The Girl Who Grinned at the Sky

I'd just finished a particularly frustrating session of one class, and was trudging along to my least favorite and most dreaded class. No end was in sight, and the wind whipped cruel cold inside my “good” winter coat. The bright sun mocked overhead, shining sarcastically down. I looked up to glare it down, unappreciative of how it mocked my colder loneliness.

The sun remained.

However, my attention was caught by something else. A brilliant azure accompanied the sun, and no cloud was in sight. The pure blue stood beside the sun, silent, yet almost apologetic. It seemed to say, “something will happen soon. And it's always, always for the better.”

Its silent words tugged a half smile across one of my cheeks.

I realized I was still walking, and refocused my gaze to what was in front of me. Instead of being distracted by my looming class, I saw a girl coming toward me, noticing the same thing that I just had. Except she was different. Her lips peeled back against her broad white teeth, and she grinned. At nothing, just the sheer color above us both. She also remembered she was walking, and she looked straight ahead. Our gazes met.

Her gigantic grin only grew.

It was contagious. Now not only half my face was affected. I no longer noticed the wind's chill. She introduced herself and asked if she'd met me before. I assumed it was because we were instantly joined by the bond of sky smiling, and told her no.

She had met me before, I find later. She wanted to date my next-door neighbor. I can't understand why he wasn't interested. Later she and I flew a kite in a park. I haven't seen her since.

Broken

I sat there twirling the perfect sunflower found on my seat. I swallowed hard against a hot, thick ball forming in my throat. I willed the tears not to burst through the dams of my eyelids. I wasn't sure I really wanted to be there, but I knew I really didn't want to talk, frustrated with circumstances, confused by previous words, blinded by prior mistakes,

He broke my shell of silence

"Can I hold you?"

He didn't just hold my body to his own, he reached out over the parking brake and held my shivering heart.

conjugating

studying on the floor in front of my open door in the newfound sun.

sending a surprise package to my sister.

sunning myself on the roof of the roommates car while she borrows my shoes and library card to check out the entire movie collection.

failing at eating the heart of an artichoke because I couldn't get past the hair.

trying to fend off a cold.

succeeding.

going to three different pharmacies in search of sudafed.

failing.

running into the best friend's boyfriend buying the best friend food to make up for a fight.

running into said bf's bf while playing -arco -olo in the last store whose pharmacy was closed.

being glad the sun is finally out and the weather is finally warm.

watching it snow again.

crying because the frigid wind is so strong it blasts the moisture out of the eyes and onto the cheeks.

failing at fending off the cold after all.

kicking the trash out of the dreaded presentation.

cooking Sunday dinner for ten.

sleeping while sitting up on the couch three nights in a row because of the cold I failed at fending off.

meeting a girl who grinned at the sky.

grinning at everyone else because she was grinning at the sky.

teaching boy from upstairs to cook fried rice.

talking about dating with two olderish single men for an hour.

cooking super-hot mexi rice and stuffed peppers.

being accosted on facebook about me not being myself.

hearing that the rice was too spicy.

being accosted via text that i was upset and worrisome.

sneaking food into a movie theater with a dear friend.

feeding super-hot mexi rice to a real man.

realizing the real man knew the grinning girl.

being accosted on facebook for dating advice about a different girl i never really knew.

eating an entire bag of peanut butter m&ms between midnight snack and breakfast.

going on a date with a guy i never really knew but with whom I wouldn't mind seconds.

kicking all my roommates out of the apartment.

bumming a ride home from a girl i still don't really know.

sitting in the apartment alone.

wondering if the sister ever got her package.

being glad the sun is back just in time for spring break.

wishing something would happen around here.

retracting that wish.

wondering how the trashcan got that full in my absence from my bed.

Billy Jim and the Absence of Hermeneutics of Given Names

My senior year of high school I was walking down the halls of the rival across town and came across a poster with a little quote on it. I laughed, pointed it out to a friend, they laughed, and we continued on.

