Sycamore Thoughts

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Throughout the last month, I’ve been taking some time  (usually during lunch)to write down a sentence or two in a small journal I got from the Colorado Renaissance Festival. These ruminations may be revealing and some may be funny, but mostly they’re just… thoughts, bringing my inside to the outside.

1. Emmaeus

Seven pairs of feet –

Shoes, socks, bare –

On our walk to Emmaeus

 

Tears glittering on eyelashes –

Lowered in solidarity and prayer –

On our walk to Emmaeus

 

Dividing –

And coming together in aid and love –

On our walk to Emmaeus

 

And the Sycamore tree.

 

  1. A squirrel stares at me while I eat my lunch. I am not about to give it my nuts.

 

  1. “You should be careful who you give your money to. You never know what they’re going to use it for.”

But her story of abuse, eviction seems true. Her desperation I see in her panicking, but somehow dull eyes. I hear it in her quivering voice.

Before, she took off her hard hat and smiled – she looked young and pretty. After, I watch her fold her arms and direct traffic. Her life has made her age.

 

4. It’s difficult to see how we are perceived because we can only view ourselves from the inside. But, every once in awhile, we catch our reflections in other people.

 

7. It’s easy to get lost in my own troubles and thoughts. But spewing them onto paper, even with a broken pen, fixes me. And then continuing on, I focus on what is placed before me: others.

 

  1. The church on the corner plays hymns while my housemate lifts up his water bottle and says “I have a giant capri-sun; worship me!”

 

  1. It’s a beautiful day even when the sun’s not shining and when my spirit is in the ashtray. When people are having trouble, they see nothing good. Should we remind them that it’s a beautiful day?

 

  1. The trash truck slowly lowers its arms and receives its partner, the dumpster, which emits a surprised squeal at being so rudely seized and raised into the air. It reluctantly obliges the truck, opens its lid and is shaken. It tolerates its lid painfully slapping close, if only because it knows its ordeal is almost over. It is set down with careful swiftness and the truck drives away without a glance or word. The dumpster feels empty.

 

  1. Something to ponder: if there were less, but more efficient spiders, would humans be as inclined to squash them?

15.I fixed a technological problem at work without seeking my dad’s expertise. I feel proud of myself. At the same time, I miss riding on his shoulders and standing on the tops of his shoes.

16. What I have for breakfast: corn flakes, hot tea, and time spent with myself. What I fix for lunch: a bagel with crunchy peanut butter, an apple, a banana, and a book I need to finish by tonight.

Currently Reading

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This year so far has been a time for service and reflection, but I have also been reading. I was lucky enough to have landed in the bedroom that has bookshelves. The shelves hold a random assortment of Messiah College yearbooks, Encyclopedias, Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, and (most wonderfully in my estimation) a 1901 Collector’s Edition of all of Shakespeare’s plays. The book that I’m reviewing today did not come from these books or the scant number of books I brought, but from a local bookstore, Midtown Scholar.

I had gone there to write. And write I did. But while I was writing (and peering at all the characters in the store), one particular book kept staring me down. The title, What the Night Tells the Day, distracted me so much that I had to get it. I wanted to know what indeed the night tells the day. And how does it tell it? Does it whisper? Does it scream?

The cover describes it as a novel, but the introduction says that it is a memoir. An endorsement on the back calls it an autobiography (which makes me inwardly cringe). Whether you call it by the outdated term “autobiography” or more truthful “memoir,” it is clear it is not a novel.

It is the story of the author, Hector Bianciotti, his childhood in Argentina and his migration to France. He relates his Italian immigrant parent’s difficulty of fitting into Argentina society, his strained relationship with his father, and his time in a monastery, all the while discovering his sexuality and his love for literature.

All memoirs are human, but I find that this one was especially human because it reveals both the good and the slightly disturbing qualities of the author. It also relays memories like we remember them: in short little bits when we are young and then clearer, more tangible moments when we are older. Since our childhood memories tend not to line up in linear order, the beginning of the memoir is a little tangled. And as Bianciotti himself says “Like some children, certain memories like to gather together their most insignificant toys.”

Like all memoirs (and most novels), What the Night Tells the Day does not really end. It has an ending, most certainly, but authors cannot write their own deaths. It does somewhat answer some of my previous questions about the book, but the answers are open for interpretation. But it tells Bianciotti’s version of the truth and that is the most memorable and the most important.

 

 

To Serve and Be Served

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Last Thursday, my supervisor asked me how I was liking and adjusting to Harrisburg, my new city. I told her that it was starting to feel like home despite the fact that I had only been here for two weeks and despite not knowing many places around the city. Throughout the weekend, I told my friends back in Colorado that I was falling in love with the city and while I didn’t think that I would be living here after this year, I could tell already that it will have a big part of my heart.

As this year goes on, I may not remember how strange not quite belonging feels, but I will definitely remember the kindness of the community that has welcomed us extremely warmly with pounds of food (in a tradition aptly called a Quaker Pounding), a gift certificate for a taco place, tickets to a baseball game, and tours around the city. This warmth is why I am already calling my house “home.”

