Category Archives: Belonging

Dear Darkness,

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At first I thought the crack in my confidence, my wellbeing, my competence, was small, like the tiny valleys in the top of an old wooden table, or a playground injury a bandaid can soothe.

But it was not small. And to my horror, as it widened, I discovered beneath it a cavern of self-loathing and uncertainty—a cavern so large that it must have grown as I grew, stalactites of shame and stalagmites of anger forming one drip at a time beneath the surface of straight A’s and awards.

Had I sensed it there all along, this cave into which I felt myself falling? I fell until the crack through which I’d fallen seemed a mile above me, a splinter of light, unreachable. This new reality of you, and coldness—it all smelled like loneliness.

I wanted the old world back, didn’t know how to be me in this new world, didn’t dare look around. Instead I huddled to maintain the smallest sense of self. Was it years before I looked up? My eyes had adjusted, and to my wonderment I found I am not alone, as others move about in this underground home, and tiny lights shimmer from all the shining walls.

My misunderstanding becomes curiosity. Thank you for your patience. I think I may come to like it here.

Regards,

Middle-Aged Me

What She Wants Most

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Escape. This is what she wants most in the world. 

She has bumped into a cliché, that this is not the life she wanted. 

But also it is. The husband, the house, the backyard with towering trees and a play-set for her daughters.

She has decided she needs a week alone, preferably on an island far from here. Away from the husband who wants sex. Away from the house that is just a little too full of life and all that life implies. Away from the back yard where nothing bothers to ask before it grows another foot, and her young daughters still need supervision to be outdoors and help to go down the slide. Every fall the towering trees dump a million and one leaves, and in the prickly cold the family rakes and hauls and piles.

The worst thing of all is that when she reaches the ends of her fantasies—the deserted island, the silent retreat at a monastery, or even the house to herself for a week with no kids and no husband—yes, at the ends of the fantasies she is still weary, estranged from herself, married to her chosen life, nothing has changed. And that is the dagger to her heart. Past the hopeful fantasies lies the truth, that she doesn’t want another life, but neither does she want this one—the sleep-challenged nights, the rotting homemade play-doh, the almost-empty bin of cat food, dishes on repeat, never alone but often lonely, a dutiful, tired, empty well.

She is lying. About the escape. This is what she wants most in the world. 

She has explored her options and reached a conclusion. She wants to be at home with herself. She wants to feel relaxed in her own skin, perhaps even to like herself. She is aware of this possibility only dimly, and aware it will cost more than the option of escape. Escape is quick. Therapy is slow. But it becomes apparent that her own hostility toward herself is the culprit of her discontent. And this revelation is an invitation. To what, she’s not sure. Is this a battle? A puzzle? A zombie apocalypse?

Perhaps yes to all of the above. This is unsettling, though perhaps less unsettling than the lonely, empty well. This battle/puzzle/apocalypse promises change, momentum. She gets to keep the husband, the house, and the kids, and discard the shame and scarcity.

She doesn’t know it yet, but she will discover self-friendship. She will experience her own self as her most trustworthy ally, and she will learn to enjoy her own company. She will discover that friendship with herself is an expansive container, able to hold the pieces of her life, even those that seem incongruous. She is not a pantry, but a cathedral.

And when she has absorbed this truth, she might still take that week alone when she gets the chance, but rather than an escape, it will be a celebration.

Spring

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What am I here for
But to watch buds fatten
On tips of branches in early spring
To notice the colors of the sky
How sun and clouds play with light
And wind plays in trees

Enormous branches wave and pitch
Every squirrel has sea legs
And every bird knows wind in its feathers
The way I know air in my lungs

Warty limbs offer footing for hawks and squirrels
Predator and prey on the same playground

Mourning doves build flimsy nests
Robins weave bowls sturdy and deep
Open-air homes, no walls, no roofs
Yet safe for fragile eggs and naked babies

I live fortified in walls and clothes and knowledge
Yet no more safe than birds and buds
“Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow
They don’t work or make their clothing
Yet Solomon in all his glory
Was not dressed as beautifully as they are”*

*Matthew 6:28b-29, NLT

Every Step of the Way

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“Mama, are you gonna be with me every step of the way?” Her faced warped in sorrow, and in her teary eyes I saw she needed an answer, needed to know she would not be alone. 

