fake smart 8.January.2009

You know, I was going to tell you that I may just take 2009 as a break from blogging.  The pressure of a blog without fresh posts would dissipate just like that.  But that was before I wrote my last post.  I had underestimated the power of writing (and bread dough) to make my world feel right-side-up again.  There is that quiet contemplation of organizing abstract thoughts into words that balances me, soothes me.

Not that I have to blog in order to write.  Justification: (1) my blogging makes you happy (Dude, if it doesn’t, I suggest you stop reading me!), and (2) blogging gives me a little push to finish my thoughts coherently.

Then I read Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”.  One of the first points Carr made was that he (and I, admittedly) read differently than ever, especially on the web.  We skim.  I skimmed Carr’s article before I decided to blog about it.  And then I thought to myself:  do any of my readers really read my posts in their entirety?  It’s kind of a depressing thought that readers don’t savor my every word.

But back to the article.

“[W]hat the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation,” Carr says.  Many of us have lost our ability to sink into a good book.  A few pages may make us anxious for a change of pace.  I wonder, too, if this skipping from activity to activity and from thought to thought has made us desire everything to be bold and flashy at athletic events, at church services, and on television.  It’s as though if we aren’t distracted, we’ll get bored.

Carr seems to agree:

The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.

When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image. It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.

Can I just admit that it feels warm and fuzzy to have someone who thinks like me, who is suspicious of this whole technological surge that revolves around the Internet?  But, as Carr says, sure, “you should be skeptical of my skepticism.”  Maybe Google-style research is mostly good.  After all, reading books isn’t a natural, instinctual activity anyway.  Maybe the way human brains process information can just change, and we’ll come out better on the other side.

But then again, I doubt it.

“If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with ‘content,’ we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture…. As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”

anna 25.September.2008

Anna came to visit tonight while I was knitting.  It was quiet and dim.  I was bundled under my orange scarf, assuring myself that I must not be fast enough because my needles don’t make clicking sounds — the cliche that’s always used to describe knitting.

Anna sat down on the couch and watched me.  Her mouth twitched at the edges, waiting for me to make a big deal about her being there.  Her foot danced back and forth.  I looked up.

“You like the scarf?” I ask her.

“Matches my dress, don’t you think?”

I taste my hot raspberry tea, and I remember how sullen Anna has always been.  “Where did you get that dress anyway?” I ask.

“A long-lost lover.”

“Yeah,” I snort.  “He’s got good taste.”  Never mind about the sullen part.  Anna has never been sullen.

“You like it, huh?”

“I’d wear it.”

“Kinda low for you, hmm?”

When I glare, she laughs out loud and leaves a crooked smile on her face to annoy me.  She looks pleased with herself.  “So you remember me, hmm?”

I sigh.  “How could I forget?”

She doesn’t think I’m funny.  “I can’t tell you where I got the dress.  You haven’t got the time, poor dear.”

I raise my upper lip at her.  “How would you know?  Anyway, I have Isaiah now.  As much as I love you, I’m still changing diapers, sweeping floors, taking walks in the park.  And I love it, okay?  I love it.”

“I like walks.”

“Shut up.  I can’t add one more thing right now.  Did you know I ran this morning?  I ran a mile.”

Anna feigns a look of shock, just for me.  “So, you have time for a run, but not… yeah, yeah, I see how it is.”

“I can’t write, Anna.  I used to, I don’t know… pretend, I guess.  I don’t want to do you a disservice.  You wouldn’t like what I write; I know you.”

“So, meanwhile, I just sit here, withering away.  Poor me.”

But she really is ticked.  She stops talking to me and twitches her foot again.

“You don’t deserve me,” she finally says.

I roll my eyes.

“What?  You don’t.”

“You’re one to talk.  Look, I don’t want you to look fake.  I don’t want you to appear on some Christian fiction bookshelf as a morality lesson.  You’re more than a morality lesson.”

“So don’t make me a morality lesson.  Just make me me.”

“You don’t understand.  I am not John Steinbeck.  I’m not even Anne Lamott at fiction, or C.S. Lewis.  I can’t write a space trilogy.”  I let out a snort.  “Although I tried that, remember?  Ha.  That’s one for the record.”  I continue my rant.  “I’m not Tolstoy.  I’m not Amy Tan.  I’m not Victor Hugo.”

“Thank God.”

“Yeah, I know.  But you know what I mean.  I’m not any of those people.”

“You’re c.l.beyer!”  Anna waves her hand for emphasis, laughing at my look of disgust.  “Dun, dun, dun, dun!” she sings.  “c.l.beyer the great twenty-first century…”

I kick at her to get her to stop.  She’s heartless.  You see why I hate her?

“My life is hopeless, I guess.”  She sighs for emphasis.  “Who else do I have?”

