Lord of the Rings

Gavin and and I are watching Lord of the Rings tonight and it remined me of my senior year of high school when i was deathly ill with mono and somehow convinced mom and dad to let me go see the midnight showing of this movie with Andy and, I believe, Mark Holyfield. Afterwards i couldn't even go to sleep because i was so profoundly impacted by some of the themes in the film. I can rememeber sitting in my bed at 4:30 in the morning, puffy and swollen from the mono, totally energized by the idea that we as people of God are part of a bigger story...a story that is far beyond our own imagining...My senior year in particular i felt really antsy and wrote a lot of poems about adventures and traveling and experiencing something totally "other". So the bigger purpose that little Frodo was meant to do struck a chord in me i guess.

memory of the day

today, all day, in every class, i remembered that i hate school There you go, hows that for nostalgia.

Sometime in the sixth grade

My next memory comes to you from a time in my life when i was in love with Blake Atchison. I remember venturing out into our woods behind the house, with mom's hunter green barn coat on...( i loved that coat, i think it made me feel rustic) taking my journal out there (pretty sure it was drizzly and gray which really helped set the tone.) I began to write poetry. Sappy, dramatic poetry that was way more intense than my actual feelings for Blake. I sat writing, imagining a tragic life filled with deep sorrow and great joy that ended with me dying in Blake's arms just as he realizes he loves me, when suddenly i spotted a large flat rock on the ground! Nothing like etching your love in stone, thought i, so i etched into the rock " I Love Blake". I felt somehow like this validated my 'love' for him...i must really mean it if i am willing to carve it in stone...

A few months later, Joseph found it in the woods and made fun of me for it...which i deserved. Oh yea, and i really did write a short story about me dying Blake's arms...only it was set in the 1700's, and i am pretty sure i borrowed a lot of the plot from Sense and Sensibility.

September 1993

This first memory was conjured up because of the beautiful fall day today...Beautiful, but sometimes fall can make me feel, as Gavin would say, "achy."
It was the day that Becca left for Auburn. well, I can't really remember if it was the actual day she left, or at some point during the time that mom and dad were away taking her. I was staying with the Gilmans i think. I was wearing my purple basketball t-shirt and heading to the Festival of the Arts in the back of the Gilman's fifteen passenger van. I remember Cassie trying to talk to me about what boys did i think would be at the Festival...(which was most definitely the social highlight of the year for us at that point in life.) Anyways, it is a bit of a sad image because i remember so vividly turning my head toward the window, and trying to hide the fact that i was crying. It was the time of day, four or five in the afternoon, in which the lighting has always felt very meloncholy to me. I remember feeling so isolated, and resenting all my friends who wouldn't care. Sad day. Hopefully these all won't be sad.

The memory project

Today when i was driving, i caught a glimpse of my hair in the rearview mirror...it was totally greasy and gross and i had this flash of a memory of what my hair looked like in the sixth grade...waaay too long, butt cut (which are kinda back in), and usually topped with a backwards hat. I also got a bit of a warm fuzzy thinking about mom's gracious parenting in not forcing me to cut it...or for that matter, drop the soccer shoes, loose the the knee high athletic socks, and take off one of my five t-shirts. Maybe she comforted herself with the knowledge that she had four more daughters... Anyway, it gave me the idea to start blogging about random memories. No real rhyme or reason to it, just memories as they come to me. They may be full blown stories, or just little moments, or smells that evoke certain feelings. Enjoy.