Three months earlier, our family made an excursion to the locally-owned pet shop across town, where a hay-like smell and the sound of chirping birds accompanied us to the corner of the store where for-sale rodents ran on exercise wheels and nosed around in paper bedding. Kyli, eleven years old, wanted a hamster. Soon one of the employees was carefully scooping through a small aquarium nearly full of paper bedding, searching for the elusive, white dwarf hamster Kyli had selected. Kyli’s aquarium, identically full of bedding, sat nearby on the floor, ready to receive her pet. It seemed a long time before the rodent handler came up with a wiggling clump of bedding and transferred it to its new glass home.

Lucy, as Kyli named her, liked life buried in bedding. But we’d close the bedroom door, shove a blanket in the gap between the door and the floor, and scoop Lucy out to run around in a supervised corner and hide under our crossed legs. Kyli had incredible patience and insisted on gaining Lucy’s trust slow and gentle. One evening Lucy got into Kyli’s closet, which at that time contained an amorphous heap of items on the floor. Determined not to hurt or scare Lucy, Kyli waited patiently outside the closet for her pet, and asked me to stay with her. Lucy scooted into the folds of a Home Depot tote bag, then back out to disappear behind a crumpled sheet. We listened as she poked plastic toys with her nose and scrambled into a cardboard box. I mentally tapped my toe, Let’s get this hamster put away so I can brush my teeth and get in bed with a book.

Then Lucy came, with the barely perceptible tap of tiny claws on the floor, out to the open area. I held my breath as Kyli slowly extended a hand toward her; Lucy scurried back into the tote bag. I suggested we carefully start pulling things out of the closet. Kyli said no, that would scare her and might hurt her. I suggested clamping something down over her fast when she came out. Kyli said no. Lucy scampered out of the closet and almost crawled under Kyli’s dresser. Kyli shooed her away from the under-dresser “cave,” and I jumped in to scoop her up . . . she shot back in the closet.

I suggested blocking some of the open areas into the closet, so when she came out we could quickly block the rest and prevent her from going back in. We tried this, but Lucy easily eluded us. She must have come out in the open area a dozen times, as I sat on a pillow on the bedroom floor, making pointed suggestions about how to speed things along. Kyli talked me through being patient. “Mama, I don’t want her to be scared. We have to wait until she comes out. You’re gonna be okay.” 

“We could be here all night,” I grumbled. But eventually we corralled her and successfully lifted her back into her cage. Nearly an hour had elapsed.

Since Lucy had a way of scuttling into hard-to-reach hiding places in the bedroom, we took to sitting with her in the bathroom. With a blanket tucked into the gap under the door, she could run around without disappearing. Although not excited about being held, she warmed up to it, and seemed to enjoy exploring our hands and laps. 

One day, as she explored on and under the blanket by the door, she squeezed into the hallway. Before we knew what was happening, one of the cats seized her and carried her under sister’s bed. Papa dove under, scraping his back on the bed frame, frantically reaching for the cat, who dropped Lucy. Kyli screamed in fear throughout the ordeal, and although Lucy looked fine, her mannerisms over the next couple of days shed some doubt on her wellbeing. We monitored her, unsure what she needed, but she ate and drank and had no visible wound, so we were hopeful she would be okay—until the morning we found her lifeless in the cage.

On Thanksgiving Day we dressed in black and Papa dug a hole beside the shrubs along the back fence. Kyli settled Lucy in a sturdy wooden casket about six inches long, made by her wood-shop teacher, and added dried flowers, the toilet-paper roll Lucy loved to run through, and a smaller box containing her tiny body. We shared memories of Lucy and buried her. 

Kyli felt all the things common to loss. Frustration with herself. Disappointment in how things turned out. Anger at the cat. She blamed herself for not being a good enough mama to Lucy. She often felt sad in the evenings, and with tears in her eyes would say, “I want her to know how much I loved her. I don’t know if she knew. What if she didn’t know?”

