A Californian in Texas

_Below is another guest post from Meghan Ewald:_

***

Everyone has been mentioning “Go Texan” Day all week. I’ve seen emails, I’ve heard folks talking about it, etc. I didn’t know what it was, and assumed there was a day dedicated to the Texans (the football team). I mean, it seemed logical… Texans like football, so it wouldn’t surprise me that there was an entire day dedicated to the a football team.
Then this morning, a co-worker (Tamela) said that she saw her neighbor all decked out in western gear, and that made her remember what today was.

Me: “What’s today?”
Tamela: “It’s Western Day.”
Me: “Oh.”

(pause)

Me: “What’s Western Day?”
Tamela: “You know… it’s where you get all dressed up in western clothes. We used to dress up in school, and people will probably be wearing western stuff at work today.”

(I stare blankly)

Tamela: “You mean, you didn’t have Western Day when you were a kid?”
Me: “Um… no.”

You would have thought I asked, “What’s Christmas?”

I’ve been here for almost 6 years and I still feel like I’m a visiting foreign national.

Translation of chapters into a better language

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**Note: I wrote this blog when the name of the site was “Confessions of a Chronic Self-Discloser” Later I make a reference to the name of the blog and then…well I doesn’t make sense when I talk about the title of the blog.

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated … As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness … No man is an island, entire of itself … any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

John Donne (1572-1631)

Why is it that every blog I go to the blogger always has to mention his or her “passion for writing?” I don’t understand how anyone can have that deep of a relationship with word formations and sentence structure. I wouldn’t call what I do a love of any kind to the art of writing. I would more describe it as a rivalry with writing. It feels like a fight to get out what I really want to say and have it come across the way I want.

I have never kept a journal. I have absolutely minimal skills with spelling and grammar. I am surprised all ten people who will read this blog can even understand what I type. I certainly never would have chosen an English class as a favorite of mine in school. I felt this qualified me to become a “writer” and write a blog.

I still ask myself “why am I doing this?” each time I write a new submission. I know some people write blogs to make money. If a blog becomes popular enough then a blogger can get money for putting advertising links on the blog. When people click on them he/she gets a kickback. Some people do it because they have an interest in a specific topic and like contributing information to the field. Some do it for their “passion for writing” apparently. I am not really interested in any of those things.

I am pretty much alluding to the fact that I hate writing in a way. What’s funny about this realization is that all through school I always found myself sort of trapped in the siren’s song of writing. In grade school we had to do an 8th grade project. I chose to write a few chapters of a book. In high school we had a senior project and I wrote and illustrated a children’s book. In college to graduate we had to write a thesis – which most people figure is a requirement going into graduate school, but you would think that if I really hated writing this would have at least caused me pause when entering the only program at the entire college that still required a traditional thesis instead of a cumulative test pretty much every other program offered as an equivalent.

I guess this qualifies as a morbid calling of some sort.

I actually started this blog as writing practice. I post the things I write to challenge myself, because I have never been comfortable letting large masses of people see what I write. After years of being told by English teachers this was not my strongest area and “stick to art classes” as a possible future, I am kind of self-conscious about being judged. I don’t care if people make fun of what I write I just don’t want them to make fun of how I write. (Feel free to point out grammatical or spelling errors though. Those are purely mechanical and that is how I will learn, and I don’t want my grammar police friends to have an embolism over the wrong form of “their” “there” or “they’re”…so there! That’s right – I do know the difference :).)

I chose to write about everyday things at first because as a child I hated writing about me. I needed a challenge. If I wrote about research or psychological procedures I would be cheating and it would be boring for everyone but me. I love writing fiction and I have a wild imagination so I have endless ideas on stories. But writing about everyday things has always been hard for me. I can talk about my day for hours, but when it comes to writing it I really draw a blank. I chose the title of the blog because I felt it best described what I would be doing and me.

Self-Discloser is a counseling term. It is the act of the counselor revealing something about herself to her client or group. It is not an act of manipulation, but a natural confession of the soul that if done right will create an atmosphere and deepen the relationship of trust between the individuals or group. It is meant to be a piece of herself that shared with the group will open the doors for others in the room to feel comfortable sharing his or her own feelings. When I was getting my counseling part of my degree (I am a school psychologist, but I also have a counseling degree) I was known to do the Self-disclosure thing. Chronically.

