I'm sorry, what?

"Calls in Sudan for execution of Briton"

I am learning that there are many things in life that I will never understand, though I may try. Today's concern regards a certain teddy bear now carrying the [apparently blasphemous] name, Muhammad. I don't know if Ms. Gibbons had intentions steeped in spite, but it seems that naming a stuffed bear after a prophet pales in comparison to the 200,000+ living, breathing people that have been slaughtered...or the infinitely larger number of those displaced, homeless, and starving in the wretched conditions of refugee camps. But again, there are many things I don't understand, and I'm perfectly willing to stand corrected.

A teddy bear holds the name of a prophet and it makes headlines...blazing headlines. They want her stoned, rifled down by a firing squad, the people are moved to riots. The media whores have seduced their public with the hype of this event and the Sudanese have united...

If this much energy was spent in an attempt to squelch out all of the killing, all of the raping, all of the starving and homelessness created by the tragedy of this country, it would stop. It would have to. Instead, we foam at the mouth, we salivate at this news, we want to gather 'round the poor British teacher [who may or may not have known better]. The point is not that she is unworthy of concern. If I can cause you to think, rather, about the polar imbalance, then I will have said my piece. One woman stirs nations. One woman who very well may serve her 15 days in prison and be sent back home, she can cause this kind of international buzz but the hundreds of thousand dead cannot?

I am perplexed and a little bit disgusted.

Spread some holiday love...

AdoptaUSsoldier.org

"In the end, it has to become just another day. But it is another day down, scratched out on the calendar. An emblem of progress and a reminder to count your blessings, not your difficulties. We are 24 hours closer to finishing this chapter of life and returning to those things that we know and love."

- Capt. Lee Kelley, excerpt from Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox, regarding Christmas in Iraq

* photo borrowed from blackfive.net

On living

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
- Emily Dickenson

Is it then that I am clouding life with unnecessary distractions or that I'm just that startled by living? [a question evolving from the same source as the chicken/egg conundrum]. I don't feel startled, an emotion I equate with a distinct crispness, rather than the quake of a start, I feel more muddled and confused. What does it mean? Why is it all so fucking gray? Why can't a statement be held only accountable for the words that make it, or a fear remain simply such, over a manifested form of heightened insecurity? Instead I find a route around logic and mold it into something that I know is not truth. I sink with the absurdity I create. I'm so stupidly scared...of losing what?

[you can't spend your whole life worried.]

...control of the things that I never controlled. Yes, I want impossible guarantees and all answers to every question. I want something to be stable...to be able to rely on one thing. [I'd be appeased by one single constant.]

Dear Self,

Today I took the time to write a letter. It will be sent to myself on my 26th birthday. I thought about copying and pasting the words here, awkwardly written in first person to me about me, but really to whom I will become. I reminded my future self of who I am in this moment today...struggling to keep it all together, whose family has unfurled, whose idea of Home is lost, lost, lost...wearing long, falsely-colored hair and bangs that I will probably look back on and question, "why?!" Intoxicated by new love and burned out on collegiate business studies, who has found a compulsive drive to write on anything about everything and wants nothing more than to find the niche of happiness that certainly must exist. I told my 26 year old self what I hope she has remedied. I told her about the dreams kept only in my head because, while I do tell almost anything, some prayers are too delicate, too sacred to expose. She will probably look back and laugh, being taken off guard by a composition she forgot she wrote on a bad day in her 23rd year. At least I hope, on some levels, that she does. I left her with the little-girls dreams, the "when I grow up" bulleted list, the idealistic goals that I hope she will have accomplished, while knowing that life rarely goes as planned.

Naturally this train of thought led me to reflect on the past year and all of the irony and craziness that carried me through these 11 months. Now, as 2007 dwindles to a wintry close, I am entertained by last year's hopes for this one. I am so very far from the person I was last December. I grew substantially this year, which, in general terms, is exactly what I predicted. On a micro level, though, wow...it's really astonishing sometimes to look back at the outline you planned and then veered from, but I learned from the short-cuts and scenic routes, and even the idle hours spent waiting in traffic. I learned specifically what I would never again settle for, and what I could and couldn't live with, and that I can survive on my own, but I don't like it. I swore to learn 25 new things...I'm assessing this goal and will have an accurate report of progress by December 31st.

I said I was coming back to Nashville, and I packed my car and did it. I said that I wouldn't date for 365 days, but I did, and I even fell in love, an event I was sure would be impossible for a very long time. I said I would graduate in December, and as it approaches I've known since August that it wasn't possible, and frankly, I wonder if I will even pass all of my Fall classes this semester. I've had four jobs, two roommates, one new bedroom wall color, finished one book, completed two pieces of art, written one commercial composition, started a blog, and been introduced to the lifestyle of the Army. I've lost and made friends, I've seen beauty in pure form and ugliness too. I've done a lot of aching, but haven't found reason enough to throw in the towel. I've left and returned. I've stumbled a lot with intermittent glimpses of grace. Although marked by scars, I now know how to avoid tripping sometimes. I'm better because of the falls and stronger because I eventually shake them off.

