In a village not too far from here, there lived a little girl. She was a sweet girl, and a beautiful girl, but she was also a girl who carried many heavy burdens. Since the time she was very young, she had a large scar that ran across her face. It was an old scar with a very complex history, but in many ways it did not matter who or why she got it. The principle matter was that she had it, and that it ran right down the middle of her face.
As a child she did not mind. She was young an innocent. The opinions of others didn't cross her mind, and because of this she was able to dance through her beautiful childhood unburdened. She continued to grow and laugh through life until she reached the age where she sat between the brink of childhood and becoming a young woman.
It was during this threshold time in her life when she happened to walk by a mirror. Now, she had walked by many mirrors and seen her reflection many times throughout the years, but this time something struck her as different. For the first time, she noticed that scar. It wasn't much, but it twinged ever so slightly.
Fortunately, as mentioned before, she was a beautiful girl. She quickly turned away from the mirror and continued dancing. But as the days wore on and the spring gave way to summer, she found herself drawn to the mirror. She would linger longer and longer at its side, watching her reflection. As she did so, her beauty seemed to pale and fade as the scar grew from barely noticeable to reaching across her face. As it grew, the young woman seemed to shrink. Dancing and laughing died, only to be replaced with anger, shame and helplessness.
The young woman tried a variety or remedies. She covered and lathered, massaged and smeared, but no matter what she did, at the end of the day the scar would still be there. Looking back through the reflection looming across her face.
As fall changed to winter and the icicles hung low on the branches, the girl began to cover her face. As she covered her face against the cold, she realized how warm and comfortable it was to keep her face inside, covered by the scarf. The winter wore on, and she continued to be haunted by the scar. However, each time she thought of it, she would only secure the scarf closer and closer to her face.
The cold weather gave way to warm, and the girl knew she had to give up her precious scarf. Instead, she kept a scrap of it and used it to create a mask. It was an ill-fitting mask; it pinched her face in some places and added extra weight in others, but it was a mask that would cover her face, and that is exactly what she wanted.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
The Storyteller
I am the Storyteller.
I speak. I see. I share the things that I have learned.
I have not always been the Storyteller,
In fact I rarely get to be the Storyteller.
However, each person has a story to tell-
And I am here because others have shared their tale.
I am the Storyteller.
I stand, I share and then I sit.
And that is when you tell me what I am.
I am the Storyteller,
And these
are my tales.
I speak. I see. I share the things that I have learned.
I have not always been the Storyteller,
In fact I rarely get to be the Storyteller.
However, each person has a story to tell-
And I am here because others have shared their tale.
I am the Storyteller.
I stand, I share and then I sit.
And that is when you tell me what I am.
I am the Storyteller,
And these
are my tales.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Writing
Writing is a very difficult thing in many ways. Not only is it difficult to transfer thoughts onto paper- I mean finding the right string of words and phrases to adequately animate a series of complex emotions, thoughts, and completely abstract ideas is hard enough, but I’ve always found that writing also carries a very personal difficulty.
In many ways when I sit down to write, I am sitting down in an attempt to share a piece of my soul with the world. I don’t think anyone who has written something they truly care about can honestly say they feel any different. Writing is not only something that happens externally, but like nearly any piece of art, it is something we create to share with others a piece of what happens inside of us.
I’ve often felt I am not a terribly open person. I find it rather difficult to be vulnerable or open with people around me. This lack of vulnerability does not stem from a desire to shut everyone out, but rather, because of my sensitivity and love for others, I care immensely about their opinion. In this sense, writing is excruciatingly difficult. It is my one opportunity to bring others into my world. By sharing my writing, I often hope to by pass the barriers surrounding typical relationships and introduce people into my world in a very personal way. It is an opening up of myself in a way that simply is not possible any other way.
However, along with this opening comes certainly challenges. What if I’m not good enough? What if I am unable to clearly communicate the ideas I have? Or worse yet, what if the piece of my soul that I am attempting to share is trite, archetypal, cliche, and of no interest to anyone else? Just like every writer, I have a dream. I want to use my words, share them in a way that will inspire others. To carry them to a far off world, help them explore their own to a greater level or come to a greater understanding of the beautiful complexities of human nature. In short, I want to change the world.
