A New Prayer

Recently, God has put a new prayer in my heart.  I barely heard it at first, and then I was sure I was mishearing it, but now I sing it every day.

In high school, I used to pray daily for three things.  I would get to school, run up the three flights of stairs to the chapel, fling my backpack down outside the doors, enter the calm and quiet space.  I'd drop to my knees before the closed tabernacle and beg God to give me peace, courage, and strength.

Peace, courage, and strength, I'd plead.  Please, God.  Give me peace, courage, and strength.

Peace, because I was always so close to being consumed by my overwhelming anxiety and perfectionism.  Courage, because I knew I had a voice, but I didn't know how to use it.  Strength, because I was always so weary of the world around me.

In college, my prayer slowly changed.  I learned how to make my own peace; I found my courage and pressed forward; God made me strong and never let me fall.  Over time, that old prayer fell away, although it still rises to my lips, unbidden, when I can't think of anything to say.  It's my oldest and most favorite mantra.  But I was soon asking God to help make me great, to show me how to change the world, to give me happiness, to help me feel important, to give me opportunities to make differences.

Make me great... so that I can help others.

What good intentions my selfishness cloaked itself in.

The past year, a new prayer has quietly been growing within me.  The desire to be great has died down and taken a new form.  I still want to make changes and do good, but the wording has twisted itself beautifully in me now, I believe.

God, give me a servant's heart.

This is the wish that springs to my mind when I let myself be quiet and show myself to God.  He has been grooming me slowly and patiently into His servant.  I believe He has wanted this for me my whole life, giving me Therese of Lisieux as an example, whom I have loved since I was 7 years old.  She has held my hand all these years, and I have finally asked God to strip away all that which I have previously wanted and simply to give me the heart of a servant.

I have so many wishes within me, and I have never known how to accomplish them.  I want to do so much, and I have been working, working, working tirelessly (though I have taken more than my fair share of rests).  I am still surprised when I hear my own prayers, but there they are, whispers growing ever louder:

Give me a servant's heart.

Love Letters to New Orleans

Nola

I hear you easy in the morning
when your notes slip gold from your trumpet
and slide down the empty underbelly
of the interstate on-ramp,
floating fresh and clean and pure
above the dirty wet pavement

You are the grit beneath
my bitten fingernails
that I can’t ever scrub away,
while the homeless wilt beneath
that great big boiling sun,
under the unseeing glazed eyes
of dead men forever immortalized in stone,
the statues high above on sturdy columns

And it’s all so sad and beautiful,
just desolate enough to completely break my heart,
but enough shades of beauty
to keep me under this paperweight,
and you and I both know
that there are countless tiny reasons,
both beautiful and sad,
that hold me down, against my will,
but completely my own choice. 

-----

Crescent City

Have you ever had a love affair with this city?
So madly and deeply and painfully in love with this place
that you swear it must be a sin,
but when you walk into that big old echoing cathedral,
you find you’ve got nothing to confess

She’ll pin you down and smile into you with her curves,
that one big sweep of the river, and the little tug boats
will pull you up and away and down through
the muddy waters, and it’s not just that you can’t
fight the current— it’s that you don’t want to

She has her good days and her bad days but
most of all she has her ways, her mystery and
her charm and if you ever think of leaving her,
she’ll pass a plate of spices and something fried
under your nose, and you’ll sit back down

Have you ever had your heart broken by this city?
Have you ever been held back by the arms of
the oak trees, knocked over by the gently flapping
flags hanging from the wrought iron balconies,
tied down by the latitude and longitude of
the sleepy, easy way of life?

Have you ever begged for permission to leave her?
But once she hangs her heavy head and lets you go,
pulls a hurricane from within her depths to flush you out
and give you the excuse you need,
you realize you never wanted anything more
in your whole life than to love her back,
even if you find yourself drowning in that specialty of hers,
her all-consuming love

-----

Hope

we went back

they said don’t go, they said
there was no hope

there is always hope

but

nothing could prepare us
for the stench rising from the streets,
rotten food and spoiled meats
and dead dreams

nothing could prepare us
for the big dripping painted X’s
letting us know who was dead
and where they died

nothing could prepare us
for making the big sweeping turn,
our eyes starving for the sight
of the glittering city lights,
skyscrapers and festivities,
but nothing could prepare us
for the darkness, the emptiness,

nothing could prepare us for
the loneliness, the pain, the despair

but

there is always hope

30 Days of Poetry

I'm proudly joining Denise Hopkins in her 30 Days Challenge.  Denise began this type of challenge this past April, where she completed 30 paintings in 30 days, including blog posts that left me marveling.  This September, she invited others to join her in doing something for 30 straight days.

