I've been losing weight; not trying to but its happening anyway. I'm by no means too thin, but I don't recognize myself--my reflection, my body.


I feel sixteen again, and at that time I wasn't myself--removed, tormented--so I feel like I'm in someone else's skin with someone else's bones.


Hip bones that press against the waistband of my jeans when I bend, pinching a thinned layer of flesh between denim and bone.


Shadows beneath newly-defined cheekbones reveal a more solumn, weathered face in the mirror; one that seems to once again have lost the scraps of childlike innocence I've been fighting so hard to regain.


Even my scars look different, standing out, pale against skin slightly darkened by renewed density.


My clothes hang more loosely and I check my right hand a dozen times to make sure my ring hasn't fallen off, because sometimes when its cold I can feel it sliding back and forth between white knuckles.


It isn't bad yet, the shrinking; isn't worrysome besides being further evidence of the physical manifestation of stress.


But it is different and unexpected, causes tension and suspicion of past demons rearing their heads once more even though for my part I know I defeated them years ago.


But food is ash on my tongue sometimes, and I eat to quell the icy emptiness in my stomach though the thought of another bite makes me feel sick.


Occasionally my appetite will resurface and I can enjoy food again, but mostly I swallow for health's sake only and I miss the solace that chocolate once brought me.


Someone once told me that I was full of inspiration--that my eyes shone with it. I believed him then. And maybe it was true, but if it was, if my eyes did shine months ago, they don't anymore.


They're missing whatever it is they once had. As if my fire is dwindling with the rest of me.


Once upon a time, my eyes were alive. I look at pictures, from when I knew how to smile.


I've forgotten now. I have to do it consciously, carefully considering how my muscles move to make sure they aren't doing anything I don't want them to. I have to think about my eyes, about how the tightening of my face frames them.



I learned the necessities from seeing more recent pictures, ones from the past year or two. In most of them, before I learned how to smile, I look frightened. In others, I look dead--a cadavour whose mouth has been stretched before rigor mortus--a wide grin beneath two spots of blank where human eyes used to be.



I'm still learning this art, this paper-way of the smile. But in some pictures I've got it--I look spirited and alive like I was all the time, years ago.



I still look tentative in some though; awkward, unsure of what to do, head pushed down and forward like a submissive dog, folding in on myself to avoid touching others.



Because I just don't touch people. It just doesn't occur to me. A hug is fine--intentional and brief, to-the-point. But it isn't something I initiate, mostly because I just don't think to, but also because of the same awkwardness that ruins my smile.

Sometimes its my idea--a hug--with people I'm very close to like Valeri or Melissa or Abby, or my family. But even then, sometimes I just forget how to be in my own skin. My movements are stiff and puppet-like, because I just don't remember how.



Even growing up, I didn't touch people except to accept a hug that I didn't initaite. I didn't mind that, but holding hands or even a pat or a poke during animated conversation just felt invasive, like staring into someone's eyes too long. Like they're setting foot somewhere that is mine only.



It probably isn't really as dramatic as all that. I have always thought of personal space as a thing to be respected. My lack of physical contact has always been for other people just as much as for myself--touching someone without being asked just never seemed appropriate.



I never really thought about it in my early years. Until I was thirteen, it just didn't occur to me to hug or poke or take a hand. I was slightly taken aback when others would touch me, but I never really minded. I still don't. It seems something like drinking filtered water after years of drinking tap: it is strange and different and given the choice you would have picked what you're used to, but it doesn't really matter.



I don't know if its a bad thing that I've never really 'needed a hug'. Most people I know need physical contact, but I am perfectly fine sitting in seperate chairs while we talk, a brief handshake when we greet, foldout our own respective hands together for prayer.



The only occasion in which I've ever thought I would need physical contact is in a romantic context. If I was with someone and he didn't want to be touching me in someway nearly every moment we were together--holding my hand as we walk, feet intertwined under the table, cuddled close on the sofa--I'd feel as if he didn't really want me.



I suppose, in friendship and family, I do enjoy the bond that physical contact represents. But in all cases, platonic or romantic, my touch is purely responsive--never initiative. Platonically, because it is my general tendency to keep to myself. Romantically, because I am shy. Painfully, awkwardly, debilitatingly shy.



I have always been a private person of sorts. I kind of think of myself as a room with one of those doors that swings closed on its own. It isn't locked; you can come in if you like. But hardly ever does it stand open, actually inviting you in. I post these notes, yes. But I don't tag anyone. They are there for you to read if you want to get to know me, because I do want to be known, but only by people who really want to know. So you can open the door, but I won't ask you to do it. And there is a closet in this room of mine that is locked, that won't open even if you try.



There are a select few who have keys. But in the cieling of the closet, there is a door leading to an attic. Locked, and painted the same color as the walls--camoflaged. There isn't a key for that one. In the attic there are dusty corners that not even I will truly look at. I know what is in them. The vague knowledge of their contents haunts me as I crawl around, looking for something to turn into art or a prayer. But I will not define them, the things hidden there beneath cobwebs. Not even in my mind will I dress them in words, let them stand before me in the bright, undeniable garments of truth.



