Category Archives: authenticity

How will I know if I wanna dance with somebody?

Posted on
12

I grew up on Whitney.

Parroted her. Mimicked her. Pretended to be her. Hers was one of the voices that made me want to be a singer. She was a hero, actually. ”The Greatest Love of All” got me through Elementary School.

My childhood playmate and I would pull out the big hair, double color socks, and a hair brush microphones. We’d spend hours of our sleepovers creating routines to “How Will I Know” and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” shoving tennis rackets in our little brothers’ hands and making them be the band.

I know every note and nuance of her hits. Remember the part where she sang “oohhh I wanna feel tha HEEEEEEE-tahh?” And don’t even get me started on “I Will Always Love You.” Oh all the “youuuu, youuuu, youuuuuuuu” she sang in a melodic whisper at the end of that song? I’ve spent innumerable Junior High hours listening to the vocal acrobatics and probably praying to God that I could sing like that.

I listened to her isolated vocal track yesterday and simultaneously replayed all the instrumentation in my head. I was even humming part of the accompaniment in “if he loves me” (dah da da dah, dah da da da dahhh). It’s all still there, in my body. Tucked away in those things that make me who I am.

Now I understand how others have felt when their music star passed… I feel like I just lost someone that was a part of my life. Yes in a nostalgic way, not in a “hey I knew her” sort of way.

But, still… She was one of my heroes.

Finding your hiding place.

Posted on
22

Do you have a hiding place? Ok, most of you are going to say no.

I hope you don’t mind that I’m still going to assume that you do. You just might not know it yet.

I have a hiding place. It’s the bathroom. Ideally, the shower—with water running so hot for so long that it sucks the life out of the water heater.

I didn’t realize this until recently, when I deeply craved a shower. Craved it like I crave chocolate. Or canned tomatoes. Or ice cream. And when I became consciously aware of my shower-craving, I ticked back to those moments in my life that were shower-worthy.

It started when I spent three hours scrubbing the bath & shower in our first home. Drew and my mom were the only ones who came back to talk to me, while the rest of my family loaded boxes into the moving van that would take us to seminary.

Then, at seminary, during that miscarriage week that I can’t forget, I spent an abnormal amount of time in the shower. And cried. But only in the shower. This went on for weeks.

And recently, when Drew and I had that Family Devotion Time fight, I hid in the bathroom.

It crystalized the other night when things were bothering me deep down inside. I needed a shower.

I didn’t know why, but I needed a shower. I really just wanted to hide from the thing that had me so worried and stirred. By being in the habit of paying attention to myself, I couldn’t ignore the shower-craving. I let myself hide for a bit. And I was the better for it.

What about you? Do you have a hiding place?

Snapshot 01122012 : An honest look at an honest moment.

Posted on
14

I rolled out of bed two hours late, knowing I was not going to get it done today. “You are a failure of a human being.”

Those words flew through my brain faster than I could stop them. Ouch. What a low blow, self. I could hear the announcers calling the shot: “Mean-Mandy is picking a fight with herself and it looks like she’s winning.”

Alright, where are my boxing gloves? And where’s the coffee?

He was in the kitchen, all kind-eyed and studying my face. My inner fight had actually been going for a few days now. He was even the victim of a sucker-punch or two. I didn’t want to say the wrong things anymore, so I planned to behave myself during our Family Devotion Time.

Coffee warm, I let the couch hold me up beside him. We talked. We read Buechner’s words about guilt, and my mind wandered through the INTJ personality description that says we expect too much out of other people.

Maybe sometimes I expect too much of myself as well.

I tuck my toes under his leg and I tell him that I’m frustrated. No, I’m not frustrated, I’m just not able to think straight today and I don’t like this because I planned on doing some serious writing and I can’t make my brain move in a straight line for more than three minutes so there’s no way I can spend a handful of hours chipping away at those 4,000 words.

I’d already faced a sad day this week. And a tired day. And a frustrated day. Now I’m in a muddy day and I didn’t plan for this and I’m having a hard time sleeping and I’m trying to work with myself but I’m supposed to be writing.

“You don’t have to write.” He reminds me, “Not today. You can work on your process. You have a process for down days and frustrating days, and now you can make a process for muddy-brain days.”

I groan. If things moved faster in my head, I’d launch into all the reasons why I don’t want to do this.

“Everybody has limitations.”

His careful words made me want to cry.

His advice: “Do things that don’t require much mental exercise. No intense writing sessions. Instead, try walking on the beach for some Vitamin D, or paint journals, or have some time with friends, or do some house-work, or some photography. Do the things you want to do but can’t do because you want to spend your time writing. Today you get to do those things and it can be a great day and you can get stuff done!”

So I wrote this post two hours later as an update on how things are going. Except I refused to tell you how little I’d accomplished in those past two hours. Instead, I thought real hard about forgetting the to-do list or the clock on the wall. I gave myself permission to wander through this muddy-brain day and as an exercise in self-exploration.

And I reminded myself that when I was little, my favorite thing to do was play in the puddles and make mud pies.

Candled…

Posted on
20

I scraped and stabbed and chipped away at the wax, hoping to expose the drowned wick.

Ironic.

I ignored the purposed amount of new candles I’d just set out; I felt compelled to free this one. Eventually I ended up on the floor, legs crossed, working hard at that candle. Breathing heavy. Anxious.

In a moment of metacognition I had this inner conversation with myself. I asked myself why it was so important to free this one inconsequential wick? I answered that there remained a flicker of life and light in that candle. So I continued to scrape away all the sediment and ash.

Eventually my hands grew tired and I promised myself I would chip away more wax later that day, determined to bring light from that burial.

But, still not knowing why.

Until now, in this recounting… I can see that I need light in my life, warm soothing glowing light, and I’ll do just about anything to get it.