Shameful Memory #5: Tacky T-Shirt

It's been a while since I've written and, if you were to come inspect my organizational progress over the last month, I would be ashamed to admit there has been very little. Still Bea's closet is overwhelmed with my junk. Still the pile on the table in our bedroom sits untouched. Still the taunting boxes of file folders rest at my feet as I type, with an ever-growing amount of paperwork on top.

I have reasons - excuses - and they are good ones, but I won't bother explaining. Let's just say I've got other demands on my time right now.

However, despite my inability to let go of the tangible cluttering around me, I have more stories to tell, more memories to divulge, more shame to dump out and bury forever. Here's one that came up recently:

I was digging in storage last week for my box of fall decorations (which I never found, by the way - our apartment is going pumpkin- and turkey-less this season, sadly). I did find a box marked "Emily - Clothes" though. Inside were such treasures as the electric blue '80s full-length spandex jumpsuit that my friends gave me as a teenager, the hot pink dress I made for one of the (many) school dances I attended without a date, my old tennis uniform, and about 20 t-shirts from various events, places, and organizations of my past.

I figured the t-shirts were doing no one any good sitting in a box and that I might as well use them as sleepwear, if I never wear them in public. So I unloaded the lot into the laundry basket and they are now filling up an entire drawer of my dresser.

These t-shirts are each a memory in themselves; they represent a time of life for me that I want to remember even though I don't necessarily want to wear something that is men's size XL, roughly the shape of a major appliance, with sleeves that hit about two inches above my wrists. They all have stories, the kinds that tell "I went there" or "I did that".

One shirt in particular, though, tells more than just that story. It's the YHM t-shirt from 2001. YHM (Youth Hostel Ministry) is a program that I participated in while I was a student at Wheaton College. In 2000, I was part of one of the teams that went to Europe and worked in a youth hostel in the Red Light District of Amsterdam for two months. In 2001, I served as the Secretary for the leadership team, helping to train and equip the next year's travelers for their summer abroad.

As part of my duties as Secretary, or because I asked for the responsibility - I can't remember which - I was in charge of designing the t-shirt. Pretty much every organization imaginable on campus had a t-shirt. It was kind of a pain. I mean, as if you needed any more reminders that you came from significantly less money than most of the student body, you'd have to shell out $10 or $12 for a t-shirt every time you turned around even though you'd probably never wear it and it would one day just end up in a box in your storage along with the 20 other t-shirts you accumulated while you were there.

This didn't stop me from relishing my design task. It was so much power: people would be required - at least once when we had to host a chapel service - to wear my t-shirt. I would probably design the coolest t-shirt ever created in the history of campus-organization t-shirts and probably everyone would wear my t-shirt long after it was thread-bare. I was thinking big.

I got too conceptual. See, I had this whole idea about how you go out there [into the world] and your life is on display for everyone to see, you travel, you work, you play, you meet people, you live, and meanwhile all the things you do are speaking the Gospel. I thought of living life "on the air" as in, live from New York, as in everyone's listening, as in, whether we like it or not, we are broadcasting the name of Christ to the world all the time. So I dug up a nice clip art radio tower for the back of the shirt, and a cute little corresponding "ON AIR" tag line for the front. A relevant Psalm 73 verse completed the look. I thought I was very clever.

No one got it. As soon as the t-shirts were distributed, I started getting questions. I had to print up an explanation for the design and hand it out at our next group meeting. That was dismaying for certain, but the really critical thing wasn't my failure to communicate, it was the shirt itself. You see, I couldn't find the exact image of a radio tower that I had in mind. I was picturing something kind of simplistic - that "less is more" kind of thing where a few seemingly careless brush strokes magically form a jovial version of your object of choice.

Just now, I did a search for "radio tower" in MS Clip Art. Apparently, the clip art catalog has expanded dramatically since 2001:

Instead, I chose an image that had six colors. Six filled-in colors that must have been transferred onto the t-shirts via industrial-level paint rollers and were encrusted an eighth of an inch thick, giving the entire backside of the shirt a plasticky, immovable feel to it. I had also opted for long sleeves which, of course, were two inches too short on me. The combination of six printing colors and long sleeves made the shirts cost $18 a piece. People grumbled. I didn't blame them; I didn't even want to own that shirt when I saw it.

So now, it's years later. The shirt is not that bad. It's not a style I'd like to wear, but I doubt that anyone was as critical of how it turned out as I was. Yet I still feel kind of nauseous when I see it. And, like all my other Shameful Memories, it's mostly because of the pride that went before the fall. At least I'm beginning to see the theme. Maybe there is hope for me.

"A Confession on Thank Yous" Undo (Again)

Okay, okay. If the last time around didn't do it; this had got to finally cure me of my obsession over tracking thank you notes: yesterday, we received a thank you from our friends who I had previously listed here (but have now deleted).

Written on the outside of the envelope was a note that said the card had been penned a year ago and never mailed, apology for the outdated content, smiley face. Inside was the proof: it was all about how we were moving away from Illinois.

I think a late thank you note is actually much more charming than an expected one!

