Lover of Words

I just finished listening to The Book Thief and my tear stained pillow is a testament to the power of words and a wonderfully crafted story. As the gravely voice of the narrator is still echoing in my head I have begun to reflect on my long love affair with words.

My family can tell you that I always had my nose in a book from about 5th grade on. It started with Where the Red Fern Grows. I think it was the first book that caused me to cry. Bridge to Terabithia in the sixth grade was the first to elicit a sob. 

In the seventh grade there was talk about a book in the library that was full of sex so, naturally, I checked it out. It must have been in the Spring because I remember reading it on the back patio. My mom was sitting near me reading her bible while I sat there with eyes as big as saucers reading Clan of the Cave Bears. I just knew she would find out what I was reading. How could she not see my eyes darting from the book to her? She had to have at least heard the loud beating of my guilty heart - my tell-tale heart.

In Junior High books were an escape. An escape from the anguish of a life I felt I had no control over. Fear and dread and loathing melt away when you can immerse yourself in someone else's story. If that story was filled with fear and dread and loathing it was at least not my own. 

All throughout high school I devoured words - essays, poems, autobiographies, novels, cereal boxes, sugar packets. Seriously, anything with printed words that was within reach I consumed. Eventually, I started to let words spill out of me and into a diary and timidly into letters to my grandma Opal.

During my first stint in college I quit reading for pleasure - I was reading textbooks; so many dry textbooks. Unwilling, or unable, I'm not sure which, to read things I enjoyed I had one small outlet: writing. My friend Wendy and I got our first e-mail addresses which was perfect because Wendy was going to school in Bellingham. Our chats on her bedroom floor and under the large maple in her front yard moved to the computer labs at our respective schools.

These last two years since Mr. T started Kindergarten I have hungrily read (listened to) what feels like countless books. Everything from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to Les Miserables.

It has been in the last couple of months that I have taken to writing again - just for me. There is something so cathartic about seeing your words turn blue at the end of the pen as your hand helps give them shape. With a friend, sometimes two, I share even more words in the form of long emails. I am giving a little piece of me that I keep hidden from most everyone - it is the chaotic and messy truth. As the swirling thoughts in my head and ache in my heart make their way to paper, to my journal, to this blog, the confusion clears and the aches of my heart dull a little. 

Sometimes I'm the one receiving the words from a friend. As they speak or write their truth to me and I try on their pain or shoulder a bit of their burden, just as they have done of mine, we are building and reinforcing the foundation of our friendship. 

I wish I was more articulate with the spoken word and didn't have to rely so heavily on writing my feelings down to feel heard and understood. When words fall from my mouth they do just that:  fall. Flat and one dimensional and incomplete. I usually say too much as I think if I throw out enough words I will eventually utter the right ones or I say too little as words elude me. At least with the written word one can write and erase and delete and perfect and polish the thoughts before bundling them up and gifting them to a friend. 

Comedy of Errors

I went to our rental house this morning to wash windows and to power wash a balcony and the fence. While Ryan has been patching holes and working on electrical outlets I have been doing my Cinderella best to clean the two years’ worth of accumulated grime. Last week I exfoliated the bathtub. *shudder* It went from a sickly grey to an off white by time I was done with it. The downstairs bathroom was too horrific for me to describe here.

So, today was an easy day. 

With my audiobook, All the Light That Cannot Be Seen, keeping me company I washed the windows.When the windows were done I moved the power washer to the tiny balcony and went to put on my rain gear. 

After retrieving my rain boots from the car and I turned the doorknob to go back in the house to get something.

$*%^#! It was locked! Dread engulfed me. My purse and BOTH sets of house keys were in the house. All the windows were locked and we don't know the code to the garage's key pad. 

I called Ryan - he usually has good ideas. He asked if either sliding door was unlocked. "Yes. To the master bedroom. I was just on the balcony." Good. There was a tall ladder outside I could use to get to the balcony.

Sweet! Ryan wanted me to find a neighbor to hold the ladder but I was confident the ladder would hold because the ground was level with crushed gravel.

I climbed to the top of the ladder and I saw it move a little. It slid down a little. Not enough that I felt it but it took me no time to scramble back down the ladder to re-position it a little higher.

At the top of the ladder I examined the railing. It seemed sturdy enough for me to haul myself over. Once safely on the balcony I exhaled deeply and went to the sliding glass door. 

Locked!

Dear Lord, I am really good about locking doors.

Oh. No. I would have to climb back down the ladder.

There are two things you should know about me.

1) I hate jumping into water - anything other than a pencil dive from the side of the pool. As a kid I loved jumping from a hay loft into a piles of hay but I just couldn't do the pool. Still can't. 

2) I hate climbing down ladders. Going up? No problem. Going down? No, thank you. 

