So unsure, so insecure, I was terrified of really doing anything because I was afraid of failing, and failing big. I talked about goals, but had no plan. I analyzed myself, but had no answers. I was playing the after-college find yourself game, all the while doing everything possible to lose myself.
My mom, who is my heart and reason, called me her ‘free spirit.’ On the last page of a tenderly created life photo album with images of me opening a longed-for tea set on my fourth birthday, sitting atop an elephant in the rose gardens of Bangkok, holding our beloved Sheltie, Smykket, and receiving my Girl Scout Gold Award she wrote:
Shannon: A Free Spirit
I love that about you. I would that I was so free. You are like a bird, singing its own sweet song – flying free and high. From time to time, you must alight and rest – but then again to soar. I pray that your spirit will reach the utmost heights. I pray that your wings may never be broken.
She gave meaning and allowance to my confusion, and kept me searching. My dad was the one who instilled the means.
____________________________________________________________________________
Scientists can’t prove it’s genetic, but the Morley clan makes a strong case for hereditary wanderlust. My dad’s dad kept his family moving, one dusty town to another, always in search of a better job, a better home, a better life. My father was affected by the ‘other side of the hill’ obsession, too.
He became a United States Foreign Service Officer, and still is the most brilliant man I have ever known. Though, his newest decree not to cut his hair until Osama bin Laden has been captured brings this into some question.
I caught the bus of his whirlwind tour in Bangalore, India. By my senior year in high school, I had lived in Kenya, Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Norway with stateside turns in D.C, Texas and Hawaii.
My own case of other-longing didn’t start until my second year of college, but when it began, it struck hard. I rushed through the work, barely taking notice of the knowledge and graduated in three years. I thought I needed to get back overseas to the edgy world of color and culture.
Naturally, my first attempt was to take the Foreign Service exam. Apparently, my understanding did not sufficiently extend to the 48 varieties of flies in Chile, the conjugation pattern of Wadjiginy verbs and the conquests of Emiliano Zapata, because they never called.
The Peace Corps looked promising, but the dissertation-length paperwork took the organization so long to file, my stunted attention span switched strategies. Interestingly, I received my assignment letter to go to French-speaking North Africa a few months after I journeyed to Taiwan. By then, I was hooked by the Orient, or so it would seem the bizarre day I was arrested with six other women I had never met.
____________________________________________________________________________
I began modeling at sixteen in Honolulu, and carried the super model dream through college. The Asian fashion market was a great money bed for Anglo models, so trying my face at it again seemed like a solid way to make a living while I was looking for my peace, or pieces depending on the point of reference.
I sat on the worn bamboo sofa of the Paper Moon Talent and Modeling Agency on Chien-Yi Road in downtown Taiwan. Still jet-lagged from the leap in time zones, but anxious to establish some income, I settled in for a chance to show my book to the agent. Down the hall from the noisy office, was a dorm set-up where several live-in Western models were watching television.
“Naw see you picta,” said a surprisingly round middle-aged woman. Her sooty black hair was razored close to her head and donut sized gold loops tugged at her earlobes. I opened my book and started to tell her about my experience. “No tawk,” she said flipping the slick pages of my portfolio between her red lacquered nails. “Ah, gud. You gud.” She seemed pleased and I leaned back to let her look.
The building’s mirrored double elevator doors opened directly into the office. Four Chinese men clad in gray-green uniforms escorted a Caucasian woman into the room and held up their badges. A single, slight but fierce officer began issuing what seemed to be orders as the others stood silently. The well-dressed woman accompanying the officers conversed with ease in Mandarin, gestured toward the dorm area and moved in that direction.
Ms. No Tawk jumped up and started yelling. Hoping to go unnoticed, I sat unmoving on the sofa, dodging eye contact.
The rapid banter continued for a few minutes until a lovely brunette teen emerged from her room, dragging a suitcase the size of a twin bed behind her. She followed the woman into the elevator as the officers fenced the entrance.
Another Chinese woman, who had been fielding calls since I arrived, hung up the phone and yelled in perfect English to the models in the back. “Get dressed and get out here. You’re going to the station with these men.”
