America

A little over a week ago I ran the New York City Marathon.  That's me in the blue shirt and strawberry blonde ponytail. The day was gorgeous, the experience perfect. In the week since I've had my share of exasperated conversations, texted with many bewildered loved ones, and bitten my tongue frequently. I know every election is difficult and polarizing.  I know that my beliefs differ from many people that I care for and admire. And I know that I care for and admire many people whose political views would offend my more conservative/liberal friends. The disdain and misinformation would go both ways, cut equally deep.

I count myself lucky.  Because the vast majority of folks feeling exhausted or scared or exasperated by this election did not have the opportunity to run or witness the NYC Marathon. It's probably a privileged and naive perspective, but I do not believe you can feel hopeless after witnessing or being a part of such a thing. Before the race I chatted with a dozen different folks, over half of which did not share my uber-Irish skin tone. As I waited at the start line, I got turned around and couldn't figure out where the water station was located. I asked the nearest volunteer and she replied, with a big smile and an accent that could have been Mexican (or any other accent that a non-Spanish speaking American would assume was a Mexican accent), "oh here, just take my water bottle, good luck" and she thrust it into my hand before jogging off to help another runner. As we waited for our wave to be called, I chatted on the grass with a young, black woman who was running NYC as her first marathon. I never caught her name. But I know that she is as emotionally attached to her Sauconys as I am to my Asics. I gave her one of my packs of gummy chews because I accidentally bought a lemon-lime flavor that she liked and I loathed. I hope she finished happy.

My name was written on my shirt and as I ran I heard my name yelled in multiple accents, some I could place and some I could not. Hearing shouts of encouragement from strangers is always helpful. But hearing my name shouted by folks who placed the emphasis in a quirky place or used a short "a" instead of a long struck me as infinitely more powerful. If Heaven is an actual, physical place, I believe it to be full of strangers who warmly welcome you in hundreds of accents.

I do not discount the distress many feel due to the election. I do not discount the distress that lead many to vote for someone I believe does not have their interests at heart. Fear is a mighty, often irrational thing and it has the ability to steer us both away from and towards violence, destruction, apathy. So I do not want my optimism to come across as ignorant or flippant. I only know that my experience two days before the election made me hopeful, and I have tried to remind myself of that feeling in the days that have followed.

Sometimes we are runners, and sometimes we are on the sidelines.  Sometimes we speak in a language that is immediately understood, and sometimes our perspective is accented, easily confused for threat or ignorance. Sometimes we experience danger, and sometimes we struggle to believe danger exists. I am as much at fault for my personal bubble and bias as those who voted differently from me. But I have heard my name spoken with joy and encouragement in accents far flung from my Southern and Midwestern roots and I am hopeful America will continue to be a place where we can fling encouragement as emphatically as insults. I have hope that the words we choose and the actions they underscore will strengthen our bonds more frequently than break them.  And I have hope that we are early in this race.  Early and pacing strong.

Godmother

I became godmother to Ava Ruth, my newest niece, a little over a week ago.  Baptists don't know much about godmothers so I will admit that my picture of such things was colored as much by Cinderella as it was by any understanding of the religious significance.

I am low on fairy dust, Ava Ru. I never had a godmother, so forgive me if I'm clumsy.

The night before I flew down to see you, I read the following in a book I'm reading (The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything): "Seek grace in the smallest things, and you will also find grace to accomplish, to believe in, and to hope for the greatest things." It's a quote attributed to one of the first Jesuits. But it reminded me of a scratchy poem I wrote the first time I held you a few months ago.  We met on the family mountain, you'll grow up there, in pieces, and now seems as good a time as any to write it down.

Someday, when she is young but feeling old, I will tell her
I came to this mountain, our family mountain, laid her on my lap to look deep into her eyes, asked her for advice.
And I felt every itch and sway of my life in the pool of time,
wrapped in arms that carried me as a child.
I will tell her that I can wish no greater wish for her,
that when she lives in the curve of a question mark, she be steadied and windblown by
this blood,
that her fear be lessened by the gut deep din of these trees, these rocking chairs,
and that in her confusion
she find the flicker of a grill's hot coal, the warm weight of a baby,
a wink from God.
My blood is her blood
and these mountains know both of us.
We are mountains, both of us.

