Important Papers

my mother has recently decided to go through a few boxes of papers. Files of “Important Papers” that have been sitting in their designated stack next to however many other stacks of “important papers” are being sorted through, and for the most part, ceremoniously disposed of. “whats the point of keeping this if i never look in the right place to find it anyway?”

so now, we have a few bags full of shredded paper, a recycle bin full of other papers slightly less secure, and a quarter of our kitchen floor is a few pages deep in the really important stuff. the folder from when my parents bought their first house in bakersfield, with all the stuff from when they ordered furniture from my grandpa. a phone list from “the young marrieds group”, most of whom i recognized and we’re still friends with. A whole lot of curriculum for various things, because apparently, before the whole internet phenomenon, you had to keep a copy of anything you found that you would want to use again ever.

I also received my fair share of parenting tips, through a variety of handouts and photocopied clippings that my mom had picked up throughout the years. I think I’ll do alright as a parent, whenever that day may be (not any time soon, lol). Working in the kindergarten class, and then babysitting for a two-year-old and her 10 month old brother has kinda made me kid hungry as of late. or maybe just kid appreciating.

Aside from the various drawings and stampings that had my name attached, and other than the growth chart from when i was a baby (I was one big baby, topside of the curve for the first 18 months), the most personal “important papers” i’ve seen all day have been things that my grandmother has written.

First I read an article she wrote about our good friend Marsha, who, although blind, can apparently play softball quite well, and also learned to folk dance from my grandmother, who the article goes on to explain, learned a great deal on articulating exact directions for Marsha. My grandma Lola’s writing style is so warming to read. She’s very exact and often puts notes in parentheses to better explain exactly what it was she meant (or explain extenuating circumstances). She also had a huge vocabulary.

The best thing I read today though, was written single spaced on orange paper and was about 4 pages long. It was my grandma Lola telling the life story of her beloved eduardo (my poppa ed). Their life together (mostly before they had kids) was one huge adventure over another. She was best friends with his sister Lucille, and they spent their early adulthood going from college to college teaching PE together, and apparently working at donut stores. Ed Owensby was in the army during World War II as a radio technician, staying in the states going from airfield to airfield. He would come visit his sister when he could, and started dating my grandma too.

Its so funny to read about them necking in hollywood bowl during Brahms. actually quite hillarious.

They dated for a really long time, whenever they could. After WWII ended, my grandpa took advantage of the GI Bill and was an academic loafer, studying in New Mexico, and then Mexico City. It was in Mexico City that they eventually got married, but even after that, my grandma came back to the states to teach and migrate with Lucille. It was like 2 years before they could figure out a way to live in the same city at the same time. Then they spent a few years in Europe together. Paris for the longest part, but they took trips all over together.

Throughout my gramma’s narrative, she inserts little excerpts from his letters to her. My mom says that one of the things that my grandma did after papa ed died was that she spent months transcribing all the letters that he had sent her. I’m kind of curious now, and I really want to read them.

I really kinda wish I hadn’t spent my whole life petrified by my grandma Lola. I know living a vagabond gypsy life has a tendency to be very fickle, and I know they had money shortages when older, but i want to know that “pepper” that my papa ed (whom i only vaguely remember in his pre-dementia stages, but according to my mother didn’t talk too much about the past any way) wrote so highly of.

Its funny, I think I really am a huge product of my four grandparents, even more than I am a product of my parents. Maybe a whole bunch of characteristics skipped a generation, but its more likely that my parents were like that too when they were younger, and have since gotten older and therefore more parental in my eyes.

I want a story like my grandmas. I want to adventure and do crazy things and travel and write letters and hope and dream. I want my boy to be a man and i want us to thrive in anything and everything, together and apart.

Might vs. Right

I just finished reading The Once and Future King, one thing i can positively attribute to the break-up is that i have a whole lot more free time, and can read lots and lots of books.

I cannot choose to hate. I cannot choose to play the bitch. I have to choose the highest road. I have to love.

Theres something about nobility, and theres something about goodness, and theres something about what is True, that has to win out in the end. And we’re all looking for it. As long as we’re brave enough to, I guess. I really wish Unitarianism didn’t feel so anti-Christian to me, because I feel like theres a lot of nobility and honesty in their aims.