The grief softened over time, as grief often does. By January Kyli started talking about getting a new pet. In the meantime, her aquarium had served as home to a snake she and some classmates found in the schoolyard, and although they released it after a few weeks, it molted while in captivity, leaving Kyli a snakeskin souvenir. We washed and disinfected the aquarium. On the day of parent-teacher conferences, we once again traveled as a family to the pet store—only to find the cages in the rodent corner mostly empty. One contained an aging gerbil. Another, a white hamster that bit the pet-store lady assisting us, and drew blood. There were no dwarf hamsters, just Jumbo Biter. There was, however, one tan-and-white gerbil that seemed like an option. Kyli went into the back room with the pet-store lady to get a closer look, and before we knew it we were back on the highway home with Miss Gerbil in the aquarium. A bag of cat food balanced atop the cage to secure the screen lid.

Kyli named her new pet Tophee—Toph for short (like “trough” without the “r” sound)—and we stationed her in the dining room where we could see her often and get to know her. She was more active than Lucy had been, and more apt to scamper around on top of her bedding where we could see her. One day when Papa picked her up so Kyli could hold her, she shot off his hand to the floor, where she and we frantically scampered around until I grabbed her tight in my hand to lift her to safety. She did not appreciate this and bit me hard, leaving a bloody cut at the tip of my middle finger. Kyli again decided to take a gentle approach, reaching into her cage so Toph could get acquainted with her hand, talking softly to her and giving her treats, not taking her out of the cage to be held.

After a couple weeks, Kyli noticed Toph didn’t seem to want to open her eyes. Were they crusted shut? We couldn’t tell. Sometimes they were open, sometimes not. And she seemed to burrow less. We also questioned if she was drinking water. The hand-me-down water bottle she used sometimes required a bit of prodding to produce water. After some deliberation, and Kyli desperately wanting to take Toph to the vet, we took her to the pet store for an unofficial assessment. The pet-store lady who’d helped us purchase Toph, put on a long leather glove and reached in to hold and assess the little critter. She thought Toph might be dehydrated, asked about the warmth of our house, and suggested we try a new water bottle and watch to see if the eye situation worsened—if so, it could be a respiratory infection.

We moved Toph to a quiet corner of the living room, hoping she could rest more and get well. Over the next several days, she drank from her new water bottle, ate celery slices and Romaine lettuce, and seemed more active. Until she didn’t. Soon we realized we’d hardly seen her at all, as she seemed to be sleeping most of the time. We hauled a six-foot-long cardboard box from the basement to the dining room so we could hold and observe her outside of her cage. I scooped her up and placed her in the box. My heart sank as I watched her walk. She teetered to one side, getting in a few steady steps and then struggling again to maintain balance. Kyli watched tensely, and began to panic as I expressed my concern. We’d had rats who behaved that way, and they had to be put down for neurological problems.

I sat in the box with Toph; Kyli cried, “Why me? You had a hamster that lived for a long time, and you threw it against a wall! Why can’t I have a pet that doesn’t have all these problems?” I lifted Toph to my lap, sleeves pulled over my hands to protect against bites. She sat on my leg, barely moving, thin and lethargic. This was more than Kyli could bear and she paced around the living room crying, not wanting to look at Toph, feeling guilty for not being able to keep her healthy, desperate to do anything we could for her. As I sat in the box with Toph, Kyli approached me, tears on her cheeks, her face twisted in fear and sorrow. It was too much. Too much not-knowing. Too much angst at the thought of an innocent animal suffering. Too much powerlessness and insufficiency and fear. Kyli reached out her hand to me—“Mama, are you gonna be with me every step of the way?”

I, too, felt powerless, insufficient, and fearful. How could I be present to Kyli’s grief? How could I make a decision about taking a $30 rodent to a vet who would certainly charge more than $100? Kyli’s question handed me a lifeline. In asking me to be with her, she gave me something to hold onto. “Yes. Of course. I will.” I will be with you. I wouldn’t have it any other way. We will question together. We will cry together. We will make difficult choices together. You are not alone in your fear and grief. Together we will watch and worry and wait. Together we will make decisions. Together we will hold our insecurities and unanswerable questions. Together.

