fun with poetry!

I’m having a blasty blast in my poetry class!  Even though I’m half-scared to death!

Check out my first fledgling effort here.

my teachers

It’s really hard to believe, but we are in the last few weeks of our winter quarter.  I’ve so enjoyed it.

Gone is much of the anxiety I felt my first quarter back, when I was wondering if I could even do this.  Now I know not only that I can do this, but that I’m right where I need to be.  I love the program I’m in and am enjoying getting to know my profs, who are warm and very supportive.

There’s Lee, whose nonfiction class I look forward to every week.  Number one, she’s fluent in sarcasm, which is always a plus with me.  Two, she’s so helpful, full of ways to trick yourself into actually writing — the stuff that only comes with experience as a writer.  She lets us in on all those things.  Third, she refuses to structure us, much as students seemingly beg her to.  “How long does this need to be?” someone inevitably asks.  “Long enough to do whot it needs to,” she replies.  “Should I use this form in my essay?”  “I don’t know.  Try it.  It may work, it may not.  You just have to experiment and figure out whot works for you.”

That, and she’s just a cool person.  I would almost be intimidated by her because I always do this with women I admire, but whenever we bump into her at a reading or something, she always waves us over like she’s thrilled to see us.  Which helps a lot toward me getting over myself.

I was up visiting Michael the other day to pick up my portfolio from last quarter, and a current professor of mine walked in — they share an office.  I can’t imagine more opposite office mates. 

Michael is pretty casual and easy-going in his button-up shirts and fleece vest.  He’s begun class with Shel Silverstein poems.  He’s teaching a Gaming-as-Literature course next quarter (Justin is so bummed he can’t take it).  Dr. M. wears tailored suits every day (shoes shined perfectly, handkerchief in the pocket, hair perfect) and has a tendency to stop his lecture and stare students down if they have the gall to arrive late to his class (or worse, leave early).  He flicks the light off and back on again as he enters the room, as if to say, “Ok, I’m here, prepare yourself for a brilliant lecture.” (which it will be — the two hours fly by).  Michael teaches fairly non-traditional texts, and Dr. M. is passionate about the canon.

In fact, when my newer prof walked into the office, I said, “Oh, hi, Dr. M.”

Michael looked up with a bit of shock.  “You’re Dr. M.?”  Clearly he thought I’d been far too casual with a guy whose name is Nicholas, never Nick.

“Oh, yeah, I go by that sometimes,” he said, a slight smile on his face.

I loved it.  It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. 

Justin and I talked with them for a while, and they both took time to encourage me in their own ways.  Michael, by flipping through my notebook and saying, “You really started kicking ass there near the end of the quarter.”  Dr. M., by grabbing his list of how many A’s he’d awarded on the first exam (three), telling me that when I get an A on his exam, it means something.  I think he’d hate for me to think he’s a soft grader.  He’s got a reputation to uphold. 

These two very different professors both took time out of their day just to chat.  I don’t know why this warmth surprises me, but it always does.  Although I’ve had varying degrees of success throughout my college experience, I’m so grateful for teachers who took time to get to know me, who made themselves available to help me along the way.  Even though some of these names are from classes almost ten years ago, I still remember.

I hope to be this kind of teacher someday. 

ha! my bajillion credits DO count for something!…

…other than helping me get first crack at classes each quarter (also helpful).

One teensy weensy class will get me a psychology minor.  One!

A couple more classes will net me a history minor, but I’m not sure I’m willing to stay in school longer/kill myself on my few remaining quarters.

I don’t know though… I really heart history…

Still, even one actual minor out of all that “searching for what I really want to study”… I’m pumped.  Plus — I dig me some psych and history classes.  They make me happy in my heart.  Not as happy as my creative writing classes (I’m so glad to have finally found the right major), but still, pretty happy.

Tomorrow is my one-day-weekend, so I’m going to live it up big time (translation: Studying Medieval Lit!  16th/17th Century Lit!  Par-teee!!!) before starting the week bright at early at 5 am Monday.  Sweet.

