Be Strong, Be Fierce, Get Over It. (New Blog) 28 August 2008

Having arrived at my parents’ condo in Lakewood, I am reminded all the more that I am a guest here by the fact that my father is at work and my mother is doing some sort of volunteering job until dinnertime. I have to beg the office manager to let me in. When this does not work, I have to have my mother call him. I am now sitting on these leather chairs they would have never had while I lived at home, wondering about a fancy charity dinner we are all three attending later this evening, and second-guessing my decision on stopping here on the way to stepping off into the unknown. As usual, I feel a mixture of comfort and discomfort common when  you are visiting your parents’ home in which you have never lived.

I asked a friend last night what the hell I thought I was doing. He threw my own words back at me about adventuring, told me I was strong and fierce, and to get over it.

Please visit my new blog at
phoenixkater.blogspot.com

And now I think I will watch the Blue Angels practice maneuvers from my parents’ balcony, because no one can ever gain the soul of a writer indoors lamenting on her keyboard.

Books as Friends 26 August 2008

I love reading. I love books. But sometimes, when I finish one that has been particularly good to me, I feel like I’ve lost a friend. And I don’t really know what to do afterwards. Do I read it again? Do I go read the reviews? Do I call up my mother and make her read it next? Do I cry? (I will admit that sometimes I cry.)

I’ve decided that as a writer, I don’t need to make a million dollars, or have millions of copies of my books in print. I just want someone to feel they have lost a friend when they’ve finished reading something I’ve written. Or slow down the last few chapters to make it last longer. Or crack it open and immediately start reading again. If my writing can do this for one person, I will be happy.

Thanks, Miss Smith 23 August 2008

My 5th grade gym teacher had a framed poster in her office. It said, “You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take.” It was a basketball sign, and for a while I took it literally (probably one of the reasons I didn’t make the team). Now of course I know it applies to life, the universe, and everything - the only time you are completely destined to failure is when you “play it safe” and don’t even try.

I’m going to see if I can track down Miss Smith’s old poster, because I’d like to take this mantra with me on my adventure to Boston. So I don’t miss anything.

Autophobia 21 August 2008

As excited as I have been about this trip to Boston, over the last few days another, meaner feeling has crept in and taken over my mind. It’s pure, unadulterated fear. I fear loneliness, and suddenly I am faced with the good possibility it will grip me a lot of the time while I am away. I’ve never done this before - when I went off to college I was immediately surrounded by dorm mates, many with whom I still keep in contact to this day. When I left college and moved out to Maine, I was moving in with Tom. And now I’m here. And while I thought I could be stronger in this move, in this new adventure, something has happened and I am now reluctant to put even my big toe into the water. That strangling, suffocating fear of being alone takes hold of me, and I can’t imagine enjoying anything that is going to be out there to enjoy unless I am accompanied. I am confused about my choices, I no longer see a clear picture of my future, and worst of all, I’m letting it make my last few days here complete hell.

I think part of it is that I am leaving in only a week, but I still have a week of being here (mostly alone) to get more and more nervous. If I had it my way, and I wasn’t scheduled for work, and I didn’t have responsibilities here at home, I would have left already, to make it begin instead of waiting with choking anticipation. Because deep down I know, logically, that I will have a good experience there, and I’ll be able to see this the minute I arrive. But right now my heart is so mangled I can’t see through the haze of fear, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and confusion. This isn’t what an adventure is supposed to begin with, is it?

Customer Service 19 August 2008

While I try my hardest not to let rude customers bother me, sometimes I am shaken anyway. And lately, instead of huffily taking care of the next customer (who might be perfectly cheery and nice), I take a moment to feel sorry for that rude customer. Rude people can’t be happy, deep down. Somewhere in their lives, they are lonely, or unfulfilled, or frustrated, and the only way they can look at the world is by thinking everyone is out to get them. So they come into my line, interrupt me as I’m just trying to do my job, and attempt to make themselves feel better by making me feel awful. I soldier on, not missing a beat, and try to give them the biggest sincere smile I can muster before they stalk off. More often than not, I probably look more constipated than sincere, but I attempt it anyway. And then I turn to my next customer, knowing the chance is very low that he or she is also that rude, and start all over again. But I still try and feel bad for that rude old man, or that snappy woman, and wonder how things got bad enough to make them act that way.

I hope no matter how frustrating things get in my life, I never resort to that withdrawn, bitter place.

Life 18 August 2008

“Let me go through life the way we are, after all is said and done, meant to: shocked.”

Rachel Kadish, Tolstoy Lied

Zombie Doctor 18 August 2008

This afternoon, as I was checking on my nice, 3cm-long scar on my hip from a mole removal, I had a random thought - when people dress up like monsters, pirates, zombies, etc. and draw scars, why do they always include the cross-lines of sutures? I don’t know many emergency room doctors that would sew up a zombie, and as far as I know there weren’t many Urgent Care facilities in the Caribbean rum ports. Is it just because the stitch marks make the scar more recognizable as a scar?