Five minutes later, six leggy blondes moved into the office. Apparently unconcerned by the commotion, one was nibbling on a ripe, yellow star fruit and another was filing her pinky nail. Three of the officers corralled the girls into the now open elevator. Little Mao Tze Dong turned to join them, but stopped when he noticed me. He barked another question at the agent.
“Bu yao! Bu yao,” she answered. But, he headed for me and gestured for me to come. Too scared to object, I followed.
The other young women and I spent six hours inside a hollow interrogation hall drinking 7-up and taking escorted turns to the bathroom in fearful silence. My free spirit eventually got the best of me and I banged on a table and shouted, “I’m an American. I have rights!”
A few minutes later, the handsome white woman who seemed to have started this peculiar process opened the door. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” she said. “I’m from the Canadian Consulate. We were investigating an issue reported about your agency.” She paused and looked down. “We thought you were hookers. As soon as the police get your finger prints you can go.”
I started laughing at the absurdity of the supposition. She ignored me, turned and left. The Paper Moon secretary later informed me that one of the Canadian models staying with them had phoned her parents in Montreal and baselessly suggested that they were doing ‘more’ than modeling in Taipei.
Though off to a shimmy-shaky start, the rest of my stay in Taiwan was better than I had hoped. Of course, any place is splendid when you are in love.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Saturday, July 24, 2004
(Another) 15 Minutes of Fame
I'm sitting in the Mexican restaurant and there is a 10 month old little girl who won't stop staring at my 17 month old little boy. Dinner is punctuated by the other 7-9 family members occasionally turning to stare at us and the baby's mother apologizing for her daughter staring. "She's not usually like this," she says.
After dinner, I decide that my son might enjoy going over to see the little girl and spending time with her while Daddy is paying for the check. While the two kids stare at each other, I'm standing there making chit chat with the other mom about ages, names, and all that other Mommy breeze shooting. Suddenly one member of their dinner party, a curmudgeonly-looking fellow with a long beard looks at me and says in a commanding voice, "Who are you?"
"Uh... my name is Wendy. Who are you?"
"Are you a Realtor?"
Suddenly fearful that he'd had a bad experience in real estate, I was hesitant to respond immediately. Finally I nodded and said yes.
He hit the woman next to him in the arm and said, "See, I told you! She's that woman we saw in the paper this week!" His companion nodded in agreement. They had seen a little article about me in the paper announcing an award I'd received for volume sales. It had my picture, a horrible squinting picture with very bad hair.
The woman jokingly asked for my autograph.
Gotta love life in a small town.
After dinner, I decide that my son might enjoy going over to see the little girl and spending time with her while Daddy is paying for the check. While the two kids stare at each other, I'm standing there making chit chat with the other mom about ages, names, and all that other Mommy breeze shooting. Suddenly one member of their dinner party, a curmudgeonly-looking fellow with a long beard looks at me and says in a commanding voice, "Who are you?"
"Uh... my name is Wendy. Who are you?"
"Are you a Realtor?"
Suddenly fearful that he'd had a bad experience in real estate, I was hesitant to respond immediately. Finally I nodded and said yes.
He hit the woman next to him in the arm and said, "See, I told you! She's that woman we saw in the paper this week!" His companion nodded in agreement. They had seen a little article about me in the paper announcing an award I'd received for volume sales. It had my picture, a horrible squinting picture with very bad hair.
The woman jokingly asked for my autograph.
Gotta love life in a small town.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Twenty-Something - Episode I
Nobody ever really knows you. People see what they see through the eyes of their experience, and your final image is a kaleidoscope of traits. Sifting through the shades of perception is a hard job, but it seemed to be my calling during my early twenties, the parentheses of my life I call the ‘what-were-you -thinking’ years.
Basically, I was a nut, unstable. Well, in a poetic sort of way. Like Virginia Woolf, Zelda Fitzgerald or Anais Nin who wrote a journal entry that could have been my own –
There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.
I envisioned myself a tortured, misunderstood, lonely beauty with wells of meaningful, important philosophies. But, what others saw was quite different.