Somehow that quote has always stuck with me. Maybe because of its strange failure to say what it tries to say, or maybe because I couldn't help but recognize the power in the haphazard words.

The quote?

Act as if what you do makes a difference.
~William James

Now, don't you see what I'm saying? It carries a connotation that what you do WON”T matter. Ever.

For quite some time I'd felt that way – that nothing matters in the end. That everything will work out the way it's supposed to, regardless of your role in it all.

This week, a good friend posted almost the same quote. Almost. She included a two-word tag line that I'd never seen before. Her inclusion? “It Does.”

Now it says, “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

I'm not saying that anything I do has made a difference in other people's lives, maybe it has but sometimes I just don't want to know. But I know that whenever I try to make a difference in someone's life, the difference has been made in mine.

Earlier this week i was reminded of this by an unwitting friend. He'd alluded to a painful Monday, I offered some solace. Instead of turning his day around, he turned my entire week. All we did was share a cup of hot cocoa and some words of empathy and encouragement. But afterward I was reminded that there is hope in my life as I expressed hope in his. That things aren't as bad as they seem now. That I don't have to be caught up in myself.

This wasn't the first time either. I went to Romania to hold babies that needed love. I wanted to make their lives better if only in a small way. While doing so I held a one year old girl whose functionality was as advanced as a newborn's. She couldn't even control her eyes. As i sang to her, trying to soothe her fussing, she'd only respond to the primary songs of my own childhood. I sang one line: I am a child of God, his promises are sure. Celestial glory shall be mine, if I can but endure. As the phrase ended, her eyes flipped up, gazing into mine. Peacefulness spread through my chest and tears sprang to my own eyes. She knew.

Because of this one little girl and my two weeks of holding her close, I've taken classes I'd never have thought about before, I've chosen a major I'd never considered, and I have direction in my life.
I'd not have all of this if it weren't for my trying to make someone's life better. Someone's life was bettered. Mine.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

He'll if I Know

It wasn't bitter cold, it wasn't snowing. It wasn't a dirty slush day either, the one you have to dance the slosh to come home without frostbite but you're still soaked and freezing.

It was stay-at-home because you want to weather. It was a watch-a-movie-alone day. It was a clean-out-the-fridge-with-your-face-because-you-have-to-and-you're-leaving-tomorrow-anyway day.

I walked through the cemetery to drop off a Christmas present. There were two groups of people there: one, a group of undertakers placing the marble monolith over a fresh grave. The other, a large group of mourners under a blue polystyrene canopy all in black and driving vans. Apparently people die the week of Christmas too.

My friend wasn't home, so I left the present on the doorknob and walked back, avoiding the mourners and their eerily subdued children. I avoided the cemetery gate against which my once-boy-now-best friend had pushed me to kiss me harder than I wanted. I avoided the memory of the cushion of the chainlink against my back, I avoided his remembered whispers of apology and remorse after I pushed him off.

I walked past the basketball stadium, avoiding the two players coming out. I didn't ask them if they could give my friend a Christmas present: A date with one of their teammates. I didn't even stand up straight to my full height as I usually do when tall boys walk near me.

I got home and curled up on the couch with a blanket that smelled of new, hoping to avoid the draft by the window. It didn't work. Instead I turned on a girl-power figure-skating movie and drank the last of the bubbly in the fridge.

Except it wasn't bubbly. But I drank it straight from its long necked bottle. And threw out rotten avocados. And old cheese.

I also misread the words “three pair” - i thought it said “knee pad.” As these were in reference to socks, I didn't think it was too far of a stretch. Wouldn't you buy knee padded socks? I wouldn't, but that's just because no matter how long the socks are, they never reach my knees.


In other news: The definition of Thoguh (not though, THOGUH) derived from the Urban Dictionary.

(Drumroll, please)

....

clears throat

“Hell if I know.”


Thank you, thank you, please, save your applause for those that actually deserve it. No, seriously. SHUT UP.

Anyway, I like how it kinda sounds and looks like SHOGUN, which, everyone knows is a king-like figure thing in eastern cultures. I think.