The Devil can have his way with those things, take temporary delight in the fact that there are things in me that are shameful. I know God will not let the infection spread, as miserable as it is to endure while I terry in this waiting room that is earth, waiting for His sanctifying amputation.



I've written before about a certain tree, one I would gaze at through the kitchen window every morning while I ate breakfast, beginning when I was thirteen.



It started that winter, that Red December that burned.



The smoldering embers tormented me, like laughing cigarettes snuffed out on the raw flesh of my heart. But mornings on the edge of the kitchen table were cool, chilly white tile and dawn-fog soothing the burns.



I was restless, and searching for courage within myself. Not for anything in particular; just to prove to myself that it was there.
So I thought I'd run away.

I had a pillowcase of stuff and I was walking away, out in the woods, but I knew I wasn't really going anywhere. I was going to, but not really. I told my friends that I was really going to do it if Dad hadn't found me and I thought I really would, but I wasn't.

There was the tree, a few acres away from my house. It was on a hill, so I could always see it, and once I packed a bag with some food and blankets and my stuffed tiger and a book or two, and I went to that tree. I spread a blanket out under it and I stayed there for a few days. No one looked for me there. It was too obvious, too close. I even sneaked into my own house sometimes when my family was gone, to get stuff or to watch TV.

The whole time, I was sitting at my kitchen table, waiting for my toast, looking through the window at the far-off tree. Every time I looked at the tree for six years, I went there and was brave, but not too brave; run away but not far. Sitting above white tile, eating toast and running away in my mind to my tree where no one would find me but they really would; where I'd sleep under the stars but really I'd get chased back inside by the ghosts that are out there, cause they really are out there.

And I'd be so brave but I'm not, so I spread the marshmallow fluff on my toast and pretend it was marmalade or butter or something else more mature; something my brother would put on his toast. I tried, but I didn't like the butter, cinnamon, and sugar that he used. Salty and wet and sweet and soggy and spicy and crunch.
So I was filled with me and my toast was covered in fluffy, insubstantial sweet; no room for refined flavor combinations.

But on those mornings, I could imagine myself to be something bigger, something braver than I was. I don't know why I fixated on that particular tree and that particular fantasy. I was full of adolescent angst and thoroughly maddened by drama. Absolutely nothing I did or said or thought in my thirteenth year of life can be logically explained.

And even though I realize the legitimacy of this early-teen insanity--I realized it a little even then--that tree has always represented some particular inexplicable melancholy that lies dormant, raising its groggy head only occasionally to remind me that pain is relative, and be kind to my past self because if it hurts it hurts, and it doesn't matter why.

It represents the courage I've always longed to have--the courage to just go; to make some big decision that is thoroughly my own because too often I use 'seeking wise counsel' as an excuse to make sure that, in the event that I make the wrong choice, the blame won't rest only on my shoulders.

The courage to take risks. Voluntarily. Sometimes, when I'm warm and at home in my green, familiar room, I think that if an opportunity for risk presented itself right now I'd take it. But those opportunities really only come when I'm unprepared, in some strange place surrounded by strange people I don't trust yet and so I back down.

I know, I know--if one was prepared and confident it would not really be a risk. But that's what I mean. I wish with all my heart I had the courage for real risk. The tree stands like Avalon in my mind, whispering that maybe next time I'll get it right. Maybe next time I'll be brave and run away from what is safe, what is solid--and what will ultimately get me nowhere.

Six years have passed since that tree's roots twisted themselves into my ventricles, and I have not even attempted transplanting. Why would I? Its part of me, memories whispering in the leaves and bark rough to match me, scar for scar.

I've loved it for a long time. For more than 2,190 days it's been mine. And I had never gone to visit it until a few weeks ago.

Something determined tugged, telling me that if I didn't go now--right now--I would never really do it. That I needed to stop saying 'someday' and start saying 'today'. And then keep my word.

I was tired, but I tried not to listen to the protests of my muscles and my dizzy head. Plugging my ears with headphones, I let Roy sing to me about robin's jars and cinnamon as I paced up and down the bank of Pony Creek like a panther, looking for a place to cross.

Finding none, I ducked my head and plowed through the dense brush that lines the edge of the woods like a moat of foliage. Cracksnap crunch and it tore my coat but I came out the other side before drowning in the loam.

The sun was bright like the crack of a gun and the shadows it cast were stark; black construction-paper cutouts that satisfied my perpetual craving for definition.

Bob's fence stood a ways ahead of me, and beyond it I could see a shallow section of the creek. I snagged every piece of clothing I wore on the barbed wire and my calves and forearms sustained dense thatches of tiny shallow cuts--from the wire or the thorny vines twisted around it, I'm not sure-- but soon I was on the other side.

