Through a Rose Colored Glass (La Vie en Rose)

The upbeat staccato notes dance out of the end of the trumpet, as the man on the other end puffs his cheeks in and out, pushing air through the shiny brass tubes. His eyes open wide and eyebrows dancing up and down with the effort.

Behind him the graceful fingers of a pianist cavort over the worn ivory keys. Her shoulders move up and down with the beat brought by the drummer at the back of the stage, who closes his eyes and feels the beat tapping out of the end of his sticks.

A tubist, clarinetist, and guitar player take up the rest of the stage. Each lost in their own instrument. 

It's the people out in the smoky hall in front of the stage who get to really appreciate how the instruments come together. 

In the dark corner booth, a man with the dark mustache and suit sits, his ice melting into the scotch in his cut glass tumbler, leaving yet another watermark on the scarred table. He sits with one leg crossed over the other, the well pressed crease centered down the side of each. He seems unmoved by the beat of the music that fills the hall from its baseboard to rafters, but every once in a while the tune wins and the careful observer is rewarded with a subtle tap of his foot. He sits with a pen poised over the paper on the table and every few minutes he jots something down, careful to avoid the upper corner of the paper that had the misfortune to fall in a previous customer's fresh watermark. His free hand periodically goes up to his mouth as he takes a long breath through a thick brown cigar, then sends a ring of smoke into dimly lit air. He keeps his eyes trained on the band, rarely distracted by the mass of movement between his table and the stage.

At least a dozen couples move around the rough hewn wooden floor that has been made smooth by the movement of hundreds of feet over the years. The thick heeled pumps, spinning around the shiny black and white wingtips, both moving too quick to really see how scuffed the toes are from their constant movement. Above the shoes skirts twirl up and down, confused by the repeated change of direction as their owners spin in and out against the pin stripe vests of their partners. Above the swishing skirts, you can catch glimpses of exhilarated and white smiles, jumping out from flushed faces that contrast nicely against the pleased, and confidently demure, grins on the faces above the pinstripes. 

Laughter breaks over the top of the band, emerging from a cluster of tables pushed against the wall where a group of dancers take a much needed break. A girl whose carefully placed curls are starting to come loose around her face jokingly swings her tired feet up onto the lap of her partner, pleading exhaustion. As the band starts up a new song he holds his hands out to her, inviting her to return to the throb of their whirling compadres. Her smile doesn't leave her face as she wearily shakes her head, and sneaks a swig out of her friend's glass. Unfazed, her clean shaven partner doesn't budge his invitation, and she lets out another laugh before standing and leading him on to the dance floor instead. 

On the stage the trumpeter lowers his instrument and steps up to the microphone. As he opens his mouth a smooth, low, gravely strain of words escapes over the room. A faint impromptu cheer rises from the crowd as he makes his announcement. 

"Sisters and Brothers, this is Reverend Satchmo getting ready to beat out this mellow sermon for you. My text this evening is 'When the Saints Go Marching'. Here come Brother Higgenbottom down the aisle with his trombone. Blow it boy."*

From the back of the stage another man has emerged with the announced instrument. He lets loose his string of notes as the trumpeter taps his foot against the stage, waiting for his cue to start singing. As the song progresses so does the swinging and stepping on the center of the floor. 

The night is begging to go on forever, and yet the band begins to wind down with a slow melody that showcases the slow pluck of the guitar and the dancing fingers of the pianist across the high octaves of the keyboard. The trumpeter lets them play alone for two counts of eight before letting the main melody emerge from the wide end of his instrument. After a full minute he drops the trumpet to his side and reaches for the glass of water on the old wooden stool next to the microphone. He lets the last few gulps slide down his throat before clearing it softly as the piano and guitar hold the mood. He takes hold of the old silver microphone, looks towards the ceiling then drops his swaying head, eyes closed, and begins:

"Hold me close and hold me fast 

The magic spell you cast 

This is la vie en rose 

When you kiss me heaven sighs 

And tho I close my eyes 

I see la vie en rose 

When you press me to your heart 

I'm in a world apart 

A world where roses bloom 

And when you speak...angels sing from above 

Everyday words seem...to turn into love songs 

Give your heart and soul to me 

And life will always be 

La vie en rose"*

Slowly, as the band escalates through the end of the song, the couples reluctantly pull on their coats, and wrap scarves around their necks. The girl with the curls has pushed the fallen ringlets inside her felt beret, and linked her arm through her persistent partner's, the remnants of her exhilarated smile still flitting across her face. They stroll out the door under a full moon that cuts through the late night haze hanging above the Chicago harbor, and the club falls into an exhausted silence.