(Sorry for the ramble.  At this point I can’t figure out if I am under-rested or over-caffeinated.  It’s been a bit of a running theme this week).

head-on

We’ll be doing some exercises in my class regarding memory, so I’ll probably post some of them here.  If nothing else, this quarter won’t turn into one where my last post is months ago.  Which helps me feel better. 

What kills me about my earliest vivid memory is that I was unconscious for so much of it. I would rail against the idea of sharing this memory in favor of sharing something more complete from my childhood, something a little more coherent, perhaps… but then again, when trying to remember significant moments and events from my early days, I realize that I was unconscious for lots of other long stretches, ones without as valid an excuse. This memory, in its tattered and piecemeal state, will do just as well as anything else.

Here’s what I do remember: I was five years old, and riding my lavender bike without training wheels was the pinnacle of childish achievement – so far. What a thrill – autonomous mobility and sparkly handlebar tassels! This skill conquered, I quickly became dissatisfied with merely riding my bike in circles around La Mesa Court. That, quite frankly, was boring. Completely unimpressive. Any old kid can ride a bike in circles all day.

What I needed was a little finesse.

I attempted a new trick: riding my bike head-on into the curb to get up onto the sidewalk, just like I’d watched all the older and cooler Big Kids do. What my five-year-old, soon-to-be-damaged little brain failed to realize was the significant weight difference between my somewhat spindly self and the Big Kids, god-like in their vast knowledge and mysterious powers and superior size.

When the big moment came and I revealed my new talent to the world, my bike hit the curb and jerked to a sudden halt. I did not. I feel it worth mentioning here that the year was 1985, and bike helmets weren’t exactly all the rage. Not yet, anyway.

I am quite serious in my declaration that I would pay money to have been my neighbor watching through her window when I launched myself over the handlebars of my bike and landed in a head-first heap on the cement. I’d like to think the sight of some kid Superman-ing over the handlebars amused someone, at least. Whether she laughed for a split second or not before realizing I was hurt, I’ll never know, but the kind lady promptly ran out to me, scooped me up, and carried me home. I don’t remember my neighbor, but I remember the sensation of being scooped into her arms and lifted from the warm cement, being carried to my front door. I remember the relief that a Grown Up was near, soon to be joined by my mother.

The last thing I remember is lying on the couch with an ice pack and reminding Mom for the thousandth time that my head hurt. It’s not that she was unfeeling – but my brother and I were more than a little accident-prone and if we went to the doctor’s office for every goose-egg and bloodied knee, we’d never leave the place. A requisite waiting period always needed to be fulfilled before bringing in the professionals.

It turns out that I was actually hurt, knocked-unconscious hurt, and the best parts of this story remain ones I can’t remember – although I was filled in later on all the pertinent details. My mother told me later of her terror, driving to the pediatrician, with me moaning and rambling on in complete gibberish from the backseat, alternately snatching at invisible airborne objects and trying to unlock my door while the car was moving. I was told that as soon as my mom carried me into the doctor’s office, I promptly puked everywhere (or at least I’d like to believe it was everywhere – I might as well enjoy making a big scene here). Gentle Dr. Kramer, the world’s noblest pediatrician, scooped me up herself and carried me back out to the car, with instructions to take me straight to the emergency room. I remember hearing of my mother’s red-headed fury when a hurried and unfeeling young doctor roughly ripped some tape from my forehead after running some tests on my malfunctioning cranium. I have no idea why, but in my mind’s eye the tape in question has always been a thick duct tape. I laugh to myself now, realizing this idea is ridiculous. Duct tape has many uses – but as far as I know the medical field is not one of them.

