The Stories We Tell

There's something powerful, almost magical about telling stories. When I was three or four years old, living with my aunt and uncle, my Grandpa Churchwell would read my cousins and I stories from picture books, but he wouldn't just read the words in the book or hurry through to the end, but he'd linger on the page, ask us questions, get us thinking and telling stories of our own. He wanted us to use our imaginations, begin to ask questions, and think about what else was going on rather than just what we saw.

As I got older I remember going to Cub Scouts den meetings and the stories around campfires, or the rides in the back seat of station wagons to and from the campground, or the stories classmates would whisper during study hall about ghosts, Freddie Krueger, and girls' bodies. If it hadn't been for Stoney Thompson, I would have never known about the plotlines for all the Friday XIII movies and Nightmare on Elm Street. And if it hadn't been for Jay Battleday in band class, I would have never been introduced to Cheech and Chung, Strange Brew, or Ernest Goes to Camp. And if it hadn't been for Bill Shinabarger and Chad Howell, I might have had less wrong information about a woman's body.

Stories are the ways we remember the past. They're the ways we define ourselves and create our identity, at least the one we let others see. They create community, reinforce or challenge our value systems, and build relationship and intimacy.

I've thought a lot about the kinds of stories we tell and how it defines us. Sometimes we tell and retell the mistakes we made, wearing our mistakes as a badge of pride. We define ourselves as the bad boys and bad girls who live on the edge, and like it. Sometimes we tell the stories where we come out the hero, or the victim, or the trickster, or the outcast always misunderstood. Maybe it's important what kinds of stories we tell, because they'll be the stories we become.

Plato believed that we should tell stories only about good heroes who do moral things, the ideal philosopher kings, because these would be the kinds of people we'd strive to become. In Christian circles, I remember people defining themselves as sinners saved by grace, usually with the emphasis on the sinner and not the grace. Because of this, there wasn't much grace in their lives (maybe because of the stories they told). Augustine falls into some of this. He doesn't retell in detail the sins of his youth, but the way he reframes the telling of his own life story is by focusing on his inborn sinfulness, and an overwhelming, almost overpowering grace that he has no responsibility for or claim to. Incidentally, he also bypasses telling about the feud he had with the Donatists (contemporary "heretics") that may have cast him in a less than positive light.

I think it's also significant that Jesus gives new stories and new terms for thinking about our relationship with God. He says, call him "Daddy," because that's who he is to you now, and you're sons and daughters of a king, not beggars and paupers. These aren't just new stories, but new ways of thinking about ourselves, of identification, and, most importantly, of being.

I've seen people who have struggled their whole lives with childhood abuse. They retell the stories, relive them vicariously, and never seem to be able to break free of the bondage of these events. They have done more than let these stories define them, but have become enslaved by them. I've seen others who have lived through similar situations, who also take these same stories, but they've added other stories to them. The stories of abuse have been reshaped, reframed. What was meant for evil has been turned into something that helps others--helps others see they're not alone, helps them see there's something on the other side.

Lately I've found myself telling harder stories, revisiting the worst memories of my childhood and overlaying them on the present. Am I trying to work through this pain and emotional deadness to get to something on the other side, or am I trapped by giving too much power to these harmful stories? I don't know. I'm obviously trying to sort this out.

For the most part, I've quit wanting to blog, at least not in the ways that I did at first. Blogging became a personal diary, a way to indulge in some public narcissism. Some of the best stories I've read though (Narnia, Tolkien's Middle earth, Terry Brooks' Shannara, Camelot, Frank Herbert's Dune) are bigger than the people who write them. People don't come to read about C.S. Lewis' childhood or Tolkien's views on politics, but are brought into a story and a world that they can explore and find bits of themselves. In the process they'll find bits of their creator, but they've been invited into a place that they can make their own, and live out vicariously their own stories through the stories of fictional characters.

So stories are powerful, they're the magic woven deeply into our blood and imaginations. And good stories, those are the best stories of all.

Survival in Auschwitz

Last week I read the book Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi. It's a good book. I read it in 2-3 days. Although it's good, at the same time it's a hard book to get through. I remember feeling numb during the days I was reading it. Levi was an Italian Jew, writing about his experience at the concentration camps in Auschwitz, Poland, during 1944. The period of time he covers is little over a year (part of one winter and into a second), yet the experience changes his life irrevocably. As I read it, I thought to myself, "Did this really happen? Did people really treat other people like that?" So often when I read a book there's an emotional disconnection, it feels like fiction--too surreal to have actually happened.