The band begins to pack up their instruments amidst scattered compliments to each other's playing.  The man in the mustache approaches the stage and introduces himself as a reporter for the Times, doing an article. He sits with the trumpeter on the edge of the stage and begins by asking him about his music.

The trumpeter lets out a rumbling chuckle, and shakes his head.

"There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind."*

The reporter nods as he scratches notes on his water stained piece of paper. He continues to ask questions and scribble the answers for a few minutes before Louis, exhausted from the night of playing, shakes his head and breaks into his famous smile that seems to take up the entire lower half of his face. Happy wrinkles escape the corners of his eyes as he reaches out and sets calloused fingers in front of the mustached man's pen. He takes a deep breath before summing up the article as he sees fit:

"What we play is life."*

 *All real Louis Armstrong quotes.

Entitlement: Revisited With a Side of Perspective and Large Helping of Reflection and Opinion

Home. 

This morning in church we talked about Colossians 3 about children honoring parents. Michael (our pastor) first asked for those who were twelve and under to raise their hands and he addressed the fact that Paul wrote this with the expectation that the children in the early church would hear it and follow it. 

Then he said this, “Now those over twelve who still live at home with their parents.” Pav who was on the row in front of me immediately turns around and whispers, “That’s you Peige, put your hand up!” And then Pav’s ever loyal seven-year-old daughter turns and smiles and points at me till I, laughing, raise my hand in the air. 

Guilty as charged. 

How do I feel about the current state of things? Well...let me weight the options. 

I could be upset about the stigma of kids who come home and their inability to function properly. Or I could be humbled that I have the ability to come home and live free of rent while I pay off bills and get myself situated financially. I’m going with the latter. 

I could take out my frustration at not living independently by avoiding my parents and being moody around the house, to “prove I don’t need them”, or I could work with them to become a functioning household of adults. I could appreciate the time I have to live close to them and catch up on the two years of changing that we’ve three done farther apart. 

I could feel childish that I ride in the backseat of the minivan every Sunday as we go to church, or I could be thankful that they are letting me ride along and use their gas, which saves money.

I could scramble for sarcasm, bitterness or resentment to prove to myself that I am independent individual, or I could know that I am in fact more independent that I ever thought and remind myself to be a little dependent for the sake of unity. Because I believe independence, maturity, or responsibility is not defined by outward actions, age, or position in life, but rather with an ability to look at life and make wise, sound, decisions for the benefit of everyone involved, present and future.

I am striving for that sort of maturity and growth. I refuse to be held captive to any other stigma of what defines ‘responsible’ or ‘mature’ individuals. 

So am I embarrassed to be home? No. I’m not here to ‘find myself’ or because I have no other plan. I am here because it is a grace that I have been given to get to be here and it is the best decision for myself, my family, and my future at present. I am confident in that. 

And if I am confident that I am where God wants me, why should anything else matter? 

I have been reading in Timothy and am starting to memorize this passage.

"But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. ... Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses."      -1 Timothy 6:6-12 (abridged) 

If I really believe this, I should never have any time for discontentment. 

I have been reflecting on this passage for about a month now. And so many different thoughts have come from it. 

One of them being thoughts on perspective. 

People carry their burdens differently. Some things in life leaves scars there is no mistake, but I have scars that have healed and disappeared overtime.

What if someone had been through hell on earth, but had such an eternal perspective that you couldn’t even tell? Or more so, that they couldn’t tell? That they were so set on the foundation that nothing else matters outside of Jesus. Is that possible? 

