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.

Shadows on the Wall

Last night I couldn't sleep, as usual. I was haunted by yet another phantom of my past. Instead of the usual once-boyfriend phantom or the stinging-reply-in-hindsight phantom, or even the what-am-I-going-to-do-tomorrow phantom, it was one whose mere presence was almost ironic.

It was the phantom of my first insomnia.

I was four or five, a young girl still trying to understand the natural world. I was just beginning to understand that objects left unsupported fell. I was fascinated by my shadow in the sunset, that I was taller than my giant father. I also noticed that things looked different in the dark. That colors were still there, but instead of being green, torquoise, and gold they varied in shades of black.

I lay awake in my bed, in the middle of my once blue, now dust colored room. The venetian blinds covering the window were cracked just enough to let the streetlamp's light in from across the deserted street. The stripes gashed across my wall; vibrant, fresh. I reached out a hand to feel the line of contrast, to touch the bleeding light and the lifeless wall.

I was almost surprised to see that I could never touch the light. I couldn't place my fingers on it, there was always a shadow beneath them. I couldn't touch the light, but it could touch me. I lifted my arm higher along the wall, admiring the straight lines cast across my skin and the wall alike. I lay back in bed, my arm still above my head and above the windowsill, the light and shadow still caressing me. I marveled that its touch was nonexistent, but the zebra stripe glove on my skin was as real as the arm shaped shadow interrupting the stripe pattern on the wall behind it.

The stripes would shift position as I did, making the glove as long or as short as I pleased, but however I moved it the stripes never changed shape or angle, the glove always fitting as gloves should.

The next night I was still fascinated by the combination of the streetlight and the blinds across my window. I was for a week, until I realized that I was tired and wanted to go to sleep. By that time it was too late, I was an insomniac. I was too fascinated by the curiosities of a dark bedroom.

I can still remember that night, a week later, as I was playing with my zebra glove. “If only I could just take a nap. A nap would be great. I'm so tired, but I don't want to sleep, I just want to nap.” It was then that I realized something else: When you napped you slept, and neither would be easy for me ever again.

Fifteen years later it's still hard for me to sleep, nap or doze. But it's not often that something as simple as the shadow cast on my wall is the one thing that keeps me up at night. I realized that night, that this was the first time I'd slept under venetian blinds in five years. I was almost glad to have reconnected with my childhood, even though it meant another night of less-than-stellar sleep.

Closure

8 months, 5 days.

January 2nd to September 7th.

We'd endured 5 months of long distance, 3500 miles of driving, 1400 miles in flight, hours on the phone, parent-imposed curfews, a summer of work - not play, finals week, midterms, two moves, family members departing, pleasant surprises, gifts, emergency lunches, thrift shop trips, walks, piggybacks with sisters, a mission call, sushi, picnics - both sunlit and candlelit, slurpees, a first (and second and third) taco, movies, car cleaning, sunsets, moonrises, a roommate's wedding reception, libraries, reading under a trampoline, sunsets, moonrises, hikes, adventures, getting lost, getting found, ward hopping, homicidal mothers yelling EY!, indian food, implications, selfishness, forgiveness, selflessness, miscommunications, falls, band aids, private whispers, screams of delight, exhaustion, promises, plans left undone, plans completed, exhilaration, love.

I've never felt this way about anyone before, and I fear I never will again.

Last weekend as we held each other on my doorstep, it felt different. I loved him, but didn't need him. Things were ending, whether I wanted them to or not.

Last week as I'd walk across campus I'd see couples holding hands or lying in the sun. I hated them. I hated them for having something I couldn't. My Scott was gone, but on Saturday I'd show them.
This week when I see a woman leaning her head on her man's shoulder, her eyes closed; when I see a couple necking passionately in their own owrld in the middle of the bustling hallway, there was no jealousy. There was no hate. My Scott really was gone.