I'd seen Bob's land hundreds of times. I've seen this very part, every time I walk into my front yard. But it felt very unfamiliar, this side of the fence, as if by stepping over it into a pasture where I'd never set foot I had passed through a portal and everything around me seemed open and wide--far away.

My insides felt spread out too, like I suddenly had more room to breathe; my heart more relaxed in its beating.

I don't usually smile when I'm alone. Usually in solitude I just feel it, an inside-smile. There are special alone-times when my face smiles too,though--like when Caspian's fallen asleep on my pillows or I'm curled in the corner of Spirit's stall with his curious nose snuffling my hair or when I feel Gypsy's glass-smooth coils wrap me in a reptilian embrace. I smile alone then. And when I feel free.

On that side of the fence, with more room inside me and all around, living out a six-year-old dream in weather so cold it woke every sleeping fiber of my being, I felt the fleeting freedom and I smiled.

As I walked I hoped vaguely that Bob wouldn't shoot at my distant figure in a fit of old-farmer's paranoia, but I was more concerned with how to cross the creek without drenching my feet in the icy flow. I had part of a tree branch and a few slimy rocks for assistance, but mostly it was up to my balance and God's grace.

Utilizing every resource to the full, I made my unsteady way to the opposite bank and began ascent--the bank was steep. By digging my toes into deep furrows carved by the cloven hooves of cattle, I made a stair case of the cow-trail and hopped the last foot to level ground.

I could see it, my tree, now below the horizon line, standing alone in the pasture with acres and acres of field between it and the woods. I smiled again as I closed the distance between us, feeling my heart swell and fill up some of the extra room with dramatic, sentimental indulgence. Hello, old friend.

It was exactly as I'd always imagined. No, better. The branches drooped low around the edges, many even touching the ground. But they met the trunk of the evergreen higher up--maybe to my waist--so the tree formed a kind of tepee: Its trunk the center pole, and the branches with their fregrant needles weaving themselves together at their ends to form a sheltered hollow inside.

The ground beneath the branches was less grassy than the rest of the pasture, with large, flat rocks dotting the tepee floor. The roots, instead of protruding all around the tree's base, reared up from the dirt in only a few places as if to form specific areas for sitting or curling up to sleep. As if God molded it for me, just to fulfill my fanciful 6-year daydream.

Hearing a footstep, my head snapped up and I turned to confront the intruder. And smiled again. The cattle had gathered and formed a half-circle around me. Their heads were low as they snuffled my scent in the air with their huge wet noses. They looked very interested in me, with their ears perked and dewy eyes bright, but ready to run at any second. All legs stiff and pushed forward, a muscle twitched here and there.

But their faces were full of niave sweetness--adult versions of the little orphaned calves I bottle-fed and raised for Bob. Oliver, Nairobi, and Kenya when I was fourteen; Seto and Dodger a year later. They left me with good memories, my calves did, chewing on my socks and dashing around the paddock; delighted confusion when first presented with fresh-baked molasses muffins, followed soon by excited calls the second I could be seen walking up the driveway with a batch.

I was caught between my tree and Bob's cattle; caught between memories of things wished for and memories of things missed.

Slowly, I raised my camera to capture the sight of these poor confused cows, but some movement or scent brought by the wind spooked them. I watched them scatter across the pasture, then ducked back inside my tree-hollow.

I had already taken several pictures of it, but the roots there below my tree called to me. I wanted to see what it would have felt like, if I had really run away and slept here when I was younger. I had to walk about stooped beneath the branches as I looked for a suitable place to nap.

Pulling my coat more tightly about my shoulders, I bunched my scarf up around my neck and circled my spot like a dog before finally curling up against the curve where a thick root and the trunk of the tree.

I closed my eyes. I don't remember what Roy was playing; I think it was something soft, something light. Maybe The Beatle's "I Will". Whatever it was, the music sent over me a fresh wave of space and openness, as if everything in me and outside of me was spread so far, so scattered, that I was both completely safe and totally free, all at the same time.

So once more I smiled in complete solitude, this time without even any animals to witness.
Since then, another such solitary smile has yet to break on my lips.

Naked, the Judas in Me Fell by the Tracks but He Lifted Me High

Lately I've been thinking about Judas. Judas in the Bible who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Was it thirty? I can't quite remember. But with blood money it hardly matters. Anyway, I've been thinking about him and wondering if he made it to heaven.



I'm inclined to think that he did. Yes, he made money his master. He betrayed the Son of God with a kill on His cheek. And afterwards, when the regret became too much, he killed himself. Yes, Judas made several mistakes that still echo in the hearts of the saints.



But am I any better? The Word says that a sin is a sin; they are all every one a betrayal to our Lord and not one is worse than another. Lust is as bad as adultry; hate as evil as murder in God's eyes. A prideful heart is an abomination to Him, as is a lying tongue.



Yes, Judas' mistakes changed history, but according to God's Word, his sins are no worse than mine.