I guess that’s a little presumptuous. I mean, go big or go home, but seriously?!?! Change the world? Yeah- that’s my goal. I’ve never really done it before. But that is what I would like to do. I see so much in this world, and I can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe I can contribute something that will last. Something that will be worthwhile, something great.
But then what if I don’t? What if, as I mentioned before, my ideas are mediocre, trite and not worth sharing? What do I do then?
I think that’s the scariest part of writing. It isn’t receiving a harsh grade on a paper, or finding out that you really don’t know how to place your commas. Its because it is about wrestling with yourself. Wrestling who you are with who you hope you are and who you fear you are, and hoping, praying that somehow, between all that wrestling, and all of that practice, that who you hope to be is who you really are and you weren’t blindly wrestling with impossibilities the entire time.
And that is why writing is so difficult. Of course, I daresay, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Click
I feel
Like a machine
Click, click.
No brain
No heart
Put aside.
Click, click.
Put inside
This box
Left for another day.
Click, click.
Moving along
Nothing new
A waste.
Of time
Of brain
Of life
Click, click.
Shortcake Shelby
It had been exactly seventeen years since Shelby had last seen her. And there she was, bent in half to look at carrots on the bottom shelf, her cart full of broccoli and canned corn. Shelby wasn't sure if she should say hi, or just leave the grocery store as quickly as possible. Instead she opted to examine the bright red apples sitting on the end of the produce isle, and suddenly she was back in Jr. High, looking in the mirror.
She was short and stout, but not overly short and stout, at least she thought so. No, she liked her height and weight just fine. It wasn’t that, it was her hair color that bothered her. Whenever she would look in the mirror, she would see a perfectly round button nose set between two deliciously plump cheeks, then two bright, engaging eyes, a perfectly proportioned forehead, then BAM! right in the middle of all that perfection her vision would be assaulted by that mangy mess of dead cells that was approximately the same color as cow dung. But what could she do? Every morning she would note this, and then with a sigh she would reach over to her hairbrush and begin shaping her hair into something society considered respectable.
Next she would go to school. There really wasn’t much to say about school except that every day during fifth hour she would sit behind Rachel. Rachel was one of those annoying preppy types, with her perfectly manicured nails rapping endlessly on other people’s desk, her perfectly glossed lips curling up into a sneer whenever “shortcake Shelby” would walk by, and her so-high-it-makes-my-feet-sore-just-looking-at-them heels clicking down the hallway.
But of course Shelby didn’t really care about that type of stuff. If she cared, she might get her feelings hurt. She understood that according to the Jr. High hierarchy some people must be popular, and some people must be the ones that were not popular. She was even okay with the fact that she was not one of those that were destined to be popular. No, what she really wanted was the fiery mass of bright red gorgeousness that genetics had designed to place right on top of Rachel’s head. Her hair. It was beautiful; there was no other way to describe it. Shelby would spend hours, or at least all of fifth hour, just staring at it. She would go home, and then she would think of it. It was the perfect red of the apples Shelby’s mom would put out for a snack, or the flawless red of her little brother’s bouncy ball or the precisely sharp red of Shelby’s falling grades.
She tried not to obsess over it, her mom said it wasn’t healthy to worry too much about one’s appearance, especially when one was as young as Shelby, and Shelby agreed. But she also knew that if only she could have hair like Rachel’s, she would be beautiful and popular and her life would be perfect. Finally, on a particularly bad day, when even her cow-dung hair had refused to be molded into a semi-respectable shape and Rachel’s hair was abnormally gorgeous, Shelby leaned forward, “I love the color of your hair.”
“Thanks shortcake,” she breathed between three large chomps of gum, “I guess yours is pretty too. But I dye mine and that is why it is so much prettier.” With that final word, Shelby watched Rachel disappear back into her glimmering crowd.
"Jr. High is mean, just plain mean. I hate it." Shelby glowered at the glass of milk her mother had placed in front of her, and then started jabbing the bottom of the glass with her straw as the images of her classmates flitted through her mind.
"I'm sorry you had a rough day." Her mom half-mindedly mumbled as she swept through the kitchen. "Now honey, would you mind getting your father?"
