my many people

On my drive home today, I listened to a virtual bookclub from a podcast I just started listening to. In the conversation between the regular host and her friend, they discussed how much they like this one particular memoirist. Then, one of the hosts started rattling off a list of authors to whom she pledges allegiance. I recognized the names, and have read some of their books, but I didn't recognize the names as those of my authors.

Which got me thinking, who are my authors? Who are the people I'll buy a book from as soon as it comes out, whose books all appear on my shelf, whose mantras or ideologies or quotes tether my heart to life in a specific way? I thought of a few novelists whom I enjoy, and then a few nonfiction writers whose one or two books or essays mean a lot to me. But none to who I'm loyal, or whom I feel are loyal to me in that particular way that fans can feel.

In this short mental search for my authors, I started to feel a little desperate, and then a little sad. It went deeper, because I realized it wasn't really about being able to name my own personal tribe of authors, it was about being able to name my own personal tribe of friends. Or, even more importantly, those one or two who will always be there for me.

Now let me say - I have some incredible friends who love me and have my back. They feed me, volunteer airport pickups and drop-offs (a true test of friendship in LA), bring food and keep my company when I've overextended myself in planning an elaborate dessert party, listen to my sometimes in-cohesive reflections, and tell me I'm ok. But here's the thing: I've always wanted a person. Some might say I had one growing up. My best friend and I knew each other since the time we were five and were often inseparable, and yet there were always other friends who came in and out of the picture and, to my scared and lonely heart, threatened our relationship. Now, friends have husbands and families and college friends and their own important things going on. Sometimes I wish their important thing were me.

I write this knowing that it points to my core brokenness: that one way (or, one of the ways) in which I will always feel an ache of what's missing. My senior year of high school, that best friend I'd met at age five had already graduated and left town for a city a few hours away, and then for another continent. I felt incredibly lonely, only intensified by the fact that I knew she was making new friendships during a new, meaningful experience in her life.

It was the struggle of that year without her that still defines me today: I would learn to let go and trust that I'd be ok even if I didn't have a person.

Or, rather, it was the realization that I could have many people. Since then, I have had many close friends, but nobody I would call a best friend. And I hesitate to do that (possibly still out of brokenness - will they then leave, to?). It is a discipline I practice: welcoming others, offering myself, cultivating a sacred in-between-us space. What this has allowed is a life full of persons without attaching myself fully to a person. Knowing a friend as one of many instead of my one and only has made space between me and her for others to be in my life. (And, if I can go there, for Jesus to be my one and only.)

It all does come back to the books, because if you come to visit me, you will see a really random assortment of authors and styles that fill my shelves. Some may see this and point to my lack of self control at bookstores (and they may be partly right). But I would also say that I've developed a way to let many voices and hearts in, and I'm still learning to enjoy the way this practice simultaneously crowds and empties my ever-searching heart.

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PS I realized after writing this that I do have an author. Henri Nouwen is my guy, which is a little ironic because it was probably his writing that influenced this approach to keeping sacred distance in relationships.

(photo: alone with my shadow, Minneapolis, 2015)

the stories we tell, and the stories we won't tell again

Last week, I ate salad with a friend at my small dining room table and told her a story. The events of the story had taken place a few months prior, but I hadn't told her yet and I needed her to hear it. I had already told it to other friends: several weeks ago to a friend over coffee, to a teammate by the dinner fire one night in Kenya, over text to a few friends after it happened, even to an imaginary audience in a rough draft of some kind of essay I thought it might turn into. Something about it merited re-telling again and again, and now to this friend.

Sometimes we tell stories because they explain our lives to others. This is how I met my best friend when we were five or this is how my daughter came into the world or this the way my mother made lasagna over and over when I was young. We tell ourselves stories in order to live, says Joan Didion, by which she meant that the form of a narrative, and perhaps also the act of telling it, gives shape to our lives.

But other times, I find myself telling the same story over and over precisely because it doesn't make sense. I tell it hoping that the way it comes out this time might flip a switch, or that the particular friend I'm confiding in will help me find the key. This story, the one I found myself telling my friend over salad, was like this. It ended with my being hurt and disappointed, and though it didn't leave me on bad terms with anyone in particular, it did leave me feeling confused. This particular scene didn’t seem to fit into the larger story I thought was forming, and I wanted it to. Maybe the story wasn't over? Maybe the larger story itself needed to change? Maybe not every story has a conclusion?

