Befriending Big Brother

Today is my big brother Kirito's birthday (called Death on big brother Ace's blog). The youngest of my honorary older brothers, he is also the most recent to be adopted, as it were.

I had been aware, for a few years, of Kirito as an upperclassmen. I'd seen him repeatedly in the halls and had the vague knowledge that he was smart and played computer games. He was on academic team as well, and would quite often give people mint gum for no real reason. I found it fascinating, the different kinds he would produce, all mint: spearmint, winter mint, etc. Naturally, I wanted to befriend him. There was only one problem: I am incredibly shy.

My freshmen year, my sister and I became fans of the writer Ted Dekker, and it is only natural that we would share the names of any other fans we came across. Kirito was one my sister mentioned. Almost the entire school year later, Kirito and I were both on a bus letting other people off before us. I had been reading Dekker's Thre3, and I still wanted to befriend Kirito. However, I was terrified to start the conversation, so I readjusted my hold on the book to a position that, while it was slightly uncomfortable, looked natural and allowed him to see the cover. Somehow, it worked.

"That's a good book."

"Really?" I looked up at him (he's actually quite tall).

"Yeah." He smiled gently.

And there lay two problems in my plan.

1. I hadn't read enough of the book yet to make it into a conversation. 
2. Even if I had, I was too shy to do so.

My junior year, I signed up to help an elementary teacher during one period of the day. I was assigned to Mrs. T. There are several Mrs. T's in the elementary, and I was relieved to find that another student would be helping her that period too. I could bluff about knowing what I was doing and follow the student to her room. I quickly discovered that Kirito was that other student and that he didn't know either.

In the Mrs. T's classroom, we could have very easily spoken rarely, staying to our own tasks. That is not what happened. Starting the first day, Kirito would talk to me. I had never heard him talk so much before. He told me about anime, music, and multiple other topics. Many days, he would work with one earbud in, and I would look up from helping a student to see him air drumming to the music. A few times, it looked like he was pretending to beat the children over their heads. He wasn't though; he was just lost in the music. I came to know his quirks of behavior: how he can't tell a story he likes without standing up and how he practically glows when he's talking about something he loves.

We would talk in the hall after that period too. He could make me really laugh, something that didn't happen often that year. We discussed choice weapons in a fantasy setting. His was the scythe, and he correctly guessed mine: bow and arrow. We also discussed Ted Dekker. He didn't remember how he knew that I was aware of his love of Dekker's books, but when I brought them up, he beamed. "You remembered!"

My junior year was hard. I had days when all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner and cry until I passed out from exhaustion. I felt alone, utterly alone. My closest friends were disappearing, some had graduated the year before and others were gone for different reasons. I don't know if I could have survived the school year without him.

So, long story short, happy birthday Kirito. I am so glad you talked to me and became my big brother.

The Blood Drive

I have never given blood before, not because I didn't want to. Circumstances have always worked against my desire to help. Thursday, I was able to break that pattern. I decided to donate blood.

I was nervous, to be perfectly honest. That's normal. Who wouldn't be nervous the first time a lifeless, plastic and metal mosquito feed on a vein?

As I walked into the room, a nurse smiled at me and handed me the forms I needed to fill out. After the paperwork, I sat at a little desk with another nurse. She brushed back a strand of short blond hair as she fastened the cuff of the blood pressure monitor around my arm. As it tightened, a snake strangling its prey, I felt each pulse of blood with thundering clarity. Only a moment and she was scribbling down my blood pressure (110/69) and pulse (73) onto a form. Next came my temperature (98.6). I watched as she prepared to prick my finger and calculate my hemoglobin. I'd had that done once before and watched her little device cautiously. It sharply bit my finger regardless. Hemoglobin came back as normal as could be expected (14.4).

I let my mind stray for a moment while a little machine nearby whirred. Of course the little tool for pricking fingers had shot its pointed end out so quickly. If it were slower, people would have time to flinch and pull away. The blood that came out was dark, a deep burgundy that made me think of my sister.

I vaguely became aware that I had grown hot. My head felt fuzzy and muted, grey even. I figured that, like being nervous, this was normal, but there could be no harm in asking, just to be on the safe side.

"Is it normal to feel hot and light-headed?"

She blinked and frankly answered, "Nope. It means you're not giving blood today. Lie down in the floor and put your feet in the chair." She left me and went in pursuit of a damp cloth.

A third nurse leaned around the side of her desk towards me. "Are you okay, Sweetie?" Her voice sounded odd, like I was under water.

I nodded.

I stayed there for about twenty minutes, head against cool concrete. If I had been left there much longer, I may have struck up a conversation in my head with the nearby trashcan. Eventually, I was given a little food and a cup of water before being released back into the world.

Oh well, there's always next time.

Beowulf

Herot saw Grendel

come to feast on man flesh in joy.

Beowulf said no.

A terrible fight

and Beowulf is victor.

Bad dude lost his arm.

Grendel’s mom was mad.

Then our hero killed her too.

Beowulf. So cool.

He went home and ruled

for fifty years in glory.