The next thing I remember is a deeply comforting glimpse of a moment, a still picture that remains fairly clear, even 22 years later: waking up in the hospital bed around ten o’clock the next morning, with Mom and Dad – exhausted and relieved – by my bedside. There was a little television in the corner of the small room, and we watched Gumby. It is strange to me that the thought of the three of us watching a weird cartoon in a hospital room evokes such feelings of warmth and coziness – but it does.

For the moment, all was well. I was content to let Big Kid-hood and all its corresponding coolness wait — at least until I’d been conscious a full 24 hours and definitely not before I had a helmet. 

Probably not before I had a helmet.  I really don’t remember.

stomach-churnyness

Hello, dear friends and strangers.

Never thought I’d say this — but I’m thrilled to be back in school!  Thrilled, and slightly terrified, though I’ve learned to welcome this stomach-churnyness.  It’s always a sign that growth is near.

I’m taking Intro to Creative Non-Fiction this quarter, and while I think it will be a genuine stretch, it will also be such an opportunity to grow.  I’m reminded once again of what a strange person I am.  I got ridiculously nervous attempting to come up with good lies for our classroom icebreaker, 2 Lies and a Truth.  (My friends, The Neck-Splotches, returned in full force to welcome me back to a new quarter and my perennial self-consciousness.  Justin didn’t exactly help when leaned over and said, “Hey, buddy, you’re turning all red again,” but I deferred strangling him til a later date).  I’m doing my best to avoid thinking about the fact that coming up with 2 lies makes me nervous — and trying to bravely embrace the thought of in-class writes and small-group critique.

It took me til this very moment to appreciate an exercise we had to do in my last class that wrangled me into a better writer.  We were instructed to divide our paper into a 2 x 8 column.  Column One: What I Think This Poem Means.  Column Two: Why I Think This.  Michael put a poem up on an overhead (yeah, he’s old-fashioned like that), but placed a piece of paper over it and only revealed a line or two at a time.  In fact, our first writing about the poem was before he had shown us any of it.

Let me start by saying, Poetry isn’t really my friend.  I don’t think this is because we wouldn’t have grown to like each other had we met on our own terms – but I was given a negative impression of Poetry early on by someone else, and it has forever poisoned our relationship.  Whoever introduced us intimated that Poetry had a secret that she would never ever divulge, at least not to a person like me.  I’d ask her questions.  I’d listen closely to her words.  But it would all be a big huge tease and I’d never understand in any kind of meaningful sense what the hell she was referring to.  She’d share the secret with others who were much smarter and deeper than I was.  She’d merely mock my efforts, however, and I would be left to feel like — well, like an ass, basically.

In short… this wasn’t my favorite exercise.  Responses ran a little like so, as he showed us more and more of the poem:

What this poem is about:

I don’t know.

Why I think this:

Because Michael hasn’t even shown us the title yet.

What this poem is about:

Um… someone’s grandfather.

Why I think this:

Seemed like a good guess.

What this poem is about:

(blank)

Why I think this:

(blank) 

What this poem is about:

This poem is about aliens.

Why I think this:

No idea.

I’m sure I wrote something down in at least a few more of the 16 boxes, but many of them were along the lines of how screwed I was.  Once the poem was fully uncovered, I understood the basic gist of the thing, but I was too furious with my well-meaning prof for conspiring with Poetry to care.  I glared at the poor guy out of my tear-filled eyes and yearned for class to be over.  Had I looked around at the other students around me, I’d have realized that I wasn’t alone, but I was too immersed in my own embarrassment to notice.

A month or two later, I was able to laugh about it with some of those other students and appreciate what the exercise did for me.  1)  It made me horribly uncomfortable.  2)  It forced one more piece of me that needs to be certain of the right answer to die.  Painfully.

As I go into this new class, one I desperately want to perform well in (this particular area of creative writing is the one I came back to school for, and I really don’t want to discover that I totally suck at it) – I’m trying to remember to give myself permission to be really bad at this at first.  To not know what I’m doing.  To be totally afraid of messing up, yet have enough courage to throw my stuff out there anyway in hopes that I’ll be even a tiny bit better at this once I come out the other side.

