A Tone Deaf Talent

Lately I have started to wonder about my skills as a writer and whether or not they are for real… My writing and I have been complemented and challenged, praised and flat-out dissed. But the mixture of this feedback still hasn’t helped me know whether or not I’ve actually got something here in these typing hands of mine.

I’m not sure, but I think I might be slightly tone-deaf when it comes to putting words on paper. There are (rare) times when I will write something that sounds perfect. I can read it to myself numerously and still only hear that certain form of perfection only good books are known for. I hear every word as it’s supposed to be, lyrical. I feel every emotion like the sting of a paper cut or the bliss of cold drink. I recognize myself as being simply written and truly understood. But then I show someone this bit of written glory and I find that the jokes on me.

The words are misspelled and there are far too many commas. The notes fall flat and the record starts to skip. The humor isn’t funny and the rest could be in a romance novel it’s just that cheesy and forced.

So what happened? Where did I go wrong? When did things start sounding so off? Did they ever sound good? Now I’ve touched on this before but that was for a feeling just a bit different from the one I’m having now. What I feel is a slightly irritated curiosity.

Am I the clueless one or am I just showing my stuff to the wrong people? To the people who are predisposed to “politeness” rather than honesty, and to comparisons rather than objectivity?

I think what is really happening here is that my passion out weighs my abilities. I don’t yet have the skills to translate myself into a language that more can understand and take from. I still need to harness my voice, and then learn where to put the blessed comma!

I’m not making any excuses for what y’all are reading. I think it’s okay to be misunderstood, to have what we think as the best of us seen as just your everyday scribbling’s. Right now I’m choosing to think of my present writing as almost being where I want to be. Of being closer, instead of farther away, from my goals. I am determined to hit my notes right.

One way or the other, a tune shall be heard.

Anything Could Happen?

There’s this certain level of tragedy that comes with never having had a boyfriend. It’s made all the worse when you are the kind of shy and self-conscious that I am. The combination of these things usually means that anything, and I mean anything, could and can, be seen as meaning “something”. Like, “Oh he looked at me! Do you think he’s interested?” This than boils down to, “Do you think he’s looking at me? He keeps looking over here… There isn’t some hot chick behind me is there?” *quickly checks while trying to be subtle* “No, no there’s no one behind me…” Minutes or hours pass by leading you to this, “He’s still looking over here. He’s way too attractive to be looking at me… Oh no!!! Is there food on my face??? Has my hair turned into a static monster? Has my bra shifted making my boobs appear lopsided? Now he’s talking too so and so, has he been told things that I’d rather have die with me than ever see the light of day?!?! Is that why he’s looking at me???” It all sort of gets worse from there.

Yes, having only ever had “almost’s” starts to mess with your head. You wish you had the courage not to care what anyone thinks and the guts to just pull back your shoulders with confidence, and with no guile of advertisement. The simple ability to speak, to say anything funny and unique, is desperately wished for. To just do something without being taken over by the self protecting and resting, bitch face, is all I ask.

In such moments I usually pray to God to quite my stomach, and then ask Jesus to give the guy in question, the whatever he needs in order to follow through with his numerous glances. But clearly I don’t know how any of this works. For all I know he could have just found the wall behind my head to be incredibly interesting. Maybe I was just the place one looks when they are trying to think or remember something? My Mom does that all time. Or maybe I really did have something on my face…

Over time I have learned to expect that there was nothing to any of these such “encounters”, because the disappointment is too much to swallow. And if you aren’t careful a “not yet” can start to look a lot like a “not ever”.

But I have to hand it to the decent and kind young men of today’s world. Being the ones expected to make the first move can’t be an easy thing. It takes a lot to put yourself out there and to risk a shut out and a hell no, in hopes of a yes. I certainty can’t do it. Not yet anyway.

Every girl I know, including myself, would like to be pursued. To know that they are worth some ones romantic attentions and energy. I’m not saying that it’s right to put all that pressure and all those expectations on the initiation of a relationship, but it still would be nice to have someone walk on over and start a conversation with me. It’s scary and a little more than unnerving putting yourself out there, but it only takes one, if it’s the right one, to make it worth the risk.

Really anything could happen, and just because the tall guy in the corner hasn’t said anything yet, doesn’t mean that no guy ever will. So take courage! Check your face in the mirror, pat down your hair, adjust your bra and calm the heck down. Maybe he’ll come over and say hi, or maybe he won’t. Whatever you do be kind to him and to yourself because no one like’s a hell no, and everyone is a little nervous.

