time and life is only possible with change and joyful things happen so we can remember them when joy is lacking and look forward for that next euphoric burst.  My task today was to say goodbye--to the boy with whom I spent the last eleven joy-filled days (henceforth referred to as my Southern Boy--yes,  he is responsible for the four-wheelers and the fishing), to Little Sister on the first day of her most important year of high school, and to the indescribable adventure that was this summer.

I eagerly look forward to all the hellos to come.  

How God is Different from a Postmodern Artist

Behold.  Courtesy of this morning's Wall Street Journal, I present to you "Phosphorus (2004)." The Industry of the Ordinary drink a crate of beer and document the change in color of their urine.  Friends, this is what happens when a postmodern thinker has a little too much fun on Thirsty Thursday and is inspired by both the increasing popularity of ombre fingernail paint on Pinterest and a random recollection of titrations from freshman year Gen Chem lab.  Yes.  Drunken pee has now become art.

Much to my relief, Mr. Eric Felten, author of The Extraordinary Banality of the Ordinary as Art feels roughly the same way I do about such a display.  "Feel free to roll your eyes," he implores, as he documents other examples of how using the ordinary as not just the subject of a piece of art, but as the art itself, was novel perhaps a century ago but is now simply--well, just ordinary.  Pathetically ordinary.  The idea of such a practice is to "blur the boundaries between the artist and the viewer," but, as Mr. Felten argues, isn't admiring a piece of art comparable to, for instance, watching athletes on the Olympics? The art is aesthetically sublime, but admiration is also recognition that this artist, this gymnast, this swimmer has done something that I will never be able to do. "That's the art that makes us thrill to be human."

So, postmodern artists allow the viewer to participate in the art and celebrate the wonder that they claim is contained in the ordinary.

Ohgoodnessgracious.  Is God a postmodern artist? One of the many things I've marveled at over the past few months is the ordinary-ness of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  It is bread and wine.  That is it. It is boring, mundane, and everyday. And yet it is God.  The mystery of Christ is astounding not because the Divine came to Earth to perform miracles, but because He came here to depend on another for sustenance and feel anger and loss and at the end of the day, when He could do nothing else, cry.  He was ordinary, and He is the most beautiful.  By coming to Earth, He has asked us to become his co-creators.

Somehow, though, is not the same.  I don't really feel free to roll my eyes every time I receive the Eucharist (although, admittedly, I have at points in my life).  A postmodern artist takes credit for creating an environment in which he tries to force the viewer to see beauty because something just is. But the viewer is oftentimes left unsatisfied. It is boring because I myself could drink a crate of beer (maybe?) and document the change in color of my urine.  It doesn't impress me that you thought of the idea first.  It's a bad idea.

And yet, it impresses me that I can love like the Creator can and make life like He can and sometimes, create something beautiful like He does.  Maybe "Phosphorus" will be popular for longer than I expect it to be, lasting beyond the life of the artist, but one day, those cups will degrade and the memory of the art will fade with the extinction of the last of its admirers.  It will no longer be art.  But God will remain The Artist after the last person to believe in Him stops believing; He is not forcing anything to be extraordinary or worthy of praise, but because He has touched it, kissed it, it simply is. It is not for credit or honor or money or a display case in the Chicago Cultural Center, but because love flows forth from Him. He cannot help that.  And that is what makes me thrill to be human.

Cred to WSJ for being awesome

Pilot

Sometimes, I set weird policies for myself and stick with them. Other times, I regret the policy and stop.

I told myself I wouldn't ever start a blog, for instance. "Why would I want to put my thoughts on the internet?  No one cares about what's going on in this grey matter, so..."

I only said that because I didn't care much about what was going on in anyone else's grey matter, except perhaps unless it pertained to the excretion of neurological chemicals.  Everything else--at least, those parts that my peers chose to publish on the interwebs--I labeled as angsty, pretentiously deep, and otherwise worthless.  I guess I was afraid that my words would be the same.

This summer, I worked as a mentor at a summerconferenceforhighschoolerstohelpthemdiscerntheirvocation.  Somewhere within that muchedumbre of grace-filled, love-vomiting mentors, eccentric keynote speakers, lax bros from Connecticut, valley girls from California, and Canadians who shamelessly declared "Eh," a girl named Emily cried.  With a single glance during a Friday affirmation session, she cut through the veil of cynicism I was donning that morning (attributable to my exhaustion from the week and my frustration with my small group and my general dislike of the notion of sitting in a circle and telling everyone nice things about each other), told me I had changed her life with my words, and cried.

I don't know if it was the initial shock of feeling at least partially responsible for gently stirring the stubborn soul of a seemingly unfeeling high schooler or the way I could not help but smile the rest of the day, but somewhere in the aftermath, I entertained the possibility that by some grace of God, thoughts do have value.  Maybe it's not angst, but real pain.  Maybe the depth isn't pretense.  Maybe they are worth something.  What if my thoughts are worth something?  What if something magical happens when I translate those thoughts into words? What if I am capable of stirring yet another? What if I am supposed to?

This blog is a reaction to that "What if?"

I'm confusing. I'm scatterbrained. I'm still deciding.  I'm almost right, but not quite. I'm in suspense and incomplete.  But maybe someone out there will need that at some point.

Someone: here's a risk I'm taking for you.