invited in

"One of the signatures that has developed out of our marriage that I love most is the fact that when our door is unlocked, people don't even knock--they know they are going to only hear the call "come in!" and no one is going to get the door for them anyway. I love this because it says to me, 'I know I am welcome.' " (www.fisselsonamission.blogspot.com)

i wrote this as i was updating our fissel blog about our married life. when i wrote that last line, i was overwhelmed with this sense that THAT is something i want to be able to say when i come into the presence of God. i want to feel like i am being invited in, not that i'm barging in. i want to walk into the moment with Him as if i were walking into my own house, comfortable, familiar, at ease. i want to know he is waiting at the top of the stairs, relaxed with a cup of coffee in his hand and another on the table waiting for me, just the way i like it. and in this embracing atmosphere, i want to settle in and talk and talk and talk. talk until i am absolutely blue in the face and have no breath left, and not suddenly feel that i am sitting alone.

by myself.

in an empty room.

one coffee mug before me.

and that i am very, very silly.

about cages and tears and other depressing things

gosh, it was a rough day today. i don't cry very much, but when i do, it's quite a production. after all, it's been building and building, waiting behind the curtains for that one event that throws them back to start the show. there are no dress rehearsals for tears in my world. no sniffles and single tear drops trailing down my cheek. just floods.

i was able to wait until i was behind the wheel of my car before it began. even between sobs, as i took deliberate breaths in and out to even my breathing, my lips were quivering with an emotion too heavy to hold in my chest.

the whole way to my friend's house, i cried. i imagined myself coming down the walk to her front door and collapsing into a puddle in her arms at her greeting. but i coudn't do it. i couldnt be as vulnerable as i wanted to be. and i wanted to be, let me tell you. i did manage to be honest, to be what i felt in that moment without trying to control the hurt in my voice, the water welling behind my eyes, but it was a very deliberate, concentrated effort and i feel exhausted by it all.

my eyes have felt dry and heavy all day. even standing in line at the golden wok, i felt somewhat a shell of myself, having been emptied in a mazda protege 5 and a soft couch off of whilden. i felt like people could notice. the thing about crying, the thing about being vulnerable, is that all that stuff that you have fashioned into bricks and then stacked carefully one by one into a hefty retaining wall--what was the original thought? oh yes, the thing about crying is that your wall has been utterly demolished, and there is nothing between you and the world, between you and that person next to you who could do or say who knows what and you would have no defense against it. maybe that's why when the guy in front of me turned to ask me for directions to the panda express five miles away when you take a left off of bridford parkway onto west wendover, i stuttered and said i didnt know.

most of the time, this nakedness is terrifying. well, it always is. but...there was this one time that i spoke at a women's conference. it was really difficult to sit in front of those women and pour my heart out to a wide range of souls--close friends, new acquaintances, total strangers. after getting through my speech, some of it intelligible despite the tears, i experienced such a stripping of self, such a fragility that i was terrified when i stood to walk back to my seat among the crowd. who would i sit next to? what would they think of me--or worst, say to me--in response to this personal outpouring?

ah, it was so beautiful. i was immediately surrounded by unspeakable love and affection--friends who enveloped me with arms and hearts so quietly, so gently that i wanted nothing but to fall back into their warmth and light with no inhibitions. i dont think ive felt anything quite like it. it was a mysterious thing, this emotional filling up--so tangible that i felt the pouring into me like a physical substance. and it was because i was wide open and undefended: a garden stretching beautiful and natural into wide open space. i never would have felt such a saturation if i had been sitting securely behind my walls, quickly deflecting, making sure i didn't let anything in that could potentially weaken me or show me to be weak.

i dont know where i got this inclination to hide myself, to push away. when was the first time i raised a shield in my own defense? was it held in the tender hand of a 7 year old? when did it become a behavior, as much a part of me as my own fingers? in puberty? earlier? does everyone easily become an expert in isolation? is it a human thing, an American thing...a Laura thing?

ive been home since 1 and now at 10 i still havent unlocked this cage around my heart to talk to the one whom i desire to know me more than anyone else. ha ha, well, i was talking about my husband, but i just realized how closely that description matches someone else...

no, i havent been able to talk to him yet either.

