weight

last june i tried to kill myself. it was not the first time and i don't know if it will be the last time. i'd like to think that it was. i remember most that the weather then was beautiful, my son was starting to talk, i was about to start a new job and i didn't want to live anymore. it is a hard, hard thing to explain to someone who has never felt that way. i know when i've talked with others about it sometimes they will say they have felt something like that-- the desire to just rest or the urge to maybe drive off the road. i have felt those things. mostly, though, there is just the feeling of being very, very tired of being and seeing no comfort or relief whatsoever. it gets to the point where- no matter the people around you- something in your head tells you that everyone you have ever met-- especially those closest to you- will be far better off without the cloud of your existence. i am going to rip off sylvia plath here and say that you do feel like you're in a bell jar. you can see all around you, and all those around you can see you there, but you are impenetrably closes off, isolated and stifled. death is not feared, then. it is welcome and it becomes the only friend that makes any sense and touches you through the glass.


i had been crying for days and not telling anyone, and even then i should have recognized that ghost, but i didn't. i think that kind of clinical depression is most dangerous because it comes from nothing externally. it is your mind clicking into this mode of despair so quietly and quickly that you are there before you know it. i dropped my son off at daycare in the morning, drove to a church parking lot and tried to call their crisis line but no one was available at the time. i don't know how or when i decided, but i immediately drove to the park up the street, parked the car and took a bunch of pills from a bottle of pain killers i had left in my car weeks before. and it was almost like watching a movie of yourself. a part of me- the weaker part- was looking at myself and saying, You know what you are doing, right? You may die. The stronger parts of myself were fine with that. i just wanted to watch the ducks at the park and be done. i was tired.


it was a phone call from a girl i barely knew that "saved" me. the only reason i answered the phone then was because i had only spoken to this girl once before and we had plans to meet up but she was supposed to go see her doctor that morning. if any other old friend would have called, i know i wouldn't have picked up. but something about this new person calling made me think that she probably needed something- why else would she call? as it turned out, her car had broken down that morning and she needed a ride to the doctor. she felt horrible, she said, to interrupt my day, but could i please take her? so i said sure, went home and made myself throw up, drank some water and took her to the doctor. we hung out for a bit, i didn't mention what had happened earlier and then i picked my son up from daycare. . . .


it took a few days and a few conversations with my family and some friends, but i eventually decided to start taking a mild anti-depressant and in 3 weeks time i remember waking up one morning just feeling okay. i don't have another word for it. when you live most of your life with this ghost in your mind, you get used to feeling horrible about yourself. it's like breathing. i woke up and felt okay. i was okay. my daily mistakes, my slip-ups and hang-ups were okay. i wasn't the worst person in the world, i didn't deserve to die. i was okay.


the day after i tried to kill myself i was still feeling horrible and was rifling through our medicine cabinet looking for something else to take. i sat on our floor crying hard and physically holding my own body back from reaching for pills. i went to nathan's grandma's house-- we call her gg. toby was still in daycare for the day and i knew i needed to get out. when gg opened the door i just started crying and couldn't stop. she kept asking what was wrong and all i could say was, "i want to kill myself." it was amazingly confusing what she did next. she held me for a minute and went to her basement. she placed an enormous jar of buttons and beads on the table in front of me and told me to sort through them all and find the ones i liked. i know i thought she was crazy and insensitive and bizarre to have me do this, but you don't say that to someone who's survived the entire past century, so i did. . . . i sat at her little kitchen table and sorted through button after button and bead after bead for almost 2 hours. i had never felt so calm in my entire life. i had this huge mess to sort through and she sat there with me the whole time and helped me do it. after i left her place with my collection of buttons and beads and began the process of doctor's visits, honest talking and medication. . . .


while my son slept yesterday afternoon, i brought out all the buttons and beads gg and i had sorted through last year. there weren't nearly as many as i remembered, but still more than i thought there would be. i sat for two hours and strung them all on a thread to make the most beautifully cacophonous necklace. it is my prize to myself, i guess. it is my "thank you" to gg. it is the evidence of having sorted through the mess of things and making something of it. i don't care if anyone else ever looks at it and says that it's awesome or beautiful, but i will have it with me always. and if the jar drops again, i will know my own strength and the weight of my survival will be strong enough to smash it to a million pieces.