Shelby sighed as she swung her legs off the stool she had been sitting on. The noise of her mother's metallic whirls and bangs slowly died away and the slightly robotic voice of channel 5's star reporter replaced it as Shelby walked down the stairs. "And that will be all for tonight. This is channel five- today." Shelby rounded the corner to the customary jingle, and then stopped.
There, on the screen, was the most beautiful woman Shelby had ever seen. Her skin was as flawlessly white as paper, her eyes were as black as the ebony coals Shelby's dad used whenever they went camping, and her hair was the exact color of a fire that was ready to roast marshmallows. Shelby glanced over to see if her father had seen this wonderful woman, but he was snoring, having fallen asleep between the sports and the weather. Shaking her head, Shelby turned back to the TV where the woman was dancing. Her movements were fluid and soft, and when she opened her mouth, Shelby was hypnotized.
"Are you tired of the plain-old, plain-old you?" Shelby nodded meekly.
"Do want something new, something exciting" Shelby's jaw dropped. It was almost like this woman knew exactly what she was thinking about. She sank to the carpet, as a vision engulfed her mind. Suddenly she wasn't "plain-old, plain-old," she sauntered down the hall of her Jr. High, her suddenly existent hips swaying to nonexistent music. Everyone stopped what they were doing, and turned. Rachel, the final word in popular, scuttled behind her, trying to get a glimpse at the new beauty who had stolen her crown. Slowly, almost reverently, the student body bent to their knees.
Shelby smiled.
Somewhere in the back of her mind Shelby heard the commercial's jingle and one last line from it's star, "A new hair, and a new you." The mysterious woman gave Shelby one more smile, the type of smile that fills you right up, almost like the smile their preacher gave the congregation before beginning one of his hellfire and brimstone speeches, the type that fills you right to the top and lets you float right through the roof and above the brimstone. It was the smile that said, "Someday, someday you might possibly be as wonderful as I am." Shelby smiled back at the woman, and then she was gone.
"That's what's wrong with me. That's it." Shelby muttered. "That's it!" She practically shouted, forgetting her sleeping dad, forgetting her mother's request, only remembering the beautiful revelation she had just been given.
"Eh?" Her dad's previously drooping head jerked up. "Did you say something?"
"No," Shelby smiled; she was still floating from the memory of that smile. "Mom says its time for dinner."
Something about that commercial changed Shelby, she could feel it. There was something about the way the mysterious woman had smiled at her; she suddenly had a vision of what she could be like.
The next day, Shelby once again found herself glowering at a glass of milk while her mom bustled around the kitchen. The kids had been mean at school again, not that that was unusual, but what was unusual was how much it hurt.
“Mom, I think I want to dye my hair.”
Shelby’s mom spun around, bits of grease flying off of the flipper she was using for the hamburgers, “You want to do what?!?!”
“I want to dye my hair.”
Her mom’s jaw dropped just a little lower. “Mom. I want .to die. my hair. Now, Today. Everyone at school is doing it.”
“And by everyone do you mean this Rachel Fitzherbert girl you’ve been talking about?”
Shelby was silent. Her mother nodded, then turned back to the hamburgers.
“If you want to, you can. I’m not saying you should. I like your hair the way it is, it is beautiful, but if you want to, you can.” Shelby smiled, but she wasn’t if it was because she was happy or because she was trying to hide the hollow feeling that had suddenly filled her stomach. “It’s time to eat.” Her mother turned around again.
“Its okay, I’m not hungry.”
The hair had been a flop. Of course. Shelby sighed as she looked at the woman in front of her, the memories of that awful moment slipping away. Her hair was still that bright garish red, and her nails still perfectly manicured, but it wasn’t quite the same girl. Or maybe Shelby wasn’t quite the same girl.
Shelby’s husband walked up to her and put his arm around her shoulder, “Honey, are you okay?”
“Yep, I am.” Shelby turned around, leaving the woman who had once been a girl, but was nothing but an empty shell. She turned around and left her to her carrot hunting. “I really am.”
She was short and stout, but not overly short and stout, at least she thought so. No, she liked her height and weight just fine. It wasn’t that, it was her hair color that bothered her. Whenever she would look in the mirror, she would see a perfectly round button nose set between two deliciously plump cheeks, then two bright, engaging eyes, a perfectly proportioned forehead, then BAM! right in the middle of all that perfection her vision would be assaulted by that mangy mess of dead cells that was approximately the same color as cow dung. But what could she do? Every morning she would note this, and then with a sigh she would reach over to her hairbrush and begin shaping her hair into something society considered respectable.