Fight the Hoarding!

A few episodes of Hoarders today made me delve a little deeper into Bea's closet, which is more like the dumping ground for all of my junk. My goodness, what a ridiculous amount of useless things I have kept over the years.

I made a couple important decisions today:

1) I am throwing out all the wedding invitation catalogs that I accumulated while I was toying with the start up of "Emily Blair Designs" back in 2007. And with them go the half-dozen paper sample books that I took from my paper supply store in Illinois. It felt very professional at the time, but I'd be lying if I said I'd looked at any of it even once in the past three years.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not throwing away my hopes of starting up a paper/card-related type of business. It is an ongoing dream of mine, shared with my sister Amy. And maybe I'm just kidding myself here, but I really think we can do it...someday. Anyway, I figure if I ever do get serious about that again, there will be plenty of current invitation catalogs and paper samples to accumulate then.

2) I am throwing out (most) of my clippings from entertainment magazines which included pretty much anything I could find on Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow as a couple, Nicole Kidman in Tom Cruise days, some Mel Gibson, some Harrison Ford. In my sickness (mild hoarding that is), I've convinced myself for now that it's okay to hang onto any Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, or James Dean clippings because they're classic. Oh, and David Duchovny. I have such an extensive collection of X-files related stuff, it's in a different league. I know I will have to throw it out eventually...but not...quite...yet.

Ultimately, I know I am doing the right thing here. Or at least I'm doing a morally neutral thing, but there is still some part of me that is sad because I think that in 30 years it would be really neat-o to look through a bunch of old magazines and when I'm 60 I'll be kicking myself saying, "What I really need right now is a good full-page spread of Brad Pitt from 1997."

Help.

Parenting Thought of the Day

I had a thought yesterday about parenthood, as I often do these days, and I'd like to write it down somewhere. I guess here is as good a place as any.

Allow me to severely preface this thought by saying that I do not think I am any sort of parenting expert just because I have one almost-six-month-old baby. Becoming a parent teaches you a lot; I think I have just barely begun to scratch the surface of how much. However, I don't think that just because I'm a newbie that I can't have one or two valuable thoughts on the subject. Also, I am not turning this into a "mommy blog" where I start posting you recipes for quick dinner casseroles, patterns for making your own organic cotton diaper bag, and tips on grass stain removal.

So, anyway. Here it is:

Parenting is a delicate balance between letting children be the exact age that they are and encouraging them to be older.

It's simple, I know. But that doesn't make it uncomplicated in practice.

Also, I am not trying to limit or define parenting by using the verb "is" here. This is just one aspect of parenting.

Can you tell I'm a little nervous about writing about parenthood? I'll try to get over it.

Shameful Memory #4: Playground Diva

The other day I was taking a walk outside in the sunshine with Beatrix and I was singing. I was making myself sing to her because I am usually a little reticent to sing aloud, but I think it's nice all the same. I'd like Bea to have fond memories of me, you know, singing in the kitchen while I bake chocolate chip cookies and stuff.

My singing repertoire for the baby is rather sparse. This is mainly due to my bad memory for lyrics. I should say that I can sing along to songs just fine; turn on the radio, it's like I know every word. But if I'm singing on my own, the lyrics just run out of my head. I sing hymns because I usually know the first verse really well. Christmas songs are good too. Most of the time I just end up humming.

The other problem is that I am an alto and I tend to start songs too high. (Secretly I suspect that I have perfect pitch and start them in the correct key, but that's still too high - I can never sing along with them in church either which is why I should really learn to harmonize.) Even some of my favorite hymns I can't pull off without dropping an octave mid-song. That's just not the kind of music lesson I want to give Bea.

So, anyway, the other day, walking and singing. I remembered that I knew this old David Wilcox tune rather well and I began to sing it. Unfortunately, this song comes with some baggage.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my closest girlfriends and I managed to befriend a particular group of boys. It was the hinge to the unfolding of our entire upper-classmen social lives. These boys were football players, and "popular". We were quiet and off the radar, though generally well-liked. The connection was sensational. I mean, we really hit it off. It started with one innocent invitation to hang out, a note on a windshield one afternoon, and suddenly we became one big happy co-ed family.

One day, over summer break or something, we (boys included) were hanging around one of the elementary school playgrounds in that sort of ironic, innocent, photo montage kind of way. Some of my friends were up on the monkey bars, others were going down the slide, I decided to be elusive over on the swingset. As I was swinging, trying to really soak in the beauty of teenage freedom or something as profound, I began to sing. (I was always doing this, posturing melancholy because I thought it seemed romantic.) I was singing "Show the Way" by David Wilcox. It was downright inspirational. You should have been there.

Somewhere around the second verse my good friend Betsy and one of the boys approached me and grabbed their own swings and we all swung together. I didn't stop singing...Why didn't I stop singing? I finished the whole song, chorus, verse, chorus, probably even added in the background vocal parts. And when I was finished, I think I just turned and started talking to my friends like everything was totally normal.

