We sat there

A week later
at the shelter
the man
the man
sat in the front row

Red coat
striped scarf
and the kind face
of a wise philospher
he sat there

So I approached him
And looked into his eyes
and his eyes looked into me
and we talked
about love

we talked about abuse
about illness
about alchohol
about forgiveness
about community

And we felt the pain of abuse
the pain of illness
the pain of alchohol
the pain of love
the pain of community

And we felt God
and we felt forgiveness
and we felt community
and we felt
love

And we sat there
two broken children
with wounds still open
and we sat there
our eyes, our hearts. 

moved

I wasn't expecting today to be a monumental day.  I suppose I never see them coming. But when I woke up this morning, stumbled to the bathroom, and started brushing my teeth, I didn't foresee how much I would be moved these past twelve hours.

I attended our homecoming chapel this morning - my choir was preforming a piece.  I was upset that I wasn't able to go get breakfast between classes, and sat, slumped, in my pew on the balcony.  The alumni of the year was introduced with a cinematographyically impressive video. I watched, mildly interested. I wasn't expecting the words I grew up in an alcoholic home to fly out of her mouth halfway through the video. I felt my breath catch.  Every nerve shot a sensation throughout my body.  When tears ran down her face during her speech, my heart lurched and ached for her.  My beautiful woman, I know your pain.  I saw her later in the cafeteria.  I wanted to go up and talk to her.  I wish I had.

In my survey of music literature class today, we discussed Beethoven.   Here was a man beaten by his father in his childhood.  Beaten for making beautiful music.  Beaten by this brute, a raging alcoholic.  And suffered the rest of his life for it.  Never letting himself love, never letting himself forget.  My beautiful man, I know your pain.  I wanted to talk to him.  I wish I could.

Tonight, I brought my volunteers to Union Gospel Mission Men's Shelter - something I do weekly.  We sat down in a small, warm room, with my site partner and a guest from the shelter.  My site partner said his hellos, and proceeded to introduce this guest: a Montana-man, who had the appearance of a philosopher, round glasses perched on his face, scarf draped over his shoulders, and shoulder-length grey hair tousled about.  He told us he was a diagnosed schizophrenic, recovered drug addict, in the program for alcoholism, homeless, and was beaten by his father.  His voice began to break and tears streamed down his face when he told us of his first memory of his father beating him.  He made eye-contact with me as he spoke of how he forgave his father.  I felt his words penetrate into my gut.  I could feel myself gulping for air - reluctant to have to breathe in the first place. I didn't want to miss a word out of this man's mouth. My hands were white from clenching as he told more stories of his childhood.  I had an urge to put my hands on his shoulder and whisper in his ear it will be okay. I had an urge to go up and talk to him afterward.  I didn't.  I had two other opportunities.  I didn't follow through.  My beautiful man, I know your pain.  I wanted to talk to him.  I hope I will someday.
I have been moved more than I can describe.  My mind is racing, my soul is aching, and my heart is filled with - what?  What am I feeling? Love? Community? God?  Most likely all three. And yet, I didn't talk to any one of these three people today.  So why do I feel so moved?

Because they are out there.  Because I am not alone.  And one day, I will talk to the man at the shelter, and I may one day talk to the woman who is alumni of the year.  But, for now, I am going to sit here, on my bed, and listen to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. 

Please feel

Body
please feel
because this hurts
Because you've been told
this hurts

Mind
please feel
because this is overwhelming
Because you've been told
this is overwhelming

Spirit
please feel
because this is sorrowful
Because you've been told
this is sorrowful

Soul
please feel
because you are His child
Because He's told you
that you are His child

Cold Bathwater

I closed the door
reached up to my head
and began removing the bobby pins
from my disheveled hair

I looked at my face in the mirror
seeing it from someone else's eyes
I look sickly
Turning away, I removed my cardigan
peeled off my tights
unzipped my dress

I looked in the mirror again
As I finished undressing
The bags under my eyes
told a story in themselves
I look tired

 I squatted in the cold porcelin of the bathtub
And turned on the water
It came out, running through my fingers
the warmth felt nice
my fingers too numb to fully feel

