My house is loud. My mind is quiet. Thinking has been replaced by the voice and energy of two-year-old activity and the responses of us adults around him. I fully expect the substitution of noise for thought to be temporary--confidant that I will adjust to new ambient noises of play. But in the mean time, here I am, interpreting loud noise instead of phenomena related to justice after rape.
New sounds for these ears: His sweet bare feet pattering in excited circles on the concrete floor of the living room, giggles, legoes being poured from their box, automated toys, an enthralled and repeated introduction of himself into the fan, "I'm Judah!" which I think means "I'm happy and excited about the discovery of the effect these whirling blades have on my voice!"and of course screams-some of surprise and joy-"this bathwater is cold!" or "that praying mantis is awesome!" others demanding, or sad or asserting his will "pay attention to me" "my tummy hurts" "I don't want to sleep"or "I want to play in the mud, not wear sunscreen and suck my thumb before I let you wash my hands!" he really says all that--at least that's my translation. Much of what is being said I think might be summed up as, "I am still overwhelmed by my new surroundings! adjusting to them is hard and will take me a little while!" Lest, my words be understood as a complaint--this is an appropriate time to remind the reader of 4 important things: 1) I am head-over-heels in love with this kid, 2) his volume is surely not uncommon or above average for his age 3) I happily chose with my eyes wide open to be part of a community with his two-year old self, and 4) I recognize in cries and yells a valid and noteworthy form of communication.
If I screamed right now it would mean a few things. "I'm so unproductive it's scary!" "I need to work!" "I can't concentrate on reading other people's ideas let alone come up with my own!" and much more deeply honest, "I don't want to massively fail at the one thing I am trying to do that actually matters: loving people."
In all truth, I don't really feel the need to scream. I rather feel like taking some deep breaths and enjoying the solitude inspired by a few moments towards the end of a yoga practice recording that Kellen brought with her. (It has been awesome having a practice partner!) After sweating through an hour or so of beautiful posture sequences in a final resting posture, Tracy Chapman assures us, "Ooh Child, things are gonna get easier." At that moment the lyrics present themselves as irrefutable truth. Then a rather bizarre thing happens--the yoga class next door (when the original recording was done) begins screaming--for some inexplicable reason. We have no idea why--but the recorded instructor jokes that they are expelling demons. Perhaps that's not a bad idea. Maybe we all need to scream once in awhile and be given permission to act like we're two.
If you screamed right now, what would it mean?
Showing posts with label meaning from the mundane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meaning from the mundane. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Going south: false/wishful advertising & laughable logic
Right.
This is the bus I took last week from Gulu to Kampala
Scheduled departure: 8:00am
Time I was told I should come to catch the bus: 8:30am
Time I decided to show up (because I think I've learned from experience): 9:30am
Actual departure time: 11:47am
We really miss out if we're too aggravated to laugh at the irony. It reminded me of a similarly long wait for a bus a few years ago. After the wheels finally started moving, the bus made it several blocks before breaking down. We waited for the next bus which also broke down. When the third bus, which finally proved itself road-worthy came, it had a slogan painted across the upper part of the windshield: "God likes patience." The increasingly disgruntled passengers had to laugh in spite of themselves. Waiting patiently is a useful spiritual discipline. So much of life is waiting for something, without exercising it, we spend too much time frustrated and annoyed. There are many opportunities to practice. One little celebration of the road: hundreds of speed humps which have in the past apparently served some often-speculated but little-understood constructive purpose have been removed! I'll have to find something else to practice my Acholi counting skills to pass the hours heading south--but the journey is so much more painless without an hour of jostling over kilometers of bumps.
Proof that I really am learning from experience: I went to the bus park in Kampala early, booked my seat back to Gulu and left my luggage. Exchanged phone numbers with the conductor. "Waited" in a cafe for a couple of hours with a friend. Conductor called me 10 minutes before the bus left, just enough time to clear the bill and boda back to the park. It was great! I highly recommend the strategy.