Maybe this Halloween I will dress up as, instead of a zombie, a zombie’s doctor.

Small Pleasures 15 August 2008

There’s nothing like the little things to make your not-so-fun, have-to-clean, lonely-at-home night a little brighter: like finding there really was one more Oreo hiding in the pack.

A Confession: I Don’t. 11 August 2008

“Writing is a form of prayer.”  Franz Kafka

I don’t believe in God. I wasn’t comfortable saying this until a few years ago, when I became friends with other nonbelievers (secular humanists, post-theologians, Freethinkers, atheists, etc.) who showed me that admitting such a thing isn’t taboo. For a long time, I would tell people I was agnostic, or searching, or still a little unsure, or even that I just didn’t like organized religion. But I was lying to them, and to myself. I’m not searching, or unsure, and while it is true that I don’t care for organized religion, the rest was just gloss. I don’t believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful being that created me and the earth in six days and has the power to control everything, all at once, all the time. I just don’t.

I remember a few years ago I attended an Interact function for Rotary International. I was in high school, fighting with my parents every week to get out of church on my one day a week to sleep in. In addition to being a service organization, Rotary is a Christian organization, so I wasn’t surprised when everyone bowed their heads to pray before dinnertime. As usual, I sat quietly and politely, my hands on my lap, my head held high and my eyes plainly open, waiting to eat. Though I usually try to maintain as much decorum as possible, this is one area I have never been able to enter. I will not pretend to pray. I noticed a few other open eyes around the table and we smiled at each other, silently agreeing that we were there for the community service, not for the sermon. After the “Amens” and the food had begun to pass, a boy piped up across the table about Heaven and Hell. I don’t think his discussion was directed at me, or any other non-prayers at the table, but he was hard to ignore. His opinion was simple: Christians were going to Heaven. Everyone else was going to Hell. I think this was the point where I decided, once and for all, that I was satisfied with my atheism. Yet I still waited a long time to “out” myself to my family.

A few weeks ago my grandmother outed me. “Why don’t you believe in God?” she asked. My grandmother is a very religious person, and her belief in God has gotten her through some very dark times. I don’t doubt that her faith has helped her in her life, even perhaps saved her life at times, and I never intend to try and demean her personal faith. But I had to come clean.

“I just never have,” I said. “It’s nothing anyone did or didn’t do. I’ve just never felt comfortable putting my life into the hands of something else that I can’t see and can’t feel.”

“So you don’t pray,” she said.

“No,” I answered. I thought back to a few mornings before, sitting in church next to her, head up and eyes open as she prayed with all her might. I went because it made her happy. Now she knew it meant nothing more than that.

“Who do you turn to when you’re at your very lowest?” She asked.

I thought about this for a moment, but the answer that came out wasn’t what I would have expected myself to say. “I write,” I said.

She was silent, and then said, “Your writing is very spiritual to you, isn’t it?”

“Not spiritual,” I said, “just therapeutic. It’s important. I gather strength from myself through my writing.”

This answer sated her for the time being, but I could already see my name on her church’s bulletin the next week: “Pray for Kate’s Soul.”

I thought about it more and realized that although I don’t believe in God, I believe in faith: faith in my own voice. And my writing strengthens my soul as much as a prayer strengthens my grandmother’s. I may not believe that my soul will live for eternity, but my writing can. My words will. And in the strength I pull from my writing, travel, new experiences, constant learning, I can make my own Heaven right now: one that I know I will get to, because I am already there. One that I know I will deserve because I have worked hard for it. And I am finally comfortable saying it, after all these years. I don’t believe in God. I believe in me.

“It’s the wonder of nature, baby!” 4 August 2008

Flashback to 1996.

I’m 14. The movie Twister has just come out. And more than anything else, I want to be a tornado chaser. I am that geeky girl who dreams of moving to Oklahoma, getting a Dodge Ram, and moping through the winter until it’s glorious tornado season once again.

I like to think this silly part of my life is well in the past, but I would just be kidding myself and everyone else. I was reminded that I still have a touch of Twister in me the other day, as dark clouds built outside the coffee shop where I was trying to finish my first Master’s submission. I left the computer screen and bolted outside, where I stood in rapt attention as the temperature dropped and wind picked up. I watched the lightning, smelled that impending storm smell, and closed my eyes to feel the breeze on my face. What was it that still fascinated me about this weather well after I’d given up my dream of that Dodge Ram pickup?

Maybe it’s the promise of watching something both dangerous and beautiful at the same time. Maybe it’s the chance of seeing something rare, something different. Most likely it’s the raw power of a thunderstorm as it barrels across the land, showing no mercy, that raises the hairs on my arms. Do I need to get out more? Perhaps. But sometimes (mostly when I should be doing other things), I am no happier than when I am leaning on a porch railing, camera in hand (just in case), feeling a damp wind on my face, and scanning the horizon for cracks of light and whirling wind.

And it is in these moments I realize that you can take the girl out of the rural, but you can’t take the rural out of the girl.