“Poor unfortunate soul,” I say.  “Oh, wait.  You don’t have a soul.  Maybe that’s why I’ve decided not to spend my time with you anymore.”

“That’s not fair,” she says.  “I still have a life.  I’m still a person.”

“I know.”  It’s not fair.  I know it.  Anna’s here; she needs me.  She really doesn’t have anybody else.

“You should talk to me again.  You really should.”

I sigh.  She comes with so much baggage.  “I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll think about it?  Is that all you can give me?”

I have to push her out the door.  “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah, yeah.  My pleasure.”  She swings down the front walk, too disgusted at me to even give me so much as a nonchalant wave over her shoulder.

“I’ll think about it,” I repeat, and I close the door behind her.

the beast is glaring 9.July.2008

Tonight, I loathe the machine that drew me back in to its white-blue glow only to laugh in my face: “No new emails! Mua ha ha ha!” (I have never used the term ”Mua ha ha ha” before.  What a guy thing.)

I started reading Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology today.  I’ve only begun the book, but I’m already so enthralled.  Eric Brende (a Topeka, KS, native and Washburn, Yale, and MIT graduate) and his new wife move to a electricity- and motor-free community for eighteen months.  Brende talks about how technology takes so much energy to sustain itself that sometimes it doesn’t improve the quality of life at all.  I know — we all say we know this.  But why, as Brende did in high school, do we continue to work our jobs to pay for our car… just so we can get to work?  In his year and a half of isolation from the modern world, Brende hopes to figure out what balance of technology is healthy and helpful.

In a way this is tied to our need for the therapy of nature, as Richard Louv talks about in Last Child in the Woods.  Our mental, physical, and spiritual health, our ability to imagine and discern — would these be all the more agile if we worked with entire bodies in the living, breathing world?

When I am sucked back to the computer to feed my checking-email-and-blogs addiction, I hope to gain some new bit of information — perhaps a book recommendation, an idea for dinner, warm greetings from my family.  I guess I’m trying to expand my mind, finding fuel to feed my passions.  But in all the checking and staring at the flashing screens, am I actually damaging my mind?  Am I turning it into a stagnant button-pressing machine?

A couple weeks ago, I wondered how much it would matter if I let my blog go to pot.  No more guilt about not posting on a regular basis, no addiction to the comments from readers.  What if I wrote in a notebook instead?  Wrote a book or a journal?  Maybe someday, I’d still have readers — those who were patient enough to wait for me to arrange and edit and publish any good bits of writing I may have churned out.  Maybe it’d be a better use of your time, too, than to watch me muddle through my questions.

monday funk 2.June.2008

I don’t feel inspiring today.
And I don’t feel inspired.
I feel tired.
It’s a Monday,
and the house is a mess.

I’m whispering,
“Isaiah, please, please, please
go back to sleep.”

There’s probably something
I could do
to lift the doldrums.
Enjoy nature –
but it’s too hot.
Read a book –
but I don’t feel like thinking.
Write a good poem.

I write a bad one instead.

blogland favorites 27.March.2008

I haven’t been overly generous in publicizing the blogs I read, so here’s a special post to recognize my favorite blogs created by people I’ve never met.  (If you’re interested in reading my friends’ blogs, check my comments.  I figure they’ll provide a link if they want to be found.)

1. the ashram

Oh, how I love this blog.  It is written by members of a Christian community in Lexington, Kentucky.  It is brimming with examples of how to communally live in the fullness of Christ.  These people have creativity, passion for living holy lives, concern for the environment, intentionality in creating meaningful relationships.  The bloggers publish thoughtful poetry, powerful quotations, important and timely web links, and compelling photography.  I just wish Lexington, Kentucky were a little closer to Dallas.

2. Owlhaven

This is my favorite adoption blog, to date.  I think Mary, the author of Owlhaven, may well be a superwoman.  She shares a lot about the goings-on of her ten children (a mix of biological and adopted kids), and throws in some adoption advice and helpful house-running tips along the way.

3. zenhabits

This popular and highly successful blog is well-organized, topically focused, and inspiring.  I don’t visit it often, but I know it’s there as a great resource on how to live simply and minimalistically. (Is that redundant?)

4. walk slowly, live wildly

Hands down, my favorite blog right now.  This girl is my hero.  How can one person be so spiritually focused, creative, interesting, unafraid, and green all at the same time?  She loves books, has dreads, and tours the the country in an RV that runs on veggie oil.  She has another blog, happy foody, where she sings the praises of eating raw (a little too brave for me), but walk slowly, live wildly is where I hang my hat.

5. The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

Okay, I’ll admit, this one is getting a little old, but some of the posts are a lot of fun.  The blog’s sole purpose is to publish pictures of signs that use quotation marks unnecessarily, which, obviously, is right up my “alley.”