A new feature of the journey: the police stop the buses at every check point. Ostensibly, this is because they register the bus at each point to regulate speed. At one stop, the inspector boarded the bus in an immaculately cleaned and starched white uniform and black beret. He introduced himself and gave us all his phone number. I still have it in my constant moleskine companion where I quickly tried to write every word he said--his logic was truly dizzying. He marched up and down the aisle of the bus for the next 15 or 20 minutes lecturing the passengers and driver in turn about the perils of speeding, societal ills of corruption, benefits of taxes and healthcare. Well, sort of. "You are bribing us too much!" he shouted. "You have bribed me enough. You're giving me that money and I am eating alone, yet you are the one's who are all dying just because you are in a hurry." He asked passengers if they were satisfied with the speed of the bus since we left Gulu and how we rated the driving of the man behind the wheel. We mumbled a mediocre response. He was driving fine. "You are in a hurry and going fast can end life! Then we catch you and you bribe us with fifty thousand (around $25) but how much is the life of a person worth? It's better if you get a speeding ticket to go to court. Then you pay the government. Then the government will use that money to offer you health care when you are all injured from motor vehicle accidents because of over speeding! You should pay your taxes and go slowly instead of me eating all this money from bribes alone and all of you dying!" He paused, for dramatic effect, I imagine, "Go safely!" He finally finished and the bus responded to this rousing end with a round of applause!
It's not every day a police officer admits to taking bribes and is publicly lauded. But then, no day, is really like any other day.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Blood & light: a lenten contemplation 'On Turning Ten'
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light -
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
-Billy Collins
When I read the poet say now he is mostly at the window, watching the late afternoon light, my memory responded with a quick flash of a history of evenings. It evoked two concurrent associations: coming home, and the end. In my warm surroundings I recalled an angled sun, pulling my coat tighter and turning my iPod up—Gnarls Barkley while I walk briskly over the Waterloo bridge after a lecture, or a cold drink and “a pile of meat” on the grill with Ben and Pete in the garden after writing all day. I remembered my short Denver commute, sitting at a traffic light facing west with cyclists and joggers rushing through the cross walk on their way to Wash Park, undiminished appreciation for the awesome Rocky Mountains behind them with snow turned pink and purple in the middle of summer. I thought of the golden light of Ugandan sinking sun pregnant with life reflecting off of ancient trees and red roads—work is done. I’m on my way home, on the back of a boda boda bicycle, or in CPA’s old pickup dodging potholes but still moving too fast for my eyes to focus on any of the blurred leaves in the bush I'm passing. But then there are the evenings by the window, that insist you acknowledge something is over, that a time you loved has finished. It is, indeed a solemn moment, almost holy. I don’t know why, but for me they always seem to happen in the kitchen. Maybe it’s the warmth, or all of the conversation and collaboration that happens around preparing meals. Yesterday I felt it here. I shooed a chicken out the back door, closed the screen and looked around my kitchen in the evening light. I’m not going far. But I’m acutely aware that my life is about to change.
Maybe it’s actually part of going home. Acknowledging all the little ends. Letting go. Embracing what is ahead and celebrating the ways that it expands our limits of being. Recognizing the new. Accepting loss that comes with it. To inhale, we have to exhale.
I felt this today when I was practicing yoga. A beautiful pose with my heart open. I took a deep breath and sunk in. Suddenly I became conscious that I was a little bit deeper than I have ever been before. I was experiencing my body in that state for the first time. I felt this rush of joy even while I noticed my tight hips and shoulders, smiling to myself and realizing a newness of being—like a child discovering her hands. We have so much that we have yet to explore. We have so many limits that we can expand, boundaries in our bodies, minds and spirits that can and do shift. I think we lose the wonder when we begin to believe the lie that all is known, experienced and stale. What is true: Everything is being made new.
There is a kind of solemnity and appropriate sadness that comes as 10 becomes 20 and 30 and so on—but this poem reminded me of a duality in being that allows for the cohabitation of child-like joy and loss:
When you cut me I bleed.
And I shine.
Both these things are true.
