On surviving the return to normality

After four month living and studying in the UK, I've been back in America for one month.  The readjustment has not been easy, and I'm sad to realize how quickly I've fallen back into the monotonous patterns of day-to-day existence.  I was spoiled with almost constant stimulation: literature, theatre, conversation, and an ever-shifting environment acted like a giant poking stick tapping me on the head saying, "Hey you! Wake up!  There's a hell of a world out here, let's go!"  It's terribly dangerous (and expensive) to rely on poking sticks like a trip to Europe, or even to the theatre, for that spark of joie de vivre.  But once you've experienced the reality of a Thoreau-ian mentality by living deliberately, and have sucked the marrow of every moment, it's pretty impossible to go back to a life that feels uneventful and unchallenging.  In the four months I spent in the UK, I glutted myself on every poem, every play, every person, and every place I encountered.  Now I've come home mentally fat and sleepy, like after a big Thanksgiving dinner when all you want to do is nap in the warm haze of a full belly.  I'm left with the leftovers, memories whose flavors develop with age to be different, but still delicious.  

Yesterday, I was craving a nice poetry-sandwich, so I pulled my book of T.S. Eliot off the shelf: one of the poets who truly came to life for me last semester as I visited the places that inspired his work.  As I read his Four Quartets, crowded on the page by my enthusiastic underlinging and marginalia, I was back in that drafty church in the English countryside, reading the poem out loud with the dear friends who walked the road with me.  We laughed at the new irony of the line "If you came this way taking the route you would be likely to take" after we'd gotten terribly lost on the way to Little Gidding.  That was one of the days I almost took for granted.  It was another long ride on a coach with clashing rainbow colored seats to another literary landmark that meant getting out in the cold; we were tired and grumpy for some reason or another, maybe lack of sleep from one of those dawn deadlines for an essay.   But in that church, for me at least, the union of the poetry and the place and the people cut so deep I could feel it heavy in my gut and light in my head.

Parts of the poem rang out like a vague narration of our trip; one line specifically hung in the air like the memory of the last notes of a trumpet call: "You are not here to verify, instruct yourself, or inform curiosity, or carry report.  You are here to kneel where prayers has been valid...Here the intersection of the timeless moment is England and nowhere.  Never and always."  It felt like our anthem.  Yes, we were students on a college semester abroad learning about literature and theatre, so of course we were verifying, instructing, informing, and reporting like crazy.  But that was not why we were there.  It was for the timeless moments like that one in Little Gidding, which will never happen again but that we will always carry and that we will return to just by opening up an old book.  

After we finished reading the poem, the group filtered out to explore the grounds, while a few of us stayed in the tiny church, touching the stained glass and kneeling at the alter, where Eliot promised that prayers had been valid.  That was one of the rare and beautiful times in my life where I prayed with every ounce of my self, but not words.  And I knew it was valid. 

We came together again to eat lunch in the main house.  It was a simple meal in a simple room: soup made from vegetables grown in the garden out back, homeade bread with butter so rich and creamy I was looking outside for the cow, fresh fruit, and a variety of cheeses.  It was all spread out on long tables where we sat on short wooden chairs, with pictures of flowers on the wall and lots of country light streaming in through the windows.  We had eaten together every day for almost three months at that point, and were far past the friendly small talk of our first jet-lagged group meal in Edinburgh.  And yet there was something different at that Little Gidding lunch.  If I had to pin down a moment, I'd say that's when I knew we were family.  It was the easy happiness of watching Ben ask sheepishly for a third helping of soup and Carrie delight in the discovery of improving her meal with crumbled crackers while Elizabeth brooded over the cheese plate; it was the fullness of looking around the room at the bright eyes and smiling faces of people who knew each other in the real way, people who learned and laughed and cried together; and it was the heavy lightness of knowing that, like all beautiful things, that this too would pass. That lunch was more than sharing a meal; it was a time of breaking bread.