It seems like it is difficult to return the help that we have received thus far since those helpers don’t seem to want much in return. But I’ve discovered that part of serving is being served. Like much else in life, there is a push and a pull. A give and a take. Or rather, gives and gifts. Some of those gifts are smiles, hugs, or “Welcome to…” Some of the gifts are seemingly small donations of time and/or money at the time, but like glue or lotion, go a long way. And yet some of the gifts are intangible, only noticeable after a few months or perhaps a few years.

I think this last kind of gift is what has made me who I am. Because these invisible, but not unfelt gifts shape me like a river shapes a canyon. Maybe my desire to serve is a product of this shaping.

To serve you have to be served.

Shut Up and Dance

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During my first dinner at my new house, one of my housemates asked as an impromptu icebreaker, “What song would you say was your summer anthem?” I thought a moment and said, “Shut Up and Dance” (by Walk the Moon). Now looking back at my first week, I’ve decided that the popular song has also been this week’s anthem (only in part because it’s been sung acapella or played a couple times in the past few days).

It has become a ritual of sorts for me to turn up the volume as high as possible and dance to the best of my abilities when this song comes on my car radio. Whether I’m alone or not (my boyfriend has been subjected to this ritual twice). I mumble sing along to the verses, but I can quite confidently deliver the chorus:

“Oh don’t you dare look back
Just keep your eyes on me
I said you’re holding back
She said shut up and dance with me
This woman is my destiny
She said oh oh oh
Shut up and dance with me”

This week has been tiring. I’ve met and bonded with six new brilliant housemates and our director, been warmly welcomed by members of the community, gone boating, cleaned onions on a farm, and taken walking tours of a new city with a different culture than my own. While I have been exhausted and busy, I have welcomed every opportunity instead of closing down or refusing. Because this year will challenge me and offer me experiences that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, experiences that will change me for good. And I think I should let myself be changed.
This year is like the woman in this song. It says to me, “quiet your anxieties”. It says, “just dive in.” It says, “you may not know what’s coming, but you can do it.” It says, “shut up and dance.”

 

Growing Up and Moving On

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Around this time of the year, I am usually mentally and physically preparing for yet another new year of school. However, In just a couple weeks, I will be beginning a new, albeit relatively short, chapter of my life.

I am happy to announce that I will be living in Pennsylvania for the next year, serving with the Episcopal Service Corps in a service agency and living in a community of five others my age. I am constantly being asked if I am excited. To some I say yes. To others, I go further and say yes, I am excited and little nervous as well. I’m not really nervous about living in a different state; I’m nervous about stepping outside the comforting familiarity of going to classes, reading assignments, and writing papers.

Today, I saw some high school friends for the first time in a couple years. It’s amazing how we have all grown up; our high school selves would most likely be surprised at who we’ve become and/or experiences we’ve had. We’ve all had different experiences, but we are all basically at the same stage of life where we’re transitioning from student to “real world” life. It is a strange stage, trying to figure out careers that will suit us in the future as well as relationships that will carry us on the river.

This  year, I know where I’m living and I somewhat know what I’m doing, but it’s unclear as to what I’m doing afterwards. But I know that I shouldn’t stress unnecessarily because what will happen will happen and I’ll accept it when it does.

Recently Read

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A few weeks ago,  I was lent a book that I perhaps wouldn’t have picked up at the bookstore because it isn’t fiction. However, I found that Richard Hooper’s Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, & Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings is quite enjoyable and enlightening.

Like many books, it opens with a praise/review section. Often, these praises are generic (the worst is “the next Lord of the Rings, when the book is nothing like the trilogy) and seems like the reviewer did not bother to read the book). Not so with these praises, which are genuine and true compliments. One such review says that it is “bound to nourish those who are soul-weary of combativeness in the name of religion.”

I am one who is weary of religious disputes and those hiding behind religion while attacking each other and found that the book replenished me and continues to do so every time I look through it. You see, Hooper does not focus on how each leader and how each religion/philosophy differs from each other, but how they are similar, reminding me that there can be unity among so much discord.

Hopper begins with explaining the history of each figure, the Buddha and Jesus in particular. Although I have a Christian upbringing and I have a decent knowledge of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), I learned quite a lot about both. The introduction was affirming to me as it put in words what I have been feeling for a long time: that Christianity has become a religion about Jesus and his teachings instead of being of Jesus and his teachings.

After the introduction, the book is broken into chapters on topics such as the self, wisdom and knowledge, love and compassion, and death and immortality. Hooper discusses each topic briefly before leaving the reader with quotations from the 4 philosophers that are remarkably similar. For instance, in the section about compassion, a quote from Jesus says “Blessed are the merciful, for theywill achieve mercy” and one from Lao Tzu says, “Compassion and mercy bring victory. Heaven belongs to the merciful.”