The next day I called the pet store for more advice. They wondered if Toph was warm enough, so we moved her in front of a heater vent, put a blanket over half her aquarium, and decided to offer her water on a spoon two or three times a day, buy new food, and give her some jarred baby food as well—pureed pumpkin. Toph again seemed to perk up, had an enormous appetite for sunflower seeds, and began rummaging around her cage more often.

But after a week, she returned to excessive sleeping and her sides still caved in a bit where she should be plump and round. We didn’t know what she needed. We consulted the internet, the pet store, and artificial intelligence. We didn’t know if she’d make it or not. I echoed Kyli’s sentiment—why can’t it just be simple? And I was grateful, knowing we would be together, every step of the way.

Be Still, My Soul

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“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”*
Unexpected but much-needed words at 2 a.m., when the house is quiet but my soul is loud.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
A thousand memories of my father, the hymn-playing classical guitarist whose practicing accompanied my sleep most nights for my first 18 years. A hundred more memories of concerts in a hundred churches, Daddy’s black suit with the guitar-fretboard tie, my mother presiding over a table of music for sale—books, CDs, tapes. And record albums in the early memories. My sister and I sang duets. We wore matching dresses sewn by my mother each year, made from fabric chosen by my father.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
The deepest stillness of my soul is always at God’s invitation.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
Knowing I can rage against God, blame God, say “fuck” to God—this, too, is an element of the stillness of my soul.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
Words I need to hear now, and in five minutes, and five minutes after that, because my soul has amnesia when it comes to stillness.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
Comfort for the parts of me that fret about who is not on my side, who doesn’t understand me, who wants ill for me. Be still. The One on my side will never change Her mind.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
As the psalmist wrote, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) If He is God, I am not. Sometimes I need to remember this. Be still. Be.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
It is safe to be me. Right now. Before I do the next thing.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
I am not alone, even in my ugliest moments. God’s holy presence holds me with tenderness. I am invited to hold myself with tenderness, too.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”

I pull out my hymnal, play the song one-handed on the piano, wonder if I might fall in love with the rest of the lyrics. I don’t. All I need is that one line.

“Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”

*This is the first line of the hymn, “Be Still, My Soul.” Words by Kathrina von Schlegel, translated into English by Jane Borthwick. Sung to the tune of “Finlandia,” by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

Simple Jesus

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I want to like Jesus because the grown-ups in my life told me He is good, and they were right. 

I want to be innocently happy that God is good. 

I want to go back to painting “JESUS FREAK” in huge letters on a baggy cotton T-shirt, soaking up Sabbath School lessons with gusto, back to the credibility God had when I was 14.

Simple Jesus—does He still exist? Or can He at least be mysteriously complex and Kindergarten-simple at the same time? 

Is there a reality—no-strings-attached—in which Jesus just loves me and knows my name?

A few weeks ago I attended a spiritual retreat at Camp MiVoden, as a sponsor for the girls in the 7th/8th-grade class. During the worship services I remembered something, a feeling of belonging and certainty from my past. I knew some of the songs the praise band led, and I sang with my arms raised. No one expected anything—hardly anyone knew me—and the featured speaker said simple and good things, about who I am and who God is, and I cried, and I remembered a time when I belonged wholly, and sermons weren’t pocked with ideas that distract me from goodness and wholeness.

I want a plain friendship, one I don’t have to defend or explain, one in which I don’t need Jesus to make me look good, and Jesus doesn’t need me to make Him look good; Jesus with a reputation as simple as Mary who had a little lamb, not the notoriety of an activist. 

I don’t need answers for all the questions and discrepancies. I’m looking for that place where they are absent, where I don’t have to explain why I don’t believe in a punitive gospel, or why I’m part of a faith tradition (Christianity) that has inspired violence for thousands of years. I don’t want to explain why I use feminine pronouns for God, or why I say Adventism is my community but not my religion. I don’t want anyone to raise their eyebrows at me, nor me at them. I want to be in love—inside love. I want to feel safe because I am safe. 