For me, it’s usually the fear of not doing something well that prevents me from doing it at all, so I’m trying to move forward anyway, splotches and nervous guts and all, and see what happens.  I think back to being in school nine years ago, and being paralyzed, unable to write a single word on that white screen.  From here, even a crappy paragraph seems quite a bit like victory.

So.  To being scared!  To growing anyway!  (Cheers). 

I should be sleeping…

It’s 5:03 a.m. and I should be sleeping right now, but I’m wide awake.  Apparently my body is starting to get used to my work schedule.

That, and I think it would be cool to surprise Justin on his first break with Dayquil and some Starbucks.  Poor kid has been sick all week and we ran out yesterday.

Probably the real reason I’m up this early is that I’m stressed out.  (Maybe if I vent for a while I’ll be able to go back to sleep for a bit, so forgive me.  I’m going to go into full-on whine mode for a while, because I need to, and this is my blog).  Going back to school has been… really hard.  Harder than I thought it would be, actually.  If I’d known… well, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t fully know what I was getting myself into.  There’s no way I would have been able to muster up the courage.  As it is, it’s kind of a day-by-day battle.  It’s also a good thing that it’s too late to withdraw, I suppose.  There have been days I’ve strongly considered it.

I hate feeling this messy.

Part of it, I’m sure, is just the load I’m taking this quarter.  I needed a specific class to allow me to officially declare as an English major, and so I was limited in my choices.  Three lit classes were the result.  I’m just barely keeping up.  This past weekend, I felt like I barely saw Justin, I spent so much time in the office typing up papers.  I’d emerge for a minute, wave, and head back in.

I doubt my class load is going to look much different from here on out, however.  With enough credits to graduate already (if they were toward a particular thing — apparently my lack of direction shows in the number of credits I have as a Junior), all my classes each quarter will be literature or writing courses if I ever want to graduate. 

I like writing and literature courses.  But they are kicking my ass.

One in particular.  Frustration took over yesterday to the point where tears welled up in my eyes.  During class.  As if that weren’t enough, a few of them slid down my cheeks.  I’m glad the lights were low.  I was embarrassed enough as it was, and hope my weakness wasn’t noticed.

I genuinely like my prof.  There are days when I really enjoy class.  But the other days… really suck.  We’re learning a certain form of writing that for sure does not come naturally.  I think this is the case for nearly everyone in the class.  And the teacher is working really hard to explain it.  But for me, none of the words are gaining ground.  I believe him that there are huge benefits to learning how to write this way.  I’m on board.  But I… don’t… get… it.  I feel for a moment like I do.  And I write my papers during this moment.  And then I come back to class and realize I was way off.

I’m used to “getting” things.  Fairly easily, usually.  I’m very used to “getting” things when I apply myself and am working really hard.  This is killing me.

Remember these things?

These things, in case you were asleep for most of the mid-90’s, are Magic Eye pictures.  Apparently, if you look at them in a certain way, a beautiful 3-D picture will emerge.

I remember everyone telling me how to do it.

“Relax your eyes.”

“Try not to focus, try to look through the picture, and then the picture will start to come into focus.”

I could look at one of those things all day and wouldn’t see a thing.  Not once have I ever been able to see the damned picture.  I was a pretty happy camper when that craze died off and my next-door neighbors didn’t have one hanging on their living room wall anymore.  I don’t care what picture they saw in that thing — it was hideous.

This is how I feel in class.  My prof is explaining exactly how to do this (also, what not to do when you’re doing this).  Over and over and with greater detail he’s explaining how to do this.  “Relax your eyes.  Relax your eyes.  To the right, and with intensity! OK?”  But the words aren’t making sense, aren’t connecting, and despite trying really damn hard… for the life of me, the picture won’t come into focus.   

At this point, I’m pretty sure my essay will be about the Magic Eye picture that I can’t see.  It’ll be the hardest I’ve ever worked for a lousy grade in a class that I need to pass to declare my major.