I was expecting to break up with him, not to break up with each other. It was entirely mutual, unlike the inception of our relationship. He was always the first to pick me up, drive me home, put an arm around me, hold my hand, say "I like you," then "I've fallen for you," then lean in and kiss me. At the beginning he invested far more far quicker than I, therefore I wasn't expecting him to be done before me. I was expecting to lay it all out, step aside, and let m stubborn, insistent side carry me through the subsequent and expected waves of misery.
No, he knew it had to be over, just as I did the last night we saw each other.

At times I wish I had my tenacity on my side, but it's lain dormant as of late. Instead there's something else, something deeper. Something that says "I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, much less in the next couple years, but it'll be all right." I'm sad, but I'm not morose. I'm not curled in a fetal position surrounded by a halo of chocolate wrappers. It just feels right, and my tenacity isn't insisting that I be wrong.

Scott has been my best (albeit only) boyfriend, but also one of my best friends. He is my best guy friend, and one of the best men I've ever known. Despite his protests, he has been the absolute best I've ever had.

Scott, I love you.

Thank you for teaching me how.

Introspectus

Ever had one of those nights where you're so tired that you flop onto your bed and instantly fall asleep without even a blanket on top of you? And then in the middle of the night you half wake up and realize that you are, in fact, cold. But you are also ridiculously comfortable there, curled up and dozing that you can't bear to move and spoil the immense contentment wrapped around you in the blanket's stead. So you just lie there, wishing you were warmer but unwilling to do anything about it.

That's what I was doing last year. I was too comfortable that I didn't change anything until I simply couldn't stand it anymore. Until I realized that nothing was going to change unless I changed it. Until I realized that my misery was self inflicted.

Last year my misery made me into something I didn't recognize. I didn't even realize that the monster I'd become even existed. My misery made me angry. My anger made me sarcastic, caustic, and eager to inflict pain on others. I was malicious. I refused to meet new people. Since I refused to meet people, I forgot how to do it. I withdrew inside myself, unwilling to come out even around the people I loved the most. I spent my time doing absolutely nothing, making no memories, useful skills, or even talents. I did only what was required, and even then, only the bare minimum.

I contemplated dropping out of high school, even though I only had one term left and one class left to pass. I obsessed over men who brought out the worst in me. I lied skillfully to remove suspicion and bring more on others around me. I twisted words, situations, feelings, arms. I cared for no one, including myself. I did what I wanted, so long as it wouldn't get me in trouble that night. I respected visible boundaries while skipping gleefully around the ones I could easily sneak past. The smallest slights wounded me deeply and I refused to let them go. What once were molehills were now mountains, the mountains molehills. I scorned everything that I had once held dear. I forgot about the people and places and things I had once loved.

I thank God that this is no longer me.

I asked rhetorically last night, “What was I thinking?” The only answer I got was, “Maybe you weren't.”

He was right.

In Retrospect

We do dances differently here. We don't go on dates until we're 16, and even then, we usually go in groups. Two or more couples. I guess it's a good way to learn how to date, it keeps kids out of trouble, and it forces them to meet new people.

My little brother went to Prom this year. He rented a tux (with a bow-tie. I love bow-ties.), bought her a corsage, matched his vest/tie to her dress, and went in a group of five total couples. I don't know where he got his information, but he did it right. I'm proud of that kid.
My boyfriend's sister went too. Scott and I were setting up the family trampoline in the backyard while she was getting ready with a family friend and cousin. We came in muddy, dusty, scratched up, and she was standing there like a princess in her black and white dress. We were scared to touch her, all we could do was watch.

A knock came at the door. Everyone was there: Grandma, Dad, Mom, Friend, Friend's 18 month old baby, Cousin, Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Princess. We crowded out of the entryway of the split level house to greet the poor boy coming to pick her up. Baby was running around behind the cameramen, throwing rocks and getting trampled. All the people, pictures, screaming baby. . . Scott and I left. Even still, I couldn't help thinking of the only time I went to a formal dance.
I was a senior, I felt obligated to go to Homecoming with an acquaintance. Turns out he had almost no friends and spent his days and weekends reading anime at home. He was a temp janitor for a local elementary school. He was huge. I hardly ever talked to him, and the date was no different.