And in the midst of all my dreams and hopes and attempts at Love, still life goes on, and still America goes on. That Seventies Show just came on, “we’re all alright, we’re all alright”, so much culture, so much numbness. So many opportunities not to care. I do it all the time.

I think one of my biggest self-lessons is that I’m just as bad as anyone else. I don’t really care about the environment, because I’d still much prefer driving adventures to sitting at home not killing the air. I’d much prefer buying mindless crap for peoples birthdays because I love them, even if Target has horrible working conditions. I’m all for greater governmental powers imposing limits, and changing laws, but when it comes down to individual choices, I don’t really care all that much. I do the easy stuff. Doesn’t everyone?

I’m a jealous bitch. Just the same as basically every girl on the planet, i’m pretty sure. I don’t have the patience. I’m full on envy and pride and i boasted every chance I got about how wonderful i thought my boy was. I’m not pure. My love isn’t pure. This is love towards anyone, not just a someone. I’m scared of being hurt, I put up walls, I don’t generally tell the whole truth, and I always change my story based on who I’m speaking to. and i think everyone does too. I’m scared and I’m jealous. Mostly, I’m scared of being left alone.

something about TH White though, he seems to believe, that if you work hard enough, and try long enough, if you lead the way, by intentionally trying, in Goodness, it will come. and Life will be better. But in the end Arthur is sacrificed. Chivelry is sacrificed. The Round Table destroyed by baseless humanity. Humanity thats just so damn scared of being hurt again that it takes everything it can down with it.

Today I wrote, in as many places as possible, “boys are dumb, then they leave” i chanted it in my head over and over again. and part of me is so so so convinced that its true. that no matter what happens, I’ll never be enough. or i’ll be just enough for sometimes. That Jesse, my dad, Logan, and Stu will be continually coming close enough to raise my hope, and then theyll leave again. So i won’t ever be able to let go, just continue a list, and cry when they hurt me again. this whole paragraph was unfair. I want to keep writing, so i’m just going to leave it, and hope that it doesn’t kill my thought process.

I hope, someday, that we get it. That we stop have multiple intentions, that we stop using each other, that we come truly into our own, and that we shine in it. That we would find ourselves. That humanity would realize itself, and its potential. That it would stop having boundaries, that it wouldn’t want what wasn’t its own (i know thats a contradiction, but like think about it in context of theres more than enough to go around. You don’t have to share whats your own if theres enough for everyone to have their own)

Sometimes, I’m really good at being full of love. and full of grace, and still speaking Truth. Sometimes I’m really good at seeing it, holding it, knowing things for what they are, the good and the bad, and still being ok with them.

Sometimes though, those wounds get to me. And I hurt so bad. And sometimes I deal with them the more right way, but most of the time, I just lash out. and I try to make people understand how bad this hurts, in the context of me, in the context of the world, even in the context of what is Right, and what Should be done. Sometimes I don’t use words though. Sometimes I just talk to their friends, and share my side of the story. Sometimes I just do cruel things, just to make them hurt half as much as I hurt inside.

Because somewhere along the way, no matter how hard I tried, my heart didn’t harden. And somewhere along the way, I was chosen, and my heart was redeemed, and I’m not nearly as bitter as I want to be. Maybe everyone does this, but I hope not, because if they have, and the world is this screwed up, theres really no hope.

People are human, and they screw up, and they hurt each other.

dialogue with Lindsey, (with a little artistic license that comes from deeper reflection)

What do you want most in life? what does your heart yearn for?

I want most, to live in a world, where there is no more hurt. Where I could walk out to the front door, peer out on an endless savannah, valley, ocean, or plain, and smile inside, because I would know that there was nothing out there in the world that would make my heart break any more. I want most to live in a world where people’s hearts aren’t breaking. Where children are living. Where parents aren’t being separated by an affair, a lack of mutual interest, or a deadly disease. Where kids can play and laugh and smile, without fear of anything. Where there is enough food for everyone, and no one has enough to make them hoarde more. The kingdom of heaven is now, and here, and i want it. the potential for it at least is here. I want to seek it. I want to know it.