How many times have I 'edited the truth'? How many times has my heart been grossly prideful and I didn't even care? How many times have I dishonored my parents? I still wear scars of dishonoring my body--His temple--like a pegan.

Direct disobedience. Is that not a form of betrayal?



No, I am no better than Judas. He is remembered as a shameful traitor, but he must have had good in him. He must have loved Christ. He was one of The Twelve; selected by God to represent one of the precious tribes of His chosen people. Jesus thought that Judas deserved that honor, and because of a few weak moments--with catastrophic consequences, I admit--he is shamed forever.

I wonder if he would consider this tarnished legacy's fate worse than being completely forgotten? Probably. His guilt and regreat was so great that it drove him to suicide. He loved Christ. Isn't that the bottom line for salvation?



The only unforgiveable sin is written as 'blaspheming the Lord'. I've heard it interpreted as 'continually denying Christ until death'. That interpretation makes sense to me, when cross-referencing it with scripture that speaks about mercy and forgiveness; about all of our sins being washed clean by the Lamb if we let Him. Not ‘all sin except for one’. All sins. And so, it makes sense that the only sin He doesn’t forgive would be ‘denial until death’, because that would mean the sinner never allowed Christ to give him the fullest extent of forgiveness.

Judas loved Jesus. Judas let Him in. Judas was repentant. Judas was a sinner. Christ came to save the sinners, if they will believe in Him. Judas believed. I believe. If Judas is doomed, then so am I, because a sin is a sin and not one of us is righteous—“No, not one.”

I’m not a biblical scholar. I haven’t done research or consulted with anyone wiser than I. But from my limited knowledge of scripture and the mercy and grace He has shown me, I think Judas will be in the community of Paradise. Stripped of guilt and his own humanity, as Christ does for every believer, all that’s left is love and praise for the Savior. If God is truly as loving and merciful as scripture claims—and I believe He is—it would be just like Him to forgive Judas and I and welcome us into Paradise with open arms.

Maybe you don't think its ok that I relate to Judas here. Maybe you aren't as messed up as I am (or have been before). But I'm getting tired of pretending that I'm any better than this; any better than I am.

Sometimes doing the right thing really, really sucks.

A restlessness haunts me, even when I have so many things to do my stomach is knotting knotting and twisting with dread that only feeds my procrastination.
I had the antidote before me—text and statistics and class notes—but some irresponsible inner force kept me from reaching for it.
No, out into the chilly evening, damp sidewalks, I went to shake the feelings out. My skin tingled in anticipation of raindrops, but none came. The shower had ended, leaving behind its shining signature smeared on the ground—making the concrete to sparkle in the lamplight.
I searched for new campus scenery, by the tack behind the library. The same old paths seemed used and jaded, stony-cold to my thin-soled shoes from all the walking I’d done on their granite faces.
Escaping their bitter solidity, I stepped out onto a new sidewalk, thinking I might be brave enough to take it tonight. I walked further than I had before, halfway down the side of the soccer field. A shed loomed in the darkness, creating a dark tunnel with the tarp-covered fence on the opposite side of the path. The shadows there shifted and moved; ominous warning, trust your primal fear. I stood frozen for a moment, too afraid of the black passage to turn my back on whatever lurked there.
I turned the volume down on Roy (my iPod) as I turned, throwing frequent glances over my shoulder. I pulled a headphone from my ear, listening for footsteps my logical mind knew I wouldn’t hear. But still I kept up an urgent pace until I was safe in the heart of the campus again, where golden light cast small, comfortable shadows.
The nervous fear had dispelled my earlier dread, like acid dissolving clumpy rubber.
I’ve read about how things like that work—how more illogical fear can help soothe legitimate stress. I’ve felt it other times too—like being exceptionally relaxed after watching a good horror flick. It’s hard to describe, though; how those adrenaline-fueled rushes of fear can make everything else seem more manageable after they’re over. The conceptual idea, the physical practice; ambiguous psychology pretending to be a science. Only vague descriptions for those who haven’t witnessed. They are inaccurate, word-pictures as confusing as Picasso’s work to some logical thinker. Indescribable.
There are some things—sounds and feelings, mostly—that words can’t describe. It’s often times the little things that no one’s really tried to give a clear word-picture of. At least, I don’t think so. But there have been so many writers and are and will be that are not me, and so I suppose my words are not unique. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.
But apples are one of the things I’ve never read about. The way, after you hook your teeth, pop the peel into the flesh, pull back--the crack-tear of the piece coming away from the rest; moist and tart with scandalous reminders in the pulp of what it was to be Eve.
Eve in her last moments of innocence. I wonder if she truly believed every word of the serpent—if she was absolutely certain the fruit would bring her good fortune? Or was she even a little scared? Maybe, as the perfect lips of the First Woman parted, her heart leapt into her stomach and she felt for the first time the biting grasp of fear...but it was too late—she had made her decision and now must follow through. And as her teeth sank into the seductive flesh she felt the first dull pang of dread—the first anguish of regret.
When did she realize the weight of what she’d done? Did she ever? Did she realize that, thousands of years later, her descendent daughters would resent her?
You cursed us with this pain, Mother. You cursed us with this loneliness. Adam stood by passively and watched, refused to rescue you, but it wasn’t only you he left to fall. You set the example for all of us; you passed down this addiction of choosing our own ruin.
Sometimes I think we have it worse even than Eve. At least she spent awhile basking in the pure glory of God; unfiltered, undiluted. At least she knew what it was that she would spend forever seeking. Though the memory of what she once had must have been painful, at least it may have held her true. Kept her from becoming lukewarm.
But, maybe ignorance is indeed bliss, and we daughters are blessed in the absence of this knowledge. No paradise torn from our horrified grasp; no being forced to our knees under the first crushing, puzzling weight of shame.
When we are born and experience things for the first time—cold, hunger, fear, loneliness, abandonment, shame, pain, loss—at least our awareness isn’t complete. We grow up with these feelings, never remembering a time without them, and when we realize what they are and why they are, at least we are somewhat used to them. Early conditioning; we are accustomed.
But for Eve it was all new. And she was fully aware—conscious of its legitimacy. Would the shock make it even worse? Would her soft, uncaloused soul be even more vulnerable to the rough claws of sin’s consequences? Or would her past bliss, like a balm, provide some soothing escape; take the edge off the sting?
Eve is nothing like her daughters. A distant mother to whom we can’t relate; resented for her closeness to God, blamed for the sin that cursed us all.
Are we supposed to love her? Is she a mother we must honor?
How could she possibly have disobeyed God? If she really did experience His ultimate love, untainted by the separation of sin, how could she possibly have wanted more? How could she have been tempted by anything? Was He so unfulfilling? It seems blasphemous even to consider such a thing, but if she had the fullness of what every believer is searching for, what every human soul longs for, why would she go looking for more?
I have to be honest, it makes me wonder. She had it all—all of Him and what else is there? And still she was not content. If Eve was so close to Him and still so easily made to feel dissatisfied, what chance do I have? What chance do I have of finding a place in me where obeying Him is truly more important than anything else, when innocent, untainted Eve herself was so quickly enamored with the black tongue of a snake?