Ending Before I’m Finished…

The end of the world. As a Christian this hasn’t been an idea that I’ve taken lightly, but it’s also been something that I’ve occasionally found infuriating.

I know that the world has already “ended” about a thousand times. People with their signs trying to warn you. Apocalyptic movies, Armageddon calendars. Quick sand, black holes, the burning up world with it’s over heating sun. So many people seem so ready to let go of it all, as Christian’s they want to welcome Jesus with open arms. Everyone is shouting for the end as parts of the world continue to fry and hurt and attack. It’s a loud noise in my head but all I want is to hold on.

I don’t know why they’re so ready, why they seem so excited. It makes me feel like a bad Christian. I’m supposed to want to go to heaven, to want to be free and whole and safe and with my savior… but this is what I know. Every time someone says come Jesus come, I think about how old these people usually are. They’ve lived, they’ve done things, they’ve had the chance to grow up and to get older. They have knees that ache and stories that teach. It’s all of this that makes me angry. I don’t think about how they’ve had all these chances and still they choose to let them go in hopes of going home. Instead I think about how I haven’t had these chances. I still have so much to do and so much height and space to fill and grow into. I think about me instead of thinking about God.

I think about what I know.

It could just be a matter of trust, when you pick a faith you have to trust it, you have to trust every part of it. No changing, no erasing, it’s all or nothing. You don’t have to always agree or understand, but you keep choosing to trust, or you don’t. You could just stop.

I don’t fully trust that the things beyond my comprehension and beyond my imagination are worth more than the things physically around me. I don’t fully trust that when I let go I’ll be caught. It’s hard to hear how the people around me all want to let go of what I desperately want to keep. It seems easy for them, after all, most of them have fallen in love or have chosen not to…

It’s selfish I know, but I don’t want to go. I want to stay within the grasp of my imagination, where the best and the worst have already been thought of, have already been felt by somebody else. I need to let go and to trust that what has been prepared is infinitely better, is complete, and is selfless. I want more, but I need to be okay with what I’ve had in case it’s all I ever get.

At some point the world will end, I’ll stop, we’ll stop. Whether or not it’s a complete breaking, or just a simple fading away, we’ll all have to say good-bye. As a person of faith I know I’ll be okay, but as just me from the small and hungry little spot I know that I’ll miss this. I’ll miss all of this and every chance I could have gotten and expected to find.

Even though their eagerness offends me I can still see that there is a love out there that is worth more than all of this. Even worth the good byes and the burning away of every “should have” and “yet to”.

I have to do my best to trust in what I’ve chosen and to forgive and ignore everyone else’s hurrying on.

I don’t want to go. I don’t want to stop being here. But I know I can’t stay forever and that’s okay. Just not yet, please not yet. Stay a little longer and lend me just a bit more time to be okay. To be content.

Wait.

Another Kind Of Green

This isn’t something I like to admit, but odd enough it’s easier to put it out into the void. Easier to let complete strangers know about the inner turmoil then try to explain it to family and have it seen for what it really is, and with the kind of sympathy you know is false.

When strangers are rude you can call them what you like and move on. It’s not as if they really know you or have witnessed your life being lived. But when it’s your family, people who should ideally know you pretty well, the criticism can be hard not to take seriously.
And so I will admit here that I continue to struggle with creative jealously.

It really bugs me and rubs me the wrong way when I see how much support and interest there seems to be surrounding a family member of mine’s writing. It bugs me because they all say the same thing, how it’s great and how it breaks their heart, and then they proceed to either cry or say how they’re about to. And of course I feel like a jerk the moment my neck starts to turn green and my ears begin to burn red. My mind floods with thoughts on how they’re just saying this to be nice, like the family members who tell their tone-deaf children that they can really sing. Thank you American Idol and all those “well-meaning” parents, for creating some painful TV.

Back to me and my issue: I mean really, that made you cry??? This overly romantic retelling of something we all know about makes you want to burst into tears? Sure it’s faster than watching Pearl Harbor but come on.

It pretty much all boils up beneath my thin surfaces and pushes past every warning line I have. It’s then that I remind myself of a few things. Selfishly I think about how this person’s previous learning disability is still being struggled with and how it makes everything they do and accomplish so much more attractive. It casts a rose-colored light over everything that I see in black and white… and green. “Selflessly” I think that it’s okay to not be the best at everything I do, even if it means that a sibling gets to do better.

