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(Caption winner gets the other half of the puppy!)
My Featured Blogger this week is Carolyn of Nuggets of Gold. Carolyn’s blogger handle is “Joy Roses,” and for a good reason: she emanates joy, with a healthy side of humor. This wife and mother of two teenagers began journaling as a teenager herself, and never stopped. Her stories and fascinating facts really are nuggets of gold.
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My Real MemoirMany of my memoir posts have had a Tom Sawyer-ish tone, provoking “Oh, you had such an idyllic childhood!” responses. But in the last couple of months, there’ve been darker entries. In the past two weeks, I spoke of a tragic incident and a near-death experience that resulted in a terrifying phobia. And before that I wrote about a recurring nightmare that continued into my early adult years.
What changed?
In a word: puberty. Not that all of the joy drained out of my world when my hormones kicked in. It’s just that my world became more layered, more complicated. I’d always lived in my head (still do), but when puberty struck, I moved from simply feeling and thinking to feeling and thinking about feeling and thinking. I no longer simply asked what the world thought I should do, I began asking what I thought I should do.
An incident that stirred up a ravishing hornet’s nest of feelings occurred when I was leaving my buddy Rory’s house. A fence made up of redwood slats separated his yard from the neighbor’s. I caught a glimpse of light between the slats, so I moved closer and peered through. The pretty twenty-something-year-old lady who lived next door had just stepped out of the shower.
It was my first lesson in female anatomy. And much more. It was the blossoming of desires I didn’t even know I had. I fought with the voice in my head, shouting, “Shame on you! It’s wrong for you to look!” But I’m admiring her! I told it. Granted, she might not have liked knowing an eleven-year-old boy was watching as she shaved her legs and powdered her body. But if she didn’t know, what harm was there? What should I do?
I stayed.
I felt guilty afterward. And giddy. And a dozen other things. As with the death of my friend’s dog, my own near-death experience, and my recurring nightmares, I was trying to process thoughts and feeling I’d never experienced before—and trying to process them on my own. Why? Because my teachers, society, and even my parents couldn’t tell me what to do. I needed to decide for myself.
At puberty, science tells us, the two main chambers (cerebrum) of human brains switch from working in unison to carrying on an ongoing “conversation” with one another. And as a result, puberty isn’t just a physical transformation, it’s a moral one. Theologians call it “the age of accountability,” the age at which we begin asking ourselves what we should do.
So what did I think?
I thought it was wonderful.
And awful.
And everything in between.
And the only thing I knew for certain was…
I would never be the same again.
Photo by Mystic Art DesignIt’s common to hear statements to the effect that pride frees us to become our true selves. But this is false pride. Instead, we must reverse the formula. For it’s humility that frees us to become our true selves, and false pride—pride as a goal rather than a natural outcome—that keeps us from becoming our true selves. Karen Swallow Prior writes:
“Once, when asked by a student at a lecture, ‘Miss O’Connor, why do you write?’ (Flannery O’Connor) answered, ‘Because I’m good at it.’ At first glance, this reply might seem conceited or proud. But the truth is that knowing what we are good at and what we are not…is the essence of true humility. Before O’Connor knew for certain what she was good at, she kept a prayer journal. In it, she wrote, ‘Dear God, please give me some place, no matter how small, but let me know it and keep it. If I am the one to wash the second step every day, let me know it and let me wash it and let my heart overflow with love washing it.’”
Pursue true humility, and in doing so you will discover your true self. In knowing your true self, you will be freed to pursue your true calling. And in pursuing your true calling, you will experience true pride. For, as C.S. Lewis writes:
“When the redeemed soul…learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please, there will be no room for vanity. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval, she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be. And the moment which heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her (false) pride. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty.”
The Wishing Map is a full-length fantasy that is being posted episodically at this site. To read the previous episode, click here. To read the entire novel, begin here.
Like her brother, Gina had “fallen into” the mysterious Map their Aunt Aloysius had given them. Only unlike Zack, she’d planned the fall, in order to rescue the little twit. Still, what came next was anything but plannable. All she said for the full first minute was:
“Wha…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
aaat?”
She tried to think-dance, but the result was absurd. With her big blue terrycloth robe up over her head and her feet flailing below her she looked like a broken umbrella.
At first, she’d been terrified beyond words. But after about fifteen minutes of mindless screaming, she’d simply become confused. Then self-conscious. Then self-conscious about being self-conscious. And then she’d finally realized it didn’t matter because no one could see her; she was thousands of feet up in the air, maybe thousands of miles! Of course, she screamed—that was instinctual—and lurched about like a mad marionette. But then she decided it wasn’t real; it was all just too Alice in Wonderlandy to be real.
How long had she been falling? Half an hour? Half a day? She couldn’t see the earth below, if there even was an earth below. Above, the sky dissolved from navy blue to squid-ink black. She almost expected to bump into a satellite. Or the international space station: It’ll reach out with its big mechanical arm, she thought, and then a cosmonaut named Alexei will give me vodka, and an astronaut named Buzz (they’re all named Buzz) will show me how to eat out of tubes and…
She was pretty sure she was hallucinating. “Focus, Gina!” She said aloud, because it was easier to think out loud. Her mind somewhat calmer now, she reached up and pulled her robe back down, then held it in place by keeping her hands in her pockets. Why do they make the pockets so they end up way in front when the robe is closed? I mean, if they just— “Argggh! Focus, Gina!” She slapped herself. “Ow!”
The moment she slapped her face she realized how cold she was—it felt like she’d used a shovel. Now, that was real! But it was also what she needed. She was finally able to focus. OK, so I fell through the Map like Zack did, and then…Zack!
She began methodically screaming her brother’s name in every direction so that, no matter where he was, he’d hear her:
“Zaa…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
aack!”
“Zaa…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
aack!”
“Zaa…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
a…
aack!”
No response. Which made sense. Why would he be near here when he’d fallen through the Map at least ten minutes before she had. “Stupid idiot!” she chided herself. Why hadn’t she figured that out at the time? Instead, she’d run downstairs and through the house before she’d realized he’d fallen into the Map and…and now he was probably dead!
And soon she would be too!
Thoughts: Have you ever experienced a future so unlike anything you’d expected that you simply had no basis for knowing what to do next?
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Artwork by Conor P. MacNeill
My Featured Blogger this week is Priston of Quoteliv. I know little about Priston except that he’s in the midst of assembling a marvelously well-curated collection of quotes by history-making people. We may not agree with everything they say, but there’s no denying that their thoughts have influenced our world.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
The pendulum of…
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Mitch Teemley 