naked rose bushes

When I came home yesterday, the rose bushes were naked. Just days before the branches were tall and scraggly, and deep green leaves hung off their ends. Most had at least one bud in various stages of letting their petals go, and the red and pink scraps surrounded the bushes on the ground below. It wasn't life, but it looked like it. Now their branches were short and stubby, with nothing left on them. I was so sad I almost cried, and I realized I wasn't crying for the rose bushes, because this has happened before. I know the leaves will come back, and new buds will open into new flowers. I almost cried because I know what it's like to lose things, to feel so empty, to have that little bit of green cut off. (I like to hang on, just like those leaves do.)

Then I remembered this poem, which had been going around in my head since I read it the other night. Seasons are so comforting because they help me to know what to expect or what to hope for. But sometimes, even if I'm not able to hope and I expect something to start dying, new life can start.

Hurricane by Mary Oliver - via here

It didn't behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn't stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn't
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.

finding the cracks

After I graduated from college, I picked an apartment in the city. It had the most bedrooms (3) for the cheapest price ($560 - can you believe it?). I hadn't inhabited that amount of space since I left my parents' house for college, so even though the kitchen had no counters to connect the stove and sink and fridge, and even though the floor felt crooked and the windows, when opened, let in the shrieking sounds of the city corner below, I wanted it. I still can't believe my would-be roommates consented, though two of them would rotate out a few months in anyway.

The apartment was the second and third floors of an old house, so we had a neighbor down below. We ran into Raul when we got into our cars, and the locked stairway in our apartment that used to lead downstairs when the house was still a house let his music and marijuana seep into our living space. Eventually we got to know Raul. Or, we got to know things about Raul. Originally from Puerto Rico, 25 years old, suspended driver's license. I imagined starting some kind of neighborly relationship with Raul, and we did get somewhere. A gentleman, he helped us shovel our cars out of snow more than once. I remember being in his apartment with him a few times, I think to talk about cooking Puerto Rican food, but I'm not sure we ever made anything together.

One night, I parked my car on the street after a work holiday party, feeling slightly nauseated, and walked past his windows to the stairs up to my place. He stopped me outside his door. "I made fish-head soup for you and your roommates." His boyish enthusiasm betrayed his Latino machismo. I felt my stomach turn and knew that this was one instance in which I could not forget myself to honor my neighbor. Sitting before a bowl of tiny fish heads looking up at me from a pungent broth was going to require more than a deep heart - I needed a solid stomach. I told him I'd just eaten at my party and he graciously offered to send the fod upstairs with me so my roommates and I could eat it later.

When I moved out of that apartment, I don't remember formally saying goodby to Raul. But I've met other Rauls in the ten years since. We met somewhere between stranger and friend. In some ways, it feels like the things that defined us - language, culture, history, upbringing, opportunity - were walls stronger than the ones that form the buildings we live in. Yet most of those apartments, like the first, have been pretty flimsy, so I wonder the same about what separated us. Maybe if we'd pushed up a little harder, we'd have found the cracks.

girlfriends

I am almost 33 years old and single, which perhaps more than anything else means that I have lots of girlfriends. Some are lifelong companions, like my sisters and my best friend I grew up with, treasures as worn and weathered as an old photograph or a favorite book. I return to them again and again. Some are surprising, gifts I didn’t think to ask for, and others are unlikely, like chili with chocolate. For some reason, it just works.

What they all are is a light held up to help me see. They light the way forward during dark times, reflect to me what is true of me (the good and the bad), and bring sparks of joy and laughter to what would otherwise be a pretty mundane life. 

And one thing I’ve learned is that, maybe ironically, girlfriends are particularly needful when it comes to boys. Recently, an abrupt end to a budding relationship taught me that again. I would have felt better sweeping the whole thing under the rug to forget the pain, but I knew my friends, who were cheering for me to get what is good, deserved more trust and respect than that. And truthfully, the crush of it — the crumbling hope that wasn’t really about him, but about a struggle turn up a full net in what feels like empty waters — called out for something more than I could offer myself. I was standing too close to it all, and I needed the perspective of one who saw my heart at some distance and could see the whole painting instead of just a few harsh brushstrokes.

They say dating is good for learning, and I thought they meant about myself and about men. But this time I learned something crucial about my girlfriends: they hold on to hope for me more tightly than I can on my own, and I am lucky to have them.

slow starting

A few years ago, as the year sputtered to its end, I drove along a lonely highway between Lancaster and Harrisburg to visit a friend. After living in Southern California for a few years, I’d forgotten how empty and dull winter can be on the East Coast. Trees abandoned by their leaves and days-old snow browned by gravel spewed onto it by disinterested cars lined that road, while formless clouds sealed a chill in the damp air and made day not much lighter than the night. Heavy with something I couldn’t name, I felt a sort of relief that the new year wouldn’t start with sunshine and bright flowers, but slowly, in the dead of winter.