And yet it did happen, and makes us stare wide eyed and unblinkingly at what we're capable of, both in the ability to degrade other humans once we no longer see them as human, and subject them to living conditions that are hell and strip away any sense of humanity, freedom, or soul. It also shows us the will to survive, at all costs, and the benumbed expectation and resignation to death, and yet the will or momentum to keep moving, one more hour, one more day, without hope, without food, and without the belief that tomorrow will get better.

Maybe it was a social experiment, to see what happens when you put a group of people together under impossible situations and see who survives. It's the survival of the fittest, the will to power, social Darwinism at its cruelest and most intense. Some do survive, but to do so you have to strip away civilization, morality, and the expectations of human behavior that exist in the outside world.

This is still happening today: in the battlefields, whether it's Iraq or the civil war in Uganda, or a number of other unnoticed places around the world, or in homes where there's physical or sexual abuse, or systemic poverty, or drug addiction. We have an incredible capacity to survive, to "shell up" inside ourselves, waiting for the outside world to blow over us. We become numb emotionally to our feelings because all that remains is hurt and anger. We become numb to the circumstances of others: it's hard enough to survive, let alone worry about another's survival, and yet some do, thinking past themselves, for a moment, sharing bread, carrying the day, at least for a moment.

How many Auschwitz's exist, unnoticed, unnamed, while prisoners huddle inside hoping for a rescue party, someone to throw over the bread or throw down the oppression? How many are invisible? How many prisoners sit feet away from each other and yet worlds apart? Survival may be possible, for another day, but survival isn't living.

Iron Man Portage: Part IV (the conclusion)

Thursday:

The next day began much like the others. The weather was warm, and the remaining stiffness in our backs and arms quickly loosened as we broke camp, cleaned up the mess from the animals, and got back in the canoe (which was beginning to feel like our home) and began paddling toward the next destination. Tim was navigating, and had the compass and map in front of him as he paddled from the back. Our path was straight and we were making good time.

We noticed something was wrong when we checked the map a few miles later. We stopped paddling and let the canoe drift while Tim and Don pored over the map, checked the compass, and checked the land around them. “Something’s not right,” Tim said. “It shouldn’t look like this.” The compass seemed right, or backwards, but the lake seemed turned around. We went a little further to see if the islands would look familiar. When we stopped again, Tim sounded less certain, doubting. I remembered what I had wished for the night before, but now regretted it. I didn’t want Tim to doubt himself, or his abilities to lead. “I think we’re lost,” he said. We canoed halfheartedly a little further, then Tim checked the map, checked the compass. “Where could we be?”

“Let’s see if we can find it on the map. Here’s Trafalgar Bay, and we traveled a few miles beyond that. How far do you think we’ve gone so far?”

“Two, maybe three miles.”

“Think we can find anything that looks similar?” They checked again, and then we had it, but we had canoed a few miles off course.

“We can canoe back to where we came, but that would be another four miles. We’d be canoeing an extra seven miles.”

“Maybe we should pray,” Don said. He did, and we looked at the map again. “Up ahead’s a portage, maybe we can try for that.” We didn’t know if it was still there, but decided it was worth trying. It would reconnect us to where we were heading, and would only take us a mile or two out of our way. We decided to go for it.

As we got to the shore where the portage should be, we saw only overgrown grass. Most portages are land bridges between two bodies of water and are well traveled. We were looking for a trail, a dirt path, anything. Instead, we saw a dense group of trees standing in front of us like an impassable wall, thick grass along the edge, and only a small lip in the shoreline that may have been a frequently used landing spot.

“Maybe we missed it,” Tim said.

“Or maybe this is it,” Don said. “Let’s look around.” We pulled the canoe to shore, got out, and Tim and I decided to head into the woods to see if we could pick up the trail on the other side. We were wearing shorts, but decided to pick our way through the woods. We thought it would be a good idea to leave the backpacks behind.

As we entered the woods, the brush grew thick and the trees stood close together. There was no sign of a trail, and we slipped occasionally over dead logs and branches. We began to wonder how far in we would have to go.

After a quarter mile, we broke through and came to another lake. “Wait here,” Tim said, “I’m going to look around to see if we can find the portage exit. Or maybe there’s another one we can take.” Tim followed the shoreline until he disappeared around a bend. Don was back with the canoe, Tim had disappeared, and I stood at the lake’s edge, thinking this was stupid so I wouldn’t feel afraid. We didn’t know what to expect in these woods, and their creeping branches and undergrowth began to grow in their wildness. I began to realize how alone we were.