Actually I feel what I am doing now when I write is actually translating my life chapters into a better verse. See how clever I am tying in the opening quote? Bet my old English teachers regret all the red inked negative comments in the margins of my essays! When I write down some of my experiences whether they be funny, difficult, exciting, whatever it is as if they are now transcribed emotionally as well. Plus I am creating a neat thing for my children to look back on when they wonder what it was like before they could remember. If my posts make someone smile, think, inspire, or simply frustrate them with the wrong form of “there” then I am glad to have stepped off of my island and contributed to the world in a small way.

Baptism Class

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Just as we were parking our car the anxiety waves started. I could feel them from across the street where a small group was gathering in the dark in front of a sign that clearly stated “Parish Office.” Nobody was talking to anyone else and trying not to stare at each other. Two groups were being defined: we were all either Catholic or trying not to be found out that we weren’t Catholic.

This particular adventure started a few years ago when my son was born. I kept having dreams where my Great Grandmother was trying to talk me into baptizing my new baby. In the dream we finally settled on the agreement that if I were to ever have a girl I would baptize both our children. I left satisfied and sure I would never have a girl and she walked off with a smug smile. This dream was reoccurring over and over the next few years. I finally pitched the idea to my husband and his response was “Sure, why not.” And closely followed by a concerned, “will it be a problem that I am not Catholic?”

I had a girl. Now here I am standing in a parking lot pulling her out of our car while she cries like a banshee.

The first step to being baptized I found out was both parents and the godparents have to attend a “class” about baptism. My brother and his wife are the godparents. My brother is like me and was raised strict Catholic. We were scooted off to church every Saturday (sometimes Sunday), attended catechism (a supplemental bible school for Catholic children), tried to avoid the looks and hisses when we crossed ourselves before prayer with our “Christian” friends, and tried to not fall asleep while attending Mass. I was recovering nicely from my childhood experience and hadn’t remembered the tension of Catholic gatherings until now.

My husband and sister-in-law, however, are not Catholic. My husband admits that all he knows about Catholicism he discovered in the riveting Dan Brown novels: The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons.

We stood outside the office for an awkward minute before the teachers of the class directed us across the street over to the school. Apparently there was some sort of communication error and we were all locked out of the original meeting place. Once inside the school I began my count of Virgin Mary’s – one statue at the base of the stairs, one hiding in a picture above the door, one on a small card in the room. YES! Three in under thirty seconds! I hadn’t lost my touch.

Sorry, this a little game I play with myself: the first religious figure I see I try to find three more of the same as quickly as possible. The game gets really hard when the first one you see is Saint Francis of Assi. Secretly I sometimes cheat and pretend I didn’t see him.

The class begins and the married couple teaching the class introduce themselves and we all begin to introduce ourselves. I could tell the Catholics from the non-Catholics right away. The non-Catholics were nervously darting their eyes around the room as if they weren’t sure whether they should instantly give up their opposing religious position or pretend a bit longer for the sake of the Catholic friend or family member. I had two non-Catholic attending and as a bigger transgression both my brother and I had been non-practicing Catholics for a very long time. We had a very good reason to be nervous and yet we were by far the least nervous in the room.

It was easy to tell those of us who were born Catholics in the room, because we all looked guilty. Also we were all staring off into the distance. I was expecting a droning zombie like “Amen” to simultaneously blurt from each of our lips when we finished each prayer.

Ella, my daughter, either had sensed the tension in the room or was struck by the power of the Holy Spirit and was letting out random and yet inappropriate cooing noises. Under any other situation I would have described the noises as cute. Every once in a while she would let out a loud grunt like she was trying to test the boundaries of her empty diaper. Usually the grunts would coincide with the mention of “Jesus our Lord and Savior” remarks. It was like her own little baby drinking game except instead of taking a drink she was threatening a bit more and I prayed for the first time in ten years that she wouldn’t follow through with her intention. Tyler eagerly offered to walk with her over near the door. I think he just wanted to be closer to an escape if the opportunity arose. I gladly gave her over; a lady over in the corner of the room kept giving me the evil eye. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact my baby wouldn’t keep quiet or she too was worried about my baby disrupting the air quality in the room. Ella continued to speak in tongues over by the door, but it was now not as noticeable.

