A Something Random Guide to..

Stolen from Hosey, who stole it from Liz.

(And we’re all missionaries here.  Bah!)

Describe yourself using ONE BAND/SINGER and only SONG TITLES from that band/singer.

Singer: Tony Lucca
Are you male or female: Maiden of My Madness
Describe yourself: A Thousand Daydreams
How do some people feel about you: All up in your Place (aka the Stalker Song)
How do you feel about yourself: True Story
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Death of Me
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: Happily Ever After
Describe where you want to be: Welcome to the Bay
Describe what you want to be: Someone to Love You
Describe how you live: Catch Me
Describe how you love: I can, I will, I do
Share a few words of wisdom: Put your seat back

“On the reckless and carefree wings of love, take my hand, let's fly away.
Make the best with what we've got, and improve along the way…”

Or this little beauty, which I am still seriously considering.

I also did not blow it on GE energy efficient light bulbs. I advocate for their marvelous glow, but I also (through the guidance of Becky) am going to forgo purchasing them in the hopes that some of the tree hugger events/conferences I'll be attending will be giving them out for free. For example, tomorrow is the People's Fair and La Piazza dell' Arte.  Although the latter excites me more, I think my hippie light bulb friends will more likely be at the first.

Never before has the expression “follow the light” meant so much.

.

Every child received a NEW pair of shoes, that not only fit properly but were also amazingly cool. Shoes ranged from infant sizes to a size 14 in Men's. There were Nike cleats, there were Vans slip-ons. There was laughter. There were rooms full of children, all smiling.

There were plenty of photo opportunities.





It's days like this, when things can be at their absolute worst, that I can honestly stop and say:

I love my job.

PS. You know that expression- walk a mile in someone else's shoes? I think it's only worth saying if it's implied that your listener will reflect on their journey.

Granted, most will. But today I was reminded of how little I've reflected upon my journey, or at least the “road map” that I wrote two and a half years ago:

• Pay back my debt

• Get a killer tan (not in a literal skin cancer sense)

• Paint more

• Run a mile in 8 min or less

• Get a sexy, sculpted back

• Develop a system of organization

• Eat fruit, and eat breakfast

• Go to the thrift store. Buy girly clothing

• End nonsense bickering with family

• Snorkel in Australia

• Go to Hawaii, and meet Jack Johnson after a show

• Visit every baseball stadium in the US

• Enter a video in a film festival

• Learn to knit

• Actually win one of those carnival games down the shore

• Complete a triathlon

• Compete in fight club (or at least take boxing lessons)

• Join the mile high club

• See a meteor shower

• Float in the Dead Sea

• Give a motivational speech

• Celebrate New Years in all US time zones

• Own a pair of hemp sandals

• Watch my sisters get married

A few of these were short term, some ridiculous, and yet all were important to me at the time. I wrote this list, and then I forgot about it. It made me wonder what's the point of walking our own miles, if we don't remember why we're doing it?

Looking over the list, I've only fully completed six of those goals. I say fully because some are works in progress—I've half completed the last, and am undisciplined but trying really hard on the physical ones.

But something makes me think that not knowing how to ride a bike will make the triathlon goal especially challenging. Even if I was to get into Olympic shape.

A dispute arose between the North Wind and the Sun, each claiming that he was stronger than the other.  At last they agreed to try their powers upon a traveler to see which could soonest strip him of his cloak.  The North Wind had the first try.

Gathering up all his force for the attack, he came whirling furiously down upon the man, and caught up his cloak as though he would wrest it from him by one single effort: but the harder he blew, the more closely the man wrapped it round himself.

Then came the turn of the Sun.  At first he beamed gently upon the traveler, who soon unclasped his cloak and walked on with it hanging loosely about his shoulders, then he shone forth in his full strength, and the man, before he had gone many steps, was glad to throw his cloak right off and complete his journey more lightly clad.

And the moral to this Aesop Fable (appropriately called The North Wind and the Sun):

Gentleness is better than force.

Some of the best life lessons still ingrained in my head are the ones that never really involved me to begin with.

