March is an odd bird. She’s dark and wet and heavy with it – heavy with the weight of winter’s end and the cold of brutal months past. Yet somehow, she also manages to carry hope; a sense of promise and newness. Without fail, every year she plays host to a seasonal tennis match of sorts, March does. A constant back and forth game between winter and spring that gets us all reeling, our heads spinning with the dizziness of their play. In Norfolk, we’d wake up to inches of snow on some early spring mornings, the world covered in a blanket of cold, blue-hued silence. And then the very next day, we’d rise to warmth and frostless grounds, the world showing not a single trace of snowfall. We’d be left once more on the edges of our seats wondering, what’s next? We’re only spectators in this game every year, and all we can do is wait to see what happens.
But there is an equinox today. Of that we are certain; the sun rises at the same time it sets. The balance of that is always so satisfying to me, so beautiful. Seasonal symmetry, ebbing and flowing. Suns and moons. A fresh start, today.
Regardless of how many times winter wants to rear her head, no matter what her sequels may look like – it is officially spring. Calendar says so, and I couldn’t be happier.
The fall semester came and went, slipping into spring without much splash. I found a suitable rhythm in my days, and was content with our newlywed life in eastern Virginia. My daily routine was steady and consistent, nothing if not utterly un-noteworthy. I attended classes in the evenings, and spent my days at the part-time job I’d landed in the ODU Office of Student Judicial Affairs. Essentially, I was responsible for dealing with all of the students who got into trouble, and got caught.
It was my job to process the disciplinary reports and then schedule “hearings” with the director during which students would receive proper punishment for whatever crimes and misdemeanors they’d committed. I logged it all in the school’s judicial record-keeping system, and was held in a constant state of fascination as I learned of the things students would be written up for. Some of the infractions seemed mild, hardly warranting more than a slap on the wrist, while others quickened my pulse with all of their scandal-draped juiciness. A total square myself, I’ve always been about as straight-laced as they come. My stint in the judicial affairs office gave me a front row seat to the youthful drama and controversy that I’d missed in my own undergraduate and high school days. Not a bad part-time gig, all around.
It seemed so much like the confessional experience I’d had as a Catholic-rasied child, that I often had to refrain from giving a little sign of the cross and muttering,“Bless you child, for you have sinned,” as the perpetrators filed through the doors, faces somber and darkened with all of the apology that they could muster. I’d work to keep a straight face myself, as they filed into the office, one by one all day long, receiving their penance and poised for their reckoning.
***
I endured the Catholic rite of passage that is first confession in the fall of 1992. This day and its memory bobbed on the surface of my experience in the judicial affairs office, offering a point of reference as I tried to empathize with the students who came in and out each day. It was the closest I could come to relating to them; the perps. It’s funny because I can remember the ins and outs of my first confession with the kind of clarity often reserved for more recent, short-term memory things. It’s all there, though; the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of it.
I remember that the hallway leading to the confessional seemed smaller that day. Stuffy, more narrow. There were a few glowing candles situated on a table at the end of the hall, as if they were there to show us the way. I folded my fingers under the neckline of my blue woolen sweater, tugging at it and frustrated with my choice of outfit on this most important of days.
I was the last to go that morning, everyone else in my Sunday school class having already completed theirs. The itchy collar was beginning to irritate me and I wondered if it would be okay if I just took the sweater off, stripping down to the grubby old t-shirt I had on underneath. Probably not. Priests probably don’t like grubby old t-shirts, I’d reasoned.
The further down the hallway I walked, making my way toward that most nerve-wracking of rooms, the less I could make out the sounds of the pancake social that was going on in the church’s large common area behind me. The smells of maple syrup and buttermilk pancakes gave way to more sterile aromas that I couldn’t quite identify. Was it baby wipes? Disinfectant cleaners? Paste? I wondered this as I made my way past the darkened classrooms that morning.
“Oh hi, Lauren! Looking for the bathrooms? They’re right down the hall to the left.” The friendly Sunday school teacher motioned down the hall with her hand as she expertly balanced a plate that contained an impressive, towering stack of pancakes.
“Thank you. I know where the bathrooms are.” I told her. “I’m going to confession. My first one.” I was nervous, squirming in place as I stood there, awkward in my black Mary Jane’s on the shiny linoleum floor. My hands were lost; I didn’t know what to do with them, where to put them. No pockets. I’ll just bite my nails, then. Wish I had a fork to hold, a plate of pancakes. Those would come after, a reward for my truthfulness. That’s what they promised. Penance and pancakes.
“Confession! Are you old enough to do that already? My how the time flies.” She’d squeezed my shoulder then, and I could tell she wore White Diamonds perfume, same as my second grade teacher Mrs. Lichty. “Well, I guess you’ll be turning right at the end of the hall, not left, just where those candles are.” She waved her fork to the right this time.
“Yes.” I’d said. “Thank you.” As I walked away, I stole a glance back at her pancakes and looked forward to having my own. Those nerves had done a number on my appetite.
It wasn’t so bad. Not really, anyway. Way better than these stuffy judicial hearings. I’d choose a first confession any day over one of these. The priest was very warm and friendly and put my aforementioned nerves right at ease as soon as I stepped into the confessional, which really was nothing more than a small classroom that they’d transitioned into a makeshift confessional for the day, for us newbies. Maybe it was because it was less intimidating this way? Not so showy and, well, intense. I plopped down in my seat, happy to have that long walk over with and I waited; waited for the moment to come when I would have to spill the beans – when I would have to tell Father Ben that I had taken something that wasn’t mine. I’d stolen. A thief! The impending shame made my face redden as I sat there in my chair, butterflies doing a frenzied dance in my stomach.
