Dreaming....

The rows and rows of cubicles were laid out in a mesmerizing maze. There were no chairs and no computers. The acrid smell of new carpet was everywhere. I walked the rows slowly, glancing here and there at the people standing, staring numbly at their hands. The all looked the same. Headsets perched on dark hair, small noses, high cheekbones, brown skin, mouths in a permanent smile. I knew they weren't mannequins, but they seemed like it. Plastic.

I made my way to three computers lined up on a low table. My co-worker stood behind the table talking on his cell phone. He smiled at my approach. I climbed the three steps to the slightly raised dais. He turned off his phone, gesturing expansively to the big, high-ceilinged room.

"What do you think?" He asked.

"It's wonderful! I don't know how I can improve on what you've already done here," I replied.

"I feel like it's unfinished," he said with a sigh and a look of deep disappointment.

"Well, let's talk statistics then. What is the expected service level? What kind of contract have you signed? The facility is state of the art. So you've got the tools to do a fantastic job."

I looked out the tall windows at the skyscrapers impaling the tropical sky, low clouds gathered at their tops. I wanted to breathe that air, to bask in the Manila humidity. My co-worker sat down on the floor next to the long table and started sorting a tall pile of papers muttering about contracts and SLA. He was preoccupied, so I wandered the lines of cubicles again.

"It's time to go, Theresa," you said from behind me. Your big hands rested gently on my shoulders.

I sighed, glancing down at my black skirt and heels. At least I was appropriately dressed. We walked to the stairs and quickly down them. The cab took us to the old house. I stepped out and walked to the top of the hill. Things looked different now. The street below was paved and the eroded sides of the hill were covered smoothly in grass. I laughed as my son ran nimbly down the hillside.

"What's funny?" You asked.

"This hill is the reason I have scars on the tops of my feet. It used to be gravel, and I slid down it on my knees once," I replied with a nostalgic smile.

You smiled back. I liked having you with me. You were gentle, and I knew I would be emotional soon. We made our way to the house and my mother met us on the lawn. She hugged you.

"I'm so glad you're here," she said, and you laughed. I knew this was your first meeting, and I wondered why she was acting like she had known you for years. Then I saw the crowd behind her and understood that she felt caught out. I refused to apologize for someone else's prejudice.

"Come," my mother said.

We walked to the stairs surrounded by that judgmental crowd. My brother stood next to me. His hair was long and a smile creased his face setting off his perfect teeth. I wanted to hate him, but this wasn't how I hated him. I hated him bald and angry. Like Sampson's strength, maybe his joy was in his hair.

I saw you go up the stairs. The rest of the crowd went down. I followed the crowd to a room filled with folding chairs. I knew we had plenty of time, but I was impatient for you to be beside me. I felt naked and unprotected without you. I sat on the empty back row, pulled out my phone, and quickly texted.

"Where are you?"
"In broom closets and cupboards. I know my way out. I'm just taking my time."
"Will you be coming down soon?"
"Once I've finally found the roof. I want to see the sky before being buried."
"You're not being buried, love."
"This funeral is in a basement."
"Why did you come?"
"I'm writing a paper on the words people use at funerals."
"Oh."

The words kept scrolling on my screen, your answers sometimes coming before I could send the questions. All around me the basement full of chairs filled also with people. I was surrounded. I felt suffocated. My joy-filled brother I hated sat in front of me. Beside him was my long-haired friend. They spoke in laughs and words I couldn't understand. It sounded like music.

My long haired friend leaned back and hugged me. "Your aunt meant a lot to me," he said. "Thank you," I murmured.

You sat next to me then and I wondered if you had found the sky. You smiled warmly at my long-haired friend. "Brother," you said and you clasped hands and bumped shoulders.

You leaned back in your folding chair, and I heard it creak under your weight. You placed your warm hand on my thigh. My brother, who I loved and hated, reached back and moved your hand to my knee.

"What was that?" I asked him.

"It didn't belong there," he replied with a laugh, running his fingers through his hair. His joy fascinated me. I hadn't seen him like this in so long.

Someone at the front of the crowded room demanded attention, but I couldn't take my eyes off of my joyous brother. I glanced briefly at you, seeking wisdom in your dark gaze, but you were far away, tapping your fingers against my knee in an unknown rhythm, singing silently, your black eyes lost in memories I couldn't read.

I opened my own eyes then to the pre-dawn dark and murmured to the wall of your chest pressed against my cheek, "I dreamed you went with me to a funeral." Your voice was heavy with sleep as you replied, "I put the 'fun' in funeral."

The cold air stings like lemonade and strep throat. As much as I hate winter, I welcome the erratic weather today. It matches my volatile mood. One second sunny and cheerful, the next dark and broody.

I moved things around in my house just to do something different. Harvey, my eternally present philodendron, now sits across from me. His leaves are facing the wrong direction because of previous light exposure. I did that on purpose, but I'm not sure what purpose. It doesn't hurt him to spill over only one side of the pot, but my obsession with symmetry is sometimes a little overbearing and awkward. Sorry, Harvey.

Daily ritual... taking out the garbage, loading the dishwasher, making the bed (okay, I never do that last one)... they rule my quiet, boring life right now. It makes me want to scream. Yes, it's orderly and ordered, but I want to throw things just to mix it up a bit.

I'm 31, and I'm going to go to college. Again.

I lost my job.

So that was perfectly blunt and straight forward and designed to make you feel sorry for me. Ultimately, however, I am attempting to use this new and terrifying experience of uncertainty to catapult my creative side. Some days I have the perspective of "maybe this was just what I needed!" Other days I have he perspective of "this is so not what I needed right now!" Either way, I don't really have a choice but to move on.