Another part of this that makes it all so silly and so much harder, is that they actually show their writing to others. They dish it out. They bring it up at ever freak-en get together we have. I swear, this thing will probably be passed around for the next three years.

Back to trying not to be a comparing jerk…

Selfishly I want to be the best. I want to be the one who writes great things that are honest and to the point, but also filled with art and truth. I want to be the one that doesn’t cringe with pain at the thought of showing my critical family members what I have created. I’m desperately afraid that anything I show them will be compared to another’s. Compared to someone who has already been heard and romanticized.

I don’t want to hear the lists of my faults from the same mouths that have praised something that seems to me to be filled with holes.

Yes there is talent in this person, yes they have overcome much to get and be where they are, and yes, I love them. But there is always a “but”, and it comes to me when the desires that I have to be great, to be heard, and to be seen as truly talented, get in the way.

I need to learn that I shouldn’t compare myself, especially to family. I need to figure out a way to show myself without fear to the people who are “supposed” to know me. Or to just be okay with others being thought of as better, whether or not they actually are… Till then I’ll just be honest on here and try not to complain.

A Dandy Day In The Country

 

 

We have gotten so much rain in my little part of the world that it’s starting to get ridiculous. But as far as I know no one is complaining.

The upside to this is that everything is green. It’s all lush and alive. The down side to this is that I can’t go out side without coming back into the house with five or ten itchy bug bites.

Another down side could be the lovely grove of dandelions out back. But I like them.

I love living in the country. Fewer people more privacy, less noise more peace. Being surrounded by a shelter belt of trees, and fields that are now growing an abundance of peas, is wonderfully refreshing. And when it’s all gone brown and the fields have been cleared, we’ll have hundreds of thousands of geese coming in for a visit. And probably a few armed Americans will also be flocking to our doorstep. Luckily the people who farm the fields are not overly fond of hunters, at least not the ones who aren’t somehow related to them.

I don’t mind the sound of gunshots in the distance, the sound of rapid or lazy fire between the cries of our grey and white birds. While I always hope that they’ll miss their target’s, I can acknowledge that hunting, when regulated, helps keep the herds and flocks healthy.

Probably one of the greatest things I’ve seen when it comes to these fields filled with geese, is when our two dogs decided to investigate the strange sheets of speckled white. They seemed to just reach the very edge of this mass of birds before the whole flock took flight in a wave.

The sky was flooded with birds, so many that for a second I couldn’t see any blue. The dogs were having a blast, and with every burst of their excited energy, a new wave of birds hurried up and away.

I like that about the country, it has more freedom to it. I can walk around in pajamas without feeling like a social disease. I can leave my windows open all night and only hear the coyotes instead of the pathetic drunken brawls. I can plant something where ever I want. I can have two loud dogs with no worries or cares about what anyone might think. And I can have great neighbors without really having neighbors.

Someday down the road I’ll probably live in a city. It could be in Canada, America, or anywhere else in the world, but I will always be thankful that I got to live here in this time. Here in the land of overgrown grass and aged trees. Here where the birds come to visit, and here where there’s privacy and where dandelions grow free.

Something Borrowed And Something Blue…

My best friend of 15 years got married. July 19th will always be the day that I will remember as seeing my dear friend’s life change forever, and I pray, for a new kind of better.

I expected to cry or to feel weird, but instead I just sat there quietly in the back and strained to hear the promises being made. I watched through the rows of still figures as the pieces of my friend spoke and smiled. She held on tight to her groom while I explained his sense of humor to my parents.

It was a beautiful day. The green, blue, and bright yellow fields all around us made everything feel right, like it was always going to happen this way. There under a cloudy sky that held back its rain till just the right moment. There, surrounded be people new and known, I said a silent goodbye.

When you are friends that long and have somehow managed to pick right back up after months of radio silence, it changes you. I think it makes you better. I got to see her grow up, I got to watch some, if not all, of the changes.

I was surprised by her choices and stunned by our differences when I finally realized how much had really changed. She went to university while I went off to Hawaii. She has a Semester left and I have a plan to go to Scotland in the fall. She has a husband and I have never been kissed. We are becoming ourselves all at different times and in unexpected ways, and it’s a little freaky.