Fate ruined it all.

Dragon went raging

through peaceful Geat countryside.

Beowulf said no.

Though now old, he fought.

The dragon wounded the king.

Oh, that had to hurt.

Men were cowards, but

young Wiglaf ran to help him.

Young fool or hero?

The dragon got killed.

There was lots of gold to loot.

Beowulf. He dead.

Funeral is sad.

Dudes are shamed, got no fame.

Wiglaf is the man.

A Work of Art

All across the country, students are gritting their teeth, rolling their eyes, groaning, and generally doing decent zombie impressions as they begrudgingly return to school. The little ones seem to enjoy the entire education process more than about sixth grade and up. This is partly because so much of what they are exposed to is new and partly because they want to see their friends. They don't get to see their friends nearly as often during the summer as they do during school.

I have never quite fit into the "normal" category. In my beginning years of grade school, I was friends with almost everyone, but I would spend recess walking around the playground singing to myself. I was happy to be my own person by myself. Whatever factors allowed me to be that way (more than likely the A+ parenting I received) also allowed me to befriend all of my teachers. It was probably the end of my first grade year when I realized that I wanted to give presents to them before school let out. There were a few days left, but it was the last day that I would have art that year. When my teacher blew the whistle to summon us to our line that would dismally trail behind her, eventually being secured indoors once again, I quickly bent over and scooped a few pebbles into my hand.

After recess, we wound our way through the white washed halls, past cells in which crouched exuberant kindergarteners and world weary second graders. We were a prison line of excitement, a snake of wildly separate individuals. The art room door loomed above us all, and through it was a haven. Yes, we were still required to sit in our seats, raise our hands, and not scream, but it was here that our individuality could shine, even when we were told to do the same project as all the others. I adored the teacher. She had short white hair, but somehow we never saw her as old. My mother said that she had taught my uncle. It would not surprise me to learn that it was that endeavor which turned her hair white. Still, she always had a smile in her eyes. She loved art. More than a teacher, she was an artist. She ran an art studio, and still does, that my mother took my sister and me to once. No one else was there other than my teacher. She welcomed us in, gave us each a can of soda, and showed the two of us (my sister had her classes too) to a table where we could draw. The windows had art pieces standing in them so that light could shine through. I thought that it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been, and entering her classroom for the last time as a first grader, I felt a full appreciation for her efforts with the snot nosed young of the human race in our little town. I waited until the other kids were busy with their work, then went up to her desk.

"This is my favorite rock, and I want you to have it." I handed her a little brown pebble, one of the few I had picked up only moments before on the playground. It was of an oval persuasion, brown and smooth. I told her it was my favorite because I wanted it to have the meaning for her that I intended for it to have. I felt horrid for not telling the truth, even if I had a good intention behind it.

Second grade started, and I was excited to see all of  my friends that I didn't really talk to all that much. The first day of art, I claimed a seat by myself and blissfully started on my assignment. Not long after, the art teacher walked up to me, smiled, and placed a gift on my desk. A sun-catcher of sorts, it was constructed of metal that had been melted and left to set around shards of glass.

Glass and metal, not unlike those large panels in the windows of her art studio. Here was a little piece of her that I would treasure for many years to come. I took it in my hands and felt all the changes in texture. There was a sea shell on the right side, just thin enough to let the light illuminate it the smallest bit. And then I noticed it. Above the shell was a smooth, brown, oval pebble. I had given it to her, and she had turned it into art.

She was the art teacher for elementary and the Jr. High. I had her for many more years, and she was always a friend. She didn't talk to me any more than the other students, but that was how it was with all of my teachers, all of which I considered friends. One year, I developed a loathing for water colors. I didn't have the control that I wanted. She introduced me to water color pencils, which fascinate me. She retired when I was in Jr. High. After she left, I didn't have time in my schedule to take art again until high school, so I never met the new art teacher. Art remains a releasing of energy for me, a directional flow.

The pebble is, in some ways, quite like my heart. It's a little thing, pretty in its own simple way. When I gave my heart to Father, He took it and polished it until it shone in the beauty He had always intended it to have. What is more, is that He set my heart in His plan, His plan being the most beautiful of all. Some days, we forget that, leaving it on the wall and allowing dust to slowly blanket the shimmering creation in our eyes, yet all it takes is the slightest glimmer of sunlight to remind us just how truly lovely His great art, His plan, really is.

Having Cats is Rather Like Having Children

I like taking walks. Wandering along paths with the sky above me, surrounded by trees and grass, is, for me, soothing. My mother says that, when I was still very small, when I cried and cried, she would take me outside, and I would go still, staring up at the trees. Outside is a place of peace for me.

A few weeks ago, I decided to go out to the goat pasture nearby. It's where my mother used to walk when she was my age. She had taken me there a few times, so I know the way. I set out across the field towards the gate, and I had barely passed the little pond when Sparkle came trotting up to me. She is, perhaps, the sweetest of our cats. I petted her a little and continued on my way. When I reached the fence a few minutes later, she was still following me. I didn't want to lead her off of the property, so I walked back to the little pond, Sparkle following me loyally. I sat down at the edge of the pond, and, after she had determined that I was not going to fall in and drown, Sparkle settled down in the shade of a tree. For a while I prodded some pond scum with a stick, at least until I felt certain that Sparkle wouldn't follow me.