Next she would go to school. There really wasn’t much to say about school except that every day during fifth hour she would sit behind Rachel. Rachel was one of those annoying preppy types, with her perfectly manicured nails rapping endlessly on other people’s desk, her perfectly glossed lips curling up into a sneer whenever “shortcake Shelby” would walk by, and her so-high-it-makes-my-feet-sore-just-looking-at-them heels clicking down the hallway.
But of course Shelby didn’t really care about that type of stuff. If she cared, she might get her feelings hurt. She understood that according to the Jr. High hierarchy some people must be popular, and some people must be the ones that were not popular. She was even okay with the fact that she was not one of those that were destined to be popular. No, what she really wanted was the fiery mass of bright red gorgeousness that genetics had designed to place right on top of Rachel’s head. Her hair. It was beautiful; there was no other way to describe it. Shelby would spend hours, or at least all of fifth hour, just staring at it. She would go home, and then she would think of it. It was the perfect red of the apples Shelby’s mom would put out for a snack, or the flawless red of her little brother’s bouncy ball or the precisely sharp red of Shelby’s falling grades.
She tried not to obsess over it, her mom said it wasn’t healthy to worry too much about one’s appearance, especially when one was as young as Shelby, and Shelby agreed. But she also knew that if only she could have hair like Rachel’s, she would be beautiful and popular and her life would be perfect. Finally, on a particularly bad day, when even her cow-dung hair had refused to be molded into a semi-respectable shape and Rachel’s hair was abnormally gorgeous, Shelby leaned forward, “I love the color of your hair.”
“Thanks shortcake,” she breathed between three large chomps of gum, “I guess yours is pretty too. But I dye mine and that is why it is so much prettier.” With that final word, Shelby watched Rachel disappear back into her glimmering crowd.
"Jr. High is mean, just plain mean. I hate it." Shelby glowered at the glass of milk her mother had placed in front of her, and then started jabbing the bottom of the glass with her straw as the images of her classmates flitted through her mind.
"I'm sorry you had a rough day." Her mom half-mindedly mumbled as she swept through the kitchen. "Now honey, would you mind getting your father?"
Shelby sighed as she swung her legs off the stool she had been sitting on. The noise of her mother's metallic whirls and bangs slowly died away and the slightly robotic voice of channel 5's star reporter replaced it as Shelby walked down the stairs. "And that will be all for tonight. This is channel five- today." Shelby rounded the corner to the customary jingle, and then stopped.
There, on the screen, was the most beautiful woman Shelby had ever seen. Her skin was as flawlessly white as paper, her eyes were as black as the ebony coals Shelby's dad used whenever they went camping, and her hair was the exact color of a fire that was ready to roast marshmallows. Shelby glanced over to see if her father had seen this wonderful woman, but he was snoring, having fallen asleep between the sports and the weather. Shaking her head, Shelby turned back to the TV where the woman was dancing. Her movements were fluid and soft, and when she opened her mouth, Shelby was hypnotized.
"Are you tired of the plain-old, plain-old you?" Shelby nodded meekly.
"Do want something new, something exciting" Shelby's jaw dropped. It was almost like this woman knew exactly what she was thinking about. She sank to the carpet, as a vision engulfed her mind. Suddenly she wasn't "plain-old, plain-old," she sauntered down the hall of her Jr. High, her suddenly existent hips swaying to nonexistent music. Everyone stopped what they were doing, and turned. Rachel, the final word in popular, scuttled behind her, trying to get a glimpse at the new beauty who had stolen her crown. Slowly, almost reverently, the student body bent to their knees.
Shelby smiled.
Somewhere in the back of her mind Shelby heard the commercial's jingle and one last line from it's star, "A new hair, and a new you." The mysterious woman gave Shelby one more smile, the type of smile that fills you right up, almost like the smile their preacher gave the congregation before beginning one of his hellfire and brimstone speeches, the type that fills you right to the top and lets you float right through the roof and above the brimstone. It was the smile that said, "Someday, someday you might possibly be as wonderful as I am." Shelby smiled back at the woman, and then she was gone.
