Lent Sucks

So, it is Lent. As always, during Lent as during all seasons, I set lofty goals for myself. I have decided to fast, which I hate, but we had a very compelling discussion in Bible study on Fat Tuesday that reminded me why it is so important. I hate fasting. But then I thought out this beautiful plan because, here is the thing of the thing. I feel like I have always had the whole "Jesus died a horrible death on the cross to take away your sins" thing shoved down my throat my entire life, to the point where the whole thing has become basically meaningless. I mean, not the whole Christian thing, but pretty much the whole cross thing. So, I had this great idea where I would totally plagiarize from Wallace Stevens "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" and do Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Cross. I would write beautiful, poetic posts and gain beautiful, poetic insights and grow in my faith and unicorns would prance around the back yard and I would poop rainbows. But, let's just get realistic for a second.

I hate Lent. We're only two weeks into it, and I can say with confidence that all the shine of the transcendent solemnity of Ash Wednesday is dead in the water, buried, forgotten. I am sick of the Lenten feeling, of being broken open, of fragility, like raging case of PMS fragility, where I might start tearing up because of an especially touching Visa commercial. I am sick of knowing about my sin all the time. I KNOW about it now, ALL the time, it comes to mind without me having to try especially hard. I can realize actually IN the moment, "Shannon, you are being a disgusting human being right now." And the crazy part is, I ask for this! I ask to see myself more clearly, because I get so comfortable in my "Well, I've never killed anyone" morality, and I want to know truth, about myself, about who I am and what I've done. But it's really yucky. I get cranky when I'm cold or hungry or when my eye is STILL irritating me even after I've been to the optometrist and been forced to wear my glasses for weeks on end and switched to more expensive contacts. And I get lonely and grumpy and fed up and it doesn't take long and it doesn't take much exterior aggravation. It's strangely like these feelings were always there and it just takes a little bump in the road, a little scratch on the surface for them to all come spilling out. Like fasting. You can skip one meal and all of a sudden you go from being Mother Teresa to being Attila the Hun. One unmet need. One aggravating circumstance. Stupid fasting. Stupid Lent. Stupid eye. Stupid everything.

But, when I do eat, when I patch myself up enough to think straight, I know for sure that this is the point. The point is that, left to our own devices, left to our own well-fed, blind self-satisfaction, we are dead in the water. We are only as good as we are comfortable. And it is all there, lurking beneath the surface. We are kidding ourselves when we esteem ourselves to be "good people." The only way to get past this, to find grace, is to slog through the sewer of our own wretchedness, to be broken open, to become fragile, to be driven crazy enough that looking for healing becomes not only sensible, but necessary. Maybe illumination will eventually come, maybe not. Maybe the illumination is just to have to sit and wallow for 40 days in my own selfishness, to know that God loves me enough to die for me, even if I am the person who was going to rip someone's face off because they didn't sufficiently appreciate to beautiful, artistic nature of Edward Scissorhands, the person who can't be exposed to other human beings when she doesn't eat for 9 hours, the person who still gets jealous as a teenager when all the guys are asking another girl to dance.

I'll make it through. I doubt it will be much fun, but I believe that it will ultimately take me, if not somewhere pleasant, then somewhere True.

S.

Things I Luv

Well, this is a fair piece after my intended approximate-vicinity-to-Valentine's-Day publication date, but, I think it is good to at least get it up before the end of the Month of Love. Here are some things that warm my heart:

1. Lists (well, duh) If you've hung around here at all, you'll see that I like to make them. Lists are like the girders of my skyscraper, the underlying structure that gives form and direction to my life.

2. Libraries--I love the library. It is one of the things that makes our nation great, that we have places to go where they give you books for free. And CDs. And DVDs. And cookbooks. And if they don't have the book you want, they'll bring it to you from wherever it is. Did you catch that--they bring it to you!! For free! Well, actually it costs 25 cents here in Bflo, but that's very cheap when you consider how much it would cost to buy the book or even to drive across town and pick it up.

3. Having friends--Friends made my Valentine's Day great this year. Come to think, given my chronically dateless state, friends have always been what made Valentine's Day great for me. This year we got some ladies together and dressed up and had tea and fruit and scones and clotted cream and quiche and finger sandwiches and vegetables and flourless chocolate cake and lemon bars. And we laughed and laughed, mostly at ridiculous things. Friends are always worth having.

4. Feeding people--again, long time readers will know this. (I dream of those corn pancakes, btw) We had Bible Study this past week and someone brought a friend and they brought a friend and we had more folks there than I thought we would and I had made French onion soup and an apple cake and they descended like a locust hoarde on my mountain of food and by the time they left it was all gone. I love that.

