Shards

It's NaPoWriMo!! Well, almost, anyway... so I'll get started with something written after I've gotten home late on Thursday. Because the only place to begin is where you are. So.

Shards

Maybe it was carelessness or

maybe it was an omen

when her elbow caught the small mirror

balanced on the sink

and it shattered on the floor.

Twenty minutes late to work,

she stood and stared at it, thinking

"shattered".

Bending over, she tried to count the pieces...

20? 30? 50?

And as she counted she saw herself reflected

over and over,

this bit of her face, then that.

Her right eye here, part of her lips there...

she could see her lips mouthing the numbers,

"16, 17, 18", as she counted the shards.

Does breaking mean rebirth?

Does shattering mean the creation of other selves,

the ability to see yourself from multiple angles?

Do we really have to be broken before we can be set free?

She only stopped counting when

she was finally distracted

by innumerable reflected lights

dancing on the bathroom walls.

in loss and on loss

So, my time on Facebook this afternoon was graced by two virtual friends, Richard Russeth and David Hottinger, both of whom are writers (among many other things) and both of whom really live too far away for my liking. Oh well, thanks be to God for virtual friendships.

So, Richard let me know about National Poetry Writing Month, which was founded right here in DC and about which I'd never heard before. I'm going to give it a go. Thanks, Richard. :^) David posted a video (maybe a month ago?) that I finally watched today. It's Walter Brueggemann speaking on the difference between dwelling in and dwelling on loss, and I thought it was pretty much perfect.

So mashing these two ideas together, I'm writing my first poem for NaPoWriMo despite the fact that it's not actually NaPoWriMo yet.

in loss and on loss

I have heard it said

that loss is God's way of clarifying,

of purifying, of making new.

But at this moment and in this space,

I am clutching ashes.

They are spilling through my fingers

and onto the floor.

How many years does it take

to recover? How many days have to pass?

How many hours?

Because I swear it is time

that I see draining from my hands...

grey days, ashen hours,

months like the wings of dead moths

scattered beneath the porch light.

I am tired of being resilient.

I am tired of bouncing back, singing praises.

It is hard to believe, when the problem

is probably my own heart.

I am a broken person

making broken choices,

aware that I am receiving grace

but still not understanding why it has to hurt.

Becoming Real

Let me start by saying to folks who read this blog that I'm sorry if I am striking one note over and over again recently. It's been just about 5 weeks since the breakup, and most of the time I'm fine, but I am trying to understand what happened... not just with me, but with at least 5 other friends I can name right now who have just been through breakups, as well as others who have had breakups in the past. I keep writing about this because I want to process this for all of us... because I don't think it's a shameful thing to do so... because I think we need each other to be open about this and not all embarrassed and shy. It's bad enough being rejected without having to then hide it like you've done something wrong.

So. I recently changed my Facebook profile picture to the Velveteen Rabbit, and I wanted to talk a little about what I meant by that. In the last couple of weeks, two Facebook friends have posted articles about relationships that have disturbed me very much. The first is "Why You're Not Married" by Tracy McMillan, who proclaims herself an expert on the topic because she's been married. And divorced. Three times. Her Reason #1 of why I'm not married is "You're a Bitch". Here's a sample of what she writes on that topic:

"The deal is: most men just want to marry someone who is nice to them. I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband. Here's what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn't think so. You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married -- but actually, it's perfect, since working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife. "

And the article continues in much the same vein, including such gems as "You're Shallow", "You're a Slut", "You're Selfish", and "You're Not Good Enough" which basically comes right out and says that, as a female, you're doomed if you have any form of fire under your ass that is leading you to want to improve yourself, and you should just get over it and accept your life as it is.

The second article is "Sex Is Cheap: Why Young Men Have the Upper Hand in Bed Even When They're Failing in Life", which looks squarely in the eye at research that suggests the increase in smart, successful women is directly proportionate to the decrease in men willing to commit to marriage. Why? Because with such a huge pool of "successful" women, competition for men is fierce, and men have no trouble getting laid without much of a commitment, so they have no incentive to work for a relationship, and absolutely no motivation to get married.

Both of these articles have been gnawing at me. Both people who posted it had long chains of comments from their other FB friends about how these articles were right on. In the case of the former article, I was the sole person that called it out as being mean-spirited and wrong. However, I think I may have also been the sole person in the thread who has never been married and who has just been dumped. Again.

