The Watch Guard, Part I

I see wrinkly hands glowing in the dark. They are attached to a man with chapped lips, long wild hair and missing teeth. The man’s spine looks to be permanently bent over, never to be aligned into a straight position again.

The man stands next to the wooden door, the door we have all come to know as the entrance to the Unknown. He looks no one in the eye until he calls their name among the darkness.

His voice sounds like rock against pavement. There is no melody or song to his voice, just rough sounds from a hard heart. Standing in line, I stare at the back of a man’s shiny bald head to keep my mind awake.

I can’t help but wonder, how does this scary old man in the dark decide who gets to go on? 

I have never been told. 

I just know I have been waiting with hurting knees and headaches all my life. Just standing in line, waiting for my name to be called. I don’t even know what I am waiting for, to be honest. Or what is beyond this mysterious, ugly door.

The watch guard is an honor, people say. But I don’t think so. It feels dirty, to accept some people, to call their name, look them in the eyes, and let them through, while others stand and wait. To be the one thing that stands between a person and an opportunity, to be the ultimate gateway between life and death.

My fingers curl by my side, my breath gets shorter, faster, and I feel my heart beat out of control against my chest. For a second, I think I can almost hear its beat and I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Name is called.

Steps are taken.

The door opens.

The door closes.

And I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait.

The Poisonous Touch

Stress is a poison.

It’s like swallowing thorns or smashing your pinky finger in the car door. 

It eats away at your inner peace, leaving you with nothing but twitching eyelids and scattered thoughts.

I used to say I never let stress get to me, that I was always this carefree, worry-less soul that no storm could shatter.

But when I start to lose balance with love and grace and courage and play and creative flow and freedom and compassion, and I forget what it feels like to laugh at mistakes and turn the page and try again and pray and sing and run... it scares me.

Stress is a poison.

It has tangled me up in a web of sorrow and regret. It has frozen little ounces of anger, piled them on top of each other, and made a mountain of ugly, heavy lies.

You will never get it all done, my stress mountain tells me.

You are embarrassing yourself.

You are wasting your time.

And then I forget to notice.

I forget to notice my breath, the leaves turning yellow outside my window.

I forget to notice the warmth of a hug, the promise of a kiss.

Stress is a poison.

Yesterday I rode my bike. I sat up my hammock in the forest and reminded myself that it was Saturday and I am only 27. I found pleasure in the ants, the rough bark on the trees, the smiles of kids with dogs that passed. I even laughed a little bit when I got lost on a windy trail and had to ask an old man and his family how to find the nature center.

Yesterday, I noticed.

And for a small moment, at least, my stress mountain was just a small hill in the corner of my eye.

A Night Out in Nashville.

Last night I went to Live on the Green with my friend Chelsea. There was a rich coolness in the air and pretty much everyone had a jacket on. It made me excited about the fall- excited about Halloween and butternut squash and wearing boots and going camping and bonfires.

There is something sweet and nostalgic about fall. There is a warmth in the coolness and in the yellow-orange and crimson colors, in the crisp air that paints your cheeks and tickles your eyelashes.

Feeling safe and comfortable in my warm red zip-up, I stood and I watched a lot of people last night.

People-watching is one of my favorite things to do at live shows. Together, Chelsea and I stood in a massive crowd, eyes skirting across the tops of heads, all different heights and sizes, like the tip of a mountain range. It was the kind of crowd that requires you to constantly keep up with your group when you are meandering through the whirlwind of people. The kind of crowd where you get incredibly annoyed if someone is too loud or too drunk next to you because you don't exactly have a lot of wiggle room.

All in all, I counted about ten non-white people, if that gives any indication of my people-watching experience.

This always makes me initially laugh, and Chelsea and I commented on it several times. "We feel so... white," we would say to each other, smiling, noticing, taking it all in.

For whatever it is, I can really feel it when there is such a distinct presence of white people in one space. This may happen at a live show like this one or at a lacrosse match in New Hampshire or a sorority on basically any college campus in the South, or at a country club, or a church service, or basically, anything remotely Republican.

I have recently decided to merely become a student of myself in these moments. 

To be quiet and commit to asking questions. 

What am I learning, feeling, hating, benefiting from? 

Who am I isolating or not isolating? 

Why does it matter?

Here are a few observations of how my body reacts in these types of experiences...

On some occasions, I have noticed that I feel something heavy like concrete pressing against my chest, and it quickens my heartbeat. I feel closed in, small, tight. And then sometimes I feel my stomach turn around and around like a loud dryer rocking side to side, shaking up the whole house. Other times I feel nervous energy in my knees, and my eyebrows instinctively curve in, inching closer and closer together, as if I am deep in thought, trying to determine the secrets of the universe.

And then I ask questions like this-

1.) Do the faces in the crowd truly represent our city, or just our immediate circle and people that “are into this sort of thing”?

2.) What does this say about the way we live our lives and the assumptions we place on our world and the corners we back ourselves into?

3.) Do we do this out of fear, or habit, or both?

YES it was just a concert and YES, I had a lot of fun and I was glad that I went.

I just can’t ignore these questions or these feelings, even on a Saturday night when I am out with my friend hearing beautiful, heavenly music that makes me smile and makes me happy to be alive.

It is a scary, scary thing to only be around people that look, think, speak, and act just like you do.

And if it takes concrete against my chest, a washer and dryer tornado inside my stomach, and weak, shaky knees to pay attention to this truth, it is worth it.

The Sacred Choice.

To receive is to be.

To stand perfectly still.

With no “next steps”, no plans, no agenda.

Expectations drop to the earth.

Layers of shame fall away.

To receive is to listen.

With kindness.

With intention.

Resistance yields.

Anger subsides.