You're a gift, Ava Ru.  You are too young to express love, to provide encouragement, to lend a hand with the cooking. But you were everything I needed that day on the mountain. In a small, happy moment when you squirmed against my chest, threw up on my shoulder, your face was how God communicated grace to me. God is good, little love, and enormous. He is the mountain beneath us and the familiar creak of stairs and the blanket we reach for when the wind picks up. You can find him everywhere and you are loved, everywhere. As your godmother, I will do my best to show you how very big and very present he is, and I have no doubt you'll do the same for me.

"Seek grace in the smallest things, and you will also find grace to accomplish, to believe in, and to hope for the greatest things."

I Am A Woman Who Has Not Been Raped

I am a woman who has not been raped.

I am a woman who:

• walks to her car at night with her keys in the ready position (go for the eyes, they say) 
• checks beneath the car from a distance to make sure nobody is hiding underneath (they stab your ankles and throw you in the backseat)
• takes a look in the backseat before getting into the car
• runs a different route every damn day, not because she wants to, but because potential attackers could learn a habitual route
• had her bra unhooked by a jerk (still don't know who) in the crowded hall of her junior high
• has her ass slapped or grabbed by strangers at concert venues often enough to have lost count
• had a man grab her between her legs on a crowded street, and when she turned around, saw him wink at her, laughing and high fiving friends
• has accepted that some colleagues in her career will always look at her chest before her eyes, thems the breaks
• has been followed by a man on a dark, empty street long enough to cause her to start running
• texts friends before first dates with the location and fella's name, not because she's excited, but because someone should be aware "just in case"
• walks with confidence until the catcall comes, then her heart folds inwards
• was assaulted more than a decade ago and still she worries that it was her fault
• loves five dear women who have been raped 

I am a woman who has not been raped.  But sexual assault is a wound. Even on the days when living in the world as a woman feels like a gift, even on those days I walk to my car aware and ready for the pounce. It is a life lived on alert, and I am not special.  I am not unique in my anxiety on these points. These are the cuts, large and small, that bleed and scab over and leave a scar. 

I've never considered myself to be a particularly vocal feminist. Equal? Of course. But let them figure that out in their own time. I'll study hard, be a good lawyer, ignore the sexist slights along the way. But "locker room talk" isn't just sexist machismo. It trivializes every unwanted touch, every terrified moment, every rushed start of the engine because that man kept following you. It lessens the import of those slices of my life that I lost to fear, harassment, embarrassment. 

Women don't bring these things up often to the men in their lives.  We don't tell fathers or friends or brothers or husbands or boyfriends about the catcalls or the leers.  In part, it's because those occurrences aren't uncommon. But mostly, I think we often don't bring it up because we fear it makes us appear weak. We worry that a reckoning of the wounds will cause others to think of us as broken, overly sensitive, damaged. But the men we love should know, because the men we love know men who may have grabbed a woman in a bar, on a street, told her to "shake it" as she walked to work. 

The men I love should know that I am a woman that has not been raped.  And it was luck. 

Enjoying the Passage of Time

I spent the Memorial Day weekend on a road trip with my dog, a trip I'd had planned for a good while but wavered on committing to.  I made the first reservation late last fall, inspired in part by my 35th birthday.  It was an age I expected to feel momentous, maybe depressing, and instead it felt like wings. "I want to see the Badlands," I thought to myself. And thought almost immediately became action.  My little buddy of a dog just lucked out in being along for the ride.

I wavered on committing to this trip because for a period of time I thought perhaps I'd go with someone else, a boyfriend who is no longer a boyfriend. 35 year olds shouldn't have boyfriends, such a juvenile descriptor.  But guy-I'm-seeing-and-making-dinner-for-and-talking-about-important-forever-things-with is pretty clunky. It was an important relationship and for a little while, I hoped maybe I'd have someone (with two legs) beside me when I looked up at Mount Rushmore for the first time. So when that relationship ended several weeks ago, my feelings about the trip were muddled, confused. Would it feel sad? Would I be lonely? Would it feel like a trip he was supposed to be on?

The trip wasn't a life-changing, emotionally cataclysmic experience.  I always expect explosions when reality is so much quieter, more Roman candle-esque. The drive from Minneapolis to Rapid City, where I stayed, is dull as dirt for the first 6 hours.  No rolling hills, just flat, unending grassland and farm country. My dog largely slept, her head resting on my thigh from time to time. I listened to music, to podcasts, to nothing.  I talked to myself, to my dog, to everyone who'd ever wronged me, to everyone I felt the urge to apologize to.  But those conversations were short-lived and easily dismissed by a stop at a gas station, a new bag of beef jerky. I smiled at memories, cracked the window when my dog farted, and thanked God for cruise control.