So I posted the Rabbit as my profile pic, and this is my question. Male or female, whatever happened to wanting to become Real?

If you've never read the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, this is what I mean... it's a conversation between a stuffed animal (the Velveteen Rabbit) and one of those rocking horse toys (the Skin Horse):

" 'What is REAL?', asked the Rabbit one day... 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.' "

I adored the Velveteen Rabbit as a child, and honestly I still adore it and am inspired by it. Love does wear you down a bit, but it also refines and deepens you. Of course it does.

But this kind of love is hardly the Domain of Women. I know men --first and foremost my own Dad, but also my brother and many friends of mine-- who have submitted themselves to this process. Yes, their wives have played a large part in it, and they too are being worn down a bit in the process of Becoming Real, but my point is that these guys aren't asking for a pass from the work of being an adult because they're guys... and no one is offering them a pass, either.

But over and over and OVER AND OVER again in the media, I see this picture being painted of the selfish, shallow male who just doesn't want to be challenged by the work of really loving anyone. And over and over and over again, I see people polarizing in their responses to an essentially either "man-hating" or "woman-hating" position... and I just want to call bullshit on the whole conversation. In fact, I want to declare a cultural emergency and maybe compromise freedom of speech for a little while until this shitty perspective is drummed out of our national discourse.

NOBODY gets a pass on the work of loving others. Period. When folks get a pass, families and communities fall apart, as do the people who've been "relieved" of the work of love. We're supposed to love and sacrifice for others... it's the most refining thing we do in this life, and it's the bedrock of a civil society, not to mention a Rather Huge Part of Christ's message. Failure to learn how to sacrifice for love encourages a sort of low grade sociopathic impulse, leading a person to create a series of tiny explosions as they wound everyone that becomes at all close to them.

I can look back at relationships and see where I've made mistakes, and most of the time it's because I didn't allow time to get to know the other person before I leapt into a relationship with them. I didn't weigh the costs out. I didn't find out if they had the potential of Becoming Real... and there was a period where I decided to stop caring about that, because I'd given up on ever finding someone who wanted that with me.

I'm not giving up again, because when I did that, I became the shallow one, I became the problem (at least part of it). But I do have to pause at the thought that I'm living in a culture that so easily and quickly throws the spotlight on the sociopathically selfish people, declaring them "normal", and disregards those doing the quiet work of love, day after day. I think the Rabbit will be on my profile for a while, as a reminder to myself and to others of these questions:

- Who are you to think that you don't have to do the hard work of love?

- Who are you to think that Becoming Real isn't a necessary part of being human?

- Who are you to accept media portrayals that spin this as simply The Way Guys Are, and not a spiritual problem that affects everyone, male or female?

Grief in motion

It's little things.

Like waking up tired, and going to work tired, and going to lunch tired, and coming home and doing nothing because you're too tired.

Or the tears that pop up in your eyes at times when you're not expecting it. Like when you see or hear or smell something that reminds you. When you run across something of theirs that you didn't expect to have to put away and never take out again... and then you put it away, in the garbage maybe, or in that box you have that you'll eventually tape up and stick somewhere.

When you thought of them in the past, it was like a pleasant, low hum that gave you a little lift in your step. Now when you think of them you feel a jab in your gut, the rush of emotions, the sense of outrage, anger, sadness... of absence ...of loss.

It's all the pictures I deleted the other day. And the ones that I didn't.

I don't care what anyone says... you don't just move on. Love marks you. It marks everything in your life... like a graffiti tag or a cattle brand or maybe just a sticker that says "love was here". It's everywhere. Over here, and over here, and just over there. It's everywhere, but the love isn't. Not anymore. And there's nothing to be done.

I am strong, and I know how to continue. I am continuing. I am in motion. I am writing and working and doing things with friends and with my church. Tonight, walking to the grocery store, I looked up and saw Orion doing his Saturday Night Fever pose in an eternal attempt to subdue Taurus. And even in those stars, which I had noticed countless times before I met Vince, I remembered the one night I actually saw stars in New York City.

My anger says he abandoned me... that he is a coward and doesn't deserve this grieving. But it's there anyway. And just here, and over there.

I just have to wait for time to pass, so it stops hurting as much.