I waited until almost the last day to sign up.  You may notice from my last blog post that things involving the word "challenge" involve a great deal of thought from me.  So do things that involve doing something for an extended period of time, re my quitting the 100 Happy Days challenge.

But when I think about it, those instances may be more exception than rule for me.  I successfully completed my personal "One Good Thing a Day" for 365 days.  And my most treasured accomplishment: I successfully completed the full month of NaNoWriMo, where I wrote over 1,600 words a day for a month straight.  I didn't plan for that one, either.  I signed up to do it two days before it started, with no plot and no sense of direction.  Since November of 2012, those 50,000 words have turned into an entire novel that I'm in the middle of editing.

And yet, having been inspired by Denise's first go-round of 30 days of paintings, I attempted to do a month of poetry in May.  I survived 8 days of that before giving up, exhausted and frustrated.

Of course, I had no one to hold me accountable, and I had bound myself with a couple of rules for my poetry that left me feeling confined and uncreative.  This time, I told myself, I would just let go and write, the way I had done for NaNoWriMo.  But I still woke up today feeling nervous, and when I sat down before my notebook, I felt an odd sense of loneliness.  I knew I had the solidarity of the others doing this challenge with me, in their own unique styles and media, but I felt a bit helpless alone with my paper and pen.

I write, a lot.  But no one reads it, and when I do post it, I'm more or less anonymous.  People will (presumably) be reading my work for 30 straight days.  People I probably know.  Yikes.

But I'm committed.  I wasn't certain about how the sharing would go, since I never post an explanation or disclaimer of my writing.  Denise was the one who taught me that, about 5 years ago, and I've stuck pretty closely to that rule.  So how would I go about sharing my poetry via blog post?  Just put a poem up each day and leave it at that?  Seemed kind of boring.

So I'll be sharing the poem each day on the 30 Days blog, along with a scanned picture of the original version of it as I write it in my notebook.  But still no explanation.  I'd like my words to mean what they need to mean for each individual who reads them.

Sometimes I think I'm way too serious about this sort of stuff.  Enh.  I'm not even really sure what I'm looking to gain or get out of this endeavor.  I'm just trying not to be afraid of it.

See you at the end of September... and every day until then!

Why I Did the ALS Challenge

If you've been on the Internet in the last week at all, I'm sure you've noticed the sudden influx of videos of people dumping buckets of ice water on their heads.  And I'm sure you've noticed the backlash.  Because nothing can happen on the Internet without there being an enormous backlash of some sort.  (And I can't do anything without thinking about it for ages and without writing about it.)

I was kind of dreading being tagged to do this challenge, for so many reasons.  When the challenge started, it seemed kind of funny and cool.  I originally saw it being posted as "Dump a bucket of ice water on your head and donate $10 to any charity, or don't dump the bucket and donate $100."  Now, I typically see "Dump as much ice water on your head as possible in the most creative way as possible."

I felt like it lost it's original purpose as it became a trend, and I tend to balk from trends.  I didn't understand where the donation part went.  I didn't want to be part of something that was trendy just for being trendy.  So I did what I do when confronted with a dilemma: I read.  A lot.  I read a lot of articles, both for and against the challenge.  (For your own amusement, here's one against it-- though the author changed his mind slightly later-- and here's one for it.)  I read up on ALS.  Prior to this, I didn't even know what ALS stood for.  I only knew (vaguely) what it was because of Steve Gleason.  At least I now know that it stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and have a more general understanding of what the disease does.

And then I thought for a good long while about why I didn't want to do the challenge:

• It was trendy.  I don't typically like being part of trends.
• The donation is the most important part of this, and people seem to be forgetting that.
• I would be judged by my friends who are against it.
• I would be seen as a follower, even by people who are for it.

And then I thought for a good long while about why it might be a good reason to do it:

• Say what you will, but enough people dumping a bucket of anything on their head will raise awareness for any cause.
• It worked: the trend brought ALS to my attention and caused me to do research and learn new things.  It also inspired me to donate whereas I probably wouldn't have before.
• The call to donate is greater than the call to dump a bucket of ice water on myself.  But $100 is not in my budget at the moment.  $10 certainly is, and I can do better than that, so why not do a fun combination of donating and the challenge?
• Wait, wasn't one of my main reasons not to do this was my fear of being judged?  Slow your roll with your pride and vanity there, Erica.  That's as good a reason as any to do it.  Lighten up.  Dump some water on your head and don't be poised about it.  Geez.
• Be swept up with something for once.  And don't care what anyone else thinks.