Maybe what I really want to know is this: does a simple Jesus exist for adults too? Does He go for coffee with millennials—with me? Does He wear jeans and send 132 text messages every day? Does He understand carpools and playdates and a family calendar on the kitchen wall and how all the spoons are dirty if I miss one day running the dishwasher? Does He peruse my TBR shelf and ask me about my writing? Does He know I’m still a little girl inside, intimidated by the disciples who turn me away because I am small and simple?

Is Jesus here now, and does He remember me? Does He look through my photo albums and murmur memories? Has He been here for it all? Can we laugh together about singing “Sinnerman” and “We Are Soldiers”—the laugh of a shared memory—those lyrics humorous like the frizzy perms of the 80’s?* Is He still the cleft in the rock, the hiding place, the blessed assurance the hymns offered? 

What if we’ve shared a life more than a belief system, and our love is built on mutual adventure and admiration?

Maybe He has never needed me to pull Him apart and stitch Him back together, to understand how He is a triune being, or even to put our companionship into words. Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking that farther, bigger, and deeper are better. 

Jesus is here. In the essentials He hasn’t changed a bit. He’s still the great guy I knew in primary Sabbath School; the one who stood with me in the church baptistry, invisible yet deliciously simple; the father I wrote to in a dozen journals full of prayers; the soil from which I grow. Most of all, He’s still my friend.

*I sang these songs countless times. Although the lyrics of “Sinnerman” I sang were not as heinous as what I just found by googling it, I think it’s safe to say it’s inappropriate to mock sinners running from God (and what even is a “sinner”? Aren’t we all?). And don’t even get me started on “We Are Soldiers” and “I’m in the Lord’s Army.” Who decided it was a good idea for seven-year-olds to sing about blood-stained banners and artillery? So yes, I think Jesus and I can have a good laugh about it.

Run-on Marriage

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Last week Michael and I celebrated 20 years of marriage. The run-on sentence below illustrates our run-on marriage. (And yes, we’re still crazy about each other, in addition to driving each other crazy.)

I cannot get in bed when the bedcovers are frumpy, drifting off the end of the bed, sideways, knowing that if I do lie down and tug on them I will get too much sheet, too little blanket, and the wrong corner of the comforter; but I do not make my bed in the morning—I make it right before I climb in bed at night, tugging with exaggerated exclamations as I dislodge cats, and my poor husband too, because there’s a tiny possibility that I idolize sleep and this bed is my altar and before I sacrifice my body the altar must be prepared as if for a temperamental god of linens, and I like to remind my husband that before I met him my sheets would stay tucked in and straight for months at a time, but since his feet hang over the end of the bed and he tosses and turns at night, I have to straighten the covers every single day, and I accomplish this with more violent energy and bitter comments than necessary, although one would think after 20 whole years I would have adjusted and calmed down about it—but he huffs and makes less-than-charitable remarks every time he drives, and he has been driving for twenty-five years, so I guess we are both going to have our snide remarks and adult tantrums and all shall be well. 

P.S. I usually use stock photos, but the photo for this post is of my husband and I earlier this month. I barely squeezed into my wedding dress, which I attempt every September as our anniversary rolls around.

Disrupt the System, Applaud Early

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Applause: public approval or praise expressed by clapping hands together.

Some fifteen years ago, I stood while applauding after a Distinguished Faculty Lecture at my alma mater. Is it a standing ovation if only one person stands? I stood, exuberant about the depth of understanding and connection I experienced during the lecture. But as my peripheral vision told me that no one else stood, self-consciousness bubbled up. Why am I the only one deeply affected? Does everyone else already have a depth of experience such that the lecture was run-of-the-mill for them? My pulse quickened and I lowered into my seat, certain everyone must be giving me the side-eye, judging my way of being in the world.

Looking back, I am proud of that moment. I know now that many of us who speak or write or reveal ourselves in some way, need only one person to stand. Only one person to send a note letting us know our words created connection.

Late last July, I attended “heART on display,” an event featuring artwork by incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals. Cedar Rain Spirits, a distillery and BBQ in downtown Walla Walla, hosted the event, curated by Devon Player, whom I met through the Walla Walla Community Change Team. Outside the narrow storefront, a sandwich board on the sidewalk announced the event. Inside, people mingled, music blared, and art lined much of the two long walls that extended to the back of the venue.