Bless me Father, for I have sinned.
Looking down at my hands in my lap, I confessed. Sheepishly and with cheeks burning, I informed him of how I’d recently told a whopper of a lie to my parents (the contents of which have escaped me, I’m afraid), and how I’d also stolen some of my brother’s chewing gum. Father Ben just stared at me, with pursed lips and a slightly wrinkled brow; a look of interest on his face. He said nothing.
“Okay! Okay. I’m sorry.” I carried on, pulling the truth out to its full length, telling the whole of it. “It was the entire pack. I took the entire pack! It was Juicy Fruit and it was on his dresser and I am really, really sorry. I gave up my whole bowl of vanilla ice cream to him last week though, so I thought it was fair. But I won’t do it again. Because I’m just, I’m just really sorry.”
The priest’s look of interest morphed into something else, his taught pout rising into a smile that reminded me of the Grinch at the end of the movie, when he gets all happy and big-hearted. Father Ben nodded his head in understanding and he thanked me for the honesty in my confession. After doling out my penance instructions, he sent me on my way to think about my wrongdoing, and to go on and find my parents, who were probably waiting for me by then.
On my way out of the classroom-confessional, I spotted a paper plate on the edge of a desk that contained what appeared to be the remnants of some recently eaten pancakes. Oh right! Pancakes! I quickened my pace, booking it back down the hallway; it didn’t seem so scary this time around, as you might imagine.
Suffice it to say I enjoyed those pancakes more than I’ve ever enjoyed any others. I felt as if I’d earned them, that I’d really worked for them. I didn’t know when my penance was due, exactly – I’d forgotten to ask – so I just did it right away, over my stack of pancakes there in the church. I savored every sticky sweet bite, washing it down with a cardboard carton of milk while quietly reciting a string of “Our Fathers” and “Hail Mary’s.”
He’s married now, Father Ben. Divorced from the Catholic church. He had a covert affair with a woman and is now married to her, last I heard. I remember hearing this for the first time, and immediately pictured him walking into a confessional, into MY confessional, and with roles reversed, he’d spill it all to me; his undoing, an admission of guilt. This is a safe space. Go ahead, I’m listening, Father Ben. God’s listening too.
I would wring out his sins like dirty wet rags, getting out every last drop.
***
Prior to the 14th century, the word “faith” meant loyalty to a person based on promise or duty. Somewhere along the lines, however, while Western European Christian crusaders were on their conquests to the Holy Land, the word “faith,” came to mean something else, its definition shifting course slightly into more religious waters.
***
Do you have a church you like here in town, Lauren?
My co-worker, Barbara, caught me muttering the words out loud to myself one day. Bless me father, for I have sinned. Teasing me, she jumped right into the role of “Sister Barbara,” and apologized for Father’s absence.
“Father is out today. He called in sick with a dreadful ailment of some sort, really just awful sounding. So, you put all your sins on me, honey. I’m ready when you are!” She laughed and laughed and I thanked my lucky stars for her. Her presence in that office was a leavener every single day. Without trying to, she brought light with her wherever she went; that sweet woman could melt an ice cube from a long ways away. Her warm and easy kindness made her exactly the type of person you’d want to share a small office space with day in and day out.
“Girl you got ta start eating more; you’re such a skinny little thing!” she’d tease, always poking fun. Like clockwork, she’d rise from her desk each day at noon, grab her small blue pocketbook and announce that she was going to go get a sandwich. She always asked me if I wanted a sandwich, too, knowing full well that I’d decline the offer. You sure? I’m buying today.
“No thank you, Ms. Barbara. If I eat a double cheeseburger, I’d fall fast asleep on this desk and then who’d be here to greet these kids with a smile when they arrive to meet their doom?”
“Sandwich” was code for double cheeseburger.
I never knew how old Barbara was, but if I had to guess, I’d have put my money on mid-fifties. Maybe sixty. She’d always wear the most comfortable looking loafers, and the occasional well-worn ballet flats that she said made her feel like the young girls these days. But they caused her bunions to flare, so there was that. She’d lived in Norfolk her whole life, her city of mermaids, and was the type of person who possessed the gift of finding contentment wherever she was and in whatever she was doing; a super-human power. She listened intently whenever I shared anything with her – literally anything – from the trivial and mundane, all the way down to the heavy stuff. She never judged, never made me feel anything other than truly seen. Accepted. She was so, so good.
I pondered her question about church before responding, chewed on it some. There were plenty of churches in my own neighborhood that I adored, sure. We’d go on these long walks, Lucas and I, and we would gawk at them, from the simple purity of a quaint white chapel to the more ornate, rococo adornments of the Catholic cathedrals. Churches, to me, had always been especially likable so far as building aesthetics go, and I’d begun snapping photos of them with a point-and-shoot camera that I kept in my purse, one procured specifically for such purposes. This was before iPhones, and carrying a camera in my bag was a habit of mine. It was filled with mostly snaps of churches and food.
