The Delicate Center of Life

In the spirit of stating the obvious, life is hard. All around are examples of Broken Things. Broken dreams. Broken families. Broken minds and spirits. Broken promises. Broken hearts.
I struggle with a broken heart. There was a time when I gave my heart to someone who seemed to ask for it; seemed to want it. I gave him my heart freely and discovered my mistake too late. He has moved on, easily it seems to me, and now shares a roof with another woman. It costs me to admit this, because it is not easy for a strong, proud person to admit when they falter, but I have had a much harder time moving on myself, realizing that I was a disposable part of his life.
I share that place with you because I often write about the silver linings in hidden places. Truthfully though, sometimes you face something so completely out of your control that you break inside. You have to seal that break to keep going, but you always know it's there. It aches in bad weather. It makes you turn stations when certain songs play on the radio.
I am not sure how I would move past the Broken Things in my life without being able to focus on something higher than myself. Some call this God. For those who don't, there is a higher Common Good out there. There is humanity. There is "doing the right thing."
This evening, I indulged a yearly tradition at Emory University's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. It takes place each year in the university's chapel - a commemoration not only of creation, or of the creator, but an acknowledgement that we strive for that common good. The pastor phrased it beautifully - The delicate center of life. We believe that place exists. We pray for it. We sing of it. We share a vision of it with each other in the hopes that it will uplift those who most need it. People who, long ago or recently, sealed off a broken place in their heart to control the damage it did. Everyone who has lived a life has a few tombs hidden in the delicate center of their lives.
Every year, in that gathering space for both the finest of Atlanta's elite and the most ordinary of Atlanta's suburbanites, a safe haven is created. The room is dimmed. Candles are lit. Voices are raised. It is quietly powerful and wonderfully made. I hope the beauty of the evening seeped past all the hard, toughened places in people's hearts and reached the delicate center of their lives. I hope it reached into mine as well, and strengthened some of my own broken places.
My wish for all of you during this holiday season is that you encounter at least a moment that touches the delicate center in your life, and gives you peace, healing and rest.
-Laura

Vacation with a Purpose

People have different agendas for vacations. I remember growing up, my dad and I went on vacation with a family friend and his grandson, David. We went to the Disney establishment in Florida. I think we should have known better. Nothing good can come from Disney.

Anyway, this friend was a typical Type-A personality. Every waking minute was planned. And most minutes were waking minutes. He liked to be on the go constantly. Lord have mercy, it was tedious. The man did not have an "Unwind" button.

There's the opposite of course, doing absolutely nothing. I'm not in favor of that either. I think a vacation should have a purpose. But when I work 49 weeks out of the year serving someone else's purpose, I think on vacation, I should serve my own. I even think Mr. Harry deserved the vacation he wanted. I just didn't want to share it. Fortunately, that was the last time we did.

I'm enjoying mine. As you and your family plan cookouts, reunions or family vacations to the Statue of Liberty, the Biggest Ball of yarn in Idaho or the ancient steps of Malta, seek a vacation that serves you. My wish for you is rest and restoration.

--Laura

The Happiest Day of the Year

I’ve made the decision today to shorten my entries. This is after reading a story on the NPR website that says the internet has reduced our attention spans. Turns out, at around 800 words a piece, I’m long winded. Well who in my family didn’t know that already?

Speaking of family, my mother has pneumonia and is taking drugs. Mom, if you’re reading this, you should stop, you need to rest. It’s not good for a woman with a pacemaker to have pneumonia, and you sounded terrible. There, please go to bed now.

Another story on the Atlanta Journal Constitution this morning proclaimed that this was the happiest day of the year. This was determined by a psychologist in Wales. It’s my understanding from people who’ve been that Wales is one of the gloomier destinations on the Irish Sea. It’s also called the Land of Song, which I suppose people must do to keep their spirits up. I guess what I’m saying here is a psychologist from Wales would have to find this subject mighty important.

Anyway, he came up with a formula for predicting the happiest day, which looks like this:
O + (N x S) + Cpm/T + He. Which is time spent outdoors (O) plus Time in Nature (N) times the Socialization of summer (S) plus the positive memories of childhood summers (Cpm) and factoring in the temperature (T) and the anticipation of vacation (He).

Wow, this guy is really into summer.

So how many of you agree? Was this your best day ever? I give it a mixed review. Work was a wash, but taking his equation, I decided to up my chances of feeling good. I got home, called a few people (stimulating pleasure centers in my old noodle), then I went outside to mow the backyard. Well, until I ran out of gas. But that was a good start, right? And my hammock was calling me. So I took a little time out to swing under the trees, think about my vacation time next month, and play with my animals who always entertain me. Then I watered my vegetables, picked up a few things around the house and now I’m listening to a new CD that came in the mail today by Chris Thile, who wants to tell me that Not All Who Wander Are Lost, the title of his CD and a quote from Tolkien as it turns out. So far, the first track, “Song for a Young Queen”, is pretty up tempo.