***********************************************
“Hey, lush,” Seth said as my feet dangled and ribcage popped in his strong embrace. My giant of a little brother still kids me about the period I used to carry a half empty bottle of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum in my green and purple striped Guatemalan knapsack. You know, ‘just in case.’ And it didn’t take much for it to be the perfect occasion to pick up a jumbo fountain diet coke from the Circle K to mix a bit of festivity. I haven’t had a spiced rum and coke in years, but every time I just pass by a convenience store, I have a strange longing for the buttery-not-too-sweet flavor of the Captain!
Some of my ‘what were you thinking’ experiences made a more permanent impact. I still bear the mark of those years in the stately shape of a sunflower tattoo on my left inner thigh.
*********************************************
It was a perfect East Texas day, after the heavy spring rains and right before the condensation days of summer. Hex, my hip, whimsical jeweler boyfriend was in Dallas waiting for an adventure – so I enlisted the help of my wild and free, beautiful friend who longed to be a man, but was born a woman. She picked me up in her rough-and-tumble rusted Ranger pick-up and we began our escapade.
Back road driving is a tradition, a rite of passage for kids in Texas country, and Allie knew these roads like Arkansas kissing cousins. I sat back to enjoy the ride and take in the view – Oh, the beauty of springtime in Texas. Hills of pink cotton primroses, red velvet thistle, more-indigo-than-blue bonnets, delicate paintbrushes dipped in fiery orange and fields of wide-eyed, worshipping sunflowers.
The narrow black top road traced the border of farm fences through these fields just a catcall away from the swaying platter-sized heads heavy with seeds. It was there that I decided what I’d seal as my signature – a brazen, strong, prolific, vibrant sunflower. A picture of what I longed to be.
I proudly announced my decision, and Allie wrinkled her nose. “Get something cool like a snake or a ring of thorns,” she said. She couldn’t hold her stance for long and started laughing. “You are sunshine,” she said. “A sunflower is just what you need!”
********************************************
“My Tinkerbell,” he said before brushing a kiss on my forehead. Hex dubbed me a little flying fairy early in our relationship and always referred to me as Peter Pan’s mischievous friend. It was either a reference to my slight build, fair skin and hip-length blond hair, or some weird elfin fantasy.
Already adorned with tattoos, Hex was thrilled at the idea of me getting one. Apparently his extensive knowledge of the art of tattooing kicked in because he immediately announced we were first going to Casa Bonita for tequila shots. We toasted to tattoos, we toasted to friends, we toasted to tequila, we toasted to getting toasted. At a buck-o-five, four shots had me melting to the floor.
Allie and Hex took action. “Let’s get her to Tigger’s before she changes her mind,” Allie said. And so they did.
Tigger’s Tattoos in the heart of Deep Ellum, a trendy renovated warehouse district in downtown Dallas, featured a movie screen glass window for spectators to live vicariously through the wantonly tattooed and pierced. With my courage nearly as high as my blood alcohol level, I introduced our trio. “We’re here to get a tattoo,” I said with a crooked, drunken grin.
A flamboyantly ink-covered young man gestured to the benches lining the wall. “Have a seat,” he said. “Electricity is out. It’ll be another hour or so before we’re up and running.
Had they overloaded the circuits with too many darting needles? My courage took a turn. “Oh, too bad,” I said. My high school theater classes came in handy as I lifted my hands in ‘exasperation.’ “We simply don’t have the time,” I added hopefully.
Allie and Hex were way ahead of me – ‘we’ve got plenty of time’, they sang in sickeningly perfect unison.
We spent the next hour designing the ideal sunflower and selecting the perfect spot to plant it. I decided on my inner thigh – hoping the meatiest part of my body would buffer the sharp vibrations of the needles. (Not nearly as erotic as you were thinking, right?)
After another twenty minutes listening to tattoo parlor banter - ‘Hey, Toby, there’s another nipple piercing.” “I’m sorry sir, but we don’t have a regulation safety pin large enough to fit that.” “Lady, before we can tattoo you, we have to see the skin.” – Toby the tattoo artist called my name and led me to a dark gray leather and steel dentist’s chair directly facing the wall of windows.
“I guess you’ll just have to straddle the arms of the chair,” Toby said with a satisfied smile. He was still smiling half an hour later as he put the finishing touches on my immortal flower.