And then this happened: I was praying (though not about the story) when I heard the Spirit say that I wouldn't tell the story again. It wasn't instruction as much as description: the new way in which I was being arranged inside made it such that I wouldn't feel the need to go back over what had happened. The details have started to fade, their edges are dulled and less provoking. Even now, it’s as if the story is floating out to sea, a message I’ve shoved in a bottle and sent away with no intention of reclaiming. We tell ourselves stories to live, and sometimes we let them go to live more fully.

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(photo: water and wood at tenaya lake, yosemite national park)

it always must be lost in some way

On a quick visit to my sister in Durham, I stopped at one of my favorite used bookstores. The day before, I'd finished a book and was ready for a new one - the perfect excuse to buy something there. This might sound silly, but I prayed as I entered that bookstore, hoping the Spirit would lead me to find what I needed to read next. I always end up finding books that mean a lot to me.

I bought three: a book of short stories, a book on Africa and a book called A Severe Mercy. This one had been ringing in my ears over the past few years - repeated in conversations or things I read online. So the title stuck out to me. What I knew about it was that the author tells the story of the death and his subsequent grieving of his wife, as well as of his friendship with C.S. Lewis during this time. Comparatively, I've read only a small spattering of Lewis, but I know that I love his letters and more contemplative writing, and hoped I'd love reading about this friendship.

The book starts with a strange prologue/chapter 1, then jumps into the story at the beginning of the story: boy meets girl. Neither follow any kind of religion. About a third of the way through, the author reminds the reader that, "this book, after all, is a spiritual autobiography of a love rather than of the lovers." He describes their early stages of love as a pagan love, since their orientation was inward. Their aim was to protect their love at all costs. He writes with a sense of superiority and great mission, which felt cumbersome at times (capital letters for the Shining Barrier they constructed for protection of their love,  the Appeal to Love which was their modus operandi in making decisions in their marriage). He also includes love poems he wrote -- for his love and about their love.

The writing wasn't exactly my taste, at least until he starts communicating with C.S. Lewis. Their friendship starts when the couple begins to consider Christianity. During their conversion and early days of following Jesus, as well as after the eventual death of the author's wife, Lewis writes with his characteristic clarity about themes of love, grief, joy and eternity.

For me, this book really hit its stride after the author's wife's death, perhaps because I'd had enough of his verbose descriptions of their love and life together. That's also where the universal truth he's trying to convey in this autobiography of love crystalizes: that like every life, every love must also die and be reborn.

Suggesting that the wife's death may in fact be a mercy from God, though a severe one, C.S. Lewis writes to the author:

I sometimes wonder whether bereavement is not, at bottom, the easiest and least perilous of the ways in which men lose the happiness of youthful love. For I believe it must always be lost in some way; every merely natural love has to be crucified before it can achieve resurrection and the happy old couples have through difficult death and rebirth. But far more have missed the rebirth.

A mercy because the rebirth is less likely to be missed, because the letting go is a forced one.

The book held a few other precious Lewis-isms, but really this the piece that keeps turning around in my head. Though young love is so much fun, I've always been drawn to that long-established love that has gone through the fire and burned off what was never going to last long anyway. I also love the idea of a love that has a life of its own, a story to tell, something to share with others.

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(I've been falling behind on writing - both book re-caps and everything else that has a chance to flit through my head or heart. This week I'm hoping to write and post at least a little every day. It may not be good, but there will be words.)

(photo: at a coffee shop with my niece and nephew. styling by my niece, photography by my nephew. they're already hipsters.)

feeding along the way

In my last post I wrote about my love/hate relationship with professional travel. This time it was all love, and I’m so grateful. This particular conference felt like it was a stepping stone along the path of some of the new things that are happening during this season (that transition/transformation I wrote about a little while back). These kinds of experiences are true grace, a breeze at your back, a gentle nudge to continue in the same direction.

