A Love Letter to Home and New York (Sorry, I'm cheating on you both)

Most days I sit and I try to write and I think, "Why is nothing brilliant appearing in my oh-so-brilliant brain?" When I get over that self-aggrandizing aggravation and remember that I am but a mere mortal with very few mortal powers, I realize that I'm really just afraid to start.

What do I sometimes do (I say sometimes because most of the time I just stare at the proverbial pen in my hand and then give up and make my way to the fridge) when I "don't know where to start?" I start anyway, even if smells like a heaping pile of crap. So here's a story about people and places I love. I hope I do them justice.

I spent my summer in Manhattan working at a youth theater and I loved it.

There are too many people, the lights are much too bright, and the summer heat is much too hot, leaving very little room for a breeze. Trust me, I had a more than mild mental breakdown about a week and a half in.

But there are also people that are immensely kind and incredibly unique, lights that brighten the world's biggest stage, and heat that... well, the heat is still ridiculous. The joy was in the little things. My students and the people I worked alongside. The people I lived with. It was understanding the transit systems, getting to know the people inside the cathedral and not just staring at the ceilings, and realizing that no sane person actually wants to spend time in Times Square. Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn is a pretty neat place for a night-in and friends who are obsessed with Beyonce make great partners in crime on the Express (party) Train. I can tell you that there are at least two Thai (yum) restaurants on almost any street and that the best place in the city is kitty-corner to the giant monolith that is the main branch- the slightly unkempt and rarely populated Mid-Manhattan Library.

It's been hard to come back. I love my home, my family, and the safety and love I feel when I'm around my friends here. But the opportunities that the city provides were incredibly difficult to leave. I was scared to say goodbye to the people I'd met for fear that I might never get to see them again.

However, I did miss the stars. I feel a little closer to Heaven when I can see the stars, and even standing on the rooftops of Manhattan you can't see them. That was always a little reminder that home would never really lose it's place. I don't think I've changed too much. I still love to read more than I love my own health. I still crave carbs and drink too much wine (is there really such a thing as too much wine?). I continue to worry about my complete and utter lack of academic motivation. I'm still addicted to caffeine, put a ridiculous amount of salt on everything, and I continue to be the worlds worst person ever because I refuse to check my voice mail. In fact, I'm sure my inbox is full right now.

New York in all its glory gave me a greater appreciation for all things unique, new, old, and extraordinary. I learned that I truly love to teach and that I love to perform. The world, it seemed, knew me for who I actually was in that moment. I came to a stronger realization that God is absolutely everywhere and that He'll show up even if I'm convinced that it's impossible. I saw it in the people I lived with, in my family on the East Coast, and in the people with whom I went to church. A bit of the divine consistently showed up in people I met on the streets or in a cab, and in the wonderfully exhausting children I worked with everyday. When I got in the taxi with all of my suitcases at the end of my stay, I cried. The cabbie looked in the rear view mirror and said, "God gave us the life, step by step, you know?"

I am happy to be home. I want to go back to New York and I believe that I will. Most of all I feel incredibly grateful that no matter where I am, I will always have something to miss.

Love,
Me

The Whole Number

Lately I've been reading a lot of Madeleine L'Engle, author of the Newbery Award winning novel A Wrinkle in Time, and many other wonderful books. She wrote about love, family, work, war, relationships, faith, God, and the self. In one of her works of non-fiction, "A Circle of Quiet," she presents one summer of her life in journalistic form. One of the passages I read this morning reads as such:

'The most "whole" people I know are those in whom the gap between the "ontological" [true] self and the daily self is the smallest. The Latin integer means untouched; intact. In mathematics, an integer is a whole number. The people I know who are intact don't have to worry about their integrity; they are incapable of doing anything which would break it.

It's a sad commentary on our world that "integrity" is slowly coming to mean self-centeredness. Most people who worry about their integrity are thinking about it in terms of themselves. It's a great excuse for not doing something you really don't want to do, or are afraid to do: "I can't do that and keep my integrity." Integrity, like humility, is a quality which vanishes the moment we are conscious of it in ourselves. We see it only in others.'

I sat, ashamed at my own illiteracy, looked up at the ceiling and said, "You're going to have to help me with this. I can't figure this one out by myself." We speak a lot of integrity where I come from. We talk of realness and goodness and "geniune-ness." To be truly real, good, and genuine is an admirable goal. So what are we fighting over? Why can't we easily define this admirable goal? And why have we become so obsessed with defining it?

When I sat down to mentally digest this passage, I started out by asking "Well alright, who doesn't have integrity? Is it me? My friends?" I quickly realized that this was not the question I should be asking. If integrity vanishes once we are conscious of it in ourselves, then who in my life does have integrity? I thought about my aunt who fought to stay alive until she could meet her first grandson. Her fight for her life depended not on her belief in her own worth but on her belief in everyone else's. I thought about one of my professors who, knowing full well that I was inept at both the subject matter of the course and at waking up early, still found the time to make sure I passed her class. She didn't let me get away with anything, she just let me be myself while still teaching me the material. Her respect for her students is "ontological."  

I am in no place to decide who doesn't have integrity. "The gap between our 'real' and 'actual' selves is, to some degree, in all of us; no one is completely whole... When we refuse to face this gap in ourselves, we widen it." I am constantly widening my gap. I judge too harshly and love too slowly. I worry about about my actions to the point where I'm more worried about myself than everyone else around me. I constantly question my integrity. This is not to say that I believe we should forgo checking ourselves and keeping each other accountable. Freedom is only truly found within a form. The difference, however, is in what we do first: we can define each other's worth (and our own) based on perceived integrity, or we can love. I guess I choose love.