Hooper’s words may be challenging to some beliefs and reaffirming to others, but we need to challenge our beliefs in order to find out what they are and who we truly are.

 

Self Portrait

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This poem is inspired by a prompt series called “The Time is Now” sent out by Poets and Writers.

 

“Self Portrait”

Sitting on my bed, I look around me:

the dog, asleep, on the floor, books – Dickens, Austen, J.K. Rowling -,

Freddy the Teddy resting on a decorative pillow,

and then focus on the central figure in the mirror (plain, square, slightly dirty, unlike Plath’s lake)

The face is familiarly oval;

My mom says it looks “most like me, unfortunately”

with traces of cousins and an unmet grandmother.

I see this too: my brown, almost hazel eyes and sometimes wild, but always curly hair

that seems to change shades of brun when I turn my head.

I see also remnants of a pimple and under my collarbone, a chickenpox scar.

I do not quite see my little, previous self;

she is inside me.

I do not see a writer;

the notebook and pen are not visible in my reflection.

In this room, my home for the summer,

I see me – a woman – myself – a human – and I.

 

 

Detecting Humanity

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This last semester, I took a Detective Fiction class in which we did not read Sherlock Holmes, but read and discussed Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Chester Himes, all of whom present detectives and criminals in varying ways and in varying lights.

Before I took this class, I was familiar with police procedural shows like Rizzoli & Isles, Castle, Numb3rs, and more, but for some reason, crime fiction never seemed to stick with me. As it turns out, all I needed was a required list of the right authors.

In our discussions, we often talked about the power of observation, especially when it came to the detectives. In some  novels we read, it was quite difficult to ascertain who was the observer. Was it the detective or the criminal? Neither? And did observing sometimes make someone insane and/or a criminal?

One of my creative writing professors in college constantly urged us to observe everything. People watch. Nature watch. Watch everything.

In some ways, I already do that. I am constantly people watching, trying to get into their heads and imagining their lives. But at the same time, I think that I could improve my observation skills. I think I could become a detective (not a real one with a badge or a PI license; rest assured, I am not changing my career path), someone who detects all aspects of humanity in every person and someone who can detect hope and goodness in all things.

Graduation

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“The world is waiting for us to graduate from ourselves.”- Shannon L. Adler

Four years ago, I was impatiently waiting for my day to graduate from high school. Despite my best efforts, I had succumbed to what is affectionately termed as “senioritis” and I was just ready to get done with the polo shirts, the lockers, a block schedule, and a early commute every morning. Yes, I would miss my friends and I would miss the unique atmosphere of an all girls school, but I was ready.

In a little more than a couple weeks, I will be graduating again. But this time, the word “graduation” means something different. It means leaving the security blanket of school and hopefully making something of myself. It means seizing a wonderful opportunity to serve people for a year in another state (more on that closer to time). And more tangibly, it means getting done with all these papers and projects that have been chasing me up and down an invisible roller coaster for the past month.

Like Ms. Adler says, I will be graduating from myself. In a way. My true and complete graduation from myself will take place (hopefully) far in the future, but that is not the graduation that I speak of.

I will graduate from being a student (after about 18 years), concerned mostly with completing homework and receiving helpful judgments called grades.

I will graduate into a life of giving my thoughts and my aid to others.

I will graduate into a world that I know will have puddles, but also rainbows.

I (hope) to (someday) graduate into becoming a wife and a mother.

And most importantly, I will graduate into a Sarah who will remember to love and listen and change.

Currently Reading

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It is Spring Break a.k.a. reading for fun time (as well as supposedly getting ahead on homework). The book that I have been recently devouring is A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. It is listed under philosophy/spirituality, but I was drawn towards it simply because it is creative nonfiction.

As the title suggests, Maitland discusses silence. She brings the reader through her experience of silence in first the Isle of Skye and then the Scottish hills and the Sinai desert. Her book is exactly the kind of creative nonfiction that I want to write: one that relates personal experience while simultaneously drawing from history, literature, and philosophy.

Her discovery of silence, especially when she is on Skye, is beautifully relayed and all encompassing. That is, she described the good as well as bad (in fact, there is a whole chapter entitled “The Dark Side”). In all honesty, I felt a bit jealous of her. I have become extremely aware of all the chatter and noise around me, so much so that I’ve become irrationally irritated at those who are contributing to the noise.

As she pointed out, there is no such thing as complete silence. I am not currently listening to music and my roommate in the apartment is keeping to herself right now, but even so, I can hear the fridge, the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard, and every once in a while my feet or my bones somewhere else in my body make a noise as I fidget. It’s funny that I call that silence.

I know full well that since I am a student and I have definite plans for a least my near future, I cannot suddenly become a hermit. Instead, I can make room for silence. I have already made two moves toward doing so: I uninstalled Facebook on my phone and I removed Pandora. And when I drive to church for the Maundy Thursday service this evening, the radio will not be turned on. It will not be the kind of silence that will drive me crazy (which has happened), but it will be the silence that keeps me whole and hopefully sane.