I get excited about starting things with a big flourish and lots of enthusiasm — though I often find myself waning halfway through something. Maybe nature was onto something, I thought to myself. Why not let the new things remain hidden, underground for the first days or weeks or even months? Instant results provide motivation, we all know that to be true. But maybe we can cultivate something deeper than excitement or momentum, like trust, love and discipline. The feel for the process, and letting ourselves be truly changed by it. A building joy at what we can feel more and more each day is taking place inside. 

There are verses in the Bible that use seeds, soil and fruit to illustrate the process of how things of God grow. I’m drawn to these metaphors in part because they speak to the mystery of that process, and to the fact that we can’t control how or where new things spring up. But these verses also hint to us that we can trust the process. When we plant seeds, we know some may not survive to see the light, but we also trust that the soil and sun will do their part, and that the seed knows what it needs to grow.

So I just wanted to say to you, take heart and trust that new things will sprout in your life this year, even if the start has already been slow or painful. I would venture to say that most starts that bear real fruit usually are that way.

holding hands in the backseat

On Sunday night, I rode home from dinner in the backseat. Abby, the 20-month-old of the couple I live with, sat next to me, her carseat facing the back window. I remember when she was just a baby, she would scream during these car rides, and any attempts on my part to soothe her or distract her with play only made her cry louder. So I let her have her space. She probably didn’t need my crazy baby faces so close to hers, or my hands trying to find a sweet spot on her tiny body.

Now she’s a chatty toddler, eagerly pointing out everything new with the two syllables “na –na.” Everything is two syllables. Cracker is “ga-ga.” My name is “Bat-ta.” She says words all the time — to sing to herself, to express what she wants, to make sure she keeps the attention of everyone around her. She says the same words over and over, like she doesn’t care if she sounds like a broken record to everyone around her. During the drive, we saw Christmas lights and she said, “pree ites” (pretty lights) again and again. Then she wanted to dance, and started moving her arms and twisting her tiny body inside of her car seat. In the front seat, her mom put on Christmas music, and I took her hand. We danced with each other for a few measures, and then I let her hand go and looked out the window again at the houses and lights, lost in my own thoughts. “Bat-ta, Bat-ta!” She said my name until I looked at her again, then “more!” She held her hand out, and I took it again. It was tiny and warm, and her palm fit into mine like a head resting on a pillow. Abby put her other thumb in her mouth and looked out the window calmly as we sat holding hands.

These days, children are teaching me so much about relationships. Having lived more than thirty years, I know now that loneliness isn’t easy to escape, and sometimes I figure it’s what we’re all eventually destined for. But children are just learning to connect, and they are so much more fearless about it than I am. There’s no second-guessing whether I want to hold their hand, carry them around the house, feel their wriggling in my lap. A few months ago, some friends came to dinner, and when they were getting ready to leave, they prompted their four-year-old son to say goodbye and thank you. He approached me and gave me a hug, and then he didn’t let go. I felt a bit awkward — not because I don’t love this kid or his hugs, but because it was so unexpected, and so out of the ordinary for me.  I know these kids are really reaching out for their own needs to be met, to feel loved and comforted and connected, but I have to wonder if they know how much love they are giving to adults, how many hearts their tiny bodies are healing, how they are showing us to connect again.

trying something new

"How do you feel about being tall?” he asked. We were on our first date together, and we hadn’t even been seated at our table yet.

“Wow, you’re just going for it,” I said, trying to smile and make light of his question. I looked awkwardly around the busy restaurant and willed the host to come back and rescue me from having to answer. Then, causally, “I mean, I don’t really think about it all that much.” 

That was a lie. I thought about it all the time. It was hard not to. People are always trying to reconcile my height with my gender, and so am I. When I ride the elevator at my office building and the doors open to allow new guests to join us, they without fail look down at my feet. I think my heels only partially satisfy their curiosity. Growing up, I was asked about basketball all the time. Today I know I played in part so I would have an answer to everyone’s question. And now, dating in Southern California, half the men aren’t even options because I want to be able to at least look my husband in the eye. At 5’11”, I’m more often peering at the bald spot men are trying to deny. Or looking over their heads.

My date was tall, and offered a generous smile. “I’ve never dated a girl as tall as you.” 

It took me a second to register that this wasn’t a judgment, but a simple fact. The host came and led us to our table, where we sat next to each other, our bodies slowly reflecting our openness to each other. I was glad to know we were both trying something new.

permission

Follow your own weirdness. - Annie Dillard

Thank you, Annie.