So, a list of highlights, if you’re interested…

City of Bridges // Running in new cities is always a highlight, especially when that city has some water running through it. Pittsburgh has lots of it – three rivers, with more than 400 bridges crossing them at various points. (Did you know it’s the American city with the most bridges? I didn’t.) The first morning I left my hotel just as the sky was beginning to brighten and followed a haphazard loop over all three rivers, stopping for lots of photos. The second morning, I crossed the Rachel Carson Bridge (so cool there's a bridge named after this author) and ran along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, a concrete path bordered by green overgrowth and yellow wild flowers, with a river just beyond. It was pure Pennsylvania and made my heart so happy. (I didn’t realize how much Pittsburgh would feel like home…)

Medicine, mission, mercy // Remember those uninspiring keynotes I referenced? Not at this conference. The second morning was my favorite. Dr. Jim Withers shared his story of providing medical care to Pittsburgh’s homeless folks for decades and helping to create Street Medicine programs at medical schools around the world. The concept of mobile medical care that creates access and cultivates justice has become my heart, especially since traveling to Kenya. It was such an honor to hear him share his stories, and with such humility and passion.

The life of an artist // I made a few friends, one of whom works at the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. Over dinner, I mentioned that I might visit the Andy Warhol Museum after the conference. The next morning, she found me to tell me she’d arranged for my free entry. Later that day (which was also after I’d given my presentation), I wandered the city, found some coffee, and made my way over. Warhol’s art is funky and fun, and observing the trajectory of an artist’s life is incredibly inspiring. My favorite part was the display of contents from his time capsule from the year 1984. His collection of all kinds of random paraphernalia reminded me that inspiration can come from anywhere, and being an avid collector of it can keep creativity fresh.

“Something you said…” // After I presented on the last morning of the conference, several people came up to talk to me afterwards. One woman introduced herself, then started her comments on my presentation with this phrase. It stuck with me because this year has in some ways been one of strengthening my voice. My dream is to hear this over and over – that the things I say have impact, stir something in people, inspire change and vision. Years ago I often found myself afraid to speak, and when I first started this job I wasn’t thinking I’d one day be one who teaches and encourages others, especially by the room-full. It’s one of those dreams I never thought to dream, but the One who knows our truest, deepest desires knows how to bring those about, and how to keep directing our hearts beyond those things to eternity.

I could write more – of really good coffee and chatting with the same barista each day, of great food, of an inspiring session on diversity that was a helpful way to process some of the violence erupting on the streets of cities across our country, of a man who passed me on the street and told me I looked like Taylor Swift (ok, his sanity was questionable but I’m thinking this was one of his lucid moments?). There was just so much. 

There’s a verse in Isaiah that speaks of the people of God feeding along the way and finding provision in places they thought barren -- reminders of God’s goodness and restoration as they make their way to their true home, the City of God. And it’s these seemingly little or mundane things that I think Isaiah might be referring to. They aren’t the thing to shoot for, but they signal to us that God knows our truest desires and has put eternity in our hearts. They bring joy, but what’s better is that they keep us along the path to the One who holds our hearts and is the ultimate thing (relationship/beauty/wonder) we yearn for.

***

(photo: fort duquesne bridge at the beginning of morning run)

literary, lately: travel edition

I have a love/hate relationship with professional conferences. Love: travel to new places, eating out on someone else's dime, staying in hotels (I love a clean bathroom, especially when I'm not the one cleaning it). Hate: spending all day in over-chilled rooms with no windows, uninspiring keynote speakers, networking (i.e. an introvert's hell).

I'm thinking about this because it's happening next week, I'm going to a new city, getting up in front of a lot of people to talk about writing (simultaneously my most exhilarating dream and worst nightmare), and hopefully getting lots of reading done on the flights there and back -- among other things. Here are a few links that are getting me excited about traveling, writing, reading and everything in between.

Listen to what makes your hair stand on end, your heart melt, and your eyes go wide, what stops you in your tracks and makes you want to live, wherever it comes from, and hope that your writing can do all those things for other people. A writing manifesto, in the form of ten tips. Maybe I'll scrap my presentation and just read this to the audience?