I often wonder about technology. I know that it is a good thing, but it feels very often like too much of a good thing. With texting and facebook and all that jazz, it sometimes feels like we are making ourselves into caricatures of ourselves. We have so much control over what we put out into the universe as far as pictures and quotes and status updates...we can make the general population believe whatever we want about us. I have a facebook and i post to pictures and i like to see other peoples pictures so i am not separating myself, but i wonder if, as a whole, we are robbing ourselves of real connection with people. It's easy to only be half engaged with an email conversation, easier still with a wall post, or a text, or a status update. None of them require very much of us. You could very easily go an entire week and not have a single face to face conversation, or even telephone, conversation with anyone and still exchange words and information and be "in the loop". We don't have texting and I have very specific reasons for not wanting it. Let me say right off that i agree that it is convenient. I agree that at times it would be nice to just text someone late at night something i forgot to tell them and know that they would receive it the next morning. Or that it would be nice at times to text gavin at work some little thing he needs to know instead of having to call him. However, the benefits do not outweigh the downfalls. Texting means, in my experience, that you are accessible a lot of the time. It means that your phone is buzzing or beeping or vibrating A LOT, so that, even if you don't respond, even if you don't check it right away, your brain is forced into yet another place in space and time. It also means that you can get your thought or question out as instantaneously as you would like without ever having to speak to another human being.

I have been thinking a lot about connection. About being engaged with people and my own heart. About allowing myself to enter into the world instead of float around it distracted and catatonic. People don't know how to talk to one another. Go out to eat somewhere and notice all the couples and friends and family with their phones out. No one looks up. I am not so cynical as to think that it's because deep down all these people have crappy marriages or friendships (although they might). I just think everyone is so afraid they are going to miss something. We are addicted to information. We know a lot. We retain a lot. But i think that a lot of people are sacrificing some real connection. Now I know what everyone is thinking: People have always struggled to really connect. It is part of human nature to want to retreat into oneself, or find a vice for distraction, or keep vulnerability out of the picture. I totally know that... It is part of the curse of sin that we revile community and yet crave it so much. And i also know that throughout history there have been different hurdles and roadblocks that stood in the way of human connection. But what is dangerous about the overflow of technology is that it presents an illusion of connection. Most people feel that they are connected. But i would venture that though they are surrounded, they are not connected.

Part of the reason i feel passionate about this, is because i know how prone i am to distraction and to not being really engaged where i am. I barrel through a lot and come out on the other side realizing i have no idea what hit me. But Acting, I have tie it in somehow, is all about being able to connect. It is all about being able to slow down and find some way to make a piece real. I am not talking about method acting. I am talking about being able to reel your mind in and to focus. I have been moved to tears on several occasions in some of the workshopping we have done in classes...not because i relate directly to a character or a monolouge, although there is that as well. But because i can find what is common and human about that character. You have to be able to delve into the reality of the show so you can breathe life into it. This might sound stupid, and i don't really know how else to explain it, except to say that i have learned how callous my heart often is...how many barriers i have put around it so that i won't have to go to certain places emotionally. But since i began doing more intense work in acting, i have found my heart more tender in general. I feel a lot more fragile in many ways, but i also feel more solid than i have ever felt. Part of that is doing what i believe i was created to do (at least for now). And part of it, as stupid and sappy as it sounds, is learning to really engage with own heart and by extension, others hearts.

This might all sound silly, but i don't really care because i am learning that there are things that are opaque. not everything can be seen through and laughed off, or shrugged off. Not everyone can be satisfied with a pithy facebook wall post. Sometimes they are great and a perfect little reminder that someone is thinking of you- but sometimes i find they can be a substitute for a desire to really connect with the person. So instead of calling and saying hey thinking of you...or emailing, or even sending a message we half-ass it with an abbreviated two lines of something. we can check it off our mental list, but in actuality there has been very little relationship involved.

Ok, i am done. I am off my soapbox. There are so many qualifiers and disclaimers i want to insert but i won't. I am not even going to proofread this. I usually don't anyways, hence the many spelling and grammatical errors. (sorry beth ann.)

Yesterday morning, Gavin was ironing while i was eating breakfast in a disgruntled manner, (i'm sure you have no idea what i am talking about) and he said "tell me your problems and i am going to act like a black maid in the deep south." So then i said, not seriously of course "I hate you"...and he said (in a rather convincing accent, as he swiped the iron over his clean white shirt) "honey, you just need to foget about that man before he makes you unhappy." If he hadn't been a pasty red headed man i might have believed he was mammy from gone with the wind. We had just watched "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" so i think he was feeling inspired. It was hilarious.