Ack.

Justin and I are going to look at the class notes a little later and hopefully he’ll be able to help translate some for me.  It couldn’t hurt — I’m certainly not going to feel any more clueless than I do right now.

As much as this sucks, it helps to have someone who’ll jump in there with me and help sort it out when I feel nuts.  Being married to me for nearly a year is MORE than enough time for Justin to know how overwhelmed and crazy I get sometimes… but every time, he’s consistently there, listening, comforting, waiting for me to come around and gain my courage again.  School will only be for a season, and then there’ll be new challenges and new stresses — but it’s amazing to have such a partner through all of it. 

school, etc.

Hi friends!

School is kicking my arse!  Making it through last week was one of those sheer-force-of-will type of things… AND IT WAS ONLY WEEK TWO.  I am happy to say I kept on my homework and all that reading, but it came at significant cost to my sleep habits.  I didn’t even stay up to watch The Office on Thursday night — that says a lot. 

After a blustery, stormy weekend full of rest, relaxation, and hanging out with the Mr., I am feeling much more human today.  Being bundled up inside in comfy sweats with warm beverages was a welcome change from tromping all over campus in the cold.  Justin and I knew before school started that our Sundays and Mondays were going to be sacred, but I’m not sure we fully knew how much we’d need them in order to stay sane.   

It will be interesting to see how often the posts show up here on WEW… on the one hand, two of my classes require me to post thoughts on online forums which takes up quite a bit of time AND I’m pretty whooped most days, BUT — being in school always puts my little brain in overdrive (regarding things not remotely related to my actual subjects) and I’ll need somewhere to process… that’s usually here.  We’ll see.

Anyway, just figured I’d let you kids know we’re surviving. 

In other news, I got an email from a classmate this morning in response to something I wrote on the class forum — the type of response I usually see on the blog, in the general direction of I-can-relate-to-what-you-said-about-church-and-faith-and-kind-of-feel-like-an-oddball-too-and-was-wondering-if-we-could-have-coffee-sometime.  At the end of a week where I wondered if perhaps I’m crazy to be jumping back into school… it was a unique and very unexpected encouragement.  She’s the second classmate since Friday to suggest drinking caffeinated beverages and talking about our confusing lives for a while.

Kind of exciting.  I dig it.

Hope you all are doing splendidly… hoping to find some time to write more later. 

back to school

This past Wednesday I returned to school for the first time since 2003.

A clash of worlds, really, like one of those dreams where your best friend from junior high is suddenly eating lunch with you at your current job, and in the dream, it somehow makes perfect sense — then you wake up, disoriented, thinking What the hell…

Trudging up the stairs from the parking lot, hand in hand with my husband, I felt the colliding and was caught off-guard by it.  Justin knows me, knows as many stories as I’ve been able to think to tell him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was, in some weird way, introducing him to me at twenty-two.

New husband.  Old school.  Old memories.  Old self.

Collision.

Some things are, thankfully, very different than when I last called Bellingham home.  The car accidents that prompted my departure from school in the first place don’t have the prevalence (in my body and in my thoughts) they did then.  That shoulder is still a little achy at times, and the damp Western Washington cold does nothing to encourage my knees to quit complaining, but the pain is nothing to what it was before, and my percoset-free state proves it. 

I’m thrilled about my studies (in creative non-fiction), which is something I couldn’t say before.  What a huge difference this makes!  Studying Communication back then, I knew I wasn’t being honest with myself about what I truly wanted, deep-down in my guts (my guts know more than I give them credit for, and yours probably do, too).  I knew I was chasing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, but I didn’t have the courage to admit a misstep and take a new direction.  There’d already been too many false starts.

In an odd and exquisitely painful way, the accidents were a blessing.  They forced a different course.