But that’s not what she was asking. She wanted to know if I went to church, if I was a parishioner. This topic came up almost weekly, in one way or another, underscoring how important faith and religion were to her in her own life. I feared that if I told her I wasn’t a particularly religious gal – more “spiritual,” than anything else – she wouldn’t see me the same way anymore; she wouldn’t, I don’t know, like me as much? I didn’t expect her to show that to me, but it would have been there, I thought. Disapproval. And I just didn’t want that, not at all. She’d asked me about church on a number of occasions, wondering if we’d gotten settled into one yet, found our church community. As such, I’d developed a keen reflex and immediately would go into this deflection mode where I’d sort of absorb the question and lob one right back at her, shifting things somewhat, putting the ball back in her court.
“Umm, not yet. There are a few by our apartment that seem lovely, the music coming from them each Sunday is one of the best parts of the whole weekend.” I’d say to her, and it was true.
“Oh Barbara, let me tell you one thing I do miss about church – the fried chicken afterward! My Mimi in Kentucky made the best fried chicken, or we’d grab a bucket from Lee’s Famous Recipe which was a decent second. And boy was it good. I’d look forward to it all week.” Also, true.
“Mmmhmmm. Girl, I know that.” She’d say without looking up from her computer. “You go on and get yourself a nice church. It’ll be good for you, you’ll see.”
A grad school friend with whom I studied regularly asked me once why I wasn’t more forthright with Barbara, why I avoided answering and felt like I couldn’t be honest.
“She speaks her truth and you respect it, so she should do the same in return, right? Seems fair to me, especially if she keeps asking you about it. What are you going to do, just end up lying to her? Waxing on about how you’ve found a church near your house where you will do all of your worshiping til kingdom come? I mean, isn’t lying worse?”
I wasn’t sure. Honesty is a hard plane to land sometimes.
I’d gotten so many eye rolls from religious friends and family members, when describing myself as “more of a spiritual type,” that I’d grown gun shy around the whole conversation, assigning to it a plague-like avoidance. My friend, who was an adamant atheist, held such a strong sense of conviction over her own beliefs, or lack thereof, and she carried not a hint of shyness or shame when presenting them to anyone else. Spoke her truth, for better or worse. And try as I might have, I couldn’t quite get there.
I couldn’t tell Barbara that I don’t enjoy discussing my beliefs with other people; that I consider my own spirituality to be a deeply personal, private thing. A puzzle not yet solved, my religion was muddled in my mind, unsorted; a jumbled mess of fragmented conviction. Intimidated, I wasn’t sure how to express this to her, she who was so devout. Barbara often sang her praises right out loud, filling the office space with sweet hymns and an obvious adoration of her God. There’s so much beauty in that kind of love, the declaration and decoration of it. Barbara’s faith was a perfect diamond, precision-cut and crystal clear, shining bright for everyone to see. Fully formed and solid. But mine was quiet; drawn in and flawed. Cloudy and lacking in any real definition, my own religion had been twisted and turned, change being its only constant.
When referring to life in general, people often say it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. But when it comes to one’s religion, oftentimes people seem more comfortable if your beliefs have found a place to rest. If I shared with Barbara that mine were still very much in flux, lost in translation, how would she feel? If I told her that maybe I liked them that way, my beliefs, what would she say? I have always been a pleaser, through and through; afraid of disappointing people, caring too much about what others think. This fact of me rears its head in a cycle of perpetual reinvention. Making a coward of me, it sneaks inside even the most benign interactions, paralyzing my sense of self and tarnishing my authenticity.
Unsure and often weightless, my faith is like dust in the wind. It blows around in a state of transience, carried by life’s reckless erosion.
***
The word bromide derives from a chemical compound made of the element bromine and another metal. Historically, bromide in this form was used as a sedative, a medicine to dull one’s senses. “Bromides,” figuratively speaking, are boring, dull, and platitudinous sayings that carry little to no useful value.
The word experiment derives from the Latin experimentum (mid-14c.) and is defined as an “action of observing or testing; an observation, test, trial, or a piece of evidence or empirical proof.” But also, and perhaps more interestingly, an experiment is defined as “a feat of magic or sorcery,” from Old French esperment “practical knowledge, cunning; enchantment, magic spell; trial, proof, example; lesson, sign, indication.”
***
In the early nineties, I attended second grade through half of sixth grade at a lab school in Kentucky. A “lab school” is one that is operated in association with a university or college and is used for teacher training, educational experimentation, research, and professional development. Occasionally, I would be pulled out of class and asked to participate in various studies. I was never informed as to the exact nature of the studies, but I always felt special – like I’d been selected because I had done something right, or had behaved particularly well that day, or something. These studies were little more than conversations, question-and-answer sessions with university students.
“You mean, like a meeting?” My omnipresent longing to be a grownup, manifesting even then.
“Yes! Kind of like a meeting,” the teacher had said. “It will only take about twenty minutes or so. We’ll have you back to class in time for recess. No worries.” A pat on the shoulder; a reassuring smile. Follow me, we’ll head down the hall to a special room.
This is the best! I get to have a meeting with a cool college student, while everybody else is stuck doing times tables. I stole glances left and right as we made our way down the school’s main hallway to the “meeting room.” Students in their classes were hard at work, heads down and pencils up, scrawling and scratching away on their papers. Man, what a lucky day. I smiled with satisfaction. I didn’t know what I did to deserve it, but whatever it was, I was sure glad I’d done it.