To this day I'm not quite sure what my motivation was. I think that I thought I was being appropriately reflective, possibly evangelistic, and that my friends would benefit by hearing the song. I think that I thought they would admire both my singing voice and my depth of character. As it stands, I actually have no idea what they thought of me, but I am nevertheless humiliated at the memory. I suppose it's fitting to feel humbled when you have undeservedly puffed yourself up.

Let's consider it lesson learned. Now, I just wish I could get that song back without the embarrassment attached. It's a good song. Go listen to it.

It Was Just Like a (Really Bad) Movie!

Digging through that box some more, I have found three different dreams that I wrote out. One of them was from October, 1997. The other two were from consecutive nights, June 4th and 5th, in 2008.

I should say that I have very vivid, intense dreams almost every night of the week. On any given morning, I can usually recall what I dreamt about, for the first few hours anyway. I have never regularly journaled my dreams, although I've considered it (at least twice, by the looks of it). Clearly, it has never stuck.

I'm not even sure why I wanted to write these particular dreams down. Perhaps it was just because I remembered so many details upon waking. Their content is certainly not of any lasting value. Somewhere in my narcissism, I have probably believed that I am actually precognitive and wanted it documented somewhere. On occasion, I have had an apocalyptic "vision", one that seems full of depth and divine clarity, with glimpses of judgment and rapture and heaven. You might think these are the sorts of dreams I would write down, but no.

Instead, here's a sampling of what I wrote:

10.4.97

The day I met Andy Garcia

I was sitting in some weird PTA kind of meeting with moms at his house. I look back and see him behind me. At an appropriate time I say, "...It's Andy Garcia." He asked me to come sit with him. He puts his arm around me and I cuddled up to him, but he is old and sort of fat with graying hair...After the meeting I turn to him and say, "So my name's Emily. I am a senior at Canby." There is some confusion here. "I am 20."

"What?"

I don't understand why I say this. "No, I'm 17. Sorry, I guess I was thinking I was going to turn 20." Ha, ha.

Everyone leaves the meeting and I meet his mom. She is weird and sort of insane. Something goes wrong, like I annoy him or I don't know. He walks outside and I'm like, "I've seen lots of your movies." He doesn't really believe me. I'm like, "I have, about 5 or 6!"

He says, "some movie I can't remember?"

"No." I step through doorway. "But I've seen Dead Again with Kenneth Branagh and I saw When a Man Loves a Woman and watched it repeatedly and Godfather Part III."

Then it was like, 'is that all?' So I'm trying to remember because I know I've seen another one...I hurry trying to figure out the other movie. I ask his sisters (little kids) and they tell me there's a list hanging on the wall. I look and find Untouchables...I walk to him and say, "I just have one word to say to you - Untouchables!"...For some reason this was like all I needed to say to make him warm up to me again but I don't know why. He is beautiful now - not old or fat anymore. We know we can't be together, but it was just happy, innocent love so we part.

My friends all rush up to me but they don't really want to listen to me. I can only say, "It was just like a movie!"

Wow.

The other two dreams are even more embarrassing because they are about people I actually know. Um, shredder.

4:20 Redeemed

I recently wrote a post about time in which I said that something has got to give, and it's not the baby. It also shouldn't be reading the Bible. A couple weeks ago, I confessed to Thom that I had only read the Bible on my own (as in apart from reading in church) about three times since Beatrix was born. I am not proud of this.

I've never been particularly disciplined about reading the Bible, partly because I have never been, nor ever will be (from what I can tell), a morning person and somewhere in my Baptist-under-the-name-of-Evangelical-Free-Church upbringing I was made to think that mornings are when you are supposed to read the Bible. Also, it's partly because I'm just lazy. And partly because I don't believe in making "devotional" time into a chore by being legalistic about it. And because I don't like the term "devotional". And also partly because I have a wandering spirit that sometimes doesn't like to hear the truth.

I managed to shake off the morning preconception long ago and in my most habitual times of independent Bible study (which have been lengths of months, even years, but always followed by extended lapses), I read at nighttime. This works out well when you have a regular job and a regular bedtime and you are a night person. It makes having to go to bed earlier than you'd like a little easier because you have in-bed activities to do. (Consequently, some might argue that that's a good transitional activity for morning, but they don't know how much of a morning person I am not.) Right now, however, I'm just home all day and, while I do have a somewhat regular schedule, I'm usually so greedy for sleep by the end of the day (knowing that it will be stolen from me at midnight and again at four by one seemingly innocent little cuddly baby) that I've just let the Bible reading fall by the wayside.

Thom offered to help out. He said that each afternoon, he'd take a break from work and watch Bea for a little while so that I could read the Bible. The next day, right at 4:20pm, he snapped his laptop shut and announced, "Go read your Bible!" I looked at the clock and laughed.

Well, we haven't been quite consistent with it since then, but we're making an effort...and if I could just get it into my groggy head, I am going to try to jump at the chance whenever I see those numbers glowing on one of our many digital clocks. If pot smokers can remember to light up even with significant brain cell loss, I suppose it shouldn't be too difficult for me.