Basically, I was a nut, unstable. Well, in a poetic sort of way. Like Virginia Woolf, Zelda Fitzgerald or Anais Nin who wrote a journal entry that could have been my own –
There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.
I envisioned myself a tortured, misunderstood, lonely beauty with wells of meaningful, important philosophies. But, what others saw was quite different.
***********************************************
“Hey, lush,” Seth said as my feet dangled and ribcage popped in his strong embrace. My giant of a little brother still kids me about the period I used to carry a half empty bottle of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum in my green and purple striped Guatemalan knapsack. You know, ‘just in case.’ And it didn’t take much for it to be the perfect occasion to pick up a jumbo fountain diet coke from the Circle K to mix a bit of festivity. I haven’t had a spiced rum and coke in years, but every time I just pass by a convenience store, I have a strange longing for the buttery-not-too-sweet flavor of the Captain!
Some of my ‘what were you thinking’ experiences made a more permanent impact. I still bear the mark of those years in the stately shape of a sunflower tattoo on my left inner thigh.
*********************************************
It was a perfect East Texas day, after the heavy spring rains and right before the condensation days of summer. Hex, my hip, whimsical jeweler boyfriend was in Dallas waiting for an adventure – so I enlisted the help of my wild and free, beautiful friend who longed to be a man, but was born a woman. She picked me up in her rough-and-tumble rusted Ranger pick-up and we began our escapade.
Back road driving is a tradition, a rite of passage for kids in Texas country, and Allie knew these roads like Arkansas kissing cousins. I sat back to enjoy the ride and take in the view – Oh, the beauty of springtime in Texas. Hills of pink cotton primroses, red velvet thistle, more-indigo-than-blue bonnets, delicate paintbrushes dipped in fiery orange and fields of wide-eyed, worshipping sunflowers.
The narrow black top road traced the border of farm fences through these fields just a catcall away from the swaying platter-sized heads heavy with seeds. It was there that I decided what I’d seal as my signature – a brazen, strong, prolific, vibrant sunflower. A picture of what I longed to be.
I proudly announced my decision, and Allie wrinkled her nose. “Get something cool like a snake or a ring of thorns,” she said. She couldn’t hold her stance for long and started laughing. “You are sunshine,” she said. “A sunflower is just what you need!”
********************************************
“My Tinkerbell,” he said before brushing a kiss on my forehead. Hex dubbed me a little flying fairy early in our relationship and always referred to me as Peter Pan’s mischievous friend. It was either a reference to my slight build, fair skin and hip-length blond hair, or some weird elfin fantasy.
Already adorned with tattoos, Hex was thrilled at the idea of me getting one. Apparently his extensive knowledge of the art of tattooing kicked in because he immediately announced we were first going to Casa Bonita for tequila shots. We toasted to tattoos, we toasted to friends, we toasted to tequila, we toasted to getting toasted. At a buck-o-five, four shots had me melting to the floor.
Allie and Hex took action. “Let’s get her to Tigger’s before she changes her mind,” Allie said. And so they did.
Tigger’s Tattoos in the heart of Deep Ellum, a trendy renovated warehouse district in downtown Dallas, featured a movie screen glass window for spectators to live vicariously through the wantonly tattooed and pierced. With my courage nearly as high as my blood alcohol level, I introduced our trio. “We’re here to get a tattoo,” I said with a crooked, drunken grin.
A flamboyantly ink-covered young man gestured to the benches lining the wall. “Have a seat,” he said. “Electricity is out. It’ll be another hour or so before we’re up and running.
Had they overloaded the circuits with too many darting needles? My courage took a turn. “Oh, too bad,” I said. My high school theater classes came in handy as I lifted my hands in ‘exasperation.’ “We simply don’t have the time,” I added hopefully.
Allie and Hex were way ahead of me – ‘we’ve got plenty of time’, they sang in sickeningly perfect unison.
We spent the next hour designing the ideal sunflower and selecting the perfect spot to plant it. I decided on my inner thigh – hoping the meatiest part of my body would buffer the sharp vibrations of the needles. (Not nearly as erotic as you were thinking, right?)