Snakes are entrancing. I can see how Eve, upon seeing the chorded muscles undulating beneath smooth scales that sparkled in Eden’s sun like liquid silk, might have been hypnotized by its cloying beauty. Moving so alive, yet cold like death. A fluently twisting, elegant corpse: darkly captivating; luscious macabre. The hint of tantalizing sin would stand out especially lustrous amidst the righteousness of Eden, successfully luring the first naive girl’s soul to those sparkling stygian things that so easily steal precious innocence. Innocence that can never be reclaimed.
I have my own Eden—a make-believe Eden—in the woods behind my house, just past the pond and into the trees. No fruit grows there, except for the walnuts that feed this town’s red-furred squirrels and irritate its red-skinned farmers. But my dad only mows out here occasionally, so he doesn’t mind; he lets the squirrels keep sustenance within easy reach.
They—the squirrels—have gathered most of the walnuts up now, though; I noticed their absence while walking there today. And well they should—it is growing so cold so, so quickly, and the minute the wonderful pungent scent of fall flees my nostrils my heart aches with a thousand things I forgot to do in the summer sun.
I couldn’t stand the outdoors being snatched away from me so suddenly. That’s why I went walking in the woods today. That, and I was filled with a restless, impatient inspiration.
I knew what I wanted to do and my heart quickened with the thought of it. Something so small, blurring the line between innocence and sultry so thoroughly that I still am not sure whether my blushes were really called for. Probably not. I know I tend to be more shy than most. Regardless, they happened and the heat my body generated in the personal excitement caused my skin to dampen slightly as I gathered a robe and flashlights, a coat and my camera. I cast a glance over my shoulder at Caspian, a furry black lump on my bed. I’d leave him behind this time; I needed to focus.
My feet sunk slightly into the cold mud as I tried to envision myself doing what I had in mind. Such a small thing, an amateur thing. Laughable, even, I was sure. But why, as I set my camera on the concrete ledge of an old well, did I feel like Eve must have as she reached toward original temptation?
But it didn’t make any difference--no one would see this. This was mine. Secret art for me; pictures to make me feel beautiful as I am—real and imperfect—and using my real self to give this sequestered piece of art something beautifully flawed and immaculately scandalous.
I stopped when I reached the woods. Paused. I almost went back. The living room sounded nice; snuggled into the leather sofa with a dog and a book, hot tea on the table beside me. But I had to do this. So simple, so small, but to me it meant I was brave. To me it meant I was an artist in my heart, because no one would see these pictures. An artist for myself, not for an audience. It simply meant I could. I would. I could do things contrived of myself; I would do things that some others wouldn’t. I could suffer the cold—purposely put myself in discomfort and try to make it lovely. I don’t know why this humble project mattered so much to me. But it mattered and so I began.
I took off my shoes and socks, my feet immediately turning blotchy and purple thanks to my circulatory disorder. I stood on the concrete that spread about a foot from the base of the well, and its tiny peaks pressed into my bloodless soles; scratched my toes as I curled them against the chill autumn air.
For a second I studied the red nail polish, months-old remnants of a last tribute to the Golden Years. It looked sad and empty now, chipped and dull against the orange of the fallen leaves in spite of valiant attempts to maintain its bold, symbolic scarlet.
I hunched under the thick green robe I’d brought with me, fixing the auto settings on my camera as cold wind sliced through the gaps of my skin-warmed shelter.
I looked over my shoulder, back into the woods. Listened for sounds; approaching footsteps, voices. Nothing. Silence but for the tree branches above, tapping and scraping against one another like overcrowded children.
Tentative, I pressed the silver button on my camera and waited until the last possible minute to step away from the patches of ground that had been heated slightly by my presence.
Cold cold cold and I felt my skin tighten as goose bumps formed while I stepped in front of the camera. Shyly, I tried to make my body graceful and waited to hear my camera’s satisfying click.
Click. Second shot is coming. Shift my body; different angle. Be strong like the trees, hands in fists—no, too tight, too masculine. Too late. Click and I trot back to where my miss-matched socks lay in the grass, stuffing the tips of my icy toes into their tepid folds.
I squinted at the camera’s playback, mentally critiquing the pictures I’d taken. Looking at myself on that screen, appearing so foreign amidst the trees, I felt myself shrink with embarrassment. That surprised me. I thought I was brave. I thought I was liberal and spirited, artistic and uninhibited, capable of self-assurance in my ideas.
I was. I was or I would make myself. Right now. I would be, and be free and proud and brave in my being.
Push the button, kick away the comfort of socks and with my head high I mingle with the trees as the camera beep beep beeps and clicks. A few more seconds—I face the camera, bold and open in my stance.
With the second click, I knew I could and for a brief moment I felt empowered—like someone proud of the way they occupy space.
But my feet were numb, and my fingers had grown cold and sore under the nails. They fumbled clumsily as I changed clothes and gathered my things, tripping over my faltering feet.
After a walk in the cold that felt longer than it was, I stumbled back into the warm house, satisfied. I caught a glimpse of my eyes in the hall mirror and saw a smile playing there; a secretive smile, the knowledge of a simple but beautiful mystery that was mine.