I want to live in a house full of love and joy. Of bright vibrant colors. Of books. Of art. Of things other than plastics. I want children around, lots of them. They don’t need to all be mine, in fact I would prefer not having to give birth ten times, they can be neighbors. they can be friends. but they must be running and giggling and laughing and playing. I want them to put on plays with silly costumes. I want them to make me great artistic masterpieces. I want them to journey to far off lands and come home for dinner to tell me all about it.

I want my world to be whole. But I don’t want to live in a cocoon. I don’t want to ignore the pain and suffering that makes me cry when I see it. I cry so much more for the world around me than for myself. I think two nights ago was the first time I’ve cried for me since Christmas. I cry for poverty. I cry for broken families. I cry for African slums in pictures. I cry for injustice. I don’t cry for death. I cry for the living.

I want my life to be a garden. I want our lives to be the garden.

There has to be something that I can do. It cannot be enough for me to be happy. can it?

what do you want in a husband? do you want someone who shares your passion? or someone who stands to the side and admires it?

I want. I want.. I don’t know what I want. I want to be in control. I don’t like losing control ever. If there is not someone whom I trust implicitly watching out for me, and keeping me safe from the world but also myself, then I will revert to being in control, and guarded. I want my heart to be free because I know that it is safe. I want my husband to protect my heart, but lets it still beat, and lets it still feel, even if it hurts. I help heal through empathy. When you hurt, and you come to me, the best thing I can do for you, is empathize, and take some of your pain upon me. And sometimes it does physically hurt inside. But that is how I heal. I am a wounded healer after the heart of Donald Miller in To Own a Dragon. If we are both equally passionate, then I don’t know that I can trust him to watch over both our hearts. I want him to know my passions, and know why they are my passions, and share in them that way, yes. but i also would like him to be constant, and steady, and always trustworthy.

If you guys did end up breaking up, what would you do?

I don’t know. I really don’t know. And I don’t know who or what kind of guy I would date next. I don’t know all that many Christian men that I would want myself to marry. I don’t really trust them I don’t think. (another legacy of my father)  who would be strong enough to let me be me? who would be strong enough to protect me without being authoritarian? who would be strong enough that he wouldn’t need the “well, I’m the man in this relationship, so you should submit to me”? (sidenote-If I trusted you, then I would submit to you because I wanted your help or advice. I know I’m emotional and passionate and don’t always think things through, but that doesn’t mean that I’m stupid or unable to make intelligent decisions.) It seems like most everyone (male) that I’ve seen living or attempting to live as good little Christians, have just been boys. And the men in my life… the best Men that I have known have been blasphemous ex-marines. The worst examples? have been in the church. Barry, you don’t count for this really, because I didn’t really see you around Erin all that much, but I’ve heard you say things that proved your love for her a thousand times over. But I don’t really know how you guys work. And I dunno, I think you kinda kept the girls at arms length in Turnpike, and i never was quite sure why. Honestly, I’m more scared of a “religious” marriage, a “religious” husband, than living as an unwed mother or marrying (gasp, God forbid!) a Unitarian.

I’m not afraid of work. I’m not afraid of being poor. I’m not even afraid of being alone. I’m not afraid of living. I am afraid of forgetting. I am afraid of choosing wrong. I am afraid of being trapped.

so maybe lindsey was just the catalyst… seeing as I didn’t say most of this to her…

Africa. Fresno. Me.

Last night I didn’t complete my homework. I read the required materials, but didn’t write a response to what I read. I’m not exactly sure why. Some of it is that it is hard stuff to read objectively. We’re learning about the colonialism of Africa. The subjugation of a continent. Its kind of interesting, only because of outside influences did Africa unite. Because of the Transatlantic slave trade, the notion of African Diaspora emerged, as a way to share the experience and the pain. After the slave trade was made illegal, Europeans started to colonize Africa. Before this, they had just picked shipments of slaves up off the coast, delivered by traders or kings in exchange for guns, pottery, cloth, alcohol etc. Then they started to move in, to buy land (either honestly or otherwise) for their own profit. For diamonds. For Gold. For rubber even.