After a few minutes I heard a “Yoohoo!!” from around the bend. I answered back, “Yoohoo!” A short while later it came again, and then again, and Tim reemerged from around the bend. “I think there may have been a portage here once,” he said, “but I think it’s long gone. That map’s about 30 years old, so anything could have happened. A lot of growth could happen in 30 years, and maybe the path’s gone.” We decided to return to the other side to tell Don what we had found, and decide then what we would do.

It had been half an hour, and we began to wonder if something could have happened to Don. We pushed through the undergrowth and the trees, stumbling over branches, then stopped. We heard something else, a breaking of twigs, crashing through the trees. Halfway back we called out, and the noise turned toward us. Don had been wondering what had happened to us too, and had begun looking for us. The three of us walked back together to the canoe. On the way we noticed the skull of what looked like a donkey or mule, some droppings, berries, and a beehive. “I think there might be a bear close by,” Don said. We laughed, but stepped quietly back to a rock to have some lunch and decide what we were going to do.

In the meantime, storm clouds began to pile on each other. We made peanut butter sandwiches, and decided if we were going to head back into the woods we’d need long pants and more clothing. Just as we pulled on more clothes and finished eating the sandwiches, fat drops began to fall. Slowly at first, then hard and fast.

“Let’s go for it,” Don said, and we agreed. We shoved the bread and lunch things in the packs, shouldered them onto our backs, and picked up the 18-foot canoe between the three of us.
A canoe isn’t meant to go through a thick forest, and at first we tried ramming it in between trees and branches. The wood scraped and whined against the aluminum, but the canoe began moving through the forest, a silver ramming rod that raised complaint. The rain fell harder, and our clothes were soaked. Leaves clung to our arms, legs and shirts, and a steady stream of water poured off my hat. It looked like a scene from Platoon. Once when we pushed the canoe hard I fell, and remember thinking “This must be what a turtle feels like on its back,” and then Tim came to my side, reached out a hand and pulled me back on my feet.

We had pushed the canoe halfway into the woods when we heard a sound. A tree about 50-100 yards away began to protest, then cracked, then fell. There wasn’t any wind. The rain had been falling steadily, and we all began to think about the bear signs we’d seen around the portage.
“Bears sometimes push down trees to warn invaders that they’re in their territory,” Tim said. We wished he hadn’t.

“Great,” I said, “and I’m the last one in line, so the first to be eaten. Well, there’s one good thing. Maybe he’ll give us a hand.” No one said anything, we just pushed harder against the canoe, and from that point it seemed like the canoe began to glide over the branches and leaves.
We emerged on the other side, soaked, exhausted, leaves and mud clinging to us and the canoe. We decided to take a picture. The rain had stopped, the clouds literally parted and the sun began to shine.

Later that day it would rain again and we would find ourselves all standing under a poncho, waiting for the rain to stop so we could continue canoeing, and later we stopped at a waterfall while Tim climbed out to a rock in the middle of the rushing river so we could take a picture, but the event of the day and of the trip had already happened. Before then the trip had been Tim and Don’s trip. After that day the trip became our trip. The three of us had braved the Iron Man Portage.

Iron Man Portage: Part III

Wednesday:

Tim says he has a picture of me standing over one of the camp stoves while he was cooking toast. You can’t see my face, but I’m wearing a hat, my wild hair is poking out of it in different directions—mostly sideways—and I’m wearing a red flannel shirt. It’s probably a good thing you can’t see my face. He says I look like I’m ready to pounce on the toast as soon as it comes out of the pan. My famous phrase that week was, “Is it done yet. How about now?” He thinks the picture’s funny.

I don’t really like toast that much, all I remember was after Wednesday I was really hungry, and usually tired and sore. Wednesday was the day we canoed through Trafalgar Bay.

The bay is at least a two mile stretch of open water, more like Lake Michigan or the Gulf of Mexico than anything we had seen up to that point. Everything else before then had truly felt like a lake. Here it was wide open, and canoeing out into a body of water like that can really be an overwhelming, dwarfing experience. The water became rough and choppy, and in bad weather it could be dangerous. Fortunately, we were given another day of clear skies and mild weather, except for a stronger headwind.

Because of the waves, we also had to paddle differently in the rougher water. If we had used the long, smooth strokes here that we had been using in calmer water, the paddles would have knocked us or left our hands. Instead we used shorter, quicker strokes, and kept the shoreline nearby. We still felt the rhythmic rise and fall of the canoe as it plowed into a crest, then dipped down into the trough, crested, then dipped again.