After another twenty minutes listening to tattoo parlor banter - ‘Hey, Toby, there’s another nipple piercing.” “I’m sorry sir, but we don’t have a regulation safety pin large enough to fit that.” “Lady, before we can tattoo you, we have to see the skin.” – Toby the tattoo artist called my name and led me to a dark gray leather and steel dentist’s chair directly facing the wall of windows.
“I guess you’ll just have to straddle the arms of the chair,” Toby said with a satisfied smile. He was still smiling half an hour later as he put the finishing touches on my immortal flower.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Inspiration
What inspires us to write? Is it pain, joy, worry, freedom, love? It must be all these things of life that cause a rush of thought and a spattering of words. But, these emotions are never isolated. They always have some connection to God, humanity, to ourselves. It's the connection of life that inspires us to great thought and lovely declaration. It's relationship and all the messiness and beauty that flows from kissing lips, holding hands, cradling heads, bowing knees, praising hearts.
Two amazing, strong women in my life have inspired me to write -- if only to tell their stories. Their stories are my stories- my mother, my sister, my reflections.
The Spirit Vine -- for my loving mother, Naomi
A chronicle that needs no telling,
Enduring balance in an unwavering line.
Of mind and heart and gaze compelling,
Tender branches from the same spirit vine.
A steadfast journey of wisdom, strength, of grace bestowing,
A descent of favor and spark of eternal insight.
Vivid, shining, restoring, knowing –
An ancient beacon, a living signal light.
Veils -- for my enduring sister, Savannah
Lay your veiled regret upon me,
Bare the ache of things gone wrong,
Visit the dreams that are never to be,
Cry the wounding tears of the silent song.
Laugh into the mist of love’s pleasure,
Bask in the flowered rings of youth,
Vision the jewels of life’s treasure,
Capture the whisper of our hidden truth.
Two amazing, strong women in my life have inspired me to write -- if only to tell their stories. Their stories are my stories- my mother, my sister, my reflections.
The Spirit Vine -- for my loving mother, Naomi
A chronicle that needs no telling,
Enduring balance in an unwavering line.
Of mind and heart and gaze compelling,
Tender branches from the same spirit vine.
A steadfast journey of wisdom, strength, of grace bestowing,
A descent of favor and spark of eternal insight.
Vivid, shining, restoring, knowing –
An ancient beacon, a living signal light.
Veils -- for my enduring sister, Savannah
Lay your veiled regret upon me,
Bare the ache of things gone wrong,
Visit the dreams that are never to be,
Cry the wounding tears of the silent song.
Laugh into the mist of love’s pleasure,
Bask in the flowered rings of youth,
Vision the jewels of life’s treasure,
Capture the whisper of our hidden truth.
Monday, July 12, 2004
Bizarre Bazaar
Okay, some people would say I’m going through a dark period. I call it a time of realization and creativity.
My mind travels to diverse spots of insight like a traveler wandering through a dusty foreign market. I pass by the mounds of dewy, taught plums and pause to examine the sorely cut sows ears.
And so, I’ve come up with a shopping list of sorts. Not of things to buy, but rather things I wish I hadn’t bought. It’s my Things I Wish I Didn’t Know list. I’ll spare you the full meal deal and give you a little nibble…
1. Aging actually happens.
2. Nothing lasts forever.
3. Some things last too long.
4. Fantasy is better than reality.
5. Your heart can pine for a lifetime over the consequences of one decision.
6. Some dreams don’t come true.
7. Self-destruction is contagious.
8. Nothing is free.
9. Sleep doesn’t bring clarity.
10. Living in the past doesn’t make life longer—just lonelier.
If you’d like to see all 50 epiphanies of a cynical woman, let me know and I’ll serve it up pronto. Til then, I’ll be standing next to a cud-spitting camel, watching the snake-charmer dodge the glistening fangs of the less-than-enamored king cobra.
My mind travels to diverse spots of insight like a traveler wandering through a dusty foreign market. I pass by the mounds of dewy, taught plums and pause to examine the sorely cut sows ears.