home

the first time i went back to new york after years of not living there, i was unpleasantly surprised at one thing: it felt so HUGE. i realize this is new york i'm talking about, but the crazy thing is, my memories of growing up there- taking buses, riding subways, hanging out in central park, shuffling down street after street- were all saturated with this smallness. i never felt like it was this enormous place, no matter how many people i passed in a day or the amount of blocks we'd have to walk to get to the store. the city was home and home was this small, small world. i believe now that the city seemed so small because my view of it was based entirely in my own mind. i saw what was important to me- my school, my favorite corner store, the park, my favorite ferry, whatever it was. my childhood vision was myopic and it took many years and time away for me to see the truth of the matter- that my childhood home is a big place with thousands of other schools, parks and stores that i never thought to pay attention to before. being back there i felt more disoriented than at home, more aware and, oddly enough, more on the outside looking in. i was a tourist.
the same feeling struck me in the most unexpected of places yesterday-- at a coffeehouse in grove city. a friend's parents invited us to a little gathering with music, art and spoken word and worship or, as my husband so delicately called it, "the Jesus show." i went because i figured, at the very least, i'd be able to hang out with a few people i really enjoy and maybe partake of a delicious baked good. perhaps i should have known when we got there and the baked goods were gone for the night that this would prove to be another experience in feeling disoriented, but i was still game. and then the strangest thing started to happen.
i had been the all star super christian born-again girl in college. i attended every conference, weekly meetings, bible studies, small groups, spring break missions trips, the works. i was not a stranger to groups of people worshiping with music and dancing and singing. but, like coming back home after years of being away, i was a tourist in this strange land. and where i used to feel this compact, neat little warmth of feeling in a worship setting, i just felt overwhelmed and unfamiliar. and i didn't know what to do with this kind of feeling. i stepped outside for a bit, but couldn't really get time alone and, so , when i went back inside i tried again to make myself at home there, to sing something, to even sway a little bit. and i couldn't. i felt like a fraud even trying. all i could think about was the fact that all of these perfectly nice people were engaged in this apparently sincere experience, talking and singing and worshiping a god-- the same one i used to sing to-- and i just couldn't do it. my brain wouldn't stop wondering what was wrong with me, if anything was wrong with me.
i wondered at this all night and even most of today. i'm not sure, but i think this was the problem: i couldn't worship something i didn't know. i couldn't sing and pray to something or someone that i couldn't identify in some way. at least not in that manner. i realized later that i still talk to god and i still pray. i mostly do those things at random points during the day and, perhaps the most worshipful time of any day is the 15 minutes i do some yoga. i try to worship the truth of a loving god in my daily interactions with people-- which i also fail miserably at on a daily basis. and i try, no matter what, to remember that because there is so much evil in our hearts and, therefore, in this world, the antidote is also out there and, therefore, in our hearts as well if we allow it.
i guess god has been a city for me that started small and familiar and a bit self-made. i was very comfortable and secure in my own world of moral rights and wrongs, limited understanding and spiritual obligation. it seems it has taken years away for me to see the truth of the matter. God is HUGE. for all i know, there are thousands of other ways to see God, to know God, to pursue God, to touch God, to feel God. i love that the people at that little coffeehouse dancing and singing had found their way to do that. i pray that, for those of you who wish it so, you keep finding your way as well. God bless you.