Shortly into this we spotted another group, our first sign of other people since we had crossed over into Canada. It was a youth group, in six or seven canoes, and all of these seemed to be paddling well, except one struggling canoe in a cove. Tim and I had been working out during the summer so we were pretty fit, and Don was a strong paddler as well, so we came up on the canoe at the end of the group first. Tim and I wanted to keep paddling, catch up with the rest of the group and sail past them. Maybe we didn’t want to be bothered. Maybe we just wanted to beat everybody else. “I think we should stop,” Don said.
We resisted. It would be a lot of work. We’d probably get tired. Why didn’t the other canoes take care of their own? Don acknowledged all this, then repeated, “I think we should help.” He was always doing that, reminding us of the more important things, teaching us lessons even though he let us lead the trip. And we finally agreed.

We entered the cove and came alongside the other canoe. A middle aged woman and high school girl were in the boat, paddling in opposite directions and rotating the boat pretty well in a circle. “Need a hand?” Don asked. I don’t think they swooned, but they looked up, smiled sheepishly, and admitted defeat. Tim and I were still grumbling to ourselves, but soon their canoe was tied to ours with a rope (Don just happened to have one), and we began canoeing. At first the women helped, but the more they helped the harder it was to paddle. “We can go ahead and paddle,” Don said. “Go ahead and rest.” The women put their oars in a few more times, then allowed us to tow them.

The other canoes had pulled away from the rest of us, so the race was on. Tim, Don, and I paddled hard, and before long we saw the other canoes again, passed one, then another, then another. The lead canoe looked across the water from a hundred yards away, and we could see they were thinking the same thing. They paddled faster. We paddled faster. Both sides matched stroke for stroke, plowing through the water at the same speed, but the other canoe couldn’t keep going at the pace we had set for each other and began to fall behind. A little further ahead we all decided to stop for lunch, and Tim and I went swimming. We ate sandwiches, rested and talked, then canoed a few more miles.

By late afternoon we were beginning to feel the results of our struggle with the lake. Our arms were heavy, the paddling seemed more labored, and we were out of sorts. I had turned silent, moody, and began to feel out of place as Tim and Don related stories of past canoeing trips or pored over the map together, or knew exactly where to stop, how to paddle, and what we needed.

We found an island further ahead, away from the youth group, but even at that we could hear their voices and bits of conversation carry across the water. Tim and Don set up camp and began cooking while I rowed the canoe away from the island to fill our water bottle. I needed some time alone. The rhythmic pumping of the water filter gave my hands something to do while my mind wandered, allowing me to think dark thoughts. Tim had led the trip, but Don had been there for support, fading further into the background as Tim began directing more of the course. The more Tim led, the more I resisted. I didn’t want to be told what to do; although it’s not easy to admit, I wanted something to happen that would shake his confidence. In short, I wanted him to fail.

We ate dinner mostly in silence. Earlier Don had told stories when we had stopped, told us how he and Candy had met, how he had worked so much at one time that he had three uncashed checks sitting in a desk at home because he didn’t have time to go to the bank to cash them. He told us of his powerlifting workouts, and judo, and how his dad had been an alcoholic and he didn’t want the same life for himself, his family, or his children. He wanted good relationships for Tim and me, and we joked about women falling from the sky with ribbons tied around them (and little else), gifts with our names on them, intended specifically for us. Don’s eyes lit up as he unfolded the stories. He was a natural, and smiled easily. We began to devour his stories as eagerly as we ate the food.

Shortly after dinner we got in the tent and fell asleep. During the night we awoke to the sound of scratching and snuffling outside our tent, something larger than a cat, but none of us wanted to see what it was. It got into what remained of our supper, the unwashed dishes, and rattled the pans and snuffled around looking for food. Eventually we fell asleep again, too tired to notice.

Iron Man Portage: Part II

Tuesday:

The next morning, after breakfast, we had a few minutes to ourselves before we broke camp and canoed to the next island. I sat on a rock overlooking the lake. During the night, fog had rolled into the cove, surrounding the island, covering it in an otherworld of quiet isolation. The tendrils curled and smoked, retreating as the sun burned through and I wondered if I would capture this moment again, writing in my journal, breathing, with rested, sore muscles and a filled stomach. We were so far away from everything, and I liked it. Here was a different world, wilder, more raw, more beautiful, and it was hard not to see the fingerprints of God everywhere we looked. The quiet peacefulness sank in deep in these moments, and I think we could all feel something coming loose, unraveling, unknotting itself, and we began to laugh more, smile more, at least in the moments when we had just woken up from a night of sleep, or stopped in the middle of the day to eat something from our packs.