In other ways, my 27-year-old self isn’t much different.  I’m still neurotically insecure, the queen of critical thoughts.  Once Justin headed toward his class and I toward mine, I began thinking about where to look as I was walking by myself through campus.  I’m serious.  I had an entire thought process built around Do I stare blankly ahead, past all the oncoming faces?  Do I make eye contact?  Smile?  Should I look down to make sure I don’t trip on a brick out here in front of God and everybody? 

Does looking straight down make me look like some kind of freak?

Don’t get me started on what to do with my hands.  The whole stationary/swinging back and forth debate stole another few minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

Not that I expected it to, but I don’t find that marriage has “fixed” any of my self-consciousness.  Being loved and embraced in all my oddness, I squirm a little less, that is all.  Squirming less, that is all – but what a relief I’ve found, even in that.  (I’ve said it before, but sometimes it’s real important to measure growth in millimeters). 

Going back to school is equal parts excitement and sheer terror for me.  I feel rusty and out of practice.  A little old, perhaps.  I listen to the magnitude of what people much younger than me know — the history, the philosophy, the facts and dates — and feel quite candidly that I’ve arrived at this party a little late; I wonder if I’ll ever be able to catch up.  I think about my decade-long pursuit of a degree and have to gulp down my very real embarrassment at not having had a more direct and successful path to an illustrious piece of paper saying I’ve finally finished something.  I think about how unfinished and un-figured-out I still am.  

Then, mercifully, I remember me at 22.

At 22, I didn’t know shit.  At 22, I don’t think anyone does.  Degree or not, I’m not sure anyone has a very good grasp on what they want to be when they grow up until they’re about 30, or, in the far more serious case of writers, 40.  Five years ago, I was on a very determined and steady, responsible path — in the wrong direction.  It happens.  For a lot of us, that’s part of the journey we travel toward becoming grown-up human beings.  For a lot of those barely-out-of-high-school faces I see in my classes, those twists and turns and changes-of-majors are not far off. 

I wouldn’t go back. 

This is my joy in returning to school now, clumsy and awkward as I am:  I still don’t know shit, but at least I know I don’t know shit.  Even though I’m not completely at peace with that, it seems like a good place to begin.  Humbled, perhaps – deep-red-blush embarrassed at times – but ready, at last, to learn.

So — here’s to not knowing shit.

:: the plank in my own eye ::

Thinking about things yesterday, I was reminded of a conversation I had with my friend Tricia about five years ago. It was such a simple dialogue, but it knocked me upside my head (in a good way).

I was nineteen & a Junior in bible college (translation: oh so young & dumb). A local church was just beginning, and asked some of us from the college to help get its youth ministry up and running. A group of about ten of us, basically all my closest friends, jumped on board. Ten zealous little Bible college kids. On a mission.

Looking back, I think we did alright. We were naive, but what we lacked in knowledge we made up for in passion & excitement. We visited local high schools. I remember us driving all over Des Moines inviting every kid we came across (suddenly I learned how to be brave). We rented out a hs gym and threw a party, complete with inflatables and sumo suits. We played more ping pong and foosball than any human beings should have to play. And, we just hung out with students, staying late at McDonald’s, building relationships. In a special moment for me personally, I got to speak (for the first time) and tell my story… and saw hands go up at the end. It was an amazing time.

So we got our little community started. Yeah, we didn’t always know what we were doing. I still wince when I think of the time our brilliant ice-breaker was "butt-charades" (you spell out words with your arse, and people have to guess. One girl who got picked to play was particularly attractive… yeah… you gotta love jr high boys). But, no matter what, at the end of the day, there was a ministry reaching out to kids, where there hadn’t been one before. When a youth pastor was eventually hired on, he already had kids to love.

It’s an interesting dynamic, however, when you have 10 people leading. Too many heads makes a monster, as the saying goes, and man, we were a beast. I remember this one point in time, butting heads with Kyle. (Kyle and I had a very typical bible college friendationship that year, which made the butting of heads even harder). I don’t remember what the conflict was about, but we both weren’t going to budge, and I was fired up. I was right, dang it, and if I had to talk myself blue in the face, he would see that I was right. (I am incurably Little Miss Let’s-Talk-Things-Out. Sometimes to my benefit, other times to my utter demise).