 

The addictive element of travel is the sensation that not a moment must be wasted because there is so much to see and do and think and be, and so little time to do it.  The challenge is applying this same mentality to the normal days.  Then the real challenge is realizing that there is no such thing as a normal day.  Every moment is precious and bursting with potential, even the empty-house Mondays in Redding and the middle-of-the-week stressful days when the temptation to shift into auto-pilot is so strong and so habitual that you hardly realize you are doing it.  But stop, look around, breathe.  Thank God that there is more to see and more to learn and more to be, and that he has given us the time to do it.

Love is not wasted on children.

I've spent the majority of my days the last week chasing, controlling, coaching, correcting, challenging, and cheering about 30 kids between the ages of 5 and 13.  For five days I've worked as a counselor and vocal director for the Christian Youth Theatre (CYT) Redding Summer Camp, and I'll admit, I went into the program feeling apprehensive and more than a little unprepared.  For some reason, I've never exactly considered myself a "kid-person."  But the opportunity for this job fell into my lap and the timing couldn't have been better--it's my last week in Redding before I take off for southern California this tuesday for a week to then board a plane to the UK.  If I hadn't had this to occupy my time and thoughts...well, it's just good I had it.  

Going into the week, I knew I would have to release most of my perfectionist tendencies.  The kids were coming to the camp to play silly acting games, sing some songs, learn some dances and make new friends, not to get trained to become the next great Broadway star.  One of the things I took away from directing Spring Sing last year was that I sometimes let my impossibly high standards and ideals take away from the spirit and life of the experience.  And if I couldn't organize a group of college students to materialize my vision in three months of hard work, I'd really have to relax for five days with a group of easily distracted ten year olds.  Directing is about translating vision into hard work that becomes a great production, sure, but this camp brought me back to what drew me to theatre in the first place--the community of eccentric individuals coming together for a common purpose, to create.  The chance for even the most underestimated, shy little girl to step into the spotlight for a short solo that draws applause mid-song.  The drama-queens mentoring the wallflowers, the techies eating with the lead. The cracking of shells and building of confidences.  

As the week went on, the kids became more than bundles of energy to control and name-tags to memorize.  And I watched as I become more to them than a tall person in a grey STAFF shirt.  By the end of the week I knew all their names, but I also knew most of them as people.  Yes, children are people.  Why did this feel like such a revelation?  Hard to harness but easy to love.  Exhausting and exhilarating.  Full of curiosity and innocence and accidental humor.  And killer intuition.  I swear, every moment I felt a bit of stress or frustration creeping up, one of them would be wrapping their arms around me with their nose to my bellybutton--a hug for no reason, just a spontaneous expression of love--and the every negativity would melt away.  Their world lights up with a high five, with a secret extra piece of candy, an endless game of tag where I am always It because they don't like to be caught.  I hope they remember me, Wall-E, the singing teacher with funny warm ups and enough love for all of them.

"Libra in abeyance"

Here, now, I will be as real as Maighread's Wings.

Fellow lonely Libra, 

drowning in anticipation, 

suffocated by expectations, 

seeking comfort in words and balance,

always balance,

in the concrete reassurance of written emotion, murky-thick.

Like me.

I ask you, what could be worse than tipped scales?

Empty ones, perhaps.

But no.

On the left are heavy realities--

dense, gray and ugly; shifty and unnerving.

Compensating on the right are bubble dreams and paper plans;

snowflake memories of complex, fleeting beauty;

whispers of conversations almost had and perfect words almost spoken;

mirages of strange and busy streets and the echoes of exploding energy; 

the aftertaste of self-expression--

subtle, lingering, unidentifiable yet impossible to ignore,

and in the only way that matters, a final impression.

What is it in the aligning specks of light that cranks my wheels so predictably?  

When God punched out the holes in the black construction paper sky, 

His great cosmic Light Brite,

his design must have been so intricate so refined,

far surpassing my neon trees and electric clouds,

to have included all of us in the plan.

He anticipated me. 

And now I anticipate me.

The undiscovered me.  

There are no guarantees and only foggy predictions,

but it will be beautiful.

I am a Libra after all--

I wouldn't couldn't have it any other way.

When the words go away

Where do the words go when they leave?

How can I convince them to return?

Don't they know how much I need them?

It's all the anticipation for inspiration keeping them away--

they must be hibernating, storing up to burst loose in a million tiny explosions of color and sound and life.