But back to the day itself, Tuesday. We started late that morning, but after a couple hours came to another island with a fourteen foot cliff. We stripped off our clothes and put on swimming trunks and got ready for the jump. Tim and Don had been here before, and had jumped several times, but had never found out the depth of the water. Tim climbed the boulder first and stood at the edge and got ready to jump, but then kept standing there.
“Go ahead,” I said, “jump!”

“The water’s too cold,” he said. I asked him if he was afraid. He said no, he just didn’t like cold water. But I think he was afraid. After some time, Tim stepped back and Don stepped up, took a few deep breaths, then jumped out, flew through the air, splashed and went under, then resurfaced, his hair clinging to his face, his beard dripping water. The “old man” had shown us up.

I had jumped into deep water before, but never from this height. From the diving boards in swimming pools, you could always see the bottom, always knew what was coming. Usually there wasn’t long to wait after you sailed off the board. Jump, splash. Jump, splash. Off the high boards it might be jump, one, splash. But here it was an act of faith to run off the boulder high above the lake’s black depths, soar out into nothingness, and count “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . .” enough time to reconsider your decision before the icy waters closed over your head.

The water was a black hole, revealing nothing of what was underneath the surface. From where we stood from above there were moments where the diver would disappear, then the rest of us would wait, and inevitably the body in the water came to the surface a few seconds later. But when I jumped, after the moments of doubt, mixed with fear and exhilaration, my body would impact, and I’d plunge down. I felt gallons of water close over my head. I never tried to open my eyes, I think it would have been useless, but I quickly started kicking, trying to stop my descent into this unknown place, pushing as much water past me as fast as I could until my head resurfaced and I found air. We never knew just how deep the water went, none of us touched bottom, or saw what was beneath. It may have been better not to know. I guess that’s faith.

We jumped a few times, trying to see how many words we could say before we hit the water. Don tried it first, yelling “Jesus saves.” We didn’t know if he was trying to be funny or calling out for help. I couldn’t think of anything better to say, so I yelled out “Spider-maaaaaaan” as long as I could until I hit water. Tim, however, had us all beat. He got out the sentence “I just want to be friends!” with time to spare. He was still getting over his ex-girlfriend stalking him.

When I jumped, I’d feel the rush of adrenaline blocking out everything around me. I didn’t notice the look of concern on Tim’s and Don’s faces. “You might want to jump out farther next time,” Don said quietly. Tim agreed. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but tried to run and jump farther out the second time. It wasn’t until the third time I jumped that I realized what they were talking about. As I jumped I turned my head and saw the rocks six inches from me before the water closed over me. I realized then I was done.

The Iron Man Portage: Part I

This is a project I wrote about over a year ago. I had intended to post it, but then never did. It grew so long (by blogging standards) that I didn't know what to do with it and felt self-conscious enough about it that I tabled it. A week ago, one of my writing students wrote a paper on a trip to the boundary waters, so I dug this up. Maybe it's time to share it.

Iron Man Portage

One summer my friend Tim, his dad Don, and I went up to Canada for a week to go canoeing in the boundary waters near the Minnesota/Canada border.
We left on a Sunday afternoon, drove through Wisconsin and Minnesota, and arrived at the canoe outfitting post around 5. It wouldn’t open for a couple more hours, so we dozed in the car while we waited.

Monday:
We ate breakfast at a diner in town, and when the outpost opened, we were signed in by a ranger girl with a cute smile, short, brown hair and long, lean hiking legs that ended in short shorts. She gave us a few maps and Tim and Don began charting out our course while I wandered around, looking at the large model of Quetico Park.

Half an hour later, our eighteen foot aluminum canoe rested in the water, our loaded backpacks tucked away inside on the bottom of the canoe, and we pushed off. We wouldn’t see our car, the ranger, or many people for another five days.

The day was clear and we traveled nine miles, with little more than the sound of our paddles dipping in and out of the water, scraping the side of the canoe, and our quiet, almost shy conversation in the midst of this vast cathedral. Blue sky stretched out above us, and silvery steel water surrounded us. We passed cabins and islands, but gradually these thinned and became nonexistent until we were surrounded by forested shores, water, the sky and islands. Tim and Don remembered previous years when it had rained, but for this trip the weather couldn’t have been better.

At one point earlier in the day we had passed a cabin with a Canadian flag, gave our registry papers to a border officer, and crossed the boundary from one country into another. Other than the flag, everything was the same. There was no dividing line, no marker to show that we were in the United States one moment, and then weren’t. The woman with the papers and the cabin were the only thing that let us know the difference. And yet we had crossed over. We were in a new place, new territory, and we made a big deal about it.