indeed

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,	5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,	10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die John Donne i only know a small handful of people who have not lost someone close to them. and even these very fortunate few have still experienced death in some way. i will not in any way qualify the experience of loss by saying it is more meaningful when one's spouse dies as opposed to, say, one's great aunt. it's the nature of the relationship that informs the degree of pain, i believe. i can distinctly remember and still feel the difference between losing my mother and losing my uncle bobby. both were young- they were both 38 years old when they died. i loved both, obviously. however, the experience of losing my mom is still an ongoing one, whereas losing my uncle was one huge and hurtful shock. i stayed in a place of disbelief about uncle bobby dying for far longer but once i accepted his death, i had the ability to understand life without him. this is not the case with my mom, however. ingrid michaelson sings a song called "the chain" in which she ponders life after someone she loves has left her and she says the truest thing i can think of regarding these deep losses: "My room seems wrong. The bed won't fit. I cannot seem to operate and you, my love, are gone...." life continues on without my mom here, which is one of the oddest things to me about losing her. i can remember the day she died and the nurse who turned off her life support wearing these bright purple clogs. all i could think was, How can someone be wearing these happy shoes? My mom is dead and there is a nurse still walking around in these purple shoes who will probably leave work and drive home and maybe talk on the phone with her friends and get dinner and continue with her happy, purple-clog wearing day..... i couldn't stop thinking about those shoes and the fact that everywhere that day people were walking in their shoes and making plans and laughing and eating and ordering coffee and cleaning their houses and living. and my mom wasn't. it didn't make sense to me then and there are so many days when life doesn't make sense to me still, all because my mom is not in it. life continued even after the person who gave me life was gone....for a long while, this depressed and saddened me more than i could ever articulate. death was this big, horrifying demon that destroyed life. it took away my own mother, which was so cruel to me. i was overwhelmed and frightened that God could just take out anybody else he wanted to in my family, like God and Death were partners in this cruelty. death seemed so unfair and so predatory and i was bound to this kind of taunting, harsh reality that death wins out, no matter what. . . . it was my dad, oddly enough, who told me something one day which i will always remember and which gave me peace. we were talking about my mom dying and how everyone dies and he told me, "elizabeth, i'm not scared of death. what's to be scared of? it's as natural as life. it's just a walk across the street is all. it's like walking across the street. . . ." happy easter to all. He has risen indeed<3

partner

about two years and four months ago, i married someone. nathan, to be exact. we had already known each other for 8 years, dated for a total of about 4 years in that time and decided we would make the commitment of getting married. it sounds so passive, like "getting caught" or "getting sick"- like it just happens to you. which is why, after two years and four months, i made another decision. i went on facebook a few weeks ago and changed our relationship status to "domestic partnership." i know. facebook, really? who cares? it's just facebook. and i'm sure there are plenty of our friends who didn't even notice the change. a few did and actually commented on it with questions or with encouragement. but i didn't really care who noticed, because i made this very insignificant gesture out of a very significant personal realization. for a while now i have felt like this marriage thing did just happen to me. like i didn't choose this kind of life, but that it just bombarded me. what started innocently and happily enough in a super-cute white jessica mcclintock dress has become this uncomfortable and unrelenting assault on my life. . . .

i didn't choose marriage. i chose nathan. the term "marriage" is just that-- a term. it means different things to different people and, at the end of it all, it is a document. to me, marriage had meant romance, happiness, a few trials, but only of the major kind like cancer or car accidents or one of us in a wheel chair. the kind of trials that you see in the most romantic of nicholas sparks movies. and, even though i was thirty years old when i married, i had a child's understanding of what it meant. which is why i have chosen to think of things as they truly are. and for some people, this is highly confusing and very UNromantic. the word "marriage" is defined as "a social institution," "the state of union," and "a blending or matching of elements." those things are all going on in this relationship i have with nathan. but, more importantly, the thing that is going to keep us together through the many big and little crap storms that have already come and will continue to come, is the constant realization that we are partners. we didn't just "get married." we each chose a partner for the rest of our lives. it didn't just happen to us, but we made the choice and have to keep making it every second of every day. a partner is defined in these ways- "people associated in a joint venture, sharing in its risks and profits; a player on the same side or team as another; two people who dance together. . . ." so, yeah. i choose to have nathan as my partner. it saddens me to think that there are people who want, more than anything, to marry their boyfriend or girlfriend, but legally can't. for that reason as well i choose to honor the truth and the strength of partnership. lots of people can get themselves married and divorced. i just believe it takes a real strength to choose someone, commit to the venture, sharing in all the loss and the profits and be forever on his or her team. and, of course, dance together. and i think that's pretty romantic.

thanks for being my partner, nate.

song

my mom told me that when i was 5 or 6 years old i had four copies of "electric avenue" on record. i had four because i would listen to each one over and over again until it failed to play. it's funny to think you can wear a song down to nothing by simply loving it too much, but i guess that's what i did. i don't know why i chose that song. more to the point, i don't know why that song chose me, but maybe somewhere eddie grant thought, "there's a sad and scared but hopeful little girl over in the bronx who needs a very bubbly friend..." and, voila, over skipped his song. i do not remember playing each record til it cracked or even how very much i loved that song. i do remember, as vividly as i see this computer screen, how that song made me feel back then. over 25 years ago, and i still have the feeling in my self of listening to that music and knowing, for 3 minutes, what it was to be free and real and something very much alive. i listen to it now and hear so much more of the meaning- the intended meaning- than i ever could have understood at 5 years old. but, oddly enough, it didn't matter then. i just loved that song....

