Slamming My Face Into A Glass Wall, aka A Continued Celebration of Singleness

If any of my faithful, kind readers read the post about "Destination Marriage", you know that I am quite talented at tripping, falling flat on my face and causing the people around me to stare in frank surprise that anyone can do something THAT embarrassing, much less do something that embarrassing and still go buy herself a small French Vanilla coffee (cream and one sweet & low).

Well, the other night I had another of these wonderful embarrassing moments that must happen to me so that others can take joy in them. At least, I hope so, because if not then I am going to spend the rest of my sorry days falling, catching myself, falling again, putting my hand through a pane of glass (it happened), getting stung by a bee on my middle finger while apple-picking, falling on my behind on the ice and watching my cup of hot chocolate fly into the air... and onto my head (that is purely hypothetical... just don't fact-check it with my sophomore roommate).

So, Tuesday night. It's 5:45pm and my dad is in town! I must pause and say that my dad is one of the most trustworthy, loving, and gentle people I have ever met. My dad is my hero. Dad, if you are reading this blog post, let me tell you that seeing you this week in DC made everything seem brighter and safer and more joyful. I love you, Dad. I admire you. It was so cool to show you my world here, and be able to give you a taste of what God is doing in my life!

Okay, I seriously digress now... Tuesday night. My dad and I walk to Founding Farmers, one of my favorite restaurants in DC and sit ourselves down at this little table for two in the corner with our backs to Pennsylvania Ave. We munch on grilled cheese and turkey sandwiches, chatting all the while. Dad asks me about what the next chapter of Hilary holds (and you, readers, can probably guess that my answer was long and rambling), I ask him for news about college, our dog and home. We stand up after paying the bill, ready to head to Farragut North.

Founding Farmers, in an effort to be more sustainable or cooler or both, installed a pretty glass revolving door as the entrance to their restaurant. The revolving door is encased by a curved glass wall except for the door-shaped hole where you enter and exit the revolving door. As I am walking around said revolving door, I think my dad is in the same quadrant as I am, and I turn to tell him how much I love having an actual sense of direction in the city. When I look behind me, I realize that Dad is actual in the quadrant behind me. That's fine, I think to myself. I'll just tell him about it when we both get outside. Speaking of outside... I see the sidewalk and think that I have reached the opening of the revolving door.  I swing my body forward and plunge into what I think is cool night air and even cooler colors and noises of city life.

I plunge into the glass wall. My nose plunges into the glass wall. I bounce off the wall and stumble forward, my forehead down to my chin vibrating from the force of my collision. I get out onto the sidewalk just as a group of people are lining up to go into Founding Farmers. Great. Just great. These cool DC people are now going to sip fresh blueberry martinis and relive the hilarious story of the girl who walked headfirst into a glass wall thinking it was the doorway.

Readers, I wish I had a videocamera. But the best way to describe it is: you know those commercials for Windex when the wife (who seems to have nothing to do but clean her windows, tables and already-clean-never-been-used-because-her-life-is-not-real-and-I-bet-her-husband-doesn't-eat-at-home dishes) wipes the window down and then the bird flies into it? I was the bird.

Now you might be laughing really hard right now because you can picture this happening, or you were there (and Dad you better not read this out loud!). Or you might be laughing because you can remember the time you walked into the same glass wall at Founding Farmers! If so, thank you for your empathy. But you are also probably wondering why in the world I call this a celebration of singleness.

For the same reason that I want to sing into a hairbrush in my room! For the same reason that I want to take pictures in Lincoln Park with Mandie! For the same reason that I ate dark chocolate orange gelato last night at 10:45 and laughed about the fantastic movie Morning Glory with Rachel McAdams!

Life is a tragic comedy and a comedic tragedy. Life defies categorization by theater genre, type of sport (life is not a tennis match or a bad hockey game), or food item (it is NOT peaches and cream or a pitcher of lemonade). Life is lived on the edges, on those tattered fringes of sanity and chaos and calm. My life in this city is really a series of embarrassing, hilarious, sad, joyful, pensive, frustrated moments.

This is a celebration of singleness because I am single. But whoever you are, married or single, childless or a mother of six, fan of Taylor Swift or The Killers or T-Pain, butcher, baker or candlestick maker (or teacher, lawyer, social worker)... whoever you are, let today be a song of celebration that you are YOU, embarrassing moments and all.

I will end with a poem I wrote this morning with some girls from the Youth Service Center (the detention center for kids who are awaiting trial for some major crimes).

A Poem for Women

I carry love in my bones,
it bleeds through my veins, rushing blue.
I am woman.

I color my eyes powerful,
leak joy from tear ducts onto clean linoleum.
I see woman.

I speak anger,
lips teeth tongue flame red
for woman.

I climb joy, its thick branches
planted in my soul.
I am woman.

Enjoy the sunshine of the day.

Love,
Hilary

I Know One Thing (That I Love You).

If you don't know the wonders of the Michael Franti & Spearhead... well, I can't say I blame you, because I did not know them until July of last year. The song, "Say Hey (I Love You)", has a funky beat and words that makes you want to sing and dance. And today, in the lull of the late afternoon, I found myself in need of such words. 


What a strange picture I must have been! Sitting at my desk, my shoulders hunched over my furiously typing fingers, my high heels discarded at my feet, my toes tapping away on the plush carpet. My head bobbed with the beat in my headphones and this silly, daring, barely-containing-my-zeal-for-this-song grin spread rapidly from my dimples to the tips of my hair. 
Where does such explosive joy come from? Why are some moments engulfed in it, and others simply... indifferent? Why today at 4:57, and not Thursday at 5:18, or every moment between now and then? I wish I knew. 