Some people consider things like cars breaking down as tribulation, what about the people who live on the streets? On one meal a day and one set of clothes? I’ve seen believers who have been through infinitely more than they show, and yet will come and comfort someone going through something comparatively minuscule, and give the other person as much grace and assurance as if it was the whole world falling apart. How do you do that? Without telling someone, “Suck it up, you think you have it bad...let me tell you.” But then that leaves it open for another person to one- up that person. 

I think we sometimes fall into the trap of one-upping each other’s trials and we will become competitive over how much we overcame to follow Jesus. How stupid is that? 

One of my favorite conversations I ever had with a camper was in my last summer in the cabin. Our director had that night had done a simple, low pressure invitation to the campers to come to know Jesus. I sat with one eleven year old camper that night talking about it. She had already accepted Jesus, but she was sharing something that had come to her while her fellow campers were raising their hands. 

“You know,” she told me, “I used to be embarrassed that I didn’t have an awesome story of how I come [sic] to Jesus. You know, people will give testimony about how they came out of this awful hard stuff, and me I just said a prayer in Sunday School. But tonight down there by the fire, I got to thinking. It doesn’t matter how you come to Jesus, it just matters that you come.”

She was on the right track of thinking. I don’t think I could have grinned bigger or affirmed her more. 

Timothy talks about only needing clothes and food to feel content, what if we lived that? Everything we are and have is a gift. We are entitled to nothing, so why live like we are? 

(Future posts on Comebacks coming)

The Second thing that keeps coming back is the simplicity of this list. The verse says to be content with food and clothes.

 It doesn’t say anything about if you are debt-free, own a car, have family, are in good health, if you have a certain social network, a bed, a house. It is simply, if you have food and clothing. Not even, if you have well-balanced, tasty food, or clothes that fit, or are comfortable, or in your style. Just simply, food and clothes. 

What if we lived like we were entitled to nothing?

By no means am I suggesting shunning all that we have, giving away everything so we have only food and clothes. In fact if you read farther in Timothy it addresses those who are rich, saying only that they should be generous and put value in Jesus, not their money. And if all they really care about is having some food and clothing to be content, I’m not sure they could be anything but generous.

I am saying what if every little thing we have, frustrating, happy, sad, hard, angering, whatever, was considered a blessing. The hard things make us stronger, the easy things bring joy, but all of it should come with an attitude that we deserve nothing, but death and everyday we have life, and food and clothes, we are more than blessed.

So I am here at home. Looking, on paper, like an unsuccessful individual a college graduate working part-time and living across the hall from her parents. But I have food, and clothes. More so, I have amazing, loving, non-busybody, fun parents, a room to myself, food that is delicious, nutritious and in-line with things that don’t make me sick (i.e. lactose and gluten).  And I have clothes that I get to choose and buy (albeit largely from thrift stores) and a huge family that loves me and knows me and understands me. I have a nationwide, and even international, network of friends and fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that make me feel loved and accepted. And this is just the short list.

So please, Michael, ask for kids over twelve living at home, I will raise my hand. And raise it high. Because I am not a failure, a homebody, a overly dependent immature or irresponsible person. I am simply exceedingly blessed.






You May Also Like:
- Dear Wonder
- Victorious
- Steve's Friendly BP

20/20

This mid-August evening is carrying a tease of Autumn. I can feel it in the way the breeze moves steadily through the tops of trees and in the calm of the temperature. I can hear it in the peaceful chirp of a few stalwart crickets, and in the absence of bullfrogs. I can see it in the washed out greens of the leaves, worn and weary from the summer sun. I can smell it in the crisp, cool, trail left by discreet wind across my face. 

These are things that I am experiencing as I sit on the front porch of camp, my last night on the front porch at camp, my last night of the summer at least. 

This has been a calmer week than any of the twelve or so before it, and it has given me more time to reflect and think than I’ve had in three months and one thing that has come up a lot is the things or ways that I convey things to others. 

I know at least half of the ways that I fail at communication. I know of ways that I wear the blinders of obliviousness, or the ways that I will plow through a conversation in a way that makes sense to me without out once considering how the other person is receiving it. Writing has been my salvation for some of these problems, but I seem to have some big ones left. I never seem able to communicate how I see you. 