i don't know what it is about songs and about music that is so all-encompassing, but i think it is amazing. maybe it's the simple truth that people move and breath because of energy and rhythm and music is energy and rhythm. at its best, it's all the energy and rhythm of being human expressed in its fullness- it's elation or heartache or anxiousness or bliss, but it is sincere. i think that's the word. sincere. the songs that remain my closest of friends are not pretentious or overwrought, but so sincere. i listen to jose gonzalez's "hand on your heart" or phil collin's "in too deep", bon iver's "skinny love" or michael jackson's "human nature" -- that is just to name a few-- and it's the same feeling i get when i am in the company of a good friend having the kind of conversation where you feel nothing but loved and understood and they feel the same. . . . all is right in the world. . . . for at least a few minutes. . . .


thanks to the following for helping me through. . . .and thanks for following me. . . .
-all songs mentioned above
-nu shooz "i can't wait"
-fleetwood mac "everywhere"
-peter gabriel "solsbury hill"
-paul simon "call me al"
-shanice "i love your smile"
-lisa loeb "stay"
-nirvana "lithium"
-thao "bag of hammers"
-joanna newsom "en gallop"
-kimya dawson "tire swing"
-phil collins "throwing it all away"
-ccr "looking out my back door"
-melanie "brand new key" (thanks for that one, mom)

small town blues pt. 1

so, i sometimes imagine this birds-eye view of my life's geography- i can see where i've been so far and my eyes dart across from place to place remembering who i was when i was there. . . . this little me in the south bronx and staten island, then down a little ways to the adolescent me in philadelphia. i shoot over to good old indiana, pa through college (which was awesome, by the way, and rife with papa john's pizza) and then into pittsburgh for a time before heading down to nashville. there were so many other little stops in between for things like job trainings and my visits with jeff in california (awesomely rife with burritos and "buffy the vampire slayer"). i really love seeing my days this way. it doesn't make me feel well-traveled or anything as much as it reminds me that i am a sojourner in this world, and that wherever i go there is something there for me to do and something there for me to take with me.

well. that sounded very enlightened. and i believed it all as i was typing it. for real. but now i sit here in a small town called grove city, pennsylvania. my first week here i heard the word, "nigger" twice and was privy to at least three homophobic "jokes" by the end of the first month. as is my habit when living or visiting a new city, i google (or bing, as it were) the name of the town with the word "gay" in order to get a sense of the lgbt community there. for example, when i moved to nashville, i googled "gay nashville" and was met with a resplendent list of community services, a few bookstores, some lgbt-friendly churches and, even more blissfully, play dance bar and its many queens. thank you, google. and thank you, nashville. and so. my first week in grove city i googled- you guessed it- "gay grove city, pa.". . . . .

i was not aware- but i am now- that there was a grove city college student who was expelled for working in the porn industry to put himself through school. i am aware of this in great detail because my google search resulted in 2 pages of articles on this subject. i also found a therapist specializing in gay stuff, and by "gay stuff" i mean helping people who are "struggling with homosexuality." and it's not like i don't believe that it is a struggle for some people. i struggled for several years with coming to terms with my own sexual identity, but i guess, given the first two pages of articles i saw, i assume this therapist is aiming her clients toward the straight is great path in life. i could be totally wrong. i hope i am.

i also found a link to urbandictionary.com in my search and this was what sealed the deal for me being officially freaked out. . . . apparently, the town of grove city, pa has made a name for itself in the slang world, folks. it's true. allow me to illustrate. say you're visiting, i don't know, a small town in western pennsylvania and you, being a friendly person, strike up a conversation with the lady in front of you at the gas station. she asks you where you're headed and you say you're going to a big old gay wedding and just needed to refuel and grab some corn nuts for the road. she scoffs and says something like, "oh, those homos are ruining this country," to which you reply, "girl, don't be so grove city about it!" yep. grove city is not only a noun but can also be used as an adjective to describe something or someone who displays homophobic and/or racist leanings. now, i realize that urbandictionary.com is not the benchmark of sociological truths, but that slang term didn't derive from nothing, ya know what i mean?

if i sound like a metropolitan bitch right now, i really don't mean to. i have met some cool people here and have seen some amazing things happening in this community. there is a real sense of kindness in many people and it is kind of nice to be able to walk to the park with my son or to the library right across the street. and when there are only about four traffic lights in our immediate area, it makes driving anywhere a nice, smooth jazz of an experience. and still.