"That's what's wrong with me. That's it." Shelby muttered. "That's it!" She practically shouted, forgetting her sleeping dad, forgetting her mother's request, only remembering the beautiful revelation she had just been given.
"Eh?" Her dad's previously drooping head jerked up. "Did you say something?"
"No," Shelby smiled; she was still floating from the memory of that smile. "Mom says its time for dinner."
Something about that commercial changed Shelby, she could feel it. There was something about the way the mysterious woman had smiled at her; she suddenly had a vision of what she could be like.
The next day, Shelby once again found herself glowering at a glass of milk while her mom bustled around the kitchen. The kids had been mean at school again, not that that was unusual, but what was unusual was how much it hurt.
“Mom, I think I want to dye my hair.”
Shelby’s mom spun around, bits of grease flying off of the flipper she was using for the hamburgers, “You want to do what?!?!”
“I want to dye my hair.”
Her mom’s jaw dropped just a little lower. “Mom. I want .to die. my hair. Now, Today. Everyone at school is doing it.”
“And by everyone do you mean this Rachel Fitzherbert girl you’ve been talking about?”
Shelby was silent. Her mother nodded, then turned back to the hamburgers.
“If you want to, you can. I’m not saying you should. I like your hair the way it is, it is beautiful, but if you want to, you can.” Shelby smiled, but she wasn’t if it was because she was happy or because she was trying to hide the hollow feeling that had suddenly filled her stomach. “It’s time to eat.” Her mother turned around again.
“Its okay, I’m not hungry.”
The hair had been a flop. Of course. Shelby sighed as she looked at the woman in front of her, the memories of that awful moment slipping away. Her hair was still that bright garish red, and her nails still perfectly manicured, but it wasn’t quite the same girl. Or maybe Shelby wasn’t quite the same girl.
Shelby’s husband walked up to her and put his arm around her shoulder, “Honey, are you okay?”
“Yep, I am.” Shelby turned around, leaving the woman who had once been a girl, but was nothing but an empty shell. She turned around and left her to her carrot hunting. “I really am.”
Dreamers
Dreams are funny, fickle things. To be clear, I'm not talking about the weird stories that rush through your head at night. I'm talking about the sort of dreams that keep you awake at night. They have the power to move you. To make you face what you never thought you could face, or endure something you would really rather not endure. They give us drive, meaning and purpose in our lives. In many ways our culture is built on a culture of dreaming. We (or at least- I) live in America, land of the free where you can grow up to do anything you want to do. We've grown up listening to fairy tales where some character is given a quest to complete, or a dream to fulfill. If you need any convincing of the pervasive nature of these dreams, just look at Disney's popular song, "I've Got a Dream," an entire song dedicated to the unfulfilled dreams of these ruffians. Of course, there is a reason why the need to have a dream is so strong in our culture. The most interesting people I meet typically have a dream of some sort. Whether it be something they want to do or something they want to become or someplace they want to travel, almost everyone that is going anywhere in life seems to have a dream.
That being said, dreams are terribly fickle. We use them as an anchor to define who we are, where we are going and why we are doing what we are doing, but dreams also tend to have a rather short life-span. Think back five years ago. Are your dreams the same? What about 10 years ago? I certainly don't have the same dreams I had when I was five and as much fun as those dreams were, I'm perfectly okay that most of them have shifted. Some are dropped for one reason or another, others are fulfilled and the dreamer is left with a blank slate.
So what do you do after all of that happens? What happens when you fulfill your dreams? They never really get to that part in the movie. I mean, sometimes they have the whole "and they all lived happily ever after," but that's really nothing more than a tidy clean-up phrase. What in the world does "after" include? Its kind of an interesting thing to think about. And for those of us who are dreamers, its something that we'll have to grapple with relatively frequently throughout our lives.
That being said, dreams are terribly fickle. We use them as an anchor to define who we are, where we are going and why we are doing what we are doing, but dreams also tend to have a rather short life-span. Think back five years ago. Are your dreams the same? What about 10 years ago? I certainly don't have the same dreams I had when I was five and as much fun as those dreams were, I'm perfectly okay that most of them have shifted. Some are dropped for one reason or another, others are fulfilled and the dreamer is left with a blank slate.