“Hi Lauren! It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Kayla, and I go to Eastern Kentucky University.” She was pretty. Her shiny blonde hair bobbed at her shoulders and was tucked neatly behind her ears, which were studded with sparkly “pink ice” earrings. My obsession at the time. They caught the fluorescent light coming from the panels in the ceiling and seemed lit from within.
“Go Colonels!” I’d said, with a smile. Good, she seems impressed. I crossed my legs so my shiny white Tretorn shoes were on full display. They were brand new and made me feel mature, stylish. I’d fitted them with colorful laces to complement the anklet that I’d made, weaving together strands of embroidery thread that I’d begged my Mom for, relentlessly. After about a week’s worth of asking, pelting her with one request after another, she caved. We drove to Jo Ann Fabrics where she let me select about a dozen colors of thread and a white plastic case in which to house them. Looking down at my ankle, I felt an immense sense of pride in what I had made. I was building my skills, and hoped to complete a guitar strap soon, one with an intricately woven beholder’s eye pattern. I didn’t know anyone who played the guitar, though.
“Ever played Twenty Questions? That’s what this is going to be like. I’m just going to ask you some questions, and all you have to do is be as honest as you can, okay? Cool?”
Cool.
I LOVED Twenty Questions. We’d played it countless times during family car rides, on long drives to the beach or during trips to visit grandparents. I was well-versed in the game’s format.
“Okay, Lauren. Let’s get started.”
I settled in for what I assumed was going to be a game. I had been on the academic team for a full two years by that point and had gotten very comfortable with rapid-fire question and answer sessions. Let’s do this.
“What is your favorite thing about yourself?
“What are your favorite things to do?”
“Is there anything you can’t do that you wish you could?”
“Do you see yourself the same way you see your friends, other people?”
Wait a minute. This wasn’t like Twenty Questions; not at all. The questions felt a lot like being stared at, but with words and under a microscope. Each one was like a clue, the game revealing itself with every passing question. A feeling of discouragement made itself right at home in the caverns of my young heart. The meeting’s dynamic began to change in my mind. The edges of my mental framework faded into something darker, challenging my typically sunny disposition. She wasn’t just asking me some fun questions, trying to see if I could narrow things down to the correct answer. Instead, her questions felt like they were leading me somewhere, prodding me toward responses they wanted me to give, or that were premeditated in some way.
“Is there anything about yourself that you would change, Lauren?”
Oh. I see. I get it now. They want me to admit that I don’t like myself the way I am.
I had come in second in the Kentucky State Science Fair that year. My experiment was about memory, and I tested whether or not different colors and color families affect one’s memory, strengthening or weakening it. I’d purchased a tri-fold poster board, established my hypothesis. I’d typed up my method, my data, my results, and conclusion. I’d learned the correct way to conduct a proper experiment.
I was 10. I didn’t come with the ability to see all of the befores, the backstory – I didn’t know why we were sitting there. What is your hypothesis, Kayla? I also didn’t come with the ability to see the afters, didn’t know where my answers would go once I’d given them. What are you going to conclude, Kayla? I could only see the moment that I was in, the one that felt like it was holding me captive, challenging my very sense of self. I could only see the experiment, and it was me.
I think we’re all born with protective barriers around our hearts. Childhood’s myopic self-absorption keeps them firmly in place. We come naturally fitted with them, these invisible shields that help guard against breaking. When our hearts are so young, trusting and untested, they can’t be broken. They withstand so much, are so beautifully resilient. The world is good and it is safe and no one wants to hurt us. This is a special type of bravery. A child might be afraid of the dark, but she’ll dance in front of a crowd like no one’s watching. She might be scared of thunderstorms but she’ll try out for every team, run every race, and live life to its fullest, because why not? It’s fun that way. But as days and years go by, and we become more self-aware, our shields start to weaken. Somewhere during adolescence, when we’re preoccupied with the important business of growing up, we begin to lose them. They crack and fissure with time and eventually fall away, leaving our hearts exposed to the elements.
I didn’t want to be there anymore. Just like that, my vision changed. I went from feeling so special, like I was the center of attention for a little while, to feeling more like I was in the center ring, the main event.
Come one! Come all! Step right up.
The room became a tilt-a-whirl, spinning on its axis. I looked to the left. The teacher who had led me to the room was leaning against the wall with a look of patronizing interest on her face. Her arms were folded across her chest, cradled by layers of bulky school sweatshirt and thick knit turtleneck. There was a large window-like mirror in the room. I looked at the table, saw Kayla’s clipboard with her stapled papers filled with numbered lines and corresponding check boxes. So many questions.
I had so many questions.
When it was over, Kayla said her thanks and patted me on the back. You did great. The teacher ushered me out of the room and we made our way back down the hallway, toward my classroom and the recess that awaited. She stopped me, just before we’d reached my class, and put her hands on both of my shoulders, kneeling down so we were eye to eye.
“God made you the way you are for a reason, you know. He wouldn’t give you anything you can’t handle. God is so good that way.” She’d said this to me with a knowing, red lip-sticked smile. Her lips were the same color as my Mimi’s when she wore her favorite shade, Revlon’s “Cherries in the Snow.” She’d said it had a little blue in it, which was supposed to make your teeth look whiter.