There are so many conflicting opinions, about everything, not just this.  I do so much research about things that I often don't form any solid opinion, because I see both sides clearly and don't prefer one over the other.  What's worse, though, is that as a result and without a solid opinion, I simply don't do anything.  It's not so much because of apathy, but because I don't want to offend someone.  That's the worst thing to me.  I don't want to offend anyone, so I don't get involved.

So this time, I got involved.  I dumped water on my head, which I personally think won't do anything, but maybe it will convince someone else to do it and thus donate.  Hopefully this sudden flurry of donations headed towards ALS research will have an impact.  I simply wonder what trend will strike next, and how I-- and the Internet-- will react to it.

Why I Quit Hashtagging My 100 Happy Days

Before I begin, I want to make it very clear that I don't have any issues with anyone else who does this challenge.  I think it's great.  I think it's got a good goal and is decreasing world suck.  Please, please don't take this blog as a criticism of the challenge.  I just want to explain why it wasn't a good challenge for me.  And it's not because I'm pregnant.  Which I'm not.

A brief run-down, gentle readers:

The #100happydays challenge is an online, pre-set goal for its participants.  Clicking the link will bring you to the challenge's website with a more detailed description of this quick oversight.  Basically, participants agree to take a picture of something that makes them happy every day for 100 days in a row.  They share each picture daily on the social media platform of their choosing, including the hashtag #100happydays (so the challenge creators can follow it) or a similar hashtag of their choosing.

I saw this challenge and jumped at it, all but foaming at the mouth.  You may remember (or not; I don't know how important remembering the banalities of my life is to you) that a couple of years ago, I made a similar challenge for myself, which I lovingly called OGTAD (One Good Thing a Day).  I wrote a short journal entry about something good pertaining to my day, every day, for an entire year.  I had started that challenge for myself because I was in a very unhappy place in my life and was looking for anything that would help me find some sort of light.

So when I saw a one hundred day picture challenge, I was excited.  100 days, compared to my previous 366?  Piece of cake.  A quick snapshot taken on my phone instead of a page of writing?  Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.  Sharing it on any of my SMS, to which I am already so disturbingly attached because I love oversharing?  Bring it on.  I immediately made myself an instagram account (a SMS I had previously been blatantly ignoring) and started hashtagging away.

By the end of the first week, I was kind of stressed out.  By the end of the second week, I was just plain unhappy.  So after Day 14, I quit.

I had complained to a couple of people about wanting-not-wanting to quit, because apparently, 71% of people quit because they "don't have enough time."  I did not want to be part of that statistic.  And I don't actually consider my failure, though I'd rather not call it that, to be included in that 71%, because it certainly wasn't for lack of time.

Here's a list of reasons why the #100happydays were making me unhappy.  But, to be fair to the challenge, these are MY OWN ISSUES and are definitely NOT issues with the challenge.  So for every point of mine about why the challenge didn't work for me, I'm including a counterpoint as to how I could have avoided it to continue on with the challenge more happily:

• Instagram:  Why did I choose to jump into a daily challenge by using a platform I had never experienced before?  That was probably my first mistake.  But I didn't want to be blasting these pictures on facebook, where I felt they might get annoying.  (I don't know why I thought a daily picture would be less annoying anywhere else.)  Do I actually think other people's daily pictures are annoying?  No.  I just have such a big issue of projecting on other people that I feel like ONLY my daily pictures would be considered annoying.  Narcissus, meet your reflection.
• I could have made my account private.  I could have submitted the photos to the website itself, and then no one would have had to see them.  I made a bad platform choice for myself, even though the challenge offers ways to avoid this.

• Hashtags:  I had never used a hashtag before, not even ironically, until my first picture on Day 1. It kind of made me feel uncomfortable.  Sometimes I tried to be funny, and sometimes I just tried to hashtag how I thought I was supposed to hashtag, but clearly, I'm slipping into a generational gap or something, because I just don't like them.  I feel silly, and the sillier I felt, the sillier I tried to make my hashtags, but I just feel weird about them.  I don't know.
• I only had to use the hashtag #100happydays.  I was not obligated to come up with any other hashtags besides that one.  I didn't have to use them at all, if I had just sent the pics in via email to the website.