But whatever the reason, my explosive joy appeared this afternoon, with Michael Franti and Spearhead and a pair of headphones. And I've been thinking about blogging lately, and why I blog, and why I want to keep blogging. I've been reading more from wise, caring women who write blogs about parenting, or faith, or life in the midst of chaos, or all of the above. And I have been wondering, "What place does this little blog have in the big wide blogging world? Why am I sitting at my computer, my iTunes swirling the sounds of violins, acoustic guitars and pianos around the room, speaking into the world? What musings can I contribute?


Explosive joy. 
Frustration and questions. 
Exasperation and laughter. 
Stories - the pictures of life that loop heart to soul to mind, and make everything more colorful. 
Sometimes-cynical, sometimes-snarky, hopefully-true, pictures of Christian college life. 


And the one thing that I know. I love you. I love you, readers, for hearing my words and loving them. I love you, words, for making me dance in my office today and for lifting my spirits. I love you, Founding Farmers restaurant where I slammed my face into the revolving door in front of the lingering happy hour crowd. I love you, beautiful and broken DC. I love you, Lincoln Memorial steps at night with Sam. I love you, Kraemer Books with Hannah. I love you, Starbucks by Eastern Market with Cynthia. I love you, sign language book that I take with me everywhere so that eventually I will be able to speak with my hands. I love you, home and away-from-home. 


I know, one thing (that I love you). 


Love,
Hilary

Eat, Pray, Love, Pray, Love: Some Thoughts on the Goodness of Creation and Being Loved.

So I was in church yesterday, thinking about the past week. It was tougher than I had originally anticipated. There was plenty of work to do. I missed home. I missed my Cristinas and Merediths, missed the people who can hear my voice on the other end of the phone and say, "It's been a tiring week, huh?" without ever needing me to say the words, "It's been a tiring week." 


I wanted to be known again. Sometimes the city feels wonderfully intimate - there are never more than a few strands of spider-web between you and the person across from you in the sandwich line or getting in the elevator at work. But this past week the city felt anonymous, cold, and unfamiliar. Who was I, anyway? Who really knew me here? I am just another 20-something riding in and out with the tide of other ambitious 20-somethings, just another girl in a city with big hopes and a big heart. I missed being known. 


And then there were those pesky thoughts about the Person who brought me here. I didn't want to talk to God about being lonely or being unknown. I certainly did not want to talk to Him about the questions I have for Him. I even MORE certainly (if that's possible) did not want to bring up the nagging, lurking, lingering questions about where I am supposed to be going to church and whether I am going to live in limbo forever or if He actually intends to lead me somewhere. 


And questions like that, pesky thoughts like that, they fester. They dig into your skin and carve passageways into your heart. And suddenly the week was hard, you felt anonymous, and you are tired. 


I could say the reason I didn't want to talk to God about those questions and feelings is because I just wanted to look at a person's face and hear a person's voice. I wanted comfort that was palpable and from another human being. But the truer reason is that I did not actually want Him to answer. If He did, and if He gave me the answers I thought He might give me, I would no longer be able to wallow. 


I love wallowing. We all do. We love to linger in our sad moods, our uncertain moods, our difficult moods. They give us the heady sense of our depth, of how much we feel things, and how much more we understand about the trials of the world. Those bad moods shed a certain kind of light in our minds, and we like that light, and we want to keep it there as long as possible. 


And so, on Sunday morning, sitting in my balcony seat, looking at the blurry faces below me (I need glasses when I get home), I was wallowing. I was prepared to feel misunderstood, misguided, and alone. And then a funny thing happened: I met God in church. 


He showed up in my heart almost as if He had noticed the crowd of bad mood feelings clamouring at the door. And so casually that I barely noticed it, He pulled up a chair (I like to think of my soul as a bookstore or a coffee shop sometimes) and settled down to wait for me to sit down across from Him. I didn't want to. I knew that if I sat down, I'd have to put up the "Closed for Private Party" sign and the bad moods would have to shuffle out. But God had a surprise for me yesterday. Not only was He parked comfortably in my heart, but He also put in a phone call to my mind about Creation (I know, it's weird... but there it is). 


Creation, God reminded me on Sunday, is good. That book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert has for some reason always reminded me that Creation is good. God made it. God was pleased with it. God named it "very good." God is in the business of restoration, of re-glorifying what was once filled with glory and now only carries vestiges of its original splendor. God is intent upon the redemption of the entire world, from caterpillar to lilac to corrupt governance to the widow, the alien and the orphan... to Hilary. And though the church I go to teaches me much about sin and salvation, I don't hear much from them about Creation. I don't hear much about the original goodness. I don't hear much about God's work in the wider world, outside our individual hearts. And so God reminded me that Creation is very good. 


So, in the week of being alone, in the week of being unknown, and in the week of hiding from God, I stumbled upon the reminder: eat, pray, love. Eat - enjoy the fruit of Creation. Pray - do not hide from the One who lives in your heart. He is there more often than you are. Love - acknowledge that you are so deeply loved that you cannot escape it. Acknowledge that His love expands infinitely, covers your bad moods and your reluctance and your wallowing. And then run forward, your heart newly filled with such vast, joyful, infinite love, towards Him, shedding as much love as you can on the ones you meet along the way. 


Eat, and then pray, and then love, and then pray again, and then love again. 


Love,
Hilary