When I start to feel stuffy and boxed in, stared at, my mind usually sprints in the opposite direction toward any other thing. Some conversations about God have this effect. A favorite daydreamed destination of mine is often grounded in my for-better-or-worse interest in etymology: the study of words and their rootings. Or, I’ll just run my favorite words over and over in my head, reciting them in a loop. Weather. Haberdashery. Smoke. Incandescent. Frothy.
Or, I’ll break a word down into all of the other words that exist inside it; a favorite birthday party brain game of mine from childhood, that also shares its inspiration with a t-shirt I saw once in a university bookstore: laughter lives inside slaughter. This is me busying my mind, pushing reality aside. Me, filling up the cosmos of my brain with antimatter. When a particle collides with its antiparticle, the two annihilate each other.
noun: slaughter; related to slay
INFORMAL
a thorough defeat.
I rarely ever feel more boxed in by useless sayings than when I’m with someone who tries to tell me what God wants for me and why God made me the way I am. It has happened more times than I can count. These conversations always come from a place of kindness, I know this. But that doesn’t smooth over their scratchy, uncomfortable bits. Not really. Maybe it feels alright for the person doing the telling, the one trying to solve the case of my missing part for me. They just fill up the void with God’s mystery, like a Band-aid. There. See? There’s a reason. There is always a reason.
If you let yourself fall into the comforting glow of the thought, it’s a really nice feeling, a warming sensation for the soul. Yes. I’d been told so many times that God had “made me this way,” that it became my default answer. I never questioned its validity; it was a thing I accepted as truth because everyone said it was so.
“What happened to your arm?”
“It’s just the way God made me!”
I even declared it in my graduate school application to Columbia, saying that God made me this way because I could handle it, for a reason. Tell us something about yourself. I said it because that’s what I’d been told, what I’d been told to say. It sounded nice.
But speaking on God’s behalf has always seemed overwhelmingly presumptuous. Dropping line after line of over-generalized platitudes and riffs about grace and how He put in on your heart and that God has a plan for me and you and us, it always feels vacuous; words that one has been trained to deploy. Yes, but how do you know? I wonder and wonder.
As a kid, If I’d been given a dollar for every time some well-meaning person told me that God took my arm away for a reason, or to believe that God wouldn’t give me anything I couldn’t handle, or that God loves me just the way that I am – I could have practically funded my own church. To me, none of those sounded like beliefs. It sounded like programming. When you hear the same lines over and over again, from people knelt down with your shoulders in their hands, the words start to lose their strength.
Sure. I’ve heard that one before.
***
With Barbara, I wasn’t quite sure how to explain my struggle with the whole notion of belief itself, and the way we tend to cultivate it. I couldn’t tell her that, to me, true belief might be something best reached on one’s own. It was never what people believed that conflicted me – be it fire and brimstone or love and light – but rather, why they believed it.
Through my camera’s lens on my Sunday morning walks, I saw parents ushering their children into the neighborhood’s gleaming churches; outfitted in their bobby socks and smocked dresses, searsucker pants and collared shirts in colors that looked like they had dripped off a sun-faded rainbow. They’d walk through the doors, disappearing into the sanctuary for an hour of prayer, of worship. My God is an awesome God. Spirits merged; blended into one. I couldn’t decide if that part was good, or not.
When we tell our children what to believe, we rob them of ever having the experience of growing and nurturing their own true set of beliefs, of coming to them organically. How can we get to know our own souls – really get to the bottom of them – if someone else has gotten there first, has already set up shop? When the garden of devotion has been claimed, pure belief can’t grow there. Instead we get acceptance and absorption. Children will always believe their parents, accepting their teachings, absorbing them as truth, unquestioned. Parents might be our first and greatest teachers, but when faith is passed on as fact, mixed in with multiplication tables and proper grammar, it is real? Is it really ours?
Without any ill intent, we throw these young, spongey minds into the deep end of devotion as soon as we can, fitting them with spiritual blinders. They are kept from the powerful experience of cultivating their own sense of spirituality, their own truly organic system of believing.
Say your prayers. Love your God. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. Go through the motions. We’ll show you the way, the right way, the one true way. Amen.
I couldn’t tell Barbara that I had a copy of the Koran on my bookshelf, and the Torah, the Vedas, the Sutras, all right next to the Bible. It was a whole world of believing – different choices, different ideas and ideologies – bookended by a John Grisham novel and something from Steven King; The Stand I think.
When you don’t provide someone’s budding sense of spirituality with any other options, it looks a lot like brainwashing, well-intentioned and understandable though it may be. That’s how it hit me every time.“Lauren God made you this way. God made you in his image, for a reason.” Believe it. Believe it. Believe it. Freedom of spirit is a gift we can give our children, letting them roam wild and free. We can let them come into their own souls, their own beliefs – we can do that for them. What an experiment that would be.
Sometimes I did want to share this with Barbara. How I didn’t want to go to church because I was a little afraid of my spirit getting hyper organized, packed into a box of someone else’s design and then molded – told what to do, how to be, how to pray, and who to pray to. I wanted to come to those conclusions, if ever, on my own.
I don’t know the answer, though.
Sometimes I equate it to grocery shopping. What if, when we stepped inside our markets and superstores, we were simply handed a bag of groceries that had already been selected for us – no choice on our end whatsoever, no say so. In the background, out of reach and out of focus, sits a seemingly endless, exciting world of unique tastes, distinctive flavors, and lessons in self-nourishment, joy, and fulfillment.