I made my way back to the fence, refusing to look back in case that might encourage her. When I reached the fence, she was at my feet again. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't cross the fence. I climbed up and over the fence and continued on my way. A few yards later I heard panting so loud that it could have been my grandparents' Labrador. It was Sparkle. She looked up at me and mewed quite quietly. Looking down at her, I knew she would follow me all day, even if it killed her. It was ninety degrees outside. She'd pass out from dehydration and exhaustion. I picked her up and carried her all the way home. She wasn't happy about that. Sparkle is not one for holding still for long periods of time, especially when she's being held against her will.

I opened the back door, and she sprang from my arms, nearly tumbling down the stairs to the cool basement. Promptly, she located a shadow and flopped over, still panting. My mother and I sat down beside her. Despite her excessive panting, Sparkle still insisted on purring as she was petted.

We set a bowl of cool water beside her and talked a little.

"Having cats is like having children, isn't it?" I commented, watching Sparkle's heaving side as she stretched out so that she could rest her chin on the floor too. It did make sense. Cats will follow you about just because they love you, as will children, and, just like with Sparkle, having children often means you can't go where you want or do what you want, but you don't really mind all that much.

"Yes." There was a laugh in my mother's eyes. A laugh that said "More so than you know."

Thoughts of Thoughts: Ponderings and Reflections

I absolutely love talking with my mother. She is one of my closest friends and my greatest confidant. Recently we had a discussion on thought and action. She has been reading Emerson and will occasionally look up from the pages and talk with me about what she has just read. We have had multiple little thesis statements in these discussions. One such statement is that thinkers are not natural doers. They still do, but their natural inclination is to think. This was moments later backed by a quote from Emerson's "The American Scholar": "Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential... Without it, thoughts can never ripen into truth." Any thoughts are just theory without the experience that life provides. It is living that shows theory to be truth. Action is not only food for the body; it feeds thought as well.

Allow me to now clarify that in this post thoughts are not of the "solving cancer, world hunger, and the environment" nature. An example of what I mean would be this thought that I have been turning over and over in my head for the last few weeks: clouds are in-between beings, caught between smoke and snow, rising and falling. It's the little reflections and ponderings that I mean when I use the word "thoughts," not the grand scale intellectual entities that tower in the brain, squashing all little thoughts with their enormous gravity.

My mother and I are both thinkers, ponderers and reflectors. A task that should take fifteen minutes will stretch to an hour when in our hands. This is unintentional. We simply become unwittingly lost in thought.  My father grumbles about it in occasion, but we all know he loves us (my mother, after all, controls the flow of X-Files seasons to the house). To us, thoughts are the water of a mental creek: slow, clear, and calming. Both of us journal. Writing down thoughts and occurrences tends to clear our minds, helping us to relax and stop reviewing the day over and over. "Going back though my journals, I used to have thoughts on life and human nature," Mom sighed during our conversation, "but since I started teaching it's been 'do the laundry,' 'do the dishes,' and so on."

"Teaching and alcohol," I agreed. Since Mom started teaching, the fact that Cyril Conelly once said that teaching had killed more writers than alcohol had has turned into a household saying.

"Yes. Yes! Where do I find those thoughts when I'm cleaning a dirty toilet?!" Just to clarify, she does not clean toilets as part of her teaching job, but rather, as part of her own home's upkeep.

"In the dirty toilet." I wasn't exactly sure what I meant, when I said this, but the half idea sounded good.

"How do you mean?"

 "Make the toilet the metaphor."

"Go on."

"Lots of thoughts are metaphors. Take the dirty toilet and shape it into a metaphor for life or teaching. For example, I've been viewing the cats' litter-box as a zen garden of sorts. Cleaning it out, little mountains and valleys form. The world is a little zen garden of chemicals and poo."

"Chemicals and poo," my mom laughed. "I'm looking forward to this blog post."

I hadn't been planning on blogging it, but as I scribbled up a rough draft, it seemed plausible and maybe even good. Of course, there were thoughts that Mom and I didn't discuss, but certainly there will always be things left unmentioned and unconsidered in any discussion. Including the following that caught my eye as I was rough drafting and it stepped off its train into the station of thoughts bustling about in my head.

Each of us is unique in the way our thought pattens behave. Our thoughts carry the faintest touch of ourselves, near invisible fingerprints. It is the individual touch thoughts receive as they pass from one human being to the next that allows them to grow and expand. Thoughts are influenced by people as much as people are influenced by thoughts.

A Letter to Spiders (#4)

Dear Spiders,

No.
Stop that.
There is no need to deploy your largest mercenaries. If you continue to do so, they will all be rendered two dimensional like the first one.
This is not a threat. This is a guarantee.
Go away, and please don't come back.

Sincerely,
Kara