For the next hour, I perused art, snacked on free hors d’oeuvres, asked a few questions, and flattened myself into tables and walls to avoid bumping into fellow guests. As I chose art to purchase—proceeds to benefit Running Waters Equity Fund and the Black Prisoners Caucus—Devon took the mic and introduced a guest speaker, Anthony Covert. We all quieted where we sat or stood, and turned to listen.

Anthony was sentenced to 432 months (36 years) in prison at the age of 18. He served 16 of those, and walked free on June 10, 2024. As he talked about sitting in prison, alone with himself, I stumbled into sudden affinity with him. We “outside” (unincarcerated) folks have so much available to distract ourselves; it is a rare and excruciating experience to be alone with ourselves. “ But when you’re sitting in that prison cell and all you got is those four walls—sometimes with a celly, sometimes not—you have to sit with yourself.” And, he says, you have to ask yourself questions, about how you came to be in this place, and what your purpose is now that you’re here. 

My own season of being alone with myself and asking hard questions transpired during stay-at-home momming. I recognized that singular agony of sitting with oneself, and the subsequent decision to engage with tricky, heavy questions. As an incarcerated, black young man, Anthony felt it in the isolation of prison. As a middle class, white mother of an infant and toddler, I felt it in the isolation of motherhood. Although our experiences differed, Anthony’s words connected intimately with my inner world as a stay-at-home mom. Because he exposed his pain, I felt seen in mine. Our stories held hands for a just a moment. 

I wanted to applaud, but other listeners were intent, soaking up the story, not ready to respond. Anthony continued, and when he shared the completion of a college degree, while incarcerated, with a 3.98 GPA, everyone applauded, including me. Later, when he talked about his clemency hearing and the unanimous vote to grant him clemency, we applauded again. It was then that I noticed my moments of connection were not the same as the moments of applause. Before Anthony’s clemency hearing, when anxiety was high, Anthony’s friend Demar told him, “Go in there and show them who you are.” That moment connected. That moment I wanted to clap or sigh, or give the man a hug. Show them who you are.

Why the dissonance between my moments of kinship with the speaker, and our collective moments of applause? Could it be that as a society we are quick to applaud measurable achievement, but not moments of quiet strength? What about times of agonizing surrender—to our brokenness, and simultaneously to our wholeness? 

Anthony described us on the “outside” as an invisible army that stands with those on the “inside.” Because our worlds are disconnected, there is a wall isolating our compassion and assistance from the insiders’ knowledge, and/or response. Knowing this, may we be courageous to continue engaging—despite the lack of testimonials, catchy postcards, and fundraising galas that feed the selfish side of our generosity. 

“ There’s no fixing the system. It is what it is,” Anthony said. “But what you can do is disrupt it in certain areas, right? To give people opportunities to come home.”

What if applause—public approval or praise—happened earlier in the story, and it served to recognize nothing more than our humanity, the intrinsic dignity of our existence? What if clapping said, “you got this,” more than, “you did something big and measurable”? Better yet, what if approval and praise showed up in the process and in the conclusion? What if it gave people opportunities to come home—to themselves, to their families, to their communities? I need this. I suspect we all do.

I want to applaud early—for my children, my spouse, my friends, my community. A healer is “someone who can see the movement toward wholeness in you more clearly than you can at any given moment,” wrote Rachel Naomi Remen. Let’s open our eyes to see. Put your hands together for humanity. 

Let’s applaud smallness. Clap for the courage it takes to engage with our own selves and our messy stories. Cheer at the thin places in our stories, where pain and intention form a bond and point us in a new direction. Celebrate wholeness even as it lingers in the wings. Disrupt the narrative in ways that invite belonging. 

Walk Repenting

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“… the soft animal of my body …”

As I put the car in park, I leaned forward and squinted to read the blue letters on the bumper sticker of the car in front of me. “maybe the soft animal of my body wants to walk a thousand miles repenting”

I’d never heard a human body described as a soft animal before. Did I have a soft self, and did it want to repent?

It was Tuesday morning, Colville Street, a much needed coffee-and-writing date with myself. I turned off the engine, and hoping the woman in the red shirt exiting the store to my right was not the owner of the car, I snapped a photo of the bumper sticker. A silhouette of geese flying over cattails on the right side of the message added to the calm invitation I felt from those words. 