Yes, you. The people I know. The people I love. The people I spend my summer with. The people who care enough to read my thoughts. 

How can I ever communicate the depth of what I see when I look at you? 

It’s not just your features that I see, the hugeness of your smile, the color of your eyes, awesome free mess of your hair. I see so much more. 

I see the warmth that overtakes your whole face when you look at someone you care about.

I see the confidence in your eyes when you feel completely and totally in your element. 

I see the excitement that you have over sharing a passion that you have with another person.

I see past your business side to how deeply and unconditionally you care for everyone’s complete well being. 

I see behind your defenses to the vastness of your heart. 

I see the way you push and challenge yourself to grow and learn.

I see the way you have taken your past and turned into a blessing to others.

I see the way you have refused to give in, and refused to back down and let darkness win.

I see the way carry your struggles so as not to burden anyone else.

I see how many people you reach out and care about.

I see past assumptions of heart and thought that people have put on you, to the true fantastic you.

I see the way you let people, small or big, famous or maybe just a camper, inspire you to be bigger, to be greater and to never settle for less. 

More so I see all of this from a lens of complete honor and gratitude that I have the opportunity to know you and the opportunity to see you. 

I can not express the privilege that I feel for the different ways that you all have trusted small pieces of yourself, whether joy or sadness, failure or success, with me. 

I sit on the front porch of the lodge at the end of my fifth summer at camp, speechless at my blessings. Speechless at the pleasure it has been to work with each and everyone of the staffs of 2008-2012. Speechless at the love and care that I feel for everyone of your beautiful, flawed and fighting souls. 

The timer on the porch light has flickered on, casting and bluish tint on the back of my hands and the wind is now bringing the definite chill of cooler weather. In front of me the trees are silhouetted against the deepening blue of the sky. 

I am curled up in the center rocking chair, underneath the window that held the cumulative cabin cleanup scores and free choices of the day. The foot underneath the leg that is holding my computer has been asleep for at least five minutes. 

I feel the coming Autumn in the air and sit and pray that it brings you all a thriving life and that somehow you will see for a moment a glimpse of the way I see you. That you will look in the mirror and see, Beautiful. 

This is the Sound...

I have a ton of things to write, including, but not limited to, a wrap up of camp post, a post about my room at home and what I found there last time I was actually in it. This is a post about sound. Specifically some of my favorites that warm my heart as of late.

I got the topic of thinking about this as I drove away from a few short hours with my family. We had last been all together (eight kids, two parents) since last May. We were able to relive that for two hours.

My brother drove me to Blairsville, where we met Angela who would give me a ride back to camp. I had not even spoken to Andrew since April so as the minivan leaned against the pull of gravity around the curves of my mountains I was struck by his voice. I was momentarily captured by the evenness of his tone and the thoughtfulness that I find in the spaces between his words. His voice has a good resonance, but it is not so deep you feel like you're standing at the bottom of well listening to it reverberate down to you.  It took the space of a year or more not hearing it to take note of the brilliance. This has set in me a determination to pause long enough to hear the beauty in other's God-given voice boxes.

Laughter is another one of my favorites. Taylor, my co-Head-Counselor, is hilarious and we are both easy laughers so we spend a significant portion of anytime together laughing. As I sat in the staff lounge adjacent to our office I heard him start laughing and it made me smile before I even thought about it. Any sound that familiar almost instantly puts me at ease without even trying.

Similarly we have a guy on staff who has the best man-giggle in the world. When Owen gets going laughing hard, everyone has to laugh with him. His laughter best transcribed would be, "A-hoo-hoo-hoo, A-hoo-hoo-hoo, A-hoo-hoo-hoo." It's fantastic.

On the last Sunday a group of us central and support staff went up to field two to hit around a baseball. I am not fantastic at doing that but the sound of the baseball hitting a bat is one of the most satisfying sounds.  When a ball is really nailed, everyone within earshot gets to participate in the feeling of victory.

I love the sound of simple piano melodies. Any music is fantastic, but something about a uncomplicated melody on the piano stirs my emotions and whisks away my unease.  (One of my favorites is here, the Chuck/Sarah theme from Chuck. Skip to about 1:00 mark to hear it).