So what do you do after all of that happens? What happens when you fulfill your dreams? They never really get to that part in the movie. I mean, sometimes they have the whole "and they all lived happily ever after," but that's really nothing more than a tidy clean-up phrase. What in the world does "after" include? Its kind of an interesting thing to think about. And for those of us who are dreamers, its something that we'll have to grapple with relatively frequently throughout our lives.
The Healer
She was known as the healer. No other name, no other title, simply as the healer. As you might imagine, it was her job to go to those who were aching, those who were in pain and help them to heal. She would walk, nearly invisible, amongst every group of people from every walk of life suffering under every type of difficulty. She would reach out to these people in their darkest hour and help them learn how to heal. Sometimes she would listen, sometimes she would talk. It didn’t really matter what she did to help only that she eased their pain. And because of that, she was completely invisible. Her job was one of immense importance, but very little recognition. A burden lifted, a smile stretched across her face, and she knew her job was done. She would slip out the backdoor, her cloak softly swirling around her frail body and onto the next soul.
And then came the day when the healer needed help.
It was inevitable; and to anyone except those she healed it would have come as no surprise, but they were far too caught up in their woes to notice her frail body becoming frailer and frailer and her spindly back pushing down further and further under the weight of their problems. She was strong, but nobody can be that strong. She lay on her back, unable to move under the weight of every problem in the community.
At first the people in the community hardly even noticed. “It's no big deal” they would whisper to themselves. “Its just a phase, she'll snap back any moment.” But that did not happen. Day after day, the healer would lay on her back, still unable to move. The townspeople waited patiently, and then angrily. “What is she doing? I don't have time for this. Why doesn't she just snap out of it? It can't be that difficult.” They muttered to themselves, thinking about all of the pain and all of the problems they had to deal with. And now they had to do it alone. “Why doesn't she just get up?” As they thought, they would then sink deeper and deeper into their own problems. Angrier and angrier, more and more desperate.
Everyone that is, except one small girl. She wasn’t much, but she knew about bad days. She still wasn’t much, but she also knew about good days- very good days in fact. She had watched the healer grow wearier and wearier with her burden, but being just a little girl, she didn’t know what to do. As she watched the healer disappear, however, she suddenly had an idea.
One summer morning this little girl went up to the hills. She looked around in the grass and found the prettiest flower she could find. Just like the little girl, it wasn’t much, but it was the brilliant color of sunshine. The girl picked it up, ran towards the village and right to the Healer’s humble home. “Grandma Healer?” She whispered timidly, “Grandma Healer, I brought you something.” She walked in the door, to the old woman’s bed and dropped the flower on the night stand. “Here. I hope you like it.” And with those words, she turned and darted out of the room.
Every morning the girl did the exact same thing. She would go to the hills to find a flower. Sometimes it was the blue of the morning sky, other times the pink of her lips, other times the purple of the mountains, but it was always the best flower on the hillside. As she dropped it off at “Grandma Healer’s,” she would place it on the nightstand and dart out of the room. Once as she turned the corner, she even thought she saw the ghost of a smile on Grandma Healer’s mouth.
After about a month, the girl did something she had never done before. It was such a beautiful day, and the little girl felt like she had swallowed the sunshine. She simply couldn’t keep it inside of her. And on this particular trip, she reached out and hugged the healer. As she hugged the Healer, it was almost as if the warmth of the girl’s soul reached out and touched a small corner of the old woman’s soul. It reached out and reawakened something that had not been felt for a long time. And slowly, the woman found the energy to reach beyond the crushing weight that had engulfed her and she reached her arms around the child into a hug.
It wasn’t much, but it was progress. The old woman continued to heal as every day the little girl brought her a flower and a hug. Slowly the flowers were put into a small vase on the nightstand and the woman began to sit up. Then she began to stand with the girl's help. Late in the evening, the towns people would often see the little old woman wrapped in a blanket, leaning on a little girl and staring off into the hills. As time went on, the townspeople learned to deal with their own problems. They struggled on, occasionally reaching out to help others with their troubles, but no one quite sought the same vision as the healer. The little girl and the healer continued their friendship, although it might be said that this little girl became the healer for this woman. And ias the child loved and the community forgot, slowly, ever so slowly, the old woman learned how to love again.
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