• Tangibility: I felt like all the things that made me happy during the day had to be something tangible... otherwise, how could I take a picture of it?  If my favorite song came on the radio, how was I suppose to express that in picture?  Should I take a picture of my stereo... while I was driving?  Should I write down the lyrics and take a picture of them?  You see where I'm going.
• As noted above, there are clearly options of how to overcome the tangibility/intangibility issue.  I was probably just being lazy and bitter towards the challenge.

• Immediacy:  This was one of the most frustrating issues that I had.  I felt like I was constantly having to be on the lookout for something (tangible!) that I could hurriedly take a picture of in order to get that picture up and make my day count.  I'd be eating a piece of chocolate at noon and think, "Oh, my God, what if this is the happiest thing to happen to me all day?  I better take a picture."  Then, an hour or two later, I'd see a pretty flower and think, "Does this make me happier than the chocolate?  I better take a picture."  And so on.  Soon, my phone was full of stupid pictures of things that were kind of pointless, and I felt like I was cheating because I was saving up all these happy moments, making them competitive, instead of just picking one to post. 
• Immediacy, Part 2:  Let's use an actual example from my instagram: Michael and I went out to eat at the Blue Crab one night.  That made me happy, so I took a picture of the menu and posted it with my happy hashtag.  An hour later, as we were eating, the sun sank into a gorgeous sunset, which some of you may know can make me happier than just about anything.  I loooove sunsets.  But I had already posted my happy picture, so I got this feeling like I had wasted it.  And that is not the point of this challenge.
• I know it's called Instagram, but that doesn't mean I couldn't have taken part in the fascinating subculture of the latergram hashtagging.  The competitiveness I felt between storing up my happy moments or "wasting" one was a product of my own internal frustration.

So what does that all come down to?  I was stressed out, every day, trying to seek out happy moments instead of just letting them come to me.  I was hoarding them, or trying to make normal things seem extra happy, enough so that I could post them and feel like I could mark off the day.  

When I was journaling, I didn't worry about anything.  I would get to the end of my day, sit back, and reflect on everything that had happened.  I could write about one good thing that stuck out to me, or about multiple things.  I could write at my leisure, and no one else had to be annoyed or bothered by it. I didn't feel like I was sticking it in anyone's faces.

The challenge made me more miserable than happy, and ultimately, that was why I quit.  Does this mean it's a bad challenge?  Absolutely not.  It simply wasn't the structure that I personally need to identify my happiness.  I know how to do that for me, and it was my own fault that I tried to force myself into a box that I should have known wouldn't fit me.  Could I have struggled along with it for 100 days?  Of course.  But the goal is to be happier, and I am definitely happier without having to worry about hashtagging it.

Walking the Line Between "Yes" and "No"

Here's the problem that constantly wages war inside my head: I am, first and foremost, a people pleaser.  I am also very fearful.

So what does that mean, and why is that a problem for me?

As a people pleaser, I constantly feel the need to say "yes."  I want-slash-need people to like me, and I want-slash-need people to tell me that.  God forbid someone thinks poorly of me.  It's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night as I analyze every detail of every single thing I did for the entire day, picking out my worst moments and replaying them endlessly.  I think about things I did weeks, months, years ago and relive them all in agony.  I'm a perfectionist, I'm a people-pleaser... and I'm exhausted by it.  I want to do, say, and be the things that will make people like me, for whatever reason.  Whatever drives this need is still a mystery to me that I'm trying to solve, but whatever it may be, it's there.

On quite the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm kind of not awesome with interacting with people, which makes it all the harder at getting people to like me (or FEELING like they like me).  I fear change.  I hate being outside of my comfort zone, which is teeny-tiny to begin with.  I'm an introvert, have been my entire life, way before Buzzfeed and tumblr and social media in general felt the need to tell me all the ways I could identify this about myself.  It's almost like they're trying to make it a cool and desirable thing to be, so, score one for Erica?

But what this creates for me is this terrifying torture of being caught between "yes" and "no."  I desperately want to say yes, but I am constantly drawn towards saying no.  And whatever decision I finally decide upon always feels like the wrong one.  Yes, once I get through it, I usually tell myself I'm glad I picked whatever I did, and I learned whatever I was meant to learn, but honestly, it's an exhausting process.

I'm trying, really hard.  I'm trying to say yes more often to the things that frighten me, and I'm trying to say no more often to the things I know aren't in my best interests or worth my anxiety.  I really am trying.  Please forgive the shakiness in my voice and any hesitation I might have prior to giving you an answer that scares me.

This has been a pointless post by yours truly.