I sent my parents a card for Valentines Day.  In typical Beth Rumbel fashion, I avoided the overly sentimental Hallmark holiday “you mean the world to me, but I’m going to send you a card that a million other people also received” cards (these kinds come better home made, but I was on another arts and crafts mission at the time), and found the cut out of a pig. 

Not even a cartoon pig with a cutesy curly tail, but an overweight real life hog dressed up in a tutu with fake wings.  It opened to read “Look, its Cu-pig!”

It was perfect. 

Without getting into too many personal details, the message I wrote to my mom and pop centered on the sentence “Thank you for teaching me what great love looks like.”

I only think of this now, 10 days after the fact, because Whitney Houston came onto my iTunes party mix (why iTunes shuffled “I Will Always Love You” into the mix, I’m still not sure.  Artificial Intelligence hasn’t evolved enough yet, I suppose).  It wasn’t their wedding song.  I don’t think they even have a wedding song.  Not one that has been shared with me anyway, even though I’ve asked. 

Or maybe I’m forgetting because it was before my time.  It’s entirely possible.

I forget a lot of things.  Forgetting is my biggest (and sadly justified) fear.  But I don’t think I’ll forget the day Mom, Cojack and I came home from a doctor’s appointment.  I was in grammer school, and Cojack being younger than me was not fit to be left to fend for herself.  So she came to my doctor’s appointment too. 

Back in the days of house phone lines, actual non-cellular phone numbers, answering machines were a big deal.  Cojack and I used to race into the house to the backroom in hopes of seeing a blinking red light.

There’s a message!  There’s a message!  We would yell until we were acknowledged.  The times we weren’t acknowledged immediately, we’d run back into the kitchen and start pulling on the arms of our parents, despite the fact they were often filled with grocery bags or other items.  There’s a message!  We’d say it again, and they’d either drop the bags to come in the backroom and listen to it, or tell us to go play it in an effort to appease. 

Mom there’s a message!  Cojack and I both yelled after returning home from my immunizations.  Ok, wait a minute, I’ll be right there.  She answered as if she already knew what magic was behind the glow of the tiny flashing light.

Pop would call home everyday at 3:57 pm to say I’m leaving, I love you, as he headed out of his downtown office to catch the R2 home.  The conversation was always quick.  I’m leaving, I love you.  Mom would answer I love you too bye.  The phone would click, and we’d see Pop a little over an hour later, coming in through the garage to drop his briefcase in the fireplace room and take his seat at the dinner table. 

It was after 4 this particular afternoon, so in hindsight I think she already knew the message was from Pop.  I’m leaving, I love you.  She already knew, or that day, she thought she already knew.

We gathered around the icebox that the answering machine sat atop. Cojack had the honors of pushing the play the button.  But rather than the expected I’m leaving, I love you, we heard: 

It’s 4 o’clock.  Then a drum beat.  Then, Whitney Houston breaking out into the climatic ending of the song.

And I will always love you.  I will always love you.  I will always love you.  I will always love you (the saxophone reentered the musical score after this one).  I will always love you.  I, I will always love you. 

I remember it vividly.

I remember wondering if my dad had a hidden Whitney Houston album somewhere that he got the track off of.  I remember my mom tearing up.  I remember Cojack running away when the message was over.  And I remember thinking, before I ran to chase after her (as I always did):

Love is a message on an answering machine.

And it still is.

Jump feet first, first time.

In 1988, Johnson and Johnson released a VHS tape called “The Official Kids Safety Quiz.” Twenty years later, I find myself still recalling and reciting the practical advice of the robot alien “U-2-B,” who moderated the game show of automobile/pedestrian safety, swimming/water safety, fire safety and emergency response.

Game show questions like “True or false: if you can see the driver of a car, the driver of a car can see you,”

::or::

“You’re staying at your grandmother’s house when you see your little cousin Johnny playing with a box of matches. Should you tell someone?”

Jumping feet first, first time, was the catchy advice given in regards to swimming safety and testing the shallowness of unknown waters.

If Lao-tzu’s observance of a journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step holds true, is it safe to assume that the more intensive journey of a lifetime requires you to dive in?