And then it stopped running hot
I shut off the water
in the shallow tub
disappointed

I laid down
my back against the cold porcelin
strangely not warmed by the water
I began to shiver
and looked up at the ceiling

The cold hurt
but in a bearable way
my flesh was dissatisfied
but my mind was numbed by it

As I closed my eyes
I tried to forget about the cold
and my mind raced
So I prayed - please stop

I got out of the tub
and padded around the house
in my faded pink towel
I turned the heat up from fifty-nine
seventy is reasonable

I returned to the bathroom
with an old quilt
and curled up against the wall
the vent against my back

The water from my hair dripped
down my back
and the hair on my skin
stood at attention

And the warmth came
from that sacred vent
And my mind began to race again
Funny how the cold was a blessing

His hands were warm
His blood ran warm
when he held me
when he touched my face
when he bruised my arms

The heat decided it was time to turn off
and the cold returned
and I welcomed it.

A Foggy Night

I went to Gasworks tonight - a standard favorite of mine and my friend group.  When we reached the park, the air was hushed, enveloped in a blanket of cloud - the fog created some sort of protective dome around the park. This is our space, if only for tonight.

On top of the hill, we looked over Lake Union to the city scape.  Normally, you could see downtown Seattle in all its glory, with the Space Needle perfectly perked off to the right.  Tonight, only a few of the lower lights shone over the black water.  Tonight, the world was minimized. 

We could not see the stars in the sky.  It normally  amazes and overwhelmes me as I look into the starry night.  It almost frightens me.  Tonight, it wasn't there.  Tonight, the world was minimized.

I had less to focus on, less to study, less to see.  My vision was brought down to this small bubble enveloped in a cloud.  This is my mind.

I had been begging for God to clear up my mind; to make these foggy ideas clear.  And yet, I now see what a blessing it is for my understanding to be narrowed.  I now see how much I have been protected through all of this.  I now see how much more my head could be swimming - how much more the tops could be turning - if I saw everything.

The foggy night can still contain truth; but a truth that my weak human mind can actually grasp.

Feeling the truth

How many countless times have I heard the phrase remember you are loved. 

I know.  That is what makes this difficult.

I know I am loved.  I know that God loves me unconditionally.  I know that my parents would put their lives on the line for me.  I know there is a community of people around me at all times, supporting me. 

But so often I don't feel it. I believe it in its entirety, but I can't feel it.  I am numb to the understanding, even though the understanding is clear to me.

That is the most frustrating part; knowing the truth and yet not feeling it.  There are times in my life where I can feel emotion bubbling under my skin, pushing my flesh to escape.  I feel the emotion there but I don't feel the emotions.  It doesn't sound logical - it doesn't make sense. And I know that. 

Those times when someone tells me to remember that I am loved - I write off that conversation.  It is a cliché statement that merely signifies that they have nothing else to tell me outside of the same words that, I am certain, have been spoon-fed to them countless times.  I don't want you to tell me that I am loved, but tell me how to feel that love.  I know it is there. I know it exists.  I have faith in it.  But something in my body, something under my skin, shuts it off from reaching an emotional understanding of it all.  And I want to feel it so badly. 

You can tell me I am loved; you can tell me that all you want.  But what I truly need is not to hear words of affirmation, but feel the bucket full of cold reality splash on my numb flesh. 

I need to feel the pricks and tingles of the truth.

Tops Spinning in My Head

"Tops spinning in my head. 
If I threw a rock at them
would they stop?"

I wrote this in the top right hand corner of my class notes yesterday.  My head swam with ideas, beliefs, concepts, strategies, pictures, music, light, dark.  It does that sometimes.  I scream at God to give me peace, and cast these thoughts into the fiery pits of hell.  Because they make me tired.

I don't sleep very well - this is for a multitude of reasons.  I am a light sleeper - if a fly brushes the cool dark lamp in my room, I sit upright with a bolt of adrenaline.  God give me peace I scream at the night.  But the night never listens. 