A nice couple asked all the questions my husband was burning to ask, but was afraid to because it would definitely give him away as a non-Catholic. “Do we have to tip the priest/deacon?” “How much?” “What should everyone wear?” Followed by endless questions as to how the ritual would be performed, who says what where, will they ask me for proof that I am Catholic or not? Ok, they didn’t ask the last one, but the questions were so innocently asked and it was obvious that neither parent nor the Godparent attended Church, ever. At the end of the class the teachers passed around a sheet of paper for everyone to write their name and number and this particular couple paused when the sheet got to them. The dad suspiciously poised his hand with the pen above the paper and narrowed his eyebrow as he asked, “What is this for?” But what I really heard in his body language translated into “uh, shoot… you aren’t going to call my house and check up on me and make sure I take my child to church every week are you?”

By the way, contrary to popular belief Catholics are not as strict as they would lead the general public to believe. The fact our party was only fifty percent Catholic was not a problem when I signed up for the class. I think this is in the hopes that someday you remember that they let you into their special club with obvious handicaps and either give a generous donation or slowly wear you away until one day you are bringing up the Gifts in Mass and wondering how you became a “regular” again.

Soon the class was over. And in less than forty-five minutes! A Catholic event record. The room perked up a bit. Ella suddenly was miraculously quiet. And as we walked out the door my brother and I made jokes to my husband and sister in law that everyone in the room noticed that they didn’t cross themselves. We also teased that others noticed they didn’t touch their forehead a special way when trying to pretend to cross themselves as people looked their way.

I was relieved to feel a step closer to my promise.

Strings

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Life is a series of connections. Invisible strings stretching from person to person outward over great distances.

Even as a young teenager I recognized the string of my soul mate. As his string was pulling me to him, it was a relief to find my destined best friend at the end of that string. I am so lucky to have found him early in life. Strings connect my children to me too; even though I witnessed the umbilical cord being cut I was comforted to still feel them near me. An automatic and enduring string they have, resilient to the most weathered circumstances.

My family has such hearty strings as well. My parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, grandparents and extended family are all there, strings pouring out of me.

I love the strings, but I get lost in them. I get overwhelmed. “What a mess” I sometimes think and want to tidy all those strings and bundle them up or at least organize them a bit better. I feel them spread around me so tightly that I am afraid I will choke from the emotion woven into them. So many strings I lose track of them. What are these extra strings doing scattered around? What is their use? Will I ever get to see where those strings connect? I think I will go mad with the confusion of it all. Can I tie all these strings up in a bow and give them to someone who needs them more that me? When I try, the strings just get longer. They connect to more people and I feel like a greedy little spider.

The web I am weaving is unbelievable.

I don’t know how the strings I have for my friends found me. I don’t know if they orchestrated a sneak attack or the other way around. I can’t even remember the day I discovered their strings. Were they always there, waiting for me to pick though my tangled mess to find them? When I meet a new friend I soon find that I have a shiny new string spinning thicker as time goes by. I have friends I made strings for a long time ago, but when I stopped seeing them they never cut their end of the string. The string is still there.

I feel that something is still connected to the end of it, so I leave it be for now. When I meet an old friend I smile to find them bringing the end of their string over to me, not to give back, of course, but to show me they kept holding on to their end for me all this time. I am honored and humbled to see it. Those sticky strings!

Even as I sit in a pile of what seems to be a mad knitter’s paradise I can’t seem to let any of my ends of these strings go. Even the ones I think I don’t need or want. Too bad they are not real strings. I then could I maybe make a blanket with them? A fashionable ladies scarf?

I was surprised to find that as people I loved got older their string became a stronger connection to mine. When they died the only comfort I had was that the string was now too strong to sever, too overpowering to break. And when I miss the people who are gone I have only to send a tug on that string and feel an echo in response. While I sleep I feel them in the palm of my hand and the back of my mind, whispering soothing sounds of regret that they cannot physically be present. When I wake up I feel all my strings wrapped around me as if every connection I have has enveloped me in one big hug.