Calvin Coolidge said, "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

To add to that, I was given a fantastic piece of advice the other day. I was told that it was a good idea to make myself do something creative every single day. Photography, writing, business planning, whatever it may be, to just force myself to do it. Not everything I would do would be brilliant, inspired, or even remotely usable... but it would be something. Something from which to build and good practice for my brain.

So that's where I am. At a loss and yet terribly devoted to making something out of this nothing. Let's see where this goes!

Sunlight streams into the room, warm in spite of the chill in the air. It heats the honey colored wood of the floor, illuminating the fact that the floor hasn't been swept in several weeks.

The light just touches the half full cup of coffee, it's steam curling into the air, that sits on the floor next to my bare feet.

Silence is the wind in the trees, a sound that reminds me of my grandmother. That esteemed woman would be ashamed of the dying houseplants beside the chair, their leaves drifting to the ground on the breeze of the ceiling fan.

I am finding comfort in this old chair, its fraying upholstery embracing me gently in the quiet of morning, in this messy room, its books out of order and leaning odd directions on the shelves, in this creaking house, its memories silently watching from the plaster walls.

Fighting this feeling that life is spiraling downward and will soon land of the floor like the leaves of my houseplants.

Dangling the Carrot

When it comes to relationships, I admit I'm bad. My deep-seated insecurities get the better of me. I read things that aren't there. I second guess myself and talk myself out of something that is probably beneficial. I jump through hoops that don't exist. I run an obstacle course that is only real in my mind.

And I end up emotionally exhausted.

It makes me wonder if anyone else does the same thing. And maybe that's why we all seem to be so bad at communicating. We dance this dance of fear of the unknown when it would just be easier to ask, to be honest, and to get it all out in the open.

But maybe.... that takes some of the fun out of it.

Sushi

Sometimes reality is so raw, so unyielding, so un-sugar-coat-able that I’m afraid to write about it. To lay everything out there, naked in the hot sunlight, is frightening. Reality will get a sunburn, blister, and peel, leaving me even more tender and sensitive.

Looking at me you would think I was successful, and you would be right! Why is it that in the midst of all this success, all this positive change, all these accolades of achievement, I am suddenly so very lost?

I don’t feel like I’ve earned any of this. Yes, I’ve worked hard, sacrificed my time and energy, pinched pennies, saved for years, pulled myself up by my proverbial boot straps. I’ve taken these lemons and I’ve made lemon cake! But I’ve also hurt people along the way. I’ve torn my dignity to shreds, abandoned faith and hope, stepped on fingers and toes, refused to speak when my words could have mended so many broken relationships. Because I was afraid. So very afraid. The fear is still there… my ever-present friend, but I have a choice. My choice is to move on anyway, to lift my head and speak the truth in love. Because perfect love casts out fear.

Life is about relationships, and the fact is, people will hurt me, abandon me, lie to me, cheat on me, ignore me, hate me, talk about me behind my back, seek revenge, refuse to forgive me, mock me, hurt my feelings... Because people are people.

I have the opportunity every day to observe people who think no one can see them. People catch my eye through my three giant glass windows and one heavy glass door. I watch people who laugh at each other, people who fight with each other, people who are alone, people who spoil their children, people who shout at their children, people without children, people who are tired, people who work hard, people who are lazy, people who don’t care what they look like, people who care a little too much.

All of these people have one thing in common… they are people. They feel just like I do. They smile and laugh. They get sad and cry. They all have a story, a story they may want to tell the world, or a story they would prefer to hide so deeply inside that not even they have to admit that it exists.

I watch these people as a quiet, unknown observer, and they teach me something, a lesson written in posture, expression and the strain of skin over white knuckles against the steering wheel…

...we are all the same.

So this is my voice. I’ve screamed at God for so long that my voice is raw and unlovely, but it is mine. I am not fearless, and I know so many people who are far better equipped at word crafting. All I can possibly hope for is to be real.

Nursery Rhymes and Other Morbid Subjects

My youngest son loves to sing. He will sing almost anything, from commercial jingles to angsty Linkin Park. Today he stood in front of the refrigerator, rearranging the magnets, singing at the top of his lungs...

Five little monkeys swinging on a tree
Hey, Mr. Crocodile, can't catch me!
Along came Mr. Crocodile, quiet as can be
And snatched that monkey right out of the tree.

Four little monkeys swinging on a tree....

And so the song went on. Until there were no monkeys left to taunt the poor crocodile.

Is this how we teach our children to cope with life? We stand with our friends and stare danger in the face, taunting it until one of us falls victim to a classic blunder ("never start a land war in Asia"). Instead of learning from that mistake, we continue to plow ahead, until the crocodile consumes us all and there is no one left to wonder why swinging from the tree seemed like such a good idea to begin with.

Nursery rhymes are like this. They prey on death, disease, and phobias. Why was Jack jumping over the candle stick? Why did the spider sit down beside Little Miss Muffet? Does anyone feel sorry for the four and twenty blackbirds that got baked in a pie? And what is up with Humpty Dumpty?! Who sits on a wall? Especially someone who is friends with the king's horses and the king's men.

I could go on and on. From Little Red Riding Hood and her ill-advised, lonely walk in the woods to The Three Little Pigs and their architectural genius, and songs we sing on the playground about London's bridges falling and ring around the rosie, preying on literal historical fact in a sing-song, childlike manner. Death. Disease. Plague. Disaster. Fear. Pain. We teach our children these things are normal, these things are commonplace, these things are simply to be observed or ignored.

Never do the songs and stories tell us how to overcome these things.

So we swing from the trees. A bunch of monkeys with no purpose other than to follow in the footsteps of those who went before. Until the crocodile snatches us away and we no longer have to deal with life.