I’m tired. Not just tired, but desperately exhausted. Don’t tell me to take a nap. It isn’t that easy. Sleep is a fickle friend of mine; won’t always do business with me. It’s a commodity I continually chase with spotty success, and there’s no end in sight to the insomnia.
I’m tired for more than just sleep, though more sleep would help tremendously. I don’t just need a good night’s rest, though. I need days of sleep; days and days swimming in the murky depths with no dreams to show their wide-eyed faces, begging me to follow. I can’t; not now. I want to, I really do, but I can’t.
I’ve been saying that a lot lately: ‘I can’t’. I can’t because I’m tired and I have to prioritize, but here is new and they don’t know me, so some of them are offended, I think. There are voices out my window—laughing voices and running footsteps and I want to add my own because I want to make it here; make a life here that is more than resting alone in my dorm. I know that, and I know it usually makes me sad, but tonight I’m too tired to care.
I’m so tired, my eyes are literally sinking deeper into my face. There are hollows by them that haven’t been there before; dips and crevasses I’ve only seen bordering the eyes of women much older than myself.
I’ve been losing lots of things lately, and forgetting things too. For awhile now I’ve felt older than my age, but lately even more so. It would be easier, I think, if I looked as old as I felt. Maybe thirty. Some days, more like sixty or eighty. Then people wouldn’t expect these things of me—these things when I just can’t do them. I’m sorry, I say, but I can’t, and they say alright but it isn’t really because their faces go all closed and flat when they turn to walk away.
I don’t want to explain myself anymore. I’m tired of these complications. A few relationships have even been ruined because I discovered non-understanding sides of people that never would have had anything to do with me if I wasn’t sick. But then those sides became colossal walls between us, proportionate to the amount of my life that is affected by my disease. Which is all of it.

It’s not just big events in stories that are nothing like real life. It’s the little things too. The artificial dialogue and the moments when the small things come together like they’re supposed to and that makes a blossom of content that lasts.

One thing in particular I’ve never believed happened in real life is when a character is wandering aimlessly and their feet lead them to where they need to go. Even as a child I didn’t understand it. How could you be walking without knowing where you’re going? How can you go somewhere without intent? I didn’t believe it could happen, but it happened to me the other night.

It wasn’t a big thing. It had no part to play in any grand scheme; any story but my own. I finished dinner in the crowded cafeteria; a tasteless sandwich because food is always tasteless for me in the absence of comfort. It was still light outside and going back to my plaintive dorm room just seemed wrong when Indian summer played on my skin with the brush of a light rain. The sun still filtered through the clouds, so I donned my headphones and walked to the rhythm of Sufjan’s Seven Swans, looking through the kaleidoscope that the raindrops made on my glasses.