6. The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

I stayed up way too late last night reading this blog for the first time.  This is the secondary site of Pioneer Woman Ree.  Her other site is undergoing a facelift, but I think it’s almost done.  I was overwhelmed with all the pictures when I read the first post, but Ree is so funny in her cooking banter that she drew me in.  Her recipes are not fancy or health-conscious, but they sound yummy (and the pictures are pretty!). 

the curse of anonymity 24.September.2007

There are pieces of me I’m afraid to tell, out in the open like this.  I’m afraid to tell of my journey in the Apostolic Christian Church, afraid to tell of my journey away from it.  I’m afraid to talk about my family too much, except the parts that exude joy.  I’m afraid to name names, to describe deep hurts, to delve into the details of marriage and money.

But I am a writer.  Sometimes I think I can only be a true writer when I am willing to lay it all out on the table.  In a way, to describe my deepest thoughts and pains and longings is to expose my jugular for anyone who comes along.  Or maybe it’s more than that.  Maybe it’s also exposing the jugular — or the private parts? — of the people closest to me.  My family, my husband, my former churchmates — they didn’t sign up to be written about like any old fictional character.

I wonder if creating is the most vulnerable profession in the world.  There is no taking back, no unpublishing, no privacy.  Unless, of course, you don’t write with full abandon.

Sometimes I wish that the stuff I wrote for others didn’t have to have a sense of anonymity about it.  I wish I could write whatever was calling to be released from my soul.

one of the fallen 7.July.2007

“There ain’t no money in poetry. / That’s what sets the poet free. / I’ve had all the freedom I can stand.” -Guy Clark in “Cold Dog Soup”

She gleans hundreds of comments because she can write. I feel like an imposter when I scan her blog posts like they’re any old cheap, chatty update on life. I read her latest post from the end to the beginning because I caught a line and tasted the quality, and I had to have more. One doesn’t skim poignancy. So I moved up, up, up, and saw how she had molded her thoughts into art.

I had to admit I’m a little like the poor, lost, fallen people our waiter was talking about last weekend. He used to be an artist; now he just works at Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue — which, if you have to be a waiter, at least that’s a place with food worth its salt. But our waiter said he’s not an artist anymore. People don’t care about beautiful things. They only want ugly things — that’s what he said. He said we live in a fallen world where beauty isn’t valued. But it’ll be redeemed. It’ll be redeemed. And then he walked away with our smeary plates of bones and barbecue sauce.

I cling to my words, and I hope for art. But on the days when I’m feeling weak and tired, when I’m in subordination to tasks instead of Beauty, I just serve my tables and wait for redemption.

words without pictures 10.May.2007

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but there’s no need for both, at least not on this blog. And since I’m a novice of photography, words are my tool of choice.

My generation has lost previous generations’ hunger for words — for novels, for poetry, for the ability to express oneself with the pen. And it’s really sad, you know? People would rather sit in front of a television to see a story with their eyes than to have it painted in their minds by reading words on a page. All this film media dulls the imagination, I’m telling you.

I volunteered to keep a blog for our small group at church. One of the first comments I received was “more pictures!” More pictures? Aren’t my words worth enough? To top that, I heard someone else (who considers himself a bit of a guru of writing composition) call blogs without pictures “boring.”

So many blogs out there post a picture with every entry. “Oh, look! There’s a picture of a guy with a beard! I bet I’d be interested in this post!” The photograph may draw me in, but as I scan through the post, my attention wanes. The words hold little value. And then I realize that the pictures are only there to cover up the writer’s empty brain. Lured in again… and left to dry and die in the sun.

Call it boring if you want, but I have resolved to keep passage picture-free. It challenges me to write words of value, to think before I post. I’ll try not to waste your time; I’ll try to keep you coming back. And hopefully — someday — both of our brains will get a little exercise.

scuff 10.October.2006

Sometimes my poetry
seems so base
it’s a wonder I put it out there
like air
flecked with allergens
to sicken those who breathe it.

It’s not the elevated voice
I thought “poets” used
(who keep me writing)–
but it’s dirt, debris,
the wreckage of
weak living–
mess-ups, mishaps–
instead.
It’s words out-of-place
stuck here–
together–
where they grope–
grasp–
at making sense
and making amends
for me

but are honest enough
to admit they’re just
a scuff on the floor.

dedicated to M
Thanks, chica.

bathsheba 9.October.2006

I disrobe myself — paste it out there for all to see. And you see; you take it all in like famished children. A few of you smile, or nod; you acknowledge me.

The others stand and stare behind sheets of one-way glass. I know you’re there. My sensors are up; you leave your evidence — food wrappers and footprints.

My food! My soil! But I can’t tell who, or why. I only know when, and I know how many. Sometimes the footprints are few. And they match the soles of the shoes of those I love. Other times, the footprints are that of an army — uniform, cold, silent. I disrobed before an army.

And now I disrobe again…