Not wanting to linger with my phone camera pointed at the back end of a stranger’s car, I made a quick detour into the building the red-shirted woman had just exited. Like a mini mall, a half dozen boutique clothing and food/wine shops occupied storefronts along a wide hallway. I noticed a sign for a soon-to-be bagel shop on the brown-paper-covered windows of a corner space. The slurpy sounds of a paint roller accompanied the smell of fresh paint.

The shop around the corner used to sell my favorite coffee smoothie—made with raw cashews, dates, and cocoa powder. They had closed some months ago, but I’d heard the new occupant of their space served the same smoothies. I walked in slowly and surveyed a freezer with everything from ice cream bars to frozen quarts of house-made soup. The deli fridge held a mouthwatering assortment of unique grab-and-go foods, such as spiced garbanzo beans. When I got to the cheeses, I noticed the front counter out of the corner of my eye, and above it the list of smoothies. No coffee smoothie. 

The bumper sticker I’d photographed still rolled around in my mind as I perused a couple shelves of dry goods, then stepped over to the counter. “Hi,” I spoke to the southern-California-pretty girl, feeling self-conscious in my workout clothes and messy half-ponytail. “This is my first time here since this store changed owners,” I offered awkwardly, “so I’m just checking it out.”

“Okay. Welcome.” She smiled.

“Do you have a coffee smoothie?”

“No. We’re working on it.” She gestured to a middle-aged woman with light brown hair, seated behind a laptop at the nearest round table. 

“I’m trying to get the consistency right,” the woman offered. I showed her the recipe I use at home for a coffee smoothie, and we chatted for a while. She told me about the plans she has with her business partner to open a sandwich shop in the small empty storefront next door. I wished her luck with the business ventures and returned the way I’d come, back to the sidewalk by my car. No police waited to take my phone away or arrest me for taking pictures of bumper stickers.

I grabbed my laptop, sweatshirt, journal and book from my car and headed toward my original destination for a weekday morning self-date—the coffee shop beside the mini-mall. 

I ordered a hot matcha latte, paid with a gift card, and chose a table in the corner. Then I settled in with my journal and returned to pondering the bumper sticker: maybe the soft animal of my body wants to walk a thousand miles repenting. Yes, my body seems to say, I want to do this. I ask my body, why?

Because pretense is not a way to spend a life.

Because I am sorry this world is not a comfortable place for a hundred families I know and billions I don’t know. 

I am sorry for the miscarriages and painful marriages, sorry for the systems that don’t see people, and the people who don’t see themselves, sorry I have loved control more than gentleness, sorry for the disease and dis-ease that never ask before they darken our doors.

I am sorry for the loss of hard-to-hear human stories to easy-to-apply inhumane labels, sorry that emotional and physical safety are a privilege and not a right, sorry for all the grief that is carried alone because we are scared to name our own grief and to witness the grief of others. 

I am sorry we look at teenagers and see youthful bodies and immature minds, but don’t see the loneliness or oppressive unanswered questions, sorry we look at children and see their food-smeared faces, hear their unfiltered words, but don’t see their whole souls—meant to awaken us to the wholeness that is their birthright and ours.

I am sorry there is no easy way out of addiction or a demeaning job or loneliness, sorry that pain is par for the course and I sometimes pretend it’s not, and sorry I forget that joy is also par for the course and I sometimes pretend otherwise.

I am sorry that plants are largely unheard and animals are prized or passed over, but rarely known, sorry I’m an unsafe stranger to some, and an unsafe friend to others, sorry for all the ways I have confirmed the loneliness in another person’s spirit.

I am sorry I swallow my food without giving thanks to the earth and the farmers and God.

So yeah, I could walk a thousand miles repenting, my soft body says. And I want to grasp other soft bodies and bring them with me, to walk together barefooted until our soft mass of bodies spreads repentance across every landscape, until we have repented our way home, which is not a place of individual belonging, but of collective belonging.