Or, maybe it’s like dining at a restaurant where you’re never given the chance to order off of a menu, and instead, everything is pre-fixed. Others simply select what they think is best for you, without showing you the options or giving you the chance to develop your own palate.
There is a silliness to my metaphors, Reader, believe me I see that. But still. I can’t help wondering how the world would look if we afforded spiritual choices the same way we do so many other things. Would our souls be more satisfied? Would there be less guilt? More love and less judgment? Would each of us feel more deeply nourished in a spiritual sense? Maybe.
We can show, not tell. We can guide, not drive. We can trust. We can trust that young spirits will land where they should. Like teaching your child to ride a bike, at some point the training wheels come off – they have to for it to work. The guiding and showing and nurturing comes to an end, and we have to let them go; let them grow into their own sense of spirituality. Then we could step back and admire what they find, and we could enjoy it with them. We could respect it, because they built it all on their own. Ultimate trust, truest faith. Belief in its most concentrated form.
To admit these ideas to her, and to many people I knew at the time, was to risk shame. A slap on the wrist, a look of disappointment. They went against the grain, my thoughts on belief did. God forbid.
***
Looking back on them now, those conversations with Barbara about church, religion and the practice of faith, I realize that I was wrong to not trust her more. I’d get so mired in my own questioning, my past and present frustrations over whether or not anyone fundamentally believes what they say they do. Wouldn’t a steadfast, devoted “believer” like Barbara find me to be a troubled soul? A direct threat to her own world view? Doubtful. I should have known better, should have gotten out of my own way and made room for those talks with her. I missed opportunities for growth because I’d viewed them as obstacles. I was the one being disrespectful. Who was I to pre-ordain her response, to prejudge her like that? I was so sure of what she’d say that I closed my own mind to the possibility of a healthy, open conversation. Because she was so firm in her beliefs, I’d assumed she would reject mine. A logical fallacy to be sure, and an unfair treatment of a friend.
Was I just uncomfortable with being vulnerable? Afraid that she’d what, disagree with me? I wrapped my hesitations up in excuses, and that’s all I ever gave her.
I’d lacked grace. I’d lacked conviction. I was awkward and fumbling. But she would have listened, she would have respected me. Looking back, I know that. I wish I’d given those talks more of a chance, instead of changing course at the first sign of them. I bet she could have taught me something, stretching my own understanding and maybe helping to ground my own traveling sense of faith. I should have tried, should have allowed her into the quiet, private room where I kept my beliefs hidden. She had earned that right – was clearly interested in that part of me – and I missed my chance.
***
As amusing as my gig at the Office of Judicial Affairs was, it didn’t quite cut it on the bill-paying front, not completely at least. In what was yet another crushing blow, delivered by my very active sense of naivete, I’d taken out the maximum amount of loans afforded to graduate students at the time. My parents told me they’d gladly pay for my graduate education, but not if I was married – a very fair, normal and wholly gracious offer by all accounts. So incredibly generous. But it seems that I just could not wait one more second to waltz down the aisle to begin a dreamy forever with my dear beloved. No, apparently I couldn’t wait for that and poof! The generous offer disappeared and in walked the asinine amount of loans for which I’d been readily approved. Of course.
Oh I’ll just pay them all off with the money that I make from the job that I’ll get when I’m all done with this graduate degree program, I’d think to myself, not a doubt or twinkle of worry in sight. Apparently much of my decision making in my early to mid twenties came bubble-wrapped in the sunny, baby-fresh type of optimism that results from an, admittedly, very sheltered upbringing and the naturally positive, “It’ll all work out,” disposition with which I was born (again, see: sheltered upbringing). Add in a dash of that good pre-recession hope and promise and there you have it: a walking poster child for what not to do when it comes to managing your graduate school finances.
On one particularly long-seeming afternoon, as I sat at my desk in the judicial affairs office, I fell down a black hole of online recipe searching, assumedly trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I stumbled across a few banner ads for what appeared to be a lucrative recipe contest, the Build a Better Burger competition, and I think my eyes bugged all the way out of my head when I saw that the winner would receive $50,000.
That was really all it took. My mind immediately wandered away from the task at hand – the student disciplinary records – and set up shop in the land of recipe competitions where it remained for several years. A flame had been lit. This was all in the pre-food blogging era, we were just on the cusp of it, and in this newly discovered passion of mine, I found a cozy home in which I was able to further nurture my love of cooking.
***
I didn’t realize the true extent of my own competitiveness until I was sitting up late one Friday night, in the computer lab at Lucas’ medical school, perusing some information about a recipe contest I’d entered through a French cheese company. Throughout the week, I had worked on a recipe for a savory cheesecake that ate like a dip and honestly tasted incredible. This is it, I’d thought, licking my rubber spatula and adding a pinch more lime zest to the creamy filling.
With its $1,000 prize payout, this contest was especially alluring and I set my mind to really nailing the recipe. The requirements for entry were simple and straightforward enough; I just had to develop an original recipe with this company’s creamy goat cheese and submit it for voting. Done and done. Let the games begin …
I’d been given a baby pink Kitchenaid hand-held mixer as a wedding present from my mother-in-law, and I gave it a proper workout over the course of the few days leading up to my recipe submission. I whipped and folded and beat so many combinations of creamy cheeses and savory flavorings that I began to wonder if I’d lose the ability to discern any real difference between all of the versions. So, I brought in some reinforcements. Medical students, it turns out, are happy recipients of home cooking, and they made the perfect guinea pigs during my recipe development days.