Diving in would immerse your head first, heart second, and feet last. If thoughts (combined with the feelings of heart) analyzed a situation before the feet gained a solid grounding, would the result be that the footing would remain indefinitely uncertain?

And if so, would this really be so tragic?

Even the firmness of soil is tested in times of flooding. To walk permanently on a ground comparable to the ocean’s beaches gives imagery of a world in compromise with life. Flexible, yet supportive. Changing, but conforming. The memories of digging my toes into the sand and finding relief from the overheated surface are comforting. Rock may provide sure footing, but you can’t mash your feet through it to cool off.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Where does this place the feet first, first time, advice?

I think it would be presumptuous to say that this approach is reserved for the timid. The reasoning for the safety slogan is obvious—so you don’t crack your head open in shallow waters. It implies the submersion of feet, heart, then head.

Sure footing implies a clear vision of life; an introspective response to an external stimuli. If one is grounded in their ways, how much flexibility does life have?

Could it be called timidness? Perhaps. But it could equally be called a strong will or audacity. You can’t stand for something if you don’t understand what’s under your feet.

The debate now becomes: is it better to start with articulate thoughts on shaky ground, or steady feet without contemplation? If muddied soil can harden, can shallow waters rise? With sure footing, is it still possible to be in over your head?

I propose that neither approach will be successful.

I wanted to write this Ash Wednesday night, after I came home from the service held at University Park. It always seems that when I’m in need of guidance, the messages come with perfect timing.

The reading for the evening was from Exodus 16:1-4. Oh Israelites, talk about receiving a freedom that you haven’t exactly bargained for. Instead of immediate deliverance, there was hunger and wandering. The wandering turned into murmuring. "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt!” Essentially—they’d rather be enslaved, dying in Egypt, then trying something unknown.

I wonder how much I murmur. Or cry out to be enslaved. Not because I like the pain associated with it, but because it's familiar.

Lent calls us into a journey through the unknown. While advent prepares us for the incarnation, we’re now being prepared for new life through the resurrection. The journey though? That’s where it gets personal.

Before this particular Ash Wednesday service began, we were all handed a small piece of paper. After Rev. Kottke finished his message about strength through the season, he asked us all to pull out the papers and meditate on what journey we would like to take these upcoming 40 days.

Perhaps it’s letting go of anger, Kottke said. Or overcoming grief. Or maybe your journey is shared with your family to rebuild relationships. Whatever it may be, it’s yours. Write it down.

I closed my eyes and swirled my thumb clockwise over the silky paper. This went on for about a minute before I opened my eyes and picked up the pencil.

BRoKENNESs. I wrote each letter slowly and boldly, pressing the pencil firmly into the paper. On the last “s”, the point splintered, and pieces of graphite smudged against my hand as I tried to brush them off the paper. This of course only seemed appropriate.

As I examined my paper, I licked my finger and rubbed it against my smeary palm in an attempt to cleanse the graphite. The word looked too alone. So I opened my purse as quietly as possible (which is never quite quiet enough when you’re in church), and dug for a pen to replace the broken pencil point.

Next to brokenness, and below the smudges, I wrote VULNERABiLiTY.

Because these journeys were to be our own, I figured we wouldn’t be sharing them out loud. But as I looked around the small congregation, I wondered if they would be collected and randomly distributed such that we could pray for a stranger. My words were clear, but they wouldn’t have made much sense to anyone else.

I picked up the pen again, and at the bottom of the paper I wrote “Give me” and drew a small arrow to my original word.

Give me -> BRoKENNESs.

Then looking at vulnerability, above it I wrote “(Let me become…).”

The grammar no longer made sense. So I made big X’s over the “iLiTY.” Below the scratched out markings I wrote in the letters “le.”

If the time allowed for meditation was any longer, I’m sure my paper would have become completely incoherent. Amidst the arrows, smudges, and blackened out parts, even I hardly understood the words on the paper. Rev. Kottke called our attention back to the front.

To stay true to the traditional wearing of ashes, Rev. Kottke explained that our markings would come from our journeys. That we would come to the front, put a corner of the paper into a candle flame, and drop the burning sheet into the bowl.