And then my body is done speaking. She relinquishes the pen back to my mind, and I see the paper I am writing on, the smooth blonde wood of the table underneath. I notice my cold ankles, the barista’s laughter, and a melancholy female voice singing through the shop speakers.

I notice the way my fingers wrinkle as I hold a blue pen with black ink, and see for the first time that the tiny screws on the metal logo attached to my purse are fake.

After a while, I notice that I am noticing, and I wonder—if fifteen minutes of quiet repentance awakens me this much, what might be born of a thousand miles?

Lunch time nears. I return to the shop with no coffee smoothie and purchase a cauliflower and garbanzo bean salad. While I eat, I think about repentance. Is repentance a list of sins and regrets before God? Is it turning a different direction, choosing a better way? Is it a walk, the bodily healing of circulation, the mental healing of gazing at the horizon, the spiritual healing of engaging with the landscape of humanity? My body says this might be the case. Perhaps it is all of these and more, an invitation to be awake, to be soft, to hold each other gently…for a thousand miles, if necessary.

Forty and (In)secure

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Twenty One Pilots’s song, “Stressed Out,” laments the insecurities of adulthood, noting that fear is still present, and we still care what people think. I turned 40 this month, and yes, I’m still insecure. It’s different than high school. And the same. I want you to like me. I want to be well-dressed and well-spoken, and most importantly, perceived well.

I’m a grown-up—have been for quite some time—and I can tell you what maturity doesn’t mean. Being grown up doesn’t involve control and confidence; it doesn’t mean growing out of awkward traits and social habits; it doesn’t include a clean house and well-kept yard, or a passel of perfect grown-up girlfriends.

I’m less sure what being a grownup does mean. But I’ve noticed I’m softer than I used to be—more flexible, a teensy bit less judgmental, and I know more about cooking and cleaning than I did 20 years ago.

I know less about God, love, and relationships. It’s been said that the more you know, the more you know you don’t know anything. I can confirm this.

There’s a real sense of loss, not landing in adulthood firmly in control and certainty, an expert in the kitchen, the workplace, the bedroom. I get tired of being wrong, confused, ineffective. If knowledge comes from experience, I am an expert in exhaustion, stress, and leaving my cell phone in obscure places.

I know I’m sounding a tad morose. But there is a happy ending. There’s something left after losing control, and the appearance of control, and pretending to have control. What’s left is eyes to see a different life entirely—a life of watching the cat lick his fur, thinking of my three favorite moments from the day just before I fall asleep, fighting less with my kids and husband, knowing there will not be a seismic event when my to-do list is left undone.

And I know myself better. I know I love writing and small groups. I know I like a clean house, but not enough to put in the work. I know I’m scared of the interminable wants and needs of my children. Being quiet and alone—especially in nature—returns me to myself. Banana splits and blended mochas almost always sound good. I try the hardest to be self-sufficient when I’m at my weakest. Animals make me happy. Getting called “a writer” makes me stand a little taller. Synchronicity feels like opening a birthday present.

My birthday, which this year fell on the first Sunday in May, played out like a dream Mother’s Day. My husband cleaned the kitchen, top to bottom. He and the kids cooked breakfast and dinner, and took me out for lunch. I sorted through a large tote, five bags, and an unconstrained pile of children’s clothing I hauled up from the basement, and found most of it could be passed on. I went to the park and watched goslings and ducklings, heard the smack-smack of their webbed feet in shallow water, and marveled at their fluffy bodies. I took a nap. With my parents and sister, I ate fresh-made blackberry pie with “40” cut into the top crust. Michael gave me a gift certificate to have the house professionally cleaned (when the dust settles from our six-month construction project). Like I said, a dream day.

It’s worth noting I couldn’t have planned such a day. All was gift—the generosity of my husband, my children, my sister. Many times I have planned a birthday party for myself, with friends and presents and homemade cake. But for forty, this un-forced birthday felt fitting. The people who love me gave what they wanted to give. And I received. I basked. I rested. And yes, I sorted children’s clothing—one of those things I never can find time to do.

Maybe I’m ready to accept this life I have. Whether I die tomorrow or in another 40 years, I will die complicated—a mix of peace and insecurity, frustration and gratitude, mundane and miraculous. And not at all grown up.