And so, I’ve come up with a shopping list of sorts. Not of things to buy, but rather things I wish I hadn’t bought. It’s my Things I Wish I Didn’t Know list. I’ll spare you the full meal deal and give you a little nibble…
1. Aging actually happens.
2. Nothing lasts forever.
3. Some things last too long.
4. Fantasy is better than reality.
5. Your heart can pine for a lifetime over the consequences of one decision.
6. Some dreams don’t come true.
7. Self-destruction is contagious.
8. Nothing is free.
9. Sleep doesn’t bring clarity.
10. Living in the past doesn’t make life longer—just lonelier.
If you’d like to see all 50 epiphanies of a cynical woman, let me know and I’ll serve it up pronto. Til then, I’ll be standing next to a cud-spitting camel, watching the snake-charmer dodge the glistening fangs of the less-than-enamored king cobra.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Rambling on Love
I recently asked my first flame if he truly loved me during our years of youthful admiration. In his response and my saturated review, I discovered more about myself than I did about him. There is definitely more to ask, to ponder about love lost than the clear cut, ‘So, did you love me?’ Not only do feelings change, but feelings about feelings change. Our perceptions, our definitions change with time, experience, life.
His description of love through the heart and mind of a 20-year-old was mystical, pristine, exclusive, abstruse, everlasting, inexplicably valuable, a treasure, perfect. And those labels, those feelings still make me flower. But, for him, at the time it wasn’t enough just to be in the moment of rapture that has glazed the eyes of countless young lovers. He could never just let be what was – it had to lead somewhere – the next accomplishment, the next battle, the next victory.
I don’t say this in judgment, but in understanding. I was the same, perhaps still am - though the practical results of this tendency in me are much different. He was action, I was thought. He was head, I was heart. He battles with blazing a trail of success. I suffer from infatuation with the dream of yesterday and the fantasy of tomorrow.
As a young woman, love was new, creative, passionate, aching, endless, pinnacled by nothing. Love is what I lived for…and still do. Love, though defined and felt entirely differently by me now, is still the most important treasure in my life. Relationships –that’s it. Knowing and loving God. Knowing and loving my family. Knowing and loving my friends. Knowing and loving myself.
At a still-young 35, this is what I have learned love is not --
Love is not a feeling. Love is not words. Love is not earned. Love is not jealous. Love is not selfish. Love is not negotiable. Love is not judgmental, but does tell the truth. Love does not give up.
And here is what love is –
Love is the most important aspect of life. Life is nothing without love. Love is self-less. Love is action. Love is enduring. Love is thoughtful and gentle. Love is forgiving. Love is pure. Love is trust. Love is protection. Love is persistent. Love is vulnerable, but the strongest thread of life. Love is life-giving.
Though I had my insecurities in my childish twenties, I was still fairly innocent of my disastrous failings. This made me a lot freer in some ways than I am today. And the possibility of not being loved by someone I loved never entered my mind.
These days, I am periodically haunted with the thoughts that either I am not loveable or I cannot love. Living with either of these options is unbearable to me. How did I come to this dangerous and lonely spot?
I believe we learn to love by being loved. If we grow up in an environment where we are not loved and accepted, it will be nearly impossible for us to accept love from someone else or to love and accept another. How sad that my thinking must say something about what I have learned about love as a child and since…
But, thanks to God, I am not bound by my past, but am a new creation in Christ, my Savior, my Lord. II Corinthians 5:17 . And Christ has given the greatest testimony to love through His sacrifice and His gift of freedom – our own will to choose Him or not. He chose love. He chose to lay down His life for us. And that is the greatest thing: to chose love, not to be forced, and to know that by choosing you may not receive in return…but choosing anyway.
His description of love through the heart and mind of a 20-year-old was mystical, pristine, exclusive, abstruse, everlasting, inexplicably valuable, a treasure, perfect. And those labels, those feelings still make me flower. But, for him, at the time it wasn’t enough just to be in the moment of rapture that has glazed the eyes of countless young lovers. He could never just let be what was – it had to lead somewhere – the next accomplishment, the next battle, the next victory.
I don’t say this in judgment, but in understanding. I was the same, perhaps still am - though the practical results of this tendency in me are much different. He was action, I was thought. He was head, I was heart. He battles with blazing a trail of success. I suffer from infatuation with the dream of yesterday and the fantasy of tomorrow.