We came to an island and decided to camp that afternoon, and took baths in the lake (with organic soap). We cooked chicken and potatoes over the burners, and cleaned the pans. Since none of us had slept much the night before, our arms and legs felt leaden, our minds fuzzy, and we decided to sleep a couple hours. We’d clean the other dishes later, start a fire, and relax.

At one in the morning we awoke. I don’t think any of us remembers what woke us up, but we had all overslept through the alarm. We were no longer tired, so we decided to clean the rest of the dishes. Don was out of the tent first. “Come out here and look at this,” he said. We followed, and I saw Don’s silhouette, and saw him looking up into the night sky. I looked up as well, and won’t forget what I saw, but can’t describe it. At least not well. It was a clear night, and where I’ve seen hundreds of stars in town or out in the country, or from the deserts in Idaho, here there were thousands. The starlight was so bright it reflected off the water like moonlight. “There’s a shooting star,” said Tim, “and another.” We kept calling them out, but soon stopped after there were too many. The sky was bleeding white, as if someone had poked holes in the night and had gone crazy with it. Some of the holes were big, others were small, but they were all over. We were awed into silence, and just watched the sky above us. We were too far south to see the northern lights, but I’m not sure we needed them. I wasn’t ready for anything more beautiful.

I’m not sure how long we stood watching the stars, but it was quite a while. Eventually we pulled away, and built up a fire, talked, drank hot tea and Tang until we were tired again and crawled back into the tent.

I Don't Get Augustine: a Journal Entry

I hesitate to post in the blogworld these days. After blogging for a while, you forget that people actually read your stuff, even if they don't comment, and sometimes these are people you've never met, or may not want to know your business, and sometimes it feels ugly to put out things you're thinking and know that someone can judge you for it.

It's one of the reasons I moved more to the fictional perspective. I may or may not agree with the perspectives of the characters I use. They may or may not be me. I want what I write to be something more than constipated whining. I should leave that in journals.

But today I'm breaking that a little, moving back to the journal format.

Yesterday I shoveled for three hours and am feeling it some in my lower back. It's a good feeling. I didn't take pictures of our neighborhood, but really regret it now. The place was transformed. It was quiet, it was peaceful, it was really white, and the soft powdery snow dunes could have been a scene out of the Arctic, or a very washed out desert. I shoveled out four different houses in the process, and while everyone was well hidden on Tuesday when the storm was going through, yesterday it was like we all wanted to emerge again to begin the digging. It's things like this that I enjoy because it creates a kind of community that disappears once again after the crisis is over.

So I'm also reading through Augustine's Confessions, trying to put together a lecture in a couple weeks. I have to admit, I haven't liked him much. He seems narcissistic at times, overly obsessed with every thought and movement he makes. He reminds me too much of me. I especially didn't like the parts when he was writing about his early childhood, suggesting that everything physical was bad, everything spiritual was good. It reminded me too much of things I heard as a kid, and the hang-ups a lot of Christians have had over sex, the environment, physical beauty, and art and culture. I see a lot of good in those things, though I realize too that I see a lot of stuff that's twisted, or downright ugly, shallow, or evil.

As I've been reading on in Augustine, maybe what I think he's saying isn't what he's saying at all, or maybe he's coming to a maturing understanding. Last night in the section I read, he acknowledges that God created this good, and makes statements that evil is a twisting of that good rather than an equal and opposite opposing force.

That's what I don't get. Earlier he said he thought they WERE opposing forces, reflecting more a Manichean (?) or Zoroastrian idea. So which is it? What does he believe and what's he trying to say? Or is this a reflection of changing thinking, maturing, the willingness to change his views over time. If I want the benefit of the doubt for revising my thinking, I guess he deserves it too.

I'm no Augustine expert, and I'm still not sure I like him. In the midst of first year teaching at a new college with new material, I'm finding myself wrestling, a lot. I gave a lecture on the Celts the other day. I really LIKE the Celts, and I was excited about talking about them, but when the lecture was said and done, I felt like I really bombed. I was sick, and couldn't think clearly, but it was more than that. I wondered if I said what I'd wanted to, if it was communicated well, and realized it probably wasn't. I told a story, not a lecture, and was hard to follow. I was told, "Think more bullet points, not paragraphs." This was good advice, I just haven't seemed to be able to figure out consistently yet how to do that. I think the potential was there for a great lecture, but the presentation . . . that still needs work.

Enough obsessing.

The Violation of Flowers

Relationships have always been my Achilles' heel. My closest friends know this; I know this; I even know where it comes from. Stick me on a Freudian couch and I'd . . . fall asleep (they're just so cozy, and I'm not about to talk about my mom).