The task of falling asleep is where I truly obtain my deprivation.  I have to exhaust my body so that my mind doesn't take over.  If I am thinking too much, it is time to go for a walk - or it's time to recite my key signatures in my mind.  Minor if I am particularly alert. 

So I am tired - and that is when my mind takes over control.  All reason has sunk into the crevices of my mind where my multiplication tables once sat.  I don't need those things anymore - the abstract nature of my  mind takes control, and I do not rest.  I think of one thousand things at a time.  Soon, those ideas begin to blend and bleed together.  Soon, those ideas no longer seem irrational.  If I were to hydrate enough, eat a substantial amount of carbohydrates, and take a gulp of helium, I could fly.  I could.

Once my mind has decided to take over, I trick it.  I am not longer Danielle - I am no longer my  mind.  I am a hiker in the Andes, resting in a tent at night.  The angry wildcat outside of my tent won't eat me if I lie still.  So I lie still. I stop becoming restless. I sleep.

I was four when I began to imagine I was someone else.  I would disappear for hours or days at a time.  At this age, it was nothing - it was child's-play.  But when the child's play continues on fifteen years later, is it concerning? When the imaginations are no longer a tactic to sleep, but a tactic to get by during the lit hours of the day, is it concerning?

We all have our coping mechanisms.  Mine is my imagination.  I have conversations with people who aren't there - in my defense, they are usually real people.  In order to fall asleep at night, the cold wall that my back is to is no longer a wall, but a person, gently stroking my hair.  I know I may sound insane - and I honestly cannot argue with that. 

But let me tell you the beauty of all this: the tops stop spinning.  When I become someone else - when I convince myself that my circumstances have stopped becoming my own - I am free.  Those tops that are spinning in my head, bumping against each other, have had a giant rock thrown in the middle of them.  It becomes my conscious decision to start up the tops again, spinning them with my real fingers.  But only on my time - only when I choose to do so.  I used to believe the rock to be self-destructive. But I scream at God to give me peace, and He gives me my imagination. I scream at God to stop the tops from spinning, and He hands me a rock. 

Personal mind control

How is it that I have a thousand thoughts running through my head at the most inconvenient times? And, dare I say, those thousands of thoughts were beautifully constructed in the crevices of my mind - it is a crime for them to escape.  They are things that need to be written down.  And then I sit down to write. And then they are gone.

I convince myself sometimes that I have omniscient thoughts - that I can fill in the blanks of what people are thinking around me.  That man smiled at that girl, but didn't meet her gaze.  He loves her. And, yes, I over-romance everything. Because I want everything to be beautiful. And that is why I become frustrated when the beauty leaves my thoughts before I can write them down.

No, it isn't writer's block, this general idea of losing thoughts.  However, I am having writer's block right now.  Because me trying to explain my mind to you is impossible.  It is my mind - the only one I've ever had, the only one I've ever known.  And, no matter how hard you try to drill your perspective into me, I will still continue to see it through my lens.  That's the truth. And I don't even know who I mean by you.  I suppose you'll know when the time comes.  Me? I'll be left in the dark.

No, this phenomena of not being able to grasp at my thoughts is more than writer's block. It is an experience filled to the brim with frustration - similar to writer's block.  But no, not writer's block. And, as I mill that idea over in my head I can't help but wonder - were those thoughts truly that wonderful?  These moments we have where we convince ourselves that we have had epiphanies - are they just some giant hoax we create in our minds? Time and time again I've thought I've found the answer, only to have lost it mere seconds later.  And why?  The way I see it, there are two possible answers: 1) I'm insane or 2) I am not omniscient.

Recently, I've come to the understanding that I myself don't even have control over my mind.  There are times where memories flood into the open spaces in my mind and fill it - I don't want those memories. And then there are times when thoughts flood into my mind and fill other empty spaces - I don't want those thoughts.

And, yet, beautiful things also flow into my mind.  So who has control of my mind?  Simple answer: God.  Complicated answer: me.  I'd rather know that God was in charge of my mind than me being in charge.  So why complicate things?

Again. Please excuse me while I digress.