The words must have their own makeshift bedroom with a mattress on the floor

in an unfamiliar house in a stranger-filled city

that still manages to feel like home,

at least enough to re-charge before the next great adventure.

But I want them now!

I will force them out however I can:

into neatly divided lists and reminders on post-its--

they really hate it when I confine them so, but it's their own fault for being so useful--

I will torture them with ABABC rhyme schemes of love I haven't felt,

and then I will copy down lyrics to the beautiful old songs my mother sang--

those songs have been everywhere lately, but it's my own fault for being so nostalgic--

I will cover my journal pages with doodles to make the words jealous,

to make them return to reclaim their territory.

And now what do you know,

the only way to make the words come back is to write about them in the quiet of a sleeping house, 

such self-satisfied, nocturnal little creatures--

no wonder we get along so well.

Thank You

Are you still wearing flowers in your hair

in your invisible home?

Do you still teach Shakespeare to sixth graders 

and cast the outcast as the lead?

How long has it been since you have closed your eyes

to listen to the hum hum thud of the heater

and then written about it? 

Invisible homes must have invisible heaters--

hopefully they still make noise for you.

Are you still fighting juvenile vandalism 

with Sherlock Holmes skills 

and a little healthy intimidation?

It worked so well.

Are you still changing lives and directing paths,

fanning sparks and inspiring young minds?

Have you run out of the tube of ruby red lipstick

you wore on the first snow of each year?

You colored the cold world with your smile.

Did you know that I loved him with my whole 11 year old heart

when you arranged the seating chart

to give me a perfect view of the back of his perfect curly head,

the only thing that could distract me from those magical words.  

Do you know that I think about you every time I use a semi-colon;

do you know that I use them a lot?

What you should know, without a doubt,

is that there is a letter for you waiting in my memory box

until the day I find the address to your invisible house 

when it will be promptly mailed to your invisible mailbox,

and you will open it and read it and clearly remember me,

Jessica Drake, your student. 

And then you will know, without a doubt,

that you have made a difference in at least one life

and no matter how much (or how little) they pay you, 

it will not be enough.

Thank you.

Clipped wings

As I write,

I capture winged bits of me 

like birds in cages.

Feathered confessions to be heard 

and lessons to be learned--

not easily captured, or created to be,

but so captivating up close.

They sing back my song, my story

whistle whistle chirp chirp 

an imperfect mimic to my true melody.

This Soul is more free than these flying things,

but humanity has clipped my wings.

Witness my desperate, fluttering attempt to soar 

as I know in my birdie bones I was born to!

Please don't fill my cage with cheap plastic toys

and ladders that lead nowhere

and bells that can only make heartless noise.

Don't antagonize me, you bird brain.

From my corner cage, I can hear the rain on the window pane

and smell the wild air that leaks through door cracks.

I catch glimpses of the horizon 

and sense the changing of the wind.

On clipped wings I will fly,

there is no stopping me.

Clap ON, Clap OFF

OFF:

Stubed toes, dropped dishes, too much sleep, not enough sleep, lack of purpose, silent phones, empty mailboxes, slowly growing apart, monotony, forgetting names, rude waiters, hot weather, paper cuts, bicycles and those who ride them recklessly, ignorant expectations, narrow minded opinions and those who have them, shoes I can't afford, chemistry and those who understand and enjoy it, writer's block, canvas anxiety, fruity teas, off-beat clapping, out-of-key singing, big dogs and small children who slobber, small dogs and small children who make too much noise, walking barefoot in wet grass, conflict, twisted sock seams, complacency, the expected.

ON:

New haircuts, curtain calls, the last page of a great book, captivating first sentences, old bookstore smell, working under pressure, the perfect cappucino, colorful art on white gallery walls, scarves, boots, friendships that never change despite distance and time, ordering without a menu, self-expressive fashion, wit, exchanging eyes with handsome strangers, cleaning and organizing to my favorite soundtrack, arguing a point I don't really care about because I'm bored, winning those arguments, foreign accents, crosswalk kisses, seeming impossibilities, scandalous insinuations, original metaphors, truth, obvious exaggeration, spontaneous literary references.