The twinge of jealously did hit me when I thought about how her white picket fence might be a bit more established then my own. But now I’m not sure what I think or feel. Happy for her and the person she has chosen. Surprised that we’re old enough to actually know that we want to be married and to live an ever after story line, that we hope will be a happy one. I was jealous that she found her person so soon, but I understand now that we’re really just that kind of different.

We’re the kind of different that takes some time to play out. The kind of different where even though I have adopted many of her mannerisms as my own, I am still undeniably my own. Therefore I surprise myself even more than she does.

I spent her day quietly in the background and watched as the people moved around her in small and talkative swirls. I smiled and thought about how great it was to be able to be there for her. Sure it was in ways smaller than they ought to have been, but they will always be important to me.

I almost left without saying goodbye, without saying anything. But as I got to the door I knew that my fading out wasn’t right. I walked back in and somehow managed to interrupt the swirl by lightly and childishly pinching her arm.

She was beautiful.

When she turned around she smiled and said, “There you are.”

Maybe we’ll always be able to pick up where we left off. Maybe she’ll only ever be a phone call away. Whatever our maybe ends up being, I’m so glad that I had her and that I said goodbye.

Teary Eyed Hopes

I cried. A lot. Not a little and not for a short period of time, but for an hour till my eyes went red and puffy. It wasn’t happy tears either, it was all hormonal and overwhelmed salt water. It was a surprise preceded by a long list of complicated horrors. Visas.
So many steps, all those bits of paper, and a sudden need to be in two places at once and get things done. Fast. Ugh. All of this took over any kind of excitement that I ought to have felt. I freaked out and it took making dinner with my Mom to calm me down. Spinach salad with strawberries and then some barbecued steak, clearly my life is not a bad one.

Any way, all of this melting down lead me to fully appreciate a quote that a friend posted on Facebook.

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”

At some point I had made the choice to be a brave person. I decided to take risks and to try new things even if they were scary. The problem is that you have to make these choices over and over again.

I could just decide to play things safe and to go about my day doing little things here and there, things that don’t involve visas and planes. But it’s the “scary” stuff that fires up my dreams. It’s the things that despite all the paper work and grumpy customs people, cause and strengthens my hopes.

We should all at least try to be brave and to do the things we want to do even though the “safety” seems to have less shadows and sneaky monsters. But it’s the monsters that give you the chance to wield swords and be all epic and, shiny…

Any way, panic and crazy lady tears aside, I’m looking forward to this next adventure.It’s a chance to choose to be brave. Again.

When White Isn’t All There Is

When I was a kid I grew up in a world that seemed very small, probably because it was. The town had some variety in people and in cultures, but really there were only two groups. There where the First Nation’s and then there where the whites.

I didn’t really know what the difference was. I mean, I was obviously very pale in comparison, but it never really bothered me. I had loads of fun jumping on the trampoline with my not white buddies. Pizza parties, bead crafts, mosquito killin, it was all a good time. And then we moved, and then we moved two more times after that.

The place we finally settled in had no variety in skin tone. There was a family originally from China who ran the A-1 restaurant in town, but that was it. The whiteness was everywhere. So the first time I saw a black person (the first time I remember seeing a black person) was just amazing. 

I was seven years old and just standing in a Wall-Mart when suddenly my world changed. A family with wondrous dark brown skin walked by and my mouth dropped. And in the perfectly innocent rudeness of young children, I reacted. I pointed my little hand and pulled at my Mom with the other. I then whispered in her ear “Look Mom!” I can’t remember how she responded, I think she just said something like “yes dear” and then pulled me along. My mind was blown. My brain wrinkled. You mean not all people are white or tan? Where had these chocolate people been all my life? How had I missed out on this fantasticness?

Now really the first time I saw a black person was in an Olive Garden when I was a baby. The man was eating alone at a table behind the booth that my family was sitting in. Every few seconds I’d stand up and look over at him and flirt shamelessly. Babies. It’s one of my parent’s favorite stories of me. How I laughed and giggled, smiled and winked at the lonely stranger.

Basically my first two experiences of seeing people with skin much darker than my own, have in some way been life changing. I think that says a lot. It’s also pretty sad how these “sightings” of not white people, are still fairly rare occurrences. Like Rainbows.