While at this dance, I hardly danced with our group, preferring to panhandle around the high school's gym in search of my friends who were actually enjoying their dates. At one point he thought I'd ditched him. (I hadn't. . .intentionally) I wanted to throw up whenever I looked at my date, and I tried to stay away from him as much as possible, though I couldn't entirely out of politeness.

This year's Prom was Scott and my five-month mark. We've never had a fight, though we have had our problems. We've had the good fortune of being able to work through them and becoming stronger and closer because of it. I'm home for the summer. I don't have to miss Scott any more - I've seen him every single day – a far cry from our once-every-two-weeks-maybe arrangement.

Anyway, Scott's sister, I hope you had fun. You too, Brother, even with my Homecoming date in your Prom group.

Best February Ever

February is always the time when it won't snow, and the snow won't melt. It feels like winter will never end, and the cold wind will never stop blowing. It's the month to crave watermelon, lemonade, and corn on the cob. It's midterm season. The nights still start early. The mornings start early too. Earlier than I get up...

Maybe that's why this February seems different from the rest. Maybe it's because I'm out on my own. Maybe it's because this year midterms actually mean that the semester's half over. Maybe it's because I am actually in a relationship. Maybe it's because I'm in a relationship that is mutual and both of us are happy where we are. Maybe it's because I'm living on my own.

Regardless, I've got a bucket of chocolate next to me, a new teddy bear to cuddle, and it's not unbearably hot in my apartment.

Quite honestly, I'm glad my boyfriend lives two hours away. It makes the time we have together special. And that time together is usually on the weekends when i refuse to study. which means our time is both special AND unstressed!

my boy can read my mind. If i didn't like it so much it would almost be scary.
my boy makes me laugh. which is a far cry from what the last few could do.
my boy speaks fluently to my father.
my boy will let me bite him.
my boy knows what really matters and will put that first.
my boy loves me for who i am, and doesn't ask for anything else.

thank you scott. thanks for everything.

:)

Interesting how just a glimpse of a dripping water faucet or a pair of feet clad in bright green converse can turn my horrible day into something a little above tolerable.

we are not alone.

he calls himself god's version of a crash test dummy. a sick and twisted soul.
i don't see that in him.

what do i see?

i see a confused child, wondering, wandering.

he has some inclination of where to go but he gets distracted by shiny things along the way.
he picks up the glitzy trinkets, fingering them, awed by their brightness.
he forgets that it's just the trash left over from another person.

the trash consumes his vision, his hands, his mind. he sits down on the side of the road and just stares.

sometimes he realizes that it's crap, and moves along a little farther. he keeps walking a little bit. until he forgets what's trash and what's not and picks up a sequin shard and marvels at that instead.

sometimes he finds a truly fantastic piece of trash, marvels at it longer, and then puts it in his pocket to take out occasionally while walking.

the thing is he's so fascinated by the crap in his hands, in his pockets, that he can't look up. He can't bear to see what makes the shiny things shine in the first place (the sun)
he can't bear to see the true beauty around him - the beauty he can't take with him, the beauty that is even more so when he keeps going further.

i know he's seen glimpses.
but his pockets are simply too full.


STRIP IT OFF AND RUN NAKED. I DARE YOU.

i know you know you want to.

you can know what it's like to be free.

i promise.

raptures and reveries

one of my dear friends recently said that she thinks that heaven must feel like getting into your bed after a long day.

she's right. it does. and yes,
i know what death feels like.

i was walking in the cemetery after dark. alone. it was mid-october.

i felt, i felt, nothing.

i couldn't feel my hands at the end of my arms, nor the toes at the end of my feet. but i wasn't cold.
and i didn't care.

i walked on, slowly. not wondering at it, but just taking it in. i didn't need to think about it.

i could see a full 180 degrees around my head, every angle with equal clarity. i didn't need to look over to see it, my mind simply concentrated on that spot and i knew what was there.

i was still alive - i could only see 180 degrees. i knew that if i had been dead i could see the entire sphere around my head. if i was dead i'd be able to see the ground below me concurrent with the sky behind me.

i walked on, hearing the sounds around me. i had no reaction for them, for they didn't matter. they weren't distant, i was.

i didn't need to breathe.

nor did i need my body.

it was like falling asleep after a really long day.

why now?