I had two full days to explore and I wandered the Badlands (pictured), Black Hills, and many of their famous sites in a busy 48 hours. I was never unhappy to be alone, never embarrassed to say, "table for one," when I stopped at a restaurant. Cell reception was spotty and while occasional wi-fi allowed for photo uploads, texting with friends was largely impossible. My connection to home felt loosely tied.

I keep a list on my phone of things I'm thankful for, my running tally of gratitude. I added several things/moments over the course of the trip, little blessings and larger Roman candle bursts of emotion. I was thankful for sunshine on my shoulders, shade, the squish of mud, cheap wine, the opportunity to climb high enough to be just a little bit scared. I won't say that I never thought of being there with someone. We're relational creatures, bonds and shared experiences are gifts.  But I never wished for a shared experience instead of my solo adventure. If given the option for this trip, I'd choose solitude every time.

On the drive home I listened to a podcast, You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes, and for this episode the comedian was joined by Jimmy Kimmel. It was largely silly, a good way to pass a couple hours, listening to each of them talk about their early years, the difficulty of late night television, the pleasure and guilt associated with fortune. Near the end of the podcast Pete asked Jimmy about the meaning of life, and Jimmy referenced the James Taylor song as being the closest approximation of an answer. In the song James Taylor says that the meaning of life is "enjoying the passage of time," and in that moment I felt that was 100% accurate. Yes, there are greater, deeper meanings, love, connection, finding peace, embracing faith, seeking God.  But in all those things is also a recognition that time, for us, is finite. The minor mountain scrambles, the cool poke of a dog's nose on your hand, the juice of a peach you have to eat over the sink, the silence you find only in wilderness, enjoying those moments and the passing of them can be meaning, too. And that enjoyment is so personal, so intimately gifted by our Creator, that's what struck me on the drive home. Standing in the Badlands, sunshine beating on my shoulders, scraping my knee on one more tiny climb, I'd never be able to communicate what that felt like for me to anyone else. And for this weekend, I didn't need to try. Just feeling it was enough. Being me in that moment was enough.

Signing My Name

I've always been proud of my service in the Peace Corps. And it's important to me to use that experience, living in and being loved by an Arab Muslim community, to improve relationships stateside between Christians and Muslims, Americans and new immigrants. Islamaphobia frustrates and, at times, infuriates me. Hatred boils my blood. So signing my name to this was a given. Full release here: https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/2016%20RPCV%20Islamophobia%20letter.docx?token=AWyoaz-T2IYk__iA_bjCeFItZg-BpnnLPW4dCUh9iPxh7XMOXk-GwttOmYBkBCVpM4y7vaXFk5q9hGcM6_eO3ITr-qbnCV9MNE_p7h6SPoHrkg

Mid-Whisk

I was mid-whisk in a batch of pralines when I got a call that someone I love dearly was in the hospital. My head and heart did a dance, my head commenting on the price of pecans, how silly it would be to ruin another batch, my heart highlighting how easy it would be to curl up on my kitchen floor and worry, worry, worry, pralines be damned.

The pralines survived, a decent showing.  A few of the pecans were a touch dark, a bite or two may have had a hint of scorch under all that sugar and buttermilk. But I heard no complaints, I was likely the only one noticing the consequences of that mid-stir long pause.

The crisis resolved, loved one restored, pralines devoured, that moment mid-whisk has come back to me several times. It's not just that moment of worry, but the moment of peace that followed I remember. Hence, a poem.

Mid-whisk in the second batch of pralines, a call comes
Fingers sticky, bend a knuckle to swipe right, "hello?"
That voice is always calm, sad, but calm, for these moments
Always says, ..."just wanted  you to know..."

Speaker phone crackles, match each stir with a pause
Candies are delicate, need a swift, constant flutter
Smell the sugar as it heats, just shy of burning
"We'll know more soon," as I drop the butter

Remove from heat and pour in the pecans
Think, if I cry, I should cry on the floor
Or tilt my head to the side, for fear of the salt
But I don't cry, I just stir, stir some more

Dropped bit by bit on a long piece of wax,
Fingertips burned by sugared foam
Smile as each clouds, hardens, dares for a bite
Hear him always, mid-prayer, mid-whisk, in my home.