Hypothetical Bathrooms

An old man stopped me in the library yesterday, when he saw I was carrying well over the amount of books that someone with any notion of the time it takes to soak in a book should be carrying. You only get to check them out for so long, I'm sure he thought; and surely anyone with a schedule can only handle so much edifying reading in a day. 

The man commented on my books: asking why so many, and trying to mask his confusion (paralleled closely with his bemusement) as I fumbled through what I thought was an adequate explanation of the kind of break I'm having from school. I think he nodded his head to get me to stop saying so many words. 

I transferred half of the books to my other hand, hoping that by spacing them out, I would somehow distract the closely-packed readers and browsers in the small library from asking similar questions.

 Whenever I walk in a library, I am overcome by this overwhelming sense of anticipation at the amounts of stimulating possibilities. All of a sudden I want nothing more than to learn how to make a quilt, and master the Greek alphabet, and to conquer the classics in one sitting while deciphering the differences between ceramic and acrylic tile for my hypothetical bathroom floor. I want to become a writer, and a poet, and to be an expert at collecting antique coins and know all there is to know about the Black Widow Spider. Goodness, it frustrates me. 

I get frustrated walking into a library. I walk in, and I pick up all the books I can about all the subjects I desire desperately to drown in. With the giddiness of a five-year-old, I determine to be washed away by the colors and words and possibilities of pages soaked in knowledge that I somehow thought, before entering the library, I could never have. 

But the frustrating thing that I find, every time I do this, is that I can never, no matter how hard I try, come up with enough time to be the absorptive sponge I yearn to be. There. Is. Never. Enough. Or maybe I don't make enough time. Or maybe I realize later that, realistically, one book will never teach me all I need to know on the Greek alphabet --- so what's the use? 

This is why I so earnestly fumbled for words when the old man approached me.

I was so irritatingly sure that, somehow, he could see right through all my wonderful intentions, right down to the stupid reality of time, and my lack of drive and will. 

I think sometimes I love the idea of knowledge better than the fact of knowledge itself. How I long to acquire the Sci-Fi device that transports all information from a book directly into your brain at the flick of a wrist. I would be the best grocery store checker-outer. 

I brought this book (pictured below) home with me yesterday. 

The title hooked me right away, because I think I am falling in love with the fact that I get to, quite literally, "stay put" for the next month, before going to Sydney. For the first time in a long time, I have the opportunity to be as much of a sponge as I'll allow myself to be, with time out of the way as a belligerent barrier.

How I long for this month to inch along at the pace of a breakfast on a Saturday morning. For it to linger, and to last, and to fill me fully for what is to come. 

Sahara vs. Savannah

I don't really know if it's is a camel, or a giraffe.

But its ambiguity is endearing. 

I thought I'd take some time to highlight a few things in the house that I'm living at here in Seattle. This will be the first in my series of "What-You-Don't-Know-Is-Hidden-Behind-A-Closed-Door-Is-More-Likely-To-Make-You-Smile-Than-To-Be-A-Weapon-Against-You" posts. Important life lesson. True story.

Book worms are the friendliest harbors of smarts

I got a Seattle Public Library card today! BEST-DAY-EVER! 

Not because this library is particularly stupendous (it kind of smells like your gym shoes meeting a cup of tea in a musky basement), or because I was able to find any enlightenment on all the mysteries of this confounded collaboration of planets that revolve around a perpetually flaming rock.....

But because of my collection! : )

I once decided that I wanted to get a library card from all 50 states. This way, if I ever have to run away from life, I can rest assured that I have 90 free minutes of internet in each state a day, can read People Magazine each week, and can learn Arabic through book, CD, book-on-tape, OR dvd. Yes, the world is a horizon of options when you have a library card. 

However, all the kind people with whom I shared this lifelong dream of library card acquisition kindly kicked my brain into the acknowledgment that, in order to get a library card, you have to live in that state. 

But Ha! I now have four library cards. Thank you Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, and now Seattle, for taking me under your wing of free knowledge. I walk in the doors of your institutions and remember everything I don't know. And realize all I want to learn. For this I shall be eternally grateful. 

There was a very nice, albeit confused, old man I got to meet at the library. I'll write about him later.

All the jellyfishes

When convinced of a path in life that most certainly insists on cookie dough at the grocery store, one can't help but resist the smile of pudding. "Pudding" is an even more magnificent word to have tickle the tongue, probably, than "cookie dough" (which is, in fact, two words. I guess they shouldn't even be in the same food category.)