5. Dogs--I love dogs. They are so sweet and fun and great. I am still thinking seriously about getting one, so I have dogs on the brain. Every time I see someone walking one, or even see dog pawprints in the snow, I sigh a little and think, "That could be me..." Maybe someday soon, it will be.

6. My job--I have the greatest job ever. I work with people I admire and enjoy and respect (most of the time anyway). At this point, I have just exactly the right amount of work, so I stay busy but not overwhelmed. I am around art all the time. I am learning new things, but it isn't scary. I feel supported, but not watched. I have never had a job that I enjoyed so much in my whole life. I need to figure out how to keep having a life that's this awesome all the time.

7. My space heater--it came from Target, and I think it cost me about $17. If it only lasted this one winter, I would have no regrets about buying it. Our house is set to a balmy 55 degrees during the day, but I just stay in my little room with my little space heater and get through the day like I'm in Bermuda (well, that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but still). I seriously do not even have enough words to tell you how much I enjoy my space heater. It has changed the way I experience winter in Buffalo. Thank you, space heater, from the bottom of my heart. You are a valued member of this community.

That wraps it up for me today. I have in mind a little project for Lent, but I don't want to tell you about it in case it doesn't come to fruition. If it happens...you'll see it. And you'll know.

S.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

This is an old picture of me in my glasses. We'll get to that later.

Okay, a month of non-blogging. That is not admirable. Now at this timely junction I must present another post of "OMG, I haven't posted in so long, but here are all the cool things I've been doing!" Most of the cool things in this issue are work related. We started rehearsals for the next show at the Alt. It's called Wading through the Light and Shadows and it's kind of a compilation of original poetry, shorter prose pieces, original choreography and an ethereal soundscape/sound effect type stuff. It's a pretty cool show, and it's been running since February 4 and will keep going till February 21, so if you're in the Buffalo area you should go see it. I've enjoyed this show quite a bit because I was able to have the littlest teeniest tiniest bit of actual artistic input. It hasn't been much, but it was something, and since this is only the second show I've ever worked on, really, I should be profoundly grateful. But those rehearsals were taking up every night, along with new work for the Arts Council, a new fundraising project, illustrating a book with refugee kids, lobbying the city to get permission to do painted cross walks, and other such types of work during the day, my schedule was packed. Now that the show's playing, I actually have more free time, which seems fairly ironic to me.

I've also enrolled in another dance class, Modern 2, not surprisingly a continuation of Modern 1. And again, I'm keeping my head above water, but only just. With this class we actually have a book(!) and reading assignments(!) and written reflections(!) so it's more time consuming than the last class. But the book is wonderful, it's like a compilation of philosophical treatises on the theory of Modern dance written by the people who essentially created it. Maybe they'll be something on here from that soon. Also, I've been to see Avatar, taken the first of what I anticipate to be many trips to the botanical gardens, and made rolls and a number of cakes. And I'm also trying to make head way with learning to play the guitar, which might be going well? I'm learning lots of new chords, but still have a general inability to move between chords in, you know like an actual song, without embarrassingly long pauses while I watch myself adjust my fingers. Sometimes I feel a sense of despair of ever being able to master even the simple aspects of playing the guitar, but that's really the point of this whole experiment, trying something that I find really difficult and sticking with it, even though it remains...really difficult. All of these things have kept me away from the tip tapping of the keyboard that produces these delightful chronicles.

I just have one actual crystallized thought to share for the day. I went for a check up to the optometrist about a week ago and found out the the irritation I was experiencing in my left eye was actually corneal keratitis, which is just a fancy way of saying that my cornea was irritated by lack of oxygen and becoming hazy. I was condemned to wear my glasses for three days, which suddenly blossomed into a full week when my appointment had to be rescheduled. This was surprisingly difficult for me. I haven't worn my glasses for more than the time right before bed or first thing in the morning for years. I didn't feel like myself in my glasses. I didn't feel as pretty either, which made me feel more shy and more invisible. But I still had to do my life, go to Argentine tango and vie for dance partners with everyone else. Go to Emerging Leaders in the Arts meetings, my current most-obnoxiously-akin-to-high-school experience in terms of being in a room with peers, cool kids, and trying not to feel like a silent, awkward loser. But you know what? It wasn't that bad. There were lots of times that I could forget that I was even wearing them and could discover that I was myself even in my glasses. That glasses vs. no-glasses is not an intrinsic part of who I am, not the way the comment I forced myself to make at the ELAB meeting about how artists need support and critique from other artists, not just professional development, is an intrinsic part of who I am. Which is good to know. Good to remember. So that's my revelation for this week.

That's all.
S.