As a young woman, love was new, creative, passionate, aching, endless, pinnacled by nothing. Love is what I lived for…and still do. Love, though defined and felt entirely differently by me now, is still the most important treasure in my life. Relationships –that’s it. Knowing and loving God. Knowing and loving my family. Knowing and loving my friends. Knowing and loving myself.
At a still-young 35, this is what I have learned love is not --
Love is not a feeling. Love is not words. Love is not earned. Love is not jealous. Love is not selfish. Love is not negotiable. Love is not judgmental, but does tell the truth. Love does not give up.
And here is what love is –
Love is the most important aspect of life. Life is nothing without love. Love is self-less. Love is action. Love is enduring. Love is thoughtful and gentle. Love is forgiving. Love is pure. Love is trust. Love is protection. Love is persistent. Love is vulnerable, but the strongest thread of life. Love is life-giving.
Though I had my insecurities in my childish twenties, I was still fairly innocent of my disastrous failings. This made me a lot freer in some ways than I am today. And the possibility of not being loved by someone I loved never entered my mind.
These days, I am periodically haunted with the thoughts that either I am not loveable or I cannot love. Living with either of these options is unbearable to me. How did I come to this dangerous and lonely spot?
I believe we learn to love by being loved. If we grow up in an environment where we are not loved and accepted, it will be nearly impossible for us to accept love from someone else or to love and accept another. How sad that my thinking must say something about what I have learned about love as a child and since…
But, thanks to God, I am not bound by my past, but am a new creation in Christ, my Savior, my Lord. II Corinthians 5:17 . And Christ has given the greatest testimony to love through His sacrifice and His gift of freedom – our own will to choose Him or not. He chose love. He chose to lay down His life for us. And that is the greatest thing: to chose love, not to be forced, and to know that by choosing you may not receive in return…but choosing anyway.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Neighbors
There are three great arched plate-glass windows in my office. The credenza that houses my laptop butts against the base of these windows and when I settle in my high-back, Cadet blue leather chair, I can see the top story of a neighboring apartment complex. Behind the charcoal-drawn rooftop, sprout massive, old oak trees so thick with dark leaves they resemble the outline of some distant hills. Heavy clouds roll and shift hiding all but veiled crevices of the lilac sky.
Centered in the frame of the last window, I can see the back patio entrances to two adjacent units. A single staircase leads from the ground level to a central landing. Three more steps up in each opposite direction, railed patios mark the sliding glass door entrances of the two dwellings. Secured at the edge of each railing is an American flag, the kind you wave in patriotic glee at a hometown parade. They silently portray the simple message – united we stand. Identical Wal-Mart white plant baskets heavy with orange-red begonias hang in line behind each flag.
In the apartment on the right lives a woman, probably in her late seventies, slim and perky. She fancies white crop pants, ballet slippers and plaid blouses in pretty pastel shades, though she never tucks them in. Her iron and fleece hair waves away from her face, tucked behind her bare ears. She smiles so much, there must be a secret held in her heart.
A gentleman, a few years her senior, lives next door. Slight but spry, his belted khaki pants are always well-pressed and his starched white cotton short-sleeved shirts secured neatly at the waistband. His tanned face holds a look of distance and longing, but a knowing contentment as well.
My eyes have naturally fallen to this scene again and again over the past few months. I have seen these neighbors sharing tea on the steps, watering plants and sweeping their patios.
Once I found them standing on the steps leading down to the parking lot. With her arms outstretched on opposite rails on the top landing, she looked to him standing square below, his head tilted and hands clasped. As he turned to move down, she pushed her body up, arms stiff with support on the railings. She twirled her feet and tossed one playfully forward as she returned to the ground. It was something a fifteen year old girl, nervous with flirtation, would do and it made my eyes tear with wonder at this life.
Although this privately-viewed show has brought me some amusement, I did not fully realize what they had been sharing with me until today.
I was in a moment of sighing, breathing fully and heavily to relax the tension in my neck and shoulders. These times for me nearly always come with thoughts of my insignificance in terms of the story of the world, and the aching belief that there has to be more to life than this life I’m living.