Feliz anivers�rio vov� Machado. Eu me lembro dos abra�os.

Love it or hate it, you always remember your first

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Editor’s note: I haven’t written a story in a while for the blog, but I hope to have a few out soon. I did manage a small coup and got one of my best friends and an awesome writer to author a guest post (with hopefully more to come!) about her first racing experience this last weekend.

Thank you Meghan!

This is a guest post written by Meghan Ewald

The race started fine. Good spirits and good weather made for a great first 5 miles. I smiled at others, chatted, even shared a bit of toilet paper I had carried with me with a woman standing at a port-a-potty (ah, race bonding moments). Police officers trundled back and forth along side the runners, and AED operators rode their bikes back and forth. The wind would gust and die periodically, but that first 5 miles was a beaut.

Just after mile 7, I turned the corner of NASA Road 1 and Space Center Blvd. I realized there was nothing to cut the wind. I was drenched with sweat and wearing a thin long sleeved shirt as wet as I was. The wind turned the shirt to ice. At first, that wasn’t so bad. I was running at a pretty good clip and the cold shirt cooled me down. That wind though… I wasn’t expecting that.

I developed a stitch in my side and slowed to a walk. Then I started getting cold. The wind blowing through my shirt and shorts caused actual pain when the material snapped against me. I started running between miles 7 and 9 only to be derailed by the stitch in my side. As I tried to walk off the cramp, a constant litany marched time with me through my head, “you have to finish, you have to finish.” Besides… the food was only 3 miles ahead and 7 miles if I turned back.

I tried to catch a few of the walkers in front of me, but I was wiped out. I was hungry enough to be shaky, I had a stitch in my side that I couldn’t shake, and my legs felt like Jello. I turned the corner just before mile 9 and walked through the water station, grabbing a cup of water. The volunteers shouted encouragements, “you can do it”, “you’re almost there”, “just a little further.” I don’t think I even smiled. Just walked with my head down.

Another runner, clearly done with the race, was walking in the opposite direction and took one look at my face. She just held up her hand for an encouraging high-five. I slapped her hand, and she kept going. She didn’t say anything, just smiled at me. She could probably tell just by the miserable look on my face that I had almost given up. That one smile from a perfect stranger was all I needed. After the mile 9 water station, I started to run.

There were markers along the last mile for those like me needing just a touch more encouragement. My favorites were those that just said “RUN” and an arrow pointing forward. Really that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? An arrow pointing in a given direction and a simple directive: “RUN”.

So I did.

After 2 hours and 21 minutes discouraged, hungry and wet, I finished 825th place, dead last in my age group. But, by God, I finished.

I continued beating myself up for a few days, completely discounting the first good 7 miles I put in, and only giving myself mild reprieve for running that last mile. I could only focus on the 2 bad miles I spent on Space Center Blvd wishing like hell a police officer would take pity on me and throw me over the back of their motorcycle instead of suffering one more minute.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to race again. Run yes, I told myself. Race, no. Although, now, I recognize that saying I wasn’t going to race was the equivalent of quitting running, too. Because once you start quitting on things, it gets easier and easier to do. I was tempted these last few days to cry off the Aramco Half Marathon in January. Clearly I wasn’t meant to race, what the hell was I thinking? My Easy run on Tuesday turned into a very long, very brutal Tempo run as I continued beating myself up. Consequently, my Speed workout on Thursday turned into an Easy run. I felt better after both, but not like I’d exercised the demon of my first USA 10-miler.

Then this morning, I found myself in a conversation about running. One co-worker said, with all the authority of a non-believer, “Running has to have a purpose. If you’re not chasing a ball, there’s no purpose.” I wasn’t thinking of the race, the race didn’t even cross my mind until later. I was comparing his statement to every good run I’ve ever had. The runs that make you feel powerful, as though you could go forever in any direction under just the power of your own two feet. Thinking of that, I responded, “Running is the purpose.” He scoffed, rolled his eyes, and gave me the “oh, you’re one of those…” looks.

And just like that, my faith was restored. I was a believer again.

Can I get a hallelujah.