Airports are mini-civilizations, governed by their own rules and rituals. On bookstores in airports. My airport rules: a magazine from those ubiquitous bookstores, peanut m&m's and stretchy pants.

The National Book Award long list selections are being announced this week. I haven't even heard of most of the nonfiction books just announced. Looks like I have some reading to do. Maybe worth an airport book purchase?  Follow along if you're interested...

I go in phases with writing music. Right now, it's this song and every other one from the album. He's, like, the male T.S. I'll probably also be listening to this on my flights. (Don't judge.)

Can't wait to find myself here. (Quick stop over to see my sister!)

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(photo: NYC skyline, before flight to Kenya)

what to do with this love

This morning I read about a popular author and her new romantic relationship. Her marriage has ended, she writes, because the illness of her dear best friend made her realize the truth that she is in love with this friend. She herself had posted about it on her Facebook page, an explanation that is thoughtful, well-written and probably only made public out of necessity, which I respect.

I don't know this author personally or really follow her all that closely, yet I had a deep response, one that invariably comes because of things I'm wrestling with myself. Part of the story this woman is sharing but not focusing on is that she is now in a same-sex relationship - this is not part of my struggle. That issue aside (I have thoughts I won't share here or now), the underlying story I read here is one of friendship, boundaries and recognition. Let me explain.

A friend of mine, a single man around my age, recently shared with me that he's taking a break from thinking about relationships to figure some stuff out. This after I told him I'd had a dream of him deciding to elope and not invite me or our other friends. Is there something you're not telling me? I joked with him. This led us to open small windows into our individual hopes and fumblings in what we both hope is movement towards our respective future marriages. What came to mind (and spirit) as I sought for a way to affirm him is that first love story, when man is put to sleep and, on waking, finds the one he calls "flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone." Here at last, one I recognize as made for me.

This caused me to read that story again, to see how the current of my friend's particular experience moves below the story, what waves the Spirit might stir in it. As I read, one version used particular names we are familiar with (Adam and Eve), which makes the story feel so very personal and singular. Maybe that can be my story, too, we might be drawn to wonder. Another version uses simply Man and Woman in place of names, which got me thinking differently about the distinctive recognition which takes place upon waking. Before, none of the animals fit the bill. Then, here, a new creature, and yet so very familiar because she is taken from me. I thought of this story again when I read news of this author, because of the same-sex issue but also because of the long friendship between then. Do we sometimes confuse partnership and friendship for something more? What if this author lived within the boundary of that love which guides us to recognize who is made for us and who is not? I am not trying to judge, and yet I wonder about the seemingly sudden lunge towards total commitment brought about in the face of illness and possible death. The prospect of death can make us do strange things, and yet death is not all of what there is, it is only a shadow. Is it possible that her recognition has shifted away from what is true?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that recognizing truth and beauty is an act that requires the Spirit. (That first love story, after all, happened in the Garden...) I have stories of men I've been close to or partners with and I've wondered, could this be the one? But they end up being part of that animal parade set before Man; they receive different names, but not that declaration that only one will receive (here at last, bone of my bone...). Recently, there is another story like this, one in which a man and I have partnered together and found our styles and vision the same yet different and complementary, in which I have moments of seeing more than what is on the surface, in which I feel I have grown to be more of who I am because of his presence in my life, and in which a few innocent onlookers have asked me about him. And I admit, I have wondered myself. But deep in my spirit, I know this friendship is given for a different reason.

So then the question remains - what do to with this love I have for him? The kind of love I am trying to cultivate is that which expands only within boundaries set for me and yet calls me beyond what I know. This love is painful and costly. It asks me to yearn for that person's good, and yet not put my own needs for love and affection on that person. This love fights to see clearly and hope against hope and hold on and let go at the same time. It simultaneously breaks my heart and puts it back together. I wonder if that's what we resist, that process of being broken for the sake of a good we haven't yet experienced, a love that is tasted only when we are able to lift our heads and ask for it and hope to be filled.

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(photo: married couple, friends of mine, west los angeles)

an unread library

There's magic in being surrounded by books... Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library.

- Austin Kleon, Steal Like at Artist

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(photo: my library and messy bookstacks... only partially read)