No, no one promised me a rose garden. In fact, my Mother always made it a point to assure me that life isn't fair. Keeping all of that in mind and where I've been and where I hope I'm going, maybe sooner than later I'll at least have a bed of tulips or daisy's.

CHECK THIS SITE: FutureMe.org

If there were such a place, I would get in my car and go [home].

One down, One to go.

It's 3am and I'm awaiting the last oven timer's digital beep. She has been an overworked laborer today. Following a 7 pound chicken, cornbread dressing, candied yams, and a pumpkin pie, her final task this early morning is to bake the two chocolate layers of birthday cake necessary for the quick approaching celebratory date of a certain staff sergeant.

It was 8 or 9am before I finalized the decision to go ahead with the production of a miniature Turkey Day spread. I settled on a menu: roasted chicken, steamed green beans, garlic mashed potatoes, candied yam patties, cornbread dressing [of course!], cranberry sauce, and a pumpkin pie. Then my soldier and I braved the crowds of Turkey Trotters, last minute grocery fiends [like yours truly], and the usual damnit-I'm-out-of-[essential ingredient]-shoppers. It was mayhem that no Army training or seasoned chef experience could have readied a person for, but we prevailed. He had an agenda to entertain, and I needed to find my culinary center so, for a bit, we parted ways to best utilize the day off.

There were pans, pots, and casserole dishes shuffled from dish washer to oven to stove-top to sink, and chopping, steaming and seasoning, and antiquated Christmas carols, and chocolate chip cookies from last night...

I find that I feel very calm in the systematic madness of a busy kitchen. There is a deadline and a number of dishes that must all be finished and hot at the same time, and a workspace only large enough for a quick pirouette [assuming you're the only one occupying the space]. It's a challenge, but manageable, and the fulfillment of success is unmatchable. I was happy as a peach churning out the holiday ensemble and filling the momentary lulls with blips of conversational well-wishes and cooking questions. I was at home in my cramped little galley with the notion of guests arriving at six. Finally, it announced itself in neon green numbers across the tiny screen of my microwave, and low and behold, the chicken was done and everything else standing by on "warm". If that achievement wasn't enough, paired with the greatest of companionship, my day was perfection!

...Ah, I love the holidays! [Even when the situation makes them very tempting to hate.]

Baby, baby, baby, come on home.

I greatly dislike the unknown. The confused gray place between here and there agitates my concrete desire for sturdiness, clarity, being able to say, "this is why..." Likewise, I loathe the feeling of coming undone. The threads slip further away from the nucleus and grabbing at their illusive strings renders palms nothing more than rope burned and empty. The combination is exhausting and Mom's pending arrival has lit both hissing fuses in unison.

Would I really rather her not come at all? And home...home? Where the hell is this "home" to which she beckons my return? She is not home. The vacation house where she fled is not home...will never be home...with the boat man whose truth she hasn't the decency to unveil. Home is nowhere she could wrap her hands or mind around. Home exists between the lines of tangible things...

Happy Holidays!

I'm told that I will, without a doubt, survive until January and I can't help feeling slightly melodramatic in the initial inquiry. The weight of them and the inevitable defeat of disappointing one with whatever decision answers the question of , "yes, but what do yooou want?" overwhelms my true capabilities of knowing what I want.

...Christmas on the moon and/or lots of white wine.

So it is that space travel is not in the realm of possible things before she shows up at 5 o'clock, and it will be a requirement of less than 24 hours spent with my great protagonist. One can do anything for a short time, or so they say. My understanding was wrong, she made alternate plans to those including Thanksgiving with her only child...the only child she includes in every complaint of marriage and money and hesitates not to burden with the guilt of debts and alliance. For Thanksgiving, she has "her plans" and for Christmas, a vacation to "alleviate the pressure of choice." How kind.

If I were brave enough to tell them how angry their whole approach at this lengthy end actually caused me to be, or how fearful I am that I will ruin my future with the example they have provided, it would probably be easy to cut away the fluff of compassion and cowardice. Maybe then I could be as brutally bitter as them, as raging and as hateful as their tactics. If I were to toughen up my soft spots, to poison my sweetness, to burn away the passion of my heart, maybe then I could say all the things that I stuff down inside of me and dismiss on account of unconditional something or other...

If one doesn't join them when it is realized that they cannot be beat, is it possible that she might come to embody all things on the other side of war? Might she become a pacifist instead of a warrior? Could it be that acting out the opposite is testament to the transparency of fear, and that fate might not have misery written in her stars? That failure could be an avoidable destiny?

I think I'd like to see Christmas in New York.