I looked at the grass as I walked, at the way the water sparkled there. A fork in the sidewalk; I had to choose. I looked up to decide, to see where each path might lead, and there before me was Weatherby Chapel--a tiny, always-open place for trysts with God. Right away I felt a chill; a shudder move through me, mysterious and mystic. I know I tend to over-romanticize things, but still I smiled at the thought that maybe God had guided me there. I’ve never really believed in coincidences, so this as well, to me, had to mean something.

I opened the first set of heavy double doors. They cracked as if stuck to the jam, like they hadn’t been opened in a long while. They led into a lobby about the size of my dorm room—quite small. An old woman, painted with meticulous strokes, gazed out at some middle-distance from her frame over an oaken table, set with half-burned candles. The wicks needed to be trimmed. They arched, thin charcoal and black and braided, graceful and coy from the opaque wax.

Muffled sounds, the firm yet plush notes of an old piano pushed their way through the cracks of the doors that led into the sanctuary. Though the music was pretty, I had to try to catch my heart as it sunk with disappointment. I couldn’t keep my lips from setting a grim line, though—I had hoped I’d be alone. Still, I wanted to see more of this place, so I crept into the dimly-lit sanctuary as quietly as I could. These doors—heavy and white and gold—popped and creaked as well, like an arthritic old butler--stiff and sore but still intent on serving a stately master.

I ducked my head as I pulled the headphones from my ears, hoping not to be noticed by the young man playing the worn, weathered upright. His playing faltered; I’d been noticed. I kept my head down anyway, pretending to be invisible as I shuffled to the opposite side of the sanctuary and perched on the edge of a plain wooden pew. The melody continued, simple but beautiful, and I opened my journal on my knee. My pen hovered over the page but made no marks, frozen in rapture by the music echoing from the quality acoustics of the room.

Everything seemed golden there. The lights were dim and gold and the wood of the pews reflected them from its cracked gloss, so that puddles of liquid light formed between the dull, splinter-like grooves all over the surface of the seats. The sound seemed golden too; each hammer on the string reverberating in air thick with evening and a sacred something, rippling vibrating undulating from the piano to my ears.

Too soon, the notes grew longer and less frequent, a signal that the end of the song was coming. The last chord—two simple keys—faded like smoke into the rafters, and I was compelled to speak.

“That was really pretty.” I said, my voice sounding harsh after the soft music.
“Thank you.” The young man turned towards me, sounding a little bit shy. “I was just making it up; I don’t really play.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well then that was REALLY good, for ‘not really playing’.”
He laughed. “Thanks.”
“Sure.” I said, looking back down at the blank page on my lap. The uncharacteristic boldness that had caused me to speak in the first place had retreated, leaving me alone to finish the conversation I’d recklessly started with this stranger. Silence descended for a moment just long enough to make me feel awkward.

“What year are you?” I asked, my go-to question for awkward silences with fellow students here.
“Junior.” He replied, rising from the bench to replace the hymnal he’d taken from the music stand. “You?”
“Freshman.” I said with a measure of humility; upperclassmen are intimidating.

We talked of majors, of why and how. I looked at him as we spoke, lifting my eyes from my journal. Even with my glasses on, I couldn’t quite see. The features of his face were blurred, though I could see that he hadn’t shaved it a few days. I could see his hair was dark; I could see he was tall. I could see the big white “IF” on his black t-shirt. But insufficient sight hid specific features from me, so in my mind I made his face to match his voice: dark, strong but humble at the same time.

“I’ll let you read.” He said eventually, his backpack crushed in the crook of his arm. It occurred to me how my shyness must have looked at the beginning, like I was enthralled in some literary hypnosis and would rather be reading than talking to him. Right away I felt guilty. That wasn’t true; I had enjoyed our brief conversation, making him perfect in my mind. I had started it, after all.

But I just smiled and said, “Ok.”
“I’m going on a walk. It was good to meet you, El.” He said.
“It was good to meet you too!” I waved and he nodded back, his hands full of backpack and heavy white door.

Pop crack, soft echoing boom, and I was left alone in the chapel to ponder this ships-in-the-night meeting of two people who enjoyed walks in the rain and solitary chapel visits. And music.
The silence was big like cotton in my ears, every one of my movements amplified in the solitude. As quietly as I could, I walked to the piano, opened the hymnal on the stand above the keys. I played a chord, a note or two, stumbling my way through the first line of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”. I paused, pulling dusty piano knowledge from the attic of my mind, scrubbing the grit from lines and spaces and key signatures. I tried the line again and again, but eventually gave up. It’s been too long now; these days my fingers are more accustomed to the callusing steel strings of my guitar.