a hairy conspiracy

"I'm shedding like a cat!" I cry and the student I am helping giggles, but I can't concentrate on her question. My eyes are attuned to see each spiraling hair dangling from glove, hanging from the edge of a sleeve, clinging to the collar of my coat and all driven back to my body by the pull of static when I try to remove them. Even now, there is one mysteriously hidden down the front of my shirt and I conveniently can't reach down to fish it out for the sake of propriety and the innocence of my students. When I look around, all I see are hairs. I gently pull one from the fibers of my hand-warmers and hold it to the side like a worm ready to be hooked. I watch it float with feathery lightness to the ground just to make sure it's not still grabbing hold of me. I survey myself: my hands, my sleeves, each shoulder, and sigh with relief to see myself purged. My hairs grin wickedly at one another, barely able to contain their glee in a soft swish when I move my head.

Moments later, I start the ritual over again.

i dream in...

i spent the morning commute dreaming.

last night was not good for me.

or it was very good for me--i haven't decided.

last night several dear friends implored me to enjoy life, not to wait to pursue my dreams, to take that leap into the unknown and be okay with both failure and hardship as long as i'm in pursuit of that for which my heart burns with passion.

listening to them made me shiver with fear, anxiety and excitement. i couldnt help but hold before my eyes painful scenes of letting go, of leaving, of saying goodbye and moving on. i couldnt help but feel fear twisting in my gut.

when i dream, i dont dream in office supplies and long doubled white boards newly cleaned. i dont dream in text books and literary terms and tests warm from the printer. i dont dream in colorful vis-a-vis on overheads, a podium white and firm at the front of the room, a solitary stool behind it, in button-down shirts and sweater vests, in red pens making red markings across black ink and A's, B's and "see you tomorrow, Mrs. Fissel's."

i dream in browns--creamy ones and bold ones, dark roasts with fresh cream. i dream in cozy spaces with markers and post-its and lit tea lights with flickering, circular glow. i dream in pastels and paints in poetry with metaphors and push pins on maps at 3am. i dream the smell of fresh cinnamon buns and a bell tinkling above the front door and ceramic mugs, cool to the touch. i dream in clicking keys and letters forming and reforming, in punctuation and sentence structure. i dream from the tiny firmness of laptop keys to soft yarn with wayward fly-aways, taming them with each stitch, and magazine cut-outs arranged to form a new thing and cards heralding the ordinary with color and image and words, always words.

i'm not in despair--not yet. i'm not a wilting flower, each day more dry and liable to crumble at a touch--not yet. but one day, i would like to dream awake. to feel alive with my eyes wide open. and i can't decide if i have to jump out of the boat to feel that way, or just try another deck.

memories from a song #1

not talking about a year,
no not three or four
i dont want that kind of forever in my life anymore
forever always seems to be around when things begin, but forever never seems to be around
when things end
so give me your forever.
please? your forever
not a day less will do
from you

people spend so much time
every single day
runnin around all over town givin
their forever away
but no, not me, i wont
let my forever go
and now i hope that i can find my forever a home

like a hand-less clock with numbers on an infinite of time
no not the forever found only in the mind
forever always seems to be around when things begin
but forever never seems to be around when things end

so give me your forever...please? your forever
not a day less will do
from you

these words take me to that four-way traffic light, or through the K-mart parking lot (coming in by the dumpsters and driving at break-neck speed out the front to try to catch the light by Denny's onto campus). i am sitting low in the passenger's side, staring out the window, lulled to a comatose state by the blur of trees and buildings in the muted blue of morning. i am thinking about class and the soft scratch of no. 2 pencils (the mechanical kind now that we're in community college--although i do miss the feel of slender polished wood between my index and middle fingers) on notebook paper. i am thinking about the weather and how it will affect my lunch location, and about thick, hot fries right out of the basket with plenty of ketchup and salt and--if i'm very lucky--a chicken finger shared by some generous soul (probably a sister or a friend as close as a sister). i am thinking about the echo of our voices on the walls of building 10 and if the seats will be free in front of the new television and how long we can throw quarters against the wall (as if we were still in high school) before someone comes out to say "stop!" as if we were still in high school. i am thinking about how that first kiss felt, shared through the open window of an old mini van. that is what i am thinking of. i am young and when i hear those words forever, i catch them in my hands, shaped them into a heart and give them freely to the one who stirs the butterflies to dancing.

(song lyrics "Forever" by Ben Harper)