Amos Lee lyrics played through my head as one by one the people before me set their journeys ablaze, dropped them, and returned to their seats. I wonder what these people’s lives, what they might be all about. I didn’t want to wager a guess at what the other pieces of paper said. It would have been impossible to try.

We all carry secret things on our heart. Some hearts, unfortunately, have heavier weights than others.

But as I watched my words be consumed by fire, it occurred to me that it didn’t matter what their words were. Because their words were now my words. In the ashes, all of the words looked the same.

We were called to the front again, if we chose, to be anointed with these ashes as a sign of our journey. Rev. Kottke made the dust into a symbol on my forehead, saying “The Sign of the Cross: From ashes to ashes, remember your God, and remember your journey.”

Our journeys, combined into one source of ashes, made it the most powerful Ash Wednesday service I have ever been to.

I looked in the mirror when I got home. The ashes looked especially dark on my winter pale skin. Remembering my journey seemed paradoxal to the idea of it being forgetting everything I’ve learned.

I’m young, but I’ve been conditioned to believe that relationships mean being taken advantage of. And they mean being hurt.

So I had shut it all out.

I stopped feeling, stopped wanting to be attached. I professed openly that I didn’t believe in romantical love, or the institution of marriage, and that I was quite content being single for the rest of my life. I kept my heart hard, and my thoughts harder.

The fire from the ashes was out, so that wasn’t what was burning my soul as I looked into the mirror. It was the words of my journey that were igniting me.

And then, I cried. It was a good start to my path of feeling brokenness and vulnerability. At first I wasn’t really sure why I was crying, but then I realized I needed to purge my body of everything that had been hurting me. I needed to physically get it out, all of it out. All of the weight, the scars, the pain. The hurt.

And when I stopped crying, I was ready.

If the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, I’m still not convinced the journey of a lifetime begins by diving in. Or jumping feet first, first time. I’ve decided that we should be belly flopping.

The shared problem between the first two approaches I examined earlier is that both put the heart in the middle. I don’t want my heart to be guarded by my groundings or by my thoughts, but for it to guide the two.

Guide my feet,
light my path,
hold my hand,
while I run this race
for I don’t want to run this race in vain…

On one of our first dates I said to him I just want to let you know that when things start going good, I tend to pull away. Its silly, but it’s what I do. I get scared.

He held my hand a little tighter and said I won’t let you. I’ll pull you back.

The way I look at it, if we belly flop, we can’t pull away. If our feet, heads, and hearts are on the same level, none will have the dominance to make decisions for the others. Not just in love, but in life.

Even if he would pull me back, I’m finding (for the first time) I don’t want to pull away.

I’m learning. It’s only been a week since Lent has started, but I’m learning.

Tony has said on a few occasions, always with a smile, “Learning is fun, isn’t it?”

And with him, it is.

I’m told the key to overcoming fears of skydiving is to realize that once you’re freefalling, there’s no longer anything you can do; you might as well have fun.

So if this idea of freefalling was to be reversed (such that rather than starting from the clouds, pulling the ripcord, and gracefully descending to the earth, you instead start a gradual decline from the ground, pull a different RIP cord, and hit the heavens with amazing force), is it safe to assume that the fun is reserved for the grounded?

I ran this morning. I ran hoping to run out the thoughts running through my head. I ran with sure footing, waiting on an outcome I’m unsure of. I ran until “my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid.”

And then, instead of pulling a quote from Fight Club and running more, I stopped.

The walk home was strangely unfamiliar. The street signs had the same names, the buildings the same architecture, and the graffiti the same illegible markings of my everyday walk home from work. Except this morning I didn’t feel light on my face, as I do at the end of the day.

With the sun to my back, I struggled to not step on my own shadow cast before me. I was walking west, not wayward, but still felt lost. Was my inescapable shadow the product of the morning sunlight, or something else?

When you’ve moved out west, and are waiting for news from the east, is looming anticipation enough to cast this kind of darkness?

Forget sleeping. There’s beauty in the breakdown.

I know… emo much? My sincerest apologies.

Except not.

Cacoethes scribendi- the insatiable urge to write.

I needed to write something, since in the meanwhile I can’t do anything.

Goodness, I hate waiting.