But I had no guitar to play in worship, so I decided to use my voice, weary and rough as it was that night. Many of the hymns in the book were unfamiliar to me; others only vaguely reminding me of songs I knew as a child. I flipped through the pages, though, and once every several I came upon a song I knew well enough.

I flinched at the first notes I sang. They sounded sharp and intrusive after some minutes of absolute quiet. But I pressed through a verse and soon settled into softer tones. I tried to mean every word; to sing like a prayer, changing a word here and there in attempt to sing to God, instead of about Him.

Somehow, I always feel like a little girl when I sing or speak to God aloud. Awkward, vulnerable and helpless, but with a beautiful sense of innocence and trust.

I can’t explain it, though I suppose not many things about God or interactions with Him are logical. If these things could be explained—if we could break down exactly why one feels a certain way when praying or singing or reading the Bible, or if we could wrap our tiny human minds around the fact that God had no beginning and all of the hows and whys that have been discussed for centuries—if these things were logical to us then where would be the proof of divinity? If something—or Someone—is as much greater than humans as the Bible says He is, it stands to reason that humans would be nowhere close to comprehending Him. If we understood everything, if everything about Him had an answer that made perfect sense to us, wouldn’t there be some sense of disappointment? I think it might be even harder to trust a being simple enough to make sense to me.

But I tried to block out the more complex thoughts, all the hows and whys and ifs and whens. Tonight was for worship; for simplistic, child-like faith and wonder.
When I grew too tired to sing anymore, I crept to the alter table at the front of the sanctuary. I sat tentatively on a small wooden wall-like structure, my muscles tired and sore but my mind curious to investigate the books and papers and basket resting on the table’s dark wooden surface.

I picked up a spiral-bound book, yellowed and battered and torn from years of quiet service. It was a notebook, full of prayer requests and answers from anonymous believers. All seemed to have been written quickly—either in the desperation of need or in frantic joy of provision. For all its worn appearance, the book wasn’t full. So I took up a page of my own, writing a date but no name, like the others had done.

I used up my space, the margins dark gray with crammed scribblings, so I tried to find out what the blank papers were for. The basket was full of them, all folded in half and with the light shining through the thin white I could see writing on the other side. I didn’t want to pry, but I was confused. Were these notes to a pastor? More prayer requests? Confessions?

I squinted and craned my neck, trying to make out a backwards word or two. Awkwardly tilting my head, I tried to see the other side, as if reading the note didn’t count as snooping as long as I didn’t touch it.

“Dear Beloved,” was the first line. I sat up quickly, feeling as if I’d disturbed a pair of lovers. Because that’s what these were: love letters to God. The few random words I’d been able to read inside-out made sense now.

I picked up the pencil that lay on the stack of blank pages. For a moment I just stared at the stark white, willing new words to come to me. My love letter was short and simple; recycled words. But true ones; ones I wanted Him to know so much as to repeat them over and over and over again. I folded the paper, neat yet humanly imperfect, and let it join the other white squares whose corners spiked up over the basket’s rim.

For a moment I was still. Scraping pencil noise done, crinkling paper hushed, cotton silence once more.

I felt dazed as I gathered my things. It was time to leave; the black of deep night had filled the windows. It felt wrong to make an exit as simple as walking out the door. But, I thought as I left the sanctuary, that is one of the many facets of the beauty of Christ: He doesn’t require a dramatic exit or perfect eloquence of speech or an angel’s singing voice. All He really asks of me is faith as I step back out into the rain.

Blacks and Bays, Dapple and Grays...

Last night I dreamt of horses. Horses and horses and hoof-thunder all around and my thighs are gripping the bare back of some chestnut stallion. I am knee-deep in a surging sea of power, electric charges packaged in glossy fur coats. Flashes of shimmering earth-toned bodies all engulfing me, flowing like a single wave yet shifting like a hundred tree canopies in a violent wind. One but many; many to make up a breathtaking whole.

They bob in and out and around one another, undulating miniature hills of black and gray and brown and white and buckskin and bay and spots, and out of control they all seem to roll wildly over the open terrain. I’m not afraid; it’s wild and free but normal, too.

Routine ecstasy.

I can feel the chorded muscles bunch and stretch beneath me like the arm of some Olympian god, flexing to showcase his strength. My muscles tighten and wave; stiff and loose to mold to the movements of my mount. Lean back for every stride; sway and lift my body to absorb the jarring hoofbeats of the stampede-galloper beneath me.

Horses brush and push against my legs on either side, trapping them briefly, and for a moment I feel the hot pressure of being caught between two great wild beasts. But I’m never crushed. My balance is threatened, but I never fall.

I am a part of this sacred herd-rite. I am one with this tribe of rugged creatures and drowned in their raw beauty and rough, ragged grace. Terrifying power and deafening sound and wind that whips my hair and I feel it’s sting on my face; tears in my eyes from the speed. And I am unaware of myself, unaware of whatever it is that makes me human; that separates my psyche from that of the equine’s. I am unaware of anything, besides my belonging, melded into this band of horses.