I opened my eyes and turned my head to see these neighbors in a standing cuddle. Her arms were swaddled between her chest and his. One of his arms held her at the waist, the other across her back to the nape of her neck. They shared a playful, targeted kiss on the mouth, and then she rested her head, nuzzling the place his shirt began its line of buttons.
“Oh,” I breathed, and my hand moved to my mouth in tender admiration.
I have been searching so hard for love, with such urgency that an untruth has been cultivated in my mind about the life of love. Love does not belong alone to the young, those supple in body, uncharted in experience. There is no time-limit on love.
Love is about the heart--the heart of a seventy-year-old who only remembers her line-less face of fifteen, but still feels the same school-aged wonder; the heart of man, battered by life, yet soft and open to the mystery it holds.
In Under the Tuscan Sun, the film based on Frances Mayes' best-selling novel, the namesake heroine was a woman betrayed and worn by love lost, but also healed by love. When she found healing and wholeness, she spoke truth from her experience. “Great things can happen, even late in the game.”
Late in the game, these neighbors, friends, lovers have surprised me with hope and given me whispers of tomorrow--with their youthful fervency and wise appreciation, with the mere moments of their lives glimpsed from a nearby window.
Centered in the frame of the last window, I can see the back patio entrances to two adjacent units. A single staircase leads from the ground level to a central landing. Three more steps up in each opposite direction, railed patios mark the sliding glass door entrances of the two dwellings. Secured at the edge of each railing is an American flag, the kind you wave in patriotic glee at a hometown parade. They silently portray the simple message – united we stand. Identical Wal-Mart white plant baskets heavy with orange-red begonias hang in line behind each flag.
In the apartment on the right lives a woman, probably in her late seventies, slim and perky. She fancies white crop pants, ballet slippers and plaid blouses in pretty pastel shades, though she never tucks them in. Her iron and fleece hair waves away from her face, tucked behind her bare ears. She smiles so much, there must be a secret held in her heart.
A gentleman, a few years her senior, lives next door. Slight but spry, his belted khaki pants are always well-pressed and his starched white cotton short-sleeved shirts secured neatly at the waistband. His tanned face holds a look of distance and longing, but a knowing contentment as well.
My eyes have naturally fallen to this scene again and again over the past few months. I have seen these neighbors sharing tea on the steps, watering plants and sweeping their patios.
Once I found them standing on the steps leading down to the parking lot. With her arms outstretched on opposite rails on the top landing, she looked to him standing square below, his head tilted and hands clasped. As he turned to move down, she pushed her body up, arms stiff with support on the railings. She twirled her feet and tossed one playfully forward as she returned to the ground. It was something a fifteen year old girl, nervous with flirtation, would do and it made my eyes tear with wonder at this life.
Although this privately-viewed show has brought me some amusement, I did not fully realize what they had been sharing with me until today.
I was in a moment of sighing, breathing fully and heavily to relax the tension in my neck and shoulders. These times for me nearly always come with thoughts of my insignificance in terms of the story of the world, and the aching belief that there has to be more to life than this life I’m living.
I opened my eyes and turned my head to see these neighbors in a standing cuddle. Her arms were swaddled between her chest and his. One of his arms held her at the waist, the other across her back to the nape of her neck. They shared a playful, targeted kiss on the mouth, and then she rested her head, nuzzling the place his shirt began its line of buttons.
“Oh,” I breathed, and my hand moved to my mouth in tender admiration.
I have been searching so hard for love, with such urgency that an untruth has been cultivated in my mind about the life of love. Love does not belong alone to the young, those supple in body, uncharted in experience. There is no time-limit on love.
Love is about the heart--the heart of a seventy-year-old who only remembers her line-less face of fifteen, but still feels the same school-aged wonder; the heart of man, battered by life, yet soft and open to the mystery it holds.
In Under the Tuscan Sun, the film based on Frances Mayes' best-selling novel, the namesake heroine was a woman betrayed and worn by love lost, but also healed by love. When she found healing and wholeness, she spoke truth from her experience. “Great things can happen, even late in the game.”
Late in the game, these neighbors, friends, lovers have surprised me with hope and given me whispers of tomorrow--with their youthful fervency and wise appreciation, with the mere moments of their lives glimpsed from a nearby window.
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