i asked a co-worker last week whether she'd ever live in the city. her ultimate answer was "i'd love to visit, but living in a rural area is what i know." she was very open to an experience other than the one she had lived her whole life, but, as she said, she is a "country girl." she is also one of the funniest, most bad-ass and sarcastic people i have ever met. she's still be that person living in the middle of chicago, but i also think there's a big part of her that is connected to and rooted in what it means to be a "country girl." she loves rodeos and open spaces and quiet nights and living on acres of land. she'd be the same girl inside, but all those outside connections would be gone. and i guess that's where i stand right now. i realize that geography can't minimize who i am. but it can really minimize the ways i express who i am. what it will not do, however, is minimize my ability to strap on my new wedge heels, apply some eye glitter and sashay my way through this new territory intact and with the expectation that i am here to give what i can and learn what i need to. so, hooray for purpose. and face glitter.

fear

"the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" proverbs 1:7


i am afraid of God. and, yes, i am aware that the fear spoken of in a lot of christian doctrine has more to do with awe and reverence and less to do with stomach-clenching anxiety. nevertheless, i am afraid of God. and here is why.

i was 16 years old when i attended a church play which, unbeknownst to me, was what churches call an "outreach" tool. it was aimed at the unsaved, unwashed masses such as myself. the very lovely people who invited me just wanted my soul to be saved. i guess they were a bit afraid, too. anyway, the play- which was called "heaven's gates, hell's flames" (subtle and abstract, i know) - was comprised of scenes in which various people died and then- you guessed it- either went to heaven or hell. more accurately, they were either ushered into heaven by really pretty, glossy-haired angels or dragged to hell by menacing and less glossy-haired demons. obviously brimstone is not meant to infuse hair with moisture and shine, so i don't debate their casting decisions....

there was a particular scene which gripped me most and which i actually still think of from time to time. a mother and her small daughter who looked to be about 8 or 9 years old were driving somewhere and got into a car crash. they were both killed instantly and, upon realizing they were dead, they were very much afraid. the angels approach the scene, much like glossy-haired cops, and you then think they are both going to traipse off to heaven and rejoin gramma and pap pap and everyone. but, no. it seems that since mom had been a christian, but kind of a crappy parent as far as instilling religious beliefs, she gets to go to heaven and her little daughter is dragged off to hell in front of her. that little 8 year-old meryl streep screamed her guts out and was kicking and thrashing and calling for her mother the whole way off stage left. and i was terrified. children die. that was difficult enough for me to accept as a young person. but children shouldn't get dragged off to hell. i became a christian that night. because i was afraid not to.

two weeks later when my mother died at the age of 38 from hiv-related illness, i had suprising peace. i really did not understand fully what being a christian meant or any real idea at all of who God was, but there was a chaplain there who told me that, whether or not we know or care about God, God knows and cares about us. at the time it was a great comfort. at times it is still a great comfort. but most times nowadays i just don't know.

my relationship with God over the past 15 years has been a unique one in so many ways, both good and bad. in seminary i was introduced to meditation and, to this day, it has been one of the most significant and honest experiences of my life. in those moments, i became aware of absolutely everything all at once and it was terrifying and huge and grand and beautiful and amazing. i think there was God in that. and God was so much larger and infinite than i, or any religion, could explain with doctrine or a menacing church play. i prayed more sometimes and sometimes i did not pray for days. i saw christians do such loving things and then such hateful and bigoted and deceitful things. that is how all of us can be, though, and i know that. it is just being human. what i wonder now, more than ever, is how can any of us be at all one hundred percent sure that what we believe is the truth? that sounds like such an obvious question, but for someone who was shamed and intimidated into accepting an idea of God for so many years, it is a potentially life-changing question. and here is why. i have stayed in a relationship with God out of fear that, if i leave or question too much or look into some other form of belief, God will punish me. it is no different than the relationship of an abusive spouse and his or her abused partner. you stay because you are afraid not to. it is oppressive and stifling and you wonder sometimes Why don't I just leave? this is the thing: i do believe there is a God. i would never be so prideful to say that i am positive there is not. and there is just something in me and all around me that speaks to me as something greater than myself and than what we can see. i do not know, however, who that God is or what the God is like. and, more to the point, i do not know if i want a relationship with that God at all. . . .

those angels really did have nice hair, though.