a little family addition

after supper on our first date, robert told me he had something he wanted to show me back at his house. i looked out the window into the august night and whispered that i wasn't that kind of girl. he laughed, and pulled into the driveway. "i want you to check out my parent's 1985 volkswagon van!" he exclaimed. he popped open the top, and i watched as this almost stranger told me all about the memories he'd had in the van with his family, his boy scout troop, and his friends. and i think i fell in love with him a little bit on the spot.

eight years passed. and his parents sold the van. and we drove our little hondas around proudly. we took our sedans back and forth on the weekends to college, and made memories driving along the country roads near our home.

but last week, we saw this bad boy. a fully restored 1971 volkswagen camper bus. with a fresh paint job, new tires, new engine, re-sealed windows, and my favorite upgrade, heated seats. plus, there's a sink and an icebox. hello camping.

and we're in love. never before have we been treated with such attention driving around town. people stop and wave, give us thumbs up, and shout "love the bus!" it's so fun.

but the best part about our new ride? it got us thinking more seriously about filling the yellow and white checkered backseats with a little family. of bringing this whole story full circle. and holding robert's hand across the dashboard last night, i realized how perfect that first date turned out to be.

a heart that's too small

newspaper, newspaper. can't take no more. you're here, every morning, waiting at my door. and i'm just trying to kiss you and you stab my eyes. make me blue forever like an island sky.

-conor oberst, milk thistle

 xxx

my co-worker shares his rolling stone magazines with me. once a month, i come into the office to find an issue waiting on my desk, usually heralding the latest pop culture phenomenon, or new summer album release. two days ago, he shared something different. his newsweek.

and between a feature of rhianna and a never-before-seen interview from liz taylor, there was an article on the war. one single glance and i was done with for the day. because my heart can't take it.

i am ruled by conscience. and purity. when i was younger, and a bad thought would sneak its way into my mind, i would write it down on construction paper and slip it under my mama's bedroom door. sometimes i would be dramatic and circle the place where my tears hit the paper, with an arrow and the words "here is where i cried." because through the act of writing it down, of getting it out on paper, i was subsequently releasing it from my spirit. and until i told someone, i felt awful. guilty. maybe that's why i blog now. to share with you my happiness, yes, but also my demons. my struggles. 

and i internalize things. like the news. like magazine features with awful images unfit to print. and they stay with me and embed themselves so deep into me that i can't distinguish myself from the muddle.

and i'm not naive. i'm not so blissfully happy or innocent that i don't know the terror that's going on overseas. or here in our home country. or one city away from me. some people have big hearts. they give and give and are so beautiful. but sometimes mine feels too small. it's not that i don't care, i just care so fervently that i render myself immobile. and thus ineffective.

so i tucked the newsweek in my office drawer. chiefly because rhianna is splattered on the cover wearing something between underwear and shorts, and i did not think that proper workplace fodder. but also because i know what's inside those pages. and if i ever, ever doubt my ability to feel (as i sometimes do. when the world gets mundane and slow and routine, i become a bit numb), those images will snap me back.

back to a world that is scary. overwhelmingly so. but also fluid. and for every terror there is a beauty. and it's easy to hide away. to squirrel myself in my room. my car. my office. but there's a God pouring sunlight  through my windows right now, glaring up my screen and reflecting off my arms. and He instructs me to push forward through the murk. because He has a handle on situations that i can't touch. and that's good news.

when you're not strong

one summer in college, i interned as a fact-checker for the in-flight magazines of several major airlines. it was my first real position, and by this i mean the first time i went shopping for "work clothes." for slacks that didn't have zippers up the pant leg. for cardigans. modest necklines. stud earrings. i felt so grown up, and though the job was only temporary, i felt part of a group for once. 


i sauntered into the building, with it's cold tile floors and gray cloth cubicles. with its veteran workers who called each other by their first names and ate out for lunch every friday at their favorite spot. i was, in a word, prepared.


however, my confidence reached a crumbling point with every phone call i had to make. as a stutterer, the phone is the bane of my existence. the bane, i tell you! and i spent all day on it. calling random sources, verifying information. i scoured the Web for all the answers i could find, but more often than not, there was no way around picking up that instrument of doom and speaking into the mouthpiece, waiting for confused silence to come wafting through the earpiece.


one afternoon was particulary hard. i home on the verge of tears. what is it about seeing your mama's face that just sucks the tears right out of whatever strong, pulled together place you were holding them? hoarding them until you were alone? at the very sight of her, i crumbled into a shaking, sobbing mess. then i turned to my sister.


"i can't do it, carly. i can't call this man."  i was supposed to contact someone in reference to a story on michael symon, the celebrity chef. and for some reason, on this particular day in july, i had reached my breaking point.


i asked my sister to call him for me. in the background, i heard mama pipe up. "courtney, don't make your sister do that...."


but she did. she didn't say anything to me, just took the paper with the number, went upstairs to the closet we shared, and called him. she ran back downstairs, told me she left him a message, and hugged me.


i had to call him back the next day. but i'll never, ever, in my entire life, not even if i live until i'm 102, forget that afternoon. the slack she picked up. the sacrifice she made so i could be comfortable, saved from my own inflictions of low confidence.
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my favorite character in the Bible is moses, because not only does his stutter endear him to my heart, but because when God asked him to go speak to His people in egypt, moses' reaction, in all its honesty and truth, mimics what my own would be. he begs the Lord to send someone else to do it instead. and who does He send? his brother aaron. he spoke to the people for and through moses, in a manner not unlike carly speaking through me.
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this evening, before eating supper with nanno and before wheel of fortune, i was watching the news. about the flood in queensland, australia. 13-year-old jordan rice, on the hood of his car, waters gathering all around him, told a man grabbing for his hand to "save my brother first." his brother and mama were saved, but he was swept away. sacrifice to the highest degree. but i bet if we could ask him, he'd simply chalk it up to brotherly love.
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and it's not just siblings. best friends. cousins. mamas and daddys. 


sacrifice doesn't always come in the form of a burning bush or a flood.


sometimes, as in my case, it's a simple act of taking upon one's shoulders a load that is simply too.much.to.bear. for someone else.


because in sharing, we lighten. and in lightening, we open up room for loving. and in loving, we start the cycle all over again.