"Hello?"

"Nathan? It's Maya." My mind flew back to the last time I'd spoken to her. We were sitting in the subway, her eyes full of tears, her cracking voice unnaturally high, "I just can't see you anymore. Goodbye." She stumbled onto the train just as the doors were closing. It whisked her out of sight as my own sigh blurred over with tears.

I realized in that moment in the subway that that was the only time I'd seen her cry. And the voice on the phone sounded the same as her voice on the platform.

My reaction time was too slow. As usual.
"I'm so sorry. Forget I called. Forget everything."

"No. Wait. Come over, we'll talk."

"Right now?"

"Yes, please." The line went dead just as the doorbell rang. She'd hung up. I walked toward the door mentally grumbling that she didn't even have the decency to tell me when to expect her.

It wasn't the chinese takeout delivery boy I was expecting.

It was her.

Tall and lanky as ever, her clothes wet and clinging to her body - she'd gotten caught in the rain. Her hair was disheveled and hanging over half her face, only one eye visible.
That eye caught me in the act of pulling out my checkbook. It wasn't its running eyeliner or the bloodshot, tear-stained condition, it was haunted, terrified, begging.

She stood there awkwardly, balanced on the balls of her feet, poised to run if need be. Her clothes dripped, her hair dripped, her eyes dripped. And she was shaking -whether it was from the cold, the fright, or the stress I couldn't tell.

I opened the door wider, grabbed her hand and pulled her inside. I wrapped my arms around her, for once not asking her anything.
She still fit, even after all this time.

She shrunk into my chest, releasing sob after sob. She clutched at my shirt and I felt her ribs expanding and deflating wildly as her collarbone heaved against my sternum.

As I held her in the doorway question after question ran through my mind. Too soon to be asked, the questions lingered, burned into my mind. Mostly WHAT!? Why here? Why me? What happened? Who? I the warm tears and the cold rain from her body soak into mine.

Eventually I picked her up and carried her to the couch as she kept sobbing and I rocked her on my lap. Her sobs were growing fainter now, occasionally punctuated by a loud gasping breath. Her tears had stopped long ago, her tear ducts wrung dry.

I stroked her hair and whispered into her ear "It's going to be okay. You're safe. It's all right.

Her sobs were gone - only dry heaves of her chest and her hand still grasped my shirt - but it loosened its grip as the dry gasps subsided.
She was asleep. She'd cried herself to sleep on me.

I hadn't seen her for nearly four years. After three years of dating, six years of knowing her. She'd never done this. Never slept on me, never cried.

I carried the grown woman like a baby to my bed, draped a blanket around her, and lay down next to her, stroking her hair until I was sure she was really asleep.

I slept on the couch that night. With my cat, Fred.
In the morning I walked back into the bedroom. Fred was curled up next to her head, her left hand rested lightly on his body, her slender fingers stroking the boy. I could make out a low rumbling. He was purring.

She was curled in fetal position facing the wall. I slid onto the bed and wrapped my arm around her waist. She didn't react, she just kept stroking.
I pulled in closer, my nose in her hair, her back against my chest, I kissed the top of her head and just laid there.

"I heard you got married" I murmured, not asking questions, but not expecting her to reply either. She didn't.

"But I don't see a ring."
I pulled my arm away from her waist and moved it to her head, stroking her hair away from her face.

"I also hear you were pregnant." She stopped stroking the cat altogether. Her eye stared into the distance.

"So I'm rather wondering, since you've got a husband and a baby on the way, why you'd come here. It seems like this would be the last place you'd be."
Her eyes still stared.

"Exactly." she croaked, her voice raw from the sobbing.