Venting about all of this to Trish, she listened to me as I told her what I was going to say (I had told Kyle "We need to talk," and we had set up a time a few days later). Midway through my tirade, she stopped me.

T: "Stace, do you love God?"

S: "Yeah."

T: "Does Kyle love God?"

S: "Yes." (where the heck are you taking this?)

T: "Do you think that maybe you should just ask God to deal with you, and let God deal with Kyle? Do you think God is capable of doing that?"

S: "But–"

S: "Well–"

Crap. I hate it when my friends get all spiritually wise and profound on me.

There are times to address things openly, and then there are times to simply be quiet and ask God to remove the plank in my own eye. I used to not be able to tell the difference between those times (sometimes I still don’t… and I inevitably put my foot in my mouth). Letting it go brought me a peace that I never would have gotten from a debate with Kyle. When we met, I didn’t say any of those things I’d written out. I apologized for my stubbornness (the exact opposite of what I wanted to do)… and let it go. And just like Trish had suggested, God was able to work in both of us. Shock of all shocks – without my help.

I’ve learned, mostly the hard way, that going into any sort of conflict-ridden situation is absolutely foolish if I haven’t taken time to pray, ask God to help me with my own "dirt"… I guess this week I needed the reminder.

God, thank you for being so gracious with your kids… even when they are stubborn and blind and when they don’t quite get along with each other. Do your work. Not in someone else, but in ME. Amen.

:: bible jim & me, part II ::

Backtrack to September 2001. Our scene: College, take two. After taking a year off recuperating from my disappointing performance at Bible college (maybe I’ll have the courage to post on THAT sometime…), I enrolled at Western, and, knowing no one in Bellingham, was forced to move into the dorms. I must admit, dorm life held much more allure the first time I tried it. Now I found myself moving in with a bunch of crazies who were in eighth grade when I was grabbing my diploma to Pomp & Circumstance.

I had, in a moment of later-appreciated wisdom, requested a single room. Western housing terms this a “Super-single” accommodation. “Super-closet” would have been more appropriate, as the room’s width was the length of my twin bed… one long skinny rectangle. The flooring? Think junior high cafeteria. Then think cold. (No one warned me of the glories of Fairhaven housing. I think I handpicked the ghettoest housing on campus. But hey, at least it was my own private corner of ghettodom, just below the laundry room). But I digress…

The first day, as I was getting things set up in my room, more specifically, shelving my massive collection of Christian non-fiction, Allie walked in. I’d already met some of the girls with whom I shared a suite (two shared rooms + a super single + bathroom = suite), and to be quite honest, thought she was one of their brothers for a brief moment before it clicked. Our eyes met, and it was that classic deer-caught-in-headlights look… from both of us. I can’t know her perspective for sure, but I could guess her thoughts as she caught my Bible on top of the shelf: I’m living with a Bible thumper. She’s going to hate me. Mine, as I caught her spiky hair and carharts: I’m living with a lesbian. She’s probably been given plenty of reason to hate me. We managed a polite, hello, how’s it going, but I know we both walked away thinking oh-crap-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into kinds of thoughts.

That night, as I lay there in bed, my nose stuffy from the potent combo of pot and incense wafting in from the celebratory festivities next door… I wondered again what I’d gotten myself into. I’d said that I wanted to be out of the bubble of sheltered surreality that was Bible college. I’d said that I wanted to be in touch with what was really happening in the world, to know people different than myself. Well, between Allie and her polar-opposite roommate, a Britney-ish cheerleader who was quite proud of her contribution to a Girls Gone Wild video… I’d say we were there. I would continue to be stretched in the months to come, as Allie’s girlfriend entered the picture, and as my allergies became fairly regular.