To receive is to touch.

Mind to the present.

Heart to the Spirit.

Slowed breath.

Open hands.

I choose to receive.

When life is hard.

When blessings flow.

I choose to receive.

When my feet hurt.

When my attention fades, and my breath runs dry.

I choose to receive.

When my thoughts are scattered.

When I want to give up.

When I run.

When I speak.

When I move.

Here I am held.

I am fed.
Understood.
Valued.

The greatest challenge is the greatest gift.

We were born to receive.

She Walks.

She walks up and down the grassy hills.

Up at a slant.

Down at a lean.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Slow.

Steady.

Calm.

The smell of a newly manicured golf course.

The smell of summer.

Lawnmowers.

Lemonade.

Chlorine.

Dirty knees.

Messy hair.

Bare feet.

The summit of each hill feels more like a smooth bump instead of a sharp, needle-like point.

And each hill meets her feet like loud music hits the chest.

Vibrating the body.

Intruding the senses.

But ever so kind.

She never stops to ask why or how or where she is going.

She just knows what it feels like when she stops- her muscles sob, her blisters plead for attention, and layers of skin start peeling away like pages in a calendar.

Each step presses into the earth, resembling a heartbeat pounding away during a long run.

Up.

Down.

Slowly, gracefully, she walks.

A Silent Shoreline.

This summer I cried in front of an 11 year old. 

A boy with blonde, wavy hair and a good heart. 

A heart that was being pulled in ten thousand different directions. 

Blame it on the hormones that are beginning to flood his body and confuse the hell out of him. 

Blame it on the kids that give him attention when he is the “boss”, the bully with the coolest clothes and the strongest free throw shot. 

Blame it on his parents who are constantly fighting at home, his puppies screaming at nearly every sound in earshot, or his chores piling up at home by the minute.

Whatever the cause, I knew this wasn’t really him who got me to the point of tears. It wasn't really him who was yelling at me at the drop of a pen, talking back to me every chance he got, and saying all kinds of hurtful, unimaginable things to the other kids. 

But I simply couldn’t take it anymore. 

So I asked him what was wrong.

“You’ve been talking back a LOT lately.”

Tears fall.

Head drops.

He apologized.

His voice, soft.

His eyes wide.

He said he had a "lot of stuff going on at home".

And I believed him.

I can’t imagine what it’s like for an 11 year old boy to see a 20-something babysitter at the steering wheel, crying. I would guess it's probably confusing and scary to a degree. 

A loss of control. 

A loss of stability.

It throws you off, changes your tone, your body language, your confidence level.

This was my honest expression, the raw and rigid overflow of stress coming out of the corners of my eyes. This was me taking off my mask for a minute, and not really by choice.

It was real.

It was… me.

As adults, we want so badly to be “in control”, to have it all together, no matter who is watching or what is being said. But I was reminded this summer that I simply cannot do that. I don’t know how to hold it together sometimes when kids are yelling at me, parents aren't answering texts, and I am not getting enough sleep.

At some point, I just break.

The mask is put aside and I stand face to face with the harder things in life.

The kinds of things that throw you off-step, kick you in the stomach and knock you down.

But here is the gift that was placed in my open palms during this difficult conversation in the car.

We are all human.

Whether we choose to accept that or not.

We are sand on the beach.

Tiny, gritty specks of sand.

Swept away by the wind.

Dampened by chairs, towels, and creatures of all kinds.

We are stepped on.

We are thrown around.

We are shaken off of towels and out of hair.

But together, we form a beach, a silent shoreline, a calm resting place for the healing salt water to return after a long, hard journey. 

Sand is a beautiful thing, really.

Tears and all.

Pairing Up and Holding Hands.

I feel the gravel rustle beneath my feet and my mind wanders back to the long, noisy road that was the entrance to summer camp in Northern Alabama. My stomach was always relieved when we finally made that infamous right turn after the lone 7-Eleven on the corner. 

I have never been one for windy roads in the car, even as a child. One too many "mishaps" in a friend of a friend's parent's expensive, leather-seat car made me more than aware of this fact. And ANY time when we reached our final destination after more than an hour in the car and I walked away with clean pants was a major victory.

When my mother and I got out to unload, claim a bed, and take a walk around camp, I would remain fairly quiet at first. Observing from my secret hideaway in the woods, just waiting for the lion to move on and find his new prey.

Rest Hour was always my favorite part of camp. 

Designed to be a quiet time to reenergize before the second half of the exhaustingly hot, give-me-a-popsicle-or-I-will-die kind of day, rest hour was nothing but quiet. Beds squeaked, feet shuffled, giggles contagiously spread across the cabin. Our counselor would begin the hour with loads of “Sshhing”, but halfway through, she would undoubtedly surrender to the madness of the Jonathan Taylor Thomas obsessed preteens.

I remember two girls who refused to go by anything but “Bubble Gum” and “Tic-Tac”. And I remember thinking that was weird at the time, but now I only wish I would have been as brave as them to go by Tic-Tac as a 12 year old.

I remember when a girl whose bunk was across from mine told my friend Amy she was pretty. 

The look on Amy's face revealed she had never believed that to be true.

I remember the summer the girls in my cabin changed outfits every hour and spent increasing minutes in front of the mirror trying to make their eyelashes curl so that their eyes would "pop".

But I didn’t pack enough clothes for this, I thought to myself.

I don’t know how to make my eyelashes curl like that.

I like my eyelashes as they are.

That was the same summer the girls and the boys started pairing up and holding hands as they walked down the hill back to the cabin. And then my friends started getting "dates" to the dance. That seemed odd to me. Why can’t we all just go together, I wondered? Why so many couples?

That was the summer camp felt foreign to me.