"What happened, Maya?"
Her eye grew even more distant, staring through the wall to the other end of Manhattan. She resumed stroking Fred. She didn't answer. She didn't want to. Yet. She'd taught me how to take a hint. And I remembered.

I steered the topic away with "I didn't ever catch the guy's name, though."
She blinked. I felt her lashes brush against my cheek.

"Justin."
I knew a Justin... I knew she knew the same Justin I did... At one point we'd all been best friends. That Justin?
"Osborn?"
"mmm."

We lay in silence until Fred jumped off the bed and scratched at the bathroom door, looking for his kibble.

"You hungry? I'll make us breakfast." She'd taught me how.
I'd started getting off the bed when she finally spoke.

"I lost the baby." I froze, halfway off, halfway still cocooned.
She rolled toward me, facing me. Her hair had fallen back and I could see her whole face. Her beautiful, pale face, marred by an ugly purple bruise swollen around her other eye. Her eye was swollen half shut, with crusty tears dried to its lashes. She saw my shock frozen in my face - my eyes darted around hers, searching for a reason, understanding.
"and Justin hit me."
She turned back to her former position and pulled tighter.
I curled back around her, trying to infuse her broken body with hope, healing, help.

As if I was trying to protect her from what had already happened.

Moon River

"I don't want to go for drinks. Let's go for a walk instead."

"Where to?"

"Down by the river."

"It's three o'clock in the morning!"

"Just drive."

She'd always say that to me. Just drive. As if that was the answer to everything - Don't ask questions, just go.

It really shouldn't surprise me, knowing her. It's not as if she was about to go do anything imaginable (think girls gone wild) No. That wasn't her. But once she got her mind around something, look out. If you get in her way - I've seen her make grown men cry. Yes, myself included.

I'd deserved it.

"Turn here."

"Park."

I complied silently, wondering what she was thinking. She'd tell me eventually, I didn't have to ask. I never had to ask.

We got out of the car and wandered to the paved path winding beside the river. The moon was out, full and shining on the flowing water. The soft silvery light cast strange shadows on the mostly bare trees. A cold October breeze whispered through the air, stirring her soft brown hair and caressing her face. Her hands were shoved inside her jacket pockets and her eyes were turned inward, contemplating.

The path curved along the banks of the river, five feet above the water. She didn't.

As soon as there was an opening in the trees, she scrambled down the rocky bank littered with dry leaves and proceeded upriver balancing on the river rocks tickled by the water. I stood on the bank, unsure.

She turned back, her face shining in the moonlight, her body balanced and content. She lifted one hand and beckoned to me. She continued on, not bothering to watch me descend the bank. She knew I'd follow. I always did.

A bend in the river later, we came to the moon. It shone above us, its belly tickled by the naked treetops. Her sister, her reflection, stretched languidly in the water, swimming towards us as the water flowed. The falling leaves played in the sister's hair, crowning her with laurel and scrub oak.

"Sit."

I turned around. She was perched on a naked tree root next to a worn camp chair. The chair said "Have a seat and share something that everyone can enjoy!" in faded permanent marker. Its fabric was old and dusty, and seemed to have sat next to the river for as long as that root had.

"You take the seat." She looked at me, her feminist tendencies rearing in her eyes.

"I've already sat there. I'm sharing it with you."

"You didn't put this here, did you?"

"No, but I found it. Hush."

We watched the moon and her sister swim in the sky and the river, we listened to the breeze shiver the trees, and heard the occasional car pass by near the paved path above.

When a leaf fell directly into my lap I picked it up by its stem and turned towards her, the fabric of the chair protesting quietly. Her eyes were distant and her hands unoccupied on her legs. I reached toward her, aiming to put the leaf behind her ear.

She caught my hand, her slender fingers molding to mine. She got off her root, my hand still in hers, and joined me on the little chair.

The breeze stole the leaf and set it on the water floating on its own reflection. She and I watched our own reflections swim with the moon as the leaf danced with itself, the only one able to flit from the moon and back.

Though as I held her I thought I got close.