“This is it! This is your winner!”
“Wait, is that mango in the salsa or papaya? It’s killer.”
“I think I like version ‘A’ a little more than ‘B,’ but I might need another taste, just to be sure.”
After getting as close to perfection as I thought possible with this cheesecake dip thing I’d created, I sent the recipe away into the depths of the unknown, into what I just assumed was the giant pile of stellar submissions, from people like me who were vying for that grand prize money. I uploaded the Word document, hit “send,” and commenced the great wait; all two and a half months of it.
***
The short of it is that I won. I won the $1,000 prize money, which we swiftly banked right into our fledgling joint checking account, feeling satisfied with our victory, Lucas and I. I say “we” here because this win didn’t happen solely due to my own recipe developing prowess, or my cooking ingenuity; not by any means was this the case. As it turned out, the contest was purely a way for the sponsoring brand to get loads of hits on their website and, as such, the winner was selected by public vote – not a judge’s vote as I’d initially presumed.
“Well, that’s a real deal shit sandwich, huh?” Scrolling through the contest’s fine print, I’d lamented this news to Lucas one night as we both sat at the dining room table in our Norfolk apartment, eating from cartons of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and watching the latest Marvel comics movie.
“They just want people to come to their website to vote. There aren’t any judges or anything official. So, clearly it’s just a popularity contest or a matter of who begs the most people to vote for them, which I am definitely not going to be doing, no way.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Lucas polished off the last bite of his Cherry Garcia and rose from his seat, taking my now empty container with him to the trash can in the kitchen.
“Have you voted for yourself yet?”
“Of course I have. That’s basically how I discovered that there was no more to it – just votes from the public until the time is up.”
“How many times can you vote, though?” He asked, grabbing his own laptop and navigating to the recipe contest’s website.
“I guess just once, but I don’t really know. That’s what I assumed at least.”
Lucas cast his vote then, for my Savory Cheesecake with Smoky Mango Salsa. Then, in an act of either pure brilliance or pure evil (we never decided), he deleted the cookies from his browser’s history and re-opened the webpage.
He cast another vote, and then another, and so on and so forth until I eventually joined him, opening my laptop and voting over and over again. Tandem voting. Our fingers clicked and punched and flew over the keys, refreshing browsers and deleting cookies until I’d racked up well over 100 votes; a solid, safety-zone sort of number that we assumed would secure victory.
A small wave of guilt washed over me, lapping at my heels as I tried to carry on as usual after our run of voting. I conjured up a sense of nonchalance as best I could, but it wavered some, and carried me back to my computer once more. I pulled up the contests’ website and scoured the rules and regulations, the fine print. There wasn’t a single word about voting multiple times. The company actually wanted all of the traffic to their site, so they probably loved that we were doing it – and it was obvious that we were doing it.
Of the dozens of recipes that had been submitted, sweet and savory creations that featured the same creamy goat’s cheese, there were only two that had received more than 30 votes – mine and a sweet cheese-filled blintz recipe of some sort, from a woman in Washington state. Her vote count was at 32.
It’s moments like these that challenge your integrity in a very specific way; forcing you to decide what kind of person you want to be. Do I want to be the honest kind? Forthright and transparent in my dealings here? Or, do I simply want to win, even if it means being dirty about it and beating a system that was clearly not thought through very well. Or maybe it was, but still.
The allure of grand prize money, it seems, won the day; vice beating out virtue in a real pommeling. With threadbare consciences, we practically high-fived each other for all of our cleverness and for the inevitable padding our bank account would soon receive. Savory cheesecake never tasted so sweet.
Polishing off the remaining bits of the recipe, the last few spoonfuls of the creamy, tangy mixture, we washed the dishes together, setting them to drip dry in the rack by our big farmhouse sink. We went to bed with the satisfaction of winners, and slept like babies.
***
To the point of near dizziness, I’d taken to spinning around in my office chair when I got stuck in a writing rut, almost as if the spinning would somehow shoot my brain into gear, setting it into motion again. It was summer time, and I’d said goodbye to my part-time job in student judicial affairs, trading it in for a full-time internship with the City of Newport News, Norfok’s northeastern neighbor.
My intern’s desk in the City Manager’s office became exponentially busier with each passing day. A landing pad for clutter, the desk’s every corner was piled with various reports, briefings and a smattering of graduate school papers-in-waiting. I’d fallen in step with my role there and grew to enjoy the work, though admittedly, most of it failed to strike many chords with me on an aspirational level. Most, that is, with the exception of speechwriting.
I’d mentioned to someone in passing that I enjoyed writing and did it sometimes for fun. The next thing I knew, a stack of information was dropped down in front of me, ready and waiting to be scoured, translated, and bibbity-bobbity-boo’d into a speech for the Mayor to deliver at an upcoming meeting regarding the city’s town-gown relationships. Upcoming as in – tomorrow.
How hard can it be for a 24-year-old gal to write a speech for a septuagenarian gent whom she’s never actually met? I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince myself that this was no big deal. But, not long after being tasked with this new, important-feeling job, I excused myself and walked to the bathroom down the hall from my desk, where I promptly threw up.