It was strange. It wasn’t that I’d never been exposed to any of this before… I’d been working with youth for a while, and after a while things sort of cease to shock you. But working with the kids, they’re on your turf. They’ve chosen to come, at least for the most part. I was on foreign turf; I knew I was far away from home, from familiarity, and felt it keenly. And the last thing I wanted to be – the thing I was most scared of – was that I’d be one more Christian earning the reputation of hatred and bigotry so far from the heart of who Jesus was.

So in those first few weeks, I decided something important: I decided to shut up. To just shut up and be as kind as I knew how to be; to let people be themselves, without being judgmental and condescending. Sometimes my former tendencies would have been to be harsh, to be unwilling to associate with people who were living certain ways, but things had changed. I think partially it was that I was out to prove something: All Christians aren’t jerkfaces. But for whatever reasons, I just wasn’t willing to be that person anymore.

Growing up, I’d always been taught – subtly — that it was about what you’d SAY to people far from God, that one day you’d have this talk where you knew all the answers, and they would be just SO hungry to hear how right you were, and that would be it. Uh huh. Yeah right. Only within the confines of the Christian college bubble does that kind of thinking survive.

For me, it didn’t take long to find that people already knew where I stood, what my life was about, simply by the way I lived it, imperfectly but graciously. I didn’t need to say anything… it wasn’t necessary to communicate my values. To say something would have wrecked it, I think. Yeah, I got teased sometimes. Especially at first, but as time wore on, it was nearly affectionate.

Allie, running into my room: “Stacey! Turn on channel 12! It’s Destiny’s Child! They’re singin’ about God & Jesus & stuff! You’ll love it!”

Me: falling off my bed laughing.

I don’t think I ever once talked to Allie about the Bible, or my beliefs vs. hers, or anything like that. Some would say that I was foolish, others would say that I did the right thing… all I knew was that I cared more about being able to laugh with her than I did about being able to out-debate her. What we did talk about was English. English, and Saturday morning cartoons. Allie was dyslexic, and admittedly was terrible at writing. Me, I wrote for fun, so it worked out for me to proofread her papers and help her get her essays started. I like helping people write in general, but getting that chance to build a friendship with someone so seemingly unlikely through something so simple… meant a lot. Saturday morning cartoons… everyone would pile onto my twin bed some Saturday mornings and we’d sit there and watch Flintstones or Jetsons or whatever else was on as we ate unholy amounts of breakfast cereal. You couldn’t have come up with a more assorted crew if you tried, but there we were.

One thing they did teach me at Bible college was true, however. I had always thought it was total myth, but it turns out it still happens every now and then. Sometimes people really do ask you what’s different about you. Emily, one of my other suitemates, asked me that once as we were hanging out in my super-closet. After I recuperated from passing out that she’d actually ask me, we talked. And talked. And talked.

During one such talk, she asked me about how I’d felt when I first met Allie. I was honest… saying that I was afraid she wouldn’t like me. Emily said they’d talked about it, and that Allie had feared the same thing. And then Emily said this to me, which I will hold on to forever: “Yeah, but then she got to know you. We were talking about it not too long ago and she said, ‘Stacey’s not like any other Christian I’ve been around. I actually like being around her.’”

(I smiled for like a week. People liked being around Jesus too).

***
No one “got saved” on my floor during the few months I lived on campus, at least not that I know of. All I can say is that I attempted to love people like Jesus did… that I tried to live truth in front of them, and let them open up the discussion. While I’m not concerned with my knowing the outcomes – those are up to God — I do hope that because I lived there, people realized that God is nearer and more gracious than He sometimes has been portrayed.

Some more zealous types would no doubt think me an absolute failure. But that’s ok with me. Those zealous types were up in Red Square, yelling and screaming about who makes Jesus sick.

The prayer I prayed under my breath as I walked away from Red Square that day was that, when Allie thinks of a Christian, she doesn’t see Bible Jim. I hope she still sees me.