When I was 4 or 5 my brother Ike, neighbor Mundi and I climbed to top of the play house our dad built in our back yard. Everyone climbed down except me. Mom had to come get me because I wouldn't get on my belly and swing my legs over to the ladder

In second grade Ike and I climbed to the top of the old chicken coop on the property of the house we were renting. I was on the edge trying and failing to build up the courage to jump down. Ike helped me down with a shove to my back. 

So, I peer over the edge of the balcony. I may as well be on the high diving board. I call Ryan. Again. "We have to call a lock smith. I can't get down." 

We try to think of the neighbors who would be home. The neighbors wouldn't do me any good except act as a witness when I plunged to my paralysis. They couldn't get me to climb on the railing and swing my legs over.

"No. I'll try," I tell him as I'm imagining falling and cracking my head open on the first ledge of the retaining wall. I took off my clogs and set my phone in it - Ryan was still connected and listening for screaming or too long of silence.

I swung myself over the balcony and with my toes on the ledge I slowly and surely made my way on to the ladder. Positioning myself as close to the wall as I could I climbed down. 

Alive!

On to plan B. Ask a handy neighbor two doors down if he had any ideas or a hammer. The lock needed to be changed anyway and it would be cheaper to buy a whole new door knob than call a locksmith.

Neighbor wasn't home.

Plan C.

Find a big rock. 

About 10 cracks with the big rock and the knob came off and no one came to look to see who was making all of the noise.

More hitting with the rock before the door would open. Once inside I find the drill and unscrew the other side. The door closed. The knob comes off and the inside thingy fell out. Onto the porch. 

Recap: I'm in the house. The door is closed. Both knobs are off.

I can't disengage the latch. The part that would pull it back is on the other side of the door. The door is stuck again.  

Gah! This is the only door in the house. There is no back door. Ryan suggested going out through the garage and using a putty knife to disengage the latch. 

He sent me a text: "Don't close the garage door behind you." I sent him back a special emoticon.

I packed up everything I wanted to take home and put it in the car and made sure I had the house keys and car keys in my pocket before I closed the garage door. 

The putty knife wasn't working. I examined the piece in the middle and found something to pull back on which disengaged the latch.

Finally. Take off strike plate and remove latch. Stuff hole with napkins because? I guess I just don't like the big gaping hole in the door to let in bugs and cold even though bugs and cold will get in regardless.

Rather than stay and do more work and see what else I could bungle I pull the door shut, engage the deadbolt and go home. The power washing can wait another day.

Insanity

It is so exhausting trying to understand conservative Christians who support Trump. Who, with their actions, hate the earth that their God created.

I can hear it now, "April, we don't hate the earth."

Really? 

I've seen you take pride in your big rig that spews pollution in the air. 

I've seen you give me a smug smile when you throw a recyclable item in the trash. 

I've seen and heard your contempt for tree huggers. 

I've seen you enthusiastically support the current administration who is doing their best to dismantle the EPA. 

I used to be you. I know the disdain and contempt for the hippies in the cities who don't understand the plight of the fisherman, the logger, the miner (granted, I didn't grow up around coal miners).

For the conservative it is:  God > Jobs > People > Environment

That doesn't mean that for the liberal it is: People > Environment > Jobs > God - just kidding, they are all going to Hell since they are a godless lot. The liberal, with the bleeding heart, of course, cares about people and jobs. Lots of jobs are being lost to automation but focusing efforts on growing the clean energy sector could lead to loads of new jobs.

Recently, I was talking to some girlfriends about how we just don't understand how people who profess to love God and consider themselves followers of Christ don't, with their actions, care about the poor or live up to their pro-life stance (pro-gun, pro-death penalty and for the shame they heap on a woman for having a child out of wedlock - if you didn't have such loose morals you wouldn't be in this mess; don't use tax payer money to feed your bastard children; don't use tax payer money for birth control).

We were talking about how we have to choose our words carefully when talking to conservative Christians when talking about things like the environment.

We don't talk about saving the earth. We don't talk about climate change. We talk about how God gave man dominion over the earth and He charged us with taking care of it.

Then the message might get through a little.

I recall one conversation with a conservative Christian who didn't believe there is climate change so who cares about vehicle emissions? Okay, let's ignore the science - I did get him to agree the exhaust coming out of the car is bad for the human body and for life in general.

Shouldn't that be reason enough to care? To do something? To support legislation that aims to keep our air clean?

I don't know why this particular issue struck a nerve with me today but it did. I feel like I'm becoming numb to the insanity that is the White House.

How is it that the people who hated Hillary Clinton with every fiber of their being (email! Benghazi!) aren't up in arms over Trump's association with Russia? With his disdain for freedom of speech? With his conflicts of interest? With his ban on people who have already been vetted to come to our country in the first place?

This is just exhausting and demoralizing.