"Don't patronize me with flowers," she said. "I feel violated. Why did you send them? And close to Valentine's Day?!"

"I don't know," I shrugged. Part of this was true. Part of it was not. I did it for a variety of reasons. I did it because she wouldn't expect it. I did it because I think flowers are beautiful and so is she to me. I did it because I wanted to feel alive. I wasn't trying to rape her with flowers. Maybe at one time I could have told her this, but my mouth already knew what my brain did not, none of it could be said. It no longer mattered. The giving of flowers was meant to be a good thing. It wasn't. The word "violated" rang in my ears.

"Mark," she said, "you know it's over."
"I know," I agreed. "I've been trying to tell you that for a while now."

So why would I send Tracy flowers if I knew it was over and was trying to walk away? Good question. Maybe I wanted to get her attention before I left. Maybe I wanted to give her something that would last for a few days. Maybe I was doing it out of resignation, raising the white lily rather than the flag.

It had been growing for some time, something intangible but unsettlingly familiar. The death of the relationship was growing in me like a cancer. In the past I'd held on, letting it consume me until I lay stretched out, surprised that the dying gasp would be my last, realization finally flooding my eyes as the light faded, everyone else standing around my casket, but me surprised to find my eyes being sewn closed.

This time I wouldn't let death catch me napping. I'm not a victim. Slow sometimes, but not as stupid. When I caught death's scent, I loped off into the woods, following the animal instinct of isolation rather than the human need for healing. Hospitals have needles.

There was only one problem to my plan. She followed me into the forest. The phone calls, emails, the "one more chances," the visits with food prolonged the inevitable, the terminal nature of what we had. She knew it; I sensed it. Yet neither one of us wanted to let go, or at least didn't want to be the one to walk away first. "Go away," I said. "Leave me alone."

"I'll always remember you," she whispers. "And appreciate the time we had."
Don't. Stop it. Just let me go. This isn't helping, I thought. "Same here," I said.
"Friends?" she asks. No response. The awkward silence, and then she turns slowly, and heads back toward the house.

It's a clear night tonight, cool. Beneath me lies a bed of soft pine needles. Above the gently swaying tree boughs there's a field of stars, the moon nearly full, and beyond that, black space that stretches on beyond my imagination. I let out a long, mournful howl. Dying hurts. You don't ever really know what's beyond.

This Is Not a Poem

Buckets of snow. No school. A cold to end all colds.
Reading Augustine. Thinking my nose is going to fall off.
(Legal) drugs in my system. Man, I feel like crap.

Chapter 2: The Angry Sweater People and the proliferation of wool

There were news reports about the angry sweater people. They swore to take over the world if other countries refused to buy their angora wool. The goats in Yakchew had been eating very well lately, and so had been having lots and lots of little goats sprouting from their overfull bellies. The green prickly plants had also been doing well in Yakchew, so when all the little goats saw the green prickly plants they ate them almost as fast as those hardy plants grew, and wool popped out from their bodies and over their eyes and grew so long that they often tripped and fell, and so the angry sweater people decided they had to cut the wool and make more sweaters. Since this had kept them very busy, they worked long hours, and became very angry that they had to work so much. They also were angry that no one wanted to buy their sweaters, especially during the summer, and were especially angry that no one seemed to like them (the sweater people) very much. And so every day they became angrier.

The chief of the sweater people was the angriest of all. He was so angry when he lost his two children for three days because they were buried under mountains of sweaters and his wife had decided to cook wool soup. It didn’t taste very good and he got sick, which also made him angry.

“Enough of this!” he said, so angry his face had turned red, then purple, then brown, and white once again. “What are we going to do with all these sweaters?”
“We could make sweater hats,” his wife suggested.

The chief decided that was a good idea, and for a while was not as angry. He and his wife and the people of the village made hats from some of the leftover sweaters and for a while people liked them. A couple days after the chief and his wife began making sweater hats they found their two children, who were very happy because they had been playing hide-and-seek, but were also very hungry. The chief’s wife made them wool soup, which they also did not like, and which also made them angry. So they went outside, killed one of the angora goats, and had it for supper instead. At first the chief was angry, but then he saw there was less wool for making sweaters, and since they were so far behind schedule in making sweaters and sweater hats, having one less wool making goat was a good thing. So for a while, the chief was not as angry.

But then came a day when everyone had sweaters and sweater hats, so no one else wanted any more. The chief, once again, was angry.