Mom, just wanted to show you proof that I am nailing the dairy block in my food pyramid. Also, maybe I will visit the pyramids someday, and figure out what all the fuss is about. Having bread make up the base of it all seems foolish to me. Unless it's sourdough. Sourdough is a bit more dense and supportive than the other stuff. 

Talk about building your house on the sand. 

Fluff. Like on toast.

 Silence is a beautiful obsession. When we strain to feel the silence, as often our minds beckon us to do, our efforts cause angered ears that clamor to be left alone. We tire of trying. We tire of twisting ourselves in directions we cannot find for the simple order of sacred silence. We know it’s there. We know that silence is that ominous simplicity that finds itself always just beyond the reach of our tired fingertips. Somehow, in the depths of our messy, bottomless, sinking hearts, we know full well that we cannot contact silence; for to contact it would be to shatter the very place we seek. To contact the sacred silence would be to invite it into our chaos, rather than allow ourselves to be invited, and drawn, into its solace. 

But we summon the silence until it finally agrees to show up. 

We have insisted that it come. We have stomped our feet and balled our fists and crunched our brows in biding its company. We wait in busy convulsions for silence to make itself known. If we can’t get to the silent place, then it must come to us. The sense of entitlement is intoxicating, for the more we desire the touch of silence, the further it seems to crawl into its unreachable shadows. The more our minds scream for the silence, curiously, the less silent everything becomes. 

But when it finally comes (and it does come, for it seeks those most desperate for it), we completely ignore it, and then entirely taint it. We completely shun the moments alone in the shell of a vacant car, solitary in our own thoughts, left to our own intentions. We intend the silence – but when it presents itself, we drive faster to get there sooner, or put music on to drown the space, or shove four more kids in the backseat who belong to another set of parents who need a ride home because it’s almost dark out and their dad was late and you live right next door and their dog needs to be fed because he is a carnivore who is lonely and has been in the drippy basement all day ……… 

At the end of a day, could it be possible that we fear silence? 

For to be silent means to be still. And we run from stillness as though faced with a pillow fight against a boulder. 

I have had three consecutive days entirely to myself. Hours upon hours with nothing scheduled for me, nothing being asked of me, and nothing being told to me. Right now- a half an hour ago- is the first time in these past few days that I have found myself truly, and fully, responding to the invitation of silence.

It began snowing. Glorious slivers of sky whispering as they were magnetically drawn to the bare branches of night trees. A match made in heaven. White on the silhouetted black of the sleeping street, creating the untouched glaze that makes all things dormantly new. 

I was ready. I was going to give up this day and go to sleep along with everyone else in the house. All the teeth had been brushed; everyone had sipped their last tastes of night tea and rounded off their comments on a days’ work. There was nothing else left to be done or said, really, as the lights were turned off, one by one. Check another day off the list of hours to graciously annihilate before I die. And there it suddenly was: The invitation. 

Silence. 

The snow had not stopped falling simply because we were done acknowledging it. Everything perfect and gloriously breathtaking outside continued whispering its purity, asking nothing in return. Requiring nothing in exchange. Tangible silence inviting a non-active response. Stillness. 

It was terrifying. 

I think I quickly tried to shove a couple more things in, to pretend like I wasn’t being told by my unstable mind that I should sit and watch snow for a few minutes. Watch … the snow? As in … “Yup, it’s still falling. Has been for a while now. Will keep doing so into the Yonder. Are we done yet, brain? Have you had your fill of nonsense? It’s …. Just … fluff. Like Winnie the Pooh. Or the stuff you spread on toast. It’s …. Just … snow. I’m from it’s-colder-here-than-Neptune-being-stuck-in-a-snowcone Chicago, for Heaven’s sake.”

And as I sat here,  just simply allowing the sight of the falling snow to saturate my senses, I could feel the silence like none other. I was in its territory now… being drawn into its presence. And what a beautiful obsession I’ve found. 

I am listening to the secondhand tick on a clock that is never quite on time. I heard a slight crumple, and realized this was the sound of the white being too cumbersome for skeletal branches. The heater in this old house yawns in spurts to no one in particular. I am willing this place of silence to go on for hours, scolding my head for its attempts to get me to sleep for the mere purposes of being able to wake up at the proper time tomorrow. How I loathe time. 

So as the snowfall slows, I follow it as one would a serenade; It draws to a close, and, silently, so must I.