I like the tap of the keys on my keyboard as I type. I like listening for the changing speeds as my fingers move faster or slower across their white plastic surface.

I love the sound of an orchestra tuning their instruments before beginning a show. The dissonance of so many types of instruments coming together in preparation for the organized music usually inspires me more than the coming show.

I like the sounds of quiet, and by that I meant the sounds that emerge when there is quiet. The sound of the breathing, in and out. The sounds of a squirrel running around the branches of a tree. The sounds of bugs crawling in the grass. The simple "plop" of a fish jumping up out of the lake to catch a surface bug. The drip of a faucet. The whir-clack-whistle of a refrigerador.

I love the sounds in a hug. The security of peace and quiet that surrounds you as you embrace each other. Even tears and sobs are muffled and safe within a hug, it's own little protective bubble.

I love the sound of opening a new pages of a book. The stiffness of the pages and the necessary breaking of the binding.

I like the sound of cards shuffling.

I love the sound of a large group singing. Not a chorus, or a choir, just random people singing whatever part they can reach.

I love that every person I know has their own set of sounds to love. Your voices, your laughing, your breathing, your crying, your sleeping, the sound of your footfalls.

What are each of your favorite sounds?

Brief Life Updates

I am easily captured by the ideas of things. It will start as a spark and simmer in my head till I act on it. Some of them are odd and some of them are stereotypical. Some are good, some are bad. My most recent action towards satisfying an idea was yesterday, when I bought two of Old Navy's baseball shirts. 

Since I was twelve I wanted a baseball shirt. I could even track it back younger to my days spent with Angels in the Outfield (1994) and Rookie of the Year (1993) or The Sandlot (1993).  

Never underestimate the power of movies in your childhood. One of my craziest dreams is to ride and elephant, bareback, which stems from growing up on Operation Dumbo Drop (1995).  

On a side-note of childhood and movies,  both Operation Dumbo Drop (1995) and Angels in the Outfield (1994) started a deep love for Danny Glover. You are probably all familiar with the idea of apple pie being a staple stereotype of home and America. I never liked apple pie too much, but I did like Danny Glover. His voice is my apple pie. 

Another idea I always thought would be fun is to dye my hair. Just one of those that washes out in six weeks because the goal is not to change how I'm made, but give myself the ability to adjust to change and have fun (and seeing my mom and sister's faces when they saw me yesterday was a lot of fun).  I've danced around it for about a year or more. SURPRISE! I acted on it on Monday. Beks, my former co-counselor and avid hair dye-r did the deed, and quite well I might add. 

So here I am, sitting on my bed at home on a 30 hour vacation from camp, with black hair and a baseball shirt, because sometimes that overused, cheesy, should-never-be-a-life-mantra phrase,"Seize the moment" applies. 

What next? I'm not sure, but due to everything that I need to do in life, it will probably involve a computer and a lot of writing. 

Bring it. 

But first, I really want to go hang out with Jesus. I am reading in the Timothys and its great stuff. Stay tuned for posts about that, and likely one about ending my fifth summer of camp, and since my life and plans are still cloudy/non-existent, there will still be plenty of posts addressing that issue. 

Until that time, don't let one phrase define your life, but "carpe diem" is not a terrible one to have in your vocabulary. 

The Best Policy

I don't understand.

Am I exhausted? Am I depressed? 

I am scrambling. I am wanting to volunteer 'selflessly' for things I don't want to do, so I can throw my own pity party and have an explanation for why I feel this way. To give myself a better reason to cry, to release the mess inside of me.  But that's cheap. That's a bandaid on a festering wound and I refuse to settle for any sort of false healing. 

I am wanting to be done. To be through with the checklist, the planning. I want to be done with the fine print. 

I want to be able to be still. To just live. To choose my chaos, to be free to pull an audible. 

So what do I do? I shed a disappointingly small fraction of the tears that have been building for a month and leave the rest weighing heavy on my chest.

I sit.

I pray. 

The only words I have, "God heal me."

I write. 

I wait.

How's that for honest?