Exuding the grizzly, gray pallor of a dead fish – an anti-glow – I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring into my own, uncertain eyes. Just take it one sentence at a time, I’d self-coached. I dunno, picture the audience naked? Right. It’s not like I’m the one having to get up and speak in front of all those people.
I stood there, taking deep breaths in and pushing them back out with force. I gave lamaze a try, figuring if it works well for birthing mothers, it would surely help me in this moment of self-doubt. I’ve got this. With each breath, I seemed to fill with a little more confidence, my composure returning. The picture began to shift in its frame. This, I started to think, might be the coolest thing I’ve ever gotten to try.
So, I smoothed my skirt and reapplied the chapstick that I kept tucked inside my bra. I’d grown addicted to the mentholatum and purchased the stuff in mass quantity, stashing them everywhere. No pockets? Bras work fine.
Breathe in, breathe out. Tucking in my rumpled button-down shirt and checking to see that my coloring had righted itself, I returned to my chair and got to work.
I wrote more speeches there during my short time as intern for the City of Newport News than any other single task and while it was thoroughly interesting work, giving me plenty of opportunity to learn the ins and outs of municipal governing, like any writing, it came with moments of dramatic lapse; I’d come down with these massive brain blips where I’d lose all sense of language, all ability to string together sentences of any sort, let alone some for a mayor to speak aloud in public.
So around and around I’d go, spinning in my cheap, black swivel chair, staring up at the ceiling and trying to catch a brain wave or two.
It was in the middle of one of these pockets of speechwriting procrastination, when I noticed it. I’d given up on making any headway on a speech to be delivered at an upcoming picnic to celebrate the city’s Latino population. I logged into my personal email as a distractionary tactic, when I saw an update from the recipe competition.
Last 24 Hours to Vote! Get your votes in for your pick! Tomorrow we name the best of the best. Grand Prize Winner Announced!
Or, something like that. I sat up straighter in my swivel chair then, eyes drawn as if by laser beam straight to the figures displayed on the screen in front of me. The top 10 recipes were listed, with thumbnail photos of each, and mine was now in second place. The leader was the woman in Washington and her recipe had surpassed mine significantly. She was up to 350 votes now, a number that yanked my jaw clear out of its socket, dropping it straight down like it was weighted.
That night when Lucas came home from school, I informed him of this recent development in the recipe competition, and in a manner that was completely true to form and totally in line with his relatively intense nature, he launched an offensive to overtake the current leaderboard champ and take home the win.
We posted up in the medical school computer lab with takeout burritos in tow, and commenced voting. We sat there for hours doing the same repetitive motions with our hands, wrists, fingers – it was like a recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome more than anything else. All in the name of the $1,000 grand prize.
As our vote count rose, so too did the woman from Washington’s. It was clear that she had hacked the competition as well, she’d figured it out too, realizing that it was possible to submit as many votes as you cared to. It seemed that she also was keeping a close eye on the vote counts. She’d noticed that we were gaining on her. I imagined her sitting down at her own computer, clear on the other side of the country, and engaging in the same sort of money-hungry, frenzied pursuit of victory.
The race, it seemed, was on. We’d had some catching up to do, but made up for the gap in votes with relative ease, there being two of us, after all; two hyper-focused, cash-poor students. The vote tallies for our respective recipes rose in a steady rhythm composed of both parties’ sheer will to win, the numbers jumping up and up and up for hours on end with no signs of reprieve. We’d resolved to stay as long as was necessary; already having spent so much time on the thing, we didn’t want to come up empty-handed on that investment, let alone the potential grand prize. So, we were fully in.
Late into the night, the battle of wills raged on. We ultimately secured the win, nabbing the prize money and the understanding that the world of competitive recipe development – these contests I’d been entering – might not be the best method of cultivating one’s love of food and cooking. It was certainly not the most sound – or ethical – way to make a buck.
Satisfying though the victory may have been, I closed the book on recipe contests after that. I never entered another one. What remained, though, were the crumbs of a burgeoning love for writing recipes. It was easy to walk away from the competition side of things, as that hadn’t actually held much appeal. But having license to get completely lost in the culinary daydreaming part of it all was another thing; that was easy, as natural as putting one foot in front of the other. It felt comfortable, comforting.
I had always been someone who talked and thought about cooking, whiling away many hours doing so. The recipe contests and their potential prize money gave a sense of justification for all of my daydreaming, and the growing pull it had on my attention, tugging it away from more pressing, important tasks. The many hours I’d spent imagining finished contest dishes never felt like time wasted either; the contrary was true, in fact. I’d reveled in it all; doodling ingredient notes and sketches of finalized recipes down on whatever implement was closest when the ideas struck. I loved that I had somewhere to send them, the recipes I created, somewhere besides our own plates, to the memories of meals once had.
There was something about the official nature of the recipe contests; that I could frame my love of cooking in a more defined way, not only for myself, but for others, too.
I wasn’t just a person who loved to cook anymore – I was a recipe contest winner, a recipe developer. This newfound label felt good, legitimizing. That was really why I pursued them all so much, those recipe contests. It had nothing to do with competing or winning. With every recipe I created in the small wonderland of my own kitchen and then sent out into the world, a part of me went with it; pulled toward a destination unknown, intoxicating in its effect.
Like in the game “Eye Spy” you play as a kid, I could tell I was onto something. I was getting warmer, warmer; and it made me want more, to keep looking. I just wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for.