Admittedly I don’t get very excited anymore, but I still take notice. I’m so glad we aren’t all the same, but I wish we could be as fascinated by each-other as I was when I was a baby and then again when I was 7. Why not get excited? Why not have something positive to say? I still enjoy comparing my milkyness to a friend’s deep chocolate. We’re like opposite sides of a colour gradient, and it’s awesome.    

Anywho, I basically just think that Canadian small towns are in real need of black people, or really just any people who aren’t white. (At least the town I live in is in need of diversity.) And rainbows, we could really use some more refraction and dispersion of the sun’s light, by rain or other water droplets in the atmosphere… both would be really nice. 

The Sweet and Soured Sting

“Write long and hard about what hurts.”

Those words strung together by Ernest Hemingway, continue to strike me. His reasons for what he said are far different then my reasons for listening to him. But pain is pain, and sometimes to get rid of it, you need to purge it onto paper. At least I do.

My characters might expose each-other for the lack of faithfulness I myself have experienced. A tear filled night or an angry slap, might turn into a sketch with harsh and dark lines. But these creations inspired by shadowy moments, can serve a greater purpose then just cleaning out your mind. They can help you show light.

Pain is needed to understand joy.

As unfortunate as it might be, we learn from making comparisons. We compare one experience to another and choose the more desirable. We weigh the value of these experiences in terms of how few and far a part they might be. Of how they might make us feel.

Detailing every pang and harsh word till the meaning they had is solidified in your mind, is not something I recommend allowing. Instead, creating from a place that is bruised, can give you a chance to watch the pain seep into the page. Sometimes the seeping makes the memory turn pale and faded, and suddenly you have more power over it, then it of you.

Other times you let them die on their own, no funeral, no fan fare, just a steady lacking of thought.

Sweet and sour, how oddly the two seem to go hand in hand, especially in my art.

Adoption

To me adoption just makes sense. It’s easy for me to understand loving someone who is already here, to make them part of your family. I understand it more then choosing to stay solely within your own reproduction capabilities. To love only who you yourself have created.

Love is a choice. We choose to love our spouses, our partners, our what ever you choose to call them. We even choose to love our friends, we keep them, we fight for them, we do our best not to let them go. To me adopting and choosing to love a child, is no different then your choice to love the person you have promised to spend your life with.

You pick someone, they become yours.

I was told once that if every Christian in the world were to adopt a child, their would be no more orphans. No one would be left without family, without a real sense of home and belonging. Whether or not that is true I can’t say. It does sound a bit extreme, and it could be easily picked apart with a few questions. But if it’s true, then what are we doing?

Anyone who believes that Jesus Christ is their Savior, has been called to love others.

   “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” – James 1:27 

We have been called to care, to claim the lost, to comfort those in need. We ourselves have been adopted. We have been found. 

¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry,“Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

– Romans 8: 14-16

Why then do so many of us stick with the confines of our own genes? Why do we restrict ourselves to the passing on of our DNA? We could do and be so much more! We could love as we are loved.

Now admittedly I don’t know if I will ever have kids, but that is because I don’t know if I will ever get married. As much as I would like to (off and on). But I can see that becoming a parent is a huge sacrifice. A sacrifice of your time, of your energy, really a sacrifice of all of everything that you are. It’s not something that is easily done.  

But, if life happens in ways I both think, and hope, (and don’t expect) that it will, then I want to be one of the few that have both biological children and spiritual children. Children that have all been chosen, have all been claimed. 

When I picture a family of my own I see a little league of nations. I see kids from India, Africa, Russia and China. I see my family spanning across the continents, much like the friends that I hold dear. I think about how they would be raised, the languages that would be spoken, the cultures I would try to somehow keep alive. Would we travel to each country once they were old enough to really appreciate it? Would we be able to show them where they came from? Would we find their birth parents? Would the kids feel like they belong with me, even if they don’t look like me? Will they be able to love me and to keep choosing to love me, even after every question is asked and answered?

It’s a lot to think about, and then of course there’s the money part of it all. The paper work, the rightness and wrongness of taking a child from their “world”, from the people they resemble, out of their culture and far from their origins. And then there’s The waiting…

As young as I am, and as scary as I believe it all to be, part of me would still like to have a big and roaring family. A group of people I have chosen to love.

If you can choose to love a friend, and choose to love a spouse, if you can choose to love anyone that doesn’t share in the same biological pieces and strings that make you, you, then why not choose to love a child too?