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light -
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
-Billy Collins
When I read the poet say now he is mostly at the window, watching the late afternoon light, my memory responded with a quick flash of a history of evenings. It evoked two concurrent associations: coming home, and the end. In my warm surroundings I recalled an angled sun, pulling my coat tighter and turning my iPod up—Gnarls Barkley while I walk briskly over the Waterloo bridge after a lecture, or a cold drink and “a pile of meat” on the grill with Ben and Pete in the garden after writing all day. I remembered my short Denver commute, sitting at a traffic light facing west with cyclists and joggers rushing through the cross walk on their way to Wash Park, undiminished appreciation for the awesome Rocky Mountains behind them with snow turned pink and purple in the middle of summer. I thought of the golden light of Ugandan sinking sun pregnant with life reflecting off of ancient trees and red roads—work is done. I’m on my way home, on the back of a boda boda bicycle, or in CPA’s old pickup dodging potholes but still moving too fast for my eyes to focus on any of the blurred leaves in the bush I'm passing. But then there are the evenings by the window, that insist you acknowledge something is over, that a time you loved has finished. It is, indeed a solemn moment, almost holy. I don’t know why, but for me they always seem to happen in the kitchen. Maybe it’s the warmth, or all of the conversation and collaboration that happens around preparing meals. Yesterday I felt it here. I shooed a chicken out the back door, closed the screen and looked around my kitchen in the evening light. I’m not going far. But I’m acutely aware that my life is about to change.
Maybe it’s actually part of going home. Acknowledging all the little ends. Letting go. Embracing what is ahead and celebrating the ways that it expands our limits of being. Recognizing the new. Accepting loss that comes with it. To inhale, we have to exhale.
I felt this today when I was practicing yoga. A beautiful pose with my heart open. I took a deep breath and sunk in. Suddenly I became conscious that I was a little bit deeper than I have ever been before. I was experiencing my body in that state for the first time. I felt this rush of joy even while I noticed my tight hips and shoulders, smiling to myself and realizing a newness of being—like a child discovering her hands. We have so much that we have yet to explore. We have so many limits that we can expand, boundaries in our bodies, minds and spirits that can and do shift. I think we lose the wonder when we begin to believe the lie that all is known, experienced and stale. What is true: Everything is being made new.
There is a kind of solemnity and appropriate sadness that comes as 10 becomes 20 and 30 and so on—but this poem reminded me of a duality in being that allows for the cohabitation of child-like joy and loss:
When you cut me I bleed.
And I shine.
Both these things are true.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Whatever Comes Next
by Holly
I was reflecting on why I have been so remiss about writing my thoughts and sharing them here.
I must admit, a small part of my aversion to our blog in the last months is that it made me sad whenever I opened it and saw Godfrey's smiling face and yet he is missing from this wonderful world that we've come back to and the friends we've been reconnecting with since we got back to Uganda at the end of September. On some level, I still expect to see him. It feels like he could just show up, or walk around a corner, or call. When I put my old Ugandan sim card back in the phone, it was painful to delete his number, especially when I clicked on "options" with a menu that suggested I might also "call" him or "send a message." Another good friend recently fell quite sick. At least this time I could take her to the hospital, check on the care she was getting and be present with her while we hoped for recovery (she's doing much better now). I can't deny, I was afraid of losing another friend. The average life expectancy in Uganda is 51 (UNICEF 2008). Of course, none of these things can be taken for granted, but it struck me that based on our nations statistics and health care I am likely to continue living while many of my friends go through the end of life. In a kind of typical life progression and western psychological expectation of the kinds of things that different age categories deal with, this seems like something that would have come later in life--my parent's generation is only just beginning to have life expectancy ages in their peer group. But lately, it seems like our peers are inviting us either to weddings, kids baptisms or burials--and these are all ceremonies happening in the same phase of life--ours. It makes me think about death more, being nearer it than I (at least felt) in the US or UK. (this preoccupation might also be encouraged by the absolutely terrifying driving conditions we sometimes encounter on Ugandan roads)