I can’t even concentrate on what the point of this blog was. Its so depressing and disgusting. and truly horrible. gah. blech. eesh. *shiver*

Yesterday in class professor phillips was asked whether apartheid was still a problem in south africa. She responded socratically “how many of your families regularly visit homes of people of any color [other than your own], as friends, or maybe you have them over to eat? hmm? any of you? raise your hands.” There were 3 people in our class of 25+. I couldn’t even raise my hand. Granted, my mother isn’t incredibly social, so she never goes over to anyone’s for dinner, nor do they come here. Except for family. But they’re all white… so it doesn’t help me be able to raise my hand. But we aren’t family friends with anyone who isn’t white. Its ridiculous. Part of it is that all of my moms friends are from Bakersfield from when she and my dad were first married, but even the people she works with and occasionally goes out with, are white. Like white-white, north side of town, Bullard or Clovis areas. And then theres me. whats my claim to cross-cultural fame (or even basic knowledge). I was a goody-two-shoes church girl at a church that did a lot of outreach to “the neighborhood kids” in the areas around palm and dakota. I wasn’t friends with any of them, except Jesse really. I hung out with the other church kids. Next, I go to Manchester. Alright, Manchester was a wonderful environment where we didn’t think about race or differences ever. we all just had fun learning, and never thinking we were brilliant or special. Computech was a little more of the same, there started to be some segregation, but we didn’t notice, because we were friends with our friends. There were like 8-10 of us girls who sat together at lunch, and generally liked each other (in retrospect, again, we were all of different ethnicities. but we were all intelligent too, which was more of a binding factor). Then I went to Roosevelt.
Roosevelt had RSA, and I would not be where I am today if I had not gone there. I would have been afraid, I wouldn’t know that I can do anything that I put my mind to. I don’t know how I could have gotten through the dark years with my dad without roosevelt. Freshman year I was really good friends with Maria and Amanda (uh-mahn-duh, not a-man-da), but then other stuff happened, and I kinda slipped into Bohigians room at lunch, and withdrew socially. I didn’t want to be an RSA girl, like all the RSA-RSA crowd. So I stayed by myself, and wrote poetry on occasion. This continued throughout sophomore year. Sometimes I would eat with Logan and Maddie and Becca and anyone else on those two planters with them. Mostly I remember Boh’s room though. Junior year was more of the same. I didn’t have English with non-RSA kids because I was in Academic Decathlon (another amazing experience for me that I wouldn’t have had at Edison). I was best friends with Logan mostly. (I also had my token African-American relationship/experience with/through Joshua Michael Sims, but that was never more than us talking on the phone at night, praying together some times and him proposing marriage in random classes. Me abusing him horribly, first by only talking about Logan, then when I was finally over Logan, we had a few good months, then I kissed Stuart, and dropped him instantly.) Towards the end of junior year I withdrew from the English classrooms at lunch, and started to eat in the sunshine again with Logan Maddie and Becca. Senior year, all I did was eat with L/M/B, and ditch classes with them too. I was in Calculus with Agripino and Damaris, which gave me some Chicano underground culture. When I went to my Gov/Econ class, I would get some Chicano history sometimes, but I didn’t go very often. I still graduated as a valedictorian. I’m not really proud of that, actually.

Again, I digress.

The point of this was. Our homework last night was to write some observations about what we read, and then ask a question. I was sitting in class, trying to remember what I read last night, and I couldn’t think of anything specific. So instead I wrote something to the effect of “Its horribly depressing reading about colonialism. Apartheid was/is a horrible system, but at the same time I am going to a private Christian college in Spokane, WA, while the city that I come from has the worst pockets of poverty nationwide.

You know? I started looking at the Fresno Unified website, just looking at statistics, only 1 in 4 students graduate from FUSD with the CSU/UC requirements fulfilled.

I really want to change the world. I really want to be of some service to the world. To help and love others. But maybe instead of focusing outwards internationally, maybe there are some serious things that need to be done a little closer to home. How often do we think about the abject poverty of our own town? not homelessness, not the poverello house, not even the marjorie mason center. but the people, who live below the federal poverty line. 26% of Fresno. 1 in 4 people. I don’t really think about it. ever