“What will we do now!” the chief roared, before biting a goat’s leg. The goat had been chewing on a prickly plant, turned around just in time to see the chief bite his leg, and responded by kicking the chief in the face.

“Well, let me think,” said the chief’s wife, stirring a pot of wool soup, tending to the chief’s bleeding forehead, and knitting at the same time.

“Woman, must I do everything myself!” fumed the chief. His wife said nothing, but continued to mop his head with a wet cloth, stirred the soup, and knitted.

“I’ve got it,” said the chief. “The sweater hats worked so well, we can make sweater gloves, too! Then they’ll have sweater sweaters, sweater hats, and sweater gloves. I’m glad I thought of that.” The chief was so happy about his brilliant idea that he forgot to be angry.

And so, they got to work once again. Day and night, night and day, the sweater people knit together sweaters, knit together hats, and knit together gloves. They shaved the wool from the goats so that the goats could then wear the extra sweaters and hats and gloves, but the goats mostly just ate them. They sold sweaters, hats and gloves in the street, in the neighboring villages, in the neighboring countries, and then across the sea.

Finally, everyone in the entire world had at least one pair of sweaters, hats, and gloves, and some even had three. “We’re tired of all these angora sweaters,” grumbled the people of the world. “We want something different.” And so there was an outcry by the people of the world against the sweater people, and this made the chief of the sweater people extremely angry.

“We work long hours, we make sweaters and hats and gloves, and we sell them to keep you warm! How can you be ungrateful? We can’t stop the green prickly plants from growing, and we can’t stop the goats from eating and having more little goats, and we can’t stop the wool from growing, so you’ll just have to keep buying our wool!”

Naturally, the people of the world did not like this idea at all. They liked the sweaters when it was cold, but how could you wear a sweater when it was hot? They refused to buy the wool, drew silly pictures of the angry sweater chief, and even kidnapped some of the sweater chief’s goats. And that was when the angry sweater chief decided to try to take over the world, to make the people buy their wool.

Chapter 1: Oddities and More Oddities

Skye Millar’s vision wasn’t what it used to be. He had started seeing spots, had blurred vision as objects swam before his eyes, then danced, then stood still again. It had happened first in the kitchen, when the bananas he had set out the night before were hitting an orange back and forth, and the orange was doing the backstroke. How strange. He even thought he was beginning to see little people out of the corners of his eyes, but when he’d look, they’d be gone. They were tricky buggers, always too fast for him to catch them, light and fluffy like little clouds.

Other strange things had started happening as well. Dogs had begun disappearing in his neighborhood, squirrels sat up when he walked by, chattering and making motions with their arms that reminded him of his former Professor Blakeley. Were those glasses he saw one of them wearing?

And when the giant fell from the sky and through the roof of his apartment on Tuesday night, no one else noticed. They should have, there were four other people in the room with him, but no one else did. Kevin Jamstrong kept talking about guitars and drumbeats, and E.L. Mathonik arrived late as usual, and casually stepped around the giant without saying a word. He was a big giant. He practically filled the whole room. Robert Kindgood and Ben Complex were quietly talking in a corner about taxes, oblivious to the loud thud the giant had made when he had crashed into the living room. So Skye Millar stood up, just so he could see over the giant’s tremendous belly to the other side of the living room where Jamstrong and Complex were sitting. The room got quiet.

“Do you have an announcement?” Jamstrong asked. But before Skye could respond Robert Kindgood spoke up, “I think we should keep meeting,” he said. “I like the music here and the TV, and it’s warmer inside than outside, though I’m having second thoughts.” About what, he never said. Still, no one had mentioned the giant.

“I think it’s okay,” Complex agreed. “We’re all busy, but okay. Let’s continue to meet.” Skye Millar worked his jaw muscles, like two rickety hinges, but nothing came out, so he sat back down.

“You’ll never get a word in edgewise that way,” said a soft, deep voice at his elbow. The voice was so close and so foreign that it made Skye jump. He looked to his left and his right, and over at the giant who seemed to be clearly dead, but there was no one. Captain Herman, the cat, lay stretched lazily across the arm of the couch, extending his white paws and releasing a tremendous yawn. Skye looked again at Herman. The cat was smiling.

“Were you talking to me?” Skye asked.
“Naturally,” Herman said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Mathonik said.
“Nor I,” said Complex.
“Sure didn’t,” said Jamstrong.
“It’s okay,” Skye apologized, “I was just talking to myself.”
“Oddities and more oddities,” demurred Herman.
“Hush,” Skye Millar hissed, but the cat simply licked his paw as if he hadn’t heard and began rubbing it behind his ears.