"Echoes," pt. 2

Here's part two...you'll have to wait a week for part three -- I'm going on a canoe trip to Minnesota!

At eleven years old my world was rocked like the carefully balanced tray carried by a server. I had meticulously placed each platter and drink, each friend and family member, on my tray, and now I was knocked off-balance. I struggled frantically to grasp at the sliding dishes, but with no success. My diligence had come to naught; I was left empty-handed and embarrassed.
Hugging myself in the brisk fall air, I stood outside our new home in Pittsburgh, 400 miles away from Baltimore. 400 miles away from Nan. Away from Shelby, my best friend and confidante.
Goodbye.
I looked at the old, brown shutters and compared them to the freshly painted black ones of my old house. The huge pine tree in front of the townhouse covered up the big window on the first floor and almost the entire half of the house. Cold and hostile, it seemed to echo the fact of its rental nature: not a home where the floorboards are worn out with your regular steps or the wall of the bedroom dented where you continually slammed open your door year after year. Here, I was a guest.
At thirteen, I had regained some of my lost confidence – Nan, though far away, still poured out her grandma-love to me and I wrote letters to her every week. She came to visit each summer, bringing Shelby with her. It was my favorite week of the year. Nan would bring peach buns and crabmeat; Shelby and I would climb under the covers of the same double bed to whisper secrets and dreams, and, for a brief moment, I could almost imagine that everything was the way it always was, that I had a place to belong.
Goodbye!
Again, my Nan and Shelby would get in Nan’s car and return home to Baltimore. After a couple of summers, though, Shelby wouldn’t come back when Nan did.
Goodbye!
I have said this word often in my short life, and each time it feels excruciating. Each time it feels as if my tray has been knocked over, just after I’ve finally picked up the pieces. This simple phrase contains the word “good,” and yet nothing about saying it seems good. It seems only to bring heartache and loneliness and desire for a time, a place that was, but is no more.

"Echoes", pt 1

I just finished a piece for my Creative Non-fiction class. I'll share it with you all, but I'll do it in installments, like Charles Dickens :-) I think it works well for that, as I have the piece divided into sections that are linked by theme, not as a narrative. The temporary title is "Echoes" -- I'm not sure if I want to keep it.
Enjoy!

p.s. for those of you who read my "Weight of Words" essay, this part won't be new -- I stole the first section of it for this piece -- but it is a little different! so read on :-)


In the beginning was the word!
Arms lifted, eyebrows raised, Dr. Paul Kilpatrick gestured emphatically from the front of the classroom at 8 a.m. It was too early for most of us, having just crawled out from our blankets and used what energy there was to climb three flights to our classroom. Yet the words of the apostle John jumped from Dr. Kilpatrick’s lips as he laid the foundation for Linguistics 201.
With his token brightly-colored shirt rolled up at the cuffs, denim jeans, and cowboy boots, Dr. Kilpatrick paced the front of the room. He stroked his goatee as he continued his lesson, attempting to reveal to us the mystery of language, its beginnings and its diversity.
Most of us were barely conscious, barely aware of the life-giving words he was offering us. Thankfully, the words didn’t stay in that room, but remained with me, shaping the way I think about words, and, in particular, writing.
Words are able to resonate within my soul, to continue speaking long after the speaker ceases. They repeat themselves back to me, like a shout into a cavern, echoing faintly, yet clear and distinct. Words can shake the walls of my soul, and my soul both absorbs them and speaks them back.
In the best of moments, the words that echo back bring life and peace. Mirroring the words of God in the creation of the world, words can create a world of beauty in the soul. Words bring life primarily because they are relational; they bring opposites into communion. Christ, as the Divine Word, is the ultimate example of this restoration. He brings my sinful self into communion with the holy Father, with others, and with myself. Words, of course, cannot throw a shadow onto the magnificence of Christ's work of reconciliation. But they are, nonetheless, a shadow of that work and are able to mimic it.
Words bring me into communion with God. With words he calls me to himself, sending his Spirit to shatter my heart of stone. He gives words so I may praise him in joy; he gives words so I may cry to him in anguish. With words he writes his law on my heart and my name in his Book of Life. He bridges the gap between heaven and earth with words that are sharper than a two-edged sword; able to divide soul and spirit, bone and marrow; and able to breathe life into my dead heart.
Words bring us into communion with others. With words we speak love and peace. Words can heal and bind up, create intimacy and harmony. They are the means by which we connect our lives with others, bringing wholeness. And the written word takes this even further, creating a link between two worlds, two times, bringing refreshment and enlightenment to the thirsty. “You build a world in what you say,” says Diane Glancy. “Words—as I speak or write them—make a path on which I walk.”