So I don’t know, maybe happy days can be predicted by an equation. Maybe what happens instead is you set a goal to be happy and you bring things to the table to make it happen. What do you think? This psychologist also predicts that the gloomiest day of the year will be the third Monday in January. I guess we’ll just need to wait and see.

Mom, seriously, go rest.


Chris Thile, "Song for a Young Queen"

Second Self

Last night I went to a pub with a friend to hear a local band. It’s hard to get bands to travel to our side of town and gas prices have curtailed our outings, so we dropped hints to management that we’d come ONLY for the band. But we like this place, recently opened. Joe the Bartender makes good dirty martinis, or so Stacy tells me, and they are a buck less than the ones we get across town.

My friend and I discussed our day, and she told me about a guy who tried to pick her up in traffic by leaning out of his truck window and holding his phone against his ear.

“Phone sex?” I wondered. She laughed and we dismissed the incident. Stacy told me she’d be seeing her boyfriend tomorrow.

“That’s cause for celebration,” I said honestly. Sam lives a few towns away and is a patrolman with horrible hours. While the two of them are dating, scheduling time together has been… challenging. I think this is the forth time she’s been to his house this year.

It’s June.

I mention this and she sobers. “What’s the alternative? The guy who thinks hitting on a stranger in traffic is classy?”

“I don’t know. He’s not a bad person. I just know the relationship isn’t giving you what you want. He doesn’t have to be a bad man to be the wrong man.” I say this because I’ve known Stacy for a while, I’ve seen her second self and I know it’s not happy.

Single women all have a second self. While we live a complete life in singlehood, we’re always feeding that second self – the person we’d be if we were dating. Make no mistake; this isn’t a fake person. It’s just one we keep stashed away to bring out when the need serves. And while we may have a full singlehood, this second self often sneaks out.

It’s like the person who’s remodeling their house. Wherever they go, they notice something they’d like in their own home. “I love that travertine tile! That would like great in my kitchen. Did you put it down yourself?”

The second self sees aspects of people’s character or qualities in a relationship that we’d like in a man, which we’d like in a relationship of our own. Let me be clear. We don’t want your boyfriend. We don’t want your husband. But we do want ours.

And different women want different things. I know for Stacy, while I’m one of her best friends, she’d much rather go to Charleston next month with Sam than with me. Destination with Sam? Any Town, USA. And I remember recently we were returning home from a night out. We were laughing because we’d shared the evening with the table of people next to us, three or four couples. They were obviously old and comfortable friends. They’d joked with us and we’d enjoyed their company. And later Stacy said, “You know, that’s something I want. Spending the evening with friends, having fun and sharing it with my guy.” The wistful tone in her voice turned us both quiet for several minutes. That’s the key. She wants his time.

The rest of her second self I’ll leave to her. I have my own.

My second self emerges in flashes, like memories I haven’t had yet. And the meaningful stuff is what takes places around the house. I want us to be quietly in the house, each doing our own thing. But whenever we pass each other in the hall or the kitchen, we manage to touch, a quiet and affectionate acknowledgement. I imagine him bringing a friend home after work and I invite him to have dinner with us, and we all pitch in for an impromptu cookout.

In the winter, the seed catalogues arrive. We plan the spring garden together. What about cantaloupe? How about an experiment growing Russian black tomatoes? In the spring, we work outside, getting sunburned as we prepare the garden. We share chores during the week. I get a phone call during the workday from him, asking if there’s something he can pick up on the way home. Backyard cookouts. Learning how to do new things together, or better still, him teaching me something he knows while I teach him something I know. Turning the stereo up loud and dancing some crazy dance in the livingroom, laughing the whole time. I want to sing to him. Get lost with him. Walk around the neighborhood with him in the cool of the evening.

There’s bigger stuff too. Holidays, discovering traditions we’d like to share. Being there for each other when something is difficult. Learning to trust each other. Discovering he is my protector and my safe haven. Finding a creative way to tell him that I took a test that morning, and it was positive. Discovering that sometimes he cries when he holds the infant who looks just a little like him and just a little like me. Falling asleep next to him each night.

These things belong on a road I can’t travel by myself. I have friends I plan my garden with. I have friends I share my holiday with. I have friends I go on vacation with. It’s just not the same and it never will be. I don’t like to focus on my second self too much because I think she takes energy away from my present, and I'm seriously proud of who I am and what I’m about. I’m proud of the way I handle myself at work, I’m proud of the way I keep my house and I know I make a contribution to my community.

But my second self is always there, waiting.

Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Only a Dream"
The song isn't really related, but I love it.
--Laura