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.

Green

the first HUGE jealousy i remember having was over my mother's hair. it hung like this gorgeous, garnet-lit cape down her back and, like all the white people's hair i came to know, it actually moved when she shook her head. . . . pure magic. i couldn't have it, so i made it out of anything that was somewhat glossy, smooth or, at the very least, long. and so i began the first steps on my journey to weavedom with things like hands towels, tights (hello, pigtails!), tee shirts and the occasional pair of elastic-waist shorts. i am convinced that every little colored girl did this, but there was a sort of follicle-oriented malaise in the case of the little colored girl with the white mother. it wasn't like i wanted to have the long, movable hair in order to be white. i just wanted to be more like my mother, who just so happened to be white. it was only later that the jealousy over hair became more about race and far less about feeling connected.

the big J carried over heavily into elementary school and, when it wasn't the other girls' hair i envied, it was their clothes or their shoes or their scrunch socks. a girl named jenn always had the best of everything and, painfully enough, she was still a very sweet girl and one of my best friends. she probably never knew how i would sit and stare at her tretorns with their perfect little plaid swoosh or at her penny loafers with the shiniest pennies inside of them. the moment she came to school wearing keds, though..... i was absolutely gagging on the fabulosity (thanks, kimora) of those perfect, white canvas specimens. with the little. blue. tab. i'll tell you why this was so important in case it is lost on you. you could go to almost any old store and buy white canvas shoes like that. HOWEVER. none of them- not a one- came with the little blue tab on the back. they were tabless. and they let the world know that you did not, in fact, get your kicks from a real shoe store but from some discount chain like clover or ames or jamesway. i couldn't have those shoes, so i took a blue bic pen and painstakingly colored a faux tab on the back of my ames originals. . . . . and that was pretty much my m.o. throughout elementary and junior high school. i couldn't have any of these things i was so jealous for and so i made my own poorly-constructed knock-offs. . . . and so.....

here i am at almost 32 years old and i am still jealous. occasionally it is over something like shoes or clothes, but i have learned that i can look beautiful in a two dollar thrift store shirt as long as it fits well and i don't try to pair it with high-waist flared denim, thank you very much. mostly i am green over the lives of others. facebook, for all it's wonderment and social networking, is a sore spot for me. every profile picture i see makes me feel like everyone is having more a.) fun b.) traveling experience c.) time with friends d.) time at a salon e.) mall shopping experience or f.) every single one of the above . . . . even those really pretentious and somewhat self-absorbed profile pictures that people take of themselves from weird angles looking pensive with perfectly mussed hair look fun at my lowest moments. i tried doing one of those before and just wound up looking slightly constipated. plus you could see a few of my fingers where i was holding the camera.

i know that many of my friends will try to encourage me on this point of jealousy by reminding me of my marriage and my baby and my general good health. and i am definitely happy about the health, let me tell you. i had a stomach flu last month and i felt like a lifetime movie should have been made about that particular physical struggle. i don't think i could handle actual serious illness. . . . and however much i love and am committed to my family, i remain overwhelmingly jealous of my single and child-free friends on a daily basis. i want so much sometimes to be able to go to sleep later than 8 p.m. and sleep in past 6 the next morning without wondering if my child needs something. i want to be able to have extra money to travel somewhere and not worry about packing twenty-seven diapers and changes of clothes. i want to be able to go out on a saturday night and not have anyone to be home for except myself and maybe a cool gay filipino roommate who enjoys making me brownies and doing my make-up because he works at sephora and can bring me home free samples.

and yet i know that there are just as many single and child-free friends who look forward to the day they do have all of the baggage and hassle and beautiful complications of being a parent and a spouse. all that being said, i am still very jealous. i may always be a jealous person. so far it's been a pretty long stretch of envy. and i'm not even saying the grass is definitely greener on the other side. but i do think it's at least a little bit grassier. it's just different. and sometimes that's all i want.