Yesterday we had a wonderful day of celebrating Ben's birthday. In the evening we sat with good friends under a canopy of stars around a fire pit near a palm tree in our garden after a delicious meal. I was quietly thinking of conversations with Ugandan friends recently that have reflected their surprise and delight at having reached another birthday and another new year. Maybe that's why my increasing cognizance of the unavoidable reality of death doesn't seem at all depressing but is producing a really lovely kind of gratitude for life. Somehow our conversation turned to some eschatological issues, life after death, what happens, what we imagine, and some theological questions that I've been rather intentionally lazy about trying to answer for myself. It's mostly because I don't think I'll be able to figure it out (if I thought I had figured it out, I would assume I was probably wrong) and because I just trust that's it's all going to be good--even better than anything I might try to imagine. For human beings to attempt to grasp it seems like a fetus trying to understand the world outside a mother's womb. After a short silence with only the sound of our crackling fire and the wind in the trees, one of our friends said, "It's nights like tonight that make you wish you could forget that there's suffering in the world." "hmm," I realized outloud, "I appreciate nights like tonight because there is suffering in the world." Someone asked why and the same friend that posed the question said, "because of the contrast." Yes. That's what makes it sweet and that's what makes whatever comes next sweet. Death has lost it's sting because of the contrast.
I was reflecting on why I have been so remiss about writing my thoughts and sharing them here.
I must admit, a small part of my aversion to our blog in the last months is that it made me sad whenever I opened it and saw Godfrey's smiling face and yet he is missing from this wonderful world that we've come back to and the friends we've been reconnecting with since we got back to Uganda at the end of September. On some level, I still expect to see him. It feels like he could just show up, or walk around a corner, or call. When I put my old Ugandan sim card back in the phone, it was painful to delete his number, especially when I clicked on "options" with a menu that suggested I might also "call" him or "send a message." Another good friend recently fell quite sick. At least this time I could take her to the hospital, check on the care she was getting and be present with her while we hoped for recovery (she's doing much better now). I can't deny, I was afraid of losing another friend. The average life expectancy in Uganda is 51 (UNICEF 2008). Of course, none of these things can be taken for granted, but it struck me that based on our nations statistics and health care I am likely to continue living while many of my friends go through the end of life. In a kind of typical life progression and western psychological expectation of the kinds of things that different age categories deal with, this seems like something that would have come later in life--my parent's generation is only just beginning to have life expectancy ages in their peer group. But lately, it seems like our peers are inviting us either to weddings, kids baptisms or burials--and these are all ceremonies happening in the same phase of life--ours. It makes me think about death more, being nearer it than I (at least felt) in the US or UK. (this preoccupation might also be encouraged by the absolutely terrifying driving conditions we sometimes encounter on Ugandan roads)
Yesterday we had a wonderful day of celebrating Ben's birthday. In the evening we sat with good friends under a canopy of stars around a fire pit near a palm tree in our garden after a delicious meal. I was quietly thinking of conversations with Ugandan friends recently that have reflected their surprise and delight at having reached another birthday and another new year. Maybe that's why my increasing cognizance of the unavoidable reality of death doesn't seem at all depressing but is producing a really lovely kind of gratitude for life. Somehow our conversation turned to some eschatological issues, life after death, what happens, what we imagine, and some theological questions that I've been rather intentionally lazy about trying to answer for myself. It's mostly because I don't think I'll be able to figure it out (if I thought I had figured it out, I would assume I was probably wrong) and because I just trust that's it's all going to be good--even better than anything I might try to imagine. For human beings to attempt to grasp it seems like a fetus trying to understand the world outside a mother's womb. After a short silence with only the sound of our crackling fire and the wind in the trees, one of our friends said, "It's nights like tonight that make you wish you could forget that there's suffering in the world." "hmm," I realized outloud, "I appreciate nights like tonight because there is suffering in the world." Someone asked why and the same friend that posed the question said, "because of the contrast." Yes. That's what makes it sweet and that's what makes whatever comes next sweet. Death has lost it's sting because of the contrast.
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